by Aaron Crash
“Are you sure?” She dragged a finger down his arm and noted how soft his skin felt, soft on the outside, covering hard sinew.
He didn’t reply. His jaw muscles jumped.
That was okay. Jenny didn’t need a response. She turned with her girls, and they walked back across the fields and into a corridor.
There, Nelly erupted in nervous laughter. “Who was that man? Wouldn’t he be perfect? You don’t need to answer, Jenny, he’d be perfect. If he doesn’t get in, we should scoop him up immediately. Oh, the things we could do with that big man.”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “Are you a unique kind of stupid, Nellybelle? Of course he’s gonna get in. And of course, we’re going to snap him up. He was good, real good. Put a little tickle in my glitter box, you know he did.”
“You didn’t get his name,” another girl pointed out.
Jenny blinked at the dumb woman. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find him again, Prissybelle. He’s gonna be the biggest man in the room, and I’m thinking, he might just be the smartest as well.”
Those eyes, though, and the dusza. What had happened to the barbarian to bring him so far south?
Chapter Three
YMIR SHOOK AWAY THOUGHTS of the black-haired witch. She was trying to trick him into something. What? He didn’t know. She’d been shooting arrows at him, and he’d dodged most, charmed away others—except for those words about magic. Those barbs had struck him.
He felt alone again, a stranger without a clan. The wound in his heart throbbed. He winced and touched his chest. His Grandfather Bear and Grandmother Rabbit were dead, as was Ymir’s little sister, but their spirits would always be with him. The dead were always around, as near as the sunlight, as distant as the three moons.
Do the first task first. Patience is in love with cunning.
He’d get into this damn school, he’d learn geography, and he’d learn what that witch and her friends wanted. That might be his second task. First, this test.
Again, he was struck by the silence inside the tent. Boys and young men, as old as thirty seasons, left, and most left disappointed. Some were dragged unconscious across the grass. One came out nursing a broken bone. Another emerged scratched and bleeding. Still another looked like he’d walked through a firepit. Whatever was inside the impossible tent couldn’t be pleasant.
An hour later the green-skinned beast man, tusks dripping slobber, came out and gave Ymir a bored look. “You’re last, Homme.”
Homme. A Theran word for human.
Ymir nodded. “I’m last. What’s inside the tent?” Might as well ask the question as not.
The orc grunted. It might have been disgust or it might have been mirth. Either way, the beast pointed a thick yellow fingernail at the ground. “Leave your gear there.”
“Can I take a weapon inside?”
A grumble. “Did anyone else take a weapon inside?”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Ymir slung his supplies down, dropping deer, bow, and pack, including his double-bladed battle ax.
“You have to use magic to pass the test,” the orc insisted. “No weapons.”
“Fuck magic. I’ll take my axes.” He had his hatchet on his side. He carried his battle ax with the shaft thrust through a leather noose on a long strap. The strap acted as a sheath. He let it fall and gripped his weapon with two hands.
The orc man gurgled laughter. “It won’t matter. If you can’t use magic, you won’t pass the Open Exam.”
“We’ll see.” Ymir hefted his battle ax and followed the thing inside.
A brick wall had been set up in the tent. Humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs stood behind three sets of ropes, which acted as guard rails. The people held scrolls and pens, their eyes appraising him. They wore all different kinds of robes, but he could categorize them into four patterns: sunbursts, moons, a clenched fist, an open palm.
He didn’t know what those symbols meant, but he figured the flag on top of the main citadel had those symbols on it as well.
A plaque with the clenched fist was set in the brick wall.
A few tiny women, golden skinned and held aloft by whirring wings like hummingbirds, drifted around the other people. So fairies were real as well. What other stories would come to life?
The orc barked, “Stay between the ropes. Extinguish the flame. Win entry. You have five minutes. Honored Princept, start the timer!” The orc waved a green hand. “You, Ymir, son of Ymok, begin. Five minutes!”
Ymir didn’t ask if he had to use magic because in the end, he wouldn’t be able to control it even if he had to. The rules were simple enough. He had his course. And he had to put out a flame on the other side of the wall.
