The Dog and the Wolf

by Poul Anderson

  “A single great find, and we’re not merely provided for, we’re wealthy. Powerful. We can do whatever we will—for our people, Nemeta; for our Gods.” Whoever They may be, Evirion did not add.

  “But I feel the menace yonder. Sharper than this breeze. A wind out of the future.” Nemeta waited until she had his look directly upon her. “You trusted me to find where treasures lay buried, and I did. Now trust me when I say Stop. Best would be if we departed on the instant.” She gestured with her head at the amphitheater behind them. It had been their shelter these past three days and nights since they arrived at Ys. “We can sleep in one of the forsaken houses above the vale. If first we cover our tracks.” That would not be quite simple, when they had two laden mules. Evirion had earned them by toiling for an Osismiic farmer; they were so aged and weak that that was possible for him in the time since he was released from labor for the community.

  He laid hand to sword, a laurel-leaf blade of Ysan make. “What is it you dread?”

  “I know not. I’ve a foreboding. It grew on me hour by hour today.” She turned her gaze left, south, where Aquilonian Way climbed the steeps before bending east toward Audiarna.

  He himself squinted west. The tide had in fact turned and was flowing in, though it would not lap at the ruins farthest inland for a few hours yet. Well before then, he gauged, everything would be shrouded in fog. If aught more was to be done there, it must be done soon—or on the morrow, but he had acceded to her and promised that then they would leave at first light.

  That was a pledge readily given. The city he loved had become an uncanny place, a haunting ground. Several times he had thought he glimpsed something white that danced more than swam in the waves among the rocks; fragments of song had frightened him with their allurement. He had said nothing to Nemeta about it, as uneasy as she was, and to himself insisted it must be mistake, illusion, dream giving half-life to wind and sea.

  “I thought the danger all lay that way,” he said. Indeed it was tricky to scramble over stones broken, tumbled, slippery with water and weed, where glass shards lurked, and to pry them apart and grope downward—though worse was turning up a human bone or a skull to which the drenched hair still clung. Had you danced in those arms, traded kisses with that mouth?

  But the gems and precious metals were there, the ransom of freedom. No single hoard yielded them as Evirion hoped; they were spread among what had been buildings, scattered by currents and the shifting of ruins as ground settled. Without the peculiar talent Nemeta had found herself to possess, the searchers would have needed a month to find what they amassed in days. As was, they bought every small gain with hurtful travail, hour by hour until darkness or waves made work impossible and they stumbled back to the amphitheater carrying their laden sacks, bolted cold food, and toppled into sleep through which walked nightmares.

  Evirion came to think that it was as if the Gods mocked him: the Three of Ys, Taranis the Thunderer, Belisama the All-Mother, Lir of the Deeps, dethroned, homeless, become trolls. He denied it with every force he could summon, but it gnawed past his defenses like the sea undermining the foundations of the city. If not They, then Someone laired here and hated everything human.

  Abrupt rage burned away doubt and fatigue. He would not surrender. If only by a gesture, he would declare his manhood.

  “Well, stay behind and nurse your woman-fears,” he snapped. “I’m bound on a last questing.”

  She stared at him, stricken. “Without me?”

  “As you wish. I’ve no more use for your wand. Half the public coffers were in the basilica, and that’s what I’ll attempt.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked to the gateway outside which the tethered mules grazed. Within it were stored the boxes for loot—not that he used the word to himself—together with bags, spades, picks, crowbars. Grabbing up his tools, he strode down the broad path that led to Aquilonian Way. Grass had begun to thrust upward between its paving blocks.

  Through wind and surf he heard feet patter. He glanced behind. Nemeta hurried after him. Her long, bare legs glimmered in the dull light. She carried another bar in her left hand. Her right clutched the forked stick, graven with signs, that dipped in her grasp to show where they should dig.

  “Are you coming after all?” he asked with a gladness that surprised him.

  “I’d not … have you alone … out there,” she answered unsteadily.

  Or yourself alone ashore, he refrained from saying. “’Twill be quick, you know. Soon dark. Whether or not we’ve found anything, well come back and—and start a fire, enjoy hot food and our last wine, make celebration.”

  A slight smile trembled on her lips.

