Lord of Snow and Shadows (39 page)

So why these confused feelings? Had she—in spite of all her misgivings—developed some kind of attachment to Feodor Velemir?

Altan Kazimir was escorted by the prince’s guard to the Magus’ rooms. A heavy carved door confronted him, decorated with a grotesque brass door knocker molded as a head of one of the Four Winds, cheeks puffed out, eyes crossed, hair wildly blown.

He lifted the knocker and rapped. The heavy knocker caught his finger on the rebound. Silently cursing, he lifted his hand to his mouth, sucking it to ease the pain.

The door swung silently open—and Kaspar Linnaius appeared in the doorway.

“Come in, Doctor Kazimir.”

A slight, stooped elderly man in scholar’s robes stood before him, looking on him with pale, mild eyes. Could this be the infamous Magus Linnaius whose controversial experiments had provoked such a violent reaction in Francia that his college had been razed to the ground and all his colleagues executed?

“I realize that as a doctor of natural sciences, you may not recognize the methods I practice.”

“Indeed I do not,” Kazimir said stiffly.

“And yet we might have much to learn from each other.”

“I doubt it.”

“Perhaps you would like to see my laboratory?” The Magus raised his left hand—and an open doorway appeared behind him.

Altan Kazimir gazed around the Magus’ laboratory—and caught himself staring in astonishment and envy. The most sophisticated chymical scientific apparatus lined the shelves. There were filtration devices far more complex than those he used in the University of Mirom. And yet all this sophisticated equipment was being put to a quite different use—a use of which he not only disapproved, but did not begin to understand.

“His highness has spared no expense in the creation of this laboratory,” Linnaius said, a little smile playing around his lips.

“So I see.” This made Kazimir even more uneasy; was it merely a smile of condescension, or did it conceal some more sinister intent?

“We have a little task for you, Doctor.”

“T-task?”

“I owe his highness an infinite debt of gratitude. His father saved me from persecution—and death—in Francia. You will understand, Doctor, that I wish to do everything in my power to preserve his highness’ life—especially from the threat of attack by the Drakhaon.”

“You mean the elixir?”

“But the elixir takes some weeks to work effectively, yes? That is what our agent in Azhkendir reported. We do not have weeks. That is why I have prepared
this
.” Linnaius went to a little cabinet and removed a slender phial whose contents exuded a slight phosphorescent glimmer. “You will proceed exactly as if you were preparing the elixir, Doctor. You will take samples of the Drakhaon’s blood and be seen to be using them in your experiments. But instead you will administer, drop by drop, this tincture I have prepared.”

“You mean me to poison him?” Kazimir said, aghast.

“This will merely subdue the daemon-creature that inhabits his body.”

Kostya’s stern face flashed before Kazimir’s eyes. “If they suspect, they’ll rip me to pieces!”

“I had not yet finished,” Linnaius said, mildly reproving. “You will then escape the kastel, bringing with you the phials of the Drakhaon’s blood you have drawn, so that the prince and his men may be protected from Drakhaon’s Fire.”

Kazimir’s palms were damp with perspiration.

“I—c-cannot do it—”

“Oh, you’ll do it, Doctor,” Linnaius said smoothly. “For if you do not make the rendezvous with his highness’ messenger, you will not receive the antidote to the slow-acting alchymical poison that is even now infecting your blood.”

“P-poison?” Kazimir clutched at his collar, which suddenly seemed too tight, tugging it loose. A collar button pinged onto the floor. “But—how?”

“When you trapped your finger in the door knocker, I believe you sucked it to relieve the pain? The substance was transferred from the metal to your finger, and thus to your mouth.”

Kazimir stared dumbfounded at his bruised finger. He felt cold all over.

“I’m dying,” he whispered.

“You will only die,” Linnaius said, still smiling, “if you fail to comply with our instructions.”

