Chill

Chapter 19

Before the chill Upper Maeven was a thriving community of sheep farmers, miners and woodsmen. Like the rest of Troy they expected their settlements to slowly but surely expand and become enriched by the natural fecundity of this carefully seeded colony world. The future was bright and the world at peace with itself and its neighbours among the Mineral Stars and beyond. As the cold took hold all that changed. The economy of the settlements rapidly diminished to nothing and people either left or relied on handouts or their own resources.

Inevitably under such duress some activities were less than legal, and theft became a problem in the early days of the change, but even this ended with the continued wintry freeze. Those that determined to stay the course were made of sterner stuff. They took to the harsh climate with a nobility of purpose which rose above petty things, their pioneer blood coming to the fore as they explored the new conditions, hunted and trapped and survived.

Now as Maena gazed down upon the snowy slopes of Upper Maeven from the safety of her balcony she could see even these hardy souls had met their match. A well-armed, determined power had invaded their world who brooked no resistance to their orders. It was said armed agents of the Crystal Lumos showed no mercy as they broke into the cottages of the few remaining families and forcibly took them away.

Rumours were rife among the higher slopes as to what was really happening and Maena got wind of the organised resistance too. The Lumos were quick to recognise the threat and skirted around the main settlement in small but effective numbers to challenge the foolhardy few who fled to the mountains. Within hours it was all over. The Pamistoe brothers put up a fight and Dorstal was true to his word as he used his deadly phase shifted rifle against the agents. They would not take him alive, he had said, and he was gunned down in the Lammer Field on the very boundary of a meadow he once owned, now a frozen wasteland. His brother and nephew surrendered soon after. The Poellans were wounded and captured and dragged back to a warehouse prison set up among the remains of Proctor Bridge, so that a reminder of their past deeds was constantly before their eyes. They were however too drunk to appreciate the irony, having emptied several kegs of Lick's synthetic Vivid before taking to the hills.

The professor maintained a grim silence during all of this, locking doors and shutting out erstwhile friends as they begged for shelter. Maena tried to challenge him on the matter.

"You brought them here," she accused the elderly man, tears in her eyes. "You asked them to do this, to shut Maeven down. Why? What's so important up there in the mountains that a whole community has to be sacrificed for it?"

"I did not wish this to happen Maena," the professor responded, trying to assuage her anger. "Matters were taken out of my hands. If I could have avoided this I would."

"Is it to do with my mother?" Maena asked with a gulp. Her grandfather remained silent, his lips working with uncertainty amid the straggly beard that she never remembered as being so grey. With a sigh he finally responded.

"When this is over, you will understand the sacrifices that had to be made," he said with painful precision. This was his only consolatory words to the frightened girl and not long after she was forced to listen to the shrieks of Forsa Bandilor who was dragged away from their front door where she had been hammering in vain to be saved from the agents while they ransacked her rich family's home a few yards farther down the slope.

Maena closed her eyes and ears to all this, powerless to help, wondering with dread if any others would lose their lives in the futile struggle against such overwhelming odds. Inevitably her thoughts turned to Tam.

What was happening to him, to all those she cared about at the Wayfarer Inn? She knew he was still at the inn for her affinity charmlet told her so. Would he try to resist, don his survival suit and escape among the high valleys where no Lumos agent dare to go? Would he leave without saying goodbye? Would she ever see him again?

Falma could offer no reassuring news on events higher up the hillside so Maena decided to take matters into her own hands. She could not simply remain hidden from the chaos any longer and let the Crystal Lumos take over the Wilds of Maeven, the High Peaks and all of Troy besides. She knew a secret way out of the Madrullian mansion and took to the roof tops fully geared up for survival. Her skimmer boots kept her safe on the various precarious perches she took up, determined in the crisis to imitate the adventurous boy she loved so much, travelling between their respective homes without touching ground. Desperation overcame uncertainty and she would not be thwarted. Her new vantage point as she paused on a sloping roof ridge to look back the way she had come allowed her to see the strategy of the Lumos hordes. It appeared they were working their way up the slope from Lower Maeven more slowly through the inhabited parts of the settlement, thus thankfully the inn had not yet been reached.

