As, staggering, they shifted to take Jilain between them, Jarik leaned out to look across her. “Delath! Hail, warrior. I am your brother, warrior.”
Very solemnly Delath looked across Jilain to Jarik to say, “Hail, warrior. I am your brother, warrior.”
“This one is your sister, warriors!” Jilain said between them, and they laughed in delight and companionship — and soon broke off, for they had need of their breath.
“Ah, Delath,” a man enthused, who had only three teeth visible even when he smiled. “You’ve not been so magnificent since that day the insanity come on us all asea, and we raided them farmers over on Akkharia’s shore!”
Jarik stared at the chesty, gutty man, whose name was Treth Alemaker. When Jarik turned his face slowly to Delath, Delath was looking soberly at him. Still they held each onto an opposite shoulder of Jilain, their sweat-slick arms crossed on her back. Jarik looked again to Treth Alemaker.
“What great battle is that which I missed, brewer?” he asked heartily, pushing the heartiness; ingenuous as only one so fair and so young could be — and so accustomed to dissembling.
Delath also tried to be casual. “No war tales now, Treth!”
“Oh, we was all Possessed that time,” Alemaker said, delighted at Jarik’s prompting. “Almost a score of years gone, it was. Over the water we went, ahawkin’, and we come to this cliff of land like a white wall standing up outen the sea. We dumb it — ”
Jarik was certain now that the man spoke of Tomash-ten, his Oceanside, where he had been Orrikson Jarik and happy until That Day. The day It Happened, as he had thought of it for over a decade. The day the man Jarik then thought was named Kiddensok or Kiddensahk led his “Possessed” men there, to kill and kill and rape and kill and burn. To end Jarik’s life, and begin it.
“We didn’t even know what we was doing until we’d come back home here. Oh, Milady Snowmist come down off the mountain that day, and She give us a tongue-lashing we none of us has ever forgot!”
And Jarik thought: Snowmist disapproved, then. She did not order it.
“Treth … ” Delath began.
“Jarik — you’re hurting this one’s shoulder … ”
“Ah, and you was the one, Delath! Look at you now; you three’s saved the wark this day! But that day — ! You was just plain gone mad, Delath. I remember how once you even slit open that young woman all fat with child! We all — ”
Delath let go Jilain’s shoulder. Slid his arm from under Jarik’s. Strode forward. He knocked Treth Alemaker down and kept walking, threading a path among corpses and weeping women and past shields and helms and axes and wounded men. He walked to where Kirrensark’s women hovered over the firstman.
Strangely blank-eyed, Jarik stared after him. Then he turned away to walk in the opposite direction, as if aimless. Away from the wark.
slit open that young woman all fat with child
Aye, Jarik thought. Aye. And her name was Thanamee Orrikswife, and the child would have been called Oak. Was no white-haired man I saw murder them both at once, Thanamee and Oak! Was one with hair of such blondness that it seems white and is, in summer. And he killed her, with the morbrin rage on him. Killed Oak within her, who would have been brother to Orrikson Jarik. Delath did that!
I am your brother, warrior.
“Jarik?”
He did not turn at the sound of Jilain’s voice. All these years he had lived for revenge. Existed for, fed on the thought of vengeance. At last, only a month ago with the help of gods, he had found him who led the attack. He found a one-armed man, now wounded anew — whose life Jarik had saved. Then he had learned his name: Kirrensark/Kiddensok. Kirrensark would not tell Jarik the name of the man who had killed the child-swollen woman in Akkharia. And now he had found the monster himself. He had found him who slew Jarik’s stepmother and the brother that would have been. Because of the careless mouth of Treth, seeking kinship with hero-warriors, Jarik had found the killer. And he was Jarik’s fellow hero and now combat-companion and war-brother, whose life he had saved. Oh ye gods, why are things this way? Oh ye weavers, what twisty skeins ye weave!
I am your brother, warrior.
