But then, he thought, who would know, anyhow? She was seldom seen; gods were seldom seen. And how possibly could a creature that did only the bidding of others fill the armor of Snowmist, and function in it?
The god is dead; long live the god.
Another tremor disturbed Jilain’s body. Her hand and Jarik’s clung like the hands of nervous children in the darkness. “Do they — do they think they are as we? Human?”
“If they thought,” the girl who was Snowmist said emotionlessly, “they would think that they were human. They do not consider that they are human or not human. They do not truly think. They do not choose. They accept. They are. They will see to the needs of my — my other body.”
Noting her use of the words “my other body,” Jarik was as if shaken from a torpor. He had merely accepted. Now he knew that he was indeed looking upon the Lady of the Snowmist. This girl of ten summers was one of the gods on the earth.
Unworthy Jarik — unworthy Iron Lords! Unworthy — and futile! For Them, I slew the Lady of the Snowmist. Now I am hearing the Lady of the Snowmist. She lies there in that other room; She is here. She is a woman — a god, in adult form; She is this girl-not-girl. She is a … a vegetable … She is this warm, breathing, thinking, talking child, with every memory She has always … had.
Once again I have failed — and this time I am glad, glad!
It seemed to him then that he blinked, and the girl sitting opposite him was clad all in silver and grey and white, and on her head, her masked head, a cap rested. A cap of silvery mesh that sprouted two lovely white wings …
“It has been a week since our conversation about Her, and about me, and I am glad that you both have kept in condition and … that you have at last joined.”
Jarik and Jilain sat dumbfounded at that. They exchanged glances that showed clearly neither of them had any idea of the passage of a week — and no memory of those things of which She spoke. Before they could speak and ask their questions, She did.
“The time has come,” She said, with a most businesslike air. “We must go to work.” And the two before Her were profoundly attentive. “I’ve no time to tell you more, save that there are other forms of men. Other forms of men exist that are not human, not really men. They were developed — only a little — from beasts other than the apelike creatures that were already more apes when we — when we came among them. These beasts are the lower animals. The Others, the Forces of Destruction, wish to destroy us, and you. The anthro-men; the humans, men and women alike. Thus will the Iron Lords and their allies rule supreme, over a planet of slaves. Slaves. Creatures like men and yet like animals, who with their tiny brains will do the bidding of their masters and strive not. They see this as a good existence. They have human allies in this. Yes; there are anthro-men who aid the Iron Lords and the Ceruleans and the rest of the Others … unwittingly aid Them to bring about their own destruction, along with yours, and all humans.”
Jarik’s mind worked at the gallop, and yet it was as though he galloped through a field strewn with boulders and gulleys, or through a forest nigh impenetrable. He glanced at Jilain and noticed that she was naked. He said nothing.
Jilain said, “Why — why does your kind wish to have us here, as we are? Striving, troublous, petty, uncontrollable; dangerous — ”
“Because you are those things! We do not seek pets, Jilain Kerosyris. Dogs do as their masters tell them. They do not think. They are punished and rewarded, and thus are trained. They do no more, save the mindless performing of a few instinctual acts. You are like us! Created in our image! Imbued in the beginning, the long long ago that was your beginning, with consciousness. The … disembodied consciousness of other people of our wor — our kind. You continue us, here. For we were many, a great race, and the gods on the earth are all that survive. We are few. Through you, in you as in our children, our kind survives and lives on to rise once again. We ourselves cannot last forever. Osyr is dead. Nershehir is dead. Many others perished, at the Beginning. It is what we desire for you; what all humans desire: That our kind survive in the universe.”
Jarik saw paradoxes, still. He and Jilain had just been told that a week had passed, and that they had not been idle. Where were those memories? Metanira and Sutthaya and Seyulthye were made, without minds — to serve Snowmist, not the Forces of Destruction. (Weren’t they?)
Were they? He started to speak —
“But give close heed!” She said, almost sharply. The Child of the Snowmist leaned a bit forward, raising a ringer on a hand that was forever invisible in the rustly mail-mesh of a god.
