by Larry Niven
“But I would.”
In the night something woke the Warlock. He stirred in seductive comfort while his eyes searched the vivid starscape. Nothing, only stars…He was dropping off to sleep when it came again: a surging beneath him, like a cloud-muffled bump.
Clubfoot’s sleepy voice said, “What?”
“Don’t know.”
There was a more emphatic bump.
Orolandes felt it too: a surging beneath him. He stirred and felt momentary panic.
“Cloud. You’re on a cloud,” Mirandee said reassuringly. Her eyes were inches away; her breath tickled his growing beard.
“All right. But what was that—”
The cloud surged again.
Orolandes ran his fingers through her hair—it was raven black by starlight—rolled away and stood up. The others would be around the side of the puffy thunderhead peak. He walked that way, aware that Mirandee was following him.
Clubfoot and the Warlock were on their feet. Clubfoot called, “Did you see anything?”
“No, but I felt—”
Beyond the two sorcerers, beyond the edge of the cloudscape, a shadow rose up and blotted the stars. Starlight reflected faintly from huge wide-set eyes.
Mirandee was behind him, her hand on his hip.
“Don’t make magic,” the Warlock called. “Not yet. It’s a roc.”
The great bird was treading air, holding itself in position with an occasional flap of its wings. It cocked first one eye, then the other, to study the people on the cloud. Then it spoke to them in a basso profundo thunderclap.
“CAW!”
“Caw yourself!” Orolandes snarled, and he stamped toward it. His sword was longer than the bird’s beak, he thought. It would reach an eye. This would be a wild way to die. But Mirandee would be safe, if he could put out an eye.
“CAW!” bellowed the bird. Its wings rose and snapped down.
A hurricane gust threw Orolandes backward. He curled protectively around the sword blade, somersaulted twice and came up crouched. Another blast beat straight down on his head and shoulders.
The bird was overhead, stooping down on Mirandee.
Orolandes tried to run toward her. The cloud-stuff tangled his feet, slowing him.
Mirandee shouted something complex in nonsense syllables.
Soft blue radiance jumped between her outspread arms and the bird’s descending beak. Her hair flashed white, and she dropped.
Orolandes howled.
The bird fluttered ineffectually and fell into the cloudscape in a disorganized tangle.
Orolandes attacked. His blade’s edge buried itself in feathers. He set his feet, yelled and slashed again at the neck. He cut only feathers.
The bird’s wings stirred feebly. It lifted its head with great effort, said, “CAW?” and died.
Mirandee cried, “Help!”
Her hair was a black cloud spilled across white. She was buried to the armpits. “I stole its power. Gods, I feel all charged up! Lucky I remembered that vampire spell or I’d be trying to fly myself.” She was babbling in the shock of her brush with death. “Clubfoot, can you get me out of here?”
Orolandes went to her, treading carefully, knee-deep in viscous cloud. He lifted her by the elbows, pulled her out of the pit and set her down.
“Oh! Thank you. That vampire spell, old Santer taught it to me a hundred years ago, and I just knew I’d never use it. I thought I’d forgotten it. It wouldn’t even work anymore, most places. Oh, ’Landes, I was so scared.”
Clubfoot said, “You sucked that bird dry, all right. Look.”
The bird was deep in cloud and sinking deeper. As they watched it vanished under the surface.
“We can’t stay here,” said Clubfoot. “We don’t want anyone walking into that patch. It wouldn’t hold a feather, and you can’t tell it from the rest of the cloud.”
They moved far around the steeper northern face of the traveling storm.
The Nordiks
On the third morning black-and-white mountains reared their tremendous peaks to east and north. “Aim for the northernmost peak in the range,” Wavyhill ordered.
Clubfoot began his weather magic. The Warlock pulled a band of silver from his upper arm and peered through it for a time. One distant rounded peak glowed a faint blue-white. “That’s it. There’s magic in that mountain,” he said. “Wavyhill…”
“Well?”
Slowly the Warlock said, “I’m only just starting to grasp the audacity of what we’re doing. I never tried anything this big, even when I was young.”
“What have we got to lose?” Wavyhill chuckled.
