The Hunter Victorious (30 page)

“It would be cruel to tell her anything, even if you could get to her, which I doubt. No one knows how much of the world remains.
There is too much cloud cover to see.”

“Then how do they know it still exists?”

Barat Krol shrugged. “They have machines, computers, measuring devices that tell them such things. But the machines cannot
tell us what we really want to know: whether our loved ones are still alive.”

“But that means… if the world still exists, no matter how badly it might be damaged, that we can leave here and go there!”

Barat Krol and Septua exchanged yet another of the meaningful glances.

“Uh, no, not really,” said the dwarf, rubbing his whiskery chin with his callused hand.

“Why not?” challenged Braldt. “Oh, I know the argument. The sun flares disrupt the transporter and there are too many of us
to fit in the spacecraft. But still, there must be a way!”

“Uh, it’s a little more complicated than that,” muttered Septua.

“What my small friend here is trying to say is that no one who enters the spacecraft will arrive at their destination,” Barat
Krol stated in quiet tones. “I have long known that they would not take us, the Madrelli, anywhere with them, no matter what
world they found. What would be the purpose of taking up valuable space with our large, furry carcasses when they can take
but a single container which holds all the Madrelli clones they will ever need? No, I knew they would not include us in their
plans. They would leave us here to die, to freeze alone in the darkness. So, I decided, if we Madrelli cannot go, they cannot
leave either. We will all die together.”

Minra gasped. Braldt looked at the Madrelli with sharp eyes. “What have you done?” he demanded.

“I have fixed the ship so that its course cannot be controlled.”

“Surely it can be fixed!”

“Perhaps, in time,” Barat Krol said pleasantly, “but only if they knew about it.”

“I will tell them!”

“No, my friend, you will not,” Barat Krol said quietly. “Unless you give me your word, you will never leave this place alive.
You will slip and fall, I think, and tragically break your neck. I would not like for this accident to happen, but you must
understand I cannot allow my people to be sacrificed, discarded like something that has absolutely no value. If we die, so
do they.”

“What if a way could be found to take all of us back to our world? What then?”

“Then I would ask you what I could do to help,” said Barat Krol. “And my heart would be happy that you were spared such an
untimely death.”

Barat Krol and Braldt looked into each other’s eyes and smiled. They were cold, knowing smiles that acknowledged the other’s
stand. Neither Braldt nor Barat Krol were afraid of the other; in fact, they were well matched physically and any attempt
on Braldt’s life would have thrown the Madrelli’s into question. But it was not a contest that either of them wished to enter,
for despite their vast differences, they were friends.

“That be all well an’ good,” Septua interrupted. “But we still gots time to work that one out. What I wants to know is, what
be you gonna do about this ’ere wedding?”

“What wedding?” asked Braldt.

Septua looked at him with exasperation. “I been in a turrible accident, buried up to my neck in rocks, operated on, stuck
’ere on my bed o’ pain, an’ I still knows ten times as much as you. Ain’t you sumpin’!”

“What wedding?” Braldt asked, glaring at the little man.

“The wedding termorrow ’tween Keri an’ the king!”

Braldt stared at the dwarf, thunderstruck.

“When and where is this to happen?”

“I tole you, termorrow mornin’, down at the water, on the king’s boat what he ’ad made special.”

Braldt’s face was hard, as though chiseled from stone, as he rose and strode away.

“Wait, come back ’ere! Wotta ya gonna do?” But Braldt did not even slow his pace, much less respond to the dwarf’s question,
and then he was gone.

“Well, wotta ya make a’ that?” asked the dwarf.

“I think there’s not going to be a wedding,” said Mirna.

* * *

The volva paced back and forth in her chambers, ignoring Carn, who sat beside the bed watching her restless figure. He had
tried to calm her, tried to reason with her, to tell her that she was wrong, that her importance had not been diminished by
what had occurred that morning. But she had struck at him, and from the dark fury that he saw in her eyes he knew that she
would not hesitate to kill him if he troubled her further.

