by Larry Niven
The Warlock smiled. Oh, yes, he should have made this happen earlier. “What would you like to know?”
“Where do they come from? What do they do?”
“Hmm…Glirendree doesn’t count. He was an actual demon. Wavyhill’s sword was enchanted to strike always at the vitals of an enemy. You can do that, or set it to block another’s weapon, or make it sharp enough to cut boulders, or all three.”
“Can you do that to any sword?” Harric leaned across the table.
“Mmm…I can, or could, if I were in a place where magic works.”
“All right, you’ve said that murder carries this magical power. There were battles fought all through here—”
“No, no. Murder and war are not the same. The intent is different, and the intent counts for a good deal.”
Harric settled back. The Warlock sipped mead and waited. Presently Poul said, “Kinawulf’s barrow?”
“Yes, by the gods! Warlock, Kinawulf was a ring-bearer of our people who tried to practice sorcery himself. He had some success until Roze-Kattee turned his followers against him. They slew him after torture. His barrow is a place of ill fame, but with swords and magic to guard us we should be safe enough.”
“It sounds perfect. How far is it?”
“Most of a day’s walk…uphill. Mpf, we had best make you a litter. Are there materials you need?”
The Warlock asked for parchment and colored inks. “I’ll send Clubfoot scouting for herbs. And bring the swords, of course.”
They set out on the morning of the sixth day. The swordsmen were heavily laden: two to carry the Warlock, the others carrying half a dozen extra weapons in addition to the magicians’ materials. In his present condition the Warlock wondered if he could pick up any one of those great metal killing-things, built heavy enough to slice through armor.
He was mildly disappointed, and mildly relieved, that Clubfoot had come back with the herbs. Hell, Clubfoot hadn’t promised to run. Maybe there had been a guard. He didn’t ask.
The trees thickened as they went, until Poul and the Nordik named Hathsson had to slide sideways to move the Warlock’s chair between the trunks. The Warlock sighed and said, “I’ll walk from here.”
“It’s not much farther. Bring the chair anyway,” Harric ordered.
The forest smells were pleasant. Harric passed a fat skin of mead around, then discarded it. Clubfoot said, “I’ve been wondering what happened to this Kinawulf. We seem to have worked out that Roze-Kattee drove people sane.”
“Selectively,” said the Warlock. “Who attacked Kinawulf? Someone who had reason for hatred or jealousy?”
“His younger brother and a few followers, helped by Kinawulf’s wife.”
“I expect Kinawulf’s problem was that none of his own followers were mad enough to stand in the way of a sword. That was Roze-Kattee’s doing. The god wouldn’t have touched Kinawulf himself; he might have surrendered. We may well find magic operating around the barrow.”
“There—” Harric pointed.
The barrow was the peak of a small hill covered in green grass. It was clear of trees. “We want the top,” said the Warlock.
He was behind the others as he climbed, puffing, leaning on Poul’s arm. Why didn’t he feel stronger, if this place was so rich in mana? There was mana, but not enough to power a youth spell, or to work a loyalty spell or a death spell on swordsmen. Or to do much to a metal sword. Now, how does one explain to a known berserker that one can’t give him a dozen magic swords after all?
They heard Hathsson shout. Poul sprinted for the top of the hill, sword in hand. The Warlock struggled after him.
Even in this northern cold, Piranther went naked. His bright eyes searched for motion, for any sign that his spell of paralysis had failed. Nobody moved.
Piranther relaxed his grip on the leather bag at his throat. He walked nonchalantly past Mirandee, inspecting her; then turned his attention to the skull,
“Kranthkorpool, speak to me. Did you find the dormant god?”
“Maybe.” It was no more than the truth, but Wavyhill’s voice was strained.
Piranther slit the straps that held the skull to Mirandee’s shoulder. He lifted it down and looked at it, his fingers avoiding the gnashing jaws. “I could; smash you,” he said. “Or I could take away your senses and bury you here. Who would ever find you? Don’t make me dig for information, Kranthkorpool.”
Wavyhill said, “I think the Frost Giant priests must have put it behind that long, rounded wall of rock, far back. The Greek knows.”
“Thank you. Why did you want him? You could have fetched it for yourselves.”
