by Jack Massa
Given the catastrophic freezewind summoned by the witch, Eben had figured it would take a day at least for the Larthangan crews to chop their ships free from the ice. But Kizier had suggested their opponents might have some witchery to melt the ice and free their vessels sooner. Amlina had offered no opinion on the matter. Indeed, the witch had said almost nothing since she screamed the freezewind into being in the harbor. She either sat meditating in the sleeping tent, or stood in the prow, staring solemnly over the luminous ice. At night, she slept fitfully, moaning, sometimes bolting upright with a shriek that woke the mates resting beside her.
Standing at the rail near the mast, Eben scanned the ice ahead and the sky full of stars. Rog, the red moon was waxing and hung half-full in the north. In Iruk lore Rog was the hunter moon, blood red, ever chasing swiftly across the sky.
Rog the red one
Scarlet knife
Leads us to game
Sustain our life
The chant rolled through Eben’s mind with the swish of the ice-runners. A footfall nearby made him turn. Glyssa paced near him. She was assigned the sheet on the opposite rail, but on these long tacks it was seldom necessary to adjust the ice-sail.
She took a deep breath of the frosty air and smiled. “I have missed sailing.” She spoke softly, so as not to wake the klarnmates asleep under the fur canopy. “I am glad we are all together again.”
“I’ve missed it too,” Eben admitted, “although, at the moment, my body aches so much it might prefer to be missing it still.”
“Too much slack living,” Glyssa whispered. “You’ll soon get used to the work again.”
“I hope so.”
“You are coming on to Larthang with us?” she asked, suddenly earnest.
“Oh yes, assuming you’ll have me.”
Her smile was heartfelt. “Indeed, we will.” She tilted her head back toward the tiller, where Brinda stood. “Do you think the sisters will come also?”
“That I cannot say,” Eben muttered. “Brinda, I think, will do whatever Karrol wishes. Her strongest urge seems to be keeping watch on her little sister. As to Karrol, she might decide one thing and then the opposite, as you well know. What she will decide when the moment comes when there’s no more chance to change her mind—that is anyone’s guess.”
Glyssa leaned her elbows on the rail. “I hope they will sail with us. It comforts my heart to have us all together again.”
Eben gave a fond smile but made no other reply.
Out of the silence, they heard Amlina moaning. For a moment, Eben thought she might cry out, but then she subsided into sleep again.
“The witch seems greatly troubled,” Eben murmured. “She was like her old self when we faced the Larthangans at the farmstead, but since then …”
“Her sickness seems worse,” Glyssa agreed. “If one can call it a sickness.”
“Power from the blood magic eating her up inside?” Eben said. “I don’t understand it. But then I’ve never claimed much understanding of shamans and witches.”
“I don’t really understand it either. It feels as though she is haunted. But the ghost is herself.” Glyssa shook her head. “I only hope she can find healing in Larthang. If not, I fear this ghost will destroy her.”
Brinda called the order to come about. With a nod, Glyssa hurried back across the deck. As soon as she untied her sheet, Eben loosed his line and strained his back to pull the yard about. By the time the ice-sail was set on the new course and the sheet retied, his back and shoulders were screaming.
Under the tent, Amlina cried out, murmured, then groaned as she sank back to sleep.
Eben stared into the sky. In his restless longing for new adventure, he had foolishly forgotten the hardships and the fears. Rog hung among the stars like a bloody, half-shut eye. Grizna, the larger moon, was waning and had yet to rise. While Rog was the hunter, Grizna was the Mother moon, strong and stable, believed to be the home of the Great Mother. Eben recalled another chant:
Grizna Mother Moon
Watch over and protect
Your children on the sea
Guide us safely home.
Blue flames sputtered and flickered on the surface of the oil. Amlina stared at liquid swirls of color below the flames. Wrapped in a bear-fur, she sat with shoulders hunched at the edge of a round stone hearth. Overhead, the dome of the lodge house curved upward, hide walls stretched over the ribs of a giant sea beast. Daylight shone at the circular opening in the roof where the smoke escaped.
