Sovereign Ice

III

“Whatever enchants, also guides and protects.” At least one of my favorite authors thought so, though I can't recall his name.  I do remember how you laughed when I told you of the old books I loved to read, how I prized almost any work more than a century old. Of course, the more obscure the better. When reading, I always felt as if the author were speaking to me personally, if only because the rest of his audience had faded away, long ago.

But there you were laughing at me, and I loved you for it. I was moved to confess how - in my youth - I even believed that book about the magical seagull was real. I mean, that there once was a wise spirit in the guise of a gull who came to Earth, bringing a simple wisdom for all of us to share. And you laughed more, with such abandon and acceptance that no enchantment could have held me more.

Now I know better. Magic, real magic, isn’t about love or daydreams, not about believing in yourself or following the golden rule. I had to accept that from the moment I awoke as a corpse, unable to see in the dark, my mind rattled by terrors, my lungs filled with dust. In that moment, when I tried to scream, I couldn't find my tongue.

But allow me to put aside my awakening for a time. Before we dead could rise, the world had to end. 

Like a mountain falling out of the sky, the damned thing hit us. If only it had been an asteroid!

The core at least, landed somewhere to the east. At its touch, the Earth splashed like a puddle. Cities and mountains were caught in a seismic wave moving at five miles a second. But before that got to me, I saw the sky light up through my basement windows. It was not like sunrise, or even the forest fires I’ve seen. More like a match struck by God to burn away the infinitesimally small nothing we had all suddenly become. 

Terror is an amazing thing. I dove for the old freezer in the back of the basement. You may as well laugh at that, too. Nothing more than panic guided my actions, with some ice and a few frozen steaks all that stood between me and fiery annihilation. I could barely see in the lurid reflections that stung deep into my brain, and I had no chance to pull the freezer door closed before the arrival of the earthquake, which did it for me. 

I died as I imagined I would from an early age, when a fall at a skating rink stole away every thought before I could finish one frightened breath. Back then, my head smacked against something solid and I was gone. No pain, no agony to endure. No fear of death. Just gone. This time the shockwave accomplished the same. A good thump took house and hill and all my worries with it, but more permanently than any mere concussion could have.

What I would not know for more than a thousand years was what must have happened next. The excellent coffin in which I had taken refuge - that stainless-steel freezer - must have been caught up like a pebble in a rainstorm, as was every brick and stick of the neighborhood. I imagine it looked something like the great floods, when the South Fork Dam failed in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, or when the Three Gorges Dam sent four billion gallons over the top to scrub the downstream basin of the Yangtze. Of course, there was no water in this flood, just the earth - liquefied by its collision with… the alien.

The insulation of the freezer and the earth all about must have kept my body from being incinerated by the heat. Then came the cold. Within hours our planet fell beneath the dark of an all-encompassing cloud, what remained of that probe from beyond the stars. The cloud blocked out the sun, concealed it so completely that no night awaited the coming of a new day. It was night everywhere, with a dense, orbiting cloud stealing away every sunbeam that could have sent warmth down from the freezing heights.

Even so, the world suffered through hellfire for a time. Forests burned in the endless midnight. Cities filled the air with unbearable backdrafts and roiling seas of flame. Each moment was a prison, a purgatory of the damned locked in red shadows and slate-black silhouettes. 

Soon enough, it began to snow. When it came, it snowed almost everywhere and at once. It was as if the seas had given up being the Master of Water, turning over all the measures of the deep to the hungry skies. And what the skies could not hold, they rained down on the dead continents, covering the world in a crush of new glaciers and a rime of smoke stained ice.

Even then, the extinctions had only begun.

Perhaps everything would have died if not for the alien probe itself.

Yes, strange as that sounds, it’s true.  

After all, it was not a mountain that had hit us, but an alien device. The collision was accidental. The consequences unplanned.

Filtering through the clouds, down from the heights of space, the remnants of the alien probe came. Dust. Soot. Seen from a distance the falling xeno-cinders took on the appearance of a summer rain. The littlest things breathed it in. Those with hearts still beating felt the dust stirring in their blood. The dying felt it too. Even the rocks and the mountains knew the touch of a new enchantment.

Of course, it wasn’t really magic, any more than gravity is magic. 

