Berserker (Omnibus)

by Holdstock, Robert

  He had found it, though, and by finding it had come within a finger’s breadth of his salvation, for all he needed to do now was follow the strangely golden waters until he found the pass shown on the dirk.

  And the warlock would do the rest, from the calling of Harald to the dispersing of the curse.

  The air was freezing, and Harald’s skin began to turn blue. Eventually he tugged on the damp clothes for what tiny extra warmth they could give.

  He ran, for a while, leading the horse behind him. The exertion warmed him a little, and helped in the drying of his clothes. But after a few hours a fierce wind, blowing between the hills, dried him fully and saved him from a freezing death at the hands of the elements.

  He rode into the glittering yellow waters and splashed his way upstream, leaving the current only when the waters grew too deep for comfort.

  Now, at last, he dared to look back along the way he had come, seeking a trace of Beartooth or the giant wolf that pursued him so relentlessly.

  He saw nothing and, if he felt a slight disappointment, it was merely the repressed agony of the bear spirit locked within him, sensing that in Harald’s activity there was the inevitability of its own death, and this it feared.

  Without the presence of prey or battle it was hard for the bear to emerge and possess the human spirit that fought so hard for release. Just one mountain farmer, one nomadic family, one hermit eking out an existence on the sparsely vegetated slopes of these uplands, and the bear could fight for its own survival.

  But for the moment it was confined to the darkness of Harald’s mind, locked in, chained down, unable to do more than growl and slaver and express its annoyance.

  And Harald just laughed.

  He rode on, higher into the mountains, through rain squalls and dark fogs that descended upon him as if to mask the passing of shy creatures whom he could hear murmuring and stumbling in their enveloping cloak of mist. At such times he held the horse still, leaning forward in the saddle to pat the creature’s muzzle and prevent it from uttering any sound. He didn’t know what it was that was so carefully picking its way down the mountain side, but many of the mountain dwellers, especially the trolls and dwarves, had a habit of behaving very bad-temperedly towards strangers. It was best that they be allowed to continue on their way in ignorance of the mortal invader to their ancestral lands.

  Half of Harald’s fright, as the mists descended and rolled past him, sprang from the fact that he had never before seen such dark creatures as legend held inhabited the inhospitable uplands and crags. Trolls were beings of folk lore and parents’ tales to sleepy children. Man and troll kept their places; vast areas of land separated them, so that to trolls, perhaps, men were as much story fodder as trolls were to the humans who inhabited the lowlands.

  After some hours Harald began to see the gate that the old man had mentioned, and now he truly began to sweat.

  At first the gate was difficult to discern against the dark crags and cliffs behind it, split only by a narrow gorge through which the bizarre river flowed. But as Harald rode nearer so he gained a clear picture of the forbidden gate, and his stomach knotted.

  The archway was huge, being just three mighty slabs of dark grey rock, two as uprights, towering ten times the height of a man into the air, on either side of the river. The third lay across the other two, an enormous, cracked and crumbling lintel, on which wind-and-rain-scarred runes could just be seen.

  Since time immemorial this giant gate had straddled the bronze river, dividing the land of mortal men from the cold, rocky domain of those beasts midway between earth and the supernatural land of the gods. Beyond the gate Harald was an intruder and an invader. His trespass would be punished by death, of that there was no doubt.

  Without pause, however, without thought, Harald rode slowly beneath the great lintel, the hooves of the snorting horse kicking up huge sprays of golden water.

  When he arrived immediately beneath the gate he stopped, staring ahead along the thin, sheer gorge and the darkness that consumed all detail beyond it. He could hear the hollow booming of the wind along the chasm, and felt the bitterness on his skin, blowing his hair behind him.

  The old man had mentioned guardians, and Harald half expected to be struck down where he sat in the saddle. And yet the place looked deserted. There was an air of decay about the gate as potent as the stink of blood.

  Moving forward very softly, straining to hear above the rushing water for any sound of approach, he passed under the gate. A cold wind blew suddenly and startlingly and he drew singing life-taker from its sheath and held it ready.

