The Chart of Tomorrows

by Chris Willrich

  At least they hadn’t tried to devour her.

  Thus began A-Girl-Is-A-Joy’s sojourn among the trolls.

  CHAPTER 7

  MUNINN

  At some point in her mad, scrambling, careening slide down the icy slope, Gaunt’s head met an inconvenient extrusion of rock. For a moment survival was forgotten, as she mentally flew to a distant blazing nebula upon wings of pain. When she again perceived her surroundings, she was hurtling down an icy slope with her thick Karvak deel acting as a sort of sled. Under other circumstances it might have been fun. Yet the current circumstances included a slide toward a rugged moraine of jagged rocks, itself sloping down into a beautiful, steep-sided valley blue with sheer-edged shadowed tarns, each looking eager to drown reckless poets.

  Attempting to halt her descent with her hands, she couldn’t find purchase. Snow sprayed behind her in a powdery flurry every time she tried. Using her feet sent her tumbling. Her stinging hands next reached for the magic sword at her belt, for she hoped to spear the snow with her blade. But she couldn’t free it. She did manage to unsheathe a dagger, so she kicked and spun and stabbed.

  The force of her descent sent the dagger flying wildly out of sight.

  Her heart hammered. She didn’t try her second dagger. Instead she kicked and squirmed, and instead of sliding to her doom on her face, she once again descended on her back.

  She loosed her sword-belt, forcing her fingers to take their time. Slow unknotting, slow unknotting, but soon enough swift action—Now!

  She had the sword. But she still had no leverage to draw it. So she rolled wildly and stabbed the snow with the sheathed weapon.

  Now she had purchase, and when it came it surprised her, nearly ripping the sword from her hands. She clung with a howl of defiance. In that moment the whole mountain range was the enemy of Persimmon Gaunt.

  She was motionless for many seconds before her body believed it. She had difficulty distinguishing the receding thunder with the pulsing of her own blood near her ears. She lay sideways on the slope, staring at snowy peaks thick with black, oblong pools of morning shadow. She looked toward her feet and saw a precipitous edge ten yards downslope.

  Deep breath. You’re alive. The rest is detail.

  As she began digging into the snow with her remaining dagger—this time she didn’t lose it—a scream broke the silence.

  The source of the bloodcurdling howl moved rapidly enough to change pitch. Abruptly it ceased. By now the scream sounded familiar.

  “Bone!” she called out. “Bone! Are you there?”

  “Gaunt,” came a weak and muffled voice. “Hello. I’m here to rescue you.”

  She managed to wiggle enough to look in his direction. Bone lay spread-eagled upslope, one hand clutching a rope stretching to a grappling hook far above.

  “That rope,” Gaunt called. “I assume it was meant to be attached to Al-Saqr.”

  “Alas! The balloon did not agree with my plan.”

  “It was a gallant effort! At the very worst it’s allowed us a final conversation, my love.”

  “True, Gaunt! I propose survival as the topic of the day.”

  “An old classic! Now, it seems to me a rope with a hook is a very useful asset . . .”

  It took a long time, during which the storm clouds dispersed and the rising sun chipped away at the shadows of the mountains, but Gaunt was able to dig in sufficiently that she could at last rest her aching arms, and meanwhile Bone managed to ascend to the hook and with its aid shift his position sideways and down, until the rope could reach Gaunt.

  At last they were together, and the plan became one of shameless kissing.

  “The lengths you will go to,” Gaunt said, “to get me alone.”

  “Clever, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, that remains to be seen.”

  “Well, if we’re not clever, no one will see our remains.”

  “What I do see, good thief, is a rocky shelf, down that way.”

  “Ah,” he said, before tasting her lips one last time, “to business. It will be good to stand on good, solid rock.”

  “We’d best not delay,” she sighed, noticing a sheen upon the surrounding white. “The sun’s melting the upper layer of snow.”

  “You mean,” he said, aggrieved, “this landscape is becoming more slippery? I already hate the Bladed Isles.”

  They took their time and at last stood triumphantly upon the outcropping. The sound of the wind was like the world taking generations to intone the word hush.

