The Anvil of Ice (32 page)

"Be sure that you do!" said Andvar harshly. "For mark you, I hold you both answerable. The warrior you will take down to the wharf and there commit to the custody of Bayls of the mines. But this one is your responsibility! And on you, man-smith, I lay one further charge. We may let you return to your kind, one day. Say what you will of us then, good or ill, we care not! But we alone may share our wisdom. Swear by your very craft that you will never reveal its secrets! Now take them from my sight! And blindfold, that they learn not the ways!"

Kermorvan snorted contemptuously, but Elof swore his oath, and then they went forth from the hall. Guards led them hooded through long corridors, and through heavy-sounding doors into a wide space where the air was fresher and cooler, and sound less confined. Over cobbles they walked, and the sound of running water grew ever louder, until their feet drummed on some surface of planking that creaked against stone. There the guards handed over Elof to the care of Ansker and Ils, and Kermorvan to Bayls, who was harsh and curt of voice, and ordered him aboard ship at once. The warrior laughed. "So it begins. Bear up, my smith, and learn well! Don't flatten your thumbs on the anvil! Make it all worth our whiles!"

"I will!" said Elof fervently, wishing he could find better than that to promise. "And you, have a care of that high head of yours on the roofs!" Ils helped them shake hands, and Kermorvan was led aboard. Elof stood listening to the light flapping of sails and creak of hull and cordage as the boat was made ready, feeling once more alone and adrift, blaming himself for his friend's plight. Suddenly he felt the hood being tugged up over his head.

"No guards around to tattle, so away with that foolishness!" said Ils firmly.

"Well," said Ansker indulgently, "since we must pen you up, it would be a shame indeed not to have at least one sight of the duergar realm. Behold, then!"

Elof, blinking, looked from him to Ils, and then, slowly and unbelievingly, around him. It had felt so exactly like the open air on a cool summer's evening that he had not stopped to think just where they might be. He stood on a wide river wharf full of bustle and movement, a well-made work of wood upon a stone slope; white sails were being unfurled, flapping in the brisk breeze that was rising along the stream. But that stream flowed in through a dark cavern mouth in one of the walls, and only a little way further on it vanished again into another wall. Elof's eyes followed that wall, up, up, expecting to see a strip of the sky over high valley walls. But sky there was none, and he had to fight not to shrink down under the weight that oppressed his mind, beside which all the works of man looked small. For above the wharf rose steep streets of houses, small but solid, their windows glowing in the dusk light, and above them in turn, cresting the hills, the walls and turrets of a strong citadel, lowering in the stone. Its many circles of walls, so smooth they might have been hewn entire from the stone, dwarfed both the houses and the strong towers and galleries that ringed the surrounding walls. But great as it was, that citadel was dwarfed in its turn. For the little town and all around stood within the bounds of a vast cavern in the living stone, a wide hollow hill as it seemed, and overhead was stone unbroken save for small channels and crannies whence came the scant light, dimmer than the lanterns by the river. He thought of where that river must lead, of other wharves in other caverns under the high hills. And the realm and power of the duergar loomed very great before him, like some vast beast which has lain sleeping and all but forgotten for long ages under the earth, but might yet arise to awe the very daylight.

"You see," said Ansker, without appearing to notice how the sight affected him, "the heat of the earth at these depths warms the air; this wars constantly with the cold air of the mountains, and so is in constant motion throughout the long caverns of our realm. Thus the air is kept flowing and fresh, and gives us breezes on which our ships may sail."

Elof shook his head in awe. "I wonder if we were not foolish, Kermorvan and I, with our bold words to your lord. How could Ekwesh or Ice ever threaten you in such a fastness as this?" Ils shook her head vehemently. "Foolish? Never say so! First bit of sense anyone's talked in council this century. Did me good to hear. Andvar's getting on, that's all, and he doesn't like men much. Remembers when they were pushing into our farmlands and hunting grounds."

