But Beren did not come again.
*****
The dawn light in Sul threw long shadows from the mountains of mist in the north, where laid the sacred place of magic, to the hovel where the travelers slept.
The sun hid its face beyond the mountains, but the sky remained blue and clear. It seemed strange to see its light and not the usual clouds.
Some wondered at this miracle, but others knew. The gods smiled in the knowledge the witch returned, and the winter would soon meet its end.
Water dripped in icy daggers from the trees. Where the branches exposed beneath the frost, a few fledgling buds began to bloom. Such things were but memories now, remembered since long before Headred’s birth twenty-six years ago, when the last spring touched the world. He noticed the sounds of the forest, the creatures long laying in sleep as they awoke, and the spring began.
A small rabbit crept into the clearing. Headred held the bow, took aim, and loosed an arrow. The rabbit’s blood seeped into the snow, crimson death in the field of white.
“Beoreth,” Headred called. He tossed the rabbit meat beside the door with the other small creatures he killed in the night.
“What?” Beoreth asked and groaned from the pain in her back. Beside her, Caer stirred, and opened her eyes to see horse hooves inches from her face.
Beoreth sat up while Caer stared at the hooves of the half goat, half man, collapsed beside her by the hearth. She wished she could go to sleep again and dream as he did.
“If you mean to ask the time, dearest mother among mortals,” Headred said, “Woden begins to wake, and to ride Sleipnir in the east, across the sky on his journey today.”
Beoreth brought the fire ale to her lips. It did not heal her pain, but it helped.
Cold and stiff, Caer could manage to moan, and nothing else. She sat up, her eyes locked on Headred for waking her from a peaceful dream. “And what do you mean?”
“It’s dawn,” Beoreth explained. “We must rise.”
“Beoreth, would you cook these creatures? We must depart as soon as we have supped and drank. We have a long journey to make, between the wild lands of this outpost and the mountains of the north. By nightfall we must be past the Black Path.”
Huma stirred.
Caer sighed and stood. Her eyes met his, and a fire lit in a moment in her heart. Headred turned and stalked out.
Something happened in the night, she decided, helping Beoreth stoke the fire and cook the meat. She listened as, outside, Headred fed and talked to the horses. Perhaps today’s journey would be better, and by its end they would be one day closer to their destination.
And she found it something to be glad for.
*****
The cold lands opened on their trek through the ice and snow, the shadows of the mountains of mist ever present before them.
The wind blew from the north, cold, but not as bad as the night before. It caressed Caer’s skin, and in moments as they rode along through the worn and weathered path, Caer felt the wind carried a song, singing and calling her ever closer to her birthplace and birthright.
Squirrels and small animals scampered across their path. Some looked at the travelers, and when they did, Caer perceived recognition in their eyes. Once a white stag bounded from the trees not far from where they walked, his companion and mate, a white unicorn, by his side.
The stag stared at her with deep brown eyes, its antlers a noble crown of white. The unicorn’s silver spear flashed in the sun as her golden eyes pondered the travelers. They recognized Caer, and to her surprise and concealed delight, they kneeled, bowing before her.
Huma watched the magical creatures, entranced. When they disappeared, he looked at her, confused. Caer said nothing as they continued on.
For a long while they stayed silent and listened. A falcon flying in the distance let loose an angry scream, while nearby birds twittered in the trees. The ice around the trees seemed deeper, as black magic struggled harder to entrap the nymphs in crystal prisons. In fact, the snow seemed to be thicker on the ground, growing as they went.
“The winter grows colder in the north,” Headred said, breaking the silence. “Belial directs her will to this place, so the cold and evil makes the winter here. In the mountains and Ull it becomes the worst.”
“What did you see in the night?” she asked.
“How do you know so much of me when we met days ago?”
“In dreams we have met and walked,” she replied. “There I knew you before I met you; better, perhaps, than I knew myself.”
After a moment of contemplation, he revealed, “I saw visions of your mother. She fears for you.”
“What does she fear?”
