Fambra raised her eyebrows. "You know that's insane, right?"
Jendara shrugged. "Insane's not so bad, you know. Living with my arm like this has got to be worse than insanity."
"Okay." Fambra pointed up ahead at a narrow inlet between two arms of rocky cliff. "Things might get a little rough going through that." Waves pounded the rocks in powerful explosions of spray and foam. Anemones and sea stars peered out from the froth like suspicious orange and purple eyes.
But the gaze Jendara could feel came from nothing as innocent as sea anemones. Two large eyes blinked from beneath a chunk of rock near the base of the cliff. "The sea serpent." Jendara gripped the railing of the deck. "I can handle a sea serpent."
The eyes shot out from beneath the rocks, a dark scaly head the size of a bushel basket launching itself toward the boat. At the last second, it split open to reveal an array of spiky white teeth and a pink tongue. Jendara dropped to her knees as it dove at the last second.
"Did you see that?" she shrieked at Fambra, who was too busy cursing at her tiller to answer. The boat twisted to the left, barely missing an outcropping of rock the waves had hidden.
Jendara scrambled upright. The serpent lunged again, threatening, its black scales throwing off droplets of water. She tried to make out just how long it was, but its hide matched the rock walls too well, down to the barnacles. Only its gaping maw gave it away. Once more, it dove back beneath the water.
Then the port side of the boat lifted into the air. Jendara slid across the deck. The boat slammed back down, sending up a spray of water.
"It's going to tip us over!" she yelled.
"I have an idea!" Fambra bellowed, and then muttered something unintelligible. The sail snapped as a sudden gust of wind filled them. The boat leaped forward. The inlet narrowed, but she steered them at a nearly suicidal pace.
Jendara peered behind them, searching for the sea serpent. It had moved so fast. There was no way they were going to simply outrun it.
The thing's head broke out of the waves. Jendara could smell the brine and iron stink of it. Could see the glittering gray light in its ancient eyes. A sudden hunch made her move toward it.
She raised her palms to show they were empty. "I'm here on a mission!" she screamed at it. "To help our people!"
If it understood, it didn't show it. Its head shot forward, teeth flashing in the light. Jendara twisted aside, hissing with pain. Those wicked teeth had caught her on the forearm, slicing open her aching right arm.
The serpent lunged at her again.
"You son of a bitch!" she snapped and threw an angry punch at its snout. Her fist hit scales as hard as rock. She skidded on the deck, clutching her left fist. Flesh had scraped off the knuckles, and now they stung from the sea salt caked on its hide.
The creature cocked its head, its tongue flickering in and out of its mouth. Jendara reached for her sword, then hesitated. The serpent looked...confused.
"Hold out your hand," Fambra called. "The left one!"
Jendara unfurled her fist. Her fingers trembled as she stretched them toward the giant beast.
Its tongue fluttered over them.
"It's smelling me," Jendara said.
"Smelling your blood," Fambra corrected. "Look at its eyes."
The eyes, dull and gray just moments ago, had turned a luminous gold. It bowed its head.
"We can pass?" Jendara asked, confused.
"It can taste that you're one of its people," Fambra whispered. She eased the boat forward. The sea serpent slipped aside, its eyes fixed on Jendara.
Jendara gripped the deck railing tightly, uncertain of the creature. "Thank you," she murmured.
The serpent's tongue flickered again, and its eyes narrowed. Its head shot forward to snap at her right hand, resting on the railing.
She whipped the offensive limb behind her. The serpent slipped away from the wall, filling the narrow inlet with its bulk. It watched her suspiciously as she stepped away from the side of the boat.
Jendara reached into her pocket and found a handkerchief. She didn't take her eyes off the creature as she bound up the gash on her arm. With any luck, the bandage would help contain the smell of her right hand's tainted blood.
"Look up there," Fambra said. "The cove. I should be able to tie up fairly close."
