C. Dale Brittain

by Voima

  “Arane and I have been friends for years,” the black-bearded king said with a shrug. “I expect she just wanted a change from that court of hers—I certainly couldn’t stand it there for more than a week.”

  But he gave a sudden fierce smile then. “Maybe she wants to keep the peace between us. You notice she’s already made it clear, my friend, that her warriors will spell the difference if you and I start fighting, so she may hope that as long as we aren’t sure which side she’d support we won’t start fighting at all. Or maybe she thinks she can keep me from killing Roric once we find him! Not that I really would, or at least not in cold blood,” he added thoughtfully. “It takes a while to raise up young men, even if we do run out of time before we run out of fury and wounded pride. But do not let Arane’s sweet demeanor fool you. Underneath she is as tough as any old warrior.”

  “Is there any reason you know why she should be concerned about Roric?” asked Kardan. Here at last might be some clue to this mysterious man whom his daughter apparently loved. “I would have thought she had never even met him. Could her concern for Karin and thus for the man Karin apparently loves be enough to bring her on a dangerous journey with two old widowers?”

  “Well,” said Hadros slowly, “and well. She keeps her own counsel, Arane does. Your daughter will not be a bad queen if she takes her for a model.” He sat for a moment with his hands on his knees and frowning, as though trying to decide whether or not to say something, then leaned back again. “Arane had a sweet maid once, years ago,” he added irrelevantly and with a smile.

  The rippling against the hull had become louder. Kardan stared at the dark water. Something dark was swimming just below the surface, something like a very large fish.

  It was behind Hadros as he sat leaning against the rail, and he did not seem to hear it. “I did the queen a favor once, over twenty years ago,” he continued.

  But Kardan was no longer listening. As he watched, the fish broke the surface right next to the ship. But it was not a fish. It was a woman.

  As Kardan watched in astonishment, a head of curly black hair emerged from the waves. Eyes bright as mirrors, she reached for the railing and pulled herself up. The water streamed from her naked body.

  Hadros heard her then and turned his head abruptly. Kardan could see now that it was not a woman after all. From her waist down she was not human but fish, scales glittering as bright in the evening light as her eyes.

  Hadros started to speak, but the siren did not give him a chance. She flashed Kardan a grin that showed a line of sharp little white teeth, then threw her arms around Hadros’s neck from behind. He gave a startled cry, half-choking, as he tried to jump to his feet.

  She bent his head slowly backwards while his hand grasped for the sword he had unbuckled and laid at his feet. But it was too late. As his fingers found his knife instead, the siren gave a hard jerk. Hadros’s back slammed against the rail, and his kicking legs rose into the air. The knife flew from his hand, but it reached the waves only a second before he did. With a splash, the siren and the king were gone.

  Kardan leaped up, kicking off his boots and tossing away his cloak. The sailors had realized at last that something was happening, but he was closest. His sword in his hand, he took a deep breath and sprang over the railing, going fast before he could change his mind.

  The water was even colder than he expected. He almost gasped with the shock but managed to keep his mouth closed. He clung desperately to his sword, kicking his way downwards after a thin stream of bubbles. Tiny startled fish swam before him.

  The salt stung his eyes as he swam, his clothes dragging at him. But he could see the siren now on the rocky bottom, her long sinuous tail wrapped around Hadros’s motionless form. She grinned again and held up a hand as though to warn him off.

  Kardan thrust at her with his sword, the motion seeming unbearably slow and reaching nowhere near her. But the siren frowned and loosened her tail from around Hadros. His body slumped, the head tilted sideways.

  Kardan thrust again, the sword still not reaching its goal. Bubbles escaped from his lips, rising past his eyes, and his chest felt tighter and tighter as the impulse to take a breath grew almost unbearable. The siren darted backwards with a wiggle of her tail.

  He kicked forward, but she stayed just out of reach of his sword. The air in his lungs was nearly gone. But he was now within a few feet of Hadros. Air still dribbled from the king’s mouth, but his eyes were closed.

