The Winter Riddle Page 2

  Osgrey had once told Volgha about a little grove in the valley, where the spirits of the forest spoke to him. She roamed the land and cast scrying spells until she found Sigmund grooming himself under a gnarled old oak tree. There was something familiar about the tree, and it didn’t take her long to figure out what it was: the tree was Osgrey.

  She’d found references in one of her books to druids turning themselves into trees near the ends of their lives, but they’d said nothing about the trees ever turning back into lovable old druids. She’d assumed they forgot how to do magic, their brains having turned to wood and all.

  Though she was disappointed that Osgrey was gone, she was glad to have found the grove. Osgrey had a little cottage there, and she moved into it. She befriended some of the local fauna, including Sigmund, who seemed keen on sticking around. She started learning how to speak with the spirits of the grove—or rather to them, as they rarely spoke back—and would have been perfectly content to live out the rest of her days there, in peace and quiet.

  Unfortunately, since her sister was no longer worried that Volgha would challenge her for the throne, she summoned Volgha up to the castle all the time. Ignoring her just meant that she’d ask louder and more frequently; and on one occasion in particular, it would turn out to be far more trouble than she’d imagined.

  2

  Volgha had met Loki before. More than once. He never seemed to remember her, but that wasn’t why she despised him. She despised him because for all of his power and charm and wit, he was a fool. He was a fool, and he never resisted an opportunity to plague her with his foolishness.

  “Kneel before your queen, peasant!” His falsetto was piercing. Volgha was surprised that the mostly-empty wine bottles strewn around the room didn’t all shatter.

  “Wearing my sister’s dress doesn’t make you the queen, Loki.”

  “How dare you!” The word “dare” was drawn out and warbling, in the latest fashion of old money aristocrats who were prone to losing monocles when sufficiently outraged. “You shall address me as Your Majesty, lest you lose your head on the choppy thingy, in my mercy. Now kneel!”

  “I am kneeling,” said Volgha. “Your goon here has seen to that.”

  One did not impersonate the sister of a witch, have said sister’s guard force her to her knees, and expect to not have all of the milk in one’s presence instantly curdle for the next year or so. That spell would require rockwort and toadstool. She already had rockwort. She must remember to gather some toadstool.

  “Right,” said Loki, “but not humbly enough.”

  “Where is my sister?”

  “How should I know, peasant? I’ve been busy queening over my queendom all afternoon! I’ve better things to do than look after your sister, whoever she is.”

  A muffled tittering drifted from behind one of the ornate sofas. Volgha recognized it at once. At least her sister had not befallen some horrible fate, and was merely complicit in her protracted annoyance.

  “Call off the goon, will you?” Volgha was being held in her kneeling position by a mail-and-leather-clad guard. Not too roughly, but he wouldn’t let her rise. Itchy warts for him, then. She’d have to remember thistle. Earthbloom and thistle.

  “So you can further affront My Majesty? Do you think that I was queened only yesterday?”

  “That’s not a verb,” said Volgha, who appeared more bored than vexed, proving that appearances can be deceiving. She was quite vexed, and it’s never a good idea to vex a witch.

  She was going to have to follow through on these hexes, not that that was how she wanted to spend her time. Witches generally disliked the whole hexing game, but it had to be done. Vex one witch without repercussions, and the whole system of respectful fear just sort of falls apart. “A hex for a vex,” as the old saying goes. Volgha didn’t consider herself a fierce traditionalist, but some customs simply shouldn’t be breached.

  “Your face isn’t a verb!” countered Loki. The farce was spiraling rapidly. A wedding cake in a hailstorm had a better chance of keeping it together.

  The tittering from behind the sofa was nearly uncontrollable now. Volgha could picture her sister, red-faced and writhing, most likely dressed in whatever ridiculous get-up Loki normally occupied; or rather usually occupied, for there was certainly nothing normal about him. Alexia undoubtedly thought the pair of them very clever.

  “Look,” said Volgha, “you’re neither the queen nor my sister, both of whom are—I mean is—behind that sofa, giggling like a fox in a wine barrel. I’m not buying into this garbage game the two of you are playing. I don’t appreciate being dragged here like this, and I will wither this goon to a husk in just a moment if you don’t—”

  The tittering finally rolled itself into full-bellied laughter, as the White Queen emerged, as predicted, in Loki’s doublet and breeches.

  “We got you!” she wheezed, breathless with laughter.

  “No,” grumbled Volgha, “you didn’t.”

  “You should see the look on your face! The one that isn’t a verb!” She and Loki were both in stitches, rolling on the ground, fully impressed with themselves.

  Volgha tried to stand, but the guard’s grip on her shoulder remained firm. She turned to him and summoned her most harrowing look.

  “Withered to a husk,” she said through clenched teeth. The guard pulled his hand away. Volgha rose to her feet. She didn’t want to wither him to a husk, so she was glad that he relented. She didn’t even have a firm idea of what withering a person to a husk would entail, but it sounded dreadful. He was smart to avoid making her figure it out.

