The Chart of Tomorrows

by Chris Willrich

  He stepped on it, breaking it in two.

  The men still aboard screamed and fled to the pier or the water. Skrymir chuckled and snapped the mast, raising it over his head like a club.

  Yngvarr Thrall-Taker, teetering, hauled himself to his feet. He sounded astonished. “Troll-jarl! But I am your ally! It is my ship you’ve destroyed!”

  “I will compensate you,” boomed Skrymir. He swung the mast onto the island of the holmgang.

  The foamreaver stared stupefied at his doom, but Katta, still wrapped in a magic carpet, leapt and knocked Yngvarr out of the way, sprawling men and carpet into the water.

  The mast shattered, and fragments sprayed among the onlookers. Some fell, and Bone feared for them.

  Skrymir was saying, “Any others seeking compensation? No? Good! For I am Skrymir, and this is the end of the human age. Svanstad has burned, victim of the Karvaks and the death-rune of the Runewalker Nan. In this wolf-time human law is nothing. The codes of pirates and the edicts of kings are null. I demand the return of the entities called Innocence and Deadfall. They once were a set; they will be again!”

  Gaunt strode into the torchlight. Bone would have covered his face with his palm, but it was his job to be pulped first, so he scrambled to get in front of her.

  “Innocence is not here!” Gaunt shouted. “And Deadfall is a free being!”

  “Not here?” Skrymir answered. “But I can smell his essence. Did I track him here, or was it a premonition?”

  A boy’s voice called out from the darkness above.

  “It doesn’t matter, troll-jarl! For I’ve come from the ruins of Svanstad, following your scent! I’m here!”

  Bone saw the round shadow of a Karvak balloon overhead.

  “Delightful!” Skrymir called out. “Now get down here!”

  “Leave these people alone!” Innocence said. “Leave my parents alone! Leave Deadfall alone! I want nothing more to do with you! I am chosen of the Heavenwalls of Qiangguo. I am wielder of the power of the Great Chain! I will take no more orders.”

  “Defiance? Amusing! And pathetic. Come down from there!”

  “Skrymir Hollowheart!” called Steelfox from the balloon.

  “Ah,” said Skrymir. “The elder sister, overshadowed by the younger. So sad. I am aware of your falling out. Do not fear. I will not antagonize the Karvak Realm by killing you. Every single other inhabitant of this island, now . . . well, that’s quite possible. We’ll see how matters stand.”

  “Innocence Gaunt is under my protection!”

  “I alone decide who plays with my toys.”

  Skrymir raised a gigantic axe. “Wayland the war-smith made this, his price for our aid in driving the uldra into their retreats. Let us see how it fares against ironsilk.” The air boomed as he hurled the weapon.

  Bone felt like a mouse with a tiny hammering heart as the axe clove the balloon’s gas envelope. With a vast hiss the craft settled onto the great tree in the town square. With a great crash the axe destroyed a house.

  Yngvarr sputtered onto the shore. Deadfall, still wrapped around Katta, flew itself and the monk toward the balloon’s wreck.

  Skrymir stomped onto the boardwalk. Yngvarr shouted, “Arrows!”

  “You heard him!” echoed Erik.

  “Likedealers, to battle!” shouted Tlepolemus.

  Arrows flew and impacted uselessly against Skrymir’s bulk. Skrymir thundered up into the town square. He uprooted the great tree, hurling it through the air into the hothouse of Ruvsa, taking the balloon wreckage with it.

  “No!” Bone shouted.

  “Look!” said Gaunt.

  “Mother, Father,” said Innocence, and he rushed to them, leaping as they’d seen Walking Stick do in the past. A white-robed warrior followed him, and Bone recognized her as Dolma, of the Fraternity of the Hare. Meanwhile Katta, levitating with the assistance of Deadfall, carried the shaman Northwing to the ground. Steelfox too had survived, though her face was scratched and bloody.

  Gaunt and Bone gripped Innocence’s arms. He looked terribly changed, and Bone recoiled when he saw a green light emanating from one of Innocence’s eyes.

  “I know,” his son said. “There is much to discuss. But not now. Now it’s time to teach the troll-jarl his place.”

  Katta knelt. “Deadfall, go. I will tend to my own wounds and to Northwing.” The carpet released him and shot toward Skrymir. Innocence broke away from his amazed parents and clapped his hands together.