  Kardan waved his sword at the siren a final time, grabbed the other king by the collar, and planted his feet on the stony bottom. The sharp stones bit with a pain that broke even through the cold-induced numbness.

  But he kicked off with all his strength, tugging Hadros upwards. The surface before his straining eyes was a wavering green ceiling, seeming impossibly far. With his sword still in one hand and the other wrapped around Hadros’s collar, he could not use his arms to swim. Inert and waterlogged, the king could have weighed a thousand pounds.

  He gave a great gasp as his head broke through the surface at last, the air on salty lips tasting sweeter than he had ever known it. The sailors reached over the railing, grabbing both kings. They were heaved back into the ship, the water pouring from them, as the shore party emerged from the trees.

  Hadros flopped motionless on the deck. Kardan bent over him, pushing rhythmically and desperately on the shoulder blades, willing him still to be alive.

  About two gallons of salt water came up all at once and ran across the deck. Kardan pushed again, and another gallon followed. Hadros gave a grunt and lifted his head.

  The sailors bent to help him turn over and sit up. Kardan stepped back, shivering uncontrollably as a sailor handed him a dry cloak. Gizor and his party seemed to realize something had happened, for he shouted at the warriors as they scrambled into the skiff. Their voices seemed very distant, and Kardan’s attention all focused on the black-bearded figure before him.

  Hadros passed a hand unsteadily across his face, wiping away the wet. Kardan, watching him, found himself wondering why he had saved his life. This would have been the perfect opportunity to get revenge for ten years of humiliation. He would not even have had to do anything himself to harm him—all he had to do was come back to the surface alone.

  But he had certainly saved him. He knelt beside Hadros again, helping the sailors strip off the king’s dripping clothing. “Are you all right?” he heard himself asking concernedly.

  Hadros wavered a little but managed a smile as he tried to squeeze some of the water from his beard. “While you’re at it, Kardan,” he said with almost a chuckle, “I expect my knife is at the bottom of the cove. Would you mind going back for it?”

  Then he passed out.

  King Hadros insisted on continuing north the next day, waving away Kardan’s concern irritably, though he sat rather than stood by the rail and kept massaging his knee. He stationed three warriors with harpoons before the mast, close above the white water foaming around the throat of the dragon prow, watching for sirens and for other creatures from deep under the sea.

  “Is it always so, well, exciting to go on a war expedition?” Queen Arane asked with an ironic expression. “My kingdom has been free of wars since my father’s time, and this is my first experience of such a thing.”

  “This isn’t a war expedition,” said Hadros with a wolfish smile. “This is just a little trip.”

  Kardan also watched for sea creatures, but his attention was caught instead by a flock of geese, very high up, flying south fast. “That may be a portent of trouble before us,” he commented. “Geese should not be flying for another two months or more.”

  “There have been strange rumors from the north all this year,” replied Hadros. “Yet I still had not thought to see a siren so far south.” But as they rowed onward against a steady wind, they saw no more creatures of voima. “The wind shouldn’t be blowing from the north like this in the middle of summer,” he muttered. “Does Roric have powers he’s never
told me about?”

  “All of us have powers within us,” said Queen Arane pleasantly, seating herself beside him. “The difficulty is to recognize and use them.”

  “Strength of mind, strength of arm—that’s one thing, Arane,” said the king slowly. “But there is something going on in this world that I don’t like. Kardan’s Mirror-seer is gone, and, though I didn’t tell you this before, so is the Weaver. He’d been right there in his cave—or her cave, some would say—since I was a boy, and the stories say many generations longer than that, but when I went up to ask him where Roric had gone, it was as empty as though no one had ever lived there.”

  Kardan lifted his head sharply from watching the waves. If wild creatures of voima were growing bolder and stalking this world, and if those who interpreted the powers of voima to mortals were retreating, then they might find not just danger ahead but the lords of voima themselves. He had already this trip seen a number of things he would not before have believed.

