AC:DM CD Lore/Late Dereth Texts/The Frost King

The Frost King

For Claire Elizabeth Roland
This story occurs in Frostfell of P.Y. 10

The snow piled upon the windowsills and doorsteps of Holtburg. Only the cobblestone roads, salted by the shopkeeps, remained patchily clear. Growing mounds of it glittered like Milantan emeralds in the evergreen light of enchanted Solstice candles. Below, the silver ribbon of the Prosper wound through the frozen valley, and above, the clouds gently shook the dust of heaven down.

And I? I was on my tenth mead, and fading into a comfortable drowse before the fire in the Helm and Shield.

It sounded nice enough when the evening began – get together with a few friends, sing the traditional Solstice rounds, and reminisce on old times in the highlands. Holtburg had a tolerable-large population from the Luparvium Mountains. But as the drinks disappeared, the old arguments broke out. Even here, the debate over Rellia Taran – whether she was abducted by the Kiraburn chieftain Wyrrkrake, or went willingly – is enough to bring the clans to blows. Then Daenwulf drunkenly brought up the rumor that the Taran had collaborated with Viamont….

Old arguments still start the same old fights, even under different stars. Suffice it to say I was sitting on the only unbroken chair in the place.

“Right. You there.” A stern female voice. That of Wilomine, the proprietor. A young and pretty woman, but opening my eyes to properly appreciate her seemed like far too much work at the moment.

“Fugoff, m'sleepin',” I muttered, snuggling my chin further down into the collar of my Mattekar hide coat. There's nothing like the fur of a smelly mountain beast to keep the chill out.

A derisive snort, and I found myself pitched forward, chin cracking hard on the floor. “Meerthus!” I tried to rub my jaw, but had reached that state of drunkenness where everything is a little bit numb, and my fingers had trouble finding it. I shook my head to throw the grit and melted ice of the floor out of my beard. I got to my hands and knees, and scaled the uneven stonework of the hearth to reach my feet.

“Yeh great drunken git. Drag yer damned bones out of my tavern!” Wilomine held the back of my chair in her left hand. The other hand brandished a mace in a way that suggested she only sought an excuse to use it. Her grey-blue eyes were sunken and bloodshot from the hour and the pipe smoke hazing the rafters. The long, ash-blond braid she kept her hair knotted in was slowly coming undone, trailing little streamers and arcs across the shoulder of her padded leather jerkin.

Normally, I find it hard to resist the charm of a beautiful young lowland woman cursing and threatening to bash my skull. In this case, I thought it likely that the mead would dampen my already meager charm.

“Right, right,” I said, stumbling vaguely towards the door. “Just give me a minute to- oof!”

A slam, the shunt of a thrown bolt, and I found myself on my face in the snow. My rump hurt.

“Damnation,” I muttered, picking myself off the ground again. I promised myself I'd come back and woo the charming Wilomine when drunken highlanders hadn't just ransacked her pub.

Time to go home, if the low-slung orb of the red moon had anything to say about it. I lurched forward two steps, and it took me all of that long to realize that my meads wanted out. I chuffed through the thickening drifts into the alley between the Helm and Shield and Fispur's Foodstuffs, turned the face the wall of the pub where the snow was yellow, and unlaced my breeches. The world tilted a little, and I laid a hand on the tavern's wall, leaning to steady myself. I hoped it didn't take too long. I was a-feared of the cold harming something I hoped to introduce the barkeep to someday.

I thought I was making an unusual amount of noise. I peered down to make sure there was no blood – I had been punched a few times in the stomach, after all. Nothing. As things trickled to a halt, I noticed there were still some snuffling noises coming from behind the corner of the grocer's.

A Drudge. Had to be. Three of them, sounded like, or I was a cow-herder's son. They must have come into town to find shelter from the snows.

I hurriedly laced my breeches up again, muttering curses against the uncertain ancestry of the war party I would soon face. “Think to come into our homes when it's cold, eh?” I growled, struggling with my breeches.

Damn it! Knot in the laces. My mead-thickened fingers fumbled with the rawhide. Looking up at where the noises were coming from, I called, “Think to disturb Wilomine, aye?”

I hoped this Drudge army was patient. I could just picture them, dozens of the mewing things, gathering on the outskirts of Holtburg. I'd bet the crest of the hill was covered with a hundred of them already, and Brendan the Advocate was wandering dizzily around the West Outpost Lifestone. Ah, there….

