by S. W. Clarke
Unlike Prairie, who entered the game with perfect physicality—self-defense, acrobatics, driving, archery, most every kind of weaponry, really—Veda had no preparation for this; her whole life had been inside her mind, working with AI.
But she could grow. She’d already seen herself change, and now she was riding. If Prairie could see Veda barely hanging on, she’d laugh herself to the ground—but she’d still be impressed. Veda needed more time, though. The countdown had just reached 76 hours, and she still needed to find Galen and Eli.
Just as they broke the treeline, a notification appeared in the corner of her interface that she’d gained the riding skill. She hardly had time to be proud. The canopy shrouded her chilling darkness, the trees packed so thick she didn’t know how the hestur could navigate them at this speed. And he hadn’t slowed; if anything, they moved faster, Agnar twining his way past the trunks. Trees appeared and disappeared as fast as they’d entered her vision. It was dizzying, and she had to close her eyes for seconds at a time to reorient. It was in those moments she began to feel the hestur, to understand the motion of his gait—one, two, three; one, two, three—and how his body preferred to dart right, the head leading the abdomen before resuming course.
With her ear pressed to his back, she heard a rumbling. It reminded her of a growl, but this was more like an engine that had started low and, moment by moment, gained power. When Veda lifted her face, she could still hear it. The hestur was pleased—excited—completely under his own power. So she dared to peer ahead, to feel a little at ease. He took them on a course deep and deeper into the forest.
“Where are we going, Agnar?” Veda said. She noticed now that he lifted his head more and more often, scenting, and she sensed he was taking them to a place he’d been before. They had begun to angle right, circling, closing in on a single spot. The spiral grew tighter until Agnar brought them into a copse, galloped to a single point and skidded to a stop so hard she nearly dropped over the front of him.
She had just regained her balance when Agnar commenced an agitated pawing with his left forehoof. “Woah,” she said, pulling back on the mane. Agnar jerked his head, whinnying a protest. And she understood. “There’s something here.” In response, the hestur snorted, all four legs in stamping motion.
Veda feared if she dismounted, the stallion would take off, leave her in the middle of the forest. But she had the whistle, and she had used it once to summon him—she knew she could do so again. She swung her leg over his side, found herself dangling much higher than she’d expected. Veda squeezed her eyes shut and then pushed herself away from the hestur, landing hard in the snow. Her ankles protested, and she rolled onto her backside.
That dismount hadn’t been a good idea; her legs smarted, and her health had been dinged. But she did have full mana and a spell at her disposal. When she cast it, the hestur set wide black eyes on the golden light issuing from her hands. He let a hot, visible breath as she lowered her hands to her ankles. As soon as she touched them, the pain lessened, her own mana spreading like carbonate through the muscle and tendons. And in her interface, her health ticked up from 95 to 113. Veda cast it once more to top herself off at 125.
Again, the delirious pleasure issued through her; she could get used to that sensation. She sat in a half haze as her heart slowed, sat until she heard more than the blood in her ears. This was the deep forest of Issverold, the trees laden and creaking with snow. Somewhere a bird trilled, a low and carrying sound she’d never heard in the first world, or in the real world. It was probably one of Sicora’s creations just for this place, like the hestur who stood before her. The bird and the horse and the entire world were an amalgam of minds, of the fifteen of them spread out across the ice-scape. This place was how they all combined.
What did that say about all of them? Together, their fears and desires and experiences had created a harsh, beautiful world. Veda lifted her face. Here the trees allowed in the sky, light diffusing through the clouds onto her cheeks. It was a peaceful, quiet spot. And she knew that, for the first time in her life, she was really seeing snow. This vast whiteness, large flakes like feathers drifting past the trees, was how it looked to people with working eyes.
She was grateful—grateful to the other fourteen for allowing her to experience this place, even if it had almost killed her. Because of them, she’d met Herathor and Agnar. Because of them, she’d seen snow.