  When they pulled into a cove that evening, Hadros said grimly, “Tonight I spend on land.”

  “Are you not concerned for the rare forest sirens?” asked the queen with a small smile, but Hadros ignored her. He stepped fairly agilely into the skiff and allowed himself to be rowed to shore with a handful of warriors. Another trip brought Kardan and the queen, along with the awnings from the ship to rig as tents. The sun had set and the moon was low in the sky as they finished their bread and ale and lit a small fire.

  Kardan slept only uneasily, although the other king fell asleep at once and filled the night air with loud snores. Kardan had spent just long enough on the ship that he missed its motion, and the solid earth beneath him seemed to keep slowly rising and falling, jerking him from his dreams. When he turned over, trying unsuccessfully to find a way to lie such that the pebbles did not bite into his rib cage or the cold sea breezes find the nape of his neck, the sounds of wind in the trees and waves on the shore could have been the hungry mumbling of some great creature, and even the coals of their fire looked back at him like living eyes.

  The eastern sky, above the rocky ridge that followed this part of the coast, had just started to lighten with summer’s early dawn when he rolled over for the hundredth time, started to close his eyes again, and abruptly lifted himself on an elbow instead. That sounded different from the sounds he had been hearing all night.

  He nudged Hadros, whose snores stopped in mid-breath, and closed his hand around his sword’s hilt. He could see them now: furtive, hunched shapes just beyond the ring of their tents. As he squinted in the faint light, he saw one cautiously lift a flap of awning and reach inside.

  His first thought was for Arane, but the queen’s tent was on the opposite side from these creatures. He scrambled to his feet with a shout, Hadros only a second slower.

  He could see now they were men, men almost naked, their hair thick and matted around their faces. “Do not attack us!” cried one as Kardan leaped toward him. His voice was low-pitched and rough, and he held up a pink palm. Yellow teeth showed in an ingratiating smile. “We just— We just want some food.”

  The warriors had the little group of hairy men surrounded now. Kardan’s warriors especially seemed to be enjoying this. The hairy men certainly looked harmless, smaller than any members of the war-party, unarmed, eyes glinting in the dimness from out of their tangled hair. Gizor One-hand put the point of his sword under one’s chin.

  “Thieves,” growled Hadros. “We ought to kill you on the spot as a lesson to all thieves.” But he slid his sword back into its sheath as he spoke and gestured to Gizor to do the same. After a moment he grunted and complied, and the rest of the warriors did as well. Kardan, however, kept his hilt clenched in a sweaty hand. “Do we have some stale bread or rancid butter we can give them?” Hadros asked over his shoulder.

  That is when they attacked. With a cry that was more bark than shout, the one closest to Hadros threw himself on him. Sharp teeth glinted in a long snout, and the claws at the end of the fingers ripped at the king’s jerkin. Knocked off balance, Hadros staggered backwards, and teeth snapped at his throat as he went down.

  The warriors, yelling, all scrambled for their weapons. Kardan, the only one with a sword in his hand, sprang forward, all his weight behind his thrust. His blade dragged on fur, caught on a rib, then slid into the heart of the creature about to bite the king’s neck.

  It collapsed with a howl, falling backwards as Hadros scrambled free. He had his sword out now and leaped wildly at the next hairy creature, but it melted away before him. The warriors were all shouting and swinging their swords, just avoiding decapitating each other.

  Kardan planted a foot against the dying creature before him and jerked his blade free. A touch came on his shoulder. He spun around ready to thrust again and found himself looking from a foot away into Hadros’s eyes.

  “Back to back!” shouted the king, apparently unconcerned about nearly being run through by the man who had saved him only a few seconds earlier. But as Kardan whirled around, feeling the other’s muscular back against his, Hadros commented mildly, “Unless, of course, you planned to measure swords with me this morning.”

  Their enemies were gone. They raced away on all fours, howling, and disappeared into the black and rocky woods before the slowly lightening sky could ever show them clearly. Gizor and the warriors, slower on two legs, pursued them.

