by J.A. Clement
~~~
Lodden put on the voices of all the characters as his nanny had done, and mimed her inflections and actions as best he could remember. The other crew-members drew near to listen. Eventually the tale was done, to much appreciation and then the Gai Renese chattered for a moment before one of them launched into a tale from their country, of the battle of wits between a dragon who lived under a lake and the fisherman who made his living from it. So the time passed in laughter and tall tales, and the ship flew over the sunlit snow like a bird through the clouds. When the laughter died down and the day grew long, they fell back into thought. But each had a smile on their face, crewmen, craftsman and bard alike.
After a while, Maran said, “Thank you. I knew you would understand.”
“I love you. Whatever you undertake, I will help you as best as I can.”
“You are a shield against the world, Lodden.” Maran sat and watched the snow hissing by for a while and then absentmindedly picked up his harp. Humming to himself, he strummed quietly until he had a progression of chords just as he wanted them. He began to sing.
“My heart is in dry-dock, hulled empty, forgotten,
a ship set on high blocks, far from the tides' storming.
The deafening echoes of riptides come roaring –
amid such a maelstrom, I must lose my moorings.
Fearful I listened to dark waters swirling,
fearful as faintly the water came creeping.
Unnoticed it lifted, directed my drifting
till gently I floated, midst plaintive gulls’ skirling.
Now riding the high swells, my sails are unfurling
to fly across oceans to the white waters' ending.
Washed free of my fear by the salt sea spray sparkling
I soar on the wind to my destiny’s calling.”
He glanced at Lodden with that bittersweet smile as he sang.
“Yes, washed free of fear by the salt sea spray sparkling
I soar on the wind to my destiny’s calling.”
He strummed a while more, absently. Lodden watched the bard’s expressive face in profile against the whiteness of the snow, hair golden in the sun and ruffled by the wind. He savoured the image. How little time he had been given with this other, dearer half of his soul! But he would always remember the sun, the snow, Maran’s faraway expression and the tune winding itself around his heart.
A tear ran down his face. He wiped it away before the bard could see, and tipped his head back so that more could not follow. He shut his eyes. In this sheltered corner, the sun was warm on his eyelids.
After a while Maran set aside his harp, packing it back into its covering. He walked to the rail. “That’s odd. We should have come to the end of the snow long before now.”
“We have come further than there was snow to travel on, two days back.” The Gai Renese captain padded up behind them. “There must have been a mighty blizzard since, but we travel the faster for it, for it is smoother than the bumps and hills of the grassland.”
“Does it normally snow this heavily here?”
Maran looked thoughtful. “Once in a while, I grant you, but the timing is much in our favour.” He laid an appreciative hand upon the blunted head of the ancient keel jutting forward in front of him. “Much in our favour. I wonder how far the snow reaches now.”
They rode on snow right to the clan-halls. As the first stars came out that evening, the ships drew up and were besieged by Skral come to help unload the ancient ship-skeletons. They laid the precious cargo in a rough circle in the great Skraelhall, where the people gathered for feasts and celebrations.
That night, the hall was never empty. Throughout the darkness, Skrals were drawn to pay their respects to the shipspirits that had protected them for so long. People would slip in, and in the half-light of the central fire’s embers, they walked around the circle of keels, eventually coming forward to the ship that had sheltered their own clan. Men, women and children, all approached reverently, laid a gentle hand on the wood and stood for a few moments before leaving. They left as quietly as they had come, but their expressions had changed to wonder and awe from the weariness and fear that had lined their faces before.
“Do you see? The ships are sharing their strength.” Maran too was watching them. “They are powerful allies.”
“Have you been up to them?” Lodden had the sense that something sacred was happening.
“No.” Maran turned over in his bedding and pulled the furs over him again. “If there is only one chance to be strengthened, I will wait until I need it.”
The following day Lodden was deep in thought, trying to put together his plans for the Heart of Wood, when there was a sudden flurry of noise and movement in the hall.
“He’s coming! The Ice Lord is coming!”
A woman stopped to hush the boy. “Enough, child! He is not coming quite yet.”