"For we grow most of our food aboveground as you do," said Ansker, "on high mountain terraces. And so we are just as vulnerable to the Ice in that way. And in other ways. The Ice can wear away even a mountain, little by little. Have you never heard stone splitting in the cold nights, and the grind of the glacier against the rock? But it need not even do that, there is a faster way to overwhelm us. If it can fix the cold around us, keep our winters harsh and drain some of the warmth of summer by sending cold winds and fogs and freezing water in the rivers, then every mountain's cap of snow will start to grow, extending the snow line downward and spreading chill before it. Very soon it will become a glacier in its own right—and one with no more mountains between it and your westward lands. And beyond them, only the sea. Thus the Ice may breed, in mockery of the life it so despises."

"And the duergar?" asked Elof hoarsely. "Master Ansker, what would happen to your folk then?"

"Burial," said the elder duergh solemnly. "Utter entombment—our airways choked, our rivers frozen. The blood and breath of our realm cut off, and our high pastures and fields no doubt laid waste by the cold or the fell things the Ice unleashes. But that will be slow to happen, for the Ice moves most easily where heart and spirit will not stand against it, where knowledge and craft cannot flourish, and only strife, oppression and bloodshed prosper." Elof nodded slowly. "I remember things the Mastersmith said, when first he showed me the Iceglow in the sky—how it mortified the body and strengthened the mind, seeking to freeze away animal passions and leave pure thought. Perhaps normal humans—and duergar—are offensive to it; perhaps it truly cannot abide the presence of a great mass of beings who both think and feel. So it can only come against us when we are already weakened and scattered."

Ansker nodded. "And so turns man against man, and perhaps man against duergar. It were well that our old strife were forgotten, and our still more ancient kinship was renewed. May this be the first step on that stair! For though we must confine you, yet you are our honored guest. Come now!"

The wharf stretched all along the riverbank, its sides lined with immense stone blocks like those in the Mastersmith's tower. At intervals along it were tall columns bearing torchlights, their reflections gleaming red-gold in the still dark water, and below these were ladders and stairs leading down to the waterside. All these were made of dark metal most curiously and beautifully wrought.

"Stone and metal," remarked Ansker, "our foundation, and the dual nature of our kind. Andvar now, he was a worker of stone, and shares its virtues, to be hard, dependable, enduring. But Ils and I and many of us, we are metal; we are strong in our way, perhaps, but flexible also, able to change and be shaped by time and events." Ils chuckled. "And yet
to
keep enough spring to find something of our former shape when needed. You, I think you also are metal, and your friend in his way."

"I pray that he is!" said Elof, looking down at the boat, which was ready to depart. It was a strange craft, long and narrow and smooth-sided, with a low mast and wide square sail, very lightly rigged. He waved, though he did not expect to be seen. But to his surprise a tall figure turned on the deck and waved in return.

Ansker chuckled. "Bayls of the mines is not as hard as he makes himself out to be; he would not leave anyone blindfolded longer than need be. I do not think you need fear too much for your friend."

Elof sighed. "That comforts me!" The gentle cavewind bellied out the sails, and the craft glided out onto the glassy black river, leaving scarcely a ripple, like a dream. The crew were singing in their deep voices, a merry-sounding song in the duergar tongue, which Elof cannot then have known. Yet a version of a song in the northern speech is here preserved in the chronicles, and it may well be the one.

Deep under stone the breeze is rising, Hoist the sails, for we 'd soon be gone. Bid goodbye to your bright-eyed judies
,
We '11 sail where gold outshines the sun
!

Deep in the caves the rivers running, To your oars, for there's rapids soon, They'll have a jump your girl won't give you, We '11 sail where silver outshines the moon!

Deep under mountains dark is closing, Light the lamps, keep a watch afar! Rock grow fangs in the narrow channels, We '11 sail where a jewel outshines a star!