  “This,” Bone declared beside her, “would have been a magnificent place to die.” He gestured grandly.

  It was as though she really saw it for the first time, and she had to agree. The land seemed absurdly vertical, fangs of gray stone with spittle of shining ice. Here and there meadow-covered plateaus sliced the lower heights above shadowed byways of forest and gorges echoing with frothing rivers. Gaunt had seen vaster mountains at the heart of the continent, but this terrain seemed so enamored of gleaming heights and forested plunges it made her eyes blink and her neck hurt.

  That wasn’t all that hurt. Gaunt’s head still afflicted her with swirls of pain, probably the fruits of the violent descent. She rubbed her skull gently. All her wits still seemed to be in there.

  “Alone again, on the road,” Gaunt said.

  “It’s been some time,” Bone answered. “Not the road. The ‘alone.’”

  “Ever since we fled to the East, there’ve been friends. There were some terrible times. Sometimes we were apart. But there was always someone to lean on.”

  “I miss them too. And worry for them.”

  “Well,” Gaunt said, “we won’t find them by staying up here.”

  “We’ll have to take this descent delicately.”

  “I don’t feel there’s anything delicate about me anymore.”

  “Heh. Well, we’ll take it beautifully then.”

  “Ja?” came a gruff voice from beyond a pine door.

  “Uh, morn?” said Gaunt.

  There came a sound of heavy movement and the scrape and clink of weapons unsheathed or pulled from mountings.

  “It’s not exactly ‘morning,’” Bone said, looking around at the creeping darkness. It was the second evening since their landfall. The sky was cobalt-blue overhead, and they were footsore and hungry.

  “Hush,” Gaunt said. “I’m trying to say ‘hello.’ Morn! Unnskyld! Jeg er, um, Svanøy kylling. Hjelp?” She again surveyed this cottage built into the side of a hill, turf merging with the roof so that the chimney peeked through grass. Smoke coiled overhead. A minute ago, it had looked homey.

  The door creaked open. An old man with bloodshot eyes and a black-bladed axe glared at them. His gray beard, going white in patches, was unnervingly decorated with half a dozen interwoven bird bones.

  “Goodwife,” he said carefully in Roil, lowering the axe, “you must need help, if you go around saying you are a chicken from Swanisle.” He peered at Bone. “This is your rooster, then?”

  “I beg your pardon—” objected Bone.

  “That’s about right,” Gaunt said.

  “Come in. You do look like scrawny birds. So. Where did you come from?”

  “A flying craft,” Gaunt said, looking around at the cramped interior. In a way it was cousin to the ger, for tools and foodstuffs hung from various parts of the ceiling, and a hearthfire glowed at the center. The whole house smelled of smoke and stew.

  A woman many seasons younger than the man, blonde with eyes like mountain pools, regarded them with dagger drawn. Two yellow-haired youths, the older bearded, the younger absurdly tall, backed away, lowering a sword on the one hand and a spear on the other.

  “A flying craft?” said the old man. “Drawn by sky-goats, no doubt. Ha. Well, your business is your business. But you will pay me in talk, as you must be short on coin.”

  They did have some coin at that, but Gaunt reflected talk was cheaper. “I am Gaunt. This is Bone.”

  “The name is Muninn
. Muninn the Sure-Handed, I was. But now folk call me Crowbeard.”

  “You don’t say,” Bone said.

  “This is Ylva, my wife, and these are Loke and Ulf, sons of a fallen comrade, my wards. Don’t mind them staring. They mean no harm. They see few outlanders. They don’t speak Roil. I used to have more—and wiser—servants. But I am not what I was.” He set his axe upon hooks set in the timbers. As he did so, his hands shook and firelight glinted wildly on the axe-blade.

  This done, he said, “You may share our stew.”

  This proved a mysterious affair, a brown sludge with a crust of fat. It might have unnerved Gaunt under other circumstances but she and Bone accepted gratefully. She thought she detected beans, carrots, peas, and a hint of lamb. Perhaps she was just being optimistic. She was glad of it, though, and of the crusty old bread she used to capture the last drops.

  At some point she realized she was eating so heartily, she was letting Bone do most of the talking. This was not always a good idea.

