The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3)

by Andrew J Offutt

  And

  You are of the people of the Hawk-shipsy Jarik-Oakf the Lord of Annihilation said, all hollow and metallic, when he had heard Jarik’s story. You are of the land — a large sprawling island actually — called Lokusta. You must know this.

  Jarik protested, No! They are murderers! Hawkship men are murderers! They slew my parents and my sister!

  Blackiron is part of the large isle called Lokusta. Endeavor to use your brain and not your juices, lad. So spoke the Lord of Destruction, and then Lord Annihilation said, Your foster parents. Your foster sister. You must have been a foundling, Jarik-Oak. Abandoned for some reason; some imperfection perhaps. Or because your parents had already more get than they could manage to feed. And Destruction told him, Once you have accomplished your mission and ours, we will return you here, Jarik our ally. You may remain so long as you wish. None will refuse you, none of these beautiful maidens and women who serve us. None of our servants will refuse any wish or desire that is yours. You will be Jarik, ally of the Lords of Iron, whom by slaying the Lady of the Snowmist you will have freed to protect all the people of the earth.

  Jarik blinked, smiled. He was important! An ally of the Iron Lords who were gods on the earth! He said, “On the morrow I will go forth in mail, with the Black Sword, on our mutual business.”

  Done, the Lord of Destruction said, hollowly and metallically, and the old Lord of Dread laughed aloud.

  Thus Torsy. Thus Jarik. Thus Blackiron. Thus the Guide and thus the Iron Lords. It will be agony to you that you do not understand

  Whose son? Whose son? Orrikson Jarik Strodeson Jarik and Jarik of the Black Sword — No! Whose son? Why?

  Thus the Guide, whom he knew without knowing (and knew too that he was Osyr but was Osyr not dead?) and thus Blackiron that was gone to him and Torsy who was dead, dead, dead. And thus the Iron Lords, whom he knew.

  But who were these? Where am I? Why am I here and what place is this? It is agony to me that I do not understand but I must fight again, again, again …

  They were three, Jarik and these companions who were strangers. Somehow he knew that the stone and iron about them were beneath the earth. Beneath a fortress, a castle … what was that? What did “Rander” mean? Was this perhaps a god’s keep?

  No. We are beneath the earth.

  By his side was such a man as Jarik had never seen. His hair was … black! Black as Jarik’s Sword! It must surely be dyed for whoever heard of black hair — but black too were his mustache and his small pointed beard and almost black were his eyes. So dark, oh so dark. Onyxes or garnets set into his dark face. His skin! It was a deep copper — no, a deep bronze — no … his skin was, incredibly, walnut. Dark. Never had Jarik seen such a man as this one he knew was his ally. Or such a nose! It was a large nose, and neither straight nor pugged but crooked, high-bridged rather like the beak of a bird of prey, and the tip of his nose was definitely turned down! Further, he was a hand’s length shorter than the ally on Jarik’s other side, who was only a little shorter than Jarik. That other one was a woman not a woman. A god, surely. For she was covered all over in shining scintillant form-molding armor, all in blue, the blue of the sky. Over her head and face she wore a helmet and mask of the same metal, weirdly molded. At first glance she would seem a mail-covered woman with the cerulean head of a huge bird of prey! And she too was his ally, not his enemy. A god on the earth surely, though neither Snowmist nor Lord of Iron! And the man’s upper lip was a little like a bow, Jilain’s bow, for it curved sharply down in the center, under the tip of that long downtumed nose.

  Where am I? Why am I here and what place is this agony that I do not understand but we three must fight again, again …

  They were allies three, underground in stone and behind that iron grille over there was a man, their prisoner, dimly seen in the flickery light of torches set in metal brace-cages mounted in the very stone of the walls. They faced stone steps, and down that stairway boiled men.

  They were dark men like unto him on Jarik’s left hand and they were strangely clothed. Men shorter than Jarik, but no less ferocious. They were mailed, in helm and scales of iron and of copper with some bronze, and on that one silver gleamed, just a bit of silver. They came one and two, and three four five they came, and six and a seventh. Seven came attacking down stone steps, attacking three ringed around with stone walls on a floor of hard, hard-packed earth, and Jarik and the shorter dark man and the woman in cerulean armor fought and chopped and leaped and hacked so that bright blood spattered stone walls and earthen floor and Jarik’s hands and arms as they battled, three against seven and the mailed woman fighting no less than a man and seemingly invulnerable, and enemies fell to the weirdly mismatched three and

  Jarik awoke.

