by epubBillie
Cotza sat bolt upright in his bath. His skin was grey, slick with slime. Bones showed through limp flesh. "It's over," he whispered. "We're out of the reach of Slaanesh."
"I'm sure we'd be welcomed back," Erik said.
"So we're safe. The mithril worked!" The Slann's long legs flexed. Then he reached into a pile of supplies and drew out a handful of dried cockroaches. Greedily he shoved the insects into his wide mouth.
Erik watched in disgust. The scents of Slaanesh were gone. But his memories populated the silence outside with other servants of Chaos, with an infinite arsenal of silent death.
Cotza feasted. Erik kept his hands on his weapons.
Their passage became smooth. Ominously so, Erik thought. The days passed rapidly. It grew hot. Sweat steamed from the horses. Erik discarded his furs. He stood beneath the Slann's air-breathing ring; a breeze still rustled out of it, but for some reason it didn't refresh him. He wiped sweat from his face, sat again and tried to rest.
Even the Slann complained. "Why should it be hot?" he whined. "It should get colder as we go further north, not hotter."
Erik smiled. "I told you. Don't expect experience to be a guide. Not here. Take what comes. And fight it."
The obsidian mirror showed a land of darkness. Cotza held it to the roof and tried to guide their progress by the stars...
Suddenly he screamed. Erik jerked awake and reached for his weapons -
- and was slammed backwards by a punch in the chest. It could have come from the fist of that Kislevite giant. He felt the wooden floor splinter under him.
He struggled to his feet. There was nothing to see in the flickering light of the grease lamps. But something was smashing its way around the turtle, like an invisible bird. Heaps of supplies were blasted open and scattered around the cabin. The horses reared; their harnesses snapped.
Cotza was picked up bodily, tubes dangling, and slammed face-first against the ceiling. Then he was dropped with a splash into his bath. "Norseman! Help me!"
The lamps blew out. Now the only light came from the fire under Cotza's bath.
"Erik, what is it?"
Erik struggled to keep his feet. "It's an elemental. A daemon of the air."
"Our armour is breached - "
"No." The elemental shoved past him; he felt a meaty slap to the face. "It's your breathing ring, Slann. It's got in that way, bit by bit."
"Then we're doomed."
"What?" Erik staggered to the bath and grabbed the Slann's shoulders. "What in hell are you talking about, Cotza? You Slann are supposed to be great wizards. Use magic. Fight it off with a spell!"
The Slann struggled out of his grasp and curled into a ball. "I can't," he moaned. "I have no magic. Save us, Norseman."
Erik stared at him, unbelieving. Then the elemental hit him in the back and knocked him flat on his face. The creature pounded at his spine, roaring like a gale. Erik gritted his teeth, arms trembling. He howled, arched his back, pushed the hard pads of his paw-hands into the floor. The fur on his face stood erect.
For a few seconds Were fought elemental. Then the daemon slithered from his back. Erik struggled to his feet, fighting the impulse to snap and howl. He had to control the Were, think clearly, find a way to drive out the elemental...
Cotza's fire.
Erik grabbed the rim of the metal bath and pulled it off the fire, tipping out the wailing Slann. Then he rummaged through their piles of supplies until he found a block of lamp grease. He pulled the sticky stuff apart and flung it at the fire.
Flame roared up; heat blasted into his face. The Were flinched; the man stood his ground. The Slann scurried into a corner. Smoke poured through the cabin, making Erik's eyes sting. The horses stamped in complaint. Erik hurled more grease into the blaze.
Hot air blasted up. The atmosphere became a mass of smoke and turbulence. It was as if a second elemental had been released into the cabin.
But this one was controlled by Erik. The elemental slapped at his legs and back. Erik heard it slam into the walls...
But it was weaker. Erik grinned, wiping soot from his face. As he'd hoped the elemental was beginning to lose its cohesion in the disrupted air.
There was a wail that filled the cabin. Then air began to rush out of the breathing ring. In a few seconds it was over.
The fire burned steadily now. Erik, coughing, began to relight the lamps. He found Cotza buried in a pile of furs. Erik poked with one booted toe. "Come out," he said. "It's over."