Maena safely landed in the back yard of the inn between buildings and store sheds and threw snowballs at Tam's bedroom window, hoping he had hidden himself there on hearing the commotion. Her endeavours were rewarded as the familiar bronze-haired figure appeared at the opening and looked down upon the unexpected intruder. Maena waved frantically at him, not wanting to shout and arouse others to her presence. She signalled by graphic hand gestures a meeting place among the frosty heights above and he nodded in silent understanding.

Bypassing the treacherous escarpment, doubly so as dark figures could be seen against the glowing whiteness of compacted snow on its flanks, Maena hid herself among the branch-framed hollows of the Plighting Oak, awaiting Tam's appearance. She hoped all those gestures of kissing and hugging she played out in the yard had conveyed her message clearly enough. She did not have to wait long to find out as the familiar swishing sound of someone ploughing through the drifts could soon be heard above the moaning winds that continually cascaded down from the Peaks.

"Is everyone safe?" was the first words she said to the boy as he embraced her, acknowledging the emotional intensity of this moment.

"Fallow wanted to take off, hide among the mountains, but Sumira would not let him," he said, mentioning the most rebellious member of their diminished household. "Dad says he had been forewarned what was about to happen, by your grandfather possibly, and has packed essentials for the expected trip to Pashak. Apparently everyone is being contained there temporarily while the Lumos resolve the weather anomaly issue, so the information goes."

"Not too far then," Maena said, tears in her eyes. She had envisaged offworld scatterings or worse and the dreaded thought she would never see Tam again. For all her grandfather's hated involvement in the violent crackdown she felt his restraining hand on the Crystal Lumos instructions. However no amount of care could prevent inevitable clashes and their ensuing tragedies. "Dorstal Pamistoe is dead," she added almost in a whisper.

"I know."

They embraced again and looked at each other for some moments as if trying to read their innermost thoughts.

"I wish I hadn't brought those Petals back," Maena then said bitterly. "They've been a curse from the moment they entered the mansion. I tried to get hold of them, find out what they really were or even get rid of them but grandfather has hidden them somewhere. I wish I could just take them back to the shrine and leave them there forever. He's obsessed with them I'm sure of it and something about them drove him to call in the Lumos. My own grandfather!" and she wept for shame.

"Perhaps the Ice Maiden can help?" Tam suggested unexpectedly and Maena looked at him in wonder, blinking away cold tears.

"You think?" she sniffled, unable in her growing despair to challenge the seemingly absurd notion. They were both dressed in their survival gear for the possibility of abandoning Upper Maeven all together and hiding among the frozen wastes of the High Peaks had occurred to each of them as a last resort. It was an unspoken wish not to be parted that had driven the two youngsters to this desperate ploy, although neither dared voice it out loud, or even think it to themselves in a comprehensive way. At least this was so in Tam's confused mind.

"She has power, more perhaps than the Crystal Lumos," he said proudly. Clearly his romantic thoughts of the beautiful fragile creature lost on a mountainside had evolved into something more formidable. An ice warrior with her demonic guardians.

"I doubt it," Maena stated but was not averse to the idea of trying to communicate with the creature, if that were possible. If somehow Paterion had conjured this entity as a means to oppose the hated Lumos then there might be something in leaguing themselves with the mythical creature. "At least we can apologise for desecrating her love shrine," she said and smiled ruefully.

They were now familiar with the way to reach the forbidding heights that might conceal the mysterious being and quickly progressed by lesser traversed paths and up through the painfully difficult chute they had plunged down previously. The landscape was as eerily blue and flickering as before and each kept a watch out for the shadowy monsters that seemed to patrol the environs where presumably the Ice Maiden was wont to roam. They gave not a thought to fearsome arctic elk or other more mundane denizens of frozen wastelands but listened instead for telltale sounds and looked for glowing lights of some artificial manufacture. As they progressed across a ridge glittering with cobweb traceries of ice, rocky pillars towering above them like giant sentinels, Maena cried out suddenly and fell to her knees.

"It's her!" she gasped in agony as Tam went to her. Maena held her hands to her temples and grimaced in pain. "She is close," she whispered.

