The Golden Shrine

by Harry Turtledove

  Ulric gave the clouds a dirty look. “If we’re going to have a thunderstorm, I wish we’d have it. It would wash the air clean of this garbage.” He shed his tunic, too.

  “That would be good,” Hamnet agreed.

  But the thunderheads rolled by, one after another. Count Hamnet did hear thunder once, far off in the distance. No rain fell anywhere nearby. The air remained close and stuffy.

  Marcovefa walked by with her tunic off. Hamnet’s jaw dropped. Ulric’s eyes widened. Unless they were bathing, Bizogot women didn’t go bare-breasted in public (neither did Raumsdalians). “What are you doing?” Hamnet managed after a couple of false starts.

  “Trying to stay cool, same as you.” Marcovefa mimed a panting fox. “I never knew weather like this up on the Glacier. I feel like I am wading in hot soup.”

  “Don’t sunburn your, uh, self,” Ulric said, gallantly not looking at what he was really talking about.

  “I be careful,” Marcovefa said, and walked on. Anyone who wanted to tell her to cover up would need to be a braver man than either Raumsdalian.

  After she was gone, Hamnet and Ulric eyed each other. They both shrugged at the same time. “Look on the bright side,” Ulric said. “Maybe she’ll start a new trend.”

  “Right,” Hamnet said tightly. He wondered what he would have done had Gudrid or Liv acted so scandalously. Odds were he would have pitched a fit, and maybe had a stroke. He wondered why he wasn’t pitching a fit now. Partly because Marcovefa was a law unto herself, no doubt. And, perhaps, partly because he’d already pitched enough—or too many—fits about women.

  Have I learned something? he wondered. Or am I just too bloody tired to get upset about things right now?

  Ulric Skakki looked around: not in Marcovefa’s direction. The adventurer’s nostrils flared, as if he were a dire wolf seeking a scent. “The air is nasty,” he said.

  “Hot and muggy enough and then some, that’s for sure,” Count Hamnet agreed.

  But Ulric shook his head. “Not what I meant. It’s bad that way, too. But I don’t like the way it feels. Do you have any notion of what I’m talking about?”

  “No.” Hamnet was nothing if not direct.

  “Didn’t think so.” Ulric gave him a bow that should have been mocking but somehow wasn’t. “It feels like something horrible is going to happen to us any minute.”

  Hamnet Thyssen raised an eyebrow. “Foretelling? I didn’t know you’d gone into the wizard business. Have you talked with Audun Gilli or Liv about this?” He didn’t think he wanted Ulric talking with Marcovefa, not while she was running around without her tunic.

  The adventurer’s chuckle said he knew what was going through Hamnet’s mind. But his mirth quickly faded. “I will talk with them, by God. I don’t know if they’ll tell me I’m daft. If they don’t, I don’t know whether they can do anything about it. Better to find out, though.” Lithe as a tumbler, he got to his feet.

  With a grunt and a creak, Count Hamnet rose, too, and followed him. Hamnet also tried to feel the air. To him, it felt like . . . air. Hot, sticky air, but air and nothing else but. He thought Ulric was letting his imagination run wild. That wasn’t like the adventurer, but neither was his turning wizard.

  Audun Gilli sat in the shade of the hut he shared with Liv. He hadn’t shed his tunic, but looked suddenly thoughtful as Ulric and Hamnet came up to him. Maybe he would before long.

  “What’s up?” Audun asked. The look he gave Hamnet was slightly apprehensive. He might have cleared the air, but he knew Hamnet would never love him.

  But Ulric did the talking, finishing, “Have I just got the fidgets on account of this beastly weather, or am I feeling something real?”

  “Well, I haven’t sensed anything like that,” Audun Gilli answered. Count Hamnet started to give Ulric an I-told-you-so look, but the wizard went on, “Which doesn’t have to prove anything. Have you talked to Marcovefa yet? I’d bet she’s more sensitive than I am.”

  “I thought I’d wait till she puts on more clothes,” Ulric said blandly. “She might not be distracted, but I would be.”

  “She’s not wearing any less than the two of you,” Audun pointed out—he’d seen her, too, then. He’d seen quite a bit of her, in fact.