The Slann uncovered one eye.
"Take down your breathing ring," Erik growled. "It was the only breach in our defence. And it almost killed us."
"But we'll suffocate."
"We keep it down until we have to. Understand? Now, help me fix this damn mess."
He walked to the warhorses and began to calm them with firm words.
Cotza hissed like a snake. Erik started awake. Painfully he pulled himself to his feet. His head pounded. In the days since they'd closed off the feed the air in the turtle had become thick and stinking.
Automatically he looked to the horses. The huge beasts laboured at their treadmill, their coats matted with sweat. The Slann was hunched over his obsidian device. His lips popped together, mouthing words unknown to Erik. Then he said quietly: "Erik. We have succeeded."
Erik strode through the swaying cabin and snatched up the plate. It showed the usual murky scene, a sky of loops and whirls over a formless land. But there was something new, a sharp image about the size of Erik's thumb.
"It's the star boat," breathed Cotza. "See how clear it is? It was designed to travel to other worlds. And so it has survived the centuries of degradation in this forsaken place. It shines in that plate like a pearl in mud - "
The star boat was a spindle, its prow and stern trailing to needle-fine points. Erik judged the boat to be about five times the length of the turtle - perhaps a hundred paces in all. He could see no sails, no oars.
"I can't see any clinkering," he said. "And... it seems to be closed over, all around. More like a house than a boat. Why should that be?"
"How would I know?"
"Why would you roof over a boat? Suppose... suppose it was to move under water as well as over it - " Erik shook his head.
"Or," said Cotza, "instead of keeping something out, the closed hull was to keep something in."
"Like what?" Erik said.
"Air? Suppose the ocean this boat sailed is as empty of air as the air is empty of water."
"That's crazy."
Cotza laughed. "The ways of the ancient Slann aren't going to be comprehensible to us for a long time. Perhaps not ever."
He took back his obsidian plate and wiped it over. The boat's image began to slip below them; Cotza had to tilt the obsidian to trap it. "We're passing over the boat," he said. "It's buried in the ice..."
"We're nearly over it." Erik hurried to the horses and pulled at their bridles. The turtle shuddered to a halt. Erik gathered armfuls of hay and scattered them at the feet of the panting animals.
Cotza scampered over the floor of the turtle, scanning the buried boat with his obsidian plate and making crude sketches on a parchment. He showed Erik glimpses of detail: plates of buckled metal, panels covered with obscure rectangular designs. "What a treasure!" he crooned.
"Don't get excited, Slann. We haven't worked out how to reach it yet."
Cotza snorted and continued his studying. At last he spread out the results of his labours. It was like a sketch map of the star boat. "Here," he said, tapping with a thumb. "See how the plates are breached, torn apart? There's a hole wide enough to let in a man. Even one as broad as you, Norseman," he added jovially.
Erik studied the map, then paced around the turtle. At length he selected a spot and cleared away clutter from the floor. "The hole's here," he said.
"Yes." The Slann nodded excitedly. He stood and clambered into a purple cloak. "Well, Erik? Let's see this boat for ourselves."
Erik touched his weapons. He felt
reluctant to breach the protecting mithril shell...
But he'd come a long way for this. And you can only die once. He grinned fiercely, raised one booted leg, and stamped down on the deck.
The wooden flooring splintered and broke up. Then his boot reached the clinkered armour beneath. Iron seals cracked and fractured. Soon two plates were loose enough to prise aside. "That's enough," Erik growled, lifting the loosened plates. "Let's keep the breach small."
Ice gleamed dully in the hole. Erik probed at it with one finger - and jumped back with a yell as ice flashed to steam. The Slann laughed. "The normal rules don't work here, remember?" he taunted.
Erik glared; then, with the butt of his battle-axe, pushed at the popping ice until it had all vapourized. Tendrils of steam filled the cabin. The Slann sniffed contentedly.
Under the ice the earth was greyish and dead, like fine sand. Erik used the blade of his axe to scoop it out. Then his blade clanged on something hard, metallic.
Erik looked up. The Slann stared into the hole, tongue wriggling out of his lips. Erik bent into the hole and brushed away the remaining layer of dirt.
