The Winter King

by C. L. Wilson

  When they reached the temple, they found it as silent and deserted as Konundal had been. Their footsteps on the carved stone floor echoed in the temple’s cavernous main room.

  Behind Khamsin, the White Guard pulled their swords.

  “I don’t like this,” Ungar said. “Where are the two priestesses? Lady Frey’s with the king, but the other two should have returned here after the Hunt.”

  “The second spear is still gone.” Sven nodded towards the altar at the far end of the room. The wall behind it was bare of the crossed ice spears she’d seen on a previous visit. Only the frozen mask of Wyrn remained, and Khamsin could swear the carved face of the goddess watched her approach with icy eyes. On either side of the altar, soaring archways led to sconce-lit hallways veiled by long strands of shimmering crystal beads. “Maybe they went after the garm that attacked Gildenheim.”

  “On their own?” Ungar shook his head. “I doubt it. Your Grace, wait here with me. Sven, you and the others fan out and search the place.”

  “But don’t go through that doorway to the left of the altar,” Kham added quickly.

  To the left lies death. Do not cross that threshold.

  The men went right through the veil of beaded strings. The beads, which resembled dewdrops frozen on threads of spider silk, tinkled like chimes when they moved, sounding a melodic alarm that echoed through the icy temple. This place might seem open and unprotected, but no intruder could pass beyond the altar room without sounding that alarm.

  Several minutes later, Sven and the others returned. “Nothing. The place is deserted. No signs of struggle. Whatever happened to the priestesses, it doesn’t appear to be foul play.”

  The White Guard still insisted on accompanying her through the private residence of Wyrn’s priestesses. And truth be told, Kham was grateful for their company. With each step deeper into the heart of the mountain, her connection to the sun waned, leaving her vulnerable and defenseless.

  The sooner she got what she’d come for, the sooner she could leave this place.

  The last door in the hall was silver gilt and etched with swirling, diamond-studded patterns of windblown snowflakes. Pulling the key ring from her pocket, Khamsin inserted the first of Galacia’s keys into the lock and turned it. The beautiful door swung inward, revealing a robing chamber the size of a small chapel.

  Kham waited as the men fanned out to search the chamber and connecting rooms.

  “It’s clear,” Sven announced when he and his men returned to the main chamber.

  “Good. Now, I must ask all of you to return to the main temple and wait for me there.”

  Ungar frowned. “We’re not leaving your side, Your Grace.”

  “Oh, yes, you are. What comes next is not for your eyes.” There was a door in this room. A door known only to the priestesses of Wyrn. And now to Khamsin, as well.

  “At least take my sword.” Ungar offered his unsheathed blade to her.

  “I can’t.” Galacia had warned her that no man or mortal weapon could survive the path Kham was about to take. “Now, please, go. You cannot accompany me farther.” She waved the guards towards the exit. “If I’m not back by sunrise, then I have failed.”

  Grumbling, clearly unhappy at being dismissed, the guards nonetheless filed out of the chamber. Once the door was closed and locked behind them, Kham shrugged out of her coat and set to work unlacing her gown. Normally, according to Galacia, the priestesses followed a ritual of cleansing and prayer using the bathing pool, sauna, and steam rooms in the adjoining antechambers, but that was more tradition than necessity, and time was of the essence. Khamsin deposited her shoes and clothes on a bench and slipped into one of the white, hooded robes hanging from a series of wall pegs.

  Barefoot and naked except for her hooded robe, she approached the small tabletop altar built into a recessed arch. Two round wall sconces with crystal shades shaped like flames flanked the tiny altar. Kham gripped the crystal sphere at the bottom of the right sconce and turned it to the left, then pulled the flames-shaped shade towards her. With a quiet hiss, the wall behind the altar slid inward and rotated sideways, revealing a secret doorway.

  Inside, blue flames flickered in sconces just like the ones flanking the altar. The cool light illuminated the smooth, seamless blue-white walls of a round tunnel carved through solid ice. A puff of cold air flowed out of the tunnel into the warmer air of the private chapel. It riffled through Kham’s hair and bathed her face with dry coolness.

