by Emil Petaja
"Worm!" he cried. "Hide your tongues or I will flay them with Ukko's fire! Creep back into the bowels of this time-rock, Vile, and hide thyself in the deepest crevices you can find or I will find you and destroy you with a mighty hail of steel from Ukko's house behind the sky!"
The Worm hissed louder than before; it coiled and uncoiled, rearranging the multiplicity of its convolutions for an all-out venom strike that would turn this puny braggart's body into a corroded spot on the stone floor.
Wayne's heart flopped inside him. Involuntarily he moved back a couple of steps when the heads came closer. From somewhere in his brain he seemed to hear Louhi cackling. "Worm!" he cried, "if you do not heed my singing, I will swell you up until you burst; I will seek out your mother and your foul ancestry! I know you well, Vile! Syojatar was your mother and a sea-fiend was your father! Syojatar spat you out in the water because you were evil to hold longer in her belly; Hüsi, for new mischief, saved you, toad's vomit! He sent Pahalainen to nurse you out of her black teats and, as is the way of great evil, Louhi drew you to her time rock as to a lodestone for all that is monstrous. You are nothing but Loubi's chattel, Vile! Make way for a hero, before I remove you from existence, misbegotten spawn of Syojatar!"
The Words of Origin, oldest of ancient magic, did what even Wainomoinen's magic knife could not. The fact that Wayne knew, from Lemminkainen, who the Worm was, took away its effectiveness as Underway Guardian, for the time, until Louhi could give it new power. The heads shrank. The tongues vanished. The Worm shriveled to the size of a garden lizard and crawled away into a small dank hole in the rock.
The Gates were open.
The masked warriors in crimson who showed Wayne and Varjo into Louhi's presence genuflected, then vanished. Var-jo fell on her knees when she saw the Hag on her green throne, carved out of the horns of Vammatar's giant ox. Wayne faced the witch full, knowing how Louhi despised weakness. "Ho, Starman!"
"Ho, Witch!"
The Hag wore flames, scarlet and yellow flames; at least it seemed so the way the colors leaped in her robe when she waved her snake-stick at him and made abrupt convulsive movements with her humped spider's body. Her face was pinched-ki and dark as sin itself, her bones brittled to petrification, her skin fine-combed into a parchment inscribed in runic evil. The lipless gash that served Louhi for mouth was a downslung twist displaying a parrot's black tongue when she spoke; but it was the deepset eyes that dragged one down into the black shines of Manala.
"On your face, Varjo, stepdaughter of Loviatar!" And when the girl had cowered and shivered to suit her, she gestured with her hissing want. "Now, come closer so that • I see how ill-favored and puny you are."
Wayne helped Varjo on her feet and moved her reluctantly closer to the green throne. The girl's eyes fluttered faintly when she lifted her head to face the witch.
"Well?" Louhi spat. "Say something, ill-favored offspring of a tree-toad!"
Varjo mumbled, forcing back a sobbing shriek.
Louhi cackled loudly. "You saw that I am beautiful to behold, is that it? That you are pleased with my appearance?"
"Yes, Mistress of Pohyola," Varjo squeaked in jerks.
"That you would like to embrace me did you but dare?"
"Yes, Mistress." Wayne held her on her feet as if she were a rag doll.
"Nün. You begged to be allowed the happiness of visiting your lonely grandmother, is it not? And to bring your strapping big lover along for her approval. So?" The last word was a pistol crack.
Wayne said, "Yes, Mistress. Varjo has been kicked around all of her life. She wants no more of Earth. She wants only to stay here in Pohyola with you and serve you."
"Nün. And how can such a skinny ugly tree-toad serve the Mistress of All Evil, may I ask?" When Wayne opened his mouth in a mild protest, she added, "Never mind. I can make her beautiful. So beautiful that even my first-bom will be jealous of her." She screamed for her vassals. "Take the wench away and bathe the stench of the accursed Vanhat off her. Feed her. Put some meat on those ill-matched bones."
Wayne grinned impudently. Louhi scowled black. "You laugh at me, Starman?"
"At your pretense of having no heart, Mistress." Louhi rumbled with amusement. "You think I have a heart?"
"What passes for heart these days. After all, you did save Varjo and me by showing her the Way."
