Snowbrother (14 page)

Slowly, a measure of calm returned. No blasting spell withered him, and strength returned to his shaking limbs. Carefully he used his ax to close the lid of the chest and backed into the first chamber, calling on the Mighty Ones by the secret names the shaman had told him at his adulthood ordeal. He had always made the sacrifices the law prescribed and never broken discipline or turned his back in a fight. Surely the gods would protect him.

In fact… yes, merest chance had brought him here, sheer luck, and there was often the will of a god or spirit in luck. Perhaps he was chosen to find this spot of foul spell-wreaking so that it might be cleansed. Should he set the fire himself? No, it would be better to let the Chiefkin decide. The Mek Kermaks were descended of the gods themselves and knew how deal with such matters.

Of course, there could be no question of remaining here for the night as he had planned.

That thought set him shuddering anew. Best to head back at once. He had gone far enough west to know where the river emerged into territory he had hunted over before, and there would be no difficulty in guiding the main party through to the steppe.

Pushing his remounts, he could be back in the village in a few days, and in the meantime his hide sleeping bag under the clean stars would do.

Swinging back into the saddle, he held to a steady pace as he rode down his backtrail.

He sternly suppressed an impulse to gallop, but the sense of menace was so strong that he made no check on his cache of venison; the wolves could have it for all he cared, so long as he put distance between himself and the spell-hut. Once back on the pack snow of the river he heeled his mount into a canter.

The haste saved his life. The watcher trailed back from the cabin, uncertainty growing into rage. Yet this was the hungry season and the venison was tempting; when the man passed under the cache the thought of its passing beyond the watcher's reach almost triggered attack. When he left and returned to the river it was enough like withdrawal to damp the sense of territory violation and take the edge off killing anger. The smell of meat was rank and sweet, irresistible. It settled down to feed.

Snow was falling, soft and thick and straight. Huge puffy flakes spilled down out of the darkening sky, batting at faces like kitten paws; sound was muffled, until the hiss of ski and crunch of poles spiking down into the deeper layers sounded hushed and remote through the cold dampness of the air. None of the Minztans minded much; shadows flitting between the trees, they stroked tirelessly onward with the smooth sustaining rhythmic stride of hunters. There was a comfort to the silent closeness of the snow, and a peace.

The man the others called Leafturn speeded his pace, until he drew level with Narritanni.

"Old Bone Place ahead," he said, matching breath to movement.

The commander nodded, and signaled. Soon the first travelers broke through a narrow screen of underbrush into a clearing perhaps a thousand meters broad, traced with lines of mound and wall too regular to be natural. Normally they would have avoided the ancient buildings, but there was need and they had an Enlightened One with them.

Besides, these ruins had been sparingly mined for some time; their folk had fewer taboos about such workings than most, since there had been little of the lingering death hereabouts. That was natural enough. These woods had had no targets worth a missile, and most of the real fighting had been beyond the atmosphere. Still, the dwellers here had found some way to die; it had been easy, that year when nine-tenths of humanity had fallen. It might have been hunger, in a world turned night-black and icy, or the flaying sunlight that followed when the clouds lifted. Or the diseases that had scythed through famine-weakened populations; some of those had been gene-tailored to lie dormant for generations as spores in tainted ground. Or they might have been overrun by starveling refugees from the south, hungry enough to kill for a few cans or the meat on the villagers' bones.

Three millennia had not been enough to soften the memories of terror; the Minztans were uneasy as they settled in to camp, unrolling their sleeping bags and kindling small fires in sheltered corners and nooks. Their own ancestors had suffered less than most; they had been smallholding farmers and craftsfolk by choice, reviving old skills that had stood them in good stead, and remoteness had sheltered them from the worst of the chaos that followed the death of the cities. Even they had been surprised at the degree of their dependence on the urban-industrial civilization they despised, but enough had survived to form the nucleus of a new people, a core for refugees and the last survivors of the tribal folk to form around.

