The Second Archon War: Comodia Glacialis 4 (Patreon)

Comoedia Glacialis 3: The Queen asleep upon her couch

When Anastasia had been young, she had lived in a big, beautiful house with her brother and parents. She remembered having a very fuzzy bear as big as she was that slept in her bed with her, and three beautiful dolls with long hair that she got to style with a brush. She wasn’t sure what her momma and papa did for a living, but her papa was gone a lot, and it was something involving guns and weapons. She did know that he had taken the family to Disney World while he went to something called an “expo”, but Anatoly had been the one who had gone with papa to see the tanks and planes, while she got to see princesses and castles. 

Then when Anastasia was eight, the Endbringers had come. At first, business had been good for papa, and Anastasia got many new dresses and dolls, as business was very good for her father as countries rushed to purchase as many weapons as they could. And for five years, things had not been so bad. Anatoly had gone into business with her father, being a man now, and he’d even taught her how to shoot, though it had never been anything but a range with target practice. 

Those three years had been frightening, but not so bad. She had gone to a hunting lodge with Anatoly, while their parents stayed behind in Moscow in the summer of 1995, to ride horses and swim in the lakes. That week was the last golden memory of Anastasia’s childhood.

And on June 18th, 1995, at the age of 11, Anastasia’s childhood ended. As it did for everyone in Russia. For that was the day the Behemoth came, and the Soviet Union fell in nuclear fire. 

Word had come to Anastasia as she and one of her friends were having a picnic at the lakeshore. A grim-faced Anatoly had come for her then, and informed her that there had been an attack. They had gone back to the lodge and listened in horror to the news as Moscow was evacuated. The Elitnaya, the pride of the Red Army, had clashed with the Endbringer. And they had all been killed. 

Then someone had panicked, and the radio broadcast had cut off abruptly. At first, it had been thought the Endbriner had destroyed the city. And while Behemoth had certainly killed thousands, it had been Russia’s own nuclear weapons that had killed millions. Among them, Anastasia’s parents. Reduced to ashes along with most of the population of Moscow. 

They were, in the end, the lucky ones. Behemoth had not been slain by the three bombs that had struck him. Instead, he had burrowed underground, then reemerged and bathed the rest of the city in so much radiation that it was death to go into the city center even nearly a decade later. 

That had been the start of the bad times. Not just for Anastasia, but all of Russia. 

Fortunately for Anastasia, she was not alone. She had her brother, who was twenty-three at the time, and already had connections in the world. She did not become a homeless vagrant like so many. Indeed, though Anastasia knew it had been close many times, she had never gone hungry, nor had she ever lacked for shelter. That shelter had been a crumbling, mold-infested apartment from the 1960s in Saint Petersburg, a far cry from the mansions and penthouses Anastasia had been used to, but she had never been as grateful for the opulent suites of her youth as she had been for that musty old ruin. 

As she grew older, Anastasia had come to realize that her father and brother were not exactly honorable men. They were well-spoken, polite, and dressed immaculately. Even when Anatoly had sold off all his suits and wore only second-hand clothes that Anastasia had been forced to learn to mend, he had always made sure his clothes were clean and neatly pressed before putting them on. 

But there had been more than one time Anastasia had needed to clean bloodstains off her brother’s clothing, and it had not usually been his. And she had also had to stitch up knife wounds, and care for her brother when he’d been shot. That had been the time they’d very nearly gone hungry and homeless, when Anatoly was recovering and unable to find work, but at their lowest point, a stroke of good fortune had come.

Dancing had always been Anastasia’s passion. And growing up, she’d had the very best teachers at the very best of Russia’s ballet schools. Her mother had been a dancer as well, and though she’d never been more than a backup dancer, she had been very beautiful. Looks Anastasia was not too modest to admit she had inherited, and looks that her mother had used to land a wealthy oligarch as her husband. That had been a route Anastasia had considered, but in the end, not one she had needed to take. 

While Anatoly had been recovering, Anastasia had taken her very expensive dancer’s shoes she’d inherited from her mother, along with a costume, and taken it to a theater company to try to sell for enough money for a little food and to buy fuel to keep them from freezing to death. To her shock, she had known the woman she’d approached to try to pawn them. 

