Perhaps accidentally, perhaps unwisely, Destruction confirmed that intelligent surmise: “All our memories flow into a youth of the village. Thus we live on, Jarik. We are the Iron Lords, gods on the earth; we live forever. I was born Eskeshehir; I remain Eskeshehir.” For that was his real name. Jarik replied that he did not care to be an Iron Lord, and they promised him that he would not be. They promised him much else, once he had killed Her who was their kith but not their kin. Their fellow god.
And the weavers wove while the gods moved and manipulated, and Jarik was god-transported to the other side of Dragonmount the impassable. Perhaps Lord Dread had been sorry to send him away so: “We send away him with the best potential of all in Blackiron,” that aged god had said, who must be ready for his new body.
That the Lord of Dread might still covet his form Jarik did not consider.
Thus, saving the life of a man he did not know was Kirrensark on whom he had so long sought vengeance, Jarik came to Kirrensark-wark. He came not as Orrikson Jarik, or as Strodeson Jarik, but as Jarik of the Black Sword. He rejected Kirrensark’s daughter Iklatne that same night. Next day he rejected Kirrensark’s offer of her — and then She came. A few hours later, in her keep to which She had taken him, he tried to kill Her. And he had failed. And She had told him that They had lied; that the Iron Lords lied, lied, and were evil, evil. And Jarik did not know what god spoke truth — or if any of them did.
Now Jarik sighed, and clutched Seadancer’s rail with sun-bronzed fingers until the knuckles went white. He had lived in misery and now despite Jilain he remained in misery. Who was right and who was wrong? Who lied and who did not, or did both; Iron Lords and Snowmist? What was good and what was evil? Who was he, and Why? How was he to know?
When was he to be someone?
Soon, he thought grimly, staring back at Seadancer’s grey-white wake.
He had accomplished her damnable mission, and pox and plague on Her! He had promised Her nothing, and he would never forget what She had done to him. To him the Iron Lords had done nothing; for him they had done more than somewhat, while promising more. And with them he had made a bargain. To them he had made a promise.
The ship was carrying him toward Lokusta, and Kirrensark-wark, and Her. Jarik knew what he must do. He had promised.
“Jarik?”
The voice came from behind him. It intruded so that he stiffened with a small jerk. He did not turn.
“Will you eat, Jarik?”
Jarik turned. The youth who had approached him saw no menace in his face, but agony and a fixity of resolve and purpose. He could almost feel it. He stepped back a pace from the force of Jarik’s eyes.
Then Jarik smiled. “Yes, Coon. Let us eat a bite or three, Coon!”
And he who longed so, needed so, stepped forward and put an arm across Coon’s shoulders and thereby made Coon someone; made Coon important. For to no other of Kirrensark-wark had Jarik Blacksword been comradely.
Chapter Seven
If an external thing gives you pain, it is not this thing that causes you pain, but your own judgment of it.
— Marcus Aurelius
The sun became a fat egg that broke over the horizon and Jilain came to Jarik where he sat alone. She sat nearby. Around them, men were lounging, disposing themselves for sleep. The new air of tension, however, still lay on the ship. This night, Kirrensark had decreed, three would remain awake and watchful, not two or only one. And no man said him nay. The sky deepened and darkened and after a while there were stars sparkling like spots of snow, and rubies, and emeralds, and the amber beloved of most Lokustans.
After a long while Jilain Kerosyris moved to sit quite close to Jarik of the Black Sword. She put a hand on him, on his thigh near the knee.
“Jarik? You think the hawk came from the Iron Lords?”
“Yes.”
“You know these living gods? You have seen them?”
“Yes.”
“You have heard them speak?”
“Yes. They have spoken to me.”
“And you to them? I mean — do gods … converse?”
“Yes. I have conversed with the Iron Lords. Gods also have names.”
Perhaps he had been too long in silence. Perhaps he merely wanted to keep her near. Perhaps he had need to talk. He did not know, though he was not interested in conversation with anyone else. He was aware of her hand on his thigh. He felt it, through the leathern leggings he wore next his skin, save above where he wore a wrap-folded breechclout in the way of the fishers of Blackiron. He wore it snug.