  Kham took a fortifying breath and stepped into the tunnel.

  Without the sun’s power to warm her, the icy chill seeped quickly into her body as she walked. Her flesh pebbled, hairs raising on her arms. Her bare feet went numb, then began to burn, but she continued, steadily placing one foot before the other. The tunnel went straight back for about a hundred yards, then curved sharply to the left.

  Kham made the turn and nearly fell over the body sprawled across the tunnel floor. She recognized the younger of the two priestesses. Someone must have pierced her with Thorgyll’s spear because her body was frozen solid.

  So much for the assumption there’d been no foul play.

  Khamsin whispered a prayer for the slain priestess, then stepped around her body to approach what looked like a sheet of glass covering the tunnel. As she neared, she realized the glass was a steady, falling sheet of crystal-clear water.

  Kham hung her robe beside two others, braced herself, and stepped naked into the wall of water.

  The goddess tests all who attempt to enter her domain. Whatever you do, do not scream and do not run. If you panic, you die. Galacia’s dire warning made perfect sense now. Just keep silent and keep moving.

  It was all Kham could do not to run. The cold was so intense, she could swear her flesh was being sliced off her bones. Not screaming was easier. She had no breath left in her lungs to make a sound. She forced herself forward, pushing her body through the falling water.

  After what seemed like a lifetime, she passed through the icy veil to the open tunnel on the other side. There, the cold air of the tunnel actually felt warm against her skin. Kham continued shuffling forward until she felt a rough, woven mat beneath her numb feet. Finally, it was safe to stop.

  To the left, shelves had been carved from the ice, and several pairs of white leather boots with spiked soles had been laid out in a neat row on one of the shelves. Folded, white, fur-lined robes were stacked on another. Khamsin slipped on one of the robes, tying the wraparound sashes at her waist and pulling the fur-lined hood up around her face, then she stepped into the pair of shoes closest to her size and laced them tight. The clothes were much warmer than the thin robe from the purification room, and the spikes on the bottom of the boots gripped the ice when she stepped off the mat, enabling her to walk down the next, descending stretch of icy tunnel.

  This part of the tunnel went on forever, long and steep enough to make her knees and thighs ache well before she reached the bottom. It didn’t take long to lose sight of the shimmering wall of water and the landing, then there was only endless, descending blue-white ice around her, broken intermittently by the occasional sconce burning its eerie, flickering blue flame. She began counting the sconces to give herself some measure of passing time.

  One hundred sixty-five sconces later, the tunnel leveled off and opened to a chamber deep within the glacier on the other side of the mountain.

  Khamsin thought she knew what to expect. Galacia had said there was an ice palace, like the one Wynter had taken her to during the Festival of Wyrn. Well, it was a palace, and it was made of ice. But that was where all similarities to the wintry delight she’d visited in the Craig both began and ended. The sheer enormity of what lay hidden in the glacier beneath Wyrn’s temple defied description.

  The Palace of Wyrn lay situated in a cavern so large it could fit the whole of Gildenheim with room to spare. Massive columns—each wide e
nough that ten grown Wintermen standing fingertip to fingertip would barely circle them—soared a hundred feet into the air, holding aloft a mighty pediment carved with the bas-relief figures of Wyrn and her once-mortal god-husband Rorjak. Rearing, fifty-foot snowbears stood guard at the base of the broad steps leading into the palace. An ice garden almost as beautiful as the one Wynter had created in his Atrium bordered a wide path that led to the palace . . . all built on a giant’s scale.

  Khamsin was acutely aware of her own insignificance as she crossed the distance from the tunnel opening to the palace steps. Those steps were as massive as the rest of the palace, each riser easily five feet tall, but in the center, a series of smaller, mortal-sized steps carved into the giant treads allowed her to scale the stairway with relative ease.

