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by A. A. Attanasio

  The Furor selected a dwarf as weapons master,

  because he does not trust any of the gods. No weapons are allowed at Home, except those carried by the chieftain.

  Hunting implements are permitted in the Great Tree only during the Wild Hunt.

  The Furor has not forgotten how he came to power,

  and he keeps well guarded the metal arms designed to

  slay gods.

  Thus, the weapons master of the Aesir is Brokk, the

  most diligent and cunning of the dwarfs. He fashioned the Furor's arm-ring, whose flawless mirror surface cleverly extends the one-eyed god's vision deeper into his blind side. Also, Brokk is fabled for his ingenious self-propelled vehicles, such as the power launch Skidblade that can sail the Gulf and circle the earth in half a day.

  No one, the Furor reasons, can trick a mind as

  inventive as this dwarf's, and that is why the chieftain of the Aesir has installed Brokk on the bleak arctic island that bears the arsenal of the gods.

  Answerable only to the Furor, Brokk lives an ideal

  life for a dwarf, rich in solitude and resources. He busies himself daily overseeing the dwarfs who assist him in the workshops and the elfin slaves who labor with the smelter-pots and forges.

  Rarely does he visit the arsenal and then only to

  examine and maintain those lethal tools. Even more rarely is his industry disturbed by the wailing alarm that warns of intruders.

  Several times in the past, the Liar and his cohorts

  have attempted to break in. Each time, Garm, the slavering wolf-ogre, has sent them scurrying away in terror, back to their soft lives in the World Tree. Brokk has not once had to leave the work caverns.

  But on this day, when the slicing wail stops, there is no victory howl from Garm.

  The clarion chimes of the beckoning horn call for

  him. Only the Furor has ever blown the beckoning horn, for none other can approach Garm and not be torn apart. Yet Brokk well knows that the alarm would not have sounded for the chieftain. Who blows the horn?

  The dwarf, muttering imprecations at this

  disturbance, gruffly pushes away from his stone worktable, where gems glint among calipers, clamps, and peelings of metal. He waddles across a cavern lit by fire-shadows from kilns in surrounding grottoes.

  At a stalagmite slotted with levers, he seizes a fur

  rag and buffs a crystal sphere big as a skull set in the stone at eye level for the dwarf. The crystal picks up a static charge from the fur, and it breathes light. The inside of the sphere fills with a vaporous view of the island above.

  A stately woman waits on the flaking shale before

  the cave entrance that leads to the factory and arsenal.

  Brokk sees at once that she is not a god. Her long, wind-tangled tresses of white hair and the imperfect symmetry of her angular features fit a human countenance.

  Snow blows in pieces big as petals, and she shivers

  the palest shade of blue in her white fur robes. High above her reach hangs the golden tusk of the beckoning horn, secured to the mountainside with scarlet ropes faded

  brown, each braid thicker than the stranger's body.

  Brokk scans the vicinity for whoever blew the horn

  and finds Garm sprawled belly down on the flint-toothed beach. The wolf-ogre's fanged face sleeps, its devil eyes hooded in deep, skeletal sockets. Swirling brume clings like steam to its black horns and quill-bristling hide and beads to dew in the snarl-folds of its leathery muzzle.

  The horn sounds again, deep and commanding as

  though the Furor himself calls. In the viewing crystal, Brokk looks at the cave entrance and sees only the pale woman standing bravely in the snowfall. An enchantress, he

  assumes, and pulls the lever that opens a man-size portal within the granite wall of the cave. He knows how to deal with such intruders.

  Once the woman enters the portal, Brokk pulls

  another lever, and the floor beneath the stranger gives out.

  The dwarf waits until he hears the satisfying crash of plummeting rocks in the pit, like a throb of thunder in the cavern walls. Then, with a lopsided grin, he turns back toward his worktable.

  "I have come for the sword."

  Brokk hops about, startled, and hops again when he

  sees the pale woman across the cavern. She steps out of a slant-hole in the wall, a smoking chute that ventilates the slag pit below. Calmly, she walks toward him, and the dwarf and elfin workers among the beehive-forges vanish into the trembling shadows.