Despite the fire and fur wrapping, Amlina shivered. By Kizier’s calculation, it was the fourth day of First Summer. In the mid-latitudes of the world, temperatures were rising. But here in the Iruk Isles, close to the South Pole, the weather remained frigid.
For five days and nights the party had sailed from Fleevanport. The freezewind Amlina had raised in the harbor had spread out from shore. No doubt it had merged with a seasonal front blowing from the South Pole. In any case, the whole voyage the seas had stayed frozen, so the journey was swift. With wind blowing steady from the south, the boat had tacked along the edges of reefs and jutting rocks that Draven said formed the edge of the Iruk archipelago. Half a day later they had landed on Ilga, the home island to Draven and his mates.
The isle was low and rocky, sedges and stunted conifers the only vegetation. Hunting klarns lived in round lodge houses built along the beaches. Those who did not hunt—elders, young children, and “village women”—lived in a settlement at the center of the island. As was the custom, people had hurried down to the shore to greet the arriving boat. Amlina and Kizier were introduced to the Iruks’ kinfolk, including Draven’s mother and the mother of Karrol and Brinda. Amlina and her friends presented the elders with gold, a gift that was most prized for the oil, metal, and luxury items it could purchase in the Tathian ports. The party was greeted with a hospitality close to reverence. Strangers visiting from the sea, Draven had explained, were sacred to the Iruks. This lodge house, near the center of the village, was immediately vacated for their stay. In the evening a feast of welcome was held in the Long House, a wide structure in center of the village where the elders lived.
Now, the day after their arrival, Amlina sat alone and attempted to meditate. The Iruks had gone out at first light to visit with kinfolk and trade for provisions for the long voyage ahead. Kizier, carrying pens and a writing book, had followed the mates, anxious to learn all he could about the Iruk culture.
Amlina welcomed the solitude. Since the flight from Fleevanport, she had existed like one in a dream, eating little, staring listlessly into space, constantly seeking the peace of meditation—and often failing to find it. What had happened in the harbor terrified her: first her failure to summon her magic, then the rage tearing free, inciting her to turn the Cloak’s power on her adversaries.
“Admit it,” Beryl’s voice rose like a vapor, taunting. “You enjoyed casting that freezewind, wrecking those boats, drowning your enemies. There is no pleasure so delicious as venting the rage, bringing forth terror and death.”
“I am not like you,” Amlina whispered. “Not so much as that.”
Beryl’s laugh mocked her. “You continue to deny your true self. But the denials grow weaker, Amlina. This long voyage on that pitiful little boat? Have you thought it through? Before it is over you will be killing your friends, feasting on their blood. You will have to be strong then, very strong, or they will kill you instead. What a sad ending that would make for a promising little witch …”
Amlina’s finger moved violently, a tracing warding sign in the air. “I am not you. I will not become you!”
Shaking, she stood and paced around the fire, rubbing her arms to restore circulation. When her mind had cleared she sat down again, tucking feet at her hips. She breathed slowly and deliberately, seeking to cast her awareness into the peaceful layers of the Deepmind. It was difficult, with no desmets or hanging mirrored balls to help her focus.
But at last her spir
it began to settle …
In her vision, she pulled opened a door flap and crept into a lodge house. This dome was smaller than the one where her body sat. The air was dark and smoky. Two figures sat by the gray stone hearth. One of them smiled warmly and held out her hand.
“Glyssa…”
“Yes. I want you to meet someone. This is Belach. As you are my teacher, so also is he.”
The bearded Iruk stood and bowed. Amlina thought she had seen him last night at the feast, an unassuming little man who kept to the shadows. Now he wore a black feathered cloak, a beaked mask over his forehead—and he seemed to shine with power.
He said something in Iruk, which Glyssa translated.
“Belach greets you and bids you welcome.”
Amlina bowed. The shaman gestured for her to sit, then resumed his seat beside Glyssa.
