In the Moons of Borea (9 page)

'A box?'

'One big enough to contain a man. A box shaped like this — ' and he drew a coffin-shape with his foot on the dirt floor. 'It's mine, taken from me by Ithaqua. I want it back.'

She nodded earnestly. 'Yes, I know something of your box -- but only tell me what you want with it, what you would do with it? Of what use is a box?'

'It is a device for travelling between worlds, for jumping backward and forward through time itself,' Silberhutte told her. 'My friend was questing after Elysia and had barely arrived on Borea when Ithaqua stole his travelling box away.'

`Elysia!' she seemed astounded.

`Elysia is — ' de Marigny began.

But Annahilde quickly cut him off. 'The home of the Great Elder Gods — I know, I know!' Now she grabbed their wrists tight in claws like steel traps. 'I thought when first I saw you flying in off the sea that someone had blown my own powders in my face. Now — ' She shook her head in amazement. 'Yours is the true magic!'

'Annahilde,' de Marigny urgently took her hands in his. 'Where is the time-clock — my box, I mean? I must find it.'

Her eyes narrowed and she peered at her visitors cannily before answering. 'Have no fear, you shall know the whereabouts of your box . . . in good time. Before that there is something you must do for me.'

`The Vikings have been here for thousands of years; Annahilde began. 'I know, for I am one who can read the old writings. It is all in the Two Books: in the Book of Earth the Motherworld and in the Book of Numinos. The histories were handed down from father to son until later, when Ithaqua brought others who had writing, and then they were written in words in the Two Books.' Here she closed her eyes and lay back her head, so that it was as if she quoted from a book in her mind:

`And it was Ithaqua brought the first men into Borea, and into Numinos, and many among the latter were Norsemen. This was before the time of the iron swords, but later they too came with men of the Motherworld brought into Numinos by Ithaqua. And the Wind-Walker said unto the tribes that he was their God and they would worship him, and in Norenstadt his pyramid altar was builded where it stands to this day.

`And the Vikings multiplied in Numinos and the tribes were many; for the Great God Ithaqua' (she spat these last words out, as she did whenever she spoke of the Wind-Walker) 'had filled the ocean with fishes great and small and had carpeted the islands with grasses and peopled them with animals, all for the needs of the Vikings. But Ithaqua was a hard God and cold, and at times he would take the loveliest daughters of the tribes for his own to fly off with them into the lands beyond the Great Ice Wall. Aye, but he rarely brought them back, and those he brought back were mazed and cold and rarely lived long.

`Among those that lived, several were with child, but such instances were always many years apart. Whole generations of Vikings would go by, and then, again, the Wind-Walker would get a woman with child. When born, all such spawn
of Ithaqua were freaks
or monsters, and all died with only one recorded exception. This child was so evil of aspect and inclination a black vampire from birth that pulled blood and not milk from its mother's breast — that the chief of her tribe tore it from her and put it down with fire.

'And lthaqua when he came again to Numinos and when his priests told him what had transpired — then it was that
he
destroyed the entire tribe which lived in that place; and his wrath and the storms he brought, which lashed all of Numinos, were awful in their might!

`And yet the tribes knew that the Storm-God himself would have put down his child if he had seen it, for he was desirous of a beautiful child and of human form . . . why else would he choose the loveliest girls with which to mate? Then, because of Ithaqua's unending cruelties — which were such that his comings were dreaded and his goings much applauded in secret and out of earshot of his priests — it came about that the tribes turned against their God and defied him.

`Parents were wont to hide away their girl-children, especially those of lovely aspect, when they knew that Ithaqua was due to walk the winds of Numinos once more; and the God's chill-hearted priests, even those priests given over utterly to his worship, they became prone to peculiar accidents and fatal misadventures in their master's absence. But in the end the Storm-God knew how his people worked against him, and he waxed wroth indeed!

`He set the tribes one against the next until all Numinos burned from end to end, and the fires of blazing settlements were hotter than the lava that bubbles on the Islands of Fire. And at the last, when the tribes of Numinos were
decimated, the Wind-Walker stood in the sky and laughed. He laughed — then rained down lightnings and sent storms racing across the ravished land and caused the very seas to wash the islands.

`And so all Numinos bowed down before him, and those who lived swore fealty to him, lest he destroy the Viking tribes forever . . .' Here Annahilde paused and got her breath before going on.