He had not told her the truth. In fact, he thought that what happened that morning had caused her irreparable damage. He had
not been fooled by the voices of the gods, recognizing, as Braldt had done, that they were but voices that had been projected,
a trick they had mastered early in their young years. But it had served to fool the mass of mourners, sunk so deep in their
own grief that they were easy to manipulate.

By rejecting the sacrificed cock and returning it alive, a trick which he had yet to figure out, the voices had turned the
tables on the volva, using her own ploy against her so that it appeared that the gods rejected her and the theories she espoused.

But Carn had more serious matters on his mind than the volva’s emotional state. Tomorrow was the day Keri was to wed the king.
Such a joining was well and proper for one of royal birth such as his sister. Normally he would have been pleased for her
success, despite the fact that Otir Vaeng was so very much older than Keri and held no attraction for her. But that too was
the least of his problems, for this was to be no normal wedding.

According to the plan that had been conceived by the volva and the prime minister, immediately following the wedding ceremony,
Keri was to be sacrificed to the gods, an act of propitiation and supposedly an ancient custom of their people to gain favor
with their gods.

Carn stared into the flames that burned on the hearth and wondered if he would be able to do it. Keri was his sister, he had
loved her all his life, but she had turned her back on him and on their gods, choosing to love Braldt and casting aside Mother
Moon and the other deities they had worshiped, simply because Braldt had done so.

She had actually dared to laugh at him, to chide him for his beliefs after he had been shown the miracle at the heart of the
fiery mountain, a miracle which had scarred and hideously disfigured him. By laughing at him, she scorned their gods as well.
Carn’s heart had ached at her laughter; he had trembled under her casual dismissal of that which they had held holy all their
lives.

He had waited for the gods to strike her down for her impertinence and when they did not, he knew that it was his commandment
to punish her for her sins. He grieved under the heavy penalty, but never once did he question the rightness of the action.
Keri must die, and by his own hand. There was no other way.

Keri stood tall and proud under the busy fingers of the seamstresses. The dress, more lovely than any she had ever possessed,
brought her no joy. The purest of white silks, it fell from her shoulders in soft gathers, gently draping the swell of her
breasts and then cinched at the waist with a wide belt which was worked with gilt embroidery in a pattern of flowers and leaves.
The blossoms and buds of the flowers were gemstones, pale blue, soft pinks, and glowing reds. The skirt was full and fell
to her ankles in heavy folds. The hem was worked in gilt and precious gems as well and was heavy and awkward to walk in, swinging
around her legs like a great bell.

Her hair had been lathered and rinsed and perfumed with a flowery attar before it was pinned to her head in a mass of
dark curls which framed her face and hung down over the nape of her neck. She wore around her brow a gold diadem set with
a single large moonstone that reflected the firelight in its milky depths, seeming to burn with a life of its own.

Her ears were hung with tiny chains of gold and around her neck was clasped a wide gold band, nearly the width of her hand,
from which a second enormous moonstone was suspended, easily the size of an egg which rested between her breasts. Her arms
and wrists and fingers were heavy with gold and silver and precious gems as well. She caught a reflection of her image in
the mirror and had it been Braldt she was marrying, she would have taken joy and delight in her appearance. As it was, she
barely noticed.

Keri could not understand why it was happening. Why would Otir Vaeng want to marry her? It made no sense. He was old and sick
and perhaps even dying, thanks to the wound that Beast had inflicted on him. By all rights, he should hate her, not want to
marry her.

It did not really seem as though he wanted to marry her. He seemed curiously devoid of any desires other than sitting before
the fire and looking into the dancing flames as though they held some secret message, some vision that only he could see or
hear.

The wedding had to be the idea of Skirnir, that disgusting worm of a man. Keri felt her temper begin to rise at the thought
of the man. She hated him far more than she hated Otir Vaeng. The king elicited her sympathy despite the evil he had caused
in his life, but Skirnir… she wished she could step on him as one might squash a poisonous bug. He was that loathsome.