“Aunty Elmira?” she’d blurted, and the old woman had spun around. She’d studied Anastasia for a few moments, then gasped in shock and run over to give her a hug. 

“Little Nastyona Borisovna? Is that you? I thought you were dead!” Elmira said, cupping Anastasia’s cheek in her hand and smiling at her. 

“I…I thought you dead as well, along with everyone else in Moscow,” Anastasia admitted. 

“I was in Leningrad, well, here in Saint Petersburg, for a show. Your parents, then…?”

Anastasia had only shaken her head, and Elmira had hugged her tightly. She wasn’t truly Anastasia’s aunt, only a friend of her mother from her days as a dancer who had visited often with her own rich husband.

After some more tearful greetings, Anastasia had been hustled inside, where she had met Uncle Georgy, a man who looked like he too had fallen on hard times. 

“Of course we have a role for you. Do you still dance?” he had said when the story of Anatoly’s convalescence (though not that he likely been doing something deserving of being shot at) came out. 

“Not in years, but I can manage,” Anastasia assured Georgy and Elmira. 

That had proven to be an understatement. Anastasia had danced like her life depended on it, and all her old skill and grace had returned in only a few short days. Despite that, she did not get a prime role, instead playing a backup dancer at the old run-down theater. It didn’t pay much, but it paid enough that she’d been able to buy food and fuel until Anatoly had recovered enough to resume his work, which they both pretended was honest and honorable, and not selling drugs and pimping whores. 

Anastasia still was not entirely certain what it was her big brother did, though he did a great many things these days. Including owning Uncle Georgy and Aunt Elmira’s theater and company, and paying them extremely well. 

Throughout her life, Anastasia had been very, very lucky. She’d been protected by her brother from the worst things in life, and knew that her current success as a dancer was not entirely due to her own skill and beauty, but the fact that her brother was one of the wealthiest men in Russia, as well as one of the most ruthless. 

She owed her brother everything and now was the chance to pay it back. So Anastasia sat with Kollei at the bedside of an unconscious woman of ice, and waited. 

For two days, nothing happened. The doctors and nurses were there constantly, and Anastasia had to wonder why on earth she was needed. But her brother trusted her, and if this really was an Archon, devil spawn though they may be, it could change everything. Perhaps, for once, Anastasia and her brother could do something good for the world, instead of being a merchant of death and a pretty doll. 

The one thing to do had been to help Kollei. She had, in fact, made herself sick, gorging on food in the middle of the night. The poor girl had probably never had so much food available to her, and Anastasia tried not to judge. She remembered the first time Anatoly had gotten a big score after they’d had a particularly lean couple of weeks, and how she’d gorged herself on meat and vegetables until her stomach hurt, at least in part because she hadn’t known when she’d be able to eat so well again.

Kollei had obviously had it much worse, and while teaching the girl some proper table manners, Anastasia shared a bit of her own past. 

“-and after that, we never heard from them again. We had a funeral, and there’s a grave marker that Anatoly paid for, but no bodies. Sometimes, at night, I dream that one day mother and father will come home, having survived for all this time…but I know they’re dead,” she finished. 

Kollei was hugging herself, looking sorrowful as she gazed at the sleeping face of their patient. She didn’t speak for a little while, then said in a small voice, “I don’t remember my parents. I…I think I’m 13 now. Or 14, I’m not sure. My father had already died when Behemoth came. I was living with my grandparents. My mother was too close to the city and got radiation poisoning, I think. I don’t know, I just know she got sicker, and sicker, and died.”

“My grandma got sick and died too, a cough. My grandfather lived a little longer, and taught me how to scavenge in the city. He died when he got into a fight with some other scavengers. I hid from them and they didn’t find me. I was very good at hiding.”

“I don’t know how I survived, really. I stole from everyone because there was no other way to live. I found scrap in the city and sold it, but I had to be careful. I knew bad things happened to little girls who got caught by bad men, so I only sold to women. Even so, I had to escape several times when they caught me and tried to sell me. I don’t…how many years has it been?”

