by David Drake
“The same man,” said a nymph.
“If he’s a man,” objected another.
“Well,” said a third. “As much as Corylus is a man, don’t you think?”
“Only not nearly so nice!” objected two together.
“Nemastes was one of the Band,” said Sorba, who seemed to have a leading if not dominating position among her sisters. She pointed behind them to the cone smoking on the northern horizon. “They live there, on what the nomads in Thule call the Horn.”
“They’re Hyperboreans, like Nemastes?” said Corylus.
The nymphs tittered behind raised hands. Even Sorba smiled. She said, “We’re all Hyperboreans to your people, dear Corylus. We live above the north wind. But Nemastes and his siblings live on the Horn, and that is true of them alone.”
“No one can go onto the Horn,” said a nymph. “And the Twelve can’t leave it now, though their souls do sometimes.”
“Nemastes left it,” said another nymph. “He left, and he took the talisman of Botrug with him.”
“Nemastes left to rule the world alone,” Sorba said, nodding in agreement, “for all time.”
“The Twelve remain on the Horn,” said a nymph, “but not really in it.”
“They have a connection,” said a sister. “A close connection to this world.”
“But they aren’t not in it,” chorused three together, nodding as they spoke. “Not in this world.”
“Or in your world either, Corylus,” said one of the two who’d spoken before.
“Though your world is this world now,” said the other with a giggle.
“Nemastes may destroy his siblings,” said Sorba, “or the Twelve may destroy Nemastes. But either would destroy you if they got the opportunity, dear Corylus.”
“They’ll destroy the world between them, like as not,” said a nymph.
“This world and your world,” said another.
“And perhaps the Horn as well,” said a third. “Even the Horn, where there’s nothing but rock, and the wizards dance with demons.”
“Nothing but rock and fire,” a nymph agreed with sad finality.
“We’ll help you, though, Corylus,” Sorba said. “For kinship’s sake.”
“And because you’re so handsome,” tittered a nymph behind her raised hand.
“So very handsome!” said another. “And so strong.”
“Here, I’ll borrow your knife,” said Sorba. Corylus nodded permission, but the nymph had already reached to the hilt and drawn it from its sealskin case. The blade of gray-green glass winked like the eye of a cat.
“Oh, use me!” said a nymph, clapping her hands together.
“Me!” the whole troop chorused. “Me, oh me!”
“Hush, Sisters!” Sorba said sternly. “Me, of course.”
She lifted a lock of hair between her left thumb and forefinger and sawed it off close to the roots with the obsidian blade. She slipped the knife back into its sheath while she tucked the pinch of hair into the upturned peak of the hat Corylus had taken from Odd’s corpse.
Sorba kissed him lightly on the lips, then hopped back and grinned. Her sisters giggled like reed chimes.
“Now,” said Sorba, “you need to be on your way.”
She pointed her arm southward. Corylus turned. On the horizon several miles away were six humped forms. A herd of pony-sized creatures spread widely across the landscape to east and west of the larger animals.
“The elephants?” he said. They seemed to be carrying burdens.
“The mammoths,” said/corrected Sorba. “And the reindeer. The Tribe is camping, dear Corylus. There you will find Frothi and Nemastes. Be careful.”
“Do be careful, Corylus,” other voices said, fading as they spoke.
“Thank you—,” Corylus said as he turned toward the dryads, but they had vanished. “Well, thank you anyway.”
He still hadn’t eaten. He shouldered his light pack anyway and resumed his trek southward.
“Frothi and Nemastes,” whispered a voice that was only in his mind. “And the bone flute, Corylus; and vengeance.”
THOUGH ALPHENA STEPPED FROM Deriades’ dwelling into the same forest where she’d fought the sphinx, the sky now was bright as day. Bright as day, but it wasn’t really daylight because there wasn’t any sun that she could see.
She looked carefully, but she couldn’t see the dwelling she’d been in a moment before. At her feet was an arc of spiky puffballs, but they were all small.
