Earth Magic

by Alexei Panshin

  “Oh. Yes, goblins. Nestor is full of goblins, but we are well protected. Here, drink of our wine and arm yourselves for the walk back to the hall. It is a far distance you have come without protection. Our southern wine is proof against any horror of the night.”

  And in truth Haldane’s head was ready to be rung again. The skin was passed from hand to hand. The wine was warming.

  When the knight of Chastain had drunk, he offered the skin again to Haldane. “Here. Another drink on your marriage.”

  “No,” said Haldane. “I am just right now.”

  “I will drink,” said Hemming. “To you, my Haldane, my leader.” He saluted Haldane and drank. Then he passed the skin back to the foreign knight.

  “The field is yours,” said Haldane, and they left the outhouse to the strangers.

  The torches in Morca’s hall flared brightly in their rings on the smoke stained columns, sending licking lights across the revelry. The air was close and warm, smelling of meat and men. There were songs and jokes and calls from table to table. As Haldane and Hemming stood in the door, making room for another of Lothor’s men to pass outside, Fat Netta, one of the serving women, slipped on a discarded bone before their eyes. She dropped heavily on her round bottom and her pitcher flew from her hands to drench a carl in ale. He cursed heartily and swung around while men roared. He snatched her up and kissed her soundly, though she was as old as Morca and no prettier. She clouted him with her pitcher and retreated to the kitchen.

  “Bring more ale,” the carl called after her. “Earn another kiss.”

  The calm and quiet of the night were well enough, but this was where the excitement was. It was good to be back in the midst of things. On this night, it was good to be the son of Black Morca. This night, in particular.

  Haldane strode the aisle between the tables, feeling tall, feeling himself grown and ready for marriage, war and command, and all the other things of being a man and a Get. He was stopped by Rolf’s reaching hand thrust out before him. The old carl swung around on his bench, licking his gravy-sopped fingers.

  “Aye, don’t you look good in your new clothes,” he said. “You’ve grown fine, little Haldane Hardhead. You’ll be earning yourself a new name next, and then I won’t know you. To think, you a baron now, with men of your own, and I the man who taught you to sit a horse and string a bow.”

  “Hey, it’s not so bad,” Haldane said. “There is no need to cry.”

  Rolf shook his head. The drink he had taken made him soft. “Time passes. That’s all, time passes.” And then he said, “Here, a present for you. For your wedding.” And he thrust his cord on Haldane, the beautiful string he had brought with him from Chastain. And Haldane could not say no.

  Haldane said, “Morca has promised me more men now. I can have my choice if I ask for it. I will. Shall I ask him for you? I would like you to be one of my own men.”

  Rolf was touched. “Oh, aye. Aye. Ask him.” He controlled his voice with difficulty and wiped his nose with his knuckle.

  Then he said, “I’ve been stealing looks at your partridge princess. She’s strange, but she’s not so strange that she can’t be improved. Just remember, boy—‘It’s bit and spur that make a horse jump.’ Swive her well and she will be a Get in no time.”

  His friend Ludbert beside him said, “Will you teach him that too?” And ducked away from Rolf’s hand.

  Haldane Bridegroom made his way to the dais and sat down again in his chair. His own chair. He was not yet accustomed to having a back to rest against and an arm to lean on, but he liked the chair well. It made him proud and happy. In the frame of the chair, he felt himself the picture of Morca’s heir.

  But after a single bite of meat grown cold, he leaned forward to see past the lesser part of his epic, eating her last meal here on the dais. Not eating. There was a slice of beef untouched lying atop the pork that he had been good enough to cut for her since she was too dainty to use her hands and he would not give her knife back to let her cut him again as she had threatened. Marthe’s head hung over her plate and her hands were tucked away in her lap.

  Haldane said, “What have I missed while I was gone?” He wished to know what pleasures he had traded for his swallow of Chastain wine.

  “Ah,” Morca said in Nestorian. “I was asking your bride if it is true that she cannot tell Garulf from Garmund. It is true. She has no answer. You have much to teach her, Haldane. Start with that.”

