Winter Song

by Colin Harvey

  "Don't read too much into it."

  Bera rummaged in her saddlebags. "I didn't have much time that morning we left, so I just threw everything in." She grunted. "Hah: here we are." She pulled out battered sheets of coarse-looking grey paper. "I printed some of the Oracle's answers." She smiled at his raised eyebrow. "When I was drudging at Skorradalur, I used to dream of all the places that I could go. It made it seem less like a prison. Whenever things were quiet, late at night, I would sneak onto the Oracle. Sometimes, if I didn't have much time, I'd print its answers and sneak them off to my room." Bera laid the tattered pieces of paper flat on the ground, and smoothed them out.

  Karl had an image of her poring over the maps by the light of a candle; more likely by natural light, if his first nights at Skorradalur had been any indication of summer evenings. "Didn't they miss the paper?" Karl smiled to make the question a joke. "I thought that everything was in short supply?"

  He may have been joking, but Bera took it seriously. "It's moss-paper, recycled to the point where it's all but unusable. And I made sure that I took the very worst pieces over the years," she said. "And I limited myself to one piece a week." She stared at him levelly. "Do you think that I've only recently become unhappy? You're the excuse I've waited years for, to actually give me the nerve to walk away from Skorradalur."

  "Glad to have been useful."

  She flushed at the implied rebuke. "It wasn't as calculated as that."

  "I guess not," he said, embarrassed at his own gracelessness. Whatever her motives, she's handed you a lifeline. Remember that.

  "Here's the fork." Bera pointed at the map, all business again. "On one side it leads to a desert, while the other leads up into the mountains. Hmm: it looks a pretty steep path and the mountains are high." She pursed her lips. "We should take the desert path."

  "Is it longer?" Karl said.

  "It is," Bera admitted. "But it looks less hazardous."

  "Desert it is," Karl said.

  The afternoon passed without incident.

  The night was cold enough that Bera again huddled close to him, although she barely relaxed at all until she slept. Karl wrapped his arms around her; it was only to stay warm, after all. Both suns had shone brightly all day, which was probably why he felt better than he had in weeks, he decided.

  The next day Bera said no more when they arose than she had the previous morning. Nor did they talk much as they rode. Partly that was to conserve energy, for talking while aboard a trotting horse required a degree of shouting.

  But when she did speak, she seemed more at ease, and Karl realised that he didn't feel the need to chatter. There had been times back on Avalon when he had longed to be aboard the peace and tranquillity of Ship, just as he had longed while away in space to be back with his loveable but sometimes overwhelming family.

  Bera seemed also not to feel the need to talk endlessly about minutiae, although periodically she would surprise him with an unexpected question: "Have you ever tasted chocolate?" was one such poser. He had to tell her that at least four worlds claimed to have the secret recipe of true chocolate. Another was "What's your favourite colour?"

  "Not brown," was his terse reply as he looked about him, which tickled a giggle from her. For there wasn't much to occupy them on the ride, just hour after hour after unending moorland, hills and valleys, dark greens, blacks, purples and the white of snow sometimes speckling the landscape; but mostly it was every conceivable shade of brown. Tan, russet, coffee, umber, ochre, khaki, buff; everywhere were shades of brown.

  Toward noon Bera said, "We're going into one last valley soon, before we enter the desert proper. The lake is called Sofavatn." He wondered at a lake called sleep water, and her next words only fuelled his curiosity: "You need to hold your breath for as long as you can when we pass the waters of the lake."

  "Gases?" Karl said.

  "Yes," Bera said. "They knock you out. When you're revived – if you come round – you may start raving. If you're left in there long enough, you may die."

  "What about the horses?" Karl said.

  "They don't seem as badly affected, though I don't think anyone's hung around long enough to research the effects on them of the gases that come off the lake."

  An hour or so later, as they entered the valley which was fringed with bushes, Karl fancied that he could see the fumes rising from the waters, but when he asked Bera, she said, "You're imagining it. Or you're picking up something outside my range of vision."

  He was about to ask her what the fumes were, then remembered her jibe back at Salturvatn about his curiosity and contented himself with, "I'd love to come back with a research team and analyse it."

  She gave him a smile. "I like that. You coming back, I mean." She added hastily, "With others, of course."

  "Of course." It surprised him too, that he'd consider coming back. The truth was that when the sun shone, Isheimur didn't seem quite so ferociously alien and unpleasant.

  As they neared the lake, Bera said, "Shallow breaths. Yes?"

  "OK," Karl said.

  When they were close to the lake – barely a few metres from the gleaming green surface – Bera said, "One deep breath, and hold it for as long as you can."

  She spurred Taitur on, and Karl did the same with Grainur.

  Afterward, Karl was unsure whether she had left it too late to take her lungful of air and inhaled fumes with it, or whether she simply hadn't been able to hold her breath for long enough.

