Thrall

by E. William Brown

Maybe I should make another warmth enchantment factory, so we could equip work parties? The refugee shelters that I’d set up had all weathered the disasters just fine, and they were full of half-starved peasants who’d be happy for work. If I could find someone to organize the effort, I could hire a few hundred of them to at least clear the streets. Although I wasn’t sure where I’d get enough tools for a project like that.

  I turned a corner, and passed through a newly-built gate onto a larger street that ran along the bank of the river. Here, there was still activity. There were shops and offices that were open, and men hurrying about on business. Several merchant ships were in port, and work parties labored to unload them.

  I stopped to observe the work for a few minutes. Completely enclosing the docks had proved impractical, but I’d given a couple of the most active piers a roof and some sections of wall in places where they wouldn’t be in the way. The self-warming structure gave decent protection against the wind, and moderated the cold a good bit.

  It was still brutal work, but the laborers would be getting warmth enchantments on their coats over the next couple of days. Between the improvements and the higher wages I’d arranged the job should at least be survivable at that point.

  I reluctantly concluded that that was the best I could do for now, and moved on down the street.

  There were some inns and taverns open here, and what looked like a whorehouse. The offices of several merchant companies, and some shops selling rope and canvas. A couple of the larger roads leading deeper into the city were still clear, and there was a steady flow of wagons and carts moving around. The horses were all wrapped in blankets, but they still looked pretty miserable.

  Could I warm the streets somehow? That would take a lot of heaters. With all the storms we’d been getting some kind of overhead protection would be good, too. I could probably tinker up some kind of warmth field, but trying to protect every road in the city would be impossible.

  Well, I was only planning to build six of those keeps. Maybe I could start by connecting them to each other, the refugee shelters and the rest of the docks? That would allow travel between all the important points in the district, as well as the shops and businesses along the roads between them. It would probably take a few days, but it might be worth the time. Not only would it help revive the local economy, it would also mean a lot of people weren’t trapped indoors forever.

  It was kind of odd, how there weren’t any women on the streets. But that was how things worked in Varmland. The dangerous jobs were automatically considered men’s work, and just going outside was dangerous right now. So people stayed home as much as they could, and if an errand needed to be run it was a man who did it.

  Almost everyone I saw was armed, but most just carried a knife or a wooden club. Spears were too clumsy for the city streets, and swords were too expensive for most people. For that matter, there were probably laws about who could own ‘real’ weapons. I was tempted to make a sword factory and hand them out for free, just because of that. But no, it wouldn’t actually do much to make people safer. A club is more than enough to handle a goblin or two, but no ordinary weapon would help a citizen who came face to face with something like a zombie or ghoul. Let alone trolls, ungols or winter wraiths.

  Things would get bad pretty quickly if we had ungols or winter wraiths sneak into the city. A monster like that could hide in the ruined buildings, and raid the surrounding homes at night with impunity. Everything I built was designed to keep them out, but a normal house might as well be a big lunch box. One more reason to do something about getting the rubble cleared, and get regular street patrols running.

  I got a surprise when I finally reached the causeway leading out to my island. The gates that guarded the causeway were open, and a small crowd was gathered there. Someone had set up the big space heaters I’d built a couple of months ago, when I was leading my little band of refugees south to Kozalin. The square outside the gates was still cold, but it was nothing like the arctic chill that shrouded the rest of the city.

  I worked my way through the crowd, and past the squad of soldiers who were guarding the gate. Once I reached the causeway I found the reason for the crowd. When I’d rebuilt it after the last attack I’d expanded it to about twelve feet wide, with walls and a roof to protect travelers from the weather. There were enough windows that the interior wasn’t exactly comfortable, but the self-warming stone kept things well above freezing.

  Apparently a lot of local entrepreneurs had seen that as an opportunity, because there was a row of little market stalls running down one side of the hallway now. Crowds of customers inspected their wares, which seemed to consist of everything from fresh fish to simple jewelry.

