All Sweet Things

       Joxter was woken by a Foreboding, sharp and crushing, like a blow to the back of the head. It had happened before, that electric knot of anxiety warning of danger: an earthquake, an approaching predator, a police raid. But never this strong. Fighting nausea, he tried to work out what was happening, where he was. Yesterday he had fallen asleep in a hollow of a spruce tree overhanging a backwater. He seemed to still be in the hollow—wood beneath his fingers, coniferous branches swaying above, a gentle lapping below. Cautiously, sniffing the air, he peered out and squinted against the low night sun. Oh-ho. The water must have risen, undercut the bank and carried the tree off, and now it was drifting in the middle of a vast, wide river. The shores were lost in mist. Joxter wouldn’t have dared swim—the water was cold, the current powerful, who knew what lived in the depths… Why had the Foreboding come so late? Now all he could do was hope the current would wash him up on a shoal. And sleep, to conserve energy. So he dozed, glancing around from time to time. He watched the mist rise and the landscape on the distant banks change: pines giving way to birches, the forest thinning, the cliffs petering out. He didn’t bother gnawing on pine cones; you’d spend more energy than you’d gain. On the second day, however, he caught a small fish using a cone tied to a branch with a bit of string from his hat. He devoured the fish clean, leaving only the skull as bait, but nothing else bit. At least there was plenty of water over the side to drink. The Foreboding lingered so long he could not perceive it anymore. On the third day, a shoal happened at last. Joxter dragged the spruce a bit further up the shore, as far as he could manage, and went to survey his new kingdom. Well, this was a bleak little corner of the world. Not a proper tree in sight, just a few scrubby bushes that barely reached his knees. Stones and moss stretched as far as the eye could see, which admittedly wasn’t far, just to a series of low, rolling hummocks to the horizon. If he ever told a grand tale of his adventures he’d call it austere, though actually it was just dull and inconvenient. Trying the moss seemed the polite thing to do, a courtesy to the local cuisine. He took an experimental bite. No, decidedly inedible, even for such an omnivorous creature as a mumrik. And the air was cold. The wind had a bite to it that spoke of permafrost and sore throat. Unfortunately, the river didn’t have a reverse lane. Shivering, Joxter scuttled down the lee side of the hill, away from the wind’s nagging, into a southern dip where the snow had at least had the decency to melt. The greenery here looked thicker, more promising. Aha! A good mushroom, solid and solitary. It would do. Then, further on, a scattering of crimson dots amidst the green. Oh, berries! Cranberries. Not exactly a delicacy—tart little things making him wish for a sugar pot—but you can’t be picky with an empty stomach. And there were plenty. The moss gave way spongily under his knees as he crawled from one low bush to the next, a rather undignified mode of travel but efficient for harvesting. It was then that the Foreboding twinged again, not the raw scream from the river, just its usual, nagging cousin. Yes, yes, I see. The ground was growing wetter, the moss more water than plant. A bog. Time to retreat, and to do so without standing up. One does not argue with a Foreboding, or with a hungry mire. Crabbing backwards was difficult; the creeping cranberry stems seemed to cling to his fingers and boots… Ah, no, they were actually clinging. And when a root, tough as wire, snagged his wrist, Joxter panicked. He threw himself into a frantic, desperate lunge, the signature mumrik burst of speed that usually bought him two minutes to escape any pursuit before collapsing in exhaustion. But here, it was like thrashing in cold porridge. The marsh suddenly reared up, a monster of writhing roots and sucking mud, and he felt a hungry, predatory gaze from the wet mass itself. This wasn’t a place; it was a creature, and he was its lunch. He was falling, headfirst into a churning, watery murk, barely managing to squeeze his eyes shut and clamp his mouth closed in time. A pointless delay — a minute? Two? And then the end? What a stupid way to go… Well, we all end up somewhere, but like this? In a puddle, swallowing cranberry acid and the bitter bile of Foreboding mixed with silt… The poetic injustice of it was almost as offensive as the imminent drowning. His claws, usually so deft, scraped uselessly against the tangled vegetation. This was not how the story was supposed to go! A sharp shout cut through the murky chaos, the tone an unmistakable command, though the words were lost in the gurgle. The peat bog around him growled and resisted, but the voice was as stubborn and categorical as the screech of metal on stone, and the quagmire conceded, spitting Joxter back onto solid, gravelly ground. Gasping for