'These things,' she finally continued, 'are written. It is also written that at last Ithaqua looked on Numinos and saw the tribes were penitent. Then he brought others here who were not Vikings though much like them; sturdy men and women of the Motherworld, they were, whose weapons and culture and tongue were different; and it was seen that the Wind-Walker would change the blood of the tribes, would produce women of great beauty and strength to satisfy his lusts and bear him the offspring he desired .

They waited for her to go on, but she seemed to have talked herself out. Finally Silberhutte asked: 'And did he ever achieve his ambition? I think not, knowing how Armandra has never totally bowed to her father's will.'

`No, he did not,' she quickly answered, shaking her head in glad denial, 'though he surely tried. He made it law that the most handsome and strongest youths of the tribes — which were now called clans — could take only the loveliest girls for brides, so that their children in turn would be beautiful and strong and the maidens pleasing in Ithaqua's eyes. So it came to pass that after eleven generations an entire tribe or clan of chosen people had grown up and dwelled upon one especially green and beautiful island. And Ithaqua looked upon the maidens of this wondrous clan and was sorely tempted, yet he held off and bided his time while eleven more generations passed. And now at last there were two couples on the island whose perfection of form and feature was a
wonder to behold even in a clan whose least handsome member was beautiful, and both women of these couples were with child. The greatest seers of the time examined them, declaring that the children would be female.

`Then lthaqua came again to Numinos and went into the beautiful isle. There he set aside certain elders to serve the mothers of his hoped-for future brides, and having done so, he put down the rest of the clan — all of them, man, woman, and child — out of hand!

'He did this — for what good reason? — and all for naught. There had been much inbreeding in the isle's two and twenty generations, which previously had only shown itself in the infrequent birth of
a
beautiful idiot. Out of fear, these children the clan secretly put down. But now —

— Not only were the children of those last two unfortunate women imbeciles, they were also hideous; aye, and both of them girls, as had been foreseen! In a single blow — a blow delivered perhaps by the clean old gods of Earth — all of Ithaqua's plans were destroyed. And he saw what was become of his dream and went away from Numinos for long- and long. Then, when they thought he was gone forever and those who knew
the old
legends had turned again
to
serving the
olden gods of the
Motherworld, the
Wind-Walker returned and brought his
fearful oppressions back
with him.

`He
put
down
the worship of the Earth gods and their
priests and once again was wont
to fly away with and
ravish the loveliest maidens,
and
ever
and ever he sought
to produce a child in his
own and in Man's image. So things
stood for an
hundred years — until some sixty-three years
gone.' Again she paused.

`Sixty-three years
ago?' de Marigny prompted her.
`Something
happened then?'

'Aye, for that was when he brought a ship of the
Motherworld to Numinos;
and in that small ship were a
man and wife, two strong sons and a daughter of some
twelve
years. And they were the first people of Earth that Numinos had seen in over five hundred years. The wife was a lovely woman even in her middle years, the husband handsome, and the sons firm limbed and clever. And the girl-child was lovely.

'They were brought here, where Thonjolf's grandfather was the then chief, and some few years later the girl married a fine young man of the clan. Thin daughters came of that marriage, aye, and I was one of them . .

'You?' Silberhutte stared at her, intrigued by her story.

'Ah!' — I see what you are thinking,' the witch-wife cried. 'You wonder how I could possibly come of such a mating. Let me tell you that in girlhood I was not uncomely, that even now beneath the grime and the lines of age and pain I have beauty. But I am called "hag" and that is the way the clan knows me; it is the way I live, have lived since — ' Abruptly she stopped.

'Go on, Annahilde,' de Marigny again prompted.

'1 . . . I stumble blindly on, going ahead of myself,' she finally said. 'Let me continue in my own time .. .

'I grew to a woman and was taken to bride by Hamish the Strong. Two fine sons he gave me and loyal, who have cared for and protected me these six years since Hamish was taken. As for my sister, Moira: she was almost perfect in her beauty and goodness. No one was ever so kind, no soul ever so lovely, and if Ithaqua had seen her as she grew to womanhood, surely would he have taken her. But his comings were rare in those days and confined mainly to Norenstadt where he sat on his pyramid throne, and he saw Moira not.

'And so she too was wed, to a good and noble man of the clan, a learned man whose instructors were my grandparents brought to Numinos in their little ship; but she did not become pregnant by him until she was in her fortieth year. Then it was that Moreen was born, small and sweet and shiny like a little pearl — Moreen, whose tiny limbs were those of Earth and not the stretchy stilts of Numinos — Moreen of the Smile. And in her fifth year . . . then Ithaqua saw her.

