“That is wise, Captain,” Steelfox said. “The Universal Khan insisted that no subject be compelled as to their manner of religion. That decision has brought us strength.”
“Comrades—” Gaunt tried to put in.
“It will bring us doom,” said Yngvarr. “I have fallen away from good clean ways. I have allied with trolls. My crewmates and I must return to the forthright worship of the Vindir. It would be better if all of us did.”
“It’s unwise to argue cosmic matters,” Katta said cheerfully, “when we’re all in the same boat. Let us not dwell on the infinities before and behind our present lives, but on this moment, in which we are all shipmates.”
Yngvarr stared hard at the monk. “I owe you much. I would be remiss in not bringing you to the right path.”
Now the many oarsmen were starting to wrangle, along the old theme of the Swan versus the Vindir.
“Gentlemen—” Gaunt said.
“If I may—” Bone tried to say.
“Enough!” shouted Northwing. The shaman had stayed quiet for most of the voyage, much weakened from a wounding at Jewelwolf’s hands. The outburst was startling even to Gaunt. Northwing said, “The poet is trying to tell you something. Listen!”
In the silence, Gaunt coughed and said, “There is another path.”
“Another way than the Vindir and the Swan?” said Yngvarr. “Or Katta’s strange beliefs?”
“I mean another path for the ship. There is a place upon Svardmark, not so far from here. Lysefoss. It has a waterfall so famous it even appears in a text from Qiangguo. That waterfall plunges directly into the sea.”
“So?” said Erik.
Gaunt pulled out her Vestvinden fiddle. “With this, I can commune with the spirit of the waterfall. The Chart of Tomorrows says the waterfall is a gateway to the Straits of Tid. We can sail into that realm and find a way to emerge in the seas beyond the strait. We won’t need to fight our way through.”
“Gaunt is right,” Malin said slowly. “Stories say fishermen and their boats have disappeared into the falls near Lysefoss.”
Steelfox said, “Qurca has reached the tunnel’s end. It is not guarded, but there are ships positioned nearby.”
“So,” Erik said. “It’s to be war or magic.”
“If I may,” Bone said. “We’re on a magical quest already. Let us ante in.”
“Ante in?” Erik said.
“A gambling term. Magic is the game we’re playing. Let us play it to the full.”
Erik nodded. “We make for Lysefoss.”
At dusk her son summoned winds, how she did not know—enlivened chi, the Heavenwalls, the Great Chain—regardless, he was a mystery to her. Bison raced beyond the Splintrevej and steered by the stars and in the morning reached a high-cliffed place where nine waterfalls plunged into the sea.
From a distance the falls resembled lines of chalk exposed from the cliff-face by the claws of a great beast. Closer up she saw the whiteness moving, like frothy masses of white ants always marching downward to the sea.
“They call the falls proper the Stralendefossen,” said Erik, “the glorious falls, or sometimes the Nine Sisters.”
“Nine,” Malin said. “Like all the worlds known to the Vindir. Ours is but one.”
“One keeps us busy,” Gaunt said.
“I like looking at them,” Malin said.
“I don’t,” Innocence said unexpectedly. “What should seem beautiful, to me seems ugly. These seem like a mass of broken teeth.”
“The troll-splinter,” Malin said. “It makes you see the world askew.”
“Sk—the troll-jarl. He said it would help me ponder the Great Chain of Unbeing. He was right. I can call upon its power and that of the Heavenwalls too. I’m like a god. A stupid god with a headache. Could I have some ale?”
“You’re a little young, aren’t you?” Bone said.
Innocence scowled. “I’ve been getting older as fast as I can.”
Gaunt put in, “Maybe a little, Bone. They do start drinking early around here.”
“I can’t imagine why.” Bone passed Innocence a flask.
Innocence winced as he sipped. “You have hardly been in my life enough to tell me what to do.”
“Alas,” said Bone, “because I would have told you not to insert troll-splinters into your eye!”
“It made sense at the time, O master-thief-father.”
