by S. T. Joshi
On her way back, she had heard them, gasping, shivering in hiding. She had taken out her knife again, and pulled back the curtain to see the mother and child.
And stayed her hand.
She had stared at them, and she thought not of the name of the Thirteenth Prophet, not of the crimes of the Faith, but of the Thousand Names she revered, and remembered, for the first time in years, that one of those names was Mercy.
As fire is tempered by air, and each act of war must have, at its heart, an act of mercy.
Her heart was full of blood, flooded and drowned with the blood of others, bound by oaths in shed blood, and her knife hand would not move. Was it the Gods’ hand? The foolishness of a mind-eater who had too much fear? The end of her mission?
Questioning gave her no answers. She knew she could not kill them. This was the act of mercy at the heart of this war, and it simply was.
She had herded the mother and child from their hiding place, using her magic to quiet them, and gone to the river, found a pleasure boat, and rowed them far from the palace, then set out across the desert.
She looked at the mother and child now, lying collapsed on the sand, and the assassin pulled the knife from her belt. It was time. They would spend the rest of their lives in danger from those blades in the dark. The boy was an heir to the entire world, and no one would see him but as a tool. The dream of escaping to the east was just that: a dream. The mercy was her flaw.
She would kill them, and she would go back, and the mission would be complete, and she would forget her mistake. This was the blade; there was no need for balance here.
Her good arm was throbbing from the wound, so she switched her knife to her lesser hand, and raised it, looking down at the mother and child.
And then she dropped it.
One choice yet remained.
The assassin sat upon the sand, and drew out her pendant, and spoke the words inscribed on the pendant. They were written in a language few could speak, and none dared.
The assassin called out the forbidden words, the summoning words, in the language of flame in the darkness, wind in the dark of night.
They came.
The children of air and fire rose from the ground, shining in the sun, their seven-fingered hands wavering like tongues of flame. Their sharp teeth were black as coals, their eyes the blue of the heart of flame.
They surrounded the assassin and the mother and child in a circle. Their words rippled through the flame, burned the assassin’s heart.
You have called us. You are the first in millennia.
“I wish to make a bargain,” she whispered. “Take them across the expanse of sand, and go to the east.”
What is the bargain?
The assassin laughed. “What do you wish?” The words felt hot on her tongue, a language only of exchange, of dark deeds for dark words.
The spirits spoke, their words rushing like flame. We wish for your world. We wish to burn, to burn the forests, to burn the cities, to burn the people.
“That is no fair bargain for three lives.” She staggered to her feet.
Give us three to burn, then.
The assassin considered her subordinates, her enemies, her brother, who would now rule the order in her place. She considered the palaces of kings and emperors, who had burned her people. She considered herself.
Perhaps it was the heat, or the pain, but she spoke of nothing she had considered.
“The justice in the hearts of my assassins. The hatred in the hearts of the rulers. The fear …” She wavered. “The fear of mercy.”
The head of the creatures flickered, quavered. We do not want that!
“Then you will burn nothing. There will be no ash.” She wavered on her feet, forced herself to stay standing. “This is no small burn. You will eat minds, eat souls, as they accuse us of doing. You will burn some men and women completely.” For some had nothing left but hatred, and fear of mercy.
Was she one of those? She could not say.
They children railed and snorted, like fire crackling in high wind. You have summoned us for foolishness.
“I know,” she said, and realized that they were the last words she had in her.
She fell to the sand, lay cold in it, and heard the spirits speak, the hissing, popping, deep-throated roar of flame as it ate wood. She heard them and almost she understood. Almost. To burn at all is to burn enough, one said. And her soul will burn brightly.
A smile touched the assassin’s lips.
* * *
Shadows, shifting black whispers of fire. She thought she saw stars far above, heard strange music coming from the east. The mother and the child swept away, on the wind, saved. Seven-fingered hands closed around her body.
The assassin writhed, and thought she died.
She saw herself, as the Gods had made her, her soul made of intertwined branches, as perfect as a spun tapestry of calligraphy. The creatures of air and fire gathered around her soul. Their flame touched the edges of that tapestry, caught threads, bright with licking red tongues.
They took the justice from her, the hatred, and finally the fear. Threads of her soul broke away, embers floating into the Gods’ great space, each one losing its light, its heat, and becoming cold, grains, fluttering like sand through the air.
The assassin woke in the sand alone. No, not alone. All around her, glass jars of a thousand shapes: bulbs, onions, flower petals, thorns. Each one glowing with a red light.
This was the bargain. And she knew.
The mother and child were safe in the East, now. But the assassin’s mission was not yet done. She would take the creatures of air and fire, bottled up in these glasses, to the cities. She would take them to lords. To assassins of other stripes. Perhaps even to her own order. And they would be a weapon, to turn blood to water, swords to coins, to eat the minds of the mind-eaters.
For each act of war has, at its heart, an act of mercy.
