The Skrayling Tree: The Albino in America Read online

  The faint path of silver continued to cross the ice. It ended at the great golden pillars which supported what could only be the main gate with heavy doors of bronze and copper. The city’s architecture was covered in complicated carvings and paintings of the most exquisite workmanship. I remembered the Sinhalese temples of Anuradhapura. Scarcely an inch was undecorated. From this distance it was impossible to make out anything but the largest details. Each tier of the ziggurat’s extraordinary structure abounded with doors and windows. The population of a small town must live on each of the lower levels. Other levels were clearly cultivated, so that Kakatanawa was entirely self-supporting. She could resist any siege.

  I asked a stupid question. “Will the ice bear Bes’s weight?”

  White Crow turned his head, smiling. “Bes is home,” he said. “Can’t you tell?”

  It was true that the amiable mammoth looked more alert, excited. Did she still have a family in Kakatanawa? I imagined stables full of these massive, good-natured beasts.

  White Crow added, “This ice is thicker than the world. It goes down forever.”

  Then, as we continued to move forward, the mountains shook and grumbled. Dark clouds swirled around their peaks. The sky became alive with racing shafts of yellow, dark green and deep blue, all crackling and roaring, rumbling and shrieking. A wild screeching.

  I reached for my bow, but I felt sick. I knew very well what that noise heralded.

  Lord Shoashooan, the Demon of the Whirlwind, appeared before us.

  His dark, conical shape was more stable. The wide top whirled, and the tip twisted into the ice, sending out a blur of chips. I could see his flickering, bestial features, his cruel, excited eyes. It was as if Klosterheim and the Two Tongues had released him from some prison, where he had been frustrated in his work of destruction. We had not driven him away. We had merely made him retreat to reconsider his strategy.

  There again on one side of him stood Klosterheim, shivering in his agitated cloak, while all that was left of the Two Tongues lay dying, breath hissing in the corner of his horrible, toothy mouth. Klosterheim had the air of a man who believed his odds of survival small.

  White Crow flung up his arm, waving his great black-bladed spear. “Ho! Would a mere breath of air stop me from returning to Kakatanawa with the Black Lance? Do you know what you challenge, Lord Shoashooan?”

  Klosterheim spoke through cracked lips over the shriek. “He knows. And he knows how to stop you. Time will freeze, as this lake is frozen. It will allow me to do everything I must do. Your medicine is weak now, White Crow. Soon the Pukawatchi will come and destroy you and take back the things which are their own.”

  White Crow frowned at this. Was it true? Had he expended all his power in conjuring the Shining Path?

  Behind the great Lord of All Winds the golden city sparked and shifted so that sometimes it seemed only a vision, a projection, an illusion. Not a real place at all. Beyond us, nothing moved. Time did indeed seem to have stopped.

  White Crow bowed his head. “I am their last White Crow man,” he said. “If I do not bring them back the Black Lance, it will not only be the last of the Kakatanawa, it will be the last we shall ever know of the multiverse, save that final, eternal second before oblivion. He has seen that my medicine is now weak. I have no charms or rituals strong enough to defend us against the anger of Shoashooan.”

  He looked desperately to Ayanawatta, who replied gravely. “You must fly to the Isle of Morn and find help. You know this is what we planned.”

  White Crow said, “I will use the last of my magic. Bes will stay here with you. I will send you the help you need. But know how dangerous this will be for all of us.”

  “I understand.” Ayanawatta turned to me. “It is for you to help us now, my friend.”

  Then without another word, White Crow was leaving us. I watched in astonishment as he ran swiftly away. He ran through the foothills and was soon lost from sight. I almost wept at his deserting us. I would never have anticipated it.

  Klosterheim cackled. “So the heroes show their real characters. You are not fit enough for these tasks, my friends. You challenge forces far too great.”

  I took my bow and stepped forward. Perhaps in my right mind I would have shot Klosterheim. I knew a kind of cold anger. I longed to be reunited with my husband, and I was determined not to be stopped. I do not know what instinct informed me, but I forced myself to walk closer and closer to the shrieking madness that was Lord Shoashooan, fitting an arrow to my bow. I could see a face in the center of the tornado. That same fierce, white-hot anger remained. I knew nothing of fear as I loosed my first arrow into Lord Shoashooan’s forehead.