Little is recorded of the things Elof learned in his months of study under the smith Ansker, for such wisdom was not commonly committed to records that all might read, and least of all by Elof; he kept his oath, as he kept all, faithfully. It is known, though, that much of what he learned concerned the natural properties of things, and how they were related, rather than of arcane craft. "For that is in most ways a shadow," Ansker is recorded as saying, "of the power that lies in you yourself—a subtle and intricate way of shaping and channeling what flows from you to your work. This you have seen. When your guilt hung heavy about you, you could set all the signs you wished upon simple work, but no virtue took root in it, for you feared in your heart of hearts to release any, and all unknowing sought to stifle the gift within you. But upon this sword hilt you set no sign at all, and yet it is rich with craft."

"What is the virtue in it, then, that you and Ils saw?" asked Elof. "And why did you laugh so?"

Ansker chuckled again. "Because, my lad, you could have brought nothing better calculated to make us trust you. Ils! Look again, and tell him."

She caught the sword lightly, handling the sharp blade with care, and turned it to the light. "I see no definite virtue, truly you left it formless, a song without words." She gave him a mischievous smile. "I see
you
! Or… or an aspect of you. You as you became in the Marshlands. Your purposes… the things you wish to fight. And to defend." She looked at him, past the hilt. "By not directing your power, you've made this sword… part of yourself, almost. That may happen sometimes, with things we make and use for long. They take on an air, an aura of their owner, as a dog may of its master. But never so strongly!" She shook her head in surprise. "You've mirrored your living will in this sword, so strongly it could almost speak. Even now it may make a fair sound as you wield it, a kind of singing—am I right?"

Elof blinked. "I have wielded it only amid great noise, in a seafight and a storm—but yes, at the last it hummed, a deep note…"

Ansker frowned. "The sword? Surely you mean the hilt only, for the blade's no work of his…"

"See then!" she said, and laid it down.

Ansker's fingers glided over the metal, following the elusive gleam in its blackness. "You are right!" he said at last. "It resides in the hilt, but has spread to the blade. How ever could that be? Perhaps there is some old spell in it which meshes with your power—but so strongly!" He sighed, and looked at his apprentice keenly. "Elof, you must take care. You have deep wells of craft in you, and you seem always to pour more into your work than you expect. Doubtless the Mastersmith hoped only for a weapon that would sway his enemies, or at best cow them—not drive them shrieking in droves! Be warned."

"But if that's so…" Elof stopped. He was thinking of the bracelet, and the virtues that lay on it. If he had made that as powerful… if
she
only knew, might it not serve to break the hold Louhi had on her? He became aware that Ils was looking at him a little strangely, and remembered she had seen things he wished to fight—and to defend. How clear had her vision been?

He shook his head in bewilderment. "How can I ever learn to control something I don't even understand?"

"Learn to control the materials you work with. Learn their properties, what they can and cannot do, and apply your craft accordingly. When it is this powerful you may use it as a cutting edge rather than a bludgeon, and so aim it more accurately. Less craft, more skill!"

So Elof turned back to his anvil, and many a long month he slaved there, struggling with metals he had once thought easy to work, and many other substances also. He learned the subtle arts of alloying that could make something chiefly of gold or silver almost as durable as steel; he learned how to make things of steel as light almost as wood by crafting cunning edges, honeycombs or webs whose strength lay in their shape alone. He learned how to work strange light metals that would not normally take shape under the hammer, or would burn like a starstone at the first touch of the flames. Ansker taught him much lore of minerals, crystals and jewels, which the Mastersmith had never made much use of. But strangest of all, it is recorded that he learned from the duergar smith how to look deep into the structure of the metal itself, so see the shock of each hammer blow travel through it as clearly as ripples through a pond, and how the next blow or heating or quenching would affect what he worked. He even, it is said, came to know the many shapes and forms and structures that the very crystals of which all metal is made might take, and none in more detail than iron. That was a metal he had almost come to scorn, because it was so easy to work; but of all the mistakes he had made, he came to believe that this was the greatest. For with the initial ease went infinite variety, especially in the alloying and shaping, and much of this required almost an infinity of skill and patience. But it was at this difficult work that he was to become most accomplished of all.