  "I have come for the sword Lightning."

  "That is the Furor's sword!" The dwarf laughs darkly to disguise his fright, and places a hand on the lever that controls the glowing smelter-pots. "Who are you, impudent stranger?"

  "I am Rna, queen of the Flint Knives."

  "Flint Knives?" The dwarf watches her advance past the forges and into the depressed staging area, where the pots pour. "The last Flint Knives died on this island more than thirty thousand years ago, my lady."

  Brokk throws the lever that spills the smelter-pots,

  and startling bursts of gold fire slosh over the ancient queen, obliterating her in the glare. For an instant, a greater being stands in her place. Huge as a god, it fills the cavern's height, and its body burns with rays of inner

  dimensions, weird, inspiraling facets and smoldering plasmas the dwarf has never seen in any god. Giant and staring, the being's eyes carry within their dark, enveloping depths naked starcores.

  The dwarf winces. When he looks again, the white

  queen passes unscathed through a fiery veil of molten ore and mounts the steps toward his gallery.

  "Who are you?" he screams, no longer attempting to hide his fear.

  "I am Rna, queen—"

  "No! You are some more vast being." Brokk's clenched face relaxes with the numbness of a realization.

  "You—" He steps back, clutching at his leather apron, shaking his domed head. His jaws and eyes feel rusted open, and it is moments before he can speak. "You are a Fire Lord!"

  The woman brushes sun-bleached hair from her

  pale eyes, and the dwarf regards the age scars obscured by glamour. This close, her baked lips and hollowed

  cheeks look mummified.

  "I am Rna, queen of the Flint Knives. I have come for the sword Lightning."

  *

  Among wall trophies of swords, spears, bronze face

  masks, and maps in the war room of the City of the Legion, Ambrosius reveals to Gorlois and his field officers his strategy for the conquest of Britain.

  "Most of your men will stay here in the west to hold the Saxon Coast with the help of the Celts while we march on the midlands with the men pledged us by the other

  coloniae."

  "You don't have enough men to take the midlands,"

  a young voice speaks from the oaken doorway.

  On the settle Merlinus shares with Theo, the wizard

  sits up taller when Morgeu confidently enters the war room.

  She wears a knee-length leather tunic secured about her small waist by a brass-studded dagger-belt. And, with her crimped hair tied off to a bright topknot, she looks not unlike a young and dangerous barbarian warrior.

  "Scoot, girl," Ambrosius admonishes, and points to the door. "This is a war council."

  "Steady, Ambrosius," Gorlois speaks up from the table map where he is scrutinizing the campaign itinerary.

  "My daughter is equal to any man in strategy and tactics.

  She has proffered me valuable insights on numerous

  forays in council and on the field. I daresay, she is a war savant and you'd do well to heed her advice."

  Ambrosius cocks an eyebrow. "Morgeu, is it?"

  "You haven't enough men," she repeats, and strides to her father's side. "The coloniae have given you puny pledges. Each colonia has promised you only a handful of men. They are too wary to commit any more to an

  unproved warlord. I
f you leave my father's soldiers here in the west, you will be commanding only a skeleton force.

  With the attrition to be expected from clashes with the barbarians, you'll be whittled away long before you reach the River Tamesis."

  Gorlois smiles darkly. "She's right, you know. I am the only one who has offered you a substantial force. You can't afford to leave my men behind."

  "I can't afford not to, Gorlois," Ambrosius discloses.

  "As you'll see from the campaign itinerary before you, we will be away through the winter. I don't dare leave the coasts unprotected that long. I can't afford a war on two fronts. No. You will come with me, Gorlois. I need your field counsel and expertise in battle. However, the bulk of your force must remain here to protect our back."

  Morgeu smirks. "You cannot hope to drive back the Northmen and the Saxons with the token force the coloniae have pledged you. Have you any idea of the numbers

  arrayed against us? The Picts alone are massed in the thousands. You will command fewer than five hundred."

