The Messenger

7

The knocking on the cabin door slowly penetrated Grimwar Bane’s awareness. The ogre prince snorted, stirred, and tried to claw his way out of a dream. In that dream he had been wandering through a fog, seeking something, a person he could know, trust. Faces floated around in the murk. His mother was there, her face soft and round and warm. Now she was gone, replaced by his father, King Grimtruth. The prince saw Baldruk Dinmaker’s bearded face, followed by the image of his own wife, Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane.

Finally came an image of the king’s young bride, the voluptuous ogress Thraid Dimmarkull. That last image was a pleasant one, one that filled him with longing, with aching desire. She, too, disappeared, and again he was confronted by the forbidding visage of his father. Eyes bleary, breath reeking of warqat, Grimtruth raised his fist for a blow, and the son was powerless to fend him off.

He awoke. With a sense of relief he recognized his cabin, this ship, where he was the master. He grunted in acknowledgement, knowing that his crew wouldn’t awaken him for any trivial reason.

“Lookout reports that Ice Gates are in sight, Your Highness!”

Mumbling gruffly, the great ogre swung his feet out of the sea bunk, ducking his head as he reached for his boots and cloak. The captain’s cabin in Goldwing was the most spacious enclosure on the ship, but even so Grimwar felt cramped and confined. Part of it was the monotony of the long months at sea, he knew, and so the announcement that awakened him was good news.

Still, he was in a foul mood as he pushed open the door and emerged onto the deck of the massive galley. His eyes immediately fell upon the massive palisades that marked the approach to Winterheim.

The Ice Gates were twin mountains, massifs bracketing the mouth of a narrow fjord, rising so that their icy summits seemed to scrape the very heavens. Each was draped in cascading glaciers, blue-white sheets of ice spilling downward in a chaotic jumble of precipice, chasm, and snowy cornice. Here and there a rough shoulder of bedrock showed, black rock glistening in the sunlight, in stark contrast to the frozen surroundings.

Now, in early autumn, streams still cascaded downward among the glacial faces, plumes of water spilling into long streams of spray, sparkling like a million diamonds in the pale sunlight. At night these streams would freeze into elegant icicles, only to liquefy again under the heat of the next day’s sun.

It was impossible to tell which of the two peaks was greater. From sea level each loomed impossibly high, spires of rock that seemed to challenge the laws of gravity. The mountains were so close together that the entry to the fjord was all but invisible to enemy vessels. The ogre helmsman, Barelip Seacaster, guided the galley with skill, however, and Grimwar stood and watched, knowing what was about to unfold.

The ship approached the shoreline and veered to port. Gradually, as they drew close, the shoreline became visible in clear relief. Finally the shade from the low sun cut a swath across the mountainside, and the ogre prince could see the opening of the narrow channel.

Barelip Seacaster hauled on the great tiller as the drumbeats slowed and the rowers settled their pace. The ship followed a smooth curve, moving with stately grace, easing toward the entrance. When they passed behind the looming shoulder of mountain the shadows embraced them chillingly, a sense of frost that penetrated through Grimwar’s heavy sea cape and brought visible mist to each royal exhalation.

They moved through utterly still water, oars dipping, pushing, rising to drip across the calm surface, before once more gently immersing for another stroke. Each side of the fjord was close enough that the prince could have struck it with a well-thrown stone. The wall emerging from the deep water sloped steeply upward, slick with ice and glowering dark stone. Every time he passed through here the hulking ogre felt small and vulnerable.

“By Gonnas, it’s good to be going home,” Grimwar noted as Baldruk Dinmaker joined him in the prow.

“Aye-and ’tis a fair pleasure to bid goodbye to that cursed sun, Your Highness,” agreed the dwarf heartily. “Will we see the city before nightfall?”

“I hope.” The prince had been through this channel on many occasions, but he didn’t dare make a prediction. Sunset occurred earlier with each passing day, the season waning so fast that he wasn’t sure. Still, he hoped they would get a glimpse of Winterheim while there was still light, for there was no finer view that he had ever seen in his life.

There, an hour later, it was. The galley slipped from between the close walls of the fjord and emerged into a watery bowl called Black Ice Bay, an enclosure that was completely sheltered from the sea except for this dangerous approach. The shadows were long, the water inky dark and still, but Grimwar’s eyes were drawn to the alabaster facade sprawling across the full stretch of the southern horizon. The clear sky, rich with the deep indigo of twilight, brought the snowfields, cornices, and glaciers into splendid, purple relief.

Winterheim was a city, but it was also a mountain. If the Ice Gates were towering pillars, Winterheim itself was a monument of sublime wonder that dwarfed every surrounding elevation.