“Come out!” I roared, hands scrabbling for the pommel of my sword. I stormed down the alley, my broadsword wiggling in the air before me, kicking up billows of loose snow that skirled away on the wind. “I'll give yeh whafer- damnation!”

I turned the corner to see a small girl, perhaps of eight summers, curled up against the wall of the grocery.

“Shut yer bunghole, yeh damned drunk!” Wilomine's voice pounded through the wall behind me. “I'll come out there and brain yeh!”

Ah, me. The old ways are lost. Here all the women are highland women. I remember the days when the clans would go a-raiding, swooping down on some poor lowland village to steal the cattle and ravish the milkmaids. Or vice-versa. We loved our mead then too, I do confess. And I do miss the occasional smell of Viamont rosewater on the wenches…

“Who are you, then?” I asked the girl. She looked up at me with swollen, frightened eyes, and began to puff with sobs. Her river-blue eyes scrunched up, and she buried her face in the threadbare knees of her frock, cowering away from me.

Ach, too gruff. Idiot.

“Sorry. Ah…. Sorry.” I fumbled my sword back into its sheath, missing twice, and dropped to my knees beside her. “I'm not gonna hurt ye lass, I'm just dru- tired. What's your name?”

She peeked around her elbow at me. “Calanna,” she said.

Right, good. Got her name. That's good. That's progress, so it is. Her dirt-smudged cheeks slid out from behind her knees and she sniffled loudly, exhaling a ragged trail of cloud.

She wants me to say something. Ah, Solvus Mother, what do you say to a frightened child? Pretend she's Wilomine, you daft idiot. “That's a pretty name,” I ventured, watching for tears like a wary mouse watches for a cat's opening eye. “Like the lowland flower?”

“Uh-huh.”

Well, that went well.

“You don' talk much, eh?”

She giggled through chattering teeth, and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees. Wonderful, success. Except this girl was in a light cotton frock, in the first snowfall known to Dereth. I noticed small flowers woven into her chestnut ringlets; young lavender-and-white calanna blossoms, shriveling in the cold.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her, swaying slightly. “Where are your parents?”

“I don't know. I was going to fetch wood for the fire….” Fresh tears rolled down her flushed-apple cheeks, and the brave little face collapsed in on itself. “It was so pretty….” she sobbed.

Ah. The picture flashed into my mind; the girl tarrying alone in the woods, chasing squirrels or picking berries, when a gossamer violet swirl blossoms before her. Another portal orphan arrives in Dereth. Thank you, Lord Asheron. Surely, your wisdom and beneficence know no bounds.

“Don't cry, lass,” I muttered, shrugging out of my coat. “Here.” I delicately dropped the gray mattekar fur around her little shoulders, and white fingers flickered out to pull it tight and closed around her.

“This smells bad,” her watery voice said, from somewhere in its bulk.

I grinned despite myself. “I guess ye're not a farmgirl then, eh?”

“No, sir. Father….” she drew a breath, forestalling another flood of tears. “Father is a woodsman.”

“Ah, well ye're in the right town then, lass. Holtburg is a forester's town – built to work the Tiofor Wood yonder.” I waved a mead-floppy hand towards the northwest.

“I've never…heard of Holtburg,” she said, eyes glistening.

“Aye, well…. Come along. I'll get yeh out of these snows.” I started to get up, wavered off-balance, and steadied. I reached down to give her a hand up. She took it, but didn't let go once on her feet. Holding her hand, I guided her up the hill to the advocate spire.

Calanna made a small noise of surprise as we cleared the scribe's. I glanced down, saw her saucer eyes, and looked up at the spire again. “It's pretty,” she said. The high spikes of the roof illuminated the snow on the ground and the tree branches with warm orange light.

“Aye. I guess it is, at that.”

We trudged up to the door, kicked the snow off our boots, and went inside.

“Oh!” she said, blinking around the room. “It's warm in here.”

Brendan, sitting in the central column, looked up from a book. “Can I help you two?”

“She just arrived here, Brendan.” Lowering my voice and leaning across the counter, I added, “Alone.” A pained look crossed his face, and he swung out of his chair and his little room. I could see his aegis on the bookshelf in the little room, endlessly orbited by a fairy-swirl of luminous sea-green dustballs.

