Iron Axe

by Steven Harper

  “Why would you offer hospitality to humans?” Pyk growled. “They’re a danger, and filthy to boot.”

  “I begin to see why humans and trolls rarely visit one another,” Aisa murmured in a voice so low only Danr heard it. He kept his face neutral, but inside he squirmed with embarrassment, not only because he was watching a group of strangers argue, but also because they were insulting him and Aisa. It seemed a great joke. Trolls were more similar to humans than he had expected. Their houses were different, but still houses. They wore clothes as humans did. They spoke the same language, though they sounded as though they gargled their words instead of keeping them in the front of their mouths as the villagers did. They practiced hospitality. But they also could be rude and cruel, just like Alfgeir and White Halli. Why should he have expected anything else?

  “I promised, Pyk.” Now Kech pulled himself more upright. “That should be the end of it.”

  Pyk snatched up a long-handled spoon. “They can stay in the stable. That’s hospitality enough.”

  “Now, Pyk—”

  A hand slammed onto the table. Danr jumped, and Aisa squeaked. The hand, easily as big as Danr’s head, was twisted as ivy and lumpy as old oatmeal. Black claws extended from the fingertips. The hand’s arm extended into shadow behind the table.

  “Hospitality enough?” grated an ancient voice. “Hospitality enough?”

  “Mother.” Kech hurried over to grasp the arm and help the owner to its feet. From the shadows emerged a trollwife clinging to life like an iron oak at the top of a worn cliff. The muscles on her arms and legs were bags of sand, and her face looked more eroded than wrinkled. Worn, scraggly teeth poked upward from her thrusting jaw, and one of the fangs was broken. She kept a fringed blanket wrapped around her simple dress, and her feet made sliding sounds on the floor as Kech helped her into the dim light of the fire. Danr’s tongue dried up in his head and his bowels quivered. Aisa’s hand stole into his. All trollwives had power, but the old ones … the old ones could challenge the war gods Fell and Belinna themselves.

  “Whoever heard of hospitality enough, Pyk?” the trollwife croaked. “You shame your husband, and you shame me!”

  Now that she was upright, she pushed Kech’s helping hand away with irritation and shuffled toward Danr and Aisa like a slow avalanche. In that moment, he wanted very much to be back in Alfgeir’s familiar stable, away from this strange and dreadful place. He would have taken daily beatings, even let the earl cut off his fingers.

  Aisa’s wrapped hand turned within his. Danr stole a glance at her. Her face above her scarf was pale, and she was weaving in place. She was terrified. Once again, the thought that Aisa was frightened pushed Danr forward with an invisible hand.

  “Good evening, Grandmother,” he said, and his voice quavered only a little.

  The trollwife poked at the pouch at Danr’s throat with one claw. He tried not to flinch. “I see what you have there, boy,” she said. “How much do you know of truth?”

  That question caught Danr off guard. “Truth?”

  “Aye.” The trollwife fished about beneath her blanket and extended a closed fist. She opened it. On the palm lay two flinty splinters. “These are mine. Fell out when I talked back to a certain giant and she smacked me a good one.”

  Danr clutched his own pouch. The wooden splinters inside pricked his fingers. “My mother gave these to me.”

  The trollwife grinned. It was a terrible thing to see, the jaws of a cave gnashing on old stones. “Your mother told fortunes, didn’t she? And her fortunes always came true. And people hated her for it.”

  “How did you know that, Grandmother?” Danr breathed.

  “I see truth, boy. Day is coming. You and your friend will accept our hospitality and eat. Then we will pay our respects before the dawn breaks.”

  “Our respects?” Danr repeated. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t. If you did, we wouldn’t have to pay respects. My name is Bund, but you will keep calling me Grandmother. Now sit! Eat!”

