1633880583 (F)

by Chris Willrich

  Muninn said, “We are deep enough into the forest that I think we can rest a short time.”

  “What was that?” Bone asked, looking around. “It almost sounded like an ocean wave. . . .”

  “I heard nothing,” Vuk answered. “But these woods are said to be haunted.”

  “And cursed,” said Alder.

  “And filled with wild beasts and monsters,” Muninn said.

  “Haunted, cursed, and infested?” Gaunt said. “This forest is a social climber. It collects bad reputations like a petty noble collects titles.”

  “Mock if you will,” Muninn said, “but the Morkskag is no place to be wandering at night.”

  “Will our former masters share this opinion?” Bone asked.

  “Very likely. But Skalagrim may press on in the name of vengeance.”

  Gaunt said, “Ah, vengeance. So satisfying to think you can set fire to your enemy, till you remember you share a hall.”

  “We are slaves,” Vuk said.

  “Were slaves,” Bone said.

  “Were slaves,” Vuk said, “and as such we share nothing with our masters. They showed us some minor consideration when we were property. But now we are outlaws, and we’ve stained their honor. If only to save their reputations they’ll slaughter us if they can.”

  “If it’s returning you gentlemen to captivity or the unknown dangers of the woods,” Gaunt said. “I’ll choose the woods.”

  Vuk said, “Indeed.”

  “Nevertheless,” Bone said, “let’s veer away from that sound I heard. This way.”

  They proceeded at a gentler pace amid the great trunks of what Muninn called the Morkskag. Bone looked this way and that, every hooting owl and settling snowdrift rousing him to grim alertness. Gaunt wanted to soothe him, help him leave his captivity behind in mind as well as body, but she knew he’d refuse comfort. And sooner or later the dangers he heard might be real.

  She glanced at Muninn, who seemed rejuvenated by recent experience. Alder noticed it too. “You’ve angered a powerful chieftain’s son, Master Crowbeard, and left your home behind. I know why I’m smiling, but I have no idea why you are.”

  “It’s a nice night,” Muninn said.

  “In the Morkskag!”

  “Death is coming for me no matter what else befalls. Fate waits for us all.”

  “What of you, Persimmon Gaunt?” Alder said. “You’re from my own homeland, aren’t you? Do you believe in these Kantening notions of fate?”

  Gaunt shrugged. “If you can’t know your own fate until the moment of your death, then I say fate is no matter. I choose to believe I choose.”

  “So do we all,” Muninn said. “But fate isn’t just a road or a river. It’s a seed within us, growing into the tree of our lives. At last we hang upon it.”

  “So cheery. Perhaps it’s my fate to believe I have free will. If so, I shall not defy it!”

  “And you?” Alder asked. “Do you agree with your wife, Imago Bone?”

  “What answer do you expect,” Bone asked, “when I walk beside her?”

  She skied close enough to rib him. She was pleased with her balance, and it made her impish. “Your wife commands you to speak your mind. No harm will come of it.”

  “This is surely a trap. Nevertheless. If you say my fate lies ahead, then I ask you, what is the height of fate’s walls, and how many guards does it have, and are any of them bribe-able? What traps lie within, what are the dispositions of its masters, and where does its treasure lie? Answer these questions and I can tell you whether or not I can overcome fate.”

  “You are as mad as your wife,” Muninn said.

  “I have a practical mind . . . wait.”

  Vuk, who’d been walking ahead of them, returned with hand raised. “I hear something. A large something. A bear, perhaps.”

  “I do not like bears,” Bone said.

  “Nor I!” said Gaunt.

  “Well, don’t look at me,” Alder said.

  “Bears are not much to fear,” Muninn said, “if one walks in a large group. Even a big one will not want to tangle—”

  A dark shape burst from the trees and tackled Muninn, who screamed. The beast was a huge brown bear. One eye flickered strangely with an eerie green radiance.

  Gaunt let fly an arrow.

  She hadn’t considered that she was still on skis. Her motion sent her sliding backward, and her shot arced high into the air.

  Bone threw a dagger, stumbling. It struck true, but the bear seemed unconcerned. Vuk grabbed one of Muninn’s fallen “ski poles” and whacked at the bear, bellowing. Alder waved his hands and chanted something; a rumbling afflicted the ground, and now everyone’s footing was momentarily lost.

