White As Snow (Fairy Tale) (25 page)

Read White As Snow (Fairy Tale) Online

Authors: Tanith Lee

S
HE HAD BEEN THE WOMAN, SHE had been the Witch, and the Queen, and she had even been a stepmother, which was to say a mother to a child orphaned by the maternal parent’s death. She had been magnetic and unreachable as the moon. She had grown awful and phantasmal as a demoness. Her back, her turned face, these were the memory; her frozen hands.
In this new, disturbed garb, ragged garments, raddled skin, could Coira even know her?
“What do you want?” Coira said. And she drew her shawl up to cover herself, without rush or shame, more as a civility to the stranger.
But Arpazia had seen. It was herself right enough. The mirror had lessoned her in this body and this face.
“You don’t know me, then,” she said, rational and cool. Madness had made her again in a form of sanity. “You don’t know who I am.”
Always these exchanges between them:
Is it you? Who are you? You don’t know me.
Who could say they knew themselves? Who can? Even the ancient gods had reminded men of this.
Coira’s brain was full only of one lost one.
As was Arpazia’s brain.
“Only I’m here,” said Coira. “Do you want to barter what’s in the basket?” Even in her misery, she did not cast the destitute crone out.
“Delicious fruit,” said Arpazia, scathingly. She realized she was hungry, so she drew out one of the yellow preserved apples and bit into it. The honey was now so saccharine it puckered her mouth. She took another bite, then held out the apple to the girl—to Coira—to her child.
But Coira did not take the apple.
There was a narrow bracelet on her wrist. Arpazia looked at it. “Let me comb your hair.”
Coira said nothing. She sat down woodenly on a stool by the fire-pit, in her covering of shawl and tresses.
“Yes,” said Arpazia. “I’ll comb your long black hair. I’ll make it smooth. That nurse-woman pulled at your hair. I saw her. She pulled it, that wretched girl, my hair, until I threw the glass bottle at her. But I can do it nicely.”
Something lifted and looked up,
behind
Coira’s face.
She stayed motionless, as the crone came gliding up to her. She had no comb, yet seemed to think she had one—Coira’s she did not take. Instead she began to run her long, thin fingers through and through the rich, filmy skeins of hair, which grew electric at the touch, and flew up like smoke.
“Who are you?” said Coira. Her voice
was
like a child’s, high and rough.
“Who am I?” said Arpazia, combing her daughter’s hair, combing
the hair which was hers. “Guess who I am. Who could I be? Who would come here after you?”
There were no rings, to catch. Something so curious—the fingers silking through and through her hair—a kind of spell, an enchantment. Hypnotized, Coira leaned back upon the hands which played her hair like the strings of harps—
How cold these hands. (She had not seen their snow-scars.) Hands without rings …
Hands meeting in a wood-dance, like a blow.
Coira did not move. Her body leaned back against the hard body of the crone—who smelled of honey and apples, of frost and burned wood.
Within Coira something moved, darting behind her eyes.
“
Are you my mother?
”
“Yes, yes. I am your mother.”
“Did—he send you away?”
“Hush, my love. Who could do that?”
“Why are you here?”
“Where else should I be?”
In Coira’s fever dream: the shining brazier, the sweet odor of the divine wood, the golden mother who comforted her and made her immortal. But that had been Demetra, the goddess.
In Arpazia’s waking dream: the golden faces and the diamond tears, oh, the sorrows of the flesh, my dear, my dear. It’s a terrible thing to lose your child.
“But I’ve found you,” said Arpazia, combing and stroking the living hair of the young girl, which was her own, which she had created with her own womb. “He told me you lived, even though I tried to make you die. He said you lived and here you are. My dear, my love—”
And Arpazia folded her arms gently around her child, cradling her shoulders and the head which leaned on her.
Inside Coira torrents of spring rain, leaping under her eyes—
“Why did you hate me then?” she said, in her child’s voice. “Why did you—did you try—to kill me—”
“Oh, I never did. I could never do that. You’re myself born again in flesh. His and mine. All made of love. How I love you, Coira, best of all.”
Coira turned in her mother’s arms. She clung to Arpazia, and the torrents burst from her. She wept, clinging to this woman who was her mother, and her mother held her close.
Coira thought,
What is this that I’m doing? Fool—fool—who is she?
It made no difference.
And she could hear that the woman cried too, long, hoarse sobs that were full of emptiness becoming filled, and silence finding how to make a sound.
Coira had learned to trust no one. But this was beyond trust.
The spiteful voice in Arpazia’s head could discover no words.
On the hearth the fire crackled, and far off the mines boomed like the sea.
 