  The plump child princess shook her head dumbly. She turned her head away from Morca into her shoulder.

  “It is easy,” Haldane said to the buried face. “Garmund was my grandfather. He was king. Garulf was his brother. He was king before Garmund.”

  “There you are!” said Morca. “It is as easy as that.”

  But the girl did not look up. She seemed ready to cry. Where was her fire now? Haldane was disgusted. As soon as Lothor was safely gone, he would take her away to a private room and shut the door behind her.

  Lothor glanced up then, tapped the hard knob of his stick against palm and gestured with it, speaking in his whip-thin voice:

  “They are right,” he said. “You remember the Three Kings of Nestria without confusion, my child. Garulf and Garmund are as easy as Leon, Leonus, and Leonidus. Garulf was he that we killed at Stone Heath and left for crows to pick over. Garmund was the other. He would sneak secretly into the West, rob and burn, and slip away. Like Morca, his son. Can you remember that? It is simplicity itself.”

  Marthe nodded without words. Haldane was thunderstruck by Lothor’s presumption. Oliver could only stare.

  But Black Morca was so angered by these words of Lothor’s that he slammed the tableboard with his fist and made the dishes dance. Morca was so angered that he could not speak. The ribands in his beard quivered. He struck the table again and again until it rang like a bell and came nigh to cracking. A platter fell to the floor spilling good meat and juices amidst the rush cover. The room stilled and all eyes turned to Morca at these evidences of his wrath.

  Oliver was the first who was able to speak through the silence that followed. He said, “You speak bravely for one so far from home. An I were you, I would shave my tongue and be content to leave it unwagged until the hair grew back. Or I were safe again in Chastain.”

  “But you are not me, fat man,” said Lothor of Chastain. “And I am no barefoot wizard piddling with dinner magic, Jan be thanked. Nor am I a bride-thief barbarian king. The time has come for all of us to show ourselves. We are what we are. And there am I.”

  He pointed to the doorway and Morca’s eye followed, as Haldane had looked after the witch Jael’s misleading hand. The new doors, once Lothor’s, now Morca’s, stood wide-flung. The room silenced. In the doorway stood two Get barons, Egil Two-Fist and Coughing Romund, no friends to Morca. Behind them was a press of men, Get barons and carls. And Lothor’s knights of Chastain, naked swords in hand, fresh come from killing the watch and throwing open the gates. Romund coughed in the silence and then they were pouring into the room, all sober and intent on ending Morca’s pretensions in one stroke.

  Old Svein Half-White Half-Right on his staircase stood and threw down his dinner. He yelled, “Up! Up! Morca, we are undone! Your ambitions have brought fire down on us!”

  As Morca looked to the doorway and the attackers, Lothor seized Morca’s black beard in tight laced fingers and brought the power of Chastain down on Morca’s head. But bull Morca’s chief strength was sturdier than Lothor’s stick. The scepter broke with the second blow and Morca’s head did not.

  Morca reared, his great heavy chair toppling backward slowly. No one else in the world could have disturbed it so lightly. He dragged Lothor to his feet by his beard-tangled fingers. Then Morca swung his great arm and stumbling Lothor of Chastain was knocked to the floor senseless. Morca was a strong man.

  Black Morca spread his arms wide and in his bull bellow he cried, “For your lives and for Morca! Alf Morca Gettha!”

  Men thrilled to the sound of
his voice. With his slogan still ringing, Morca drew his sword. He placed a foot on Lothor to steady him and split him like a log on the chopping block. The Princess Marthe screamed to see her father so sudden dead. With one great hand Morca the War King upset the tableboard before him, dishes flying, kicked the golden dowry of Chastain out of his way, and strode down to the cutting floor red sword in hand to wade in blood.

  In the first moment, men stood throughout the room shaking the fog from their heads and the meat from their poniards. They drew their swords and turned to meet the killing tide. They frantically tried to sort friend from foe. They were far outnumbered and shock, dismay, and gorged bellies made them slow.

  Soren Seed-Sower and Furd Heavyhand, their quarrel forgot, stood together side by side to face the weight of onslaught. They met it and held, fighting like true Gets, like true loyal men. Then they were overwhelmed and they died. They were only the first.