Hero of Kirrensark-wark, Jarik Blacksword! Savior of the wark of murderers, the murderers of his family and life; Jarik Blacksword! And he could not have his vengeance, for he could not slay either of those men. That was what he had dreamed of and lived for! Jarik paced, and the savor of this day’s triumph had become the taste of dirt in the mouth of Jarik Blacksword.
Chapter Ten
Evil is not a foreign body which some clever surgeon of morals can neatly excise; it is a part of ourselves which we have to learn to live with. Grief is not a poison we can vomit out of the system; it is an ingredient in human experience which we have to assimilate. We can accept all this, and still be in love with life, which we cannot really be if we merely repudiate the darker side of it.
— Robert Donington, writing of Siegfried
Jarik walked away from the bodies and moans and wails, away from the odor of bowels and bladders voided at the instant of death. He was wrapped in himself as in a dark, dark cloak and yet he was cold, cold. He did not fall down or stumble, nor did Oak come. Nor did Jarik depart his body to see future or past while trying to escape the present. He was Jarik; Strodeson Jarik and before that Orrikson Jarik and before that … Someone’s son Jarik. He was Jarik, alone though Jilain stood staring after him with empathy and pity and yes, longing in her eyes. In his eyes was pain. And he walked, for it was all he could do, and in a way Jarik coped.
In a way, Jarik always coped. His mind writhed and twisted and warped, but he coped and endured. He continued to function, and to try.
He was a young man whose looks, whose physique and prowess others envied. He was a hero. Surely he did not deserve this lot that was his, the constant night-sent misery. He walked, without looking back. It was in him, toying with him and tugging at him, to keep walking. Away from this wark. Away from Delath and Kirrensark. Away from Jilain. Away from Her. Away. Into the sea, perhaps. With him in sword and mail, the sea should soon solve all his agonies. Away. Into the mountains, perhaps, in quest of a bear stronger than he.
It was his life he wanted to walk away from. Jarik wanted to walk away from Jarik.
He could not. He did not. He walked for a very long time, and then he turned. Jarik returned to the wark to receive glances both confused and anxious from Jilain. Too, he returned to discover that he had missed the great happening. She had come; Her.
Powder and some strange adhering coating She had sprinkled on the stumps of the four maimed but living men, including Ahl. Him She had taken time to tell, in her clear silver voice, that he was without honor and lucky to escape with his life. Kirrensark she had lifted up with little effort, while his blood dripped down.
“I shall soon return,” She had said, and She had … vanished.
Jarik did not even ask about that. Yes, he believed. He had seen gods and talked with gods. Four, in all. He knew that gods vanished, in their traveling; he had vanished with them. Now Kirrensark had. Jarik believed without difficulty that She, in her silver armor and helm-mask, had picked up Kirrensark, even big Kirrensark. And Jarik believed that She had indeed disappeared, all in an instant. He had seen it afore.
He was, however, unconditionally sorry to have missed Her this time. The bracers flashed on his wrists. His blade seemed to itch and quiver at his hip. It was clean, and black. Blood ran from the Black Sword the way oil ran off ice.
“Jarik?”
It was Jilain. Her voice and tone had gone all girlish. He looked at her, and felt a boy. He wanted to embrace her, to hold her and be held by her. All about them others were doing things about blood and bodies, dead and alive. All about them people wept and moaned, or kept touching or hugging as if to be sure they were alive and unharmed. Jilain looked as if she wanted to hug and be held by him. Jarik wished she would, so that he could do that without having to do it; without having to initiate it.
He wanted to hold and be held. Few needed it more. Suppose though that he was wrong about her, and she did not? Suppose he did or tried, and she stiffened or pushed him away or both? Why was such a mighty warrior so cursed; why was he so unsure of himself?
He looked at her. It was at once good and terrible, that his eyes could see across the ten hundred hundred miles between them.
She came two paces toward him. She stopped. She stared into the cerulean brilliance of his eyes.
“Oak’s eyes are so different,” Jilain said. “Oh one knows that Oak is you and you are Oak. But his eyes … they are somehow opaque and reflective, like the sea. One sees … one sees you in your eyes, Jarik.”
