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The Legend of the Snow Fort
by Nofret Hrist

Yes, the strange mirror that brought about the destruction of the snow fort is gone, shattered into crystalline debris ages ago. Most natives of Icemule do not want to remember it now—how the ice mirror was smashed by a force so powerful it can scarcely be imagined, imbedding even the tiniest bits deep in the walls of the upper hallway.

Nor do they want to discuss the remnants of the vultite frame lying in shambles on the ground. Yet in its time it was considered a rare work of art, crafted of black vultite and beaten silver. Silver moonflowers and black orchids twisted and twined about the frame, and here and there faces peeped from behind the flowers—a child, a halfling, a dwarf, a sylvan maiden, an elven youth. It was all quite lovely and innocent, until you looked at the figure at the top of the mirror—a huge obsidian serpent with ruby eyes, its jaws gaping wide, seemingly ready to bite the reflection of whoever gazed into it.

You do not know the story? Ah, but I’m sure you have heard it, in one form or another.

The snow fort was erected immediately after the halfling wizards known as the Council of Ten had attempted to give the town and all its residents to the dark god Luukos. The Ten failed, but only by the very narrowest of margins, and not until after the town was torn apart by civil war. Nine of the Ten had swiftly and summarily been buried alive beneath the tomb of Talbot Dabbings.

No one mentioned the fact that the leader of the Ten had escaped, nor that he had sworn to fulfill his pledge to Luukos and to bring death and destruction down upon Icemule. Though rumors persisted in certain quarters that the leader, Thurfel, had had an apprentice as bloodthirsty and as resolute as himself, the mayor and his aldermen scoffed at the notion. If Thurfel had had an apprentice, surely the creature would have been found by now.

Of course, such things were not spoken of openly. They were only whispered about in the dark.

To counteract the fears of the people, the mayor gave orders that a snow fort—Fort Dabbings, naturally—was to be erected outside the East Gate of town, as a primary line of defense between the horrors that still dwelt in the mountains and the town itself. Be sure that only the best and the strongest halfling troops were assigned to Fort Dabbings, and as time wore on, other races came to serve there as well—humans, dwarves and giantkin. With all these valiant warriors protecting the town, it seemed as if Icemule had little to fear, then or henceforward.

Nevertheless, the Icemulians were wrong, and there was good reason to fear. For the rumors were true. Thurfel had indeed left a gifted and conscienceless apprentice behind him, someone the townsfolk would never suspect—for it was a woman.

Perhaps you would like me to describe her, for it does have some bearing on what happened. She was, even for an elf, astonishingly beautiful. Her long wavy hair was beaten silver, and her eyes, which smiled promises of things that could not be named, the deep violet of twilight. To see her was to crave her, as many men and women learned to their sorrow.

Her name was Daalny, and she was a sorceress.

Now, the mayor and his cronies had good reason for not realizing that Daalny was a danger to the town, for she had long since departed for the Landing, and she had no family in town to remind the mayor of her existence. Nevertheless, when Daalny thought of Icemule, her eyes blazed with unholy fire.

Her family had been one of the few elven families to indwell at Icemule, and all but herself were now dead, thanks to the mayor and a plague that had swept through Icemule when she was a little girl.

Whether the plague was magical in origin, no one knew. But it spread. Oh, yes, it spread. In desperation, the mayor ordered all houses of the sick to be boarded up with both the sick and the well in them.

Only the fact that Daalny had been playing outside on the day that the soldiers came and boarded up the house had saved her from slow and agonizing death. No, she did not care much for the mercy of Icemule. When she met Thurfel ten years later, she was willing, nay, eager to pledge her soul to Luukos in exchange for the power to destroy the town.

She and Thurfel were as close as gloves in a box. And that proved to be the saving of her.

