Europa (44 page)

The claws rushed forward.

Erik dashed across the wall, grabbed his wife with both hands, and spun her off toward the surprised fisherman.

The claws slammed into Erik’s back, four curving blades thrusting into his flesh, cracking his ribs, and snapping his spine. He felt his insides moving downward as his skin stretched and split. His arms snapped out to his sides all on their own, as though they hoped to reach back and take the claws out of his body, but just couldn’t reach. His legs kicked wildly, also beyond his control. The pain was everywhere, shrieking up and down his spine, and his jaw locked open as his neck strained to hold his head up.

He couldn’t think.

He couldn’t even feel.

He was the pain and the pain was him, and he stared up at the dark sky, at the thick clouds obscuring half the stars, at the tiny flakes of snow tumbling down toward him, and he didn’t understand what he saw.

As his head fell forward, he saw Freya. Her beautiful face, framed in white-golden hair and crowned with fox ears, her beautiful face turned toward him, her beautiful face red and white with rage and shock and sorrow. Her mouth was opening, her lips moving slowly.

Dimly, he knew she was screaming, but he couldn’t hear her.

He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t move his hands, and he couldn’t think of anything to say, and he couldn’t feel his…

Freya spun into the arms of the fisherman and saw the reaver drive its claws into Erik’s back, saw her husband lifted off his feet, shaking and twisting with pain. She saw his face bright red as he screamed in silence. His chest expanded, wider and wider, until she saw the blood blossoming from the tears in his skin.

And then he was gone, ripped off the wall into the darkness and hurled back into the freezing waters of the bay.

“
NO!
” Freya ran across the wall and leapt into the cold, empty air with her spear raised in both hands, and she sank the steel blade and shaft deep into the reaver’s shoulder until it erupted through the beast’s back.

The reaver roared and stumbled.

Freya clung to the wet, bloody, stinking fur with one hand as she drew her serrated knife in the other hand and shoved it into the reaver’s neck. Heavy claws grabbed her legs, trying to yank her away, but she just tore deeper and deeper into the reaver’s throat. A vein burst and hot blood flooded out over her arm, and the reaver stumbled again, falling to its knees. The impact nearly shook her off, but Freya held tight, gasping for breath with her burning lungs and burning throat, barely able to see through her burning eyes drenched with hot tears.

The claws on her legs loosened and she shoved her knife deeper across the reaver’s throat, hacking and sawing at the monstrous windpipe and muscles and leathery flesh. The reaver leaned over and crashed onto the beach on its side and Freya slipped down to the ground, still clinging to her knife, which was stuck somewhere in the neck bones. Her arm was too tired and sore to cut anymore, so she let go of the knife and staggered back from the huge corpse. She fell on her backside, and sat there on the cold stones, weeping in silence.

He’s gone. Just… gone. I didn’t even… I should… he’s gone!

Slowly, she turned her head to look down the length of the dead reaver and she saw her spear, and then she saw four more harpoons all lodged down the belly and legs, and beside them were four gray-bearded fishermen in rusty, mismatched armor, gasping and wheezing and bleeding together on the beach beside her. One of them fell to his knees, his hand pressed to his chest, and two of his companions held him up and carried him through the door back inside the city. The last fisherman was the man who had stood at her side on the wall, and he shuffled over beside her and sat down in the snow.

After a few minutes, they both looked up to see a blinding white light bouncing along the top of the wall, and soon they could see Omar’s face as he ran toward them, sword in hand, and a moment later he was standing over them with a gathering crowd of men and women trickling out the seawall door to stare at the huge hairy body.

Back in the city there was cheering and shouting and laughing, and for a moment Freya couldn’t understand why anyone in the world could possibly feel any joy at that moment.

The old fisherman stood up, and Omar sat down in his place.

“We lost Erik?” he asked.

Freya nodded.

Omar stared blankly ahead, and then his face twisted in rage, and he leaned forward and plunged his bright sword into the body of the beast, and the fur and flesh instantly blackened, smoked, and burst into flame.