  Yet Gaunt had no time to think on this, for in the next moment, as she struggled to remove her skis, a clear, sweet sound echoed through the woods.

  It was the sound of a bell.

  At the sound, the green radiance within the bear’s eye rippled as though it were moonlight in a windswept pond. The bear growled mournfully and leapt away, soon lost to sight.

  The sound of the bell receded. The rumbling was gone too.

  “You all right, Crowbeard?” Bone said.

  “I . . . yes.” The Kantening seemed just as surprised at Bone’s concern as at his own survival.

  “It was frightened off by that bell,” Gaunt said.

  “There must be someone living up ahead,” Vuk said. “Let’s be cautious.”

  “I suggest we remove our skis,” Gaunt said, having already done so. As Alder untied his, she asked him, “Care to explain your connection with that tremor?”

  “Ah,” said Alder. “I was, for a time, a student of magic.”

  “For a time?”

  “I’m simply not very good at it. I’m third son of a wealthy family back home. At great expense I was apprenticed to a wizard. I didn’t want to enter the clergy, you see.”

  “You seem to have learned a thing or two—”

  “Yes, yes, everyone’s very interested in my magic, until they have to suffer through my miscastings. The wizard turned me out in frustration, and I . . . neglected to return home. Alas my wanderings put me in the path of a Kantening raid. I am beginning to think I’m unlucky. But that is surely premature.”

  “You may be poor at magic, but I think you’re decent at dry wit.”

  “We shall see.”

  “Hush,” said Vuk. “We draw near a fortress.”

  The gray preceding the dawn had crept stealthily through the trees, and mists swirled along the forest floor, but the outlines of the place came into view.

  “No,” said Muninn with a wondering tone. “It’s a church.”

  The old church rose out of the forest and mists like a ship nosing through the fog of a narrow strait. For a moment, as the solemn wooden structure came into focus, Gaunt thought she’d been transported back to the distant East, for there was something in its many-tiered construction that recalled pagodas. Nearby rose a ruined windmill, evidence of a larger, abandoned settlement.

  They crept closer. Wooden dragons grinned from various corners, and likewise signs of the Swan. The bell that had frightened the bear hung yet over the door. Gaunt found her lost arrow in the snow just below.

  “Ha!” she said, picking it up. “I thought I’d missed, but I hit better than I’d imagined. My shot rang the bell!”

  “Well done,” Bone said.

  “It’s strange . . .” Alder said. “Like no church I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s a stave church,” Muninn said. “The first Swan-churches built in these islands were stave churches, like this. For reasons no one remembers, they often got built in out-of-the-way places. Some of them still get used, but most have faded into the forests. Never knew this one was here.”

  “I’ve heard it said,” Vuk mused, “the stave churches were built from ship planks, by foamreavers who gave up piracy.”

  Inside, the church was musty but not moldy, with neat rows of pews facing an altar carve
d with swirling scenes of the Swan and life in these isles, runic inscriptions, and ribbonlike designs reminiscent of knotwork patterns from Swanisle. The far wall was likewise thick with such designs.

  “It’s a place to get lost in just sitting down,” said Bone, and he set out to test the thought. They all took places on one pew or another.

  “This place,” Muninn said. “It stirs strange feelings. . . . It makes me sorry to have betrayed you, Imago Bone. Thank you for helping me with the bear.”

  “Why did you betray us, Muninn, truly? Was it because you thought me a nithing? Were you trying to get back at time itself, by punishing a, ah, younger man?”

  “Or,” Gaunt said, “were you trying to prove you were a foamreaver still?”

  “I . . .” Muninn shook his head. “There are too many reasons, and too few words. I am weary.”

  “We all are,” Gaunt said. “I propose, gentlemen, we rest here for a time.”

  And so they did, Gaunt and Bone leaning against each other, Muninn, Vuk, and Alder nodding nearby. Gaunt seemed to be the last awake, and she was amused by seeing them, outlaws all, dozing like parishioners during an uninspired homily.

  Her own head nodded.

  The light changed. Suddenly it was dark. She snapped her head up and stared.

