“The frost giants? They huddle in their cities. Anything exposed to the air once night falls is dead by morning, even them.” Althyof stomped his feet and blew into his already-blue-tinged hands. “Speaking of which, we need to find shelter. Best bet may be to follow Luka’s trail. He’s no doubt headed for the closest sanctuary.”
“Hmm… Trust Luka?” Jane’s tone made it clear she’d rather gargle with molten glass.
“I can send out my ravens. Do a little scout,” I said with a smile.
“Your ‘ravens?’ Wow. That didn’t take long,” said Jane with a small smile on her lips.
“I’m tired of saying ‘animus’ every other minute.”
“Whatever. If only we had Yowrnsaxa or Frikka along,” she mused. “They could use the Syown or perform an augury or something useful—like map out our possible futures.”
Something about that tickled in the back of my mind. Why can I see into the future or past when I’m dreaming? Why can’t I perform auguries if I have prophetic dreams? That prickly mass of kaltrar in my head shuddered, and it was almost a physical sensation as though something inside my brain had juddered and rolled over.
“What’s the matter? You look like you ate a rotten egg.”
“Bet you say that to all the sailors,” I murmured. I shook my head to get rid of the sensation but couldn’t dislodge the feeling. Buzzing and bouncing, my thoughts skittered and skipped like a needle on a record during an earthquake. Why can’t I do it? Frikka seemed to think my dreams were a form of augury.
My thoughts swirled in my head like the whirlwinds of dirt and dust that always followed Pigpen in the Peanuts comics.
“Hank?” asked Jane, a note of concern edging into her voice.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking…or trying to, in any case.”
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
Yowtgayrr pointed at the slowly disappearing trail. “We’d better get moving before the snow makes our decision moot. Hank, you should send an animus along this trail, in case we lose it to the weather.”
“Good idea.” I muttered the triblinkr that split my consciousness into separate animuses, forming two ravens of black smoke. One I sent to the farthest point of Luka’s trail I could see. From there, I looked out through smoky black raven eyes and hopped to the farthest point I could see. I kept on in that vein while I sent the other animus into a circular search pattern with my physical body as its center point. “I’m following the trail, but I’m also scanning the surrounding area, in case the trail is another of Luka’s little tricks.”
“The frost giant said this proo led to a knack,” said Althyof. “Prudent to keep an eye out.”
“So far, nothing on the circle,” I said as that animus completed a circuit and moved farther away to begin again at a greater radius.
“Good work. Does Polly want a cracker?” asked Jane with a mischievous smile.
“Next time, I’ll make them something else—like palmetto bugs.”
“Do that, and I’ll stop protecting you from spiders.”
Althyof shook his bowed head, but I thought I glimpsed a smile on his face. “What else can we do about my scarcity of ammunition?” I asked him.
“You may discover other kaltrar as your brain assimilates everything from the scroll.” He looked at me askance and shrugged. “You did well enough as a supporting runeskowld when we battled the spiders in the Great Forest of Suel. Don’t improvise while I’m singing a trowba.” His gaze turned stern. “That means no saytr, no improvised lyrics or steps. The same rules as the rote trowba I’m going to teach you.”
“I understand. I would be interested in trying to combine a lausaveesa with saytr, but only with your approval and guidance. Something little and easy.”
“I’ll admit I am interested in the idea, but I won’t allow it if you are going to be foolhardy at the slightest success.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“Would someone be willing to teach me the saytr?” asked Krowkr in a timid voice.
He was such a quiet, unobtrusive man, it was easy to almost forget about him. “Our resident vefari are still on Osgarthr.” His face fell.
“I understand,” he said.
“I can teach you a thing or two but recognize that this is not my area of expertise.”
He brightened and smiled. “Thank you, Hanki.”
“Just ‘Hank,’” I said.
“My apologies. I keep forgetting. It’s such a strange name.”
“Not as strange as ‘Jane,’ though.”