Sisters
David Jón Fuller
Sölveig didn’t want to be back in Bjørgvin. The coastal city where she had grown up and left as soon as she was able still looked much the same now, eleven years later, in the Year of Our Lord 1365. The winter cold and tang of the ocean reached through her cloak and clutched at her mail, chilling her. Salt and frost encrusted the buildings of the Bryggen, the busiest trading quays in Norway, especially now that the Hanseatic League had set up there. All so familiar. For a moment, as she stood on the dock with Mihr Nûsh, she thought: actually, we aren’t ashore yet. We can ask the captain where he is headed next, and leave.
But no. They’d come for Lutz, damn him – that lovable, proud fool – and no trolls would stand in their way. She hoped.
The gulls’ cries were piercing, she heard them clearly; but she had to read the captain’s lips and expression carefully. The sloshing of the waves made so much indistinct to her.
She paid him and nodded to Mihr Nûsh, who shouldered her sword and shivered in her double-layered kazaghand. Sölveig was shocked at the deep familiarity of scents she’d not smelled in more than a decade: tar and oil, smoke from homes, inns and the occasional forge, and the ever-present stench of fish and seagull shit. Somehow the combination was never the same in other ports. Filling the eastern sky, the jagged, snow-covered peaks of the Seven Mountains to the east seemed to continue straight through the buildings and deep into the sound. Even the sea had always seemed to Sölveig a mere visitor in this place; the mountains owned it, and would stand long past Judgment Day.
All this must have been new to Mihr Nûsh, whose gaze lingered on the snowy mountains, so unlike her home in Iran. “Where to first?” she asked Sölveig.
“I know where you can get horses,” said Lutz’s squire, Max, who had hung back as they disembarked. “I returned the ones Sir Lutz and I used –”
“Oh, you’re coming with us,
never fear,” said Sölveig, because she didn’t like the way Max had used the word you. “But first, we’ll need news on what has happened since you left.”
“You have family here, don’t you?” said Mihr Nûsh, delicately.
“I do, but they no longer have me,” she said, frowning against the sleet. “We’ll see the bishop. Everyone will have come to him for help. Especially if things got worse after …after Lutz.”
She led the other two to the church, and, after waiting for His Excellency to complete an audience with the mayor, they were ushered into the bishop’s office.
Bishop Gisbrikt looked about sixty, with dark circles under his eyes and a downcast mouth, and his hair was a steely grey. His gaze swept over them in a heartbeat and settled on Max. “So, young squire,” he said, his Norwegian larded with an English accent strong enough for Sölveig to detect, “is there more you wish to tell me about the incident this time?”
Max coughed and Sölveig broke in. “We are here to investigate what happened to our comrade, Sir Lutz of Bremen.”
The bishop’s eyes narrowed and gave both Sölveig and Mihr Nûsh a harder look. “Are you, now? Then I fear you are too late. We have made our own excursions – at no small risk – up the mountain and found that he is dead.”
The words hit Sölveig like a thunderclap; her heart stopped and she swayed. Then she gripped the back of a wooden chair and her pulse began to race, sending a roar of blood through her ears, making them hot. “What proof do you have? And who has seen it?” She watched the old man’s mouth closely, so as not to miss a word.
The bishop’s face grew pale in the fading afternoon light. “This,” he said, lifting a gauntlet from the floor behind his table. The leather straps had been torn and the once-shiny metal was scuffed and dirty.
Max let out a small cry; Sölveig and Mihr Nûsh remained silent. It had belonged to Lutz.
Mihr Nûsh spoke first, in the best Norwegian she could: “No blood?”
The bishop shook his head. “Not where we found it. But, higher up the mountain – much had been spilled. The snow was dark with it.”
Sölveig swallowed and hoped her voice would not crack. “But of the man? No remains?”
The Bishop looked down. “None. But that is not surprising. The tröllkónur left no trace of the sheep they stole, either. I am sure they will have …used him horribly.”
Sölveig’s nostrils flared. “Was no attempt made to find him?”
The bishop’s lips flecked with spit. “I led the search, supported by Almighty God, bringing with me the relics of St. Sunniva, to drive out the unclean monsters who had defiled our diocese! They did not dare to approach as we searched! And we came closer to their lair than I judge any others have before. But we could not scale the face of the entrance to their cave without great risk. We listened but heard only the base sounds of their …of their feast.”
Sölveig turned to Max, and turned him to face her. “Is that where you went looking, before?”
Max nodded.
Sölveig swallowed. Her mouth was suddenly as parched as a strip of dried fish. “We’ll need some help,” she said to the bishop.
“With what?”
“Disposing of the bodies, when we’re through with them. But some support with the hunt would be appreciated.”
The bishop was silent a moment before letting out a long breath. “You’re sure you are able?”
Sölveig wanted to spit. “If the news from Hälsingøre hasn’t reached you yet, it will soon.” That was where Max had found them, following the news of a troll menacing the Danish town. He’d found them the night after they’d slain the monster, just as they were settling in to bed – and told them what Lutz had attempted, on his own, the great fool. Usually they worked together, to great success – and profit – but Lutz, it seemed, had had something to prove. Now here they all were.
The bishop’s hands fidgeted with the lining of his robe. “I have heard of their troubles …we can’t promise to pay much.”