He thought that she had said that before. Had she? Was it a memory or a false memory? Was he now having trouble distinguishing between his real memories and those of his visions? (Or were they real? Suppose … suppose that all this, all his life, was just a vision, and that only the visions were real?) He was sure that she had once called him “Jarish.”
She said, “It was Delat’, then.” It was not quite a question. “Kirrensark led them, and Delat’ killed your mother. The one you called mother. And that Oak that would haws been.”
He nodded. His face bore the expression of a lich, one of those legendary but unseen walking dead.
“Oh Jarik.”
He was not able to do anything other than nod again, and look miserable.
“Oh Jarik.”
Her voice was smaller. She looked as if she wanted to hold him and be held. Once again Jarik was reminded that it was hard, being Jarik. It had not occurred to him that it was hard, too, being Jilain.
He made no move. Across twelve feet, they stood and longed.
His arm had begun to sting. He explored and found a cut, and crusted blood, surrounded by a bruise. Jilain insisted that it must be tended. Thus he was touched by her, at least. He was glad for his little wound.
*
She came.
This time many saw Her coming. The strange pearl-white mist that wafted liquidly down the mountain called Cloudpeak and across the plain, like the thinnest of foggy milk flowing to the wark. It moved toward Jarik of the Black Sword, that eerie mist of liquefied pearls. It came to pause twelve paces from him, the distance he and Jilain had stood apart while being so far. There it swirled milkily until it coalesced and rose up, and in it She appeared.
Long before he had seen Her, Jarik thought that he had seen Her, in that vision the day It Happened. He had been eight, then. And She had come to him thus the day after he had arrived here in Kirrensark-wark, just over a month ago.
All in refulgent silver and white and soft grey She was, in her form-clinging armor that was like fabric or the skin of some serpent created of sorcery. Excellent of female form She was, a vision beautiful and nigh blinding in the bright sun of day. On each of her wrists, over the silver-grey armor, a silver bracer flashed. They were identical to those bracers that encased his forearms. The hilt of her sheathed sword, too, was silver, and its pommel was a strange gemstone that was colorless and nearly transparent, and yet faceted so that her slightest movement set it all alight and aglint with many hues.
This was the god on the earth.
She stood before Jarik and gazed upon Jarik. So he must assume, although nothing of eye or flesh showed on Her. Her helm was a low dome that seemed to sprout white wings. To it was attached her mask. All her face was covered by frosty, sparkly silver as if it were coated in snow frosted by a freezing rain. High-arched brows were part of the mask, but there were no eye-slits. He knew full well that She saw just the same. Also a part of the mask was a mouth that was shaped to seeming softness, rather than the ugly slits in the blue-black helm-masks of the Iron Lords. Those metal-wrought mouths were like wounds.
With Her, She brought Kirrensark One-arm who had been Kirrensark Long-haft.
He was hale and smiling. He and his wife Lirushye and then his daughter Iklatne hugged and wept and hugged, for he was cured and healed. A miracle, of the God on the Earth. Eyes worshiped Her, then and there among them. A living god who worked miracles among her people although not quite among them, and religion was aborning on the earth. The god had worked a miracle and all knew it. She had no face, but no one minded.
While Lirushye clung to him, Kirrensark threw up his arm; the stump of the other She had not replaced. “The god would talk with Jarik Blacksword,” he called. “Leave them.”
People faded reluctantly away, without looking away. She paced toward Jarik. Three and four and five steps, with the fluid sinousness of a cat — or a serpent in flashing scales. Or one of the Guardians, he mused, and Jarik wondered.
“Jarik.”
He looked at Her. He stood stiffly, and looked at an eyeless mask. He nodded. It was his name; it was all the acknowledgment he would give Her.
“The hero Jarik,” the Lady of the Snowmist said.
“The god who works miracles,” Jarik said. “Milady of the Snowmist.” He paused only briefly before continuing in a clear, loud voice.
