by Larry Niven
“…biggest bird that ever lived. We thought they’d all gone mythical. Suddenly there it was, diving down on Mirandee.” The Warlock’s voice was thin and reedy, and he had to pause for breath…for air hotter than the atmosphere of Hell, that scalded his throat. It didn’t matter. They listened. “Claws like eight curved sword blades. Eyes the size of your shield, Poul…”
The sauna was a big underground room with a wood stove glowing in the middle. There were benches along all four walls, on two levels; and thank the gods for that, for the Warlock was on the lower, cooler level. He’d have been on the floor except that it would violate Nordik custom. The village held more than two hundred, and half of them were in this incandescent room, sweating enough to fill a respectable river. They were all stark naked: men and women, older children and people so old they couldn’t walk without assistance, and even some Frost Giant slaves, seven and eight feet tall, sitting on the lower benches with their heads near the ceiling.
The Warlock had seen strange peoples in his day. He knew how various were the ways of being human. He hid his surprise at sauna customs, and showed only the diffidence of a stranger who must be shown the rules. When Poul explained that they roasted themselves in this fashion to keep themselves healthy, he only nodded.
Clubfoot had guffawed when the Warlock told him that. (But they were alone then.) To the Warlock it was a disturbing sign of the times. Medicine was a branch of magic. Take the magic out of medicine, and what was left? This?
He wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t shown some discomfort. And it was stranger than strange, to see this many naked men and women crowded this close together, pouring sweat, and none of them so much as flirting! And every so often someone would bolt and run for the river downslope. Ten minutes later he’d be back, and if he brushed you in passing his skin was icy, as if he’d been dead for days.
Yet they were paying him a signal honor, and it behooved him to take advantage of it.
“Oh, Wavyhill was as evil a man as I’ve ever known. He killed whole villages, and not by coming on them with swords, but by stealth, by gaining their trust. He sold them zombie servants that were dead men from the last village he’d gutted, revived and hidden under the seeming of good troll slaves. One night the trolls would take up knives and…”
It had been very different three nights ago, when Harric reached Vendhabn Village with magicians as his prisoners.
Vendhabn was a place of stone houses with steeply peaked roofs and tiny windows lining both sides of a street of trampled dirt that curved like the cowpath it had once been. Houses of human scale, until you came to the great hall in the middle of town.
The Warlock was dopy with fatigue and sudden senility, and Clubfoot wasn’t exactly alert, but they noticed the hall. It was tremendous. The stone blocks that made it were tremendous. The door was eighteen feet tall, and built of whole trees…and it was old. He wondered if it had been built by Frost Giants.
The night was dark and still foggy. Nobody was about. That was good; the Warlock had dreaded being put on show for a japing mob. The bronze-armored man named Harric led them past the great hall and into what had to be a jail: a hut built to the same colossal scale as the great hall, a single room with a roof eighteen feet high, and more recent stone partitions dividing it.
Their tiny room had a small window in the door. The guard outside was a tall, gangling warrior with big knobby hands. The Warlock was too exhausted to speak, to do anything but flop on the straw bedding and try to keep breathing. As Clubfoot bent over him, hurting with the need and the impossibility of curing him by magic, the Warlock had gasped three words.
“Keep them entertained.”
Later that night he had awakened; but Clubfoot still didn’t know that. The guard and Clubfoot had been pressed close to the window in the door. Clubfoot had been telling the guard about lovemaking on a solidified cloud, exactly as if he had done it himself…exactly as his jealousy-fired imagination must have painted it. Certainly the Warlock had not been meant to hear.
In the morning he had felt stronger. He’d been able to eat some bread and drink some mead. Last night’s guard had seemed friendly enough, and a bit awed by his prisoners. Clubfoot had introduced him as Poul Cloudscraper.
The magicians talked quietly on the straw bedding. “We’d rather be guests than prisoners,” the Warlock said. “What are the chances?”
“Maybe. I talked to Poul last night. Blamed the killings on Orolandes. If they get him I’ll have to say I lied. I made out that we were kind of his prisoners.”
