by Tad Williams
“I mean is he alive?”
“For all I know,” the Rimmersman snorted. “And little I care, either. The old devil could be in Hell and it would not bother me.” He turned back to the snow-shrouded road.
I will not be a father like that, Simon decided, clutching the child a little closer. Vren moved uneasily beneath Simon’s cloak. I’ll stay with my son. We’ll have a home, and I won’t go away.
But who would be the mother? A series of confusing images, random as snowflakes, flurried before his mind’s eye: Miriamele distant on her tower balcony at the Hayholt, the maid Hepzibah, cross old Rachel, and angry-eyed Lady Vorzheva. And where would his home be? He looked around at the vast whiteness of the Waste and the approaching shadow of Aldheorte. How could anyone hope to stay in one place in this mad world? To promise that to a child would be a lie. Home? He would be lucky to find a place to get out of the wind for a night.
His unhappy laugh set Vren to squirming; Simon pulled the cloak tighter around them both.
As they approached the eastern outskirts of Grinsaby they still had not seen a living soul. Neither had there been any evidence of recent habitation. They had questioned Vren closely, but had been unable to elicit any information other than the name “Skodi.”
“Is Skodi your father?” Simon asked.
“It is a woman’s name,” Sludig offered. “A Rimmerswoman’s name.”
Simon tried again. “Is Skodi your mother?”
The boy shook his head. “I live with Skodi,” he said, his words so clear despite the accent that Simon wondered again if the boy was not older than they had guessed.
There were still a few desolate settlements perched among the low hills along the White Way, but they were appearing more and more infrequently. Night had come on, filling the spaces between trees with inky shadows. The company had ridden too long—and too far past eating-time by Simon’s reckoning. Darkness now made their search impractical. Binabik was just setting a pitchy pine limb alight to use as a torch when Simon saw a gleam of light through the forest, some distance from the road.
“Look there!” he cried. “I think it’s a fire!” The distant white-blanketed trees seemed to glow redly.
“Skodi’s house! Skodi’s house!” the boy said, bouncing so that Simon had to restrain him. “She’ll be happy!”
The company sat for a moment, eyeing the flickering light.
“We go carefully,” Sludig said, flexing the fingers that clutched his Qanuc spear. “It is a damned odd place to live. We have no assurance these folks will be friendly.”
Simon felt a sudden inner chill at Sludig’s words. If only Thorn were reliable enough for him to carry at his side! He felt his bone knife in its scabbard and was reassured.
“I will ride ahead,” Binabik said. “I am smaller and Qantaqa is more quiet. We will go to have a look.” He murmured a word; the wolf slid off the road through the long shadows, her tail waving like a puff of smoke.
A few minutes passed. Simon and Sludig rode slowly along the snowy downs, not talking. Staring at the warm light that shimmered in the treetops, Simon had fallen into a sort of shallow dream when he was startled by the troll’s abrupt reappearance. Qantaqa grinned hugely, her red tongue hanging from her mouth.
“It is an old abbey, I am thinking,” Binabik said, his face almost hidden in the darkness of his hood. “There is a bonfire in the dooryard and several people who are around it, but they look to be children. I was seeing no horses, no sign of anyone waiting to ambush.”
They rode quietly forward to the crest of a low hill. The fire burned before them at the bottom of a tree-lined clearing, surrounded by small, dancing silhouettes. Behind them loomed the red-tinted stone walls and cracked mortar of the abbey. It was an old building that had suffered beneath the weather’s rough handling: the long roof had collapsed in several places, the holes gaping at the stars like mouths. Many of the surrounding trees also seemed to have pushed their limbs right through the small windows, as though trying to escape the cold.
As they sat looking, Vren slithered free beneath Simon’s arm and hopped down from the saddle, tumbling into the show. He stood, shaking like a dog, then pelted down the hill toward the bonfire. Some of the small shapes turned at his approach with glad cries. Vren stood among them for a moment, waving his arms excitedly, then pushed through the abbey’s front door and disappeared into the warm glow.
When long moments had passed and no one came back out again, Simon looked inquiringly at Binabik and Sludig.
