Mercedes Lackey - Snow Queen

By now, the poor deer were as rigid as statues. The temperature in the clearing was dropping more with every moment that passed, and a feeling of terrible menace increased proportionally. They watched in growing fear as the pale, glowing thing slowly drifted in their direction. She couldn't make out anything of the creature except for the dim, blue-white glow of it as it advanced through the trees.

Although “advanced” was a misnomer. It did not approach them directly. It was spiraling in toward them, slowly, a tactic that only made the tension mount as it sidled through the trunks. Aleksia's body was rigid with the tension, and she shivered uncontrollably. And in the back of her mind, a little voice kept asking, in an increasingly hysterical tone, why she had ever considered facing this menace herself. What did I let myself in for? And, of course, the only answer was that she had taken herself out of the protected realm of the Godmother and placed herself right alongside of the true players in the situation. The pale form paused for a moment. Aleksia got the feeling that it was surveying them coolly. Then, suddenly, it disappeared. Or rather, the glow of it vanished among the trees. Aleksia held her breath. The others went very stiff, all of them listening as hard as ever they could. In the little clearing the silence was so profound that it weighed like lead on all of them.

The only sound was that of their breathing. There was not even the sound of an ice fragment falling from one of the branches around them. It grew darker still, and the silence took on a menacing life of its own.

The darkness pressed in on them, and the cold deepened. There was no moon, and the only thing that Aleksia could make out, peering as hard as she could into the darkness, was the vague pale shapes of the nearest birch trunks. Something had to be done. They could not bear this for much longer.

Ilmari swore under his breath.

Aleksia tried to speak; nothing came out. She swallowed, licked her lips and tried again. There was something she could do, now this moment, if only she could manage to offer it. Her stomach was knotted into an icy ball; she felt her hand shaking; and it was all she could do to keep her teeth from chattering. This was so different from being on the other side of the mirror, watching the conflict about to take place, poised to interfere if she needed to —

Oh, this was horribly unlike that.

“Should I make a light?” she whispered.

“Yes!” Ilmari barked, sounding relieved and frantic at the same time. Aleksia shivered, wondering what was going on in his mind. “Anything but this damned darkness! This is how it happened the last time — ”

Before he could finish the sentence, Aleksia had gathered personal power, called up the light spell in her mind, and with a little flinging motion, tossed an invisible bit of magical energy straight up. “Stay there,” she whispered to it. Then she gave the spell a little twist to activate it. The “ball” of power became a ball of light over their heads.

The clearing was revealed with pitiless clarity. Kaari screamed. Annukka and Aleksia yipped and started back. The two men swore.

The Icehart stood looming above them, not ten feet away.

It could have been a sculpture made of the clearest ice, beautifully carved, exquisitely detailed, perfect down to the last hair, of a roe deer in the prime of life. Only this deer was twice the size of the largest reindeer that Aleksia had ever seen; it had a rack of antlers whose points glittered wickedly in the blue Mage-light, and she had no doubt that each point was sharper than a spear. It regarded them from clouded white eyes, the only part of it that was not utterly transparent. It exuded cold in waves, and as they stared at it, it finally moved. It opened its mouth and began to take a deep breath, its sides expanding as what passed for lungs filled. She could hear the hiss of its breath as it inhaled. She was terrified and puzzled all at the same time. What was this thing doing?

Ilmari cursed frantically. “Brother!” he shouted. And as if that had been a signal,

Aleksia found herself seized around the waist by a pair of the strongest arms she had ever felt. Ilmari lunged for the right, taking her with him. Lemminkal was doing the same with Annukka to the left, and Urho grabbed Kaari's collar in his teeth and heaved her after the other Sammi woman before following Ilmari to the right. The Icehart continued to inhale, oblivious of them.

Then the thing exhaled, as if letting go of an enormous sigh.

They got out of the way just as the Icehart let out its breath, and where its breath passed, everything was instantly coated in ice. Despite her terror, Aleksia found herself gawking. This was the strangest magic she had ever seen. She could sense the power around them, and everything she knew told her it should feel evil and dark — and all it felt was alien. It was not even hostile. It was as if even emotion was chilled and numbed by the terrible cold. Everything that had thawed out was frozen again, and as Aleksia tried to get up, she felt her cloak tugging at her throat and shoulders. She grabbed a handful of fur and fabric and yanked hard. A shower of ice crystals followed as she pulled a corner of her cloak loose from the ground where it had been frozen into place.

Just one touch of that breath and she would be as frozen as the brothers had been. And if Annukka was frozen, too —

She whimpered a little in her throat.

The men, however, were not waiting about for the Icehart to deliver another deadly breath. Moving as one, as if they had done this a thousand times, they attacked it, one to either side, while Urho roared and leveled a blow with a massive paw to its muzzle. The Icehart did not seem to move, yet somehow it evaded the Bear's smashing blow, and fended off both the men with its antlers. One moment it was standing there; the next, it had ducked under Urho's paw, then with a flick of its antlers, knocked both swords to the side.

Then it reared, and one of its forehooves came crashing on Urho's skull. The Bear went down as if it had been felled by a tree trunk, to lie semiconscious and groaning on the ground. Aleksia gasped and started to run to the Bear's side; Annuka grabbed her by the elbow in a crushing grip and prevented her from doing so. Just as well, as the Icehart reared and spun again, and had she been beside the Bear, she would surely have been felled by those deadly hooves.

The Icehart turned its attention to Ilmari. Moving its head in tiny circles, threatening him with its antlers, it lunged at him again and again. He darted out of the way, only to find that the Icehart had managed to drive him together with his brother, so that it only had to face one front, not two. The Icehart had them right where it wanted them. Now it could hunt them around the clearing until it could ready one of those terrible breaths to freeze them both where they stood.

Aleksia sought through her memory for any sort of spell that would help in this situation, and cursed under her breath as she realized how woefully inadequate she was at combat. Fireballs? No, she had only seen those, never made them herself. Levin bolts? The same. A magical weapon, sword, lance, shield? No, no and no — they all took too long to create. Lightning? Nothing to call it down from.

Light! she thought, finally, and with a cantrip of three words, caused another ball of Mage-light energy to appear in front of the Icehart's nose. Only this time, instead of letting it build to a steady glow, she made it explode in a wash of brilliance.

The Icehart started back, but Ilmari and Lemminkal also stumbled backward with profane exclamations of pain. “Curse it, you fool woman!” Lemminkal spat. “I can't see!”

Hastily she summoned a spell for clearing the perceptions and graced both of them with it — and just in time. The Icehart shook off the effects of the light and lunged for them, taking care to come at them obliquely so that they could not separate again. They scrambled out of the way, as Aleksia pummeled her brain for something else that might work.