Totentanz

Book 1 Chapter XIII: Immer Wieder

IMMER WIEDER
German, "again and again"

Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side! -- Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

Like the last lifetimes this one got off to a very bad start for Diarnlan. A bad start of the skrýszel-related kind, no less. She was in the middle of an argument with her sister when the invasion began. An enormous monster crawled out of the sea, attacked the village, then ran further inland after Diarnlan cut off one of its horns.

The next few hours were a panic-filled blur. Diarnlan, her teacher, and an ever-increasing number of other magicians followed the train of destruction the brute had left. Its footprints were so huge no one could miss them. Yet somehow the skrýszel itself stayed several steps ahead of them. It moved more quickly than something so large had any right to.

A little voice in Diarnlan's mind complained repeatedly, This is all wrong. It's not supposed to happen this way.

Diarnlan ignored it. Thinking about what it might mean only made her head ache.

Five hours after the monster's first appearance, its pursuers reached the rocky foothills of Mount Fángnern. They promptly ran into unforeseen trouble. The ground here was too hard for anything, even a gigantic monster, to leave clearly-visible footprints. And its strides were so long that they had to cover a considerable distance just to find the traces it did leave. A few uprooted trees, small boulders that had been trodden on and crushed, and splashes of water when it waded through pools; those were the only things they had to follow now.

Teivain-rikhon-hrair took control of the situation now. "I'm going to fly up to that cliff there. I'll be able to see for miles. The rest of you keep going in the general direction it went."

Naturally several of the more self-important magicians -- including another of the Great Mages, proof that any idiot could become a mage if they tried hard enough -- immediately began to argue. All of them had their own idea of how to deal with the monster. None of their ideas were even remotely similar -- or practical, for that matter.

The monster got further away with every minute they wasted in pointless bickering. By now it was probably on the other side of the foothills and heading straight for the Fǫnathvollir, the grasslands in the middle of Avallot where the vast majority of the country's livestock were raised. Diarnlan could just imagine the chaos that would follow if it rampaged through the farms there. The queen would be furious if the country suffered a monster-induced meat shortage. And worst of all the magicians -- including Diarnlan -- would get the blame for it.

She marched away from the arguing crowd. All this talk about flying around looking for the monster was just ridiculous. Up till now it had gone in more or less a straight line. Therefore it was reasonable to assume it would continue in a straight line. She just had to follow until she found its tracks again.

Within minutes the sound of the squabbling magicians faded mercifully into the background. Soon Diarnlan couldn't hear them at all. She walked quickly, scanning her surroundings for signs a large animal had come this way recently. From time to time she broke into a run. That lasted only a few minutes before she tripped over one of the many stones scattered across the ground. Then for a while she slowed down and paid more attention to where she was walking. Inevitably she grew too impatient to walk, so she began to run again and the cycle repeated itself yet again.

The trouble with walking across a mountain's foothills was that it was very difficult to walk in a straight line. You found yourself veering too much to the right, and when you tried to correct it you ended up too far to the left. After twenty minutes of walking Diarnlan had to admit she hadn't a clue where she was.