The great horse-drawn sleds sped over the sunlit snow, bells jangling. Elysia, well-muffled in a soft, fur-lined, gray woolen cloak, gazed out from under the hood at the winter landscape glittering white under a pale blue sky.

At last,
she thought,
at last the endless waiting is nearly over.

Her heart beat in rhythm with the horses’ galloping hooves. The ice-cold wind took away her breath, leaving her feeling faint yet exhilarated with anticipation. She willed the horses to go faster, faster.

At last she was nearing her goal. Soon she would see Gavril again.

Let it not be too late, she prayed, to save him.

They stopped in a little town at midday to change the horses, and warmed their hands in the local tavern on mugs of hot rowanberry cordial. To eat, there was smoked fish and smoked cheese on rye bread with large slices of pickled cucumbers. Elysia found the strong, coarse flavors rather unpalatable, but she chewed the tough bread dutifully.

Kazimir eyed her warily over the top of his steaming mug, as if wanting to talk. She glanced around the tavern room; Prince Eugene’s guards were joking and laughing together. She moved closer to Altan Kazimir.

“Your spectacles have been mended,” she said.

He pulled a wry face. “Is there nothing Prince Eugene can’t fix? Yes—he had the lens replaced for me and I swear now I can see more clearly than before. Too clearly, perhaps.”

“How so?” Elysia said.

“Well, where is the count, for a start? How convenient that he was suddenly obliged to attend to urgent diplomatic matters. And then there’s the Magus Linnaius.”

“You still don’t trust him?”

Elysia saw a strange look pass across Kazimir’s face, like clouds scudding across the sun.

“He’s been most generous. He’s given me all the equipment I could ask for: phials, pipettes, measuring flasks.” His tone had altered and his gaze kept flicking above her head, as though fearing they would be overheard. “He’s even given me chymical powders and elemental compounds—” He broke off suddenly, his eyes fixed, staring at the doorway.

Elysia, puzzled, followed his gaze, wondering what could have caused him to react so dramatically.

An elderly man had appeared in the doorway; he nodded amiably to the guards, exchanging a word or two with them.

“Who is that?” she asked, curious.

“The most dangerous man in all Tielen,” Kazimir said. He was shaking. “Kaspar Linnaius.”

As the sleighs approached the isthmus, the sunlight faded from the sky. A penetrating wind whined dismally in their ears beneath a pall of gray snowclouds. The air smelled bitter: sea-salt and snow.

They spent the night huddling round the stove in a weather-boarded inn, cheerfully decorated, like so many of the wooden houses in Tielen, in a child’s paint box colors—red, yellow, blue, and green—while the wind roared and buffeted the building.

Next morning, Elysia saw what the night had hidden from them: the inn stood on a windswept headland, and below, stretching away into a gray and impenetrable fog, lay the ice. A sparsely pebbled beach led down to a frozen sea, pale as jade. It was as desolate a landscape as she had ever witnessed.

The guardsmen had gone down onto the shingle at first light to assemble the ice yacht, rigging up a sturdy mast above the runners and fixing the canvas sails to it, tightening ropes and checking the tiller.

Elysia approached the officer supervising the work.

“Why not take the horse sleds onto the ice?” She had to shout to make herself heard over the roar of the wind.

“Too heavy, madame. The ice is not uniformly thick, and appearances can be deceptive. We cannot take the risk.”

“But the wind is so wild here, it could easily blow the craft off course.”

“There’s a knack to the steering. Don’t worry. My men have been practicing.”

“And that mass of cloud and fog. Can they steer through that?”

“I have been observing that phenomenon for some time, madame.”

An unfamiliar voice, soft yet penetrating, startled Elysia. She turned around to see Kaspar Linnaius standing behind her on the hard-packed snow where she was certain there had been no one before.

“And I believe there is a change under way, at long last. Look.”

The fog where he was pointing had begun to churn and swirl as if stirred by a distant gale, and as Elysia watched, wisps broke away from the cloud mass, dispersing and melting.

