Web of the Norns

III

The snow outside had drifted and banked high against the building wall. Grant sank into it and floundered helplessly until his head came above the surface.

He could not remember ever having been so uncomfortable before. His body was bruised and sore, the hams hung like a dead weight around his neck, melted snow was soaking into his clothes, and the air, when he came up and encountered it, was icy and filled with flying particles that stung against his face.

His surroundings were completely invisible, a black wilderness of cold. A shout reached him from somewhere ahead and Grant floundered toward the sound to a place where the drifts were only waist high and the wind cut through his thin wedding suit like an icy lash. A few yards on he found what appeared to be a path where other bodies had floundered before him and lowered the snow a little. He jumped as a hand clutched him out of the darkness.

"Follow me, mate — and don't lose those hams or I'll tear out your skinny throat." The soldier moved off, ploughing a shallow channel in the deep snow, and Grant floundered after him.

His shoes were pointed, black, shiny and expensive — or had been when he had last seen them. He couldn't see them now, but he could feel them. They were fine for dancing or getting married in, but they were worse than useless for walking in the snow. Soaked and soggy, they squished with every step. Grant shoved through the clutching drifts and felt sorry for himself.

He had thought of asking the trudging form ahead to stop and let him rest, but he had the horrible thought miles back that if he stopped he would freeze to death. This was the only thing that enabled him to put one numbed foot in front of the other. He had followed the swordsman, expecting him momentarily to arrive at a house or some warm place; it would be impossible that the man was content to plough through endless hellish snow. But he had long ago given up thinking about when they would arrive at the warm place, or where they were going, and just stumbled after the moving man ahead, as if he were warmth itself, always retreating, always out of reach.

The darkness was passing and the sky was brightening — showing the wastes of snow around him. Even light seemed to hurt with the bitter numbness of nerves that were almost frozen.

In the growing light he saw small trees on either side. They thickened until the men were threading in and around large trees in a wood thick enough to stop the biting wind and allow only a thin layer of snow to cover its floor. Grant followed the man in barbarian armour over the clearer ground, his mind awakening and beginning to ask unanswerable questions, until they emerged from the trees into the cold and the drifting deep snow again.

Closing his eyes against the bite of wind, Grant tried to stop sensation and thought. They ploughed across a rutted path that might have been a road under the snow, and then down a slope with trees, the soldier going faster, and Grant keeping up because it was easier to stagger downhill. The wind got behind and hurried him, putting knives of cold into his back.

Down in a hollow ahead, sheltered from the wind, a small campfire flickered. Grant's first realisation that they had reached their journey's end was when a hoarse voice called

"Hold there! Who is it?" There was the quick rasp of a sword being slipped from the scabbard.

"Aker Amen and some hams — make room by the fire, you lazy sons!"

The soldier pushed up to the blaze, with Grant tottering eagerly after him. Before he could reach its beckoning warmth, the man with the sword jumped forward and clutched him by the shirt front.

"Aker, this isn't Begiln! What happened to him — and who is this wreck with the meat necklace?”

Aker Amen toasted his wet feet and frowned into the fire. "Bigeln was a fool and now he's dead. I would be too, except that this stranger came along and we managed to get out of that filthy spowl's nest together. Let him be."

The swordsman let go of Grant's coat. Since this was the only thing holding him up, Grant collapsed in a limp heap. One of the hams plopped into the mud next to Aker Amen, who produced a dagger from his belt and calmly sawed himself off a piece of meat. He chewed the tough flesh and ruminated. He must have been thinking of the battle because he made a disgusted noise and shook his dagger at the swordsman.

"Put that sticker away, Grayf, and let me tell what a fool that Bigeln was. We were in this drinking hall finishing three or four small bottles. The townsmen are dirty, ugly and stupid — more animals than men. The only thing they care about is their stinking little god, N'tigh'ta. He's an ugly little monster with a big belly and a hollow head — they put sacrifices and such in this scooped-out top of his head. They have little idols everywhere; it's about all you can do to avoid stepping on them."

Grant groaned as he turned his other side toward the flame.

"Well, we're sitting there drinking. That stupid Bigeln should have known better — he's been in this place before. But you know what he does? He's chewing weed, and before I can stop him, he rolls a great gob around on his tongue and lets fly."

Grayf, the other soldier, let his jaw drop with amazement. "No!"

"Yes!" Aker roared the word out. "He thought the idol was a nice fancy little cuspidor. He spits in it, and those fur-pants' spowls let out a shout you can hear ten miles away. The next second we have our swords out and are fighting the whole damn town. They got Bigeln and I got out."

"But what about this?" Grayf jerked his thumb at Grant's collapsed form. "What are you going to do with him?"

