by Angus Watson
“They’re called Wootah now,” said Chogolisa.
“Wootah? Why? Actually, it can wait.” Olaf looked irked that the tribe he’d founded had changed its name, but Sassa suspected he wanted to keep the audience–he seemed more of a talker than a listener.
“You Wootah will know the stories of why we left the old world, and how I led your ancestors across the Great Salt Sea, and I’m sure you’ve told your Calnian friends?”
“We know all about your heroics and adventures!” chimed Bodil.
Olaf looked at Bodil. He seemed surprised, as if noticing her for the first time. Then he smiled like a toad.
“The Goachica were kind to us,” he continued. “Had they not fed us that first winter we would have perished and none of you would be here. However, I became tired of the Goachica’s geographical limitations, and my fellow Hardworkers became boring. Crossing the Great Salt Sea and travelling five hundred miles inland was enough for them. But I had no such limits. I left one night and began nearly a century of travelling. I have been to the frozen north, to the hot wet forests of the south, to islands populated by people and beasts you could never imagine. I have met fascinating men. And many women. Many women. Yet it was near here that I learned the alchemy to keep me alive and –
“Did you fake your death?” interrupted Finn. Bodil scowled at him. Sassa smiled.
Olaf Worldfinder glanced at Finn, then looked at Bodil to deliver the answer. “I colluded with the chief of the Goachica. When a Goachica nearly my size died we passed his corpse off as mine. Not many people, Bodil, have watched their own funeral from a nearby tree. It is an interesting experience.”
Bodil nodded as if resolving to give it a go.
Olaf took a long draw from his cup. “You will want to eat now, so I will tell you more of my exploits later.”
“Just one more thing,” asked Wulf. “How did you know we were coming?”
“Your little magic man told me.” He pointed at Ottar. Ottar put his hands over his face. “I became a warlock some ninety years ago so was able to decipher his message.”
“How did he send it?” Sassa asked.
“I do not know and I will not pry.” His eyes flicked from her eyes to her chest and back. It reminded her of Hrolf the Painter, the man she’d killed. Now she thought of it, wasn’t Hrolf a direct descendant of Olaf?
“I do not like prying,” Olaf continued. “That is why I live alone. However, I do know that you are on a quest to destroy the force at The Meadows. I admire the effort.”
“Can you help?” asked Wulf.
“Let us eat. After that I will tell you everything I know, and what I think you should do next.”
They tucked into their stew. It was delicious. For a while the noise of eating and drinking filled the room, only interrupted by the Wootah men refilling their mead mugs. Sassa looked at Sofi. The sucking and squelching of lips and tongues and saliva, she mused, must be pretty disgusting when you have super-hearing.
“So,” said Olaf when the eating had slowed. “You’ve heard that there’s a force in The Meadows set on destroying the world and your quest is to stop it. You’ve seen some of its effects, but you know very little about it.”
“That’s about right,” said Wulf.
“I, too, have seen the impact. I have seen many, many tornados rip through the land to the west. Storms worse than any I’ve encountered–and I have seen some storms, let me tell you–have threatened to topple even these stout buildings. We are at the edge of a canyon six hundred paces deep. The land shakes often. When it does, more and more of the canyon side crashes into the river below.” Olaf paused to drink. “And, of course, there are the monsters. The most common here are screaming, flying beasts with claws that can take a head off and a sting that will kill a man, but I’ve seen worse and I’ve heard of much worse. Nearer The Meadows itself are crawling, slithering miscreations that could destroy a tribe simply by sitting on it.”
“So what is the force at The Meadows? And why is it trying to kill us all?” asked Erik.
“When I heard that you were on your way I undertook,” he paused dramatically, “a vision quest.”
“A what?” Bodil asked.
“Of all the great journeys I’ve taken, my dear–across raging seas and through jungles full of killer serpents–the vision quest is perhaps the most dangerous, although I never left this hill. Or at least I don’t think I did. It is hard to be certain.”
Olaf took a long pull on his mead mug. Sassa drummed her fingers impatiently.