“Magus Linnaius,” she said slowly. “Is this your doing?”

“Oh, no, not in the least,” he said. “This comes from within Azhkendir. Shaman’s work. Crude, dangerous necromancy, but it works singularly to our advantage.”

“We’re ready, Magus!” One of the guardsmen came running up over the treacherously icy shingle, sliding and slithering about as if he were on a skating pond.

Elysia watched as the guardsmen carried Kazimir’s case of chymical equipment down to the yacht and packed it in, cushioned in furs. The doctor followed, shivering, pulling his fur-lined coat closer around his neck. He looked miserable, shaking with cold and apprehension.

Elysia felt sorry for him. She found herself planning how Gavril might reward Kazimir for his pains: gifts of money to enable him to travel far from his troubled past and start a new life . . .

What was she doing, daring to dream of the future? They hadn’t even left the shores of Tielen yet!

Once they had reached Azhkendir—once they had found Gavril—then and only then could she allow herself to look forward again.

She gathered up her skirts and followed Kazimir down the treacherously icy path to the wind-wracked beach.

The wind dinned in the ice yacht’s sails, making the canvas crack like a whip.

“Why don’t you just wave your hand and transport us there magically, Magus?” Kazimir said caustically to Linnaius.

“Oh, please, young man. I haven’t devoted my life to studying the artificier’s art just to perform conjuring tricks,” said Linnaius, mildly reproving. “But I have devised a compass for you that will enable you to steer the craft as accurately as you can to landfall. With a good wind behind you, you may reach the other side in a few hours. But the prince has provided victuals—and a tent—in case you land far from human habitation. And a few of my slow-burning fire sticks so you don’t freeze to death tonight.”

“Fire sticks?” Kazimir said, frowning.

“One of my favorite artifices. I think you’ll find them rather an amusing little conceit,” said Linnaius. Was he smiling? Elysia wondered. “And it’ll give your inquiring mind something to puzzle over during the long winter night.”

Four of the guardsmen pushed the craft out onto the ice and grasped the mooring ropes hard as the wind filled the sails, almost tugging it out of their grip.

Kazimir staggered after them, head down in the wind, almost slipping on the ice. He floundered, grasping at the craft to steady himself, and managed to haul himself over the side, landing head down.

Elysia moved forward to follow him, and one of the guardsmen put out his hands to steady her.

“Thank you. I could do with a helping hand,” she said.

The guardsman did not let go of her arm. Another moved rapidly to hold her other arm.

“What’s this?” she said, confused.

“You are to stay, madame. The prince’s orders.”

“But—but I was promised!” Elysia burst out. “That was the whole reason for my coming—to see my son!”

“I’m sorry, madame, but those are our orders,” the guardsman said politely. “Perhaps his highness thought it was too dangerous for you. . . .”

“Dangerous!” Elysia cried. “I don’t care about the danger—”

“Ready to cast off!” shouted an officer above the blast of the wind. Elysia flung herself forward, trying to twist free of the guardsmen’s restraining grip.

“Doctor!” she screamed into the wind. “They won’t let me come!”

She saw him turn around, puzzled. She tried to break free, slithering over the icy pebbles—

And saw Magus Linnaius lift one hand in a gentle, twisting movement, as though pulling an invisible force from thin air and directing it toward the craft.

Suddenly the ice yacht was tugged out of the guardsmen’s hands and went speeding away across the frozen sea. A hissing, scything sound came back to them, wood and metal runners skimming over the ice—and Kazimir’s long-drawn-out yell of alarm.

Elysia slid to her knees on the shore, staring in disbelief as the tiny craft dwindled until it was only a dark speck, gliding on toward Azhkendir without her.

CHAPTER 33

Kiukiu stood, arms outstretched, her back to the portal, blocking the way back onto the snowy mountainside.

“Witchchild!”
Volkh loomed over her. His eyes burned with the bitter brightness of a midwinter blizzard.
“Let me back! We have a bargain, you and I!”