  “And you have no children?” Muninn was saying.

  “We . . . long for children,” Bone said. “Children are much on our minds. And you?”

  “All dead foamreaving. And what trade did you say you were in?”

  “Oh, this and that,” Bone answered.

  “You are a merchant?”

  “I sometimes answer to that description.”

  Muninn studied him. His lips parted in a smile appropriate for watching an old enemy slowly sliding off a cliff. “There is no need to hide. We are here at the edge of the Gamellaw. You may admit you’ve also been a foamreaver.”

  “That word again,” Bone said. “What?”

  “The Gamellaw’s the region of the old laws,” Gaunt broke in, “where the old gods are followed, and there are no nations as such. And as for foamreaver, he means a pirate, more or less. Though the term also means someone who raids coasts and who conducts honest trade, as the tide takes him.” As she spoke, she saw silent Ylva staring at her, as though Gaunt had sprouted a tail.

  “Aha!” Bone said. “No, I’ve never been one for—foamreaving—but rather I like to live by my wits and look for opportunities where they come. Battle and I do not agree with each other.”

  “You are saying,” Muninn said, his expression blank, “you never fight?”

  Bone waved a jagged shard of old bread like a blade. “I will fight if need be, but only then. It seems a waste of effort and bodily fluids. Sometimes the best course is to run, far and fast.”

  Muninn’s smile was thin. “You are a Swanling, then. One who worships peace.”

  “I respect the Swan, but I can’t claim to be one of her people. Gaunt is more devout.”

  “And you,” Muninn asked her after a pause, glancing at Crypttongue. “Do you have a trade?”

  “Sometimes I am a poet,” Gaunt said.

  “Ah? Do you know sagas? Praise poems? Songs of the gods?”

  “The forms I know are all southern.”

  “Let’s hear something anyway,” Muninn said.

  Gaunt knew she was to sing for her supper, or recite anyhow. She felt very conscious of the axe on the wall and the sword at her back. “I’ll give you part of the story of Wiglaf, which is told in the Baelscaer region of County Sere, a land your people settled long since.”

  Crowbeard’s wife stood, looked at Gaunt, and said one word. “Skjøge.” With that she retired for the night.

  “Ignore her,” Crowbeard said, and so she did. Watching the hearth-light she began:

  Well. We’ve heard the deeds done by bladed barons

  Of Svardmark in far-sped summers, and honors

  The Kantenings carried far foamward.

  Sigemund Shield-Child, babe bobbing in a broad buckler,

  Foundling friendless, by fate repaid: he grew great

  And bold below heaven, and hale he met his end.

  A son he sired, a friend to his folk, sent from on high:

  Wayland his name, wrathful war-smith, whose swords,

  His mighty arms made leap like lighting,

  To split the swamp-bane and pierce the pool-lurk

  And dash the dragon witched by northern winds,

  Who south to County Sere soared to scour.

  But the hand that dealt the death-blow was not Wayland’s

  But a cousin and comrade, Wiglaf of his warband,

  The only thane thereof not to falter and flee.

  Wayland, wounded, died with the dragon,

  And named Wiglaf heir to hall and home.

  Wielded he Schismglass, Wayland’s weapon,

  Shining servant, stalker of souls.

  As the fire dimmed she told of Wiglaf’s early adventures as a chieftain and ring-giver, generous to and beloved of heroes. Yet a darkness crept over Wiglaf, for unlike Wayland he used his soul-taking sword rashly. In those days giants became rarer, but trolls numerous, and the uldra, as Kantenings called the delven, sometimes made war.

  And, too, raged far-northern foamreavers, bearded berserks,

  And southern charioteers, White Swan’s chosen,

  And nithing knaves, bandits of the bogs,

  Cowards in conquest yet terrible in treachery.

  Against all Wiglaf warred, not the noblest, still less the strongest—

  Braver and bolder in combat and craft many were—

  Yet no man who made a life in this land knew better:

  Power will pale, and dinars deceive, youth will yield and love will leave.

  Well he knew Wayland’s words, “Each must make an ending.