“It's always warm in a spire,” he said, with false cheer. “Or cool when it's warm outside. Really, it stays the same all the time within the walls. One of the magics of the Empyrean, we expect.” He was appraising her with the eye of a practiced healer. “What's your name?”

“Calanna,” she said, looking away with sudden modesty. Well, Brendan was rather a handsome man, or so the ladies told me. “Who are the Empeerin?”

He leaned close to me and said, “She looks fine. You got her out of the cold quick – good man.” I decided not to mention that I'd only chanced upon her while painting the snow. “Has she used the Stone?” I shrugged. “The Em-pie-ree-an,” he told her, carefully. “The people who used to live here. They made the spire.”

“They made it warm?”

“Yes.”

“And bright?”

“You mean the spire lights? Yes, indeed.”

“They must be nice,” she said, with all the wisdom of a child.

I sighed, thinking of how she had come to be here, and Brendan spared me a glare. Right. I looked at my boots. There'd be plenty of time to tell her of the one Empyrean we had ever met.

“Calanna, I'm going to go get a friend of mine, another Advocate. Her name's Zell. She'll have a bed made up for you, so you can sleep tonight. Is that all right?”

“I want to go home,” Calanna said, plaintively.

Brendan smiled, but his eyes were pained. He too had arrived as a child alone, when the Olthoi still ruled. He still forswore the use of magic, and walked rather than use a portal. “For tonight, at least. We'll see about getting you home tomorrow, aye?”

“All right.”

Brendan stood and turned to me. “Stay here with her. I'm going to roust Zellie. Maybe she'll be able to heat some food up for her too.”

“Ah, Brendan…what should I do with her?”

“Do with her?” he asked, looking at me as if I had three heads. “Tell her a story, yeh dumb highland brute! And for the love of the Mothers, chew a mint leaf. You smell like an alehouse.” He cinched his robe tight and stepped out into the storm.

I looked down at the girl. She looked up at me.

“So. Erh….” I scratched my head. “Have you heard the one about the Aluvian enchantress and the Gharu'n swordsman's war stallion?”

“No.”

I paused. The blossoms in her hair had perked up again in the warmth of the spire, releasing a lightest breath of mountain-vale scent. “Well, good!” I said, reluctantly. “Yeh shouldn't have, at your age. You know the story of the Frost King, aye?”

“Yes.”

“Want to hear it again? It's good weather for it.”

“Yes.”

“Right. Have a seat on the stairs, there, lass. Let me see if I can remember the way my mother told me….”

* * *

In the far, far north, where the ground is forever besnowed and the sea-ice lays so thick that men may build houses upon it, there lies a great palace of silver-blue ice. It has no name that men speak, though some say that long ago it held as many titles as there are dreams. Its walls are the height of mountains, and the width of the great, slow Canfeld, measured one bank to another.

Yet for all their size, you can see clear through them. The slightest luminance of sun or moon is caught within their facets, and sets them all alight. It is said the walls can be seen for a hundred leagues, sparkling on the horizon. By day they shimmer warm gold; at twilight they blaze like the crimson stars the Gharu'n revere; by moonlight, they burn with the bone-pale fire of snow falling on pines.

Lofty and proud is this palace of Borimel, King of Frost and Keeper of the North Wind. His task is to loose snow upon the world. Long ages has he kept his appointed task, and diligently measured out the frosts and squalls each year, lest a chain of heavy weather crush the trees of the forest and the cities of men. Borimel was in the world before us, and given his task by our Blessed Mothers themselves: the Three-as-One who observe us from the shadows of every dream (where we are more ourselves than in waking hours), and sing wisdom in the secret heart of every woman.

Few have reached his marvelous walls, for they sit upon the backs of the great Garannic Mountains. High they are, beyond any other peaks of Ispar. Lendramm, a seer of Celdon, claimed that they actually meet the sky, and from Garannic, one may walk out among the stars. Perhaps Borimel wanders thus. Often enough a bright streak of light jets across the heavens. “Borimel is throwing snowballs at the moon again,” the elders say.