 
Through its cracks and eyeholes in sacking and caked dirt, the mirror looked. The mirror sensed an imminence.
The mirror gazed into the flames of the fire, on which diamonds had scattered.
I am still bright, said the fire to the mirror.
I, too, said the mirror, in parts.
But I, said the fire, shall soon go out. Is it death?
It is, the mirror said. Death is the imminence which I feel. Your death, and mine, also.
But the women were murmuring on and on, like bees. The mirror looked away, up through the dirt and the air and the rock of the cavern and the stone and marble of the hills. The mirror saw Hephaestion already walking on the road to the city. The mirror saw the sunlight, and the unwoken fields, and the bees which gathered among the first fronds of spring.
There is no death, said the mirror, only changing.
Yes, said the fire and closed its spangled eyes.
 
 
“Let me light the fire again,” said Coira sleepily. “It will get cold.”
But her mother would not let her go.
She’s smothering me,
Coira thought.
Her arms round my waist, my neck, her long dusty hair, snow-white now, all over me, in my mouth even. I can hardly breathe.
Coira would not let Arpazia go. She held on to her, and would not let her stir, even though the fire was out and Tickle’s time candle showed the day was almost gone.
Let her smother me. I want her to. What else is there for me?
And Arpazia held her as if to press her back inside her body, into the warm oven of her womb. And as if to press herself into the womb of Coira.
They had murmured fragments of the past, the dreams. They had eaten the honey-apples from the basket, sharing them. The sweet, sweet taste burned across their lips, closing their throats, gluing their tongues to the ceilings of their mouths.
Together they curled by the fire, from which a soft heat still came, though it had died an hour before.
“You’re my beauty,” said Arpazia, “the most beautiful in all the world. Skin like snow and hair like ebony and your lips red as a rose. Oh, you’re mine.” Arpazia had never known her mother, who had died, they told Arpazia, at Arpazia’s birth.
Coira tried to speak, but could not. Her voice, like the dire voice in her mother’s head, had gone dumb. This did not matter. Arpazia sang to her. It concerned snow and roses.
Coira’s ears sang, too, like the sea. She breathed in tiny shallow gasps and her heart pounded, rattling her breast. But she was happy. So happy at last. She had not lost her love. All love was here. She did not need to trust, only give in.
She held tighter still, but now her fingers had no grip. She did not realize, for Arpazia held her so close, tighter, tight as any loving, clinging child.
Her hair tastes of the honey. Or of wood. She has the smell of apples. Why do they say not to eat the apple? Oh, because it holds the knowledge of good and evil, of living and dying. And of sleep.
Coira slept.
Arpazia slept, also.
(Tickle and Proud worked late in the mines, reluctant to come home, knowing Hephaestion was gone and the abandoned girl alone.)
The day candle glimmered down to a stump and its flame shivered to nothing. No one lit another candle.
But outside the torch burned on, and Elusion went on with its calls and thunders and blasphemies.
And the mirror looked, and saw Death standing on the threshold in the dusk, a suitor on foot, without his chariot or horses. His eyes were the eyes of night and he bowed three times to his bride, promised him so long before in the wood.
Then his shadow swung before him into the room. It was a giant. Yet when he followed, he was the greater.
W
HEN THEY RETURNED, IT was after midnight. Proud and Tickle had finished their late work, and brought away a small bag of gold dust, unseen. They had begun to talk of leaving the mine, and meant soon to call on Soporo, Greedy, and the other dwarvixens, to see if they too might wish to travel elsewhere. They had all gained confidence in Elusion, for none challenged their masterless state, though many had come to realize that they were not truly owned.
They had stopped to drink at the Black Still. Proud was merry, Tickle serene.
“The house is dark,” said Proud, as they climbed up to the shack. They were glad. They could slink in and not need to see Coira, either to spurn or to be kind to her. (They blamed her, too, for Stormy’s going off, even Tickle did. If he had not taken up with her, surely he would have stayed.)
Just outside, under the torchlit roots, they paused. There was a savage smell, stifling, like that of certain flowers.
“What is it?”
“Some attar of the spring market, some Eastern stuff.”
Into the shack they went.
“She’s let the fire go out, useless mistress-slut,” muttered Proud.
“No matter. We’ve the brazier upstairs.”
“It’s cold.”
But Tickle found the wide room hot, and the smell of the perfume made her head swim.
“Let’s go up. I don’t like it here,” said Proud, drunk enough to be empathic.
Tickle saw them first.
“What’s there?” asked Proud, nervously.
But Tickle was already bending over them, the two women. Her eyes were more accustomed to the dark than Proud’s. Besides, the torch shone in at an angle, catching the outline of two faces curiously alike, although one was scarred and fallen, the other young.
“Mistress,” said Tickle, “Coira-mistress, who is this?”
Coira did not open her eyes.
It was the other eyes which opened.
Even so, they
were
the eyes of Coira, there in the undone face, pale as water.
“What do you want?” the old woman said. She was imperious. She might have been royal.
Tickle leaped back like a frog.
She pushed at Proud. “Out—out we go!”
Out they went.
“What?” said Proud, frightened, already knowing.
“She’s dead. Stormy’s girl. She wasn’t taking any breath. That smell—it’s poison. The air’s full of it.”
“But the other one—”
“Some market crone, her basket was there. The smell was coming out of the basket. Quick, we’ll go for the others.”
They scuttled down the rock and away into the lit and endless cavernal night.
And in the shack, Arpazia settled herself again, the girl clasped tight. But she did not feel so happy. She was less sure, Arpazia, of what she did. The light weight, heavier with its inertia, hung on her, giving her back nothing, now. It did not speak lovingly,
Mother, Mother, is it you?
It was no longer warm. Even the tendrils of hair were dry as torn grass. Never mind it, Arpazia would sleep again. All was well.
The next waking would be less gradual. As if she knew, she went deeply down again to nothingness.
 