But what power lay in the dust refused, at the last, to allow the extinction of life on Earth. As if conscious of its accident and sorry for the mistake, the smallest remnants of the probe went about their work: reviving species, reinvigorating blood lines, and even reanimating the dead.

And so, it was the dust awakened me, even though I had lain buried for a thousand years, a frozen corpse embedded in the ice. 

Other corpses came for me and took me among their number. I was one among a few at first, then the few joined the many, and the many became an army. We were a shuffling, unfeeling horde that knew little beyond obedience to its masters. And soon I came to understand. 

We were the soldiers of the dead.

###

In the Age of Discovery

Major Ulean DeVries

Tears won’t melt the snow

“Let’s hear it, Lieutenant Graynam,” Major DeVries demanded, “where were you?”

Nervously aware his salute had gone unreturned, the young lieutenant launched into an account of the cavalry’s whereabouts. Though he kept his eyes squarely on DeVires, he projected his voice for all to hear.

“Major, we came upon a village early this morning, half a dozen miles to the northeast. Hunters and fisher-folk. A few dozen families by my count. While scouting the village, we witnessed a Keltoi raid. They came in, cut down the sentries, took some women. Most of the men were out at the river, we found later.”

“And you decided to do something about it, did you?” DeVries asked, glancing toward the disheveled villager they had returned with, a woman who was now being looked after by surgeon Raimi. The native female was complaining bitterly and swatting away every ministration. 

Behind Lieutenant Graynam, his four riders had now dismounted and were standing at attention beside their ponies, their mounts snorting and dissatisfied, expecting to be groomed and fed.

“Not at first, sir,” Graynam replied. His voice lowered as though he were taking the Major into his confidence. “There were only a handful of raiders, badly armed with axes and those strange spears. I couldn’t fire on their flank, fearing we might hit villagers. We shot into the air, hoping to shock ‘em. It worked, but not half as well as riding in with swords drawn. They’d never seen a mounted soldier before. Still, a few got away, with this woman and a couple children.”

“So you went on a rescue mission,” DeVries surmised. “Without reporting to me? There are troopers on those pyres over there, Lieutenant. If I’d had a report of Keltoi in the area…

“Trooper Benake couldn’t get through, sir,” Graynam interrupted.

“Are you placing this on one of your men, Lieutenant?”

“No, Sir. Major…” Graynam seemed frustrated, but his voice never quavered. “True, sir, I ordered pursuit, hoping to get back the prisoners. Thought it would get us in good graces with these villagers. I took Milfurn, Ceole, and Franco with me, sending Benake back with a report for you. But a few miles on and Benake ran into the main band. Ones that didn't scare as easy. He couldn’t get past."

"My fault, Major," Benake chimed in, stepping forward as though about to continue with an explanation, but a withering glance from DeVries stopped him in his tracks.

“Trooper Benake did all right," Graynam filled in. "He came back to get us, thinking together we could either pass their flank or fight through to you. By that time, we’d got the woman back, but not the kids. We came straight on, but all that back and forth…. It took a bit of fighting. Used up most of our caps and powder. Rode as best we could in the dark.” Graynam's energetic delivery began to fade.

“That all, Lieutenant?”

 “No, sir. No sign of the raiders in the last four hours. I’d make that close to nine miles we’ve been pushing these ponies in the dark, making enough noise they could have set trouble for us anywhere they wanted. They’re probably regrouping, considering wounds and scores and what to do next.”

“Your count of the raiders?” DeVries asked. 

“Ten at and near the village, twice that blocking us on the way back.”

“And about the same made a go at us,” the Major mused. “Two groups? Surely some overlap as they moved about, but that still puts their number up near sixty or more. Almost a loose company. More than makes a raid on a single village.”

DeVires bit his lip, glanced away for a second, but upon looking back returned the lieutenant’s salute smartly.

“At ease, Lieutenant Graynam. You and your men did fine, considering. Tend to your mounts and we’ll have Cooky get you fed. Any wounds?”

“Scrapes and bruises, sir. We sewed up a knife cut on Benake in the field. The ponies all came through it without a loose shoe.”

“Well, that’s what’s important.” DeVries smiled. “Have the surgeon check you all over, and make sure your men get their rest, Lieutenant. We’ll be needing you again in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Graynam offered another crisp salute, which was as quickly returned.