  “I should have expected something like this,” I mused to myself. “The regular markets are all closed, but most of the people who ran them are still alive and looking for a way to stay in business. Tavrin must be renting out stall spaces.”

  The amount of money involved would be trivial, which was probably why I hadn’t heard about it. But I wasn’t crazy about the idea of clogging up the island’s only entrance with an improvised market like this. If there was an emergency it would probably add thirty minutes to our response time. It wasn’t as safe for the civilians as it looked, either, since the whole causeway structure was mined with magical explosives.

  Maybe I should build another keep in front of the gatehouse, and set it up as a market?

  I stopped at a stall that sold little glass trinkets, and the boy running the counter grinned up at me. “Baubles for your lady, milord?”

  The old man sitting beside him was making a little blown-glass bird, but of course his technique was completely different from what I was used to. They didn’t have blowtorches in Kozalin, after all.

  “You two make all your own wares?” I asked.

  The boy shook his head. “That’s just gramps, milord. I never had the touch for it. But his hearing’s a’goin, so I talk to the customers now. Wait, are you the wizard, milord?”

  “Yes.”

  “Honored to meet you, lord wizard. In that case, the first one’s free. I hear you’ve a lot of ladies to please.”

  The little scamp grinned up at me, and I had to smile. He knew how to sell his wares. If I came home with just one cute trinket I’d end up with at least two unhappy women pouting at me. Maybe three - Cerise may be a bloodthirsty maniac in battle, but she could be surprisingly girly at home.

  I ended up buying one for each of my girls. I considered adding Pelagia and her grove to my shopping list too, but I wasn’t sure if ancient nymphs and dryads had the same taste for that sort of thing. The maids would, of course, but buying them presents would send the wrong sort of message.

  That got me thinking about the other women in my life. How had I ended up with so many of them, anyway? Most of them gorgeous, and clearly willing if I ever wanted to make the time for them. Was that just the fruits of success? Or had Hecate arranged this situation on purpose for some reason?

  Knowing her, that was all too likely. If I asked her about it she’d probably make some comment about rewarding her champion for his work, and then chide me for not taking more advantage of my opportunities. As if I had time to keep up with any more women.

  There was one woman I might just need to make time for, though.

  Instead of heading upstairs to the palace, I went into the produce market my farmers had set up. A door in the back led into a large storeroom, with a heavy metal gate guarded by a couple of my soldiers in the back. From there it was a short walk to Corinna’s grove.

  Most of the trees here were huge oaks and pines, standing tall in the bright artificial sunlight. There were a few other species mixed in with them, smaller trees that I wasn’t enough of a botanist to name. A group of dryads were practicing with spears in the middle of the clearing, and for a moment I turned in their direction. But no, the faint tug I was following led elsewhere.

  On the edge of the grove, carefully placed where i
t wouldn’t be shaded by the larger trees, was a short, gnarled trunk with an odd texture that reminded me of driftwood, and only a few leafy branches sprouting here and there.

  This was Alanna’s tree? How odd. I couldn’t place the species at first, but something about the look of those twisted branches jogged a memory. I’d seen pictures of a tree like this before, but where?

  I’d just remembered the answer to that question when Alanna poked her head out of the trunk.

  “Greetings, my wizard,” she said. “Have you come to give me your decision?”

  “I came to talk to you about it,” I said.

  “Ah, so that’s how it is. Will you come inside, then? I can offer hospitality, while you grapple with your scruples.”

  I took her hand, and let her pull me into the bower hidden in the heart of her tree. But what I found there was as unexpected as the tree itself. Where the other dryads I’d visited had a cozy bedroom dotted with furs and pillows, Alanna’s bower looked like a network of caves and twisty passages carved from a landscape of desiccated wood.