  “That’s what she told us,” Ulric Skakki said. “It looks better on her, though. And I know better than to argue with a shaman, I do.” His saucy grin dared Hamnet to make something of that. Hamnet ignored him. With a small sigh, Ulric went on, “If you say I ought to talk to her, I guess I’ll go do it.” This time, he wasn’t grinning when he spoke to Hamnet: “You’re welcome to tag along again, Your Grace. I’m not going to talk about anything I don’t want you to hear.”

  Not while I’m there, you’re not, Hamnet thought. All he said was, “I want to get to the bottom of this, too.”

  The Leaping Lynxes’ village wasn’t very big. Finding Marcovefa didn’t take long. She raised an eyebrow when Ulric and Hamnet came up to her. “Are you two going to try to tell me what to do again?” she asked, an ominous note in her voice.

  Hamnet shook his head. “No. This is something else.” He gestured to Ulric Skakki.

  Ulric told the story one more time. He looked Marcovefa in the eye while he was doing it. If his gaze slipped farther south, it wasn’t in any obvious way. “So,” he said, “have I got the vapors, or is this something we need to worry about?”

  Marcovefa looked as thoughtful as if she were fully clothed. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t feel this, but I haven’t looked for it, either.”

  “Maybe you should,” Hamnet said.

  “Yes.” She nodded, which made her jiggle. Hamnet couldn’t pretend not to notice, but he didn’t dwell on it, either. There was a time and a place for everything. Ulric’s face might have been carved from stone. Marcovefa swung around in a circle, as if she too were casting about for a scent. When she came to the northwest, she stopped, looking startled.

  “Something?” Hamnet and Ulric asked together.

  “Something,” she agreed. “Something not good. Something very not good.”

  Her grammar was shaky, but Hamnet understood what she meant. “What are those bastards trying to do to us?” he growled. Suddenly even the damp heat of the day seemed suspicious and unnatural. Maybe he was starting at shadows—but maybe he wasn’t. With the Rulers, he couldn’t be sure.

  Before Marcovefa could answer, a Bizogot woman named Faileuba came up to the shaman from atop the Ice and said, “I don’t feel good.” She didn’t sound good; her voice was a sickly whine. She didn’t look good, either. Her face had a hectic flush, and she swayed on her feet.

  Marcovefa set the palm of her hand on Faileuba’s forehead, then jerked it away again. “Fever,” she said. “Very much fever.”

  A big blond man called Eberulf lurched toward Marcovefa, too. “Something’s wrong with me,” he muttered. Before Marcovefa could touch him, he keeled over. He looked the way Faileuba did, only worse.

  “Disease?” Hamnet Thyssen said. “Or sending?”

  “Sending,” Ulric answered without the least hesitation. “Has to be. Everything fits together too well. And . . . Do you remember the Rock Ptarmigans?”

  “Yes.” Hamnet wished he didn’t. The Rulers had destroyed the whole western clan with a sorcerous pestilence the year before. What their dead encampment looked like when Trasamund’s band found it was the stuff of nightmares.

  Marcovefa said, “Yes,” too. She nodded to Count Hamnet. “Go get Liv and Audun. I don’t care if they’re screwing—go get them. I need their help. This is as very bad a magic as I have seen from the Rulers.”

  “Right,” Hamnet muttered. He didn’t know why Marcovefa had picked him to run her errand—to rub salt in his wounds? But whatever he felt would have to wait . . . unless he wanted to start feeling the way Faileuba and Eberulf did. He hurried back to the hut his former lover and the Raumsdalian wizard shared.

  They were both outside it now, looking worried as they tried to tend
to a couple of sick Bizogots. “I don’t care what Marcovefa wants—we can’t come right now.” Liv sounded harried. “I don’t know what these poor people have. Whatever it is, it’s nasty.”

  “It’s worse than nasty. It’s sorcery from the Rulers,” Hamnet said. “Ulric thinks it’s the same sorcery that wiped out the Rock Ptarmigans. So does Marcovefa. She says she needs your help.”

  “Good God!” Audun Gilli exclaimed. Was he shocked by remembering what had happened to the Rock Ptarmigans or by the idea that Marcovefa might need anybody’s help? Count Hamnet wasn’t sure which was more startling, either.

  “Well . . .” Liv seemed to think that was a complete sentence. She nodded to Audun. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Nothing,” he answered. The Bizogots they were trying to treat protested feebly. Audun spoke to Hamnet in Raumsdalian, which they were unlikely to understand: “Best thing we can do for these poor buggers is block that sorcery . . . if we’re able to. Marcovefa needs help? God!” So that was what was on his mind. Hamnet Thyssen couldn’t pretend he was surprised.

