Persephone observed his transformation, and also his bewildered face—alive, and furthermore, immortal—and she clapped her hands and laughed.
“Ah, what a fine sight you are, Hoarfrost! Or should I call you something else now, Old Man Winter?”
“What in Heaven’s name is happening down there?” the King of Lethe was saying, still holding up the spyglass trained upon the scene below the walls of Letheburg.
Vlau Fiomarre watched him from the corner of his stilled eye, standing next to Claere, and they were both well away from the group of guards surrounding the King up on his precarious lookout post on the raised portion of the bulwark.
Many of the officer captains were using their own telescopes to peer over and beyond the outer battlement walls as best they could, for whatever was taking place down there was indeed remarkable.
In the last quarter of an hour there had been the Sovereign newly arrived, emerging from her carriage and meeting Hoarfrost, then the mysterious appearance out of thin air of a golden female figure who was apparently a goddess, and then an exchange between her and the Sovereign.
This is when things became even more strange—Rumanar Avalais, the Sovereign, transformed. She was no longer attired in ordinary clothing, and she now resembled the golden woman in appearance, except that she was her antithesis—she was dark and a source of shadow, in direct contrast to the golden goddess with her radiant aura of light.
“Is the Sovereign not human?” someone among the garrison soldiers asked. “Look at that! What is happening to her? And now, may the Lord protect us, look at the sky! The racing clouds, the wind—is she doing this?”
As the baffled defenders of Letheburg crowded to stare beyond the walls—while taking care not to pass the safe warded boundary—there were more peculiar occurrences below. Flashes of lighting came, and a single particularly powerful strike, and then the figure of Hoarfrost was imbued with impossible whiteness. . . .
“Grial!” the King exclaimed from his tall vantage point, gesturing to the middle-aged woman standing nearby and fiddling with the brim of her floppy winter hat. “Come, quickly, woman, tell me what is happening there! You, if anyone, should know what it is, with your sorceries and magics—”
Fiomarre looked at Claere meanwhile, at her dear gentle face turned in profile, and then it was as if she felt the force of his gaze upon her, for she turned and looked at him. There were her eyes . . . great, beautiful, innocent, haunted with the sunken grey shadow of untimely death.
What must I look like now, to her? it occurred to Vlau. For I am pale and cold and frightful, and my blood has frozen to ice in my veins. . . . At last she may look upon me and know justice. Oh, how she looks upon me! And yet, there is only sorrow there.
The last day and night had been a dream. Vlau recalled what happened after he had died—after he knew himself to be dead—for in truth the precise instant it happened was the instant of time that he had lost. Just as his life had passed from him unto eternity, so had the moment itself.
He recalled in snatches the floating sense of wild exhilaration from the cold wind, and then no sense at all—he had been exultant and buoyant in the last moments before his death, light as a feather, a snowflake, rising up in spirit with every gust, inhaling the scalding cold air with agony in his lungs. . . . For the ice wind battered at him, and all his extremities were set to pins and needles, and the part of his face bared to the wind was riddled with the acute sharpness. . . . And then it all faded and his skin was numb, his limbs were numb, and his lungs were sluggish, as he momentarily felt the inability to draw breath, and drowned in an excess of air. . . .
It was the moment he had died. He never knew the last spasm of his lungs, the final convulsion of his heart, for death had drawn a vacuum upon him, softly blanketed his mind, and took him, then released, so that he came back and he was already beyond mortal reach, but locked in the prison of his newly dead body.
When it happened, Claere had known it instinctively. She asked him a question, told him to get back indoors and rest, to warm himself—without actually saying it, she told him to live.
But it was too late. And he told her he would never leave her again.
For the first few moments, he was triumphant, gloating at his own self-inflicted just punishment, and his guilt at having killed her was only momentarily lessened—or rather, brought into balance, for nothing could ameliorate it, not ever.