  But the one that Kardan had killed was still there. Hadros turned it over with his foot. The eyes were open, staring glassily, and a long tongue lolled from its sharp-toothed snout. It looked almost—but not quite—like a wolf.

  Queen Arane, well wrapped in a cloak and with a knife in her hand, came out of her tent with her warriors on either side. She had for once nothing to say. Kardan eyed her suspiciously, wondering what powers of voima she might have that had, so far, protected her. The kings’ warriors returned from a brief and unsuccessful chase to stare at the creature Kardan had killed. “What is it?” one warrior asked in horror. Several turned charms over in their fingers.

  “Shape-changer,” Hadros said. “I should have known better than to think these were the thieves and beggars they wanted to seem. But I haven’t seen a shape-changer in twenty-five years. Is it merely fate that we should meet both a siren and these shape-changers, in lands where I have never seen such creatures before, or did someone very powerful send them against us?

  “If we keep on being attacked by creatures of voima,” he added when no one dared answer, “we’re going to have trouble catching Roric. At this rate, I’ll have to take a stint at the oars myself.” He kicked the creature, rolling it back on its face, exposing again the bloody hole where the sword had gone in.

  King Hadros said nothing more for a moment but grunted and pulled off his jerkin, now black with the shape-changer’s blood. He ran a thumb thoughtfully beneath his jaw while looking at it. “You know, Kardan,” he commented, “you’ve now saved my life twice in two days. I should have given you better terms on that tribute, ten years ago.”

  Kardan had started to reach for grass or leaves to wipe the blood from his sword, but found himself sitting on the ground. He fought the impulse to collapse further. He looked up at Hadros instead and for a second found himself grinning. “You should warn a man before inviting him along on one of your little trips,” he answered. “You certainly provide all the excitement a young man could ask for, but I may be getting too old for this game.”

  2

  The Wanderers gave Valmar a sword that sang.

  It sang wordlessly but gloriously whenever he pulled it from the sheath, a song that drove straight to the heart with chords of courage, heroism, and undying glory. He discovered that if he loosened the peace-straps and kept it drawn even just an inch or so, it would sing to him as he rode.

  Across seven rivers, across seven mountain passes, he rode the chalk-white stallion the Wanderers had given him. The wind was in his hair and the glare of the sun in his eyes. Black trees stood etched along the high r
idges against an unending red sunset.

  Neither the decaying algae at the fords nor the mountain fruit trees with their fruit all shriveled could detract from the mission he followed. The stallion seemed tireless, carrying him easily up and down hill. With the sunset before him and a never-repeating song of glory accompanying him he lost all track of time, stopping neither for food nor for sleep, until he saw the dark pine woods which concealed the third force.

  Valmar pulled up the stallion then and found a place to settle down behind a hedge, where he hoped no one would spot him. He had not paused at any of the manors he passed, cutting around their fields with his mind already miles ahead. But he was now very suddenly weary and hungry. His heart hammered inside his armor, as he realized it had been doing for hours, even days.

  He sat with his elbows on his knees, looking critically at the pine woods. It ascended a steep hill, and at the top of the hill, hidden behind the trees, should be the manor of the trolls. He had been told very little about the third force, other than that they were hollow, incomplete creatures who were distracting the lords of voima as they struggled to preserve their power; Valmar himself had decided to call them trolls. He had not forgotten the being who had summoned Roric. There was little to distinguish this from many other woods he had passed, but the Wanderers had told him his stallion would take him there, and he had kept track of the rivers and mountains he had crossed.

  His mission was to destroy this third force. Not to kill them, apparently, he thought as he took out and munched the bread and cheese he had brought with him. His stallion tore at the grass but kept shifting his location, as though finding the grass sour wherever he was. In this land everyone, except of course Valmar himself, was immortal, and would remain immortal unless death reached the realm. But the Wanderers had told him he had great powers, great enough, it seemed, to weaken those opposed to them.