"Nice place," I repeated. At least it wasn't drafty, and the roof was in good shape. We were shown to a suite and brought food. Deathsgate is kept fully manned and prepared at all times for anything that might descend on it. My brother wasn't in residence, having returned to Rutland for the holiday, and the place was therefore a bit quiet, but much better than being on the road. I think the ponies we'd brought from Caer Myrrthin were trying to purr.
    After we had refreshed ourselves the captain came to talk to us. "If you don't mind my asking—why are you here?"
    "We're tracking an Unseelie Fae who's off somewhere in this direction," I explained.
    "We're also making a progression of all the gates," Meara added.
    "After we kill him."
    "If we can kill him."
    "Okay." He looked bemused.
    "Is there anything remotely significant north and east of here?" she asked.
    "Not really. I mean, not on the island. I suppose there's stuff on the continent."
    "How are you guys at swimming?" she asked Conner and Gannon.
    "You go up another couple of weeks, and you've got the coast, a couple of days by boat, so a week and a half swim maybe and you'll hit the Orkneys. Past that it's a really long swim to Norway."
    "I'm voting that if we're still getting a north and east detection off this guy when he hit the coast—"
    "We return," Conner nodded. "I'll give you that one."
    "Then we might need to go back," I agreed.
    "Thank you. I don't swim well," Meara said. "And last time I checked, I do not shapeshift into a seal."
    "So, why are you chasing this guy?" the captain asked.
    "Well, I need to kill him....."
    "Can I tell the story?!" Meara chirped. I gave way to her poetic skills; she's been rehearsing this, and does so enjoy a chance to recite. We sounded pretty good the way she told it, even in the short version.
    "You're welcome to stay here for whatever period of the winter seems best," the captain offered.
    "I think we'll probably be staying until Solstice, and leaving shortly thereafter."
    "I'd like to petition my lady that we spend February second someplace," Meara spoke up.
    "Okay. Someplace?"
    "Someplace where I can do my rituals," she clarified. "Not only is it the biggest ceremony to my goddess, it's also my birthday."
    "I see. We have a bit of time before that."
    He took his leave, telling us, "Don't do anything you normally wouldn't do in Rutland. Try to avoid some of the things you'd do in Rutland if they seem right out of place, and if we're attacked I'd appreciate it if you'd show up on the walls and help with defense."
    "Of course we will."
    And in fact we celebrated the solstice with a midnight invasion of gods-know-what sort of huge, vaguely humanoid wolf-things that kept us all quite lively for a while. Conner won himself quite a reputation as his arrows rained into the attackers. I of course was down on the ground, having a grand time with my coat of molten flame, and the others were doing quite well. And then Llweder opened his satchel and brought out the North Wind, which brought it in from behind the attackers toward the keep. The temperature in the valley plummeted; those of us out there barely made it back inside before the oncoming storm broke against the wall. It was cold inside, but nowhere near as bad as it was out there, and a clamor of voices asked him to put the wind away.
    The men of the garrison walked a little carefully around Llweder for the rest of our time there.
    "Is this an annual occurrence?" I asked the captain later.
    "Not exactly like that, but there's a reason there's a castle here. There's generally a winter invasion of some form or another."
    "This isn't Wynn's doing?" Conner asked.
    "I don't know that it is, I don't know that it isn't. But there's usually a couple of these per winter."
    "Must keep you on your toes," I observed.
    "Like I said, there's a reason there's a castle here. Stuff comes down. It's amazing the things that live in the Orkneys and can figure out how to build boats."
    "They come down this way, and then they die in a large mass," Conner sighed.
    "You telling me that these things live in the Orkneys?" Meara asked.
    "I have no idea where these things come from. Might be from the Orkneys, might have just shown up there. Might have been sealed in a great hunk of ice that floated down from the north and melted out on the shore. Stranger things have happened." He shrugged.
    "I think there's just a rock out there someplace that generates monsters and flings them at this castle on a regular basis."
    "That could also be," he allowed. "If you happen to find that rock, would you tell me where it is?"
    The next morning the sun rose over the sheet of ice the valley had become; we had to wait a couple of days before we could travel, and we were all glad of Conner's skill with wool when we ventured outside. Although the castle was warm and reasonably comfortable, we were happy to leave the place behind, and it was clear why they have to rotate staff out regularly. Deathsgate just doesn't like people, and it gets to you after a while. I found myself hoping that the rebuilt Seagate would have a less obstreperous personality.
    We continued to follow the Wynn trail for a week and a half, and reached the coast. He was still north and east.
    "Well, shit." I stared at the ocean. Either he'd stopped in the Orkneys, or he'd kept going.
    "At least he can't kill us," Gannon observed.
    "That's not entirely true," Conner contradicted.
    "Yes it is," he repeated firmly.
    "Sorry to have dragged you guys all the way out here," I told them.
    "I need to go talk," Meara announced suddenly. "I'll be back. I need to talk to my goddess," she clarified when we all looked confused. "My body's not going anywhere, my spirit's going elsewhere."
    "We'll keep an eye on you while you're gone," I told her.
    She quickly determined that Wynn was not in the Orkneys, or not any part she'd ever heard of. The image she received in her augury was of Wynn in a throng of courtiers, in a castle carved out of ice where the sun does not set. Surprisingly enough, he wasn't killing anyone.
    "I think it's somewhere in the Faerie Realms," she told us. The unsetting sun would mean that his personal curse wouldn't stand out the way it would anywhere else.
    Conner stalked out to the edge of the breakers and stared broodingly over the sea as if hoping to summon Wynn that way; if that was his aim it didn't work. He came back with salt spray freezing in his hair.
    We turned our steps south, toward York, to get some supplies before heading for Dawnsgate. Winter wasn't quite so bad once we were back in the lowlands, but it was still far from pleasant. I was still less than thrilled with this plan of making a loop around the entire island of Powys.
    "To accomplish what?" I wanted to know.
    "What we're hoping to do is forestall the incredibly negative auguries that they cast at Winter Solstice for your father's reign to keep your family alive and the island safe and happy."
    Oh. "You could have said."
         

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