This announcement was as much a surprise to Maena when she said it as it was to Tam. He crouched in concern and looked around at the eerie blue shadows, expecting every moment to be confronted by the Ice Maiden, for he knew Maena could mean no other.

Thoughts coalesced in the girl's pained mind. The strange dreams and visions that had plagued her since she first started exploring the High Peaks in better times started to make sense. The presence of the strange faery creature on the mountainside somehow were directly responsible for her headaches, that they had a connection. Almost as if they knew each other. No, even closer than that.

Was this what her grandfather had been hiding from her all this while? The chill had somehow come about through her fault and he was trying by every means possible to right what had happened. Then a thought occurred to her. She remembered his impassioned words about saving the Ice Maiden. Perhaps all along he meant her, Maena Madrullian. He had been imploring the Crystal Lumos to save his granddaughter, not some ethereal ice creature trapped on a mountainside. The very same creature they were now trying to find, to ask for help to save them from the Lumos.

"I am the Ice Maiden," she whispered amid the howling winds and glittering snow flakes. Tam was beside her as she spoke but did not catch her words.

"I'm okay," she responded out loud, saying nothing more about her speculations, unable to put into words what she was feeling in a way that would make sense. Yet she knew it was significant for on confessing this to herself it was as if a great weight had been lifted from her mind. The pounding in her head which had accompanied her the whole time they had climbed the heights suddenly ceased and she felt at peace with everything around her. It was all her doing and therefore she must be the one who had the power to end it.

They lay a moment on the snowy flanks of the ice ridge for Tam felt it a good idea to rest a while, unaware of how Maena was feeling, only knowing something troubled her. As they waited he peered over the edge to look upon a blindingly white slope beyond that flowed down into shadowed depths he recognised as a side of the mountain that overhung Upper Maeven. A strange sight caught his eye.

"Look!" he gasped and grabbed Maena's arm. She rolled over and peered down into the misty darkness in the direction he indicated. A solitary figure was stumbling with difficulty up the increasing incline parallel to where they lay. The recognisable form of Paterion appeared amid the snow as he plunged his glowing staff repeatedly into the drifts to help him climb. Of course he had a survival suit too. Tam's eyes scanned upwards to where the man was headed and to his astonishment another figure could be discerned on a rise, standing as if awaiting him. He gulped in astonishment at what he saw.

It was a girl, dressed in a light summer frock that fluttered in the wind. Her arms and legs were bare, her unshod feet planted firmly in the snow and her silvery white hair floating around her as if a gentle breeze toyed with it. Yet all the while large flakes of snow tumbled down from above and swirled around, sometimes so thickly Tam lost sight of both figures.

The old man was suffering in his toils, struggling with the wind and cold in spite of the protection he wore. The girl simply stood there, oblivious to everything. Tam realised he had finally seen her. For real. She was everything Fallow had said of her. Beautiful, forbidding, oblivious of the terrible cold all around her. She was the Ice Maiden.

The slim girl gestured the man forward eagerly and they spoke together. Her movements were animated, frustration seeming to seize upon her motions as she conversed. On one occasion she stamped a bare foot into the snow, scattering crystals down the slope. Paterion seemed more subdued, nodding and bowing and shaking his head, making wide circles with his staff as if to indicate everything around them.

Tam was too far away to hear any words but when the man gestured by chance in his direction he thought he was seen for the girl turned too. Stark terror suddenly seized the boy and the familiar sounds of warning howls began to fill the air.

"Come on Maena, we need to get out of here again!" he cried, thrilled into activity by the nearness of danger and excited beyond measure by what he had seen. Without question the girl followed him, the thrill of her own thoughts being too much to resist his suggestions to depart and they slid and tumbled down slopes with reckless disregard for their own safety.

Back in the relatively milder parts of the High Peaks they took stock of their experiences.