 
To the dwarves all mankind—above-beneath them—was crazed, potentially lethal. Whatever they did, God’s proper people, must bode no good for the dwarf kind.
Soporo, when they brought him out of his lubricious hutch, told them the situation in the shack was better left alone. But Greedy, when he joined them, exclaimed that he had left property concealed there. They must go back and take what was theirs.
Vinka, too, asserted this, nodding and sizzling, while Want hid herself in the dark.
Even Tickle assented that they could do nothing for Coira. The mad old basket-woman had killed her, perhaps even at Coira’s wish. Who could gauge the minds of the God-Made, since they were all so warped?
They went back to the shack. Then crept about, and took anything that was their own.
Only Soporo leaned right over the two cuddled, unconscious women, a taper burning in his hand. He ogled Coira, storing the partial view of her slim nudity. To her life or death he was indifferent. She was of another race, and she had parted them from one of their own.
“Perhaps we may find him,” whispered Proud, “now, in the city …”
But each of them knew they would not seek for Stormy. He was lost to them. They did not really want him any more—
she
had defiled him.
And only Jealous Vinka sniffed at the basket, and brought out of it, in her fingers, a scrap of candied apple.
“It’s fruit,” said Tickle, wonderingly. But the scent of it made her dizzy. She smelled it on them, and on herself, for several days after they had left the shack far behind.
 
 
The mirror had seen Death cross the threshold in the night. A pair of hours after Elusion’s trumpeted dawn, he would come back, in his other, mortal shape.
But the mirror on the wall had grown cold by then. Formerly, the fire had been kept going always, and the big candles, and the torch at the door. Now the fire was long out, the candle, too, and then the torch gave up its ghost.
The hard mud and soot packed across the mirror’s face chilled and grew more brittle. A piece of sacking dropped like an autumn leaf.
By then, Death’s second form was already approaching. The mirror waited, which was all it could do.
 