Alphena didn’t quite hug herself, but she rubbed her biceps with the opposite hands. It was comforting to remember that her stepmother was searching for her. That her mother was searching for her. Hedia would figure something out.
Alphena didn’t know what to do, but she walked—strolled, really; she had no destination—along what was probably a chance aisle among the trees rather than a path. Most of the vegetation looked wrong, but she wasn’t some gardener who knew the names of plants and how they were supposed to look.
Corylus was a gardener, or anyway his father was. She wished he were here. But in a way she couldn’t have explained, the fact that Hedia was coming to find her was more comforting than the youth’s presence would have been.
Alphena drew the sword and looked at its curved delicacy. It didn’t seem to weigh any more than a dandelion stalk, but the more she examined it, the less of a toy it seemed.
What on earth is the blade made of? It certainly isn’t steel, not with that rainbow luster.
But maybe that was the wrong question to ask. Wherever this place was, it wasn’t on earth.
Alphena sheathed the sword and resumed her amble through the forest. Just ahead was what looked like an ordinary oak, standing out from trees which seemed to have snakes or even seaweed in their ancestry. On an outstretched limb sat a brunette who could have modeled for a statue of Athena: hard, beautiful, and sneeringly superior.
Alphena stopped in consternation. How long has this woman been watching?
“I am Alphena,” she called, her voice commanding. “Daughter of Senator Gaius Alphenus Saxa. Who are you?”
“I’m Dryope,” said the woman, “if it’s any of your business.”
The limb was ten feet up the heavy trunk, but Dryope slid easily from it to the ground. Her knees flexed as she landed, but she instantly straightened.
“And you didn’t need to tell me your name, girl,” she continued, “because I already knew it, and because it doesn’t matter. You don’t matter.”
Alphena started toward the older woman, flexing her right hand. She wouldn’t use the sword, but if this bitch thought she could get away with being openly insulting—
“You’re the one who Nemastes marked out,” said Dryope. “You’re a piece in his game.”
Nemastes is back in Carce. “How do you know about Nemastes in this place?” Alphena said, pleased that her voice didn’t tremble as it rose into a question.
“And what better place is there to know about Nemastes?” Dryope said with a laugh of cultured scorn. “I know that he’s a mistake, dearie. Which is more than you know—but you don’t know much of anything, do you?”
To Alphena’s surprise, that sneer cooled her mind instead of driving her into a fury. She looked with detachment at what was going on. Dryope was being pointlessly nasty because she felt weak and ignored; which, if she lived alone here in the forest, she probably was.
Alphena smiled. She had a sword; Dryope didn’t have any weapon or armor. The power was in the hands of Alphena, daughter of Gaius, who therefore could afford to be magnanimous.
“Then tell me about Nemastes, Lady Dryope,” she said. “So that I can see for myself how wise you are.”
Dryope’s eyes narrowed. How old was she, anyway? Her skin and hair were too fine for someone even thirty, but despite that she gave the impression of age if not of wisdom.
“The shaman Botrug summoned Nemastes and his siblings, the Band, from far away,” Dryope said, her gaze watchful as though expecting Alphe
na to use the words to trap her. “Botrug thought he could control them and use their power.”
“They’re all Hyperboreans?” Alphena said. As she spoke she realized that she might better have stayed silent, but it was too late once the first syllable was out.
“None of them are Hyperboreans,” Dryope said; the sneer had returned. “Botrug was a Hyperborean, but the Band came from a distance you can’t fathom, girl. They’re not Indians or even the Serians who weave your silk. They’re from much farther away.”
“You’re very wise, milady,” Alphena said submissively. In this place she could use a sword on someone if she wanted to. That’s what she’d done to the sphinx, in fact. Alphena had as much power as she wanted to take. Knowing that sluiced away her frustration.
“Wiser than you,” the older woman sniffed. “Wiser than Botrug too. The Band couldn’t touch him, but they could enter the dreams of Botrug’s brother. The brother made an image of Botrug, and the shaman is trapped in it.”
