The girl. Perhaps the child —
His stomach made gurgling noises like a mountain stream at the time of thawing, and then it rumbled. He was ravenous. His stomach was a cavern — and yet he felt that if he pressed finger to navel, he could feel backbone.
Turning, he started to rise. This bed was in still another room; the amphora nearby was yellow, lightningdecorated in brown and seemingly splashed with blue dew-drops. And he was naked, though a coverlet was partway over him. Jilain? he wondered. Metanira? It occurred to him then that this time he had slept in Snowmist Keep, and She had not lain with him.
In the thought was neither happiness nor triumph.
Beside the bed stood a long-legged table of some blond wood. On it was food, meat and lentils and cabbage; and a perfect goblet of silver beside a pitcher of some beautifully decorated and glazed pottery that was glazed warm brown and red and orange. The aroma of meat made his nostrils twitch and his mouth fair spurt its saliva. Again his stomach complained. He sat more nearly erect and reached for the meat, and then he saw her.
She was nowhere near his height; not even the height of Metanira, whose crown came to his lower lip. She was very slim, and in her tight-fitting garment of white and silver there was no bud of womanhood on her and less to her hips than of his. She was masked in silver, but not helmeted; her hair was blond, with less gold in it than his and less white than Delath’s.
No more than ten, Jarik mused.
Not old enough.
“You are not old enough, are you.” It was not a question, and his tone was one of resignation.
“Eat. No. I am not. At the time of womanhood, I will be the Lady of the SnowmiSt. Eat.” It was a girl’s voice and yet not a child’s. So serious; so grave, and wise.
“This has never happened before. The … necessity before the successor was ready, I mean.”
“No. Hear me, Jarik of the Black Sword. I have said eat and you must eat. There is time for talking.”
He took his gaze from her mask, for he was abashed — by a girl of ten! — and did not wish to face even eyes that he could not see. Pushing meat into his mouth, he chewed. I am the servant of Her, and She will never move again. I am her ally and servant, and this one, this grave child in the miniature mask of Her, will be Her. I shall serve her until She is ready to don the armor and helm-mask of the Lady of the Snowmist, for then she will be Her “We understand, Jarik Blacksword. My mother and I understand. You are forgiven. You are forgiven. You are not to kick yourself when you are down.”
He twitched at those words, nearly dropping another morsel of meat. They were her words. He jerked up his head to stare at the mask above the juvenile body that, almost, could have been of either sex or no sex.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am, Jarik Blacksword. You know who I will be. I am not yet, though, and need time. We need time, Jarik Blacksword, for me to grow. Call me Karahshisar.”
“She named you that?”
“Eat. There can be no other name.”
Again he averted his eyes. He continued eating, forcing down lumps of food and seeking to liquefy the growing leaden mass in his belly by drinking water from the pitcher, not wine from the jar. The girl remained; daughter of the Lady God on the earth.
The Lady of the Snowmist is dead; long live the Lady of the Snowmist.
But She was not dead. Feeling that as an even heavier tax on his mind and on his growing conscience, on his very soul than before, Jarik ate. And he wished that there had been punishment, hatred, rather than forgiveness. Forgiveness was a burden little less than guilt. How could it be justified? Murder is only an ugly word, invented to describe a specific type of death. “For all things there must be recompense,” Jilain had said, on the Isle of Osyr. “Sometimes it is long in coming. How can truths differ from land to land?”
So the Guide had said, and so Jilain had said. Recompense. Murder.
How could it be justified or forgiven? How, he reflected miserably while he ate that which he did not taste or enjoy, could what he had done be justified or understood or excused?
Recompense. Recompense. Payment. For all things there must be payment.
Jarik finished eating. The food was not gone; he finished anyhow. And he straightened, turning to face the girl who would be Snowmist. He extended both arms, palms up and open. He gazed at the mask, meeting steadily eyes he could not see.
“I cannot place the bracers of mist there, Jarik Blacksword. I have not yet the power.”
With a sigh, he dropped his hands. He would be her servant and protector and guardian; he would wear that sign of Her.
