1633880583 (F)

by Chris Willrich

  Joy put the cryptic remark to one side. “Are the other trolls going to be angry?”

  “Hardly!” Inga laughed, releasing nervousness so that it became a giddy sound. “You’ve given them great entertainment. There’s nothing they find funnier than cruelty. And now that you’ve bested one in single combat you’ve gained respect. Kind of how we’ve gained respect by telling stories. You’re still a prisoner, but you’re an honored prisoner, able to live safely among the trolls as long as you don’t try to escape.”

  Joy frowned. “Inga. Malin. I have to escape. My mother and my friends are somewhere out there. And . . .” She debated revealing her secret, but when would they be able to talk privately again? “There’s this.” She unfolded her right hand.

  Inga and Malin gasped.

  “The Runemark,” Inga said.

  “What do you know about it?” Joy asked.

  “I know you shouldn’t show it to the trolls,” Inga said.

  “You are the land,” said Malin, “and the land is you.”

  “And that is why,” Inga said, closing Joy’s hand for her, “you shouldn’t show it to the trolls. Did someone brand you? Someone who wanted to use you to gain power? Or impress people at a traveling show?”

  “No,” said Joy.

  “She is real,” Malin said.

  “How can you know,” Inga snapped, “when I can’t? I have the sight. I know there’s something special about her, but then I see something special about her. You have no unnatural senses, Malin.”

  “Your senses are natural in their own way,” Malin said. “But yes, I see less than you. But I notice more of what I do see. I may notice more than anyone. I think about it so much, sometimes I have to go to dark places.” Malin looked at the cavern floor, the eerie lights raising shifting shadows from its unevenness. “I saw the mark flash as she leapt. Others might have missed it, but not me. I see her face too. There is no mistreatment there. I don’t see the harm of a branding in her eyes. She is real. And there’s more, Inga. She’s a girl. Think about it. What charlatan would prop up a Runemarked Queen? There’s no precedent. She is the one. She is the land, and the land is her.”

  “Perhaps this is a time,” Joy said, heart hammering, “when we should talk about the weather instead.” For the trolls had tired of their sport with Rubblewrack, and Wormeye had delegated the hapless Claymore (whose stomach bulged from the eating of his severed arm) to reassemble the rocky champion. Meanwhile the others encircled the three humans.

  “You’re a worthy foe,” Wormeye told Joy, “I’ll grant you that. You’ve earned a place in my tumult. But you’re still a human, and you can’t be considered trollkin until Skrymir Hollowheart says you are.” He squinted with his one “good” eye at Inga and Malin. “Same for you two, except that you’re provisional changelings. Skrymir will have to judge your stories. It’s high time we made the journey up to Jotuncrown. Skrymir wants all the tumults gathered into one terror. Mossbeard, show Joy to Rubblewrack’s rooms, which she’s earned. She can sleep in the ruins or fight someone else if she wants a new tower. We’re only staying in Harrowshine another day anyway.”

  “We’ll walk with her,” Inga said, and Wormeye shrugged as if such human considerations were unworthy of trolldom. The crowd parted for Mossbeard, and Joy reached her lodgings.

  The tower might have been spectacular once, its crystal shining here and there with purple gems that raised a dreamlike light. However, its furnishings had been largely shattered by idle troll fists. Mossbeard, grumbling, had to lead them from chamber to chamber until they found one with an intact bed and chairs. There was no mattress or cushions, just a layer of dust. Lacking a broom, Joy used her own cloak to sweep the dust into the hall; her new friends quickly helped her.

  Coughing, Mossbeard muttered half-apologies and withdrew.

  “Trolls!” Inga said, and the three of them laughed. The dust was hard to clear, but it was satisfying for once to have a simple problem with a simple solution.

  “Do they ever clean?” Joy asked.

  “Rarely,” Inga said. “Sometimes the troll-women throw rocks at the men until something gets done.”

  “Well, I’m almost done. There. Pull up a chair. I’d offer tea if I could.”