“Belial betrayed her power and her gift, her world and all who dwell within it,” he said, his voice a low growl, more harsh and angry than he meant. “The spell Beren’s heart wove over Miðgarðir made it remain the winter Belial conjured; it would forever be in twilight, and until the light returned, evil could not hold the world in its sway.”
“Belial’s blood lived in my mother, yet Beren could not undo the sins of her sister, and so made the winter of her world,” Caer said.
An understanding and a shadow lingered in her eyes.
“One might argue the opposite,” Headred muttered. “One might say she saved us all. Though many have not survived the winter, the light endured.”
They rode in silence on the ancient path, facing distant mountains never seeming any closer.
Caer tried to convince herself that Headred attempted not to blame her for what happened, for the winter Beren allowed to endure, for all who died in this cold, while she lived free and happy in the havens, never knowing her destiny, never knowing her people’s pain.
But he knew better than she the suffering caused because of her. And it meant she would have to make him, and all like him, see she cared.
“Tell me what you see in dreams,” she instructed.
Headred smiled as he heard her regal order, similar to the one her caretaker gave him in his childhood, and as Caer’s mother gave as he ran through the city.
“What do you think I see when I dream?” Headred countered. Caer turned in the saddle to look at him. His eyes seemed large and round and deep as the oceans she imagined at the edges of the world, boring into her.
“Everything,” she guessed. “Such are the gifts of the prophets.”
“I dream of a woman of great beauty who lingers forever in my mind and torments me in waking all the days of my life.”
“And does she speak?”
“She speaks. And when she speaks I hear nothing else--”
“We near Helveg the path to the door under Mount Himinbjörg,” Beoreth interrupted.
Ahead, the trees darkened where the new path began. As they passed the road to Náströnd, a cold wind rose like a gust of death.
“The door under Mount Himinbjörg?” Caer asked.
Headred’s arms tensed as they passed, and Caer wondered if they dreaded the door.
Huma shivered as they passed, fear in his eyes.
“They say the heart of Miðgarðir lies in Mount Himinbjörg,” Headred whispered. “Long the demon sought the heart, for good yet remains in it, but so long as you and your mother live, it lies beyond her.”
“The heart beats with mine,” she said.
He remembered the words of her mother the night before. Headred sighed, cheerful to be past the road. “Our world, Miðgarðir, lives just as you or I: just as no one can own your spirit unless you allow it, so no one can possess the spirit of Miðgarðir. Yet you share its essence. When the world hurts, you hurt. When the world bleeds, your spirit grieves for it. It lives through you and you through it; just as it lives in Belial, and she in it.”
“And so she connects to me,” Caer finished, hearing Beoreth harrumph, “as I am a part of her.”
Caer grew silent, wondering about the door and ever watchful of the demon who wanted to destroy her. Beyond them the shadows of
the distant mountains loomed closer.
*****
The noon sun swam in the sky and scattered light, as shadows crept into it from the storms coming to rage above the travelers again.
Caer found comfort riding before Headred, noticing his strong arms move when he held the reins of the horse, trembling as he breathed and when he sighed, and knowing he would glance at her and suddenly away.
It felt comforting to find love.
The snow seemed to gleam more intense than the day before, despite the clouds casting shadows and threatening to pour cold fury upon them. The drifts seemed bright and new to her as they trudged along in it.
The light grew and faded, and Caer sat alone on the horse.
“Hello?” she called and made out movement before her.
The familiar woman walked and waited in the towering oaks long sleeping and the firs yet living. Her skin appeared pale, her lips red, and her eyes the blue of the sky. Her hair white blew in the breeze.
“You are my mother,” Caer murmured.
The Ice Queen drew near to her in the empty glade, deep in the wild forest of Sul. “Go back.”
From the four corners of the world the winds blew, whipping the snow into frenzy.
“Go back to where?”
Her mother’s frozen eyes fixed on her. “No longer will you find this road safe. The shadow and her servants have claimed it. You must not take the path of light.”