On the day before the Council of Ten was to cast their final spell of summoning, the firemage went to his apprentice's rooms and spoke to her thus:

"Take your belongings and go unto the Landing. They have never heard of Icemule Trace there, and you are young enough so that you can easily blend with the rest of the populace. Speak not my name, or aught of your origins. For while you live free, there is still a chance that thou and I shall be avenged on this accursed town. If you will do this, I promise you that I shall ask Luukos to strengthen your powers and to twist your tongue so that all of Icemule shall be deceived by the lies you speak. Will you swear to do this?"

"I will," said Daalny. And she knelt before Thurfel, and swore an oath binding her forever to Luukos.

As soon as this was done, Thurfel vanished. The girl herself wasted no time, but made her way down the slippery slope to the Landing that same night.

Now, it is a fact that Luukos' servants are not always the most discreet, but Daalny disguised herself well, playing the part of the innocent magic-user. For safety's sake, she managed to get herself adopted by a kindly and respected cleric and his empath wife. But aside from that, she did nothing. She was but a lass of ten trainings. It would take time for her strength to grow.

Life continued on this uneventful way for ten years.

Now, in the meantime, the warriors and rangers of the snow fort had become considerably stronger. Practice had honed their skills to an amazing degree--their physical skills, that is. The snow fort soldiers puffed out their chests, and boasted that they were too strong for any to defeat.

The leader of the fort at this time was a giantman named Kessin. Kessin was a wondrous warrior, skilled with all manner of weaponry and armor, a veritable genius with strategy and tactics. Nevertheless, in the midst of all of his men, Kessin felt lost and isolated. For Kessin had no skill with women. Painfully shy, tending to idealize women's purity and goodness, he had never yet met the one woman who lived up to his dreams.

It was while he was on a trip south to gather supplies for the coming winter that he met Daalny. The trader with whom he was doing business insisted that they talk over dinner at the Silvergate Gala. Miserably, Kessin agreed. He hated parties, and would cheerfully have cut his throat rather than attend.

As he wandered about the Grand Ballroom of Silvergate, poured into a dress uniform two sizes too small, he beheld a vision in white. Her gown was white satin with a silvery sheen. Her jewels were diamonds--a diamond bracelet and a diamond tiara, blazing ice-like fire. Her shoes were the daintiest of sandals, hammered of silver and gold. She was so lovely that it was almost impossible to gaze at her.

Kessin stared at her once--and was lost.

Their courtship--if so it may be called when the man has no notion of how to woo a woman and the woman is feeding him cues--progressed with amazing speed. Barely three weeks later, on Lornon's Eve, the two were wed with great pomp and ceremony, with the blessing of the gods.

Because they were heading into the mountains, Kessin and Daalny had to travel lightly. Only one thing did Daalny insist on bringing from home--a mirror with an oddly carved vultite frame.

Kessin did not want to agree. For some reason, he disliked that mirror, and the frame even more. But he was too newly married, and too much in awe of the beautiful woman who, unaccountably, had agreed to marry him. So he agreed, saying that Daalny might bring the mirror. Indeed, he said, she might do as she liked to the fort, if only she would stay in it.

Be very certain that the soldiers were much astonished when their commander brought home a woman as well as food and blankets for the winter. At first there were a number of coarse jokes--which stopped very quickly when they saw how much the jests angered Kessin. Daalny, for her part, ignored the jests and the rude talk and made it a point to speak to each man privately. What she said is unknown to this day, but whatever it was, it seemed to be just the right thing for each person.

It did not take long for most of the inhabitants of the fort to be as bewitched by Daalny’s beauty, regality and smiles as her husband was. Only two people remained immune to her charm--Aechte, a female halfling archer, and Steg, the scullery boy. The two detested her on first sight, and the feeling was more than mutual.

However, Daalny ignored them. The two were very low down on the social scale. They were of no importance. Consequently, she did not trouble herself to enmesh the two in her charm. She had more important matters to attend to.

Once the vultite mirror was positioned in her chamber, Daalny set to work. The fort began to have a run of bad luck. The soldiers failed to defeat three invading forces. Earthquakes shook the mountain, cracking the fort as if it were made of glass. Weapons unaccountably disappeared, as did a patrol of scouts.