The Hag stroked her snake-stick into hissing and crawling up her arm, fanging it affectionately. "So I did, Starman." Her eyes glittered and sparked when she took him in, from his black space-boots to his tousled bare head. Wayne was ready with pre-prepared meat for her mind-dig when those soul-raping eyes lingered on his. He hoped and held on, and when the barrier began to crumble he gnawed his lip for distraction, paced, and recited doggeral verses to lead her needling probe down garden paths.
"Mary, Mary, most contrary, How does your Island grow?
With spells and smells and dragon wells And poison pots all in a row."
"What is this Ussi nonsense?" she shrilled irritably, and pushed her esp needles in further.
"Give me a pukko to hide in my bed, Here comes Old Louhi to chop off my head"
"Enough!"
"I have more," Wayne said innocently. "How many miles to Pohyoland—"
"Silence! Think you, Starman, that I don't know what you are doing? Think you to trick me—Louhi of Pohyola!"
Wayne stopped pacing and laughed. "Nope. I could not hope to do that, Mistress. I merely wished to make a point."
"And?"
"That I have something in my head besides milk and sawdust. That you have need for such-as me. Human beasts you can breed in plenty"—he gestured at the two slope-browed, neckless brutes guarding the entrance to her throne room—"however, such a one as I, with trained cunning and the ability to see into minds (save yours, of course) do not come often. I am a rare combination of useful attributes, Mistress."
"NUn* Her mouth sucked in hideously while she considered. "And just what did you want from me in return for your valuable services?"
Wayne grinned. "A square meal would not go amiss. It has been many weeks."
The witch eyed him sharply while he wolfed down the meal her servants hustled in at her handclap. "Nün" she observed sententiously. "There is nothing like starvation to bring out the potential for craft and cunning in a man.
Refined tortures aren't in it. Seeing the manner in which you stuff your shrunken stomach is like seeing the cold, gnawing death I have decreed for all the Vanhat. I am pleased."
Wayne grinned and hodded, chomping apace. When he regretfully pushed the trencher away, with a gratified belch, the Hag cackled. "Then it was hunger that drove you from Wainomoinen, my arch-enemy?"
"And love for Varjo." Wayne's eyes searched the arras behind which the girl had been taken. "May I see her?"
"Not so fast! So. There are hungers and hungers, and when one hunger is sated the other shows its lecherous face."
"I love her," Wayne said.
"NUn." She gave her snake-stick a wicked swish. "You expect me to believe that Wainomoinen's future son, a thousand times reborn, has abandoned his purpose—for that miserable forest trollop? You expect me to believe that? Had it been my first-born, trained in the arts of love, I might believe. As for Varjo—"
"Tastes differ," Wayne said.
"So they do. Some of the star-demons who have scared my bed over the centuries would send the brave Vanhat heroes quaking under theirs. As you imply, it is just possible that your starman's lecherous instincts have been refined to —no matter. In any case, Louhi does not accept any of this—including your endless bragging about 'useful attributes' —on faith. Louhi has no faith."
"Perhaps if I tell you about myself? Or show you—out of my mind?"
"Perhaps. You may try."
"I am from the Terran Deep Fleet. I was born on a Colonial farm under a small blue sun called Proxima Cen-tauri."
"I know this star. A feeble thing, as suns go."
"My name is Wayne Panu. My task was
that of Destroyer for the Fleet. My brain was umbilicated to my starship, and together we would descend on primitive planets and destroy all of the life on them, so that our Fleet and then the colonists could take them over without later problems. Earlier, we found colonies raped and ruined by rebellious natives, even when pacts and agreements had been signed. The Fleet cannot be everywhere so—"
"Killing them off right at the beginning seemed the logical thing to do. I agree."
"Without having made friends with them or, in many cases, even seeing what the natives were like—"
"Was that prudent? Wouldn't some of them make good slaves?"
"Our machines make better slaves. We tried the slave bit, as in the old days on Terra itself. It seldom worked out. Our colonists are all too willing to work hard to gain living space. Then there were strange diseases, strange inimical animals. Stripping off but low-grade vegetable life worked out much better."
"A neat efficient system, I must admit," Louhi grudged. "And I am their top Destroyer," Wayne bragged. "So you say." She fussed with her hissing stick as if resenting others borrowing her evil ways. "Now, if I may see some of this for myself, in detail." She mumbled her lipless mouth in expectant relish.
