Coranda

KEITH ROBERTS

 

 

 

One of the most powerful talents to enter the field in the last thirty years, Keith Roberts secured an important place in genre history in 1968 with the publication of his classic novel Pavane, one of the best books of the sixties and certainly one of the best Alternate History novels ever written, rivaled only by books such as L. Sprague De Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall, Ward Moore’s Bring the Jubilee, and Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Trained as an illustrator—he did work extensively as an illustrator and cover artist in the British SF world of the sixties—Roberts made his first sale to Science Fantasy in 1964. Later, he would take over the editorship of Science Fantasy, by then called SF Impulse, as well as providing many of the magazine’s striking covers. But his career as an editor was short-lived, and most of his subsequent impact on the field would be as a writer, including the production of some of the very best short stories of the last three decades. Robert’s other books include the novels The Chalk Giants, The Furies, The Inner Wheel, Molly Zero, Grainne, Kiteworld, and The Boat of Fate, one of the finest historical novels of the seventies. His short work can be found in the collections Machines and Men, The Grain Kings, The Passing of the Dragons, Ladies from Hell, The Lordly Ones, Winterwood and Other Hauntings, and Kaeti on Tour. His most recent book is an autobiography, Lemady: Episodes of a Writer’s Life.

Roberts has visited the far future in other works, notably in the stories that went into making up The Chalk Giants and Kiteworld. The story that first came to mind when / was assembling this anthology, though, is the tense and darkly lyrical tale that follows, which borrows (with the author’s permission) the milieu of Michael Moorcock’s novel The Ice Schooner (which was serialized in Science Fantasy when Roberts was the managing editor; Roberts later sold this story to Moorcock when Moorcock was the new editor of the magazine New Worlds—the web of associations has a very fine mesh!) and takes us to a far-future Earth frozen back into barbarity by a new Ice Age for a taut story of a man obsessed with the hunt who discovers that to catch the prey you want the most, you sometimes have to pay a price greater than you can afford to spend … .

 

There was a woman in the great cleft-city of Brershill who was passing fair.

At least so ran opinion in that segment of low-level society of which she was undisputed queen. Though there were others, oldsters for the most part, who resented her beauty, finding her very fame an affront to decent living. Custom died hard in Brershill, most conservative—or most backward—of the Eight Cities of the Plain, the great ice steppe men had once called the Matto Grosso. And in truth Coranda had given some cause for offense. If she was beautiful she was also vain and cold, cold as the ice plains that girdled the world: in her vanity she had denied even that sacrifice most beloved of great Ice Mother, the first-blood that belonged to the goddess alone. Long past the time of puberty she was, and the ceremonies of womanhood; and still the Mother waited for her due. In the blizzards that scourged the cleft, in the long winds of winter, her complaint might be heard, chilling the blood with threats and promises. All men knew they lived by the Mother’s mercy alone; that one day, very soon now, the world would end, mantled for eternity in her sparkling cloth. Coranda, ran the whisper. Coranda, holding their lives in the hollow of her hand. Coranda heard, and laughed; she was just twenty, slim and black haired and tall.

 

 

She lay on a couch of white fur, toying with a winecup, mocking the young men of the cities as they paid her court. To Arand, son of the richest merchant of Brershill, she confided her belief that she herself was of the Mother’s Chosen and thus above the pettiness of sacrifice. “For,” she said, smoothing her long hair, “is not the Mother justly famed for beauty, for the perfection of skin that matches the fresh-laid snow? The darkness of her eyes, all-seeing, the slenderness of the hands that guard us all? And have I not”—she tossed her head—“have I not, among your good selves at least, some claim to prettiness? Though Eternal Mother forbid”—blushing, and modestly lowering her eyes—“that I should fall into the sin of pride.” Arand, more than a little drunk, straightway burbled her divinity, speaking heresy with the ease of long practice or stupidity till she swept from him indignantly, angry that he should speak lightly of the deity in her presence. “Will not the Mother’s rage,” she asked Maitran of Friesgalt appealingly, “descend alike on his head and mine? Will you protect me from the lightnings that fly in storms, lightnings such words may bring?”

That was a cunning touch, worthy of Coranda; for the animosity with which most Friesgaltians regarded the folk of Brershill was well known. Maitran’s knifeblade gleamed instantly, and would no doubt have brought the Mother a pleasing offering had not Brershill stalwarts pinned and disarmed the combatants. Some blood was shed certainly, from thumped noses and mouths, while Coranda regarded the wriggling heap with interest. “Now,” she said, “I think I must call my father’s men to punish; for do I mean so little to you all that you come here to my house and brawl?” She ran to the gong placed beside the door of the chamber, and would certainly have summoned an irate guard had not earnest entreaty prevailed.

“Well,” she said, tossing her head again in disgust. “It seems you all have too much spirit, and certainly too much energy, for my comfort and your own safety. I think we must devise a small occupation, something that will absorb your wildness and will no doubt bring a suitable reward.”

There was a quietness at that; for she had hinted before that marriage to some rich and worthy boy might at long last assuage the Mother’s need. She brooded, suddenly thoughtful, stroked hands across her gown so the fabric showed momentarily the convexities of belly and thighs. Lowered her eyes, glided swaying to the couch. They made way for her, wary and puzzled. Rich they all were, certainly, or they would none of them have passed her father’s iron-bound doors; but worthy? Who could be worthy of Coranda, whose beauty was surely Ice Mother’s own?

