They did not need to go far. Their secretive beckoner had his tent pitched nearby. It was large and made of a dark oilcloth that gave off a pungent smell. Out front, trestle tables and crates stood empty and packed up for the evening. Two fat ponies grazed beside a pleasant wooden caravan. Presumably his transport to and from the fair.
After a look left and right, he gestured at them, then ducked within.
Caewen and Dapplegrim shared a quick, dubious look. She shrugged and smiled half-heartedly as if to say oh well, and with that they followed him into the tent. The man was already standing at the far end of an open space, divided from the rest of the tent by curtains. Daylight barely suffused the black cloth, but a large lamp threw a harsh, eye-blinking glare across the interior. It was so bright that the dyed rugs underfoot seemed to be made of molten glass, aglow with red and sky blue and threads of gold. The receding blackness of the oil-cloth made it seem as if they were standing on a raft of bright colours at the heart of some endless night-scape. The rest of the space was empty except for a single low stool, over which was thrown a fine linen cloth. The merchant did not lift his hood. Either he didn’t want Caewen or Dapplegrim to see his face, or he was simply too anxious to remember to push it back. He stood, wringing his fingers, the knots of knobbly bone and chubby thumbs squirming against one another. Small pricks of sweat were visible on the hairs of the back of his hands. “Here we are, here we are. Good now.”
Caewen walked over to the cloth drapery, and reached for it, but he sputtered and clasped a hand tightly around her wrist. “Only for a moment. The wards keep it unseen, but they are not overly strong, and they are not by any means perfect. A concealing box would be better, but I don’t have one.”
She looked at the cloth. There were small white chips of something, maybe bone or ivory, laced into its surface. Each of them was about the size of a coin, and about as thick. They had tiny intricate images of animals and clouds on them. He could see she was examining the etched images. “Like unto that which vanishes in mountain fogs,” he explained. “The wards are for vanishing the thing within from scrying, or unnatural senses, or whatever finder’s arts may be.”
“Do they work?” asked Caewen.
He shrugged. “Mostly. This is mortal-wrought, and not the best of this manner of thing. Something made by the Awvish Folk, or Sithean, or best of all the Dweurgh would be more skilful, and harder to peer through.” A shrug. “But that sort of concealing charm is worth a vast fortune. This is the best I can afford.”
“If we buy your supposed artefact, do we get your wrapping-cloth too?” asked Dapplegrim, his eyes narrowing to intent slits.
“Gods wept, no. Not unless you’re willing to pay me another fifty salt-weight of silver. The warding cloth might be paltry–in the way of these things–but it is still worth more than all the rest of my stock put together.”
“That doesn’t make the prospect of taking the artefact very enticing,” remarked Caewen, as nonchalantly as she could manage.
“No.” His voice was firm. “The warding cloth was not in our agreement, and it will not be in any agreement.” He shook his head and his short black beard and chin quivered all at once. “Honestly! You’ll be fine. It’s one of my lineage who needs to be careful, isn’t it? Me? I’ve at least four freers of the sun in my ancestry. And one of my great-grandmamas was a priestess of the Brightness Queen, if one believes the family tales. Anyway, believe you, me. I have a vasty screed more to worry about than you do.”
“Maybe,” said Caewen. Then, more quietly. “Maybe. Maybe. Let’s see this little object then, shall we?” She reached out and drew off the cloth. A prickling sensation ran up and down her arm. She felt a dancing tingle at the tips of her fingers. Just brushing close to the thing underneath had made her skin crawl. The small ivory circles clinked musically as she set the cloth down.
Underneath was a small marble statuette, just as the man had said. It was no more than a few inches tall, but exquisitely detailed. Every hair and ruffle of cloth looked real, and all of it seemed to be caught in a moment of motion. The carving appeared to be of an old man, bearded and asleep in a plain, high-backed seat that might have been a throne. In his arms was a crying baby, swaddled up. Arrayed at intervals around the man’s feet were seven delicately carved objects. A flute. An amulet. Ring. Cloak clasp. Faceted gemstone. Bracelet. Or maybe an arm-band? A small and leaf-bladed knife. There was nothing else to the statuette. Old man. Throne. Baby. Seven objects.
“Alright,” said Caewen. “But which of them is the Winter King? And I don’t see anything to convince me this is really a depiction of him.”
“Ah,” replied the merchant. “That’s the strangeness. It’s both of them. Old man and babe. But if you want to be convinced, touch the statue. Just a fingertip will do.”