  At the top, a colonnaded exterior gave way to an enormous, open room dominated by two massive thrones, each holding a gigantic seated figure carved of pure ice. Wyrn, resplendent in flowing robes and wearing a crown of giant sparkling snowflakes. And Rorjak, her mortal love turned god, whose spiky, ring-of-icicles crown struck Khamsin as an eerie premonition of things to come.

  A number of passages led from the throne room, but Kham headed straight for the arched, pillared opening at the back. She passed through several more chambers, each more magnificent than the last, but spared the glittering beauty little more than a passing glance. She was on a mission to save the man she loved, and all the greatest wonders of the world could not have tempted her from her path.

  At last, she reached the final room at the rear of the palace. The body of the second priestess, frozen like the first, lay sprawled near the threshold. Kham whispered an apology and stepped around the woman to enter the great, domed rotunda.

  All around the perimeter of the rotunda, life-sized statues of male and female warriors stood sentry in columned bays. Unlike the other statues in this place or the frozen bodies of the priestesses, each of these sculptures appeared lifelike, as if living people had been posed on their pedestals and encased in a layer of clear ice. Each sported a fabulous jeweled weapon worth a king’s ransom. Swords, staves, bows, pikes, shields: treasures to distract would-be thieves from the real treasure in the room, bait for those fool enough to try stealing from a god.

  Don’t touch anything. The statues are enchanted and will defend what rests here.

  At the center of the room, rimmed in a circle of ice blocks, lay what looked like a pool of black oil eight feet in diameter.

  This was it. What she’d come for.

  Khamsin’s nerves jangled as she approached the Ice Heart. The contents of the well were dark and unfathomable, the surface still as glass and glossy enough to see her reflection.

  She’d never given much thought to the gods. Oh, she made her devotions to them, of course, but she’d never truly considered the idea that the gods had once walked amongst the people of Mystral, that the tales of their exploits had been true.

  Until now.

  The gods were real—their tales were true—and the existence of this well of dark power proved it.

  And somewhere at the bottom of that black pool—the distilled essence of a corrupt god—lay the legendary sword of Roland Soldeus. She could sense its presence now, as if some part of the sun had broken off and fallen into the well.

  Now, she just had to retrieve it.

  Despite being buried deep within the heart of a glacier, warmth danced at her fingertips as her power rose in response to Blazing’s proximity. Laci’s hopes about Kham’s ability to withstand the frigid depths of the Ice Heart might actually have merit.

  You are a Summerlander, your weathergift one of the strongest in centuries. I’m hoping that gift will allow you to survive the Ice Heart.

  A sound, like crackling ice, and a flash of movement in her peripheral vision made Khamsin spin around. Searing pain sliced across her upper arm as the spear aimed at her unprotected back ripped through her furred robe and scored a deep furrow on her arm. Her arm fell limp to her side, paralyzed. Indescribable cold screamed along every nerve ending.

  “What the—?” Kham gaped as she got her first look at her attacker. One of the statues had stepped off its pedestal and lunged at her. This one was a woman, tall with long, white hair and blue-white skin. Her eyes were pale and colorless, but just looking at them drained the warmth from Khamsin’s skin. She advanced on Khamsin, a long white spear clutched menacingly in her frozen hands. With each measured step, the ice coating her skin cracked and fell away in a thousand tiny flakes, then re-formed almost instantly.

  “But I didn’t touch anything!” Kham protested. The ice woman clearly didn’t care. She jabbed her spear, and only Kham’s swift reflexes spared her an impaling. As it was, the spear pierced the sleeve of Kham’s robe and froze it solid. Kham’s eyes widened. “Wait, is that one of Thorgyll’s spears?”

  The woman lunged, moving far swifter than a block of ice should, aiming a lethal blow at the center of Khamsin’s chest.

  Kham didn’t dare let that spear touch her again. She flung herself backward, bending like one of Vera Sola’s famed fire-stick dancers ducking beneath a flaming horizontal pole. The white spear missed Kham’s chest but scored a burning line across her jaw as momentum carried her back up. The side of her face went numb, then flamed with pain. She staggered back, stumbling against the blocks of ice surrounding Ice Heart. Tipped off-balance, Khamsin fell backward into the well.