As DeVries greeted each of the cavalrymen in passing, the metal giant he had left behind near the fire made a commotion in coming forward. Before DeVries could give the slightest warning, Skye had confronted Graynam, blurting out questions with an enthusiasm the metal man had not previously displayed.

“Do you know Maya?” Skye asked the lieutenant, then asked it again, insistently. He gave Graynam a start and spooked the mount the young man was leading.

Back at the fire, Erok stood, putting herself head and shoulders above the surrounding troopers. Almost instantly, all the ponies balked, rearing and whinnying such that their troopers had a moment’s difficulty bringing them under control.

 “Kutiya bandu goram eloi,” DeVries swore quietly, using some of the few Keltoi words Captain Reese had managed to teach him. He was upset with himself at having forgotten to warn Graynam and his pony riders about their strange new campmates.

In that same moment, the balance of his troopers erupted into guffaws and merriment — all at the expense of the returning cavalry. 

“Do you know Maya?” Skye continued to inquire of Graynam, all but unaware of the commotion he caused. “Can you tell us where her parents are?”

Scratching at his beard, DeVries stepped in. He tried — through laughter of his own — to offer introductions and make some sense for the lieutenant and his men of the presence of a metal giant and his saber-toothed companion. Though DeVries was delighted with the safe return of his cavalry, he could see it was going to be a long, long evening.

###

DeVries’ men had set his small tent in order and laid out the costly bedroll his wife had provided, with its welcoming furs and scented pillow, but still the Major found his sleep fitful and short. Another mug of ground cory root did little to soothe his nerves. He recognized the warmth of the earthenware cup in his hands, but the rich caramel flavor and semi-sweet aftertaste of the drink were beyond his ability to appreciate. 

Though DeVries glanced several times at the small pile of leather-bound books on the folding table, set carefully next to his official campaign log, he could find no patience to read. Not even the slim new volumes on The Sins of Magic or The Stars Beyond Sol could hold his attention. The latter was a direct translation of an ancient work from before the Great Change. If true, the concepts it held forth made everything in DeVries’ experience seem so small and immaterial that it disturbed him. He was certainly in no mood for that after a day in which he had lost three good troopers.

With dawn only an hour or so away, DeVries turned up the lantern and made a short entry in his campaign log. This at least soothed him. Writing, especially the slow, fluid process of putting cursive on paper, sometimes helped more than he could understand. It was meditative, even when the ink ran low. It was like leaving tracks across the landscape, allowing DeVries to look back across the path he had taken and to see how far he had come. For the Major, writing down his thoughts was close to contemplative prayer.

The entry made, DeVries turned out the lantern. After giving his eyes a moment to adjust, he wandered out into the camp. He found the officer of the watch and the guards on duty doing a fine job, though they tended to straighten self-consciously at his approach, as if some wandering part of their attention could have been accused of dozing.

Without much trouble, DeVries found the metal man near the biggest of the now banked fires, his hands outstretched over the coals, his gaze fixed on the soothing orange and white flickers in the fire, the patterns of which changed constantly and yet stayed the same, like ripples in a stream. DeVries stood beside him silently for some time, then found no better way to break the silence than by venturing a word about the weather.

“It’s a warm spring,” DeVries said, “especially up here. If we could count on this every year, we could get regular trade going to some of these villages.” When the metal man said nothing in return, DeVries tried something simpler. “You like the fire, Lord Skye? I think you’ve stayed near it all night.”

“The fire is good,” the giant returned. Unblinking crystal eyes turned DeVries way. “It feeds me, like Maya. Gives me strength. My hurts go away in it. The cold is what I don’t like. No, I’m not liking the cold at all.”

“It’s not cold where you came from?”

Dropping his gaze momentarily, Skye shook his head from side to side, giving DeVries the impression of a most sorrowful human gesture. 

“I’ve seen snow before,” Skye volunteered. “In Maya’s memories — in the old records, when we watched them play upon the walls. There were always smiling people in the snow. Happy and sliding down hills of white. With… with slats on their feet. Skis they called them. Why would they be happy about so much cold? Major Duh-vrees, you say this is spring? I thought spring was when the warm came? Is it going to get warm?”

“You sound homesick,” DeVries answered, then not sure of Skye’s understanding, he added: “That…  is, like a man who wants nothing more than to return to the comforts and kin he’s left behind. It is spring, Lord Skye. It is warm now. Summer may bring some fishing and a bit of good hunting this far north, but no crops. And it will be short. If we don’t get back within a hundred days, we won’t be getting out at all this year.  “I wish I could tell you we were marching back to Ayelsford, but that’s a long way.”