As for Jilain, she was interested — and also she wanted him to talk. The subject did not matter. This had not been a pleasant afternoon, with him wrapped in some dark cloak of memories.
“Tell me the names of the Iron Lords?”
“They bear names to frighten children with. They are the Lords of Dread, and of Destruction, and of Annihilation.”
“Ugh.” The tiniest tremor ran through her, but the night air asea was chilly. “What terrible names for anyone to bear!”
“They are not anyone,” he said; “they are gods. I have seen them, and what they can do. They do have other names, though. Would you hear those?”
“Are they less fearful?”
Jarik smiled a very small smile. “Yes, but they are harder to say! The Lord of Dread is named Seyulshehir. Say-ool-she-here. The Lord of Destruction is named Eskeshehir. Esky-she-here. And the true name of the Lord of Annihilation is Nershehir. Those are their names. They told me that they do not have meaning, but are names, merely names.”
“They are so much names! Still … so are Kirrensark and Seramshule, one supposes. But one should not care to have to call anyone by those names! Still, they are not so … fearsome as the others.”
“That, I think, is why they wear those other names. They are fearsome in appearance as well.” She was rubbing and rubbing his leg, though the nap on the leggings was long since worn down. A bit nervously he said, “They told me the true name of the Lady of the Snowmist, too. Her name is Karahshisar.”
“That is … very strange,” she said in a distracted voice as if her mind was elsewhere. “Yet it is a prettier sound, this one thinks. Is She pretty, the Lady of the Snowmist?”
“No. I mean I don’t know. I doubt it. She wears a mask. They all four wear masks, Jilain. I thought all gods wore masks, until I saw Osyr, on your isle. That was only a statue, of course. And Osyr is dead, of course.”
She did not argue the point; Guardians did not consider Osyr a dead god. “Jarik? Do you remember how after one cut you loose and handed you your dagger, that nikht in our — the Guardians’ wark — and you looked long at this one? You said you wished that one’s name were not Jilain, but Jilye; Jilish.”
Heat rose in him, and he felt uncomfortable. “I remember.”
“And later one asked about that, and you said that in your land the names of all women end in that -ye sound, and that the term of fondness is to change it to an -ish sound. Your family called you ‘Jarish’?”
“Yes,” Jarik said, less comfortable by considerable. “I remember, warrior.” Deliberately he reminded her that they were warriors together.
She was silent for a time, rubbing and stroking, while she summoned words. “One told you that one had enjoyed one’s experience wit’ a man, but that one had not conceived of it. You would not do that wit’ this one, for you said you would take no chance of leaving a son on Kerosyr to be … to be … killed.” Her voice had dropped very low.
Jarik said nothing. He remembered, and he was aware of her nearness and her hand on him, and he heard her words. He wished he were somewhere else, or that she was, or that he had continued talking of the gods.
Suddenly she leaned closer still. Quietly and most privily, she asked him a question.
He answered, “Never.”
She jerked as if struck. “But — we are no longer on Kerosyr! This one shall never return there. If — if we did, and a son of yours came of it, one would che
rish it and love it!”
Jarik said, “Never.”
She looked down, and despite the moonlight she did not see the ship’s planking between her outstretched legs. After a time of silence she said — to the planking — “But … this one likes it! One remembers! One loved it! It is good, the thing a man and woman do together.”
For the third time, tight of jaw and grim-faced, he said, “Never.”
“And you bear this one no ill will? Why, then, not?”
“And you who loved it; you bore no child of it, Jilain Red-feather?”
Sadly: “No.” Her hand slid from him.
“I am sorry,” Jarik said, “since you are. Yet I am glad, too. I know at least that you have borne no son to be murdered because he was a son, and no daughter someday to murder a man because he is a man. I am sorry, as you are. But … no, Jilain, warrior; sister. Never.”
“You will never call this one Jilish?”
“I did not say that,” Jarik said, feeling sincere in his desire to be stricken instantly with some awful pox, that he would not have to continue to talk with her. He had spoken with deliberate cruelty, seeking to offend her into silence, into stalking away from him. It would not lessen his misery, but it would end this immediate discomfort.