“The shadow… the demon.” The realization hit Caer. “She walks here.”
“No,” the Ice Queen said with great patience. “Death walks here.”
“What do you…” Caer started to ask her what her cryptic words meant, but the vision faded.
She found herself in the horse’s saddle once again; Headred’s strong body pressed against hers, the snow crunching as it trampled beneath hooves.
“By the gods,” Headred gasped, and Caer followed his gaze to the death her mother spoke of.
On either side of the path, men hung limp from bloody cords tied to tree branches, mauled and hacked, their blood flowing onto the ground, staining the snow crimson, their dead eyes fixed, staring at the place where travelers would pass.
“Golems and wolves.” Headred unsheathed his sword.
“The path of light no longer remains safe from the death and damnation of the shadow,” Beoreth cried. “What madness happens here? What are we to do?”
Caer paid no attention to them. She sensed something in the woods, an afterimage of the vision perhaps. Something evil lingered here, but not all became lost.
Caer gasped as the corpse closest to her began to move.
“Help me…” He turned to gaze at her with an axe blade still in his chest, bleeding again as his blood began to flow.
“Help me… Help me…” the corpses called to her, one after another awakening from death. A wolf howled, not far away.
Caer screamed. Headred’s arms latched around her as the world returned.
“What’s wrong?” Beoreth asked, her ancient hands feeling Caer’s head, her voice and eyes worried.
“Nothing,” Caer said. Beren used her to save them, she realized. “We must go back.”
They turned to her in surprise.
“To where?” Huma asked.
She explained. When she finished they all stared at her, Beoreth with her pale, white face, Headred with his jaw set, and Huma confused.
“To the road to the door?” Headred confirmed and groaned. “Beren would not lead us astray.”
“It’s suicide,” Beoreth said, “and forbidden.”
“It’s the path we must take,” Caer counseled her, “and the way we must travel.”
Beoreth moaned and looked at the girl she raised in a mix of wonder, worry, and fear. “If the Ice Queen wishes it, and if her daughter agrees, I do not stand in the way,” she said, and turned her horse.
“Do not fear me-lady.” Huma increased his pace to trot beside their horse. “I’ll protect ye and the boy.”
Caer smiled, despite it all. When she turned Caer saw the disdain on Headred’s face for the path they now embarked upon. Caer looked ahead, at the dark opening of the forbidden path, and wondered at what she knew lay inside the door under the mountain, and the heart of the world.
*****
The blustery weather blew unceasing, and the snow fell in sheets. They could see nothing through the white blizzard and the icy wind ripping through their wrappings.
Caer did not know how Headred could see their path. They entered the road before the storm, but now everything appeared the same to her, the trees blowing in the gale, and the unending snowfall.
“We stop here!” he shouted over the storm bringing their horse to a halt.
Beside them gaped a black and lifeless cave maw. But in strange lands how could one tell what lay within? Did not Beoreth tell Caer as a child of dragons and great, cave-dwelling bears, towering as high as the trees and devouring travelers?
She waited in the blistering chill as Headred helped Beoreth from her horse before he led them into the cave. The cave seemed frigid, but they felt grateful to be out of the chilling storm.
“Wait here,” he instructed. “I will go gather wood for a fire.”
Caer worried. Would he find his way back to them? What would happen if he became lost in the blizzard?
“He will return,” Huma reassured her. “Drink some of this, me-lady.” He handed her the wineskin of fire ale.
The ale burned her throat but brought some warmth back to her. Her body no longer felt as rigid and stiff. Caer sank to the ground against the cave wall, exhausted from the few hours’ journey of the day.
Headred reappeared, carrying a stack of snow-covered wood.
“Ale,” he asked Huma, his teeth chattering.
“You would drink before you light the fire?” Huma asked.
“No,” Headred said through fits of shivering as he brought the flint out of his pocket; he managed to grin at Huma, but the cold made it appear more as a grimace, “ale to light the wood on fire.”
