Runemarks

Now, One-Eye had no love for children. He looked down with no affection at all at the grubby little girl with the runemark on her hand and wondered how he could have let her draw him in. He was getting old-wasn’t that the truth?-old and sentimental, and it was likely to be the death of him-aye, as if the runes hadn’t already told him as much. His most recent casting of the runestones had given him Madr, the Folk, crossed with Thuris, the Thorny One, and finally Hagall, the Destroyer-

– and if that wasn’t a warning to keep moving on-

“Teach me,” said the little girl.

“Leave me alone.” He began to walk, long-legged, down the side of the Hill, with Maddy running after him.

“Teach me.”

“I won’t.”

“Teach me.”

“Get lost!”

“Teach me.”

“Ye gods!”

One-Eye made an exasperated sound and forked a runesign with his left hand. Maddy thought she saw something between his fingers-a fleck of blue fire, no more than a spark, as if a ring or gemstone he was wearing had caught the light. But One-Eye wore no rings or gems…

Without thinking, she raised her hand against the spark and pushed it back toward the Outlander with a sound like a firecracker going off.

One-Eye flinched. “Who taught you that?”

“No one did,” said Maddy in surprise. Her runemark felt unusually warm, once more changing color from rusty brown to tiger’s-eye gold.

For a minute or two One-Eye said nothing. He looked at his hand and flexed the fingers, now throbbing as if they had been burned. Then he looked at Maddy with renewed curiosity.

“Teach me,” she said.

There was a long pause. Then he said, “You’d better be good. I haven’t taken a pupil-let alone a girl-in more years than I care to remember.”

Maddy hid her grin beneath her tangled hair.

For the first time in her life, she had a teacher.

4

Over the next fortnight, Maddy listened to One-Eye’s teachings with a single-mindedness she had never shown before. Nat Parson had always made it clear that to be a bad-blood was a shameful thing, like being a cripple or a bastard. But here was this man telling her the exact opposite. She had skills, the Outlander told her, skills that were unique and valuable. She was an apt pupil, and One-Eye, who had come to the valley as a trader of medicines and salves and who rarely stayed anywhere for longer than a few days, this time extended his visit to almost a month as Maddy absorbed tales, maps, letters, cantrips, runes-every scrap of information her new friend gave her. It was the beginning of a long apprenticeship, and one that would change her world picture forever.

Now, Maddy’s folk believed in a universe of Nine Worlds.

Above them was the Firmament, the Sky City of Perfect Order.

Beneath them was the Fundament, or World Below, which led to the three lands of Death, Dream, and Damnation, which gave way to World Beyond, the Pan- daemonium, the home of all Chaos and all things profane.

And between them, so Maddy was taught, lay the Middle Worlds: Inland, Outland, and the One Sea, with Malbry and the valley of the Strond right at the center, like a bull’s-eye on a shooting target. From which you might have concluded that the folk of Malbry had no small opinion of themselves.

But now Maddy learned of a world beyond the map’s edge, a world of many parts and contradictions, a world in which Nat Parson or Adam Scattergood, for instance, might be driven to madness by as small a thing as a glimpse of ocean or an unfamiliar star.

In such a world, Maddy understood, one man’s religion might be another’s heresy, magic and science might overlap, houses might be built on rivers or underground or high in the air; even the Laws of the Order at World’s End, which she had always assumed were universal, might warp and bend to suit the customs of this new, expanded world.

Of course only a child or an idiot believed that World’s End actually was the end of the world. There were other lands, everyone knew that. Once there had even been trade with these lands-trade, and sometimes even war. But it was widely held that these Outlands had suffered so badly from Tribulation that their folk had long since fallen into savagery, and no one-no one civilized-went there anymore.

But, of course, One-Eye had. Beyond the One Sea, or so he said, there were men and women as brown as peat, with hair curled tight as bramble-crisp, and these people had never known Tribulation or read the Good Book, but instead worshiped gods of their own-wild brown gods with animal heads-and performed their own kind of magic, and all this was to them every bit as respectable and as everyday as Nat Parson’s Sunday sermons on the far side of the Middle World.

