The Anvil of Ice (37 page)

He saw Ils wrestling with the tiller, Kermorvan hauling on the mainsheet and unable to help, and as the bows lurched upward he took his chance and went sliding down the deck to her. They seized upon the jerking, lurching bar, forced it down between the teeth of its retaining rack and leaned on it, clinging together and grinning foolishly at each other. If felt good, very good, in the first relief of escape. Ils's wide eyes were brighter than ever under her wet tousled hair, her bare arms warm against his, and there was a heedless exhilaration in this mad rush down into the dark, a joy in being alive among noise and spray and turmoil and cool air rushing by.

Kermorvan was less happy. The sail had backed violently, forced against the mast by the sudden rush, and only his quickness in freeing the sheets had saved it from tearing, or even dismasting them. But now he was hanging onto the flailing mainsheet with all his weight, and seeing himself slide nearer the gunwale every time the little boat lurched.

"We've got to stop her heeling!" he shouted. "This keel-less little cockleshell, she will capsize!"

"It's all right!" shouted Ils. "Any moment now the channel grows wider, the outrush will slow down soon enough!"

And even as she spoke its momentum faded, quite suddenly, like a rough child losing interest in the toy it shakes. The boat bobbed and bounced sickeningly for a few minutes, swayed dangerously under the jagged outcroppings of the low roof, and suddenly was straight and upright once again, gliding calm as a swan down the center of the new stream.

Ils and Elof sank down on either side of the tiller, gasping, and then clambered up to help Kermorvan rein in the gently flapping sail. "Kerys!" he said, massaging his arms and looking back into the shadows. "That was a well-turned escape, Ils. Bad fortune on us that the brute chose to flee south instead of north."

"Bad fortune?" asked Elof, to Kermorvan's surprise.

"What else?"

"Only that it was also bad fortune that the other brute also lay in wait for us, when it had the whole town at its feet."

Kermorvan and Ils stared at him, and at each other. Finally the warrior shrugged. "Well, I see no sign of the creature now, so it would seem we have truly escaped it, this time. But I would we could have slain the thing, as we did its fellow, whether it was hunting us or not! I do not like it left free in your people's realm, Ils. Surely there are many places under the mountains it may hide…"

"None where we may not hunt it down!" said Ils grimly, and the heavy bones of her face stood out. "Have no fear of that! Do we not have old Andvar to avenge, and many more, our homes and our forges left ruined and ashen? My folk will harry that thing without ceasing, if we have to hunt it from end to end of the hills and back, until it lies smoking in its own fires before us, or quenched in our deep waters. Its mate slain, it can breed no others to help it. We will have it!" She looked up at the roof and the walls around. "As for us, we have other concerns more urgent."

"Why?" asked Elof. "Do you not know where we are?"

"I believe I know well enough, though I must check on our charts. It is where we may go that worries me, and how we may come to our destination. This is an old channel that has lain unused for longer than I have lived, and I would not have taken it save in desperation. It will take us some way south, but not as the main ones do to our southern lands and their gates. Instead it turns southwest, without branch or tributary that may be sailed, and leads out under the lower hills, coming at last to their cliffs on the coast, north of the Debatable Lands." She bit her lip. "Somewhere there it ends in a way out; so much is marked on the chart. But where, or how, I have never heard."

Kermorvan peered at her in blank dismay. "Can we not go back?"

"Not through that broken lock," said Elof. "Unless we abandon the boat, and climb the walls. And then? Would you make your way along that narrow riverbank on foot, with the dragon still sniffing around after us?"

"No, indeed," said the swordsman ruefully. "Not now that it has learned better than to use fire! Very well, our path must be dark, in every sense. It was a sorer blow that beast-thing smote us than it knew. May we still get there in time! How far have we to go?" Us was hauling a mass of rolled charts from the locker. Keeping a weather eye on the tunnel ahead, she spread out one on the deck, and the men gathered round to see.