  Without thought, I nocked and loosed again. My second arrow took him in the right eye. The third arrow took him in the left eye.

  He began to squeal and bellow in outrage. Bizarre limbs clutched at his head. I knew Lord Shoashooan could not be killed so easily. My idea was to try to stay out of his reach and, like a bull terrier, worry at him until he was weak enough to be overcome.

  It was no doubt a stupid idea, but I did not have a better one!

  I had been too confident. I had only blinded the monster for a few seconds. Before I knew it, he seized me in his icy tendrils and drew me closer and closer to his chuckling maw. I could reach no more arrows. All I had was my bow. I flung the staff into that horrible mouth.

  Lord Shoashooan’s many eyes glared. He gagged. I had caused some sort of convulsion. He scraped at his mouth and clutched his throat, and suddenly the sentient tornado flung me away.

  I saw gleaming white all around me as I fell heavily to the ice. I was dazed and barely conscious. I forced myself to gather my strength.

  I knew I had no other choice.

  For a moment I refused the inevitable, but it was a pointless rebellion. I knew it as I made it. I could still hear the terrible howling and clawing of Lord Shoashooan as he wrestled with the bowstave I had flung into his maw.

  I, too, had a preordained story in this world. A story which I must follow in spite of myself.

  I was reconciled to what was expected of me. I had no other choice, even though I risked a terrible death. In one moment of recovered memory, I knew exactly what had led to this moment. I knew why I was here. I knew what I must now do. I understood it in my bones, in my soul.

  I knew what I had to become.

  I readied myself for the transformation.

  THE SECOND BRANCH

  ELRIC’S STORY

  Elric, called the White, son of Sadric,

  Am the bearer of the black rune-sword.

  Long ran the blood rivers ere the reavers came.

  Great was the grieving in the widows’ songs.

  Souls were stolen by the score

  When skraelings sent a thousand to be slain.

  THE THIRD EDDA, “Elrik’s Saga”

  (TR. SHELDRAKE)

  This was my dream of a thousand years

  Each moment liv’d, all joys and every fear.

  Through turning time and space gone mad,

  I sought my magic and my weird.

  For a millennium I trailed what I had lost.

  My unholy charge, which e’en my soul had cost.

  AUSTIN, A Knight of the Balance”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Conversation in Satan’s Garden

  From Loki’s Yard came Elrik Silverskin

  Speaking with old stones he carried wisdom with him

  To that fateful, thrice-doomed Diocletian’s hall

  And sought for one whom the Norns held thrall.

  THE THIRD EDDA,

  “Elrik’s Saga” (TR. WHELDRAKE)

  This is my Dream of a Thousand Years. In reality it lasted a single night, but I lived every moment of the dream, risked every kind of death in one last attempt to save myself. I describe it here, through Ulric’s agency, because of its relevance to his tale. It was a dream I dreamed as I hung crucified on the yardarm of Jagreen Lern’s triumphant flagship, th
e banner of my own defeat. I had lost my much-needed burden, the demon-blade Stormbringer. I was racking my memory for some means of recovering the sword to save myself and Moonglum and if possible stop the tide of Chaos which threatened the Cosmic Balance and would turn the whole of creation inchoate.

  In this dream I was searching for the Nihrainian smith who had forged the original black blade. I had heard of one called Volnir. He lived close to the world’s northern edge in what some called Cimmeria but which you know better as North America. If I found him, I should then be able to find Stormbringer. By such means I might save myself, my friend and even my world. I knew the price to be paid for following this dream path.

  It would be the second time I had undertaken the Dream of a Thousand Years. To a youth of my genesis it is integral training. It must be done several times. You go alone into the wilderness. You fast. You meditate and seek the path to the world of long dreams. These are the worlds which determine and reveal the future. They offer the secrets of your past. In such worlds one serves more than one rules. Certain knowledge is gained by extended experience as well as study. The Dream of a Thousand Years provides that experience. The memory of those lifetimes fades, leaving the instinctive wisdom, the occasional nightmare.

