In Stone's Clasp (29 page)

“You lie!”

Jareth’s voice cracked in the hall like a tree bough snapping under the weight of ice and snow. Kevla was startled. She had thought him enraptured by the Maiden, as all men were, but now she realized that his stare had not been hopeless desire, but hatred.

“You murdered my family!” he cried.

The Maiden turned, her eyes flashing.
“I did not!”
Her voice was deeper now, filled with outrage. Nothing Jareth could have said could have offended her more. “You are a man, and as a man, your words are lies!”

“Not these words,” Jareth hissed. “Think back, Maiden, if you’re even capable of doing so. Think back to a snowstorm that swept through a little town called Skalka Valley nine months ago. Think of a storm so violent that it filled a house with snow and ice in a matter of a few heartbeats, smothering a woman, an infant, and a
twelve-year-old girl.
”

Kevla held her breath as silence fell. The Maiden turned from Kevla and walked slowly toward Jareth. Kevla saw that the ice was now up to Jareth’s waist. But the cold that was wrapped around his lower body had done nothing to cool his fury. Standing in front of him, just out of his reach, the Maiden searched his eyes with her own.

“You speak truly,” the Maiden said, her voice hushed with sympathy and wonder. “You did behold this. And you have not fallen under my spell. I am…sorry for you. For your family. But I swear to you, I did not do this thing. I would never send my snow and ice to kill a woman and children.”

Jareth’s eyes held hers. Finally, his voice hoarse, he said, “I believe you.”

The Maiden looked at Jareth for a moment longer, a variety of emotions flittering across her beautiful face. Then, turning to Kevla, she said, “Do you, too, speak truly, Fire-Woman? For your power is my deadliest enemy. Why should I believe you?”

“I am your enemy,” admitted Kevla, “for you are killing this land and the people—men, women and children—who live here. But I don’t think that’s what you intended to do.”

The Maiden shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “Women suffer enough. To think I have added to that….”

She wiped at a tear, sending the frozen droplet falling to the floor. For a long, long moment, she stared vacantly. Kevla didn’t dare avert her gaze. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jareth start to shiver. She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling, encased in ice to his waist.

Finally, the Maiden looked up at Kevla. Resolution was in her gaze.

“I do not wish to cause harm anymore,” she said, her voice quivering. “But I do not know how to stop.”

She stepped forward and placed her hand on the ice cage that surrounded Kevla, and it shattered into dozens of pieces.

The Maiden extended her hands to Kevla.

“Help me.”

Slowly, Kevla stepped forward and took the outstretched hands in hers. The Maiden gasped in pain and snatched them back, staring at them in horror. Kevla saw that from her mere touch, the hands made of ice had begun to melt and the fingers had fused together.

Kevla looked at Jareth. “Let him go,” she asked the Maiden. With a wave of her hand, the ice that had encased Jareth turned to water and he stepped free, shivering. “What do you need us to do, Maiden?” Kevla asked quietly.

She wondered where the Emperor was, why he was not doing everything he could to intervene. Perhaps he couldn’t. Perhaps when the Ice Maiden realized that she was her own person, he could no longer control her. Whatever the reason, Kevla was grateful.

The Maiden stared at her disfigured hands. “I do not know,” she said.

“You command the snow,” Jareth said, anger and hardness still in his voice.

She looked at him. “I do,” she said, “but I can only tell it when to snow and when not to. I can tell it where to fall. I cannot make it disappear or even stop falling for very long.”

Kevla and Jareth looked at each other, and she thought she saw a hint of regret in his face when he said, “It could be that you
are
the snow. And as long as you…live…it will never go away.”

The Maiden gasped, catching his meaning. “I do not wish to die!” she cried.

Kevla’s heart was heavy. She understood now that the Maiden was as much a victim of the Emperor’s whim as any of the men she had enslaved or any of the women who had suffered under her unnatural winter. And now that the Maiden knew what she was, what she had done, she wanted to stop it. But like any sentient being, she cherished her life.

The Maiden buried her head in her hands. Kevla stepped toward her, careful not to touch her.

“I believe you were made for a single purpose,” Kevla said gently. “To stop this man,” and she indicated Jareth, “from bringing spring to the land. To block his powers so that the man who created you would defeat us. Not only Lamal, but the entire world is in danger. We are the only ones who might be able to save it. The Emperor knows this. To try to stop us, he filled your mind with a story cobbled from fireside songs, and that was your only reality. All you knew was pain. No one could have expected you to behave any differently.”

The Maiden shook her head in fierce denial. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because you have no memories other than what the songs say. Because you can’t tell me the name of your lover. Because,” Kevla said gently, “when you search your heart, you will find nothing there except for what I have said. I think you know my words are true.”

“It hurts,” the Maiden said softly, her voice muffled by her deformed hands. “The memory of my betrayal…of that night…still hurts so badly. Even though you tell me that it was all false.”