  Whatever the reason, Bera swayed in the saddle as they passed the lake-shore, but stayed mounted. But just as Karl relaxed, he noticed the secondary pools – perhaps they were part of the main lake during wetter periods – from which he again fancied that vapour rose from the surface of each.

  Bera swayed and toppled into a pool. Karl jumped from his saddle, and whacked each horse on the hindquarters. The horses responded and Karl jumped in.

  His boots weighed him down, so he held his hands up, using them to guess the depth, which was about two or three metres deep in places. The water was murky, and for a few horrible moments he couldn't find her. He wondered how long he'd have to hold his breath – his record was nine minutes, but that was in a controlled environment, without the stress of a life-ordeath situation.

  Then he felt something, and grabbed her under her arms. His heart hammered as he hauled her up, partly from exertion, but mostly from fear that he might be too late.

  When he broke surface he just managed to not take an involuntary breath; the days in the lifegel had taught him to better control his autonomic functions.

  He waded up what felt like a set of natural steps beneath the water line, onto land. For a moment he froze, unable to decide. Should he resuscitate her here? No, better to get her further away.

  Taking the first steps, he staggered, and couldn't help taking a breath. Even that was enough to make his thoughts fuzzy for just a moment. Then he heaved her across his shoulders and tottered up the slope toward where the horses had stopped and were grazing as if nothing had happened. When he reached them, he decided that he'd gone far enough for Bera to be safe, and dropped her onto a clump of lichens.

  He breathed out until he was sure that his lungs were empty, then took deep breaths of the feeble atmosphere, until he felt that he would keel over, and gave Bera mouth-to-mouth. Nothing happened, so he tried again. She jerked and yanked her mouth away, thrashing about underneath him, coughing and spluttering.

  He pulled away hastily. "It was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation! It wasn't what you think!"

  He stared at her through narrowed eyes, studying her for the signs of mania that she'd sketched on the far side of the lake.

  After a few seconds her glare softened, but she said nothing.

  "What's your name?" Karl said.

  Bera frowned. "What?"

  Karl said, "What's your name? I need to test that you're not suffering damage, either from hypoxia or the fumes."

  "Bera Sigurdsdottir," she said. "I'm fine."

&
nbsp; "What colour is that bush?" He pointed at a low, purplish shrub.

  "Purple."

  "Any tunnel vision?" Karl said.

  "No."

  "Where are we?"

  "Sofavatn. Karl, I'm fine. Look." She stood up and walked an invisible straight line, one heel against the toes of her other foot, then the other way around. She shrugged. "What else can I say? I'm fine."

  That in itself worried Karl slightly. Sometimes happiness – or at least quasi-drunken high spirits – and light-headedness were symptoms of hypoxia. And he had no idea of the effects of the gases. Inhalation was a frustratingly inexact science. A dose that could leave one person unscathed could flatten another.

  But Bera was adamant that she was OK, and Karl couldn't really argue. He mentally shrugged, and reclaimed the horses, trying not to feel hurt at the violence of Bera's reaction to the mouth-to-mouth.

  He led Grainur back to her, and offered the reins.

  She didn't look at him but mumbled, "Thanks."

  Karl sighed. "I'm guessing that you were raped, Bera. And I am truly, truly sorry for whatever happened."

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  "But," Karl said, holding up a finger to interrupt. "I can't spend the whole journey guessing what may or may not offend you, Bera. You needed resuscitating."

  "You could have leaned on my chest–"

  "And you'd have accused me of feeling your tits!"

  Still not looking at him, Bera opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  "Wouldn't you?" Karl said, making the question as gentle as possible. Then adding, impishly, "Not that there's much to feel. Flat as a pancake–"

  "Oi!" She punched his shoulder with her free hand. "That's not true!" She looked down at her breasts. "Is it? I thought I was quite big–"

  "Oh, now you're worried about whether your potential rapist thinks you've got large enough breasts?"

  Her laugh was close to a nervous sob. Still holding onto the reins, Bera picked at the quick of one of her fingers. "You were right, Karl. But I still don't want to talk about it." Abruptly, she grabbed him in a hug. "Sorry. About…" She released him as quickly as she'd clasped him.

  "Don't worry," Karl said. "And yes, they're like bloody melons. I'm amazed even an idiot like you would've missed the irony, even for a moment."

  "Bastard."

  Karl sniffed. "Typical woman, always has to have the last word."

  Bera was silent for thirty seconds. Then, "Yep."

  An hour later they climbed gradually to a set of unremarkable foothills. "Not many people come this way." Bera indicated the low brown hummocks, almost bare of vegetation. "So if we run into trouble…"

  "And that's different from that last part?" Karl asked, mock-bewildered.

  Bera laughed and peered at something small scuttling across the ground, then relaxed. "It's not dangerous."

  "But was it edible?" Karl said. "We don't want you wasting away."