  The wind died; the water babbled beneath the horse; the clouds passing overhead cast shifting dark shadows across the surrounding cliffs of the gorge.

  Harald smiled.

  The river bed tilted slightly.

  Part of the rock face that rose before him began to move. The horse whinnied and reared, nearly throwing Harald from the saddle, but he reined the steed about and kept his balance, turning fast to observe what lay behind the huge door.

  The rock door opened completely and a gust of foul air blew out of the mountain hollow thus revealed. A great skeleton hung there, five times Harald’s height, slung on the thick cords of a web that was closely woven about the bones, maintaining them in death as the body had been in life.

  A troll, an enormous giant of a beast! Once it had guarded the gate and the passage into the lands of the high crags. Hundreds of years ago it had died, perhaps trying to get out through the very door from which it surprised the unwary voyager.

  The vast skull rocked as Harald rode slowly past, staring into the slanted eye sockets, each seemingly as wide as Harald was tall. The grinning mouth, with its pointed black teeth, seemed to part and close as if emitting words, but only the wind and the sound of the river filled Harald’s ears.

  The guardian was long dead, only the knowledge of what it had once been surviving. But that knowledge was sufficient for the power of the guardian to have remained, discouraging all mortal souls from setting foot beyond the gate with the cunning mechanism by which the troll had been alerted.

  For an hour or more Harald rode along the winding, narrow chasm, the sound of his progress through the deep water echoing loudly and hollowly from the sheer walls that confined him.

  He saw no sign of life, but sensed a presence watching him. Sometimes stones and rocks clattered noisily behind him, falling from a great height and hitting the water with loud crashes and splashes. When he glanced up, to where the sky was a vanishing thread of blue, he occasionally saw human-like heads swiftly withdrawn from sight. Not humans, nor trolls, by their appearance. Some life form of these mountains that even folk lore had not heard about.

  Shrill whistles sometimes preceded him along the gorge, echoing and re-echoing. He paused for a while, the horse shifting nervously beneath him. The whistles were answered as if news of his passing was being transmitted for many miles.

  He hoped no unpleasant greeting was awaiting him further up the passage.

  Nothing took him by surprise, however, or tried to kill him, and after a while the bizarre whistling stopped. An icy wind ruffled his hair and blew blindingly against his face. He sensed he had passed beyond the domain of the unseen creatures that had watched him, and entered a place deserted of all life, save perhaps the non-life of ghosts and the faintly echoing memories of millennia when these mountains had been a great land – or so he had been told – rich in kings and warrior élite.

  Soon the walls of the gorge closed together above him and he found himself facing the maw of a great cavern, from which the bronze river flowed. A steep gully led up one side and Harald, after a moment’s hesitation, left the water and began to spur his horse up the almost impossible escarpment.

  They didn’t get very far. The horse slipped and slid, and eventually went down on its knees and gave up. Harald dismounted and let the beast slide gently back to the river where it overcame its abhorrence of the bitter waters and drank, th
en scrambled on to the narrow rock ledge beside it, and waited there for its master.

  Harald, sword held behind him to prevent it from snagging his legs, climbed on alone, finding a grip on the sharp rock sides of the gully, trying to overcome his fear as he climbed higher and higher and the drop behind him became more and more sheer.

  Eventually he scrambled out of the gully and found himself on a wide ridge, overlooking deep, bare rock valleys and sharp-pointed peaks. A thousand caves winked at him; a thousand glittering stars against the rocks seemed to move, but they resolved, as he stared at them, into outcrops of brilliant crystal.

  He drew the dirk from his belt and held it before his eyes. It was the same view that he now held, and as he realised the fact so the picture in the dagger vanished and the blade began to sing.

  He was frightened by the unearthly sound, as it grew louder, more urgent, and eventually he cast the small weapon into the gorge behind him. It sparkled as it fell, and long before it would have hit the water, it had vanished.

  Harald realised he was trembling, but he calmed himself and smiled after the blade, giving his thanks even if he didn’t voice them.

  Turning back to the forbidden land he began to walk along the ridge.