Fading sunlight glimmered with phosphorescent brilliance along the crest of the great mountain, a corona of white light sparkling along an arcing ridge of pristine snow. Fresh powder blanketed the upper palisades. Even in summer, such precipitation was an almost nightly occurrence, and now already the darkening days of autumn crept closer.

The King’s Wall circled the summit perhaps two-thirds of the way up the lofty slope. This palisade of sheer stone was more than a hundred feet tall and looked like a belt of gray around the mountain’s lumpy midriff. A multitude of towers jutted from the slopes, many of these strung along the upper ramparts above the King’s Wall and across the highest shoulders of the edifice. Other spires dotted the lower slopes, and from these-as well as in great windows and doorways in the mountainside-a multitude of fires hove into view, sparks of light brightening the massif as the shadows of sunset inexorably thickened.

To the right a ridge extended into a great, flat surface with ornate columns, these pillars rising up to merge with the base of the King’s Wall. On this field the king’s troops drilled, and his people gathered for such celebrations as occurred outside the city walls. Grimwar recalled with a thrill standing up there and watching King Grimtruth drive the pillars into the ice during the Icebreaker Festival, which took place at the end of the long, sunless winter.

To the left of the mountain appeared a great, frozen cliff of solid ice. This was the Icewall, the dam holding back the Snow Sea. In a few months that wall would be shattered by the king himself, in a ritual as old as Winterheim. When the sun finally vanished for the winter, a strong male slave would be offered in sacrifice, and his blood, together with the enchantment of the high priestess, would provide the power to break the Icewall, and release the Sturmfrost to dwindle across Icereach.

Barelip Seacaster called out to the drummer, who picked up the pace. Grimwar felt the galley surge beneath his feet, and he thrilled at the power of the great ship, of a hundred and twenty slaves responding to a single command.

Darkness settled across Black Ice Bay, but the prince of ogres didn’t budge from his post. Instead, he watched the sparkling lights of his home, remembered the smells of scented oil, of roasting whale meat, and the day’s catch of fish. A slit of brightness appeared in the base of the mountain, where it merged with the dark water. The gap slowly widened as the Seagate, operated by hundreds of slaves turning great capstans, trundled open. His ship had been spotted, and the ogres made ready to welcome their prince and his crew. Grimwar thought of the slaves, the throng of captives crammed below the deck, of the victories that had marked the campaign along the Icereach coast.

He hoped his father would be pleased.

“You call these slaves?” King Grimtruth Bane snarled. His massive fists were planted on his hips as he stood next to his son on a landing above Winterheim’s great harbor. The massive chamber had been excavated in the base of the lofty mountain. The great stone slabs of the Seagate were still rumbling shut, though the galley had been docked for nearly an hour.

“Why, they’re scrawny as skeletons! It’s a wonder they could even row the galley back to Winterheim!”

Beside the king a fat nobleman, Quendip, laughed in sycophantic amusement, but Grimwar’s eyes were drawn past that obese ogre, to the more sympathetic gaze of the king’s young wife, Thraid Dimmarkull. She wore a woolen gown and her long hair was loosely bound. Like the king, she had been roused from bed to greet the prince and his ship. Indeed, the smile that had brightened her face when he stepped off of Goldwing had been the highlight of this homecoming.

Now the prince, slumping under his father’s criticism, took heart from the kindness he saw in the eyes of the ogress queen, who, though she was his stepmother, was several years younger than himself. He looked to Baldruk Dinmaker, saw that the dwarf was quietly standing behind the king. Naturally, he took no chances of falling under Grimtruth’s stern gaze and any subsequent recrimination.

Grimwar Bane sighed. His mistake, if it could be called that, was arriving home at midnight, after the king had quaffed his fiery warqat and then fallen asleep. Of course, he had been rousted when the prince’s galley returned, but he was inevitably ill tempered, bleary eyed, and thick tongued with drink.

“Of course they’re scrawny,” the prince retorted, indignance overcoming his better judgment. “They’ve been cooped up, some of them for three months! We didn’t have enough to feed them, but now they’ll fatten up again.” He wanted to add that only two of the slaves had died during the months of confinement, but he decided not to waste the words.

The king leaned close, his bloodshot eyes squinting as he peered at the humans huddling on the wharf, now starting to file up the ramp toward the lower level of the ogre city. “What about wenches?” whispered Grimtruth, his boozy voice carrying easily to his young wife’s ears. Thraid flushed and compressed her thick lips as she looked purposefully away.

Grimwar winced. Certainly Grimtruth would not be the first ogre bull to pleasure himself with a human female, but the king should at least have had the decency to discuss the matter at some other time, in some other company.

Grimwar found himself wanting to remind the young queen that the son was not the father. Instead, he met the king’s leering stare and noticed a spittle of drool now dripping from Grimtruth’s protruding lower lip. He abruptly vowed, privately but solemnly, that when he inherited the crown he would take every effort to avoid slobbering in public.

