The Snow Queen (24 page)

She looked down at Kaari’s sweet, troubled face.
Let her see she is braver than she thinks. Keep her mind clear so that she can be clever. Let her keep her gentle heart,
she added. All of this would be for nothing if Kaari lost some of what made her so unique, so cherished. Gained wisdom and experience on top of that would only be good. Anything lost—

No. Unacceptable.

She played and concentrated until she could no longer keep her eyes open. And only then did she set the harp aside, and put her own head down.

But not before checking the silver cup.

The thin rim of untarnished metal remained. Veikko was still alive.

With that hope in her heart, she slept.

The next day, the track took them into deeper forest than any that Annukka had ever seen. Mostly fir, the trees spread thick boughs that interlaced with each other to the point where the land beneath the boughs was in a perpetual state of twilight. These were old, old trees here, not much taller than the ones she knew, but so big around that she and Kaari could not encircle their trunks with their arms outstretched. The trunks were bare of branches to well above their heads, with only the occasional shaft of light penetrating to make spots of brilliance on the forest floor. The ground was carpeted in needles so densely that it muffled all sounds completely. As they passed under the shadow of these forest giants, the very air changed. There was a scent of age, as if the carpet of needles that covered the forest floor and the track that they followed had been undisturbed for centuries. Birdcalls seemed very far away, quite as if they were coming from another world altogether, and there was not even a hint of a breeze to stir the branches.

It was cold, too. Not the Autumnal cold, the bite of frost, the hint that Winter was coming. This was the cold of long, long years, of things for whom the life of a human was the merest blink of an eye. It was not a damp chill, that was the strangest part. It made Annukka think of mountains, and dragons, and things for whom little, little human beings were of no consequence.

And there was the sense of being watched. The back of her neck prickled, and the hairs on her arms tried to stand erect.

“Do you feel it?” Kaari whispered, eyes darting from one side of the track to the other. There was nothing to be seen—just the huge trunks marching into the distance, the sparse undergrowth that struggled for the least little bit of sun that managed to penetrate the canopy of boughs. And yet…Annukka would be willing to swear that there were a dozen pairs of eyes on her at that moment. Not unfriendly, not hostile, but…eyes, nonetheless.

Annukka nodded. “I do not know what it could be, but something—”

She bit off what she was about to say, as the least little movement out of the corner of her eye warned her that they were about to find out just what was watching them.

The reindeer stopped dead in their tracks, trembling. Then
they
faded into view, appearing, one by one, among the trunks, stepping out to surround them.

Twenty of the most beautiful maidens that could have been imagined. They had faces that sculptors would ache to copy, complexions like rose petals, lips like strawberries, eyes as blue as the cloudless sky above, and bodies that would make a man faint with desire. Long, flaxen hair, like a waterfall of shining gold, fell unbound to their ankles. Annukka had never seen one woman to compare to them, much less twenty.

Despite the chill, they wore nothing more than simple, white linen shifts tied at the waist with ropes of woven vines to which a few scarlet leaves still clung. And it was those ropes around their waists that told Annukka what they were.

Forest spirits
. Soulless creatures that were a dreadful danger to a man, creatures that every mother warned her sons about. Annukka had been no exception to this, and unlike some sons, Veikko had taken his mother at her word. He must have, or he would never have gotten to his teacher on the other side of this forest.

Annukka strained her mind to recall anything else about these spirits. Had she once heard a tale that they were cursed to be this way, because they had spurned the love of some missshapen forest god? She could not remember….

And strangely enough, it was not that these spirits were inimical to men, it was because, in their desire for a soul of their own, they would seduce men and kill them with loving. The need for a soul was a hunger in them that they could not control. They could not help themselves—and the men, unless warned, could not help themselves, either. They would succumb to the beauty and the embraces of these beings, surrender themselves—and die in the arms of loveless love.

“Greetings, sisters,” Annukka said, with a little bow of courtesy. “We wish to pass in peace.” She waited, a little breathlessly, to hear their reply. Would they be allowed to pass? They could offer nothing to these spirits, but legend did not say what would happen if women encountered them instead of men.

