Wall of Serpents

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Still the sled bumped and slid along the muddy track northward, until one afternoon, as they came over a little hill from behind a group of trees, Lemminkainen cried, "Great Jumala! Look at that!"

  Before them, stretching out of sight in both directions a prodigious fence ran across the valley. A row of palings, less than a foot apart and reaching almost to the low cloud canopy; but it was the sight of the horizontal members that really made Shea's scalp prickle. For the palings were bound together by an immense mass of snakes, wound together in and out, though whether they got that way because they wanted to or because someone had tied them in that grotesque fashion, it was impossible to tell.

  As the sled slid up, the reindeer shying and trembling, the snakes turned their heads toward the party and began hissing like a thousand teakettles.

  "It must be an illusion," said Bayard, "though at present I can't see anything but that mass of serpents. Give me some beer."

  Lemminkainen drew some of the fluid from the cask. Vuohinen's face held a sneer of triumph. The reason was apparent as soon as Bayard dabbed the liquid in his eyes, stared at the remarkable fence again, and shook his head.

  "They still look like serpents to me," he said. "I know it can't be true, but there they are."

  Shea said, "Couldn't we just assume they're fakes and cut our way through?"

  Lemminkainen shook his head. "Learn, O Harol of Ouhaio, that within this field of magic everything has all the powers of its seeming unless its true name be known."

  "I see. And we're now right into Pohjola, where their magic is really strong. You couldn't try a spell yourself to take this one off, whatever it is?"

  "Not unless I know the real name beneath this false seeming," said the hero.

  "Maybe we can play it straight," said Shea, and turning to Belphebe, "How about trying a shot with your bow at one of those beasties? The way I understand it, if you killed one, it would have to return to its proper form."

  "Not so, O Harolainen," said Lemminkainen. "It would be a dead serpent merely until we learned its true form. And there are thousands."

  They gazed at the spectacle for a moment or two. It was fairly revolting, but the snakes made no movement to leave their position.

  Suddenly Pete Brodsky said, "Hey! I got a idea."

  "What is it?" asked Shea.

  Brodsky jerked a thumb toward Vuohinen. "This gummy belongs to me, don't he?"

  "Under the laws of this country, I believe that's right," said Shea, and "He is your serf," said Lemminkainen.

  "And he's on this magic lay in this joint?"

  Shea said, "Why, so he is, now that you mention it. He must have been the one who worked the river of fire and the eagle."

  Brodsky reached a hand out and grabbed Vuohinen by the collar. "All right, punk! What's the right name for them potato-water dreams out there?"

  "Awk!" said Vuohinen. "Never will I be a traitor ..."

  "Bag your head on that stuff. Come across with the right dope, or I'll have shorty here let you have it." He pointed significantly to the sword that hung at Lemminkainen's side.

  "Awk!" said Vuohinen again, as the hand twisted in his collar. "They are—made from lingonberries."

  Walter Bayard said, "Why, so they are!" He walked across to the hissing, snarling barrier, reached out his hand, twisted the head off one of the serpents, and ate it.

  Lemminkainen laughed. "Now there will be a removing of spells, and then we shall have lingonberry dessert to our meal. I thank you, friend Piit."

  Chapter Seven

  The lingonberry wall came down to a tangled mat of vegetation under Lemminkainen's ministrations and they camped just beyond. The hero was in hilarious humor, making a series of jokes which nobody but Brodsky found diverting, and shouting with laughter over his own sallies, until Shea said, "For the love of Mike, Kauko, what's got into you tonight? You sound as though you had just won the first prize."

  "And have I not, Harol? For I know well that we are through the last barrier that Louhi can throw against us, and tomorrow we shall arrive at Pohjola's hall— perhaps to fight."

  Shea said, "I can see that would be just about the best thing that ever happened."

  He himself didn't feel the same way, not even in the morning when they began to sight tilled fields with a few domestic animals. Presently there was a stead of considerable size visible among the tops of the low trees. Lemminkainen clucked at the Elk of Hiisi, and the giant reindeer pulled up beside a slow stream that wound across the featureless landscape.

  The hero dug into the duffel at the rear of the sled for his shirt of scale-mail and put it on. "For you, my friends," he said, "I have brought armor second in quality only to my own."

  He dragged out four sleeveless hip-length jackets of a double thickness of leather, tanned so stiff that Shea found it was all he could do to get into the thing. It was just as heavy as a well-made steel cuirass would have been, far more clumsy and less effective, but he supposed the metallurgy of Kalevala would not be up to such an article. Belphebe wriggled out of hers almost as soon as she was in it. "Marry," she said, "you may keep your beetle's bodice, Sir Lemminkainen. I shall need free arms if I'm to go to war."

  Lemminkainen produced for each of them a skullcap of the same thick leather, with a strip of iron around the rim and a pair of semi-circular strips that sprang from it to meet at the top of the wearer's head. These fitted better, though Brodsky's gave him the odd effect of wearing a rimless derby hat.