"How far?" she said. "Seven days' sailing, perhaps, if we could sail all the way. It is marked here as a good fast flow, fed by many small springs and without silting or other hazard, save when the roof grows low on leaving the mountains. Then we must lower the mast at times, and drift so it may take a little longer."

"In this stifling blackness!" sighed Kermorvan. "With nothing to see beyond the light of our lanterns, not even a one of your towns to pass through. Seven days sunless! How shall we mark their passing?"

Elof shrugged. "I am sorry for you, my friend. But we have seen little enough of the sun for two long years; a few days more will surely make little difference. If nothing else, we have plenty of time to rest and think."

"And drink!" said Ils, turning from the chart locker to another. "And sing! Here is wine to wash the dragon-reek from our throats, and put a merrier light on our journey!"

They settled down in the stern with food and drink, though always within reach of tiller and winches. Ker-morvan took the heavy flagon he was offered, twisted out the cork in powerful fingers, sniffed, raised his light eyebrows, tilted it to his lips and drank deep. Then he lowered it, and drew a long breath. "There is Sothran sunlight in that wine, summer sunlight spilled warm across a hillside. And song, and the clash of arms in honorable contest, and the stirring of blood. With that, and in such company, I could almost be happy, even here. But my heart will not cease its yearning for my Southlands, and its deep unquiet. Bryhaine!" he cried aloud, and the echoes rolled under the stone. "Kerbryhaine! How close are the raiders upon you? How strong now your walls, how fast your gates? But be they hard as the mountains, as immovable, a power comes that will strike at where you are weakest, I know. How firm holds your soul, my city?" And he sat beside Ils at the tiller, and softly he began to sing, to an old tune, but with hard and bitter words.

Kerbryhaine! Your Seven Towers stand gilded by the

sun, Beneath your walls the fields lie green, the tree-lined

waters run. Yet in your heart what light is there, what grows and

comes to flower? Does mind grow cold, do weakened hands slip their

ancient power?

Kerbryhaine! I see you now, once noble, high, and

fair, Your greatness gone, your wealth dispersed, as empty

as the air. What wasting sickness struck so at the flesh beneath

the skin,

Took might and honor at a stroke, and withered from within ?

Kerbryhaine! A sapling tall, but one that dies, not

grows! The greater tree you left to fall, but now your own

sap slows! The winter comes to all that lives, the Ice that slays

the root
—
If Spring shall ever shine again, will you still bear a

shoot?

Kerbryhaine! If worth remain, if aught is left to show, The smallest leaf, the slightest bud from ancient bark

to grow, The gain is worth the sacrifice, the battle worth the

slain
—
But will your spirit yet endure the healing stroke of

pain?

When his song was ended, Kermorvan smiled apologetically. He drank again when the bottle came back to him, and appeared to grow happier, and joined in the songs Ils and Elof sang. Ils sang in her low sour-sweet voice, strange old songs of the dwellers under stone, rendering the words into northern speech for the men.

Cold, cold the winds through caverns blowing, Dark the waters as under stone they run, But soft is the glow of the lamps at journey's ending And the gold is warmer than the sun.

Fade, fade the leaves upon the branches, As the winter comes, till there are none. But deep under earth the stone is ever fruitful, And the gold is brighter than the sun.

Fall, fall the suns as summer passes,

Short there is life and love grows cold.

But here far below a love need know no season,

For her eyes are brighter than the gold.

Elof in his turn sang a few songs as they drifted through the darkness, though to him his deep voice sounded rougher and less pleasing than theirs. He taught them the old round songs he remembered from his childhood, simple boisterous songs of herding and fishing, and a few strange snatches he had come upon in his wanderings.