  She stood there, arms crossed, waiting for the royal nitwit and her idiot friend to finish their ridiculous self-amusement. She was aware that it might take a long time, but knew that any attempt on her part to speed the process along would do just the opposite. Far better to simply suffer it in silence.

  Volgha was hungry. She only realized it when her sister started eating a sausage she’d found in Loki’s pocket, which he no doubt only kept there for the obvious pun. Volgha never actually wished for any harm to befall her sister, though she indulged in the wistful hope that Her Majesty might choke on the sausage long enough to stop her laughing. She’d never seen a person eat while laughing that hard, but the White Queen was no average buffoon.

  Volgha had to hand it to her sister … she was ridiculous, but it was the sort of practiced ridiculousness that might have won gold at the Olympics, had it but been a sport.

  The guard was fidgeting while Volgha watched what must have been the most vulgar display of laughter in history. The two of them had stripped down and traded clothes back, cackling all the while. Since Her Majesty had never dressed herself, her ladies-in-waiting were summoned and made quick work of all the lacing and buckles while she writhed and giggled and guffawed.

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” said the guard, “but I wanted to apologize for the whole holding-your-witchness-down-on-the-floor thing. I was just following orders, you see. I’d never want to offend you or anything, but you know how Her Majesty can be when she’s being clever.”

  Volgha studied the man’s face. It was smiling, if you could call it that. The lips were curled up at the edges, but rather than friendly, it was deeply unsettling. Pork sandwiches were not as greasy. Still, it appeared sincere.

  The White Queen snorted. She’d fallen over the back of her armchair, and her dress had gone up over her head. There were a startling number of petticoats, enough to constitute a quorum if anything came up for a vote.

  “I understand,” Volgha said.

  “So maybe we can avoid the whole ‘husk’ thing?”

  “What is your name?”

  “Reginald, ma’am,” he replied. “The boys all call me Reg.”

  “I suppose I could overlook it this time, Reginald,” said Volgha. “In exchange for a favor.”

  “Of course,” said the guard, looking eager. “Whose head would you like knocked in?”

  “What? No,” ex
claimed Volgha. “Well, probably not. I haven’t decided yet. Until I do, just remember: you’re in debt to the Winter Witch, and there’s no escaping that.”

  Reg thanked her profusely. The laughter rolled into what must have been its fifth encore.

  The queen ultimately laughed herself into a stupor, which turned into a nap. Loki did the same. Volgha called for supper to be sent in, and dined well on courses of cheeses, soup, fish, pheasant, bread pudding, and finally a nice glass of port with little chocolates. It was usually considered unseemly for a witch to dine with such decadence, but in this case, it could be considered the price paid for her inconvenience.

  The hour rolled into evening, and Her Majesty’s servants came in to gently carry her off to her rooms. Lord Chamberlain, once trusted advisor to their parents and now to the current White Queen, had Volgha’s room readied for her. As she drifted off to sleep in the big feather bed, she was unsure of what had become of Loki—most likely left to sleep where he lay, under the chaise. She hoped to catch her sister early the next morning, before a fascination with some newly discovered means of mimicking flatulence kept her from getting to the point of her summons.

  The White Queen and Loki were two feculent peas in a scheming and ludicrous pod. Her Majesty always had a mad gleam in her eye when she talked about Loki. To be fair, she nearly always had a mad gleam in her eye, but it put on a florid air of bloodthirst when he came up, like a pair of sharpened stiletto heels for special occasions. Nervous smiles tended to bloom on the faces of those who saw that gleam, followed by hasty retreats involving things that needed doing elsewhere.

  The two of them had a strange relationship. Not quite a friendship, as they were often at each other’s throats; not a courtship, as they were never romantic; and certainly not a partnership, as those tended to involve paperwork and taxes, and they wouldn’t have been able to get on with their hijinks until they’d sorted out who was senior partner.

  Whatever the two of them were to each other, they were a plague upon Volgha. The most recent symptom of said plague was screaming bloody murder upon waking to find the pair of them sitting at the foot of her bed.

  There were obvious benefits to a big feather bed, none of which offset this new and deplorable downside. She got straight to the business of longing for the little straw mattress in her cottage, the one that had no room for a pair of idiots at the foot. They burst into laughter.

  “Will you two stop amusing yourselves long enough to tell me what you want?” She had not woken sufficiently to deal with this level of annoyance. To be fair, she’d need the time from that moment until the sun had set and risen again for that degree of wakefulness.

  “You should tell her,” said Loki.

  “It’s your idea, you should tell her!”

  “That’s why you should tell her. It’s such a good idea, I’ll sound like I’m bragging.”

  “One of you should tell me while I still have a shred of patience.”

  “Fine,” said the White Queen, turning to Volgha. “You see, dear sister, Loki does a spot-on impression of me. So we thought that we should dress him up as me, and—”

  “No, no,” interrupted Loki. “We did that one, tell her about the other thing.”

  “There’s not another thing, I’m sure I’d know about it.”

  Volgha got up and started getting dressed.

  “Where are you going?” The queen looked genuinely perplexed.

  “Home, probably. I’ve got things to attend to, and you can’t even remember why you summoned me, so I’m leaving.”