  A shockwave split the air, striking Skrymir and cracking his stony chest in tiny fissures. The troll-jarl howled his rage but did not seem otherwise troubled. His rocky hand shot out to seize Innocence, but Deadfall slapped itself against one of his eyes. The troll-jarl’s depth perception was ruined, and Skrymir missed Innocence.

  Bone and Gaunt shared a wondering look. “Let’s help our boy,” Bone said.

  “Right beside you.”

  Gaunt, Bone, Dolma, and Steelfox took the opportunity to direct swords and daggers against Skrymir’s hand, but it was the metal that fared the worst. Daggers bounced off with sparks, and Steelfox’s and Dolma’s swords shattered.

  Skrymir roared and swatted; he caught Dolma squarely with the middle finger, and she tumbled head over heels into the pit left behind by the great tree.

  Bone followed. He found her gasping, her breath ragged, and blood seeped from her in many places. “I am finished, thief,” she gasped. “I may be able to fight yet, but I am broken inside. I hope my spirit will be welcomed back to Xembala, as my body was not.”

  “Dolma,” Bone said, holding her hand. “Brave heart. I never understood you, but I know your intentions were good.”

  “Your son,” Dolma said as Gaunt and Innocence arrived. “Teach him to use his power wisely.”

  “His empty heart,” came a voice.

  Malin Jorgensdatter arrived, beside Yngvarr and Ruvsa’s children, Brambletop and Taper Tom. As Brambletop fired an arrow at the troll-jarl, and Tom followed with a slingshot, Malin added, “Skrymir. The place where his heart used to be. It is a void within him, and he will change depending on what is placed there.”

  “Like Deadfall,” Innocence said.

  “Yes. But it does not need to be a magical thing.”

  “I understand . . .” Dolma said. “For I can yet hear things through my lost ear, and I concealed it in the Trollberg, against the chance of treachery. . . . Often I have heard Skrymir speak of his heart. . . . Yes, I understand what you ask of me, girl. . . .”

  “I did not ask anything,” Malin said.

  But Dolma found some store of strength within her and rose, advancing against Skrymir.

  The battle had not gone well for anyone but the troll-jarl, Bone saw.

  Scores of Lardermen had been crushed beneath his feet or swatted by his hands. Whatever Dolma planned, he did not think it likely to work. But it might give the others time.

  He rushed forward, knowing Gaunt was cursing behind him and employing her bow to give him cover. He leapt upon one of Skrymir’s hands, scrambling high so he might aim a dagger at one of the vast troll’s eyes.

  He threw true. With a burst of blue sparks, his dagger bounced off the eye and plunged into the water.

  Skrymir sneered. “You are the one they call the greatest second-story man of the Spiral Sea?”

  “No! That was my late cousin, uh, Illusio.” He flung another dagger into Skrymir’s voluminous mouth. The troll-jarl spat it back at him. Bone yelped and jumped, at the last moment aiming himself for a water trough below. The impact still hurt.

  As he rose and shook the water from his head, he heard Innocence call out, “Deadfall! Let’s use the trick we used upon the moon! My power and yours!”

  Bone extricated himself from the trough, seeing Dolma scaling the troll-arm opposite the one Bone had climbed. Bone chose to be a nuisance, screaming threats at Skrymir, throwing his last daggers, insulting the troll’s lineage and implying Skrymir was the son of dung-heaps, not mountains. In return Skrymir ob
ligingly tried to stomp him.

  But Bone was not the only threat underfoot. Freidar was running beneath the troll-jarl, a dagger in hand, trailing dark blood.

  “Freidar,” Bone called, “what—”

  “With my own blood I have drawn the ice-rune isa!” shouted the Runewalker. “You will be frozen in place for what comes next! Destroy him, chosen of the Heavenwalls—”

  In that moment Skrymir plunged down his foot, and Freidar disappeared beneath it. But the foot did not rise.

  Bone, quaking, nearly collided with Innocence, who had his arms raised, Deadfall billowing before him.

  A thundercrack resounded through Larderland, as Innocence conveyed his power toward Skrymir. The troll-jarl winced and staggered. He might have wished to move, but he could not. His foot seemed rooted in place.

  Dolma leapt at that moment and filled the hollow space in Skrymir’s chest.

  “I die, troll,” Bone heard her say. “Let your substance taste my death.”