  "I'll need something bigger than that," Bera replied. She smiled. "Not dangerous and not edible; therefore not interesting – to me."

  "Hmm," Karl said. "That sounded like a hint to stop asking so many questions."

  A thin cry split the still air, almost too high to be heard, and so quiet that had they still been talking they would've missed it.

  "Snawk." Bera shaded her eyes as she peered toward where the cry had come from. "We'll be OK. We're too big for a snawk."

  The snawk stooped to the ground in a white blur, moments later rising with something struggling in its claws.

  "That could've been our dinner," Karl said.

  "The snawk? Or what it caught?"

  "Either."

  "You wouldn't get much meat on a snawk," Bera said. "And whatever it caught wouldn't be edible, though you can eat anything, it seems."

  "Not anything," Karl said with a laugh. "A diet of rock-eater would probably kill me in the end. But the nanophytes will slow the effects for a long time."

  They rode on.

  Bera cleared her throat. "About earlier…"

  "Forget it," Karl said. "It's done."

  "No. I just wanted to say… if I could tell you about it, I would. But I can't talk to anyone, without losing control. Not even to you. If I could tell anyone, it would be you. 'Cause I think you're wonderful, Mister Spaceman." She laughed nervously. "There, said it."

  Karl didn't answer for a while, but finally said, "Thank you."

  They rode on, seeing the snawk again and again.

  When they were almost through the foothills they saw a fluttering of wings ahead.

  Karl straightened in his saddle and glanced at Bera, but she seemed lost in thought. He decided against asking her about the bird.

  They rounded a bend in the path. The snawk sat on the rock. With it was a short, stocky man-shaped being, covered with drab grey fur. The snawk leapt from its rocky perch and flew away.

  The man-shape yowled and shrieked.

  "Troll!" Bera said, and swore. She kicked her heels into Grainur's flanks and the little grey horse responded.

  The troll jumped from the rock and hobbled into their path, but it was moving slowly and they easily rode around it. Something flew past them. Bera said, "Bloody thing's throwing stones at us! I should shoot it, but it'd be wasting a bullet."

  From a wide ravine ahead came another series of yowls.

  "More trolls?" Karl said.

  "Sounds like the rest of its pack," Bera said. "Unless it's a loner, and the pack's presence is coincidence. Considering we share a world, we don't know much about them."

  Karl thought of all the times that human societies had fought over resources, particularly when new arrivals came up against weaker resident societies, and was unsurprised. If historical parallels ran true, the settlers would only be interested in eradicating the trolls, rather than learning about them.

  "What do we do?" he said, as they neared the entrance to the ravine. Finding an alternative route meant retracing their steps for kilometres – the path had gradually funnelled, offering fewer and fewer exits.

  "This." Bera ducked down into Grainur's mane and urged her into a gallop. Karl followed her lead.

  In the ravine a half-dozen of the hairy humanoids milled and shrieked. Bera and Karl burst through at such speed that they were gone before the trolls could react.

  Once through, Bera allowed Grainur to slow, and stood up straight in the saddle. Karl slowed until he was beside her, watching the steam rising from Grainur's flanks.

  Bera beamed. "That won't do our poor horses much good."

  "No."

  Her grin grew wider. "But I enjoyed it!"

  After a couple of minutes of trotting, Karl said, "That's the first time I've seen a troll."

  "It won't be the last," Bera said. "We've driven them off our lands, though sometimes a lone troll gets old or sick and will take to raiding the farms. As long as they stick to rock-eaters, we tolerate them. But if they start killing sheep or people, we don't stand for that."

  "That one on the rock…"

  "What about it?"

  "It was feeding a snawk. On blood from his toe. In exactly the same way as Yngi fed his snawk."

  "We probably copied it from them," Bera said dismissively.

  "Have you ever seen a wild snawk eat?" Karl said.

  "I'm sure someone has," Bera said.

  "I'm willing to bet that people have seen snawks catching prey, but not eating. Why else would a wild snawk feed on troll blood?"

  The land grew drier and harsher as the afternoon wore on; only gradually, but each time they crested a rise in the undulating landscape, the view ahead seemed to include fractionally less scrub than before. And the wind picked up, spinning the bare grey earth into dust-devils. Bera fashioned impromptu hats out of furs, and passed one to Karl; "thirty per cent of your body heat is lost through your head. I should have thought of this before."

  Karl perched it on his head, feeling like a fool.

  After a while Karl said, "It'
s a tough life."

  "It can be," Bera said, "though it can be pleasant, especially in summer."

  "Still, to have survived two centuries of equipment wearing out, forced to endlessly recycle in what amounts to a closed system…"

  Bera said, "That's why we hoped you were part of a bigger group. And I think that that was what Ragnar feared: because if such a group did arrive, who would he be to the strangers? Just another local chieftain."

  "Why did your people settle here in the first place?"