Young Warriors (2 page)

Captain! Oh, how wonderful it would be to lord it over my brother!

The offered gifts just kept getting better!

Better and better . . .

“I thank you, Lord,” I said. “But I must continue and deliver my message.”

The next time that he stopped me, the owner of Rain Mountain offered me a general's cape. I almost took it. The third time, what he offered was the manikin scepter of Lord Tayomam's line.

I looked at the gift as he offered it. He held the scepter as if it were an ordinary stick of wood, not the emblem of divinity on earth inlaid with colored stones.

“I am not of noble birth,” I said.

“With this,” the owner promised, “you would be.”

I would be a ruler of men, the warrior above all warriors. The warrior in charge of a battle that was about to begin.

I reached out to touch the scepter.

But what did I really know about being a warrior, much less the commander of a city? My people were about to be attacked. Who was I to replace Lord Tayomam at such a time? Perhaps part of thinking like a warrior was also knowing one's limits.

“No,” I said, withdrawing my hand. “Though your offer is most generous . . .”

“You are wise,” said the owner of Rain Mountain. “There is a greater prize yet than being a great lord of men. Do you want to know what it is?”

What did I care now? I had pushed his offered gifts beyond the limit of what I could accept. “O Lord of the Mountain, tell me. Tell me what is greater than to rule over men.”

“To live in peace,” he said. He smiled. “Come, then, and visit with me awhile. Tell me the doings of men. Tell me about these messages you have carried. We will eat and drink and smoke. And then I will give you the gift of peace. City will not fight against city. There will be no raids, no sieges . . .”

No glory for the warriors, I thought. No praise for the takers of captives.

No risk of putting on armor, facing an enemy, and dying.

Tears brimmed in my eyes. This was a thought I had kept hidden. I had almost hidden it from myself. Of course I had imagined that once I became a warrior, I would kill; I wouldn't be killed. I would take captives; I wouldn't be taken captive and sacrificed. Of course I would not be one of the many warriors who died.

I knew that every young warrior must think this way.

Some young warriors were wrong. Some died.

Many died.

The owner of Rain Mountain must have looked into my heart to see my thoughts. I said, “Really? I could live in peace?”

He smiled. “Come into my house.” He put his hand on my shoulder to guide me toward the doorway. “We will drink and eat. We will talk and smoke, and talk some more . . .”

Time for a mountain is a different thing from the time of a man.

I drank from the gourds of the owner. I ate strange and delicious meats from his bowls. I smoked his cigar, which smelled of flowers. It seemed that we passed an hour or two together. I told him of the coming war, and also of the message I was carrying to my brother. He laughed. He laughed both times.

When I came out of his house, it was into the light of dawn. That surprised me. Could I really have spent an entire night in conversation? I turned to remark on this, but the owner was gone. In the shadows, there was no stone house.

I continued down the mountain. I sought the place where Baxmal and Chulchun had hidden themselves and spied. But I couldn't find them. And when I climbed into the trees to peer down at the city of Scaled Jaguar . . .

There was only jungle. Dense jungle everywhere, over what had been fields. Trees covered the palaces and temples. They looked just like tiny hills.

The roads back to my own city were overgrown. Jungle came down to the banks of the river, as if no one had ever cut firewood there. In the valley of my home, it was the same as with the city of Scaled Jaguar. Everything was overgrown. I could find no sign of any other human being.

Birds and monkeys called to one another.

I was alone.

This was the Lord of Rain Mountain's gift of peace.

BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS

BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS lives and writes in Eugene, Oregon, the tie-dye capital of the world. He speaks Spanish, and his visits to Mexico and Central America have inspired his interest in the pre-Columbian cultures of that region. “My mesoamerican fantasies are only loosely based on real cultures, ” he says, “just as Tolkien's work is loosely European. It seems funny to me that heroic fantasy writers largely stick to European settings when we have the entire world's traditions of magic and heroes to explore.”

