Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories Read online

  “Tell us one of your stories,” Luya said. Her voice had the edge of a taunt in it. “It will help pass the time, and it’ll spare Madri the effort.”

  Zavier was silent for a moment.

  Then he said, “Once, long ago, there was a clan called the Hebrews who were being kept as slaves by a clan called the Egyptians.”

  “Had they been taken in a raid?” Luya asked.

  “No,” Zavier said. “The Hebrews left their own land because there was a famine. They lived with the Egyptians, and it wasn’t until many years later that the Egyptians decided to enslave them.”

  “Go on,” Luya said.

  “One day, one of the Hebrews, a man named Moses, was out walking, and he saw a bush burning—but for some reasons, the bush burned and burned but wasn’t consumed.”

  “That’s impossible,” Luya said.

  “With God, all things are possible. Moses stopped to stare, because it was such a strange thing to see. And God spoke to him from the fire: God had chosen Moses to lead the Hebrews to freedom.”

  “Why Moses?”

  “Moses asked the same question. ‘Why me?’ You see, Moses was not a young man, nor a handsome man. He was not a great warrior, and—he was not a good storyteller.”

  My mouth was dry in the cold darkness, and I knew that Zavier was looking at me.

  “Moses tried to persuade God to change his mind, but God would not. And so Moses went to the clan-leader of the Egyptians, and said—Let my people go.”

  Zavier’s voice grew firmer as he told the story: God sent plagues on the Egyptians, parted the waters, led the Hebrew clan to the promised land.

  “Why do you think God chose Moses?” I asked, when Zavier was done.

  “I think God likes to choose the unlikely,” Zavier said. “To show that it is God’s power that accomplishes what must be done.”

  “Yours is a god of the weak,” Luya said. “I have seen no miracles.”

  “God doesn’t perform miracles on the command of his followers,” Zavier said.

  Luya stirred. “I tell you what, Zavier. You’re doing all right in here, where the two of us can warm you even if you don’t touch us. I think anybody could survive the night in a shelter like this. Go outside our shelter. Spend the night outside, Zavier. Then I will believe that a truly great power sent you. Then I will believe in your god.”

  Zavier stirred. “You’ll believe?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll swear that to me, with Madri as a witness?”

  “Yes. I swear on my honor as Merik’s daughter, and a member of the Shong clan.”

  “All right, then,” Zavier said, and began to break a hole in the side of our shelter, where the wall of snow was thinnest.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “Zavier, you’re crazy. Nobody spends the night out in the wind. We all dig shelters, and warm each other. None of us could survive the night out in the open, not even Luya. Stay here.”

  Zavier turned back. “If I can persuade Luya, everyone else will follow. Otherwise—” He shrugged. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He left.

  “How could you make a dare like that?” I said to Luya.

  “How could he be so stupid as to do it?” Luya said, grabbing handfuls of snow to seal us back in. “He’ll be back. Don’t worry.”

  Time passed. Zavier didn’t come back.

  “I’m going out to look for him,” I said.

  “Are you crazy?” Luya asked. Her arms were warm around my body, and for a moment she held me so tightly that I could hear the rapid beating of her heart. “You’ll freeze along with him.”

  “I’m not going to stay out there,” I said. “I’m just going to try to convince him to come back in.” For a moment I thought Luya was going to hold on to me, to keep me from leaving, but she relaxed her grip.

  “I’ll be here when you come back,” Luya said.

  Outside was bitterly cold. Zavier hadn’t gone far; he’d tried to dig himself a little bit of a shelter, just a tiny one, but had mainly just succeeded in burying himself in snow. I knelt beside him. “Zavier, come back in.”

  “I don’t feel cold anymore, Madri. I think I’m going to make it.”

  “You only think you don’t feel cold because you’re freezing to death,” I said. “Zavier, you’ll die if you stay out here.”

  “Whatever God wills,” he said.

  “If you come inside, you might survive the night, and you can try to persuade Merik and the rest of the tribe, for as long as it takes. If you stay out here, you’ll die. And everyone will assume you were a fraud.”

  “Not you,” he said. “You believe. I know you do.”

  Zavier struggled to his knees. He wasn’t shaking anymore, but he moved like someone who could barely feel his limbs. He held out his hand and touched my forehead; I realized he had melted some snow between his palms. I was surprised there was still enough warmth left in his hands to do that.

  “I baptize you, Madri,” he said. “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” He touched my cheek and smiled at me with his earnest blue eyes. Then he fell back into his cradle of snow.

  “I was right about you,” Luya said.

  I turned. Luya had come out of the shelter; she was speaking to Zavier, not to me. She still didn’t look cold, even in the wind; her hair whipped back from her face and she stared down mercilessly at Zavier.

  “A great power did bring you here,” she said.

  Zavier’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t respond.

  “The power that brought you to us was the Winter King,” Luya said, striding towards us. “He brought you here to give us a message. He brought you as a warning.” Luya grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me away from Zavier. “Zavier, you are a fool and a weakling. But there may be others in your clan who tell stories well, and who can survive the night with ease—and look at the danger you alone have brought us! You’ve turned Madri—you nearly turned my father—and you were only one man, one weak, stupid man.”