Frantic and heartsick, Kessin went to the chapel in the shrine, where stood a larger-than-life statue of Kai battling an Ur-Daemon. There he knelt in prayer, imploring Kai to tell him what they had done to so displease their god.

Kessin did not see his wife behind him, concealed by a pillar of ice, waggling her fingers and chanting something in a language that seemed to befoul the very air. If he had, none of the rest of it might have happened.

Before Kessin's horrified eyes, the statue seemed to leap from its pedestal and glare at him. "Your very arrogance offends me, mortal," the statue growled. "Think you that you and your men are invincible? See then how strong you are without me!"

So saying, the statue swelled and then burst, shattering into ten thousand pieces. Kessin gaped at the ruined statue and burst into loud lamentations. "Kai, no! What are we to do without you? Come back!"

Several of the soldiers rushed into the chapel upon hearing their commander's cries of grief, and all trembled when they heard the curse that had been placed on the fort and themselves. Some were all for going into town and communing with Kai to learn what ill they had done.

But Daalny, who was prepared for this, contrived to speak to her husband privately. "Rest assured, my Lord," she said, whispering low in Kessin's ear, "no power can force an Arkati's love. And right now, Kai is angry. Would you and your men add to his rage by trying to summon HIM in a commune?"

Thus did she coax and cajole away Kessin's fears, persuading him to wait and bespeak the god when Kai was in a somewhat better mood.

Then, after Kessin had fallen asleep from grief and exhaustion, she crept to the chapel to retrieve the head and foot of the statue. But ere she reached the altar, she heard a voice cry out behind her: "Halt! Who goes there?"

"Tis I, the wife of your commander. What is wrong? I come but to pray."

"It is not the commander's wish that anyone pray in a place so profaned. But if you will, bow before Kai and ask that we be forgiven."

So Daalny knelt before the broken statue and the ruined altar, murmuring prayers to Luukos all the while. And either Kai was not paying proper attention or Luukos is far stronger than he is generally given credit for being, for her blasphemy occasioned no punishment at all.

Once the appeased guard had walked away, Daalny snatched up the head and the foot of the statue and raced to a small, well-hidden storage room. There she placed the remnants of the statue on a pile of rubble and chanted under her breath.

At last nine pale lights began to glow, hardening into towering pure white pillars. A chunk of broken ice shaped itself into a perfectly square altar decorated with elaborate spirals and runes. And from the very center of the ice altar came a pulsating black light. Slowly the light hardened, darkened and solidified into a small gargoyle etched of strange black ice. It gazed menacingly at the rest of the room with its cold blue diamond eyes--eyes that would have seemed familiar to anyone who knew Daalny.

So intent was Daalny on casting this spell that she did not hear the padding of little feet after her--or see the faint tracks left in the snow.

Though Daalny did not know it, the person who had followed her that night was Aechte, and the girl was sore troubled about what to do. She knew now that Daalny was an evil sorceress, bent on destroying the fort and all in it. But who could she tell?

Kessin? Hardly. He all but worshipped his young wife.

Her fellow soldiers? Nay, for even the worst of them treated Daalny with courtesy, ready to fight any man, woman or child who offered Daalny so much as a frown.

The officers? Alas, Aechte was far below them and would never be permitted to breathe their rarefied air. Commander Kessin--yes, she might chance to see him when he was inspecting the troups. But never would she see the officers. And without their help, or someone's, the fort was doomed.

So, in desperation, she went to Sleg the scullery boy, and poured out her heart to him. Sleg was not astonished to discover that Daalny was a witch: "Never," he said, "have I ever met a woman that everyone likes, yet who was so thorougly unlikeable."

Not knowing quite what to do, the two made a pact to watch her till they knew what she was up to--and then to stop her.

Three days after Daalny created the new ice chapel, a young soldier "discovered" it due to the guidance of ancient runes and symbols Daalny had etched deep into the frozen walls. (Not that he realized consciously what the runes meant, of course. It was not in Daalny’s best interest that the soldier should understand how he was being manipulated.)

