The Skrayling Tree toa-2 Read online

  Then I saw the huge copperhead writhing near the fire, moving slowly towards us. I snatched an arrow from Ayanawatta's quiver, nocked and shot in a single fluid, habitual action. One's body rarely forgets as much as one's mind. My arrow pinned the copperhead to the ground. Its tongue scented in and out between those long, deadly fangs, and I felt less conscience in killing it than I had in eating the birds.

  They decided to attack at dawn in the north wind's chill, shrieking high-pitched, hideous war cries and swinging stone clubs almost as big as themselves. They fell back well before they reached us. These tactics were designed to put us on our feet and make us more vulnerable to their next strategy, but White Crow had journeyed among these people and anticipated most of their tricks.

  When their arrows came pouring into the camp, we were ready for them. Instantly a fine mesh net was thrown up over us all, including Bes. The net caught the arrows and bounced most of them to the ground.

  Two more snakes were hurled into our midst. I dispatched one with the same arrow I had used on his fellow. Ayanawatta killed the other with one of his twin war clubs.

  White Crow was no longer interested in our attackers. He was roaring his approval of my archery. I had the eye and arm of any man, he said. He was making an observation, not offering a compliment.

  The snakes were abnormally large, especially for this climate, and it was easy to see how the Pukawatchi alarmed their enemies. It quickly became clear, however, why they were not in themselves very terrifying.

  Not one of them was over three and a half feet high! The Pukawatchi were perfect pygmies.

  I had not realized from the conversations I had overheard that the tallest Pukawatchi could scarcely reach my chest. They were conventionally formed little people. Their scrawny bodies were heavily muscled. They showed a tenacity of attack which made you admire them. I assumed they had evolved in similar circumstances to the African bushmen. Unlike Ayanawatta, they were a square-

  headed, beetle-browed people, clearly from a different part of the world altogether, yet they dressed in deerskin, with breech-clouts, fur caps, decorated shirts and moccasins. But for their features and diminutive size, they might have been any tribe east of the Mississippi.

  The trick with the net gave us a certain advantage over the pygmies.

  It did not much surprise me that the man leading them was not dressed like a Pukawatchi. He hung back in the grass, pointing this way and that with his sword, directing the attack. He wore a long black cloak, a tall black hat with black plumes, and his weapon was a slender saber. He looked more like a funeral horse than a man, but there was no mistaking that gloomy skull of a face.

  I had seen him recently.

  Klosterheim, of course. How long had it taken him to get here? I knew it could not have been an easy path. He seemed older and even more haggard than before. His clothes looked threadbare.

  Their attack having failed, the Pukawatchi withdrew around their leader. Either the party had reduced itself since White Crow last saw it, or part of it was elsewhere planning to attack from another angle.

  As one of the warriors ran up to him to receive orders I realized with a shock that, like the Pukawatchi who attacked us with

  such vigor, Klosterheim was scarcely any taller than a ten-year-old boy! He seemed to have paid a radical price for his obsession with the Grail. A moment later he hailed us, his voice unusually high, and suggested a truce.

  At that exact moment Bes decided to utter her outrage. Her huge tusks lifted. She raised her head and pawed at the quivering . ground. A noise struck our ears like the last trump, and a horrible stench filled the air. Klosterheim's speech was completely drowned. He could not control his fury. Equally, we could not control our amusement. Despite the gravity of our situation, the three of us found ourselves weeping with laughter.

  The mammoth's answer to Klosterheim had been to utter a massive fart.

  CHAPTER FOUR Strange Dimensions

  Have they told of the Pukawachee,

  Fairy people of me forest?

  Have they heard of Hiawatha,

  Fate's favored son, the peaceful one':

  SCHOOLCRAFT'S JR., "Hiawatha's Song"

  Closterheim thought we were merely mocking him for the failure of his attack. Laying down his sword, he signaled for the Pukawatchi to stay where they were while he approached us. His expression was one of gloomy distaste as he reached a small hillock a few yards from where we stood. Here, perhaps unconsciously seeking to be at eye level with us, he paused. He removed his black hat and wiped the inside band. "Whatever sorcerer has blown you up to such gigantic proportions, madam, I trust the spell is easily reversed."