  Malin laughed and took a chair. “You should try troll-coffee.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s leave that for another time,” Inga said, sitting down and propping her feet on a half-shattered table. “There’s a lot to say, and they might not leave us alone this way again. Joy, you’re not even from Kantenjord, that’s for damn sure. How did you come by the Runemark?”

  “I don’t know! It began manifesting after I turned twelve. I just thought it was a strange birthmark at first. But then the dreams came. Mountains. Coasts. People. I saw Kantenjord. It was as though the land called to me.”

  “It did,” Malin said.

  “We know stories, we two,” Inga said. “Maybe it’s fate, wyrd, plain old good luck you ran into us. We know about the Runemark. It’s a connection to the Chain of Unbeing.”

  “I’ve heard about it,” Joy said. “Friends of mine showed me a book, the Chart of Tomorrows—”

  “I want friends like yours,” Inga said. “What did you learn?”

  “‘In the time of the land’s need, the Runemarked King will arise and command the energies of the Great Chain of Unbeing, which captures the power of the three sleeping dragons. He who bears the Runemark will live for the land, and die for the land, and so long as the Chain remains he will never leave.’ So if I’m the Runethane,” Joy said, having trouble getting the word out, it seemed so strange and apart from her, “what is the land’s need right now?”

  “I don’t know,” said Inga.

  “The end,” said Malin. “The Runethane fights The End, always.”

  “What does that mean?” Joy said.

  “I’ll try to tell you.” And Malin’s manner changed. She shut her eyes, and the hesitant young woman sat taller. Her voice became more commanding, her words more sure.

  THE END

  The End, for me, begins where I began—in a village that appears on no maps, called Kattsroven, on the island of Ostoland. I understand that our home village is no more roaring with sounds or blazing with images than any other place in the isles, but it shook my head so much it might as well have been Vindheim of the old gods. My family loved me, but they were troubled by my desperate need to keep sensation at bay. They urged me to talk, to look people in the eye, to say only ordinary things. As if it was clear what was ordinary! The world was drenched in wonder. How could I know the right words to say? Better to say nothing at all.

  I learned to cope. I found that going deep into the forest quieted the sensory storm. It was not that the forest was without noise and light, smell and sensation—it had vast amounts of all. But the forest had an unthinking chaos to it that I could learn to anticipate. And the trees would not suddenly barge up to me and make demands. So I could be calm among them. The forest was soothing, like a friend who never judges.

  Meanwhile, the shunning and violence I received from the other children made it clear I had to copy their behavior in order to survive. My parents cared very much, but they had other tasks, Mother her school, Father his smithy. They could not protect me constantly. I learned to mirror the children’s statements. Often my speech was like a patchwork quilt formed of pieces of things said by others. And like a patchwork quilt it might seem crazy, but it was enough to keep the cold at bay.

  But I’d have had no friends, if not for the village changeling.

  She was a little older than me, part of Mother’s elder class, and I rarely saw her at first. But everyone knew the story. Trolls or uldra had made off with the baby of Ulrike, Peer the priest’s wife. The girl left in the baby’s place was surely more than human. At eleven she was stronger than any grown man in Kattsroven and couldn’t care less what anyone thought of her. The maidens mocked her and the young men fled from her. She spent her free time
in the foothills setting up mannequins of stone and wood and smashing them to bits. She was dangerous, and insane, and dangerously insane.

  I was scared of her like anyone else. But one day in winter when I sat in the woods calming down, I ran into her, or she ran into me. My first clue she was coming was a whistled tune. It had a sad, sweet sound to it, and I remembered it as a cow-calling tune, such as women use up in the high pastures. I remembered other times I had heard it, usually sung not whistled, most often in warmer months. I thought carefully about the tune, but not so much about how it was coming closer.

  The whistling stopped.

  Inga surprised me, suddenly looming over me, her breath coming out in white mist around her face, her hands clutching thick branches. It was hard to distinguish between her and a mountain, especially with a mountain behind her. The details blended together.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  I could not grapple with the person, the question, the immensity of it all. I found myself repeating, “What are you doing here?”