  Several Bizogots called out to Liv and Audun as they hurried along. The pangs seemed to be hitting more mammoth-herders. Seeing people around him suffering, Count Hamnet examined himself for symptoms. How could you help doing something like that? He felt fine. A heartbeat later, he felt guilty for feeling fine.

  Liv blinked when she saw Marcovefa. Hamnet had forgotten she wore no tunic—and if that didn’t prove the Rulers’ magic had him worried, what the demon would? Ulric Skakki was still on his feet, and seemed fine. Maybe the Rulers were aiming at Bizogots alone. Maybe it was nothing but coincidence.

  “What do you need from us?” Liv asked Marcovefa.

  “Do you know the yellow stone called lynxpiss?” Marcovefa answered.

  “Yes,” Liv said, at the same time as Audun answered, “It isn’t really lynx piss, you know. It’s a stone like any other.”

  Marcovefa’s nostrils flared. “I asked of it by its name, not by its nature. Use that lynxpiss stone against the fever. And if you have a lodestone, it will also help ward against perils of death. Quick, now—no time to waste.”

  “What will you be doing?” Liv asked.

  “I will punish those who send this wicked shamanry,” Marcovefa replied. Then, for one of the rare times since Hamnet had known her, she hesitated. “If I can,” she added. “Here, for once, the Rulers are almost as strong as they think they are. This is shamanry different from anything I ever saw up above the Glacier.”

  Liv and Audun started arguing about where they might have stowed the lynxpiss stone. Audun dashed off. He returned in triumph with a transparent yellow crystal. Liv kissed him. Hamnet Thyssen did a slow burn. Didn’t she have more self-respect than that? His own current lover stood there bare-breasted, but that was different. Hamnet might not have thought so till Liv kissed Audun, but he did from then on.

  “A lodestone,” Liv said. “Does anyone have a lodestone?”

  “I have a little one,” Ulric Skakki said. “Here.” He pulled a small, rusty-looking stone from a pouch on his belt and tossed it to Liv. The shaman deftly caught it.

  “Why have you got a lodestone?” Hamnet asked.

  Ulric only shrugged. “Well, they’re fun to play with. And they’re interesting. And you never can tell when something will come in handy. It’s like a holdout knife, you know? You can go for years and years without ever needing a holdout knife. But when you need one, you’ll need it bad.”

  Liv and Audun were using the lodestone and the yellow crystal—what was it really? tourmaline?—on a sick Bizogot. The Rock Ptarmigans’ shamans must have tried something like that when their people fell ill. Much good it had done them. Count Hamnet wished that last handful of words hadn’t crossed his mind.

  But he couldn’t pay attention to Liv and Audun, or even to his own worries, for long, because Marcovefa said, “Hamnet—I need your help.”

  He started. “Whatever I can give you,” he said.

  “Your strength. Come stand by me. Set your hand on my bare skin. . . .”Marcovefa suddenly laughed. “There? Well, if you want. It will do. I can draw from you. I try not to take too much.”

  What happens if you do? Hamnet wondered. Maybe he didn’t want to know. Maybe, if she took too much, he would just quietly fall over dead. He shrugged. So what? It was an easier end than most of the ones he could imagine.

  He could, or thought he could, feel strength flowing out of him and into her. No—out of him and through her. Her right arm speared out toward the northwest. She might have been aiming at an enemy warrior. She might have been, but the range here was far longer and the effort required far more.

  Because she was drawing on Hamnet’s strength, he could sense some of what she was doing with it. The link between them was stranger but in a way more intimate than when their bodies joined in the usual fashion. He felt her long-range grapple with the Rulers’ wizards. They were trying to down her with the same sickness that had felled so many Bizogots. In his mind’s eye, he saw the sickness as a greenish miasma. Whether that had anything to do with reality, he couldn’t have said.

  Marcovefa herself might have been the sun: not the sun of the Bizogot steppe, not even the sun of Nidaros, but the hot, fierce sun of the southwestern desert where the Manche bandits skulked. If she could burn through that ugly, roiling miasma . . . It would be like a fresh breeze blowing away the nasty, humid air that oppressed the encampment.