Then the rest of the afternoon and the encroaching evening he spent next to her, while the wind died also, while the snow fell, while she spoke to him in an endless stream of sorrow. He saw anguish in her dead eyes, peeking through the still, glassy pupils and irises, deep inside where her soul was beating against the flesh prison. There were many gentle words of regret, and if she had had any tears left in her, she would have wept for him. Instead, she could only look. And her gaze wounded him with its impossible love and regret.
It was then he realized far too late that by dying, he had hurt her yet again, caused her yet another wound, this one intangible, and marked only by things under the surface.
Thus, Claere Liguon not only had to stand a whole day and night with torches upheld, while she cemented the magic barrier of safety around Letheburg, but she also had to stand in new abysmal grief for him, and to see him thus, at her side.
“What have you done, my love . . .” she had said at one point as the night deepened and the faint circular shadow of the moon sailed though the thick overcast. “Oh, what have you done!”
“I have merely let go,” he said, while snowflakes crystallized on his brow and eyelashes and his nose and chin, dusted his lips, marking every protrusion and hollow of his lean handsome face, and he had become a creature of snowfall . . . just as she was. “I let go of what mockery of a life I had left, and to which I had no moral right, in having taken yours.”
“But I have told you many times over, that I’ve long since forgiven you!”
“That may be, unearthly angel. . . . But I have not forgiven myself.”
“Oh, Vlau, you are a fool!”
Thus they were submerged in an interplay of their mutual love and bitterness, for many long hours of darkness, and somehow Claere managed to keep her mind on the task at hand and to forge the boundary of sorcery to protect the city.
At the first glimmerings of dawn, the torches had sputtered and gone out. And Claere set them down on the floor of the snow-covered parapet walkway. With the gutting of the torchlight, the sorcery was complete. Vlau hungrily watched her every movement, even then. . . .
There had been few soldiers up on the battlements in that early hour, for the day before they were told to go home and rest, at least for the moment of blessed relief that the barrier granted the city. However, some had been posted just in case, and they passed Vlau and Claere’s spot on the bulwark occasionally, patrolling the walls, the blades of their edged weapons held at ready and pikes glinting faintly, and they all inclined their heads deeply in greeting to the Infanta. As the dawn grew brighter, and Claere kindly acknowledged yet another soldier or two making the rounds, there was Grial.
Grial had appeared out of nowhere, it seemed, for one moment there was no one in the spot, and the next, there she was. It was almost uncanny, for neither Vlau nor Claere had seen her approach.
“A very nice job, Your Imperial Highness!” Grial peeked at the spot a couple of steps away where a few enemy dead milled, striking themselves relentlessly against the invisible barrier. She then rubbed her mittened hands together, stomping her feet in the newly fallen fresh powder, and saying “Br-r-r!”
Claere’s permanently grieving expression attained a degree of relief at the sight of the familiar eccentric woman. “Grial! I did it, Grial. . . .”
“You certainly have, my dear! Very well done! Indeed, the best job of its kind that I’ve seen in a long time—and when I say ‘a long time,’ you genuinely have no idea how long I really mean—”
“Is there anything else that must be done to kee
p the city safe?”
“Well, you’ve done all you could for the moment. As for later—it never hurts to pray. . . .”
Grial glanced from Claere to Vlau, with an astute gaze of her very dark eyes. As her gaze rested for a moment upon Vlau, it appeared particularly somber.
“Ah, young man . . .” Grial said to him, shaking her head from side to side. And then she placed a mittened hand on his shoulder, seemingly in order to brush off a bit of snow, even though the hand lingered a bit in compassion. “I see it has been a very cold night. And I am so very sorry it has been thus . . . for you.”
But whether or not there was indeed a strange glint in her eyes—a moment of profound, unearthly wisdom—Vlau could not be certain.
“Well, my dears,” Grial said then. “You have certainly earned a rest. No need for you to stay up here for the time being, unless you absolutely want to. I would suggest you go someplace warm—not necessarily warm for fingers and toes but warm enough to lighten spirits!”