  “No!” Loki leapt from the bed, rolled, and came up to a kneeling position at her feet. He took her hands in his, looked up at her sweetly, and produced a high-pitched fart that seemed to ask a question. Volgha was mildly amused, but not nearly enough to crack so much as a smirk. If word got out that witches’ ire could be appeased by flatulence-based humor, Volgha would find a formidable enemy in the joke shop sector.

  “Then out with it! I’m utterly out of patience with the pair of you!”

  Loki’s shoulders slumped a bit. Clearly, he’d wanted to dance around the purpose a while. He stood up, straightened his doublet, and started pacing around the room. Her Majesty had become fascinated with an enormous saber that had been hanging on the wall, and Loki ducked easily under her wild swings.

  “I don’t know if you’re aware,” he began, “but I’m a bit of a prankster. I’ve played pranks on nearly everyone worth pranking. Gods and kings, philosophers and servants, rich and poor have all fallen prey to my japes. There’s only one foe whom I have yet to confound, and I need your help to attempt it.”

  “Some other god?” Volgha asked.

  “Close. A god, yes, but none other than me!”

  “You’re going to play a prank on yourself?”

  “Probably. In a manner of speaking.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’m not sure yet how it will unfold. In fact, I can’t even begin to decide on the game until you’ve played the part that your majestic sister has implied that you can.”

  Volgha said nothing. She had him talking now, and thought an interruption might slow him down. Then this would take longer.

  “I will devise a riddle, and I will solve it … and I will need two of me.”

  “You want me to make you a twin?”

  “No,” shouted the queen, wildly swinging her saber around. “He wants you to cut him in half!”

  “Cut you in half,” repeated Volgha, wanting to be sure that she’d heard correctly.

  “More like dividing my mind.”

  “Are you sure you have the wits to spare?”

  “Thanks for joining the party, love.” Loki grinned at the gibe.

  “You have that creature, Ghasterly,” said Volgha to her sister. “Why don’t you make him do your dirty work? You saw fit to replace Osgrey with him, is he not up to the task?”

  “I want you to do it!” Her saber slashed clumsily through the air, as well as a painting of a stodgy-looking noble wearing a garish quantity of gold. “We never do anything together anymore.” Her lower lip was out. The royal pout. “Don’t you like doing sister things?”

  “No, and neither do you.”

  “Fine,” said the queen with an eye roll and a sigh. “Ghasterly said it’s dangerous to fool with that sort of power. He’s no fun.”

  “For once, he and I agree,” said Volgha. She turned to Loki. “And you, you think being astrally bisected is a good idea?”

  “Why not? I am a god, after all. What better way to prove I’m cleverer than all of the other gods in Asgard than to solve a riddle devised by the greatest trickster of all time?”

  “Well, half the greatest trickster.”

  “We’ll let the bards work out the details in their ballads. Can it be done?”

  Despite her misgivings about getting herself involved with a scheme that had anything to do with her sister, Volgha had to admit that the proposition was intriguing. Gods were always toying with the hearts and minds of mortal folk, she could use this opportunity to chalk one up for the other side.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” she said. “But I’d need to use the wizard’s tower.”

  Ghasterly was a rotten old curmudgeon who grumbled under his rotten breath in the presence of anyone who was younger than he was, and that included roughly everybody. He was especially cantankerous toward Volgha over the stolen books—oh yes, he’d noticed—and doubly so when ordered to give her access to anything in his stores that she needed to accomplish her task. He’d banned Volgha from the tower long ago, and seethed at her insistence that she had to work from within it to brew a potion for Loki.

  “You think you’re clever, I suspect.” Ghasterly wasn’t doing any work, as far as Volgha could tell, unless lurking and leering counted as work. It may have. No one really knows what necromancers get up to.

  “At least I try to be clever,” she said, not taking her eyes off the herbs she was grinding. “Why was it that you couldn
’t do this?”

  “Not couldn’t,” said Ghasterly, “wouldn’t! There are horrors that this sort of magic might unleash. No responsible wizard would get mixed up in this business, and no witch with half a brain would either!”

  “What about a necromancer with half a brain? I’m sure you could find half a brain in one of your musty old corpses that you could use.”

  “Mock me all you like,” said Ghasterly with a smile that would be useful for scaring children into brushing their teeth. “You’ll regret this soon enough.”

  “Could you refuse to do your job elsewhere? I’m trying to do magic over here.”

  After several afternoons of reading through what she still thought of as Osgrey’s books, sniping with Ghasterly, getting the cauldron bubbling just right, stirring it counter-clockwise, and waiting for the proper alignment of stars (which was more for dramatic effect than anything else—a witch can’t be seen finishing her work at any old time), she’d finally done it. She’d devised a potion that would permit Loki to try and outsmart himself.

  After her usual fashion, Her Majesty was on the veranda, surrounded by courtiers, most of whom who were all but punching each other in the face to win a moment of her affection. The rest were actually punching each other in the face. Watching all of this was one of Her Majesty’s favorite pastimes, and one of the few occasions during which she managed to keep her voice inside her indomitable lungs for more than a minute at a time.