She clapped her hands; at the gesture a house-servant, blue liveried, laid beside her a box. It was made from wood, rarest of substances, inlaid with strips of ivory and bone. She opened it, languidly; inside, resting on a quilting of white nylon, was a slim harpoon. She lifted it, toying with the haft, fingers stroking the razor edges of the barbs. “Who will prove himself?” she asked, seemingly to the air. “Who will take the Mother’s due, when Coranda of Brershill comes to marriage?”

Instantly, a babble of voices; Karl Stromberg and Mard Lipsill of Abersgalt shouted willingness. Frey Skalter the Keltshillian, half barbaric in his jeweled furs, attempted to kiss her foot. She withdrew it smartly, equally sharply kicked him in the throat. Skalter overbalanced, swearing, spilling wine across the pale floor. There was laughter; she silenced it sharply, lifting the little harpoon again, watching from long lashed, kohl-painted eyes. She relaxed, still holding the weapon, staring at the ceiling in the fast blue flicker of the lamps. “Once,” she said, “long ago, in the far south of our land, a whaler was blown off course by storms. When the Ice Mother’s anger was spent, and she sent sunlight again and birds, none could make out where her breath had driven them. There was ice, a great smooth plain, and mountains; some of them smoked, so they said, throwing cinders and hot winds into the air. A very queer place it was indeed, with furry barbarians and animals from a child’s book of fancies, stranger than men could believe. There they hunted, spilling and killing till their holds were full and they turned north to their homes. Then they came on the strangest wonder of all.”

In the quiet the buzzing of the eternal fluorescent tubes sounded loud. Skalter poured himself more wine, carefully, eyes on the girl’s face. Arand and Maitran stopped their glaring; Stromberg thoughtfully wiped an errant red trickle from his nose.

“In the dark of dawn,” said Coranda dreamily, “in the gray time when men and ships are nothing but shadows without weight and substance, they met the Fate sent by Ice Mother to punish them their crimes. It surrounded them, flickering and leaping, soundless as snow, weird as Death itself. All across the plain, round their boat as they sailed, were animals. They ran and moved, playing; whole herds and droves of them, bulls and calves and cows. Their bodies were gray, they said, and sinuous as seals; their eyes were beautiful, and looked wisely at the ship. But without doubt they were spirits from the Mother’s court, sent to warn and destroy; for as they turned and leaped they saw each had but one horn, long and spiraling, that caught and threw back the light.”

She waited, seeming indifferent to her audience. At length Lipsill broke the silence. “Coranda … what of the boat?”

She shrugged delicately, still playing with the barbed tip of the spear. “Two men returned, burned by the Mother’s breath till their faces were black and marbled and their hands turned to scorched hooks. They lived long enough to tell the tale.”

They waited.

“A man who loved me,” she said, “who wanted to feel me in his bed and know himself worthy, would go to that land of shadows on the rim of the world. He would bring me a present to mark his voyage.”

Abruptly her eyes flicked wide, scorning at them. “A head,” she said softly. “The head of the unicorn … .”

Another pause; and then a wild shouting. “Ice Mother hear me,” bellowed Skalter. “I’ll fetch your toy for you … .”

“And me … .”

“And me … .”

They clamored for attention.

She beckoned Skalter. He came forward, dropping to one knee, leaning his craggy face over hers. She took his hand and raised it, closed the fingers gently round the tip of the harpoon. Stared at him, fixing him with her great eyes. “You would go?” she said. “Then there must be no softness, Frey Skalter, no fainting of the spirit. Hard as the ice you will be, and as merciless; for my sake alone.” She laid her hand over his, stroking the fingers, smiling her cat-smile. “You will go for me?”

He nodded, not speaking; and she squeezed slowly, still smiling. He stiffened, breath hissing between his teeth; and blood ran back down his arm, splashed bright and sudden on the weapon’s shaft. “By this token,” she said, “you are my man. So shall you all be; and Ice Mother, in her charity, will decide.”

 

 

Early day burned over the icefields. To the east the sun, rising across the white plain, threw red beams and the mile-long shadows of boats and men. Above, dawn still fought with darkness; the red flush faded to violet-gray, the gray to luminous blue. Across the blue ran high ripplings of cloud; the zenith gleamed like the skin of a turquoise fish. In the distance, dark-etched against the horizon, rose the spar-forest of the Brershill dock, where the schooners and merchantmen lay clustered in the lee of long moles built of blocks of ice. In the foreground, ragged against the glowing the sky, were the yachts; Arand’s Chaser, Maitran’s sleek catamaran, Lipsill’s big Ice Ghost. Karl Stromberg’s Snow Princess snubbed at a mooring rope as the wind caught her curved side. Beyond her were two dour vessels from Djobhabn; and a Fyorsgeppian, iron-beaked, that bore the blackly humorous name Bloodbringer. Beyond again was Skalter’s Easy Girl, wild and splendid, decorated all over with hair-tufts and scalps and ragged scraps of pelt. Her twin masts were bound with intricate strappings of nylon cord; on her gunnels skulls of animals gleamed, eyesockets threaded with bright and moving silks. Even her runners were carved, the long-runes that told, cryptically, the story of Ice Mother’s meeting with Sky Father and the birth and death of the Son, he whose Name could not be mentioned. The Mother’s grief had spawned the icefields; her anger would not finally be appeased till Earth ran cold and quiet for ever. Three times she had approached, three times the Fire Giants fought her back from their caverns under the ice; but she would not be denied. Soon now, all would be whiteness and peace; then the Son would rise, in rumblings and glory, and judge the souls of men.