“It’s December 25th, 2003. It will be Christmas in two weeks,” Anastasia said with a sad smile. “You’ll have to celebrate with Anatoly and I.”

Kollei nodded slowly, then asked, “Will he want me to sleep with him? I…I will. He’s given me food and a warm house, and I’ve had to trade before…”

The very thought horrified Anastasia, and Kollei flinched back at seeing her expression. “You are thirteen! He would never! He’s dating Elana, and she’s already much younger than he is, she’s only 22, and he’ll be 31 soon. How could you…”

Anastasia trailed off, and swallowed. She’d never had to sell her body for a meal, but she knew plenty of girls who had. 

“Oh,” Kollei said, her voice very small. “Then…then you’ll just kick me out?”

“No,” Anastasia said very firmly, and put an arm around Kollei. “You will be our little sister. I always wanted a little sister. We took you in, and we will keep you.”

At that moment, Anastasia felt a fierce familial love for Kollei, and by the way the other girl started crying and hugged her, she knew it was returned. She truly had always wanted a sister to take care of the way Anatoly took care of her, and perhaps this was her chance. The two women hugged and cried for several minutes until Anastasia felt something. A presence. 

She turned at the same time as Kollei to see the woman on the bed staring at them with piercing icy blue eyes. It might have just been the lighting, but those eyes seemed to glow. The woman’s expression was utterly blank, and she still lay flat on her back, but Anastasia gasped along with Kollei, both of them hurrying to crouch at the bedside. 

“Ma’am, are…are you awake?! Can I get you something!? We have food, tea, coffee, all sorts of things!” Kollei babbled, grasping at the woman’s hand and flinching. “You’re so cold…”

“Hello, I am Anastasia Karimosov. You’re safe now, at my house. Please, can you tell us your name, anything about you?” Anastasia asked gently as Kollei fidgeted beside her.

The woman gave a long, slow blink. Then turned her head away to stare at the ceiling, her expression still utterly neutral. 

“W-what should we do!?” Kollei asked, looking desperately to Anastasia. 

After a moment’s consideration, Anastasia decided that Kollei desperately needed something to do. “Make tea, hot tea. Not too strong. You remember how? Good, do that.”

Kollei scrambled out of the room while Anastasia called for Doctor Balakin, who hurried in with the nurse to check on the woman. 

“Vitals are…hmm. Mostly normal. Her temperature is rising too, though it’s still quite low at 11.3C. Miss, can you hear me?”

The woman on the bed ignored the doctor, but when the nurse tried to stick a needle in the woman she slapped the nurse’s hand away, her expression changing for the first time to mild annoyance. 

“I need to get a blood sample to check to see if you have any lingering effects of radiation,” Doctor Balakin explained. “And to see what kind of parahuman you are. I assume you’re not a Vision Holder, unless that totem of yours is a very odd vision.”

The woman regarded him for a moment, then opened her hand and gazed at that glowing chess piece. At last, she sighed and took the needle from the surprised nurse. She touched a fingertip to it, and then pulled back the plunger. The vial filled with blood, which she handed to the doctor, then lay back down. 

“Ah, thank you,” Balakin managed, then glanced at Anastasia and shrugged. “I need to take this to the hospital to be analyzed. She’s not in any danger I can see.”

“I’ll call my brother and let him know,” Anastasia promised, even as the woman turned her face toward the wall and put her back to the others in the room.

“I have the tea!” Kollei gasped, hurrying forward with a mug in each hand. She gave one to Anastasia, then sat on the bed and shook the shoulder of the woman. “Ma’am, please, here! I made you tea! It’s…it’s an offering.”

The woman didn’t even lift a finger, but Kollei let out a gasp, and Anastasia watched in astonishment as the tea slowly drained out of the mug. A moment later, the woman exhaled a bit of steam. Then she apparently closed her eyes, and went back to sleep. 

Not long after, Anatoly hurried in, and spent several minutes kneeling at the woman’s bedside in silence. When she didn’t respond, Anatoly said respectfully, “My Lady, I am Anatoly Karimosov. Do I have the honor of addressing the Ice Archon?”

