Baf 66 merlins ring, p.6
BAF 66 - Merlin's Ring, page 6
part #66 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
He took to swaggering through the village with buckler on his arm and battle ax loose in his hand, swinging it to and fro as though he was instantly ready to strike out with it. His scowl brought soberness to all he met and nothing Skeggi could say deterred him in this growing habit.
He watched the women as they worked and one day followed one of the girls on her way to tend the sheep. When he found that they could not be seen from the village, he approached and drew her down into a hollow. As they struggled, a group of children seeking eggs came up, singing, and Biarki let her go with no worse to befall her than torn clothing.
She said nothing, for she was in fear of her life, but because of her manifest terror whenever she saw Biarki, Bishop Malachi suspected what had happened and afterwards no child watched the sheep alone.
The others took a hand with their hosts and shared the work. They were well liked and the Culdees considered them, except for their alien faith, as valuable members of the community and would have been glad to have them stay.
There came a day when Biarki was more restless than usual. He had disdained any kind of labor and he was bored. At the same time he was angry, for Flann had newly become a free man.
Skeggi had long considered making him so, for he felt that in all but name Flann was not a thrall. His willingness to obey orders, though his status irked him., was cause for admiration, and it seemed to Skeggi that Flann should be in a position to bear arms legally now that Biarki’s temper had become so strained.
Also, it seemed to him that if the Irishman was able to mingle among them all as equals, this might in some way, which his own slow mind could not comprehend, bring back his girl to her senses. Skeggi had always known that the two of them looked upon each other kindly, until this stranger man had come between them and become responsible for this weird change in her. At times he had regretted pledging her to Biarki and never more than now.
So thinking, he called Flann to him and snapped the iron thrall collar in twain between his strong fingers.
“Never call any man master again,” he said.
“Nay, master,” said Flann, in deep gratitude. “No man but you!”
And so the matter ended.
Now, for some little while, it seemed that this action had brought about a change in Thyra. She smiled upon Flann and appeared to pay a little attention to him as for a few days he also went about the village with ax and buckler. He did not strut as did Biarki and no one shrank out of his way. When he found that Biarki avoided him or spoke to him politely as was fitting between equals, he gave over wearing his weapon and spent much of his spare time reading the Bishop’s books.
But Biarki was biding his time and planning with his slow mind what he meant to do. In accordance with this plan, he invited Skeggi to go on a journey to see the interior of the island and view some of the wonders said to exist there. Skeggi was nothing loath, for work had palled upon him and he too had heard tales.
They started early, for the days were much shorter now. The first night they slept upon ground warmed by a nearby hot spring. The next day, moving north, they came upon a region of rising ground where meadows changed into a high lava plateau. Eider ducks had nested here in quantity and they saw foxes that had preyed upon the young and were still lurking about, hunting laggard strays. They took one of these foxes, kept the skin, and cooked and ate some of the rank meat without muck relish.
Waterfalls abounded here, some of great size and turbulence, and a few of the streams ran warm from other hot springs, for much of this plateau had been laid down not too long before, as earth’s clock counts time, and the fires beneath still flamed.
Here Skeggi ran down two of the auks, which, being wingless, were easy to capture. Mindful of the oil their bodies contained and which was so highly prized by their friend the Bishop, he wrung their necks, tied their feet together, and went on, carrying them slung about his neck.
Lichens and mosses covered this young lava like a carpet of greenish-gray dust The low hills looked like slag heaps and between them lay pools that steamed in the chill air. Near one of these, a deep pond of clear water in a white silica basin all of fifty feet across, the two men sat down to eat and talk.
They looked out, from their height, across a beautiful valley, and Biarki said, “I have been thinking, partner, that all we see here could be ours, if you would but play the man.”
Skeggi said then, “Speak clearly. What would you have me do?”
