The Ice Storm
Chapter Eight
It was much later in the night that Virginia found herself venturing outside again. At least as far as the end of the entrance porch. She cursed her jumpiness as much as she cursed Wolf for not being there. He should have returned hours ago, even if the Disenchanted Forest was ten miles away on a snow covered road. Virginia looked for the moon but it was hidden behind fast moving clouds. Only now and then a glimmer of the disk showed through. In her head she knew it was not at the full yet, so Wolf would not have been more tempted than usual to go hunting. Her breath made frosty clouds of steam around her head. The clunking rattle of the Tenth Kingdom generator that her father had procured could easily be heard in the still night air. Wendell had gaped and crinkled his nose at the hunk of machinery when he had first seen it.
"Ugh, what's that smell?" he had asked, trying to be polite because he knew Scarlett was watching him.
"It's petrol, fuel for the generator. It makes it run, Wendell" Tony had explained patiently. Virginia thought her father had looked as proud as punch when he'd assembled the thing for the first time. Ever the tinkerer. "Watch this, buddy" he'd continued. The engine had roared into life first go. Virginia, who was totally accustomed to the sounds of machinery had almost laughed at Wendell's expression. But as the warm air from the heaters and airconditioners had started pumping through the palace, his expression had gone from disgust to reverence. Tony would be assured of a knighthood for certainly, he announced. In the weeks since, Virginia had let her father organise the delivery of the generators to outlying estates, along with personally trained operators, and with Wendell's proclaimations that all and sundry were to have access to the life saving warmth.
Behind her the front double doors creaked to admit a small dark figure into the cold. Virginia picked out the identity of the man easily despite the darkness.
"Frederick" she said. The young priest raised his head in her direction and she beckoned him over. Virginia had not seen much of the New Yorker for many weeks. He kept to himself, Wolf had said. Before the winter had come, he had been seen wandering all through the nearby forests, glades, fields and villages, scribbling earnestly in his little notebook. Virginia took a moment to think about what he might have seen and how a priest might interpret them.
"Ahh, hello Virginia. Not sleeping either?" he greeted her with a wry smile.
"No, I'm waiting for Wolf and trying to make up my mind whether to go out after him"
"I think he's resourceful fellow. Where did he go?"
"Out to the Forest"
"Ahh yes, he's the Warden there isn't he? I went there once, months ago it seems, but I didn't get any further than the eaves!" Virginia laughed despite her worries.
"I don't blame you Frederick. It's a strange place, even for me, and I've lived here for nearly two years. There's places in there that even Wolf doesn't go, he says"
"Speaking of your Wolf, might that be him?" Frederick asked, pointing away up the drive. Virginia's heart leapt in relief. Even from that distance, and in the dark, she would recognize that sillouette. He was on foot, which would go some way to explaining why he was so late in returning, but Virginia wasn't in the mind to badger him about it. He was coated in snow and ice but looked as unworried about it as any half-wolf would. The moon shone down suddenly from a gap in the clouds and on impulse Virginia ran down the steps towards him.
"Hey there gorgeous girl" Wolf called out to her, but Virginia found that she didn't have the breath to answer him. Bands of pain, a sickeningly familiar pain, encircled her. She stumbled and he caught her deftly.
"W..Wolf" she managed to gasp.
"Hush...it's okay...I know" he whispered as he bore her back up the stairs. The sad acceptance in his voice was heartbreaking. But then even as she braced herself for the next wave, instantly, as if by magic, the pain stopped.
"Wolf..wait, put me down"
"No, we should get inside"
"No, no, look, it's stopped, the pain has stopped". Wolf looked at her quizzically for a second before setting her down on her feet.
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yes" Virginia replied, using all her senses to scan her body. No pain now. No coursing blood.
"I don't understand" said Wolf, more to himself than anyone else.
"Wait. Let me try something" It was Frederick, coming forward now to tug gently on Virginia's sleeve. He went down the stairs a little way, then turned and bid Virginia forward. "Slowly now, give me your hand". Virginia did as he asked and he took it, leading her slowly down the steps. At one point he stopped and just eased her hand forward. A tingle of pain now. Not agonising, but noticeable to Virginia. Frederick drew her arm forward another inch. The tingle became a pulsing throb.