“If they get Orolandes we can cut our throats. I’d like to give the impression we’re taking their hospitality for granted. It just hasn’t occurred to us that they might cut a wandering magician’s throat—”
“Too late. I asked Poul about that. He can’t protect us. He’s a householder, but he only gets one vote in council.”
“Oh.”
“How’s this? You’re a loveable, trusting old man, and I’m your ex-apprentice who lives only to take care of you. It might stop your heart if you thought you’d been threatened by our hosts. Should anyone be so boorish as to raise the subject—”
“You insist that I mustn’t find out. Good. Help me up.”
Leaning heavily on the red man’s shoulder, he peered out the small window. There were men and women dressed too lightly against the cold, moving to avoid puddles and patches of half-melted snow. Two giant women went past with a dressed ox carcass slung from a pole. They were both very pale of skin, and white-haired, though they seemed young, and they stood seven feet tall or taller. The Warlock glanced at Poul, their big Nordik guard, and caught Clubfoot’s warning headshake; there was no good reason whatever to speculate on whether Poul was part Frost Giant.
“We need not mention our ally Wavyhill. Too macabre,” said the Warlock.
“Right. But tell ’em about the duel, it’s a good story.”
“Fine. So you’re the old man’s loyal apprentice, and you wouldn’t dream of deserting him in these his remaining years. Once they’re convinced of that they may loosen your tether. If you get the chance, you run.”
“No way.”
“I mean it. I’m out of the game. Here—” The Warlock slipped the silver bracelet from his upper arm. “This’ll point out the mountain. Mirandee will head there, and she’ll have Orolandes and Wavyhill.”
“Sure,” said Clubfoot. He was certainly lying. He helped the Warlock back to the straw to rest.
“We use the sauna once in ten days,” Poul Cloudscraper said. Poul was on an upper rack of benches. His impressively big feet were propped higher than his head, on a row of rails for that purpose. “We keep it only warm all the time. If one comes dying of the cold, we can warm him quick.”
“You certainly can.”
“Then again, the sauna brings on a quick childbirth. You would be surprised at how many children are born in the sauna.”
“Not at all. I’m about to give birth myself.”
Poul was concerned. “Shall we dip in the river again, or have you had enough?”
The river had been icy; he had thought it would stop his heart. And now he was pouring sweat again. “I’ve had as much ecstasy as I can stand,” he assured the guard.
The cooling-off room was next to the sauna itself. It was crowded. The Nordiks would rest in here for half an hour, then leave…but today they weren’t leaving. As the Warlock washed himself he tried to hear what Clubfoot was telling them.
“None of us is old enough to remember what the gods are like,” the lame magician was saying. “Not even my friend the Warlock here. How did you like the sauna, Warlock?”
The Warlock smiled back. “A unique experience.” He accepted a towel from a silent Frost Giant woman. She used another towel to dry his back.
“There are some interesting legends, though,” Clubfoot said. “The god Dyaus-pita took a number of human women as lovers. Most of them came to grief. There was one who insisted that he show himself in h
is true form…which was probably a mistake.” The pleasantly shaped young woman next to Clubfoot was one the Warlock remembered: Harric’s younger sister. Good. If Clubfoot could pacify the bronze-armored warrior…
The time of the japing mob had come, of course. At midmorning Harric led them out. It was funny in a way, to see the villagers’ embarrassed reactions to Harric’s conquest: a cripple and a feeble old man. The magicians answered politely to some of the gibing questions put to them; they attempted to act like guests rather than captured freaks, and hoped that they would not therefore be taken for madmen. Harric put them back in their cell and went away angry, and the villagers went back to their tasks. The children remained.