  Five paces later he stopped as a frightening roaring sound pierced his ears, and the ground beneath his feet started to shake and tremble violently. A great split in the ridge opened up and he leapt back from the gaping wound in the rock. Smoke and dust rose from the chasm and he peered cautiously over the edge.

  He saw nothing but dark and a dull red glow, of fire, perhaps, or the heaving magma at the world’s core.

  A moment later he realised that someone was standing on the other side of the crack, watching him.

  He stood, and his hand went unconsciously to his blade. But he didn’t draw the sword, merely stared at the ancient man who stood there.

  Clad in black robes tied tightly about waist and hips, with gleaming black hair flowing around his body as some bizarre veil of evil, the old man was at once a striking and terrifying sight. His eyes were brilliant blue, his lips mere lines that parted occasionally to give Harald a glimpse of ivory teeth. His nose was flat against his face, and thin. His cheeks were drawn and skeletal.

  Wind blew the robes and the hair, and strands of black reached across the chasm to almost touch Harald as he stood his ground.

  ‘I am the Keeper,’ said the old man suddenly. ‘I am the only mortal man who is allowed into these mountains, save he who will replace me.’

  ‘The guardian of the Gate is long dead,’ said Harald boldly. ‘It’s many years since this forbidden place was actively protected from intruders.’

  ‘I protect it,’ said the warlock menacingly. ‘I can split the ground or reduce a man to fire. And if you think that all the guardians are dead …’

  Harald shivered and glanced about him, expecting to see huge shapes emerging from their hiding places. He saw nothing.

  The warlock, having trailed off in mid-sentence, glanced beyond Harald to where the crumbling gate could just be seen. ‘Actually, you may be right,’ he said tiredly. ‘It’s certainly many years since this place was a great centre. Men still fear it, though, and that is well, for there are secrets here that should remain locked within the mountain for all time.’

  ‘And those secrets you keep?’

  ‘I am the Keeper of the Rune Hall. That I guard the secrets of the ancients is a mere fantasy of mine, for their secrets are beyond even my understanding.’

  ‘The Dark Ones …’ said Harald, remembering what Deirdre had told him. ‘Are they the ancients that you mention?’

  The warlock shook his head, staring steadfastedly at the young warrior. ‘The name is familiar, but I believe it refers to a mystical race who came after the race that inscribed the first secrets within this mountain. On this world, even in these crags, there have been a thousand peoples, and we are merely the last in the line, and perhaps not the last. Other races may follow us, and they too will read the secrets of all preceding ages and fail to understand them. But great knowledge resides here. It comes from the Lost Ones who inhabited these mountains when they were the crags of a vast island in the middle of a great sea. This is all I know. This is the extent of what I have understood from that which is recorded in the Rune Hall.’

  For a moment there was just the icy wind, and a haunting look between warlock and warrior. Then the warlock’s thin lips parted in a brief smile. He said, ‘I know why you are here. I know your quest. I know your curse.’

  Harald was not surprised, but he asked anyway: ‘How? Have you watched me, then?’

  ‘What reason in that? No, no. I know from a friend of yours, a saviour of mine. A man called Sigurd Gotthelm.’

  ‘Sigurd!’ cried Harald, feeling pleasure even at the sound of the man’s name. ‘If you only know how much I desired to see him again. A good friend he was, and I know would be again.’

  The warlock seemed to be enjoying some private joke; his gaze was steadfast, but the humourless grin was still on his lips.

  ‘Then know that Gotthelm was here, asking how he might find you, how he might track you down. I helped him, and in doing so learned of your quest for release.’

  ‘Where is Sigurd now?’

  ‘He has searched for you for many months. Now he makes fast his approach to your father’s hold, to meet you there, on the ridge overlooking the fjord where you first saw the Bear god himself. That is your destiny, and his.’

  Harald fell quiet, and sad. He shook his head.

  ‘I cannot return to Urlsgarde until this damned curse is lifted. My father would kill me now, and he might well kill me even so. I shall have to be very careful. But I cannot go back yet; perhaps not for years.’

  The warlock shook his head. ‘You will be back before winter. You will have to be.’