The priest moved, shivering in a patterned shawl, touching the boats and blessing, smearing the bow of each with a little blood and milk. The wind soughed in the riggings, plucked at the robes of the muffled woman who stood staring, hair flicking around her throat. The handlamps swung on their poles, glowing against the patched hulls, throwing the priest’s shadow vague and fleeting as the shadow of a bird. The yachts tugged at their lines, flapping their pennants, creaking their bone runners, full of the half-life of mechanical things. All preparations were made, provisions stored, blood and seed given in expiation to the ice. The hunters grunted and stamped, swinging their arms in the keen air, impatient and unsure; and to each it seemed the eyes of Coranda promised love, the body of Coranda blessings.

The ceremony ended, finally. The priest withdrew to his tasseled nylon tent, the polebearers lifted their burden and trudged back across the ice. The boats were turned, levered by muffled men with crows till the sharp bows pointed, questing, to the south. A shout; and Lipsill’s craft first blossomed sail, the painted fabric flying and cracking round the mast. Then the catamaran, Skalter’s deceptively clumsy squarerigger; quick thud of a mallet parting the sternline and Lipsill was away, runners crisping, throwing a thin white double plume from the snow that had drifted across the ice. Stromberg followed, swinging from the far end of the line, crossing his scored wake as Skalter surged across Princess’s bows. A bellowing; and the Keltshillian crabbed away, narrowly missing disaster, raising a threatening fist. Karl laughed, fur glove muffling the universal gesture of derision; the boats faded in the dawn light, swerving and tacking as they jockeyed for the lead. If the display moved Coranda she gave no sign of it; she stood smiling, coldly amused at the outcome of a jest, till the hulls were veiled in the frost-smoke of the horizon and the shouts lost beneath the wind.

The yachts moved steadily through the day, heading due south under the bright, high sun, their shadows pacing them across the white smoothness of the Plain. With the wind astern the squarerigger made ground fast; by evening she was hull down, her sails a bright spark on the horizon. Stromberg crowded Snow Princess, racing in her wake; behind him, spread out now, came the others, lateens bulging, runners hissing on the ice. The cold was bracing and intense; snow crystals, blowing on the wind, stung his cheeks to a glow, beaded the heavy collar of his jerkin. Lipsill forged alongside, Ice Ghost surging and bucking. Karl raised a hand, laughing at his friend; and instantly came the chilling thought that one day, for Coranda, he might kill Lipsill, or Lipsill him.

They camped together, by common consent; all but Skalter, still miles ahead. Here, away from the eternal warmth of the cleft-cities, they must husband their reserves of fuel; they huddled round the redly-glowing brazier, the reflection lighting their faces, glinting out across the ice. The worn hulls of the yachts, moored in a crescent, protected them from the worst of the wind. Outside, beyond the circle of light, a wolf howled high and quavering; within the camp was cheerfulness, songs and stories passing round the group till one by one they took a last swig from their spirit flasks, checked their lines and grapples and turned in. They were up early next dawn, again by unspoken agreement, hoping maybe to steal a march on Easy Girl; but keen as they were, Skalter was ahead of them. They passed his camp, an hour’s sail away. Ice Ghost crushed the remains of the brazier fire, the turned-out remnants still smoldering on the ice; one runner spurned the embers, sent a long banner of ash trailing down the wind. They glimpsed his sails once before the wind, rising again, blocked visibility with a swirling curtain of snow.

They were now nearing the wide cleft of Fyorsgep, southernmost of the Cities of the Plain. The smooth ice was crossed by the tracks of many ships; they shortened sail cautiously, shouting each to the next along the line. Hung lanterns in the rigging, pushed on again by compass and torchlight, unwilling to moor and give away advantage. Snow Princess and Ice Ghost moved side by side, a bare length separating them.

It was Stromberg who first heard the faint booming from astern. He listened, cocking his head and frowning; then waved, pointing behind him with a bulky arm. The noise came again, a dull and ominous ringing; Lipsill laughed, edging his boat even closer. Karl stared back as behind them an apparition loomed, impossibly tall in the gloom and whirling flakes. He saw the heavy thrusting of bowsprit and jibboom, the cavernous eyes of the landwhale skulls that graced the vessel’s stern. They held course defiantly as she closed, hearing now mixed with the fog gongs the long-drawn roar of her runners over the ice. Stromberg made out the carved characters on her bow: the Sweet Lady, whaler out of Friesgalt, bound no doubt for the Southern Moorings and a night’s carouse.

The jibboom was between the boats, thrusting at their rigging, before they were seen. An agonized howl from above, movement of lanterns and dark figures at the vessel’s rail; she rumbled between the yachts as they parted at the last instant, the long shares of her ice anchors nearly scraping their booms. They saw the torchlit deck, fires burning in crow’s-nest and rigging; and the curious feature of an ice-boat, the long slots in the bilges in which moved the linkages of the paired anchors. Dull light gleamed through her as she passed, giving to her hull the appearance of a halfflensed whale; a last bellow reached them as she faded into the grayness ahead.