So they made merry on their lightless road, not guarding their lanterns or laughter or song, for in that dark vein of the duergar realm there could be none to hear, save the many small things that scuttled away before the light, and the bats their voices scared out of the roof. They were young, as their different folk counted youth, and they were gliding day by day from danger to danger, but for now they were at peace. They only excitement came at the times when they saw the rock ahead close down like the gullet of some great beast, and must stand ready by sweeps and fending poles. But as the seventh day, by their rough reckoning, wore on into the eighth, Kermorvan, who was on watch, began to grow more and more uneasy, scanning as much of the shore as he could with the lanterns. At last he awoke the others, who in the close air preferred to sleep out on the deck.

"This had better be good!" growled Ils from within her blankets.

"Hush!" said Kermorvan. "You who grew up here below, do you not feel it? A change in the air…" Ils sat up. "It grows cooler, indeed. And yes, it moves!" She looked at them. "We may be drawing near the end of the journey, at last."

"What then? Do we simply leap ashore? I have seen no likely place among the teeth of these rocks for a good three leagues gone. Or would your folk have set a proper landing stage in a safe corner?"

"That, surely," muttered Ils. "But I see no sign of one anywhere near, and there is a sound growing I do not like. Almost I feel it, a deep rumbling sound—"

"Rapids?" growled Kermorvan.

"No. That sound I know, none better… this is smoother, steadier, with none of the chatter and roar. And we have no room to raise the mast!" She stood, still wreathed in blankets, and looked anxiously around. "I feel something may have changed, or been changed. We must be ready to escape if we can."

Elof looked about him. "Where to? I see no bank to land on, no cave or crevice even in these walls. And we are drifting quite fast—"

"You are right!" barked Kermorvan. "Much faster than a minute past. The current is drawing us along… and that sound—Ils, do whirlpools ever form in your rivers?"

"In no channel we have cleared! Nor has it the deep thunder of a fall. Truly strange it sounds… We shall know soon enough, at all events!"

So in haste and worry they gathered together their most precious gear, and a few of the sealed casks the boat carried as floats. That done, they readied the heavy sweeps, knowing they could not hold the boat back against this current; at most they might steer it past rocks, or fend them off. And then they waited, for that was all they could do, while they were drawn faster and faster on through a passage that grew more menacing by the moment, high rocks seeming to spring from the water like teeth around them. Yet the channel still seemed well chosen, for they were swept safely by and on into the depths of the cavern.

Then Ils stood on tiptoe and shouted to Elof, who had taken station in the bows, "Light! I see light! Do you?"

Kermorvan ran forward to join him. "I see nothing… black as pitch."

"But her eyes are the duergar's, and like a cat's!" Elof reminded him. "And I, too, think there is something ahead… a glimmer…"

Then the boat bucked under him, and he was all but flung overboard. Kermorvan grabbed at him, and would have gone over instead had he not caught the lantern staff. The roof seemed dropping to meet them, a giant's fury bellowed in their ears, and Ils shrieked in fear and delight. A sweep jerked upward, dropped and splintered against some unseen obstacle. Beyond the bows a tiny disk of light swelled in an instant as the boat was pitched at it like an arrow at a target, and seemed to burst around them. They sailed out into the very air, and tilted downward on a leaping, foaming hillside of water. For a mad moment Elof, sprawling on the deck, thought he was back in the lock, then the boat evened out once more and he saw that though there were still fangs of rock overhead, a gray light shone between them and mocked them with fantastic shadows. He heard Ils cry out for help, and saw her bent over the tiller with an arm across her eyes. He staggered aft, and a line swept down the deck with him, like a clear wave washing the grayness from the wood, dimming the lanterns to feeble embers and setting blinding highlights in the metal. As he reached Ils he saw astern the impossibly tiny cavernmouth that had spewed them out, the chute of water that had borne them, all so natural but no doubt cunningly contrived. As, surely, were the high walls they were gliding between, and the great stone slabs, irregular and dangerous-looking, that formed a roof. Or had formed it, for they were there no longer, and he knew, though he dared not look direct lest he be dazzled like Ils, that above them was only the open sky.