1633880583 (F) (39 page)

I have to admit, I felt a little revulsion hearing this, when I should have been happy for anyone getting to grow back an arm. We’re all narrow-visioned in our own way.

Khorkhog proved a good choice. Inga wolfed it down. “It’s strange,” she said when she’d half-finished it, “but good.”

“I feel that way about Kantening food. The things you do with fish . . . gah.”

Later, when she’d belched and leaned against the wall, she said, “Thanks for saving me. And getting me food. Not sure which one I’m happier about. What are they going to do to us?”

“I’m hoping they’ll give us to the Karvaks. If they don’t eat us soon that’s probably what will happen.”

“Well, that’s cheerful.”

“I’m not a very optimistic person.”

“What happens if the Karvaks take us?”

“Depends on who’s in charge. If my patron Steelfox is out there, we’re fine. If it’s her sister Lady Jewelwolf, we may be in for trouble.”

“If a Karvak is your patron, what were you doing flying around in a Mirabad inventor’s balloon?”

“That’s a long story. If you’re a troll, what were you doing growing up in a human village?”

“That’s not a long story. Not much to tell.”

“Then I suggest you go first. If the trolls eat us, we’re more likely to have heard a complete tale.”

“I’m starting to hate you, Northwing.”

“It’s a popular opinion. Talk.”

She talked.

THE BEGINNING

In the beginning, the Creator took up Her brush and painted all the worlds.

That’s the first part of Swan-scripture, one of the things we get from the People of the Brush, and it’s the start of what my mother would read to me right after she swatted me with the Godbok, every time. Which was often. I think she was trying to calm herself down with the words, as much as she was trying to turn me into a good Swanling. Word had it that my mother had lost her real daughter by failing to keep steel and salmebok beside her crib—my crib—and trolls or uldra had crept in and snatched her away, leaving little old me behind.

Ulrike, my mother, sometimes seemed to think I must have known all about that scheme, but at first I knew nothing but fuzzy colors and sounds and shapes. I don’t even really remember the first beating. I know how it happened, though. When Ulrike learned I was a changeling left in place of her baby, she asked the wise women of the village for advice, and they gave her the best they had: trolls or uldra will sometimes come back for their blood-child and give up their captive one if they hear the wails of their kin. I gather Ulrike snatched me up and made sure I wailed good.

The treatment would have killed a human babe. I was troll-stuff, though. You might think I’d have hated Ulrike. You’d be wrong. I thought my new mother was beautiful. She thought I was horrid. Though in truth I looked pretty much like any other baby, except for a bit of green light that spilled from my eyes now and then, and a thickness to my bones that she discovered with a
whoof
as soon as she tried to carry me.

Well, a fine mess we were all in, the priest’s family and the changeling. But though they were hard people they couldn’t just murder me. Guess I’m grateful.

My father, Mentor Peer, wasn’t the one who’d strike out. Maybe it was all that Swanling teaching about taking a second blow before giving one yourself. Maybe it was that he could hurt almost as much with a hard word and cold eye as Ulrike could hurt with a hand or a wooden spoon. He could be kind, but even on a good day it was a pitying sort of kindness. And Ulrike, she had a good heart in her too, but sometimes after ale she’d grow sullen and red-eyed and remember what she’d lost. And then it was only a matter of time before I said or did something—break a cup with my strength or yell too loud when I bashed my head on a low doorway—and all at once I was the nastiest, most insolent, most ungrateful creature who walked on two legs, she who’d taken everything from her, and the hitting would resume.

I spent many years trying to reconcile all the terrible things she said into one consistent theory of my horridness. But in time even I realized I couldn’t
simultaneously
be too thin and too fat, too loud and too silent, too aggressive and too scared, too worldly and too pious. I think it was when I was eleven, and realized she’d begun a meal by complaining I hated her cooking and ended by saying I ate like a hog, that I realized there was something wrong that wasn’t me.

Now, I had options ordinary human children lacked. Even at eleven I could lift a boulder over my head. I was sorry for any child of a violent drunk who couldn’t summarily crush all her mother’s bottles of spirits underfoot. I was sorry for those children, because they needed protectors. But I finally realized my troll blood meant I could be my own protector. That same day, the wooden spoon, long unused, broke against my troll-bottom.

My father and I had a long talk at his church. I spoke to him while clutching the great icon of the Swan, pointedly showing that my skin did not in fact smolder. I said, “She will not hit me. You will stop talking to me as if I were a monster. And if either of you wants to get drunk, you do it in another town. Go without me. As the goddess is my witness, I’ll be fine.”

I know there are people in the world far, far worse off than I’ve ever been. But I had strength, and damned if I wasn’t going to use it.

I am glad to tell you something. That was the worst of them. They actually got a bit better. Peer reached out to his superiors, and whatever one may say about the Swan-church, this time it helped. Instead of blaming me, my father’s colleagues tried to change my parents. And because they got better I learned something strange.

To my eyes, Ulrike and Peer had been the loveliest people in the village, while most others were misshapen and ugly. Yet over the months as they struggled to become their better selves, they too became ugly in my sight.

I figured out the truth from Peer’s books. I have troll-sight. People of good will? They appear ugly to me. Saintly people look horrific. People of evil intent look attractive to me. The truly wicked look beautiful.

(You, Northwing? You look like a plain old human being. It’s kind of reassuring.)