Olaf winked at her, then looked back to Bodil. “To depart upon a vision quest, one must ingest a concoction of horribly powerful drugs. Stoned off one’s mind, it seems, one can view the world as if one were a god. It is a very dangerous thing to do. Only the bravest can take part. In all my travels, I have seen only one other person embark on a vision quest. And he never came back.”
“Where did he go?” asked Bodil, wide-eyed. Golden candlelight danced on her tanned skin. The darker skin, pregnancy, or perhaps both, suited her, thought Sassa. No wonder the old goat seemed captivated. Although Sassa suspected that if Bodil hadn’t been in the room he’d have been captivated by one of the other women.
“He died, my dear,” Olaf said kindly. “Only the very strongest survive a vision quest. So, set on my task, I ventured southwards to the Cloud Town. I was hoping the Mindful Folk there might know what was happening in The Meadows and so negate my need for the vision quest, but unfortunately everyone who has approached The Meadows over the last decade or so has been killed.”
“It’s been going on a decade?” asked Finn.
“The Mindful Folk did, however, have the poisons one needs for a vision quest,” Olaf continued. “They come from a variety of tiny frogs found in the jungles to the south.”
He’d totally ignored Finn. Finn bristled.
Olaf shook his head, oblivious to the young man’s pique, then drank again. His silver mane remained set in immobile waves. Sassa wondered what he used to keep it so gloriously immobile and whether it would be better for her fin than the stuff Paloma had made for her.
“What did you find?” asked Sofi.
“The force is emanating from a huge triangular building in the centre of The Meadows. It, or rather I should say, she, is set on destroying the world.”
“She?” asked Erik. “Who?”
Olaf was not to be rushed. “Five hundred miles west of here is the territory of the united Warlock and Warrior tribe.”
“We’ve seen a statue of them next to the Red River,” said Erik.
“Ah yes, I know the one. They are powerful and their influence spreads a long way. Or at least it used to… but on with my tale. I thought the Warlock Queen was a myth, a bedtime story for Warlock and Warrior children, but my vision quest informed me otherwise.
“A thousand years ago a warrior woman with a magic bow came from the east. I suspect she came across the Great Salt Sea because I know she was as beautiful as some of the Hardwork… sorry, Wootah women.”
He looked at Bodil and smiled. Bodil giggled, apparently delighted. Sassa blinked. She herself had never been a fan of seedy come-ons from older men–much, much older in this case–but everyone was, of course, different.
“Along with the archer was a warlock girl and the archer’s young son. The Warrior and Warlock tribe tell wonderful tales of their marvellous adventures, but I know you are keen to hear the relevant part.”
“Indeed,” said Sofi.
“The warlock girl and the archer’s son became lovers–it’s the greatest romantic tale–then king and queen of the Warriors and Warlocks. They had a child. She became the greatest warlock the world has known. But she was strange. Some say evil.”
Olaf looked around the candle-lit table. The Hardwork carvings stared down from the walls. Sassa had goose pimples.
“The child became the Warlock Queen, chief of the united Warrior and Warlock tribe. She had her own child, a boy. He was killed. It is a tragic tale, b
ut one that would take a week to tell. Suffice to say that the Warlock Queen was destroyed by grief and she killed herself. Or so everyone thought.”
Olaf drank, then continued, almost in a whisper. “This very Warlock Queen’s spirit–or perhaps her still-living form–is now set upon destroying the world. From what I’ve seen and heard, she has the means and nobody can stop her.”
The hundred-and-fifty-year-old founder of Hardwork sat back, refilled his mug and drank some more.
“Why’s she so angry?” asked Chogolisa.
“I’ve told you all I know. If I know women–and I’ve known many, many women–it’s because of her child’s death. Women are crueller than men, but they only become angry enough to destroy a world when a child is involved.”
If Sassa knew anything about men, it was that they didn’t know much about themselves, let alone women. But she stayed quiet.
“Why wait a thousand years?” asked Wulf.
“That I do not know.”
“How do we stop her?” asked Sofi.