“What is it?” Lodden paused.
“The Ice Lord’s ships have been sighted. That’s all I know.”
Lodden thanked her. So soon? The trap was barely started. He went in search of Maran, who was in conference with the Clanfathers, the Potentate of Gai Ren and the Mother of the Shantar.
“How long do we have?” the Mother demanded. “How long before they arrive?”
“It all depends where they put ashore.” Tusken Seal shrugged. “Skral boats sail right round the island and land in the harbour down at the river mouth. The Ice Lord is unlikely to know this area. If he lands at the far side of the island and marches across, we have at least four days and probably seven by the time he has landed all his men and organised them for the march. If he sails round the island, he will lose half his army in the effort but those little potbellied ships of his could probably land on the headland yonder, and they could be here in maybe three days or less.”
“Three days....” The Potentate sighed. “We have much to organise.”
“What is there to organise?” Tusken Seal slammed his fists on the arms of his chair. “He will come, and we will fight to the last Skral falls!”
“Men!” The Mother rolled her eyes.
“Excuse me!”
“Sorry, Potentate, I meant Skrals. Tusken Seal, there is much to organise because if the Ice Lord comes and everyone is here, our peoples will be wiped from the face of the earth quite unnecessarily!”
“What are you suggesting, woman? Do you doubt the prowess of my warriors? Are you saying that we should hide like dogs? Then you do not know the Skral, for they are worth far more than your grovelling Shantar!”
“My friends,” the Potentate interjected smoothly as the Mother drew breath for a scathing retort, “let us not be overhasty. We have all a part to play in this battle, and we all have that which we would wish to see outlast it.” He turned to Tusken Seal. “The Ice Lord does not just intend to kill people and animals, but to exterminate cultures. All your lore and legends, all your knowledge and customs, would you have them erased from the face of the earth? If we sit blindly waiting it does not matter who wins, for no Skral will know that the graveyard of ships is anything but a hill with a crack in it. No-one will know more of the long, glorious history of the Skral than that there were some people of that name who once existed, and perhaps not even that. Your sons’ sons and their descendents will be as ignorant of the Hall of the Forefathers as I was until I came here and heard the singing of your legends. Would you allow all the customs and culture that makes Skral unlike any other people to be trodden in the dust by this villain?”
“That would be a victory for him, indeed.” Tusken Seal frowned.
There was a short silence and then the Mother spoke. “Man of the Skral, let us work like Aethir and Aethling on this.”
The Skral looked up sharply at her invocation of the fabled brother and sister Gods of his people, and was startled into a rumbling laugh. “Maran has done his job well, if even an outlander knows of the Twins!”
“We have the same legend,
though we know them as Etha and Elen. Let us each work according to our skills. You organise the defence and the fighters. I ask only for a few ships, to save that which is most dear to each of our peoples. Specifically, as much of the lore of our peoples as we can save, the children and the old people who cannot fight but are wise and canny enough to bring the young ones into maturity, should they need to.”
“And the women,” Tusken Seal added.
“The women have much to fight for, and much to avenge. Those who wish may go on the ships but some will want to stay and fight. Many of my people will, for certain. Shantar women are no strangers to war.” The Mother met Tusken Seal’s gaze squarely, and after a moment he nodded agreement.
Leaving Maran to finish up with the Elders, Lodden went back to the Skraelhall to look a little more closely at the various keels. He walked round the hall slowly. Somehow the silence was welcoming. Lodden had been considering his task for some time now. Despite the numbing cold the snow had brought, he thought it would be best to transport the ship-skeletons to the Circle and assemble the Heart of Wood there. There was room to do it in the Skraelhall, and no doubt some kind of sled could be arranged to get it across the plain, but he was conscious that the wood was very old, and he did not dare risk it in any way.
“I do not understand the forces that you command, my friends, but I would rather work in the cold unnecessarily than end up with a broken Heart!” He patted the fragile keel of the ship in front of him and all of a sudden he could not move his hand away. A sense of friendship and strength was offered to him, and of understanding. The bleakness that overwhelmed Lodden when he thought of the fate they had suggested surged through him, but to his surprise it was countered with hope, and comfort.