  "I am pledged 437 foot soldiers," Ambrosius reveals.

  "And I have 156 cavalry I have trained myself."

  Morgeu looks to her father and his officers and rolls her eyes. "You will be spending this winter hiding in the coloniae, not conquering the frozen lands around them."

  "This girl is right enough," Ambrosius admits. "That is, if I were to fight conventional forays as you and the barbarians expect. I know my enemy better than that."

  "None know the barbarian better than we," Gorlois asserts and nods to his battle-scarred officers: lean, pugnacious men with salt-bleached hair and woe-dark

  stares obedient to death. "I tell you, they are not like the strike-and-run bandits you chase down around here. The Gaels will fight to the last man, even if you kill their leader."

  "Especially if you kill him," an officer adds. "They fight to die. Battle death guarantees passage to their pagan heaven. The Gael never retreats."

  "Never?" Ambrosius queries.

  "Never," Gorlois affirms.

  Ambrosius claps his hands. "Perfect! I have heard as much and hoped for it to be so."

  The duke's warriors pass dubious glances among

  themselves.

  "If they flee, our work will be so much harder,"

  Ambrosius explains. "But if they stand and fight, there will be a great slaughter. We will exterminate them."

  "Ambrosius—" Gorlois places a restraining hand on the younger man's arm. "My daughter has already told you, we haven't the men—"

  "For a conventional battle—yes." Ambrosius stalks across the room, gazing into each of the battle-hardened faces before him. "The key to our victory is the horse.

  These are sea rovers and hill-fighters we are confronting.

  They loathe the horse. If they ride at all, they ride into battle and dismount to fight. To them, it is unmanly to strike at a distance with rocks or arrows. Their warrior's code demands that they fight hand-to-hand combat. But we are not sea rovers or hills' men, are we?"

  He grins evilly and draws his hands back, miming a

  bow and arrow. "We know the skill it takes to ride and shoot. And there is nothing cowardly for us in slaying our enemies from afar." He releases the invisible arrow at the precocious young woman. "Is there?"

  "156 horsemen?" Morgeu despairs. "That's all you have—against thousands!"

  "There will be others," Ambrosius promises. "When we have won our first battles, we will have many more recruits. And, besides, we are not going to fight all the barbarians in one battle. They will come at us in hundreds, one engagement at a time, believing we are a helpless skeleton force, as you say. And we will choose open

  terrain, high on the river plains, where our cavalry can run circles around the enemy. The courageous hill warriors will stand and fight—and they will die."

  Again, gruesome admiration glows on the jowly face

  of Gorlois. He locks gazes with Ambrosius and absorbs the veracity of the young warrior's lethal scheme. The

  astonished officers rise from their settles to gather around the campaign map and ogle the sites that have been

  carefully chosen for the famous slaughters to come.

  Morgeu stands apart. She regards Ambrosius with a

  hot light in her eyes, and her stare gleams with an almost-amorous brimming for the slaughter he promises. Soon, she will see for herself the majesty of conquest that the duke has extolled all her life. Soon, she will partake of the blood ritual that will forever set her apart from her mother, the rite of war that will make her Roman.

  *

  "I am afraid for my father," Morgeu whispers to the indifferent stars. She sits in the garden outside her chambers waiting for the summons to dinner. The sheer

  fabric of her evening gown breathes with the night's coolness.

  The sky's luminous darkness configures a face, a

  carbon visage with eyes two bubbles of void. Fumes of stars froth from the vortex of silence that is its mouth.

  Lailoken breeds calamity. Calamity for the father.

  In earlier trances, deepened by dreaming potions,

  she has spoken with this face. It is Ethiops, a demon comrade of Lailoken's from his former life. The demon and Morgeu want the same thing, to free Lailoken from his mortal bonds.

  Morgeu hates her mother for abandoning her father,

  whom she loves with all her soul. Ygrane has the magic to save him, to protect him from harm in the field, to

  strengthen his battle luck. Cruelly, she has forsaken the duke.

  And she has forsaken her own daughter as well.

