Gaunt felt as though something cold brushed her neck. “You’re an agent of the old gods of these lands. A Chooser of the Slain. Though I thought your kind rode flying horses.”
“I could, if you wished it enough. The specific manifestation of time, and me, that you perceive is filtered through your preconceptions. The Chart of Tomorrows depicts time as a body of water, and so for you it is. Were you a Kantening warrior of elder days, you might instead perceive time as a battlefield, and free movement through time as flying over the fighting.”
“You don’t speak much like someone of elder days.”
“In part that is also an effect of your perceptions. You are a learned person—well do I know it!—and I can explain matters in a way I couldn’t to a frightened warrior fresh from the farm. For him I would speak simply and bravely, as a comrade, while there was any chance our conversation would be overheard by his fellows. When he had passed on, I would embrace him like a mother, that he might accept his fate. Then I would lead him to the hall of heroes, my hand in his like a lover’s.”
“I am glad you are not doing any of those things. Nonetheless, your thinking seems modern, almost familiar.”
“I am of your time, Persimmon Gaunt—almost! The old gods reached across the centuries to name me a Chooser. It is easier to claim champions of this age if one has an agent of this age. But you are wasting time! I am enjoying meeting you, and I risk my future and your own by lingering. Ask your most important three questions—quickly! And I will answer, if my memory or foresight can serve.”
“Where, right now, is Innocence Gaunt?”
“Too many assumptions! But if he is not with you, then he must be with Jewelwolf or Skrymir.” She held out her hand, and with some trepidation Gaunt took it. The girl said, “I will take a risk and attempt to find right now.”
Gaunt descended like a leaf onto the narwhal, and the scene flickered like a Swanisle windstorm in the autumns of her girlhood, all golden leaves and spears of sunlight and shadows at her feet.
Now they seemed to swim over the craggy island in the middle of the Chained Straits, in the place where the Chain itself wrapped around the rock, rising at an angle at either side toward the absurdly attenuated headlands of Svardmark and Spydbanen. There were domed gers all over, and many Karvak soldiers. The sky was gray-black with clouds, and sunlight seemed more of a pleasant idea than a reality.
She gasped, for what she’d at first taken for a huge boulder was a gigantic troll. Kneeling before the troll was Innocence. Despite everything, it filled her with astonished relief to see him alive and whole.
In the next moment, she realized he was not whole. Not quite. One of his beautiful eyes glowed green. Gaunt shuddered.
“Do you see well, lad,” the rock-thing said in a startlingly quiet and intimate voice, “with the troll-splinter I’ve given you?”
“It’s made me understand many things, glorious king. Now daytime seems dark, and nighttime bright. Now bloodshed seems heroic, and generosity weak.”
“Do you see now,” said the troll-king, “any difference between humankind and trolls?”
“I think you do all the deeds my parents’ people only think of. But if thinking is what matters, then we’re all the same.”
“Fair enough! But there is a key difference, boy, that you’ll understand in time. Humans say they must be their true selves. Trolls say that to be themselves is sufficient.”
“That sounds like you’re saying the same thing with different words.”
“Ah, but Innocence Gaunt, chosen of the Heavenwalls of Qiangguo, it is not the same thing. You will know. Perhaps soon. Your enemy stirs.”
“My enemy?”
“The Runethane.”
“She is my old friend.”
“A-Girl-Is-A-Joy, daughter of Snow Pine and Flybait, is your old friend. The Runethane is your enemy. Which is Joy’s true self? I leave you with that question as I go to plumb the labyrinth of the Splintrevej. There is a haven of light and freedom there that has long vexed me. It is time I went looking for it. And I think soon enough you will go on your own errand as well. Meantime, seek again to unlock the power of this Chain, as we discussed. Bring on the Fimbulwinter, my boy.”
“It resists me, Skrymir. I think it knows there is another with a claim on its power.”
“But you are the stronger, Innocence. And now, with your troll-perceptions, weakness and mercy will not hamper you. In time you will suck its power dry, like a lamprey taking blood. Now I take my leave.”