Biarki, thinking Skeggi could be easily persuaded, replied, “Look you, now. First, we shall kill that troll who came out of the ice and holds your daughter under his spell. Then, when she is free, we shall be three axes together against these little people”—for Biarki stood head and shoulders above all but a few, and so looked down upon them—“and I doubt not that Flann, of the quick tongue, will be gladder to give orders than he was to take them. So we may make them all thralls and we shall be as jarls and own the whole land.”
But he did not go on to say that after this was done, Flann’s life would be short and perhaps Skeggi’s as well.
Yet this thought came to Skeggi, and he said, “And if I will not, what then? For I am inclined- toward these people.”
Then it was as though a red mist rose before Biarki’s eyes and the sky and earth came together as a melting flame and the pool was filled with blood and his face was as the face of a troll.
Skeggi saw his anger. He loosened his ax in his belt and moved a little way off, but he was hampered by the birds and he could not go far.
He was trying to rise when Biarki leapt to his feet in his fury, shouting, “Then, Skeggi Hairymouth, I call you niddering and no man!”
And with a single sweep of his ax he split open Skeggi’s head and laid his partner dead at his feet.
His rage passed, and when Biarki knew what he had done, he was afraid. Even in this far land, he knew he was under Odin’s eye, and he did not believe that the Norns had planned to cut the thread of Skeggi’s life at this time. This was clearly a blood debt that would be held against him, and he did not wish to pay it, now or ever.
He walked over to the pool and looked into it. It was very deep. The water was boiling and bubbles rose and burst upon its surface, giving off little puffs of steam. Steam whistled and piped from little cracks around it in the rocky rim.
If a body would not stay hidden in the depths, surely the flesh would soon be boiled from the bones and dissipated into a scum, and the skeleton would sink of its own weight, never to be seen again.
Biarki laid hold of the body and dragged it to the water’s edge. He did not like to lose the good ax, but it would help to weigh the body down. He rolled the body over and the water seethed about it.
There was not muck blood on the rocks. A few cups of water were enough to wash it away. When he had finished, the body had already sunk out of sight in the clear depths.
He saw the auks and with a shudder of disgust at this reminder of the vanished man he threw them into the pool too.
They were large and heavy with fat and almost immediately a film of oil began to spread over its surface. It shimmered in the sunlight and the bubbles no longer burst through it The steam was held within the water as the oil quickly covered the pool.
Then, as Biarki watched, he saw a strange and terrible thing that almost unhinged his mind. A moment longer the pool was quiet, then suddenly a round dome of water grew in its center, upon which Skeggi’s body rode and tossed. It shot upward in a monstrous pillar of whitely boiling water and steam and as it rose it roared and hissed. As it rose, so with it rose Skeggi, up, up, and up—two hundred feet and more, into the air—and as he rose he beckoned to Biarki, with waving arms from which the flesh was already falling, as though be besought Biarki to follow him into the clouds.
For this pool, so placid in its seeming, was the monstrous Geysir—Gusher—from which all others in the world derive their names! Biarki fled screaming from this ghastly sight.
Now, as he ran, adding to his horror, a great gyrfalcon stooped down upon him out of the heavens, like a falling star, and fixed its talons in his shoulder, beating him heavily about the face with its wing elbows.
He tore it loose, strong as it was, and threw it to the ground, but it sprang into the air on its broad pinions, shrieked and rose, seeking altitude, and then Biarki again heard the whistle of air in its stiff feathers as it dived to strike and tear again.
This time, he was prepared. He flung up his buckler to protect his face, struck it sidelong down, cut a wing from its three-foot body and ran on, leaving it dying there. He was in too much fear to make certain that it was dead.
As it happened, the falcon was still living when a raven, always the hungry scavenger, dropped down to see. As the raven hopped closer, the falcon’s eyes filmed over and its beak closed.
Curiously enough, the raven did not stop to feed. Instead, it seemed to forget that it was hungry. It flapped awkwardly up again and at a low altitude followed the staggering man as he ran on across the lava beds, heading back south toward the village of the Culdees.
