We didn't have far to go before we reached ... well, somewhere. I hadn't seen the opening until we were almost to it. Someone seemed to have made a giant snow cave in a mound of snow. In fact, the land in this area was not flat like we'd been crossing. Beyond this point, it looked like rolling sand dunes, but of snow instead. I did not look forward to crossing that landscape.
"Ah, here are," Lord Snow said. "Good. Come along."
He walked in ahead of us and looking far happier than he had since he first arrived in our company. I trusted Lord Snow, but even so, I had trouble stepping under that icy covering.
"I need to speak with Lord Ice," I reminded him. The opening was too small, so I knew the dragon could not be here.
"We will. Soon. It's safe here, and we should take hospitality from friends and rest for a while."
To rest sounded good, but I couldn't see how I would find it here.
Maggie was waiting for me to make the decision. Edmond was asleep across my shoulders, and Five was curled up in Maggie's arm. What was I going to do? Walk off and head right back into trouble?
It didn't take long to catch up with Lord Snow.
"Huh," Lord Snow said with a sideways glance. "Didn't think you trusted me for a while there."
"I trust you," I protested. Then I shrugged. "I have to admit that I wonder where our ideas of safety might diverge since we're not the same."
"True. And, quite honestly, I never have worked quite so closely with fae and humans before. I serve the Ice Dragon, and until you came along, I was hardly ever out of the Snow Lands."
"I'm sorry --"
"I'm not complaining. Much. Even a snow leopard can get tired of the snow and trying to talk to dragons. That is going to be a big problem, Mark. Dragons don't listen very well."
"Much like kittens."
Lord Snow laughed. "You may have something there. Ah, here we are, and among friends."
The cave had opened into a vast area filled with beautiful ice buildings that reached all the way to the high roof. Then I saw movement -- and I knew Lord Snow was right. These were Icelings, human-like creatures who taller than me, thin, and with icy blue skin and whitish hair and clothing.
From the joy with which they greeted me, I thought they might be the same Icelings that I had helped save from their hiding place on Earth. They'd desperately wanted to return to Elsewhere, and I had gotten the door open for them.
They led us down a wide street, and I thought they'd put us up in one of the ice houses. I wondered how to stay warm -- but no, we passed the buildings and went to another cavern, and then a place with rugs, blankets, a fire blazing in a pit, and the smell of food. The Icelings did not come into this warm, beautiful sanctuary with us, and Lord Snow said some things to them in their own language.
Edmond woke up. "Food."
I just headed for a pile of blankets and pillows. I didn't care about the food, at least not at that moment. I wanted to sit down, maybe nap --
We were not alone in the room. A woman stepped out of the shadows, startling both me and Maggie. She stood taller than us, white-haired and tan-skinned, her eyes green and bright.
"And you are Mark, Lord Cayman's son," she said in a voice that sounded like silk and water. He felt calmer just for hearing her. "Maggie, how good to see you again!"
"Lady Lorla!" Maggie replied with a bow of her head and evident surprise. "I had not expected to see you away from court."
"The court is in hiatus until further notice," she said, and I sensed something worrisome in those words. Maggie looked shocked, too. "We have scattered, my dear, and have taken what refuge we can. Something is hunting us, and four had died before we got away. I cannot say if others have survived or not."
"My father," I said, startled and afraid.
"Alive when we parted," she reassured me.
I felt a little weak-kneed. Lady Lorla might have noticed since she waved me over to that spot I had so coveted a moment before. I didn't feel nearly as tired, though I felt cold for an entirely different reason.
Maggie settled by me, and Edmond rolled off my shoulders and down to curl up in the blankets. Maggie dropped Five in beside him, and they made a sweet picture, there sleeping. You never would have realized the hell they could both get into without even trying.
Lady Lorla sat gracefully on a few pillows, facing us. She did not look so happy, this woman. I had the feeling that she might be more used to living in places filled with silver and gold, and with better food than what was in the pot cooking over the fire.
Though, to be honest, that smelled very good to me.
Lord Snow entered the refuge now, too, having talked to the Icelings. "Lady Lorla," he said with a bow of his head. Whoever this woman was, she must have powers. I really didn't understand most of what the Council did, except that they generally kept various groups from going to war with each other.
Or from invading other realms, like Earth, where both Maggie and I had been born.
"The Icelings related the tale of you coming among them," Lord Snow said. "Tell me all that you can, Lady. I will take the news to Lord Ice. I do not trust what has happened -- or the fact that there was already an attack on Lord Ice, but it did not succeed. And that makes me wonder why the snowmen really let us go."
No comments:
Post a Comment