“Abersgaltian bastards. . . .”

The skipper then had seen the big insignia at the mastheads. This Lady was anything but sweet.

The night’s camp brought near-disaster. Maitran came in late and evil tempered, a runner stay cracked on the catamaran, bound with a jurylashing of nylon rope. Some chance remark from Arand and he was on his feet, knife-blade glistening. He held the weapon tip-uppermost, circling and taunting his enemy. Arand rose white-faced, swathing a bearskin round one forearm. A quick feint and thrust, a leaping back; and Lipsill spoke easily, still seated by the fire.

“The prize, Friesgaltian, comes with the head of the unicorn. Our friend would doubtless look well enough, grinning from Coranda’s wall; but your energy would be expended to no purpose.”

Maitran hissed between his teeth, not deigning to glance round.

“You risk in any case the anger of the Ice Mother,” the Abersgaltian went on, reaching behind him to his pack. “For if our Lady is in fact her servant then this hunting is clearly her design, and should bring her glory. All else is vanity, an affront to her majesty.”

Hansan, the Fyorsgeppian, dark-faced and black-browed, nodded somberly. “This is true,” he said. “Bloodspilling, if it be against the Mother’s will, brings no honor.”

Maitran half turned at that, uncertainly; and Lipsill’s arm flailed up and back. The harpoon head, flung with unerring force, opened his cheek; he went down in a flurry of legs and arms and Stromberg was on him instantly, pinning him. Lipsill turned to Arand, his own knife in his hand. “Now, now, Brershillian,” he said gently; for the other roused, would no doubt have thrown himself on his prostrate enemy and extracted vengeance. “No more, or you will answer to us all … .”

Arand sheathed his dagger, shakily, eyes not leaving the stained face of the Friesgaltian. Maitran was allowed to rise; and Lipsill faced him squarely. “This was evil,” he said. “Our fight is with the wind and wide ice, not each other. Take your boat, and stay apart from us.”

In Stromberg’s mind rose the first stirring of a doubt.

They moved fast again next morning, hoping for some sign of Skalter’s yacht; but the wind that had raged all night had cleaned his tracks, filling them with fresh snow. The ice lay scoured, white and gleaming to the horizon.

They were now past the farthest limit of civilization, on the great South Ice where the whale herds and their hunters roamed. Here and there were warm ponds, choked with brown and green weed; they saw animals, wolf and otter, once a herd of the shaggy white bison of the Plains; but no sign of the ghostly things they sought. The catamaran reached ahead of the rest, the Friesgaltian reckless and angry, crowding sail till the slim paired hulls were nearly obscured beneath a cloud of pale nylon. Stromberg, remembering the split strut, sent up a brief and silent prayer.

Maitran’s luck held till midday; then the stay parted, suddenly and without warning. They all saw the boat surge off course, one keel dropping to glissade along the ice. For a moment it seemed she would come to rest without further harm; then the ivory braces between the hulls, overstressed, broke in their turn. She split into halves; one hull bounded end over end, shredding fragments and splinters of bone, the other spun, encumbered by the falling weight of mast and sail, flicked Maitran in a sharp arc across the ice. He was up instantly, seemingly unhurt, running and waving to head them off.

In Arand’s slow brain hatred still burned. He knew, as they had all known, that in a fight he was no match for the Friesgaltian. Maitran would have bled him, cutting and opening till he lay down and gasped his life out on the ice. They had saved him, the night before, but he had lost his honor. Now the rage took him, guiding his hands till they seemed possessed of a life of their own. They swung the tiller, viciously; Chaser swerved, heading in toward the wreck. Maitran shouted as the yacht crisped toward him; at the last moment it seemed he realized she would not turn. He tried to run; a foot slipped and he went down on the ice. A thud, a bright spattering across the bows of Chaser and she was past the wreck, yawing as she dragged the body from one sharp ski. Fifty yards on it twirled clear. She limped to a halt, sails fluttering. From her runner led a faint and wavering trail; her deck was marked with the pink blood of the Friesgaltian.

They gathered round the thing on the ice. Stromberg and the Djobhabnians stunned, Arand pale and mumbling. There was no life; the great wound in the head, the oozing of blood and brain-matter, showed there was nothing to be done. They made the sign of the Ice Mother, silently; turned away, anxious to leave the sight, left the body for her servants, the birds.

They were cheered later that day by the gleam of Skalter’s sail far to the south; but the camp was still a somber affair. They moored apart, sat brooding each over his own fire. To Stromberg it seemed all his past life now counted for nothing; they were governed by the Rule of the Ice, the code that let men kill or be killed with equal indifference. He remembered his years of friendship with Lipsill, a friendship that seemed now to be ended. After what he had seen that morning he would not dare trust even Mard again. At night he tried, unavailingly, to summon the image of Coranda’s warm body; pray though he might, the succubus would not visit him. Instead he fell into a fitful sleep, dreamed he saw the very caverns of the Fire Giants deep under the ice. But there were no gleaming gods and demons; only machines black and vast, that hummed and sang of power. The vision disturbed him; he cut his arm, in the dull dawn light, left blood to appease the Mother. It seemed even she turned her back on him; the morning was gray and cold, comfortless. He drank to restore circulation to his limbs, tidied his ship, left sullenly in the wake of Lipsill as he led them on again across the Plain.