“You do not want this one?”
Even in darkness, Jarik did not look at her beside him. His voice was dull, exanimate.
“Listen, Jilain, warrior. Listen. Once I had a stepmother,” Orrikson Jarik, later Strodeson Jarik, said. “She loved me, I think. I did love her. I did. And a stepfather too; we, I know, loved each other. They are dead, bloodily slain, and with iron birds present. Hawks. Then there was Torsy, my sister who was not my sister. We were long companions. We endured much together and we did love each other. Torsy was slain bloodily. There was also Stijye, in the wark of Ishparshule where I was reared by another set of foster-parents. Stijye and I exchanged youthful kisses and fondlings and vows in the night — ah! That seems a hundred years ago! One called Stath also wanted her. He challenged me and I slew Stath, bloodily, who was son to Ishparshule and he fell down dead in blood. For that I was exiled, and Stijye saw me as naught save killer and an outlaw she hated. In Blackiron, that fishers’ wark I told you of, there was a girl I was fond of. I was trying to belong, oh to belong and to be, and thought perhaps she would be my woman. Alye; Alye her name. She was bloodily pierced, raped, and slain in blood. Do you hear? Now too I have lain with the Pythoness of Kerosyr, though I left her sealed. And she was slain, bloodily.”
He did not mention the Osyrrain. Her he had stroked much of the night, torturing her with pleasure without love. And next day she was slain, bloodily. By Jilain. The killer did not matter, though, in Jarik’s mind.
“A pattern, you see,” he went on in the same chilling, dull voice, while he did not look at her. “Even as of a quilt done all in scarlet. Scarlet is the color of the pattern the weavers weave for Jarik, Jilain. Or the pattern that Jarik himself weaves all unwillingly for those he loves! I bring death to all I love, you see; all who love me. I will never lie with you as a man and a woman, Jilain of Kerosyr. I will never love you nor allow you to love me, who is Jarik the Accursed!”
And he thought: Jarik the Miserable.
The silence of night-dark was shockingly disturbed then; the voice was Kirrensark’s.
“Then what, idiot, is to become of her? Good with weapons or no, matchless with bow or no, in the real world — our land — she is merely a waif! A lovely bauble for the playing with, and for the using of.”
Jarik went stiff, but Jilain felt him relax a bit. She lay staring into darkness. She could not imagine herself being “played with” any more than she had ever thought of herself as “lovely.” These men, she mused, surely have somewhat to learn of Jilain!
Jarik surprisingly did not take umbrage at the interruption and the firstman’s harsh words. He shook his head. “Perhaps … perhaps I will ask the Lady of the Snowmist. It may be that She will help her who so helped us.”
“Aye,” Kirrensark rumbled, and he dared voice the dread possibility: “If She was not Herself that grey and white dove … ”
*
Another day began with Shralla whipping her horses so that her yellow-white chariot set out on its daily journey across the ridgepole of the sky. The men of Seadancer awoke, and added to the water in the sea. Their movements were not energetic, and they were irritable. Clouded although the sky was bright, the ship seemed to have shrunk. Not touching had become important. Stout men of weapons did not look forward to another day of dullness and un-occurrence.
The world was small: Mottled brown ship, salt-sprinkled green sea; blue heaven, ruled by the golden chariot of Shralla, pursuing her lover across the sky.
No calm slowed them, although the breeze of Her was diminished, weaker. No gale arose … not even a wayward wind to play capricious or vicious games with the ship of men so tiny on the great ocean. No storm delayed them or sent them skidding and heeling helter-skelter off course. They knew the direction of Lokusta. Last night had been as clear as the stormless day, and several who had sailed before vowed that the stars confirmed their course. See, there was the Stag and there, over there was the Life Ruby rolled from the pouch of the Gem Lady, ruler of the night. Now at this time of year, when the Stag was just so, and with a thumb a man could span from the eastward antler to the tip of the Slayer’s spear, then certainly … and so on.