“There is work to be done! A War has begun. You have joined, us and there is a War to be fought. Battles must be fought, and one is imminent. Explanations must wait,” She said, not pausing or commenting while both humans before Her nodded, the young woman and the young man who knew so little even while their brains reeled with new knowledge, knowledge possessed by no other humans. “Are you ready to work, for your own kind against the Forces of Destruction?”
“Aye.”
“Aye!”
“It will mean fighting humans, men; your very own kind. It means risking death and dealing death. And too it will mean facing and fighting the gods on the earth. The risk is enormous.”
Both nodded; Jilain repeated her “Aye.”
Jarik did not speak; he would not admit that he enjoyed fighting and killing, and could hardly believe that Jilain did. It merely made them human, but neither knew. He was one of those strange humans who did not seek to deny instinct.
“Good. For it has begun,” the Lady of the Snowmist said. “We must begin. An attack has been launched, as none has been in two centuries.”
“Attack? On — what? Where?”
She continued as if uninterrupted. “They have grown to fear us, suddenly — or to feel more confident in themselves and their human forces. I believe the former. Even now the seas are filled with hawk-ships, attacking everywhere; men slay and rape, pillage and burn the world; men who do not know they are tools, wielded and as if driven by the Forces of Destruction. On many coasts are hawk-prowed ships drawn up. Myriads of people will be slain. The earth will be soaked with blood, and in many places a foreign people will run through the land as though it is theirs. The progress we planned for this world will be slowed. The progress of humankind which we planned and which we wish. All this, by men … men in the control of Those who will replace them in time with animal creatures; un-men. And these men are all unawares of that! All unaware that they are devastating and humiliating lands at the behest of gods who wish only their ultimate extirpation. And they are natural for the task set them. They are of cold lands, where the growing season is short and winters are long. Naturally they will settle in many of the places they raid, and whose men they wipe out, whose civilizations they disrupt. Then they will live there, and become of that land, and there birth their children. And all the while they will unwittingly be on the business of the Forces of Destruction.”
Lokustansy Jarik thought. Hawkers. My people.
No! I have no p —
I have! I have people! They are Jilain, and Snowmist; my people are the Forces of Man! All those I do not even know! Yes! Jarik has people; I belong. These are my people.
The Lady of the Snowmist rose, and She was the height of a child of ten. “And,” She said, “we are besieged.”
The words disrupted Jarik’s exultant thinking and his exaltation. He sprang to his feet and his own word exploded from him: “What?”
“Come.”
They followed the child, followed Her along the corridor of living stone in pastels and into the Great Hall that Jarik and Jilain had first seen. Now they saw, with trepidation, more. What had seemed a lambrequin of some magnificence, a wall hanging of silvery thread or mesh laced all through with pale blue, was something else. It was something of the gods. An eerie, ever-shifting and somehow vertical pool that set horripilation on their limbs. Tiny feet seemed to run up the backs of Jilain and Jarik
, who were naked and had hardly noticed. They stared at that which was incredible and they saw it shift, moving mistily.
In that impossible pool a picture swirled into view, and coalesced like the freezing of silvery water.
And then they knew that they were seeing outside.
They saw the wark of Kirrensark on its high promontory and they saw the vast greenish plain of the sea …
And they beheld too the three hawk-prowed ships that were putting in toward the strand below the community. Perched atop the mast of each hawk-ship was a gleaming blue-black bird of prey. Jarik’s hair trembled and quivered on his nape. He knew this scene. He remembered a dream so recent … a dream!
The child-Lady spoke. “Swiftly: we know things that They do not know. Undoubtedly the other Iron Lords know that Nershehir is dead. They may believe that I destroyed him, as They must know he came here. They do not know about me; my present weakness. They cannot know all there is to know of Jilain! Perhaps They know that you are willingly one of us now, Jarik, and perhaps They do not. They do not know that we have two of their own swords in the hands of two warriors who surely have no equal in the world.”
Through this Jarik and Jilain stared at the vision-pool — and they stood tall.
