Madbond

by Nancy Springer

  Ardor singing deep in his voice. I reached down where the scabbard lay with my clothing and drew out the sword. Blood on the hilt from my bleeding fingers.… I seemed to feel the air tingle, Alar tremble in my hand. Kor put down his blade and held out his right hand to me, palm up.

  “Across the fingers, like yours.” He looked at me with a hint of a smile. “Stop shaking, Dan. I am used to scars, I feel naked without any.”

  “You are naked,” I retorted. As was I. And the jest failed, for my voice quivered.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself and made the cut. How he trusted me.… Sakeema be praised, it was all right. Shallow, but deep enough to bleed. The red drops welled up, shining bright as the jewel in his sword, and I laid Alar aside, turned to Kor and touched his bleeding hand with mine.

  Fingers curled, clasped. Blood mingled. Eyes met.

  “You have a brother now,” I told him. “It is a pledge.” And my voice was strong and warm as the sunlight, and I no longer trembled. There was a mist of tears in his eyes, like the mist over his distant home, but I saw his smile, full of strength and joy, and I knew that my smile answered his in kind—I felt tall with joy, and fearless. Kor held his head high always, but he lifted it yet higher. He must have felt that same surge of courage.

  “The two of us together,” he declared, “we can do anything. And that is my pledge to you, Dan.”

  We stood for a long time without moving, unwilling to let go of the moment. Until the blood dried on our clasped fingers we stood, and when at last we sighed, stirred, and loosened our grip, the cuts no longer bled.

  Without speaking we moved about, softly, as if in a good dream, not wanting to mar it with clatterings or our uncouth voices. We washed at the tarn, put on our clothes. I cleansed my sword and sheathed it. Kor sat cross-legged on the turf with his in his lap, one finger tracing the long lines of the blade. He looked up at the odd spires looming above us, then at me.

  “Let us camp here tonight,” he said, and though we could have ridden half a day yet, I nodded. He had turned it into a place for me to love.

  I went out and hunted us ridge chickens—they are easy meat, they run rather than fly, and sometimes they forget even to run. I took two of the birds back to Kor, and we built a fire near the tarn and cooked them at our leisure. We gathered mountain blueberries, we baked flatbread on fire-heated rocks, and then we feasted, and talked easily of many things, even of Tassida. And after a while we grew silent and watched the sunset colors fade over the snowpeaks and the stars come out.

  Our campfire had burned down to embers. Somewhere a whiskered owl was calling. The stars burned white in a sky as black and soft as a sable’s pelt, and in the pool their shadows floated. I remember a crescent moon. The night was fair, the breeze full of heady fragrance from the pines downslope, and Kor and I sat gazing for no reason at the shadow-stars floating on the black water of the tarn.

  We must have been half in a trance. Before we were well aware of it the white, glimmering flecks shifted, gathered, took shape and rose like a mist above the black pool. Or like tall clusters of white flowers half seen at nighttime, or like two hunters sprinkled with snow—no. Thin as a mist, but faintly glowing and plain in every line, two men stood there, or two ghosts of men, or visions, stood as if on rock, though the tarn water hid their feet. And they wore clothing such as I had never seen, clothing fit for kings—or gods. Robe and tunic and baldric and cape, layer on layer, long, fanciful sleeves bordered with stitchery and glimmer, cloak trailing to the heels, shining cloth gloriously wrought, and it was all white, all starlight. But although I remembered it afterward, I scarcely noted the clothing at the time. The faces held me. They were faces of men, perhaps warriors, older than I but not yet old, and there was a passionfire in them, and a sadness, and a grandeur that awed and frightened me. I inched my left hand over to where Kor sat, grasped his arm, and I could tell, by the hardness of his arm that he saw them too. Neither of us dared to further move, or speak.

  The two men of starlight, the two visions, faced each other with a steady, half-smiling look, and softly they drew their swords. The swords of starlight looked much like Kor’s and mine.… And the two kings, if kings they were, touched blades without a sound, touched the tips of their blades and raised them high overhead, still cleaving, in a gesture of triumph or—I was not sure what, an emblem like a mountainpeak.… Then they sheathed their swords and held out their right hands to each other. Their fingers curled, clasped. That grip, I knew it. Their eyes met with a look I also knew.