  Danr and Aisa traded glances and obeyed. The wide benches that ran the length of the table were so tall that neither Danr’s nor Aisa’s feet touched the floor, and Aisa barely saw the top of the planks. Pyk unceremoniously dropped stone dishes in front of them containing food Danr didn’t recognize in the slightest. A platter held slices of something that steamed in brown gravy. An enormous bowl contained a dark soup. A round loaf looked like bread. The foods smelled … different. Earthy and meaty all at once. After some examination, Danr realized they were all made from mushrooms. Timidly, he tried some of the slices in gravy. They tasted something like goat. The loaf had a heavy texture that left peat on his tongue. It wasn’t unpleasant, but not anything he was used to, either. Aisa was clearly forcing herself to eat while the old trollwife ate heartily. Pyk held herself apart and kept the boy distant as well. Kech hung between the two groups, clearly wishing he was elsewhere. Silence hung heavy with the smoke.

  At last, they finished. “We go,” the trollwife said. “Quickly, now. The Three won’t wait.”

  Kech dropped the knife he was holding. “The Three?”

  “That’s impossible,” Pyk said. “We can’t Twist there.”

  “You can’t,” the trollwife replied, amiably picking up an enormous twisted walking stick and getting to her feet. “But the draugr and the chain have changed everything. That was the entire point, yes?”

  “The chain?” Danr said.

  “The Three are giants,” Kech blurted. “You can’t bring humans there!”

  “You have good reason to know your statement isn’t true, son.”

  At those words, Kech slammed his mouth shut and shot Pyk a guilty look that Danr didn’t understand.

  “But perhaps we should ask,” Bund continued. She turned to Danr and Aisa. “Do you want to accept further hospitality from Kech and Pyk and spend the day? Or do you want to pay your kind respects to the Three?”

  “Three what?” Aisa said, speaking for the first time.

  “Stane. Giants older than even I am. They’ll tell you what you need to know. If they like you.”

  “And if they don’t?” Danr replied.

  “Pyk doesn’t like you.” Bund pointed to her with the stick. It was carved with runes. “What do you think your day here will be like if you stay?”

  Pyk and the still unnamed boy were staring at them now with undisguised contempt. Kech stood a distance away, his lower jaw jutting even farther forward than normal. Danr didn’t need to consider long.

  “Thank you for your offer of hospitality,” he said to them, “but I think we’ll pay our respects.”

  “Indeed,” Aisa added.

  Out on the streets and walkways, Danr noticed a clear difference now that Bund the trollwife took the lead. The other trolls snatched themselves out of her way, indeed they did. Some of them even bowed or touched their foreheads. Bund leaned on her heavy walking stick, but this hardly slowed her down. She moved with the momentum of a falling tree. Danr and Aisa followed, feeling like very strange ducklings behind their mother.

  “Is it far, Grandmother?” Aisa asked after a time. “I only ask out of general interest.”

  “Very far,” Bund groused. “Too far to walk. Or ride. Or fly.”

  Confused, Danr said, “How will we get there?”

  “You will Twist through the roots of Ashkame. I will show you.” Bund had reached a walkway that ended at the cave wall covered with a thick carpet of tiny mushrooms that didn’t glow. The wall stretched up, up into darkness like the cloak of a god, and the dim light of the fungi below the walkway did almost nothing to light it. Even Danr’s trollish eyes could barely see.

  “Here we are.” Bund thumped her stick twice against the cave wall, and from the echoing darkness flew thousands of points of light like summoned fireflies. They settled on the runes carved into Bund’s walking stick, making them glow with a soft silver light. In the new brightness, Danr made out the mouth of a tunnel just ta
ll enough for someone like Kech to squeeze through. Something about the opening made Danr think of a throat.

  “If you think I intend to pay respects to anyone who lives in there,” Aisa said, “you may wish to think harder.”

  Bund ignored her. “Did your mother tell you of the Iron Axe and the Great Tree, boy?”

  “Of course,” Danr said. “She was a wonderful storyteller.”

  “Hmm. Did she ever tell it like this?” Bund rapped her stick against the top of the tunnel. The mushrooms below glowed brighter, throwing velvety shadows up onto the cracks and contours above. The shadows, however, contained richness and texture, like sand made of dark jewels. Parts of the shade were so deep that the light in between cast by the mushrooms seemed dazzlingly bright in comparison.