“It is certainly seeming to be his home,” Binabik said.
“Should we go on our way?” Simon asked, hoping they would say no. Sludig looked him over, then grunted in exasperation.
“It would be foolish to pass the chance of a warm night,” the Rimmersman said grudgingly. “And we are ready to make camp. But no word of who we are or what we do. We are soldiers run away from the garrison at Skoggey, should any ask.”
Binabik smiled. “I approve of your logic, although I am doubting I can be mistaken for a Rimmserman warrior. Let us go and see Vren’s home.”
They cantered down into the dell. The small figures, perhaps half a dozen in all, had resumed their dancing game, but as Simon and the others approached they paused and fell silent. They were only raggedly-dressed children, as Binabik had suggested.
All eyes now turned to the new arrivals. Simon felt himself subjected to a thorough scrutiny. The children seemed to range in age from three or four up to Vren’s age or a little older, and seemed to be of no one type. There was a little girl who shared Vren’s black hair and dark eyes, but also two or three others so fair they could be nothing but Rimmersgarders. All wore expressions of wide-eyed caution. As Simon and his friends dismounted, heads turned almost in unison to watch. No one spoke.
“Hello,” Simon said. The boy nearest him stared sullenly, his face lapped in firelight. “Is your mother here?” The boy continued to stare.
“The child we brought went inside,” Sludig said. “That is undoubtedly where the grown folk are.” He hefted his spear thoughtfully and a half-dozen pairs of eyes warily followed his movement. The Rimmersman took the spear with him toward the abbey door which Vren had swung shut behind him, then propped it against the pitted mortar of the wall.
He gave his silent audience a meaningful look. “No one may touch this,” he said. “Understood? Gjal es, kunden!” He patted his scabbarded sword, then lifted a fist and thumped on the door. Simon looked back at Thorn, a hide-wrapped bundle on one of the packhorses. He wondered whether he should bring it with him, but decided that would draw more attention than was best. Still, it rankled. So many sacrifices to get the black sword, just to leave it strapped to the saddle like an old broomstick.
“Binabik,” he said quietly, pointing at the concealed sword. “Do you think... ?”
The troll shook his head. “Little need for concern, I am certain,” the troll whispered. “In any case, even if these children were to steal it, I am guessing they would have a difficult time carrying it away.”
The heavy door swung slowly open. Little Vren stood in the doorway.
“Come in, you men. Skodi says come in.”
Binabik dismounted. Qantaqa sniffed the air for a moment, then bounded away in the direction they had come. The children by the fire watched her departure raptly.
“Let her hunt,” Binabik said. “She is not happy walking inside a people-house. Come, Simon, we have been offered some hospitality.” He stepped past Sludig and followed Vren inside.
A fire nearly as large as the bonfire in the dooryard was roaring and crackling in the grate, throwing wild, flickering shadows on the cobwebbed plaster. Simon’s first impression of the room was of some kind of animal nest. Great piles of clothes and straw and other more unusual articles were piled haphazardly on every dirty surface.
“Welcome, strangers,” someone said. “I’m Skodi. Do you have any food? The children are very hungry.”
She was sitting in a chair c
lose to the fire, with several children younger than those in the yard clambering over her lap or sitting at her feet. Simon’s first thought was that she was another child herself—albeit a very large one—but after a moment’s inspection he could see that she was his own age or even a little older. Her white-blonde hair, colorless as spider silk, framed a round face that might have been quite pretty, despite a few blemishes, if she had not been so fat. Her pale blue eyes stared avidly at the new arrivals.
Sludig looked at her suspiciously, uncomfortable in such close surroundings. “Food? We have little, mistress ... ” he considered for a moment, “... but you are welcome to share.”
She waved her hand airily. Her chubby pink arm nearly dislodged a sleeping toddler. “It’s not important. We always get by.” As Sludig had predicted, she spoke Westerling with a heavy Rimmersgard accent. “Sit down and tell me the news of the world.” She frowned, pursing her red lips. “There may be some beer somewhere. You men like beer, don’t you? Vren, go find some beer. And where are those oak-nuts I sent you for?”