  Agony exploded across her nerve endings as the black liquid touched her exposed skin. If passing through the veil in the tunnel had felt like having the flesh flayed from her bones, this was like being submerged in a vat of acid. On her wrist, the red Rose of Summerlea flared with pain and power. Kham fought her way back to the surface and bobbed up, screaming, in time to see the ice creature jab her spear into the Ice Heart. Rippling black liquid froze at the point of contact, crusting over in midripple. The hardening ice spread rapidly out across the surface.

  All Kham could do was suck down a gasp of air and dive into the freezing pool before the spreading surface ice closed around her. The error of that instinctive reaction became immediately apparent. The layer of ice now covering the well was thick and solid. She beat against it with bare hands, but it didn’t budge. There were a few tiny air pockets—small shallow spaces formed near the apex of the frozen ripples—but those precious breaths would not sustain her for more than a few minutes.

  Assuming she survived this murderous cold long enough to drown.

  The sword. Khamsin, get the sword.

  The Sword of Roland had unfrozen the Ice Heart nine hundred years ago. The sword would be able to break through the surface ice now.

  She pressed her lips to the air pockets, sucking in as much air as she could, then she rolled upside down and pushed off the ice, diving down into the Ice Heart.

  The world went black and sightless. All that existed was burning cold and pain. The Rose on her wrist burned with a pain so terrible she would willingly cut off her own arm to make it stop. Instead, she kicked and clawed her way deeper into the Ice Heart, dragging herself through the thickening sludge towards the promise of warmth and light that called to her senses. Her lungs burned as fiercely as her flesh, growing tighter and tighter with each passing moment.

  She fought the need to breathe until her body rebelled. Her mouth opened against her will, and the freezing black liquid of the Ice Heart poured into her lungs.

  Lightning exploded across her cells. A storm like nothing she’d ever conjured roared through her body as her fearsome weathergift battled the bitter invasion of a dead god’s icy essence. Flesh and bone savaged one another with brutal claws and razor-sharp teeth, ripping and tearing in a frenzy of ravening hunger.

  Kham screamed and screamed and screamed in soundless futility. Her body convulsed, twisting and writhing. The legs scissoring through the thick, oily liquid grew heavy. Each tiny motion became a heroic struggle, then
an impossibility as the strength leached from her limbs. Pain faded as her drowning body sank towards the bottom of the well.

  Wynter, my love, forgive me. I have failed you.

  Was this death?

  Khamsin floated in blackness. The pain ravaging her body remained, but it was distant, separated from her consciousness, as if she were a mere observer of another woman’s torment. She couldn’t see anything, hear anything, and feeling beyond that strangely distant pain seemed an impossibility.

  A forgotten memory niggled at her, tugging, pulling, nibbling at the edges of her mind.

  The sword, Khamsin. Get the sword.

  The sword. Roland’s sword. That’s what she’d come for, why she was here.

  She could feel its presence through the impenetrable darkness. A blossom of beckoning warmth. So near. She reached for it.

  The second she did, agony returned full bore—flooding her body, making her writhe and scream in torment. She persevered, fighting to reach the sword with every remaining ounce of strength she possessed.

  Please. Please. Please. She didn’t pray. She never begged. But for Wynter, she would do that and more. If there was any chance at all to save him, she needed Roland’s sword.

  There! Numb fingers curled around the sword’s hilt. The moment she touched it, fiery heat roared up her arm, blasting its way through her body in a cleansing burn. With the heat came a flood of images, memories.

  Helos the sun god, finding himself so enchanted with the mortal queen of Summerlea that he could not set her from his mind.

  Helos pouring his divine essence into the mortal shell of his beloved’s husband. And in that husband’s skin, with that husband’s flesh, the god lay with the beautiful queen. And in the soft, sweet grass beside a still summer lake, with a profusion of red roses perfuming the air, the god gave the Summer queen a child.