  The altar was still there, but the far wall was gone, and beyond was a rolling sea, silvery under stars and moon and blazing nebulae.

  She extricated herself from Bone, who still slept, and passed the others, who likewise did not stir.

  She stepped beyond the altar and peered out. Two other structures floated upon the spectral sea.

  One was a church, though of stone not of wood. The other was too large to fully see, for it appeared to be the side of a mountain with a great cavern opening upon the waters. A girl stood at the cavern’s mouth, staring this way and that as though fearing something that pursued.

  Their eyes met.

  “Joy!”

  “Gaunt!”

  “What—what is this? Is it a dream?”

  “I do not know! I must escape—”

  A gigantic, gnarled, stony hand emerged from deeper within the mountain and snatched her away.

  Gaunt would have cried out, but a voice from the other church shocked her into silence: “Joy!”

  She whirled and saw a boy staring through a missing wall beside an altar, just as she did.

  “Innocence!”

  “Mother?”

  “Gaunt?”

  Bone’s hands were on her shoulders, and bright sunlight streamed through the windows of a stave church that once again had all its walls. The strange ocean, the mountain, the stone church—all were gone. “Gaunt? I couldn’t wake you. . . .”

  “Bone? Bone, I . . . we have to find Innocence! And Joy . . .”

  “I know . . .”

  “No! It’s more than that. There’s danger.”

  “I know.” He nodded to where their companions had taken defensive positions by door and windows. “Skalagrim is here.”

  CHAPTER 18

  SKRYMIR

  The balloon of the Karvaks approached, and Joy’s hopes swelled as she recognized it as Al-Saqr. It had suffered somewhat and possessed wide patches of red cloth supplementing the blue that represented the Eternal Sky. But it still flew.

  It was as though she’d wished for the perfect escape, and the universe had granted it.

  Now she had to be worthy of it.

  She whispered to her companions, “All right. Believe it or not there’s a chance we’ll be rescued.”

  “But what is that?” Inga asked.

  “It’s a flying craft,” Joy said. “In my own language it’s called a qìqic. In Roil, it’s a balloon. I can’t explain it all now. But there’s room for us if we can somehow get there.” She searched the terrain, nodded toward a high point. “There. I’ll leap and carry Malin.”

  “Carry me?” said Malin.

  “Yes. Inga, I’m counting on you to run like hell to catch up. From there my friends can get close.”

  “Sounds like a risky plan,” Inga said.

  “Better than what we had a few minutes ago.”

  “We should do it,” Malin said.

  “I may never learn the truth about myself,” Inga said, and sighed. “But you’re right. Trolldom isn’t all I’d hoped for.”

  “You lot!” Wormeye called out. “What are you talking about?”

  “Silence, you!” shouted Inga, imitating his tone. She ran.

  Joy grabbed Malin. “Hang on.”

  “Hang on,” Malin agreed. Joy envisioned energy flow flaring through the muscles of her legs. She leaped.

  They landed and slid down a gravelly slope, just ahead of Inga. Now Joy leaped again, reaching the precarious summit of a rocky pinnacle.

  Panting, muscles aching, Joy searched for the balloon. It was coming, but she might have leapt too soon. Pursuit was underway. Wormeye was repeating his maneuver of days before, when he’d hurled Claymore and Mossbeard.

  The two hapless—but dangerous—trolls landed near Inga.

  Inga spun and attacked, a furious grin on her face.

  Claymore now had a new, stumpy arm to replace the one he’d lost and eaten. Inga rushed up, gave it a savage tug, and ripped it off. “Noooo!” cried the troll, as she battered him across the face and knocked him downslope.

  Mossbeard grabbed her, raised her above his head.

  It was a mistake. Inga Peersdatter had spent seventeen years trying to rein in her strength. Her look was one of glee.

  Inga whipped her legs up and sent a series of hammering kicks against Mossbeard’s eyes. Stony though they were, they were still a vulnerable spot. He shrieked his outrage and dropped her.

  Inga scrambled uphill as far as a head-sized boulder. She snatched this up and threw it against the blinded troll. It collided with his head, and he toppled, cursing, after Claymore.

