The Ice Storm
Chapter Seventeen
"Little Wendell, is that really you?"
"You know me well enough. And I'm no longer 'little', in case you hadn't noticed"
"You'll always be small in the world, King of the Whites". The arrogance of her tone made Wendell's guts twist in discomfort. Part of him wanted to believe her, even after all the years. His earlier harshness and bravado seemed to melt away in the dankness of the tomb. But then he looked around himself, seeing it as exactly that. A tomb, a burial place for dead things or things that ought to be and now played no part in the world. He made himself think about how much it must irk the old witch that he stood there, young and healthy. Not with power such as she once commanded, but still with more than she had now. Power to live, to effect things. The power of a King who was loved by his people, not feared.
"One pebble can trigger the avalanche" he said, quoting his old school master from childhood.
"Be the pebble then"
"I shall. I will hammer and knock and tap away at you until you submit to me. I will take my fist and smash these infernal mirrors should they not submit to me..."
"Hey Wendell! Do you think this is the one that Wolf and Will got trapped in? The one Virginia got them out of a few months ago?" Tony shouted from across the chamber, interupting his speech.
"Maybe. I don't know for sure. But don't touch anything yet"
"No, no, of course not. I'm not stupid. So has the old witch told you which one to try yet?" Tony replied. Wendell raised his shoulders in a minute shrug.
"How's beautiful Virginia, Wendell?" the hag wheezed as if she'd ignored their whole conversation.
"I thought you might know" Wendell said, bending over so she could see his face. Her own was a ghastly sight. Virginia had described it before, but had omitted the smell, the horrible sense of wickedness that emanated from the thing. The eyes glistened in the half light.
"Me? Oh no, what would I know of things? Poor old Hera, locked away in the swamp to rot with her burned feet and tattered plans"
"You'll get no pity from me, Hera"
"What then, will I get from you for the secret of my Mirrors?" Hera replied, rising to the bait. "What have you ever had to offer me? I have already garnered the most useful of payments from your precious sister, though she knows little of what she will eventually give up to me. What more could I need, then?".
Wendell paused, thinking furiously. What was she talking about? A payment from Virginia? When and why would Virginia have made such a bargain? One possible answer made him uncomfortable. Had it been Hera's doing that had led Virginia to Coven Lake? Wendell had never asked Virginia how and why she had gone there. Perhaps the witch was bluffing, but Wendell's mind was assailed with doubts, right when it didn't need it to be. It didn't change one salient fact though, Hera wanted nothing from him, and therefore had no real reason to help him now. Unless...
"Virginia is gone. Taken from us by force. The Ice Queen has her" he spoke bluntly.
"Pity" Hera grunted, but Wendell, watching closely, saw the witches face react in surprise and something else. Something that looked vaguely like fear.
"You don't want to meet this Ice Queen, do you?" he asked, pressing his advantage. He looked down at the ice crusting the bog pools. "You're already using what little power is left to you to ward off her spells, aren't you? And it's not working too well". The corspe closed it's eyes. "You chose Virginia's 'side', didn't you? You saw all this coming, you picked her, sent her in the right direction, because you would have the luxury of choosing your enemies" Wendell continued, bitterness creeping into his voice. By the Kingdoms, was evil never satisfied? Didn't it ever give up? "You should help me now lest you lose both your 'champion' and whatever she promised to you".
Wendell withdrew as he spoke, affecting an air of nonchalance that he didn't really feel. Peering into a slime encrusted mirror that that tilted on it's side in the muck, he could make out his reflection. His own face looked cold and hard back at him, the glass giving it a greenish hue. Damn that he had never gleaned any power from his famous ancestors! He wouldn't be here nearly begging from this horrid crone who wanted only the destruction of his family.
He felt Hera's choice like a quiet click of triumph in his mind.
Wisps of steam lifted from the mirror's surface as he stared into it. Wendell almost decided to leap back in fear, but he held his ground as the glass cleared. An image formed on the silver surface. Virginia, standing still as stone in the snow. In profile she looked grim and sad at the same time, looking off into the snowy landscape to another figure, a tall white haired male who was tending the reins of a fat donkey. Wendell cast his eyes desperately over the scene, trying to spot some landmark or clue to show where she was, if indeed it was a true image and not a false one. But all he saw was featureless snow covered forest. Normally this would have tipped him off that it was somewhere in the permanently frozen north, but nowadays all the world was so covered. But as the man in the scene turned back to speak to Virginia, he recognized the face. Yacobe, the Ice Queen's envoy. He felt sick as the stranger gathered Virginia up and carefully placed her on the back of the donkey. At least she seemed unharmed, he tried to counsel himself. The scene started to fade, and he cried out a garbled half protest, drawing the instant attention of Tony.