Steelfox said, “My sister and the troll-jarl are both members of a society of sorcerers, and they’ve been trying to influence Innocence in their own ways. It’s no wonder he cooperated. He’s seen much savagery. They convinced him that a Karvak conquest would improve this land.”
Bone grunted, remembering his enslavement.
“Improve it by murdering its inhabitants?” said Gaunt.
“It’s not that simple, Mother,” said Innocence.
“Isn’t it? Why does murder become noble when it’s done by one army to another? Svanstad is destroyed? The graveyard is a path to a better world?”
“Please . . . I don’t know. Dark is light and night is day. I want the troll-splinter gone. I don’t know what I am anymore.”
The wind died as Bison sailed close enough to be misted by the falls and deafened by the surge. The houses of the braver inhabitants of Lysefoss teetered at the edge of that cliff, and a stone stairway descended for the bravest—or perhaps the maddest—of all.
No one was there today.
Qurca circled high above them. Steelfox said, “Qurca sees an uninhabited town. There are signs of burning.”
“Your work,” Erik said.
“And mine,” Yngvarr said, “it should be said.”
“I do not know this town,” Steelfox admitted. “It must have resisted.”
Erik snapped, “Persimmon Gaunt, be about your work.”
As Gaunt readied the Vestvinden fiddle, Steelfox said, “Qurca also sees dragonships on the horizon, heading our way.”
“Be about your work quickly,” Erik added.
Gaunt played a rendition of Katta’s song from Geam, using flourishes picked up from a Kantening standard called the Stonemaiden Sequence.
She put into it her yearning for the distant boy beside her, her vexed but constant love for his father, her sorrow at war, her wonder at this wild landscape and the homesickness it inspired in her for the gentler shores of Swanisle.
But she knew that an artist’s feeling was less than half the game, and she put into her playing all the technical skill she’d been granted at Klarvik.
When she finished, she bowed.
Around the central waterfall, just before the prow of the longship, the spray darkened as though a cloud loomed above. An emptiness formed within that spray, big as a house, and it had the dimensions of a man.
Beyond the man gleamed a quicksilver sea and wheeling stars above it.
“It is worthy,” came a whisper upon the wind. “A fitting song for the end of all things. Begin a voyage such as none have dared since the days of the Vindir.”
“Thank you,” Gaunt said.
“Aye, thanks,” muttered Erik, and if ever a command to row was a hushed one, it was Erik Glint’s.
Bison passed through the waterfall into the Straits of Tid.
The longship lurched upon a sea lit by two moons, pierced by skerries of melted crystal, adorned by swirling stars, and celebrated by squawking crows. The falcon Qurca shrieked as the crows hounded him, and with claws and beak declared which avian was master of the longship. As the crows veered off, Gaunt saw they had twinkling stars for eyes.
“The scenic route,” Bone said.
At first they seemed to ride a shaft of rippling sunlight from the waterfall portal. As Bone spoke the light wavered, dimmed, and vanished like a snuffed sun. All that remained was the double-moonlight in its silver and blue, and its reflection in the skerries, and the star-streaks.
“Indeed,” said Steelfox. “But where do we go?”
Malin surprised Gaunt by speaking up. “Spyg
lass,” she said.
Erik gave her one. With great care she climbed the mast and tucked one arm into the lines lashed about it. She pivoted one way and another.
“Is snow falling even here?” Nine Smilodons said.
Gaunt put out her hand. It was indeed.
Northwing spoke. “Well, now. The end of the world, or at least its possibility, is at hand. The spirits here are jabbering about it. All around us, unseen, are men and women and stranger things who believed they lived in the wrong era, or who died well before their time. They all speak of where the current is leading us.”
Yngvarr cleared his throat. “It is indeed a strong current. Where do you suppose it leads, witch-woman? Share with us your wisdom.”
Even liberated from a demon there was something about Yngvarr that sounded insulting even when he tried to be helpful. But Northwing was surprisingly even-tempered. “Look on the horizon, foamreaver. See the fiery shapes that writhe upon the horizon? I see two dragons warring with each other, and the fury of their fight raises a smoke-cloud that blots the stars.”
