A Mirror Against All Mishap Read online

  Garm, the Gwales captain, was intrigued and offered Amlina the hospitality of his mother, Queen Meghild. His ship conducted the Plover farther north, to the mouth of this fjord in Meghild's domain. There, Amlina parted with the Larthangan ship, paying the captain richly, as she had promised. Transferring to the cranock, the witch and her party sailed up the fjord to Meghild's castle.

  On hearing their tale, the aged and crippled queen welcomed them as guests. At first, the Gwales folk treated them with distant courtesy and a certain, dour wariness. But that changed as Meghild warmed to them. The queen seemed to grow genuinely fond of Amlina, and to regard the Iruks, pirates themselves, as kindred spirits. After some days, satisfied as to their safety, the Iruks had come to this clearing and performed the ritual to put the klarn to rest.

  Now, three months later, as they were preparing to leave, it was time to raise the klarn again. The mates arranged themselves in a half-circle around the spring. One by one, they lifted their spears and thrust the points into the ground.

  Glyssa produced a wooden drinking bowl borrowed from the castle. The ritual cup they had used in the past was lost—left behind with most of their possessions on their home island of Ilga. Lonn had seen in a vision that their lodge house on Ilga had been ransacked by vengeful neighbors. So Glyssa's cup, made from the skull of one of her ancestors, was lost now, likely beyond hope of recovery.

  Feeling a pang of regret at this memory, Glyssa dropped to one knee and filled the bowl from the spring. She stood and solemnly offered the vessel to Lonn, who raised it to his lips and drank.

  “Now is the time for hunting,” he said. “We awaken the klarn and call its strength into our hearts, our limbs, our blood.” With these words he poured a libation at the place where his spear-point pierced the earth.

  Lonn handed the bowl to Karrol, who repeated the ritual. Glyssa stared as the bowl was passed to Brinda, then Eben. With each pouring Glyssa attuned her mind to her mates, straining to feel their spirits rise into her with the klarn-soul.

  And she did feel it, faintly at first, then more clearly—their courage and excitement at starting a hunt, their mutual trust and devotion. When Draven passed the bowl to her, she took it gladly. She spoke the ritual words and carefully poured the libation, watching the clean water spill over her spear.

  She looked up to find all the mates watching her intently. She cleared her throat and sought to reassure them with her smile.

  “Let us go and test the boat,” she said.

  * O *

  In a cheerful and excited mood, the Iruks marched down the hill through the village. A dog barked at them from inside a fence, but the people they passed merely nodded, if they acknowledged the Iruks at all. The Gwales villagers had long ago grown accustomed to their queen's strange guests.

  “Rather lucky for a meltwind to blow when we're finally ready to sail the boat,” Eben remarked. “Most of the voyage figures to be on soft water.”

  Glyssa knew that to be true. Whether the klarn decided to sail with Amlina or home to the Iruk Isles, the voyage would take place in First and Second Summer. Except for an occasional short-lived freeze, the seas would likely remain melted.

  “I expect it will float like a bathtub,” Karrol grunted. “Like all Gwales craft. But I'm more worried to see how it handles on ice.” Karrol had been skeptical about the size and design of the new boat from the start.

  “It will freeze again soon enough,” Lonn answered. “We'll have ample chance to test on both.”

  “Sure,” Karrol said. “If we're lucky, a freezewind will blow while we're out today. Then we'll learn how hard it is to chop the boat free of the ice.”

  Lonn, who would pilot the boat, snorted at this. “The Gwalesmen sail their ships up onto ice with no trouble. Are they better sailors than Iruks?”

  “In a Gwales boat, who knows?” Draven laughed. “But we'll see.”

  The mates reached the base of the hill and trekked along the shingle beach. Near the edge of the village, they approached their new boat, perched on the rollers that had been used to haul it down from the shipyard.

  The craft was a cranock, similar to the ships Gwalesmen used, though smaller than most. Still, at sixty feet, it was half again as long as the hunting boats the Iruks were accustomed to. Iruks built their boats of bone and hide, as their home islands lacked timber. The Gwalesmen constructed their ships with oaken keel and planks, some of the vessels over a hundred feet long. Like an Iruk hunting boat, the small cranock had a single mast, and twin outriggers stretched out from the hull. The outriggers gave the boat stability on water, while their iron-shod bottoms served as runners when sailing on ice. Unlike an Iruk boat, the cranock had raised fore and aft decks, with sheltered compartments below for storage or sleeping.