The hull-metal of the star boat gleamed like polished bronze. The Slann sat beside Erik and touched it in awe. "It's perfect, after so many thousands of years," he whispered. "But look how it's crumpled."
Erik searched through the dirt until he reached the breach in the hull. The last few grains of earth fell into a circular patch of darkness. It was about an arm's length wide. Erik stared into it, saw nothing. "Give me a lantern."
Cotza brought him a simple candle in a clay bowl. Erik lowered it cautiously into the boat. The flame flickered but burnt on.
"So the air's not foul," Cotza hissed.
Erik made out a floor of metal, perhaps ten feet below him. He looked up at Cotza and shrugged. "We can't learn anything from out here. I'm going in."
"Let me hold the lamp."
After checking his weapons Erik swung his feet into the hole. His waist passed through easily, his axe bumping against the lip of the hole. Then he lowered his body until he was dangling from his fingertips.
He let go. His feet hit the metal with a soft thud. He landed at a battle crouch, sword in hand.
Silence. Darkness, broken only by a disc of yellow lamplight above his head. The Slann's silhouetted head appeared. "Erik?"
"I'm safe. There's nothing here. Give me the lamp."
The Slann's bony arm extended into the boat. Erik reached up, took the lamp, turned with the light in his hand -
A white face loomed at him, jaws wide and gaping. Erik yelled. He grasped his sword and smashed, smashed again -
"Norseman! What is happening?"
Erik stepped back, breathing hard. There was a chair before him, large and fine enough to be a throne. Now it was covered by fragments of smashed bone. Bone dust drifted in the musty air.
"Nothing," Erik said. "There's no danger. It was a skeleton, a thing of bones in this seat, facing me."
The Slann's nodding head reappeared in the hole. Erik laid his lamp on the floor, then reached into the chair and pulled out a shard of a skull. The head had been large, flat. "What do you think it was?"
"Slann," said Cotza. "Just like a modern skull - perhaps a little larger, a little finer. No doubt we've coarsened since our fall. I think that was a sailor, Erik. A Slann who took this boat to the stars, and who died when the boat ploughed into the ice," Cotza dangled his flippered feet into the hole and dropped through.
Erik raised the lantern and began to explore. They were in a sharp-edged box about as large as the turtle. Erik looked close but could see no joints between the wall plates.
Another skeleton, intact, sat before a table. The table was encrusted with buttons and slivers of glass. The chair held a pool of dust - perhaps the residue of the Slann's flesh. Shreds of some ancient material clung to the wide rib cage.
A spindle the size of Erik's fist hung in the air above the table. Erik looked for wires suspending it, but could see none. "Look at this," he said. "It's like... a toy version of the boat. A model."
Cotza peered, poked with a tentative thumb. There was a spark where he touched, a crack like a gunpowder cap. The Slann leapt back. The little model rocked in the air... and the star boat groaned and shifted around them, like a bear stirring in its sleep. Cotza looked about fearfully; Erik heard himself growl.
The model came to rest. The groaning ceased. Cotza looked at Erik. "You know what this is, don't you?"
"What?"
"It's for controlling the boat. It's like... a rudder. Yes, a rudder. Move the toy and you move the boat. See? Some races have spells which work on the same principle."
Erik peered doubtfully at the model. "Well, it's like no rudder I've ever seen..."
Now Cotza approached one wall. It was coated with panels of dark glass. Below each panel was a plate covered with a close, unrecognizable script. "Obviously this room is only a small part of the boat," murmured the Slann.
"So what's in the rest?"
Cotza shrugged. "Maybe the sails - or whatever it was they used to drive this boat." He pushed his broad muzzle close to the black glass. "This stuff is obsidian. Come and look..."
There was a picture in the obsidian plate. Erik saw stars. And something round and shining. The world? The Slann said, "I think we're seeing what the sailors saw on this boat's last voyage. Erik, it's true. This boat really did travel between worlds."
"So maybe this cabin is a kind of observation post," Erik mused. "Like a look-out posted in the rigging of a longboat."