During this time, Flann had been delighted to find that Gwalchmai had suddenly lost interest in Thyra. He could not understand it, but when Thyra sought his company, forsaking the stranger with whom she had become so close, he did not question her or his good fortune.
Thyra linked arms with him and they walked and talked as they had in gay moods before. That was enough for Flann. Once in a while she pressed his arm close against her body and they walked on without speaking. Occasionally she looked up at him as though she were seeing him newly, and was pleased at what she saw. It was almost as though she was comparing him mentally with Gwalchmai and had decided that she liked Flann the better of the two.
She raised her face up to him and Flann was sure that she wanted to be kissed. He was about to try when she looked up into the sky and the spell was broken.
The expression so familiar to him lately came again upon her face. She stiffened and pressed backward out of his arms. A raven had just flown overhead.
To Thyra, it was as though a beloved sister had come home and they had embraced in greeting. Corenice was back.
She had been worried, though dimly, when her father left with Biarki, for what Corenice knew, Thyra also knew, and Corenice had felt the other’s anxiety. So, to relieve the minds of both, for pain one felt also hurt the other, Corenice had gone questing—in the body of the gyrfalcon.
Thyra instantly learned what Corenice had discovered.
She could not cry, for Corenice dominated her body, but there were tears just the same.
Corenice had learned to admire and respect Skeggi for his courage and integrity. Chiefly she felt anger, as she had at the geyser. This was a frightful deed, which called for justice and immediate punishment
So it was that Gwalchmai and Flann were informed of the murder. Immediately arming themselves, although Flann could take the word he received only on trust, the little party moved north to meet Biarki—the two girls in the one body and the two men who loved them both.
Biarki meanwhile had covered much ground, being hagridden with fear. He was weary, but when he saw the three avengers coming -from the village and marked with what determination they strode in his direction, he was aware that they knew what he had done.
He had planned a story that would explain Skeggi’s absence, but he cast it out of his mind. Somehow he felt sure that it would be useless. The raven, Odin’s messenger, had seen and told all. His doom was upon him and that it would befall and was not to be avoided seemed only just.
At this end to all his hopes and plans, he went mad. The tendency to go berserk, which had always cursed the men of his family, now descended upon him.
The familiar red tinge colored all his little world again. The yellow of lichen and the green of the grass became submerged In scarlet. He ripped away the shirt from his body. He felt suffocated from lack of air and must bare himself to the wind.
He bit the edge of his buckler until his teeth splintered and his mouth bled. He howled like a wolf and rushed, foaming, in great bounds and leaps, against his enemies under a bloody and setting sun.
He swung his battle ax first against Flann, for it was he who had been hated longest. Flann was less tired, but escaped only by sucking in his belly; the ax swung on in a figure eight and struck him a glancing blow in the back that laid him flat
With scarcely a glance at him gasping on the ground, Biarki turned upon the others. Merlin’s ring grew hot as fire upon Gwalchmai’s finger and he knew he was in as great a danger as he had ever been.
His own buckler was up and he received Biarki’s blow full upon it. The shock numbed his arm. His guard fell. He heard the girl scream. He did not know if it was Thyra or Corenice.
His drawn sword licked out beneath the drooping shield in the old legionary trick that his father had taught him. It drew blood, for he felt it strike upon bone, but Biarki seemed impervious to wounds. It was only with the utmost effort that Gwalchmai was able to protect himself against the ram of ax blows. Again and again the short Roman sword struck into Biarki, who roared with pain but did not appear to weaken. Then Gwalchmai’s buckler fell.
The next blow took the sword from his grip and it slithered across the ground. As he also fell, Gwalchmai knew well that it was Corenice who threw herself upon him. Biarki swung up his ax in triumph. Gwalchmai’s hand went up to push her aside or to fend off the blow. A gush of white brilliance shot from the stone in the ring, straight into Biarki’s eyes, blinding him with its flare.