  Panting a little, he awoke in Snowmist Keep and knew that he had dreamed of his past. And that last dreadful combat, three against seven while one watched from behind bars … had he dreamed a fantasy, or was it part of history not yet written? Had he seen again a glimpse of the time to come? He did not know. Nor now, lying awake in Snowmist Keep with his belly rumbling, could he conceive of such a dark man, such a short man with such a nose and bow-curved mouth — and black hair!

  Metanira came then. She bore him food to break a fast that was longer than he knew.

  Chapter Twelve

  But what a mystery this erring mind!

  It wakes within a framework of various powers

  A stranger in a new and wondrous land.

  — N. P. Willis

  Jarik sat comfortably, dressed in an incredibly soft, flowing robe the color of the stone called samarine. His feet were bare. Within the robe, he wore Jilain’s gift; the necklace of shells from the shores of Kerosyr. In a comfortable chair to his immediate left Jilain sat, her knees not quite touching his. Her legs were invisible under a full skirt that flowed in soft waves to her insteps. The skirt was the color of that quartz called silignant. Above it her tunic was sleeveless and low of scooped neck; its color that of the gemstone citrelain, which was less yellow than the hue of jonquils. At armholes and low “neck” it was bordered with white scallops resembling the petals of flowers. The garment, which was soft and would fall to mid-thigh were she standing, was loosely girt with a rope that seemed made of three slim strands of silver cloth, braided. Snowmist had provided her with a similar bracelet, delicately twisted of finer wire, which Jilain wore on her left wrist. Around her neck, not quite vanishing into the shaded valley between the upper curves of her breasts, was slung a typically Lokustan chunk of amber on a thong of sweat-darkened old leather. Jarik’s pendant.

  Jarik had found one of the delicately stretched and trebly-twisted silver bracelets on his own wrist, identical to Jilain’s. He had removed it. He had no desire to wear any of Snowmist’s silver, most especially not on his wrist.

  Across from him in cozy proximity sat the Lady of the Snowmist, in her fulgurant armor of silver and white and grey. And her helm-mask. The pitcher of wine on the low table between them was of silver, as were the tall-stemmed goblets.

  Jarik did not like the fact that he hardly remembered coming here, to the main chamber of her keep. It was lit, now, only in the area where they sat. Thus the sprawling size of that chamber was reduced to this warm “room” for conversation. Her chair was made so as to imitate a large tawny-grey stone, covered with moss. The low table seemed a big off-white toadstool. The padded chair in which Jarik sat was fashioned to imitate a huge carven tree stump. It was not.

  The god spoke. “I shall answer your questions, Jarik, though I warn you that I have not the answers to all things!”

  “Gods do not know everything?” Jilain asked, shifting, tucking up her legs on the mossy bank she seemed to be sitting on. It was not a mossy bank.

  “No, Jilain. Gods do not know everything.”

  Jarik knew what his first question must be. “Are you my mother?”

  “No, Jarik. You are not my son.”

  “Am I one of the abandoned boy babes of Keros
yr?”

  “I think not.”

  “This one thinks not also. No boy babes are abandoned, on Osyr’s Isle.”

  Jarik looked at her. “Always? You know this? Before you were born and when you were a child … all were slain?”

  Jilain nodded, looking down. “One is sure. There have never been that many. Not that many men ever came to Kerosyr.”

  Jarik dropped that. “I am of normal parentage, then?”

  “I think not, Jarik.”

  “Think not?”

  “No, then,” Snowmist said. “You are not of normal parentage, Jarik of the Black Sword. One of your parents, Jarik — and I know not which one nor who it was or the other parent either — was of our kind.”

  “Gods? Your … kin? Kin of yourself and the Iron Lords?”

  “In a way, Jarik. Aye — my ‘kin,’ then.”

  “One … then … Jairik is … half … half god?”