Sludig looked up suddenly. “Oh.” Sheepishly, he produced Vren’s acorns from his cloak pocket.
“Good,” Skodi said. “Now beer.”
“Yes, Skodi.” Vren scuttled off down an aisle of stacked stools, vanishing into the shadows.
“How is it, if we may be asking, that you can live out here?” Binabik said. “It seems a place of great isolation.”
Skodi had been staring at him avidly. Now her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I thought you were a child!” She sounded disappointed. “But you are a little man.”
“Qanuc, my lady.” Binabik sketched a bow. “What your people call ‘trolls.’ ”
“A troll!” She clapped her hands in excitement. This time, one of the children did slither off her rounded lap into the blankets coiled at her feet. The little one did not wake, and another quickly crawled up to take the spot the first had vacated. “So wonderful! We have never had a troll here!” She turned and called into the darkness. “Vren! Where is the beer for these men?”
“Where did all these children come from?” Simon asked wonderingly. “Are they all yours?”
A defensive look came to the girl’s face. “Yes. They are now. Their parents did not want them, so Skodi keeps them instead.”
“Well ...” Simon was nonplussed. “Well, that’s very kind of you. But how do you feed them? You said they were hungry.”
“Yes, it is kind,” Skodi said, smiling now. “It is kind of me, but that is how I was taught. Lord Usires said to shelter the children.”
“Aye,” Sludig grumbled. ‘That’s so.”
Vren came back into the firelight balancing a jar of beer and several cracked bowls. The pile swayed dangerously, but with help he was able to set them down and pour beer for all three travelers. The wind had risen, making the flames billow in the grate.
“This is a very good fire,” Sludig said as he wiped froth from his mustache. “You must have had a difficult time finding dry wood in yesterday’s storm.”
‘Oh, Vren chopped for me early in the spring.” She reached out and patted the boy’s head with her plump hand. ”He butchers and cooks, too. He is my good boy, Vren is.”
“Is there no one here who is older?” Binabik asked. “I am meaning nothing discourteous, but you seem young to raise these children in solitude. ”
Skodi looked at him carefully before answering. “I told you. Their mothers and fathers have gone away. There is no one here but us. But we do very well, don’t we, Vren?”
“Yes, Skodi.” The little boy’s eyes were growing heavy. He snuggled himself against her leg, basking in the warmth of the fire.
“So,” she said at last, “you said that you had some food. Why do you not get it, then we can share. We can find the makings of a meal somewhere here. Wake up, Vren, you lazy thing!” She cuffed him lightly on the side of the head. “Wake up! It’s time to make supper!”
“Don’t wake him,” Simon said, feeling sorry for the little black-haired boy. “We’ll take care of the meal.”
“Nonsense,” Skodi said. She gave the protesting Vren a gentle shake. “He loves to make supper. You go and get what you have. You will stay the night, yes? Then you should stable your horses. I think the stable is around the side of the courtyard. Vren, get up, you lazy lump! Where is the stable?”
The forest had grown close around the back of the abbey where the stables were located. The old trees, dusted with snow, swayed mournfully as Simon and his companions threw dry straw onto the floor of one of the stalls and dumped snow into the trough to melt. The stable seemed to have been used occasionally—there were blackened torches in the cressets, and the crumbling walls had been haphazardly patched—but it was hard to guess when the most recent occasion might have been.
“Shall we bring all our things inside?” Simon asked.
“I am thinking so,” Binabik replied, loosening the belly-strap on one of the packhorses. “I doubt the children would steal anything that was not food, but who can say what might become mislaid?”
The smell of wet horses was strong. Simon rubbed Homefinder’s hard flank. “Don’t you think it’s strange that no one lives here but children?”
Sludig laughed shortly. “The young woman is older than you, Snowlock—and quite a lot of woman at that. Girls her age often have children of their own.”
Simon blushed, but his irritated reply was forestalled by Binabik. “I am thinking,” the troll said, “that Simon speaks with good sense. There are things unclear about this place. It will do no harm to ask more questions of our hostess.”