  He wondered if the vile weather and the vile sickness were connected. One more thing that wouldn’t have surprised him.

  But the roiling green stuff he imagined he saw didn’t want to burn away. Indeed, it clung ever tighter to Marcovefa. If it could seize her before she could dispel it . . . He didn’t know what would happen then. He did know it wouldn’t be good.

  Without being asked, Ulric Skakki took his left hand. The adventurer’s strength flowed through Hamnet and into Marcovefa. No, the shaman from atop the Glacier wasn’t mocking the Rulers and their wizardry any more. Maybe this wasn’t the fight of her life, but it was the toughest one she’d had since descending to the plains the Bizogots roamed.

  Maybe Ulric’s strength tilted the balance. Before, Marcovefa had struggled to hold her own against the Rulers’ sorcery. Now she blazed brighter and brighter in Hamnet’s imagination—if that was what it was. The choking fog surrounding her, clutching at her . . . Did it start to fade, or did it draw back as if in fear of the spiritual glow that came from her? Hamnet had trouble putting it into words, but both amounted to the same thing.

  “Ha!” she cried aloud. Across however many miles it was, Hamnet Thyssen felt the Rulers’ wizards flinch away from her. That cry might have been Trasamund’s fearsome two-handed sword, swung with all the furious power the Bizogot jarl had in him. “Ha!” Marcovefa said again. The enemy wizards broke and fled her strength—those who could. In much more mundane tones, Marcovefa told Hamnet, “You can let go of my tit now, thank you very much.”

  He did. “You broke them,” he said.

  “Yes. I did.” But she didn’t take it for granted, the way she once had. “You gave me good help—both of you did. And I thank you for it.” Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she crumpled to the ground.

  VII

  ONLY TWO BIZOGOTS died of the sorcerous plague. Audun Gilli and Liv did all they could; Count Hamnet thought they succeeded better than anyone could have expected. They weren’t satisfied. Wizards seldom were satisfied with anything short of perfection.

  Marcovefa was not only dissatisfied, she was also furious—and more than a little frightened. “They could have killed me,” she told Hamnet that evening in the hut the two of them shared. “They should have killed me. If they made their plague strike me first, maybe they kill us all, the way they killed the Rock Ptarmigans.”

  He nodded. “That’s what enemies try to do, you know. I’m glad they didn’t think to make you sick first—or maybe they couldn’t at long range.”

&nb
sp; “Maybe.” She sounded dubious, and still very angry. “They aren’t supposed to be able to do that to me!”

  Hamnet Thyssen sighed. “Everybody except you has been saying, ‘The Rulers are dangerous,’ all along. You’re the one who’s been going, ‘No, no, they’re easy. I can beat them with one hand tied behind my back.’ ”

  “And I’ve done it, too!” Marcovefa’s pride flared. “Except when I got hit in the head, I’ve done it every time.”

  “A good thing, too. We’d be ruined if you hadn’t,” Count Hamnet said. “But even if you have beaten them every time, it won’t always be easy. There are lots of them, and only one of you. And even if you think they’re bad wizards, they’re better than anyone else down here below the Glacier except you. You need to be careful, the same way you would have up on the Ice. The shamans from those other clans up there were as strong as you were, right?”

  “Oh, yes. Some of them were stronger,” Marcovefa said at once. “But they were—are—of my own folk. Not these Rulers. Do you like to think your horse is smarter than you are?”

  “Hold on!” Hamnet held up a hand. “The Rulers are the ones who call everybody else ‘the herd.’ They think they can do whatever they want with other people because they think other people are just beasts. I don’t want us to think that way. If we do, how are we any better than they are?”

  Marcovefa gave him a sharp-toothed grin. “They are much uglier.”

  Stubbornly, Count Hamnet shook his head. “That’s not good enough. Curse it, I’m serious about this.”

  “Yes, I see you are. But I wonder why,” Marcovefa said. “Is it that important?”

  “I think so,” Hamnet said. “Up on the Glacier, suppose another clan made a great magic by eating some of its own people. Would you use that same kind of sorcery yourself?”

  “Eat its own people to make magic?” Marcovefa looked revolted, which made Hamnet sure he’d picked a good example. “No, we would never do that. That would be wickedness itself. It—” She broke off and sent Hamnet a sour stare. “All right. I see what you are saying.”