  And then, with a sound like a giant grinding diamonds between her teeth, the stones above the tunnel moved. They pulled and twisted, revealing shifting sand and even gleaming gems of a thousand sizes and colors. A soft musical tone rang through the cavern, and the hair rose on Danr’s neck and arms. Aisa gasped. The rocks moved, manipulating the gems and shadows to create on the rock face an enormous leafless tree. The bark shimmered with a thousand dark colors. Branches stretched up to the ceiling, and roots stretched down to the floor. The tree was symmetrical at top and bottom—each branch that went up had an identical root that went down, and a simple line of emeralds symbolizing the earth bisected the tree sideways in the middle of the trunk. The branches wrapped around a ball of golden sand, and the roots wrapped around an identical ball of blue shadow, and the center of the trunk bulged around a ball of green mushrooms.

  Danr let out a long breath. He had seen Ashkame, the Great Tree, thousands of times, carved or painted or embroidered on doors and ships and cloaks, but never had he seen anything like this. The shadows deepened and dimmed, making Ashkame appear to wave in an unseen breeze above while the roots writhed through the earth below.

  Bund brandished her walking stick, and darkness swallowed the tree. “Long ago, it was only Grick and Olar. They lay together at the beginning of time, and Grick became heavy with child.”

  The shadow and stones moved again, forming a new picture. Grick, large-breasted and big-bellied, squatted near a fire. Olar, heavy-muscled and long-bearded, helped keep her upright while she panted in labor. Both of them had a definite trollish air to their faces, with jaws thrust forward and fangs thrusting up.

  “Grick gave birth to four seeds. From the first three sprang Rolk the Sun, Kalina the Moon, and Bosha the Sea. From the husks rose Vik, lord of the underworld. The fourth seed, however, remained dormant. Grick planted it and watered it with her own milk and menstrual blood, and a thousand years later, it sprouted and grew into the Great Tree we call Ashkame.”

  The huge cave wall told Bund’s story in moving pictures of shadow, gems, and stone. Danr and Aisa stared in awe.

  “Ashkame, the Great Tree, twisted her roots through the entire universe and discovered Gloomenhame, the lower world where the gods went to live. Ashkame’s trunk gave birth to Twixthame, where mortals now live. And her branches grew into Lumenhame, the upper world where evil lies.”

  “Er … your pardon,” Aisa said softly.

  Bund’s gaze swept over her, and the Great Tree froze. “Girl?”

  “I believe the stories say Gloomenhame is where evil lies, and Lumenhame is the home of the gods.”

  Danr, who had been thinking much the same thing but hadn’t had the courage to say so aloud, nodded in an attempt at solidarity. He was still a little stunned at the sight of a naked ten-foot-tall goddess giving birth to four seeds.

  “When you have the magic stick,” Bund sniffed, “you can tell the story the way you want. Now, where was I?”

  “Lumenhame, the world of evil,” Danr said.

  “Yes. Good. Hmm.” She waved the stick, and the tree’s leaves twisted again. “Rolk bedded Kalina—” Here the image shifted to a trollish sun god and an equally trollish moon goddess clutching each other in a wild embrace, and Danr didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or fascinated. “—and she gave birth to three beautiful daughters: Nu, Ta, and Pendra. Then Bosha gathered clay from the bottom of the sea. The rich, dark clay became the Stane. The fine, smooth clay became the Kin. And the soft, weak clay became the Fae.”

  “Perhaps the Fae tell this part differently,” Aisa observed.

  Bund ignored her magnificently. “Rolk breathed light into one each of the Stane, Kin, and Fae, and they became giants, merfolk, and sprites. Kalina breathed silver into a Stane, Kin, and Fae, and they became trolls, humans, and elves. Then Vik breathed earth into the final Stane, Kin, and Fae, who became dwarves, orcs, and fairies.

  “Nu, Ta, and Pendra decided these Nine People needed tending, and they became the gardeners who tend Ashkame and plow the paths of our lives in her bark. They also gave the Nine People the gift of magic. To the Fae, they granted the magic of the Mind: glamours and thoughts and illusions. To the Kin, they granted the power of the Shape: shifting and melding and merging. And to the Stane, they granted the most powerful magic of all—the magic of the Hand: crafting and carving and rune-making. Because of their superior power, the Stane ruled the three worlds for a thousand years.”

  “Wait!” Danr said. “This wasn’t part of the stories I knew. The three Kin races have no magic, and the Stane never ruled anything.”