Gaunt watched the troll-king rise and depart. Sometimes he scratched the emptiness where a heart should have been. Once, as he did so, he looked in her direction, as if half-noticing something there. Gaunt tried to still her breathing, in case any sound of hers might somehow reach him from the Straits of Tid.
The troll shrugged and surged into the waves.
Innocence turned from the ripples of water to the whorls of power flickering like lightning upon the metal of the vast Chain. A woman walked up to him, someone who had but one ear. Gaunt recognized her as Dolma, a member of a group called the Fraternity of the Hare. They’d once protected the lost land of Xembala but had chosen to serve Princess Steelfox of the Karvaks. Why was Dolma tending to Innocence?
“What did he say?” Dolma asked.
Innocence chuckled. “Did he not bellow loud enough for the whole island to hear?”
“No, he whispered. What did he say?”
“Troll things.”
“You have changed.” Dolma, too, stared at the Chain. “You were kinder, before. More . . . innocent.”
“Perhaps my name should be Lamprey.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He smiled. “Do you still wish to serve me? You may be off if you wish. Or you may keep minding me if that is your and Steelfox’s desire. I do not care either way.”
“You need help. You need people who will stay by you.”
“In the long run, no one can be relied upon . . .” He looked around. “Someone is spying on me. I know not how.”
He seemed to look directly at Gaunt.
“Innocence!” she could not help but cry out.
“What is it?” Dolma asked.
“I . . .” He shook his head. “I could have sworn I heard my mother calling me. It is surely my imagination. I must be afraid of growing up.” He turned to the Great Chain. “It is time to make a change in the weather.”
“Innocence!” Gaunt called again.
“No,” said the Chooser of the Slain. “You can do no more here. And I won’t risk Skrymir Hollowheart sensing you and returning.”
The world blurred, and again they floated in a moonlit sea.
“I could help him!” Gaunt said. “It’s not too late. He’s so lost, but I could still help him.” It was like a stony troll-hand was constricting her chest.
“There will be many times,” the Chooser said, “when he believes you do not love him. I wish I could put this moment in a bottle, bitter as it is, and give it to him, to open at those times.”
“Who the hell are you?” Gaunt snapped. It was unfair—she needed this Chooser’s help—but a dam was bursting.
“Too many possible answers. The question could destroy me. You may call me Cairn.” Cairn’s form twisted, blurred, grew transparent. It solidified again. “One more, then I must leave you!”
There was probably a perfectly tuned question, the right one to ask, but Gaunt’s heart wasn’t giving it to her. “Where are our friends,” she asked, “right now?”
Cairn raised her spear and the sea blurred and the sky flickered.
CHAPTER 24
SETER
A-Girl-Is-A-Joy squinted at the mountains of Svardmark, blowing snow from her eyebrows as she trudged across an alpine pasture beside Corinna, Malin, Katta, and Haytham. Deadfall moved low to the ground, unwilling to bear them any longer until the snowstorm cleared.
“Could you not at least form a canopy for us?” Haytham asked. He was having a hard ti
me of it, carrying Haboob’s brazier, though at least the efrit was warming his hands.
“You do not understand,” Deadfall hummed. “Skrymir’s power grows. This must be his storm. He knows my essence and could snatch me back. I must be cautious.”
“Please leave my fellow inorganic entity be, O glorious master of flight,” came the voice of the efrit. “I have vast sympathy for anyone who’s been magically trapped.”
They had flown circuitously, at low altitudes, avoiding the Karvak army and Skrymir’s unnatural weather. But this snowstorm was worse than anything before, and Deadfall claimed it could not stand against it. They’d come down for a hard landing here.
“I don’t think this is Skrymir,” Joy said, rubbing her hands together. “At least not Skrymir only. This feels like the power of the Great Chain.”
“Can you combat it, Runethane?” said Corinna.
“I’ve been trying. But I still can’t command this power. If we’d been able to land at the Chain—”
“We would have been captured by the Karvaks encamped there,” Katta said gently.
“There’s a dairy up there,” Malin said, pointing.
She had spoken so little, it was startling to hear her. Joy squinted again and blew the snow from her eyes once more. “I don’t see anything.”