“He’s the only strong one among us. The god is bound to be heavy. Too heavy for you, too, Piranther. Can we deal on that basis?”
Piranther looked thoughtfully into the cavern. “But with the mana inherent in it, you could float it out. Why—?”
“Curse it, we can’t afford the loss! We need all the mana the god has left to it. Don’t you understand, this is the biggest thing anyone ever dreamed of!”
Piranther laughed. “Your big and foolish project. Your one solution to all the world’s problems. Never trust such solutions, Kranthkorpool. I will take the dormant god back to the South Land Mass for our own use. It will serve our needs for some time to come.” He set the skull down facing him. “I can leave it dormant for now. I do not need its mana. I have these.”
Orolandes tried to make out what Piranther was holding. He saw intricate flashes of colored fire against the dark pink of Piranther’s palm.
“Black opals. See how beautiful they are. Sense their power. There are more black opals in the South Land Mass than in all the rest of the world. Even so…our numbers increase. These will not last forever. We must have the dormant god.”
“You think small.”
“Perhaps. Where are the others?”
“I don’t know.” Again Wavyhill’s voice was strained.
“Must I dig for information?”
“Dig…then. You say my…name badly.” Was Wavyhill gloating?
Piranther shrugged. He turned to Orolandes’ backpack. “Certainly Mirandee carried a crystal ball. True, my dear? Let us look in on them.” He upended the pack, and things spilled out: blankets, a smoked joint of elk, rope, pouches of dusts, the copper Warlock’s Wheel, a few sharp slivers of crystal. “Could I be wrong? Kranthkorpool!”
“She smashed it falling out of a cloud.” No mistake now, Wavyhill was gloating.
“Then we’ll do it the hard way. After all, I have the power. If Clubfoot and the Warlock are trying to harm me…” Piranther selected a fine, polished bit of many-colored fire as big as his toenail. “…we’ll just interrupt them.”
The Nordiks had armed themselves. They were looking downslope to where three Frost Giants waited on the hidden side of the barrow hill.
A patch of snow behind them made them hard to see. Gannik and Wilf stood tall with a dignity they hadn’t worn in the sauna. The third Giant was getting to his feet, taking his time.
It was worth the wait. The third Frost Giant stood seventeen or eighteen feet tall. He wore a fur about his hips, the skin of a white bear, and nothing else. His wild white hair and beard flared about his head; he was all white, even to the small tree that hung casually from one hand, with a knob of roots at the end to make an impressive cudgel.
Sword conspicuously in hand, Harric strode forward to call down the hill. “What do you want here?”
“Give us the magicians,” the big one boomed.
“They are our guests. We hold the high ground.”
The Warlock whispered to Hathsson, “What does he mean?”
“They have to come at us uphill,” the blond Nordik whispered back. “Can you enchant our swords before they decide to charge?”
“No.”
Meanwhile the big Frost Giant laughed boomingly and cried, “We are the high ground! And we must have the magicians. May Wilf come to speak to you without being hurt?”
“Yes.”
If the Frost Giant woman was afraid, she showed none of it. She walked up without haste to join them. Harric opened conversation by saying, “Nordiks have fought Frost Giants before.”
“We must have the magicians. Why must any of us die? You argued whether to kill them yourselves.”
Interestingly, Harric did not deny it. “They are to do us a service. But even that is less important than this: Nordiks do not take orders from Frost Giants.”
The Frost Giant woman looked down at Harric. “Have we not worked willingly for all of our lives? Have we refused you anything but one thing? These men threaten our god.”
Clubfoot tried to interrupt, but Harric gestured him to silence, and answered her himself. “Your god had lost nearly all its power when you buried it.”
“He kept enough!” Wilf said wistfully. “I’ve heard the old ones talking. Even today, while the god within a god sleeps…first love always fades. Marriage goes from adoration to companionship. My own lover turned to another woman for mere variety. If the god truly died—”
“We do not threaten your Roze-Kattee!” Clubfoot shouted. “Tell the big one that we want to bring the god back to life.”
The Warlock saw sidelong glances between the Nordiks. Curse! But Wilf’s reaction was stranger. The woman was blushing: pink blood beneath the white of cheek and throat. She wouldn’t look at the magicians. It was suddenly obvious that the Frost Giants preferred their god dormant.