  There was no quarter here. Egil, Heregar the Headstrong, and the rest who came through the doors, Lothor’s knights who followed, and Aella and Ivor, the traitors within, meant to kill every man.

  Old Svein on his stair, no fighting man for twenty years, turned and scrambled upstairs for his stool. But not to sit, not to cower. He gripped his stool with his left arm as a shield and with his eating knife as his weapon he strove to hold the stair. It was all he knew to do. And hold the stair he did against all attackers, turning them back in ones, twos, and threes. They could not bring him down. Then Aella of Long Barrow, that man, leapt up from beside the stair and seized the old man’s ankles and toppled him. Aella set his knee on Svein’s thin old chest and showed him no mercy. He slit his throat in a stroke.

  The room was bloody chaos, filled with shouts and slogans, cries of pain, and the groans of the felled as they were trampled and kicked by the standing. The torches leapt with the cool touch of night and the hot breath of battle, swaying to the surge of the dance of death, uncaring and unconcerned high above the fray. Some few of Morca’s men sought to escape the maelstrom by following the screaming serving women within the kitchens or plunging through the doors into the night, but most stood their ground, falling back toward Morca when he bellowed his call, dying hard, earning their deaths by dealing death.

  Morca was a giant. His sword was a circle of death for any who dared to close with him. He lifted fallen men to their feet. He inspired dead men to fight on. He was the center of the room. He was captain and king.

  “Alf Morca Gettha!”

  Haldane followed Morca down to the floor. He stood on his chair and stepped to the tabletop, for he did not have Morca’s strength to push tables aside with a hand, and then he jumped down to the floor, banging one knee and rising with sword in hand.

  “To me, Hemming. To me,” he called, and Hemming Paleface came to him.

  He and Hemming stood together and guarded each other’s backs. Haldane was both thrilled and afraid. So this was battle! At last. At last. His heart resounded.

  He knew their cause was dire, but how dire he did not realize. He did not know he was a dead man in his first battle with only the moment of his death undetermined. He had no time to think. He set aside his fear and fought.

  He caught blows on his sword that numbed his arm and he dealt strokes that brought blood. He was wounded and did not feel the pain. His throat was raw from battle cries he never heard. There was the flavor of iron in his mouth. His sword was tight locked one moment and he tasted the ugly breath of the Get he fought, brown beard, yellow teeth, one dogtooth missing: Heregar the Headstrong. No, a smooth-shaven knight of Chastain. No, another Get. In other moments his sword’s world was empty as far as it could reach. He braced his back against Hemming, his one support, and he braced Hemming in turn. When Morca called his slogan, he strove to reach the sound of his father’s voice, Hemming following. And then, of a sudden, his back was empty.

  Haldane was lying against something unyielding that pressed into his back and hurt him. He was kicked as he lay. His mind was a sickening whirlpool. Then he found himself on his knees. There was wetness running into his right eye and he cleared it with the back of his hand.

  He wasn’t sure where he was. What was happening? He was confused and sick. Before him on the rushes was a dead man. Blood ran from the dead man’s nose and mouth and was clotted in his beard and mustache. Haldane knew him. Knew him? It was his dear old Rolf who had taught him to ride and shoot, now beyond any use of forks or strings. As dead as . . .

  Everywhere around Haldane there was death. The room was full of dead men, Gets and foreigners. Everywhere around Haldane there was noise and tumult. War. The battle continued in knots, but everywhere many against few. And there lay Hemming Paleface dead, his head split, brains adribble.

  Then Haldane recovered some of his mind. He knew where he was. He did not know what had happened to him, but he knew what was happening.

  Black Morca still stood, but he stood alone. He had been wounded many times, the great bull beset by wolves. He bellowed in pain and he bellowed in fury, but he was dying bravely and his dangerous horns kept the yapping giant killers at a distance. His sword sang a song of death and his poniard played harmony. But he was encircled and his end was close.