  Inga jogged up the hill, shouting, “Did you see that! Did you see that!”

  “I know a bard,” Joy said when Inga arrived. “You’re going to have a song!”

  “See that?” Malin said, her voice tense. She was not echoing.

  She pointed at Wormeye. He’d seen the balloon. He put his hands to his mouth and bellowed in a language Joy hadn’t heard before. Even in the troll’s guttural tones, it had a musical quality.

  He was shouting at the balloon.

  A further surprise met her, for a voice answered in kind from the balloon. Her hopes soared as the balloon descended. It was the voice of the inventor Haytham ibn Zakwan ibn Rihab.

  Inga was still energized from battle. “What the hell is going on?” she said, sounding jaunty.

  “Joy!” called Haytham, perhaps in answer. “I am attempting a prisoner transfer.”

  “What?” Joy answered.

  “You are prisoners of these trolls. I will make you prisoners of the Karvaks. Trust me!”

  “What are Karvaks?” Inga said dubiously.

  “Nomad conquerors of the steppes,” Malin said.

  “How can you manage that?” Joy called up. “Oh, and I am so very glad to see you!”

  “I am glad to see you!” Haytham called down, and she was delighted to behold his turbaned head and impish smile as he tossed down a rope. “And I can manage this deed because, you see, the trolls and the Karvaks . . . well, they are allies. Luckily my Karvak patron is in Kantenjord as well. I’ve learned Lady Steelfox is in Oxiland!”

  “Steelfox?” Joy called back to him, feeling something slide beneath her that was not her footing. “What is she up to?”

  “Let’s not fret about details!” Haytham called. “You’re not safe! The trolls aren’t sure about the deal! Climb!” He began bellowing something new in the Karvak language.

  Wormeye the troll bellowed back. His troll subordinates were still on their way. Joy sensed the negotiations were not on a sound footing either. “Inga, I need you to climb, so I can get Malin into the ger.”

  “The what?”
<
br />   “Never mind. Will you do it?”

  “Okay. What are you and the old guy up there talking about?”

  “Um, how crazy trolls are.”

  “Okay, fair enough.” Inga climbed.

  “Malin, I will jump you to safety, if you do not mind.”

  “I do not mind,” Malin said.

  Joy got hold of Malin and leaped.

  But she’d overestimated her strength. Her chi could not loft them all the way to the balloon. She and Malin plunged again.

  Her skill allowed her to lighten their weight, so they didn’t harm themselves in the fall, but they slid down the hillside into a shallow gully where Claymore and Mossbeard waited, nursing their wounds.

  “Hey!” said Claymore, and Mossbeard said, “Them!”

  “Uh-oh,” said Malin.

  They lunged at Joy, and Joy drove them back with a spinning kick. More trolls yelled invectives.

  Joy knew Inga would jump down momentarily to help them, giving up her own safety. Joy had to get Malin up to the balloon first.

  You are the land, and the land is you.

  She didn’t know how to call upon the Runemark, but she stared at it, willing it to bring strength to her body as it had before. Red light flared in the gulley. New vitality flowed into her, and a determination to use it. Grinning, she leapt again.

  This time she nearly overshot. She hit the side of the ger and tumbled inside. She dropped Malin, bowed without really looking at the occupants, and leapt back to the hill to guard Inga’s ascent.

  Now Rubblewrack came at her.

  She shifted, kicked, blocked, struck. The Runemark kept sending energy into her, power drawn from the Chain of Unbeing somewhere to the southwest, vitality claimed from the draconic essences of the islands themselves. Rubblewrack tumbled, screaming in rage. Joy began to laugh.

  Wormeye shrieked, “Runemark! The Runethane has arisen! She must not escape! We must bring her to Skrymir!”

  Once again, out the corner of her eye, she saw him prepare to hurl smaller trolls. She braced herself to dodge, but Wormeye’s target was not Joy, nor Inga.

  First one, then a second, then a third troll projectile was sent bursting through the canvas of the balloon.

  The vessel careened away, dropping fast into the desolate hills. Inga was dragged along with it. She hit a hillside and dropped from the rope, out of sight. With a sickening crunch Al-Saqr came to rest. Trolls swarmed after it.