“You are never going back, Volkh!” she cried, angry beyond fear. “Your place is here, with the dead.”

“Then I will take
your
place.”
He reached out to clutch her in his chill, clawed hands. She shut her eyes, dreading what he might do to her, dreading the cruel kiss of winter that would freeze her soul for all eternity.

But the cold embrace never came. Fearfully she opened her eyes—and saw Volkh convulsed, jerking as if in a violent fit. Shreds and tatters of snowcloud and mist spun about him and went whirling away into the vast emptiness of the Ways Beyond.

“My lord?” she said tentatively.

Volkh slowly raised his head, gazing at her. The winter madness had left him. Now she saw him as a man, dark-browed and proud, the somber Lord Drakhaon who had been her lord and master.

“Is it over?” he said in puzzled tones.

“Yes,” she said. “It is finally over. You are free, my lord.”

The bleak plain on which they stood slowly melted away. Kiukiu felt the gentle brush of leaves on her hair. Looking up, she saw they stood on the edge of a grove of birch trees. A distant sun gleamed through mists.

“Free?” he repeated, as though hardly able to believe what she had said. “At last?”

Blue eyes, a darker reflection of Gavril’s, gazed into hers. For the first time she saw how much Volkh resembled his son. For the first time she glimpsed the earnest, ardent young man he had been before the Drakhaoul had begun to corrupt him, to change him to its own likeness. And a profound sadness overwhelmed her—sadness at the thought of a life corrupted, warped from its original path, and the countless other lives it had ruined.

“You will find peace here,” she said, remembering what Malusha had taught her, her voice unsteady. “Go, Volkh Nagarian. Go in peace.”

“Yes,” he said, dazedly. Silver-gold leaves whispered, stirred by a soft breeze. “In peace . . .”

He turned and walked away among the eternal trees.

The whitewashed monastery room was dim with a fast-dwindling twilight. A sudden, soft breath of wind rattled the open shutter, tinged with the faint mold odor of fallen leaves from the great forest outside.

Kiukiu lay as one dead on the little wooden bed.

Gavril reached for the tinderbox and lit a candle. It gave off a dark, honeyed smoke, perfuming the room with a memory of summer.

From one of the towers, a bell began to clang to call the monks to their evening devotions, a deep, solemn note that was soon answered by other higher-tongued bells, setting up a repetitive metallic clamor.

Gavril watched Kiukiu’s still face intently, but she did not stir, even when the loud jangling of the bells began.

He got up and paced around the room, frustrated and angry with himself that there was so little he could do. Abbot Yephimy had tried to reach her, but his efforts had failed. Now the monks were saying prayers for her as if she were already dead.

Gavril knelt beside her and stroked a stray lock of pale gold from her smooth forehead.

“But you’re not dead, are you, Kiukiu, just very far away . . .”

Not dead yet . . . but the longer her spirit was lost in the Ways Beyond, the harder it would be for it to return. And all the time it was gone, her body was slowly slipping into a decline.

“I won’t let you waste away,” Gavril whispered into her ear.

A whole day had passed since Jaromir set out in search of Malusha, hoping that the pony Harim would find his way home across the moors. Gavril had wanted to go with him, but Jaromir had reminded him that the sudden appearance of a Nagarian lord would be seen by the old woman as a threat.

In the warm candlelight, Kiukiu’s skin seemed to glow with a faint translucence. Her face was a serene void.

She had hazarded so much to exorcise his father’s ghost. Too much.

A girl is weeping.

Kiukiu sees a young woman, standing shivering on the edge of the trees, her arms clasped tightly to her, as if she were freezing cold.

Some instinct drives Kiukiu toward her—even though she knows she must not linger in the Ways Beyond.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“C-cold. So cold.” The girl’s fair hair gleams in the light of the distant sun. “Where is he? I c-can’t find him.”

“Who are you looking for?”

