“If she foundered,” Tauno reasoned, “the sailors would be swimmers again. Where they made for would depend on where they were, but they’d strive toward the. goal they had if it seemed at all reachable. If she did not go under, then they’d beat back toward that same goal. As close as we ourselves are to Greenland, our chances are best if we continue.” Eyjan agreed.
They spent that summer on the eastern side, fruitlessly for their search. What gatherings of their father’s sort that they met were uncouth barbarians who had never heard the name of Liri-for merfolk had less occasion to make this crossing than the sons of Adam had had. When they came upon a group of Inuit, the halflings joined those in hope of some tidings.
At home they had barely gotten rumors of a new human breed moving southward through the great glacier-crowned island. Tauno and Eyjan found them to be hardy, skilled, helpful, openhanded, merrier companions and lustier lovers than most shoredwellers of Europe, heathens who felt no guilt at welcoming Faerie kind into their midst. But after a few months, their way of life, took on a sameness which chafed. Having learned somewhat of the language, and the fact that nobody had the longed-for information, brother and sister bade farewell and returned to the sea.
Southbound among early ice floes, they soon left behind them all trace of Inuit, who had not yet gotten that far down from the” north. Rounding the cape at the bottom of the island, the pair met dolphins who did bear a word to stir hearts-word of magic aprowl farther up the west coast. The dolphins could scarcely say more; yonder wasn’t their range, and what they got was mere gossip such as they loved to pass onward. Nor did they care to go look; the whisper went that this was a very dangerous sorcery.
It might simply appear to be so, Tauno and Eyjan decided. For instance, the founding of a New Liri could well frighten creatures who had never seen or dreamed of an underwater town. And, whatever was going on, they had a need to know about it more: nearly. ...
From humans back home to whom they had been close, they were aware of how matters stood ashore in Greenland. The Norse had three settlements on this side, where climate was less harsh than elsewhere. Oldest, biggest, and southernmost was the Eastern, the Ostri Bygd. Not far from it lay the Mid Bygd. A goodly way north, despite its name, was a later Western settlement, the Vestri Bygd. The tales of menace came out of that last.
Tauno and Eyjan swam toward it. The season was now well along into fall.
VII
An umiak was traveling with land to starboard, at the center of a school of kayaks. The merman’s children broached half a mile off, cleared their lungs, and poised where they were that they might take stock in safety. Shark, orca, storm, reef, riptide had winnowed faintheartedness out of their bloodline, but had also taught caution.
“Deeming by what the dolphins said, the... thing. . . hereabouts is a foe to white men,” Tauno reminded. “Thus, if the matter isn’t just that our kith have had to defend themselves against attack, it must be Inuit work. I’d as soon not get a harpoon in me because I’m taken for a white man.”
“Oh, nonsense!” Eyjan answered. “I’d never known folk can be as gentle as those who guested us.”
“A different set from these, sister mine. And I heard stories about murders done once in a while.”
“If naught else, they’ll see we can’t be of common earth. What we must avoid is not assault, but frightening them off. Let’s go ahead slowly, wearing our cheeriest faces.”
“And ready to plunge. Aye, then.”
Air-breathing, they slanted to intercept the convoy. They felt the frigidity of the water, but not in the torn and gnawed way that a mortal would; to them, it slid caressingly past every muscle, stoking warmth up within them, tasting not alone of salt but of countless subtler things, life and deeps and distances. Choppy, it rocked them as they went-whitecaps a thousand shades of blue black overlaid by a shimmer of green. It whooshed and gurgled; afar on the coast it roared. A west wind blew sharp-edged under a silver-gray sky where wrack flew like smoke. Gulls filled heaven with wings and cries. To right the land rose steeply, darkling cliffs, glimpses of autumn-yellowed meadows tucked in sheltered nooks, peaks where snow lay hoar, and beyond these a bleakbrightness that told of inland ice.
Their attention was mainly on thi( boats. Those within must have gone on some such errand as fowling, and be homebound; no Inuit dwelt quite as far south as the Norse. The umiak was a big canoe, leather across a framework of whalebone and driftwood, paddled by a score of women. As many kayaks accompanied it, each bearing its man. AIl the gang were merry; their shouts and laughter blew among the gulls’ mewings, the waves’ squelpings. Tauno and Eyjan saw one young fellow lay alongside the skin boat and speak to a woman who had to be his mother, nursing her newest babe: for she dropped her paddle, hoisted her jacket, and gave him a quick drink at her breast.
Another spied the swimmers. A yell awoke. Sword-blade-thin, the kayaks darted toward them.
“Keep behind me, Eyjan,” Tauno said. “Hold your spear under the surface ready to use.” He himself trod water, repeatedly lifting his hands to show they were empty. His thews thrummed.
The first kayak foamed to a stop before him. He inside could well-nigh have been a merman too, or rather a sea-centaur, so much did he and his craft belong together. The hide that covered it was laced around his sealskin-clad waist; he could capsize, right himself, and get never a drop on his boots. A double-ended paddle sent him over the waves like a skimming cormorant. A harpoon lay lightly secured before him; the inflated bladder bobbed around.
For several heartbeats, he and the halflings regarded each other. Tauno tried to peer past his astonishment and guage him as a man. He was youthful, even more powerfully built than most of his stocky brethren, handsome in a broad-featured, small-eyed, coarsely black-maned fashion. Beneath grease and soot, his complexion was of an almost ivory hue, and bore the barest trace of whiskers. He recovered fast, and surprised the siblings by asking in accented Norse, “You castaways? Need help?”
“No, I thank you, but we belong here,” Tauno replied. The Danish he knew was sufficiently close to the tongue of the colonists-closer, in fact, than to Hauau’s dialect-that he expected no trouble in understanding. He smiled, and rolled around to let the Inuk see him better.
In looks he might well have been a Norseman, long and thickmuscled, save for beardlessness, amber eyes, and the tinge of green in his shoulder-length hair. But no earth-born man could have rested at ease, naked off Greenland in fall. A headband, a belt to hold a pair of obsidian knives, and a narrow roll of oiled leather strapped to his shoulders beneath a spear whose head was of bone were his whole clothing.
Eyjan was likewise outfitted. She also smiled, and dazzled the Inuk.
“You. . . are—” A protracted native word followed. It seemed to mean “creatures of magic.”
“We are your friends,” Tauno said in that language; it was his turn to speak haltingly. He gave the names of his sister and himself.
“This person is called Minik,” the young man responded. He was emboldened, more than his companions, who hovered nervously farther off. “Will you not come aboard the umiak and rest?”
“No—” protested somebody else.
“They are not of the Neighbors,” Minik said.
Reluctant, the rest yielded. Such inhospitality was unheard of among their race. It could not be due to fear of wizardry. They did live in a world of spirits which must forever be appeased, but here were simply two manlike beings who made no threat and could surely relate wonders. Something terrible must have happened between them and the Vestri Bygd. And yet—