The Adept found a corner that should be sheltered from any wind, dug a clear space, spread a pelt, and watched with calm approval as Narritanni oversaw the band. No fire was kindled where it could be seen from any distance, and careful watch was posted; he was glad to see that his folk were not placing undue reliance on his skills. That would be a dangerous crutch. Narritanni slid up to Leafturn's resting place, kicked his boots out of the ski loops, and braced the skis upright on the poles. One of the volunteers brought them both wooden bowls of oatmeal laced with maple sugar, dried fruit, and nuts. They pulled horn spoons from their belt pouches and ate with the silent intensity of those who had worked long and hard in bitter cold. The Minztan commander threw back the hood of his winter jacket and turned his face to the sky.

"My thanks," he said, with the flakes catching on his cropped yellow beard. "I was surprised you suggested this place; I thought the Old Ones' makings were the death of magic. All the iron."

The Adept scrubbed out his bowl with snow, filled it again, and leaned it near their fire to melt. "The snow's taking care of itself," he said easily. "It just needed a little push. Plenty of wet in the air, wind from the east… snow weather for the next week, I should think."

Narritanni drew his sword and considered the edge. It was a double-bladed weapon, as long as his leg from mid-thigh to foot; the guard was a steel strip with a ring welded on.

After a moment he decided against honing. It would never do to oversharpen; you could thread the edge or wear past the strip of hard steel
welded onto the core. He took out two small flasks and began to coat the blade with a dull-colored liquid from one.

The Adept continued, "As for the iron…" He spread his hands and closed his eyes for a moment. "Less trouble than you might think; most of this place was plain brick or wood, not steel-rod-in-stone. It would be a problem if I had to do anything active, but a passive watching is all I need. The Eater, now, he'll be handicapped; anything he does will go against the grain. I doubt he could touch us here."

Narritanni smiled; that was good to know. Also that the Wise Man was intelligent as well. The two talents did not necessarily go together.

Leafturn sensed his thought. "Some of my… colleagues make too much of the Mysteries," he said. "We're no more immune to self-importance than most humans." He chuckled. The war leader noticed again how the ageless face seemed younger when it laughed. Odd, because that showed the fine network of lines that grooved it, through the roughened woodsrunner texture of the skin.

"For that matter," the Adept went on, "the worldheart is
made
of iron."

He smiled at the other's surprise. "Not a useful piece of knowledge, but we can… feel the influence. It shields the earth from the
things-beyond
, the dwellers in the Dark Between, and it's not strong enough to hamper the Wreaking." He glanced around. "And here, it's the Pattern that hinders."

"I thought Wreaking moved with the Harmony," Narritanni answered. He himself knew little of such matters, less even than the average uninitiate, since he had spent so much time among outlanders. It was rare for an Adept to say so much, and he did not intend to lose the opportunity for knowledge.

"Yes, but…" The Adept paused, musing. "It's a matter of dispute, whether the world was different then, or the folk." His hands moved in circles. "We perceive the world, and our seeing shapes it. The Old Way was against all magic—they wouldn't have built buildings that were cages of cold iron if it wasn't!— and the… world-seeing sank into everything they made. I can feel it here, faint, still locked into the patterns of their makings. Crumble the stone, reshape the iron, and the Pattern becomes ours; wind and weather and rain will do it, more slowly. Which shows how alien the Old Ones were to the Harmony of all that lives…"

A companionable silence followed, until Narritanni. less comfortable without words, spoke.

"So, what can we await from the Eater, once we're closer?"

"Not much," Leafturn said. "Nor the Kommanza from me, with him there. He's likely to be more skilled in war-wreaking and such vileness, but the Otherworld here will work for me, so—" The Adept's words cut off like a knife.

Alarmed, Narritanni watched his pupils flare, then shrink to pinpoints. In a single smooth movement Leafturn came erect, wheeled to face the west, and stood tree-still. At last he shook himself, strode to the nearest cookfire, and fetched back another bowl of porridge and a mug of sweetened herb tea.

He ate quickly. "I'll not be staying here in camp this night," he said.

"What—what happened?" Narritanni asked. It would be very bad for morale if the Adept began acting strangely… and even on short acquaintance he was sure that
this
Adept did not start at shadows.