  Haldane tried to come to his rescue, but he could not gain his feet. He crawled forward desperately over rushes and bodies and the scattered trash of the dowry, his dowry, dragging his sword with him. Then he saw Oliver a double armslength distant on the dais, crouched beneath a table. He was mumbling and moving his hands through the slow middle figures of a spell. And then Oliver stood, an eye-catching figure in his magenta robes, calling down the Chaining of Wild Lightning on their heads, the Ultimate Spell to kill the many, as the Gets had been slain at Stone Heath, that would kill himself, too, as the wizards of the West had perished with their triumph.

  Haldane found himself mumbling too, the only spell he knew, the Pall of Darkness, as though by chanting his little spell he could be of aid to Oliver. He remembered the words, he remembered the motions of hand, and did not know how he remembered. And he hoped for magical deliverance. Anything that would save them.

  Oliver made his gestures and said his words. He was magnificent, rising, growing, spreading, becoming great. The last figure was traced. The last word was spoken. He stood with arms spread, waiting for the white tongues of flame that would lash down and destroy the destroyers. Fire that would know whom to strike.

  But no flame came.

  Nothing happened. Nothing!

  The fighting continued as though Oliver had not spoken a word.

  And Black Morca was a dead man. The wolves closing, tightening their little circle, dragged down the great bull. They overbore him by weight of number. And the finishing strokes were made by Ivor Fish-Eye, the traitor. He waited his chance and when Morca was engaged he slipped in behind him and killed him with a knife thrice plunged into his back. Then he held the bloody knife high in exultation.

  There were tears in Haldane’s eyes and his mind was a morass. His whole world lay slain. Murdered. Dead.

  He came at last to his feet, his lips moving through the last automatic mumble of the Pall of Darkness. He nearly fell. He stumbled against the dais. He finished the spell, leaning against a table. The old wave of cold he had known before rolled over him again. He was invisible to men’s eyes, though the gods could see him still.

  The carrion wolves set up a gay savage howl: “Black Morca is dead! Morca is slain! We have killed him!”

  They pranced around the body of the fallen king and made much of themselves. They leaped in to hack at his bones. Men smeared themselves in his blood, painting their faces red with his death. They vied to cut off his parts and hold them up to show. Others turned to the scattered gold of the dowry, picking up prizes to keep.

  But their work was not done. Egil Two-Fist, who led then, yelled, “Make sure of Morca’s cub! He must be killed too. Find him.”

  That was Haldane. Haldane the Invisible. Haldane the Disappeared.
/>   A sudden shattering hand fell on Haldane’s shoulder.

  ● Part II ●

  Evasion

  Chapter 8

  THE DAY HELD FAIR PROMISE, should the two fugitives in the forest live long enough to enjoy it. It was as sweet a day as the spring had seen. The morning air was blithe, even in the cool tuckaway of a thicket. The sky beyond the trees was a light blue sea with a few small boats gently riding before the wind. A bird that Haldane neither saw nor heard landed on a branch above his head, tossed him a cheery good morning that he did not answer, and began to whet its bill.

  Haldane was in sorry condition. His fine new betrothal clothes were bloodied and dirty, rent and torn. He had bruises everywhere, the worst of which were to knee and back. He wore his first true war wounds, the best of which was a head wound that Oliver had cleaned. It would make a scar to carry. His right eye was blackened, besides. In addition to his wounds and his broken head, he suffered from shock, confusion, fatigue, and the sad effects of his small spell of invisibility, itself long passed. He remembered fighting back-to-back with Hemming Paleface and striving to reach Morca, but he remembered nothing but in flashes thereafter. He found things hard even now to fix in his mind. Worst, for a Get, he cried in weakness and could not help himself.

  Before him on the ground were the small remains of his life. They were set out in a half-circle. His long sword. A narrow knife with a black haft. A horn. A boar’s tooth graven with Deldring mysteries, strung on a rawhide cord. A length of string. And a daffodil that Haldane had added, weeping hotly and laying it beside the sword.

  There was dried blood on the sword blade, though Haldane had been taught to clean his sword after use lest it rust. He was too confused to remember to do it now that it mattered. There was dirt on the point of the sword, sign of its employment as a staff through the night. That was not right use, either.