  “Foul!” boomed Skrymir. “Such a deed is most foul.” He made to claw her out of his innards, but Innocence, falling to his knees, blasted the troll-king once more with his unseen thunderous power.

  Skrymir shook with the impact. “You have ceased to be amusing, human—eh?” A black, suckered tentacle whipped from the lake and snagged one of Skrymir’s arms.

  Skrymir’s stony eyes looked toward the ground where Northwing lay. “Shaman, you think to command a kraken? You are mad . . . or you will be before you are done. . . .” Now Skrymir groaned and sagged. “And this one’s death falls upon me. . . . Enough. You have won for now, Lardermen. Enjoy the brief victory. Next time I’ll not come alone. . . .”

  Skrymir made a supreme effort, and massive chunks of earth and stone came loose as he fought free of the island. More tentacles appeared and dragged him into the lake. The waters bubbled and closed over him.

  The echoes of their disappearance faded, and there was only snow and moonlight and sounds of pain.

  “I—” Bone began.

  A stony hand thrust from the water and spread its fingers. A gigantic axe flipped head over handle above Larderland and came gently to the hand. Both sank.

  Bone swore. Nothing rose again.

  With a rippling in the air, Bone saw that some of the destruction was a mirage, for some ruined buildings stood restored, and some people who’d seemed dead rose to their feet.

  Yet Dolma was dead. Freidar was dead. And many others.

  Innocence helped Bone rise. “He has powers of illusion,” Innocence said.

  “He wanted us to lose heart,” Bone guessed.

  “He hardly needed to,” Gaunt said. “Look.”

  Malin cradled the broken body of Tangletop in her arms, and the Likedealers were bearing away the body of Ruvsa, who had perished with splinters of Ironbeard’s mast in her heart. Taper Tom stood shaking beside Yngvarr Thrall-Taker, who stood unmoving as any statue.

  “Thank you,” Innocence said to Gaunt and Bone. “I brought danger to you. You fought to help me.”

  Bone stared. What do you say to the child you’ve barely met?

  “Welcome, son,” Bone said, and somehow made it sound dignified. The world was spinning.

  Innocence sagged. “Father. I need . . .”

  The boy seemed just as dizzy as he, and Bone took his arm. Gaunt took the other one. “Whatever you need,” she said, “you’ll have it.”

  She was the one good with words. He was glad she was here. They both were here. The world was mad and had trolls, balloons, and sons.

  “Mother. I need . . . rest.” Bone stared at the green troll-gleam in Innocence’s right eye. “I do not know where to turn.”

  Bone and Gaunt shared a look. He thought she understood his mind, and he hers. They might not be able to trust him, but it did not matter at all. “Come with us,” he said. There, adequate words. He could manage.

  But not everyone would. Tlepolemus moved away from the funeral procession and knelt beside Malin. He took Tangletop’s body from her and rose. It was to Innocence Gaunt that he spoke. “You, and everyone associated with you, must leave. This place must be abandoned. But first you must leave.”

  “Yes,” Innocence said. “Of course. But how?”

  Erik Glint joined them, Mad Katta and Steelfox beside him. Northwing leaned against Steelfox. Erik said, “You will come aboard my ship Bison, which has withstood the assault. We will continue our quest to . . . to end the threat of the troll-jarl.”

  Yngvarr staggered over to them, Taper Tom beside him. “And I,” Yngvarr said, “and the best of my men will join you. Mad Katta saved my life—and more—and I owe him blood-debt. Even if I did not, Skrymir broke faith. Let us burn the dead in Ironbeard, and sail on to burn Skrymir.”

  Erik grunted. “Shared hatred is no friendship. But if this is truly Fimbulwinter, shared hate may be like a warm fire. You may come.”

  Gaunt said, “Bone. Innocence . . . we’re together again. We could escape together. But I think we must finish this thing. Is that a troll-splinter I see in your eye?”

  Innocence nodded.

  To Innocence, Bone said, “Son . . . we have a plan to thwart the troll-jarl. But as long as that splinter is in your eye, we dare not speak of it. Do you understand?”

  “I think so,” Innocence said. “I will come. I cannot trust my old allies now. I must be free. Deadfall?”

  “Yes,” said the carpet. “It is my quest as well.”

  Innocence said, “Steelfox?”