Mihr Nûsh took a step forward, her boot thumping on the dark wooden floor. “How much were you going to pay Lutz?”
The bishop cleared his throat. “Of course, we will offer the same –”
Before he could finish, Max squeaked out the figure in silver. Mihr Nûsh smiled as the bishop blanched.
“That seems appropriate to me,” said Sölveig. “Each.”
“It’s unheard of!” said the bishop.
“Yet I suspect you didn’t bargain with Lutz.”
“The man was a giant, whereas you are –”
“Don’t,” said Mihr Nûsh, “Or the price will triple.”
The bishop sank heavily into his chair and pressed a hand to his left temple. “Very well. Make what arrangements you need; I will inform the authorities they are to support you in any way they can.”
Sölveig bit back a longer reply and said only, “Thank you,” and then left.
* * *
They were in position on the mountainside by mid-afternoon, because Sölveig counted on neither good light for the final ascent nor the discipline of the fifteen townspeople who had come along. The snowy slope had become so steep only a mountain goat would be able to scale it; no wonder Lutz had counted on drawing the tröllkónur out. There would be no way he could reach the cave in his plate armour. She wore her light helm, which didn’t cover her ears, but her mail felt heavy enough, at this elevation. It brought back memories of her childhood, exploring up the mountainside with her friends, the thin air making them giddy. But now she forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply. She was conscious of every tiny noise their party made, the quiet scritch of pebbles scraping underfoot or the shifting hiss of snow cascading down. The people were too terrified to chatter, but even so Mihr Nûsh fixed them with a stern glare every now and then to keep them quiet.
The threat of being heard wasn’t the only thing making Sölveig sweat. So far none of the townspeople had said anything to her, but she’d been conscious of them whispering to each other and looking her way – she couldn’t hear anything they said; it was in exactly the middle range of pitch and volume inaudible to her – but they stopped talking as soon as she or Mihr Nûsh came near. Coming back to Bjørgvin and facing her old reputation was like trying to fit into old trews that were now too small and had been made for someone else in the first place. She’s the one who left her friends to die on the mountainside all those years ago, she imagined them saying. She looks different, but she’s the one.
She pushed her helm down and adjusted the strap again. After they got Lutz out – or what was left of him – and took care of these monsters, she’d collect their fee and leave, never to return. Perhaps go straight to Fiorenze and put this winter behind her.
The light was fading fast, even though they were high up the western face of the mountain, so Sölveig gave the signal to the leader of the volunteers, an innkeeper she hadn’t known when she was younger. He nodded and motioned to the others, who quietly took their positions. Mihr Nûsh had already brought the ropes to just below the far side of the cave entrance; Sölveig took her place on the side opposite her. They gave each other a nod and began creeping up the icy, slippery rock, ropes dangling between them.
It would have been easier if they could have secured two lines to the mountainside; perhaps then they could have brought more people up to face the tröllkónur. But Mihr Nûsh didn’t believe any of the people of Bjørgvin, even those brave enough to come with them, could be counted on in battle. And to make safe the lines, they would have had to hammer spikes into the rock face, which would have alerted the monsters. So now they climbed, slowly, carefully, until they reached the dark cave mouth.
Clouds had blown in from the sea and threatened to obscure what little light they had. Sölveig and Mihr Nûsh nodded and then climbed higher, just above the dark, rank opening. Once in position, each played out the
rope until the elongated noose they shared surrounded it. The slip-knot would allow a quick tightening; Solveig prayed the rope’s sinews would hold.
A moment; then Mihr Nûsh gave a tiny bleating, like a lamb in distress.
There was no sound from within the cave. Sölveig glanced up at the half-moon. Surely, at least one of the monsters would be awake by now?
Mihr Nûsh bleated again.
Then, a stirring, from the darkness; the scrape of something huge on gravel or stone.
The warriors froze, barely breathing.
The towering tröllkona emerged from the cave, nostrils twitching on her great nose. Her head was as large as a barrel, her frightful hair a grey haystack in the moonlight, and her ragged teeth clear as she licked them hungrily.
Sölveig and Mihr Nûsh pulled on their ropes, hand over hand, barely making a whisper of sound. Before the tröllkóna knew it, the noose was about her neck and Mihr Nûsh had jumped onto her back while Sölveig kept the rope tight. The monster tried to cry out, her jagged teeth bare as she snarled, but the rope was already choking her. She cast about for the rope but Mihr Nûsh grabbed it as a handhold and pushed against the tröllkóna’s neck and shoulders with her powerful legs. Sölveig released the rope, giving her comrade full control of the noose. The monster flailed, vicious fingernails glinting like spikes but unable reach behind her to grab Mihr Nûsh. Of course, plate armour might be better protection against a troll’s falling-log-heavy swipes; but a scratch from their fetid nails could kill you, and mail was a fine defence against that. The trick was never to let a troll get its hands on you.
Sölveig leaped down, landing as softly as she could behind the troll; in a second she had her bastard sword out. The monster was wearing a huge rough-spun wool dress, but from her lower vantage Sölveig was still able to plunge her sword, two-handed, into the back of the tröllkóna’s thigh.