As they moved, the character of the land round them once more changed. The warm ponds were more numerous; over them now hung frequent banks of fog. Often Snow Princess slushed her way through water, runners raising glittering swathes to either side. At breakfast the Djobhabnians had seemed remote, standing apart and muttering; now their identical craft began to edge away, widening the gap between them and the rest till they were hull down, gray shadows on the ice. By early evening they were out of sight.

The four boats raced steadily through a curling sea of vapor. Long leads of clear water opened threatening to either side; they tacked and swerved, missing disaster time and again by the width of a runner. Stromberg lay to the right of the line, next to him the Fyorsgeppian. Then Lipsill; beyond Ice Ghost was the blighted vessel of Arand, half-seen now through the moving mist. None of the boats would give way, none fall back; Karl clung to the tiller, feeling the fast throb of the runners transmitted through the bone shaft, full of a hollow sense of impending doom.

As dusk fell a long runnel of open water showed ahead. He altered course, following it where it stretched diagonally across his bows. A movement to his left made him turn. Bloodbringer had fallen back; her dark hull no longer blocked his vision. Mard still held course; and still Chaser ran abreast of him, drawing nearer and nearer the edge of the break. Stromberg at last understood Lipsill’s purpose; he yelled, saw Arand turn despairingly. It was too late; behind him, a length away, jutted the Fyorsgeppian’s iron ram. Boxed, the yacht spun on her heel in a last attempt to leap the obstacle. A grating of runners and spars, a frozen moment as she poised above the gulf, then she struck the water with a thunderous splash. She sank almost instantly, hull split by the concussion; for a moment her bilge showed rounded and pale, then she was gone. In her place was a disturbed swirl, a bobbing of debris. Arand surfaced once, waving a desperate arm, before he too vanished.

The sun sank over the rim of the ice, flung shadows of the boats miles long like the predatory shapes of birds.

In the brief twilight they came up with Easy Girl. Skalter hung in her rigging, leisurely reeving a halliard, waving and jeering at them as they passed.

All three vessels turned, Stromberg and Lipsill tightly, Hansan in a wider circle that took him skimming across the plain to halt, sails flapping, a hundred yards away. Grapples went down; they lashed and furled stoically, dropped to the ice and walked over to the Keltshillian.

He greeted them cheerfully, swinging down from the high mast of the boat. “Well, you keen sailors; where are our friends?”

“Fraskall and Ulsenn turned back,” said Lipsill shortly. “Maitran and Arand are dead. Maitran at Arand’s hands, Arand in an icebreak.” He stared at Stromberg challengingly. “It was the Mother’s will, Karl. She could have buoyed him to the land. She did not choose to.”

Stromberg didn’t answer.

“Well,” said Skalter easily, “the Mother was ever firm with her followers. Let it be so.” He made the sign of benediction, carelessly, circling with his hands, drawing with one palm the flat emptiness of the ice. He ran his fingers through his wild blond hair and laughed. “Tonight you will share my fire, Abersgaltians; and you too, Hansan of Fyorsgep. Tomorrow, who can tell? We reach the Mother’s court perhaps, and sail in fairyland.”

They grouped round the fire, quietly, each occupied with his own thoughts. Skalter methodically honed the barbs of a harpoon, turning the weapon, testing the cutting edges against his thumb, his scarred face intent in the red light. He looked up finally, half frowning, half quizzical; his earrings swung and glinted as he moved his head. “It seems to me,” he said, “the Mother makes her choice known, in her special way. Arand and Maitran were both fools of a type, certainly unfitted for the bed of the Lady we serve, and the Djobhabnians fainthearted. Now we are four; who among us, one wonders, will win the bright prize?”

Stromberg made a noise, half smothered by his glove; Skalter regarded him keenly.

“You spoke, Abersgaltian?”

“He feels,” said Lipsill gruffly, “we murdered Arand. After he in his turn killed Maitran.”

The Keltshillian laughed, high and wild. “Since when,” he said, “did pity figure in the scheme of things? Pity, or blame? Friends, we are bound to the Ice Eternal; to the cold that will increase and conquer, lay us all in our bones. Is not human effort vain, all life doomed to cease? I tell you, Coranda’s blood, that mighty prize, and all her secret sweetness, this is a flake of snow in an eternal wind. I am the Mother’s servant; through me she speaks. We’ll have no more talk of guilt and softness; it turns my stomach to hear it.” The harpoon darted, sudden and savage, stood quivering between them in the ice. “The ice is real,” shouted Skalter, rising. “Ice, and blood. All else is delusion, toys for weak men and fools.”

He stamped away, earrings jangling, into the dark. The others separated soon afterward to their boats; and Stromberg for one lay tossing and uneasy till dawn shot pearly streamers above the Plain and the birds called, winging to the south.

On its southern rim the Great Plateau sloped gently. The yachts traveled fast, creaming over untold depths of translucent ice, runners hissing, sails filling in the breeze that still blew from nearly astern. There would be weary days of tacking ahead for those that returned. If any returned; Stromberg found himself increasingly beginning to doubt. It seemed a madness had gripped them all, drawing them deeper and deeper into the uncharted land. The place of warm ponds was left behind; ahead, under the pale sun, shadows grew against the sky. There were mountains, topped with fire as the story had foretold; strange crevasses and plateaus, jumbled and distant, glinting like crystal in the hard white light. Still Skalter led them, mastbells clanking, barbaric sails shaking and swelling. They held course stubbornly, shadows pacing them as they raced to the south.