  Then, turning, they looked full at us, at Kor, at me.

  Their gaze—we felt it eerily, reaching us out of a distance we could not encompass, chill deeps of time. For a moment we looked into their grave, noble faces of starlight, and then we could look no longer. Terror took us, and we cried out and hid behind our arms.

  “They are gone,” Kor whispered. “I feel it.”

  Clenching myself, I looked up. The surface of the tarn lay still, with only the ghosts of stars floating on it like tiny lilies.

  “They did—not mean to harm us—or unman us.…” Kor’s voice was unsteady.

  “Then why are we both quaking?” Mine was no firmer.

  “Reach out your right hand to me,” Kor said.

  I could just as easily have hugged him around the shoulders with the left. But I did as he said, and he held out his own, touched the raw cut on his fingers to mine. And instantly I felt a surge of strength. I shook no longer. Nor, I saw, did he. And his face was alight with wonder.

  “Dan! When we two are together, we have the strength of four.”

  “Who were those two on the pool?” I asked, my voice hushed.

  “Sakeema knows.”

  We slept, for we were no longer afraid. I awoke at sunrise to see Kor also awake, studying the early light on the odd pinnacles above us.

  “Men made that,” he said. “The part on the knee of the mountain, there, that is different.”

  I blinked at him, for how could men ever have made such a massive thing? And why? But remembering Tassida’s tales and the vision of the night before, I did not speak my doubt.

  “Well, Dan,” said Kor, as if bemused, “I have come a long way from my seaside Hold.”

  “We’ll have a longer way to go to beard Mahela, and a strange trail.”

  So we set forth on it, two youths on heavy-headed fanged mares, upslope toward the eversnow and icefields and the passes that led toward sunset. The first day of an unlikely journey … We held the reins with our left hands only, and from time to time we lifted the others and smiled.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Sea King Trilogy

  Chapter One

  I was dreaming of Tassida, her startling dark eyes and willful brows, her strong warrior’s body, her small, tan, pink-tipped breasts. Well remembered, those breasts. Kor and I had torn her clothes off, frantic, searching for a wound, and found instead a young woman where we had expected a boy.… Much as I ached to, I had never touched Tassida’s breasts, never courted her in any way, not by so much as a kiss. But sleeping on soft grass under a midsummer moon, I dreamed that she came to me. For some reason it was all right, now, for me to love her. She came in her proud way and laid herself atop me, and I caressed her breasts, kissed them, nuzzled them with my face—

  Cold. That could not be true of Tass. She was all warmth, blazing heat even, passion’s fire within her.

  Cold as icy seawater! She stared down at me ghoulishly, teeth bared, her handsome head turning to bone, as if she were long dead and rotting—

  I awoke with a panicky jolt to find that I could not move. A cold and heavy presence lay on me, holding me helpless with its weight, enveloping me in fishy folds, pinning my arms where it had found them. One hand lay trapped at the breasts. Yes, by Sakeema, the thing had breasts, huge ones, hard and chill, and my face was wedged between them so firmly that I could scarcely breathe. And the smell—Kor had not mentioned the smell. It was subtle, but fearsome, the
very smell of horror, a womanly smell gone evil. And slime, threatening to choke my nostrils. But slime was the least of my peril. Down in the area of my chest and belly I could feel speartip teeth and a strong sucking force. Like a starfish on an oyster, the monster had its maw wide open, and it was working to devour me.

  It was worse than any demon dream. I struggled, trying to thrash about, trying to kick away six feet of breasted body and fleshy, rippling wing atop me, and the thick, snakelike tail that wound tightly around my legs. But even in strength of desperation I could not move, fainting, there was not enough air—could not remember who I was, the devourer was turning me into—otherness, taking me within. I would no longer be—be—

  I was Dannoc, Dannoc, Dannoc.

  I was horse tamer, skilled archer, storyteller—Dannoc, son of Tyonoc, who had been king of the Red Hart Tribe. My father had been bested, but, Mahela be cursed, I would not be taken by any minion of hers! Hatred of what had been done to Tyonoc made me suddenly rock hard and calm. My breathing quieted, became shallow as I willed myself into a sort of trance. Merely enduring was the worst of tasks to me, for I far preferred to strike. But I had to endure until dawn, when the devourer would be forced to loosen its grip—and perhaps then I would have a blow at it.