“It must be Jilain who goes now into this battle,” the Lady of the Snowmist said, who was ten years old, and who was centuries of age. “In my … in the other body’s armor.”
“Her armor!” Jarik gasped.
“Afy armor. The armor of the Lady of the Snowmist, Jarik Blacksword. Jilain: It is impregnable save to our metal or weapons. The weapons of the Forces of Destruction.”
“The Iron Lords?” Jarik asked.
“Yes,” She answered impatiently, and went on to Jilain: “You will find that when you wear it your strength is increased. It will not interfere with your natural speed, that armor, but you will discover that you are stronger.’ Will you do this?”
(The Black Sword, Jarik was reflecting, and wondered what she possessed, this girl he could not call Lady Karahshisar, this girl who was Snowmist Herself. What did She possess, that would cleave through the black iron-not-iron of the Lords of Destruction and of Dread? Anything? So he thought; nothing. It was the Forces of Destruction that had made that improvement, Jarik felt. What the Forces of Man had was — Jarik. And Jilain. And two of the swords, and — what was She saying?)
“Yes!” Jilain said, and her voice was not as the dove’s, but loud and full of excitement.
Jarik spoke with firmness. “Jilain will not go alone, armor or no.” And once more he caught up and clutched the warm hand of Jilain Kerosyris in his. “I will go to meet those killers. I have my own good mail, and even two gauntlets that may not be cut, and the Black Sword. And my skill.”
Abruptly it occurred to him that he had not tried on the helmet of the Iron Lord — because he had dreaded having it on his head. Now he did not know whether it would fit — and how much it might interfere with his vision in combat, when nothing must interfere with vision.
“And the helm-mask you have been practicing in,” She said, while he felt Jilain’s hand flex and clutch in his hand. “Better, though, that you remain here, Jarik of the Black Sword. You will be needed elsewhere, and elsewise. The War is only beginning. This will be a mere battle.”
She is telling him that he is more important than this one, Jilain thought. Aye — and gladly one will go, for him.
But Jarik would not have it. He insisted.
Jarik argued with the girl Snowmist and with Jilain. He prevailed too, and stood watching this magical depiction of the approach of those warrior-bristling ships while Jilain went away with the girl Karahshisar.
He frowned, seeing sails different from those he had seen before. Seeing helmets that ran up into spearhead shapes; leafshapes atop the helms of warriors! Seeing shields that were oval, not round, and wildly painted in many colors. Seeing — But he heard footsteps; a rustling …
When they returned, he was staggered, body and mind. For it was young Karahshisar who came, the new Snow-mist, and with her … the Lady of the Snowmist!
Magnificent she was, in her silvery armor that snugged to her woman’s body and held arms and hips and legs like silver skin; in her helm with the delicate wings and the mask that made her faceless; in the silver-metal gauntlets with the white stripe at each high flared cuff. Supple chain or god-mail she was, from neck to ankles to wrists. Meshfaced gauntlets and boots she wore; and the helmet, and the mask of Her. Like no warrior save the Iron Lords, she was covered completely in armor. And at her side swung a long scabbard, and from its mouth stood a fluted hilt and simple guard of black. Again, a sword like unto no other, save that of the Iron Lords — and Jarik.
No! There were others!
Of a sudden Jarik remembered his dreams, his precognitive visions. He remembered the womanly figure that had stood beside him in some sort of stone prison, and she all in blue god-armor. Had that told him that this Lady
Cerulean She spoke of was not of the Forces of Destruction but of Man, or that she — She — would join them; would join Jarik Blacksword? And then he remembered the identically mailed, masked, helmeted Lord Cerulean, who had slain Jilain from behind and hoped that Jarik would die slowly.
And then She lifted a gauntleted hand, and drew the helmet up and off, and it was not She. It was the fine-boned face and tan (not dog’s!) eyes of Jilain that he looked upon, Jilain of the Isle of Osyr.
It is as if the armor of a god was made for her!
Jilain smiled. Swallowing, Jarik returned a weak smile. He had fought against her and with her, side by side, and he had realized that he loved her. He had had the thought many more times than once: What a woman! What a warrior! What a woman! He had not realized, however, how magnificent was Jilain.