She could not expect any help from Otir Vaeng, who seemed to lack the energy necessary to take a stand, any stand. Nor could
she expect any help from Skirnir, who she
suspected was at the bottom of this ill-conceived marriage. But what about Carn, and most of all, what about Braldt?

Her brother’s actions puzzled her. It was clear that his mind had been severely affected by his ordeal at the heart of the
volcano. He had come away damaged, not only in the flesh, but also in the mind. He had babbled some nonsense about Mother
Moon revealing herself to him.

She had tried to reason with him, tried to convince him that their entire religion was a sham, put in place long ago by the
Scandis to prevent them from straying into lands which they were using for their own purposes. But Carn had reacted violently
to her words and refused to listen.

Since that day he had looked through her whenever they met and refused to speak to her. It almost seemed as though he hated
her. And the volva—Keri shuddered. That terrible woman had a hold on Carn that Keri knew would be difficult to break.

Braldt. Keri’s heart lurched sickeningly when she thought of Braldt. Was he still alive? She had had no word of him since
he had first disappeared. Skirnir had told her that he was dead, but she tended to disbelieve whatever Skirnir told her. Braldt
could not be dead; something inside her would know it if he ceased to exist. But if he was still alive, why had he not come
for her? Had he stopped loving her? Keri could not believe that that was so either; something in her would have known that
as well, had it been true. But if he was alive, where was he and why had he not come to her aid?

It was time. She could hear the women coming. A wave of desperation swept over her. What was she to do? Was there no one to
help her? Even Uba Mintch was gone, taken away by the guards. Only Beast remained, and he only because it would have been
necessary to kill him in order to separate him from her. Not knowing what to do, at the last second
Keri snatched up a small knife, a tiny thing with a blade no more than three inches long, its hilt the head and neck of a
horse worked in gold. It was a woman’s knife, one of the seamstresses’, unlikely to cause serious damage, but it possessed
a keen blade and would serve to slice her wrists. She would not be wed to Otir Vaeng if Braldt still lived. If he did not
come, if he did not rescue her from this marriage, she would do whatever was necessary to free herself.

She stood tall and proud as the women flitted around her, commenting like foolish, twittering sparrows about her beauty and
how happy and honored she should be. Nonsense, all nonsense. They led her to the door and then escorted her out of her chambers
with Beast slinking at her heels, growling and snarling. They gave him a wide berth but still circled her completely. Once
outside the chambers, standing on the broad concourse, she could see for the first time the incredible damage that had occurred.

Her view was short-lived, for almost immediately a large platoon of heavily armed guards took up positions surrounding the
bevy of handmaidens, and the entire party made its way slowly down the winding concourse.

Here and there Keri saw eyes gawking at her, children clinging to pillars and calling down excitedly to report what they saw,
but she herself could see nothing and no one. Braldt himself might have been standing there and she would never know. Her
heart wept inside her, despite the fact that her face was stony and set in a rigid mask. She would never let them know how
she felt. They might force her to do their will, but her thoughts and her feelings were her own.

The procession paused before the great doors that led to the outer world. The musicians, who had joined them at the same time
as the guards, increased the tempo of their music—horns blared and cymbals and drums tinkled and thumped. A
sense of gaiety prevailed, even though Keri doubted that any among them truly shared that emotion.

She was draped with a heavy fur-lined cloak and high furred boots were placed on her feet over the thin golden slippers. She
felt like a large doll, dressed and prettied for another’s pleasure.

The blast of intensely cold air that rushed in as soon as the second set of doors were opened brought the first sense of reality
to the unnatural scene. She felt her eyes water and sting with the bitter cold, but it felt good. She welcomed its frigid
touch.

She was not allowed to walk, but was placed upon a litter and swaddled in furs and polyskins. Beast trotted beneath the litter,
growling and snapping at ankles that dared to come too close to his fearsome teeth. From her vantage point, Keri could see
a second litter ahead of her which she guessed held the king, whom she had not seen for several days.