Brian Stableford - Asgard's Heart

Dare I wish for the glare of a bright sun to melt these mists? I thought. Should I chant some magical verse to bid the fog begone?

I did not try it; not because I was certain that it would not work, but rather that I was afraid that it would not work to our advantage. We had set out beneath a dull and sullen sky, perhaps for adequate reason, and I knew enough of the perils of magic to know that a foolish spell must always rebound upon its user.

The plash of the invisible oars could still be heard as they dipped into the water to haul us across its surface. I wondered whether there were fish in the sea which saw us as a marvelous many-legged insect scudding across the surface, but it was not a cheering thought.

Myrlin was standing at the wheel, holding it loosely, while the woman looked on. I did not know whether the wheel was such as to need a man to guard it, or whether the rudder moved with the same innate intelligence as the oars; I fancied, though, that Myrlin felt better having the semblance of a job to do. I went to stand beside him, taking my bow and arrows from the side of the ship to the bulwark’s ledge that formed the front-facing wall of our platform.

“It seems that they are becoming more distinct,” he said, glancing upward at the circling shadows. He sounded uneasy; no doubt he would rather postpone our first moment of real danger for as long as possible, though when it came it would immediately banish any sensation of having been delayed. I turned to our companion, goddess in mortal guise, to study her as she stared up into the sky, with an expression of considerable vexation.

“Too soon,” she murmured, and seeing me looking in her direction, added: “Do not worry, I beg of you. If they begin to come through now, they will be very weak. Our world will not be breached so easily.”

As if to contradict her, another shadow swooped at her, zooming from the heights like a black eagle, claws extended to tear and rend. She could not help but draw her face away, and put up a defending arm, while the folds of her dark cloak fell momentarily away from her golden armour.

Whether the hand made contact with the shadow-thing it was difficult to say, but she sustained no hurt from it and the bird-demon soared away again, impotent still.

It was obvious that the next swoop might not be so impotent, so dense were the shadows now becoming, so fast and furious in their flight. I drew my sword, and threw back the cloak, determined to hide from the cold no longer.

As if glad to meet my challenge, three of the shadows dived at once, hurtling towards me with wing-tips drawn back. I watched the heads of the creatures, and saw their bird-like faces dissolve, to be replaced by features far more humanoid, save for pointed teeth behind gaping lips. Their great claws thrust out before them seemed to grow as they drew near.

I slashed with the sword, finding it remarkably easy to wield. For a moment, I had the sensation that the blade itself was only shadow, not substantial at all, and feared that it could not disturb the attack of the harpies, but the lack of apparent weight was no reflection of a lack of effective substance.

The single sweep of the sword cut through all three of the bird-demons, and it was they who lacked the substance to interrupt its passing. It cut through them as if they were no less vaporous than the clammy mist, but as it did it tore them savagely, so that their forms were shattered, dissolving into blood-red clouds. They had no momentum to carry through their thrust—the sword caught them and hurled them away, scarlet-and-black shreds that had lost all semblance of what they had tried to be. They disappeared over the parapet, on a downward-looping trajectory, but there was no sound of any splash as they hit the waves.

There surged through me a feeling of such power that I felt momentarily giddy. The casual ease of the victory imparted such a sense of exultation that I could revel in the sensation of being a person of great substance… one who would never need to yield to the monsters of the night. Though reason told me that this was the merest of beginnings, and the most derisory of all the tests which were to come, still I felt indomitable, as though I knew for the first time in my existence what it might mean to be a hero. I still felt as though I might be drunk, but this was the glorious intoxication of triumph and exultation.

Without meaning to, I followed the course of the shattered bird-things, moving over to the side of the ship and placing my left hand on the parapet while I peered into the thicker mists which hid the sea.

I could see no more than I could hear, and the broken things were utterly gone in the confusion, but while my hand rested on the parapet something long and black snaked out of the murk as though it came from beneath the belly of the ship, and wrapped itself around my wrist.

It had the texture of something very soft and slimy, and yet it tightened in a muscular fashion once it had me in its grip. It put me in mind of the head of a great leech, and I half-expected to feel the bite of something acid as it tried to draw my blood. My reaction was one of instinctive horror, and I tried to pull my hand away with a convulsive jerk— but that was exactly the wrong thing to do. It was as though the strength of my backward thrust was immediately reflected in the body of the thing itself, as though my action had added to its own capacity for elastic reaction. As my arm reached the full measure of my jerking pull, it was suddenly wrenched back again, with such force that I nearly overbalanced.

In that moment, I think, there was a real danger that our defences might be breached by the enemy’s first hopeful foray. I could have tripped, felled by my own unreadiness and clumsiness, and if I had been dragged over the edge of the parapet and down into the turbulent waters, the shock of immersion would surely have driven all sense from my mind and left me at the mercy of whatever half-formed sea-monsters were nascent there.

But I did not fall; my reflexes, however untrained or doubtfully adapted, caught me up and steadied me, while the sword in my right hand cut downwards, almost of its own accord, and sheared through the black tentacle as though it were hardly there.

Again there was a stain as if of blood upon the mist, but then the loop which wound around my wrist dissolved into the icy air, and the rest of the thing was gone into the waters.

“Too soon it may be,” I shouted to my companions, though there was not sound enough to require me to raise my voice, “but it will not stop them. They are at us, and I do not believe that they will give us pause to rest.”

She did not need the warning. Her slender sword was in her hand, and Myrlin came back from his senseless duty at the wheel, with his own weapons ready. He towered above me by a full head and more, and as he whirled his blade about his head, slashing at the demons of the air who came at him with many ugly faces and countless thrusting talons, he seemed closer kin to god or titan than to mankind.

More of the black things curled on to the deck, some climbing in sinuous fashion, others striking like whiplashes. I swung the sword back and forth, cutting through them as fast as they reached for me, and though one touched my ankle it had not the time to curl around it.

On the deck below us, the automata came to life at last, and with their own weapons drawn began to fight against shadows raised as though from the sea itself—vague things with dog-like heads and arms like huge apes, which reached for them in ponderous fashion.

The skirmish seemed to last for some while, but it quickly became obvious that these lumpish things had no more power to hurt our defenders than the bird-demons and the slimy ropes had to carry us away. When that fact became clear within my mind, it seemed that the knowledge itself was enough to put an end to the episode. One moment the demonic birds were crowding around us as thickly as they could; the next they were gone into the mists, flown away to leave the lowering sky much brighter than it had been before they filled it.