"I still don't underst..." began Wolf behind her.
"It's the moon" Virginia said slowly, knowing the truth of it even as she spoke it. Experimentally, she withdrew her hand back into the shadow of the castle where she was standing. Frederick, who was standing in the moonlight, nodded at her.
"Yes, I was watching. As soon as you passed from the shadow of the castle, the pain struck you, and when Wolf carried you back into it, the pain stopped. That first time it happened, was the moon on you then as well?"
Virginia remembered that night well. A sudden beam of light shining on Yacobe's face. And on hers. "Yes, yes it was"
"And you haven't really been outside since then have you? Not at night anyway" he added thoughtfully. Virginia stuck her hand forward again, quickly, then withdrew it. Tingle, then nothing.
"Wolf, give me your cloak a minute" she asked him, taking the cloth when he proferred it and wrapping it around her arm. Taking a breath, she stuck the length of the covered arm into the light. Nothing.
"It must be just your skin, Virginia. How strange is that! You seem to be allergic to moonlight!" Frederick continued, pulling at the light beard he now wore. Hearing his 20th century reasoning and logical deductions, Virginia was almost reassured by them. Almost. She wanted to correct him, but she held her silence. It wasn't herself that was being affected, but the child. The baby, the werewolf tainted child she carried. Turning back to Wolf, she saw his green eyes were wide and round with superstitous wonder. And fear.
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Rhoswen jumped ungraciously as fingers were snapped under her nose. Only one other living soul would dare come so close to her person, much less get her attention in such a demeaning way. Neva might be aged and poisoned by the power, but she was still very much the Queen here, Rhoswen took care to remind herself. The honour guards who had long been bound to her step-mother and shadowed her every move would slay her in an instant if Neva so much as thought about it. Rhoswen glanced aside at the hulking men dressed in the livery of the Snow Palace, pale blue with silver edging, a snowflake symbol stitched onto the shoulder fabric. Many of the men would have the same symbol etched into their flesh as well. It was a common right of passage amongst the savages who made up the bulk of the Eigth Kingdom population. Just as no two snowflakes were the same, so no two symbols were borne by any two warriors. Rhoswen wondered what these men thought about her. Did they desire her, love her even? Or was she merely a symbol herself?
She focussed on Neva with effort. For so many days now her head had been filled with the strange things she had seen in her last visit to the cavern beneath the palace. She longed to descend those stairs again. Even if she didn't fully understand what she had seen, sometimes it was enough just to spy into other people's lives.
"Princess, you need to focus". It was Neva, stating the obvious, and more. Rhoswen felt like shouting all of a sudden. I'm not a Princess! Just a foundling, left for dead and picked up by the side of the road. A ripple of anger and anxiety moved down her arms to her clenched fists. She let it go in the way her step-mother had taught her years ago. Vision that had blurred became sharp again. Focus, yes, that's what was needed. No more dreaming, Rhoswen!
A servant entered the room quietly.
"My Lady Queen, My Princess" he began, bowing deeply to Neva and just slightly less to Rhoswen, "Your envoy Yacobe has returned to the Palace"
"Yacobe. He was the one sent to the Fourth Kingdom wasn't he?" Neva spoke to her. Rhoswen nodded her answer before her voice could betray itself. Yacobe was an interesting one to Rhoswen. He was most direct when he spoke to her, even for a wolf such as he was. Rhoswen appreciated directness, from time to time.
"Have him attend on us" she told the servant, watching the man's back as he disappeared down the hallway. She passed the few minutes by counting her heartbeats and comparing them to the Queen's. Only one set of footsteps could be heard approaching the room, but Rhoswen knew Yacobe well enough to know how silent he was on his feet. He preceded the servant through the doorway, his tall figure seeming to unfurl as he drew himself up to bow, stiff and formal, to Neva and herself.
