The Ascension Read online

  Gem had the empirical evidence of that as Petra reached down to scoop up a smal child, probably a little girl, the instant before a couple of playful wolf cubs could land on her. The roughness of the children’s play wasn’t something that Gem would have wanted around human children, but she guessed that things were a little different when that play was geared towards learning to bring down deer later on. It was a didactic method taken from real wolves, and it certainly worked for them.

  “Is it because you hate the fairies that you’re fighting the Winter Queen?” Gem asked. She thought she could discern a slight narrowing of Petra’s eyes at the mention of the fairy ruler.

  “Our argument with her stems from her foolish cupidity. In her greed for more land to cover with her precious ice, she has broken her treaties with our people. In her turpitude, she has decided to build her forces and claim everything around her. We’l have to fight.”

  Beside

  her,

  Gem

  saw

  Nina

  shift

  uncomfortably.

  “It won’t come to that, though, wil it?” the younger werewolf said. Petra snorted.

  “Of course it wil come to that. Do you think we would have gone to the trouble of joining with the Summer Court if there weren’t going to be a fight?” P etra upbraided her in a stern tone, and Gem heard Nina mumble an apology, before asking if she might be excused. As she left, she made a smal motion to Gem, and Gem fol owed. Nina led her back through the lines of tents, wel away from the others.

  “Petra seems like she can be pretty stern when she takes umbrage at something,” Gem ventured. Nina nodded.

  “She can be. I suppose I don’t blame her. We don’t like the Summer Court much more than the winter one, real y. I wanted to talk to you away from her, though, because I wasn’t sure if she would like what I have to say. At least, I think she would cal me stupid and credulous for thinking it.” That caught Gem’s interest.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “You know you said you were looking for someone from your world? Wel , would he be someone who knows about the ways between the worlds?”

  Gem nodded.

  “He came up with the way that got me here, and that let us get into the world of Anachronia. He is probably one of the few people who real y does understand those ways on our world.”

  “Wel ,” Nina replied, “if he can do al that, then the Winter Queen would want him. She is infamous for wanting to spread her cold further, and what could be better than spreading it across whole worlds?” Just the thought of that made Gem shudder.

  Even so, she knew she couldn’t risk being wrong and wasting time on a wild goose chase. Henry Word had already been missing a week. There was no tel ing when something might happen to him.

  “What if he isn’t there?” Gem asked.

  “He has to be.” The werewolf seemed certain of it. “The Summer Court might have its mendacious moments, but even if they were lying, then surely you would have seen some sign of the then surely you would have seen some sign of the man you seek. No, he has to be hidden somewhere in Winter.”

  The logic of it seemed a little simplistic to Gem, but that didn’t mean it was inaccurate. In any case, Sparks was stil at the Summer Court, and was probably better placed to find Henry Word in any case, as the son of that court’s potentate.

  “How do I find the Winter Court, then?” Gem asked. Nina shrugged.

  “You just head north. You’l find it quickly enough.”

  Such a simple set of directions hardly seemed plausible to Gem, but then, Dr. Brown had said that this place could work in odd ways. Gem decided that she had to at least try. She couldn’t risk simply staying around the werewolves while her father was stil lost.

  “Is there any sign of Rio yet?” Gem asked.

  Nina shook her head.

  “Like I said, the hunters won’t be back for hours. They’l wander in some time around sunset, either morose that they haven’t caught anything or expecting accolades because they have.” Nina grinned. “Why, are you so eager to see him again?” Honestly, Gem wasn’t sure. She was certain, however, that she couldn’t just run off across half a kingdom without letting Rio know roughly where she was heading.

  “If I leave a note, could you see that he gets it?” Gem asked. She wasn’t sure if her epistolary skil s were up to conveying everything she felt, but at least she could tel Rio what was happening. Nina nodded, and Gem wrote a brief missive that amounted in truth to little more than Henry Word might be in the Winter Court. Gone north to check.

  Gem. It would have to do.