“What hope can there be?” he whispered. “I cannot see any kind of hope.”
“Do you think that all there is to life is flesh?” It was Ranulf. “Do you not know of the spirit, which leaps time and space like lightning or starlight? Do you think that he who you love will not exist any more when his body dies?”
“He..?”
“You love, Lodden.”
Lodden looked into that old face, seeing only compassion and wisdom in Ranulf’s eyes. “I am afraid that he will die, and I will never see him again.”
“He will not be with you as you have grown accustomed to see him, but that does not mean that he is extinguished. My son, you are like a timid fledgling mourning the loss of its brother who is no longer in the nest, while the brother soars and swoops above on the warm air currents, waiting for you to join him! Look at the shipspirits. They have never had flesh as you understand it. For the moment they choose to inhabit these shapes, but when their wood has fallen to dust and ashes, they are not unmade, just as we are not when our flesh has fallen to dust and ashes.”
“Where will we be then? What will we be?”
“We will be free, and that is how it will be for him you love, too. It is not an ending, but the beginning of a whole new adventure.” Ranulf gestured at the keel before him. “The shipspirits have shown us. The furthest reaches of the creation will be ours to explore, and when we tire of learning, we will find them sailing the silver seas at the world’s end, and they will carry us to the Hall of our Forefathers.”
Lodden leaned his forehead on the keel, unwilling to meet the old man’s gaze. “Then I shall never see him again... The Skral Forefathers would not allow an unSkral in, especially a Lyrian. I am everything they would despise most.”
“Maran will see the Hall of his Forefathers because that is what he expects to see. You, you will see your Lyrian Paradise, and he will be there to welcome you. Those that search for each other are brought together simply by the wish to be together. The shipspirits are very amused at our idea of the afterlife, you know. According to them, it is nothing like any of our expectations, but after a while we grow past expecting things to be as they are in this world and simply experience them as they really are.”
“I don’t understand!” Lodden wailed. “How can that be possible?”
“Some things just are.” The old bard smiled kindly. “You worry too much about logic and substance, Lodden. Neither reach further than the confines of that world we live in now. You play an important role here, both as friend and as craftsman. The fate of many lies in your hands. Have faith, and you shall do what is necessary.” Ranulf patted Lodden on the back and went quietly on his way.
Lodden leant his head on the wood again, and whispered, “How can I have faith in the face of such a test as this?” For a moment his heart quailed within him. Then, with an effort, he rallied. He would not let the man he loved stand this test alone. His determination grew to a steely core that ran through him. He would do his part and do it well, regardless of what it cost him. Whatever support Maran needed to be able to make his decision, he would have. He loved him without bounds, and if loving him meant letting him choose to go, Lodden would stand behind whatever choice the bard made. Again, strength and approval flowed into him from the ancient wood.
Lodden took a deep breath. “Thank you.” He patted the hull again and went to find people to help him move the hulls across the plain.
At the end of the day, with the low sun drifting wearily round the Dragon’s Teeth, the Elders came across the plain to see how the craftsman was getting on. In the middle of the Circle, the keels were placed roughly as they had been in the graveyard of ships. Maran was striding round with the parchment on which he had sketched the original lay-out. Every figurehead was scrutinised – all were worn and amorphous but not so much that the bard could not tell one from another. Satisfied that they were all in the correct place, he shouted across to Lodden, who was paying close attention to the ribs of the ship and how they fit together in the tight space. He had a paintbrush in the latest version of his new hand – the smith had made him a stronger spring to keep the thumb-lever closed- and every so often he made a mark on a rib, muttering to himself.
“This one juts across there. If it were a hand span shorter it would lie flush with that one. The second one can stay as it is but here is a problem. Which of these should lie over which? Hmmm....” He daubed on another blob of paint, and turned to greet the Elders. “Gentlemen.”
“H’hmm.”
“....and Lady.”
“What do you think, Lodden? Will it serve?” The Potentate’s face was tired and anxious.