  The boat sported the painted figurehead of a phoenix, a sacred bird of Larthang. Amlina had provided a sketch to the wood-carver, and had worked designs over the carving for magical protection. In anticipation that the Iruks might sail with her, Amlina had shared the cost of commissioning the boat. If the Iruks elected to part ways with the witch, they would repay her portion.

  Talees, the bald shipwright, waited beside the boat with two of his apprentices—brawny young men in plaid wools and leathers. “Here she stands, my Iruk friends. What think you?”

  “A pretty craft, to be sure,” Draven said, scanning the sleek lines with admiration.

  “True enough,” Lonn said. “But our liking will depend on how it handles.”

  “She'll sail as treen as any boat her size,” Talees replied. “Treener than most.”

  Generally, the Gwales folk spoke a dialect similar to the Low Tathian the Iruks knew well. But on occasion they might use a word or phrase of Gwelthek, their ancestral tongue.

  “Treen?” Eben asked.

  “Aye, sweet and nimble.” Talees explained. “She’s ready to launch, if you'll just help us push.”

  The Iruks and the apprentices arranged themselves at the outrigger planks and the rear of the hull. Glyssa stood next to Lonn and set her back against the stern. Talees used a mallet to knock away the restraining blocks. At his word, everyone heaved, and a moment later the boat went rattling over the rollers and splashing into the fjord.

  Glyssa's mates gave whoops of excitement as they high-stepped through the chill water and climbed onboard. Lonn and Talees mounted to the aft-deck and took their places at the tiller, standing beside two windbringers in wooden pails. Aided by the shipwright's men, the Iruks unpacked the canvas sail—the soft-water sail—and threaded it to the yard. Draven and Karrol took positions at either rail, holding the sheets, the steering lines. Glyssa and the others dragged on the halyard, running up the sail.

  There was no need to rouse the windbringers from trance, since the wind was steady, blowing up the fjord from the southwest. With the halyard secured, Lonn pulled the tiller hard to starboard and shouted for Draven and Karrol to trim sail. The yard swung round to port, the mast leaned, and the broad sail bowed as it caught the breeze.

  The cranock glided away from shore, gathering speed. Along the rails the mates were grinning and cheering. Glyssa climbed to the rear deck to stand beside Lonn, resting a hand on his shoulder. She breathed in the cold air, felt the salt wind on her face. It felt good to be sailing again.

  During the winter months, the Iruks had gone on two excursions as guests of Meghild's warriors, journeying up the fjord to hunt deer and tusk-bears. They had learned the lines and rigging of the cranock as they helped crew the boats. But now they were sailing on soft water, and the boat was their own. In the days ahead, they would need to sharpen their skills to a level of mastery, in preparation for venturing out on the open sea.

  For the next two hours they put the boat through maneuvers—changing tacks, running close-hauled, adjusting shrouds to the tilt of the mast. Glyssa darted about on the deck, hauling on lines and unraveling knots, enjoying the work of crewing the boat and glimpsing, through the klarn-soul, the thoughts and feelings of her mate
s.

  All of them seemed pleased with the boat. Lonn allowed that it handled well—not as fleet and nimble as an Iruk craft, of course, but swifter and more responsive than the large cranocks they had sailed before. Draven was joyful as usual. Eben, perched on the masthead as lookout, warily scanned the waters, even as his keen mind judged the boat's pitch and roll. Even Karrol and Brinda seemed thrilled with the sailing, though Glyssa sensed in them, beneath the surface, a growing mindfulness and worry over what would happen next—what decision the klarn would make about their future.

  Sensing all this recalled to Glyssa's mind past voyages, the exhilaration of hunting, and the firm sense of belonging, of sharing the klarn-soul. Glyssa had been the most adept at that sharing, the first to feel when a mate was moody or aggrieved. The mates had relied on her to gently hold the klarn together. She hoped now, with all her heart, that she could fill that role for them again.

