The Skrayling Tree

by Michael Moorcock

  Gunnar wanted no more of this in public. He grunted and shrugged. “He can come aboard with us, if he likes. We need fresh water, and there’s none I can see here.”

  Smiling faintly to himself Klosterheim held his own counsel. He bowed. “I am much obliged, Earl Gunnar.”

  Gunnar pushed back through his men to take a better look at the newcomer. “Do you know this realm?”

  Klosterheim changed his language to Greek. “As well as anyone,” he said. “I would imagine you are hoping for a guide.”

  Gunnar snorted. “As if I’d trust you!”

  “I know why you fear this place, Gunnar the Doomed, and I know you have reason to fear it.” Klosterheim spoke in a low, cold voice. “But I have no particular cause to fear it, and neither has any other man here, save you.”

  “You know my dream?” said Gunnar.

  “I can guess what it must be, for I know what happened at that place. But you have nothing to fear in the house now.”

  “Aye,” said Gunnar. “Call me a cautious old man, but I see no reason to trust my fortunes to you or that place.”

  “You had best trust me, Gunnar the Doomed, since we have goals in common.”

  “How can you know so much living at the World’s Rim? Do vessels come and go every week from here to the Middle Sea?”

  “Not as many as there used to be,” said Klosterheim. “The Phoenician trade at its height was thriving on other shores than these. I have been to a country far from here where the folk speak Breton and are Christians. Slowly the land will change them. They will become as the others here. Men change not as they would, but as nature demands. The Norse and Roman trade was minimal. The Phoenicians and their Celtic allies fled here after the fall of Carthage. This continent has always absorbed its settlers. And made them its own.”

  Gunnar had lost interest. “So you say there’s no big Norse settlement here? No major defenses? No fleet?”

  “Just myself and the Pukawatchi now,” said Klosterheim, almost humorously. “Patiently expecting your coming. I know what you carry with you here. How came you so swiftly to Vinland?” He spoke knowingly.

  Gunnar saw the last of his men into the ship, then came back to talk further. “You mean that war plate?” he asked. “That skrayling shield?”

  “It was more than luck brought you here before the winter snows,” said Klosterheim. “It was more than one thing allowed you to take a shortcut through Hell!” He spoke with unusual force. “You need me, Earl Gunnar the Doomed, just as you do Prince Elric, if you are ever to see the Golden City and look upon the wonder of the Skrayling Tree.”

  “Do you know what I seek?” Gunnar demanded.

  “Might it have something to do with the ring worn by our pale friend?”

  “That’s enough,” said Gunnar.

  He lapsed into uncharacteristic, brooding silence.

  “And why am I here?” I asked. I held up the ring.

  “You are not here, as you well know,” said Johannes Klosterheim with narrowed eyes. “You are in peril in some other realm. Only desperation brings your dream self here.”

  “And you know what I seek?”

  “I know what you would do. I cannot see how it can be done whether you serve Law or Chaos.” He interrupted himself, looking to Gunnar. “Come back with me to the house. Leave your men to guard the ship. You can sleep, and we can talk further. I need your strength as you need my wisdom.”

  But Gunnar shook his head again. “Instinct tells me to avoid that house at all costs. It is associated with my doom. If you have warriors and would join forces, we’ll improve our security. So I’ll agree provisionally to an alliance. Until I see the mettle of your men. Should you reveal to me tomorrow that your tribe’s no more visible than the average elf or dwarf, you’ll have waited fifty years just to lose your head. Do you too claim to be a demi-mortal like our leprous friend here? The world is filling up with us. The best of these die bloodily at forty or so. Few live to sixty, let alone two hundred.”

  “I was born out of my time,” Klosterheim offered by way of explanation. “I am an adventurer, like yourself, who seeks a certain revenge and recompense. I cannot die until Time herself dies. A young dreamthief’s apprentice has tried to steal something from me and has paid a price for it. Now I travel as you do, with the help of sorcery. Why Time should accommodate us so thoroughly, I cannot tell, but we might learn one day.”

  “You’re of a scientific disposition?” I asked.