  I was able to remain grave now. "I thank you for your solicitousness, Herr Klosterheim. How long is it since we last met?"

  He scowled. "You know that, madam, as well as I do." He expelled an irritated sigh, as if I offered just one more frustration for him to contend with in this world. "You'll recall that it was some four years ago, at that angular house of yours near Englishtown." I said nothing. As anticipated, Klosterheim's route to this realm had been hard. I had a sense of his extraordinary age. How many centuries had he spent crossing from one realm to another in this bleak pursuit? His experiences had changed neither his demeaner nor, presumably, his ambition. I was still not sure exactly what he sought here, but my curiosity was high. Moreover, he was the only link I had to my husband, so I was relieved that we occupied the same realm, if on different scales.

  For all his tiny stature, Klosterheim remained entirely solip-istic. His rigid confidence in his own perceptions and understanding was unshaken. He did not doubt himself for a second. He was irritated that I chose not to remember how four years had passed or acknowledge that I had decided to become a giant in the meantime!

  I remembered Ulric saying, in the context of Nazi anti-Semitism, that he believed Klosterheim had served the Lutheran Church in some capacity until expelled. The German was clearly of that puritanical disposition uncomfortable with our complicated world's realities. It was a tribute to his great need that he had pursued this goal for centuries. Such minds seek to simplify an existence they cannot understand. All they can do is reduce it to what they believe are fundamentals. Their narrow reasoning demonstrates a complete absence of spiritual imagination. Klosterheim was the apotheosis of Law turned inward and gone sour. Was he aggressively determined to destroy Chaos at its roots and thus achieve absolute control, which is death? Chaos, unchecked, would stimulate all possibility until perception became nullified and intellect died. That was why some of us temperamentally disposed to serve Chaos sometimes worked for Law and vice versa.

  Klosterheim knew all this but did not care. His own parochial obsession was with his master, the Satan he had served, rejected and longed to serve again.

  White Crow stepped forward, scowling ritualistically. "How do you now lead my enemies? What do you promise these Little People that they follow you out of their ordained hunting grounds to their deaths?"

  "They seek only what has been stolen from them." Klosterheim uttered the words with hollow irony.

  White Crow folded his arms theatrically. His body language was as formal and controlled as any diplomat's speech. "They stole and murdered to gather the treasures. The lance was never their property. They merely fashioned it. You have persuaded them of honor which they have not earned. The lance blade was made by the Nihrain. The Pukawatchi performed a task. They did not create the blade. You bring nothing but disaster to the ' Pukawatchi. We serve the Balance, and the lance belongs to the Balance."

  "The lance was made by their ancestors and is rightfully theirs. Give them back their Black Lance. You are White Crow the trickster. They simply reclaimed their property. You are White Crow the truth-twister, who deceived them into giving up that property."

  "It is not their treasure. I merely argued with that mad shaman of theirs on his own terms. It was my logic won me the blade, not my lies. The Pukawatchi are too intelligent for their ow
n good. They can never resist a philosophical argument, and that is all I offered them in the end. But I won the treasures through clever thought, not cunning. Besides, I no longer have them all. I gave them away."

  "I am not here to be a passive audience for your decadent psychological notions," said Klosterheim, only half understanding what had been said to him. "Trickery it was and nothing else."

  "Which, as I recall, was the rationale you were using in Germany during the 1930s when we first met?" I pointed out.

  "I tell you again, madam, that I never subscribed to that philistine paganism." Even at his reduced height he achieved a kind of dignity. "But one must ally oneself with the strongest power. Hitler was then the strongest power. A mistake. I admit it. I have always been inclined to underestimate women like yourself." He offered this last remark with some venom. Then he considered his response and looked up at me almost in apology. His personality seemed to be breaking up before my eyes. How difficult had it been for him to follow me here, and how stable was his dream self?