“The Warlock Queen’s body is entombed at The Meadows. Her tomb is a vast, triangular stone building called The Pyramid. It’s clear that you have to go there. But—”
Olaf shook his head.
“But?” prompted Thyri.
“Dozens, maybe hundreds, have been killed trying to reach it.”
“How. Do. We. Stop. Her?” Thyri pressed, enunciating each word as if Olaf was a three-year-old who wasn’t getting the message.
“That will require another vision quest. However—”
“You mean you don’t know,” Thyri sneered.
Olaf glared at Thyri in a way that was clearly meant to terrify her. She held his gaze.
“More research is needed,” he said eventually.
“Will you undertake another vision quest?” asked Sofi.
“I will not. I was lucky to survive the last one.”
“I thought you died when you died?” pressed Thyri.
“You die when you die is old world philosophy,” said Olaf. “I left the old world a long time ago.”
“Do you have the vision quest drugs here?” asked Sassa. A vision of Bjarni Chickenhead smoking a pipe filled her mind. He’d have gone on the dangerous vision quest for the fun of it. Which was, of course, why he was dead. She must, she told herself, make sure that Wulf didn’t go the same way.
“No. You will have to travel to the Cloud Town.”
“I’ll go on the vision quest!” announced Finn.
“We’ll decide that later,” said Wulf. Sassa kicked him. “Where is the Cloud Town?”
“South over the mountains, on Bighorn Island. It used to be a lovely five-day stroll, but, with the way the land has been destroyed, and the monsters, it will take you ten days, possibly more, and it will be very dangerous.”
“Just like everywhere else then,” said Finn.
“The next stage,” said Olaf, “will make your journey so far seem like a walk on the beach.”
“I got attacked by a giant wasp when I was walking on the beach once,” announced Finn.
“But I will give you the provisions you need and prepare you the best I can,” said Olaf.
They sat around the table drinking and discussing. Sassa–avoiding alcohol because of her growing baby–had the dubious delight of watching the others get drunk. Finn repeated several times that he would go on the vision quest.
“It won’t be you,” said Wulf.
“Nor will it be you,” Sassa whispered when the others’ attention had moved on.
“It is the sort of thing a leader ought to do.”
She looked at him and he shrugged. He was right. It probably should be him. But it wasn’t going to be.
“We’ll see,” she said.
When Ottar fell asleep with his head on the table, Sassa said she was tired too and would help him to bed.
She took the boy to pee in the woods, on the edge of the massif, and stood with one hand on his shoulder and the other on her stomach. She could feel the little heart hammering away inside her, she was sure of it.
In front of her and the urinating child–he’d drunk a lot, not mead Sassa hoped–the land plummeted. The sandhills that they’d come through were a small rise, then the rocky tracts carried on silver and endless in the moonlight, fissured with canyons and spiky with mountains. All these details looked tiny from her perch but were no doubt precipitous and fearsome to cross. Somewhere beyond all of it, west of west, were The Meadows, The Pyramid and the insane, dead Warlock Queen. It was so vast, and Sassa was so small, and the mite inside her even smaller.
A twig snapped and she spun, pulling her knife free of its sheath with one hand and shoving Ottar behind her with the other. Taanya was standing five paces away, towering over the squat pines, huge, furry and terrifying. It was a still night. How had the squatch crept up on her like that?
I’ll take the boy to bed, thought Taanya. She crouched down and held out a paw. Ottar toddled over to her and took it sleepily.
The phrase “choose your battles” occurred to Sassa as she did nothing to stop the boy from going.
You shouldn’t have him so near the edge, thought Taanya as she scooped Ottar into her huge arms.
Sassa followed them back to Olaf Worldfinder’s home. When she was certain Taanya wasn’t buggering off with the boy, she returned to the overlook with her bow and a sheaf of practice arrows that were too badly made to be used in action.
She shot one as far as she could westward. With Sitsi gone, Sassa was the only archer in the group. She was determined that she’d be good enough to defend Ottar, Wulf, her unborn child–the lot of them.