  “The Kin leave that part out,” Bund said, “though it is truth. The Stane ruled wisely and well but became corrupt in their—our—power. We enslaved the Fae, stole their lands, pushed them to the edges of their branches. At last they had had enough and forged an alliance with some of the Kin so they could make war against us.”

  A great battlefield as seen from a dizzying height appeared on the wall. Armies of people and animals moved below. Among the elves and humans and fairies, thousands of lean, long-haired people rode slithering wyrms into battle, and Danr realized they were orcs, Kin he had heard of but never seen. Male and female soldiers with heavily tattooed faces in scaled mail carried spears and curved swords. Aisa put a hand to her face and leaned forward for a closer look.

  “Are those merfolk?” she breathed. “They walk on land!”

  “The Kin power of the Shape was strong in those days,” Bund replied. “But even that power couldn’t stand up to the Iron Axe.”

  A gleaming double-bladed axe swirled into being on the wall; then the design dispersed back into a battlefield again. The blue Stane army rushed forward and smashed into the golden Fae, destroying them. The red Kin were divided. Some fought alongside the Stane, and others fought alongside the Fae.

  “The giants captured the power of Death and created the Axe for the Stane army. It was the most powerful weapon in the world. It slaughtered entire regiments, leveled entire armies, until a traitor to the Stane came forward, a dwarf who believed the Stane had become corrupt and evil. He stole the Axe and delivered it to the elven king. The battle turned.”

  Now the golden soldiers slaughtered the blue ones—and plenty of red ones. The field ran scarlet with blood, and Danr thought he heard screams, though the stones remained silent, and the only sound was dripping water and the squeak of bats.

  “Rather than leave the Iron Axe in the hands of the Fae, the Stane decided to destroy it. They crafted a knife and used powerful runes to twist the Great Tree’s live-giving magic through the blade into a single Kin, a human. They split his chest and used living power of Ashkame to destroy the Axe of Death. This sundered the Axe into three pieces, and took most of the continent with it. The land dropped straight down, and the ocean rushed in. Few survived.”

  Fire and water flooded the battlefield. Danr looked away from the scene, unwilling to watch so much death.

  “I crossed that ocean on a slave ship,” Aisa murmured. “I did not know it was a graveyard as well.”

  “The pieces of the Axe were lost,” Bund finished, “and the Stane had stolen so much magic from the Nine People that even after a thousand years, it has nev
er fully returned to them. The Fae tried to repair the world. They regrew the forests. They showed the Kin how to farm. They pushed the Stane deep underground. But now the Fae have become corrupt in their own power. They enslave the Kin and steal land from the Stane. The cycle repeats. It is time for the tree to tip and bring her roots up to the sky.”

  Bund rapped her stick on the cave floor, and the stones went utterly dark.

  “That was delightful,” Aisa said. “I especially enjoyed the part where thousands of humans were slaughtered by two uncaring armies.”

  “How did you do that?” Danr put in. “You just told us the Stane have very little magic left. But this—”

  “You are less intelligent than you let on, boy,” Bund said. “Did you think I was idly showing off? That I was wasting time and magic just to tell you a little story? You need to think.” She rapped his shin with the heavy stick, and Danr yelped. “I used magic to show you how Ashkame’s branches and roots twist through the entire universe, through all three worlds, so you would understand that those with the proper magics can twist with them.”

  “Meaning you can use magic,” Aisa said. “This cannot be possible, with nearly all the magic gone.”

  Danr remembered the heated conversation Bund and Pyk had shared back at Kech’s house. “This has to do with the draugr,” Danr said sharply. “And that chain you mentioned earlier.”

  “Perhaps the boy is more intelligent than we knew. But now it’s time to pay your respects to the Three. They’ll tell you what you need to know.” Bund raised her stick, and more fireflies rushed to the runes. They glowed silver once again. With the tip of the stick, she sketched lines of light and shadow that hung in the air before the mouth of the tunnel. The design looped back on itself, twisting in ways that made Danr’s eyes ache in his head. When she was done, Bund was panting with the effort, and she leaned heavily on the glowing walking stick with clawed hands. “Go now. When you wish to return, call my name three times.”