  Desire stirred in him. She was attractive in her spare, half-grown fashion; so much life surged through her. On the coldest nights they had joined their bedrolls together, and he was hard put to honor his promise of chastity. Mayhap when they were safe—

  Wreckage and remnants strewed the beach less thickly than at first. From the lack of valuables there, Evirion supposed that someone, possibly a gang or two of barbarian sailors, had picked it over. Since, bit by bit, spring tides reclaimed the debris. Doubtless the steepening of slopes helped. Without the wall for protection, the sandstone under Ys wore away as fragments rolled grinding across it. The caverns dug underneath had begun to collapse. Each time that happened, not only did whatever had rested on top fall into the hole, but earthquake-like shock brought low more of what had been standing elsewhere. The bottom dropped sharply toward depths of ten or twelve fathoms. Pieces of the dead city slid thither as currents tugged them, to be forever lost. A few decades from now, he guessed, nothing would be left save whatever was above extreme high water. Amphitheater, pharos, necropolis, the solitary headstone of Point Vanis—and even those? Somehow the lighthouse was half its olden height. …

  Man and girl clambered over the rubble that had been High Gate. Stumps of wall lifted on either side, like teeth in a jawbone. Lir Way was almost as choked. Courses of stone, pillars still upright, statues battered nearly into shapelessness, thrust forlornly above. The same chaos reached right, left, ahead, in some places mound-high, in others roughly leveled. Wetness sheened, kelp sprawled, three cormorants wheeled black overhead. The wind whistled.

  The Forum had been sufficiently wide that parts of it remained clear, aside from shards. The lowest bowl of the Fire Fountain stood, filled with chunks of the upper ones and with seawater that the wind ruffled. On the northeast side, the basilica was recognizable. Several of its columns rose over the detritus in the portico. The roof had fallen in but the walls mostly survived, however scarred and weakened. Hitherto, given Nemeta’s guidance, Evirion had sought easier unearthing. But it should be possible to clear the outer doorway leading to the treasury. With luck, in the time that was left them they might work part of the contents free.

  Nemeta drew a ragged breath. “Hark. Do you hear?” she whispered.

  He squinted westward as she pointed. Lowtown was a pit of gloom into which the waves were marching, forward, back, forward again and higher. He could not see them because of the fog bank, but he heard their roar and the rattle of loosened stones. And—a voice? A song? O wearyfoot wanderer—

  “Nay!” he answered, louder than he had intended. “Wind, water, belike a seabird. Come. We must hasten.”

  He led her around to the side of the building that fronted on Taranis Way. They mounted the stairs. As he had noticed earlier, the bronze door there lay wrenched off its hinges. The space beyond was piled with refuse, but that was more broken tile than it was stone or roof beams, and only about three feet deep. Nemeta halted, laid down her bar, took the forked wand in both hands, closed her eyes, soundlessly moved her lips.

  He had expected to see the end of the stick lift and point ahead, yet it fired his hopes. “To work!” he said, and attacked.

  Nemeta cried out.

  Evirion dropped his bar and turned. Around the corner of the building had come four men. Weapons lifted ugly in their ha
nds.

  The foremost gestured. “Hem ’em in,” he rapped in harsh Latin. The rest jumped, one to his right, two to his left, making a semicircle under the stairs.

  Evirion’s vision pounced among them. Everything registered, noonday-stark in the fading light. They were tough, dirty, unkempt, clad in tunics and breeches that had seen much wear and little washing. Each belt bore a knife. The leader was an ursine blackbeard with a broken nose. He carried a short ax. His companions were slighter, never well-nourished, but equally evil-looking. Their arms were a spear, a bill, and a nail-studded club.

  “Who are you?” Evirion called in their language. No need to ask their purpose, said his suddenly lightning-swift mind. He knew this breed, waterfront toughs without tribe or ethic.

  The leader grinned. “Ullus of Audiarna, at your honor’s service. And you, sir, and the young lady?”

  “We are here by right. How dare you invade our home and profane our shrines? Be off before the Gods strike you!”

  It was a belly sickness to hear Ullus laugh. His followers leered, uncomfortably but also unflinching. “Why, I guess we’ve as much right as anybody else to help ourselves,” he said. “There’ll be plenty more later on. We thought we’d got the idea first, but we found your tracks—your animals, your stores.” Again his elation boomed. “Thanks for doing so much work for us.”