Dapplegrim growled loudly behind the merchant’s neck. A reminder of his presence. “One continues to hope this is not some foolish trick. For the sake of everyone in the tent.”
“No trick,” peeped the merchant, his voice high and shrill. “No trick. Touch it. I swear. You’ll be convinced.”
“Very well then.” Seeing nothing else for it, Caewen reached out, and held her finger a hair’s breadth from the surface of the statue. She could feel a palpable coldness coming off it. All the hair on her arms and the back of her neck was now standing up. A feeling like sandpaper crawled along her shoulders, up and into her throat. She glanced at Dapplegrim.
“There’s a potency coming off it,” she said.
“Hur. I’ll be sure to revenge you,” he replied through his sharp teeth.
“Well, that is reassuring.” She narrowed her eyes, then touched fingertip lightly to the forehead of the old man.
The cold hardness of the stone pressed into her skin. The ridges and grooves of her fingerprint seemed to come alive with twists of prickling ice. She felt the iciness lace into her, through her flesh, through her blood, dancing like a fish in a high cold mountain stream, leaping and making its way to her heart, her brain, her mind, her inner self. The tent stretched, distorted and vanished from her sight. Darkness leapt up around her, then that too was pulled thin until it was made into a greyness, then a whiteness, like a vast snow-blindness upon the world.
She saw her breath thicken into curling clouds.
The air was suddenly very much colder.
And when she looked around, she saw that she was no longer standing in the tent. Or at least, her vision was not of the tent. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing. It was like being cast into a dream that stood alongside the real world. When she focused, she discovered that she was still aware of Dapplegrim and of the merchant too, and their voices. They seemed to be arguing, though the words were so soft they might as well have been noises of wind through deep and snowy grass.
At the same time, she seemed to be standing somewhere outside. Above her, a black, cloud-heavy sky lazed low in the heavens. In the near distance, a mountain like a pile of jagged and rotten black teeth tore a gawping hole through those same banks of clouds. Looking from the clouds and mountains to nearer things, she saw now the throne with its simple lineaments. It was only a few paces away, and seemingly carved of the same marble as the small statue: brilliant white, with a glitter of tiny crystals running through its grain. The throne stood empty on a raised plinth, and behind it loomed a great grey-barked tree with ancient branches and no leaves. A single rusty chain hung from one of the larger branches, but there was nothing attached to it. It gave out a low, resentful creak in the wind. With a shiver, Caewen had a feeling that deep in her soul she did not what to know what usually dangled from that chain. The soft sounds of Dapple and the merchant arguing continued, but she could hear the high mountain winds now too, and noises of weird night-birds, far off. Curiously, in her mind, she found she was able to move towards the throne, though it felt more like drifting than stepping. Looking closer, some of the objects from the carving were indeed arrayed around the foot of the throne. But not all of them. At least two were missing.
All else was silence.
If this was the open-air throne of the Winter King, no one seemed to be home.
Wondering what she ought to do exactly, she looked behind her and saw that the earth fell away into a valley of such massive width and depth than it overwhelmed her perception for a moment. The absence of the earth seemed like some manner of inverted monument. A peak turned upside down and scoured out of living rock. And in the valley glittered a thousand upon a thousand campfires. At the nearer of these fires she could make out the small, distant and featureless shapes of men. There were other things too. Creatures that looked barely part-human. Other shapes that were much larger than men, and monstrous in every aspect. A distant susurration of talk, artless songs and fireside conversations reached her ears. A slight clink and jingle of soldiers practising somewhere with arms.
As she stared, taking in the vastness of the gathered host, she heard footsteps approach. A procession was coming up a stretch of stairs that she had not noticed. A tall, thin person appeared, approaching from below. His face and cloak were both as white as chalk, and his eyes had a beautiful sky-blue tint to them. He was inhuman and beautiful in a way that stirred memories in Caewen. It took her a moment to place his delicate features and the eerie half-glow that hung about him. A soft under-clink of armour reached her hearing. She saw the sword at his belt. She finally recognised his general frame and features with a start. This was some war-captain of the Whist Folk. She was sure of it. But behind him followed no train of Whist knights, lords or ladies. Instead, lumbered two boggart-creatures of a size she didn’t think existed. They were bigger than she’d imagined Troldes to be, shaggy, with white rancid fur, their faces grey, leathery and lined by weathered creases. She could only guess that these were boggarts of some tribe out of the far north. Massive and bear-like, savage and awful.