air, he raised his head. A bony mask fashioned from a reindeer’s skull stared down at him. Brown stains gave it a malevolent expression, but even his sharp mumrik eyes could discern no living gaze within the dark hollows of the sockets. A short, hunchbacked body was swathed in a patchwork fur coat, and a hand in a fur mitten gripped a carved spear adorned with feathers and tiny bird skulls. The creature smelled of woodsmoke and wild beast. “Thanks,” Joxter said, just in case. The mask continued its wordless appraisal, then uttered something in a language completely foreign to him and fell silent, expectantly. Was a reply required? “I don’t understand.” The creature repeated the phrase. Same intonation, different sounds. On the third attempt, he recognised the tongue of the eastern Bergtrolls. ‘You choose. You food for Khuudun. You go my, do my.’ His mind scrambled for the right words. Choose? The options seemed to be between being eaten now or… what? ‘Do my’? A rather vague job description. “Understand. Not understand. Do—what?” “Fresh blood. Children.” Oh—was it a woman? The proposal didn’t appeal to Joxter terribly much, but the will to live was stronger. I haven’t sampled all the fruits in this world yet, he thought with a flicker of his old self. Fine. I’ll wriggle out of it somehow. I always do. “Go your,” he conceded, extending a sodden hand. A dark, dry palm slipped from the fur sleeve and seized his in a grip of iron, dragging him away into the hills. It was strong as gnarled wood, yet undeniably alive. Now he could feel the thrum of a foreign pulse, smell the scent of a living creature. He wasn’t a tall beast, but this creature barely reached his chest. Still drained from his frantic struggle, Joxter could barely put one foot in front of the other, and he felt a wave of relief upon spotting a herd of reindeer, and then a conical hut made of hides. At the very least, he could now hope for warmth and food. The details of the employment contract could be negotiated later. The first night, he passed out in the warmth with a belly full of reindeer meat, sleeping through any chance of escape. He was woken by a light kick in the ribs. “You rest,” the mistress declared. She was without her mask and looked slightly more like a woman. But not of any folks he knew. She was no beauty, of course: a flat, dark face, black eyes with no whites, sparse flaxen hair hanging like tow, and a lipless slit of a mouth perfectly suited to that gratingly squeaky voice: “Do. Now.” Well, damn. How? She still held not the slightest attraction for him, and there was no aura of prohibition to manufacture a desire from thin air. Make a run for it? At least to the nearest reindeer, then ride; a mumrik could always negotiate with animals. But he had no slightest wish to test her spear-throwing accuracy, or whether that was a knife tucked in her sleeve. Stall for time? As the saying goes, there are no ugly women, only insufficient alcohol. But where to get any? What was the word for any fermented brew in Bergtroll? “Drink. Mead,” Joxter said, pointing at himself. The woman stared at him expressionlessly. Didn’t she understand? Ah, no—she finally stepped towards a pile of skins at the other end of the dwelling, and threw him a bundle made of scraped hide. Inside were hardened lumps of unidentifiable substances, unknown dried herbs and mushrooms. Though not entirely unknown… Joxter picked out a shrivelled mushroom of the dirty-brown colour that results from a red one drying, with the dirty-yellow speckles that come from a white one fading. That would do. If the dosage is right. Otherwise, one could rather permanently kick the bucket. “Drink,” she repeated after him, her mouth stretching into a semblance of a smile. “Fresh blood.” And she stepped out through the door-flap. Joxter shuffled after her. The reindeer grazed some thirty paces away and beyond, but the woman pulled a rope from the folds of her coat, effortlessly lassoed a young buck that wasn’t even the closest, and dragged it towards the enclosure. By the fence, the earth bulged. The familiar, muddy snags of the swamp monster reached for the deer. Joxter instinctively stepped back, but the woman barked another command at the creature, hurled a handful of grey dust in its direction, and the wet mass of moss and grass recoiled with what sounded like a moping sigh, flattening back into the ground. So it’s not some random evil spirit, but her guard dog? And she didn’t save a lost traveller; she specifically caught one? Joxter shuddered but banished fear. Okay, the escape idea was lame. But if he gave this witch what she wanted, surely she’d let him go? Meanwhile, the mistress of the bog spirits, having hauled the struggling, groaning deer closer, whipped a bone knife from her sleeve and slit its throat in one smooth motion. Scarlet droplets spattered the trampled earth, their faces and clothes, like cranberries. Well, point taken, but now’s not the time for that. Joxter clung to a shred of anger. Fine, he