  One does not learn how to rule the Bright Empire of Melniboné without such service. Only in the extreme could I use my skills. I knew the danger involved, but I had no choice. The fate of my world depended upon my regaining, for a few moments, control of the black sword.

  To attempt this desperate and unlikely magic, I had summoned all my remaining powers of sorcery. I had allowed myself to sink into a familiar trance. Jagreen Lern had already provided me with more than sufficient fasting and physical privations. I sought a supernatural gateway to the dream-worlds, some link to my own youthful past, where our many destinies are already recorded. And it brought me to your world in the year A.D. 900. I would leave it in the year 2001 upon the death of a relative.

  Riding from Vienna, having but recently returned from a conquered Jerusalem, by October I found myself in the rocky Balkan mountains, where a tradition of banditry lived side by side with a tradition of hill farming to break the hearts and backs of most other peasants.

  While wolf’s-heads might covet my fine black steel helmet and armor, they had the sense not to test the great claymore I carried at my side. She was called Ravenbrand, sister to my own Stormbringer. How I came by Ravenbrand in that place is a tale yet to be told.

  Until finding temporary peace with my wife, Zarozinia, I had been a mercenary outlaw in the Young Kingdoms. I had no difficulty making a good living here. Both the blade and I had reputations few were ready to challenge. Already I had served in Byzantium, in Egypt, fought Danes in England and Christians in Cadiz. In Jerusalem through a bizarre sequence of events, coveting a particular horse, I had helped create an order of the Knights Templar, founded by Christians, to ensure that no temporal master should ever claim the Holy Sepulchre. My interest was not in their religions, which are primitive, but in their politics, which are complicated. Their prophets constantly make false claims for themselves and their people.

  Because their maps put Jerusalem at the heart of the world, I had hoped to find signs of my smith there, but I was following a fading song. The only smiths I found were shoeing crusader horses or repairing crusader arms. In Vienna I heard at last of a Norseman who had explored the farther reaches of the world’s edge and might know where to find the Nihrainian smith.

  My journey through the Balkans was rarely eventful. I was soon in the Dalmatian hinterland, where the blood feud was the only real law, and neither Roman, Greek nor Ottoman had much influence. The mountains continued to shelter tribes whose only concession to the Iron Age was to steal whatever they could from those who carried any kind of metal. They used old warped crossbows and spears chiefly and were inaccurate with both. But I had no trouble from them. Only one band of hunters attempted to take my sword from me. Their corpses served to enlighten the others.

  I found warm and welcoming lodging at the famous Priory of the Sacred Egg in Dalmatia. Their matronly prioress told me how Gunnar the Norseman had anchored a month since to make minor repairs at the safe harbor of Isprit on the protected western coast. She had heard it from one of his homebound sailors. Gunnar, tired of slim pickings in the civilized ports, was determined to sail north to the colonies Ericsson and his followers had established there. He was obsessed with an idea about a city made entirely of gold. The sailor, a hardened sea-robber, swore never again to sail under a captain as evil as Gunnar. The man spent an unlikely amount of the time with the confessor and then left, saying he thought he would try his luck in the Holy Land.

  The Wendish prioress was an educated woman. She said Isprit had known greater glory. The real center of power had shifted to Venice. The Norseman had made a good choice. Using the local name for the place, the prioress told me the old imperial port was little more than three days’ ride on a good horse. Two, the buxom Wend offered with a hearty laugh, if I wished to risk trespassing in Satan’s backyard. She hugged my shoulders in an embrace which might have snapped a less battle-hardened invalid. I relaxed in her uncomplicated warmth.

  The sailor had said the Norseman was anxious to leave port as soon as possible. He feared they should be trapped there. The Vikings had already angered the Venetians with a raid on Pag, which was successful, and another on Rab, which was not. Those dreaming old Adriatic ports now relied upon Venice for their prosperity and security and were glad to be off the main crusader routes. The knights and their armies brought little benefit and much destruction. The pope had called the Crusade in 1148. He had infected the whole of Europe and Arabia with his own dementia, which he then proceeded to die of. He had invented the jihad. The Arabs learned his lesson well.