The clansman couldn’t climb the barricade with his battle ax, so he dropped it, took a few running steps, and leapt onto the brick wall. His bark sandals slipped on the stone and he fell back and hit the ground. He shucked off his shoes and did it again.
The rough brick cut into the pads of his feet. He hardly felt the pain. The edges gave him enough purchase that he could scramble up until he could jump to grip the ledge. His fingers barely caught the top bricks. He hauled himself up, and a wave of cold hit him. The brick wall wobbled beneath him. It wasn’t secured.
Whispers from below. “He didn’t use Moons to fly over it.”
“What is his plan?”
“Whatever it is, he won’t be doing it with his ax.”
“I didn’t think anyone could climb the Form Wall.”
Ymir surveyed the Open Exam from the top of the wall. The far side of the tent was covered with ice, like a wave had crashed into a cliff and frozen solid. Long icicles hung from the crest, and the symbol of an open palm was etched into the wall of sea-green water. A brazier burned before the wall, the fire reflecting off the icy surface, but it didn’t melt the wall as it should have. Magic. On the brazier was the sunburst sign.
That was the fire he had to extinguish.
Between Ymir and the brazier were two silver statues of figures in long robes. The three moons symbol marked them, and lightning crackled between their outstretched hands in a web of brilliant light. How could they bottle up the very elements? Fucking magic.
But before he could brave the lightning and the ice, he would have to defeat a more... traditional guardian. Walking on thin legs, squeaking and clanking, waving thin arms, an iron man patrolled the grass between the brick wall and the ice platform. The clenched fist symbol marked the man’s otherwise featureless face. Its arms ended in sharp points, sharp enough to easily pierce flesh. A word came to Ymir: golem. This was another golem, and it would skewer him before he even got near his objective.
Across the way, the ageless woman with almond-shaped eyes stood in her red robes. A big hourglass filled her hands. The sands sifted down. That was the timer. She was the Honored Princept, whatever that was.
That sand wouldn’t wait forever.
Ymir knew about snow and ice. Flames, though, were iffy things in the north. You had to coax fire alive since it liked to play dead. Putting it out wouldn’t be a problem. No, the real issue was that iron golem since he couldn’t hack apart something that was neither flesh nor bone. He didn’t want to dull his ax, so perhaps he could outrun the thing. The lightning wall was also troubling. He couldn’t climb it. And he bet he wouldn’t be able to destroy the silver statues.
He recalled the whispers of his judges. I didn’t think anyone could climb the Form Wall. There was a clue there.
He grinned. He had a plan, and those icicles weren’t so different than the stalactites he’d seen in the Lonely Man’s cave. If need be, he could do what he did to destroy the demon that had cursed him in the first place.
Ymir dropped back down to the other side of the wall. The onlookers drew in a collective breath. Little laughs sprinkled the air like bells. Fairies. Mostly naked fairies. Their sparkly little dresses hardly covered their tiny tits.
The foul-tempered orc stood with his arms crossed. “The fire is that way, Ymir
, son of Ymok.”
The clansman ignored the green man. Ymir took his ax and hurled it over the wall. The squeak of the iron golem followed, drawing close to the wall, probably to investigate the noise. That was very good.
The clansman backed up, sped forward, and slammed his hands into the brick wall. It rocked a bit, just a bit. Ymir pushed and let it rock back. The sinews on his arms and legs popped as he pushed, then he withdrew, working the wall, back and forth.
It wasn’t moving enough. He slammed into it with his shoulder, danced back, and then careened into it again. The rough brick shredded his arms, and he knew his feet were already bleeding.
“Everyone back!” someone yelled.
“This is cheating!”
“This barbarian has no magic, obviously. What is the point of the exam if the man can’t use magic?”
Ymir couldn’t care about that. He’d extinguish the flame, stay in the ropes, and do it in time. His life, his future, depended on this.