was a predator too; let the hag not think she had caught a lamb. Crumbling the dried mushroom in his fist, he cupped his hands under the hot, crimson stream. He drank a handful of the reindeer’s blood. During lean times, he’d caught birds and mice, eaten them raw, whole, and the warm drops of their blood had stirred his instincts, tickled his nerves, made the metaphorical fur on his neck stand on end, just as it did now. It dripped from his chin, his sleeves were soaked black, and the salty blood washed away the bitterness of the mushroom. Bitterness, salt, acid. Everything this meagre land had to offer a creature who preferred sweetness. And so Joxter thought of tangerines and plums, apples and pears. Of women with hips and breasts as full as melons, skin as velvety as a peach, with cherry lips and honey sweat, with fur as tickly as a kiwi’s (at least in places). Women as intoxicating as overripe grapes. Coloured spots swam before his eyes, forming patterns that decorated the greyness of the sky, the earth, and the hides. And the woman before him, under all those furs—perhaps she was an exotic beauty? Perhaps she was a delicacy, unappealing only on the surface, like a truffle… Joxter ran his fingers over her cheeks, drawing crimson patterns, then grabbed her by her dry wrist and pulled her into the hut. *** Well, at least there was no hangover from the shaman’s mushroom, just a pleasant drowsiness, a pleasant fatigue (more likely from the other activity), and a slow, unstoppable stream of thought. Joxter curled up under a huge white pelt (what beast did that come from, he wondered idly) and smiled to himself. Ha. He’d managed to outwit the hag after all. Not that she hadn’t got what she wanted—a dim but ugly memory he wished to erase—but she didn’t yet know that instead of a half-breed, she’d get a pureblood mumrik, the image of his father, who would run away from her fairly soon (or die trying). Either way, she’d be left with nothing. Oh, and he had that name ready for his offspring—Snufkin. How to explain that to the future mother… He heard her footsteps but paid them no mind. “Name,” a voice rasped above his head. Oh, no explanation needed, she was asking! “Snufkin,” he said, as clearly as he could manage. And then the woman seized his wrist, pinning his hand palm-up to the floor. Opening his eyes, Joxter had just enough time to see the knife flashing down before pain exploded through him. He struggled, but the claws of his free hand snagged uselessly in the thick furs. However, she withdrew the knife immediately and stood up. Blood—his blood! —dripped from the blade onto her palm as her screechy voice launched into a long, rhythmic chant—was this some kind of spell? Joxter scrambled backwards towards the fire, clutching his wounded hand to his stomach. The shadows in the corners of the hut seemed to writhe, reaching for his ankles—or was it just the last vestiges of the fungal delirium and the flickering firelight playing tricks? What a matching conclusion; to bleed like one of her reindeer. This would be a decidedly unromantic epilogue to the rotten love encounter. Alright, he was exaggerating. It wasn’t such a serious wound; his fingers still moved, albeit painfully, and the woman wasn’t doing anything else threatening. On the contrary: having finished her sinister chant, she handed him a wad of dry moss and even helped bind his palm with a thin leather strap. Well, who knows what rituals these savages have, he thought, finding a grim irony in being bandaged by the very hand that had cut him. “I go?” he clarified, just in case. The woman laughed—an unpleasant, cawing sound. “No. Never. Go—death. Spell blood, name, fetch everywhere. Stay—life. Long time, many children. Good.” And she patted him on the shoulder, like a mongrel on a chain. Joxter stood stock-still, processing. Indignation rose and boiled inside. A magical leash? No one would ever chain him! Of course, he wanted to live, but to live here, with her? No, thank you, he’d rather die. After all, death was just a one-way journey to an unknown land. He measured the witch with a look, hoping his contempt needed no translation, turned his back on her, and, expecting a blow at any second, walked towards the gap in the camp’s fence. One step, another, a tenth… A faint whistle of air, and a leather noose snapped tight around his shoulders, yanking him off his feet and onto the ground. A horribly familiar sensation. “Bad,” the woman chuckled, dragging him back towards the dwelling. The adventure had decidedly soured. *** Joxter escaped when the Mistress of the Marshes rode off somewhere far away on a reindeer sled. He stuffed a bag with dried meat for the journey and filled pockets with ash from the hearth. With a low whistle, he coaxed a young buck to the edge of the enclosure, whispered a mumrik’s persuasion into its twitching ear—and vaulted over the fence directly onto the animal’s shaggy back. The reindeer bolted towards the bank of the great river (Joxter had noted