Wayne showed the crone, from out of his memory vaults. But with great care. There were innumerable all-kills to choose from for Louhi's delectation and, more important, to impress her with his usefulness. He chose the bloodiest, but he was very heedful not to allow any wisp of compassion or dissatisfaction with his Destroyer's duties to leak through.
Louhi was amused and impressed. Her eyes glittered with pleasure.
"I am inclined to give you a chance to prove your worth, Starman," she said. "Also I admired the way you handled the Worm of the Gate. It will take me some time to coax him out of his hole, thanks to you. No matter. You have plucked the brains of the three Vanhat heroes for all they are worth, no doubt. This alone may prove of some value to me. This information is available when I wish it, I presume?"
"Why not, Mistress of Evil?" Wayne grinned slyly. "I was trained to take advantage of every opportunity. I am used to being on top, with the winners. Wainomoinen's cause is a loser's. I'm with you, Louhi!"
She was plying her needles again, and deep.
"You would see your mother planet die without a qualm?"
"What is this Earth to me?" Wayne shrugged. "Anyway," he added with a faint ironic smile, "it will riot die; not completely."
"How do you know?" Tartly.
"The facts are obvious, aren't they?"
Louhi growled curses deep in her spider's body. "Maybe I will relent, just a little. Maybe I will ask Vipunen to —" She broke off abruptly.
"Or is it that you want the heroes to live a little longer for your further—amusement?" Wayne said quickly.
The Hag showed her gums, then rocked with cackling laughter. Wayne joined her merriment and their ghoulish duet echoed and reechoed across the great throne room, so that the line of red-eyed corbies roasting on the rafters awoke and screamed in contrapuntal chorus.
"All this is most diverting," the Witch of Pohyola interrupted the cacophonic acappella, "and I like you well, Starman. By Ketoilinen and the purple serpents of Lempo! Yet, something rankles me, withal, deep in my ancient craw."
"What may that be, Mistress?"
"Varjo. You say you love Varjo."
"I say it and I do."
"You know, of course, that she has no soul at all by now. That it has been eaten out of her body little by little, from her years in the Hollow?"
"I know this."
"Ai. Had she- not been what she is, she could never have found the Way, nor brought you with her." Her eyes were sharp gimlets. *Tou desire this fen toad?"
"I have already taken her," Wayne admitted.
"Nün. Had you not done as you did you would not be here in Pohyola, stealing Wainomoinen's magic and— what happened at the hut." She scowled at him doubtfully.
"I keep telling you, Mistress, that I am trained for evil. I belong here. I ask nothing but to marry Varjo and stay here forever doing your bidding.^
Wayne sensed her doubts full well. Devious as the Mistress of All Evil was, she found it impossible to trust anyone; that Wayne possessed cunning and intelligence and telepathic talents bothered her. That he skillfully avoided her mind-needling bothered her even more. She mumbled her gums together in deep thought, while the huge black candles on either side of her green throne sputtered and guttered and made grotesque shadows on the dark- wall. Her snake-stick hissed in rhythmic accompaniment to her eldritch crooning.
"I have it, Starman!" she exploded suddenly. "We shall revert to the old methods."
"Such as?"
"You shall be put to the test. You wish my Loviatar's stepdaughter in marriage, and my good will. Very well. Prove it by performing tasks, impossible feats, in my behalf. Thus shall you earn my granddaughter and my trust."
Wayne sucked in a deep breath. Dealing with the Witch of Pohyola was like walking a tight rope from planet to planet with a blade poised over his head.
"Impossible feats?" he gulped.
"The impossible should not be difficult for such a great hero as you claim to be," Louhi quivered with sardonic cackles. "Let us see. What shall be the first? Yes. I have it. On the bleak snows beyond Manala, high on a table of land where the wind never stops its howling, there is a creature known as Hüsi's Elk. A creature of enormous size and cleverness. The Master of Us All, Hüsi himself, sang up this monster in a playful moment, then, when he was tired of him, discarded him there at the top of the Earth where he could not ravage the entire planet. I have thought his horns would be tasteful just above the doors of my feasting-hall, to impress my demon friends when we have our fetes. Bring them me."