“Ah, Grial,” Claere said. “I would prefer not to go back inside the gilded prison of his Majesty’s Winter Palace. And as for Vlau—”
“I will go or stay as you wish . . . and wherever it may be,” Vlau uttered slowly, belatedly recalling to draw in a breath of air in order to speak—for he was still learning the ways of the dead.
“Then, might as well stay up here, Your Imperial Highness, and this fine young gentleman will keep you company. Mark my words, this is the place to be, for excitement! As for me, off I go for a little while, but I promise you, I will return in an hour or two!” And with those words, Grial hastily waved at them, patted down her hat, and then started to make her way along the deep new snow of the parapets.
Vlau looked at Claere, and the next time he glanced at Grial’s retreating back, she was already gone.
That had been hours ago. . . .
And now, Vlau and Claere stood witness to inexplicable events below the outer walls, and the reaction to them up here on the city battlements.
“Grial!” King Roland Osenni exclaimed, having just seen Duke Hoarfrost consumed by a lighting strike and a blinding flash of white. “What kind of foul sorcery or magics are these? You’re a witch, so you must have some dark notion—”
The wind started rising, and it source appeared to be the white figure on the ground below, outside the city walls—the entity who used to be Duke Hoarfrost, and now was something else. Gusts of angry freezing air stirred the fresh powder into rapid funnels, so that it swept up in flurries all around them, rising from the field of battle and obscuring the pomegranate color of the newly arrived army that stretched from horizon to horizon. Up on the city battlements the wind picked up also, and its scalding ice fingers were felt, as it agitated the powder that had fallen overnight into a churning chaos of winter.
Within seconds, there was almost no visibility, only swirling whiteness.
And none of it was coming down from the sky, but rising up from what already lay upon the ground.
Men huddled in their coats or hauberks and chain mail, capes were raised as many hunched over to keep the white stuff from their eyes. . . .
King Roland Osenni himself held on to his fur-lined hat and squinted, raising up his fur collar.
The only ones seeming unaffected by this bizarre onslaught were Claere, Vlau, and . . . Grial.
“Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any,” said Grial, taking a step forward.
And as she moved, she flowed, she transformed.
Instead of a funny-looking middle-aged woman in a frumpy plain coat and winter hat with floppy scarf flaps and old woolen mittens, an unearthly silver-dark figure emerged, the whirling snow retreating from her in a circle of ten feet.
The woman who had been Grial wore an iridescent garment, ancient, Grecian, noble. The chiton flowed like liquid moonlight around her statuesque form, and her arms were bare, their skin both dark and light at the same time as only night can be when the moon passes through clouds and reveals various depths of shadow and glimmer. Sandals of silver were on her feet, and bands of cool nameless metal circled her wrists, arms, and throat. Her hair—no longer a kinky, frizzled mess—was now a smoothly flowing river of silk gathered upward in a braided crown, and it appeared that snakes lay twining around her brow and their eyes blinked like stars.
The whirling snow retreated from her, and the immortal one took another step forward, while the soldiers and the King gaped at her . . . and Vlau and Claere gazed at her with wonder.
“Grial?” said Claere softly.
“Yes, I am Grial, dear child. . . . But I am also someone else. You are not afraid?”
“No!” replied Claere, with intensity in her yes. “Not afraid of you, how can I be? Oh, Grial! I am—”
“No, indeed, it cannot be happening! Grial? Grial? Who or what are you?” the King exclaimed meanwhile, holding his hand up over his eyes to keep away the onslaught of raging snow. “Dear God, are you—immortal? Bah! I knew there was something unnatural, something wrong with you, I knew it—”
Grial who was Hecate smiled. She then raised her arms high overhead and threw her head back, and suddenly a blast of power came from her, shattering the air, and the wind and snow retreated into a strange calm, like the eye of the storm.
The weather raged beyond them, but at least on the battlements it was suddenly still and peaceful, with not a breeze blowing.
However, the King of Lethe was now suspended at least ten feet over the bulwark, hanging like a sack in mid-air, grasped by an invisible divine hand.