“I wish you’d stop saying that. Clubfoot, how are you doing?”
“Having some trouble.”
The cloudscape drifted east. Clubfoot continued to try to swing them north. By noon the clouds were sweeping across the foothills, and surging like a sluggish sea. It was no use trying to stand. Even Clubfoot gave up the effort.
At first it wasn’t bad, riding a continual earthquake on an infinity of damp featherbed. Then Orolandes grew seasick. Twice in his life he had ridden out a storm aboard a warship; but in a way this was worse. They were trying to steer the storm itself. Clubfoot wore a grim look Orolandes didn’t like at all. Sections of cloudscape roiled into sudden ridges and hills; others tore away and drifted off in white puffs. Once the limping magician tried to stand and gesture, and a hill of cloud-stuff surged up under him and sent him spinning downslope. After that he stayed down.
The spell-hardened cloud deformed like taffy as it surged against the dark mountain slopes. Orolandes clenched his teeth against the tumbling of his belly. Ships didn’t do that! He was flat on the cloud now, like all the others, with his arms and legs spread wide.
The cloudscape slid up the mountain face; slowed; and finally, balked from crossing the range, the mass slid north instead. The ride became less chaotic. Orolandes began to relax.
“At least we’re going in the right direction,” Clubfoot muttered. He stood up. “Now let’s see if I can—” And he stopped, astonished. He was hip deep in cloud.
And Orolandes was sinking deeper, deeper in cloud. He couldn’t see the others.
Clubfoot bellowed, “Stay down! Flatten out!” He began to sing in the Guild tongue, unfamiliar words in a tone of desperation. He was chest deep and sinking, like a captain going down with his ship, as the clouds converged over Orolandes’ head.
He sank through white blindness. He held his breath and readied himself—he thought he was ready—for the moment when he would drop out of the cloud.
Too long. He gasped for breath, and found he could breathe cloud-stuff.
Somewhere above his head Clubfoot was still singing. If Orolandes yelled for Mirandee he might interrupt that spell; but it was very lonely to die like this. The white had turned light gray. The seconds stretched excruciatingly…then rough ground brushed against him and spun him head over heels.
He was on his back on solid, solid ground, with dirt and small stones beneath him and gray cloud all around. He stayed there and shouted. “Mirandee!”
Nothing.
“Clubfoot! Warlock!” He was afraid to move. To find solid ground in a cloud was too much of sorcery with too little warning. And he was still blinded by cloud!
Then a shape formed in the cloud, and resolved. He saw a pale, blond, very hairy warrior. The armored man walked in a furtive, silent crouch, his eyes shifting nervously, trying to see in all directions at once. His spear was poised to kill. But he didn’t look down.
This, at least, was in Orolandes’ field of experience.
The stranger’s first glimpse of Orolandes showed him much too close, in the air, with sword drawn. The stranger’s jaw dropped; then he tried to scream and thrust at the same time. Orolandes batted the spearhead aside and stabbed him through the open mouth.
He waited. No more blond warriors came. Presently Orolandes allowed himself to look down.
The dead man was armored in
leather reinforced by brass strips. He carried sword and dirk in addition to the spear. He looked to be just past twenty, and well fed; and none of that was good. A well fed populace could support many soldiers, and a young man wouldn’t be wearing the best of the armor. A good-size, well-equipped band could be moving out there in the…fog.
Of course, fog! Orolandes grinned at himself. A cloud on the ground must be fog! Clubfoot must have managed to land the cloud while it was still viscous enough to hold them. That must have shaken the soldiers: sticky fog, and a hillside seeded with magicians.
Orolandes walked into the fog. He was painfully alert. In this white blindness you could kill friend as easily as foe. He spent some time stalking a small tree. Later two man-shaped shadows formed faintly in the mist, standing motionless above…a seated man? Orolandes charged in silence, and killed one of them before they knew they were threatened. The other fended Orolandes off long enough to scream for help. He fought badly…and lost.
The Warlock did not get up. He looked bad; as if he had collapsed in upon himself. He blinked and spoke in a feeble whisper. “Orolandes?”