“I thank him for his welcome,” Amlina said. “And I thank him for caring for you, Glyssa. He has taught you well, much better, I think, than I have. You are my dear friend.”
Glyssa interpreted her words. Belach spoke again, and Glyssa blushed.
“Belach says you also have taught me well. That with your help, I have recovered from my wound and become a true woman of power.” He added something, and Glyssa said. “But he sees that now you, Amlina, are wounded.”
Amlina glanced down at her chest. Crimson worms writhed there, gnawing at her heart. She shivered. “Can I be healed?” she asked.
Before Glyssa could speak the question, Belach lifted his arms in their feathered sleeves. His body floated into the air and flew three times around the fire, his mouth making loud, clacking noises. Finally, he settled back on his feet.
He spoke and Glyssa translated, her tone hollow.
“Belach says it is difficult. He says you are tormented by … by nothing.” Glyssa faltered, questioned the shaman in his own tongue, then continued. “This is hard to understand. Belach says it is nothing, but it is a nothing you must let go of. He sees a long journey before you, a walk in dark places, before you can—before you let yourself—be free of this nothing.”
Amlina opened her eyes. With a shudder, she recalled the worms wriggling at her heart. She winced as the tightness and pain returned.
But the shaman’s words made her thoughtful. The thing that tormented her was nothing—what did that mean? From the highest perspective, of course, everything manifest in this world was nothing, merely waves of thought passing through the Deepmind. But how could she release this nothing that had seized upon her, this stain of blood magic? A long journey, a walk in dark places. Was that a vision of her sailing to Larthang, finding purification in the House of the Deepmind?
Amlina grasped at that notion as a faint ember of hope.
In the middle of the afternoon, Eben entered the guest house, accompanied by Draven and Lonn. They had finished loading the boat with supplies: frozen meat and fish, barrels of water and oil, tea and herbs and other sundries. They figured to be at sea two small-months at least before they could make landing on the Tathian Island of Xinner and restock.
Inside the lodge house they found Amlina, sitting alone, staring at the hearth. She had allowed the fire to go out. Draven glanced at the witch unhappily and knelt to light it again.
“Time to hold the meeting,” Lonn said to Eben. “You want to round up the others, or shall I?”
“Let’s both go,” Eben said, thinking it would be good to leave Draven and the witch some time in private.
Parting the door flap, they ambled outside, soft snow crunching under their boots. The village consisted of some twenty houses, a mixture of large and small domes, their size determined by the size of the yulugg whose ribs made up their frames.
The mates went first to the Long House. There they found Glyssa talking quietly with Belach, while Kizier sat furiously scratching words on paper. Lonn and Eben bowed respectfully to the shaman, who gave his blessing and wished them all a safe voyage.
In a lodge house at the far end of the village, they found Brinda and Karrol sitting over a fire with Oalasha, their mother. Oalasha was a stout old woman with a beaked nose and leathery face. A fierce warrior in her day, she had passed that characteristic down to both of her daughters. Eben knew that Brinda and Karrol both loved the old woman dearly—although Karrol had often complained of disagreements and conflicts, claiming that her mother was stern and cold. More than anything, Eben thought, it was the sisters’ attachment to Oalasha that had drawn them back to Ilga, and which might now cause them to decide against sailing with the klarn. Indeed, they seemed reluctant to leave the woman now, until Oalasha waved dismissively and grumbled they should go and have their meeting.
In silence, the Iruks walked back across the village to the guest house. The air was crisp, the breeze from the south, the sky a clear and whitish blue. Good weather for sailing, Eben thought, and that only added to the urgency to get underway. Good sailing weather would also help the ships hunting them.
Inside the dome Draven had gotten the fire going again. The mates sat down in a circle, Glyssa ladling out cups of water. Eben noticed that Amlina shook her head, refusing the offered cup. Kizier sat down at the edge of the circle. He requested that the Iruks conduct the meeting in Tathian, that he might understand their words.
