That did not happen. While they watched, while Jarik watched, a mist shimmered into being around his extended arms. His arms quivered while he watched, and the hair twitched at the back of his neck. He felt a frisson, and he was not alone in that little skin-crawling shiver. Yet he felt little else. Only a coolness, as the Bands of Snowmist truly became mist. Wraith-like they trickled from his anns; trickled away. It was as if those bands of silver, or god-metal — or mist? — had never been there. And yet they had. Jarik saw the evidence as he gazed at his forearms, turning them. They were not so tan as the backs of his hands and upper forearms, for on the sea he had not always worn his mailcoat and there had been much direct sunlight and no shade.
He looked at Her, and he blinked. Perhaps he was surprised to be freed.
“You kept your bargain with me, Jarik of the Black Sword. I have kept mine with you. I bade you return to me the White Rod of Osyr, and I would free you of the Bands of Snowmist. Now I would have you come with me.” Again She extended a gloved hand to him, and surely within her mask She smiled. “And now proud Jarik who dares challenge even a god, will you come?”
Jarik’s teeth teased his lip for a moment. “My … Lady,” he said, and none could miss that his voice and stance had changed, were far less forceful and truculent. “I will come, Lady, for yourself promised agreement. I would ask a twofold boon, though, and give up all else if yourself agrees.”
“Ah,” she said, hardly missing his shift to the respectful pronoun. “Something of great importance, then. State it.” His eyes glanced toward one among those who watched, and back to Snowmist. “I would ask that Jilain Kerosyris go with us to Cloudpeak, to your keep.”
The helmet nodded. “Jilain of Osyr’s Isle. Agreed, Jarik, and you need give up nothing. I concur.”
The hand extended. Jarik took it, and was reminded that the silver glove was metallic, though it was somehow cloth as well, and that it was cold. And then he staggered. Twice before had he made this transition, his hand in a god’s, and this time it was a no less dizzying experience.
Upon his taking the mailed hand of Her, he knew a sudden tingling and darkness, split and shot fierily through by pin wheels behind his eyes. At the same instant he knew a great rushing and a sensation of nausea while his internal organs seemed to part and to float — as they did — while he … flew. Instantly. In the body, not as with the Guide, while his body remained behind. He flew; all of him. And they were there, and he was jarred so that he staggered when his feet again felt solid matter beneath them.
Now he knew that he was high, high up in the mountain that speared up above Kirrensark-wark, and inside it. In the keep of the Lady of the Snowmist. Recovering, he looked at Her. The helm-mask nodded, and then She was not there. She did not trickle away, in the manner of the bracers; She merely was there, and then She was not there.
Jarik had time only to glance about at surroundings he remembered and yet that remained an impossibility within the mountain’s upper reaches; marvelous and magnificent.
Then She was back, and with Her was Jilain. Jilain was pale and as she alit, stumbling, her mouth dropped open. She found her footing and, after only a glance at the god and at Jarik, Jilain looked around her.
The soft light came from everywhere, without a single bright source. A pearly glow with the merest tinge of blue. Jilain looked about, turning slowly. The columns that rose from floor to ceiling of this great cavern were crafted to resemble trees, complete with bark and high-set branches. Shrubs and flowers seemed to grow from a carpet of grassy green, piled deep in an uncropped meadow. Uncropped, untrodden by grazing animals, unmanured. Every wall was painted with murals, from floor to ceiling. The scenes continued the illusion of a broad pastoral landscape outside, rather than the constricted space within the hollowed interior of a mountain near its peak. Deer seemed to graze amid a sprawling meadow dotted with wildflowers. On it trees and shrubs rose, and it rolled out and out to a distant mountain done in pinks and blues shading into that reddish-blue for which Jarik had no name, with white on top. The Lady of the Snowmist had contrived to bring the countryside into the mountain — and to strew it, too, with chairs and couches and many cushions of many hues, which were in gentle pastel shades. Summer shades, of the earth and sky. And the chamber sprawled large enough to support and continue the effect, yet not so vast as to create awe.
Karahshisar, the Lady of the Snowmist, lived within a mountaintop and surrounded herself not with raw cold stone but with beauty. She lived in beauty.