I’m a good judge of character. It pays to hang around with ugly people. That’s one reason I ended up making friends with Malin Jorgensdatter. She’s hideous. To me. A-Girl-Is-A-Joy, she looked horrid too.

So, that’s who I am. It’s a lot like what you’d hear about me from Malin, except that I don’t tell her how bad things sometimes got. Not everyone’s ready to hear things like that. (I think you hear, and see, a lot.) And even though Ulrike and Peer became better people, it was never easy around them, which is why I jumped at a chance to get on the road. I can forgive. That’s a choice. But I can’t forget. That’s a scar.

But there’s one thing, something I rarely say out loud, something I’m doing for them as well as me. I’d like to find out just why trolls exchange their babies for human ones sometimes. I’ve been among trolls a while now and I don’t see any humans. And is the original Inga Peersdatter still somewhere in the world? I’d like to meet her, if so.

So that’s how I began. How do you think I’m going to end up?

Of Innocence

Well, I thought she might end up badly, which is why during her story I’d been reaching out with my perceptions to find some animal, any animal, who might consent to help us. This was difficult. The natural creatures of the area steered clear of these mountains, and with good reason. What birds and beasts remained in the area had bits of troll-substance stuck into their brains, twisting their minds, making them easier for the trolls to command. I started cajoling them, getting a surprise ready for the trolls.

Meanwhile I began to tell Inga my own story, or at least the part of it that began when my patron Steelfox ordered me and Haytham to hunt for Innocence Gaunt. We were rudely interrupted, in one of those events that the spirits themselves may have arranged.

Skrymir Hollowheart flung the cage’s door open and grabbed us both in one hand. That stony cave of fingers shut out most of what passed for light. I lost my mental grip on the troll-addled creatures outside. Skrymir was not a gentle beast of burden. It was like being back on
Al-Saqr
during a storm.

There was some sort of commotion at the tunnel, the one leading to the cave where Skrymir could look down upon the Karvak army. Skrymir ran to the tunnel, and then his voice boomed, chattering our teeth, and hailing, to my surprise, Lady Steelfox. My patron answered.

Now, you should understand something. The conquering Karvaks set Steelfox over us by marrying her to our rightful ruler. As I’d been the best shaman in the land, I’d been advisor to them both. When my ruler died in the Karvaks’ endless wars, I served Steelfox. I don’t have much reason to like her. But, grudgingly, I do. She is a remarkably decent imposed leader, one who tries to understand our needs. And when I heard her voice, my heart raced. I have to admit I grinned.

Spirits grant she never reads this.

Skrymir’s voice drove the grin straight from my rattling jaws. For he’d seen someone with Steelfox. “The chosen of the Heavenwalls! You’ve delivered him!”

This I certainly didn’t expect. I did not know what would happen or whom to trust, but I wanted help. I reached out to the animals I’d sensed, eagles in the heights with troll-splinters in their eyes. I had the control I needed, and I set them winging toward this tunnel.

“He has delivered me, Skrymir,” Steelfox said. “Without my shaman at my side, I needed his help. I am in his debt. He is under my protection.”

Well, that was interesting.

“Of course!” Skrymir sounded like a boy persuaded not to be cruel to an animal. “I will not challenge your authority!” He opened his hand, palm up. I’d like to claim I was ready for action, but I was more interested in throwing up.

“Here is your shaman,” Skrymir said, “the mighty Northwing, whom even we trolls fear. And also this troll-girl who helped the Runethane escape me. Shall I crush them?”

“Northwing!” Steelfox actually seemed to care. I vowed to throw up on her last. “What has become of you? What have you done to my friend, Skrymir?”

“I captured a foe. I think you should keep closer watch on your people. Another man of yours, one Haytham, helped the Runethane escape as well, though his contribution was minimal compared to Northwing’s.”

“Liege,” I managed to say, “You must understand . . . I have tried to follow your commands as best I could, and I am not afraid to die. . . .”

It was all more eloquent in my head.

Steelfox cut me off. “I have absolute faith in you, Northwing! Your clutches overreach, Skrymir! My sister will know of this!”

“All in good time,” said Skrymir. “It is your foolish inventor and your mighty shaman who have endangered our alliance, but you can make good by taking this Northwing back under your command . . . we surely cannot contain the shaman. And by minding the chosen of the Heavenwalls.”

“And what of the girl, there?”

“This one? She is of troll blood. Years ago we dealt with the uldra of Svardmark, to place her among the humans. We are welcoming her back to the fold, in our own way.”

Inga began saying something. It was, “Kill you . . . kill you . . .”

I wondered if it also sounded better in her head.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said the troll-king, “and a pony too. Now—”

“Now it ends,” rang out a human voice. I knew it. I didn’t like it, but I knew it.

Walking Stick, of the wulin of Qiangguo, jumped onto Skrymir’s hand. I have to give him credit for guts. And strength. He hauled me and Inga up and leapt deep into the tunnel. I got a fleeting sense of his power. You could say that we are both masters of spirit, but my focus is outward onto the world, and his is inward, giving great resources to his body.

Innocence gasped. “Walking Stick! Teacher!”

Walking Stick just stared. He was obviously surprised to find the boy here of all places. But he recovered quickly.

He snatched up the Scroll of Years and started jabbing here and there. Each time someone appeared in midair until he was accompanied by Liron Flint, Snow Pine, and two monks. It was good to see them, but I realized the feeling might not be mutual.