Jendara turned to study the beach ahead. The half-moon of the cove was made up entirely of round gray stones, the kind of rock only formed by the hard pounding of waves.
She could understand stones like that. Hadn't her life pounded her into this shape?
Beyond the beach, there was nothing.
A blank wall of fog obscured the rest of the island, pale and heavy. Its edges furled and unfurled over the rocks, surging toward the sea and then curling away. Jendara wondered what kept it in place here on the island, what forces kept it from burning off under the sun's rays or spreading out over the sea itself. There was nothing natural about a fog like that.
"It's not a big island," Fambra reminded her, squeezing her shoulder. "Wherever the norns are, it can't be that far from here. I'll be able to hear you if you call for me."
Jendara shook her head. "I don't think it works that way." She studied the fog bank, searching for any kind of outline or shadow hidden behind the strange veil. But there was only roiling whiteness. "Don't get out of the boat. Don't touch the fog. And if it moves toward you, go back to sea."
"You mean pass by that monster again?" Fambra glanced over her shoulder at gap in the cliffs. "Oh, no. Look at that."
Jendara turned. "That's not good." Fingers of fog had slipped around the edges of the cove, shrouding the cliffs' bases and filling in the narrow channel. The cove where their boat sat was the only clear space to be seen. "Just...stay here. Go into the hold if you need to."
"Maybe I'll look for a lantern or two," Fambra answered in a sour voice. "I won't even be able to see my hand if that fog gets any thicker. Probably fall overboard."
"Hey." Jendara shook a finger at her. "None of that talk. I'm going in, I'm getting the information we need, and I'm coming right back. Stop worrying."
Fambra sighed. "I hope it works that well. You'd better get going."
Jendara peered over the side of the boat. The water seemed unusually clear, not a hint of mud or algae to obscure the rocks and broken bits of wood at the bottom. The worn shape of a dragon figurehead caught her eye. At least one longship had met its demise here. "No way to get the boat closer, I see. Looks like I'm swimming for it."
She bundled her sword belt, clothes, and gear into a square of oil cloth, then tied it tight with waxed cord. She hoped it would stay dry enough. She stood on the deck a moment, feeling the late summer breeze draw up goose bumps on her bare skin.
She hesitated. "Fambra?"
"What?"
"If it doesn't work—"
"It'll work. It has to, because I don't have another plan. Now go!" Fambra gave her a shove between the shoulder blades, and Jendara hopped over the side of the boat. She treaded water a moment, waiting for Fambra to pass her the package of gear.
"It's freezing." Her teeth were already chattering. The water was colder than any water she'd ever swam in before, cold as ice melt right off a mountainside. She couldn't imagine how it could possibly be this cold right now.
"Swim fast. And don't forget—this is the Isle of Ancestors. They're your people, you know. They want you to win."
Jendara bobbed her head. She lifted the package of gear over her head and managed a clumsy one-armed crawl toward the shore. It looked farther away now, as if a hand had pushed back the curve of the crescent-shaped beach while she wasn't looking. She picked out a cluster of rocks and focused on them, swimming steadily.
Her raised arm wobbled. The package grew heavier—as heavy as a child, then as heavy as a small woman. She shivered. She should feel warmer; the sun was shining right down on her. A wave splashed in her face and she blinked away water. The rocks looked no closer than before.
A wave hit
the side of her head, covering her eyes and nose, and she nearly dropped the package. She spluttered on foam and resisted the urge to paw water from her eyes. She was a good swimmer. She knew better than to get worried about a little water in the eyes. She breathed deep and kept her eyes on the rocks. It wasn't really that far now.
Another wave hit, battering her off course, pushing her away from her rock cluster. She inhaled salt spray, began to cough. She was sinking! She needed to drop the package, tread water, get away! She tossed her head, trying to breathe. Her foot scraped rock. She yanked it back, gasping. What if it wasn't a rock? What if it was another serpent?