For now, he couldn’t avoid his father’s question.

“Yes, of course. We brought some wenches, some fair and big-boned. Of course, we mostly need slaves to work in the mines, to row the galleys, to open the harbor gates, and so forth. So most of the prizes are men.”

“Prizes?” The king snorted, but at least his thoughts had been distracted. He squinted at the queen, who was standing around in obvious embarrassment. “Why don’t you run off to bed, my lady. I will see to the debarking of the prisoners.”

“Of course, my lord,” said Thraid meekly. Whatever she was thinking, she kept her thoughts to herself and turned to depart without another look at her husband or his son.

Grimtruth went to the stone parapet at the edge of the balcony and looked down at the column of humans. His son joined the ogre king, and for the first time noticed exactly how bedraggled, how filthy and scrawny and unkempt, these pathetic people looked.

“These were the best of the lot?” Grimtruth asked.

“We raided a dozen villages. Yes, these were the finest specimens. The tusker told us of each place where the humans had settled, and we hunted them there. In the first battles we took many slaves, but halfway through the campaign the galley was filled to bursting with extra humans. After that, we just killed them.”

“All of them?”

Grimwar shrugged. “All of them that posed a threat. No doubt some women escaped and old ones too feeble to survive the winter. We left them no shelter, and polluted the wells and streams with the dead.”

“Good tactic, that,” Grimtruth acknowledged. “It would seem you have done well. I suppose some of this rabble will regain enough strength at least to till the fields in the Moongarden.” Even in his praise he sounded so restrained that the prince couldn’t help but feel insulted.

Once again the king’s eyes scanned the disembarking slaves, who shuffled numbly into the dark cavern of Winterheim’s Undercity. He pointed. “That one-bring her out of the line!”

Immediately an overseer hustled the woman forward. She cried and struggled, flailing with arms that were practically skeletal, then clasping the pathetic remnant of a cloak around her body.

King Grimtruth looked hard before he spat, the spittle catching on his tusk. He took no note of it. “Bah, who could enjoy one of those stick-females? I’m off to my chambers-you will report the details of the campaign in the morning.”

“Yes, Sire,” Grimwar Bane said. He watched his father lumber away and wondered how the king, who was married to the most alluring ogress the prince had ever seen, could even think about turning to the affections of a human woman.

He looked back at Goldwing and saw that young dock-workers were boarding the ship. She would be scrubbed and painted, new gold plated onto the rails, fresh caulking added where the timbers were showing signs of wear.

It occurred to him that he already he missed the sea, but even then he knew that what he really missed was the mastery of a place, where he heeded the command of no ogre, no being of any kind, especially his fool of a father, the king.

As he rode the icecart up toward the Royal Quarter of Winterheim, Grimwar reflected glumly on his own wife. It was ironic to think that the prince was married to a female older than his father’s wife by a full decade. Whereas Thraid Dimmarkull was a beautiful trophy, selected by a powerful king as his second wife, Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane had been matched to the crown prince because of her powerful family and the even mightier connection she had demonstrated to Gonnas the Strong, the god of all ogrekind.

His wife had not come to greet him at the dock, of course, though the king himself had been rousted from his slumber. No, Princess Stariz would doubtless be wallowing in deep prayer, seeking in the auguries of her god such messages as could be divined by the time and state of her husband’s return. These revelations would inevitably be revealed to him in painstaking detail, as soon as he reached his apartments.

Grimwar leaned back in his seat, a wave of melancholy breaking over him. The icecart rumbled through the steeply inclined tunnel, climbing steadily, its magical vibrations lulling the prince.

The lower part of the cart was a large block of ice, glowing softly from an ancient enchantment. Upon this frozen base rested a cart such as might have been found on a grand carriage. Two huge, bearskin seats faced each other across a space large enough to hold a table or another pair of benches. Since the ride took the better part of an hour, it was not uncommon for a royal passenger to enjoy a repast during the climb or descent. The cart passed through a long tunnel that was fully encased, floors, walls and ceiling, in ice. The only illumination came from the magical ice that formed the base of the cart, an intentionally soft and pleasing glow.

Riding alone, Grimwar pulled the fur, a great bearskin, closer around him. His father and Thraid would have returned already, but since the prince had stayed to see the offloading of his own booty he had taken a different icecart back to the palace. Again Grimwar wondered-how could his father have such a treasure in his bed and yet fail to appreciate his good fortune?

Thraid Dimmarkull was not new to Winterheim. The daughter of a minor noble family, she had grown into ladyhood on the fringe of the circle familiar to the crown prince. Indeed Grimwar had noticed her, had seen that she received the right invitations, was placed near the royal table at banquets. He had spoken to her, and her smile had spoken in return. Certainly she sensed his attentions. Very quickly she had changed her style of dress to favor gaudy, low-cut gowns that favored her voluptuous figure. She made a startling contrast to the typical dour ogress clad in tentlike robes with the typical ogress face that seemed as likely to catch fire as to break into a smile.