  Bright sunlight fell from somewhere above, and a maze of little waterfalls and brooks gave the place a pleasant feel, although the air was oddly dry and warm. The room I found myself in held a low table surrounded with plush pillows, a cabinet filled with herbs, and an interesting variety of exotic rugs and tapestries. Through openings in the walls I caught glimpses of a bedroom, what might have been a study, and various other spaces that looked more like some strange wilderness than a home.

  “Am I truly so surprising, my wizard?”

  I realized I’d been staring, and moved to join Alanna at the table.

  “Yes,” I said honestly. “Either you have more hidden depths than the average dryad, or you just don’t hide them nearly as well. Your tree is a bristlecone pine, isn’t it?”

  “That name seems apt, but it isn’t one I’ve heard before. The Atlanteans called us melavis forsenat, if you speak their tongue. Would you like tea?”

  “Sure. Atlantis is a bit before my time, Alanna. But that only begs more questions. A gentleman doesn’t ask a lady’s age, but you’re making me wonder here.”

  She poured water into a glass pot, and gestured with both hands. The sunlight streaming down from above seemed to gather in her hands, and suffuse the water. Well, I’d been wondering how she was going to heat it without a fire.

  “Most human scholars think that dryads are immortal,” she said as she prepared the tea. “But of course they are mistaken. Most trees can live for perhaps a century or two. Those that give birth to a dryad might last a millennium, but rarely longer. Those cute little apple and pear girls in Pelagia’s grove won’t last even that long.”

  “So a dryad’s lifespan depends on her tree? But bristlecone pines live for thousands of years,” I said. “There’s some debate about whether they age at all, in the normal sense.”

  She raised an eyebrow at that. “Have you been to the lands across the sea, Daniel? I meet few wizards who know such things.”

  “I have, actually,” I said. “But that ties in with the question of where I came from, which is something Hecate doesn’t want me talking about for now.”

  “I wouldn’t care to pry into Hecate’s secrets,” she said with a wry smile. “The last time I crossed her it took many years to make amends. In truth, I feared she might still be unhappy with me, but our situation tells me otherwise.”

  “You know Hecate, then?”

  “Of course. The ages of time are deeper than the breadth of continents, and immortals inevitably meet now and then. I remember Bast as well, though she may not recall the little dryad who played familiar to a whole dynasty of her wizards during Egypt’s rise. My name is not uncommon among dryads, and I sometimes play at hiding the truth of myself.”

  She sighed, and paused to take a sip from her cup. I did the same, and found that it was surprisingly good tea. Not that I’m an expert on the stuff.

  “Usually I dance around this issue, but I suppose it’s best to be direct with you,” she said. “You ask how old I am, Daniel? I cannot give you a number, for I am older than calendars. Older than writing, or cities, or the working of metal. Once I would have said older than men, for I was already ancient when the first hunters wandered in from the coast to explore the high desert where my sisters and I lived. We called them fire binders, and feared their powers of destruction almost as much as we yearned for their rugged bodies.”

  Jesus fuck. She was as old as the titans. Maybe older. When did humans first colonize that part of the New World? Twelve thousand years ago?

  “Why would someone like you want to be my familiar, Alanna?”

  A melancholy little smile touched her lips.

  “You think me ancient and wise, now. A great spirit of the wilds, who should be beyond the petty affairs of men. But I am nothing of the sort, Daniel. Dryads are simple creatures at heart. We hunt. We mate. We dance together beneath the warm summer sun, and stand undaunted against nature’s wrath. But at the end of the day, we’re only tree spirits. We exist in the same eternal now as the beasts of the field or the plants we spring from, and the power of change is beyond us. Ages before the first men came to the high desert, I had long since explored everything I was or am or could ever hope to be. I found the highest excellence that it was in me to reach and rested there, thinking myself content.

  “Then the fire binders came, and things changed. We found new desires in ourselves that we had never known existed, and surrendered ourselves willingly to their embrace. We learned of seduction and romance, discovered tools and strategy, and heard tales of faraway lands. I grew jealous of men, and their power to walk the Earth as they will. Then one year a young shaman invented a spell that let me pick up my tree, and follow him to his tribe’s encampment.