  Nemeta lifted her wand. It trembled as she did, and her voice: “I witch. Go. Or I curse.”

  The schoolchild Latin actually seemed to hearten the newcomers. Ullus licked his lips. “You’ll feel different pretty soon,” he told her. “Me and my boys know how to break a filly for riding, hey?”

  Evirion drew sword. “I am a seaman of Ys,” he stated. “You’re from Audiarna, you said? That’s a seaport. You know what I mean. Come any closer and you’re dead.”

  Ullus’s mirth gave way to rage. His ax chopped the air. “How I do know your kind, you! Or did, afore God brought you down in your pride and sins, like the preacher always told He would. Do you know how it is being poor all your life, dock walloper, deckhand, ordered around, worked till you drop, fed like nobody ’ud feed a pig, paid off in nummi, and the boot or the whip if we speak up? And meanwhile your ships from Ys ’ud swagger by, with you on deck in your gold and silk. Well, that’s done with, fellow. The high are brought low and the low are brought high, like Christ promised. We’re here to claim our share. Now drop that blade and come down slow. We may leave you your stinking life. But you got to behave yourself. Understand?”

  Evirion did. They’d never let him past. They knew he might well outrun them, seize the mules, make off with the treasure. So at best, they’d hold him bound and vent their grudges on him till they were ready to leave. And then it would be safest lor them to cut his throat and toss him out for the eels. As for Nemeta—

  Trained in combat, he was more than a match for any of them. But they were four, two with pole weapons. Something like a plucked harpstring keened within him. He stood beyond himself and saw he was become an instrument whereon Belisama played, She in Her avatar the Wild Huntress.

  He bent close to the girl. Her stare was blank, face wet with more than mist; he heard the short breaths go in and out. “Listen well,” he whispered in Ysan. “I’ll attack them. You run to the left at once. Hide in this jumble. After dark, slip off to the hills. Do you hear?”

  He might have been talking to a noosed hare. “You can’t help me,” he went on. “Go home. Tell them what happened. Cast a spell against these creatures if you like. Remember me, Nemeta. Go.”

  “Are you coming, or must we fetch you?” yelled a man.

  “Easiest to throw rocks at him,” said Ullus loudly.

  “Ya-a-ah!” Evirion hallooed, and bounded downward.

  He saw the broken visage gape open in surprise. He was there. He stabbed. Almost, he killed. Ullus’s ax met his sword in midthrust and knocked it aside. He barely kept a grip on it. His speed carried him by. The bludgeon brushed his shoulder. That threw him spinning. He lurched a pair of yards, recovered, whirled about in a crouch.

  Three men milled and howled in his direction. Beyond them, atop the stairs, he saw Nemeta dash off. So, said a remote voice, that’s as it should be. Let me hold them for two or three minutes till she’s safely away.

  The spearman poised with his weapon and cast. It flew in a long arc, upward, directly before her shins. She fell over the shaft and toppled, step by step, a whirl of limbs and hair. He was off to meet her, ferret-swift. She rolled to a stop and picked herself up. He got there and flung arms around her. She screamed. He hooted.

  “Good work, Timbro!” Ullus bellowed. “Keep ’er for us too!” He swung to advance on Evirion. The billman and the clubber hung back. “Move, you scuts! Hold him busy and I’ll hit him from the rear.”

  They gathered courage. Evirion thought he saw the dawn of pleasure on them. Ullus was triumphant. He had no reason to hide his plan. It was clear and certain. He sidled across the avenue, around the Ysan.

  To stand and fight would be to die, uselessly. The spearman had Nemeta down on the pavement. She strugled. His fist struck her beneath the jaw. Her shrieks dropped to a thin wailing, her movements to feebleness. Between them and Evirion were the rest of the band.

  He sheathed his sword, whipped about, dodged out onto the Forum, and ran.

  For a brief while he heard shouts and footfalls at his back. Then he was alone. None of them could match his fleetness; and even now, he had some knowledge of Ys. He zigzagged, climbed, slipped in and out among huge shattered remnants, until he had shaken pursuit. Still he kept on. He knew not why. It was as if the sea drew him.