He called up Ilhelda’s beautiful face, shining with sweat from their sex. Her scent was overpowering in the close quarters of the tent. He felt his grandparents around him, and memories of their smiles filled his mind—as did his father’s frown. Ymok was never one for jests, and he didn’t smile. He never cried either, only the one tear, in Lost Herot, the hall of the clans where important meetings were held. Ymok had cried that single tear and then sent Ymir away.
Outcast. No clan. No home.
Ymir bellowed and flung himself at the wall. He’d push it down or die. For what kind of life could he live with the wound in his heart and his shame and the curse which tortured him with visions during the day and worse things at night?
The wall teetered forward and crashed down, crumbling, throwing bricks, and covering both the metal golem and the lightning wall, or at least the bottom half of it. He saw a collection of bricks creating a platform near the left silver statue.
Ymir had no time to celebrate. He scurried forward, leaving bloody footprints across the clenched fist plaque that now lay on the green grass. The metal golem shook off the bricks, rising up in a squeal of metal.
Ymir cut left, sped to the pile of bricks, and launched himself up and over the fingers of sparking energy.
He sailed over, the lightning only inches away from his chest. He tucked himself into a ball and landed on his back, rolling shoulder to ass, trying to spread out the impact. He heard his shoulder snap, and the pain was bright in his head, like a burst of sparks from a fire burning sappy pine.
He’d made it past the two walls. He drew his hatchet just in time to smack away one of the iron golem’s spear arms. The sand at the top of the Honored Princept’s hourglass dwindled to grains. Ymir reached back, opened himself up for an attack, and flung his ax into a long slender icicle over the brazier. He knew just where to hit it. The men of the Black Wolf Clan were familiar with all kinds of ice.
Destiny. Fate. Luck. This was the Lonely Man’s cave again. He’d done the same thing against the demon, the same move, and it had saved him, saved him and damned him.
The iron golem drove his spear arm into Ymir, who turned, letting the thing skewer him in his side, sparing his vitals. He caught the other arm before it could piece his heart.
He then grunted, lifting all that iron into the air. The golem squeaked and whirred, wrestling against his grip. Ymir wouldn’t relent.
He walked across the grass. If the icicle had missed the brazier, he’d have to fling snow over the flame, and he couldn’t very well do that and fight the iron golem at the same time.
His aim had been true. The icicle was dousing the fire in water, and with a final hiss, the flame was extinguished.
Ymir flung the golem off him. His shoulder was liquid agony, but nothing compared to the wound in his side which sent blood flowing down his leg. He lost control of himself and let his rage rule.
“I’ve passed your fucking test!” he thundered at the shrinking crowd. “I imagine the elkshit is just starting, but I want to know more about this dusza nonsense. I want to be free from it. And you assholes are going to show me how.”
The orc strutted across the bricks. He stopped, picked up Ymir’s ax, and brought it to him. The iron golem stayed on the ground, its left arm covered in gore. Whatever magic had filled the metal man had dissipated. The lightning wall sizzled away into nothing.
“I like this one!” the orc roared. “Finally, I’ll have a scholar who I can fight with!”
Ymir gave the green man a weary grin. “I’ll need geography lessons as well.”
People rushed forward to help him, but Ymir shoved them back. He grabbed the orc’s thigh-sized arm. “Hey, orc, push my shoulder back into the joint. I’ll heal all right.”
“I’m Professor Gharam Ssornap.” The beast gripped Ymir, felt at his bones, and then shoved them into place.
The pain nearly made Ymir puke. He choked down his rising gorge. “Thank you, Gharam Ssornap, but you won’t teach me a thing, not about fighting anyway.”
Gharam chortled, spit leaking down his chin. “Geography?”
“Geography.” Ymir retrieved his thrown hatchet and walked up to the Princept holding the hourglass. He nodded at her. Being honored, he figured she was the leader. She sure seemed like it—white hair perfectly fixed, gray eyes, cold, calculating, and distant.
“Are you satisfied I passed?” he asked the Princept.
“I am,” she said. “We start classes in two weeks. I’ll be summoning you for an audience. In the meantime, you are welcome to a cell in one of our colleges.”