This day Kirrensark had wakened before dawn to watch the sun rise in chill beauty that warmed and warmed while he marked the positions of several bright stars until they faded in Shralla’s light. Aye, uncertain as such reckoning was, he felt confident that they were on course for Lokusta and Kirrensark-wark.
Food held up well though it was dull, and they had fetched plenty of water from Kerosyr. Without the dove, and with boredom like a sheath over their hearts, they fared on homeward. Every man — every person — of Kirrensark-wark wore a piece of amber as amulet on cord around his neck, and some of those amulets had been traded as many as five times, on this voyage. It was something to do.
Jilain asked Jarik about the Bands of Snowmist, and he told her that they bound him to Her, giving him unbearable icy pain if he sought to go against Her or her wishes. No, they would not come off. In addition, they warned of impending danger by going chill — bearably chill. They were both badness and boon then, she said, and he gave her a look and went silent. Already she had noted those smooth, scratchless and unscratchable armlets that so snugly encased his forearms to the wrist-bones. She had seen that they were without sign of seam or closure. Magic. God-magic.
Jilain talked with Strave then, with Coon close by. Strave answered her questions about Milady Snowmist, and told her about those who were Chosen. Coon listened as raptly as she.
Later in the day Kirrensark spoke to her, quietly. “Among our people no woman’s legs are seen save by family. Those she loves and who love her. These men keep staring, but I will not ask you to wrap yourself with something unsightly, Jilain.”
Good, she thought; one would not do it anyhow. “Women of Lokusta wear leggings, as the men do? Leather?”
He shook his head with a little smile. “No — well, in winter they do, but under their skirts. Women wear skirts, all over Lokusta.”
“What is a skirt?”
He glanced sharply at her at that; he saw that she was serious. It was strangely difficult for him to explain, and he saw that she thought the concept was silly. It would hamper one’s movements, she pointed out. And above the skirts? Did women wear nothing above? The same necklaces these men did, perhaps?
No, and that was even more difficult for Kirrensark to explain. He assured her that she could borrow something of his daughter’s … though his Iklatne was shorter.
“Iklatne? Your daukhter … does Jarik call her Iklatnish?”
He shook his head and did not smile. No matter that Jarik had made himself hateful to Kirrensark and was not much likable besides. He had saved Kirrens
ark’s life; he was favored by Her; he was of the right age and obviously of Lokustan birth; he was the best man with weapons the One-arm had ever seen. Would that Jarik did call his daughter Iklatnish! Would that he thus became Kirrensark’s son, in a way. They had produced four sons, Kirrensark and his wife Lirushye. One had died at birth. Now the others were gone to the Dark Brother, too. The youngest had died seven years ago. Jarik had admired his dagger, which had hung on the wall of Kirrensark-house ever since the youth’s death. But Jarik would not accept it as a gift. He would accept nothing of Kirrensark, who had so long ago led the raiders that extirpated the Akkharian farmers’ community where Jarik had lived.
Jilain did not notice Kirrensark’s brown study, despite her unusual sensitivity. She was looking sideward at Jarik while trying not to appear to be doing so. A smile was playing tag with the corners of her mouth. She was glad he did not call this Iklatne person by the fondness-name.
Jarish, she thought.
“One cannot imagine being content,” she said after a time, “in one of these ‘skirts’ of the women of Kirrensairk-wairk. Still, if sikht of a woman’s legs is distracting to the men of Kirrensairk-wairk, one would not wish to be a source of such distraction. One has no experience with this dwelling of two sexes together! Perhaps leggings mikht be found to fit this one?” She looked about the ship. “His would be too short … his too big in the waist, and his! Coon’s, perhaps. Mikht Coon have an extra pair of warrior’s leggings, Kirrensairk, that one mikht appear proper with her legs concealed?”
“I doubt it,” Kirrensark said uncomfortably.
“Well, once Seadancer reaches land, one will provide her own leggings, then. Surely game and the hunting of it cannot be so different, in your land.”
Kirrensark sighed. No, he thought. He would not tell her that women did not hunt; men did! No. He decided abruptly that he needed to have converse with the man back at the steering-oar. That was a dull chore on this voyage, so the firstman saw to it that those aboard took short turns.
The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3) Page 8