  Yet hard was the way he must fare. Down here the stones only saw sky when water was very low. Shells encrusted them, for hands and knees to flay themselves. Green weed wrapped them, slimy to make feet lose footing. Strange things grew, swam, scuttered in pools between. Fog swirled ever thicker and more cold. Through the blindness that it wove beat ever louder the rumble, rush, plash, smack, growl of waves. Evirion cast himself down at their verge.

  He could dimly see a few feet in the wet smokiness. A rock lay fallen upon lesser ones. They were paving stones and building blocks; it was rudely hewn, if men had ever given it any of its shape—a megalith. He had come to Menhir Place, where Ys preserved a relic of an age ere ever the city was. What, had this first and last piety also been overthrown? Or was its raw mass the sign of a doom spoken at the founding of the world?

  Evirion’s panting faded into a sigh. He knew just that he too was broken. His emprise had enriched barbarians (aye, barbarians swarmed out of Rome as well as the wild lands; a carcass breeds maggots) and destroyed a girl. His strength had drained away with his hopes. The shoulder that the bludgeon had scraped throbbed with pain. The rent cloth around it hung sodden with blood. Water licked him, higher at every wave. The fog hooded his eyes, laid salt on his mouth, like tears.

  Through the blood-beat in his skull he thought he heard a song again. Peace without end, love to enfold him as does the sea, all he need do was abide and she would come. Did the mists eddy together and form a wraith of her whiteness in the dusk? It was her lips that tasted of salt, her kiss.

  Desire torrented upward. He rose, spread his arms, called into the deep noises, “Here I am. We’ll go and snare the rest, won’t we? I’ll bring you their bones to play with out on the reefs.”

  A snarling gave answer, and a giggle in the wind.

  The wind lifted. It blew him back shoreward. Or else he was the wind and the fog and the following sea. He flowed across rocks, poured along broken pillars, swept over tumbled roofs, a salmon bound upstream, an orca in the final shearing rush at a seal. The sword flared free.

  In Taranis Way, the last man got up and belted his breeches. The red-haired girl sprawled at his feet. “Ready for another go, anybody?” he crowed. He was young, the fuzz thin across a face raddled with sores and pimples.

  Nemeta stirred. Her eyes stayed shut, but she pulled at the hem of her tunic, t
rying to bring it down, while she squirmed about so as to lie curled tightly on her side.

  “Nah,” said Ullus. He cast an uneasy glance west across the Forum. Wind rumpled his beard and shrilled in his ears. Darkness advanced yonder, a wall of it from which gray tatters flew. “We’ve spent too much time with her as is. Might be sunset—who can tell through that stuff? Back to camp, their camp where the gold is, while we can still see what we’re doing.”

  “Tomorrow’ll be soon enough for work,” agreed the spearman. He nudged the girl with his foot. “Up, you.” When she merely shivered, he kicked.

  “Hey, easy,” said the youth. “Don’t spoil that nice, tight thing. If she can’t walk, gimme a hand with her.”

  “Ah, she can walk, all right.” The clubber spat. “Stubborn bitch. I’ll teach her better.”

  “Move!” rasped Ullus. “Never saw fog come in so fast or so heavy.”

  The boy and the pikeman dragged the girl half upright and shoved her along. She stumbled between them, eyes still closed. A bruise was starting to blossom on her jaw. Blood trickled down her thighs.

  The vapors whirled around. Ullus swore. “Stick close. We’ll have to feel our way. If anybody strays, he’ll likely be lost till morning in this damned spook-hole—”

  He with the sword sprang out of the brume. Steel smote. Ullus staggered, dropped his ax, clutched his belly, stared astounded at the red and the entrails that fell out between his fingers. “Why, why, can’t be,” he mumbled and went down on his face. There he threshed for a short while. The tall man with the sword was gone.

  The three yelled fury and threats. They formed a triangle, back to back. The wind snickered and flung a deeper blanket over them.

  The spearman shouted, “There!” and jabbed at a shadow. It was only a clot of mist. The tall man glided under the shaft and struck upward, into the throat. The club whirred at him but he was gone and it smote a toppled statue. That blow knocked a chip out of the sculptured mouth so that it no longer smiled but sneered.