Aker cut another slice of meat. "Not going to do anything with him. He was just standing around, so I brought him along to carry those hams. I wanted to keep my sword arm free. Fact is, I don't even know who he is." He jabbed a giant thumb about three inches into Grant's ribs. " Hey — who are you?”

Grant opened one bleary eye and tried to gather together his foggy thoughts.

"M'name's Grant O'Reilly and I'm a student at Columbia. I was just — just standing — when—“

He bogged down at the attempt to describe what had happened to him and his head dropped back onto his chest.

A pimple-faced boy of about sixteen, who had been keeping in the background, leaped forward, shouting at the same time.

“You heard him! He said he's a student — student magician, that's what! I'll cut his throat and drink his blood and take his clothes and—" He grabbed a handful of Grant's hair and snapped his head back, starting to draw a battered dagger across Grant's throat.

Aker shifted his weight and kicked the boy into a snowdrift.

"You take orders from me and that's all you do. You do the carrying and the cooking and leave him alone. Even if he is a student, he can fight, which is more than you can do." The boy drew back, sniffling and rubbing his hip, and threw look of black malevolency at Grant.

Grant ignored him because he was already drifting into sleep.

During the night, the flight and battle with the mob recurred in fragments of dream that wove in with what he had heard Aker Amen say. And slowly, penetrating ever deeper, with a chill like the cold beyond the fire, came the realisation that these men spoke and lived as if their way of life was the only one — as if they had never heard of any other. Wherever his world of money, air-conditioned houses, of warm beds and swift automobiles and police and ambulances to protect him had gone, it was gone so unreachably far that Aker Amen and Gras and the snarling ones in the tavern had never encountered it, never heard of it. However he had arrived here, he was a long way from home. There would be no easy road back.

Slowly through the night, the reality of memories of civilization and comfort and the hopes of rescue faded until they seemed mere fantasies of a world that had never been.

The boy poured water on the fire, and the hissing and steam woke Grant from his soggy sleep.

It was snowing again.

He felt mauled. His muscles ached terribly and were so stiff he could scarcely move. His back, which faced away from the fire, was numb with cold; his feet were soaked and his nose was running. He sat huddled beside the smoking ruin of the fire and tried to pull his ragged thoughts together. Perhaps he was in Alaska or some savage corner of Greenland. That was a possibility.

With his arms clasped around his legs and his chin resting on his knees, he was forced to stare at the tattered remains of his dress shoes. They focused his attention, because they were more than shoes. They were symbolic. The shoes were Grant. A well-constructed, civilized product, perfectly in tune with a well-ordered world. Now a period of darkness and a night of madness, and that world was gone. Security and comfort vanished with it. All that remained of the shoes was a torn, bruised cover with a bit of blue flesh peeping through — his flesh. He rubbed his dripping nose on his coat sleeve and snuffled in self pity.

It was still snowing, white flakes falling out of the grey lead sky into a silent world. The only thing he could hear was the soft sibilance of falling snow. Grant sat up suddenly, the little drifts of snow falling from his back.

The significance of the doused fire penetrated. He was alone.

He forgot the soreness and fatigue of his body now — it was a matter of survival again. Slipping in the slushy soup around the fire, he tottered to his feet. The clearing was empty. He screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking with terror.

"Akerrrr. .! Aker Amen! Helloooo!! "

It was like shouting into a sea of drifting feathers, and produced as much result. He lurched around the clearing and noticed a track leading off through the trees. The footprints were fresh, but the windblown drifts were already beginning to fill them in. Grant followed them; it was his only chance for survival in this icebound wilderness. Aker would help him—had to help him. He realised for the first time how completely incapable he was. Without some help he would be dead by nightfall.

He pushed through the woods, stumbling over concealed obstacles and falling headlong in the drifts. As he came down a slight rise, he found himself on the same road-like track he had crossed on the way in. Three dimly-seen figures were just starting up the bank on the far side. At his shout, they stopped and he rushed up to Aker, who was breaking trail.

"You can't leave — you can't leave without me You've got to take me with you!"

Aker Amen adjusted his sword belt and fixed Grant with a cold, indifferent gaze.

''Why?"

Grant gaped twice, but couldn't think of what to say. There were no answers to the devastating question. Why should they help him? He realised instinctively that a plea of "humanity" or "friendship" would be worthless, as well as out of place. This society wasn't built like that. With the speed of desperation, his mind raced to other possibilities. Convenience, help? He knew that he didn't dare offer fighting assistance; last night had shown how woefully lacking he was in that important commodity. He could think of no other talents that might interest them. For the first time in his twenty-five years of existence he would have liked to reverse his civilized attributes and have a strong back and a weak mind.

Weak as his back was, though, it might be useful to them.

"I can carry your things, your equipment or whatever…" Grant stopped suddenly as he realised that Aker and Grayf had, besides their weapons, only large leather wallets slung from their belts. His unspoken question was answered by a jerk of Aker's thumb.