Bruce's fiction is all over the map. Some of it is science fiction, some is fantasy, some is literary. He has written mysteries, experimental fiction, and work that's hard to label. Bruce has won the Pushcart Prize, two Nebula Awards, and the Bram Stoker Award. He is probably best known for his short-short stories, some of which appear online at
www.shortshortshort.com
. He is married to Holly Arrow, a professor of social psychology at the University of Oregon. You can learn more about him on his personal Web page at
www.sff.net/people/bruce
.

THE MAGESTONE

S. M. and Jan Stirling

FARE TOSSED THE BUCKET of kitchen scraps over the
Osprey
's rail, then paused to stare out across the heaving green-gray waters, fascinated. He'd never before been more than a day's walk from the farm where he'd been born, and now it seemed like a vanished dream. Even seabirds didn't come out this far. It was like walking on the beach searching for clams and driftwood, yet not like it. There he walked on the water's edge and looked out across it westward; here the creaking, pitching round-ship was a tiny wooden chip lost in an endlessness of foam and salt-smelling spray without form or direction.

Fare reached into his tunic and pulled out the strange stone his mother had given him the night before he'd left, holding it out until the chain pinched the skin on the back of his neck.

The chain's silver,
he thought. Worth more than the stone, but . . .

The stone was gray, ridged in subtle patterns that hinted at a multicolored shine, like the inside of an oyster shell almost worn away by the sea.

“Your father found it in a fish's belly and carried it for luck,” his mother had told him, putting it in his hand. With a soft smile, she'd folded Fare's fingers over it. “He left it with me, for luck in childbed, when he left on his last journey. It kept him safe while he carried it; let it do the same for you.”

He sighed at the memory. It had been lucky that his uncle had come to take him as an apprentice trader. The work was just as hard and constant, but at least it was a change from the south end of a northbound ox. And in a few years he wouldn't have to do all the scut work, which, as the youngest and least experienced hand, was presently his lot.

“Thanks, stone,” he said, grinning—he was just fifteen summers this coming solstice.

Beyond the stone, water parted around the blunt bows of the little ship, forming a smooth swelling V . . . and in it a face, looking back at him.

Startled, Fare gasped, letting the stone fall back on his breast as he grasped the rail and leaned out for a better look. The face slid away, down the wake of the ship. Yellowed strands of kelp swirled, hiding it from him as it slid away. He raced to the stern, dodging bales and barrels, staring into the water, hoping for a better look. But even the clump of kelp had disappeared.

It had been a girl's face, the features slightly bloated, with strange eyes that seemed to gleam like metal. But she had been fair in spite of that.

She must have drowned. He'd seen bodies washed up on the strand.

“What did you see, lad?” his uncle Comgall called from the steering oar. His big weathered hands gripped the tiller with an easy flexing motion that belied the strength it took. “A seal?”

“The body of a woman, Uncle!”

“Where?” Comgall asked.

“Aft, now, in our wake!” the boy said, pointing.

Comgall shook his head, making a gesture to ward off her angry ghost. “There's nothing we could do for her, lad, but put her back in the sea. Back to work!”

“Uncanny,” one of the sailors muttered. They were coiling a length of tarred rope together, but the man looked up at a single patched square sail instead of speaking to Fare's face. “Best forget it.”

Fare nodded.
But she didn't seem dead,
he thought.
Those
silver-green eyes . . . they were uncanny.

He repeated the gesture his uncle had used, one against half-world creatures.

Neesha followed the small ship, letting its wake pull her along beneath the surface, listening to the grumble of its passage.

She had been scouting this sea-lane for her troop, looking for trouble in the form of their enemy, the Creesi, whose incursions into her people's territory had begun to take the form of piracy against humans.

Not that her people cared about humans. They just didn't want those curious and dangerous creatures to start hunting their kind. No doubt that was just what the Creesi planned.
Typically dishonorable,
Neesha thought bitterly.

What to do?
the mermaid thought. There'd been magic on that tubby little scow, strong magic and wild. All her people could sense such, whether they could use magic or not, and the touch of it had drawn her close. But never in her wildest imaginings had she expected to see the lost magestone itself!