The King struggled and lost his fur-trimmed hat, followed by the powdered wig, revealing his dark hair graying at the temples. He grunted and exclaimed, and then went entirely still in paralyzed terror.
“You said you wanted a better view over the walls, Your Majesty,” said the dark Goddess with amusement, and then lowered her arms, and His Majesty came down, directly into the crowd of his guards, so that they caught him in a pile of arms and hands.
“What manner of insanity is going on!” the King cried, as the soldiers helped him back on his feet, and one of the guards went chasing after his ignobly fallen wig and hat.
And in the next instant an impossible gale wind struck at them once more from outside the city walls. It was so loud now that it was almost impossible to hear over the screeching wind, and everything went flying—all small unattached objects, barrels of black powder rolled and tumbled, supply carts were being upturned, and even the men in heavy armor felt themselves nearly airborne.
“Whoever you are, Goddess—Hecate, as you say—help us now!”
Hecate, pallid and dark at the same time, was still and composed within the eye of the storm. At the edges of the periphery, the air was thick with funnels of white, while the two closest persons to her, the Infanta and the marquis, were also within a sphere of calm.
“I can help you hold this city, but it may not be for long,” Hecate said in a voice that was heard above the storm. “There is so much more than Letheburg at stake, mortal King. So much more than your Realm and their Domain. This is a war of the gods.”
“Who is our enemy? Who is down there? Who is she, this Sovereign? And what has become of him, the dead madman Duke who was besieging us—” King Roland Osenni struggled to stand while the soldiers around him were all being buffeted with the impossible pressure of the maddened air.
Hecate continued looking beyond the outer walls, and did not reply immediately.
“I beg your mercy, Hecate! In particular I beg forgiveness for any offenses I might have made, or if I questioned your wisdom—” The King was speaking hurriedly. “Please! Have mercy!”
“So many questions, even now, Your Majesty. . . .” Hecate turned her immortal visage at him, and the King recognized the same very dark eyes that he was used to seeing in Grial the witch woman. . . . And for the first time he understood their occult nature, and their otherworldly pitch-black color, its weight like an anvil, and knew exactly why the sight of her alwa
ys made him shudder—the eyes beckoned with their utter unknown, the transition and the ephemera, the boundary and the doorway.
“The one whom you know as the Sovereign is the Goddess of the Underworld, of Life and Death, and Resurrection. She is Persephone, and her coming has been precipitated by grief and madness. She is now the greatest misfortune your mortal world can ever know.”
“What does she want here?” Claere asked in that moment.
“She wants to enter and take what she thinks is hers—which in fact is something of mine. I will not allow it,” Hecate said. “You, my Claere, have warded the city. And without my will, no other entrance or exit will be made. However, I am not able to contain all of the onslaught.”
Hecate pointed at the storm around them. “See this, mortals? While men and gods may not enter past the boundary, other more insidious things can. Persephone knows she may not pass, and thus she has made someone who can. Behold, the Goddess of the Underworld has deified winter itself.”
“Is it he, the Blue Duke?” Vlau Fiomarre asked.
“Yes, Hoarfrost, your enemy so aptly named, is no longer a dead man, but an elemental creature of Eternity—a new god and something more. For nothing can stop winter, no god, no magical ward can stand against it. Only spring can come and bring the thaw. . . . And spring is never again to be, for she, Persephone, is spring . . . and she is now something else.”
The gale-force wind raged, and soldiers held on to the stones of the bulwark and parapets for dear life.
“What of that golden woman?” the King cried through the wind. “Is she a goddess too? Can she do nothing with her warm light?”
“Alas! Demeter is her mother. And she is also the Mother of Bright Harvest and the queen of summer and autumn. . . . Even now she stands below, trying to convince her daughter to give up this madness, but she loves Persephone too much, and can never use force against her. Nor can Demeter summon summer or her favorite rich autumnal season to confront the winter, for it stands out of order, and may not come before spring.”