Jendara paused, taking her bearings. She could still see her cluster of rocks, now farther away than ever. It was as if she had begun paddling backward, away from shore. Her sore arm trembled, tired and achy from holding up her bundle of gear when already wounded. The gash the serpent gave her had begun bleeding again, a small rivulet of blood running down her arm.
Jendara closed her eyes. This wasn't working. Struggling against the waves wasn't the right way to do this. All the ridiculous fears she'd felt as a child learning to swim kept bombarding her, overwhelming her brain. She couldn't swim like this.
She opened her eyes. Maybe that was it. Maybe she wasn't meant to swim to shore. Maybe this was a test.
She closed her eyes again and let herself sink. The water rose up over her head, up her stretched arm.
Her feet hit rock before the water reached her elbow. She didn't open her eyes, but simply gripped with her toes, balancing on the angled slab of basalt. It wasn't as rough as she had feared. She took a step. Then another.
Her head rose above the water level. She swiped water off her face with a mostly dry forearm and kept walking. The stones felt flatter here, not nearly as difficult to walk on. She walked a little faster.
Her cluster of stones stood directly in front of her. Jendara smiled at them, delighted to see the little pile, and stepped out of the water. Stone clanked against stone beneath her feet. It was a pleasant sound, like one of the wind chimes her father had hung up on the front porch of their house.
She knelt beside the stone cluster and patted the topmost stone. "Thank you," she said. The stone vibrated beneath her fingers. She pulled her hand away and dressed quickly. Her damp shirt bunched up in her armpits.
With one hand on her sword hilt, Jendara faced the fog. It had moved farther down the shore as if to touch her, and its leading edge swirled in eddies of tiny breezes. The water droplets moved in minute flurries and spirals. She suddenly understood the spiral tattoos wisewomen and shamans inked into their cheeks.
Her stomach clenched. Something about this fog stirred up cold currents of fear that made no sense. It was just fog, after all. Just a low-flying cloud.
She took a small step forward and let the fog surround her.
The world disappeared. There was no east or west, no sun, no shade—if it weren't for the clank of stone beneath her feet, she couldn't have told up from down. Her breath ruffled the whiteness, thinning it in front of her face for a second. Beyond the opening, the fog went on forever.
If she thought about it for too long, she could forget all sense of direction and wander this beach forever. Already, she doubted which way to turn to find the shore—there were no landmarks to guide her memory, nothing to derive a course from. Jendara closed her eyes for a moment, fighting vertigo. If she couldn't trust her senses, couldn't trust her common sense, she'd follow her instinct. Forward was forward. If she kept her eyes fixed on the path her breath carved in the fog, she would find the norns and get off this island before it got any more of its eerie fingers into her brain. She was tired of doing battle with things that fought inside her mind.
Her right arm prickled. She resisted the urge to slap it. She was done with distractions.
She strode forward. The beach climbed steeply, the surf-rounded stones turning swiftly to cut slabs of the island's bedrock. She scrambled up the rock slope. The fog seemed thinner here. She caught a glimpse of green off to her right, but she focused on moving forward, paying careful attention to the rock and scree underfoot.
The fog broke. She turned back to see she'd climbed up a tall slope, the fog huddled doglike at its feet. The water beyond was completely free of the stuff—Fambra's boat sat in the cove, untroubled by even a whitecap. Jendara scowled. First waves that she couldn't swim through, now fog that tried to get her lost. This island was full of tricks.
She looked to the green stretching ahead of her. A flat, verdant valley lay in a ribbon between two ridges of gray rock. At the end of the valley, a knot of darker green tied the ridges together. Some kind of forest, she guessed. It didn't look very far away, but she'd already learned that distance was subjective here.
Less than fifty yards away sat an ordinary cottage, its stone walls clean-scrubbed and its thatch a fresh yellow. A shaggy goat had scrambled up on the roof, enjoying a soft bed. The sun broke through the clouds strongly enough to outline the goat in gold, its large horns askew—one pointing up, one pointing down.