A line of gleaming birds twittered into the clearing, curved around the oak, and vanished again. Alphena could hear their high-pitched cries for a moment longer.
Her tongue touched her lips. They hadn’t been birds. They were green dragonflies, seven of them, and each bore a tiny human rider in bright clothing. One had waved and called Alphena’s name as he zipped past.
“Nemastes is in Carce,” Alphena said, forcing her mind away from the procession of insects. “But his brothers are here?”
Dryope laughed. She was delighted at the chance to use her knowledge—not wisdom, but the silly cow thought it was—to toy with Alphena.
“No, of course not, little child,” she said. “Nemastes is in the waking world, which he hopes to rule, while the Twelve are on the Horn. The Twelve will destroy Nemastes’ world, your world, to protect themselves.”
The woman’s laughter wasn’t forced, but Alphena heard more madness than humor in it. “The Legions of Surtr will race over the waking world, dearie, leaving nothing in their wake except the smoking rock. Nothing but the Horn, where the Twelve have walled themselves behind spells that not even they can break!”
Alphena licked her lips again. Most of the vegetation around her had sharp outlines, as though it were a painted stage set. She imagined it curling at the touch of flames, turning to heat and blackness and terror.
She’d seen great fires. Anyone who lived in Carce was likely to have, since the buildings were close together and the top floors of even the most modern had walls of wicker under a thin coat of plaster. It was easy to imagine flames lapping the whole horizon, sweeping down on Carce, over Carce—
She swallowed. Over Alphena, daughter of Gaius.
“But the real joke, little girl,” Dryope said, her voice rising into a shriek. “The real joke is who will lead the fire that destroys you, all of you! Your brother will lead the legions, dearie, with the talisman of Botrug!”
Alphena drew the sword and stepped forward. Dryope blinked in sudden awareness, then slipped backward and vanished. Into the oak, but maybe that was an illusion.
Alphena was breathing hard. She raised her sword to slash the trunk—Deriades had claimed the blade would cut even rock. Instead she sheathed it again.
However sharp and strong the blade was, it wasn’t an axe and it wasn’t meant for felling trees. In this place she might need the sword for a sphinx or something worse than a sphinx. And besides …
Alphena got control of her breathing. She hugged herself for a moment, then continued on through the forest.
And besides, there was enough destruction already, in this world as well as her own. She wouldn’t create more unless she had to.
HEDIA STEPPED INTO COLOR AND WARMTH, which would have been a pleasant change from her late husband’s dank gray world even if—she smiled at the thought, but it wasn’t really a joke—it involved the hot breath of an orange tiger from India. Now that she was out of that cave, she wasn’t sure that she could bring herself to reenter it if that was required.
Latus said he expects me to join him eventually. I’ll die first. She clamped her lips over peals of hysterical laughter.
Hedia was in a forest of beech and … she looked at the ground and found as she expected the quartered black husks that had covered hickory nuts … yes, hickories. Waving immediately overhead, however, was a near blanket of what looked like giant dock leaves. They filtered the light to a yellowish green.
She stopped, frowning. Her husband had promised her a guide. The gods and Hedia too knew that Latus would lie, had lied, on almost any subject, but there hadn’t been any reason for him to lie about this. Was she looking in the wrong place?
Something chirped from the top of a hickory. The call ended in a metallic cling-cling-cling that made her wonder if it was really a bird.
Hedia began walking. The dock stems were fuzzy; she kept her distance from them, wondering if they would make her itch if her arm brushed them. The call sounded again, and she walked more quickly.
A mass of blackberry canes with white flowers mounded a fallen log. In the heart of the brambles Hedia noticed a bird’s nest. As she glanced away, tiny human faces peeped from the nest and giggled. She stopped and jerked her attention back.
They vanished. There was nothing in the nest but down from the parent birds, worked with cobwebs into a lining for the structure of woven twigs.
Hedia stopped and squinted. Her gaze wanted to glance off to one side or another, but she forced herself to concentrate on the interior of the nest.