“She is awake,” the younger Karahshisar said. “She would see you.”
How can I bear it, he thought, and rose anyhow, forgetting his nakedness when the coverlet slid from him. She gestured.
“Your robe, Jarik Blacksword.”
Woodenly, nodding, paying no attention to the color of the ready robe, he took it up and drew it on. He tied the cord, which was wrapped and sewn with the fabric of the robe. She turned then, and he followed her along the dim stone hallway.
“Can She — talk?”
“Five days have passed,” she said over her shoulder. “She is able to speak, weakly.”
Turning to pass through a doorway, she brought him again to the chamber of the white-draped table, and that pitiful bandaged woman who had been a god. His eyes glistened when Jarik went to the side of that sickbed, and extended his wrists for the symbolism and the actuality of the bracers. His stance and his plea were unmistakable.
Wearing only her mask and the bandage, the god on the earth spoke. Her voice was weak as that of a sleepy child and seemed to come from afar; from the very domain of the lonely Dark Brother; from the other side Death.
“Jarik? I can … not take your hands … ”
When he started to speak, his voice rose and caught on a sob. He broke off, swallowed, took a brace of breaths, and tried again.
“I tried to slay yourself. I did this to yourself. Yourself cannot move — I will move for yourself! I will be your arms and legs, Lady God. I will be your sword. Restore the bracers, Lady God.”
“My right arm,” She said, little above a whisper. “And in it the Black Sword of the Lords of Iron. Yes, Jarik. Thus you become a … warrior for the Forces of … Man. But … the bracers, Jarik, th … they are unnecessary now, aren’t they. We do not have need of — ”
“I must wear them!”
She was silent for a time, breathing shallowly and with care, so that he was glad for the mask, that he could not see her pain when She drew breath. He shot a glance at her daughter; How dare you forgive this! Then Snowmist was speaking, interrupted by pauses of almost cadenced length during which She summoned strength for the next utterance.
“Leave me with my daughter then. I must instruct her. Send us Metanira, and Sutthaya.”
“They — those two are real, Lady God? When first I was here, and foolishly sought to attack yourself outright and yourself prevented me, yourself … vanished. A huge ax-man attacked me then, and after that a — a thing, a demon-thing. I slew them — or did I?”
“Call me by the normal pronoun, Jarik. You remind me that I have treated you most ill. For believe me, Jarik, gods are arrogant! It is hard to remember how we affect mortals, how easy it is for us to hurt, and to gain the concept that it does not matter. Mortals matter, Jarik. You matter. What you ask about — that does not matter. You saw them; you fought and slew them. I observed your prowess. The rest does not matter.”
“It does matter! Were they real? Did they exist?”
“No, Jarik. They were not real. They could not have harmed you, physically. I give you truth: I have never sought to harm you, Jarik Blacksword.”
Jarik fought to keep back his tears, and he would not raise a hand to wipe them away when they escaped his eyes and began tracing down his cheeks. Nor did it occur to him to feel unmanly, he who had felt unmanly at age eight, because he had wept. He nodded
. He put out a hand to touch Her; did not. What he had eaten was an iron ball in his belly. Nodding again, he turned from Her.
A girl with very long hair, all honey and fall leaves, was waiting for him. Her hair fell to her waist, which was small. She was small all over, and her face the oval shape of some shields. She was quite pale in her long clingy gown of deep rose.
“Will you come with me, Jarik Blacksword? To Jilain.” Jilain! “Yes!” And he followed, staring over her head rather than at the shifting of her backside within the gown, and wondering: Is she real? He did not reach out to touch her, as they went along a pastel-walled corridor and right-ward, into a smallish chamber. Here awaited Jilain, and she smiled in brilliance. They embraced, and stood looking down at the mailed figure at her feet.
An Iron Lord.
He lay on his back, masked face upturned. By his side lay the Black Sword — no. It was a black sword. For its hilt too was black, plain, dullish and fluted for gripping fingers, rather than the red stripping with which Jarik had wound his own hilt; leather well chewed into softness.
“Well, Lord of Iron,” Jarik said low, staring and remembering.