  I wasn’t challenging her. I was echoing, in an attempt to make sense of the words. But Inga took it as a challenge.

  (Yes, you did.)

  “What’s it to you?” she said. “I’ve never bothered you! I just wanted to be sure if you needed help. You’re all alone.”

  “You’re all alone,” I said.

  “I like being alone. I’m the only one who understands me.” She paused. “You’re . . . different,” she said.

  “You’re different.”

  “Hey! You’re just repeating me! Are you trying to make fun of me? Are you just like all the rest?”

  The entire world was suddenly a very loud Inga Peersdatter face.

  It was hard to pick out words from my mind, but I knew it was very important that I do. I desperately turned my eyes away from hers, so I could think. I saw a bumpy stick in Inga’s hands. “Knot,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Not like all the rest.”

  “Arg!” She threw her sticks and they fell everywhere. She sat down on a rock, let out a long white breath. “You’re the schoolmistress’s daughter. Malin, is it? The one everyone teases. I’ve seen you. Why don’t you punch in their faces?”

  (Yes, you said that.)

  The idea of punching in faces was too strange even to contemplate. Imagine if someone told you, Is the day too hot? Punch the sun’s lights out! Day too cold? Go fight the North Wind! That’s how strange Inga Peersdatter’s thinking seemed to me.

  But the thing that I did understand was that she felt a little sorry for me. That was the first time I had the feeling another kid felt that way. I couldn’t respond in words, though. Have you ever tried to wash a cat? In those days words were cats who knew you were going to wash them. I got better at catching them, much better, but when I was ten every sentence was a struggle.

  “Hey, are you lost or something?” Inga was saying. “I can get you home.” She paused. “Do you hear me? Do. You. Hear. Me? I can get you home.”

  I heard her. Each word was thunderous. I retreated to huddle near a tree.

  “Arg, not this again. Now you’re scared of me too! Listen, I may be a changeling, but I’m not a monster! I’ve never hurt anyone! Except Dad that one time. And Bjorn Janson, but Swan’s blood he was asking for it, and I really did feel sorry later, mostly. And there was Poul . . . I’m not scary! Do you hear me? I’m not scary!”

  I am not sure, but I think I was hugging the tree. And sounds were coming out of me. I said speaking was like washing cats. But sometimes in those days the cats would decide on their own to come rushing out of me, only I couldn’t choose what message they’d bring. Sometimes they’d bring a quote from something I’d read, because a familiar pattern of words can be comforting. It was not a reply as such—but it sounded like one to Inga, because it was a salme from my mother’s salmebok, a salme to calm fears.

  “Yea, though I make my stand in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. The wing of the Swan shelters me. The mark of the Quenching Fire is upon my forehead. The grace of the Painter of Clouds is within me, who chose me for the canvas before the world’s beginning. Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. Thou art with me; thy wing and thy mark and thy grace they comfort me.”

  Over and over. I gripped the salme like I gripped the tree.

  Tales have it that trolls and uldra fear the salmer and hate the sound of church bells. And there’s something to that, for I’ve seen trolls react with flinches and flight. Yet it may not be heavenly power that does this but the conviction of the speaker, the faith of the bell-maker. And perhaps it’s just the otherfolk’s experience of woe at the hands of Swanlings.

  But none of that was why Inga Peersdatter was pained. She’d lived under the same roof as salmeboks and the parish priest. She’d been to church and stood beneath the bell; and if she hardly ever went to Mass, that was because of the stares and whispers, not the church.

  The salme I repeated pained Inga, but not because of any supernatural power. At last her voice came through to me, like a cry for help over the sound of a waterfall.

  “I’m not evil. I’m not evil. I’m! Not! Evil!”

  On the last evil she shattered a tree.

  It took one punch. Granted, it was not a big tree. Its trunk cracked and slowly bent, its spire creaking its way down toward the forest floor, gravity gradually speeding its plunge.

  Its plunge toward me.

  Speechless, I heard Inga cry, “No!” and hurl herself into the falling trunk.

  She snapped it away from me and collapsed with it, into a tangle of blackberry bramble. The prickles of the bushes cut up her face and hands.