And there they were: human figures, tiny but perfectly formed, smiling back at her. “Good morning, missie!” called one. He looked at his companion and said, “She can see us, Arga.”
“She’s very pretty, Grattus,” the little female said. Then, doubtfully, “Is she prettier than me, do you think?”
Probably not, thought Hedia. The sprite’s features were perfect beyond what anything human could attain to.
Smiling coldly, Hedia continued on into what became open woodland. There was a person’s appearance, which was an asset that came from the gods and a good team of cosmeticians; and then there was the way a person used her assets. Hedia wasn’t afraid to compete with any woman she’d met. If she included tiny, lovely sprites now, well, she still wasn’t afraid.
To the left, lines of great linden trees framed an alley. In it danced … men and women, she thought, some of them holding wands high in one hand or the other. At first she thought they wore tunics or kirtles of thin fabric. As they dipped and spun, their garments shifted place and color: they were made of light itself.
The whirling figures closest to Hedia smiled and beckoned. She turned and walked on more swiftly.
The dancers’ skin had a faint reddish cast, and their figures were too regular for Hedia to be confident that they and she were the same species. Besides that, she heard enough of the faint music to which they danced that she feared if she joined them she would never be able to leave.
Three purple herons, familiar to Hedia from the marshes near Baiae, strode from the heavy brush and trotted past her in the other direction, their necks stretching out and curving back with each step. Riding each bird was a chipmunk wearing a yellow cap, red vest, and blue trousers. They watched Hedia silently, their heads turning till they were almost looking back between their own shoulders.
The herons vanished into the undergrowth. The black feathers in the riders’ caps mimicked the birds’ crests.
Hedia walked on. Would her guide be a chipmunk? Not one of those chipmunks, at least … but she glanced back to be sure.
She wasn’t afraid, exactly, but she was frustrated because she didn’t know what was happening. Rather, she didn’t know what was supposed to happen: nothing was happening.
Hedia trusted her late husband within the limits of their bargain, but he’d never been communicative. Death hadn’t changed that for the better, though … she remembered the way Latus had seemed to be sinking into the foliage of that horrible forest whe
n she left him. It might be that learning more wouldn’t have made her easier in her mind.
To Hedia’s left was a grove of maples. She glimpsed a patch of tawny hide within the undergrowth of evening olive and spiky, brittle viburnum bushes.
A deer, she thought. The animal turned and looked at her with human eyes, then crashed out of sight deeper in the thicket.
The forest to her right had grown deeper and much darker. Sheets of gray lichen hung from the branches of great trees. Hoots from far in the distance could have been birds, but she didn’t think they were.
Something large splashed into an unseen body of water. Hedia wondered for an instant if it or another behemoth would shortly burst out of the screen of willows and mimosas, but nothing did. She took her hand off the little dagger.
Someone was playing a lyre among the oaks ahead. The shade was deep enough to thin the undergrowth, but saplings whose trunks were only the diameter of Hedia’s finger nonetheless impeded the way. She held the spindly branches to keep them from snagging her garments as she walked by.
Occasionally she broke one off, but that was accidental. She had the feeling that it would be better not to leave more trace of her passage than she had to.
The music was coming closer—well, she was approaching it; the source hadn’t moved. She didn’t recall ever hearing a lyre played more beautifully. She stepped carefully past a holly tree and looked into a clearing without seeing the musician.
Drawn by the plangent tune, Hedia looked up. A web spread from the top of a hickory to a huge white oak. A spider whose body was the size of a pony hung from the silk by her back legs; with the three pairs remaining, she played the lyre.
The spider’s multiple eyes followed as Hedia walked on at a measured pace, carefully avoiding any hint that she was frightened. She looked over her shoulder as soon as she was out of the clearing, but only the music followed her. It slowly faded, and even more slowly, Hedia brought her thudding heartbeat under control.
She was approaching a garden. It hadn’t been hacked out of the forest; rather, the forest was encroaching into it. The wall of fieldstones laid without mortar was collapsing in the embrace of tree roots, and the plantings were bushy and overgrown.