Wayne swore silently, his thoughts leaping to weapons Lady carried within her; the manship was, he hoped, still safely buried in the Terran drifts.
Louhi caught his thought. "No, Starman. No Ussi's magic. You will be allowed only a bow and arrow, snow-shoes, and a spear. Bid whoever you wish to fashion them for you. And the time shall be an agone one; you shall have no darkness for added hazard." She cackled pleasur-ably. "Not that you will need other hazards to defeat you. Hüsi's Elk is enough."
X
The Northland wind danced and piped across the crisp-packed path dropping toward the Lake; overhead a pale yellow April's sun bore down, cold yet, but hopeful. Snow-rags tossed about. Wayne stood where Louhi's tune-magic had placed him, staring up at the sun until his eyes burned from it. What joy to see the Sun! What heart-bursting joy! To see it, to know that soon now the thick-iced Lake would begin to melt; the sagging white burdens the forest pines bore would begin to drip off into rushing rivulets. Then white-breasted swallows would build their nests in the thick green branches; Tapio's small animals wduld heave their burrows; Osa, the lumbering black bear, would leave his winter haunt to fish for powan where the ice still laced the lapping water's edge and the birches thrust out pale green buds.
Wayne's eyes and his soul ached to see the way the sun lavished its prismatic colors on each roving snowbit Nün. He must move, cast off these poetic fancies and be about the task the Hag of Pohyola had mockingly set for him.
To kill Hüsi's Elk.
A name rang in his mind like a bell. Kauppi. He must find Kauppi, the Lapp. Kauppi, the weapon-maker. Young as he was, the Lapp who had forsaken the following of the herds for the crafts allied to the hunt, was renowed in the whole wide peninsula, even south to Carelia, for his talents with metal and hide.
His long legs carried him downtrail to a knoll of spruce forest and through it. Powder blue smoke wind-drifting over a stand of white birches drew him to the forge by the Lake; Kauppi was earnestly at work at his forge. Kauppi was a handsome wide-faced lad with a somewhat stubbed nose that inclined to be always peeling off. He wore his hair in long blond plaits, Nordic style. Some said he had Norse blood. His knotted brown arms were bare to the shoulder and the ermine tassels on his blue and red ve
st swung in lively fashion at each ringing stroke of his hammer.
Wayne's feet, crunching on the path to the hut where Kauppi lived with his aging mother, made him blink up.
He grinned wide as he set down the hammer and swiped a hand over his dripping forehead.
"Paiva, Waino!"
Wayne approached, but a thrill of wonder prickled his neck hairs. *Tou know me, young Lyylikki?"
"And why not?" Kauppi laughed a boy's laugh. "You are young Wainomoinen from over the mountain, Lmari way. See! I have your silver-alloy javelin all ready for you." He squinted his smoke-blue eyes critically down the length of his handiwork, turning it slowly to eye-test its straight-ness. "Yes. It will serve you well."
Wayne took the spear >and, to his own surprise, hefted it and mock-threw it with a hunter's knowledge of its proper use. This, after Lady and the flame-bombs!
*Tfes. I am pleased."
Kauppi nodded, content. "And your snowshoes are gutted and dry-stretched. As to your crossbow—" His wide freckle-dotted face made a dubious grimace. "But enough! Let us not stand out here in the wind. Your journey has been long, eh?"
"Long, yes."
"Come into the hut. Aüti is away with a cousin who is in childbirth; I shall prepare the bark tea myself if you think you can stand it. Or beer, perhaps?"
Wayne found a seat while Kauppi bustled.
"Tea by all means. Kuppikumma goes down better at this hour."
Kauppi nodded and passed a plate of small cakes across the table. There was polite discussion about the spring planting, how the fish were biting under the Koski, the waterfall of white thunder at the far end of the Lake which never quite froze, and of the reindeer herds. Wayne admired the long spear and the snowshoes at length, sipping his tea and waiting for Kauppi to explain about the crossbow.
The prelude was when the freckled forehead between the wheaty braids puckered up in creases of self-disgust. From the row of bows set in notches behind neat rods fastened to the walls with copper wire, Kauppi sought out the newest. He handled it with a kind of rapture in his eyes and in his fingers as well, and no wonder. Wayne accepted it with a low long whistle.