  “Aye, Jilain. And half man. And neither of either. And both of each, as he is the Man Who Is Two. Yet he is more nearly whole now than when he journeyed to Osyr’s Isle.” Jarik asked, “How is that?”

  “You have Jilain, Jarik.”

  “And Jilain has him!” Jilain added.

  “Aye,” Milady Snowmist said. “And he has too the Black Sword, and the blood of my race, and the respect of Kirrensark’s wark, and the love of a woman, and of a woman-god. You are a fortunate man, Jarik.”

  “Fortunate!” he burst forth, while Jilain put her head on one side and asked, “You love Jairik, Milady God?”

  “I have loved him, Jilain, and lain with him.”

  “What?!”

  “You?!”

  To their simultaneous exclamations Snowmist replied, “Twice.”

  “Twice!” Jarik echoed. “But — ”

  “Twice,” the silvery mask repeated. “Ere your man was yours, Jilain, he was mine. After your man was yours — yet not yet yours in the flesh — he was mine still again.”

  While Jarik looked horrified, the muscles of Jilain’s face tightened, as did her lips. A bit less showed of her hazel eyes as she stared at that expressionless mask — and at the superb womanly shape below.

  Jarik said, almost gasping, “Just — now?”

  The mask faced him full on. “Aye, Jarik.”

  “I have been drugged again?” He was suddenly on his feet with a rustle of the handsome, medium blue robe. His hands were knotted.

  “Yes. And you have my promise: never again will you be drugged by me or my servants, Jarik of the Black Sword.”

  “Wonderful! Oh, wonderful! How fine of you, whoring god! And do you like unconscious bed-partners the best?” He stood tall and yet leaned toward the seated god, across the low table that rose only to his mid-shin.

  “Jarik,” Jilain said, “wait,” and her hand slipped over his fist. He jerked it away and only glanced at her; it was a dark glance of anger. No; of outrage.

  “Jarik Blacksword,” the Lady of the Snowmist said, and there was strength and the confidence of power in her voice. “I said to you that I would answer your questions. Now you know that I spoke true, and still do. I could easily have kept that to myself.”

  “I did not ask if you had lain with me — used me!” he raged at Her. “Such a question would not have occurred to me!”

  “I wanted you to know.”

  He stared at Her, whirled away, walked away. If I had the Black Sword … Perhaps, however, it was best that he did not. He would surely have driven it into Her — or tried. And there were more questions to be asked. So many questions. He stalked about, working off his rage and outrage. Jilain followed him with her eyes. The helm-mask of the god did not turn. Would that I could call the Black Sword to me but bid it linger at a little distance, he thought, rather than come straight to my hand.

  He returned to the lighted area that was so like a comfortable, intimate little gathering in some woodsy glen, and he resumed his seat on the brown chair facing her.

  “The youths you bring here, Lady,” he said tightly. “They are for … night-mates?”

  “Aye.”

  “You lie with them, and get yourself with child?”

  “Aye.”

  Impulsively Jilain said, “Gods and — and humans can, can breed? Produce children?”

  The mask said, “Aye, Jilain.”

  Jarik glanced at Jilain, and spoke to Snowmist. “And then you make those youths forget. As I have forgot.”

  “You were asleep, Jarik. You are different, as I found out very swiftly! Aye, I make them forget — and reward them with lifelong health.”

  Jilain said in a low voice of awe, “Such is yours to confer?”

  “It is. It — ”

  “Why then do these yout’s not live forever? Is not per-feet healf the key to immortality?”

  “No, Jilain,” the god said, and her voice sounded indulgent; an aged parent explaining to a child, without impatience or condescension. “You will age. All humans … we all age. Eventually the body reaches its limit of aging, so that brain and muscle and bone can age no more. Then comes death.”

  Jarik had relaxed somewhat, and explained to Jilain. “It is that those youths who are Chosen — so it is called in the warks, and once I dreamed of it — enjoy perfect health all the days of their life. Until the day they die, at advanced age.”

  “Then — then what is the cause of their deat’?”

  An argent armored arm gestured with a faintly metallic rustle. “Advanced age,” said the Lady of the Snowmist.

  Still uncomprehending — for who could? — Jilain repeated herself. “And perfect lifelong healt’ is yours to confer, god on the eart’?”