The soldiers, and Kessin too, were awed by the sudden appearance of the chapel--and all trembled at the figure of the black gargoyle sitting majestically on the altar.

"Peace, my Lord," said Daalny to Kessin in a sweet, soothing tone. "Believe me, I have seen such figures as the gargoyle before in many, many chapels. The gargoyle represents the evil the folk of this fort have done in shunning the gods and thinking themselves all important.

"Do you but pray to the figure, asking his pardon for neglecting and abusing him and swearing to forsake him never, and the gargoyle will transform most wondrously. Then a light will be born in your soul that will never be extinguished." So saying, she bid Kessin to pray.

Kessin heard the words of his wife and was much bewildered. He had never been a thinking man, and certainly his wife, as the daughter of a cleric should know what was right and proper. But kneeling to this thing that looked like an evil spirit--he didn't like it.

As he hesitated, turning this way and that in mental anguish, Daalny gazed up at him with brimming tragic eyes. "Do you not trust me, beloved?" she said sadly, but with a hopeless note, as though she knew that no one so great as he could possibly trust someone like her.

The sorrow in her eyes was more than Kessin could bear. Quickly, before his conscience could tell him once more not to do this, he knelt and breathed a silent prayer to whatever god the gargoyle represented.

For a moment, Kessin felt as if he were caught in a great wind, so cold that it burned. It seemed to him that he was screaming, though he could hear no sound. Something inside him seemed ripped away.

And then there was only the wind, filling a now-empty man with more emptiness.

As Kessin stood up, he gazed at Daalny with no more emotion than if she had been a gnat. Then he spoke, in a dry rustling voice like the sound of dead autumn leaves.

"Bid the other men come, and do as I have done. Those that do so shall live. Those that do not I shall hang from the battlements, in punishment for disobedience."

Now, the soldiers did not acquiesce so easily as their commander. Many of them defied him boldly, saying that they would never bend knee to some foul beast from a witch's nightmares. Of these, perhaps thirty were hanged before a group of their friends snuck down from the fort and began waging a pitiful assault on the battlement, trying to break it down and take the gallows with it.

Though they managed to weaken the walls, they were recaptured all too soon. They were executed. Slowly. And once they were dead, their bones were used to patch the walls.

You are no doubt wondering what had become of Aechte and Sleg during this massacre. They were not there. Aechte, needing no one to tell her that the ice chapel was evil--had she not seen it being made?--had snuck off to town with Sleg, in a desperate hope of finding some way of crushing Daalny utterly.

Alas. None of their elders would heed their panicky story. Yet the two knew that they needed help and guidance of some kind. At last, after wandering the streets of Icemule for hours, the two collapsed, tears freezing to their faces.

"Do not cry," said a gentle voice. "Well do I know that you two have struggled long to save the fort. I know not if you can save any remaining there, but you can save this town."

The two glanced about the street, but all they saw was a snow bird, such as anyone might see here in the frozen north. The bird looked at them--and very deliberately winked.

Sleg gawked at the bird. Aechte was more practical. "In the name of Liabo, who sent you?" she demanded.

The bird laughed. "Do you really think that if I were a minion of Luukos, I would answer truthfully? But no matter. Kai sent me. He is angered at what has happened to the warriors in his keeping, and even angrier that so many have chosen to give in to Luukos."

"What can WE do?" grumbled Sleg. "It's not as if either one of us is a great soldier."

"Do not fight your former brethren when you return to the fort," the bird instructed them. "Shun them, if possible. Seek a place of reflection, and there seek reality. And do this soon, lest the entire town be overrun by the set of sun today."

The two made their way back to the fort, not without some trepidation. Having the guidance of Kai was all very well, but both of them would have cheerfully exchanged it for a weapon that struck all enemies dead instantly.

As they crept under the translucent arch of ice leading to the fort, they got their first vision of what had befallen half of the soldiers. For there before them was something. An undead something.