The woman opened one eye and frowned at Anatoly, but didn’t do anything further. Anatoly waited, but she simply closed her eyes again after a few seconds. Clearing his throat, he added, “If you have need of anything, merely ask. I am at your disposal. I am working now to, ah, prepare the way for you. Russia has need of an Archon, I think. Please, consider me your humble servant.”

That got only a frown, and the woman rolled over. Anatoly waited a few minutes more, then stood, hat in hand, and stepped over to Anastasia. “Has she said anything?”

“Not a word,” Anastasia said with a shake of her head. “I think…I don’t think she’s human, Tolyan. Something about her…”

“I quite agree,” Anatoly said slowly. He sighed. “Keep an eye on her. And Kollei. I don’t know if she’s important to this somehow, but…well. It’s too early to really even say what the game is, let alone the pieces.”

Anastasia nodded her agreement, and Anatoly departed. 

The woman spent the rest of the day in bed and the night. In the morning, Anastasia came to a decision. “Is she healthy enough to stand, doctor?”

Doctor Balakin shrugged. “She seems as healthy as can be. But it’s hard to know with parahumans.”

“Healthy enough to stand up, to get dressed?” Anastasia demanded. 

Balakin considered that, looking down at the apparently sleeping woman. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. She needs rest, but a little movement would do her good I think. No internal injuries or damage that I can find.”

“Then I’ll help her dress. Come, Kollei. You can help,” Anastasia ordered. She went to help the woman out of bed, and to her surprise, there was no resistance. She allowed Anastasia to guide her over to the full-length mirror, where Kollei put out several dresses in a messy pile to Anastasia’s slight irritation. The girl truly was an ignorant peasant, but Anastasia would teach her better. 

“You’re rather petite, but so is Kollei, so perhaps we can find some clothes for you,” Anastasia said, picking through the clothing. She selected some underwear and tried to hand it to the woman, who just regarded it blankly. Sighing, Anastasia instructed, “ You have to put it on.”

“It’s comfortable, don’t worry,” Kollei assured the woman. 

After regarding them, their silent subject slipped the underwear on, then held out her arms as if to be dressed. Anastasia had helped plenty of dancers put on costumes backstage and had others help her with some of the more elaborate getups, but this was more like a child waiting for a parent to dress them. Still, the woman did help a little with pulling on the blouse, though she regarded the pants with distaste and refused to even lift her leg for them. 

“Fine, a dress?” Anastasia offered, and the woman reclined her head like a queen, and allowed the long dress to be put on her. 

That done, Anastasia led the woman out to the kitchen, where Kollei made a great mess preparing tea. Thoma or a cook wasn’t around, so Anastasia made some toast, then directed Koellei to help her make chicken soup. She’d had the ingredients delivered, as she was caring for a convalescent after all, but it would take a while for the soup to cook. 

“It’s been so long since I’ve cooked,” Anastasia admitted to Kollei as the girl enthusiastically chopped onions and carrots. “I cooked sometimes when it was just Anatoly and me, though he did most of the cooking when I was younger.”

“Really? If I had a lot of food, I’d cook all the time. It’s better than old army rations,” Kollei said, popping a bit of carrot into her mouth and grinning. 

“Hmm, I just need to check the recipe, can you hand me the cookbook?” Anastasia asked. 

There was a pause, then Kollei handed Anastasia the instruction manual for the washing machine. “Ah, the recipe book, Kollei?”

“Um…” Kollei stared helplessly at the three or four manuals and books in the kitchen, her eyes darting back and forth. “...what color is it?”

“Kollei…can you not read?” Anastasia asked slowly. 

“I…I can read my name,” Kollei said, not meeting Anastasia’s eyes. “Um, and a few other words. Like rations. Or ammo.” 

“Ah. It is… a distinctive name,” Anastasia said, giving the poor girl a smile. Actually, it was downright unusual, but the poor girl seemed so embarrassed she didn’t want to press. “Don’t worry, we can teach you how to read.”

“You…you mean it?!” Kollei dropped the knife in her excitement, her eyes suddenly sparkling with passion. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to read! I, I had books! They weren’t good for trade, but I always kept them anyway! Not just to burn or to clean myself with, but to look at the pictures, and the words! I wanted to know what they said. My grandpa used to read them to me, until his eyesight got to bad. He taught me a little, but I don’t remember most of it.”