“If I can do as the ships have commanded, it will serve.” Lodden gestured at the skeletal shapes around him. “Not in the sense that it will physically trap him, but that is not quite what the ships meant. They will keep him dormant, I think. In any case the instructions I have are quite precise. I don’t begin to understand why they want what they want but I’m just the builder. As long as they know what’s going on, that’s enough for me.”
“And this from a Lyrian!” The Potentate smiled at the others. “Will it be finished in time though?”
“How long do we have?”
“We’re not sure. The scouts will light the beacons when the army is sighted on land, and that should tell us where they are coming from. We still do not know whether he will send his army through the straits, but even if he tries to march them across from the other side of the island, we have a week at best and at worst, days.”
“How many days?” Lodden cast a measuring eye across the keels.
“How many do you need?”
“At least three for the Heart of Wood, if there are plenty of people to help.”
“And for the rest?” Tusken Seal gestured vaguely at the towering stone monoliths around them.
“That is not something I can tell you. They will finish the construction.” The craftsman nodded at the ship-skeletons whose deep-set eyes glittered in the red light of the falling sun.
“They will?”
“I don’t know how.”
Tusken Seal stroked his beard, thoughtful. “We will see what can be done to give you the time you will need. I will have my scout ships do
what they can to harry the Ice Lord’s flotilla. It may be that we can lead them off-course. At any rate, every soldier that dies on the ocean is one less to fight us here.”
“That is true, but be aware that the same applies to your own men,” the Mother warned. “Bravado aside, we need every last warrior here. Every ship they sink will help but we cannot afford to let them risk their own lives.”
“It will gall them. The Skral way is not to fight and run.”
“They’re not running away though,” the Mother snapped. “They’re running to the next battle, that’s all.”
“Oh. They might do that!” Tusken Seal’s face cleared. The Mother and the Potentate shared a glance that would have been amused in less serious circumstances. “When the Ice Lord gets here, what will happen? How does this trap work?”
Lodden hesitated. “I shall rebuild the Heart of Wood as it was in the graveyard of ships, and around the Heart of Wood I am to make walls of water.”
“Walls of water? Snow?” the Potentate ventured.
Lodden nodded. “The snow walls are to go over the whole of the Heart of Wood. The spirits say that when the Ice Lord goes in, we will be able to seal it off, and he will be trapped inside.”
“For how long?” Tusken Seal rumbled but the Potentate cut in.
“Wait a moment. How do we know that he will go in here?”
“The trap will last for as long as it is needed. I suppose it could be opened from the outside if there were those who were determined enough, but it would have to be a Skral. The ships would not respond to anyone else. There are no absolutes, of course, but given that your clan-halls lie within sight of the Circle, the story should go into your histories so that people should know what lurks within. And if all the Skral are wiped out and the knowledge is lost, there will not remain any who would be able to get past the ship-spirits.”
“You did not answer the Potentate’s question, Lodden. Why should the Ice Lord enter the Heart of Wood?” The Mother fixed him with a hard stare.
Lodden looked at his feet, clearly unhappy, but Maran laid a hand on the craftsman’s shoulder. “We know that the Ice Lord will enter because I will call him in.”
Tusken Seal snorted. “And what can a bard do?”
“What can a bard do?” Maran gestured widely. “I can play you a tune that will keep your feet dancing. I can sing you a song that will break your heart. And if I can speak with any man, I can play him a tune that promises all that his heart desires.”
“And this will call in the Ice Lord? A pretty tune?” The Mother’s voice dripped disbelief.
Maran executed a courtly little bow in front of her in a most unSkral-like manner and offered her his arm. “Come, the sun is down and we can do no more work in the cold of night. Back in the halls there is fire, food and ale, and we can discuss these things at leisure.” Raising an eyebrow at the others, she took his arm nevertheless and they all returned to the halls of the Tusken Seal clan, and sat at the long table to eat.
There was much banter and good-humour which at first Lodden found difficult to take. With death approaching, how could they be so uncaring? Gradually he realised that the jokes had a slight edge. Even the warlike Skral were doing just as he was, keeping talk light and laughter constant in an attempt not to think about the black clouds on the horizon.