  One of the Pukawatchi, smeared with brightly painted medicine symbols all over his body, presumably as protection against us, a strutting bantam of a fellow who clearly thought much of himself, came to stand behind Klosterheim, displaying offense and outrage. Upon his head was the skin of a large snake, the head still on it, the jaws open and threatening. Swaying from side to side to his own rhythms, he stretched his arms forward, making the signs of the horned deceiver. I could not tell if he described himself or his enemies. He sang a short song and stopped abruptly. Then he spoke:

  "I am Ipkeptemi, the son of Ipkeptemi. You claim much, but your medicine curdles, your spirits wither, and your tongues turn black in your mouths. Give us what is ours, and we will return to our own lands."

  "If you continue this war with us," said Ayanawatta reason-ably, "you will all die."

  The little medicine man made spitting sounds to show his contempt for these threats. He turned his back on us, daring us to strike.

  Then he whirled to face us again, shaking his fingers at us. It was clear he feared the power of our medicine. While his was little more than a primitive memory of the reality, he might well have a natural talent. I did not underestimate him or any power he might have stumbled upon. I watched him warily as he continued.

  "The Kakatanawa are banished from our land as we are from theirs, yet they came and took the lance our people made. You say we have no business here, but neither have you. You should be living under the gloomy skies of your own deep realm. Give us what is ours, then go back to the Land of the Black Panther."

  Again White Crow drew himself into an oratorical stance. "You know nothing, but I know your name, small medicine. You are called Ipkeptemi the Two Tongues. You are Ukwidji, the Lie-Maker. You speak truth and you speak lies with the same breath. You know it is our destiny to make and guard the Silver Path. We must go where the Balance and the tree manifest themselves. You know that is true. Your treasures are gone. Your time is past."

  White Crow threw his arms wide in a placatory sign of respect. "Your destiny is complete, and ours is not yet accomplished."

  The Two Tongues scowled deeply at this and lowered his head as if considering a reply.

  From behind me, an arrow flew past my ear. I ducked down. Another arrow fell short of Klosterheim, who, with eyes narrowing, began to stumble back to where his men awaited his orders. I saw him pick up his sword and begin directing the attack on us again. I whirled, my bowstring pulled, and took another sturdy little warrior in the shoulder. I had a habit of wounding rather than killing, although it was not always appropriate! What was strange, however, was how the arrow made a sound as if it had struck wood. The head was barely in the wound. The pygmy pulled it free and ran off. This strange density of physique was common to them all.

  The Two Tongues had created a diversion, of course. I had been fascinated by his performance. So fascinated that I had not heard the other Pukawatchi creeping up from the river line. Ayanawatta turned in a single movement to hurl a lance into our nearest attacker. Bes swung her immense bulk around to face the newcomers and stood blaring her rage as a Pukawatchi arrow bounced off her chest. She seemed more upset by the archer's bad manners than by any pain he might have inflicted. He was in her trunk in seconds and flying across the prairie to land, a broken puppet, at Klosterheim's feet.

  Grumbling, Ayanawatta stooped to pick up his twin war clubs from the bundle at his feet. Their wide, flat edges ended in serrations, like the teeth of a beast. He spun them around his head, making them sing their own wild war-song as he waded towards the pygmies, slaughtering with a kind of joy I had only seen once before in my father when he had faced Gaynor's men. This battle-rage was cultivated by many adepts who argued that if one had to kill to defend oneself, then the killing had better be done with due consideration, ceremony and efficiency.

  White Crow had taken out one of his lances. He did not throw it, but used it like a halberd, keeping his opponents at a distance and then stabbing once, quickly. I had thought at first it was corroded or rusted like so much of the found metal these people used, but now I recognized it for what it was.

  The metal was black through and through. As the youth wielded his lance with expert skill, it began to murmur and scream. Red inscriptions flickered angrily at its heart. I was oddly cheered. Surely where that blade sang, Ulric must be near!