“Do you know whick one it is, Jarik?”
“No. They are identical — I mean, their armor is. I learned to know them only by voice.”
“He will not be speaking,” Jilain said, as bleakly as Jarik might have said it.
“No.” Jarik squeezed her, staring down almost as if in a trance. “No. Jilain Kerosyris slew him — an Iron Lord! — to protect Jarik. I am your brother, warrior.”
“This one is your sister, warrior.”
With a sudden small smile, Jarik said, “This one is your sister, warrior.”
On him her hand responded warmly, and then he squatted. He straightened with the sword of this dead Iron Lord. He held it, looking at it, studying blade and hilt while he turned the weapon in his hands. He saw in it no difference from his own; no means by which it might be coaxed to emit flame. He had hoped to find some such, but he had not expected to. Stepping across that mailed corpse of a god, he looked upon the wound that had killed him. Jilain had chopped well into the god’s side, through the black armor. There Jarik saw twisted metal, and tom cloth, and flesh and bone stained by blood.
He glanced over to find that the long-haired girl was still present. “What is your name?”
“Seyulthye,” she said, and after a moment Jarik realized that he had heard part of the name of the Lord of Dread.
He did not like that, but assumed that the name had come from one of Dread’s kith: Milady Snowmist.
“Hold this,” he said, pressing the god’s sword on Jilain, and he squatted again to pull off one big mailed gauntlet of black. Under that stiff great-glove with its well-articulated joints was a hand … a hand gloved in a most strange and exotic cloth. It was at once shimmery silver and yet dark, very tightly woven. He remembered how once he had put his hand into one of these; into a hand covered with metallic cloth, and he had found it cold.
Colder now, he thought with a grim sort of callousness that helped mask some of the eerie feeling and the unworthy elation: here lay a god on the earth. Dead. Killed. A sprawled collection of armor, without identity. A god!
Not without some feeling of nervousness and that innate feeling that would come to be labeled “sacrilege,” Jarik began drawing off the glove. He discovered that it ran well up the arm, under the black armor. That added to his indefinable disquietude, but did not subtract from his determination. He had to see.
He uncovered a hand, and it seemed no less than human. It was unusually pale, slightly bent of fingers, and cold in death. Not an old hand. It was a seemingly normal human hand. This Iron Lord had been no less human than Snowmist. And no less god, Jarik felt sure.
“Have you tried to remove any of this armor?”
“The helmet. One broke her dagger on it. Not otherwise, no. We did not have do with this soord, either.”
“Hmm. I just realized. The armor could be useful, Jil! The helm, even the mask. Axes, swords, spears — none will mar this metal of the gods. These gauntlets and undergloves, too.”
He removed the two from the other hand. Two big stiff-cuffed gauntlets with reinforced fingers between the easily-bent knuckles; two sleek mesh gloves he could conceal in one loosely fisted hand.
He moved up to the head of the fallen god. In helm and attached mask of iron-not-iron, it seemed monolithic, an inviolate refuge behind which hid a face to be seen by no human. With both hands Jarik turned the head to the left, then to the right. He saw no mark of Jilain’s attempt at prising off this heavy black helmet. He did find what he sought. Seam and hinge. In a few moments he had the secret, and had opened the helmet of the Iron Lord.
He felt a little frisson run through him and his armpits were damp. Squatting beside the fallen god, Jarik glanced up at Jilain — who watched as if entranced, almost breathlessly — and at Seyulthye, who looked young and lovely and stupid.
He helmet was made in two pieces and hinged so as to overlap smoothly on both sides. The closure was on the left. Jarik removed the helmet. He felt it, a palpable boyish fear or dread, and he heard the intake of Jilain’s breath. He swallowed, hard.
Wide open eyes, grey-blue, stared up at him and for a moment horror seized Jarik with an almost substantive grip. Then he dropped the helm — with little noise, on this carpet crafted to imitate moss — and hurriedly closed those cold dead eyes. He straightened then, and when his hand found Jilain’s, it was seeking his. Blindly; neither of them could look away from that face of death. An immortal god, proven mortal. Strangely, Jarik felt small, not huge, looking down upon a god.