The Frost King is a giant man, the size of a great northern bear. His eyes are the vein-blue of frozen lakes, and his hair white as hoarfrost. As he performs his work he wears a great, stormcloud-grey cloak. The key to the Gates of the North Wind hangs from his neck, held by a heavy chain of cold iron. On the days when his duty calls, he slings the cloak around his broad shoulders, and walks through the silver gates set in his walls. He walks – none know how far – to the Gates of the North Wind.

Some say Borimel lives alone-

* * *

“Isn't the Frost King married to the Winter Queen?” Calanna interrupted.

“No, the Winter Queen was-” I just barely stopped myself from saying “a real person.” “...Alfrega,, a queen of Aluvia. She was called the Winter Queen because of the paleness of her skin, and because of her cruelty.”

She blinked, accepting this without question.

“Right. Where was I…?”

* * *

Some say Borimel lives alone. Others say a legion of frost creatures serve him faithfully, guarding his stupendous walls from intrusion and keeping the Gates of the North Wind sealed during the summer months.

On the darkest nights of the first winter of the world, Borimel, keen-eyed beyond measure, looked out from his towers. He looked beyond the flashing walls of his lonely citadel, and his eye rested upon the small hovels of men in the south. He saw then that they were cold and frightened. The nights were terrible long, and growing longer, and all their hopes faded. Some whispered the sun was being swallowed by a great beast; others that our Blessed Mothers had turned their backs.

But Borimel, being a creature more of the land than we, knew the truth. The long nights and bitter cold were merely the dreamtime of the world. As we must rest from time to time, so must the earth. It has long been known that the fruit grown in the same field year after year loses its flavor.

The Frost King saw the fear of the people, and, being a kindly man, resolved to do what he could to cheer them. He could not keep the tempests from being loosed – for that was his duty to our Mothers. He searched his palace high and low, seeking some boon he could give to men. But he is a creature of simple tastes; he has little but his bed, chair, and table.

At last, at his wits' end, he sat as his chair, and put his feet upon his table, and he watched the colors of sunset play through his walls of ice. Then he realized what to do.

Calling forth the powers entrusted to him by our Mothers, he changed the walls of his palace, bending and shifting them, until their light was directed towards the sky. Sheets of fire appeared in the north, and men cowered in fear. But when no evil came of the lights, they stood again, and looked in wonder; for it was as if beautiful ribbons had been loosed to dance across the stars, and the nights did not seem as dark as they had.

This, then, is the truth of the sky-banners; The Frost King keeps his duty, and is stern and unswerving. The storms of winter will come as they must, and the earth shall dream of spring. But Borimel thinks of us always in his palace of ice, and bends the light of the sun and moon so we may be warmed in heart.

* * *

“Is he real?” Calanna whispered, eyes shining in the candlelight. “Does the King exist? Is there a magic castle in the north?”

I looked into her wide eyes, clear water splashed with the foam from a falls. No lying to this one. “Come along,” I said, and stepped up onto the stairs that wrapped around the central column of the spire. I reached down and offered her my hand. Little pink fingers tried to wrap themselves around my callused hands. I lead her upwards.

The instant we passed the threshold of the roof entrance, the chill descended. It's quite odd having your face and shoulders swirled in snow, but your feet pleasantly warm. The magics found here are strange and subtle. Buildings maintain a constant temperature despite the weather. Paper made of crushed flower petals remains intact and sweet-smelling after thousands of years. Columns whisper in dead languages to stones that wait patiently for untold millenia. Massive, seamless towers hum with power and throw light upon the waves below.

And, looming above our heads, tall spikes reached to the sky, throwing tawny light down from no source at all to highlight the swirling snow.

“Here, Calanna.” I picked her up, grunting a little at the weight. She wasn't as Silveran as she looked. I held her away from my chest. “Look up.” She did, and gasped.

I looked up too. The snow. Spiraling and floating, falling lazily down around us like falling stars in the spire-light. I spun slowly around as we looked up. So many motes of white. Luminous constellations came at us in endless numbers and variety, blew past, and more followed. Ribbons of auroral light rippled and blazed behind them.

“I'm dizzy,” she said breathlessly, swaying and stretching out her arms like a young sparrow's wings. “It feels like flying.”

“This world has its own magic,” I whispered into her hair. “It doesn't abide at any one compass point. It's in the ground, and in the air. Every breath you take is charged with it. It wraps itself around you when you sleep. It becomes you. Here, we're all magic.

“This is the Frost King's realm.”