She was expecting to be attacked, and tried to reach for a sword that of course was not at hand. She was a mere phantom here. A presence only. A wisp of mind and senses. Nothing but fog and notions. But, oddly, the Wisht-folk man made no move against her. Instead he raised a hand in greeting. “Who makes report? What spy’s news do you bring?”
No lies came quick. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead she felt herself grow dumb and attentive. The man’s words had a beautiful charmed wonderment inside them, and she felt herself sinking into the soft sounds. She could feel herself wanting above all else to tell him the truth. All the truth. All her secrets and troubles and worries. Everything from her wondering whether her family were well, to her guilt about not thinking about her family more often. All of it. No matter how trivial, or small. No matter how important.
She forced herself to remember that this pleasant face, this soft-as-spun-wool voice, it was only a glamour. The loveliness of the creature was frail as paper. Beneath, he was corpse-like, cold and withered. His words and wonderments were a trap for the unwary mind.
Ignore them. Ignore him.
He only paused for a moment before a quizzical expression crossed his face, and then a cloud of rage shot through his blue-lit eyes. Raising his voice to anger, he yelled, “What is this? What is this? Who dares trespass on the Court of Our Winter’s Journey?” In that moment his magic and his will poured out of him, and it struck her, shaking her mind just the way a flooding river would smash into a tree. She could feel his thoughts worming into her thoughts, trying to prise her apart, teasing her defences open, and groping after her memories. Who are you? Who are you? Just barely, she was able to jerk herself backwards, away from him. A gasp. She felt her real, living body, far away take in a deep breath. The assault lessened a little then.
Sending an iron-like scream of fire into the nerves in her right arm, she loosened her fingers, and pulled them back.
Blinding whiteness.
Endless greyness.
Swirling darkness.
Darkness.
Dark.
Caewen fell backwards.
The concussion knocked the air out of her. For a moment, she lay on the ground, panting, dragging at each breath desperately. She felt the wonderful soft rugs against her shoulders, back and hands. She could see the blackness of the oilcloth above. The air felt so wonderfully warm, and yet she still shivered. Her bones felt cold. Pain laced in and out of her joints. The fingers of that enchanter’s will were gone, for now, but she felt as if they had left bloody scratches inside her brain. Dapplegrim’s face appeared above her.
“Well?” he said, huffing.
“I was in the Winter King’s court.” The shivering took hold and her jaw began to chatter. “I was standing at his throne.”
“Did you seem him?”
She shook her head. Her mouth tasted of blood. Had she bitten the inside of her lip? Maybe. Wheezing, she got up on an elbow. “No. But I met one of his servants, and he very nearly undid my mind with sorcery.” A long, calming breath. “It was one of the Whist. Are there Whist in service to dark spirits of the north? I didn’t realise.”
“Some of them have taken that path,” hedged Dapplegrim. “Most of them would serve Old Night and Chaos, perhaps, if pressed or threatened.”
She was starting to feel some warmth agin. She got to her feet only slowly. “That is an artefact of the Winter King. The merchant was speaking the truth of things. I think it is for spying and sending thoughts over great distances. They seemed to think I was a spy returning with news.”
Dapplegrim eyed the statuette. “Hurm. An instrumentality to send a mind over great distances? Such things are rumoured. But I’ve never ever seen one. Not in all my years. Hurrrum. Hur. Hur. Rare and potent indeed.”
“It is a dangerous thing to let fall into unwary hands. Whoever possessed it could well be snared, and turned to the service of the cold things that stir about the empty throne.” She closed her eyes for a long moment. “Through force of will and corruption of mind. It is dangerous.” She set her eyes on it, and felt a hard tremor pass through her calves, down into her feet. The shaking threatened to topple her back onto the ground again. She clutched at Dapplegrim, steadying herself. “Wrap it in a cloth. We will take it. We must.” Then she looked at the merchant. “But you were not turned in the mind?”
“I never met anyone at the throne,” he said, his voice quick, strained and protesting. “I touched the thing just the once. When I saw the throne I let go immediately.” This must have been true. There was no sense of coldness about him. No feeling of an overthrown mind. Or perhaps his ancestry had defended him. Maybe all those ghosts of sun-priests had put some walls around his spirit? At any rate, the merchant seemed to have escaped enslavement by whatever dwelled at the throne. He cleared his throat and said, “Sooo…” His voice was suddenly more hopeful. “If you must have it, perhaps I could argue you back up to, say… um, two salt-weights in good coin?”
“No,” snapped both Dapplegrim and Caewen at him in unison.
“Ah well,” he said, a little dejected. “You can’t blame an honest trader for trying.”