When most people had finished eating and sat back comfortably on the benches to drink the last of their ale, Maran mounted to the dais at the top of the hall. There was much cheering and stamping of feet on the floor. He swept them all a deep bow and waited for the noise to die down.
“Warriors, ladies, and good peoples from the remainder of the world,” he began, “I am sad to tell you that my professional reputation has been called into doubt!”
There were cries of “No!” and “What reputation?”
He went on. “What is a bard good for, I have been asked?”
“Holding my axe while I kiss your sister!”
“I have promised your leaders a jig that will have your feet dancing, a song that will break your hearts, and a tune that promises all that the heart desires. So – are you ready to dance, my friends?”
“I ate too much to dance!” someone groaned from the back.
“You’ll dance regardless, man, with the tune I’m about to play for you,” Maran quipped, and picking up his knee harp, he began to play.
At first they found their feet twitching in time. Then they beat their fists or tankards on the table to keep rhythm with him, and eventually the whole hall was up on their feet, dancing.
The music was wild and carefree. The beat lifted them, the eddies and swirls of the melody had them whirling up the hall to the dais and careering back down the outside of the lines of dancers to progress through the steps again. They whooped and laughed as far as they had breath to do so, occasionally staggering out of the fray to gulp down a drink and then diving back into it. The older members of the audience clapped in time, as they could not keep up with the dancing. Even the oldest grandfather stood and stamped in time, though he held onto the back of his chair in case his bad knee gave out from under him.
Finishing with a flourish, Maran set down his harp and took a deep draught from his tankard. There was much cheering as the dancers stopped to catch their breath. Even the Mother and the Potentate had been caught up in it all, and returned to their seats flushed and breathless. Tusken Seal kissed his wife soundly before coming back to sit with them.
“And now a song to break your hearts.” Maran looked out at his people with a twisted half-smile. Tuning the harp to a minor key, he sang of the maiden Fathellas whose lover was lost at sea, and the deal she made with the sea-witch to give up her own life if her lover could be saved. At the end, her lover was returned to her on the sea shore and after one sweet kiss, the maiden was stolen away by a rolling wave. As Maran half-sang, half-whispered the last part, it seemed to Lodden that he was there with her, stabbed through with sorrow as she let go of all that she held dear in the knowledge that only through her could her love be saved. He stifled a sob, and glancing around saw that tears dripped from the faces of everyone there, warriors, children and women alike.
As the last note faded into silence, the people in the hall took a deep breath and another. Experiencing Fathellas’ sorrow, Lodden had been able to let go of his own fear. He was left feeling that perhaps something good could come out of all that they were going through. In the eyes of those around him, he saw those same tears of sadness and hope, that feeling of a future restored.
“A song to break your hearts,” Maran said softly, “and a tune to promise all the heart desires.” He glanced over at Lodden, gave him a smile of singular sweetness and paused in thought for a moment. But Lodden wiped the tears from his face and stood suddenly. All eyes turned to him.
“Elders, let us agree that this young man can do that which he has promised.” It was a battle to keep his voice light and jocular but he did so. “And let us agree it quickly, for I am mortally afraid that he will play me a tune promising a beaker of vintage red wine from my homeland. I should never recover from the longing for it!”
The laughter dissolved into cries for more of Maran’s dancing tunes, and when the bard tired, he gave over the stage to musicians and storytellers from the Shantar and Gai Renese contingents, who kept the crowd entertained late into the night. Maran came back to general applause, and Lodden handed him a beaker of ale, which he downed thirstily. He set his harp safely in a corner, and made himself comfortable on the bench to listen to the stories which were his passion, his currency and his trade.
Lodden sat next to him, slightly at an angle so that he could watch the bard’s reaction to the tales as well as the storytellers on the dais. There were many stories that night from the three different nations, and this meant that no person there knew all the stories and each one was heard for the first time by many of the audience. It was a raucous, appreciative crowd.