  “I have been acquainted with natural scientists and students of the Khemir and the Gibra for many years. All grope for wisdom as greedily as their lords and kings grope for power. To protect their wisdom from abuse by the temporal forces of this world, various brotherhoods have been formed down the centuries. The most recent is the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher. All understand that the sum of human wisdom, the secret of human peace, resides in a certain magical object. It can take the form of a cup, a staff or a stone. It is known by the Franks as the Gray Dale, which is a name they give to a ceremonial bowl used to greet and feast visitors. Some say it is a bowl of blood. Some say the heads of enemies swim in that bowl and speak of secret, unnatural things. Or it is a staff, such as Holy Roman Emperors carry to symbolize that they rule justly and with balance under the law. The Gauls and Moors are convinced it is a stone, and not a small one. Yet all agree the Gray Dale could take any of these forms and still be what it is, for sight of it is hidden from all but the most heroic and virtuous.”

  Again Gunnar was laughing. “Then that is why I am the Doomed. I am doomed to seek the cup but never see it, for I cannot claim to be a virtuous man. Yet only that cup could avert my fate. Since I’ll never see it, I intend to ensure that no others shall ever set eyes on it…”

  “Then let us hope,” Klosterheim interrupted dryly, “that we are able to help you avert your fate.”

  “And you, Master Klosterheim,” I said. “Do you, too, seek this staff, stone or cup?”

  “To be honest,” said Johannes Klosterheim with thin, terrifying piety, “I seek only one thing, and that is the cure for the World’s Pain. I have one ambition. To bring harmony back to the world. I seek to serve my master, the Prince—”

  “—of Peace?” Gunnar was feeling confident again now, and as usual this came out in a form of aggression. “I mistook you for a soldier or a merchant, sir, not a priest.”

  “My master inspires in me the greatest devotion.”

  “Aye. That devotion evaporates when you are forced to eat your own private parts,” said Gunnar with a reminiscent chuckle.

  He had regained whatever he had momentarily lost in his terror to get away from the house. Such weaknesses in one who was usually as courageous as he was ruthless! It made me curious. No doubt this curiosity was shared by his men, who trusted him only while his judgment remained impeccable. He knew, as well as anyone, that if he began to falter, there were thirty souls ready to challenge him for the captaincy of The Swan.

  He had fired them with dreams of kingdoms. Now Klosterheim promised to take them to the Golden City. But Gunnar had by now seen the sense of that. He was no longer disputing our need for the skullface and others.

  “And I must admit,” added Klosterheim, “to have had some real trouble from the one who calls himself White Crow. One of your people, Prince Elric?”

  “It is not a familiar name in Melniboné,” I said. These humans believed anyone who was “fey” to be of Faery or some other imagined supernatural elfland.

  I looked across at the shore with its great, wooded hills, its deep, ancient forest rolling like green waves back into the interior. Was this truly Atlantis, and did the continent surround the World’s Pole? If so, would I find what I sought at the center, as I predicted?

  “Tomorrow,” Klosterheim continued, “we shall meet with my tribe, and together we shall find the Shining Path to the Golden City. Now we have allies, and all the prophecies combine to say the same thing. White Crow will give us no more trouble now. He’ll so
on vanish from this realm forever. That which he stole shall be mine. This is what the oracle says.”

  “Aye, well,” grumbled the faceless earl, “I have a habit of mistrusting oracles as well as gods.”

  Again Klosterheim offered us the hospitality of his home, and again Gunnar declined it. He repeated that Klosterheim should accept a place in the ship. Klosterheim hesitated before refusing. He had matters he must settle before joining us in the morning. He stated that his hall was our hall, and he had good venison and a full vegetable cellar if we cared to join him. My own appetite not being hearty and it being politic to keep my alliance with Gunnar in place, I refused. Accepting this with a baffled shrug, Klosterheim turned and made his way through the tangled undergrowth. There were no well-trodden paths to his house. From within came the agitated cackling of a bird.

  It was now noon. The sun blazed through the gold and green of the late-autumn trees from a sky the color of rust and tarnished silver. I followed Klosterheim with my eyes as far as I could, but he was soon hidden in the brushy shadows.