 
Juprum had been the prince’s servant in the village above Korchlava, where his mother gave birth to him. She had boasted that the child was Draco’s—King Draco’s, as by then Draco was a king. In the sixteen or seventeen years which followed, the mother died. Her household declined, and the boy became a robber by trade. It was the trade of many in that area. Juprum too aged. But age did not alter his opinions, only welded them fast.
He believed the boy to be a prince, as the mother had insisted. Juprum believed this because the boy was unusual, so handsome and well-made, and capable of such extraordinary charm—as if only a king (and he had never seen Draco) could impart these qualities.
The boy’s, and next the young man’s alter-temperament was not enough to turn Juprum from him. He went on serving him faithfully through all the sixteen, seventeen years, and even journeyed below with him to the mine caverns. Here, through luck and chance and murder and other such things, his favorite came to be the Prince of the Underworld.
By now, Juprum had forgotten Hadz’s other name.
Juprum did not lust after his lord. It was not so simple or so lively. He had only, vinelike, grown about Hadz. He would have done anything for him. And now he went with him, across Hell, with a retinue of ten of the prince’s guards, to make yet one more claim.
Juprum approved of all of this. He wished his darling to be well and at his best. He preferred him to get whatever he wanted.
Strangely, Juprum also believed in God. However, he thought God was bribable, like most men, all men Juprum had seen. So it did not count what one did, providing at the end everything was repented.
Strangely too, more strangely, Juprum was not aware of how belatedly his prince entered into the history of the two white-skinned women, lying at that moment in each other’s arms, both of them seeming to be dead. Juprum had had Prince Hadz at the core of all his own later life. Hadz was the crux of Juprum’s story, and the two women were merely to be an added element, like another couple of silver stitches sewn on Hadz’s cloak.
Also, as Juprum would have said, in many tales of women, the lord—the man—a prince or king, need only intervene during the last quarter, even the last lines. There were plenty of such recitals. A virgin would dance, the prince see her and capture her shoe as a token. Or the girl would be imprisoned by some sorcery, the prince arriving to free her in the final moment of the tale. Man was the fate of woman.
Juprum walked easily behind Hadz, admiring the tall, straight, striding figure, the cloak with its bullion fringes, the massed, cascading hair that was as black as the word
black.
There were rings
on the prince’s hand, a veined amethyst and a crimson ruby. His profile, shown as he turned to look about, was keen-cut and as perfect itself as a jewel.
The inhabitants of Hell peered after him. Some wisely kneeled down. A number even crossed themselves, and this amused Hadz. (He smiled—he had flawless teeth.)
He was in sound health. The witch-leaves or their powder had seen to that. Juprum had been content ever since they worked their magic. But of course, what else would Hadz want than to take that girl to him? What a treat she was to have. She did not deserve it—but then, Juprum decided reasonably, perhaps she merited
something
for her cleverness in driving off the pain.
As they came up the track through the other hovels and shambles, Hadz said, “Is that the place, up there? She has a white tree, as I do.”
There was also a consumed torch by the door.
Juprum did not deal in omens.
The guard ranged themselves about, and one yelled in at the doorway, “Stir yourselves! The prince is here to visit you!”
But no one stirred.
Juprum frowned. His glorious master was all grace and unconcern.
“Leave it. I’ll go in.”
He ducked under the door’s lintel—Hadz was tall.
Only Juprum followed, allowed such a privilege since he liked to be ever helpful and ready to hand.
“Look, Juprum. Oh, look.”
The old man grimaced, trying to see in the dark. There was a heap of something—some shawls and rags. The air was drowned in perfume and honey.
All at once Hadz sprang forward, leopardlike. “Christ! Marusa of the blue veil—”
Fear laid its tentacles on Juprum’s spine.
“
What
, my prince?”
Hadz, like the abjects outside, was kneeling now. He snarled, the leopard, “Give me
light
.”
“Light!” screeched Juprum.
Someone brought it.
Then they looked, and even Juprum saw.
After a long while, Hadz separated the women. He did this with an almost feminine delicacy, so the elder one, who had coiled the younger like a serpent, did not wake. Then Hadz tried to wake the girl. He stroked her, even kissed her forehead, cheek. Juprum stood ready to pull him back from her lips—for the old man already suspected from their stillness, from the odor, some drug or bane.
Presently Hadz slapped the girl’s face, quite lightly. She did not respond. A faint whisper of blood showed from the slap, but not enough.
Hadz turned. He looked at Juprum, disappointed and almost childish. “What is it, Juprum?”
“I don’t know, my prince. Something bad has been done. She was a witch, wasn’t she? And from the look of it, she consorted with other witches.”
“But she’s beautiful. She’s as beautiful as I am,” said Hadz, logically. Somehow he had never learned beauty did not necessarily protect.
He went on idly smoothing her breasts that a loose shawl did not much conceal, her hip and thigh, the slender hands with nails so bloodless now they were like crystal, her flowing hair which was, Juprum grudgingly thought, as black as Hadz’s own.
She might have been a fitting consort. But Juprum could see she did not breathe. The other one did.
“She’s dead, sir. But the old beldame’s alive. Shall I wake her up?”
“I will,” said Hadz.
And then, in one of his graceful, superlative movements, he took the older woman in his arm, and rose straight up with her. And for a moment then, he stood looking in her ruined face, and her
eyes began to open and to see him. Hadz smiled. “What have you done, you bitch?” said Hadz gently, “What have you done to my lovely girl?” And then he flung the old woman from him, with all his considerable young strength, straight at the wall.
 
 
And the mirror waited, and saw the black star flung and rushing toward it. The mirror felt the meeting with the star. Then the mirror was shattered, and became also stars, black stars and white, and scarlet.
The packed soot, the sacking, the shards of glass that broke free and clean, and the splinters that were suddenly edged with blood, they burst around the body of Arpazia. They fell like thick snow upon the floor. They covered over the motionless body of the girl, leaving only her face quite alone, filling her night of hair with glittering constellations.
I am dead,
said the mirror, in its thousand severed voices.
But then it found its soul still stood upright in the smoking air, whole and reflecting—but invisible to the creatures in the room.
 

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