  I had found the black blade, though I had not sought it. I could see Klosterheim grinning in anticipated triumph. For him, the blade was not nearly as important as the cup his people called the Gradel. Klosterheim wanted the thing for his own ambitions. If he took it back to Satan, he was certain he would be restored in his master's eyes. The central irony was that Satan himself sought reconciliation with God. It was as if our danger were so great that the time had come for the two to bury their differences.

  Yet it was impossible for Klosterheim to work for the common good. The gaining of the Grail must be by his achievement, I knew, or he would see no respect in his master's eyes. This complicated and contradictory relationship with the Prince of the Morning was, to be frank, somewhat beyond my powers of perception.

  White Crow had not seen all the Pukawatchi. A third war party had swept up from a bend in the river. There must have been another forty of the pygmies, all armed with bows. They had walked across the river bottom, like beavers, and had emerged immediately behind us. Our only advantage was that the bows were not especially powerful, and the pygmies were not expert shots.

  While we covered him, White Crow repacked Bes's saddle, adjusting straps and other harness until he was satisfied that all was secure. The canoe would now act to guard our backs.

  I kept the new party at a distance with my bow. Their own arrows could be shot back, but not with any great power as they were too short. Ayanawatta's arrows, however, were perfect. Slender and long, they were a joy to use. They were so accurate that they might have been charmed. But there were not enough.

  Fewer and fewer were being shot back by the Pukawatchi. Slowly they were closing the circle.

  White Crow adjusted the copper mesh protecting Bes's front and head. She kneeled for us.

  White Crow shouted for us to get onto the mammoth, and we scrambled into that massive saddle. We pushed the maddened ' pygmies back with our bowstaves. Ayanawatta was the last to come up, his twin war clubs cracking skulls and bones so rapidly that it sounded like the popping of a hot fire made with damp wood. He worked with astonishing skill and delicacy, knowing exactly which part of each club would land where. Those dense skulls were hard to crack, but he fought to kill. Each single blow economically took a life. When Bes moved away from the tumbled corpses towards the pygmy archers, they scattered back.

  The remains of Klosterheim's band continued to stalk in our wake, but they, too, had few arrows left. They followed like coyotes tracking a cougar, as if they hoped we would lead them to fresh meat.

  Their numbers were now badly reduced. They must have been debating t
he wisdom of continuing with this war party. Klosterheim had not delivered what he had promised them. The Two Tongues probably had some self-interest in leaguing himself with my husband's old enemy. If he had expected Klosterheim to know how to defeat us, he had been disappointed.

  I was surprised when they began to drop back. They were soon far behind us. No doubt they were discussing fresh strategies. Klosterheim would, for his part, insist on the pursuit. I understood him well enough to know that.

  The woodlands were sparser now, breaking into isolated thickets as the undulating grasslands opened up before us. Huge mountains dominated the distant landscape. The pygmies were among the grasses and wild corn. The smoke we saw behind us showed that at least some of them had made camp. White Crow remained suspicious. He said it was an old trick of theirs to leave one man making smoke while the rest continued in pursuit. After studying it for a while though, he decided most of the Pukawatchi

  were there preparing food. He could tell by the quality of the smoke that they had made a good kill. This would be the message any stragglers would see, and it would bring them into the camp. Ayanawatta said the Pukawatchi were a civilized people and would feel shame if they ate their meat raw. The fire told of a beast serving the whole party. While this was not a deliberate message, the Pukawatchi would know how friend and enemy alike would read it. They had called off hunting us, at least for the moment.

  "And a big deer will fill a lot of little stomachs!" Ayanawatta laughed.

  I asked him if there were many people of Pukawatchi height, and he seemed surprised at my question. "In their own lands, all is to their stature. Even their monsters are smaller!"

  "That is what made it both easy and hard for me," chimed in White Crow. "I was easy to see but hard to kill!"