Huma looked hurt but obliged Headred. Soon a fire crackled on the floor, and the travelers warmed themselves as they listened to the howl of the storm outside.
“Let us keep our hearts joyous,” Huma said, now seeming much warmed. He hiccupped.
“We cannot, you mule,” Beoreth said, annoyed with the entire situation. “We cannot celebrate when even the path of light becomes shrouded by the Dark Lord’s powers. It’s bad enough lighting a fire with Belial’s henchmen hunting the world.”
“And yet we could freeze here without the fire,” Headred reminded her, which seemed to end the quarrel.
“Perhaps a story,” Headred suggested after a while. “It might be well for Caer to learn the stories of the wars, or of her people, if she would lead them.”
Beoreth nodded as they huddled together for warmth.
“My tale begins long ago, before the Time of Ice,” Headred started, his voice husky, his eyes misted as his mind went back to the beginning. “Before Beren, daughter of Enyd, ruled from Ull with her husband and consort Gareth Warhammer; when Dana bore Goewin, the first witch, on Mount Kern in the North of Sul, darkness entered the world.
“Moloch, the Incubus, first Dark Lord of the Demons in the wasteland, came into Sul with his armies, to take by force what he could not have by right: the power of the gods and the world of magic. For many generations the wars endured; from Goewin to your grandmother Enyd the witches also endured. So began the First Dark Wars. Defeated and dying by the sword of Enyd’s warrior consort King Cuthred, Moloch came to the chambers of Queen Enyd, and in her womb planted his seed.”
Caer saw in her mind a time long ago, in a place she never knew.
*****
“No!”
Enyd fell to the ground beside the stone of Woden in Glasheim, the council of the gods, screaming and weeping, cursing the gods for the injustice done to her, for the evil they cast into the world, for the death of he
r consort.
She observed the battle from the sacred place, casting her sight by magic to the battle. She witnessed the trees burn in the Dark Lord’s fire, ripped from the ground by the armies of Lord Moloch. She watched as the blood of men, centaurs, and fairies flowed in rivers on the ground, pooled into oceans spilled by the power of evil. And she looked on as the Dark Lord fell.
She saw him take the life of the one she loved.
“Milady,” Berwyn cried and ran over. The wise woman knelt beside the Queen, and drew back when she felt as the magical cold encircled her mistress, even as cold pain enveloped Enyd’s heart. Beside Berwyn, the wise woman’s daughter, Beoreth, stared at the Witch Queen of Sul.
“Milady,” Berwyn asked, her voice trembling, “what happened?”
“The Dark Lord falls into damnation,” Enyd whispered.
Berwyn breathed a sigh of relief.
“The King,” Enyd gazed at the wise woman with tear-filled eyes. “The King falls into darkness.”
Berwyn’s hand lifted to her mouth in shock, her daughter’s face white as snow. Berwyn laid a gentle hand on the shoulder of her Queen, of her friend.
“‘Tis done,” Enyd murmured, her voice cracking. “Our armies have victory over Moloch. The gods have delivered us.”
“Come,” Berwyn said. “We will go back to the city, where you should rest. The armies will return when they finish.”
Enyd took the arm Berwyn offered. Berwyn turned them to the path to Ull. Once Enyd glanced back, terrified, into the shadows where the dawn broke. A cloud rose from the earth, black and evil, passing toward them.
Evil came to them on swift wings, she thought, and turned away.
Hours passed, and night fell. The bells of Ull’s healers rang in mourning for the loss of the King. Gavin, the Queen’s man, walked on the gate walls and looked to the west for the armies’ return.
He could see nothing save for the black cloud of evil, the last triumph of the Dark Lord.
Fear lingered in Gavin’s heart as the cloud moved toward them. It descended Ull, filling the ancient fortress with ash and smoke. Shadow covered the white stones.
Shadows crept through the city streets. Residents shut their windows to keep out the cloud of evil. Some shouted in terror and others in mourning. And some ignored the shadow and mourned the loss of the King, and celebrated the victory of the armies and of the Witch Queen of Sul.