  “It is. It … costs me. Of myself, I mean; not of property or anything measurable in silver or gold or kine or horses.”

  “And this you have done with me. When first yourself bade me come here, brought me here … ”

  “Yes, Jarik. It was because you are well made, and had performed a fine heroic deed, entered a battle that was not a battle but an attempt at murdering Kirrensark; a matter that was none of your concern. And you entered into it anyhow, and you prevailed. Thus you represented good … stock; a good man.”

  “To make a god?” Jilain said, almost squeaking, while Jarik said, “I? A good man? I?” And he made a sneering face that ill became him.

  A god on the earth sighed. “Good for fathering a babe to take on a responsibility most awesome and awful, yes. True, you will never be a ‘good man’ as others use that phrase, Jarik Blacksword who has been Jarik other-names. How can you be, who have seen and experienced so much terror and evil, and are marked by it, with scars on the mind?”

  Jarik stared, tight-lipped, at nothing. “And so twice we have been night-mates, Lady God, and I remember nothing of it.”

  “It is true. Once, you said just now, you wanted much to be Chosen, as those of the warks call it. I know it confers popularity on those I bring here, along with health. When did that change, Jarik Blacksword? Your feeling about being so chosen, I mean? When did it become ‘use’?”

  “I was only a boy then. I knew nothing of gods. I needed … I had not been enslaved by you, then. I did not know you then, Lady God.”

  “Jarik: You do not know me now.”

  After a long silence Jilain said, “Jarik … this one thinks that is true.”

  “It is true,” the Lady of the Snowmist said. “And your seed has found the egg in me, Jarik Blacksword. You will father a god. It has begun.”

  “A god?”

  “I did not mean that it might not be a girl, Jarik. One has but to look on Jilain, and reflect on what she is, to know that some distinctions between the sexes are not worth the bother of different words. Some say god dess. Some would find it necessary to call Jilain ‘warriorow.’ We know what we are. Call me ‘he;’ call Jilain ‘brother’ or ‘he’ and see if it matters. It will not diminish us — those of us who know what we are.” The womanly mask looked at the woman. “I and Jilain are god and warrior,
are we not?”

  Jilain nodded; Jarik shrugged.

  “And if I call you ‘brother,’ Jilain? And if you call Jarik ‘sister’?”

  Jilain Kerosyris smiled. Jarik, looking at her, noticed for the first time that the scab was gone from her forehead. Pink baby-skin showed there where he had cut her, in an overturned V. Jilain said, “This one has done that. It did not disturb Jairik, or Strave the archer, either.”

  The expressionless helmet-mask nodded.

  Ridiculously, Jarik felt compelled to look at Jilain and say, “We are sisters, warrior.”

  Jilain’s smile was bright sunlight bursting forth. “We are sisters, warrior!”

  Then Jilain looked at the Lady of the Snowmist, and her expression became quite serious. “Never has this one envied gods, Lady God. Now she does. One envies the Lady of the Snowmist, god on the eart’ and alive as well — but not because She is a god!”

  They all knew that a face smiled then, within a mask. “I know, Jilain. I know.”

  Jarik sat forward. “I see and understand. And now we are come to a problem. Yourself knows it,” he said, and only She noticed that he had resumed the respectful pronoun. “I was sent here by the Iron Lords, Lady God, to do death on you. I made bargain with them.”

  “I know. So you did. Twas an unseemly bargain and fool’s errand. They have reason to seek my death; you do not. You were easily taken advantage of, by those three. And now I have subverted you to my wishes, body and brain! And it would appear that the Iron Lords sought to do death on you, out on the sea.”

  Jarik said, “Was Jilain that hawk sought to slay.”

  “After it had slain the whit’ dove, and after this one had taken toll of three helmsmen!”

  Jarik looked at her, bright-eyed, and Jilain gazed back, wide-eyed and serene. “This one had never slain, Jairik. This one was … impelled to slay the Osyrrain, in honor. For the honor of Osyr and His Guardians. After that … one saw a way, asea, to lessen the number of deat’s by slaying the most important man on that other ship. Then one had to do it again. And of course again. It was not … hard.”