“Yes. They’ll be coming, we’ve got to move. Are you hurt?”
“Youth spells worn off. No mana here. Take—”
“Where are the others?”
“Don’t know. You can’t find them. Take Wavyhill. Go up.”
“But—”
“Uphill till Wavyhill talks. Go.” The Warlock slumped back. His breathing was an ugly sound.
Orolandes bent quickly and detached the skull and its harness from the Warlock’s bony shoulder. The decorated skull seemed a pathetic toy; there was no life in it. He tucked it under his arm and moved into the fog in a crouched and silent run. Nordik warriors would be answering that scream.
He had to find Mirandee.
The Warlock rested with his eyes closed. There were bruises and a wrenched shoulder, but it was years that crippled him now. Cold seeped into his bones.
Metal clinked. He opened his eyes.
Large magics had deserted him in this dead place, but at least one small magic remained. The gift of tongues was no big, showy sorcery. Some could learn languages with no magic at all. But the gift could be useful.
The Warlock spoke in Nordik. “Don’t kill me.”
The man in beaten bronze armor said, “I make no such promise. Are you such a weakling as you seem? How did you slay these my men?”
“The swordsman we hired to guide us slew them, then fled.”
“Describe him.”
If Orolandes was caught he would be killed anyway, the Warlock told himself. He described Orolandes accurately, and added, “He was the only one of us who knew how to find the treasure.”
“What treasure was that?”
“The god within a god,” the Warlock said. If they wanted the treasure they would capture Orolandes alive…maybe. It was worth a try. “Such a thing would be immensely valuable to us. We were all magicians save him.”
“How many are you?”
“Me, and a cripple named Clubfoot, and a woman named Mirandee.” And a skull. Pitiful, thought the Warlock. “We can’t harm you here.”
“I know. Stand up or I’ll cut your throat.”
It was a long and painful process, but the Warlock got to his feet. The man in bronze watched in disgust. “You’ll never walk alone,” he said.
He called, and two soldiers came out of the fog with Clubfoot between them. Clubfoot had a nosebleed. It seemed his only injury, save that he shambled like a man who had lost all hope.
“You may carry each other,” the man in bronze instructed them. “Do not delay me. You still live because you’ve not become a nuisance. Your swordsman is a thorough nuisance, and he will die.”
The white mist enclosed them still as they made their way downslope. The Nordiks seemed unsure of their path. Perhaps they were lost. It slowed them, and that was good, for the magicians were nearly killing themselves keeping up. Clubfoot was carrying half the Warlock’s weight. He limped heavily on his birth-mangled foot.
The first time the Warlock tried to speak to him, a spear shaft rapped his funnybone. It hurt like hell. The man in bronze armor said, “You must speak only in our tongue. We have no wish to be cursed.”
“Curses won’t work here,” Clubfoot said.
“We know that. We’re so certain that we won’t even bother to test it. Right?”
Clubfoot nodded. He was morose, tired, defeated.
The Warlock spoke to him in Nordik. “Good landing. I never thought we’d live through that.”
It seemed he wouldn’t answer. Then, “I just got us down where I could. I thought I’d done a good job till they showed up.”
“It’s still better than failing to fly down. Where are you on a cloud when the magic runs out?”
The leader was a big man, strong enough to wear bronze armor without noticing the weight. White showed in his beard, and an old scar above one eye. He hadn’t seemed to care if his prisoners lived or died…until now. Now he stared openly. “Were you actually riding on a cloud?”
“We traveled almost a thousand miles on that moving storm, thanks to Clubfoot’s weather magic.”
“What’s it like?”
The Warlock suppressed a sigh of relief.
Mirandee could stay free. Her special talent would protect her, even here. Orolandes? They’d have to hope, and hope hard, because the swordsman was carrying Wavyhill. But Clubfoot and the Warlock could only expect to be questioned, then killed. Unless they could trade on their novelty value.
“Picture the most luxurious bed you’ve ever heard of,” he said. “Not beds you’ve slept in, but beds from legend. Cloud-stuff is softer than that…”
Close behind him in the fog, a voice spoke to him. “Orolandes.”