"Paterion!" Maena spat. "He's been up to something with that strange girl all along." Her dreamy thoughts of a connection with the ethereal being had completely dissipated at sight of the strange impossible figure. No longer the Ice Maiden to her, now seen in the flesh so to speak, she was merely another conspirator in the strange activities on Troy. She gave no heed to the seeming impossibility of someone dressed only in a summer frock standing amidst snow flurries without a care. All her thoughts turned on motivations. It was greed. Meta-minerals of priceless import were at the root of it she considered, applying her offworld knowledge of power politics and economic strategies. The Crystal Lumos and an unknown rival were vying for control of Troy and Paterion was on the other side. Sadly she realised her grandfather was now on the side of the Lumos. With Upper Maeven crushed in the middle.

Although Tam did not agree with all of Maena's voiced thoughts on the matter, for after all he had seen the Ice Maiden and there seemed an impossible gulf between the ethereal creature and the weak and struggling old man who had bowed before her, he knew they had to speak to the hermit and find out what he was up to. His association with the Ice Maiden was now a proven fact.

Clearly it was not in their interests to return to Upper Maeven and with care they skirted the settlement, knowing they would be missed by now and presumably sought for. They were once again making for the caves next the Cut of Doerath where the cunning hermit had concealed more than just himself in the past. The weather was bad, responding to the invasion of the Ice Maiden's territory by strangers perhaps, so crossing the open plain was made easier for them, concealing their tracks amid drifts and heavy fog. Once safely on the other side the youngsters took shelter in the nearest cave to await the return of the wandering hermit.

Less than an hour later as if oblivious of the Crystal Lumos activities, Paterion marched defiantly across the flats to Doerath, his walking staff glowing like a will of the wisp in the fog that flowed past the cave. Thus Tam and Maena were prepared for him when he finally made his appearance in the strange space he called home. It seemed as if he expected them too for he sat wearily on a bundle of skins and gestured casually for his visitors to do likewise.

Without preface they confronted him with what they had witnessed up among the glacial valleys of the High Peaks.

"Do you understand things better now?" he said with a sneer.

"Only that you are in league with that creature in the mountains certainly," Maena accused. The man looked briefly surprised and then laughed.

"That creature, as you call her, is not of this world, or any world for that matter. She is a ghost, a lost soul, trying to find a way out of her dilemma. If I could help her I would, but she died a long time ago. Her words are but faint echoes of a past long buried, and so it should have remained, but for the curse the fates have placed upon us for the misdeeds of others."

This speech was rambling and passionate, sometimes incoherent and faltering and neither Tam nor Maena knew what to make of it. They glanced at each other, trying to figure out a meaning to the words. Afdal Paterion gazed at the floor as if spent by the outburst.

Tam picked up on his curious description of the Ice Maiden. He had called her a ghost.

"I saw her," he said. "She's as real as you or I. You can speak to her. I saw that too, how she responded to what you said. How can you say she is long dead?"

The hermit shuddered.

"I wish with all my heart I could have saved her," he replied not directly to the point and there were tears in his eyes. "She is past saving, and that fool cannot see that." He shook his head and rested its heaviness in his hands and remained still.

Maena made to speak but could find no words. None of this made any sense. An eerie dread seized her. She recalled again her grandfather's begging words to the Lumos to try to save her. Was this what Paterion referred to? Saving the Ice Maiden from herself, from her past, from a future that would be - what? She stood and gave the hermit an angry and frustrated stare. He glanced up at her movement and caught her eye.

"Best get home," he whispered. "All is lost. Not only have I lost everything once again but I made sure Motar has also. He will not beat me a second time. The curse will be ended once and for all and the past sent back to the oblivion it should never have been called from. The raising of witches is no man's right. The Lumos will know how to deal with such a transgression," he said grimly and buried his face in his hands again.

In alarm at what his words might mean, Maena departed the cave in haste and made straight for Upper Maeven without caring for Crystal Lumos agents or anything else except the welfare of her grandfather. Tam was too late to stop her and held back out of sight amidst fog and snow flurries as the frantic figure of the girl dodged those around her and entered the Madrullian mansion by the otherwise guarded front entrance.

The place was full of Lumos agents.

"Where's my grandfather?" Maena cried as one man grabbed the frantic girl when she tried to run through crowded corridors. She could see the people were searching the place, ransacking it even.

"Found her! She's here!" the man shouted, obviously not in response to her question. Agent Master Draevenk appeared in a doorway, looking every bit as sinister as his reputation foretold.

