"There is no bond!" said Milla angrily. "Or if there is, it is a false one."
Odris didn't answer. She simply flew off a short distance, to give Milla more space.
Milla did some stretches, ignoring the pain from her bruises. In the light of day she saw that her legs were mottled with dark patches and scratches. There would be swelling, too, in her joints. It would not be easy for her to walk.
But she didn't need to, now that she had decided to use the Storm Shepherd to help her.
"Odris!" she called. The Storm Shepherd drifted closer.
"Pick me up," Milla ordered, holding up her arms. "We will fly to the closest water. I need to drink and wash."
Odris reached down and gripped Milla's forearms with her puffy fingers. Then she rose up in a series of jerks, trailing Milla only a few stretches above the ground.
They headed east, but Odris could not lift Milla very high. Every now and then she actually dropped down far enough that Milla's feet touched, which hurt, since they were flying quite fast. Milla noticed that Odris seemed able to change the wind so it always blew behind her, driving in the direction the Storm Shepherd chose.
The grassland continued for a long time. Odris started to dip more often and Milla's feet got quite sore, until finally they saw a small lake ahead. Bright blue, it glittered in the morning sun, an irregular patch of water about as big as a full-grown Selski and much the same shape.
"Set me down," Milla demanded.
Once again, Odris complied without speaking. She dropped Milla gently enough, right by the water's edge, then shot sharply up to rest fifty stretches or more above the Icecarl.
Milla looked at the water carefully. On her world, open water was rare and very dangerous. Apart from a few permanent areas near hot springs, it only occurred where the living sea of the Selski met the Slepenish that came up through the ice. The result of that encounter was always a vast swath of broken ice and choppy seas.
This water was very clear. Milla could see right down to its sandy bottom. She could see no sign of any fish, but there were small clumps of weeds.
Even so, Milla was cautious. She drew her Merwinhorn sword. Keeping it in her right hand, she knelt down to dip her left hand in the lake and take a drink of water.
As her fingers touched the surface, the water suddenly frothed and a current began to swirl violently around the edges. Milla snatched her hand back and retreated, sword at the ready.
The water continued to swirl. Then a huge shape suddenly rose out of the middle of the lake. For a moment Milla thought it was something like a Merwin emerging. Then she saw that it was actually more water, but water that had risen in a definite shape.
A second later, Milla realized that it was a nose. And there were two deep black holes that were eyes, and ridges of eyebrows made of darker, greener water.
The water from the lake had formed a giant face.
The mouth was only a few stretches away from where Milla had knelt. It opened. Water pushed up to form lips, and drained away at the same time to create a throat.
The lips moved and a gurgling roar came out, accompanied by a fine spray that splashed over Milla. She winced and drew back. It took her a while to recognize that the gurgle was actually speech, and that she could understand it.
"Who is it comes to take my blood?"
Milla didn't answer. She started to back away.
This was all too reminiscent of Hrigga Hill and the Storm Shepherd's Challenge.
As she backed away, her left hand suddenly thrust itself forward, without her control. Milla grimaced as the jolt ran through into her shoulder. It felt like her hand was held by an invisible rope, but all she could see were a few drops of water where she'd dipped it in the lake.
"Who comes, who comes to drink my blood?" said the face in the water. "Do you seek to leave so soon?"
Milla tugged on her hand, but it would not budge. There was magic at work here, magic that worked through the water her hand had touched.
For a moment, Milla considered cutting off her hand. But that would reduce her chances of surviving long enough to return to the Ruin Ship and deliver the Sunstone. It might have to be done, but she should try everything else first.
Milla looked up, but Odris had come no closer. Either the Storm Shepherd was biding her time before coming to help, or she was sulking over Milla's behavior toward her.
"I am Milla." She didn't bother announcing her parentage. It would mean nothing to this strange water spirit. "What do you want of me?"
"Ah, she speaks," said the Face, and the whole lake tilted up so it could look at her. "I want nothing, save a little conversation to pass the idle days. It is lonely here, and I am forbidden to slosh my way to more interesting parts."
"I do not like talk," said Milla. "Let me go."
The Face smiled, its watery lips curving back.
"No, no," it said. "It is not as simple as that. I am bound here, and must play my part. You have come here, and must play yours."
"What part?" asked Milla. "I am no singer, to imitate the voices of others."
"You wear a Sunstone," said the Face. "And I see you have a Storm Shepherd. It is destined to be your new Spiritshadow, I would guess, and you a Chosen who has recently bound it. Congratulations."
"I am not a Chosen," Milla said, but her words were smothered by a crash of thunder from overhead, as lightning flashed down into the water.
"You are aided by an angry Storm Shepherd," said the Face, smiling again. "But lightning can do nothing to a lake. Though it could do much to a Chosen." A trickle of water shot out from where the face's chin would be and circled around Milla's foot.
Milla tried to lift her foot, but the water was like glue. She could only get her heel a few finger-widths off the ground before the water sucked it back down.
The Icecarl considered cutting at the water, but that was almost certain not to work and would only make her look foolish. Once again she regretted not knowing how to use her Sunstone. A proper blast from that could boil the lake like Selski blubber in a melting pot. She didn't think the Face would enjoy being turned into steam.
But she didn't know how to blast it. And she couldn't fight it. It was a very strange feeling. There was nothing on the Dark World she couldn't at least try to fight.
"What do you want?" she asked again.
CHAPTER NINE
"game," said the Face. "We will play a riddle game. If you can answer three riddles, I will let you go. I will even give you a gift. For each riddle you cannot answer, you will stay with me for a hundred days, and we will talk. As I said, it is lonely here. Too many travelers know of my fondness for conversation."
Riddling was popular among Icecarls, but Milla had never been good at it, or particularly interested. Riddling was Crone-work, really, or for singers and Sword-Thanes.
"Don't I get to ask you three riddles?" she asked. She could not possibly let herself be trapped here for even one day, let alone a hundred.
"No," replied the Face. It pouted its great watery lips. "It is my game, not yours."
"Can I ask Odris - the Storm Shepherd to answer with me?" asked Milla.
"For one riddle," said the Face, after a moment's thought. "Are you ready?"
Milla nodded.
"Here is riddle the first," said the Face.
"A maiden's head so deathly still Cold and quiet, yet not ill
Her long tresses hang toward the sky Hair that burns when it is dry Food to man and creature's lair Name both her and her hair."
Milla listened without expression, committing the words to memory. Odris drifted down toward her. "I know," the Storm Shepherd said eagerly.
"It's -"
"Quiet," ordered Milla. She didn't want to waste the Storm Shepherd's help so early. If the Face asked her a riddle that depended on some knowledge of Aenir, she would have to rely on Odris, much as she hated to do so.
"But I know!" exclaimed Odris. "Why are you so difficult? I wish I'd picked the other one."
>
Milla ignored her. She was going over all the riddles she knew, in case they inspired her. The answers to most of the Icecarls' riddles could be found in their everyday lives. That might be the case here. But what would the everyday life of this strange Face in the water be like? There was nothing here except the lake and whatever was in it…
In it. That was the clue. Milla laughed as she looked into the water. It had been staring her in the face all the time.
"She is a rock," said the Icecarl. "Her hair is the seaweed that grows from the rock."
"Too easy, too easy," groaned the Face. "I must find something more difficult. A tricky riddle for a smart Chosen, yes?"