Report it? Then:
No.
Odds were the ship would be gone, unfindably. Mother Sea was wide.

For longer than she'd been alive, the Creesi, a merfolk tribe of outcasts and madmen, had fought her people. It was in a battle with them that the stone had been lost, and with it a great deal of their high mage's strength. He himself had disappeared seven moons ago. The lesser mages said he was being held on an island by humans, which was surely impossible—he'd die if kept on land.

I'll take it myself !
she decided.
And bear it home triumphant!

“Lir's Shoal,” Comgall said, looking at the lighter green of shallow water over sand. His glance went to the west, where the sun gilded scattered cloud. “We'll anchor here for the night and make Kernow on tomorrow's tide.”

Stone-and-wood anchors splashed over the bow and stern.

“You take watch, lad,” Comgall said to Fare. “And no napping, mind! Wind, wave, or Saxon can come on you quickly.”

Fare felt himself swell with pride as he took a great spear from the rack by the single mast and made his way forward to the bows; Comgall and the three seamen wrapped themselves in their cloaks and settled down to sleep. The sun cast a last glittering road to the west; then it was moonlight and starlight, half seen through high scudding cloud.

Neesha settled low in the sea and watched, ignoring the slight sour taint that seepage from the bilge gave the water around the ship. When she sensed that the seamen's sleep was deep enough, she began to work the oldest magic known to her kind: the luring of a sailor into the sea.

It was tricky to work the spell on one human only, and she gritted sharp teeth in concentration. Suddenly her own small magic felt lifted, supported by something stronger.

The stone's helping me!
she thought in wonder. Legend told that it had a will of its own.
It wants to come home!

The human standing in the bow shook himself, yawned—and then dropped into the water in a swirl and gurgle of bubbles, the spear he'd been holding falling from his hand and vanishing in the darkness of the depths. The mermaid grasped his ankles and pulled him down. When they were deep enough so that even if he awoke he'd not make the surface before he drowned, Neesha pulled herself up his body to find the stone, hanging outside his tunic, glowing faintly. The light was bright enough to reveal that he was only a boy, probably no older than her own fifteen summers. The mermaid knew a moment of regret.

Steeling herself, Neesha reached for the stone—and was met with blinding white light and pain. Her mind screamed in agony; it was like being stung by thousands of jellyfish at once.

For a long moment she couldn't see, couldn't move, and only just kept herself from mind-calling to her mother—a cry that would have been heard by any merfolk in the vicinity, and there were likely more enemies about than friends.

Reaching up, Neesha grabbed the boy's foot and tugged him back to herself. She felt his chest move and she started, then looked at him more closely. His nostrils were flaring as he drew breath . . . but it wasn't water that flowed into his lungs; she could see a thread of bubbles bursting from his lips as he exhaled.

He's alive!
she thought, with a spurt of fear.
Magic!

Frowning, she reached for the stone again, slowly. As she approached it, sparkles of pain flowed over her hand and the stone brightened threateningly. Neesha withdrew her hand and stared at the human. The stone's glow faded; she blew bubbles as she considered the situation.

Legend didn't lie.

The stone most definitely seemed to have a mind of its own. Right now, that mind was made up about this human.
It wants to stay with him,
she thought. The stone brightened, as if agreeing with her.

Why?
she wondered angrily.

Wielded by her tribe's mage, Shashu, the magestone had created wards that kept them safe from all predators; it had been the luck of her people. Now the Creesi robbed and killed them with impunity. It was said that the Creesi had allied themselves with human pirates—proof that they were mad.

In an instant, it all came clear in her mind. This boy could go where she could not. If Shashu was being held on an island, the boy could bring the stone to the mage and help him escape.

Allying oneself with a human, though . . . She shuddered.
I'll bring him to my war chief,
she thought.
Let her decide.
At the thought, the stone's glow faded away.
What does that mean?
That I should go alone with this boy?
The stone brightened. A yes?
Then I'd be killed and you'd be in enemy hands!

This was stupid. For all she knew, the stone glowed and faded in a random fashion, and asking it questions made no difference. She
should
report back, as was her duty, dragging the stone and the human with her.

