Midwinter

'What is your business with me?' said Mauritane. 'I do not know you.'

The Thule Man's jaw clenched and his teeth ground together like stones. Sparks flew from between his lips.

'What's he doing?' Satterly asked.

'What is your business with me?' Mauritane repeated. 'Are you indeed the Thule Man?'

'Yes,' the Thule Man finally said, through gritted teeth.

'I know you only from a child's story.'

The Thule Man's jaw unclenched. 'Tell me that story,' he said.

Mauritane looked to Silverdun, who shrugged, and to Raieve, who said, 'I don't speak his tongue.'

The Thule Man slammed a heavy fist into the rock wall behind him. 'I have waited long enough for you. If I want the story, you will at least have the courtesy to give it to me.'

Mauritane sighed, his mind working furiously. What was this creature after? Was it truly the Thule Man from the book on his father's mantel?

'As I recall,' said Mauritane, annoyed at his own confusion, 'it was during the Rauane Envedun-e, before the Great Reshaping, before Titania united the kingdom. The Thule Man was a High Magus from the city of… Renat, I believe. One of the last true Magi of the Thule Fae.'

'No. It was the City Emerald,' the Thule Man growled. 'Renat was but a village in those days.'

'The City Emerald, then,' Mauritane continued. 'He was an old man who feared death and devoted his studies to the pursuit of immortality. To that end he pushed beyond the boundaries of accepted thaumatics and began to experiment with forbidden things: the Black Arts, Blood Magic, that sort of thing.

'His colleagues cautioned him against that dangerous path, but he ignored them. Then they warned him sternly, but he threatened them. Then one day a serving girl discovered the bodies in his cellar; the victims of his diabolical experiments.'

'The story does not mention,' the Thule Man interrupted, 'that I was by no means the only Magus in those days with bodies in his cellar, nor that the serving girl was directed there by a jealous colleague. But no matter. Pray, continue.'

One of the Unseelie soldiers, one who hadn't yet spoken a word in Mauritane's presence, started up from his place by the fire. He ran naked to the stack of weapons and shook a sword from the pile. He shouted his battle cry and ran at the Thule Man, swinging his arm in a powerful arc, aiming for the tendons at the Thule Man's heel.

'Eben, stop!' shouted Ma Denha, but the soldier ignored him.

The blade, however, only struck the skin and recoiled. Eben began hacking furiously at the giant creature, but to no avail.

The Thule Man looked down, irritated, and plucked Eben from the ground. He wrapped his fists around the man's head and squeezed. Mauritane heard an ugly popping crunch and then Eben's body went limp. Blood flecked with gray trickled from the Thule Man's fingers.

'Hold!' shouted Mauritane, mainly to Raieve, who seemed ready to rush the giant herself. 'This… man has made no move against us, and we are not in battle until I say so.'

The Thule Man nodded. 'Pray, continue,' he said again, wiping his bloody hand upon his thigh.

Mauritane met his gaze for as long as he was able. When he was finally forced to look away, twin spots of red hung in his vision. 'When his deeds were made public, the Magi exiled him from their city. From every city he visited thereafter, he was likewise turned away. Finally he came to the Contested Lands and went among the creatures and villains who lived there.'

'True enough,' muttered the Thule Man.

'Though exiled, however, the Thule Man did not give up his quest for immortality. In desperation, he found one of the shifting places and ate it, hoping it would confer upon him the secrets of time and space.

'But he was wrong. The shifting place proved too powerful for his depraved mind and his perverted re. It warped his body, turning him into a giant, and it unhinged his mind.

'And now he lives like a wild thing in the Contested Lands to this day. He finally discovered the secret of immortality, but he paid for it with his soul.'

'Is that all?' said the Thule Man.

'No,' answered Mauritane. 'When I was a child, my mother often added that if I were to misbehave, the Thule Man would come and carry me off to the Contested Lands, where he would eat me.'

The Thule Man roared with laughter at this. 'It is not enough that I am become a cautionary tale about hubris, but now I am a bogeyman as well.' He clapped his hands together in mirth and the shock from it pressed against Mauritane's eardrums.

'What is it that you want with me?' said Mauritane.

'Why do you ask me? Are you not Mauritane? Are you not He Who Clears the Path? Have I not awaited you these many thousands of years?'

Mauritane was baffled. What was he talking about?

'Ah, Mauritane,' said Silverdun. 'How much do you know about Arcadian mythology?'

'Nothing,' said Mauritane.

'He Who Clears the Path is a phrase used in the Vircest Ana; it's one of those prophetic works that theologians dither over.'

'Then you are mistaken,' said Mauritane. 'I am no Arcadian. Why do you say it?'

The Thule Man's eyes blazed white hot. 'Because that is what I say now. The time quick approaches when my long-held instant ceases. My dying breath is nigh and you must not toy with me, not when I have remembered it for so long. You are the instrument, now give me the reason!'

Mauritane took a step forward. 'You speak as if this meeting is preordained, but if that is so then I have no knowledge of it. I am afraid I have no reason to give. And if it is death you expect at my hands, I will not give it unless forced.'

'In the dark days,' said the Thule Man, his fists clenching and unclenching in a slow rhythm, 'during the Unseelie Wars of the Great Reshaping, I did come to these lands, fleeing for my life! I was not afraid but neither would I gladly accept death's embrace. Not then and not ever. The shifting places were fresh then; they were the aftershocks of the most powerful offensive spells ever created. I discovered one that spread across millennia. I took it, shaped it into me. I became it. As you can see, I am quite changed.

'I see those millennia as you look across this mountain range, each season a pinnacle in a view from which I cannot avert my gaze. I have studied their contours, traced their minute gradations. I have found meaning in every hour, signs in the valleys between seconds. This Midwinter is the final peak, this day the foothill, this hour the shore of a dark sea. And at the shore of that sea I have seen you, Mauritane, for years beyond measure, waiting for me with that blade in your hand.'

The Thule Man smashed his fist again, this time into the ground at Mauritane's feet. 'And you dare to tell me you that you know me not! The past points to you! The years fall at your feet! Now you will tell me the reason for this moment, because I cannot see past it! I cannot see past the water's edge to the land beyond that will point backward and explain these signs! Tell me this and I will lie before you and you may thrust your saber into my eye and finish me!'

'I know nothing of this,' Mauritane said, his voice flat.

The Thule Man rushed him then. Mauritane leapt aside, flinging himself to the earth. The creature was strong, but his movements were slow and whatever else he was, he was not a fighter. The Thule Man fell to his knees, then turned in an exaggerated motion and found Mauritane. He lashed out again and missed.

Raieve did not hesitate. She shouted, 'Attack!' and ran toward Mauritane.

Silverdun drew his sword, but before he could run, a voice behind him shouted, 'Wait!' He turned.

Ma Denha was standing, pointing at his weapons. 'Let us fight! That thing killed one of my men and I will have my vengeance!'

Silverdun waved the tip of his sword at the man. 'Nobody's stopping you,' he answered.

'Can we have our clothes back first?'

Silverdun winced. 'I don't think so,' and ran at the Thule Man.

Mauritane dodged and stabbed, pushing the point of his saber as deeply into the creature's skin as he could, which wasn't very far. Drops of black blood oozed from the wounds, but not enough to cause any serious damage. His vision narrowed as the Thule Man swung wildly at him. From the corner of his eye, he saw first Raieve, then