At the foot of the vast slope they parted company with the Fyorsgeppian. He had reached ahead, favored by some trick of the terrain, till Bloodbringer was a hundred yards or more in front of the rest. They saw the hull of the boat jar and leap. The smooth slope ended, split by a series of yard-high ridges; Hansan’s runners, hitting the first of them, were sheared completely from the hull. There was something tragically comic about the accident. The gunwales split, the mast jarring loose to revolve against the sky like an oversized harpoon; the Fyorsgeppian, held by a shoulder harness, kept his place while the boat came apart round him like a child’s toy. The remnants planed, spinning at great speed, jolted to a stop in a quick shower of ice. The survivors swerved, avoiding the broken ground, whispering by Hansan as he sat shaking his head, still half stunned. The wreckage dwindled to a speck that vanished, lost against the gray-green scarp of ice. There were provisions in the hull; the Fyorsgeppian would live or die, as the Mother willed.

For the first time that night the skyline round their camp was broken by valleys and hills. Still icebound, the land had begun to roll; there were gullies, hidden cliffs, ravines from which came the splash and tinkle of water. It was an eerie country, dangerous and beautiful. They had seen strange animals; but no sign or spoor of barbarians, or the things they sought.

Stromberg spoke to Skalter again at dawn, while Lipsill fussed with the rigging of his boat. He seemed impelled by a sense of urgency; all things, mountains and sky, conspired to warm his blood. “It has come to me,” he said quietly, “that we should return.”

The Keltshillian stood thoughtfully, warming his hands at the brazier, casting glances at the low sky, sniffing the wind. He gave a short, coughing laugh but didn’t turn.

Stromberg touched a skull on the high side of Easy Girl, stroking the wind-smoothed eyesockets, unsure how to go on. “Last night I dreamed,” he said. “It seemed as it has seemed before that the Giants were not gods but men, and we their children. That we are deceived, the Great Mother is dead. Such heresy must be a warning.”

Skalter laughed again and spat accurately at the coals, rubbed arms banded with wide copper torques. “You dreamed of love,” he said. “Wetting your furs with hot thoughts of Coranda. It’s you who are deceived, Lipsgaltian. Counsel your fancies.”

“Skalter,” said Karl uncertainly, “the price is high. Too high, for a woman.”

The other turned to face him for the first time, pale eyes brooding in the keen face.

Stromberg rushed on. “All my life,” he said, “it seemed to me that you were not as other men. Now I say, there is death here. Maybe for us all. Go back, Frey; the prize is beneath your worth.”

The other turned to look at the hulking shape of the boat, stroking her gunwale with a calloused hand, feeling the smoothness of the ivory. “The price of birth is death,” he said broodingly. “That too is a heavy sum to pay.”

“What drives you, Skalter?” asked Stromberg softly. “If the woman means so little? Why do you strive, if life is purposeless?”

“I do what is given,” said Skalter shortly. He flexed his hands on the side of the boat and sprang; the runners of Easy Girl creaked as he swung himself aboard. “Rage drives me,” he said, looking down. “Know this, Karl Stromberg of Abersgalt: that Skalter of Keltshill lusts for death. In dying, death dies with him.” He slapped the halliards against the after mast, bringing down a white shower of ice. “I also dreamed,” he said. “My dream was of life, sweet and rich. I follow the Mother; in her, I shall find my reward.” He would say no more but stalked forward, bent to recoil the long ropes on the deck.

That morning they sighted their prey.

At first Stromberg could not believe; he was forced, finally, to accept the evidence of his eyes. The unicorns played and danced, sunlight flashing from their sides, horns gleaming, seeming to throw off sparks of brightness. He might have followed all day, watching and bemused; but Skalter’s high yell recalled him, the change of course as Easy Girl sped for the mutated narwhal. Already the Keltshillian was brandishing his long harpoon, shaking out the coils of line as the yacht, tiller locked, flew toward the herd.

It was as the story had told; the creatures surrounded the boats, running and leaping, watching with their beautiful calm eyes. On Karl’s left Lipsill too seemed to be dazed. Skalter braced his feet on the deck, flexed muscles to drive the shaft hissing into the air. His aim was good; the harpoon struck a great gray bull, barbs sinking deep through the wrinkled pelt. Instantly all was confusion. The wounded beast reared and plunged, snorting; Easy Girl was spun off course by the violence, the Keltshillian hauling desperately at the line. Boat and animal collided in a flurry of snow. The narwhal leaped away again, towing the yacht; Karl saw bright plumes fly as her anchors fell, tips biting at the ice.

The herd had panicked, jerking and humping into the distance; Snow Princess, still moving fast, all but fouled the harpoon lines as Stromberg clawed clear. He had a brief glimpse of Skalter on the ice, the flash of a cutlass as the creature plunged, thrusting at its tormentor with its one great horn. He swung the tiller again, hard across; Princess circled, runners squealing, fetched up fifty yards from the fight. Ice Ghost was already stopped, Lipsill running cutlass in hand; Karl heard Skalter scream, in triumph or in pain. He dropped his anchors grabbing for his own sword. Ran across the ice toward Easy Girl, hearing now the enraged trumpeting of the bull.