"Ah, Miss Madrullian. We were a little worried about you. As we still are regarding your grandfather."

"You don't know where he is?" she gasped.

"He left this house before we arrived."

"How did you get in? Did Falma let you in?" Maena then asked, looking around at the busy operatives as they casually examined every space within the building.

"She did not. A faithful servant, though misguided. We have allowed her to stay to look after you while we try to find your grandfather. He has information very important to us." He turned and gestured to the guard who held her. "Take her to her room and lock the door. The internal doors can be kept unlocked so she has access to the woman of the house."

Thus Maena was unceremoniously dragged to her suite of rooms where she found a tearful Falma waiting for her.

"Oh miss," the woman said, wringing her hands painfully. "I wouldn't let them in. Bid defiance to the lot of them, but they got a key from that horrible hermit. He knew the secret, he knew, and gave it to them without a care," she cried and sat woefully on Maena's bed.

"Never mind," Maena soothed the agitated woman, dismissing the betrayal of Paterion as if it were nothing. "This'll all be over soon and whatever reason brought grandfather here will be ended and we can go somewhere else, far away from Troy and the Spark, the Mineral Stars and the Crystal Lumos."

"I wish that were the truth of it," Falma responded, burdened by secrets she dreaded to reveal. There was another present who had no qualms on that score.

"Psst!" the whisper cube hissed from its cushion in the corner space, interrupting the housekeeper. "Want to know a secret?"

Neither Maena nor Falma had the energy to affirm or deny this request so the cube took their silence as encouragement to continue.

"Your father, he no longer loves you, no longer, not at all," the device spilled out this piece of information almost gleefully and Maena frowned at Falma, not understanding the purport of it. The latter however seemed fully to comprehend the cryptic message. Her face was a picture of horror and after a tearful shriek she fainted, falling heavily on the bed.

It took several minutes of hammering and shouting before someone came to the door in response to Maena's cries for help. The housekeeper was removed to her own room and settled in bed by a surprisingly kind and sympathetic agent of the Lumos. In fact all of the guards appeared to be somewhat subdued in their actions, not looking at her as she was asked to attend Draevenk in her grandfather's study immediately on being released from looking after the unconscious Falma.

"Sit child," he said not unkindly and Maena squirmed in a big seat that fronted the professor's desk. Upon that desk, its lid wide open so that the rosy glow from the contents within could clearly be seen, sat the casket of Petals. The agent master held one of the Petals up in a gloved hand before her startled eyes.

"Do you know the significance of this?" he said.

"It's a Petal," Maena started to explain.

"Yes," the man interrupted softly, "but this one, this Petal in particular." He passed the warm soapy stone to the girl and she flinched at its touch. Immediately strange emotions seemed to fill her being, the lost passions of a long forgotten love. Yet not so long ago, nor so lost, for there were familiar feelings within the matrix of the stone that rippled through her consciousness like a refreshing breeze on a weary day. She thought of Tam and love spiked in her heart. She thought of her father who no longer loved her and sadness drained her soul. She thought of her mother and a shock of pain made her drop the Petal on the table before her.

"What is it?" Draevenk asked eagerly, leaning forward.

"I don't know," Maena sobbed, truly not understanding. The Petal was so familiar to her, the emotions at one with her own soul as if she herself had imprinted them there. Yet that was impossible. The Lumos master stood up and cleared his throat, as if preparing a speech.

"Well," he said, "I was hoping there would be a clue there, to understand all this, and I wanted to see if you could help before I told you all." He sighed gruffly.

"Told me what?" Maena said softly.

"We've found your grandfather," the man replied but stifled the gesture of excited relief that rose in Maena's breast with the palm of his hand. "I regret to say your grandfather is dead. One of the search parties found him in Lammer Field in the snow. It was not the cold that killed him but a heart attack. A weary heart that simply stopped beating. For some reason he was clutching that very same Petal when he was found."

As soon as the man had made the simple statement her grandfather was dead she had stopped listening and sat there staring at the Petal before her. She knew the truth of it all in an instant. Who her grandfather really was. Who she herself was and above all, the true identity of the Ice Maiden.

To be continued...