He jumped violently. He kept his sword high as he said, “Mirandee?” They might have captured her already—
“No, I stayed clear of them. Barely. There’s a fog on my mind that’s worse than this around us. I’m nearly deaf to your thoughts. Which way is the nearest mountain?”
“What about the others?”
She shook her head. Her leather garments had suffered, but Mirandee wasn’t hurt; she didn’t even seem rumpled. “We can’t do magic here,” she said. “For miles and miles around it must be nothing but old battlefields. Were you thinking of rescuing them singlehanded? Or teaching me to use a sword?”
“What do we do, then?”
“We get out of this dead area. Uphill. If Wavyhill can lead us to the ‘god within a god’, we’ll just summon the others.” She took the skull in both hands; her hair brushed Orolandes’ cheek. “He doesn’t look good.”
“Was that a joke?”
She laughed. “Poor Wavyhill. Strap him to my shoulder, will you? Leave your arms free. No, I meant that he could be really dead. I’ll have to do the spells all over again…Orolandes? Do you remember Wavyhill’s true name?”
“Not offhand.”
That bothered her badly. “Try to remember. We can’t do a revival without Wavyhill’s true name.”
“All right. The wind’s that way,” Orolandes said, “and that was the way the cloud was moving along the mountains. North. So we go east.”
Orolandes didn’t like the touch of Wavyhill: dry, dead bone, and just a trace of the smell of death. He emphatically didn’t like strapping the skull next to the witch’s ear. “Why can’t we stow it in the pack? It’ll be safe enough.”
“Think of it as Wavyhill, our ally. The attitude is a large part of magic, love. He’ll live more readily if I’m here waiting for him to advise me.” She smiled at him, lovingly, and the skull grinned on her shoulder.
It became too dark to climb before they were barely started. They camped among half-seen trees. Mirandee’s small crystal ball had shattered in the fall, and they spent some time shaking shards and slivers of crystal out of the blankets and the pack.
In the night the fog turned to powdery snow. They wakened chilled
despite blankets and bruised by the hard ground.
The chill dissipated as they climbed, but Mirandee tired easily. Her hair was white again. She drove herself hard. By noon they had climbed above the fog.
Mirandee argued for going straight up the nearest peak. But even if Wavyhill revived, they’d only have to go down again; it was not on their path to the hump-shouldered magical mountain. Mirandee gave in to his arguments, possibly with relief.
They went north and upward. They would stick to the ridges.
They had clean snow for water. They saw food, always receding at a good clip: a mountain goat, a small bear that shambled off although Orolandes shouted scathing insults at it. Orolandes wished for a bow and arrow, and settled for a stabbing spear made by using some of their rope to bind his sword to a straight sapling.
They didn’t talk much. Each had private woes which they suffered in silence…but Mirandee sensed her lover’s shame at abandoning companions. What with the closing in of her own mind, the loss of youth and magic, she suffered for two. Orolandes wanted to comfort her. He had no skill at it, but her empathy spoke for him.
So it went until, at sunset of the third day, Orolandes saw an elk. It would have been enough meat to feed a village, but to Orolandes it looked just right for two. He started toward it, prowling, trying to determine windage. The elk cropped the sparse mountain grass with an eye constantly lifted toward danger.
Then, casually, it turned toward Orolandes and walked toward him, ignoring the grass, looking straight ahead…
To a hunter Mirandee’s voice was shockingly loud. “I’ve summoned it. Can you butcher it?”
The elk stood waiting for him to slash its throat. He did, feeling like a murderer. The sword cut through throat and spine with startling ease. The magic sword—
“I wish we knew its name,” Mirandee said. “As it is, we’re trusting someone else’s magic whenever we use that sword.”
She had a boulder blazing before he finished the gory job of butchery. Her hair was half black, half white.
And the decorated skull on her shoulder talked to them as they ate. “Magicians spend decades searching out each others’ true names, Greek. It numbs my mind that you could hear mine twice, and forget! No, Mirandee, I’m not going to tell you. Enough that the Warlock and Clubfoot can move me like a puppet. You would be one too many.”