Gaunt squinted, and though she had to use her imagination, it might be as Northwing said. “Are those the spirits of Svardmark and Spydbanen? Do they struggle even now?”
“It’s the image of their spiritual struggle, poet. But that is where the currents of this place lead us, so it will become a real, physical event before long.”
Katta said, “Does this war awaken them?”
“Perhaps.”
Malin descended the mast, returning the telescope to Erik. “I see many things. There are places that resemble old buildings, or waterfalls, or crystal towers of the uldra. I don’t know if any of them lead back into our world.”
“We can compare the details to the Chart of Tomorrows,” Gaunt said.
“We’re going to be fighting that current,” Bone said. “I hope we have time.”
“There’s something else,” Malin said. “One of the big skerries out there has a split tunnel big enough for a ship. In one direction I see a huge metal structure. In another I see a strange cavern with light of many colors.”
“Does it have golden grass?” said Innocence.
“I think it may.”
Innocence looked out at the warring dragons. “I know where that tunnel leads. On the one hand, the great structure you see is a stove on the island of Fiskegard, in the home of . . .” He did not finish the sentence.
“A stove?” Erik said.
“Size is distorted by this passage,” Innocence said. “On the other hand you will encounter the otherworldly cavern of Sølvlyss. That realm of the otherfolk is somehow stretched between Fiskegard on the one hand and Oxiland on the other.”
Looking at a map, Gaunt said, “I don’t like the idea of this ship suddenly expanding inside a small building. Innocence, you’ve been to that other realm?”
He nodded.
“Can you get us from there to Oxiland?”
“Yes. The power is getting easier to control.”
“And this time,” said Deadfall, startling the crew, “I will be there. I can magnify your energies, Lord Gaunt.”
Gaunt raised her eyebrows at hearing that name with “lord” attached. Innocence stroked his chin. “They’ll be hostile in Sølvlyss. And when we come through to Oxiland, we’ll be inland, near Huginn’s place, called Sturla’s Steading.”
“Is there a river nearby, lad?” Erik said.
“Yes.”
“Then we can move the ship by sweat and shoulder, and ride the river to the sea.”
“Then let’s be about the thing,” Yngvarr said. “I don’t like that current, and the witch-woman’s dragons seem clearer to me.”
After two hours of hard rowing they neared Malin’s skerry and its tunnel. Taper Tom gasped and pointed.
Out in the strange sea was a silver chariot pulled by a frothing, tentacled disturbance in the water. The man aboard the chariot itself was tall and thin and had a white beard flecked with red. Gold runes covered his black robes like precisely cut bloodstains.
“I know him from descriptions,” Gaunt whispered. “The Winterjarl. Author of the Chart of Tomorrows.”
The chariot swung toward the disturbance on the horizon and was lost to sight.
In the uneasy silence, Innocence called out, “Leaping Bison! I have a sort of riddle for you. Imagine you can speak to yourself—a future self who has come to your time and place to talk with you. What is the most important question you can ask?”
As it happened they were a nervous band, and it was a good moment for a puzzle. There were glib answers—“‘Where was the woman of my dreams hiding, anyway?’” “‘Which town really had the best beer?’”—and funny ones—“‘What’s that axe doing in your head?’”—but most tried to be thoughtful. Gaunt sensed that despite her son’s easy tone, Innocence was deathly worried about something. She thought upon the problem as others offered their answers.
Bone was quick out the gate. “‘What moments should I savor?’”
Steelfox was almost as swift. “‘What was my worst mistake?’”
Katta said, “‘What can I do for you?’”
Northwing said, “‘What can I do to make you leave?’” When everyone stared at the shaman, Northwing answered. “Who the hell wants their future ghost haunting them? The past ones are bad enough.”
But Deadfall said, “‘Who was worthy?’” and his tone raised prickles on Gaunt’s neck.
Nine Smilodons replied, “I know who is worthy. But I would ask, ‘What should I carry?’”
