Jezra was oblivious to this stunning conclusion of their embrace. She cried in ecstasy," Warm! I am warm again. "It was a prayer of thanksgiving, and she repeated it over and over, dancing among the remaining ice-clad statues she had made. The spirit sang joyously of spring and summer, things she had not known for centuries.
Lisl tugged urgently at Wilm's arm. "Do not listen. Her singing can drive mortals mad. Quickly! We must get away. Legends say that her joy when she steals warmth from the living lasts only a short time. Then the Ice Queen might seek us."
The young man sheathed his sword, and he and the gypsy sidled cautiously around the fire pit and hurried to the edge of the woods. "We can go to the miners'huts," Wilm suggested. "The spell Hans cast is broken for them, too, now."
"Yes! We will be safe there. Safe. . and free." Reminded of the accuracy of her earlier prophecies, Wilm felt a chill snake down his spine.
They paused at the forest's edge and looked back at the camp. Jezra still danced there, leafless trees visible through her graceful, insubstantial face and body. Broken pieces of a steaming, half-frozen corpse and a nowuseless mage sword lay at her feet.
"What of her?" Wilm wondered. "Poor specter!"
"She will return to the mountain," Lisl said. "Jezra spoke truly. The Wagner estates are her home, and she guarded their upland holdings from invaders tonight."
Wilm stared at his elder brother's remains. Moonlight gleamed on the frozen pieces, making them resemble a heap of sparkling coins. "You spoke truly as well, Lisl," he said. "Hans finally won his cold, hard silver, enough to last him through eternity. Come. He has no power to keep us with him anymore. "Holding hands, the couple walked on toward the mines.
And Jezra Wagner, the Ice Queen, singing a paean to the warmth of life, danced out of the forest clearing. Bathed in silvery moonlight and momentarily rid of the terrible hunger that drove her, she began to ascend Mount Baratok.
Objets d'Art
The invitation had mentioned "finest pheasant, reddest wine, and afterward, a tour of Marquis D'Polarno's famous art gallery. "I had no doubt of the excellence of these amenities, nor of my enjoyment of them; but I'd not come for dinner or drink or paintings. I'd come for immortality.
Stezen D'Polarno himself met me at the door. He was dark and elegant in the way of Southern men, but his smile was fierce and cold as a cat's. His attire was much richer than mine: a blue brocaded jacket, ruffle shirt, red vest, white canons, and tall boots that might have been made for riding.
"Welcome, Professor Ferewood — and all the way from the Brautslava Institute in Darken. I am honored. Come in. You've nearly missed the first course."
I bowed deeply, trying not to ruin the crease in my trousers. I'd struggled long to impress the line in the knee-worn wool and didn't want it stretched out just yet. Before I could rise again to speak, Stezen, hand extended, interrupted:
"Your" study of mortality and its. . remedies is quite well known to me."
He was a card player, this one, and had just revealed enough of his hand to draw me off. But these swarthy canasta cardsharps have nothing on Darkonian poker players.
"As, too, sir, is your art collection, and your own. .dabbling in my discipline. "
He smiled his cat-smile again, and the wry light that shone in his eyes told me my motives were duly noted. "Come in."
I bowed once more, shallowly this time, removed the cocked hat from my silver head, and stepped across the threshold. The moment I was fully within the huge crimson forehall — with its lush carpets, fine wall fabrics, satin draperies, black-marble stairs, and high and molded and bossed ceilings — I knew I must not let slip my awe. Keeping eyelids trimmed, I calmly relinquished my walking stick, coat, and hat to the servant who materialized out of nowhere. I waited until Stezen had stepped up beside me before offering some polite though reserved observations about the place.
With a wordless nod, he gestured me into the great hall, and I walked dutifully into it.
Though I had attended many of the richest colleges in Darken, I had not seen so sumptuous a chamber in all my days. The place, though uniformly huge, felt dark and close due to the thick piling of red upon black upon red: candles and moldings, casements and floors, embroideries and vases. . My stoic expression grew less so as my eyes greeted marvelous appointment after marvelous appointment.
Stezen hung back half a pace, a smug look on his feline features.
No point in my masking it, I told myself: he could have smelled my amazement. We passed many goldgilded paintings that I knew would be making Curator Clairmont drool. He might have come for the paintings, but I had not.
"As you might imagine, good sir," I commented as we approached the banquet table, which was decked with silver and hemmed in by a black crowd of carnivorous nobles," the chance to converse with you about our. .mutual interest is what I'm really hungry for."
His eyes flashed. "We will more than converse on that matter. But food first and philosophy following."
I drew back the proffered chair and was seated amidst the other carnivores. The impressive collection of noble folk around me seemed to know that I had delayed their meal, and they seemed to resent it. Some were acquaintances: the mousy and disheveled Curator Clairmont from the Institute, a burly oaf of a man named Krimean, a flirtatious former student named Lynn who must have gotten an invitation by way of the bedroom. Others were mere acquaintances, or total strangers: a chubby merchant couple displaying all the hackneyed gawd of their kind, a passel of women who seemed all too fond of touching one another, and a host of others that disappear into the depths of my memory now. In one way or another, though, I knew everyone's interest was doubtless piqued by the rumors of Stezen's elixir of life.
Mine surely was.
No sooner than I was seated, servants sailed into view, their hands bearing cargos of huge and steaming platters. The first of these was placed in the center of the table and uncovered: a giant roasted pheasant. By some culinary trick, the bird had been cooked with the feathers still on its wings, tail, neck, and head. The rest of the fowl had been plucked bald, then dressed with wine and butter and feathered with leafy spices of every variety. After roasting, the lifelike head and slender neck had been pierced by an ingenious and inconspicuous wire near the breastbone, which was driven right through the throat to the beak. By this contrivance, the fully plumed head was positioned in a gracious bow, its unblinking eyes regarding the feasters submissively. The wings and tail were similarly arrayed, so that my first impression of the bird was it had somehow submitted itself to the plucking and basting and dressing and roasting and piercing through neck and wings and tail so that it could now stand before me, willingly presenting its steaming back to be sliced open. And, presently, it was.
There came a similarly statued lamb, pig, veal calf, and other objets d'art for our watering tongues. All had been imported, clearly, for the food of Ghastria was notoriously ghastly.
Curator Clairmont, with old, thin lips well greased by the hunks of pig he'd been stuffing through them, spoke to me across the clatter of cutlery. "Ferewood, eat up." He winked. "You can wash it down with the elixir later."
This social effrontery did not go unnoticed by the others gathered, and not a few reddened about the temples to hear their hopes laid open so.
I was not one of them.
"Art is the only elixir I seek," I replied. "Do you speak of some other?"
The burly oaf Krimean interrupted Clairmont's response with a call for more wine, and in the meantime the fat merchant spoke through a chomping grin. "We're great patrons of the arts, you know. Many of Stezen's best artists were funded by us."