  Nina promised that she would pass it on. The werewolf was also kind enough to find Gem provisions for the journey, fil ing a backpack with the sorts of foods that would keep wel on a journey. She also pressed a coat made from animal furs into Gem’s hands.

  “I can’t just take al this,” Gem said.

  “You can and you wil ,” Nina insisted. “It gets cold in the Winter Court, and it would be negligent of me if I didn’t equip you properly. Now, one more thing…”

  thing…”

  She led Gem over to a pile of weapons stacked behind another of the tents. It occurred to Gem that werewolves were dangerous enough, without adding swords and spears to the equation.

  With them, they were probably terrifying.

  “Now, what can you use?” Nina asked. “The dangers of the Winter Court are notorious.” In the end, Gem chose a long knife, almost like a short sword, and tucked it under her jacket.

  Nina led her to the edge of the vil age and Gem started walking north with only the occasional backwards glance at the vil age. She knew she needed to be strong. After al , the Winter Court sounded like it was going to be a far from pleasant place to visit.

  Chapter 10

  The Winter Queen reposed upon a sofa of solid ice, while around her an assortment of sycophants and toadies waited for opportunities to tel her how beautiful she was, or how clever, or how marvelous. The only one who could be trusted not to do any of that was her nephew Devon, who currently stood dark-haired and brooding a little way away, armor formed of shadows frozen into solidity only adding to the impression of gloominess. He maintained a polite veneer over his handsome features, of course, but the Queen could see through that easily enough.

  “You are troubled, my Dark Knight,” the Queen said, smiling secretly as she did so. It always needled her nephew to be cal ed that. “What vexes you so?”

  Devon raised one exquisite eyebrow.

  “Would you truly hear it, milady?”

  The Queen rose, moving closer to him. It was odd that Devon would even ask, and that probably meant that she wouldn’t like what he had to say next.

  “Better that than watching you wallow in your anger, dear nephew. Now, stop sulking and tel me what’s wrong.”

  “If you command it. It is these… children you have brought back with you.”

  “M y children, Devon. Have a care.”

  “It is because I care that I say it, Aunt.” The

  “It is because I care that I say it, Aunt.” The fairy noble shook his head. “They lack the most basic utilitarian skil s that al the fey know. They cannot control the weather, or greet a visiting Winter wraith correctly, or even fight properly with icicle spears. If they are fey at al , then they are a travesty of true fey.”

  The Winter Queen’s anger was like the rest of her, a cold thing. Stil , this anger came to her with the speed of a tumbling avalanche. She clenched her fists.

  “You go too far, Devon. Normal y, I put up with your irritations, but here you have transgressed.” The Winter Queen could feel ice spinning snowflake patterns around her eyes, as it always did when her fury rose. She watched her nephew fal to one knee, bowing his head. Even her Dark Knight had the sense to fear her anger. For once, since Devon was family, the Winter Queen fought against it, but her anger was not a tractable thing. As for her circle of courtiers, that backed away rapidly, as the fey
and Winter creatures sought to be further from them both.

  “Forgive me, My Queen,” Devon said. “I did not mean to anger you.”

  “But you have managed it. These are my children, Devon. Speaking il of them is tantamount to speaking il of me. You wil not do it again.”

  “As you command, My Queen.”

  Devon knelt there perfectly stil , but the Winter Queen could hear the anger in his voice. She didn’t care.

  “Now get out. You have a task to perform, I believe?”

  “I do, My Queen.”

  “Then do it. Take as many men as you need.” The Winter Queen ignored Devon as he left, taking several of the others with him. She settled back onto her icy seat, trying to let the anger flow out of her. The courtiers continued to hang back, presumably knowing that the first of them to come to her attention would probably serve as a surrogate for her nephew, bearing the ful force of everything she currently felt towards him.

  The worst part about it, of course, was that Devon was right. Since Jack Frost and her sweet Katherine had arrived, the Winter Queen had tried to make up for their shortcomings by starting them off make up for their shortcomings by starting them off with a series of tutors, but progress would take time.