The hestur resumed his agitated pawing, displacing the snow. Away from Agnar the chill of Issverold closed in on her, and she yanked her gloves from her tunic, slid them on. She stood, and this time her ankles didn’t protest. Turned out, she thought as she approached the hestur, being a healer was helpful in a game that prioritized survival.
“What is it?” she said, venturing close to where Agnar’s muzzle pressed into the ground. He seemed keen on one spot, but the snow ran deep. Veda dropped to her knees, gritting her teeth as the cold seeped through her pants. She leaned forward, pressing snow away from the spot the hestur’s velvet mouth set to. They soon reached hard pack, and her gloves became useless. She pulled the staff from her back and stood. “Careful, Ag,” she said, and drove the staff at an angle into the snow. She was able to get some purchase, and a whole chunk cracked, lifted away.
There in the uncovered space, five fingertips reached toward the sky.
Seventeen
The sun had passed its peak when Veda and hestur appeared at the treeline. She rode slow, an easier seat than when she’d left, and as they approached the cabin, Amy ran through the snow. “Hey stranger,” she called, hands cupped at her mouth. Veda didn’t respond, and as the hestur came closer, Amy’s hands lowered. She stood silent, watching them go by.
Herathor came around the side of the cabin with his axe slung over one shoulder. He waited as Veda led Agnar up, and when the hestur circled around and lowered to his belly, the man dropped his axe with a thump into the snow. He helped to ease the body from Agnar’s back. “She was like that,” Veda said as she stepped off, “when Agnar found her.” The woman appeared asleep in Herathor’s arms, her body frozen fetal.
But Herathor didn’t hear Veda. He stood staring into the sleeping face, and Veda dismounted without sound, led the hestur around to the lean-to in the back. When she returned, Herathor hadn’t moved, and Veda set one arm on Amy’s shoulder. The two of them passed inside the cabin, while in the snow the man began a quiet and muffled weeping.
A half hour later he entered with the same heavy footsteps, the door thudding closed and latched behind. Veda and Amy sat staring into the fire as Herathor rummaged in his chest, brought out a long and rich length of brown bear hide. Veda turned after a time, found that he had wrapped Brynhild in the hide, laid her enshrouded on the floor by the hearth. Now he sat silent on the stool, his head bowed.
Veda came to him, knelt alongside. “I’m sorry.”
The man’s hands were pressed to his face. “It’s a good thing you did. I never expected the hestur could find her,” he said, his voice thick. He stooped to the wrappings. “Now I best get to burying her.”
QUEST UNLOCKED AND COMPLETED: His Missing Lady. You discovered the body of Brynhild, Herathor Strongarm’s disappeared wife. By returning her body to Herathor, you’ve earned his gratitude.
Veda stood. “Do you need help?”
Herathor lifted the body. “No, girl. Not with this.”
When he had gone out, Veda returned to where Amy sat hunched by the fire, sat on the floorboards next to her. “I’m glad you found me,” she said.
Amy stared at the fire, allowed a small smile. “I almost didn’t. The compass wanted to take me straight over a mountain, and I had to pick a long way around.”
“How did you survive the exposure?”
“This.” Her hand lowered to her waist, slid a long and wicked dagger from its sheath.
“That knife?” Veda asked, uncomprehending.
“Helps when you’re skinning wargs.” She lifted the dagger’s point to tap the grey pel
t wrapped over her shoulders.
“Wargs?”
“Big wolves. Massive teeth. Fortunately I found an omega, a cast-off. I was able to get him with a few arrows before he reached me.”
Veda’s hand went to the pelt; her fingers sank into the thick fur. “You made that cloak with the skinning skill?”
“No—I skinned it with the skinning skill. I leatherworked it together during the night I spent inside the worst excuse for a cave you ever saw.”
“Leatherworked? Is that another skill?”
Amy nodded. “One I more or less always pick up during the sorting, if I can—I’m a leather-wearer, after all. I’m level 2 in it now.”
“So I could be a clothworker?”
“A tailor,” Amy said. “Or a metalsmith, if you wore plate. Really depends on the kind of armor you settle on.”
“It isn’t determined by my class?”