Dimly, at the edges of her sight and hearing, Freya sensed the other people around them on the beach, some gawking at the corpse, some joking about the battle, others boasting and bragging. Gradually, they all moved back inside the wall, away from the stench of the burning reaver. But she stayed. And Omar stayed.

After an hour or so, when the fire had died down quite a bit and the drunken revelers of Rekavik were roaring merrily, Omar said, “My first wife died of old age. She was just forty-two, but that was quite old back then. I think I loved her, in a way. We were never close though. Two people in a house, was all. But we got along well, and there’s a kind of love that comes from just being together. Fixtures in each others’ lives. She died in her sleep, very peacefully, or so I was told. I wasn’t there. I was too busy forging my immortality. I regret that, a little. Even now. I can still remember her face, would you believe? But I’ve forgotten her name.”

Freya sighed.

“My other wives, I left. One by one, here and there. I don’t really know why I married any of them, except that at the time it made me happy,” he said. “They were pretty, or clever, or simply good company. It never lasted very long. Sooner or later, I would be ready to move on to some other project in some other country, and they wouldn’t want to go, and I never made them. A new land, a new life, a new wife.”

Freya sniffed and sat up a little bit, grateful for the distraction. “Did you really love any of them? I mean, really love them?”

“Yes, quite a few of them, though only for a short time. And that time grew shorter the older I grew. I’ve been losing touch with… whatever it is that makes a man a man. Growing, aging. Fearing, striving. I see young people like you, so full of life and passion, staring out at a world full of things you know nothing about, and yet full of confidence and bravado and your own sort of immortality, and I envy you, in all your crazed stupidity. Real immortality is a hollow imitation of the arrogance of youth. You have passions. I have regrets.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and she leaned into him. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying. Erik deserved better. And you deserved better, too, after all of this nonsense. But that’s all just more regret, and that’s no good to him or to you now. Just remember that he loved you, and he must have been very happy in that love.”

“How do you know?” she croaked through her raw throat.

“I knew it from the moment I met you two. You had your own secret language. It was the two of you, together, against the whole world. Against murderers and queens and monsters. And when the plague took him, he went to the water mill to wait for you, in chains. At that moment, facing the end of his life, the end of his humanity, no one could blame him for running away to save his own skin. But he was as good as his word. He stayed. Because he trusted you. He knew you would save him. And you did. You risked your life to save him.”

“I didn’t save him tonight.”

“The fishermen told me what happened,” Omar said. “It was his turn to save you. And he gave his life for yours. Many a young man throughout history, all across the world, in countless languages, has promised a beautiful young woman that he would die for her. But precious few actually would, or do.”

“I didn’t want him to die for me.”

“I know.” Omar paused. “So, this one was Magnus, the long lost prince?”

Freya nodded.

“Such a pity. Such a waste. I remember him. He was a good man too, like his father. Brash and brave and bold, but honest. Decent. He deserved better than this, too. It seems no one gets what they deserve in this life.”

“Skadi did,” Freya whispered. “You killed her.”

“I did, fair lady, I most certainly did.” Omar leaned back to look up at the stars. The clouds had broken up and the snow had stopped and now the starry heavens stood naked above them. “But I’m afraid I didn’t kill her for you, or Ivar, or anyone else in Ysland.”

“You killed her for the pilot woman, didn’t you?”

Omar nodded. “Yes, I did. Maybe it was a moment of weakness on my part, but Riuza didn’t deserve to suffer and die like that for my stupid quest, for my selfish arrogance. Killing Skadi was the very least I could do for her, not that it did Riuza any good. Usually, when I see people die, I can tell myself that it’s none of my business. They would have died anyway, sooner or later. Riuza would have died sooner or later, too, but I can’t imagine it ever would have been so terrible as the end I brought her to. That was my fault, and it was unforgiveable.”

“Her death was Skadi’s fault, not yours.”

He shrugged and looked away.

“You really loved Riuza, didn’t you?”

Omar smiled at her. “I suppose I did, for a time.”