"I don't know," the Adept answered.

Already, the friendly fellow traveler was changing
into something remote, ungraspable.

Narritanni felt the Adept's withdrawal from matters physical, like an adult who leaves the games of children when serious business calls.

"Something… stirred. Something monstrous, and I was so clever I put myself in the one spot for a month's travel where I could not See clearly. I'll be walking the woods tonight; the body needs fuel, when you push beyond the natural limits. Nothing for nothing. And he was gone.

His second joined Narritanni by the fire. "What's bothering him?" she asked as she settled in by the flickering light. "I saw him going by as if the Bent One was on his trail, then he… faded."

He shrugged. "Something about a threat. Circle give thanks
I'm
a practical man and no more Harmonious than most; it makes for fewer worries. No trouble; we're well outside the line of the Kommanz scout screen, and I doubt he'd be in much danger even if we weren't."

"No change in plan?"

"No. We need more information on their route and strength before we do detailed contingency calculations."

She was silent for a moment. "Thought you might be interested in this," she said.

He took the object she offered: it was a beautifully-made spearhead of glass, pressure-flaked and notched at the base for binding into a spearshaft. The glass itself was unfamiliar, green and very clear. Fragments of binding showed around the notches, a peculiar cord like nothing he had ever seen before, not woven at all. Some Minztans used stone points; they were cheaper than iron and required less care. More of their cousins among the wandering hunting tribes of the north did so. Neither could have made this; they ground and polished stone tools rather than flaking them, and the style was wrong.

"It was in the heart of a dead tree some of the volunteers broke up for firewood," she said.

"Stone-maple—an old stump, growing out of the ruins."

"Not of the Old Times," he said; they would have used metal, long since rusted away—or reforged, even if it were of the peculiar steel that did not rust.

"No, but I think that's Ancient glass," she said.

Narritanni shivered slightly, turning it over in his hands.
Plastic
, the bindings must be.

Perhaps the spearhead was made by some of the first ancestors of the Minztan folk…

How long
? he wondered. Time enough for the Ancients to vanish out of the memories of peoples less past-bound than his; time enough to redevelop the art of flaking stone in a world where metal was scarce, but where Ancient glass and plastic could still be salvaged. Then to be discarded, for a great tree to grow around it, and die, and wait uncounted years to be found. He shivered again, more deeply. How many peoples had washed over this borderland? He turned the blade again, firelight catching glints off it.

Three tens of centuries…

He yawned deliberately and slipped into his bag. "Wake me at third watch."

It was after sunset when the Kommanza gathered in the largest kinhall. Most heat and light came from the cunning Minztan stoves and lanterns, but a log-fed blaze crackled and boomed under a center-set smokehood. That fire cast unrestful shadows on the ranked figures around the walls, gleaming off polished silver and fine fabric; tonight they came dressed in the best they had brought along, and the pick of the loot. Even the poorest had a gilt armlet or string of colored beads; the wealthier were gaudy with plaited headbands, embroidered blouse-tunics, belts and boots of tooled and studded leather, massive necklaces of silver and turquoise. Every Kommanza was there to garner a share of the luck and holiness; only the posted sentries and unfledged youngsters brought along to do squire service were absent.

More silent than was their wont, the Stonefort war-band waited. They were unarmed, not even carrying the belt knives that were as much tool as weapon; to bring iron would displease the Mighty Ones. This was a stark people, who saw their gods in their own image:
quick to anger, implacable in revenge, jealous of privilege. Gods greedy for sacrifice, demanding fear and awe rather than love.

Around the circle of their ranks the shaman danced. He was naked, save for headdress, loincloth, and the rattles strapped to wrists and ankles. Bright paint daubed patterns over his body; the drum tapped patterns under the sound of a bullroarer that he whirled around his head. At the last, he took a bowl from the hands of his unwilling and temporary acolyte and passed it to each of the warriors; the herbs were the jealously guarded secret of his guild, prepared in solitude, tasting harsh and burned. The dregs were thrown on the fire, and a hush of expectation settled over the throng.