“Like most things, it’s determined by your choices. You pick up cloth, you become a cloth healer. You pick up plate, you start clanging around the forest.”
Veda glanced down at her own clothing: the tunic, the breeches. “Mine automatically upgraded from cloth to leather when I entered this world.”
Amy picked at the hem of Veda’s tunic. “That can happen, too. Sounds like you did a little bit of scrapping yourself.”
The fight with Wanath had done it, probably—Galen wasn’t the only one to take hits.
“Have you figured out what the countdown is for?” Amy asked.
Veda lifted her eyes. “Herathor told me: it’s the beginning of autumn in Issverold. Almost the entire world turns fatally cold.”
Amy made a face. “He just told you? I had to decipher some ancient inscriptions in that cave.”
Veda shrugged. “Maybe Sicora was trying to apologize for spawning me at the top of a mountain.”
“Fair enough,” Amy said. “So we stay here and survive,”—she sent her pointer finger into the air—“or we can try to find Galen and Eli.” She extended a second finger.
Outside, Herathor had begun digging. The sound of scraping snow was slow, methodical. “We already agreed at dinner that we would come for them. We need to bring them here, or to the midlands, where we can survive outdoors,” Veda said.
“It’s a big world is all,” Amy said, setting her eyes on the fire. “Sometimes you can’t stick to the plan.”
Veda turned to Amy, observing her in profile. After everything they’d talked about, she was wavering? A saying came into her mind: “Gain wealth, forgetting all but self.” Where had she heard it? The phrase had existed in the ether of her mind forever, always, and sometimes came to her in her previous life: when Prairie was replaced with Dairy, when she sat at lunch with Sybil and they listened to the surrounding conversations about money, money, money. When her employer had decided to fully integrate their clones.
She hated that saying.
“Galen saved my life more than once,” Veda said. “I’m going. You’re welcome to stay here.”
Amy’s face turned, her eyes moving off the fire to meet Veda’s hard look. A tense moment passed, an electric line between the two of them, before Amy shook her head. “With him? Please, I’d end up calling everyone ‘girl’ all the time. Where you go, I go.”
“Okay,”—she resettled herself toward Amy—“but why? Just a second ago you were considering staying.”
“You’re vulnerable alone, Veda. We need our healer.”
“It’s more than that. You picked me out at the hyperloop station. You saved me in the compass world. You’re prepared to die to help me in this world.”
“I’m helping Galen and Eli, actually,” she corrected. She picked at the fur lining her boots. “But it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, does it? I’m a vet, a scrapper, and you’re just a rook.”
“Galen told me I should trust you,” Veda said.
“He’s right.”
Veda searched Amy’s face; she didn’t sense any subterfuge, any trickery. Most of all, she trusted Galen. “Okay.”
Amy appeared surprised. “You’re soft for a dupe.”
Soft. That had been true as far back as Veda could remember. Prairie was the loud one, the aggressive one—even her features were sharper, her cheekbones and her hair. Veda had the mass of curls, the oval face. And she had gone with Jacob Henry without a fight.
“I’m a different model—” Veda began.
“No,” Amy said. Her dark eyes were sharp now. “You’re you. Maybe you’ve been trained to think and feel a certain way, but that’s not why you’re leaving this cabin.”
“I’m engineered to help humans.”
“Stop with that bullshit.” Veda nearly flinched; Amy seemed angry. “You’re kind, Veda. You’re just good. I could see it as soon you walked off that train with your thumbs in your backpack straps.”
Veda’s throat began to close. She didn’t know what to say, and her face lowered.
Amy chucked her chin, forced her to meet eyes. “Don’t be embarrassed.” Her finger touched the wetness on Veda’s cheek. “Remember this when you think you aren’t human.”
Veda held her gaze, didn’t break it though every instinct drove her to. She offered a nearly imperceptible nod.
Amy took her hands. “Now stop crying,” she said, “because I know where to look for them. But like I said: it’s a big, big world.”