Krowkr’s grin widened. “No, not as strange as that.”
“Keep it up, both of you,” said Jane. “I can probably swat you both with one swing of my pretty raven bracelet.” She thunked the edge of her shield with her thumb. “It would make a nice dent in your foreheads.”
Krowkr looked so stricken, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Besides, everyone knows I am strange-awesome, not strange-weird.”
Far ahead of us on the trail, I halted my animus before a vast depression. The snow and ice had been cleared, revealing azure rock and immense buildings carved from a glacier of pale blue ice. “Luka’s trail ends at a city in a valley up ahead,” I said to my companions as I turned my attention to my other antafukl. “The area around us is pristine, except for this trail.
“Let’s follow the trail,” said Yowtgayrr. “We can take precautions against ambush.”
“I’ll keep my antafukl circling ahead of us.”
“Good idea. I will range ahead, but I will be close.”
“Good enough,” I said.
Yowtgayrr nodded and wrote silvery runes in the air before fading from sight.
“It’s cold,” said Jane. “Whatever we’re doing, let’s get on with it.”
We moved off, following the trail. Every now and again, I darted a glance over my shoulder, to make sure the proo stayed put. I imagined my animus near the city in the same pale blue hue as the glacier-city and the mist that hung above it like a shroud.
I moved forward, skimming close to the surface, and as I drew closer, details became clear. The city seemed to have been carved in one giant piece, and the tailings from the interior of the buildings had been reused to make walls surrounding the city.
The strange architecture showed sweeping curves that looked not quite right. The scale was massive, but it wasn’t the proper scale for giants or for humans. It was somewhere in between and inconstant to boot. It struck me as more of a vista H. R. Giger or H. P. Lovecraft might have imagined.
Domes atop towers were ridged with long, curve-hugging cylinders carved such that the leading point mimicked a giant’s skull, and the domed roofs themselves eschewed pure hemispheres in favor of lopsided onion-shapes. Tall towers thrust toward the dirty, achromatic sky, but even they were not based on genuine circles but were instead crushed ovals in cross-section, and each was different from the next. A unique sculpture, the subject of which ranged from human heads to hideous scenes of torture and dismemberment, decorated the dome of each tower in bas-relief.
From the top of the wall encircling the city jutted huge bent spikes that seemed more organically grown than carved or built from bricks of ice. As I drew closer, I discerned thousands upon thousands of remains carved into the wall itself. At the bottom, they had depicted the remains as skeletons, while at the top, they seemed to be complete, undecayed bodies. Corpses arrayed in various states of decomposition made up the multitude of layers in between, and a hoary blue frost accented it all to hideous effect.
“It’s like some Lovecraftian city of the dead,” I muttered. “They carved the ice of the walls to imitate stacked bodies.”
“Those aren’t carvings,” said Althyof. “The frost giants entomb their dead in the ice walls of their cities and their buildings. They consider it a great honor to be entombed in the walls of the homes of great or famous giants. There is even a lottery to be interred in the walls of the mayoral mansion once per cycle.” Althyof shuddered, but whet
her from the cold or the subject matter, I couldn’t say. “It’s a disgusting practice, but there’s no explaining these races that have drifted so far from the Plauinn.”
“Sounds like a lovely spot for a vacation,” Jane muttered.
As we walked on, I brought my pale blue animus closer to the city. Instead of gates set into the walls, there were wide tunnels with no barrier to entry. I hugged the top of the closest tunnel, which was ribbed with vertebral shapes, giving the act of passing through the tunnel a feeling of being swallowed alive.
Inside the wall, the city bustled with activity. An uncountable number of blue-skinned giants crowded and jostled through the street that the tunnel became. Almost as crowded as the cavern cities of Nitavetlir, it lacked the warmth—as strange as that may sound. They barked at each other in the street, even those that walked with one another. Constant scuffles and shoving matches occurred, but they didn’t have that playful, joshing feeling of similar fights between the Tverkar. No, these fights seemed serious.
The giants themselves varied in height, as expected of any race, but also in general proportion and features. Some had horns jutting from various parts of their bodies, but not necessarily the same body parts. Others had massive, scale-like protuberances near their knees and elbows, creating organic armor. Still others had no boney protrusions at all but had soft, human-like skin instead. Some had jutting brows, some twisted ears, and others even had short tails that wrapped around their upper-thighs. Hair and body hair were as varied, with some having thick, lush blue or gray hair, and others being entirely hairless while a thick, coarse hair covered others all over their bodies. Some had asymmetrical facial features, yet others were akin to idealized projections of human beauty. Their skin tones ranged from azure to a blue-tinged paleness that made me think of Grecian statues.
As a race, they appeared to be in mid-mutation, but from which form to which, I had no idea. On the whole, it was disconcerting, to say the least. There was no “normal,” no mold from which I could judge the race.
“What happened to these giants?” I asked Althyof as we walked toward the city.
“What do you mean?”
“Their physical forms are so different, so varied.”
The Tverkr shrugged. “I’ve heard it said the language of the Plauinn has grown dim here, and that the frost giants are an example of nature gone wild. I have no idea. They are ugly and brutish. Like the trolls.”
“Are they related to the trolls or vice versa?”
Again, the Tverkr bumped his shoulders toward the sky. “I’m not versed in racial genealogies.”
The giants went about their business, glaring and snarling with what appeared to be real hatred for one another. Their clothing and manner of dress varied as much as their physical appearances, and I didn’t spot one giant who appeared to be a guard, a policeman, or anyone who seemed to have an official role. I let my animus drift through the smoke and haze that hovered twenty feet above the street.
I glanced at Althyof. “How do they govern themselves? Do they have a culture?”
The Tverkr pursed his lips and shrugged. “They pay well.”
“That’s it? That’s all you know?” asked Jane.
Althyof shrugged again. “I don’t know everything. That’s Meuhlnir’s job.”
Something formed in the air next to the animus I had circling ahead of us, looking for an ambush. It appeared to be smoke, and the color of it matched the snow and ice.
“Something ahead,” I said.
Althyof pulled his daggers and squinted into the distance before us. “Where?”
“By my animus,” I said.
The thing formed into the shape of a woman. “You’re getting predictable, Tyeldnir,” said Kuhntul.
“What?” I asked using my animus.
“Black birds…again.”
“Jane said nearly the same thing.”
“Did she?” A smile formed from the smoke making up Kuhntul’s face. “You know you can make them take any shape, any color?”
“What do you have to tell me?” I said suppressing a sigh.
“Don’t be that way, Tyeldnir. We have fun in our little journeys together, don’t we?” Her form solidified and took the shape of a woman carrying a spear and flapping huge wings.
Jane. I snapped, “Don’t do that!”
Kuhntul only shrugged, a smile playing on her face, but she let the form fade into a column of blueish smoke.
“What do you want, Kuhntul?” I asked.
“You mustn’t go into the city ahead. Luka’s already been there, and he’s told lies about you to the frost giants. Your reception would be a cold one.”
“Very punny,” I muttered.
“So grumpy, today. You seemed much less so earlier.”
“Why did you take me to Hel’s prison?”
“Time enough for that later,” said Kuhntul, glancing up at the darkening sky. “You must go into the city, donning Luka’s skin, and undo what he’s done.”
“Donning his skin?”
Kuhntul shrugged. “Call it what you will.”
“How do you even know I learned that kaltrar?”
She treated me to a stern look and a small shake of her head. “Time’s a-wasting, Tyeldnir.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled as the column of smoke dissipated. “False alarm,” I said to Althyof. “Kuhntul again.”
“What did she want?”
“To tell me Luka has already turned the frost giants against us. To encourage me to use the doppelgänger triblinkr.”
“Doppelgänger?” asked Althyof.
“Yeah. Body double, twin. Whatever.”
“The new shapeshifting triblinkr?”
I nodded.
“Might as well call it that, yes?”
“She says I should ‘take Luka’s skin’ and go into the town to undo his trickery.”
“Alone, I bet,” said Jane with a trace of sourness.
“It would have to be,” I said.
“No, it wouldn’t,” said Yowtgayrr’s disembodied voice. “And it will not be, though none will be the wiser.”
“Good idea,” said Jane. “What do the rest of us do?”
“Try to stay warm?” I asked.
She gave me the stink-eye. “Remind me to beat you later.”
I chanted the new triblinkr holding Luka’s image in my mind’s eye, and as the prayteenk settled over me, Jane stepped back and then turned away. The varkr pups backed away with stiff-legged slowness, growling, but looking confused. I glanced down at my long, lanky frame. The ground seemed a lot farther away than it should, but I guess that goes with being ridiculously tall.
Althyof grimaced. “I’d say it worked.”
“I don’t feel different, except for the height. When I change into a bear, everything seems different, even my instincts.”
“Makes sense,” said Yowtgayrr. “After all, you are not a bear, but you are an Isir.”
“Somehow I have a hard time thinking of Luka as anything but an oolfur.”
“Me, too,” murmured Jane before she continued in a louder voice. “I’m not going to kiss you goodbye, not with that face. Hurry and be done with it. And don’t get killed wearing that skin.”
Eleven
I walked through the tunnel carved in the body-strewn ice wall. I’d expected it to reek, but it didn’t. The air was crisp and clean, akin to winter air after a snowstorm.
I’d left one animus with Jane, Krowkr, and Althyof. “I’m entering the city,” I said to them.
“Hurry,” said Jane. “It’s already freezing, and the temperature is dropping fast.”
I stood at the edge of the tunnel, looking at the sea of frost giants pushing and shoving their way along. “I’ve just realized I have no idea where to go,” I muttered.
“Tell it to your mother,” said a frost giant as he shoved past me.
Making sure I kept my mouth closed, I repeated the phrase to the others.
“Why am I not surpr
ised?” asked Jane with a smile. “Are you willing to ask for directions?”
“Directions to where? ‘Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where a man matching my appearance went to tell lies about me?’”
“Leave it to Kuhntul to tell you only part of the information you need,” said Althyof. “Tisir!”
“Scout,” said Jane. “With your other parakeet.”
“Yes, dear.” I brought my animus down out of the smoke and haze and hovered there without moving. “Er, scout for what?”
“I don’t know! Luka-ness!”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure what that is, but I’ll—”
“You going to stand there blocking the passage like an idiot, Isir?” demanded a frost giant behind me.
“Tricksy things. Wolf droppings,” said Jane. “Something.”
“Pardon me,” I said and stepped aside.
“Remember who you are,” whispered Yowtgayrr.
With a curt nod, I stepped into the crowded street, pushing frost giants from my path. When they accosted me, I glared at them with my best ‘I’m a werewolf, so you’d better leave me alone’ expression. I wandered, taking turns at random, spreading my attention between where I was walking and my animuses.
The throngs of giants seemed to wander almost as aimlessly as me. They pushed their way into a building, but then re-entered the stream of bodies after a few seconds, sometimes going the other direction. What they were doing mystified me. The city had no market squares, no community areas, no parks or fora—at least none that I could find. I couldn’t even distinguish restaurants or taverns.
I thumped a giant who walked ahead of me in the endless flow of colossal blue figures. “You there!” I called.
He glared at me over his shoulder. “What do you want, little Isir?”
“I need an inn.”
His expression darkened and twisted. “An inn? You?”
“Yes, me. Where is the closest inn?”
“The closest that will serve your kind, you mean,” sneered the giant. A horn jutted out of his forehead, erupting from a section of skin that was so rough, it almost looked scaled. He caught me looking at it and shoved me.
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