The older man bounded over. "What, what? Did you see something? Did you see Virginia?"
Wendell sighed as the mirror glass went dark again. "Yes, I saw her. She's alive Tony. She seemed unhurt, but she's a prisoner of that wolf Yacobe. It's just as we feared. The Ice Kingdom has claimed her".
"Why, damn it, why?" Tony bellowed, striding over to the corspe like Hera. He swore a number of times, words that Wendell had learned were rather shocking in the Tenth Kingdom but had little meaning in his own. The witch seemed to shrink a little under his anger, but Wendell paid them little mind, for the mirror had once more cleared, and the vision it showed him now was spellbinding.
"Hush Tony!" he spoke. "Come and look at this" he said quietly. The view showed him a sparse chamber. A woman paced to and fro. Long gold hair fell about her shoulders. For a second Wendell's heart thundered in his chest. Scarlett? But no, the woman had turned to face him now, her mouth a bitter smile as she sought the intrusion. With a sinking feeling, Wendell knew that this woman knew he was watching her. She had magic, this one. But her resemblence to his far away love was unsettling, and he couldn't take his eyes off her.
She came close to the glass. Probably she looked even now into a common mirror on her side, which Wendell knew was the most often used way of spying that magic mirrors used.
"Who is this?" she spoke suddenly, and her voice carried across the glass effortlessly. She was so compelling in her question that Wendell almost blurted out an answer. Belatedly he knew that this was the voice of a ruler, used to command. Tony's hand gripped his shoulder hard, reminding him of the here and now. It was a welcome anchor. The woman came closer, her pale face filling the whole view. "This is old magic" she murmured to herself, putting her hands up to the glass. The mirror on Wendell's side quivered as she did so. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "King Wendell!" Well, I never expected to see your like here!" she exclaimed with a short laugh. "Have you become so desperate that you must turn to the ancient source that ruined your family?"
Wendell drew breath to answer her, but Tony clamped his hand even tighter. "No" he breathed. On the other side, the pale woman continued to survey the mirror. Wendell wondered how much she could see. Did she see him, tired and dispirited, kneeling in the muck far from his home?
Oddly now, the vision tilted and moved, as though the strange woman had lifted her own mirror and was carrying it. "They say you were a dog once, King Wendell White" she said evenly, "Perhaps when we finally meet in person I may be inclined to make you into a pet again. What do you think of that, young King?" she continued. Wendell could no longer see her face. The vision swam crazily, making him dizzy. Too late he realised that he was falling, thrown from the high window like any piece of refuse might be. It was just like falling in a dream. The white earth sped up to meet him, and he put his hands out automatically, dimly aware that Tony had done the same thing.
In that final second before the image struck the earth, Scarlett's face suddenly appeared. Her hair was whipped by the wind and her mouth was open in a silent scream as she plummeted from the sky.
"Nooo" he shouted finally as the mirror on his side shattered into thousands of shards, spraying his face with glass. The frame that had held the mirror shrieked in anger, buckling in on itself. A coldness like nothing he had felt before invaded the crypt, freezing his boots to the floor as he stood. He kicked out desperately, freeing himself from the clinging ice. Tony was up and heading for the door already. Wendell followed unsteadily, sparing a glance at the corpse as ice covered it. At the base of the stairs he turned to see the witches coffin crushed under the weight of the ice, becoming a ghastly parody of Snow-white's own tomb, far away in Dragon Mountain.
Tony was coming back now, to pull him from his stupor and back up the stairs. If Hera was capable of saying anything as he left the tomb, he didn't hear it. He knew she had opened the mirror to him. She had drawn the attentions of the Ice Queen down upon herself. It was a measure of his kind human heart that he felt guilt now. But the anger and strength that he felt flowing up and out of him as he staggered away into the swamp was a measure of an entirely different kind.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scarlett drew her cloak tighter around herself. She wasn't really that cold, which was another mystery to be left for another time, but it was a typically human gesture. One from a woman out of her depth. Lost and alone in the wilderness. She laughed at her own imagery. Well, not quite lost, and definately not alone. As for depth, well, she had always been a good swimmer, had she not?