Simon wrapped Thorn in his cloak before carrying it back through the snow to the abbey. The changeable sword was at this moment quite light. It also seemed to throb slightly, although Simon knew that might be no more than his chilled, trembling hands. When little Vren let them back inside, Simon placed Thorn near the hearth where they would sleep and piled several of their saddlebags atop it, as though to immobilize a sleeping beast that might wake and flail about.
Supper was an odd mixture of unusual food and strange conversation. Beside the remains of dried fruit and meat provided by the three travelers, Skodi and her young charges put out bowls of bitter acorns and sour berries. Scavenging, Vren found a molding but edible cheese somewhere in the abbey’s ruined larder, along with several more jars of musky Rimmersgard beer. With this they managed to make a meal that served the whole company, albeit meagerly: the children all assembled numbered a dozen or more.
Binabik found little time to ask questions during the meal. Those of Skodi’s charges who were old enough to go outside stood up to relate fanciful stories of various adventures they had encountered that day, stories so exaggerated as to be obviously untrue. One little girl told of flying to the top of a mighty pine tree to steal a feather from a magical jaybird. Another, one of the older boys, swore that he had found a chest of ogre’s gold in a cave in the forest. Vren, when his turn came, calmly informed his listeners that while gathering acorns he had been pursued by an icy demon with glinting blue eyes, and that Simon and his two companions had saved him from the frosty menace’s clutches, smiting it with their swords until it shattered into icicles.
Skodi held the smaller children on her lap as she ate, each in its turn, and listened to each story with an expression of envious fascination. She rewarded those she enjoyed most by giving the teller an extra morsel of food, which was eagerly accepted—indeed, Simon decided, the reward was probably the main reason for the fabulous nature of the stories.
There was something about Skodi’s face that Simon found captivating. Despite her great size, there was a delicacy to her girlish features and a brightness to her eyes and smile that transfixed him. At certain moments, as she laughed breathlessly at one of the children’s inventions, or turned so that the firelight played glinting in her flaxen hair, she seemed quite beautiful; at others, when she greedily snatched a handful of berries from one of the smaller the children and stuff
ed her wide mouth, or when her spellbound appreciation of the story-telling for a moment resembled mere idiocy, he found her repellent.
A few times she caught Simon staring. The glances she returned to him frightened him a little, even as they made him blush. Skodi, for all her bulk, wore a hungering look that would not have been out of place on a starveling beggar.
“So,” she said when Vren had finished his wild tale, “you are even braver men than I guessed.” She smiled hugely at Simon. “We will sleep well tonight, knowing you are under our roof. You do not think Vren’s ice-demon has brothers, do you?”
‘I am thinking it is not likely,” Binabik said with a gentle smile. ”You need not be fearing any such demon while we are staying here in your home. In return, we have much gratitude for a roof and a hearth for warming. ”
“Oh, no,” Skodi said, her eyes wide, “it is me who is grateful. We do not get many visitors. Vren, help clear a place for the men to sleep. Vren, do you hear me?”
Vren was staring intently at Simon, an unfathomable expression in his dark eyes.
“Your mentioning of guests, my lady,” Binabik began, “—it brings to my mind a question I had meant to be asking you. How is it that you and these children have come to be in such a place of isolation... ?”
“The storms came. Others ran away. We had nowhere else to go.” Her brisk words poorly concealed her wounded tone. “None of us were wanted—none of the children, nor Skodi either.” The subject discussed, her voice warmed again. “Now it is time for the little ones to sleep. Come, all of you, help me up.” Several of her wards scurried to assist Skodi in levering her large body up out of the chair. As she moved slowly toward the door at the back of the room, a pair of sleeping children clinging to her like baby bats, she called: “Vren will help you find your way. Bring the candle when you come, Vren.” She disappeared into the shadows.
Simon awakened from an uneasy sleep in the depths of night, filled with confused panic by the red-touched and starless darkness, and also by a faint thread of sound that wove itself in and out of the muted tapestry of windsong. It took some moments to remember that they slept near the hearth of the old abbey, warmed by dreaming coals and sheltered from the elements by the roof and decaying walls. The noise was Qantaqa’s lonely howl, floating distantly. Simon’s fear faded a little, but did not disappear.