  So win what you will of glory ere you go. Let your name be known,

  Decked with deeds before death takes its due.” So Wiglaf willed.

  But lust for life-fire claimed blade and bearer,

  And Wiglaf warred with Eilifur Ice-Gaze

  Who bore a blade wicked as Wiglaf’s.

  Here she finished, for it seemed the best conclusion to be had, here in the poem’s first third.

  “Old days,” murmured Muninn, “bold days. When men sought what name they could before fate gave them fit ends. Not this straw-death.” He spat the last words. His hands shook. He said more, but it was in the language of his fathers.

  In the morning they passed many farms and exchanged cautious waves with many laborers, until they reached a lowland where three streams converged, birthing a marshy delta beside the high cliffs of a fjord. A pair of rune-inscribed stones heralded the beginning of a wooden track across the fen. Soon a town wall came into view—an earthen rampart, really, grass-covered and studded at intervals with wooden watchtowers.

  When the guards asked their business in Gullvik Town, Gaunt tried to explain they were up from Swanisle to trade. Their leader seemed bemused by their Karvak deels and nonplussed that anyone with such bad Kantentongue could make it this far north. But he liked the look of their coin.

  “That was easy,” Bone said once they’d been waved through into the clomping bustle of the wooden streets. “They didn’t even mind our weapons.”

  “Well, that’s the Bladelander reputation,” Gaunt said. “Ready to trade or fight with anyone.”

  “Let’s concentrate on the first! We might as well try to sell these coats. They’re wonderfully warm, but they attract attention.”

  “Maybe we can buy a bow,” Gaunt said. “Or a fiddle,” she added, as they heard a bittersweet melody from deeper in, as though played on an instrument with strings of memory and pain.

  They didn’t manage a bow or fiddle, but they did sell the deels for enough to get winter clothing more typical of the region and a little spare coin. Thus they set out to find lodgings and enjoy the town.

  For a while they sought the source of the haunting fiddle music, but it was lost in the sights and sounds. This port was chaotic and charming, and it reeked. It wasn’t just the outhouses. At times the place seemed a haven for animals, with people as an afterthought. Chickens and ducks roamed freely. Goats made agitated sounds, to which the cows seemed to voice disappr
oval. Ravens and seagulls were everywhere, finding much to make meals of.

  “It makes sense they call it Gull-something,” Bone said.

  “Actually, I think the ‘Gull’ means gold,” Gaunt said. “It’s a place for business.”

  Many kinds of industry conspired to give the avians their beloved garbage. These were grouped by eponymous streets—Butcher Street, Parchment Street, Fishmonger Street, Gold Street, Shield Street. All this was intriguing, but they had a more immediate interest. They strolled over a bridge, past fishing children, descended onto Tavern Street, and found the least busy example of the local watering holes.

  Within, all was quiet agitation. It was late afternoon, and workers were beginning to drift in. There were old men arguing with young men, in a way Gaunt was all too familiar with. To her mind the fury was false on either side; for the old truly ranted at time, and the young at fate. They should be allies against both, but time and fate tricked them and set them against each other.

  “Ale and rumors?” Bone said.

  “Yes, I’m feeling the need for both.”

  In the end they were distracted from the ale by a bottle of Eldshoren wine, and as they shared and sipped they listened to the Kantenings laughing and complaining, lamenting and contemplating.

  “I hear horse thieves made off with some of Bengt Sunderson’s herd, up Gamellaw way.”

  “Those Nine Wolves again.”

  “Wouldn’t bet against it. Telling you, they must have allies in this land. Someone respectable.”

  “The Gull-Jarl’ll settle it, sooner or later.”

  “He’s not the only one with troubles. Peasants are up in arms down by Svanstad. Trouble for the princess.”

  “No problem of ours. We’re free farmers, we are.”

  “They say the Lardermen are helping them.”

  “Someday someone’s going to take an army into Splintrevej and hang the lot of those pirates.”

  “I won’t be in it. Splintrevej is haunted. They say it’s never satisfied till it drowns its victim for the year.”

  “There’s weirder things happening than pirates and horse thieves. Old Gerta’s eldest girl saw a dragon flying south. Haven’t seen one of those in a while.”