  “Freezewind!” Eben yelled from his perch atop the mast.

  Snapped from her reflections, Glyssa followed his gesture to the south, where a veil of white sparks moved on the horizon. She was standing beside Lonn at the helm, as the boat tacked in that direction.

  “Right,” Lonn tightened his grip on the tiller. “Now we'll have a tougher test.”

  He shouted to Draven and Karrol to adjust the sheets, and he pointed the bow closer to the wind.

  “Aye, that's right,” Talees advised. “One or two points off-wind, then hard on it when the sparks come.”

  “And it will climb the ice then,” Lonn shouted—half-question, half-statement.

  “She'll rise if you sail her rightly,” Talees answered with a wild grin.

  Glyssa moved back against the rail to give Lonn room. She watched the shimmering wind advance toward them up the fjord. The water grew rough, the hull bounding and jolting on the waves.

  Glyssa sucked in a breath as the crucial moment approached. The magic forged into the freezewind produced a buoyancy, which allowed even large ships to ride onto forming ice if handled well. But the handling was all. If Lonn's timing was off even a little, the craft might become ice-bound, even damaged by the shuddering force of the freeze.

  The instant before the witchlight reached the prow, Lonn pointed straight upwind. Everyone ducked, as the shrieking howl passed overhead. The hull quaked, lurched upward, and slid onto the new-made ice.

  Shouts of celebration went up from the Iruks and Gwalesmen alike.

  “Are you satisfied now, my Iruk captain?” the shipwright cried.

  “Lower the yard,” Lonn called, for the canvas sail was now flapping violently and the boat starting to slide backwards. “Break out the ice-sail.”

  As the mates jumped to it, Lonn turned to the shipwright. “Yes, my friend. It's a fit craft you've built us.”

  Glyssa laughed with joy and patted Lonn's back. She started to go and help with the sail, but Lonn grabbed her arm to detain her for a moment, leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

  * O *

  With the ice-sail raised and trimmed, Lonn moved to the pilot's bench amidships. To steer on ice, an Iruk hunting boat relied on the sail and the drag of the rudder, but the cranock, like all larger vessels, used cables and levers that actually changed the pivot of the runners. These were controlled by a second tiller, which Lonn now swung to point the boat off the wind.

  For several more hours the Iruks tested the boat, repeating maneuvers at the higher speeds of sailing on ice. The new-formed ice was rough, with frozen waves and pressure-ridges, so the ride was far from smooth. It took Lonn time to master the ice-tiller, and to coordinate turning the runners with his mates' trimming of the sail. At one point, when they were coming about, the boat heeled dangerously off the ice. Eben might have been thrown from his perch had he not, as a precaution, lashed himself to the masthead.

  Still, the cranock handled better on the ice than any of them had expected. By mid-afternoon, the mates decided they had put the boat through enough trials and could call the day a success. Lonn pointed the prow toward the wind, and they followed a course of long, easy tacks back toward the castle.

  The weather had turned colder, and Glyssa crouched against the rail, a scarf protecting her face from the stinging wind. Her mood became gloomy, apprehension creeping into her mind. The boat had passed inspection, and so the waiting was over. The klarn would have to decide on a course. Glyssa clung tight to the wood rail, as if to keep from falling yet again into that icy void in her soul.

  Soon after they spotted Meghild's castle perched on its craggy hill, Eben sang out from the masthead. Three ships were sailing up the fjord from the opposite direction. Peering into the bright haze, Glyssa spied them in the distance—tall cranocks with distinctive, bold red sails.

  “Lord Penredd, home from raiding,” Talees the shipwright said to Lonn. “Best give him wide berth to make his landing.”

  “Why?” Karrol called from her station at the rail. “We're closer to the town and faster too.”

  “And less experienced with our boat,” Lonn answered. “Besides, we're guests, remember. And Penredd's never been pleased about it. Swing the yard to port. We'll head upwind and wait till after they've landed.”