“Everyone should learn to read,” Anastasia said firmly, and felt her heart breaking all over again. She really had been one of the lucky ones. Anatoly had seen to it that she went to school, even in the worst times. One of the first things he’d paid for was a proper tutor to make up for all the time she’d missed. Technically, she should be attending university, but she’d convinced Anatoly her career as a dance took precedence. “We’ll hire a private tutor.”

With the soup done, Anastasia turned back to the woman, who had not touched her toast. 

“You should eat. You were asleep for three days,” Anastasia urged.

“It’s good, see?” Kollei offered, taking one of the slices of bread. She drizzled it with the honey for the tea, then crammed most of it into her mouth at one go. 

“Kollei, manners. That is not how a lady eats,” Anastasia urged and took a slice for herself, taking dainty bites.

“A lady would starve to death if she doesn’t eat quickly enough,” Kollei muttered, but she did take smaller bites, even if they were still larger than Anastasia considered polite. 

Their patient simply stared at the last slice of bread on her plate. Then looked up and out the window, apparently uninterested. Kollei picked it up, but instead of eating it herself, broke off a piece and put it to the woman’s lips.

“Here, please. You made me better, and I want you to get better too, alright? You have to eat…”

The woman’s eyes shifted to Kollei, who she regarded flatly for a few moments. Then, she opened her mouth slightly, and Kollei hastily put the food in. The woman chewed and swallowed mechanically, but at least she was eating something. 

When the soup was done, Anastasia fed the woman, who accepted the soup with as little emotion as she had the toast. After that, Kollei found a book, which to Anastasia’s exasperation was a biography of Pablo Escobar her brother had probably been reading. Hopefully, he wouldn’t come to the same end, though Anastasia was fairly certain he was importing cocaine, among other drugs. 

“I don’t know if this is the sort of thing you want to read, it’s the story of a…bad man,” Anastasia said, grimacing.

“Did he die?” Kollei asked, sounding more intrigued than anything else.

“The Americans killed him, I think. I recall seeing Eidolon and some other American capes with the group that took him down,” Anastasia said.

“That sounds exciting! Can you teach me to read it?!” Kollei asked eagerly. 

Suppressing a sigh, Anastasia opened it up, and Kollei peered over her shoulder as she started to read. Kollei really didn’t know any of the words, but she seemed to find the dark and bloody history of the Columbian drug lord to be utterly fascinating. 

To her surprise, when she glanced over at their patient, the woman was looking at her with interest. Not as intently as Kollei, but with more than just the listless passivity she had shown thus far. Taking that as a good sign, Anastasia read on. Though she made a mental note to get some actual literature, along with books appropriate to teach a young woman to read. She wasn’t sure exactly how, academics had always come easily to Anastasia, and she didn’t recall how exactly she’d learned to read herself. 

The next morning, Thoma arrived to check in on them, striding into the kitchen just as Anastasia was trying to figure out what to make for breakfast. 

“Guten morgen, ladies! Ah, our ice princess has awakened from her slumber. Tell me, my lady, how do you feel about ponchiki?” with a flourish, Thoma set several brown paper bags with grease marks on them atop a plate on the table. The woman didn’t react at all, but Kollei squealed with delight. 

“Ah, good morning, Thoma. Thank you,” Anastasia said, smiling at the handsome German.

He winked at her, then pulled out another bag, even as Kollei ripped open the donut holes and shoved several into her mouth while offering another to their patient. “I brought the reading materials you requested. Though I wasn’t too sure what you meant by children’s books. I got some fairy tales, comic books, and a copy of Crocodile Gena and his Friends.”

“They’re for Kollei,” Anastasia explained. “I’m teaching her to read.”

Thoma’s eyebrows rose at that, and he glanced over at Kollei, who blushed and looked down. “Well, it’s never too late to start. I can barely read Russian myself, perhaps you can tutor me.”

“Oh stop, your Russian is perfect,” Anastasia said with a roll of her eyes. When she’d met Thoma three years ago, when he’d started working for her brother, he’d had a bit of an accent. Now, however, the only reason she knew he was German at all was by listening carefully.