The great beast had the Keltshillian pinned against the side of the boat. He saw the blunt head lunging, driving the horn through his flesh; the yacht rocked with the violence of the blows. The panting of the narwhal sounded loud; then the creature with a last convulsion had torn itself away, snorting and hooting after the vanished herd.

There was much blood, on the ice and the pale side of the boat. Skalter sat puffing, face suffused, hands gripped over his stomach. More blood pulsed between his fingers, ruby-bright in the sun; cords stood out in his thick neck; his white teeth grinned as he rolled his head in pain.

Lipsill reached him at the same instant. They tried, pointlessly, to draw the hands away; Skalter resisted them, eyes shut, breath hissing between his clenched teeth. “I told you I dreamed,” he said. The words jerked out thick and agonized. “I saw the Mother. She came in the night, cajoling; her limbs were white as snow, and hot as fire. It was an omen; but I couldn’t read …” His head dropped; he raised himself again, gasping with effort. They looked his hands then, soapy with blood, squeezed, feeling the dying vise-grip, seeing the eyes roll white under their lids. Convulsions shook him; they thought he was dead, but he spoke again. “Blood, and ice,” he said faintly. “These are real. These are the words of the Mother. When the world is dark, then she will come to me … .” The body arced, straining; and Lipsill gripped the yellow hair, twisting it in his fingers. “The Mother takes you, Skalter,” he said. “She rewards her servant.”

They waited; but there was nothing more.

They moored their boats, silently, walked back to the place of killing. The blood had frozen, sparkling in pink crystals under the leveling sun. “He was a great prince,” said Lipsill finally. “The rest is smallness; it should not come between us.” Stromberg nodded, not answering with words; and they began to work. They broke Easy Girl, smacking bulwarks and runner, hacking at her bone and ivory spars, letting her spirit free to join the great spirit of Skalter that already roamed the Ice Eternal. Two days they labored, raising a mound of ice above the wreck; Skalter they laid on the deck, feet to the north and the domain of the Mother. He would rise now, on that last cold dawn, spring up facing her, a worthy servant and warrior. When they had finished, and the wind skirled over the glistening how, they rested; on the third morning they drove south again.

There were no words now between them. They sailed apart, bitterly, watching the white horizon, the endless swirl and flurry of the snow. Two days later they resighted their quarry.

The two boats separated further, bearing down; and again the strange creatures watched with their soft eyes. The shafts flew, glinting; Lipsill’s tinkled on the ice, Stromberg’s struck wide of its mark. It missed the bull at which it was aimed, plunged instead into the silver flank of a calf. The animal howled, convulsed in a flurry of pain. As before, the herd bolted; Snow Princess slewed, hauled round by the tethered weight, fled across the plain as the terrified creature bucked and plunged.

Less than half the size of the adults, the calf was still nearly as long as the boat; Stromberg clung to the tiller as Princess jolted and veered, determined not to make Skalter’s mistake of jumping to the ice. A mile away the harpoon pulled clear but the animal was blown; a second shaft transfixed it as it stood head down and panting, started fresh and giant paroxysms that spattered the yacht with blood. Princess flew again, anchor blades ripping at the ice, drawing the thing gradually to a halt. It rolled then and screeched, trying with its half-flippers to scrape the torment from its back. Its efforts wound the line in round its body; it stood finally close to the boat, staring with a filmed, uncomprehending eye. Close enough for Stromberg to reach across, work the shaft into its torn side till the tip probed its life. A thin wailing, a nearly human noise of pain; and the thing collapsed, belching thunderously, coughing up masses of blood and weed. Sticky tears squeezed from its eyes, ran slow across the great round face; and Karl, standing shaking and panting, knew there was no need of the sword.

The anchors of Ice Ghost raised a high screaming. She ploughed across the ice, throwing a white hail of chips to either side, speed barely diminished. She had speared a huge bull; animal and boat careened by the stalled Princess. Stromberg cut his line, heavily, left the carcass with the bright harpoon-silks still blowing above it. Steered in pursuit.

Sometimes in the half hour that followed it seemed he might overrun Lipsill; but always the other boat drew ahead. The narwhal left a thick trail of blood, but its energy seemed unabated. The line twanged thunderously, snagging on the racing ice. Ahead now the terrain was split and broken; fissures yawned, sunlight sparking from their deep green sides. Princess bucked heavily, runners crashing as she swerved between the hazards. The chase veered to the east, in a great half-circle; the wind, at first abeam, reached farther and farther ahead. Close-hauled, Stromberg fell behind: a half-mile separated the boats as they entered a wide, bowlshaped valley, a mile or more across, guarded on each side by needleshaped towers of ice.

Ahead, the glittering floor veered to a rounded lip; the horizon line was sharp-cut against the sky. Ice Ghost, still towed by her catch, took the slope with barely a slackening of pace. Stromberg howled his alarm, uselessly; Lipsill, frozen it seemed to the tiller, made no attempt to cut his line. The boat crested the rise, hung a moment silhouetted against brightness; and vanished, abrupt as a conjuring trick.

Princess’s anchors threw snow plumes high as her masthead. She skated sickeningly, surged to a halt twenty yards below the lip of ice. Stromberg walked forward, carefully. As he topped the ridge the sight beyond took his breath.