One stepped out from among them. “Well you might call us sister,” she whispered, looking at them sideways. “You, too, have the blood of men upon your hands.”

Annukka felt a deeper chill. Did this mean that the forest spirits would try to recruit the two human women to their ranks? Kaari gave a start, eyes widening. “Evil men,” Annukka said firmly. “Men who would have caused us great harm, who had no compunction about slaying others. We were but the instruments of justice.”

The one that had stepped forward turned back to whisper to the others, and revealed the secret of the forest spirits. Her back was hollow behind the hair, the sign of her soullessness. Kaari gasped involuntarily. The maiden turned back to her, that coldly beautiful face regarding the girl dispassionately. “Are we horrible to you?” she asked. “Are we so terrible? Are we monsters?”

“You—are—the soulless ones,” Kaari managed. And that was all that she said, her hands, still clasping the reins of her mount, covered her mouth.

The leader nodded. “Yes, sister. You see us for what we are. Men have slain us for this, which we cannot help.” The creature showed the faintest shadow of sorrow on her face. “And that makes what they do all the more terrible, for they slay us for doing what we must. We cannot stop ourselves, not for love, which we cannot feel, nor pity, which we cannot have. They call us monsters for this. They desire us, and hate us, and slay us for these things, and when we die, we die forever. There is nothing for us after death but…. ending.”

“So who, then, are the monsters?” asked another. “We are monstrous, but when
they
die, their souls journey on—where when we die, we are gone from every world. None mourn our passing, not even our sisters, for they cannot mourn.”

“We wonder what hard-hearted creator was so unkind as to make us without souls,” said another, in that heartbreakingly dispassionate tone. “Yes, unless we are slain, we are immortal, but what good is immortality without the ability to laugh, to love, to weep? Our lives are nothing but enduring, our death is a cipher. Any of us would trade all of our long, long lives for a day with a soul. Can you understand that, sister? Can anyone feel the sorrow for us, the pity for us, that we cannot?”

Annukka shook her head. The lives of these poor creatures were terrible indeed, and yet she could think of no way to remedy their lot. All the magic in the world could not create a soul in something that did not have one—

If this was the result of a curse, it was the worst such curse she had ever heard of, and the most tragic.

And then she heard Kaari begin to sob.

“You poor things!” the girl wept. “Oh, cruel the hand that made you! How I pity you, sorrow for you! If I had a way to share my soul with you, I would, I would!”

She buried her face in her hands as the forest spirits stirred and moved forward a pace. Her tears streamed down her cheeks, trickling between her fingers, and—

Annukka felt the powerful stirrings of magic—deep magic,
old
magic, magic much older than anything she knew. This was magic from the beginnings of the world, and it had been waiting for just this moment, just this selfless act on Kaari’s part, just this person, just those words…just those tears.

As Kaari’s tears dropped down from her face and her fingers, the magic flared, and they turned in midair to drops of crystalline ice that fell to the carpet of dead needles and lay there, glittering like diamonds. The forest maidens gasped with shock, then moved slowly forward. The magic swirled about them, so thick and powerful that Annukka could actually see it, currents and swirls full of golden light and brief sparks of white. They pressed in closely about Kaari, who continued to weep as if all her own sorrows were forgotten in theirs. As Kaari continued to weep, more and more forest spirits emerged from the trees, gathering up the crystalline drops as if they were the most precious objects in the universe, each taking only one. Then, one by one, they turned their backs to one another, gently placed the teardrop in the hollow, and stepped back.

And the hollow backs shimmered with power, and closed over. One by one, teardrops fell, were gathered, were placed, until there were no forest spirits left without a precious drop, and—

The magic dissipated, evaporated. There were no more forest spirits—only the lovely, lovely maidens who were slowly, gradually showing the spark of something new in their brilliant blue eyes.

Kaari choked off a sob and took her hands from her face, looking around at the army of beautiful girls surrounding their deer.

They were weeping. Each and every one of them had tears slowly forming in their eyes and spilling over to slip down their cheeks.

“What—” she said, bewildered.