  I had no quarrel with any of the warring sects, who all claimed to serve an identical God! Human madness was ever banal. Jerusalem commanded no more of my interest. I had all I needed from the city. I had my horse, some gold and the odd ring on my finger. I found myself dragged briefly into the civic business of the city, but it was of no interest to me now whether or not order had been restored. Jerusalem was the turbulent heart of all their sects and would no doubt remain so.

  Meanwhile Venice expanded her influence wherever the Turk’s attention was distracted. Venice had most reason to see a nuisance in the Norseman. Her navy had already tried to trap him at Nin, but he had escaped, damaging The Swan in the attempt. The Viking would not take the risk of his beloved Swan being captured. They said she was the last of her kind, as Gunnar was the last of his. The other Vikings had made themselves kings and indulged in imperial expansion, missionaries of their Prince of Peace.

  While the Crusades drew the world’s attention, the man I sought was raiding through the winter months, taking the rather impoverished towns of the Adriatic, careful never to attract the wrath of Venice. Until recently neither Byzantines, Turks nor any other of the various local powers had will or men to send ships after a sea-raider. His skills and ferocity were infamous, his vessel so fast and lithe in the water many thought her possessed. The Swan was as lucky as she was beautiful. But previously neutral or disputed ports now came under the protection of Venice. Venice was rapidly expanding her trade. The Doge coveted Gunnar’s legendary ship.

  Gunnar, I was told, was not even a Viking by birth. He was a Rus. Outlawed from Kiev he’d returned to the reiving trade of his forefathers more from necessity than romance. Otherwise he was something of a mystery. Evidently neither Christian, Jew nor Moslem, he had never revealed his face, even to his women. Night and day he wore a reflective steel mask.

  “Sounds a devilish wicked creature, eh?” the prioress said. “Not plague or leprosy, so I gather.”

  This matronly prioress, a woman of the world, had, until her retirement, run a brothel in Athens. She had a strong interest in the doings of the region. It was useful, pleasurable and politic to succumb to her charms, even if she found mine a litt
le more supernatural than she bargained for. Before retiring, however, we were joined by another intelligent person of some experience, who was, by coincidence, lodging there for the night.

  This guest had arrived a few hours ahead of me. A cheerful, wide-mouthed redheaded little man, he might have been a relative of my old friend Moonglum. My memory, as always in these dreams, was a little dim regarding any other life. This friar was a soldier-priest, with a mail shirt under his heavy homespun cassock, a useful-looking sword of Eastern pattern in an elaborate sheath and boots of fine quality that had seen better days.

  He introduced himself in Greek, still the common tongue of the region. Friar Tristelunne had been a Heironymite hermit until his own natural garrulousness took him back, he said, to society. He now made ends meet as best he could, from marriages, deaths, funerals, letter writing, and selling the occasional small relic. Sadly there was often more work for his sword than his prayer book. The Crusade had been a disappointment to him. It no doubt satisfied the Christian appetites of the city’s liberators, he said, but it wasn’t man’s work. He drew the line at skewering old Jewish women and babies in the name of the Lord of Light.

  Friar Tristelunne knew the Norseman. “Some call him Earl Gunnar the Ill-famed, but he has a dozen worse names. A captain so cruel only the most desperate and depraved will sail with him.”

  A pagan, Gunnar’s attempt to join and profit from the Crusade had been thwarted.

  “Even the realistic, pious and opportunistic Saint Clair could not excuse the recruitment of an unreformed worshipper of Woden.”

  Gunnar was famous for his treachery, and there was no guarantee that once he reached the Holy Land he would not discover a better master in Saladin. The only good reason anyone would have to strike an alliance with Gunnar the Doomed was if they needed a good navigator. “His skills are greater than the Ericssons’. He uses magic lodestones. He takes wild risks and survives them, even if all his comrades do not. Not only has he reached the rim of the world, he has sailed completely around it.”