 At his own mention of the Ayelsford, DeVries became wistful, aware of the pensive longing in his own voice. 

 “At the height of summer there, you can stand in a field of cory growing, all tangled green with blue flowers, and not a bit of snow to be seen past the hills. Lakes without ice. Of course, it takes a bit of magic to keep things that way, even down south, but it’s a wonder, of that you can be sure.”

“Magic. Can you… can you tell me about magic?” asked the metal man. “I saw your… soldiers starting the fires by breaking a small cube over the wood. They said magic. Do I have the right word? I thought magic was about potions and spells. Wands that throw bolts of light?”

DeVries started to laugh, but could not find enough in the metal man’s face to gauge what offense he might produce. Scratching absently at his beard, DeVries considered what to say. He saw no choice but to risk some affront. “Lord Skye, are not you yourself magic? I’ve never seen the like of you. And your companion. Her size, the green eyes, like nothing natural, even for the tundra cats in the south. Surely you are both the products of magic.”

“Maya is our mother,” Skye assured him. “She made us. How is that magic? If it is, can it be the same as making a fire?”

DeVries coughed, a bit flustered. “When you say magic, I think you are using the word for imagination, for daydreams and what happens in fanciful tales. I mean magic. Well, that is…” It was harder than DeVries thought. He fought for a way to handle the situation until he recognized the similarity in explaining the world to his five-year-old son. He swallowed and started again.

“First, you have to divide the world into two parts,” DeVries began, “one part with magic and one without. The fires are a good example. The wood — which was without magic — wasn’t ideal kindling. Much of it was fresh. And bodies don’t catch fire easily, but both the dead and the wood could be helped to burn. The funeral pyres could be encouraged, if burning is what they knew they were supposed to do. What you saw the soldiers use… Umm, it’s a simple magic called crema. It helps things know they are supposed to burn. But it doesn’t burn itself. That’s magic.”

“A catalyst,” Skye said matter-of-factly.

“Where did you come up with that word?” DeVries could not help but laugh. He had noted before how the mind of the metal giant seemed both childlike and filled with unique information and proficiencies. How else to explain his quick and continuing adjustment to the Ayelsford tongue? It made gauging the depth of the creature all the more difficult. “Ah, yes, Lord Skye, in a way it is. But it is a magic catalyst. As opposed to, well, a chemical added to help make a reaction, like when they make — I’m not a chemist, lord help me —  an explosive like monia. Chemicals just do what they’re supposed to do, but magic has a kind of intent to it.”

The metal man tilted his head slightly, giving all indication to DeVries that he was awaiting a more lucid explanation.

“Of course, of course. I need another way to approach it for you. Do you know - not many in the provinces do — but are you familiar with the idea of disease? That is, sickness caused by very small living things. Germs, not the wrath of a spirit or ancestor.”

“Bacteria. Viruses.” Skye used words unfamiliar to DeVries, but his manner and tone indicated agreement. “Microscopic organisms that live everywhere. They can infect the flesh…” Pausing, the metal man glanced to where his massive feline companion was sleeping, the rumble of her giant breaths drifting across the still air.

“The surgeon knows her business, Lord Skye,” DeVries assured him. “The medicine she applied was costly, but that’s my lookout. Do you know how your companion… how Erok is doing?”

DeVries watched as again, with a subtle cant of his head, Skye seemed to be elsewhere at the moment, either lost in thought or communing with the sleeping feline.

“The pain seems a good pain,” he said when he returned his attention to DeVries. “I’m not sure how else to say. Maya made Erok strong, stronger than disease. I’m sure you helped, too. And her belly is full. She is dreaming.”

Then, DeVries thought, there was some accord, a real communion between the two that went beyond mere words to include sensations, even dreams. DeVries smiled a satisfied smile at the knowledge and went on. “Then if you understand germs, you can understand magic. It also is caused by the smallest things, smaller than germs. So small no one can see a single piece of magic, even with the lenses surgeons sometimes use. At times, when a lot of magic is all together in one place, it seems like dust. Oily to the touch. If you dared to touch it. 