The one that had spoken before tossed back her hair with a kind of happy sob. “Oh, most generous, most kind, most compassionate sister!” she exclaimed. “You, with a spirit so overflowing that you could share it, share your pity, you have, all on your own, given us all what we have never had, the seed of a soul!”

“I did?” Kaari replied, looking bewildered.

“You see!” the leader said, wiping away her tears and gesturing at the others. “We weep! We never could weep before! We weep for sorrow at those we slew in the past, we weep for joy that we can weep and feel sorrow! Oh, kind one, go in peace, and we shall guard your path through this forest and nothing, nothing shall harm you!”

“Yes,” said another. “And in your name, for your sake, oh, tenderhearted savior, we will make safe the path for all travelers of goodwill. Let that be our expiation! We shall make it so that a child can traverse these woods, and never come to harm!”

“Let it be so!” cried the others—and with that, they faded back among the trees again, leaving the forest as empty-seeming as it had been before. But now—now it felt welcoming, like an old, old house that had sheltered many generations and will shelter many more to come.

Annukka felt more than a little numb with surprise. Kaari looked just as dumbfounded.

“What did I just do?” she asked, faintly.

“You—followed your instinct, dearling,” Annukka managed. “You gave them something of yourself, your ability to feel compassion. Evidently that was enough for them.”

“But—can they really grow souls?” Kaari asked doubtfully. “Is that even possible?”

“I have no idea.” Annukka looked out at the forest, sensing the remains of magic there. “I don’t know why they never had souls in the first place, to be honest.” She paused for a moment. “But you know, if there is such a thing as a seed for a soul—compassion is a very, very good place to start.”

Kaari wiped her eyes and smiled. “You know, Mother Annukka, I think you are right. And I wish them well.”

And that is why you could give them what they needed, my dear.
Annukka felt a rush of love for the girl. “And so do I,” she replied, and took up the reins of her deer. “So let us take advantage of their new compassion and move as swiftly through this forest as we may. Veikko needs us.”

Kaari bit her lip, took a deep breath, and touched her heel to her deer’s side to move it forward. “Oh, yes, Mother Annukka. Oh, yes.”

“WELL, WELL, WELL!” ALEKSIA EXCLAIMED, AS SHE WATCHED
the forest spirits dispersing throughout the ancient woods. She was truly surprised for the first time in a very, very long time. The Brownie who stood silently next to her, also watching the strange events unfold, was equally baffled.

“How was that possible, Godmother?” the Brownie asked. “I thought they were cursed to be that way forever.”

“Well, all curses must have some way of being lifted,” Aleksia replied thoughtfully. “The Tradition requires it. Otherwise no one would ever have any hope at all. I sometimes think that The Tradition requires hope, that maybe it even feeds on hope somehow.”

“Odd sort of thing to feed on if you ask me,” the Brownie muttered dubiously, looking out of the corner of her eye at Aleksia. “A good lamb roast, or a nice meat pie, now, that’s something a body can feed on.”

Aleksia suppressed a smile. For creatures of magic, the Brownies could be very earthy and literal-minded. “If The Tradition were something we could bribe with a meat pie, our jobs would be a great deal easier!” she said, and was rewarded with a half smile from her small companion.

Well, this was becoming more and more intriguing; she had spun a deliberately vague spell that the two women should be delayed without coming to much harm—and this was the result of it. She had felt a bit guilty about the bandit attack, for the younger woman had gotten a terrible fright out of it, but this—this was extraordinary. For as long as she had known about them, the forest spirits had been soulless and dangerous. To her knowledge—though admittedly, her knowledge was limited—there had never been so much as a hint that this situation could ever be turned around. But now,
now
they had been saved, so to speak. What was more, they had gone from being a danger to being protectors, of the innocent at least. This was a major change in the world, something that went right outside The Tradition, at least as she understood it….

Although it was certainly true that stories of redemption were part of The Tradition, and always had been, this had her completely baffled. She sensed, though, that this involved something older and deeper than even The Tradition itself. Something that The Tradition had built off of—something so old and deep that, when invoked, it could effortlessly change The Traditional path that a story was set on and redirect it as easily as she could change her mind and redirect what the cook was preparing for her dinner.