So…why was the mirror showing her these two? There had to be a reason. When she was seeking like this, the mirror never showed her anything without a good reason.
“ — Mother Annukka,” the girl repeated, only a step from tears, her face a virtual mask of fear, “this is scarcely the time for music!”
The older woman was holding a lovely wooden kantele, a harp used mostly by the Sammi, and she gave the girl a sharp glance. Her eyes were a very piercing blue, and Aleksia found herself wishing that she actually knew this woman. Her face had a look of strength, bravery and wisdom about it. “Have you ever seen any true sorcery, Kaari?”
The girl shook her head, and wiped her eyes. “No, only things like casting the runes, and the little household magics. You are the only Sorceress I know. Everything else I only know from tales.”
“The greater Magies that I know all work through music,” the one called Annukka said, tuning the kantele with practiced fingers, one ear cocked to the sound as she plucked the strings too softly for Aleksia to hear. “Shaman use the spirit-drums, Wise Women and Wonder-smiths the kantele. So be still and learn.”
Annukka's fingers moved deftly over the strings, and she began singing. Her voice was low, and very strong, though not loud; pleasant, but by no means the level of a great musician or a bard. Yet there was power, great power, behind it. Even through the mirror, Aleksia could feel it. “Oh, Road that leads out from my door,” she sang, “Who led my son to seek his fate. Now I command you to tell me where his wyrd has led e’er ’tis too late.”
Now the girl probably could not tell this — and surely thought the woman was daft for singing to a road — but the power behind the song took even Aleksia aback. This was a Wise Woman indeed! For those with the eyes to see it, power flowed around her, golden as honey, as if she was immersed in a swirling river of light.
The dust of the road stirred, the fallen leaves moved as if twirled by an errant breeze.
Leaves and dust began to fall into a pattern; Aleksia felt the hair on her neck prickle, and the girl stepped back a pace, her mouth forming into a little O of surprise. Then there was a kind of grinding noise, and a face gradually formed out of the dust, the bared earth, with the leaves settling into its hair and lips.
The blank eyes were two stones, the ruts of the road forming a suggestion of nose, cheekbones, eyelids and eyebrows. The lips moved, and words formed, somehow, sighing into the air with the sound of rocks grinding against each other.
Veikko took me northward, it is true. The Road groaned. He followed me into the forest. He spoke with many people who could not help him find a Master, until at last, he came to the home of the Warrior-Mage Lemminkal Heikkinen. There he was accepted as the Master’s apprentice. But they left there some time ago, and they did not go by road or track. I have not seen him. I cannot find him. Perhaps the sun has seen them, but I have not.
There was a final groan as of the earth settling; the breeze sprang up and scattered the leaves; and then — there was no face, no face at all. There were two stones near one another, but they didn't look like eyes anymore, and the ruts were merely ruts. Aleksia shook her head, marveling. It not only took great power to bring the inanimate to life, it also took great passion. This woman, living unnoticed in a tiny Sammi village — how was it that Aleksia had never known of her?
And — Lemminkal Heikkinen? Surely there could not be two Mages with that name — And she wasn't done yet, it seemed….
“Now hear me, bright and golden sun,” Annuka sang, turning her face to the sky.
“You who sees where pathless travelers go. Where is my son out wandering? He is in danger! I must know!”
The sun did not form a face — but another voice, like the distant roaring of flames, did come out of the sky above them. Veikko and his Master were told of a terrible creature in the North, where only the reindeer herdsmen are. They call it the Icehart, and they say its breath can slay entire clans in a moment. They went in search of it, to test Veikko. But I have not seen this creature myself, and I have not seen them since they passed under the snow clouds. Perhaps the Moon has seen them.
Veikko! So it was the magicians she had watched for so long! It seemed she had given up too soon. Aleksia pursed her lips. The Icehart? That was something entirely new to her…. And it certainly sounded like something this imposter would think up.
But Annukka was already turning to the west. The sun was only just up over the trees and the moon had not yet set. The determined set of her chin told Aleksia that the woman had not even begun to run out of magical strength. And indeed, the magic of The Tradition was so thick around her it could practically be cut with an ax.
“Oh moon, who shines down through the dark upon the trackless snowfields white — where is my son? I cannot tell! You must have graced him with your light!”
The pale ghost of a day-moon seemed to shiver as it touched the horizon, and a silver voice whispered out of the western sky. The Warrior-Mage and his apprentice followed on the track of the Icehart, which only travels by night. They traced it through three villages where it had slain every man, woman and child with its icy breath. But then they fell under a shadow of sorcery, and I saw them no more. Perhaps the North Wind can say where they are, but I cannot.
Then the moon, as if hurrying to get out of sight before Annukka could ask it more questions, dropped below the horizon, leaving the sun in sole possession of the sky.
Annukka did not even pause for breath, but swept her fingers across the strings, and cried out, “Oh, North Wind, child of ice and air, who cannot be kept out or stayed — where is my son? Oh, hear me now! He can’t be found! I am afraid!”
For a moment there was nothing. And then —
Leaves dropped off the trees around the two women as if their stems had been cut, and the falling leaves swiftly turned white with a rime of frost as they fell, and the air itself thickened and whitened with ice-fog. The women's skirts were plastered to their legs, as a wind carried the leaves in a swirl around them. Although probably Annukka wasn't paying attention, Aleksia counted nine full circuits around the two, before the ice-fog settled before them, and formed into a vague and puffy face that changed from moment to moment.