“Very well,” Lonn said and rose to his feet. “The matter before us is simple. We are sailing the dojuk north, to bring Amlina to her homeland. I and Glyssa and Draven will sail—and Kizier of course. The only question is who else will come with us? Eben, Brinda, Karrol—I know I speak for the others when I say you are most heartily welcome. But, should you decide to not sail with us, there will be no hard feelings.”
Eben glanced at Brinda and Karrol, who both were looking down at their laps. With a sigh, he climbed to his feet.
“I may be, as Karrol recently commented, a scrawny mess. But I’ve missed our adventures, mates. We’ve seen a good part of the world together, and won some lovely treasure. But we have not seen Larthang, and who knows what treasure this voyage may bring. I certainly will sail with you.”
Glyssa, Draven, Lonn, and even Amlina smiled at him as he sat down.
Now all eyes turned to Brinda and Karrol. The two sisters regarded each other uncomfortably. Finally, Brinda stood.
“For my part, mates. I would like to go with you. But I cannot, for my heart, sail without Karrol. And the last I heard, she was still undecided.”
She sat down, everyone gazing now at Karrol. She grimaced, raised a hand and let it flop down. Finally, reluctantly, she stood.
“I am sorry. I want to sail with you. You are the best klarn I could ask for, and I love you all. But you’re talking about leaving our home, our kinfolk, our whole way of life—perhaps never to return. I’m simply not ready to do that. I only wish I had more time to decide.”
Frustrated, she sat down, leaving all of the mates quiet and grim. Then, to Eben’s surprise, Amlina stood.
“Karrol and Brinda, I understand. As Lonn said, we bear you no ill will. I wish we could give you more time to decide, but as you know, we are likely being pursued and must sail as soon as we can.” The witch turned to Lonn. “Will we be able to sail with so small a crew? I fear Kizier and I will be little help.”
“Hah, don’t underestimate Kizier,” Lonn smiled. “We will make a crewman of him yet. But anyway, the answer is yes. We’ll not be able to sail both night and day shifts, but we’ll surely manage.”
“Then there is just one other thing,” Amlina said. “I know you intend to reform the klarn before we sail. This time, I cannot take part in the ritual. Please know that I loved the closeness I felt with all of you when I joined the klarn before. But now my spirit is too out of balance—the klarn-soul might impair me further, or more likely, I might damage some of you. I dare not risk it.”
She was gazing at Glyssa and Lonn, whose faces showed surprise and perhaps hurt. Draven stood up beside the witch.
“Amlina has told me this already. I assure
d her that we would still sail with her. That we would not abandon her. I hope I spoke for the rest of you?”
“Of course.” Glyssa said. “Amlina, you have been klarn with us. That spirit will support and protect you still, whether you join us this time or not.”
The witch bowed her head and murmured. “I am grateful dear friends … to all of you.”
After a few moments of silence, Lonn rose to his feet. “I believe there is nothing more to be said. I suggest we pack our gear and head for the boat.”
Karrol and Brinda stood and watched as the others gathered up their belongings. Before leaving the lodge house, Glyssa came over and embraced them both.
“I will miss you, mates.”
Eben spotted moisture in her eyes as she turned away. She hurried to follow the others outside. Eben stayed behind, staring at Karrol and Brinda who were both holding back tears.
“You are fools if you don’t change your minds,” he said bluntly. “Have you thought about what it will be like when we are gone? Joining another klarn like that of Tallvis? It will end the same, and you know it. You’ll not find another klarn like this one. And you’ll be missing what could be the best adventure of your lives.”
“How can you agree to leave home and never return?” Karrol demanded.
Eben hoisted his bundle onto his shoulder. “This island is not home to me anymore. My home is with my mates.”
The dojuk lay on the beach, stakes and mooring lines holding it just above the shoreline. After stowing their gear on board, the four Iruks took spears and a water cup and walked a few paces up the snow-covered slope. Amlina and Kizier stood on the dojuk, watching them in respectful silence.
Standing in a circle, the mates thrust their spears into the snow. Lonn took the water cup from Glyssa’s hand and poured a libation over his spear.