He stood on the edge of the biggest crevasse he had ever seen. It curved back to right and left, horseshoe-shaped, enclosing the valley like a white tongue. A hundred yards away the opposing side glowed with sunlight; across it lay the ragged shadow of the nearer wall. He craned forward. Below him the ice-walls stretched sheer to vanish in a blue-green gloom. There was mist down there, and water-noise; the herd booming, long-drawn threads of echo, last sounds maybe of the fall of the whale. Far below, impaled on a black spike of ice, was the wreck of Lipsill’s boat; Mard, still held by his harness, sprawled across the stern, face bright with blood. He moved slightly as Stromberg stared, seeming to raise himself, lift a hand. Karl turned away sickened.

Realizing he had won.

He walked back to Snow Princess, head down, feet scraping on the ice. Swung himself aboard and opened the bow locker, dumping piles of junk and provisions on the deck. There were ropes, spare downhauls and mooring lines. He selected the best and thickest, knotting methodically, tied off to the stern of the boat and walked back to the gulf. The line, lowered carefully, swayed a yard from Lipsill’s head.

He returned to Princess. She was stopped at an angle, tilted sideways on the curling lip of the crevasse. There were crowbars in the locker; he pulled one clear and worked cautiously, prising at the starboard runner, inching the yacht round till her bow pointed back down the long slope. The wind, gusting and capricious, blew from the gulf. The slope would help her gather way; but would it be enough?

He brailed the sails up as far as he dared, stood back frowning and biting his lip. At each gust now the anchors groaned, threatening to tear free, send the boat skittering back down the incline. He scrabbled in the locker gain, grabbing up more line. Another line, a light line that must also reach the wreck … .

There was just barely enough. He tied the last knot, dropped the second coil down. Working feverishly now, he transferred the heavy line from the stern to a cleat halfway along the port gunwale and locked the tiller to starboard. The anchors were raised by pulleys set just above the deck; he carried lines from them to the little bow windlass, slipped the ratchet, turned the barrel till they were tight. The handle fitted in its bone socket, stood upright, pointing slightly forward over the stern of the boat. He tied the light line off to the tip, tested the lashing on the improvised brake. It seemed secure; he backed toward the cliff edge, paying both ropes through his hands. Mard seemed now to understand what he was doing. He called croakingly, tried to move. The wreck groaned, slipped another foot toward the crevasse. Stromberg passed the heavy line between his thighs, round one calf, gripped it between sole and instep. Let himself down into the gulf.

The descent was eerie. As he moved the wind pressure seemed to increase, setting him swaying pendulum-fashion, banging his body at the ice. The sunlit edge above receded; he glanced below him and instantly the crevasse seemed to spin. The ice walls, sloping together, vanished in a blackish gloom; the wind called deep and baying, its icy breath chilled his cheek. He hung sweating till the dizziness passed, forced himself by his arms, felt his heels touch the deck of the boat. He dropped, as lightly as he could, lunging forward to catch at the tangle of rigging. A sickening time while the wreck surged and creaked; he felt sweat drop from him again as he willed the movement to stop. The deck steadied, with a final groan; he edged sideways cautiously, cutting more rope lengths, fashioning a bridle that he slipped under Lipsill’s arms. The other helped as best he could, raising his body weakly; Stromberg tested the knots, lashed the harness to the line. Another minute’s work and he too was secure. He took a shuddering breath, groping for the second rope. They were not clear yet; if Ice Ghost moved, she could still take them with her, scrape them into the gulf. He gripped the line and pulled.

Nothing.

He jerked again, feeling the fresh rise of panic. If the trick failed he knew he lacked the strength ever to climb. A waiting; then a vibration, sensed through the rope. Another pause; and he was being drawn smoothly up the cliff, swinging against the rock-hard ice as the pace increased. The sides of the cleft seemed to rush toward him; a last concussion, a bruising shock and he was being towed over level ice, sawing desperately at the line. He saw fibers parting; then he was lying still, blessedly motionless. Lipsill beside him bleeding into the snow. While Princess, freed of her one-sided burden, skated in a wide half-circle, came into irons, and stopped.

 

 

The crevasse of Brershill lay gray and silent in the early morning. Torches, flaring at intervals along the glassy sides, lit Level after Level with a wavering glare, gleamed on the walkways with their new powdering of snow. Stromberg trudged steadily, sometimes hauling his burden, sometimes skidding behind it as he eased the sledge down the sloping paths. A watchman called sleepily; he ignored him. On the Level above Coranda’s home he stopped, levered the great thing from the sledge and across to the edge of the path. He straightened up, wiping his face, and yelled; his voice ran thin and shaking, echoing between the half-seen walls.

“Maitran … .”

A bird flew squawking from the depths. The word flung itself back at him, Ice Mother answering with a thousand voices.

“Arand … .”

Again the mocking choir, confusions of sound reflecting faint and mad from the cleft.

“Hansan … .

“Skalter … .”

Names of the dead, and lost; a fierce benediction, an answer to the ice.

He bent to the thing on the path. A final heave, a falling, a fleshy thud; the head of the unicorn bounced on the Level below, splashed a great star of blood across Coranda’s door. He straightened, panting, half-hearing from somewhere the echo of a scream. Stood and stared a moment longer before starting to climb.

Giving thanks to Ice Mother, who had given him back his soul.