“Nor I,” said Corinna.
Katta shrugged. “I don’t notice anything evil that way.”
“I don’t see anything either,” said Haytham. “But Malin is unusually good at discerning detail. I recommend we trust her eyes.”
There was indeed a barn, but Malin halted them. “Uldra and trolls occupy seters in winter.”
“Seters?” asked Joy.
“The high pastures,” Corinna said. “Places like this are used in summer for herding and milking. She’s right about the seters being abandoned by humans. As for trolls and uldra, that’s what the country people say.”
“Do we have flint?” Malin said.
“What?” Joy said. “Our friend Flint was left behind on Brokewing Island. How do you know him?”
“No, flint! Not a person. Flint and steel. Not Steelfox either. The other folk don’t like flint, steel, and salmeboks.”
“That’s how the stories go,” said Corinna. “I don’t have a salmebok—a book of psalms such as the People of the Brush sang, long ago. It’s part of our Swan scripture, and they say it scares off the otherworldly.”
“I do carry flint and steel, however,” Haytham said, “as you never know when you might fall out of a balloon.”
They knocked at the barn, and Joy slowly opened the doors. There seemed nothing inside but a pile of hay.
“Well, that’s a relief—”
The hay rose upward and sprouted a single eye. Earthen hands burst out on either side; legs of wood appeared at the bottom. The whole thing was the size of a hut.
“You don’t even knock!” screamed the thing. “You don’t even say, ‘Hey, troll, Hay-troll?’ You’re worse than Skrymir’s bunch. I don’t want to be in any troll army, and I don’t want to make room for you!”
The troll rushed her. Her action was instinctive. She raised her hands, and the Runemark blazed.
Fire engulfed the hay-troll. Howling, it blazed away into the darkness. In the distance they heard a splash and a groan of relief.
The remaining hay in the barn caught fire, and the barn itself was engulfed.
“You said you needed flint and steel?” murmured Haytham.
“Sorry,” Joy said.
“So much for shelter,” said Corinna.
“The elements are invigorating,” said Katta. “We will be all right.”
“Wait,” Joy said, for when the power had risen within her, strange visions had crowded in her head. She had the sense of being watched by someone. She also had the notion that someone she loved was approaching.
She looked all around, and then into the sky, whence smoke was rising into the snowfall. There, in the distance, was the blue bulb of a Karvak balloon.
She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on the craft.
Suddenly she saw the faces of her mentor Walking Stick and her mother Snow Pine and their friend Liron Flint.
“Mother,” she said. “My mother is aboard that balloon.”
“How can you know this?” Corinna said.
“How can they guide the craft?” Haytham said.
“Walking Stick is with them. He’s said he can, at great wear to his body, use the breath of his essence to call upon the breath of the wind.”
“I do not understand this,” Corinna said, “but I hope it is true.”
“Deadfall,” Katta said, “will you not go to them?”
“I will not,” hummed the carpet.
“Enough,” said Haboob. “If you will not reach them, I will. Stand aside, O inventor.”
“What?” said Haytham. “Yaaa—!”
Fire burst forth from the brazier. Haytham dropped it in the snow, but the blaze rose hundreds of feet, forming a highly attenuated, but very visible, image of a scowling man. The fiery figure made a thumbs-down gesture in the direction of the burning farmhouse.
The balloon descended.
“Never make me land in a narrow, forsaken place like this again,” Walking Stick told them. “It is agreeable to see you,” he added.
Snow Pine embraced Joy tightly, pushed her back to regard her daughter, and sternly said, “You are never gathering wood alone again.”
Joy hugged Flint too. “Find any treasure?” she asked him.
“Considerable knowledge,” Flint sighed, looking at Snow Pine, “but my only treasure is what I started with. Are you Malin? A friend is asking about you.”
Within the captured Karvak balloon lay Inga Peersdatter, who to Joy’s horror had lost an arm and gained a burning desire to fight Karvaks and trolls.
“Let them come!” Inga said after she’d gotten the startled Joy and Malin in a one-armed bear hug and explanations were made. “I’ve tangled with Skrymir himself. Bring them on!”