The clouds cleared for a rare and multi-hued sunset. Four figures stood under the white tree, Agnar’s velvet nose surveying the snow around the body wrapped in animal skins. From somewhere Herathor had found a purple flower with a thin stem, which he had given to Veda to hold.
“It’s a harsh world,” Herathor said, stooping to lift her body, and with surprising gingerness, knelt to lower her into the grave. He stared into the spot he’d dug into the earth. “But she’d conquered it. Not many do what they aspire to in life, and even fewer are satisfied once they do. But Brynhild did both, and she brought the sweetest lass into Issverold to boot.”
Veda stood with a lowered head, her hair blowing in the razor-sharp wind. She wondered if she would ever love someone so much that their loss would tempt her to walk barefoot in the snow, to keep walking until the world froze her through and she died where she fell. And she also wondered how Herathor endured the loss of the little girl and Brynhild, how he kept chopping wood, making the stew, going to sleep and rising day after day, each one lived alone except for the hestur in the lean-to. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t ask him for this; if he lost the hestur, he would be truly alone.
Agnar snorted, stamped a massive hoof into the snow as the other three piled dirt back in. He was an intelligent creature, loyal. And like Veda, he couldn’t see out of his eyes most of the time. The hestur followed them back to the cabin with surprising docility, close at Veda’s heels. And when the other two stepped inside, Veda only had to set a hand to his side to lead him to the lean-to. She stabled him for the night, didn’t bother with the hobbling. When she had closed the gate, Veda pressed the mane back from one of his eyes. The hestur surveyed her with that liquid orb. “Well done finding her,” she said. “You did good, Agnar.”
Back at the cabin, she stamped the snow from her boots at the front door, stepped inside to find Herathor stoking the fire and Amy leant against the wall, pulling balls of snow from the fur on her cloak. She closed the door behind her, and Herathor spoke from behind. “You should leave as early as you can bear it. I’ll provide you all the supplies you can carry on the hestur.”
Veda turned from the door, her hand gone to the whistle at her neck. “Herathor,” she said.
“Don’t fight me, girl—I’m stronger and smarter. The hestur is yours, and it won’t follow anyone but you. Think on it, and you’ll know it’s true.”
She was silent. She knew—had known—it was true, just as he said. “You’ll be alone.”
“We were both alone, the hestur and I, together. It’ll warm me to think of him doing what Brynhild did those years ago once agai
n.”
It wasn’t a time for crying, and he wasn’t a man of tears. “Thank you,” she said.
He nodded, turned back to the stew.
A prompt blinked in the corner of Veda’s interface:
ITEM SOULBOUND: Agnar’s Whistle
EFFECT: Can be used to summon your companion, Agnar. This hestur has been passed down to you from the giantess Brynhild Strongarm. He will remain loyal to you for as long as you should live.
For as long as she should live. Did “soulbound” mean the whistle would accompany her if she had the fortune to survive Issverold? She shouldn’t even think that far ahead: she and Amy hadn’t even faced the real trial of this world—that would come in 65 hours.
Near the window, Amy continued picking snow from her clothing. Veda crossed to the wood pile, brought another piece of tinder for the hearth.
“You’ll also need what’s atop the chest,” Herathor said, indicating it with his chin.
There she found a rolled scroll, pulled it wide to reveal a tall map. This was the world the way Herathor had described it to her: the northlands at the top, the midlands surrounded by water, and the southlands at the bottom. The description appeared:
ITEM: Map of Issverold
QUALITY: Unique
STATS: None.
EFFECTS: None.
“You said you didn’t have a map,” Veda said.
“To my mind, I didn’t; I’d buried all things Brynhild for years. I’d nearly forgotten the thing was in there at all.”
And maybe he hadn’t wanted to go digging around in those memories, Veda thought. She held the map flat, inspecting every part of it. A deft hand had inked forests, hills, rivers and landmarks. At the top, she spotted Fjall Bjornstad. And at the bottom…”Herathor, what’s this?” she asked, setting her her finger over what appeared to be a house drawn in the southlands.
Herathor turned on the stool, squinted. “That’s Brynhild’s home, it is, where her Ma and Pa live.”