“You have slain a god,” he said, almost whispering.
“He looks very human,” she said, “dead.”
He did, and the head looked small, merging from the neck-ring of that armor of the god-metal. He was very pale, this one who had been an Iron Lord, with lean cheeks and a good nose. There was no hair on the face except brows and lashes, which were very light, and the blond hair of the head had been cut weirdly short, so that the ears showed.
“Lyd,” Jarik said, “Hawkbeak’s son of Blackiron. The age is about right.”
“What?”
“Sixteen years ago — before ever I was there — the Iron Lords took from Blackiron one Lyd, son of Hawkbeak. A fisherman. Lyd was eighteen, well-built and well-favored of face. Does this fellow look about that age? Thirty, uh, four?”
“Younger. And so pale.”
“Gods do not go forth without their armor, and no sun shines inside mountains. It has to be,” Jarik said reflectively. “Young and pale because for sixteen years he has had no wind on his face, and no sun! No travail and no true worry. Besides, Lyd was the most recent, and this man is surely not older. Tliis was once a youth of Blackiron, Jilain. Lyd, who was son of Hawkbeak. Also his name was Nershehir; the Lord of Annihilation.”
She gazed upon Lyd/Nershehir/Annihilation, in silence. “You have annihilated Annihilation,” Jarik said, feeling no desire to cope with the remembrance: in his dream-vision the invader of Snowmist Keep had been Eskeshehir, the Lord of Destruction. Perhaps he had been mistaken — or Oak had. And somehow the figure at his feet was little less imposing and no less ominous, now that he had a name.
Jarik bent to pick up the helmet. Even with the attached mask it was not so heavy as his own helm, which was of considerably less substance — seemingly.
“Seyulthye,” he said confidently, “do you divine the secret of this armor’s removal, and remove it. We must dispose of this days-old corpse, and we want all it wears.” She nodded. She would obey, whether because he had given her an order with such confidence, or because obeying was what she did.
Of a sudden Jarik frowned. “Seyulthye — are you real?”
“Real?” She looked at him blankly.
“Where are your parents? Where do you come from?”
“I know none of that.”
“Get the armor off this, Seyulthye.
”
“Yes.”
“After that,” Jarik said, squeezing Jilain’s hand in signal to be silent, “Jilain would like you to bathe her, make love to her, and be still while she sticks pins into you.” Seyulthye’s face hardly changed. “Pins?”
“Jarik? This one will not — ”
“Jilain: I want to be out of this room.”
He took up gauntlets and gloves and, with him carrying also the helm-mask and Jilain the sword, he tugged her out of that chamber of death. She willingly accompanied him, while Seyulthye went unconcernedly to the armored god.
They were well down the hall, with Jilain just starting to question him about the ridiculous things he had said to Seyulthye, when that girl’s shriek brought them around in a whirl. They saw a light of solar brightness flashing from the doorway they had just left, and then smoke was pouring out.
When, coughing, they could see within, they found that the dead Iron Lord and nearly every trace of Seyulthye had been consumed by a sudden flashing flame of such heat that the room was black: floor, ceiling, and every wall. They felt the heat; the flame was gone. That swiftly had the armor of a god destroyed itself and its dead wearer.
Unless — no. Jarik shook his head. No. The man was dead. The god was dead. And not even gods, he knew from experience with both Snowmist and the Lord of Iron, could rejuvenate the dead. The dead were beyond the abilities of Oak and of gods.
Blight! Who could have known that the armor of the god was so constructed as to self-destroy when tampered with?
“Thus do gods prevent mortals from coming into possession of god-armor,” Jarik said, for saying something was necessary. There was no blood, and it was obvious that no blood had ever run within what was left of Seyulthye. She had been real, yes. A technical point, that: she had been real, but not human. She had been a creation of a god.
“Now,” Jarik murmured, “I think I know why Metanira’s voice seems so … so dull. And why she repeats phrases, like the most stupid of children. She is real enough. But, somehow, Milady Snowmist must have made her.”
“As She … made Seyulthye?”
The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3) Page 19