There must have been a hundred children of all ages, maybe more. At first they only stared. The magicians began to talk to them. They gathered closer. Here and there you would see a younger one sitting on a teenager’s shoulders. At the back, a few white-haired, white-skinned boys and girls stood like trees among saplings, straining to hear, Clubfoot and the Warlock took turns at the window to tell tales of dragon fights, wars of magic, ancient kingdoms, strange half-human peoples…
Evening came, and most of them disappeared to their dinners. For those who stayed, the Warlock tried the spell he had used at the inn in Prissthil for the diners’ entertainment. In the darkness the colors were dimmer yet, like the Northern Lights brought to earth. The children loved it.
The next morning brought a cluster of angry parents.
The Warlock was exhausted. He had to let Clubfoot deal with them. He lay on the straw with his eyes closed, listening to Nordik anger and Clubfoot’s tones of bewildered hurt. He wondered what had gone wrong.
“…turn them into magicians? My son will grow up to be…”
“…corrupting our children…”
“…wiser to learn our customs before you…”
“…too dazzled to do their work, now you’ve filled their heads with…”
Came the noon meal, and they were left alone. “I wasn’t a lot of help, was I?” the Warlock said miserably. “How much trouble are we in?”
But Clubfoot seemed thoughtful rather than worried. “Not as much as you’d think. I got one old woman talking for the rest of ’em. She’s the ring-bearer’s mother.” The gift of tongues informed the Warlock that the ring-bearer was the lord of the hall, effectively the mayor. “Her name’s Olganna. Warlock, a lot of the parents are delighted we’ve got the kids interested in something. And the children are all on our side, of course.”
“What in the gods’ names was bothering those people?”
Clubfoot’s grin flashed. “Magic was always used against the Nordiks, never for them. They didn’t have any. The tales they tell their children today are all about brawny Nordik warriors against evil magicians. Justice triumphed, and now there’s no more magic.”
“Oh.”
“So now the kids are constantly bothering the Frost Giant servants at their work, and they don’t do their own chores either. They want magic. Only Frost Giants make magic.” Clubfoot dipped bread into stew, and said, “I learned some things. The Frost Giants really did have a god named Roze-Kattee, and his powers did hold off the Nordiks for a hundred years or so. Then the god’s powers waned, and the Nordik berserkers swarmed all over the Frost Giant warriors.”
“So that much was true, at least. What else did you find out about Roze-Kattee?”
“Olganna couldn’t seem to tell me what the god was doing to the Nordik armies. I think it’s been forgotten. Maybe they never knew. One thing, though. Do you know what a berserker is?”
“Not by that name.”
“A berserker sort of goes insane before battle. He froths at the mouth, he chews his shield, he charges the enemy and keeps going until he’s actually hacked apart. He doesn’t notice wounds, even lethal wounds. What I want to know is, did the Nordiks have berserkers when they were driven out of the Fertile Crescent?”
“Yes. A lot of tribes developed that technique when it got to be so difficult to raise actual zombies.”
“Well, the Nordiks didn’t use berserkers until the actual last battle. Olganna said so and they all backed her up.”
“That’s funny. I wonder why…god of love and madness?”
Clubfoot nodded vigorously. “That’s what I thought. The Nordiks couldn’t fight because Roze-Kattee kept bringing the Nordik berserkers to their senses. One more thing. The Frost Giants still worship Roze-Kattee.”
“What? But they’re slaves!”
“Interesting, isn’t it?”
They emptied their stew bowls and set them aside. Presently the Warlock said, “Have you thought what will happen to these people if Wavyhill and Mirandee can bring back magic to the world?”
Clubfoot shrugged. “They’re swordsmen.”
“Well, yes…Meanwhile we’ve got to cool off the irate parents somehow.”
“We can change our tune. There are tales where magic really was used for evil. Wavyhill’s zombie servants, and the demon-sword Glirendree, and the raising of the dead in the war against Acheron.”
“That’ll help. What about a magic show?”
“What?”
“Let the kids get it out of their systems. The adults too. I’m sure we can work something up.”
“Maybe. I’ll ask Olganna what she thinks.”
The magic show had been a huge success. The Warlock had pretended to call up the dead: phantasms that Clubfoot animated with his thoughts. Clubfoot had read minds, discreetly, and told the contents of locked boxes. The Warlock had told futures, again using some discretion.