“Nat Parson says magic’s the devil’s work,” said Maddy.

“But I daresay he’d turn a blind eye if it suited him?”

Maddy nodded, hardly daring to smile.

“Understand, Maddy, that Good and Evil are not as firmly rooted as your churchman would have you believe. The Good Book preaches Order above all things; therefore Order is good. Glam works from Chaos; therefore magic is the devil’s work. But a tool is only as good or bad as the one working it. And what is good today may be evil again tomorrow.”

Maddy frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Listen,” said the Outlander. “Since the world began-and it has begun many times, and many times ended, and been remade-the laws of Order and Chaos have opposed each other, advancing and retreating in turn across the Nine Worlds, to contain or disrupt according to their nature. Good and Evil have nothing to do with it. Everything lives-and dies-according to the laws of Order and Chaos, the twin forces that even gods cannot hope to withstand.”

He looked at Maddy, who was still frowning. She was very young for this lesson, he thought, and yet it was essential that she should learn it now. Even next year might be too late-the Order was already spreading its wings, sending more and more Examiners out of World’s End…

He swallowed his impatience and started again. “Here’s a tale of the ?sir that will show you my drift. Their general was called Odin Allfather. You may have heard his name, I daresay.”

She nodded. “He of the spear and the eight-legged horse.”

“Aye. Well, he was among those who remade the world in the early days, at the dawn of the Elder Age. And he brought together all his warriors-Thor and Tyr and the rest-to build a great stronghold to push back the Chaos that would have overwhelmed the new world before it was even completed. Its name was Asgard, the Sky Citadel, and it became the First World of those Elder Days.”

Maddy nodded. She knew the tale, though the Good Book claimed it was the Nameless that had built the Sky Citadel and that the Seer-folk had won it by trickery.

One-Eye went on. “But the enemy was strong, and many had skills that the ?sir did not possess. And so Odin took a risk. He sought out a son of Chaos and befriended him for the sake of his skills, and took him into Asgard as his brother. You’ll know of him, I guess. They called him the Trickster.”

Again Maddy nodded.

“Loki was his name, wildfire his nature. There are many tales about him. Some show him in an evil light. Some said that Odin was wrong to take him in. But-for a time, at least-Loki served the ?sir well. He was crooked, but he was useful; charm comes easily to the children of Chaos, and it was his charm and his cunning that kept him close at Odin’s side. And though in the end his nature grew too strong and he had to be subdued, it was partly because of Loki that the ?sir survived for as long as they did. Perhaps it was their fault for not keeping a closer watch on him. In any case, fire burns; that’s its nature, and you can’t expect to change that. You can use it to cook your meat or to burn down your neighbor’s house. And is the fire you use for cooking any different from the one you use for burning? And does that mean you should eat your supper raw?”

Maddy shook her head, still puzzled. “So what you’re saying is…I shouldn’t play with fire,” she said at last.

“Of course you should,” said One-Eye gently. “But don’t be surprised if the fire plays back.”

***

At last came the day of One-Eye’s departure. He spent most of it trying to convince Maddy that she could not go with him.

“You’re barely seven years old, for gods’ sakes. What would I do with you on the Roads?”

“I’d work,” said Maddy. “You know I can. I’m not afraid. I know lots of things.”

“Oh, aye? Three cantrips and a couple of runes? That’ll get you a long way in World’s-” He broke off suddenly and began to tug at one of the straps that bound his pack.

But Maddy was no simpleton. “World’s End?” she said, her eyes widening. “You’re going to World’s End?”

One-Eye said nothing.

“Oh, please let me come,” Maddy begged. “I’d help you, I’d carry your stuff, I’d not cause you any trouble-”

“No?” He laughed. “Last time I heard, kidnapping was still a crime.”