She had her bow, her own curved and recurved bow, and the sword of the Lord of Annihilation. And she reminded Jarik, Jilain of the Snowmist armor, and he turned to find that Metanira had fetched his superb linked chaincoat given him by the Iron Lords, now his enemies. (Then his enemies!) He got into it, with Jilain’s aid, for when Metanira would have helped him the armored woman banished her. And he buckled on the Black Sword, with its long handle wrapped tightly all about with soft red leather. And no, he decided on the instant, he would not wear the helm of a dead Iron Lord, for he would not cover his face with that mask. (I do not care to be an Iron Lord, he had dared tell those gods on the earth.) However while Metanira held the big flared gauntlets of black, he drew on the supple, skintight undergloves of metallic mesh. He would wear those gloves, yes. No cut of a sword or ax on the knuckles would cause Jarik Blacksword to abandon his purpose or drop his Black Sword!
Suddenly he shot forth an arm to point at Jilain. “The sword you wear! Say that it is yours!”
“Ja — Jarish … ”
“Say it, Jilain, my Jilish of the Snowmist armor!”
She circled the black pommel and hilt with her silver-mailed hand. “This is my soord. This soord is this one’s.”
“Snowmist! Lady Karahshisar — look into your memories and see what She — what yourself said to me, when the Black Sword was not by my side. Say to Jilain those words!”
The mask looked at Jarik, and saw the excited, fanatical light in his eyes. Jarik was not one to be crossed or denied, not now. Snowmist knew it — this Snowmist knew it. Jarik Blacksword was dangerous, ever dangerous. For one or two or Three Who Were One, he would never be wholly sane.
“That sword is yours, Jilain. You took it up, and you shall use it. It will not leave you. It is yours.”
Grinning, Jarik paced to Jilain, and with his gaze on her eyes, laid hand on her sword. “I would borrow this,” he said, and drew it forth, and walked away from her. He spun back, still grinning, holding the black sword that had been that of the Lord of Annihilation and was now Jilain’s of Osyr’s Isle. “Want it!” Jarik said. “Think that you want it! Will it to you!”
He felt no tug, and time stretched forth, and the sword
did not leave his grasp or try to do.
“She has not used it,” the Lady of the Snowmist said at last.
Jarik’s shoulders sagged a bit and he looked crestfallen, boyish. “It is not yet hers? But once she has used it, blooded it — ”
Karahshisar nodded, standing by Jilain’s side and dwarfed by her, so that she was indeed a child in silver and white and grey. “Yes. Then it will come to you, Jilain. As Jarik’s sword comes to him.”
Jarik returned the sword, then, and two warriors faced the masked child.
“Can you take us down there,” Jarik asked, “as She did — as yourself did, in the other body?” He chafed at his stumbling over concept and words.
“Say ‘She’ for the other body, Jarik, if it is easier. And — I do not know. The traveling as I do it — ah, now I slip. The traveling as she did it is accomplished in the mind, with the mind, not with a spell or what is normally considered magic or sorcery or even that god-“magic” whith is science. I … I have no experience with this mind, this body. Let me try … ”
Ajid the child vanished.
After the initial shock of her instantaneous leavetaking, Jarik and Jilain gazed into the vertical Pool of Scrying.
They saw mad activity below: all of Kirrensark-wark was preparing for the imminent invasion. Then —
“Ah! See!” Jilain pointed excitedly.
Of course he saw; at the storage-house farthest from the long house of Kirrensark the first man, where no people milled, She appeared: the child who was the Lady of the Snowmist. The two up in her keep stared while she glanced about Herself — and then she vanished from the scrying pool before them —
— to reappear in the vast mountain keep with them. She nodded exuberantly, sighed with a rising and falling of breastless girl-chest, and extended a hand.
“Come, Jilain.”
Jarik stayed the woman beside him. “No. I go first, lest you choose to leave me once she is down there, and I go mad with watching.”
The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3) Page 21