Harric asked, “Who is this tall Frost Giant who threatens us?”
“Tolerik is my father’s cousin. He ran away when he was eleven; you may remember. He’s lived here ever since. Sometimes we bring him things he can’t get here.” All in a rush she said, “We must have the magicians. If you give them to us, Tolerik will work for you for a year.”
The local mana had allowed a Frost Giant to reach his full height, but it was too low to let a magician defend himself. They could only wait.
Poul said, “But by law he is already—”
Harric’s voice easily drowned him out. “Very well. Take them.”
Clubfoot dived for the pile of swords. Hathsson’s foot hooked Clubfoot’s twisted ankle. As Clubfoot sprawled headlong he felt a sword’s point pressing the small of his back. Clubfoot froze.
Poul said, “But the swords! Wilf, will Tolerik let the magicians enchant our swords first?”
“Don’t be a fool. We can’t trust them now,” Harric said.
Wilf gestured downslope. Her father and his huge cousin started up. The Warlock was cursing himself for that moment of stunned surprise. Surprise, that warriors would betray a magician!
What kind of threat would cow an armed man the size of a big tree? The Warlock raised his arms. A fantasm, a great red-and-gold dragon stooping, slashing…if the Giant dodged, if he fell downslope, his height alone might break his neck…
The Giant’s hand closed around Clubfoot’s ankles and lifted him.
Colors formed in the air, tinges of red and gold. Harric frowned and rapped the Warlock’s skull with his spear haft. The Warlock sank to his knees with the pain. He saw Clubfoot writhing in the Giant’s hand as the Giant prepared to dash his brains out against a rock.
Darkness rippled around Clubfoot, swallowed him, swallowed the Giant’s hand to the wrist. The Giant yelled and tried to pull away.
The Warlock sagged on the grass. It was all right. He I saw the darkness closing around him and knew it for what it was: a Great Summoning. Mirandee must have found the god-within-a-god.
The hillside disappeared, and he was on dusty stone. Strength flowed into him, the strength of youth spells reviving. The Warlock stood up, saying, “W—”
And every muscle locked in place, locked him standing with his hand extended, his eyes smiling, his lips pursed on a W.
Clubfoot was on a rock floor with a great severed hand holding his ankles. Beyond him, Orolandes lay awkwardly, like a toppled statue. Mirandee leaned casually against a wall. Piranther—
Piranther returned the Warlock’s smile. “I must remember to ask Clubfoot about that hand. What kind of allies were you gathering against me?” He dusted his hands together; the dust fell like motes of colored fire. He turned to the decorated skull sitting on a rock behind him. “Or did you trick me? Did I rescue them from a greater danger?”
“Revive them and ask,” Wavyhill suggested.
“I like them better the way they are. Well, let us see your dormant god,” said Piranther. He stepped delicately across Orolandes.
“If—”
Piranther turned.
“Nothing,” said the skull. “Just a thought.”
“Well?”
“You still can’t move him.”
“I’ll decide that.” Piranther turned and walked into the cavern.
Orolandes lay frozen in a frozen world. Behind him Piranther’s footsteps were casually erratic, growing faint and blurred with echoes.
Wavyhill spoke low. “I hope you’re not dead. If you’re all dead, then I’m in serious trouble.”
The skull chuckled softly. “He’s deep in the cavern now. Warlock, if you can hear me, I claim a vengeance foregone. I could have suggested that he take you with him, for advice. He could have bound you with a loyalty spell, and you would have walked in with him. Warlock, Clubfoot, do you remember what you did to me, do you see what I am now? Mirandee, do you remember suggesting that I wasn’t worthy to join you?”
The rock softened under Orolandes’ rigid elbow. The light grew pink; or was the rock itself changing color?
The roof of the entrance descended.
Behind Orolandes came Piranther’s echoing scream. Wavyhill laughed shrilly, madly. A warm wet wind blew against Orolandes’ back. It stank like the breath of a thousand wolves. Piranther’s scream ended as if muffled.
The roof above him had dropped low enough to touch the Warlock’s head.