  Bowels of Mahela!

  Even as I learned how to withstand the demon, it lifted off me and attacked in a different way.

  Furling itself—those hard, swollen dugs shot out streams of cold liquid and collapsed. I caught a glimpse of a single great eye in the moonlight, and then the thing stood head down and upright, folded into a shape like a stubby arrow with the maw at the fore, fastened just below my ribs like a huge leech. It thrashed its flattened tail, swimming in air as an eel would in water, boring into me, mindlessly set on possessing me one way or another.

  “No!” At least I could cry out, for all the good it did me. None at all.

  I struggled to rise, to throw it off, and only gave myself more sickening pain, for the monster held me pinned to the ground with its great weight crushing into my gut.

  Who was I? I could not remember my name!

  Dannoc. Strong and tall. Dannoc, son of Tyonoc. A devourer had done this same thing to my father and turned him into a living, walking shell, demon-possessed by the evil thing hiding within. If that should happen to me, if I should then betray Kor as my father had betrayed me—

  I could see Kor, my comrade. It had to be him, lying by my side, though another of the swaddling gray-skinned monsters hid him from head to foot. Only one hand lay free, curled on the grass.

  He would be well enough. He was a king among his own people, Korridun, son of Kela, a wise king with many powers, and he had survived the devourers before. For me, it was the first time, and I was failing—I felt self slipping again. The thing was besting me, and I would kill my body before I let a devourer take it and turn it against those I loved.

  Sakeema be thanked, at least I could move my arms. Sword and knife lay in the grass beside me, and I reached for the knife, groaning with the agony of the movement, which forced teeth yet deeper into me. Such weapons were of no use against devourers, I had been told, slicing through them as if through water, leaving no mark. Therefore I meant the knife for myself. Made of sharpest obsidian, it would find its way quickly to my heart, I hoped.… Kor’s hand, lying near the weapons. He had made me this same promise, to kill himself before he let himself be possessed. Kor, my friend like no other … Hardly thinking anymore, hardly knowing who I was or what I was doing, I reached beyond knife and sword and gripped his hand, just to say farewell.

  His fingers curled around mine, and strength surged through me.

  Strength as of four warriors, ourselves and two out of the past. A high courage, so joyful, so effortless it could sing. I sat up, shouting out loud, and aimed a hard blow at the devourer with my fist—but already it had let go of me, had unfurled, was flying away. The other joined it, the two of them rippling away like the flat, stinging fish that live on the sandy bottom of the sea. For a moment the capelike shapes of them shadowed the moon, and then they were gone, and Kor was sitting up, blinking at me.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  He thought I had handbonded to help him. I snorted, spraying slime, scraping slime from my face with my fingers, and his dark eyes widened.

  “There was one on you, too? Dan, are you all right?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I just reached over to lend you a hand, weakling that you are.” He had been fighting off foes both human and monstrous since he was a boy.

  By then he was kneeling by me, staring—there was blood all over my chest and belly. “Great Sakeema,” he whispered, and without ceremony he emptied a skinful of water on me. I sputtered, but he was intent only on washing away the blood, seeing the wound. “Great Sakeema, Dan,” he whispered again.

  “It very nearly had me,” I admitted.

  “You will not be riding for a while.” He brought bandaging, passed the lambswool strips tightly around my body. I sagged against the binding, for my surge of strength had passed and I was beginning to feel weak and sick. “What happened?” Kor demanded. “I would have thought, pigheaded as you are—”

  I was not too weak to glare at him in protest, and he grinned.

  “Stubborn as you are, you should be proof against devourers.”

  I flushed—perhaps he did not see it in the moonlight, but he must have known, for he was Kor. “I was dreaming,” I mumbled. I would not say of Tassida, for he loved her, she was his by a bond I scarcely understood, part of his kingship. He was the reason I would not court her.

  “Oh.” He smiled, though not to mock me. “A dream of the sort in which the cock lifts his head.”

  I merely grimaced, mortified, remembering how I had been pinned with my right hand at the breasts, the left one down by my bird.