When her whereabouts had been explained to Jilain, she looked round about still again, and this time she murmured. Aloud she wondered about the godhead of Osyr, who had no such magnificence about him. Snowmist said nothing. She did take Jarik’s hand again, and almost he drew it away.
For a moment Lady Karahshisar was still, looking from one of them to the other, with a hand of each in one of hers. Then She nodded, and surely within her mask of iced snow She smiled. She released them.
Jarik Blacksword looked then at Jilain of Kerosyr, and knew that he loved her. And when she gazed on him the same look was in her tawny eyes.
Settled on a chair-for-three Jarik had learned was a couch, they acceded to her wish to hear it all. They told Her the story, all of it.
Of the voyage to the Isle of Osyr the dead god statu-esquely represented in black, and of Jarik’s slaying the sor-cerous guarding reptile in the temple.
Of his freeing her called the Pythoness, and the loveliness of her, and the pitiful ugliness of her life, sewn shut and chained as Osyr’s bride.
Of his capture and confrontation with the Osyrrain, ruler of those manless women, and of his beating and the murder of the Pythoness by her own folk, her own enslavers, and of Jarik’s breaking then, and seizing the Osyrrain.
Of his long battle with Jilain they told, who had been queen’s champion of Kerosyr; first among the Guardians of Osyr. Of the Osyrrain’s treachery then, and then again next day, and her death and Jilain’s joining Jarik. Not Seadancer; not the men; it was Jarik she joined.
Snowmist looked upon the scar each had put upon the forehead of the other, and She knew the scars would last all their lives. Already the scab had left Jarik’s, to leave a visible Jin the pink of new under-skin.
And they told Her of the homeward voyage.
Aye, She affirmed that both the gull and the dove had been her Sendings, to guide them. And yes, the hawk had of course been sent by the Iron Lords, who obviously had also dispatched the hawk-ship to intercept and stop them. To slay them all, and prevent their reaching Kirrensark-wark, and Cloudpeak.
“The Iron Lords also wanted the White Rod?” Jarik asked.
Snowmist made a gesture. “Perhaps. More importantly, they did not want me to have it.”
It seemed to Jarik that nervousness came over Her then. A sort of apprehension came over the god. Was it — could it be fearfulness? A god?
“Jarik,” the Lady of the Snowmist said. “The hawk-ship was not of Blackiron?”
“No! I saw those men, and I knew no one on that ship. Those of Blackiron are not warriors, either. Weapon-men crowded that ship sent for us.” Me! The Iron Lords tried to kill me!?
“Then, Jarik … perhaps now you perceive that the Lords of Iron are not so pitifully pent up within their mountain and that little area beyond Dragonmount as they led you to believe.”
He nodded, and thought: And perhaps they did not send that ship at all! But he said nothing. As was all too usual, there was too much, and the stories conflicted and presented the potential of lying gods.
At last, when She knew that he was going to make no comment, the god spoke. “And so now I have the White Rod of Osyr, which was wasted on Kerosyr but will serve the wark below: my people. And you Jarik have a woman — a woman indeed! — and the world has Jilain, who also was wasted there. And you Jilain have a man … although he remains not your mate, not even for a night.”
“And so we shall remain,” Jarik said stiffly, knowing that Jilain
was looking at him. “She must be put from me, Lady Karahshisar. It is the second of the boons I would ask, both for her: That she be given knowledge, knowledge to survive and flourish, off Kerosyr. And then that she be put far from me.”
“No!” Jilain burst forth, but Jarik would not look at her.
“And why do you ask this strange thing, Jarik?”
“Yourself must know, Lady, who seems to know more than possible of us. It is for her sake that she must be far from me.”
“No! I will not go! You love me as much as I do you, Jarik — I saw it in your eyes and face and mouth and in your whole body!”
“Jarik, Jarik,” the mask said. “There is no such bane on you as you believe. There is no bane on you that those you love or who love you must die, Jarik! It has but happened, Jarik. True, yours has been no life of ease and will doubtless be no life of ease or merchant dealings — stop; do not interrupt! — nor will Jilain’s life be one of distaff tending and cookery. Believe, Jarik. There is no death-bane on you or on Jilain, nor on any you love or who love you. Believe it!”