  They climbed back into the sled. The Elk of Hiisi splashed across the little stream toward a group of buildings. Brodsky pointed, "These Hoosiers sure play it for the works. Look at them sconces!"

  Shea saw that a nearby hillock was decorated with a row of stakes—about fifty, he fudged—each stake surmounted by a severed human head. The heads were in various stages of decrepitude; only one stake, at the end of the line, lacked its gruesome ornament. A score of ravens flew croaking up from the heads as they approached, and Bayard remarked, "I'm glad there's only one vacancy."

  Vuohinen said sourly, "You will soon learn how little the stakes of Pohjola are exhausted."

  Lemminkainen pivoted round, hit him a solid backhand blow on the ear, and said, "Now my friends, you shall see that the handsome Kaukomieli is not less skillful with magic than he is with the sword."

  He brought the reindeer to a halt, leaped to the ground and, pulling a number of twigs from the stunted trees, began arranging them in rows, crooning to himself. Presently there were enough twigs to satisfy him; he stepped back, and his voice rose higher as he made a series of passes with his hands. Shea could see that they were sound magic, of a type he had seen in other space-time continua, but the hero moved too rapidly for him to follow the precise pattern. Then there was a little rush of air and, where the first twig had been, Shea was looking at a replica of himself, complete with epee, leather jacket, and ironbound cap.

  Another, and another, and another Shea flashed into being, a whole row of Harold Sheas, who at once began to crowd round the sled.

  Belphebe gave a little squeal. "Am I wed to all of these?" she cried. But, as she did so, the quota of Sheas was apparently filled up, and Belphebes began to leap from the ground where Lemminkainen had arranged his twigs. They mingled with the simulacra of Shea as the magician's voice went up one more tone, and copies of Brodsky joined the growing crowd, shaking hands and clapping one another on the back.

  Lemminkainen's song came to an end; the sled was surrounded by at least a hundred replicas of the three. In it remained one Lemminkainen, one sour-looking Vuohinen, and a single Bayard. Bayard said, "A brilliant piece of work, Lemminkainen, but could these reproductions actually cut somebody up, or are they phantoms? They look all right to me, but I haven't tried it with beer in my eye."

  "Seek to wrestle with one of these Piits, and you shall see," said Lemminkainen. "They will have all the strength of life unless someone finds which is the real one and which the shadow and make a counter-spell, using the true n
ame of the one."

  "Wait a minute," said Bayard. "Haven't we got someone here who can identify all these people for the Pohjolans?" He pointed at Vuohinen.

  "By the mill!" said Lemminkainen. "It is clear that I am wise as well as brave, for no one else would have thought to bring on this journey a person so capable of seeing through millstones as yourself. Piit, Harol, Pelviipi, you must mingle with your other selves and let some of those other selves come upon the sled, lest these people of Turja find the true ones."

  Shea stared a second, then said to Belphebe: "He's right, kid. See you later." He squeezed her hand and jumped over the side into the mob. Walter came with him. "I don't want to lose sight of the real one myself," he said.

  Behind them, three or four Brodskys tried to climb into the sled at once. The one who made it first promptly kicked Vuohinen. "Get wise, punk," he said. "Pull any fast ones on me, and I'll let you have it."

  Shea observed that, while the various Brodskys had formed a compact group to march behind the sled, chattering with each other, most of the reproductions of himself and Belphebe had paired off. One of the unengaged ones sidled up to him and pressed his hand. It couldn't be the real one, and yet her touch was as cool and her step as light as though it were. It occurred to him that unless someone pronounced the counter-spell fairly soon, some neat marital problems would arise in a continuum that contained about thirty-five Sheas and as many Belphebes, all presumably supplied with the due quota of emotions.

  Bayard said, "There's one point, Harold. It seems to me that it should be possible to tell within easily determinable limits how our presence here will affect the outcome of the epic. We have all the elements. We know what happened in the original story, and we have fairly accurate information about ourselves. It seems to me that an equation could be set up ..."

  "Yeah, for one of those electronic thinking machines," said Shea. "Only we don't happen to have one, and if we did, it wouldn't work."

  "There was a witch once in Faerie," said the Belphebe by his side, "that warned people from danger after she had looked in a pool by magic and seen to where a course would lead."

  "That's what I mean," said Bayard. "Apparently you can do things by magic in this continuum that a calculating machine couldn't think of equalling. Now if before we start something—say going into that hall there—we found out it was going to turn out badly, then we could change it to the right kind of future by taking another action."

  "That's a bum steer," said one of the Brodskys, who had fallen into step with them. "Get smart, will you? Everything that's gonna happen has been put on the line by God ever since the clock began to tick. It says so in the Bible."

  "Listen, my predestinarian friend," said Bayard, "I shall be glad to prove the contrary ..."

  "Not with magic," said Shea. "You're the only one it doesn't affect now, and if you got to working spells, you might lose your immunity. Hey, they've spotted us."