Freya sighed and leaned forward to pick at the small stones on the ground. “I should be more angry, shouldn’t I?”

He nodded at the charred remains of the reaver. “It looks to me that you were extremely angry. From my most considerable experience, I can tell you that most grieving women don’t rise to the task of giant-slaying in the heat of the moment. So perhaps you’ve already exhausted all your anger here.”

“Maybe. I should be sadder though, shouldn’t I? I’m not even crying anymore.”

“That’s all right. I’m sure you’ll cry some more later. Although, I have noticed that Yslanders are some of the more practical and less sentimental people in the world. That’s not a sin, fair lady. Erik knew you loved him. And you know that you loved him. Your gods won’t count your tears to judge whether your love was deep enough, or your devotion was strong enough. Feel whatever you feel, and when you’re ready, life will be waiting for you to move on.”

“To move on?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say—”

“No, it’s all right, I know what you meant.” Freya looked at him. “Tell me something. How did you cure the plague, really?”

“I told you, with the bloodflies.”

“But how? You didn’t want Skadi to know, but now I want to know. This whole business of souls and aether and rinegold, it’s not natural. But it’s in me now. It’s in all of us, and I want to know about it.”

“Actually, it’s more natural than you might want to believe. There are natural laws for everything in this world, and aether is no exception. I have studied it for centuries with—”

“Omar. Just tell me about the cure. Please.”

He took a long, deep breath. “Well, I told you that I couldn’t just pull out the fox-soul from the reavers, no more than you can pull a drop of fresh water out of the sea. So instead, I added something. I bred up my new bloodflies with another sort of soul in them, a soul that could counteract the fox, a soul that was so healthy and stable that it would restore a reaver to its natural human state, ears notwithstanding.” He cleared his throat. “
My
soul.”

She tilted her head to look at him. “Really?”

“Oh yes.” He nodded. “My soul is already bound to the sun-steel, the rinegold, around my neck. That relationship is governed by the metal, it keeps me changeless, and thus immortal. So by giving all of you a bit of my soul, a small part of that relationship is passed on to you. It’s a transitive property. I can show you the math, if you like. But in short, your bodies now have a strong resistance to change as well. So I imagine that this generation of Yslanders will live very long, very healthy lives. Not as long as me, but that’s a good thing.”

“But the ears.” Freya passed her hand carefully over her head, petting her tall, soft fox ears.

“As I said, I can’t take the fox-soul out. It was still in those bloodflies. But my soul is holding it in check, and my soul is much stronger than some prehistoric mongrel’s.”

“Hm.” Freya rested her chin on her knee. “Is that why the bloodflies don’t bite you? Because your soul is in them?”

“Of course they bite me!” Omar glared at the sky. “The damn things must have bitten me a hundred times when I was making those nests.”

“But you don’t have fox ears or eyes.”

“Because I am entirely unchangeable.” He held up his rinegold trinket on the chain around his neck. “Oh, I started to grow ears once or twice, but each time the fox-soul would be pushed out and I’d return to plain, old Omar again.”

“So does this mean you’ve lost your soul? Did it hurt you?”

“The soul-breaking was a bit unpleasant, courtesy of the flies,” he said. “And it has left me feeling a bit stranger than usual, mostly giving me an extremely strong sense of where all the Yslanders are at any given moment. But as they die, as they inevitably will, those drips and drabs of my soul will find their way back to me. In a hundred years, everything will just like it was before I ever came here.”

“Oh.” Freya stared over the smoldering bones at the black waters of the bay. She whispered, “I miss him.”

Omar nodded.

“I keep looking out there like he’s just going to come up out of the water without a scratch on him, smiling. Holding a fish. But he’s not, is he?”

“No, it’s been far too long. I’m sorry, but if that drop of my soul inside him was going to save him, if he was going to come back, he would have by now. I’m sorry.”

She sniffed and exhaled loudly. “So it’s really over then. What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I should leave before I cause any more disasters around here. I don’t really belong here,” he said. “Not that I belong anywhere, but I definitely don’t belong here. It’s too cold and gray and quiet for my taste.”