Then the boy awoke.

What a dream!
Fare thought. A very real dream, for he felt the wet cold of the depths and saw the strange face of the drowned girl before him. But he was breathing, and he felt as relaxed as if he were still in his hammock.

Then the trance broke, and he knew the dream was real. Before him was a mermaid, and she was trying to drown him! He lashed out with his fist, but she bent backwards, smacking him hard with her tail and sending him spinning through the dark water, the breath knocked out of him.

In the blackness, Fare didn't even know which way was up, and he couldn't breathe. The spinning had left him dizzy and sick. He began to thrash about in panic. Suddenly he was struck again—this time on the back of his head—and for a moment he knew nothing.

Neesha could almost feel sorry for the human. Despite her youth, she was the best in her troop in the combat art of Shi-se, and he was alone and defenseless. It was obvious that he couldn't see beyond a few feet in the dark water. But she didn't want to feel anything for him; she just wanted the stone. So she struck him again, trying to dislodge it; if he died in the process . . . how sad. She spun in the water, winding up for a killing blow.

The next thing Neesha knew, she was floating, feeling as if she'd run headlong into a cliff, with varicolored bubbles seeming to pop in front of her eyes. After a moment, she realized that the human was thrashing his way to the surface, and from somewhere she found the strength to go after him. She couldn't let him surface here, so close to the ship.

Grasping the boy by his belt and collar, she whisked him out to sea with powerful flicks of her tail. Neesha assumed the stone would see to it that the human kept breathing, but hoped it wouldn't.

When she thought they'd gone far enough, she surfaced and let him go. The boy sank briefly, then rose, spluttering and coughing. Neesha waited to see what he would do.

Fare gave a hoarse, involuntary cry as he tried to thrash away from the staring mermaid. Her yellow hair hung in ribbons, to cling to her naked shoulders, and even in his panic, Fare remembered the stories the older men had told him about lovelorn sea maidens. Surely if she'd just wanted
that,
she wouldn't have dragged him out to sea. Maybe she wanted to watch him drown. His chest heaved as he coughed and struggled to stay afloat, and to fight down terror as he kept choking. He was drowning and sensed darkness closing in.

Suddenly he felt calm. The fear was still there, but less overwhelming, as if he'd felt it yesterday instead of just now. His arms and legs began to move in an organized way that brought his head above the waves. Still, the water's cold leached his strength from him.

Without thinking, he grabbed the mermaid to keep himself from sinking, and she allowed it. Her eyes shone like a cat's in the moonlight.

Looking into those staring eyes, he snapped, “What do you want?”

“You help,” she said, and her voice was like a song, although her Brezh was strongly accented.

Fare blinked in surprise, then half laughed, half sobbed. “Help you?” He gestured at the emptiness around them. “How can
I
help you?”

A look of impatience crossed her exotic features. “Not here! On land. Pirates hold my . . .” She paused, obviously searching for a word. “Chief. You help save, I let you go.”

Once he was on land, why would he do anything she wanted? Fare sensed a trick here.

“Pirates on island,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

Ah! I knew there had to be something,
Fare thought. Even so. “Why would you trust me?” he couldn't resist asking.

Cautiously the mermaid reached out and touched the stone around his neck with a webbed and taloned finger.

“The stone? You want this?”

She cocked her head and stared, then nodded once.

“If I give it to you, will you swear to take me back to my ship?”

Again that slow nod.

Fare reached for the chain to draw the stone over his head. There was a crackle like lightning, a flash and burning pain. He screamed, and sank helplessly. A hand reached down and drew him up. He and the mermaid stared at one another.

The mermaid sighed. “You help,” she said, resignation in her lovely voice.

Fare shuddered. “What do you want me to do?”

What indeed?
Neesha wondered. This was madness! One mermaid warrior and one human boy against an island full of pirates and Creesi murderers. All because she
thought
it was what the magestone wanted.

All right, I know the magestone wants it.

Neesha pointed to the stone. “This help you. Give you breath below.”