“They killed him. Broke his fingers, tore out his nails, tortured him. . . .”

Kiukiu draws closer still. She recognizes this young woman. She sees in her features a reflection of herself.

“Where are you, Malkh? I’ve been searching for you so long—and now I can’t find my way back home.”

“Would you like me to help you?” Kiukiu says gently.
Mother,
she says softly in her heart.

“Yes.” The girl nods. “Oh yes. But it’s so cold—”

“The sun is shining. Can’t you feel its warmth?”

Slowly the girl raises her head, eyes squinting into the light as if emerging from darkness.

“Warmth,” she says slowly, wonderingly. “Yes. Oh yes. Now I can feel it.” Her hands drop down to her sides. She has stopped shivering. She gazes at Kiukiu from a wan, sad face.

All the long-buried anger Kiukiu has endured at being abandoned by her poor, mad mother vanishes. She sees only a young girl, not much older than herself, broken by events beyond her control.

“Come with me, Afimia,” she says, wanting to heal Afimia’s hurt and confusion. “We’re going to find your Malkh.”

“Where is she? Where’s my granddaughter?” demanded a querulous voice.

Gavril awoke with a start. He had fallen asleep in the wooden chair beside Kiukiu’s bed. The door burst open wide, and a wild-haired old woman marched in. On seeing him, her face darkened in a snarl of such virulent hatred that he shrank back, alarmed.

“How dare you!” she said in a hiss. “How dare you sit in the same room as my beautiful girl? You’re not fit to clean her boots.” And she spat on the floor at Gavril’s feet.

Jaromir appeared in the doorway.

“Now, Malusha, you promised me,” he said, gently chiding. “Lord Gavril is quite different from his father. You’ll see.”

“Different, pah!” Malusha spat again. “They’re all the same, the Drakhaons. Can’t you smell the darkness in him, my lord? Can’t you see the Drakhaoul curled around his heart? Sooner or later, he’ll turn for the bad.
They
always do.”

Darkness. Why could she only see darkness in him? Hadn’t he sat at Kiukiu’s bedside day and night, speaking to her, holding her hand, trying to call her back?

“If it hadn’t been for your cursed father, she wouldn’t have wandered so far away.” Malusha laid her hand on Kiukiu’s pale forehead, closing her eyes as if listening. “And I don’t know if I can reach her now. Or if she’ll come when I find her. You can get out, both of you.” Malusha unslung the gusly she had been carrying on her back. “Off with you. Leave us alone.” Already her gnarled fingers were quietly testing the strings.

“But—” Gavril began.

“Go.”

Jaromir beckoned him outside and shut the door.

In the darkness of the cold stone passageway outside, they heard the first urgent ripple of notes, a wave crashing on a distant beach. More waves followed, a stormtide of fierce, elemental sound.

And then Malusha’s voice drifted out to them. Gavril had expected the old woman’s voice to sound feeble and cracked. He had not thought to hear such strong, deep singing, such power.

Maybe there was still a chance. . . .

The birch leaves glimmer above her head, silver-gray and gold in the hazy light.

Kiukiu wanders on through the forest. She is looking for someone. But she has been wandering for so long now that she has almost forgotten who he is . . . and why she has to find him.

Afimia trails after her.

“So peaceful here . . .” she whispers.

The soft, calm light has lulled her. Her footsteps gradually slow.

“Don’t wander away, Afimia. Stay with me.”

“Why the hurry?” Afimia asks dreamily.

A bird is singing in the tracery of branches high above her head, a little ripple of notes like drops of falling water.

Singing . . .
It was something to do with singing. . . .

Through the slender trunks, Kiukiu catches sight of the gleam of water. A lake, a vast gray lake stretches far into the distant mists. Its still waters lap slowly against a gently shelving shore.

A man, his back against a birch trunk, is sitting, staring out into the mists.

Kiukiu ventures closer. He doesn’t look round. He doesn’t seem to know—or care—that she is there.

