Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“Your Majesty.” Beel bowed almost to the stone floor. “I congratulate you, not on my own behalf alone, but on my king’s, upon your ascension to the throne of your ancestors.”

Nor, I decided, were Uri, Baki, and the other Aelf alien in the same way. Kulili had modeled them on us.

“Hail King Schildstarr!”

“Hail!” Garvaon, Svon, and I, standing behind Beel and Idnn, pounded the floor with the butts of our lances.

Neither was Michael alien like that. He was, I think, what the Valfather himself might aspire to become, somebody good the way that a good blade is good, and one who saw the face of the Most High God.

Idnn’s lovely voice rang even among the cloudy rafters of that hideous hall. “Your Majesty! We, Idnn, a Queen of Jotunland, most humbly beg a boon.”

Even the dragons of Muspel belong to Muspel. They are demons to us, but not to themselves.

“Speak, Queen Idnn.”

Those oversized eyes, bigger than the eyes of owls, were made to see through the freezing black of Old Night; and Old Night (I have been there, although only on its edges) is not any of the seven worlds. It is not that the Angrborn always seem horrible. You get used to them. It is that they really are, that being horrible is being like the Angrborn.

“Our king is dead. Our husband is dead as well, for they were one and the same. It is the custom of our people, of the people of the south, Your Majesty, to mourn a husband for a year, a king for ten. Thus you see us in black, and in black we shall go for eleven years. Far to the south, Your Majesty, stands the castle of our girlhood. It is nothing compared to this Utgard of yours, yet it is dear to us, for it holds the room in which we slept as a child. With Your Majesty’s most generous, most compassionate leave we would go to that room, bar its door, and weep. To be at your court is glorious, but glory has no savor for widow’s weeds and tears. May we go? And with Your Majesty’s leave, may our father and his retainers give us escort?”

Beel bowed again. “My heart implores me to accompany my grieving daughter, Your Majesty. Equally my duty demands it. Our king dispatched me to King Gilling. I must apprise him of King Gilling’s death, and of the dawn of your splendid reign. Thus on my own behalf—may we depart?”

Wistan and Toug had gone to ready our horses for a quick getaway, and to tell Master Egr to see to the baggage. While Beel talked, I could not help wondering how they were coming.

“Before you go,” Schildstarr said slowly, “we might give you gifts for your king. How say you, Thiazi?”

He bowed. “I shall attend to it, Your Majesty.”

“Then we have your leave?” Beel took a short step back. “Words cannot express our gratitude, Your Majesty. May peace reign forever between these realms.”

Thiazi’s staff thumped the floor, the signal that the interview had ended. At a whispered order from Garvaon, we knights faced about. When walking with lances, you have to keep step; otherwise the lance-heads hit each other, and the pennants get fouled. We had practiced half the morning, and did well enough.

In the courtyard, I found Wistan, Toug, and Egr ready to depart. “There’ll be gifts,” I told them. “Gifts for King Arnthor, and we must wait ‘til they’re presented. Get those saddles off the horses, and get them back into their stalls.”

Wistan looked dismayed, Toug fatalistic.

“Don’t feel that you’ve wasted your effort. You’ve located everything and cleaned it up. We should be able to leave tomorrow with little delay, and that’s good. Now step closer. I don’t like having to shout at you.”

They gathered around me, even Lynnet.

“You’re to stay with the horses,” I said, “all of you. You must be here to take charge of the gifts. Lord Thiazi will present them to Lord Beel, and Sir Garvaon and Sir Svon will bring them to you. You have to stow them and protect them once they’ve been stowed. Except for Lady Lynnet and her daughter, not one of you is to leave without permission. Everybody understand?”

They nodded.

“Etela, you and your mother sleep in Toug’s room with Mani. If you’re not there when we leave, you may be left behind. Is that understood?”

Etela nodded solemnly.

“If your mother insists on leaving—”

Lynnet said, “I won’t.”

“Good. Thank you, My Lady. Etela, I was about to say that if she goes—if someone comes and takes her away, for example—tell me no matter how late it is. Or how early.”

“Yes, sir, Sir Able. I will.”

“Vil? Is Vil here?”

“Right here, Sir Able.” He raised his hand.

“Fine. If you can’t find me, Etela, tell Squire Toug or Vil. Is there anyone who doesn’t know what he’s to do?” No one spoke.

“Good. Queen Idnn has a diamond diadem, given her by her husband. King Schildstarr’s gifts to King Arnthor will have to equal or exceed that, I think. The danger of theft will be’very great, and if anything is stolen it will go hard with all of you—and very hard with the thief.”

Master Egr asked, “We leave in the morning, Sir Able?”

“I have to talk with you about that.” I drew him aside.

Here I am going to have write more about things I did not see. Woddet and Hela told me most of it.

Daybreak had found Marder’s party in the saddle. The War Way lay broad before them, nearly straight and spangled with frost. A league ahead it passed between boulders and heaped stones where it looked as if a rocky hill had been leveled. Beyond this low defile, they saw the towers of Utgard, towers so big you might think them shorter than they were, if it were not that their tops were so near Skai.

“We will eat our next meal in that castle,” Marder told Woddet; and Woddet said, “Yes, Your Grace, if those who are there already do not make a meal of us.”

Hela, loping beside him, pointed with the short spear she had made for herself from a broken lance. “Seeing that, admit that my father’s is no mean race.”

“I have never thought it was,” Woddet told her. “Though I have never fought the Sons of Angr, I’m eager to. I’m told that in all Mythgarthr there are no foes more fell.”

“Wounded as you are, dear Lord?”

“Wounded as I am,” Woddet replied stoutly.

“Now have you your wish.” Hela pointed again. “See you those stones? Do you, Duke Marder? And you, Sir Leort?”

The Knight of the Leopards said sharply, “They’re in plain view, surely.”

“Why no.” Hela grinned, showing big yellow teeth like knives. “Not so plain, sir knight. There is not a stone to be found there, for I have been this near Utgard and nearer. What you see are the Sons of Angr, crouching or sitting, with their heads covered by their cloaks, all sprinkled over with dust from the road.”

Marder reined up, his hand lifted so those behind him would stop as well. “They are waiting for us?”

Hela made him a bow. “So does it appear, Your Grace.”

The Knight of the Leopards said, “I will ride forward and see how these matters lie, Your Grace.”

“And perish, if Hela’s speaking truth?” Marder shook his head. “Do you serve Sir Able or Sir Woddet, Hela?”

“Sir Able formerly,” Hela replied, “and Sir Woddet presently, by Sir Able’s leave.”

“Sir Woddet. Is she to be trusted?”

Woddet smiled at her. “I would trust her with my life.”

“Then let us not distrust her to Sir Leort’s death.” Wheeling his mount, Marder gave orders; and when his archers had ridden within bowshot of the stones, they spread over the fields beside the War Way, dismounted, and let fly.

Roaring, the Angrborn rose; and we, their intended prey, who had left Utgard before dawn at my urging, heard the sound of battle, and riding with all haste took them from behind.