How had they tracked her this far? Did they have noses like bloodhounds?
As Father Christmas's "accomplice," Bella felt a little guilty. She broke into a run. The dwarves charged after her like a rolling wave of potatoes.
Illusion. Mirror Image. Invisibility. None of it shook them. Bella pulled out the magic carpet—she'd take to the air.
"Stop! Stop right there, I need to talk!" The lead dwarf hadn't figured out how the carpet had appeared, but he'd guessed its purpose. He roared at the top of his lungs.
Bella felt her eardrums rattle. These dwarves had unholy lung capacity. She was supposed to be sneaking in to scout the White Witch. With volume like that, she'd already be made.
"Quiet. Quiet. Lower your voice. What do you want to say?" She settled onto the carpet and hovered.
Thirteen dwarves stood in front of her. The lead one held a long blade in his right hand and—oddly—a stump of wood in his left. Bella blinked at it. Earlier she'd asked whether the shield was one of theirs. They'd said no. So what was the log for?
"Are you a mage?" the lead dwarf asked.
Bella was currently wearing Kamar-Taj's grey robe. To block the wind and snow she had the hood up. A long sword hung at her waist. She held a staff in her left hand. To be fair—that was a textbook mage look.
Nothing to hide. Being a mage wasn't shameful. She saw no reason to lie. She nodded. "Yes, I'm a mage. Why?"
Psionicist and mage were technically quite distinct, but she had no intention of explaining that to strangers.
Having gotten a clear answer, the dwarves huddled and began muttering in Dwarvish.
Bella cast Tongues on herself without delay.
"Thorin, does this one look like the one?" An older dwarf with a massive white beard and mop of white hair was asking the thickset dwarf with the log.
The rest of the dwarves were offering their own opinions, all at once, a chaotic babble. Even with Tongues active, a lot of their proverbs and metaphors went over Bella's head. What she did catch: this group was looking for some mage. One of them was fat to the point of being almost cubical, hiding behind his companions and mumbling that he was hungry.
Every one of the thirteen was sturdy and looked like a serious fighter. If supernatural forces weren't involved, from pure presence alone, each of them could probably handle ten men. Thirteen of them, fighting together, could rout an army in the hundreds.
"You think she's the grey-robed wizard?" the dwarf leader asked the white-haired one beside him.
"The robes are a bit dirty—you could call them grey, I suppose. She's got the robe, and she's got the staff. But she's awfully young. That doesn't quite match the prophecy."
The older dwarf was analyzing the problem seriously. He and the leader murmured back and forth, nodding, shaking their heads.
Finally the white-bearded dwarf held up both hands to show he carried no weapon, and took a few steps in Bella's direction.
"I'm Balin. Might I ask your name?"
"Snow White."
"Strange name. Miss White, this is a fateful meeting. We'd like to ask you just one thing—" The old dwarf gazed up at her, full of expectation. But what actually came out of his mouth was: "—you really didn't steal our weapons?"
"I really didn't. Watch." Bella couldn't be bothered to explain further. With a sweep of her arm she threw up ice walls—ten feet tall, layer on layer, with her at the center.
"See? The reason I ran wasn't because I was afraid of you. It was because I didn't want a pointless fight."
The dwarves all gripped their weapons tighter.
The old dwarf's expression changed abruptly. "You're—are you that White Witch of these parts?"
Bella rejected that out of hand. "How could I possibly be? The White Witch is an old woman. Look at me—I'm young! You're no spring chicken yourself, but you've got terrible eyesight!"
Being called old grated on her. She was done explaining. She steered the carpet up and away, heading for the ice castle in the distance.
"Was she the mage we're looking for?" several of the dwarf warriors asked their leader.
Thorin, the thickset one, hesitated. "We've just arrived here. There's a lot we don't know. Let's gather information first, then find the grey-robed mage from the prophecy."
"Obey me. You'll be my eyes and ears." Bella gave a low shout, laying her palm on the head of a vicious-looking wolf as her psionic energy drove itself into the creature's mind.
After parting from the dwarves, worried she'd made too much noise, she hadn't crossed the valley directly. Instead she'd taken a wide loop—through the trees, along ravines, along an ice wall—spending most of a day under cover. But even with all that care, a pack of wolves with razor-sharp noses had caught up with her.
She killed the alpha. The pack scattered. In the chaos she seized hold of one of the wolves and set it loose—meaning to use its eyes to gauge the White Witch's true strength.
The remaining wolves regrouped and slunk back to the White Witch's castle with their tails between their legs.
The moment they passed within the castle's perimeter, Bella confirmed what she'd suspected: the magical signature here was the Ancient One's. But compared to the present-day Ancient One—the one restrained to a razor's edge, the one quiet beyond quiet—this version was flashier. And far colder.
Even filtered through the wolf's body, Bella could feel the bone-deep chill in the air—the kind that could freeze anything to its core.
"Hmph. Says I'm cold inside? You're no better yourself," Bella muttered, voice thick with resentment, though mostly it was something closer to pity. Pity for the Ancient One. Pity for herself. Pity for every spellcaster.
Every mage had some darkness to them. There were exceptions—the optimistic, upbeat ones—but in practice, those types tended to die off early.
"Your Majesty, we didn't find the mysterious visitor you described." The old alpha was dead. The pack had just elected a new one.
The new alpha knelt at the foot of the throne, obedient as a housepet.
The woman on the throne rose slowly. Her face, her height, even her gait—all identical to the Ancient One Bella knew.
The difference was the hair. This White Witch had hair—a cascade of gold wrapped in a sheath of frost, stubbornly angled toward the sky. A crown of seven icicles sat on her head.
She stepped down from her throne. The polished ice of the chamber mirrored her reflection. Same height as the Ancient One—and somehow this woman seemed so much taller.
She wore a pale blue, pleated dress that reached past her feet. Her shoulders and arms were bare.
The White Witch's features weren't seductive. Nothing sensuous about them. First glance, you might even forget to register her gender. But the moment she stood in a room, your eyes went to her and stayed there. She seemed to be the center of the world.