The Lady of Snow and Sorrow - 8. The Essence of Cold
Hail, Steemians! Hope you will like this new chapter of mine. It took much energy and was emotionally hard to write, you'll see why.
The way towards Helheim seemed infinite. Riding their snow wolves, Wintersun scraped through the woods and then found their way in the gloomy rocky mountains, whipped by the bitter wind and the omnipresent sleet. And soon the memory of the magnificent Izmiran and its good-hearted hostess became something like a long-faded dream.
The farther they went, the lower the trees became, and the colder it was getting. The air was damp, it crawled under their clothes and chilled them up to the bones. Even the ravens preferred to spend the night in one tent with the bandmates who huddled together, head to head, warming the air with their breath. Though, sometimes the birds selected a wolf and hid themselves in the thick fur of its belly. Somehow, the large predators understood that the black birds were not a snack.
All way long Jari's brain was processing the strange melodies that came to his head by themselves. While he was on his wolf's back, he had nothing else to do but to compose music. In the evening, he took his notepad and a pen, leaned against his white wolf's giant body and wrote down the music born inside his mind. It was going to be an album – a long glorious album the metalheads around the world would certainly love. He strove to make them feel all the splendor and the danger of this strange universe, and it was better not to disturb him at these hours.
Teemu often thought about his guitar students and even missed some of them, as he missed his beloved Ibanez. While Jari was immersed in writing, he dedicated himself into practicing regardless the cold air that made his fingers stiff and unruly.
Kai's fate was the only thing that preoccupied Jukka. When the Snow Queen took the drummer, he had nothing on but jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt and a hoodie. How could he then survive in Helheim, the kingdom of eternal night and frost?.. What could Hel be doing to him all this time, were he still alive? Certainly, the guitarists also thought about it, but they preferred to hide from these troubling thoughts in work. Jukka could not. He started suffering from insomnia and sometimes left the tent at night to feast his eyes upon Northern Lights.
A morning came when they saw the outskirts of Hel's frosty domain. It was a vast snow-white plain without a single tree. The white sun gleamed brightly over the violet chain of sharp-edged mountains many miles ahead. The air was clear and still – no clouds, no icy rain, no wet snow. One could hear a lemming move within its hidden tunnel or the raven's feathers rustle high above. Any other sound would be like a sacrilege.
The glorious sight made Jari smile: it was the best ambiance to concentrate on his songs while travelling. Teemu exposed his face to the sunbeams and enjoyed them. Jukka felt anxious; a thick lump was forming in his stomach and another – in his throat. He feared that solemn stillness around him.
They had some Elven bread and hot chocolate for breakfast, packed their belongings and mounted on their wolves. Riding these beasts was slightly different from riding a horse. You had to lean on the wolf's body with your chest and embrace its neck with your arms, almost melting together with the large animal, forming a new single being with it. It was physically easier for Teemu, as he was smaller than the other two bandmates. He and his she-wolf shared the same cheerful mood.
“Hey, anyone wants to play catch-up?” Manta Ray asked his friends with a mischievous fire in his black eyes. The sparkling snowy space before them really tempted to enjoy the rush.
“No. We'll have our wolves tired too early,” Jukka grunted.
“Jari?”
“Jukka is right in the first place, but why not make it to that menhir? It's not that long to make your black girl exhausted.”
“Really. Stop here then. Here shall we start!” the rythm guitarist exclaimed, happy to have his lover accept the game. “Jukka, if you don't play, you might count...”
“Okay, I'll do that,” the bass guitarist reluctantly agreed. “Three... Two... One!”
They galloped along the white plain as fast as their wolves could, and the sensation of freedom and speed was exciting. Manta Ray rushed ahead of Jari, and the front man was no quite happy about it.
“No, you can't excel me in speed, love!” he thought and shouted at his white wolf to hurry him up. And, yes, Jari drew ahead of his friend and was the first to touch the large stone.
Crack!
He shuddered from a deafening sound, as loud as an explosion – and a brief muffled scream.
“In the name of Odin and Thor!” Jari roared, turning around and not seeing neither his younger friend nor the black she-wolf.
Next second, he noticed a deep large crack in the ice – exactly at the place where Teemu and his she-wolf should have been. It was about three meters large and now separated Jari from Jukka.