Now she can see he is young, maybe no more than twenty-two, twenty-three, with straight, fair brown shoulder-length hair. And there is something familiar about his face, although she cannot quite say what it is: the strong chin and cheekbones, maybe . . . and the wide forehead?

“I think I know you,” she says tentatively.

He doesn’t even look up. And now she is sure of it, and with it comes a strange pain about her heart. And she had not thought she could feel pain in this place.

“Your name is Malkh,” she says. “Malkh the Guslyar.”

He glances up at her. Gray-blue eyes as clear as her own look at her as though she were almost invisible.

“I came here to forget that name,” he says after a while, a long while. His voice is light and pleasant, a singer’s voice. But his gaze drifts away from her as if he has already lost interest in her.

Kiukiu kneels down beside him.

“I’m your daughter,” she stammers out. “Kiukiu.”

He shakes his head slowly. “You are mistaken. I had no children.”

“I was born after you died. My mother was Afimia. You must remember Afimia.”

And at last a faint shadow flickers across his face.

“Afimia?” he repeats.

“Please remember,” Kiukiu says, anguished that he shows so little reaction. Yes, Malusha did warn her to expect this, but she had so hoped she might be able to bring about some kind of reunion.

“There was a girl. Her hair was your color, maybe lighter when the sun
caught it. . . .” The effort of trying to remember seems almost too much, and he lapses back into silence again.

“She is here. With me.”

“Afimia is here?” Again that brief flicker of interest.

“Look.” Kiukiu beckons Afimia toward her. In the gold-dappled shade of the leaves, she looks more wood-spirit than human, her wide eyes as wild and nervous as a fawn’s.

“Malkh?” Afimia says uncertainly. Kiukiu looks imploringly at her mother—and suddenly sees a bloodstained splash of memory, a glimpse of a man’s torn and mutilated corpse hung up to rot in the kastel courtyard.

“Never look in their eyes,”
Malusha’s voice breathes in her memory.

“Afimia.” Malkh rises slowly to his feet.

“Th-they killed you.” Afimia stares at Malkh warily. “And all because of me. If I hadn’t begged you to stay—”

“We are beyond death here. Here, none of that matters any longer.”

“Malkh,” Afimia says again. She is smiling. Her wan face is radiant, transformed. “It
is
you.”

Malkh moves toward her. Their figures seem to blur, to merge together for a moment, one indistinguishable from the other.

“Be at peace,” Kiukiu murmurs.

Together, they drift away from Kiukiu along the shores of the lake, into the sun-gilded mists.

All gray and silver here, touched with gold. Muted color, soft wash of gray water lapping on a silver-sand shore, soft whisper of breeze through silvered leaves . . .

“Well, here you are at last, child!”

Kiukiu looked up. A woman was walking along the lakeshore toward her.

“Time to go back, Kiukiu.”

Kiukiu gazed up at the woman. She had no idea what she was talking about.

“Go back where?”

The woman hunkered down beside her. “Kiukiu, don’t you know me? Heavens, child, you’ve only been here a short while; has this place worked its charm on you so soon?”

“This place?”

“These waters are the Waters of Forgetfulness. It’s a place of healing. But it’s not your time yet, child. You must come back with me now.”

Kiukiu shook her head.

“I don’t want to go. It’s so quiet here, so peaceful. . . .”

The woman gave a sigh of exasperation. “The longer you stay out of your body, the harder it will be for you to return. And your body will age and wither. . . . Come
on,
child. Don’t you want your life? Isn’t there anyone else back there who needs you, cares for you?”

“There was someone . . .” Kiukiu stared out into the pale mists, trying to remember.

“Think!” the woman said sharply. “The last person you saw before you came here!”

Blue eyes, blue as the sea in a far summer country.

“Lord Gavril,” she murmured.

“Well, if that’s it, then it must do,” muttered the woman. “Lord Gavril. Fix your thoughts on him, Kiukiu.”