Jendara glared at the goat. It seemed like too cozy a touch for a place like this. But she walked toward it anyway.
She tried to remember what she knew about the norns. They could tell the future, that was the main thing. And they were canny and tough and huge. She couldn't imagine one living in a cottage no bigger than her own.
On the front door of the cottage, someone had hung a wreath of ivy and hawthorn, rowan and rue. Some kind of purple spiked flower peeked out between the larger leaves. She brushed her fingers over it and crinkled her nose. Pennyroyal. All fey herbs, if she remembered right. And the doorknob looked to be polished copper—the metal the fey favored. The hairs on her neck stood up.
She raised her hand to knock and paused in midair. After the sea serpent's attack, she wasn't trusting her right hand in this place. She rapped with her left hand instead.
The door swung open.
It was dim inside; she couldn't make out anything except a great fireplace, a cauldron squatting in the flames. The sharp scents of sage and pennyroyal stung her nostrils.
"You are invited inside. You'd best come inside before the invitation expires." The voice echoed oddly, but the command in it was obvious.
She stepped over the threshold and nearly lost her balance as the room stretched and skewed around her. The flagstone under her boot looked twice as large as an ordinary flagstone, and the bench beside her stood as tall as her hip.
"You're letting—
"—out the warm—"
"—air."
Were there three voices? Or one woman with three throats? Jendara had never heard a voice like that. She reached behind her for the doorknob and stopped when her fingers slipped over rough wood. She turned and stared at the door. She distinctly remembered the copper doorknob right there at ordinary doorknob height. But on this side of the door, she had to stretch nearly to her chin to reach the thing.
"Things here—"
"—are not always—"
"—what they seem."
There were definitely three speakers this time, the voices no longer blended together but layered one after another with just an instant's overlap. Jendara whirled around.
A figure arose from beside the fireplace.
"Weren't you expecting us?"
"Or didn't you know—"
"—what we norns are like?"
The voices had blurred together again. Jendara scanned the dim room. Something stirred in the far corners, two great dark blots. They drew themselves tall and joined the first figure in front of the fire. In another house, they would have scraped the ceiling—no, in another house, they would have cracked the ceiling. Here, it was Jendara who was out of proportion.
"You're norns?"
She watched the firelight play on their faces. They were women, but they were something else as well. There were no lines on those massive cheeks, yet also no softness. They could be any age. Every age. Their full lips bent int
o the same broad smile.
"We—"
"—are We. And you are—"
"—Jendara."
"How did you know that?"
Their hands waved at a massive bag sitting on the table. Beside the bag she could also see a massive pair of shears and a spindle tucked into a basket of carded wool. A stack of knitting needles lay on top of the bag, but beneath them, gold glimmered within the sack's folds.
"Is that my fate in there?"
The norns cocked their heads. Overhead, the goat bleated.
"The spirits—"
"—are—"
"—stirring."
One of the norns stooped to look into the fire. Jendara stepped forward. The flames flickered wildly. A cold breeze shot out of the fireplace, carrying a long ribbon of blue mist. The mist twisted itself around the norn's neck to brush against her ear.
"Yes, spirit!" The norns laughed, and the huge fey creature nudged the blue wisp.
"We see—"
"—your girl—"
"—is here."
"Is that an ancestor spirit?" Jendara stared at the bit of blue, no more substantial than a wisp of smoke. "It is, isn't it? You see the future and you talk to the voices of the past. Is there anything you don't know?"
"About these—"
"—islands? Not—"
"—much."
The norns stood together again, looking down at Jendara. She felt very small beside them, like a child separated from her parents and lost in another clan's land. She couldn't even read their faces. They were truly alien creatures.
But she had come to them because they were her best, her only real hope. She held out her scarred and burned right hand toward them. "Please tell me how I can be rid of this poison. I need to help the people of these islands, and I can't do that if this brand is turning me into an enemy."
"We will—"
Pathfinder Tales: Skinwalkers Page 24