“But more than bacteria, magic can… make things happen both in flesh and inanimate matter. A rock. A piece of iron. Even the air. It can infect us too, overwhelm a person, drive them mad, especially a man. Women somehow seem better suited to it."

"But what is it?" Skye asked. "What is your magic?"

 "The best we know, it’s not alive. You can’t kill it with heat, or medicine, but magic responds in a way to everything that is alive. We couldn’t survive without it, couldn’t grow our crops or keep roads open, couldn’t keep our machines going or find and repair things from the Old World…” 

“And how,” Skye interrupted, “does that make us magic? How can Maya and Erok be magic? How, Major DeVires?”

“Well…”  DeVries steepled his fingers before his lips and blew a misty breath upon the air, fighting for the right words. “There are troopers who can shoot, and there are marksmen, if you take my meaning. There are people who can read a book, like me, and there are scholars who find new understanding. Our Lieutenant Gilford can start a fire or mend a wagon wheel with magic. She can set a few minor shields and traps, and even help ward off a few Keltoi spears. But there are those who, well, I suppose — as you had said — they could cast a spell over us all, or use a stick to throw a lightning bolt. 

“In a book I'm reading, it says ‘Any sufficiently advanced magic user could wield powers indistinguishable from the wildest flights of fantasy.’ That’s why I think you and Erok are… magic. And that your Maya may be one of those masters, someone who commands the very essence of magic in the Earth. The Frost Queen you’ve heard us speak of. They call her Nenquin. She is a master of magic, though forging something the likes of you may be beyond even her powers. Certainly, you and the big cat are like nothing I’ve heard of before.”

Skye shook his head sorrowfully in response. “I just want to go home.” 

“I see. Well, Lord Skye, magic or not, your assistance was welcome today. You and Erok put yourselves at risk to save Ayelsford lives, men and women under my command, and I’m grateful. Though I'll be damned if I know why. Is it something I can ask now?”

“The men who attacked you," Skye answered readily. "The same attacked Maya.  They took some of her things, smashed others. Tried to hurt her. They killed Bear.”

DeVries filed away Skye's information: that the Keltoi presence in the area may be widespread, and perhaps had been growing for some time. But what could make them brave the mountain glaciers? 

“I’m sorry to hear it,” DeVries said in response to Skye’s tale. “Is that why you and Erok are here? Was Maya captured? Did you escape?” 

“Maya sent us,” Skye explained. “When the bad men came, we fought…" The metal man paused as though struggling with a memory. "But we did not burn them as you do. After that, we sat and talked for a long time.

"Maya said she did not know that anything lived outside, not after the sky fell.  But now, bad men or good, if others could find us, maybe the sky was back where it belonged. Maybe, she thought, we could find her parents.” Skye’s voice suddenly became excited. “The horse soldier! Your lieu-ten-ant, Graynam. He looks like Maya's parents, but he did not say. He didn't answer!”

DeVries was struggling, trying reconcile a mind that understood chemical catalysts while at the same time believing the sky could fall from heaven. The Major was lost in thought before Skye’s excited repetitions of the lieutenant's name brought him back into the conversation.

“How… how is Lieutenant Graynam like your Maya’s parents?” DeVries asked.

“His appearance,” Skye said simply, pulling back a glowing hand from above the fire to tap his own gun metal frame. “It is shaded, like our Maya.”

“Of course, of course. Well, there are not many whose skin is 'shaded' as you put it. Rare actually, like red hair or green eyes. Most people think someone like Lieutenant Graynam has been touched by Providence. They’re often in the clergy, high office, and the like. Favored by the gods.”

“Is it true?”

 DeVries laughed. “Everyone wants to think they're special. Special family, special skills, most honored tribe, that sort of thing. From what I read, dark skin just protects you from sunburn. Not such a problem these days, but once there were lands that practically burned beneath the sun. At least we think so. There would have been a lot of ‘shaded’ people then, eh?"

"I've seen some others, in the stories Maya showed us," Skye explained. 

"Well, maybe they were always well thought of," DeVries conceded. "Anyway, our Lieutenant Graynam is not related to your Maya. His kin have been advisors to the Ayelsford nobility for three generations, with Graynam being the fine young rebel of his generation. He wanted to see the world instead of growing fat at university, reading books all the time. Me, I’ve almost come around to the other way of thinking.”