Wavyhill ended his cackling. “Well? Am I right? Did I have your lives in my grasp? Isn’t it a marvelous hiding place for the last god? Greek, you probably still don’t understand. Have you heard of the World-Worm, the snake that circles the world and swallows its own tail? The Alps and the Andes and the Rocky Mountains all form a part of its body. And you lie within its mouth.”
Orolandes said, “Uhn!”
“Oh, ho! You’re alive, are you? That paralysis won’t last. I could free you now, if I could make the gestures. I don’t think Piranther did anything fancy; he just bulled through our ward-spells with the power in his black opals.
“Marvelous, isn’t it? The World-Worm is a strange beast. Of course it couldn’t possibly live by eating its own flesh. The tail used to have flanges of bone behind those huge pores. It sweeps up all kinds of things: turf, birds’ nests, the dens of animals that lair in the pores, even full grown trees growing in the dirt the flanges sweep up. It grows very slowly this tail. And of course anything that wanders into the mouth gets eaten. I should be talking in the past tense, really,” said the skull. “The fins are all weathered away. The World-Worm is like all magical forms of life; it turns to stone when the mana runs low. Like dragon bones. Like that statue in front of the Prissthil gates. What fooled Piranther was the tail. Running back into the mouth like that, it changes the shape so the cavern isn’t mouth-shaped any more.”
Teeth, thought Orolandes. I was jogging through a forest of spike teeth. He said, “Uhn!” The calf of his leg kicked suddenly, painfully.
The roof of the cavern was rising…and changing in color, greying to the look of stone.
“Can talk,” Clubfoot said. “Can’t move yet. Anyone?”
The Warlock grunted. “Spell should wear off soon.”
“Got us with those black opals,” said Clubfoot. “We couldn’t know. Wavyhill. Why here?”
“Why, it’s obvious! Look: nobody who knows what this place is would come here. The World-Worm must have been nearly dead for centuries, but who’d risk it? If a mundane wandered in here all unknowing, nothing would
happen. But if a magician came here looking for the dormant god—” Wavyhill chuckled. “There’s mana in magic. The power of their spells hovers around magicians. Put a mana source in the World-Worm’s mouth and what happens?”
“Poor Piranther,” said Mirandee.
“It wakes up for a snack,” Clubfoot said callously.
“I think it would have done that even without the opals. Any time a magician comes calling…or a swordsman carrying a sword stolen from a place where gods once lived. In the meantime, whatever mana is still with the World-Worm is there to keep the dormant god alive. If our luck holds.”
Clubfoot had called up a pair of hares: an old and simple magic, still potent almost everywhere. He had started a fire and cleaned the hares and was now roasting them. In his stiff back there was a rejection of the quarrel now going on in the cavern entrance.
“I won’t let him go,” Mirandee said. She sat with her back to them, her legs dangling over the stone buttress…over what must be the World-Worm’s lower lip.
Orolandes came up behind Mirandee. He moved stiffly. They were all sore from the cramps that had followed their paralysis. He put his hands on her shoulders, ignored their angry shrug. “It is what we came for.”
“Idiot! It’s eaten a powerful magician and his black opals. It may not sleep again for years! Wavyhill, tell him! It eats things that wander into its mouth!”
“It may have gone dormant again,” the skull said comfortably. “It was mana-starved for generations. It’s a big beast; it needs nourishment.”
“Father of trolls!” she spat.
“Retired.”
“Mountain goat,” the Warlock said without turning. He stood at the corner of the cavern’s mouth, a little apart.
He was ignored. The skull on the rock said, “Listen, girl. I gave up my vengeance against these, my murderers. I am willing to risk a swordsman to the same high purpose.”
The Warlock began singing to himself.
“Well, ’Landes? You heard him. You can’t throw away your life after that. What about me?” Mirandee demanded.
Floating bodies, myriads of bodies, shoals of bloated human bodies turned in the waves, bumping gently against each other and against the wooden raft on which Orolandes lay dying of thirst beside the decaying body of a centaur girl. Did they thirst for vengeance? They had the right…and if Orolandes walked out of the cavern alive, there were lives still to be saved. There were centaur and satyr tribes in Greece. He said, “I have to.”