“Not tonight.” Ymir stripped off his shirt, balled it up, and stuck it against the wound in his side. At least the one in the front. He strutted out, bleeding and victorious.
Some elf woman wearing a silver cuff insisted they clean and wrap his wound. She also murmured magic words over him, which made his flesh crawl. However demonic the healing, it did mend his skin. She gave him appann root to chew, which would help with the pain. The Black Wolf Clan had traded pelts for appann root before in Summertown.
Ymir left through the same gate that he’d come through. He had no salt, so he’d have to feast rather than cure the meat. He’d keep the deer pelt. He’d figured he’d need something to do once he learned geography, and whatever else these Fallen Fruit people thought was important.
He set up camp off the hillside where Old Ironbound stood on what was known as Vempor’s Cape. The damn road was Vempor’s Road, so that made sense, whatever the hell a vempor was.
He built a shelter near the banks of a stream, in the huge trees bordering farming lands. The farmer himself didn’t much care what Ymir did, but the toothless old man did warn him that the fields around the university were under the protection of the Princept Della Pennez and her orc soldiers.
So the ageless woman had a name. That was good to know.
Ymir skinned the deer, took his iron skewer, and created a spit over a fire using two Y-shaped sticks. Traveling with an iron skewer just made good sense. He’d cursed the extra weight as a young man, but as Grandfather Bear always said, The Axman curses the weak; better iron in your hand than in your gut. Either that, or Grandfather Bear just wanted Ymir to shut up and put the skewer in his pack, but the young barbarian had always believed that it would somehow end up as useful as his grandfather suggested.
The haunch spat and sizzled over the flames. Meanwhile, Ymir went to the stream and looked at his eyes. They were their normal muddy brown. Perhaps the witch was playing with him...If only that were true.
He thought of his encounter with the blue-eyed girl. He’d not cared what she thought of him, and so he’d said whatever he wanted, asked any question he wanted, and he’d made her uncomfortable. Not that she’d shown it much. She was as good at hiding her true self as he was. That made him admire her some.
He returned to the hissing deer meat. The last of the day’s light bled from the sky. Stars appeared, and he searched for the bears, little and big, and thought of his grandpa
rents. He was reminded of a proverb from the Sacred Mysteries of the Ax.
Warriors and wives, maidens and merchants, kings and kept women, queens and whores—no one is meant to eat alone.
Grandmother Rabbit said it often: Anyone who eats alone too much will eventually go insane. Then she would tell a story about the Lonely Man to scare him, though it never did.
Grandfather Bear would sigh. “Woman, I have spent my life with you, eating with you and all of our crazy kin. Believe me, anyone who eats, at all, will eventually go insane.” He’d laugh and laugh.
Neither had gone crazy. For Ymok, their son-in-law, insanity would have been a step up from his serious, somber attitude. Ymok’s tear—that single tear—haunted Ymir.
He knew the truth, however. It would be his last night alone. He’d won a place at Old Ironbound, the Majestrial Collegium Universitas. He felt those words in his mind, alien, ancient, words from the old world that was now gone. Ages were like seasons, and epochs would give way just as winter snows gave way to sunshine and mosquitoes.
“I’ve been alone too much, Grandmother,” Ymir whispered. He felt his emotions threatening to fill his eyes. Instead, he smiled at his sorrow. The solitude would be ending, and he should enjoy it while he could.
He considered the orc, Gharam Ssornap. Ymir thought the two could become friends. And what was the story of that elf girl, Lillee Nehenna, the one he’d seen in his vision? She had been staring at him. And he’d stared back.
And then, finally, Jennybelle Josen, who was a pathetic, conniving creature, so different from Ilhelda. He didn’t need Jenny as a wife; that was laughable. He only needed her for a night. He could have sex with her if she could answer the three sex questions honestly. Though honesty would be difficult for someone like her.
He wondered about sex with these southern folk. The Fallen Fruit people, including the humans, had trouble bringing babies, especially boy babies, into the world. It could be he and Jenny wouldn’t need to worry about pregnancy at all.