“I’m sorry for your pain,” Kevla said sincerely. “I understand that for you, it’s as real as anything I’ve experienced. But because of that pain, you have made innocent people suffer. You have even killed. Maiden, I’ve seen the bodies.” She swallowed hard, remembering the frozen corpse she had uncovered when she melted the snow—the woman hacked nearly in half.

The Maiden gasped. “I—I can see what you see. But a man did this—”

“A man directly under
your
control. A man who would never have done such a thing had you not claimed his mind.”

“No!”

“You have to atone for that,” Kevla continued ruthlessly. “You have to do what is necessary. Even if you believe that everything else I’ve said is a lie, you can’t run away from the fact that if this winter continues, everyone in this land will die.”

“Perhaps if I do not make it snow so much,” the Maiden said. She was clutching at anything to save her life, and Kevla couldn’t blame her. “Perhaps if I send the men back. Although they do not deserve it….”

“Talk to them,” Jareth said suddenly.

The Maiden removed her hands from her face and looked at him. “What?”

“Talk to them. You still don’t truly believe that we’re anything but monsters. Call them in and ask them. Ask them what they think about the women in their lives.”

“They will doom themselves,” the Maiden said. “With their own words, they will doom themselves, for they cannot lie to me while under my spell.”

Kevla felt a brief stab of worry. She had never suffered as the Maiden had, from rejected love; but she knew that such a thing was not uncommon. Mylikki and Altan had played out a version of that story in front of her eyes. But Jareth looked completely confident.

“Then they doom themselves,” he said. “But ask them. You owe them that much. I think you will find that there is not a one among them that does not cherish the love of a woman in some way.”

She rose shakily. “Very well,” the Maiden said. The doors swung open and the Maiden’s slaves entered to stand before her. She looked them up and down and walked down the line, contempt in her gaze.

“This man here,” she said, stabbing a partially melted finger at Jareth, “would have me believe that you care for the women in your lives. You…tell me of the women you have violated.”

The man, short and stocky, said in a dull voice, “I have a wife of seventeen years and two daughters.”

“Have you lain with another? Broken your vows?”

“Never.”

The Maiden frowned, slightly. Kevla saw that Olar stood next to the first man, and the Maiden now turned to him.

“You…you’re a pretty boy. How many hearts have you broken?”

“None that I know of, for I have never even kissed a girl,” Olar intoned. “But I love my mother and my sister. I think they are very brave.”

The Maiden turned to a third man, and asked him similar questions. He had similar answers. She kept going, kept hearing stories of affection and love, until she reached one man.

“Have you lain with a woman and felt no love for her?”

“Yes,” the man answered.

The Maiden shot Jareth a triumphant look. “Did she feel love for you?”

“Yes.”

“And does she suffer from your cruelty?”

“I do not believe so. She is married to my cousin, and is suckling her second child,” the man replied. “No man could love a woman more.”

The Maiden’s face fell. Even here, even when she had found a man who admitted to intimacy with no love, the woman in question had not suffered forever.

Still she persisted. “Tell me,” she said to one man with a handsome face and cold eyes. “Tell me of the women you have seduced and abandoned.”

“There are many,” the man replied.

“So then, there is no woman you love?”

“My sister and her daughters are precious to me. I would protect them with my life.”

Down the line she went. Nowhere did she find a man who did not have a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter he loved.

“Enough of this, Maiden,” said Jareth, but his voice was gentler than the words he spoke. “You see what you have done. There is no one here who deserves your vengeance. Each man has a woman who needs and loves him. Let them go home to their families. Give them fruit, and crops, and a good harvest.”

“My life depends upon the ice and the snow,” she said dully. “And you tell me that the life of everyone else in this land depends on that going away. Tell me then, what kind of choice do I have?”

Again, Kevla and Jareth exchanged glances. She was prepared to destroy the Maiden, if such a thing was even possible, if she decided to choose life instead of sacrificing herself.

“You weren’t ever meant to be,” Kevla said. “Your life was bought at the cost of so many others. We have come to do whatever is necessary, but I hope you will choose what is right of your own will.”

“I have nothing,” the Maiden said. “No reality. You are right, Fire-Woman. I have no memories that are my own. My desire to have vengeance upon men has resulted in harming innocent women. The only things that I have truly done have been to enslave and cause suffering.” She looked up at Kevla. “I don’t think I can continue to live with that.”

Kevla smiled sadly. “You are brave,” she said. She stepped closer and opened her arms. “I am the Flame Dancer. Come into my arms, my sister, and I will hold you. It will be quick, I promise.”

“I’m afraid,” said the Maiden, and then, “I wish…I wish I had something good to remember.”

“You’re about to do something very courageous,” Kevla assured her. “Something that very few people are willing to do. To die for the good of others. When people speak of you, I will make sure they know that. There will be new songs of the Ice Maiden—songs about her courage and sacrifice.”

The Maiden wiped her face, looked Kevla in the eye, and stepped forward.

“No,” said Jareth, startling both women.