the direction on the way in). The settlement had not yet vanished from sight when the clatter of hooves turned into the sickening squelch of peat, but the mumrik flung a handful of ash onto the ground, and the swamp monster, whatever its name and nature was, fell back, cursing with the creak of submerged roots. Aha, right guess, the witch really was using ash that time! The frightened reindeer surged forward even faster, crimson cranberry droplets flashing under its hooves, and Joxter clung to its mane like a tick, baring his teeth in a thrill of exhilaration. The ash was more than enough all way up to the shoal where his ill-fated spruce still lay beached. Joxter tied a leather strap from the reindeer’s antlers to the thickest branch, he wasn’t about to shove the great hulk of a tree back into the water himself! Once the branches stopped catching on the riverbed, he could release the poor beast. A pity the river didn’t flow backwards, only north, where it would be colder, more desolate… But his Foreboding was silent, so Joxter trusted to luck. Perhaps if he sailed far enough, the spell couldn’t reach him? Perhaps it never existed at all? Buoyed by optimism, he dozed off in the same hollow, lulled by the same lapping waves. He was woken by the voice of the wind, almost alive, like a pack of aerial wolves howling over the water, tearing at the spruce’s branches and the fur on the bellies of low, black clouds. Joxter sat up, claws digging into the bark. He was already cold, but a frigid dread gripped him as he clearly discerned the witch’s voice within the wind’s roar. The same pulsing rhythm, the same threat. So, not superstition. Real magic… Well, then. He stood on the trunk, balancing with an imaginary tail, turned to face the receding fateful shore, and flipped the bird with the wounded hand in its general direction. Let her not think she could keep him! The witch’s voice rose higher and higher, nearing a shriek, approaching its final cadence—Joxter had an ear for melody. One, two, three, four—and… And suddenly the shriek broke into a cry of pain, choked, and was swallowed by the wind’s howl. Joxter staggered, but no, he was still breathing, still freezing in the wind, still holding onto his hat. He was still alive. The leash, it seemed, had been cut. And then it hit him. He burst into laughter that echoed across the river, slumping back into the hollow as a wave of weakness washed over him. He’d saved himself! The witch hadn’t been asking for the future child’s name, but for his, Joxter’s name, and he, lost in his own thoughts, had stalled. And the spell had gone to the wrong address, because there’d been a mistake with the blood, too. The witch hadn’t known how mumriks’ bloodline worked, that the child in that regard was indistinguishable from the father. Even if the child was still just a pinhead-sized speck of mucus. The spell had found the closest suitable object—inside the woman’s own body. Whether it had killed her or she’d recover was no longer his concern. And the future boy… Well, a small loss. Thanks, little one, Joxter thought, you saved your dad. Don’t worry, dad will make more children, he’ll name them all Snufkins in your honour. And to celebrate his salvation, he could have a snack. Fate would clearly continue to protect him from misfortune. At first, it seemed Fate had grown weary of the task: the river emptied into the sea, icy waves crashed all over the spruce, and the soaked mumrik, shivering, clung to the bark with his claws, waiting for the cold to seize his muscles. He didn’t immediately register the loud, mournful sound that rose above the roar of the waves and the grinding of nearby ice floes. Only when a living voice from above screamed “Man overboard!” did Joxter understand: a ship (and its whistle). A tall, steel one; a boat took an eternity to lower into the water. Now, how to detach himself from this cursed tree? His fingers were already cramping with spasms… In the officer’s mess, wrapped in a blanket by a warm radiator, Joxter sipped hot punch and slowly thawed. The off-duty engineer, a middle-aged stortass named Hodgkins, helped him hold the mug, his whiskers and long ears twitching with concern. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright? You look like you’ve frostbitten your face.” Joxter felt his nose—no, it didn’t seem to hurt, no numbness. Why did the guy say that? Instead of explaining, Hodgkins fetched a highly polished silver tray from the bar. Oh. His nose and forehead had darkened significantly compared to the rest of his face, which now more closely resembled an animal’s muzzle. And his hair used to be lighter, didn’t it? Joxter slapped his palm to his forehead. Of course, how could he have forgotten where he’d seen such picture before?! “It’s quite alright,” he reassured the stortass. “It’s the standard colouring for an adult mumrik. Came on a bit abruptly, but oh well… You don’t happen to have any chocolate, do you? I haven’t had anything sweet in a hundred years.”