Unfortunately, the king himself took notice of this vision of ogre femineity. Thraid had cheeks as round and red as apples, a wide mouth with full lips and dainty twin tusks, breasts that swelled with every movement. Her waist was slender, by ogre standards, and her legs long and muscular.

Grimwar had watched jealously as his father had made his desires known. During his decades on the throne, the king had grown tired of his first wife, Hananreit ber Fallscape. Abruptly he ordered her exiled to the remote island of Dracoheim. After a brief farewell to her only son, the galley had taken Hanareit away at the first crack of spring, three and a half years ago. There, so far as the prince knew, his mother still spent her days in the dark, sky-piercing castle on that fortress isle, pining for the luxurious life she had known in Winterheim.

Thraid had been summoned to the royal chambers barely a week after the Elder Queen’s departure. Shortly thereafter the Grimtruth had taken her as his Younger Queen. And as if to emphasize his ultimate power, the king at the same time had arranged for the daughter of the baron of Glacierheim to marry his son, the royal heir. Stariz had been brought to Winterheim, and father and son had each been joined to a mate in a double ceremony at the Neuwinter Rites.

The icecart’s rumbling gradually slowed. The narrow corridor opened into a vast chamber, illuminated with a hundred torches. Looming far above the prince saw the great gates of the palace. He was home.

He suddenly felt a terrible longing for Goldwing, and the sea.

“The auguries are positive, for now.” Stariz Ber Glacierheim reported, as a human slave woman removed Grimwar Bane’s boots and several others filled a great marble tub with steaming water. “You came back with many slaves, and you won great victories over the humans.”

“Yes, these are truths,” the prince said, trying to suppress his irritation. He could have told her these very facts! Yet he had long ago learned that it was best not to act impatient with his wife’s prognostications. Her words had a way of turning very ugly very fast if she sensed his devotion was wandering.

Stariz began to recite a remarkable litany of his landings, the tactics he used to capture each human village, numbering the captured and the dead. This recounting, Grimwar suspected, was intended to serve as a reminder that she could keep magical tabs on him wherever he roamed. Whether she had a spy in his crew or actually learned through the medium of her arcane powers, the prince did not know. Her information, as always, proved impressively accurate.

Stariz mentioned the name of an ogre who had been killed in the second raid, where more than a hundred humans had fought courageously. She droned on. Despite his good intentions to pay conspicuous heed to her words, the prince found his thoughts following their own path. He gazed curiously at his wife, studying her as if he was observing a picture, an image completely detached from the words she was saying.

Stariz had never been a beauty. Her body was stout and squarish, like her face, possessing all the grace of a craggy, ice-splintered boulder. Ropy strands of hair dangled past her shoulders, forever unkempt. Instead of the full lips that added such beauty to Thraid’s visage, Stariz’s appearance was dominated by an exceptionally large nose, and two prominent tusks that were nearly as big as a young male’s.

“And in the final battle you killed the men, but allowed the women to escape!” Stariz concluded. There was a hint of a questioning in her statement.

“Yes. It was no different than I had done before. What use are the wenches with no men? I suspect the lot of them will die over the winter.”

“I would not be so sure,” she said, with a tone of warning.

“What do you mean?”

“You remember my prophecy, the words I said to you in spring?”

“Yes,” Grimwar replied. “I must beware an elf. He will be a messenger, the messenger of the Bane Dynasty’s doom. My princess, Baldruk and I were forever interrogating prisoners, and always we asked about an elf. The humans of Icereach know nothing of any elves-they think they are creatures of myth!”

“Would that were true,” muttered Stariz.

“Aye, praise to Gonnas,” Grimwar agreed. He had been well schooled on the events of Krynn’s history over the past five thousand years, since the rise of humans and elves had driven his own people, once masters of the world, into remote enclaves such as Icereach.

“But here we are strong-the Kingdom of Suderhold endures, even when the rest of ogrekind is on the wane!”

“Yes, that is true … so far,” Stariz mildly agreed. The prince was surprised and a little unsettled to see a hint of real fear in his wife’s eyes.

“The auguries show great danger in the future,” she continued. “The warning about the elven messenger came to me again, writ large in words of fire. The god tells me that a human woman may be the agent of his might and our doom.”

“I’m tired,” Grimwar objected, suddenly fed up with all the complications of this homecoming. “Tell me the rest in the morning.” He rose, bypassing his waiting bath on the way to their cavelike sleeping chamber and its warm hearthfire.

“I will tell you now,” Stariz said sharply, rising to follow him. “Even so, I fear I may be too late.”