  A man was running, shouting, toward one of the buildings from which came sounds of revelry. The door of this building opened as the sled came to a stop, and several broad, black-bearded faces appeared in the opening. Shea saw one of the other Sheas put an arm around a Belphebe and felt a quite illogical pang of jealousy over the thought that this might be the real one.

  Lemminkainen jumped out of the sled, followed by a Shea, a Belphebe and a Brodsky, who clamped a wrist-lock on Vuohinen. Men began to file out of the hall and stand opposite the company of visitors, who drew up in' a rough line. They looked much like other Kalevalans, though perhaps even shorter and with more Mongoloid faces. They were armed and looked thoroughly unpleasant. Shea felt a prickling at the back of his neck and loosened his epee in its scabbard.

  But Lemminkainen looked unimpressed. "Hail, my cousins of Pohjola!" he said. "Do you wish to keep me standing here outside the hall of feasting?"

  Nobody answered him; instead, more of them came frowning out. Lemminkainen turned.

  "Fair Pelviipi," he said, "show them your art, that they may learn how silly it is to oppose the friends of the heroic Kaukomieli."

  As though actuated by a single brain, thirty-five Belphebes, placed one foot each against the ends of their bows and snapped the strings into place. Like so many Rockettes, they each placed an arrow in the string, took one pace back, and looked around for a target. One of the ravens from the palisade of heads chose that moment to come flapping over, with a loud "Kr-awk."

  Thirty-five bowstrings twanged; the raven came tumbling downward, looking like a pincushion, transfixed by all the arrows that could find room in its carcass. "Nice work, kid," said Shea, before he realized he was talking to a simulacrum.

  It impressed the Pohjolans, too. There was a quick,' low-toned gabbling among them, and a couple disappeared inside. In a moment they were back and the company began to disappear through the door. Lemminkainen said, "Follow me!" and stamped up behind them. Shea hurried, not wishing to be left outside, and reached the door simultaneously with the Shea who had been in the sled.

  "Sorry," said the other Shea, "but I came here to go to this party with my wife."

  "She's my wife, too," said Shea, grabbing a Belphebe at random and leading her through the door behind the other couple. Thank Heaven, there were enough of them to go round.

  Inside, several rushlights flickered. A fire blazed on the central hearth, to some extent counteracting the inadequate illumination characteristic of Kalevalan houses. The whole long hall was crowded with benches and tables, at which sat scores of men and quite a few women. All heads were turned toward the newcomers.

  Shea's eyes followed Lemminkainen's toward the center of the hall, where a table with some space about it was apparently the place of honor. At it sat the tallest Kalevalan Shea had ever seen; this was undoubtedly the bridegroom. There was a sharp-featured, snag-toothed, muscular-looking woman—Louhi, the Mistress of Pohjola, no doubt. The stout man with his eyes drooping sleepily and a mug of drink before him must be the Master of Pohjola. The girl with the fancy beaded headdress was probably the bride, Louhi's daughter.

  The duplicate Shea touched him on the arm. "Even nicer dish than Kylliki, isn't she?" he whispered. It was odd to have one's own thoughts come back at one out of one's own mouth.

  Lemminkainen strode to the nearest bench, reached out and pitched the last man on it to the floor. Then he slammed his muddy boot down on the bench and shouted:

  -

  "Greetings to you on my coming,

  Greetings also to the greeter!

  Hearken, Pohjola's great Master,

  Have ye here within this dwelling,

  Beer to offer to the hero?"

  -

  Louhi dug her elbow into her husband's ribs. He forced his eyes open, gave a grunt and replied, "If you care to stand quietly over there in the corner, between the kettles, where the hoes are hanging, we will not prevent you."

  Lemminkainen laughed, but it was an angry laugh. "Seems to me that I'm unwelcome," he chanted:

  -

  "As no ale is offered to me,

  To the guest who has just entered."

  -

  "No guest you," cried Louhi, "but a troublemaking boy, not fit to sit among your elders. Well, if you seek trouble, by Ukko, you shall find it!"

  "Yes?" said Lemminkainen, sitting down heavily on the bench.

  -

  "Pohjola's illustrious Mistress,

  Long-toothed Mistress of Pimentola,

  Thou hast held the wedding badly,

  And in doggish fashion held it ..."

  -

  He chanted on, comparing Louhi to various species of unpleasant fauna and extending the compliments to most of her guests. There seemed to be a routine about this sort of thing, Shea decided; the others merely sat, waiting till Lemminkainen had finished.

  Behind him he heard the duplicate Shea say to Bayard, "All right, I admit it might work, and it's within the laws of magic. But if anybody's going to try it, you better let me. You just haven't had enough exper
ience with it, Walter."

  He whirled. "What might work?"

  His twin said, "Walter's been watching Lemminkainen, and thinks he's worked out a magical method for determining the future results of a given series of events."

  "I just want to show up this predestination business for ..." began Bayard.

  "Sssh," said the duplicate Shea. "They've finished saying hello. Here comes the floor show."

  The Master of Pohjola had at last opened his eyes fully and was chanting a spell. In the space between the table of honor and the hearth, there appeared a pool of water. The Master cried: