by Larry Niven
“Roze-Kattee was male and female,” said the skull on the Warlock’s shoulder, “and his attributes were love and madness. He was god to the Frost Giants, way north of here, where we’re going. He hasn’t been heard of in half a thousand years, not since the Nordiks conquered the Frost Giants. But he’s said to be dormant, not dead.”
“Said by whom?” Mirandee asked. “The Frost Giants are nearly mythical.”
“Oh, the Nordiks still have a few Frost Giant slaves. But the Frost Giants never talked about Roze-Kattee. All I’ve got is the old Nordik epic, the Hometaking Wars Cycle, which is certainly slanted and possibly garbled.”
Mirandee was shaking her head. “I’ve heard other tales of sleeping gods.”
“This one’s different. Mirandee, when I was still an apprentice, my master Harper was interested in the Hometaking Wars. He didn’t see how the Nordik gods beat the Frost Giant gods on their home ground. In fact they won every war except the last one.”
“But we know that,” the Warlock said. “The Nordik gods were destroyed when the Nordiks were driven out of the Fertile Crescent. They had no gods. So they fought with swords, and the Frost Giants used magic, and over three generations they used up the magic.”
“Right, and the Nordiks came swarming in before the Frost Giants could learn swordsmanship. But Harper never learned about mana depletion. That was left to you, Warlock. You and your damned Wheel. Harper and I spent some time trying to learn why Roze-Kattee failed his and her people.”
“Well?”
“It’s an unusual story,” said Wavyhill’s skull. “According to the Hometaking War Cycle, the Frost Giants took it on themselves to protect their god, instead of the other way around. When the Nordiks beat their army, three of the Frost Giant hero-priests were taking Roze-Kattee to safety. The god had lost all his power. He could barely move.”
Clubfoot said, “That’s not the kind of tale someone makes up about his enemies. But, look: why didn’t the Nordiks just find out where the god was and dig him up?”
“Oh, they probably tortured a few Frost Giants. Maybe they got the wrong ones. Maybe the hero-priests migrated afterward, or cut their own throats. But maybe the Nordiks didn’t try too hard. Why should they? Roze-Kattee did not save the Frost Giants. He went peacefully to sleep, somewhere. The poor time-weakened thing might be barely capable of killing any Nordik who found him.”
The setting sun was still brilliant, under a higher cloud canopy that thickened as night came on. Mount Valhalla was a mere point of splendor far to the southeast. The clouds were soft against Orolandes’ back. He was relaxing in spite of himself. It was all so unreal. Could one die in a dream?
“The magic went away and the gods died,” the Warlock said. “What makes you think Roze-Kattee didn’t? What would a Frost Giant consider a place of safety?”
“The cycle speaks of a ‘god within a god’.”
“You’ve already said Roze-Kattee had a dual nature.”
“Harper and I found another interpretation. We have to stretch the definition a little, but…if we’re right, then Roze-Kattee could still be alive. And the Nordiks had plenty of reason not to go looking for him.”
“And we don’t?”
“Time has passed. We know more than those barbarians did. We have more to gain. And less to lose,” said Wavyhill.
An upper cloud layer covered the stars. It had not been cold during the day, when sunlight was bouncing back at them from all of the reflecting white landscape; but it was cold now. Orolandes lay in the dark, afraid to move, hoping that a rift would not form where he was lying. When the silence had become unbearable he said, “I wish I could see your hair.”
Mirandee was nearby. She said, “Why, swordsman! Is that a compliment?” as if she didn’t much care for it.
“If your hair turns white, we’re about to fall.”
After a time she said, “Magicians and swordsmen go together like foxes and rabbits. What are you doing among us?”
“Ask Wavyhill.”
“But you didn’t have to come.”
“I did a terrible thing. I don’t want to talk about it.”
She laughed, invisible silver. “Tell me now, or I’ll read your mind. Wavyhill said you had no defenses.”
Out of the need to confess; out of his sure knowledge that the words would block his throat, rendering him mute, as he had been mute among the fishermen; out of some obscure need to be punished…Orolandes said, “Go ahead. Piranther did.”
There was a long dark silence. Then the witch woman said, “Oh, Orolandes!” in a voice filled with tears.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. I can see it. All charged up with the need to prove you were a man. Running into death waving that big damned sword. Crawling to kill the priests because they were killing your friends.”
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t have looked. That’s usually the way of it. I find out I shouldn’t have looked.”
“I can’t do anything about the people that drowned. Maybe I can help put the magic back in the world. What does Wavyhill have in mind for me? Do you know?”
“No. His mind’s locked tight. I trust the Warlock, though. He’ll control Wavyhill. Go to sleep, swordsman.”
Little chance of that, Orolandes thought. He looked toward where her voice had been. Was there a pale spot in the enveloping darkness? Long hair turning white?
“There’s circulation in the clouds around and beneath us. The mana circulates. We won’t fall. Go to sleep,” she said.
Something touched his sword arm and he woke and rolled hard to the left, and came up on his feet, sword in hand. It was black as the inside of a mole’s belly. The footing was unfamiliar, treacherous. A woman’s voice cried, “Don’t!”
And he remembered.
“Mirandee? Did you wake me up?”
“You were having nightmares.”
“Sorry. Was I screaming or something?”
“No. Just the nightmares. I wish I’d stayed out of your mind. I’ve never met anyone so unhappy.”
“Can you blame me?” He sank down in unseen softness.
“Yes. You’ve killed a dozen men at least with your sword. Why be so upset about Atlantis? You killed more people, but it’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
“When I kill a man with a sword, it’s because he’s a soldier. He’s trying to kill me.”
“If you weren’t on his territory—”
“Then he’d be on mine! If Greece didn’t have an experienced army she’d be meat for the first wolf that came at the head of an experienced army. Magic didn’t help the Frost Giants, and that was a long time ago. These days magic doesn’t even slow down an army. So everyone needs armies.”
“Wars of magic aren’t much prettier. Get the Warlock to tell you about his duel with Wavyhill. Or get Wavyhill to tell you.”
“All right.” Orolandes was sliding back into sleep. But the nightmare waited for him…
The touch of her hand on his arm startled him. “You’re still unhappy.”
“I can’t do anything about it.”
“I can.” Her hand moved up into his sleeve, caressingly.
He laughed. “Does the fox bed with the rabbit?”
“We are two human beings. How long has it been since you were with a woman?”
“A long time. I—” He hadn’t wanted one. He would have thought: she is sharing love, all unknowing, with a man who murdered thousands. When the women of the fishing village came, he had turned them away without speaking, as if his voice alone would tell them what he was.
This Mirandee: he had never seen her as a woman. A figure of power she had been, a dangerous being who tolerated him, whose presence was necessary to his goal. Her mockery had hurt—
“Well, but you were so frightened! You should have seen yourself. I was frightened myself,” she confessed. “I’ve never been on a cloud before.”
Her hand felt good on his arm. It was so cold and so lonely here. He found
her face with his fingers. He traced the contours gently; he stroked her temples, and scratched her behind the ears, as he would with a Greek woman. They lay against each other now, but he felt only a double thickness of fur, and the cold of a mountain night on his face…and then her cheek against his, barely warmer.
This was better than going back to the nightmare. And she knew; he was hiding nothing from her. She knew, yet she was willing to touch him. He was grateful.
He was half asleep when the lust rose up in him, burning. She sensed it. They began opening each other’s robes, leaving them on to protect their backs against the cold. Even now his urgency was tempered by that uncharacteristic gratitude. He wanted to make her feel good.
He succeeded. In climax she was wildcat and python combined: her arms and legs clasped him hard, pulling him into her.
They lay against each other with their robes overlapping. Orolandes was pleased and proud.
A thought crossed his mind…and she laughed softly in his ear. “No, I did not falsify my pleasure to give you confidence. And no, you have not become a lover fit for a queen’s harem. Your mind is in mine. I feel what you feel. It’s…exciting.”
Ruefully, but not very, he said, “What joy you would have had of another mind reader!”
She laughed more loudly. “If I were ready to die, yes, that would be a fine way to leave the world!”
“Oh.”
“You’ve found your voice. When we shared love you didn’t speak at all.”
His mind flashed back to the fishing village.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “Shall we sleep like this?”
He nestled against her and slept without dreams.
The Warlock woke blinking in the sudden dawn. He was hungry. His face was sharply cold where it poked through the robes. The rest of him was warm and comfortable in the robes and the cloud-stuff.
Clubfoot was on his back, sprawled out like a starfish in the clouds, looking indecently comfortable. Wavyhill’s skull was where the Warlock had mounted it last night, on a billowing knoll of cloud.
The Warlock called up to Wavyhill. “Anything?”
“Nothing attacked. The mana level stayed high. It’s still high; all my senses, such as they are, are razor sharp. I think I heard something that wasn’t just the wind, around midnight. I couldn’t tell what. It might have been wings, big wings.”
“Something big enough to carry Piranther?”
“I don’t know. That’s the trouble: you think some beast has gone mythical, and then it swoops down at you. There might be all kinds of survivals, here in the sky…Warlock, had you thought of probing the Moon from here?”
“No raw materials. No food sources either.” The Warlock grinned. “That might not bother you, but you can’t work alone.”
“Right. Someone has to make the gestures.”
During the night much of the cloudscape had melted away. The mass they still occupied was pushing upward in the center. For some hours it must have blocked Wavyhill’s view forward.
Wavyhill asked, “Are you sure we’ve lost Piranther?”
“I…no.”
“All right. Neither am I.”
“I don’t see how he could be following us. But that’s no guarantee at all. Piranther and his people have had most of fifty years to explore the South Land Mass. What could he have found in the way of talismans?”
“Another Fistfall?”
“Or more than one. He could be pacing us on dragonback.” The sky burned deep blue, nearly cloudless, but the Warlock said, “Behind that one cloud, maybe, watching us. I was overconfident.”
“Did you have a choice? Relax. This is a fun way to travel. By the way, there has been another development. Tiptoe around this knob of cloud and you’ll see.”
Tiptoe? The clumsiest giant would not make an audible footfall here. The Warlock waded around, and saw Mirandee and Orolandes wrapped in each other’s arms in the cloud-shadow.
Perhaps he lied, to Wavyhill or to himself. “Good. I was afraid they wouldn’t get along.”
The air mass rushed steadily north and east. The center continued to push upward. By noon they were high on the slope of a billowing mountain, a storm thunderhead.
Clubfoot trekked up to the peak. “It’s steeper on the forward face,” he reported when he came back. “I don’t like the footing much, but the view is terrific. Wavyhill, let’s set you up there as lookout.”
“Lookout and figurehead. Why not?”
In the end they stayed up there, Clubfoot and Wavyhill and the Warlock. Orolandes and Mirandee declined to join them.
It was a heady view. The crackle of lightning sounded constantly from underneath them. Flights of birds passed far away, flying south. Once an eagle came screaming down to challenge their invasion of its territory. That was worrying. They had nothing to throw at the bird, and any magic might melt the cloud beneath them. Fortunately the eagle saw the size of them and reconsidered.
Wavyhill said, “We might be the last human beings ever to see this, for thousands of years, maybe forever.”
They were passing over an endless forest. To their right the cloud-shadow brushed the treetops; on the left a behemoth waded through crackling tree trunks, stopped, looked up at them with intelligent eyes. The cloudscape sloped steeply down from here, dazzling white, with shadowed valleys and rifts in it.
“We couldn’t ask for a better vantage point,” said the Warlock. “Or more comfortable seating.” And he glanced at Clubfoot. “What’s wrong with you? You look like your last friend just died.”
“Orolandes is a fine young man,” Clubfoot stated. “He is brave and loyal, and unlike many swordsmen, he has a conscience. Bearing all that in mind, would you tell me what Mirandee sees in that bloody-handed mundane?”
“You could ask Mirandee.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Would it help if I told you why Mirandee turned down your offer? I think she was being polite. To me. We shared a bed once. She didn’t want to remind me of what I’ve lost.”
“All right. That was nice of her. But why—”
“Nobody can tell you.” The Warlock looked at him. “I’d have thought you were too old for this kind of acidic jealousy.”
“So would I,” said Clubfoot.
At sunset the winds around the peak turned chilly. The two magicians climbed down the back slope of the thunderhead. The cloud surface was uneasy, in constant slow-flowing motion. They ate their cold rations and went to sleep.
But Wavyhill remained on the peak, on duty.
The third day was very like the second. Orolandes and Mirandee kept their own company, finding privacy in one of the shadowed valleys well aft of the thunderhead peak. Clubfoot and the Warlock lolled on the peak.
Clubfoot seemed to have come to terms with himself. He had been stiffly polite to Mirandee at breakfast, but here he could relax. “This is the way to travel. We should have gone to Prissthil this way, Warlock.”
The Warlock chuckled. “That would have been nice, wouldn’t it? We couldn’t. No mountains to climb near Warlock’s Cave. And the only place to get off would have been high on Mount Valhalla. Without porters. Come to that, we’ll have a problem when we get to where we’re going. Just where are we going, Wavyhill?”
“It’ll be part of a mountain range, and our weather magic should work,” said Wavyhill, “unless I’m wrong from the start. At this speed we’ll get there late tomorrow. We will have to do some climbing.”
Clubfoot shifted in the cloud-stuff. “So we’ll rest up for it.”
Wavyhill studied him. “Comfortable, isn’t it? You complacent troll, you. You’ve all been sleeping like the dead. And Mirandee and the swordsman, I guess they earned it, mating like mad minks all day. I wish I could sleep!”
Clubfoot’s anger left him as suddenly as it had come. “We could block your senses.”
“It’s not the same. It’s not the same as sleeping, or blinking, or—or crying. I want eyelids.”
&
nbsp; “Let’s try something,” said Clubfoot.
They tied a line to his jawbone, for a marker, and pushed Wavyhill a foot deep into cloud. They pulled him up a minute later, and then half an hour later. He said he was comfortable. It was not like sleeping, Wavyhill said, but it was like resting with his eyes closed.
They left him there until sunset.
In a shadowed valley, enclosed in cottony wisps of fog that resisted motion, Orolandes lay with his cheek on Mirandee’s belly. The sunlight filtered through the cloud walls to bathe them in pearly light.
“Love and madness,” he mused. “They go together, don’t they?”
“You feel your sanity returning?”
“Why, no, not at all.”
“Good.” She chuckled. The flat abdominal muscles jumped pleasantly under his ear.
“I wonder,” he said. “What makes this Roze-Kattee a god of love and madness? The gods came before men, didn’t they? Did gods fall in love? And go mad?”
Troubled, she shifted position. “Good question. We’ll have to know the answers before we do anything drastic. I’d guess that one day an anonymous god looked around itself and decided it would die without worship. There were men around. What did they need that Roze-Kattee could supply? Some gods were more versatile than others. Roze-Kattee probably wasn’t.”
“What would a god of love and madness do?”
“Oh…bestow madness on enemies. Ward it from friends. Love? Hmmm.”
“The same thing? Make the Frost Giants’ enemies love them?”
“Why not? And arrange good political alliances by fiddling with the emotions of the king or queen. Priests learn to be practical, if their gods don’t.”
“Do you think this god will fight us?”
She shifted again. “It needs us as much as we need it. We’ll know better when we see this dormant god.” Her long fingernails tickled his chest hairs. “Don’t think about it now. Think about sharing love on a cloud. Few mundanes have that chance.”
“It does take practice.”
“We’ve had practice.”
“I’m the only fighter among you. Magicians wouldn’t break their backs to protect a swordsman.”