  “Invention. So few people understand what a wonder that is. The world has changed so much these last few millennia, and there is nothing I love more than seeing what new thing men will bring into the world next.”

  “There’s going to be a lot of that here,” I said.

  This time her smile was happy, bordering on gleeful. “I know! I’ve seen this before, but never to such an extreme. You’ve brought some vast trove of new things with you to this city, and you’re unleashing them on the world just as fast as you can turn knowledge into spellwork. I can’t wait to see what comes next!”

  “I would imagine so. But what does all that have to do with being a familiar?”

  Her face fell, and she sighed.

  “That is not a happy topic, but I suppose it would be too much to hope that you would already know. Daniel, I’m a spirit of the deep wilderness. You’ve heard Pelagia complain about her poor grasp of civilized mysteries, but she is practically human compared to me. Of my own self I cannot understand numbers, or writing, or any sort of society more complex than a pack of predators. I can barely comprehend music, or piece together what a painting is supposed to show. When I contemplate your more subtle works I might as well be a cow, staring on in blank incomprehension.

  “But when I’m bonded with a wizard, I can share a taste of humanity’s mysteries. Fill me generously with your power, and I can regain all of the lore that I have mastered and lost again so many times. Even an impersonal bond will give me a comfortable grasp of writing and music, two priceless treasures to one who can so seldom enjoy them. Bind me closely, with affection and shared pleasure as well as magic, and I can even hope to embrace the mystery of invention from time to time.”

  I looked around at her unconventional home, and tried to imagine what an existence like that would be like.

  “I think I can understand how that would be worth it to you,” I began.

  “Oh, do not think it some great sacrifice,” she interrupted. “My kind were born from the dreams of men, Daniel, and what man dreams of a woman who does not care for his embrace? I am more wolf than dog, but I think you are strong enough to face me without fear. Treat me well, and I shall be very happy indeed.”


  “It sounds like you do this a lot,” I said.

  “Not as often as I would like. My power is too great a prize to lesser wizards, who have not the strength to properly bond me. All too many of them would chain me in some lightless cellar instead, a mere resource to tap for magic when they need it. So I place myself where circumstances seem favorable, and watch for opportunities. But good ones come only rarely. When the stars align I seize the chance, and snatch a brief span of happiness with some man of exceptional kindness or insight. Then he inevitably dies, leaving me to mourn in solitude for a century or two before I gather the courage to try again.”

  I studied her face carefully. “You know, I’m immortal.”

  “No, you are unaging,” she corrected. “You can call yourself immortal when the utter destruction of your body will no longer mean your end. But you’ve a spark of divine power now, and Hecate favors you. If I guard you diligently, perhaps you will live for more than a scant few centuries. I would very much like to have a partner who doesn’t die on me, Daniel. There is much that I would be willing to offer such a man, that I hold back from more temporary affairs.”

  “Oh?” I had to admit, I was curious about that. I could see a lot of young wizards using dryad familiars for sex, but I had my hands full in that department already.

  “You are a marvelous war wizard, but far too often you fight alone,” she said. “With me, that will never happen again. But any dryad could be your armor, or a weapon in your hand. The true boon I offer my wizards is knowledge. For I have witnessed the whole history of the world, from the very dawn of this marvel you call civilization. I have seen every corner of the Nine Worlds, lived among all of their peoples, and immersed myself in the inner workings of almost every great school of magic. I know the truths that lurk behind the lies spun by a thousand generations of vainglorious victors, and the dark secrets they think long forgotten. Not just the wars of kings and emperors, but those of wizards, gods and the powers of darkness.

  “Usually I speak little on such topics, for to reveal too much would yet draw the ire of half the great powers in the world. But this is Ragnarok, and you are a wizard of such power and insight as to make a worthy partner even for the world’s oldest dryad. Accept me as your familiar, and I shall answer any question you care to ask.”