“I-I promise to work hard, Mister Thoma,” Kollei said, carefully wiping her hands off on a napkin before picking up one of the comic books. “I like the pictures on this one.”

“Ah, that’s a Japanese one, it’s backward,” Thoma told Kollei, and flipped it around. “Lightning Princess Ami. Very popular with young people.”

Kollei dropped the book in horror and shrank back. “I-it’s about the Raiden Shogun!? Is it cursed!?”

“It’s just a…” Anastasia began but paused. The woman had picked up the comic book, her eyes narrowing. She flipped through it, head tilted to one side as everyone else watched. After a bit of reading, she snorted, then threw the book on the table and rolled her eyes. 

“You…don’t like it?” Anastasia asked, picking up the book carefully. 

The woman didn’t respond, instead taking the collection of Fairy Tales and paging through it.

“I like Fairy Tales,” Kollei said. “My favorite was Adventures of Buratino. He just wanted to be a real boy…”

The woman glanced at Kollei, then handed the book to Thoma and folded her arms over her chest.

“Hmm? Do you…want me to read it?” Thoma asked, uncertainly taking the book.

The woman made an imperious gesture with one hand, then sat waiting as if she expected her wordless command to be obeyed.

“I…very well. Well, you’re in luck, Kollei. This does have a copy of Pinocchio in it.”

“Who’s Pinocchio?” Kollei asked, sitting down with an eager expression on her face.

“Ah, forgive me. He is Buratino. Pinocchio is the original italian name,” Thoma explained, then began to read from the book. Like most things he did, Thoma was quite good at it, pausing to show the pictures to his audience, and doing funny voices for all the characters. Even though it was just a children’s story, and one she knew quite well, Anastasia found herself entertained, smiling as Kollei overreacted to every little twist and turn in the story and eagerly demanding to know what happened next. 

Perhaps more than a hint of the entertainment came from the fact that Thoma was reading the story. Ever since she’d met the man, Anastasia had rather liked him, and he’d always treated her with respect. Something she couldn’t say for all of her brother’s lackeys. It was easy to forget Thoma was actually a powerful parahuman and not just a secretary. 

After a half hour, the story was over, but Kollei was not finished. Taking the book, she pointed to the title. “That is Buratino, right?”

“Indeed, very good,” Thoma said with a smile.

Nodding seriously, Kollei pointed to another word. “And…this one is?”

“Wooden,” Anastasia said. “You sound it out like this.”

Kollei carefully repeated the word, a look of concentration on her face. She quizzed Anastasia and Thoma on several other words, then worked hard on sounding them out.

“I will bring some boards and markers for you to practice writing on, and some paper too,” Thoma promised as he stood up. “For now, duty calls. If you need anything, call. There are men just outside if there are any problems.”

“Thank you,” Anastasia said, standing and walking Thoma to the door. When they were at the threshold, she asked, “How is Tolyan? Is he…?”

“He’s working on our…colleagues. But it’s slow going. We don’t want them to see too much of our hand. He’s having no more success on the right side of the street than he is on the shadowed side,” Thoma said with a shrug.

Anastasia bit her lip and nodded. “I’ll do what I can, but…she seems so distant. I wonder if the battle addled her mind in some way? She hasn’t even told us her name.”

Thoma put his hand on Anastasia’s shoulder and squeezed it, and she felt a thrill go through her. “Keep the faith. I trust your brother’s judgment. He’s the boss for a reason. You’re doing well, Miss Anastasia.”

“Nastya, please. We’ve known each other for a long time, Thoma,” Anastasia said, smiling and trying not to blush like a foolish girl. 

“As you say, Miss Nastya. Though perhaps not when your brother is around,” Thoma said with a roguish grin. Then he gave her a quick peck on the cheek to her shock, and stepped out of the house, whistling a merry tune. 

Back in the kitchen, Anastasia found Kollei trying to read to the woman, and doing a rather poor job of it. Still, she was trying, and the woman didn’t seem to care one way or another. 

Sighing, Anastasia ate a few more donuts. It was going to be a long wait. Surely, this woman had to be something special.