  “Ow,” she said.

  “Not evil,” I said.

  I rose and helped her up.

  “I’m so sorry,” she was saying, “I’m so sorry.”

  “I can get you home,” I said. “Do you hear me? I can get you home. Not evil.”

  I got her home. She was a little out of sorts.

  (Yes you were.)

  Sometimes when I went out into the woods I’d get lost for a while, and before I’d learned my established paths, my parents sometimes had to come looking for me. That scared them. I still feel bad about that.

  But this time was the opposite. Sometimes, when I need to, I can retrace every step I’ve taken that day. Isn’t that strange? To want a memory may never be enough, but to need it, sometimes that gets you everything and more.

  Mentor Peer and Ulrike his wife weren’t always nice to Inga, but they were grateful I brought her back that day. They gave me things to eat, gravlax and bread, cheese and blackberries. That was pretty funny, to be eating blackberries after Inga fell into them. After everything that happened, I thought it was hilarious. I couldn’t help laughing, and my control over my own movements wasn’t as good in those days, so I think I made a big commotion.

  Peer and Ulrike brought me home. Maybe it happened faster than it would have, because of the laughing. Inga had to stay put and clean up. I thought she probably hated me.

  (Oh, yah, sure. Gravlax is salmon. You cure it in salt and sugar and dill. . . . Salmon? That’s a fish. You do come from a long way away! Salmon are deep-sea fish, but they come inland to spawn. . . . Oh, right. The story. Sure.)

  You’re wondering why this story is called “The End.” There’s two reasons for that. The first one happened the next day. I went through my usual routines, though Mother and Father were more watchful this time. When I went to the forest, Mother came with me. I went to the same spot as the day before, and I might have drifted into my usual contemplation of the green, the breeze, the gurgle of the nearby stream, except that something was out of whack.

  “What’s wrong?” Mother said.

  “Sticks,” I said.

  “Yes,” Mother said, long since accustomed to cryptic answers. “There are sticks. Is there something wrong with them?”

  “Yes,” I said,
and I began picking up the sticks Inga had scattered yesterday. There were a lot of them. I set them up in a line near where Mother sat.

  “Good,” she said, bemused but willing to go along. “Now that’s done.”

  “No,” I said, and commenced arranging the sticks from smallest to largest. It felt good, getting things in order.

  “That is very organized,” Mother said. “Now that’s done.”

  “No,” I said. “We have to get them to Inga.”

  Mother frowned. “The changeling? Why?”

  “They belong to her.”

  “Does that mean you want to give her a gift?”

  That was close enough. I nodded.

  “Malin. You may not understand this, but Inga is not like other children.”

  “She is a changeling.” I gathered up the sticks.

  “Yes.”

  “And I am a changeling.”

  “Who told you that?”

  I said nothing.

  “Malin Jorgensdatter, who told you you were a changeling?”

  She was making me nervous. I repeated it back to her: “Who told you you were a changeling?”

  Her arms were around me. I squirmed. She said, “Listen to me. People will say what they’ll say. But you are blood of my blood. I knew the stories about Inga and I sat and watched over you with a salmebok and a piece of steel from your father’s forge. Even when your father thought I was being foolish and excessive, I did it, until even the craziest old wise woman agreed you were too old to be snatched away. You are my daughter. People call you ‘changeling’ because they do not understand that a lovely, kind human girl can also have a different sort of mind. They need a name for what you are. For them, that name is ‘changeling.’ But for me that name is ‘Malin.’”

  In their own way, those words were as disorienting for me as Inga’s outburst the day before. I knew Mother was trying to free me from a word she saw as an insult. But although I could not articulate it at the time, yesterday had given me a gift. I’d overheard village kids call me a “changeling” before, and it hadn’t made sense. But now that I’d spoken to Inga and learned how kind she was, the label did make sense, in a way. Perhaps “changeling” could mean “a nice kid who’s different from most kids.” Even if two changelings might be as different as me and Inga, night and day. It might be nice to be given a name like that, if there was someone else who had it too.