  Zavier’s eyes were still closed, and there was a hint of a smile on his face. I reached out a hand towards him, but Luya jerked me back.

  “Of course you heard a voice. Of course you came here safely. Winter King!” she shouted, and raised her arms to the black sky. “Forgive me for doubting you. I understand! I understand now!”

  Luya had released me, so I knelt beside Zavier in the snow. I touched his face, and felt for a breath.

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  ***

  AND SO ZAVIER, the Child of Jesus, brought the Truth to the Children of the Winter King. Because of the Winter King’s warning, Luya knew that the Seven Clans had to unite. After first Winter’s night, I returned to the Shong clan—but Luya crossed the river and sought out Stafan Oneel, offering herself as his wife and his partner. In wine and water they mixed their blood and became one, and so the feud between the Oneel clan and the Shong clan was ended.

  Through the winter, I practiced reading Zavier’s Bible. I didn’t understand all the words, and Zavier wasn’t there to explain them to me—but reading did become easier, as Zavier had promised. I read the story of Moses, which Zavier had told us on first Winter’s night, and the stories of many other weak people that Zavier’s god had chosen.

  I thought about Zavier in the darkness each night—about why he had come to us, and the power and faith that had sustained him. One of those nights, I realized something. Just as Zavier’s god had chosen the weak along with the strong, so had the Winter King. The Winter King had given Zavier the strength and courage to come to us, even though Zavier didn’t even worship Him. How much stronger could the Winter King make me, who believed in His power? The Winter King made Zavier strong because he was needed. Perhaps I, also, was needed. I realized that night how I could serve my people.

  When spring came, I crossed the river and joined Luya and Stavan. Luya was surprised to see me, and for a moment I saw her old scorn—and then she saw the look on my face, and waited for
me to speak.

  “You mean to unite the clans,” I said, my head held high. “You will need me at your side.”

  Luya was dubious, but Stavan was no fool. He saw quickly how writing could help to solve some of the interminable stupid feuds. Because of the Winter King’s warning, we turned away the Children of Jesus who came to Mesota after Zavier; because of the Winter King’s gift, we were able to unite the clans, and fight together against the eaters of chaos from the south. Because of the Winter King’s warning, His Children remained free. Because of the Winter King’s gift, His Children will always be free.

  Thus I set these words on paper, fifty winters after Zavier came to us. Let those who come after me know: The Winter King came to separate light from dark, water from snow, strong from weak. The Winter King came to bring order. As long as the Children of the Winter King accept His rule and His gifts, we shall always endure. As long as the Children of the Winter King remember His message and His warning, we shall remain free.

  Ever and ever, world without end. Amen.

  MAGEFIRE

  THE STORY THAT eventually became Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm came to me in pieces.

  The first piece was a dream, which left me with one vivid image: standing outside, under roiling clouds of disaster, fending off some catastrophe by playing a violin.

  The second piece was this: I played piano for years, quit at seventeen, then took up violin in college. When I would practice the violin, I would often hear other people practicing the piano, which gave me a pang of nostalgia and something like (but not exactly like) regret. I started spinning out stories of things given up and missed.

  I wrote this short story over the course of a few summer evenings, and was immensely pleased with it; at the time, it was the single best thing I had ever written (I was pretty sure) and I really thought I might be able to sell it somewhere. I tried it on Marion Zimmer Bradley first, and garnered a rejection saying that it read more like chapters 1 and 36 of a novel. I tried it on Worlds of Fantasy and Horror, and got basically the same rejection.

  When I joined the Wyrdsmiths, I used this as my audition piece, with a note that I was thinking of turning it into a novel. When they let me in and critiqued it, I think Harry LeBlanc said that he was glad to hear I was thinking of turning it into a novel, because it didn’t work all that well as a short story.

  It wound up turning into a very long novel, which Bantam had me split into two: Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm. (It changed quite a bit in the process—including the names. I went back at some point and ret-conned the names. If you speak French you may be entertained to know that Eliana was originally named Etienne, even though she was always female. Etienne still looks like a female name to me.)

  ***

  MIRA’S ICE-PALE SKIN wasn’t the first odd thing I noticed about her. Neither were the black mourning ribbons she wore—not that those were all that odd. Between the war, and the famine, almost everyone at the Verdian Conservatory of Music was in mourning. What I did notice, right away, was the candle she was holding.

  I have always been fairly adept at magery. I could never do anything big—no Magefire in the sky, I was never Circle material—but I could light a fire, which is more than anyone else in my family could do. Even my littlest sister, though, could kindle some witchlight to find her way to the privy. There are people who can’t, but most of them are half-wits or drunkards. Mira didn’t really strike me as either.

  I had known I was getting a new roommate. My old roommate had left the school when her family had left the Verdian province, tired of famine and war. I wasn’t overjoyed at relinquishing my unaccustomed privacy. Hopefully she’d at least be decent at playing her instrument. Given the Verdian Conservatory’s acute shortage of students, there was no guarantee that she’d even be competent, and there’s nothing worse than sharing a room at a conservatory with a lousy musician.

