(eng) Mercedes Lackey - Five Hundred Kingdoms 3-4 by Fortune's Fool The Snow Queen

Author:Fortune's Fool,The Snow Queen [Fortune's Fool,The Snow Queen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 2

ANNUKKA MAKELA SAT AT HER LOOM AND WOVE STEADILY, the soft woolen threads of her own spinning forming solid, equally soft fabric beneath her hands. The rhythm soothed her, as she passed the shuttle through the warp threads, tamped them down with a double-beat and passed the shuttle through again. Thread by thread, the fine brown woolen cloth built up beneath her hands; thread by thread, the subtle spell of warmth and protection she wove built with it. This was simple magic, hearth-and-fireside magic. So far as Annukka was concerned, magic was no special gift, and most women of the Sammi could do it, if they put their minds to it, if they took the time to learn how to concentrate in just the right way. The lives of the Sammi were intertwined with small magics. For most women, such things could be as natural as breathing, if they learned the tricks of it.

But most women didn’t. In this, Annukka was special.

Annukka was not certain why; it seemed a logical thing, to her. If you intended to keep your family safe, why not weave magic into their clothing? Yes, it took a little more time, you couldn’t just sit mindlessly at your loom and let the monotonous back and forth of the shuttle in your hand dull your mind. You had to think, to concentrate, to call up all the tales of narrow escapes and loved ones come safely home through peril. You almost had to speak to the power of magic the way you would make a prayer. To Annukka’s mind, the effort was more than worth the reward, for what wife wouldn’t want to protect her children or keep her husband safe?

But then…there was that edge of danger about magic. It didn’t always answer in the way you thought it would. And there was always a cost to it, too. The whisper of power that Annukka put into threads she wove had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere was generally her. Weaving in this way meant she tired far sooner than she would have had she been weaving ordinary cloth. When the power did not come from her directly, she generally found herself being shoved into doing something that was always inconvenient, and sometimes a bit dangerous. So even though this was very minor magic in the making, there were repercussions.

Repercussions, Annukka thought to herself, as the sun warmed her back, as she listened to the birds in the eaves outside, as she took in the scent of wood smoke and the roasting fish that her neighbor was making for supper. There are always repercussions to everything, magical or not. Most people just don’t trouble themselves to see them.

But weaving in this way meant that the cloak she would make from this fabric would not only keep the wearer warm no matter how killing the cold, it would deflect the mind of a pursuing hunter, so that the wearer would escape. There were wolves out there, and Bears, and uncanny things that were far, far worse than either.

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