"Your Majesties" he said, simply and curtly as was his wont. Rhoswen felt a tingle of amusement at the deference he showed her. It was all fake, of course. He was a cheiftain, an alpha in his own right, she knew. He had a large pack-clan far to the north to which he would be keen to return to. Rhoswen waited patiently whilst Yacobe relayed his journey and the response of King Wendell to Neva. It was an entirely predictable response from the southern King, of course and Rhoswen silently hoped he would live long enough to regret it.
"You have done well, Yacobe". Neva grated the response from her chair by the window. A distant bell tolled, the signal for supper. Rhoswen held her breath in anticipation. Neva seemed not to have heard, she sat there so long. Finally, after many minutes, she rose and gathered her cloaks around her. Her withered feet rasped across the floor as she turned to go, her guardsmen falling in behind. Within moments, Rhoswen and Yacobe were alone in the tower top room, although the Princess knew they would not be unobserved. Neva had taken to guarding Rhoswens virginity with a renewed vigor in recent years. Behind her, Yacobe had not moved an inch.
"Tell me" Rhoswen whispered.
"What is it you want to know, Princess?"
"Don't play the game with me anymore, Yacobe. You know well what I am asking"
"Yes, Rhoswen. Very well. The woman in question seems well. This Virginia, she is very strong, and well guarded, but I was able to be alone with her sooner than I had expected. Even though she is undoubtedly a human woman, almost I could believe that she sensed me, and came to me"
"You desire her"
"Oh yes, there are not many who wouldn't, Rhoswen" Yacobe continued, and Rhoswen clearly heard the inflections in his deep male voice.
"She is with child, yes?" she asked. Even with her back to him, she could sense the sudden quiet discomfort in the ghost wolf. She knew he desperately wanted to know how she had garnered the information. She turned to face him now, seeing his mask like face compose itself quickly. But he didn't reply to her question. "And this is no ordinary child, Yacobe"
"Well, it would be a quarter wolf, of course. She already has one cub, as you know"
"No. It is more than that. It's different, this one. Something has happened to it. It grows too fast, and it...changes". Rhoswen said, remembering with ease the strange image she had seen. Mirrors always spoke the truth, it was said. And superimposed upon the image of Virginia had been a very strange sight indeed. Rhoswen shook her head slightly to clear it. She glanced at Yacobe under her lashes, wondering. He seemed impassive as ever, yet tension ebbed from his soul. Rhoswen could almost taste it. Should she play her hand yet? Was he ready? Was she?
The decision was made. Rhoswen faced Yacobe fully. Drawing herself up to her full height, she prepared to draw on an aspect of herself that she had never used before today. As her body responded, it felt like a piece of puzzle snicking quietly into place in her mind. Sounds, smells, once muted, now came alive. Through her sharpening vision, through the red tinted haze, she watched Yacobe carefully. It would be a great waste if he failed her now, for she truly did not want to kill him if he did.
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It was cold now. Even a thick skinned creature such as she could sense it. She did not mind the cold particularly, in fact it had been the only sensation she had known for many years. But always it had been soft still, flowing and rippling around her, comforting even as it dulled her mind, slowed her cycles and stifled her dreams. Now, it was hard and brittle. She decided to flex a claw experimentally. Not an inch would it move. A claw on her other foot now, it could move a little, enough to crush even further the body of the man-thing that had disturbed her before.
There was nothing else but to open her eyes and look out, she realised. Careful, now, she didn't want to wake so much. Forming thoughts and ideas were dangerous enough. The world was blurred through the crack between her lids. It was frozen. The great water where she had gone to ground so many generations ago was solid. Suspended in the ice just a few feet from her, she saw the fish-form of the spirit that dwelt within the waters. The fish's lidless eye stared back at her, unflinching. Then it began to rove, back and forth. She watched it as if finally settled on something. Rolling her eyes was difficult, but she managed to get a glimpse of what the spirit was looking at.
It was the nasty arrow that the man-thing had had stuck in it. The silver sharp had worked itself loose from the dead body, she saw. Pointed now directly at herself, it hung eerily in the ice a few feet from her breastbone. She could see the trail it had left behind it as it had worked it's way, inch by inch in her direction. It's aim was as true as if any of the great hunters of old has loosed it just seconds before. Straight into her heart.