  Who was the young skrayling? A local leader, no doubt. Clearly Klosterheim hated the man. Yet what had he meant? White Crow was of my people? Was this land occupied by descendants of Melnibonéans?

  The place being no longer occupied by Norse settlements, Gunnar was reassured. Once we were back aboard he gave the order to row towards the shore. He saw a good, low-rising beach with easy anchorage. We could easily wade from the boat to the shingle now. Soon Gunnar had men cutting down branches and setting up camp while the ship was secured and the guard determined.

  At supper he asked me what I thought of Klosterheim. Was he a magician? I shook my head. Klosterheim was not himself a sorcerer but was employing sorcery. I did not know where he got this power or if he had other powers. “He’s waited as long as he has and built that house for himself knowing he might have to wait for us even longer. Such patience must be respected. His need for an alliance might be of mutual benefit. He won’t, of course, keep any bargain he might make with us.”

  Gunnar chuckled at this. The sound echoed in his helm and ended suddenly. “We’ll keep no bargain we make with him. Who wins has the quickest wits and anticipates the others’ moves best. This is the kind of game I like to play, Elric. With life and death to win as the only stake.” Having escaped the terrors of that house, he was in unnaturally good spirits. I suspected an element of hysteria under his repeated reassurances that the future looked better than ever. With a larger fighting force, our chances of taking the City of Gold were immeasurably improved.

  His ambitions were beyond me. I was prepared to bide my time and see what transpired. I, too, had my own ambitions and goals and did not intend to let either these or some mysterious dreamthief’s apprentice stand in my way.

  Next morning we roasted and ate a doe Asolingas and his friend killed. A little canoe rounded the island and slid rapidly towards us. The black-clad Klosterheim paddled it. I went down to the beach to greet him. Not a natural oarsman, he was out of breath. He let me help him beach the craft, gasping that the Pukawatchi were now assembled and awaiting us above the ridge, where they had built a peace camp. He pointed. Smoke puffed into the dawn sky.

  The Pukawatchi, he explained, were not from these forests. Originally they had come with him from the south in search of their sacred treasures stolen by White Crow the trickster. The tribe had linked its destiny with his. Now they felt ready to ally with us and attack their ancient enemies.

  We dragged The Swan ashore and disguised her deep in the forest. We removed all our war-gear, which included the great blue, red and white shield Gunnar had shown me that first night. As I had no shield, he loaned me that one. But there was a strict condition. Before we left the deckhouse, Gunnar flung me a cover. He helped me tie it over the outside of the shield. We would need that shield later, he said, and he did not want the Pukawatchi to see it. If I showed it, under any circumstances, it could be the end of us. I suspect Gunnar also thought the shield stolen. If it were discovered, he would rather I be thought the thief. It made no difference to me. Even with its cover, the thing was light, useful if attacked by spears and arrows, and practical if I needed something to throw at a horse to bring it down. Not that Klosterheim had said anything about horses when I asked him how long we had to go. He described everything in terms of marches. As one who hated to walk, who had ridden the wild dragons of Melniboné, I was not used to marching. Nor did I enjoy the prospect.

  Following what appeared to be deer trails, we lumbered through the forest in our war-shirts and our iron helmets like so many ancient reptiles. I was impressed by the Viking hardiness. They had scarcely rested before they were again on the move, their legs doing the same kind of work their arms had done earlier. Gunnar knew the Norseman’s secret of the loping march, which they had learned from the Romans.

  We went uphill and down, through the heavy, loose soil, the root-tangled undergrowth of an endless greengold forest. Hawks circled above us. Unfamiliar birds called from the trees. Our rhythmic tramping was relieved by what we saw. Rivers dammed by beaver, curious raccoons, the nests of squirrels and crows, the spoor of deer, bear and geese.

  Then Klosterheim slowed us, lifting both hands in reassurance. We came out of the trees into a deep autumn meadow beside a narrow, silver stream where some forty lodges had been erected, their cooking smoke moving lazily in the air. The people reminded me very much of the Lapps I had encountered in the service of the Swedish king. They had much the same features, being rather short, stocky and square. They had dogs with them and all the other signs of an established camp. Yet something was slightly awry about the scene. They had posted no guards and so were surprised when we came into their village, Klosterheim leading the way.