At that instant, Flann seized the sword.
“Biarki! Die!” he yelled and the giant turned upon him.
A little of Biarki’s mania had worn away. He approached Flann, panting, swinging his ax in circles, his blood spattering the ground. Still, his strength was enormous and they could hear the whistling sound of the weapon through the air.
It was clear that Flann was no novice with the sword. He handled it well and despite its lack of length, he dealt Biarki two blows that would have dropped a lesser man— one in the biceps of the left arm, which caused Biarki to fling away his buckler, and another deep gash in the same side along the ox-like ribs.
Biarki bellowed and seized Flann in an iron grip. Flann could not reach him with the sword point, but drew the edge along his side until Biarki lurched back. Flann’s face was dark with agony. He did not fall, but stood almost unconscious, struggling for breath, with the point of the sword touching the ground, balancing upon it.
Biarki reached for him again, bleeding profusely, but Gwalchmai had recovered now. He slipped between the two, carrying Biarki’s discarded buckler, and brought it up under the madman’s jaw with the sound of an ax blow. Like an echo there came a second crack as that stout neck broke.
Then Biarki fell like a tree that has faced its last storm and the others collapsed, almost as far gone as he, while Thyra-Corenice hugged and kissed and prayed over both her valiant men—but in thankfulness to different gods.
4
Out Oars for Alata!
They stayed through the long dark winter with the Culdees rather than return south so late in the year. It was not so much through dread of the stormy seas that they so decided, although most of the electrical storms occurred at that time and the little boats remained in their housing. It was because there seemed no urgency to seek another sort of life.
Murder and bloody vengeance brought sorrow to the small self-sufficient community. The outside world had impinged upon them briefly enough, but these events caused long-buried memories to come to the surface and now the people went about soberly and with less laughter. They remembered persecutions and deaths and brutalities.
Maire Ethne took the fatherless girl to her heart, comforting and fussing over her, and both Thyra and Corenice felt her love and compassion. If these two had come to be as sisters, they now felt that a mother had swept them into her arms.
Once, in a moment when Thyra was dominant, she went to Maire and hugged her. “If ever I have a daughter, I shall name her after you,” she said, and the bishop’s wife kissed her, feeling honored and well repaid. ‘
But Corenice knew sorrow, for she had longings too, and she knew well that this symbiosis, which gave her a semblance of mortal life, could be nothing but temporary and she did not know when the end of it might come.
So Gwalchmai and Flann and the girl dwelt in the village longer than‘ they had expected to stay, hoping to show by their actions that they were of good will. By mingling thus and working with the folk they became accepted and when the sun came back the spirits of all were lifted.
During the winter, the communion of the three, who were four, became deeper. Flann’s puzzlement was complete, but he learned to accept a way of life he did not like or understand.
Sometimes when Corenice was gone, roaming the undersea in the body of a seal, rushing through the water in play, his own Thyra emerged and smiled upon him sweetly and it was as though summer came into his dark mood. Then he was happy.
They walked along the beach or up into the hills. They talked or were close in long understanding silences; they spent much time together over the bishop’s books, Thyra’s expressive face pensive as she listened, half convinced, to the expounding of Flann’s Christian faith, satisfied that they were together.
These moments came more often as the whiter wore on, and Flann noticed that whenever Thyra was thus kind, Gwalchmai was absent In fact, Corenice and Gwalchmai swam together upon occasion, for he was being taught the trick the Atlantideans knew and had learned to cast his spirit forth and live the life of others, though not as yet for long.
So this was the courting Corenice had so long awaited and that had been so long postponed. They journeyed together in the world of water as mer-man and mer-maiden, although when Flann saw Gwalchmai lying upon his bed-with eyes closed, he supposed that his friend was asleep.
Despite the natural jealousy, they were friends—the more so because Flann did not nurture illusions and false hopes.