“I will fight beside you,” Joy said.
“Like hell you will,” Snow Pine said, following them into the ger. “If need be, you will hide in A Tumult of Trees on Peculiar Peaks, as you did once before.”
“And will the mark upon me fade within the world of the scroll?” Joy replied. “I think not, nor will the memory of my duty.”
“Duty? Your duty is to your mother, child. Did Walking Stick not teach you that?”
“Perhaps,” Liron Flint put in, “we should simply be grateful for now that we have each other to argue with.”
“Indeed!” said Haytham ibn Zakwan as he began shifting the balloon’s brazier to one side to make room for Haboob’s. “And for new help. How did you manage to command the Charstalker demon in its brazier?”
“It,” said Walking Stick, “was difficult. I have learned that demons do not entirely lack pressure points. If I had not been able to steal and control a balloon, we’d likely still be on Spydbanen. I am surprised you are not at Svanstad already, as you travel with this princess.”
Haytham sounded defensive to Joy. “We’ve done what we could!”
“Indeed,” said Corinna, “I can fault no one. Deadfall has labored heroically against the influence of Skrymir.”
“Thank you,” hummed the carpet, sounding surprised.
“And everyone here has borne the journey well. My own knights could not do better.”
Walking Stick bowed. “You are courteous, Princess Corinna, and I admire that. Alas, I cannot quite repay you in kind. Princess—your time is short. Sooner than you believe possible, the Karvak horde will be on your doorstep.”
“This I believe,” Corinna said. “But Soderland is strong, and surely we’ll have allies. This Jewelwolf will find us not so easily swept away. We are Kantenings. Children of ice and violence. They will regret ever coming here.”
“Those are fine words to spread among the people,” Walking Stick said, “for their spirits will need it
. But this will be the battle of your life.”
“Then I wish to join it, not talk about it. If you ladies and gentlemen can get me back to Svanstad with this news, you will be well rewarded.”
“Haytham?” said Walking Stick. “Haboob?”
“Ready.”
“Ready, O superior man.”
“Thank you, O ironic efrit,” said Walking Stick. “We fly!”
Joy was glad to leave the seter behind. She winced for whoever’s barn was burning, but as the blaze disappeared beneath a haze of snow, Joy feared much worse was coming.
CHAPTER 25
COUNCIL
When Anansi reached the harbor at Svanstad, the waterfront was full of soldiers, warships bustled with activity, and the piers were crowded with ships from all parts of Kantenjord. Nan, standing beside Gaunt as the Kpalamaa vessel took anchor, said she saw flags and shields of Oxiland, Ostoland, Gullvik, Garmstad, and many another places. “I’ve never seen it so busy. I suppose we’ll have to wait to moor.”
“It’s a lovely city,” Gaunt remarked, looking upon cheerfully-colored multistoried buildings rearing beside the water with snow-spattered orange roofs. Beyond rose a cathedral of gray-white stone with stained-glass windows flashing in the sun. Upon a nearby hill she saw the statue of a regal man lofting a book, not a sword. “It looks surprisingly un-barbaric.” She added, “Excuse me. That was rude.”
Nan laughed. “It was not so very long ago that Kantenings terrorized the region. And farther north, the game of foamreaving’s not yet done.”
Gaunt frowned. “Is slavery done, here in Soderland?”
“Princess Corinna has forbidden for Swanlings to be in a condition of slavery here, or for anyone to be made a slave here.”
“Not quite the same as saying slavery is outlawed.” Gaunt smirked. “Those have the vinegar taste of carefully chosen words.”
“Indeed. But they are Corinna’s words, not mine.”
“Hm. I think I trust her. Mostly.”
“You speak as one who’s encountered her—Orm’s eye, is that a flying carpet?”
It was. The twisting, colorful rectangle of the carpet rose from a fortress of orange stone and arced toward the harbor, bearing directly upon Anansi, with four people upon it. Gaunt didn’t pause to squint. “Bone!” she cried as she ran belowdecks. “It’s Deadfall!”
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