  “So the creature had a goodly hold on you before you awoke.” He wadded a blanket by way of pillow, eased me down onto it. I lay there and let him wash my head and hands. A smell as of death still lingered on me, and I shivered. Kor brought another blanket to cover me.

  “I keep telling you, Dan, tunics have their uses. Leather vests, even.” He was trying to rouse me by teasing. Red Hart born, I went bare-chested nearly always, even in the wintertime, and on this fine summer’s night I had not been covered by so much as a fawnskin. But Kor, being of the Seal Kindred, had the sense, as he put it, to keep himself warm. I reached out with one hand and pulled up the woolen shirt the Herders had given him.

  “Not a mark on you,” I said, and his smile faded.

  “Luck was with me. I had the blanket up. The monsters are mindless.”

  Being of the Seal, he slept under blankets and furs. Being of the Seal, again, he had a skin of seashell tan and dark hair cropped like fur, as dark as mine was sunbleached bright. My eyes were sky blue, his the deep gray-green-brown of vast water. He was nearly as tall as I, and nearly as strong, but deft, so controlled and contained as to make me feel oafish.

  None of it mattered. We were brothers.

  We had done it with swordcuts and a handbond beside a visionary pool, only a few days before. The cuts on our fingers were but half-healed, and the handbond had been tested for the first time this night, and had saved me.

  Kor brought wood for the fire, blew embers ablaze. King he might be, but I knew he would nurse me like a mother until I was well. I knew without words that he would stand guard over me for the rest of the night. Yellow light of flames made me shut my eyes, and I dozed.

  I awoke after sunrise, blinking up at tall pines and snowpeaks and the heady blue of mountain sky. My fanged mare, Talu, was ogling down at me and breathing a vile reek, stench of carrion meat, into my face. Her flaccid nose seemed uncouth, huge. Peevishly I reached up to push it away, groaning with even that slight effort. Talu gave a snort of scorn and walked off, tail swishing, to hunt a nest of asps up among the rocks. There was nothing she liked better to eat than snakes.

  Kor came over, lai
d a hand on my forehead. “How do you feel?”

  “Why do you ask?” I retorted, querulous. He knew well enough that I was wretched, for he felt it himself. He felt the passions of all whom he knew well when he was waking and near them. My sorrows, my joys, my sufferings were all his as well as mine while we traveled together. A mixed blessing; for my illness made him miserable as well.

  “I ask to annoy you,” he snapped.

  “Well, how do you think I feel?”

  “Rather less strong than thin soup.” He sighed, giving up spleen. “There must be some sort of venom in the bite of the devourers.”

  “Lovely,” I muttered.

  “Something to make the victim weaken. I always felt weak and sick for days afterward, and maybe not just from self-pity.” He pulled down the blanket and had a look at me. My wound was still oozing.

  “Sit up,” he directed, helping me.

  Unsteadily I sat while Kor undid the bandaging—he wanted to look at the injury in the light. He made me lie flat as he pulled apart the lips of the puncture to see how deep it was. He was gentle, as always, and I had thought I would be strong and silent—a pox on silence. I screamed with pain.

  “Sedna’s bones, Dan,” Kor whispered, his face grave.

  He bound me up again.

  “If it were not for those mighty muscles of yours, the creature would have struck through to your innards. Perhaps it has, even so. Perhaps you had better not eat for a while.”

  I did not much feel like eating.

  How he sustained himself the next few days I scarcely know. I was reared a hunter, but he was not. His people lived mostly on fish. He knew the ways of netting birds, so perhaps he did that, or caught something in a snare. We had a little maslin flour he made into thin gruels for me, I remember. But I do not remember much. I was far away with fever.

  To sustain myself, I dreamed of Sakeema.

  Once in a vision I had traveled with him, with Sakeema, that king above all kings, who had lived in my grandfather’s grandfather’s time. King without a tribe, born in a mountain cave, suckled by a deer, king who had never called himself a king, much less a god.… He who ruled all men and all creatures, yet did not rule, but merely lived. Power of healing in his hands. Power of new life—marvelous and beautiful creatures sprang from his touch. Blue deer with antlers the clear color of ice, white eagles, butterflies bright as fire. Few of the many wondrous creatures were seen anymore, for all had dwindled and decayed since Sakeema had left us.