  The mates moved to carry out the order, Karrol a bit grudgingly. Penredd was Meghild's grandson—a renowned captain, and a vain and boastful warrior. Where the other princes, Garm and Leidwith, had shown courtesy to the Iruks, Penredd had been surly from the start. He’d made it clear he disliked the visitors, and seemed especially resentful of the queen’s growing fondness for Amlina. Glyssa was relieved that Lonn had not risked antagonizing the prince.

  “You are wise, my friend,” Talees said to Lonn. “Prince Penredd is known to be easily affronted.”

  Four

  “Careful, my dears. Careful of an old woman's bones!”

  Meghild the queen sang out in her reedy voice as she shuffled and limped down the passageway. She leaned heavily with one forearm on Amlina's shoulder, the other on the strong shoulder of the bard, Wilhaven.

  “Sure, my lady,” Wilhaven answered soothingly, “your precious bones are safe with us.”

  Meghild was a tall woman, once famed as a warrior equal to any man in ferocity. Now, in her dotage, she was bent and rawboned, crippled by a lifetime of hardship and war.

  Amlina, with her slight frame, struggled to support the queen's lurching steps. But she carefully avoided showing any strain. Conducting the queen to the feast hall was an honor the witch would not shirk, and she knew well the wisdom of revealing no weaknesses before these wild brigands of Gwales.

  Fortunately, Wilhaven carried more than his share of the queen's weight. He was of medium height but wide-shouldered and strong, a warrior as well as a bard. Blonde and bearded, dressed in a rich maroon doublet and hose, he easily supported Meghild's arm, even with his harp in its velvet bag slung over his other shoulder.

  Soon, to Amlina's relief, they reached the great hall, loud with the sounds of merriment. Twin tables running the length of the chamber were crowded with warriors and courtiers, bearded men in tunics and doublets, women in fine gowns with jeweled brooches and armlets of gold. Servants carried pitchers and trays between the tables and the cook fires that blazed in two hearths along the walls. A multitude of oil lamps burned in huge, black-iron chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceiling—the excessive use of lamp oil a testament to the castle's wealth. At the far end of the hall, beneath a high gallery, hung the red and gold wolf banner of Demardunn, Meghild's Tribe.

  From beside the doorway, a herald called out to announce the queen's arrival. Immediately the clamor subsided and all who were seated rose to their feet. Amlina and Wilhaven helped the queen to her place at the center of the high table, set across the top end of the hall. Meghild let out a grunt as she braced her knuckles on the table's edge.

  “Welcome, my lovelies,” she called. “Welcome to this feast in honor of our beloved Penredd and his noble company, who this day have returned to us with riches of gold and fab
ric, oil and ale. But the greatest treasures they bring are surely their own noble selves, their sweet presence a comfort to the heart of their queen.” She raised a goblet to salute Penredd and his two captains, who stood near her at the high table, and then the crewmen of his ships, who occupied one of the long tables, over a hundred men in all.

  “Yr wyf yn cyfarch eich dewrder.” The queen recited a toast in Gwelthek. “Now be seated, my lovelies, and enjoy yourselves!”

  Amlina and Wilhaven gripped the queen's elbows and helped her sit down in the carved, high-backed chair. Meghild sighed and smiled at them both.

  “Sit down, my dears. And thanks.”

  “Sure, it is an honor, my queen.” Wilhaven bowed to her graciously.

  Taking her seat, Amlina scanned the great hall as the babble and motion of the feast resumed. She spotted Draven and his mates, seated partway down the table to her right, opposite from Penredd's crews. Even at this distance Amlina could read tension in the Iruks' faces and postures. Of course, they had tested their new boat today and, from what Draven told her, were pleased with it. Now they were wondering where and when they would sail. This thought brought Amlina back to her gnawing dilemma. The talking book, the Bowing to the Sky, both directed her to this path she dreaded to travel—the path of blood magic.

  “You are preoccupied tonight, Amlina,” Meghild's voice plucked her from her thoughts.

  “Yes, my queen,” Amlina glanced down at the platter of roast meat and vegetables that had been set before her. She had no appetite. “I am…pondering my next move.”

  “Hmm.” Meghild carved at her meat with a knife. “You know you are welcome in my hall as long as you wish to stay. Your ministrations have eased my pains. Beside that, I enjoy your company.”