  There was an immediate cacophony when they saw me. It was something I was used to, but these people seemed to have some special animosity towards me. I remembered Klosterheim’s reference. I could see he was trying to reassure them that I was neither their enemy nor one of their enemy’s tribe.

  He said something else I did not hear which cheered them. They began to sing, to raise their spears and bows in greeting. All were fairly short, though one or two of them were almost as tall as Klosterheim. They had certainly not gone soft during their wait. Displaying the physiques of men who lived by hunting, they wore jerkins and leggings of buckskin, softened and tightly sewn and decorated with all kinds of pictograms. The shoulders and sleeves of the jackets, the back and bottom edges of the leggings, were sewn with fringes of buckskin, handsome costumes on a somewhat unlovely people. The clothing all looked as if it had been cut down to fit. I asked Klosterheim how his tribe had learned to make such fine cold-weather garments.

  The gaunt man smiled. “They discovered in the usual way. These lodges and most of these tools and weapons are what were left after the Pukawatchi came upon the original owners. The Pukawatchi have a policy of taking no long-term prisoners unless they need to replace their own dead. In this case the attack thoroughly surprised the tribe, whom my people wiped out to a child. So there are no more Minkipipsee, as I believe the indigenous folk termed themselves. You have no cause to feel insecure. Nobody cares to avenge them, even for the sport of it.”

  We entered the camp proper, a large public area encircled by the lodges. The tribe sent up a great wail of greeting. They seemed to be waiting for something or someone, and meanwhile they were painting for the war trail, Klosterheim told me. Something about their square, stern faces reminded me of Dalmatia. Daubed with white, scarlet and blue clay on their bodies, they smeared yellow clay on their hands and foreheads. Some wore eagle feathers. The men’s weapons were elaborate, carved lances tipped with bone, obsidian and found metal. Both men and women raised their voices in this strange ululation, which sounded to my unpracticed ear more like a funeral lament. We responded as best we could and were made welcome.

  These woods were not lacking in game. There were patches of vegetables where the Pukawatchi had made garde
ns. Again our party ate well. The men relaxed. They asked the skraylings if perhaps they could spare a little beer or wine, as they did not know what to make of the proffered pipes. They had the sense, however, to note that none of our hosts was drinking anything but water and a rather unpleasant tea made from spearmint and yarrow. Eventually, after trying the pipe, they resorted to explaining in some detail how beer was brewed.

  With due ceremony we were introduced to the rather sour-faced individual whom Klosterheim called Young Two Tongues or Ipkaptam. With a scar across his cheek and lip, as if from a sword cut, his was a handsome, ungiving face. He had become the sachem, or speaker, of these people on his father’s death. “Not because heredity demanded it,” said Klosterheim in Greek, “but because he was known to have medicine sight and be lucky.”

  The local language was largely impossible for the Vikings to understand. The Pukawatchi thus tended to focus their attention on Gunnar and myself. We must have seemed demigods or, more likely, demons to them. They had a name for us which was impossible to translate.

  But there was plenty to eat. The women and girls brought us dish after dish to enjoy, and soon a convivial atmosphere developed.

  Klosterheim quelled the uncertainties of the still grim Ipkaptam, who had added more paint to his face. When Klosterheim suggested we retire to the speaking lodge to discuss our expedition, Ipkaptam shook his head and pointed first at my sword and then at my face, uttered the word “Kakatanawa” more than once and was adamant that I not be allowed into their councils. Klosterheim reasoned with him, but Ipkaptam stood up and walked away, throwing down an elaborate bag, which had been attached to his belt. I took this to mean he did not intend to share his wisdom with us.

  Kakatanawa! The same word, spat as an oath and directed at me. Klosterheim spoke to him, brutally, urgently, no doubt encouraging some sort of common sense, for gradually Young Two Tongues glowered and listened. Then he glowered and nodded. Then he glowered and came back, fingering his scars. He picked up his bag and pointed to a large tepee set aside from the others near a stand of trees and a tumble of rocks. He spoke seriously and at some length, gesticulating, pointing, emphatic.