The blond jumped off his wolf, rushed to the cavern, knelt on the ice and looked down. The crack proved so deep that Jari could not see the bottom despite daytime.
“Teemu!..” he called, terrified. “Are you alive, boy?”
He heard nothing in reply. Not a single word, not a single sigh, not a single motion.
“Please!” he begged, clenching his fists. “Teemu, respond me! Teemu!”
His chest and his head were about to burst, his eyes were burning. Trying to spot the younger guitarist in the depth, he didn't notice Jukka and his wolf leap across the crack.
“What the fuck, Jari?!” the bass guitarist exclaimed, jumping off his grey beast. Everything was evident, but too hard to accept.
“I should have remembered!” Jari wheezed out. “Ice traps of this kind have killed some Antarctic explorers, they even devoured some vehicles... Teemu, don't keep silent, or I will lose my fucking mind!!!” he shouted again.
“It must be a hundred meters in depth,” Jukka said, his throat dry as a desert.
“Teemu must be stunned by the fall. Get me the rope, it must be in your bag. I'll pull him out of there,” the front man commanded.
“Let me look for him.” Jukka proposed, because Jari was overwhelmed with emotion and thus would be risking too much.
“No way. I must do it myself. Besides, I'm lighter. How long's the rope?” with a great effort the lead guitarist took a grip of himself.
“Fourty meters. But listen, it's dangerous to place an ice screw here. That may produce another crack,” Jukka argued.
“You'll belay me, won't you?..”
They fished two ice axes and a flare out of their supplies: it had been Teemu who insisted on buying this equipment. The descent was an extremely dangerous venture, as Jari had no solid training and was not particularly strong, but he had no other choice. Meter by meter, he immersed into the hideous icy darkness, forcing himself to breathe as slowly as possible. The lead guitarist had taken off his thick winter jacket to have more freedom in movement; he was not suffering from the cold, because he had already been frozen from inside.
Even at the depth of twenty meters Jari still saw nothing but dark bloodstains on the walls. And he was praying to all the gods he knew that this blood would belong to the fallen wolf. He lit up a flare to see the bottom of the ice trap, at last, but only saw thick blackness below. The surface turned out glossy and reflected the strong glare of the flare like a mirror. Jari let the flare go; it fell, striking another blood-stained ice brow, flew about ten more meters and went out. Jari heard a loud splash.
“Damn, this is water...” the lead guitarist exhaled. “Water so deep that you can see nothing else. Teemu, don't leave me like that, please!..”
He was hanging in the abyss between life and death, exhaling thick clouds of vapour. He challenged the darkness itself and was waiting for a miracle to happen. He knew they normally happen in the fairy-tale world.
But not this time. The water was still, completely deaf to his pleas and sobs.
“Hey, Jari!” Jukka shouted from above. “Found anything?”
A long blood-freezing wail, hardly belonging to a human being, was the answer. This wail of dire suffering was taken up at once by the surviving wolves of Izmiran who sat at the ice edge waiting for Jari's return. When his voice broke, the head of Wintersun reached for a knife, ready to cut off the rope and join his love in this unknown black depth. Jukka could not see it, but he somehow guessed what was on the front man's mind.
“Please, for the sake of Kai, don't do anything to yourself!” he besought. “Jari, we've still got someone to save!”
The rope started trembling. Jukka understood everything and started crying.
“Jari, I won't survive here by myself!” he yelled. This might sound strange from a large man with a battle-axe, but Jukka had to go on saying no matter what - just to win time. “Do you want me and Kai die too?.. Don't be such a selfish motherfucker!”
The trembling paused.
“He will only die if Wintersun dies too, and when our music is played no more. And this is what's going to happen, if you take your life. You must return. You must record an album. And write a song... About how smart and brave our Teemu was... Do you hear me?”
Down in the cavern, Jari shook his head and slowly shut the knife. He could barely see anything because of the lava-hot tears misting his eyes. Then he dug into his pocket again and pulled out a guitar pick with a big “W” printed on its side (Teemu had lost his own the previous evening).
“Rest in peace, Starchild,” he whispered and dropped the pick into the dark water.
(to be continued)
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