The thing--neither could think of a name for it at the moment--floated easily over the ground, seeming to move through solid obstacles with little effort. Its appearance alternated between a flickering, semi-transparent apparition and a near-blinding, white, icy solidity. Its face was twisted--Aechte suspected permanently--into a tortured, leering grin, and its eyes stared far ahead, as if transfixed on something horrible in the distance.

Aechte had just placed a bolt in her crossbow and was taking aim when she felt Sleg jog her elbow. "Aechte! The bird said not to fight the former soldiers!"

Aechte froze, staring at the spectre before her, wondering how someone who was living and breathing at the start of day could have become...this. But Sleg, seeing the spectre's upraised sword, propelled Aechte out of the way and into the fort proper.

The two searched for hours, hunting valiantly for the meditation room where a person might go to think quietly. But their search was in vain. Finally, just as the sun was beginning to lower in the sky, they entered Daalny's private chamber.

It was as ornate as a queen's boudoir, rich and elegant without being in the least comfortable or attractive. Aechte could scarcely breathe, the air was reeked so of a heavy, cloying perfume--like the incense that dead bodies are treated with before burial.

And in the center of the room, dominating everything, was Daalny's mirror. The two stared at it, slowly realizing that it did not reflect the room, or them. It reflected the ice chapel.

The chapel shown in the mirror was dark, but the walls of the chapel were glowing a bright phosphorescent blue. Daalny stood at one side of the altar, a smirk distorting her lovely features. And the Commander by her side--oh, gods. He looked like a walking dead man.

Slowly, as if her head were being pulled by strings, Daalny turned, and seemed for a moment to be gazing at them. Her expression was murderous.

"Quickly!" shouted Aechte. "Break the mirror before she sees us any clearer!"

The two hurled combs, brushes, jewelry cases, ottomans and chairs at the mirror. In vain. It all bounced off.

They tried hurling themselves at the mirror--and were flung back by black waves of energy.

"Here's something you can't throw back," muttered Aechte as she removed a Kai symbol from her neck. Sleg followed suit with a crude Lorminstra carving. Youth and maid took careful aim, and simultaneously hurled the symbols at the mirror.

For a moment, there was silence. Then the air was shredded by howls and screams. The room seemed to swell and then burst. And the mirror shattered into a thousand fragments.

Most of the bodies of the soldiers who died rather than pray to evil were interred in a place of honor in the northeast corner of the mausoleum in the Icemule Cemetery, adjacent to the resting place of Talbot Dabbings.

Daalny’s corpse was found in the ice chapel, blasted and burnt, but still recognizable. The people of Icemule quartered the body--burning one quarter, burying another, freezing a third, and leaving the final quarter to the trolls. In this way, they hoped to prevent any well-meaning empath raising her from the dead.

What became of Kessin is not known. He may still wander the lands as a lich, though it is far likelier that he is dead. Even when he lived, he was too weak to live without Daalny.

Aechte and Sleg moved from the fort to Icemule, but Sleg did not stay long, so tormented was he by nightmares. Eventually he left to dwell in Solhaven, saying that warm places seemed to have no memory.

Aechte remained in Icemule all her days. When asked why, she would say that she was a soldier of the fort, and the soldiers had sworn to defend Icemule until the last of them died. She was not dead yet, so the vow held.

As for the souls of those who were lost, they still haunt the frozen fortress, trying vainly to do in death what they failed to do in life—to protect the fort against all enemies. Thanks to Daalny’s spell, they now see all arriving from Icemule to be their implacable foes. Someday, perhaps, the curse on them and the fort may be lifted eternally. But not yet.

One thing more is there to speak of:

In the Landing, in a place called Twilight Hall, in a room now rarely used, there sits an altar with a black gargoyle perched on it. The ruby-eyed gargoyle stares ferociously at all who gaze upon it, as though daring anyone to touch or tamper with it.

Of course, the presence of an obsidian, ruby-eyed gargoyle in the Landing does not mean that it has the powers of a gargoyle shaped of black ice with blue diamond eyes. A gargoyle can be no more than a statue, not worth mentioning.

At least, that’s what Kessin believed…once.

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