“That’s a practical answer,” Erik said with an approving nod. “Funny question, isn’t it? It isn’t like asking Heaven, or the dead, for answers beyond our ken. My future self. He’d be an ordinary man, wouldn’t he, just like me. Only further along.” Erik laughed. “I think I’d ask him what he’d ask his future self. That might be illuminating.”
Malin said, “I would ask where Inga is.”
“‘Did . . .’” Yngvarr hesitated. “‘Did I err?’”
Taper Tom said nothing.
There were some other intriguing answers from the crew—“‘One more foamreaving?’” “‘What is the most spectacular thing I will ever see?’” “‘Has my best moment already come?’” “‘Birgita or Eeva?’”—but Gaunt thought most about Nine Smilodons’ and Bone’s. Implicit in the first was a confidence that future information could be of specific, immediate value to the past. Underlying the second was the assumption that events would not change, that the best one could do was better appreciate them.
And why had Innocence asked in the first place? Because of the vision of the Winterjarl?
“Mother,” Innocence said, “do you have an answer?”
Something came to her. “‘Do you remember this meeting?’”
“What?” Bone said.
“I would ask her, ‘Do you remember this meeting?’” Gaunt looked at their blank faces. “Because, you see, there are two basic possibilities about meeting your future self. If everything is fated, she must remember meeting you, because it’s an event in her own past. But if she does not remember, then perhaps everything is not fated. Perhaps she brings news that can change the future. And maybe even she herself doesn’t know which is the truth about time. It is something the two of you must decipher together.” She shrugged. “I have probably missed something important. I’ve never met my future self. I hope she has reason to be proud of me.”
“That might be what I’d have asked,” Innocence said. “‘What do you think of me?’ But I like your answer better—”
“Beware!” called Steelfox. “Qurca sees something.”
“More specifics, perhaps?” Bone drew a dagger.
“Difficult to say. A ship like this one, I think, but it lacks sails, and its construction is peculiar. It is built of many tiny, pale, jagged stones, I would say.”
There was whispering among the crew. Malin said, “Do the tiny jagged stones look like fingernails? Or toenails?”
Steelfox stared at her and simultaneously at something else. “Yes. They might. But aboard it . . .”
“Tell us,” Gaunt said.
“Aboard it is one who should be dead but isn’t. Captain Glint, do you see the ship?”
“I do,” Erik said. “And I hope it isn’t Naglfar, the ship that sails at world’s end.”
“I do not know what it is,” Steelfox said, “or what it portends. But I must go within shouting range, for the Grand Khan is on board.”
“What?” Gaunt said. “Jewelwolf’s husband is out there?”
“No, not Clifflion. The first Grand Khan. My father.”
“Just to clarify,” Bone said, “because I am sometimes slow-witted. Your father is dead, yes?”
“Yes. He should not be here in some far Western nightmare. His spirit should be in the skies above the Karvak Realm.”
Nine Smilodons surprised Gaunt by speaking. “Then so he is, Lady. This is some apparition meant to trick us.” He said more in the Karvak tongue, and she lowered her head.
But a voice called out across the waters from the ship, and Gaunt looked up to behold this Naglfar. It sailed silently nearby, a longship of similar dimensions to Bison but with only tattered remnants of sail. Its hull did indeed look like thousands of human fingernails all fused together. The agglomeration made her skin crawl.
“Yngvarr, come to me,” said the voice. “Let me repay you your kindness. . . .”
Yngvarr closed his eyes. “It is Kalim, my brother. The first man I ever slew.”
Now came a voice Gaunt did recognize, and it troubled her greatly.
“Erik,” said old Nan the Runewalker. “Erik, you must listen. . . .”
Erik covered his eyes with his hand. “No! Rowers! Onward!”
Malin cried out, “Nan! Then you are really dead?”
“We are,” answered a different voice from Naglfar. It was Ruvsa, the Rose of Larderland. “The ship has come for us, and we go to fight the Vindir, wherever they are. Will you join us?”
Both Erik and Yngvarr looked stricken.
“No!” shouted Taper Tom.
The Chart of Tomorrows Page 44