The Slann nodded absently. His black tongue shot out and licked wide lips. "I believe there's more obsidian in this single room than in the whole of Lustria."
He reached up his right hand.
"Cotza, don't touch anything. Remember the rudder thing. There might be some kind of protection."
"I'm a Slann, Norseman," Cotza said haughtily. "This is my heritage. If we can get this obsidian loose, it alone will make me richer than I could have dreamed. And who knows what else we'll find..."
The Slann peeled off his right glove and spread webbed fingers.
"Cotza! Don't - "
Cotza touched obsidian. The cabin filled with fire and thunder.
Erik was hurled against a bulkhead. He felt the skin of his face blister in the sudden heat. His nostrils filled with the scent of scorching - his hair, beard, clothes.
The red glare faded; the noise echoed to stillness. Coughing, wiping tears from dazzled eyes, Erik struggled to his feet.
His weapons were in his hands. Good. He looked around quickly. The grease lamp had blown out, but blood-coloured light leaked from the plate Cotza had touched. Above Erik's head he could see the hole leading out into the turtle. And, beyond that, he could see stars.
So the explosion had breached the mithril. They were naked to Chaos. Despair closed around his heart. He shook his head. One thing at a time. He looked for Cotza.
The Slann was crumpled into one corner like a wad of rag. He was staring in disbelief at his right arm. It ended in a stump, a few inches below the elbow. Thick blood pumped like a dismal fountain.
Erik had seen such injuries before. He had seconds to save the Slann. He grabbed the edge of the Slann's robe and tore away a strip. He wrapped the strip around the stump and twisted until he felt the cloth bite to bone. The blood flow slowed, stopped.
Then Erik got to his feet and picked up the Slann, boosted him through the roof and back into the turtle. It was like lifting a child.
Erik jumped, grabbed the lip of the hole with his fingertips, and hauled himself up. The Slann lay limp on the floor, groaning softly. Erik ignored him, looked quickly around the turtle, weapons to hand.
The horses whinnied and stamped. The air in the turtle was cold, damp. A wind like a fist slammed through the breached roof. Erik reached up with one hand and felt around the breach until his fingers closed around a dislodged mithril plate.
Soft fingers brushed his wrist. He ground
his teeth and hauled the plate over the hole. The wind died to a whisper. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.
He kicked something in the debris. It was the spindle, the rudder-toy from the star boat; it must have been blown clear in the explosion. He poked it tentatively. There was no reaction. Impulsively he tucked the little model into his shirt.
Now, the Slann. Cotza could still die if the wound wasn't treated. And Erik was determined that he would stay alive until he provided some answers. He reached for a handful of grease and slapped it over the nearest lamp. A small fire roared up. Then he knelt and pulled the shattered right arm out from under the amphibian's body. Cotza groaned, stared up at Erik with empty eyes.
Erik thrust the damaged arm into the fire. The Slann's scream was unearthly. He struggled feebly. Erik held the arm fast until he could see that all the blood vessels had shrivelled closed. He lifted the Slann, who was unconscious at last, into his metal bath, and lit the warming fire beneath it.
Cotza slept for hours. Erik waited until the watery eyes fluttered open once more. Loops of slime clung to the Slann's eyelids. He turned his head, looking dimly around the turtle. Then his eyes met Erik's.
"You're no Slann," said Erik quietly. "I suspected when you had no magic to ward off the air elemental. Then there's your character. Your greed. Your ambition. Like no Slann. And you're a coward; you could never have been an Eagle Warrior. Now I have proof. That obsidian plate would not have harmed a true Slann. It's time for the truth. What are you, Cotza?"
Cotza dipped his head into the murky water, rubbed at slimy nostrils. Then he said: "I'm human."
Cotza told Erik that he had been born of a peasant family in northern Bretonnia. He grew to awareness in filth and squalor. Strutting Breton lords ruled the villages with a severity matched only by their corruption and incompetence.
Cotza was a weasel-like boy, weak and resentful, despised by his fellows. His only consolation was the tales of the old men of his village. They would recount fantastic legends of lands and times far distant, and Cotza would sit open-mouthed at the edge of their ruminative circles.