'A child of five tender years, and already lovely as a flower. Fresh as the green fields and full of her mother's ways, she was the darling of her parents, the joy of the clan, the rose in the garden of Thonjolf the Elder's heart. Aye, for the present chief's father was so taken with the child that he had a house built for her family close to his own house, so that he could watch her at her play and laugh with her when she laughed, which was often.

'And when he came, Ithaqua saw her at play and lifted her up. He lifted her into the clouds in his great hand and gazed upon her curiously with his carmine eyes; and where other children would surely cry and beat their tiny fists and feet, that child of joy only laughed and pointed at the huge black blot of his head and tickled his bloated, taloned fingers! And the Wind-Walker — monstrous beast of hell that he is — seemed held in Moreen's tiny fist more tightly ever than he held her.

'Then at last he set her down close by her house and stood off in the sky above the settlement. For a long time he stood there astride the wind, gazing down upon Moreen where she played below and waved up at him, and a strange fascination glowed deep in his fiery eyes.

'Soon, unable to bear this thing any longer, her parents ran out, snatched her up, and carried her into the house; whereupon Ithaqua stirred himself up as if from a dream 'and walked off across the sky toward Norenstadt. And as he went, often he looked back . .

'Some time later, two yak-riding priests came plodding from Norenstadt, and with them a retinue of Viking warriors led by Leif Dougalson himself. At first, when they went to my sister Moira's house and asked to see the girl-child, it was thought that they intended to steal
little Moreen away. But no, instructed by Ithaqua, they had merely come to see the child. Then they spoke to my sister and her man; aye, and to old Thonjolf, too, come up with a body of men to protect the little one and her family if such were necessary.

`And the priests said to Thonjolf that his clan was honoured among all the Viking clans, for the Great God Ithaqua had found Thonjolf's people fair and pleasing — particularly the tiny girl-child Moreen, who one day would walk with him as his bride upon the winds that blow between the worlds!

`Then, when they heard this, though glances full of meaning passed between Moreen's elders and old Thonjolf, nothing against the plan was said; for after all nothing could be said, not at that time; and that night there was a feast and drinking and much praying for the peaceful propitiation of Ithaqua. The next day Thonjolf received Leif Dougalson's instructions to care well for little Moreen: it would go badly for all concerned were Ithaqua in any way thwarted in this matter, for it was known that the Wind-Walker would return again and again to Thonjolf's clan to watch the small one grow into womanhood.

`And the priests also spoke to my sister and her man, saying how well it were that the little one should grow up carefully protected and in innocence; and they issued a warning to all the clan that its sons be not tempted as Moreen grew to maturity. Then, before these most important visitors took themselves off to their rightful places in Norenstadt, the priests said how if they had their way, the child would go with them, but that Ithaqua himself had commanded that she be allowed to grow up within her family and clan according to her nature.

`Following their departure, how my sister cried! She wept and her man was distraught with horror, anger, and helplessness, and even the old chief shed a tear at the thought of the now inevitable fate of little Moreen. The entire clan, with the exception of a handful of callow or jealous wives, grew sad and morose, remaining thus for many a day. It was as though a great king had passed away, or as if 'each family had lost a favourite son or daughter all in the same disaster. And the only one to remain unchanged through all of this was the angel Moreen herself, for she was less than six years old and understood nothing at all of the matter — not yet.

`As for me: such were my own emotions over the thing that I think at times I went a little mad. And when these bouts of madness were upon me, I would see strange visions and utter weird warnings and omens. As time passed, I sensed a monstrous disaster looming — though its essence utterly eluded me — and I deliberately began to pose as a seer before the clan, so that not even my poor husband or sons saw through the trick. Yet it was not merely a mad game I played, no; for the approach of the unknown horror was very real to me, and I sought to escape it. And that escape lay in the fostering of my own image as a soothsayer and wonder-worker, a power among the people.

`Thus I set about to learn all manner of spells and conjurations, brewed vision-engendering potions; gathered the delirious pollens of rare and poisonous blooms; and because my grandparents from the Motherworld had been my tutors, passing on great wisdom and even greater curiosity to me, I also journeyed to Norenstadt and learned how to read the olden books, thus discovering for myself the legends of the Vikings and their coming into Numinos. And in this manner and by these means did Annahilde become a witch-wife.