“I came here from a place called Hamstarl. Across the mountains yonder — the impassable Dragonmount. Hamstarl is under the protection of the Iron Lords who are gods on the earth. In Hamstarl is a sword, a god-Sword of the god-metal. When Hamstarl is threatened, the Iron Lords know of it by that Sword of magic, and they come to aid their people. The gods themselves. Thus those other gods afford protection to those who look to them as gods and protectors. Today in Kirrensark-wark many were hurt and some were slain. Widows are here, O god on the earth, with the scent of their men’s blood in their nostrils. Mothers grieve their sons slain this day by invaders. Is this wark under the protection of the Lady of the Snowmist, the god who lives just above it? Is She less powerful than the Iron Lords, who asea slew her dove?”
Silence cramped all about him. Close and heavy it was, and dark as rumor. People looked, stared, and held their breaths. Jarik had challenged the God on the Earth! Surely even for such a hero there was such a thing as being too independent, too brave, too daring! (Has he great prowess and courage but no sensei) And yet — those people of Kirrensark-wark now wondered, too, and they listened for the reply of Her.
More than one among their number expected to see this newcomer Jarik die then, and they wondered. He was mighty warrior and healer as well — and outlander. She was god. She had restored the firstman. Still, it was this Jarik — with Delath and that strange short-haired legging-clad warrior-woman from oversea — who had surely saved them all this day.
They watched; they waited.
Would She accept such a challenge? Would She even suffer it, countenance it? Would he die now, while they looked on? No one of Kirrensark-wark had ever seen Her kill. He had made such a challenge that either She — the god, the very god! — must accept and lose face in swallowing his undigestible words; or he must lose … more.
Mildly the mask said, “As all can see I have no face to lose.” But no one laughed. And She said, just as mildly, “Did you fetch the White Rod of Osyr that was your mission for me, Jarik of the Black Sword?”
The voice rang, rang like silver. Like molten silver it flowed from within the helm-mask of Her.
Jarik was astonished! Jarik had forgot! “Yes!”
And he turned — turned from the god! — and went into the guesting-house next that of the firstman, where he had nighted. He returned with the short ivory staff that really did not seem so much; who, after all, could compare White Rod and Black Sword?
She stretched forth a hand gloved in scintillant fabric-imitating mail, and he had no choice. He bore the wand to her. Jarik walked, all noticed. Jarik did not run, even for the god. Did not even hurry. She took that wand of ivory, taken from an obsidian statue. She paced cat-like to Kirrensark’s greathouse, and her armor did not chime, but rustled. With a swift gesture She drove the White Rod of Osyr into a niche between logs from which the chink had fallen.
She turned, and that voice of liquid silver flowed out to every ear.
>
“This is the sign of my protection. Leave it here always. It will tell me when danger threatens the community of Kirrensark, and I will come.” And She turned to Jarik, and many, smiling, would have taken vow that She too smiled then. For She said, “You succeeded, Jarik of the Black Sword. You are indeed my champion!”
Jarik shocked them all again: “Unwillingly so,” he said.
Grimly, he held out his arms, fists upturned and clenched, displaying his silver-banded wrists.
Snowmist said, “And never was I obliged to give you pain.”
He knew that was not so, and assumed that She did. Or did the Bands of Snowmist do what they did of themselves, unto themselves, once they were in place? Who could be sure of the ways of gods and their creations? Since She had said that, however, he responded accordingly, as if he had not rebelled that day on the way to Osyr’s Isle, and received the immediate physical agony of the bracers.
“I am a fool, my Lady,” he said just as tight of lip, “but not an idiot. I do not place my hand twice in the fire.”
She gazed at him. Sadly? Fondly? White-lipped with anger? Who could know, with Her in the mask, and eyeless? “Ah, but Jarik — you do.” And She stretched forth a slim, gloved hand to him She called, not satirically but definitely with some hypocrisy, her champion.
Jarik held fast. “The bracers, Lady.”
All of the people of the wark, young and old, wounded and unscathed, stared at Jarik. They saw a morbriner maniac in battle; sometimes a healer after; and one who challenged even Her, the god on the earth. They waited, hardly daring to draw breath lest they miss something. His instantaneous destruction for challenging Her, for instance.
The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3) Page 11