Grant had been in such a panic when he passed the boy that he hadn't realised what he was carrying. He saw it now, a gigantic pack, hung with pots, sacks, and bundles and crowned with one of the stolen hams. The weight of this monster load had forced the boy to the ground as soon as the group stopped. He sat on a hummock in the road now, breathing heavily and greeting Grant with a malevolent stare.

That job was taken care of, too.

Aker Amen had turned back to resume the trail, but he stopped suddenly, his head cocked to one side. At the same instant Grant was aware of a distant rumbling, like muffled drums.

"Horses coming! Into the woods!" Even as he shouted the words, Aker was diving into the underbrush. Grant was too startled to act, but Grayf was galvanised into instant action. Grant was between him and the safety of the trees, a fact that made little difference to Grayf. He scarcely slowed when his shoulder hit Grant; then he was among the trees and Grant lay sprawled helplessly in a deep snowdrift.

The boy was still struggling to his feet when the horse-women came. Grant had just a fleeting glimpse of them — long, flowing blonde hair and gilt breastplates — as they swept down the road. One of them uttered a coarse cry as they passed. She leaned far out of the saddle and made one sweeping stroke with her sword. The boy stumbled and fell to the ground. The ham, loosed by the fall, flew in one direction; the boy's head bounced in another. A thick stream of blood gushed from the dismembered neck and stained the snow a deep red.

The two soldiers reappeared at the edge of the road and hurled blistering oaths after the horses. Clear, girlish laughter floated back and they cursed the louder. Grant pulled himself from the chill embrace of the drift and tried to brush off most of the snow before it melted.

"You there — Grant O'Reilly! Still want to come along? We need a boy to carry our duffle."

Aker and Grayf howled with laughter and pounded each other on the back. Grant couldn't quite see the joke, and considered it to be in the worst taste possible. He found it hard, however, to stifle his own feeling of happiness and relief. The boy's death, untimely though it had been for the lad, might provide Grant's one chance of survival.

He pulled the packstraps from the limp form and tried to ignore the accusing stare of the bodiless head. He would have taken the pack and left, if Aker hadn't reminded him that survival was still the most important factor in this brutal world.

"Might as well take his clothes. Unless you have to wear those things you've got on."

Grant swallowed squeamishness and took the advice, while Aker Amen and Grayf waited, lounging against a tree and making remarks. The falling snow thinned and stopped as Grant stripped the boy's grey body, unpeeling layers of unsewn fur and belts and bands of leather that held the fur in place, and wrappings of filthy cloth which he dropped on the snow after he observed black specks of fleas hopping off.

Aker Amen shifted his weight with am impatient creak of leather. "Make it fast."

Grant could not grasp the intricacies of the boy's wrappings, but one large cowhide was slit in the centre like a poncho, and when he slid his head through the hole and belted the hide around the waist with a leather strip from which dangled the boy's dagger it was a neat, respectable tunic, and the thickness of the leather shut off the cold blasts of the wind. A sudden itch indicated the leather had other tenants, but just then he did not care.

Hastily, already feeling better, Grant sat down in the snow and ripped the soggy shoes off his blue feet, hissing between his teeth at the needling pangs they gave forth at every touch, and shoved them into the lumbering boots of the boy with a grunt that barely restrained desperate profanity.

The boots were warm and oddly soft inside and crackled when he stood up in them. He realised that they were mukluks, soft leather boots stuffed with hay. The Eskimos used them, he knew his feet should be comfortable, though now they felt as if all the imps of hell were applying red hot needles.

Bits and pieces of leather in various odd shapes were stacked beside the corpse in the snow. Grant looked them over uncertainly, draped one piece around his neck like a scarf and took a piece that was wide in the middle and thin on the ends and tied it over his head and under his chin. Judging by Aker's and Grayf's sudden roar of laughter, that was not the use for which the item was intended, but it kept the wind from his ears. Aker straightened, ready to go, and Grant abandoned the rest of the inexplicable odds and ends of leather and left them scattered beside the naked, headless body as he went to pick up the pack.

It was too heavy to get off the ground, but its shoulder straps stood out stiffly, as if suggesting a solution. He half knelt and slipped his arms through and then pulled himself hand over hand up a sapling until he was almost upright and had his legs under him enough to take his weight.

It was a neat bit of commonplace practical thinking which he would not have been capable of a freezing half hour ago. He was still cold, but he could move and think; his mind was no longer congealed with cold and already the exertion was beginning to warm him. He looked around for approval, but Aker and Grayf had vanished into the silent, snow-filled wood, leaving a double trail of footprints.

Stumbling under the unwieldy load, but moving ahead steadily, he followed the trail of the footprints, occasionally hearing the murmur of a voice ahead.