  Harald looked blank. The warlock beckoned. ‘Jump this chasm. I was unsure of your intent and hoped to discourage you from violence. I have the spell to crack the earth, but no spell to repair it. Jump the chasm.’

  Harald leapt the great gash in the rock and the warlock walked across the ridge, hair and robe billowing and blowing in the mountain wind.

  He led the way to a low cave and, bowing his head entered. Harald followed and they stooped and walked along a narrow passage before emerging into a small, warm chamber in the bosom of the mountain itself.

  Human skulls adorned the walls. Other bones lay scattered on the ground, or crossed in magic positions on small tables and benches. Dead birds and the withered features of rats and dogs lay among the bones. The smell was fetid, and at times, when a gust of air blew from a small pit in the ground, sulphurous and acrid. A small bed stood in one corner, covered with thick skins. Above it were scratched, in the rock, the protective runes that guarded this man from the opposed forces of magic. Those Harald recognised immediately. Others on the walls he stared at without comprehension.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ asked the black-robed wizard, grinning as he observed Harald’s darting glances at all the strange objects and bric-a-brac of the cave.

  ‘Starving,’ said Harald quickly, feeling the rumbling in his belly. For the first time in days the bear emerged from its dark corner and growled in agreement. Harald felt his teeth tingling with the imagined taste of blood. His breath was a throaty growl that made the warlock glance sharply towards him. Then the man relaxed.

  ‘I have a spell that can disperse hunger. I shall cast it in a moment.’ He grinned. ‘I haven’t bothered to eat for years. So much effort. Mind you, it isn’t doing much for the physical condition …’ He pinched his wiry arms and shrugged.

  Disappointed, Harald resumed his scrutiny of the rune-covered walls. The bear murmured irritably, but something about the warlock seemed to induce in it a sense of fear and it crept back into the recesses of Harald’s mind and behaved itself.

  ‘Keep your dark spirit under control,’ said the wizard pointedly. ‘There is one release that I can give you that
is instantaneous. It is called death. And be in no doubt that if the Berserk rage takes you, you shall be dead instantly.’

  ‘I’ll control it,’ said Harald, frightened. ‘Just don’t spill blood.’

  ‘No blood needs to be spilled,’ said the warlock. ‘For I have no spell to rid you of this curse.’

  Harald stiffened in shock. The cave grew darker and the bear within him seemed to roll on to its back and laugh in its ursine way.

  ‘No spell! But you have a million spells! Surely this is a simple matter!’

  The warlock was angry. ‘Simple? The breaking of a curse imposed by a demon god! Odin is a fearsome force of evil, and I am just a mortal. I know spells by the million, certainly …’ Dark eyes flashed anger, the skull-like face of the warlock tensed and whitened. ‘You have come here to ask for help. What payment have you brought? Answer me that!’

  ‘None,’ said Harald glumly. He could hardly offer that which Deirdre had demanded.

  The warlock grinned. ‘And yet,’ he said, raising a lean and long nailed finger and stabbing it towards the Berserker. ‘And yet … because of Gotthelm, and my great debt to him, I would help you if I could. But there is no spell! The release from the curse of Odin can only be accomplished with enormous difficulty.’

  ‘Then there is a release.’

  The warlock hesitated, peering at the youth carefully. Then he nodded. ‘There is a release,’ he agreed. ‘But not a spell that I can shout or act out on my fingers. I can spread fire across the earth at the call of a single word. I can calm the oceans with the scratching of three simple runes upon the dark rocks of the shore. I can transform a man into any animal that has ever lived by chanting a brief song. I have spells to see a man’s future. I have a forge that can make weapons that will sing in battle, or warn you of approaching danger. I can do a million things that other men cannot do. But this is as nothing, this is trickery, hearth-side games compared to what the gods can do. I cannot break the curse of Odin. Only you can do that. And the price is high. Very high.’

  ‘Tell me. Tell me quickly. The sooner I shake off the curse of this bear the sooner I can …’ – he trailed off. Elena’s face swam before his eyes, which suddenly filled with tears. He saw her as she had been when they had been innocents together. He fought to prevent the change of her face into that mask of agony that was his last view of her.