Fearing that he wanted to exact his own revenge on the Maiden, to make her suffer before she died, Kevla said quickly, “Jareth, it’s all right.”

“You don’t understand.” He turned and faced the Maiden squarely. “You’ve done nothing but hurt people your entire existence. You were led to believe that this was justified, that men deserved everything and anything you did to them. But you don’t know anything about love, or heartbreak, or even men at all. You heard the truth from their own lips. Most of us aren’t at all like the memories that the Emperor gave you. We
want
to find someone to spend our lives with. We
want
to fall in love. Have children. Go to sleep at night in the arms of the woman who means the world to us.”

His voice broke. The Ice Maiden gazed at him raptly.

“You’ve never known love, or even kindness. Not from a man, not from anybody. You said you wanted to have something good to remember. I will try to give you that, if you’ll let me. I will do what I can to dispel this lie that is the only truth you’ve ever known.”

“What are you offering?” asked the Maiden, quietly.

“I will hold you,” Jareth said simply. “It will not be as quick a…a passing as it would be with Kevla. But I am warm flesh and blood, and you are ice. The result would be the same.”

Kevla looked at Jareth. He was soaked through, and was shivering. The Ice Maiden in her true form, as they had first beheld her, was solid ice, and colder than anything Kevla had ever encountered. Still, Kevla knew that she could melt her in an instant, if she summoned her powers. Against simple human flesh—and she had no reason to believe Jareth was anything other for this purpose—it would take hours and would chill him to the bone. She had learned enough about the dangers of the cold to know that prolonged exposure could permanently damage his skin, or even cause his death.

“Jareth—” Kevla began.

“I want to offer her this, Kevla.” His voice was calm, quiet. “She needs to know that we’re not monsters.”

Kevla bit her lip. But she knew it was not her decision to make. Jareth had made the offer; to accept or decline was a choice that belonged only to the Ice Maiden.

“Will this…harm you?” the Maiden asked.

“I don’t know,” Jareth said, and Kevla knew he spoke the truth. Not even he knew how his Dancer’s body would react. “But I want to do it.”

She rose and went to him. “Then…I would like you to hold me…until I am gone.”

Jareth unfastened his white cloak and placed it on the floor. It would be the only thing between him and the solid ice. He sat on the cloak and held out his hand.

Slowly, the Ice Maiden’s partially melted hand closed over Jareth’s. Both of them inhaled swiftly from the shock—he of her cold, she of his warmth. Gently, Jareth eased her down into his lap. Kevla saw him swallow and stiffen slightly as the Maiden settled into his arms. She draped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his chest. Jareth took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and folded her close.

Hushed and reverent, Kevla sank down beside the two, pressing her hands to her own warm heart, aware that she was bearing witness to something almost sacred. The Maiden’s color began to fade almost at once, and a smile curved her white lips.

“I feel…safe,” she whispered.

Jareth laid his cheek upon her white hair. “You are safe,” he murmured. “You are your own self now. No puppet of the Emperor. And I will hold you.”

Tears filled Kevla’s eyes, spilled hotly down her cheeks. For so long, Jareth had battled the winter. He had raged at it, had cursed it, had challenged it. Had stalked the gods of his land and even threatened them so they might destroy it. Now he sat still and oddly serene, holding the being at least nominally responsible for the dreadful winter as close as he might a child or lover. An awesome humility in the face of this compassion flooded her.

How long it took for the Ice Maiden to pass, Kevla would never be able to tell. Jareth told the Maiden stories of his family; happy, funny stories, the sort a husband and father would enjoy relating. Sometimes he sang to her, his voice not as perfect and pure as Altan’s or Mylikki’s, but sweet and clear nonetheless. It seemed to Kevla, silently watching, that the Maiden melted from the inside. She became more and more translucent as the time passed, growing hollow and terribly delicate.

Jareth never expressed discomfort or pain the entire time. And the Maiden did so only once, when she shifted and cried out.

“It…hurts,” she whispered. By now, she was almost transparent. There was no hint of white about her, only glistening, fragile ice.

“I’m sorry,” Jareth murmured.

“Is this how it is with men and women?” the Maiden whispered. Despite the tragedy and pain the Maiden had caused, Kevla wept as she beheld her. “This…tenderness, this care?”

“It can be,” said Jareth, and then more fiercely, “it should be.”

She took a deep breath, and Kevla feared the mere gesture would shatter her, but somehow the Maiden remained whole.

“This is sweet,” the Maiden said. “I wish I had been a mortal girl, and tasted this.” Then, “Now.”

Jareth closed his eyes and pulled her to him, pressing her hard against his torso.

The Ice Maiden shattered into a dozen thin pieces, each of which itself crumbled as Jareth moved.

She was gone.

Jareth’s blue eyes flew opened and he gasped. His clothing was soaked, and Kevla, startled from her place of deep reflection and reverence, realized that there were areas on his tunic and breeches that were coated with ice. Jareth’s eyes rolled back into his head and he began to slump forward.