Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.

-Robert Frost

Red sky at night sailor's delight. Red sky in morning sailor's take warning.

-Old Wives Tale

A yarn is naught but a tall tale, a continuous string wound around itself into a ball, sometimes knotted, sometimes tangled or so the story goes.

-Emerald Skye, 1 of the 12

Hunched against the wind, Aubergine stole from the back of the dye shed, a dim figure in the predawn light. Wrapping her shawl tight, she trod the snow packed path through the frozen herb garden and out the gate to climb the knoll behind Merchant Pass. Below, her yarn shop graced the straggly line of buildings that wound through the foothills beneath the ice face of the glacier.

Aubergine's Magic Wrap is available as a kit and pattern at...

Atop the knoll, she scanned the snow crusted rooftops that spiraled to the center of town like wagon wheel spokes and then looked beyond, to the torches that shone at the garrison bordering the Northlands. Dirty smoke rose from the glacier, sleeping like a fitful dragon. Faint, but still she could smell the rotten scent and knew it came not from the eternal flame that smoldered within. No, Lowlanders, invaders from the South, raiders in the night had passed unseen through the blind side of the Glacier. Somehow, they must have breached the Crystal Caves, along the way burning out the belly of the glacier in their quest for water to slake the thirst of their parched lands.

Acrid breeze smarted her eyes, and caught a corner of her handspun shawl, threatening to snatch the wrap from her grasp. Long hair flew in a grey spiral behind her; while below the great wooden sign that hung above the door to her shop groaned on iron hinges. Potluck Yarn, it said.

Watery blue eyes searched the gray horizon for answers and found none, for all were within. She fingered the mohair shawl, her magic wrap. Old and worn, it was tinged lavender and plum shot with black in a colorway called Aubergine, after herself. This grey morning she felt nothing but sorrow, knowing that she could have halted this desecration twenty years ago. It would have been easier then, before the dye pots fell into disuse and middle folks stopped believing in their yarns. She had been younger, and strong. It was difficult to admit, but foolish had been what she was.

Her shoulders slumped as she realized it was time to summon the twelve. It was past time. And she knew not all would see the red dawn spangled with ancient crystal for the fire in the sky it was. And of those who took notice, not all would heed the warning. The circle of twelve would remain broken, sundered as it was before and worse.

Aubergine's hand sought her naked neck as she fought the pain of betrayal afresh, from the young maven who had spurned the power of the twelve and stolen her amethyst circlet in the night to flee south, knowing none would follow into the Lowlands. Misusing what magic she could prise from the broken necklace, the young apprentice bent the greed of the Lowlands to her will. As the years passed, rivers raged and whirlwinds struck and forests burned. She became the dark queen of the south, stripping the fields and forests, squandering the rivers and lakes, fouling the seas until nothing was left. It was bad magic to speak her poisonous name aloud. Even think it.

A dark gnome of a woman toiled up the path below, her felt mittens holding a tinder box. Just last week they had found it once again, shelved among dyestuffs in the back room, glowing as it had not for decades.

Wheezing, the little gnome gently proffered the tiny chest. Dawn was beginning to break, but Aubergine found she had no strength to open the hammered metal, for the seamless box had no lid. The glowing chest remained unopened between them, an unanswered question that hung in the air.

"It is time," the wrinkled gnome rasped. "Quickly, before the dawn obscures all."

"Smokey Jo," Aubergine shook her head. "Poor old Smokey Jo, we are naught but two tired crones whose time has come and gone."

A great crack shook the ground and then another, toppling the tinder box to the snow. Clutching each other for balance, both women turned their gazes north, blind to the sudden avalanche but not surprised. For years, Lowlanders had been mining the Northland Glacier chipping away ice with sledges that dumped great frozen chunks into washes flowing south. Now nowhere along the border was safe. The Glacier Guard dwindled to nothing more than a few old men dice playing outside the Burnt Caves were no match for the Lowland raiders.

Eyes tearing in the wind, Aubergine watched her companion unearth the yet glowing box from the snow. Drops of water beaded across the lid and ran down its metal sides warmed by cold fire.

"Fire and ice," she murmured, grasping her shawl tight in the gathering wind. She tasted the words. They tasted of war. Some would live, some would die, but the world as the Middlelands knew it, caught amidst battles between the Northland Guard and invaders from the South, was about to change forever.

Smokey Jo raised her dark eyes hopefully, as Aubergine scanned the horizon once more, searching for signs of sun. "Everyone knows," Aubergine said helplessly. "Leave the Glacier alone. Let it waste to the south as new snow packs it from the north as nature intended." She rested her eyes on Smokey Jo. "Each year it would disappear a little further up the rock strewn valley and fossickers would seek its treasure." She remembered. "And that was true and good. Only that."

"Fossikers would pan the rivers," Smokey Jo reminisced. "Some would follow the trails of mineral colored lakes that pooled and repooled, spilling from the Crystal Lakes to the Top of the Teardrop. And that was true and good. It all was."

"Aye. Until now," Aubergine cried. A sudden gust ripped the magic wrap from her grasp. Held by an amber stick pin at her throat, the shawl fluttered behind her like a cape. "Now those from the south burn the buried past, caring not what they will unleash."

"It is time," Smokey Jo reminded her.

Aubergine nodded at last. Summoning her strength, she ran her fingers over the familiar box until they found the invisible hinge. Gently, she pried the box open until the lid came off whole.

Smokey Jo gazed at the fiery crystals within. "I wish I could do that," she whispered in wonder.

"You have other talents," Aubergine murmured, her face rosy in the light. Was this enough? She asked herself. Could a broken down band of aging women silence these armies of men? "The day will dawn red as it has not for twenty years," she told Smokey Jo. "And who will answer its call?"

As Smokey Jo watched, she gathered the small handful of crystals in her gnarled hands. They felt strangely light and alive with cold fire. With a deep breath, she threw the jagged bits into the air and for a moment nothing happened. Smokey Jo gazed skyward helplessly and then to Aubergine in confusion. Aubergine's breath caught in her throat. Finally the crystals burst through the horizon, over and over dawning the day.

"Red sky comes morning. All take warning." Smokey Jo murmured her wizened face pink in the light.

"I count but seven of us now," Aubergine said, as they began to trudge back to the dye house.

Smokey Jo blew a frozen cloud into her mittens. "More will come. We may yet be able to circle round the big pot."