A fire would have been nice, but she knew why Wolf had not allowed it. Two days out from Hooded City, he was still in that frame of mind where assassins and hunters leapt out of every shadow. Scarlett knew she could have assayed his fears by telling him that pursuit of any kind was unlikely. Her brother would not have left his house in an uproar of confusion just to go hunting his wayward sister, and he would have likely needed all his most faithful retainers just to rein in those guards who still held loyalty for her. Bitterly, she found herself hoping that most of them had either escaped (and might even now be making their way south with news of the coup), or perhaps they may have been more circumspect in their actions. Swearing fealty to the usurper would at least keep them out of the dungeons and away from the noose.
But, friend or foe, they had had no signs of anyone following them. And Scarlett had determined that she would learn all the faster if Wolf were still alert and wolf like in his actions. Scarlett had already learned much just from watching him; the way he tracked, scented, found his way, covered their trail. Hunted.
He was approaching her even now. She had discovered the ability to quiet her mind and body, to really listen to the world around her. Secret rythmns of the wildlife sprang into awareness as she crouched under the lee of an old oak, waiting.
"Scarlett" he spoke in her ear, and she jumped in spite of herself. But she wasn't angry at his sneaking. It was a timely reminder that she was still in so many ways as inept as a new cub. Wolf had caught a skinny hare, she saw. He waggled it under her nose. "Ladies first" he said, dumping it in her lap. Scarlett stared into the sunken dead eyes of the hare.
"Your knife?" she asked. Wolf hestitated a moment. "I don't have your teeth, Wolf. I need the knife to cut with" she continued.
"True enough" he said slowly, handing his belt knife to her carefully. "But one day, you might, you know"
"What? One day I'll suddenly grow fangs like yours?" Scarlett laughed, deftly skinning the hare and cutting herself a portion. The meat steamed in the cold air, still warm. "Are you sure we can't have a fire?" she asked, gesturing to the dripping carcass.
"Why? Don't you like it?" he replied.
"Well, a little cooking wouldn't hurt it. It's what I'm used to, believe it or not"
"What, you never stole bones from the kitchen to gnaw under the bed when you were a child?" he said, eyes crinkling in amusement.
"No! And despite what you think, I'm still a human being, still a q...". She faltered before she could say it. Still a queen? No, not any more.
"Still a queen" Wolf finished for her solemnly. Scarlett was angry at him for a second, but she bit savagely into her raw hare's leg instead. The flesh was tough, the blood coppery on her tongue. It was not unpleasant. She tossed the rest of the carcass Wolf's way and he caught it. His long canines bared to make short work of disemembering the remainder of the body. Wolf-like, he went first for the entrails. Heart, liver, intestines. The squelching sound of offal being relished made her stomach contort. It was a strangely pleasing sensation, reminding her of her humanity. Bloodstained and squatting in the snow miles from anything, she still craved the knowledge that she was not not some gruesome predator, a monster equally as terrifying as the ones she had been schooled from birth to hate and fear.
"You think I'm making a mistake" she said when he'd finished burying the remains in the snow.
"It's not the decision I would have made. I've already told you that"
"But you're still here. You could have left at any time, gone back to your Virginia. You still can, you know. I'm no longer the woman I once was, to command anyone's loyalty. But I have a task to do. Possibly a futile one, yes, but I must see it through. It's...all I have of my old life...I must..." she trailed off. She barely felt Wolf's arms enfold her as the tears, held back for so many hours broke the dam at last. He held her close until she had cried herself out, her tears dampening his shoulder.
"Virginia is safe in Castle White" he said softly. "And Virginia gave me a job to do as well. Look after you, she said. Wherever you go, so will I until our task is done". He looked off into the distance, towards the line of mountains that barred their way. Then he laughed, kissing her brow in a way that few had done before, but Scarlett did not feel threatned by his closeness. They were both of them in love, just with other people. "A fine woman my Virginia is" he murmured, "to command us both so effortlessly that we would not even think to abandon our quest".
"She is the true queen then" Scarlett replied, "not I".