  The Karvak princess, supporting the weary Northwing, was staring at the lake. “If my sister is ever to be freed from evil influence, this troll-jarl must die. I will join you—and Northwing, if she is able.”

  “Try and stop me,” the shaman said weakly.

  Tlepolemus said to Malin. “Girl. I spoke hastily. You alone may stay, if you wish it. Larderland has ever been a haven for children.”

  Malin’s voice held winter in it. “There are no more havens. I will stop the trolls if I must walk all the way to the North Wind.”

  CHAPTER 35

  PORTALS

  Gaunt’s heart felt like the strings of a Vestvinden fiddle, and she longed to play one. Alas, as they rowed Leaping Bison amid the thousands of rocky islands of Splintrevej, they dared not add any unneeded sound. The hush began as they rowed across the lake to the now-fallen gate of timber leading to a narrow channel with a rooftop of intertwined trees. She and the others often looked down to see if there was a troll, or a kraken, down there. The mood stayed with them over the days, as they passed among steep-cliffed islands in the endlessly falling snow.

  She and her son said little. Her son, whom she remembered as a light burden in her arms or a whirlwind underfoot. Now he rowed like a man and brooded like a teenager, and in both respects he seemed to have lost his childhood.

  She knew that was not true, however. It was she who had missed it. He’d had his childhood in the Scroll of Years.

  Katta and Northwing had both looked at Innocence’s troll-splinter, and each had confessed uncertainty as to how to be rid of it.

  “It seems entirely fused,” Katta had said. “I fear removing it could damage Innocence. Perhaps destroying sight, in one eye at least. I would not wish that on anyone.”

  “I say destroy the troll it came from,” Northwing had said. “Is that possible?”

  “It was the troll-jarl himself,” Innocence had said. “So at least I am on the right ship.” He’d said no more.

  “We’ll be in sight of the Chain today,” Gaunt told him one morning when most of the others still slept at their stony anchorage.

  “I know,” he said, looking westward. “Mother,” he added.

  “Captain Glint thinks he can follow Ruvsa’s instructions and get us into a tunnel. Then we can cross to the west without fighting anyone.”

  “I’ll fight if I have to.”

  “I know. I saw. You were brave.”

  He shrugged, but she saw the words pleased him, a little. Bu
t words were failing her. If only she could sing or fiddle.

  There was some entertainment in that Katta was transcribing a whispered account from Northwing, using a writing device Haytham had called a noctograph. What she could overhear was fascinating. At one point Northwing screamed, apparently for dramatic effect.

  At day’s end they did come in sight of the Chain, and its vast links again awed her. Other things had changed, however.

  Spydbanen dragonships lay at anchor in the strait. They were roped together into a line, and the ships at either end were tied to sea-stacks rising flush beside the great cliffs of Svardmark and Spydbanen. A barrier of wood and steel and flesh lay between Bison and Ruvsa’s tunnel.

  Erik scratched his beard. “They guard the Chain well.”

  “I retain my link to the Chain,” Innocence said. “I can stir up the atmosphere and scatter them.”

  “Do you see how they’re lashed together? Can you wreck them all? Can you drown the Karvaks?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  Erik pounded the mast. “All that way to get Ruvsa’s knowledge. All that death. And it comes to this.”

  “Then we fight.” Yngvarr’s serene smile worried Gaunt.

  “If the Vindir are with us,” declared Taper Tom, “they cannot stand against us.”

  “We Karvaks will not shirk from fights,” Nine Smilodons said. “But let it be a wise one. Under cover of dark.”

  A thought came to Gaunt, and she rummaged through her gear.

  Bone was saying, “Does Ruvsa’s tunnel end beyond the second line of ships? If so we have a chance.”

  “I can’t be certain,” Erik said.

  Steelfox said, “I’m sending my falcon through that tunnel.”

  “Thank you,” Erik said.

  Gaunt had their books out—the Chart of Tomorrows, Lamentations of the Great Historian, the maps provided by Eshe. “I think there is something—”

  She was cut off by Yngvarr. “It’s good to know the way, but battle is certain. We should pray to Orm for victory.”

  Erik said, “You are rededicating yourself to the Vindir, and I respect that. You were inhabited by some manner of demon. Of course you want a connection to the gods. But let those who follow the Vindir pray as they wish, and Swanlings likewise, and followers of Eastern ways in their own manner.”