She’d intended to shoot only a couple, but she ended up loosing arrow after arrow into the endless west, towards the Warlock Queen. She worried about the journey to come, about how they were going to get Taanya to let Ottar come with them, all the time niggled by the knowledge that any of the arrows she shot had a slim chance of skewering some hapless night-time beast going about its innocent business below.
Finn opened his eyes, slowly. Light flash-flooded in and washed giddily around his head. He began to sit up, thought better of it and lay back down again.
He remembered Olaf Worldfinder–Olaf Worldfinder!–telling tales of the old world. He remembered sitting next to Thyri and…
He sat up.
By Oaden, it was amazing.
He thought through the evening again. Yes, he was right. He actually remembered saying his goodnights and going to bed.
He was more or less certain that he hadn’t tried it on with Thyri or made a tit of himself in any way. But he’d drunk so much. Surely he’d done something cringeworthy? He tried to remember. Thyri had laughed at his jokes. So had Chogolisa, Erik and Wulf. He’d had a chat with Sofi at one point. Surely he’d said something mortifying to her? No, he was sure he hadn’t. Yoki Choppa had joined them and they’d talked about vision quests. Yoki Choppa said that they weren’t quite as dangerous as Olaf had made out. Only about one in four people who went on one was killed.
Then he’d gone back to the others and had a big chat, full of laughs.
He hadn’t been last to bed. He’d left Sofi, Yoki Choppa, Thyri and Erik talking. Bodil had been chatting away with Olaf; Finn had a vision of her with a hand on his arm, laughing like a braying elk. And Finn had walked out of an evening’s heavy drinking earlier than some other people, still capable of rational thought, without having been a dick in any way.
There was a first time, it seemed, for everything.
He looked around. The other cots in Olaf’s church were empty.
He dressed, walked out and blinked in the light. It was cloudy, for once, and relatively cool. Finn thanked Tor for the clouds even though it was unlikely that they were just for him. The thunder god probably had more important things to do than make Finn’s hangover more bearable.
Once his eyes had adjusted, he saw everyone else was preparing to leave. Olaf was standing over by the life- or death-
sized carving of Krist which had his face. He caught Finn’s eye.
“What is that sword on your hip, young man?” he called out.
“It’s Foe Slicer.” Finn walked over to the very elderly man.
“Well, well, well. You’ve brought my old sword back to me.”
“Well, you left it behind I guess and they buried it, then Brodir had it for a while and—”
“Thank you for carrying it all this way to me.”
“Oh. Would you like it back?”
Olaf looked at Finn and Finn returned his gaze. He really was a splendid looking man, priapic beard and sweeping hair much like Oaden’s, he reckoned.
“Foe Slicer was my father’s sword, and his father’s. It is the weapon with which I slew not one but two white bears, saving my fellow adventurers from certain evisceration.” Olaf smiled. “She is mine. So, yes, I would like her back.”
Finn looked about. Everyone else was busy. He wanted to call for Wulf but he didn’t want to look lame.
“However, I can see you like the blade,” Olaf said, sounding kind, “and, as I left her behind, you do have some claim to her. I will fight you for her.”
“What?” said Finn. “Not again.”
Olaf laughed heartily. “I’m joking, my serious young fellow. Do you young not have senses of humour any more? I left Foe Slicer. I have no claim on her. I have lived without her for nearly a hundred years and you’ll need her on your coming journey. However, I must say it stirs me to see her again. Perhaps you could bring her to me when the quest is done?”
“I will bring her back,” said Finn, thinking that he wouldn’t. And he wasn’t going to refer to it as “her” ever again either.
Olaf strode away to bother someone else and Finn busied himself bundling his kit together. He looked up when Bodil walked into the wide yard, went over to Olaf and put her hand on his arm. She stood there smiling, making no moves to pack up her stuff.
“What’s going on?” he asked Erik.
“Bodil’s staying.”
“What?”
“Makes sense, for the baby.”
Finn looked about. Everyone had been watching him and everyone looked away, apart from Sofi, who held his eye until he looked away.