But they were still in the cell when the day of the public sauna dawned.
He drowsed face down on the wooden bench while talk floated around him…sent a plague that killed most of his worshippers…His knuckles brushed dry earth. Why? Stingy with their sacrifices…understandable. Baal took every first-born child…The bench was harder than cloud and he was naked, but the air was warm and dry and pleasantly scented with wood and woodsmoke. Started as a war between men…eventually split the whole pantheon, with gods fighting on both sides…boredom. Sure, the gods had their squabbles, but it was boredom…flattened both cities before…Clubfoot was still talking about gods. The Warlock dozed. Mostly they worshipped out of fear. Why else would the…
Some phrase caught the Warlock’s attention and pulled him awake. He sat up. He felt good, better than he’d felt in days.
“There’s no mystery to it,” Olganna was telling Clubfoot. Her hair was white and wispy-thin, she was small and withered and wrinkled, but she still looked like she could climb a mountain. Deep stretch marks on her belly told of her eight sons and eleven daughters. “They simply wouldn’t surrender unless they were allowed to serve their god. Our forefathers could have killed them all, of course, but what for? This Roze-Kattee hadn’t helped them. We let them have their way.”
The Warlock sat up. Nobody seemed to think it strange that he had dozed off here.
“I wonder what makes them so loyal,” Clubfoot said.
“Why, they just…are. Or stubborn,” said Olganna. She seemed unaware that two Frost Giants, man and woman, were drying themselves on the far side of the room. “Once in my life and once before I was born, we got tired of their taking so much time off for their ceremonies. In my time it was a crop that had to be got in. We postponed the ceremonies. They stopped work, all work, till we gave in. It was a hungry winter.”
“But don’t you find that strange? All the old tales tell of gods striking mortals down for some casual mistake, or as part of some godlike game, or just for being proud of their own accomplishments. Sometimes the prayers and sacrifices were bribes for service, but usually they were just to get the god to let them alone: no more floods, no more plague, no more lightning, please. What did Roze-Kattee do for the Frost Giants?”
“I’ve wondered.” Olganna frowned. She looked about her…
They might have been father and daughter, or uncle and niece, or man and wi
fe; their ages weren’t that different. White hair, pale skin, eyes the color of ice, spare frames seven feet tall: they looked very much alike. They sat together, with Nordiks comfortably close on both sides of them, in the egalitarian style of the sauna, and they rested in the peace that follows the heat.
Olganna called across the room, and the entire village must have heard her. “Gannik, Wilf, just why do you still serve a god nobody’s seen in a hundred years?”
The old man flinched. Certainly he had not come to the sauna to be cross-examined. But some are more equal than others, and Olganna’s son was the ring-bearer, the lord of the hall. The pale young woman beside him didn’t help matters; she was looking at Gannik as if she too expected an answer.
He shrugged and answered. “Those who do not worship do not marry, do not love, are not loved. It was always that way. If one loses faith after a long and successful life, his wife will desert him, his children will not speak to him, none will help him when he is sick and aged. If Roze-Kattee frowns on a man, he is impotent; on a woman, her lovers are impotent. We knew this long before you came to live in our land.”
Clubfoot had been clever, telling his tales of gods. So now we have our answer, the Warlock thought. Roze-Kattee’s power lay in the taking. He took the madness from a berserker, and the power of love from an apostate. But if the god himself had been impotent for hundreds of years…
With a thrill of horror the Warlock saw that it didn’t matter. For thousands of years only the devout had had children. Roze-Kattee had bred the Frost Giants for loyalty to Roze-Kattee.
And while this flashed through his mind Olganna was nodding dismissal to Gannik. She was satisfied. To Clubfoot she said, “My nephew tells me that you came here to search out Roze-Kattee.”
The Warlock flinched. Clubfoot said, “We came searching knowledge of Roze-Kattee. How could we not? Roze-Kattee may be the last living god, and knowledge is power to a magician. Usually.” Ruefully, “This time it was a mistake. We have lost power.”