Maran listened with easy enthusi
asm, his expressive face showing his amusement. In the smoky, mead-scented warmth of the hall, he laughed and shouted with everyone else as the stories progressed, sometimes leaning over to make some quip or other. Lodden treasured his every touch. He knew he should not wish for more. Maran’s reaction to his love had been generous and affectionate, and that trust was an honour that he would never tarnish but, to his shame, Lodden could not stop himself from yearning to kiss him, to feel his hands upon his body. He never would, though, and he should not think of it. To do so was only to torture himself with no possible relief, and besides, even thinking about the bard in that way was to betray his trust a little bit. He crushed the thoughts ruthlessly, and made himself concentrate on the storytelling, but it did not help. He rose to refill his tankard, and when he came back, sat a little further away where the bard’s touch was not such a distraction.
“I would have played for you,” Maran whispered later that night as the crowd was dispersing. “I should have played you a few moments of happiness at least.”
“I could not bear to hear about that which my heart desires the most, when I know I shall lose it.” Lodden’s voice trembled with tears, and finally losing control, he strode out into the cold night. It was long before he ventured back inside, bringing the cold breath of snow with him, and made his way into the hall to bed down with the rest of them.
The next day passed in a flurry of activity. The first step was to rebuild the Heart, and it had already taken the efforts of many people to reload the keels onto the sandships and haul them across the plain to the Dragon’s Teeth. Teams of men and women of all races had hauled on the ropes and now all thirteen keels were in place.
Though the Dragon’s Teeth was large when empty, with the Heart rebuilt inside it there would be little extra room. Much work was needed and yet few could fit in to do it. The stronger members of each team stood ready to help lift the keels, and Lodden flitted from one keel to the next, working out how they would fit together. It was dark and crowded in the confines of the circle of stones, and tempers were fraying but Lodden worked on. The ends of the beams had to be trimmed to fit, and the keels bound in place. Even with his new hand he could not knot ropes into loops, but Asri pointed out that she did not need to be able to see to tie knots and so between them, the work went on until each keel was bound and supported in a nest of ropes.
By now the light was fading and the day was nearly gone.
“Is it secure?” Maran stretched.
Lodden tested the rope with his good hand. “Secure enough for the moment.”
“It is too dark and cold to stay in here. Let us finish for the day.”
“There is much still to be done, still, and the time is so short...” But Lodden hesitated. Maran’s face was shadowed. His future lay heavily on him here. Asri had been right to say that the stones were waiting. “Everyone, thank you for your help. We will need you back out here at first light tomorrow to finish.” A general cheer went up, and slowly the cramped space emptied as the workers filtered out into the blue chill of the evening.
In the last light of dusk, the chamber was shadowed, the intricate ropes looped and relooped around the skeletal keels. The beastlike figureheads comforted him a little, but the stones breathed cold into the centre, and the thought of being here for any length of time.... Lodden shuddered.
Maran laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Do not think about it, my brother. Come back to the clanhall.”
That night Maran was a little subdued. When the people called for a tale, he had none to tell, remaining quiet in his seat with Lodden.
At first there was a murmur of dismay, but to everyone’s surprise Asri stood, and her son guided her to the storyteller’s place, blushing at all the eyes on him. Lodden was amused and surprised – he had thought her too self-effacing to give such a performance – but soon he was carried away with the story and simply listened, as did the others in the hall
Asri felt behind her for the high seat, and once safely ensconced there, she began. “In these latter days I have discovered an amazing thing. Despite the miles that separate these islands from my own Mountains, many of the tales I have heard here are similar to tales that we tell at home. I do not think that this is a coincidence, because the tales of Gai Ren and Lyria are so very different. Rather it makes me think that once upon a time our peoples may have been more closely entwined, even as we are now. Be that as it may, I have heard your story of the Circle of Stones, more often called the Dragon’s Teeth, and it reminded me of a story of my own land which tells of just such a circle. Shall I tell it to you?”
Roars of approval and interest greeted her question. She settled back on her chair more comfortably and began, putting on all the voices and expressions as if she was telling it to the children.