  Because Morgeu cleaves to her father, Ygrane has taken away the unicorn. She hoards its beauty and power for herself and for Lailoken, her slave.

  To counter the influence of Ygrane's spirit reckoner, Morgeu has hired witches to teach her to commune with demons. She has found Ethiops, and he will help her.

  Already, the demon has given her power, enough to

  strengthen her trances, yet still too little to ignite the sight.

  She wants to see the timewind that blows her and her

  father east, toward war. She wants to see how to protect them.

  She lacks the magic to see anything more than this

  face of fluid darkness. The sinuous intensity of it taps her sensual root and draws up a chill, magnetic sap from out of her own secret happy darkness.

  Her maid calls from indoors. It is time to go.

  "Tonight," she promises Ethiops, rising to her feet, feeling him already inside her, compressed into the hot space of the deepest part of her. "You will have me again tonight.

  And by your sure strength, we will free Lailoken from earth."

  *

  At dinner that night in the lantern-lit peristylum, Morgeu behaves with the gentle grace of a well-schooled fourteen-year-old. No word of Ygrane or Celtic magic or war plans.

  Dressed in a slinky white camisa that clings to the gentle swipes of her young breasts and hips, she appears seductively feminine. She has elaborately braided her red-gold hair in Roman fashion. With sophisticated patience

  and subtlety, she draws Ambrosius' favorable attention to her presence and even elicits several gentle smiles from him.

  When Gorlois and Theo retire and Ambrosius sits in

  the war room poring over his maps and terrain reports and only the servants walk about the rooms clearing the tables where the duke's guard dined, she appears in the wizard's chambers. Naked under a sky foggy with stars, she looks like a piece of moonlight in the garden, her hair an aura of smoke about her cold face, a wisp between her legs.

  "Do you remember, Lailoken, how I thought you

  were an angel when I first saw you?" Her voice does not come from any place but from within the wizard, and by that he knows she is an apparition, perhaps for his eyes only. She smiles with half her face and fills his heart with dreadfulness. "It was then I realized you must be a wizard.

  Remember?"

 
; Merlinus rises from his couch and pulls his sleeping

  gown tighter about himself.

  "I've learned a great deal since then, Lailoken." She drifts closer, a shadowless vapor voluptuously lit from inside. "I've spoken to some of your friends. Ethiops—

  Azael. They miss your company. They tell me you are

  making a king for my mother. Is that true?"

  "Leave me alone."

  "Ambrosius will never have my mother," Morgeu says confidently, with a hauteur that frightens him. "Your sorcery may be strong enough to make him king—but mine is strong enough to make him mine."

  "Why?" he asks. "Your mother herself set me this task."

  "My mother already has a good man in my father."

  Her stare kindles like starsmoke. "But she doesn't know how to love him. She is a Celtic dreamer and doesn't even know what her magic is for. She doesn't deserve another strong Roman. You should not be serving her, Merlinus.

  Come to me. Be my wizard. I am the one foreseen by the ancient prophecy. I will know how to use Ambrosius—and I will fulfill the foretelling. Then, the fiana will follow me, the Sid will give me their magic, and I will be the next high queen of the Celts."

  Merlinus clutches his staff and advances onto the

  porch and into the garden. "You know I will not abandon my task, Morgeu."

  The wraith grimaces. "You are no wizard, Lailoken.

  You are a demon—no different than the others. You just pretend to be human. Do not think you can cross me. I command demons."

  Merlinus widens his stance and presents his staff

  lengthwise as if he could block a specter. "I don't wish to fight you, Morgeu, but if I must, I will."

  "Your fighting ends here, demon," she declares, and her eyes flare with small lightnings that makes him wince in pain. "I want you out of mortal flesh and back into the void where you belong. Back to the darkness with you!"

  A thunderbolt jags through his body, and he jerks

  upright to his toe-tips, eyeballs rolling back into skull-dark and welder's fire. He collapses, his heart slamming to escape his rib cage, all breath gone. Death holds the scepter of his spine in an icy grip, and darkness closes in to claim its own.