Jarik swallowed, and his eyes pleaded, begged that it be so. At the same time he began a pleading gesture that She tell him no lies to Jilain’s peril.
A mailed hand rose to bid him hold his words. “Consider what has transpired. Each of you wears the other’s mark, there above the eyes and between them. A strange betrothal exchange — but there it is! You have fought each other, and you have fought side by side. Together, you two broke the attack at sea, and destroyed the Iron Hawk of Destruction. No such bane exists as you imagine — already you two are as one!”
Jarik said, “Dare tell her that greater grief will not come on her in this life, because of me. It is already so!”
“Dare tell this one she cannot think and talk for herself!” It was Jarik whom Snowmist answered, with heat. “I dare, you who challenges gods! Oh the magnificence of you mortal men; what your kind can have and be if They do not have their way! Jilain was not happy on Kerosyr! Is that not obvious? Can you not see or do you refuse to see because you refuse to look, you who challenges gods? She was also wasted there. With means I have I saw into the mind of Jarik. I saw a Man Who Was Two — and I knew that completion awaited that anomaly, on Kerosyr. You two complete each other! This is beauty, not ugliness or some thing of fear. It is done, Jarik. How can you resist your own feelings? How can you resist one who returns your love? You feel it within you, and it shows, Jarik Blacksword!”
“Because she cannot know happiness with me!”
Before the god could reply, Jilain spoke. “Some grief is coming upon this one now, Lady. There is hunger on this one. We were forced up and out early this mom, and foukht hard, all without breaking the fast of the nikht. And then you came, O God, and the fast is still unbroken.”
“Ah,” the mask said. “Yes. So. Then you shall eat. First, go and bathe and trade me those bloody clothes of war for those I shall provide. Food will be brought you. I shall call Metanira.”
Jarik did not move. “Lady!” And when he knew She was looking at him even though he could see no eyes: “Why was I sent to the Isle of Osyr?”
“Why, for the White Rod, Jarik. And … in a way … so that you would meet and unite with Jilain.”
“Then — does Yourself know all? What is in our minds, and what is in our futures as well?”
“Why Jarik … have you not seen into the future, your future?”
“I have … seen some — some things that happened, and some that did not, Lady. And that is not what I asked.”
“When too much is asked, Jarik of the Black Sword, the answer will never satisfy because it will always be too little.” The mask did not turn from him as She called her servant: “Metanira!”
Chapter Eleven
The waters of trust run as deep as the river of fear through the dark caverns in the bone.
— Marge Piercy
Jarik remembered Metanira. She and another came at once, even while he remembered that on his previous visit here the great chamber had been filled with attractive women and girls, all in pastel-hued gowns or tunics and all aflash with gems and silver. And now here was Metanira once more, while once more he still lacked answers. She he assumed was in her twenties was draped in a clinging sleeveless gown of palest shadeflower blue. Its skirt flowed all down her hips and legs to the floor as if it were a fabric woven of liquid sky. With her was that child he had seen here previously. A girl-child of a half-score years or fewer. Her eyes were the pale blue of his own and her hair nigh white, like Delath’s.
Metanira smiled. The child did not.
Jarik was both tired and hungry. Yet he had also been cut off, and he was not serene of face as he rose. He and Jilain followed Metanira to that room that was beyond the dream of any wark-dweller in its luxury, and that yet was not soft. An exclamation sprang from Jilain’s lips when she entered and saw the chamber.
His buskined feet on a carpet the hue of sheepgrass in June, Jarik glanced back. The girl was gone.
“I well remember how that coat of armor is removed, warrior,” Metanira said, smiling. “Will you show me again?”
Jilain glanced rather sharply at Jarik, who was careful not to notice or to look at her. He removed weapons belt and then the warcoat, while Metanira watched. Jilain did not, but looked away. A seamless coat of multiply-interlinked chain was too heavy for normal drawing off over the head, and Jilain did not care for the sight of her man with his head low and his rump in the air while he wriggled, clinking, out of his mail.