  Well, I had no excuse to be surly yet. “Hello,” I greeted her with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. “I’m your roommate, Eliana.”

  “My name is Mira.” She met my eyes briefly, and quickly looked away.

  “You play violin?” I had spotted the case on her bed. She nodded. “So do I.” I hoped she wouldn’t practice in the room too often. She didn’t seem inclined to offer any information, but I was curious, so I decided to pry. “Where are you from?”

  “ . . . Cuore.”

  Cuore? That was odd. “How are things up there? I have an uncle in the city, he keeps telling my parents to move up there with him.”

  “It’s not too bad. . . . with the Circle’s enclave there, Cuore is always well supplied. How bad are things here?”

  “Well, the Conservatory is far enough from the famine areas that we have enough to eat, provided that we don’t waste much.” Why would anyone from Cuore come here, anyway? I left it for another time.

  ***

  MIRA’S SKIN DARKENED a bit in the sun, but she remained paler than the rest of us. She seldom spoke, and never offered information about herself beyond the essentials: her name was Mira, she was a violinist, she had been born in a Verdian village, and she had most recently lived in Cuore. When questioned as to why she had come here, rather than attending the Central Conservatory in Cuore, she had flushed slightly and said that she wasn’t good enough for the Central Conservatory. We knew by then that she was a paying student. Standards were much lower for those who could pay, but it was possible she was still not good enough for Cuore. That still didn’t explain why she had come here, rather than going north or west.

  Nonetheless, I assumed that she was telling the truth, until I heard her play. This was not for several months. Much to my initial relief, she did not practice in the room. I found out after a few weeks that she walked over to the unused dormitory to practice.

  The unused dormitory had been a point of contention between the students and the Dean for years. Due to the war, and the famine, enrollment at the Verdian Conservatory had dropped to less than a third of its original level. Many professors had left, too—preferring the threat of unemployment in another region to the obvious threats here. I thought they were overreacting. The truce seemed to be holding, and the border was quite far south. And as I’d told Mira, we had enough food, provided that we didn’t waste much. In any case, the conservatory was half-empty. If we’d used all the buildings, we could have each had a suite of rooms, never mind a single room to ourselves. Instead, the excess dormitories were left unoccupied, and had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Officially, none of us were allowed to set foot inside. Unofficially, many of us used the hallways of the building to practice. The empty halls had a peculiar acoustical effect, giving even scales an air of mournful, isolate wistfulness.

  I was searching out my preferred spot when I saw the flicker of candle-light. It could only be Mira; I had yet to see her use witchlight. I paused for a moment, thinking that I needed to practice and that anyway this was probably spying . . . then, curious whether she was any good, I decided to wait and listen to her play.

  Mira was playing etudes—finger exercises, usually nothing special. What I heard struck me mute and motionless. She made the etudes sound like music . . . I had laughed at stories of musicians so good that even scales sounded like symphonies in their hands. Etudes are etudes; demonstrations of technical skill. They can be played with facility, but not with life. Yet when Mira played, the world slipped away; she played like she believed it was music, and it was.

  Catching my breath, I listened to her dispassionately. I could, as I listened carefully, understand why she had not been admitted on scholarship—technically, she was years behind the rest of us. The work it would take to bring her up to speed definitely required some extra compensation. Still, the talent was there. She should easily have been admitted as a student in Cuore; in fact, during better days, she might have received a scholarship here.

  The candle flared higher briefly. I heard Mira catch her breath and turn. “Who’s there?�
�—her voice shook.

  “Just me, Mira. Eliana.” I spoke hastily. I stepped out of the shadows. “I saw your candle and . . . I wanted to hear you play.”

  She hesitated, still holding her violin, staring at the floor. “What did you think?” she asked finally.

  “I think I have never heard an etude played so beautifully.” She smiled slightly, her eyes still lowered “Mira, why did you say that you could not get into the Conservatory in Cuore?”

  She knelt to put away her violin, hair falling down to hide her face, and did not answer.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “I was born here.”

  “That’s no reason.” I tilted my head, trying to find her eyes, but she would not look up. “If you had family here, it would make sense. But no one has ever visited you. I’ve never even seen you get a letter. You’ve never even mentioned a family member . . . !”

  She was silent for a moment. “My grandmother died here.” She stroked the violin case. “She was the one who taught me to play. I found out . . . when they brought me her violin, in Cuore.” She rose abruptly, picking up case and music. “That is why I am here.” She turned and walked away.

  I paused, then turned after her. “Is that all? So why were you so scared when there was someone else in the room?” There was no answer but the echo from the crumbling marble walls.

  ***

  I WAS GOING to ask her again, but by the time I found her, I had other things on my mind. Around midnight, someone saw flares of lights in the southern sky. It was the wrong season for lightning. No one spoke it aloud, but we all had the same though—magefire. War.

  We all ran to the southern wall of the conservatory, huddling together and staring at the sky. I spotted Mira, a look of ashen horror on her face, and looked away; we were all frightened now, and I had no time for her. Someone passed around kettles of tea and we stood for hours, trying to stay warm, watching the flares come closer.