  They appeared to have almost no training in weapon craft, and stil less in cal ing down blizzards and snowstorms. It was enough to make you wonder what they taught human children in schools today.

  The worst part was that the Winter Queen had listened in to their conversations, and had been shocked to discover that they had actual y thought fairies were tiny, winged things. Of al the stupid, vacuous things to think! Even knowing how the Summer Queen had snatched them from their birthright, that was hard to credit.

  The whisper of voices among her courtiers brought the Winter Queen’s gaze up sharply, so that it fixed on one of the shadowy fey, dressed in an elaborate, laced edged tunic and hose. He tried to back away, and the Winter Queen’s eyes narrowed.

  “Talking about my children behind my back, are you?”

  “No My Queen…I would never… that is…” The Winter Queen didn’t have time for whatever needlessly verbose excuse the man would have come up with. Instead, she gestured towards the floor. Ice sprang from it, creeping up his legs like the tendrils of some climbing plant. The ice kept rising, quicker even than the fairy man could draw in breath to scream, encasing him in seconds. The result was a seemingly perfect ice sculpture adorning the middle of her audience room.

  That, thankful y, did a lot to assuage the Winter Queen’s anger.

  “He can stay like that,” she declared, “until the rest of you have learned to behave. The Summer Queen took my children and left me with a piece of old wood in their place, glamoured to look like them.

  Is it any wonder that they haven’t the knowledge that they should?”

  Since the fairies of the Winter Queen’s court were wel -practiced in the art of avoiding their queen’s anger, there was a general chorus of “of course not, your majesty”. The Winter Queen didn’t like to think of herself as a despot, of course.

  People could say whatever they liked. It was just that what they liked had better agree with her, or else.

  Through the renewed bouts of toadying came a diminutive shape, advancing in a remarkably diffident waddle. The Queen waved a hand and the courtiers parted with the speed of people who had just seen one of their number frozen, leaving a clear path for the advancing penguin. It halted a few feet from the Queen and attempted what was probably supposed to be a courtly bow. Never a good idea with webbed feet.

  “Honestly… somebody help the sil y thing up.” There was a brief scrum as half a dozen courtiers attempted to do so together, but final y, the penguin stood before her. In place of a bow, it gave a sort of salute with one flipper, before launching into a series of squawks. The Winter Queen shook her head at the reminder of one of her few failures. It had been so easy to get the polar bears to talk, but penguins? Try as she might with her magic, they never seemed to get the hang of it.

  Instead, as this one did now, they had to settle for communicating through a sort of frantic semaphore with their flippers. The Winter Queen watched closely, her mood darkening again.

  “They what? ”

  The tiny wings blurred with the effort of conveying the ful message.

  conveying the ful message.

  “Oh, just show me.”

  The penguin stopped, turned, and waddled towards the door. The Winter Queen set off after it.

  Natural y, her courtiers set off after her, with the overal effect being of a parade making its way through the frozen corridors of her icy castle. As they passed, servants bowed, curtseyed or simply fel to their knees to show how much they venerated their queen, or at least how much they didn’t want to make her any angrier than she was.

  The procession halted at one of the castle’s many dining rooms. Wel , most of it halted, while a few slid on a few more paces thanks to the icy floors.

  The Queen stepped inside, and stood staring at the sight within. Katherine and her Jack Frost stood in the middle of an argument with the castle’s chef, an argument that had grown sufficiently severe for Jack to have clamped a restraining hand around Katherine’s arm.

  At the sight of the Queen, not to mention half her court, two thirds of the argument stopped. The girl kept going though, like the one trombonist in an orchestra who hasn’t noticed the conductor waiting with increasing impatience.

  “I don’t care what you cal it. I’m not eating it.

  You can just go away and… what is it, Jack?” At a nod from her brother, she looked over to the Queen.

  “Oh.”