When she looked his way again he was straightening, jerking his head to toss mussed hair away from his lean, rather bony face. His mail formed a gleaming little pile of black metal on the floor. It did not look big enough, now, to cover his broad-shouldered torso, however lean of hip and small of backside he was.
Rather than look at Jilain, Jarik removed his padded undercoat. A glance showed him the earthenware amphora he remembered, beautifully decorated in red and amber, orange and vermillion. He remembered the goblets of sweet yellowish-white wine he had been handed from it, on his previous visit to Snowmist Keep.
“Will you remove your leathern coat?” Metanira asked, of Jilain. Her voice seemed oddly … dull. She was almost startlingly blue of eye, with a deeply dimpled chin and fascinating hair, all wavy like spun, crinkled copper. Her expression was serene. Stupid, Jilain thought.
She looked at this one called “Metaneerah” with the smallest frown, shot a glance at Jarik — who was peering into that colorful jug — and nodded, slowly. All this was more than disconcerting. Jilain had hardly expected the “real world” Jarik and Kirrensark had spoken of to encompass so swiftly the fabulous keep of a living, talking god! Now Jarik was playing stranger again. She understood — in a way, or tried — but that did not help her. Pulling up the hem of her bronze-studded mailcoat of leather, she drew it up over her head.
That was a relief!
Under it she still wore the tunic given her last night, Lirushye Kirrensarkwife’s ill-fitting one. It was well sweated, patchily dark here and there. So was the snugger one
Jarik wore, and she saw that his was still damp in places. Not ones to insist on much comfort, Jilain had noted of these off-Kerosyr people.
“Jarik,” she said, and at last he looked at her. Her eyes swerved toward Metanira; returned their gaze to the man. “This one is in a very very strange place and is very uncomfortable, Jarik.”
He nodded and started toward her. He stopped, in an obvious checking of natural impulse. She saw, and managed not to show him her disappointment and exasperation.
Jarik nodded. “I have been here but once, Jilain.”
“And that one watched you remove clothing?”
“My name is Metanira,” she said helpfully.
“No,” Jarik said. “They watched me take off my mailcoat, for it fascinated them. Then they prepared a bath and told me they were to bathe me. I told them I would see to that myself. They said they would wait — and reminde
d me that She would be waiting, and they left. Then I undressed and washed. This time I shall wait while you enjoy their way of bathing. Perhaps you would like Metanira to help you.”
Before Jilain could respond, Jarik spoke to Metanira. “Metaneerah, we will not bathe together. I will wait, or wash elsewhere.” For Jarik had no wish to tell Jilain that on that other occasion both Metanira and another had returned to dry him, and that his body had reacted, to his embarrassment.
That servant of Snowmist looked at him as if struggling for comprehension. At last she nodded. “Yes. I shall draw your bath,” she said to Jilain.
“But — ” The woman of the island was ready to wring her hands, and it showed.
Jarik could not bear that she was so afflicted with confusion and frustration. He was not being cold; he was still uncertain and fearful of himself, for her. He wanted her, and so did not trust himself to see her naked, or let her see him so — and certainly he would not join her in that sensuously sybaritic tub of warmed water! Still, he was unable to bear her present discomfort. Jarik went to her and put his hands on her upper arms in a reassuringly firm grip. Instantly he was too aware of the warm skin and Jilain-flesh under the tunic.
“We are all right, Jilain. You will love the bath, and they will give you something wonderful to wear. Just — ”
“This one cares nothing about things to wear!” His hands held her from him, and so her hands went to his waist. “This one wants to talk wit’ you and hear you talk, Jarik! Why must one bat’e alone — stay!”
He had tried. He must be firm then, for both their sakes, and if she drew a wrong conclusion from it … then so be it. He felt too sure that he was right; too unsure of himself and the fate of anyone linked with it. “I will not,” he said. It was hard for him to meet her eyes.
“But why?”
“Look,” he said, and his eyes indicated Metanira, behind her. Thus he saved himself, for Jilain turned to look at the woman in the beautiful gown.
The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3) Page 12