 “He does not know Maya,” said Skye, obviously disappointed. “He looked afraid.”

DeVries could not help but laugh. “You sure startled him, the way it went! My men are prepared to see anything in the north. Especially as we get closer to the Frost Queen’s lair. They’ve all heard tales, most of them nonsense,  I suppose… But still, you and that cat can take some getting used to!” 

“Will we ever get home?” Skye interrupted. “Will we ever see Maya again?”

“I don’t know how to make the promises you might like to hear,” DeVries said carefully. “You’ve been of service, Lord Skye, that's sure. And if you continue to be, we’ll owe you more than our thanks. That said, I just don’t know what it will take to get you back where you came from. Can you see staying with us for a while? Until we sort it out.”

“We’ve nowhere else to go,” Skye answered. “Nowhere. There are no houses, no streets.”

As they talked, the sky had begun to lighten. Stars could still be seen where a few broad strokes of sky opened up between clouds. The forest was no longer a dark wall to the east, where individual trees had become visible, and the first stirrings in camp could be heard as the earliest risers prepared to make a general bother for the rest. 

“What is that?” Skye asked. “Do you see it? What is that, coming down?”

DeVries looked about, trying to follow the metal man’s gaze, but found only the stillness of a pre-dawn sky.

Suddenly a wind rushed across the clearing, not violent, but enough to stir the embers from a dozen fires into renewed brightness, enough to be heard swaying in the tops of the trees, all across the line of the forest. 

Then a new light touched the roof of clouds above them, something other than the approaching dawn. It was close, bathing both the clouds and the ground below in a foam-green turbulence, not unlike the storms of the sea. 

“What did you see?” DeVries asked, not at all curious, but in the manner of an order. “What’s happening?”

Though the Major surveyed the heavens, he could find no source for the phenomenon. Beside him, Skye stood and likewise scanned the air as the green light rippled more intensely, while the clouds above it began to retreat.

Nearby, the giant saber-tooth grumbled and raised up from the ground, keeping her ears flat against her head. Watching Erok and Skye, DeVries once again noted the tell-tale signs of a silent conversation passing between the two. Indeed, it appeared as if the metal man had awakened his companion with no more effort than a turn in her direction.

“What is it?” DeVries demanded.

“I don’t know,” the metal man answered at last. “It was something, in the air above us. Flying.”

From the lightening sky, where DeVries could see nothing, a flickering beam dropped down, blinding as the full day sun. Then another, and another, all falling from different heights, angled this way and that, until a wild lattice work of lights spread across the camp. If they had been trapped in a valley of mirrors beneath a garish sun, the effect could not have been more stunning.

“Action stations!” DeVries ordered. “Perimeter defense!”

It took an agonizing few seconds before the first startled officer took up the cry and before squad leaders repeated it across the camp. Troopers came awake as their hearts pounded with the terror of a surprise attack, for that was what everyone assumed it to be.

“Can you see where it is coming from?” DeVries asked, shading his eyes beneath raised hands. 

Around the camp, the oxen had begun to bellow and stamp in fright. The ponies too made their displeasure known, as every trooper abandoned sleep to reach the weapon, wagon, or animal they’d been assigned in times of battle.

For a moment, DeVries felt his skin crawl, as if something had tried to probe his thoughts. Then, as suddenly as the lights had begun, they withdrew, their last flickering remnants touching the underside of the clouds as the wind which had brought them moved on.

DeVries looked about; trying to assure himself that panic had not overtaken his command. Thankfully, other than a few heads still craned skyward, the troopers had taken their mysterious assault well in stride. Most stood ready, weapons primed.

“Keep watch!” DeVries ordered, then impatiently added: “Not up there, you sons of whores. On the perimeter, by all that’s holy, on the perimeter!” For his part, the Major ignored his own advice and craned to look skyward. “Could that have been your Maya?” he asked the metal man. “Looking for you and for Erok?”

“No,” Skye answered without hesitation. “She would have come, called out to us. I would have known.”

“Of course, of course. Nenquin then,” DeVries said matter-of-factly. “That must be it. The Frost Queen. It would seem she knows we’re coming now.”

“Is that a good thing?” Skye asked. 

“Well, she did not stop to make her ‘good days,’” DeVries answered, rubbing his hand across the chill that had suddenly come to the back of his neck. “She certainly did not stop to wish us well.”