  “What is going on here?” the Winter Queen demanded. The chef got in first.

  “I’l tel you what is going on, your majesty.

  They refuse to eat al the food I have so careful y prepared for them, like there’s something wrong with it. Hours, I’ve worked, slaving over a cold stove, selecting the best blubber, the juiciest parts of the deep squid…”

  At that, the Queen saw her daughter nearly break free from Jack’s grip.

  “There is something wrong with it, you sanctimonious idiot! It’s not cooked.” The word seemed to ring through the room.

  The Winter Queen’s brow furrowed. Even so, she tried to be reasonable.

  “Cooked? Katherine, why would it be cooked?”

  “Because it’s food, that’s why. If you can cal it that. What sort of food is blubber, anyway?” The Winter Queen could hear the faint sounds of disbelief from behind her, along with a quick murmur of “cooked? She wants it cooked?” that faded the moment she looked round.

  “This is the Winter Court, Katherine. We do not heat things up.”

  “Why not? And it’s Kat, not Katherine.”

  “It is whatever I say.” So much for reasonable.

  The Winter Queen let her voice go cold, which wasn’t difficult. “And we are not going to start cooking things.”

  A flick of her fingers had a sheen of ice forming over the assembled food, the threat obvious.

  For an instant it seemed that her daughter would stay adamant, but her son chose that moment to intervene.

  “Maybe we could find something cold that would work?” he suggested. “Like ice cream, or even fish. People eat sushi al the time.” As if to prove the point, the penguin chose that moment to waddle over to the food and swal ow a fish almost as big as it was. It seemed to look up at Katherine imploringly. Almost as much so as her brother did.

  “Please, Kat.”

  Maybe the urgency of his tone was what made

  Katherine acquiesce, the Winter Queen thought. Whatever it was, she nodded.

  “Ok, but no blubber.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” the Winter Queen said, giving the chef a pointed look.

  “Ice cream, right. Right away, your majesty.

  Your Highnesses.”

  The man practical y ran off. The smal penguin, apparently having identif
ied him as a source of fish, waddled after him. The Winter Queen stalked out, her courtiers fol owing at a cautious distance. After al , they probably had no desire to be added to the list of things around there that could be frozen. The Winter Queen sighed. She would have her revenge on the Summer Court for doing this to her. Her army was almost in readiness, and soon she would be in a position to make her Summer counterpart pay. Of course, whatever the Winter Queen did, it would have to be harsh in the extreme to make up for turning her children into something so… human.

  Though of course, there was one advantage to what had been done to them. Immersed in a world of iron, it would be in their blood now. Where most of her people would be harmed just by touching it, the Winter Queen guessed that her children would be able to wield it with impunity. Oh, they were stil weak as yet, but they would get stronger.

  In the meantime, she would just have to rely on her other advantage, the one that had come to her so perfectly just a week or so before, and even now, sat in his metal contraption, imprisoned in her dungeons. Yes, the Winter Queen thought, with his uncanny knack for building worlds out of technology, the wizard they cal ed Henry Word would give her the decisive advantage, one way or another.

  Chapter 11

  Gem did her best to adhere to obvious tracks as she kept heading north, but the landscape seemed determined not to make it easy for her.

  Several times, the closeness of the trees and the difficulty of the ground made it hard for Gem to keep going perfectly north, forcing her to detour around the obstacle until she could find her original route again.

  She tried to hurry, even so. When both the inhabitants of the Summer Court and the werewolves hated the Winter Queen for her depravity, there was no way that Gem wanted to leave Henry Word with her any longer than she had to. Even given everything that had happened, he was her father, after al . Gem might deplore the way he’d hidden the truth from her, but that didn’t mean she was going to leave him tucked away in some dungeon somewhere.

  Gem pressed on, hoping to make good time during the day and not wanting to add nocturnal dangers to those she already faced. Already, she had the sense that something was watching her, though the reasons for that sense seemed to be ineffable, at least for the moment.