The Forge in the Forest (57 page)

PEOPLES

THE PEOPLES OF THE EASTLANDS

At first sight it might seem from the Winter Chronicles that the folk who had remained in the Eastlands hardly differed from their kindred in the west, whether in language or customs. Bryhon had had little difficulty in passing himself off as one of them, and the travelers were easily understood and accepted. But there are indications that this surface similarity was deceptive; deeper differences did exist. For example, the Penruthya tongue was the dominant language, as it was in Bryhaine, but in a very different dialect, more archaic and adopting many wordforms from the Svarhath. If the travelers had not already had to adjust to the archaic tongue of the Forest dwellers, and been native or fluent Svarhath speakers, they would have had greater difficulty. Svarhath, as among the Forest folk, had changed much less, perhaps because of its stronger oral tradition, but chiefly because of its "minority" status. This was not forced on it, as it was in Kerbryhaine, but reflected the relative numbers of each people, and their involvement in public affairs.

Language thus points the way to an even deeper difference. The land of Morvannec maintained the blending of races that Kerys had achieved of old; it had not fragmented into distinct communities, as Morvan had begun to, or into separate countries, as did the Westlands to their own great loss. Northerners and sothrans, Svarhath and Penruthya, shared common communities throughout the land. Within the community, though, the northerners tended to be clannish, living in their own districts and monopolizing certain occupations such as sea fishing, small farming and crafts. The Penruthya dominated government, large landowning and trade, but such finance as there was lay in the hands of the Goldsmith's Guild, which was chiefly Svarhath. In general the two kindreds existed in goodhumored mutual toleration (though much of the good humor was at each other's expense). The disaster of Morvan had forced them together as sharply as it had divided the west.

THE ANCESTRAL FACTIONS

One casualty of this process in Morvannec appears to have been the ancestral political factions that so bedeviled the affairs of Kerbryhaine at this time. If earlier Chronicles are to be believed, they originated in the rise of Kerys, when, as so often happens, newly wealthy commoners found their interests conflicting with the ancestral landowning classes who had built up the country, and in a sense made that wealth possible. Many families became identified with one or another faction, and passed on that rivalry to their descendants. This is all too credible; it was the same conflict that first divided the patrician and plebeian classes in ancient Rome, and the lines of Guelph and Ghibelline at a later date. And as with them, it was handed down through so many generations that it lost sight of its origins. Inherited wealth soon gave the most powerful plebeians a thoroughly aristocratic outlook; many patrician families declined in wealth and status. And though the plebeian faction claimed to speak for the common people, very often the patrician faction was closer to them in spirit and interest, and enjoyed their support. The factions began among the Penruthya peoples, but intermarriage and common interests soon spread them among the Svarhath of the north.

The royal line of Kerys, the Ysmerien, usually remained aloof, striving to pacify and reconcile the factions, as they had the two peoples. Sometimes they would succeed for many generations together, yet sooner or later the old dissension would creep in once more. A younger son of the Ysmerien left Kerys for the new land of Brasayhal to found there a colony that would become Morvannec; his heirs established Morvan, and took the name of its central city, Kermorvan, for their new line. But even there they could not escape the old associations; the factions followed them. However, throughout the long centuries of Morvan's prosperity there was little serious cause for dissension, and the kings sternly repressed casual feuding; the factions faded into little more than familial rivalries, and among the Northerners died out altogether. But as the threat of the Ice grew, so the factions regained their meaning. It did not help that when the kings needed strong support they would always find it more readily among the patrician faction. Many plebeians sought to limit the royal power, or even substitute some "popular" form of government. Yet when they had their chance in Bryhaine they created the Syndicacy, as dependent on wealth as the old aristocracy and as autocratic as the kings had ever been.

The shifts of time and fortune ensured that no single family dominated either faction for very long; some even shifted from one to the other over the centuries. But for the Book of the Helm it is worth noting that the Herens were always strong among the plebeians. Like the royal line they blended the blood of both kindreds, but they were staunch populists and particular antagonists of the kings; in Morvan they added the prefix
Bry-
, meaning free, to the family name in protest against the new kingship. By and large they seem to have been a very honorable family, and at times more humane and peaceful than the stern kings they opposed. Yet undoubtedly it was within their kindred that the sinister cult of the Ice centered; doubtless it was passed on only to a carefully chosen and condi-

tioned few. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that it was Mor-vannec, where the Bryheren line was cut short by accidental deaths a generation or two after the fall of Morvan, that managed to produce the most harmonious society in the land. The High Kingdom of Morvanhal was to continue this tradition; the factions were forbidden by decree and common consent, and never again acquired any significance.

THE FOREST PEOPLE

No more need be said of the origins of these strange folk than appears in the text, and of their eventual destiny little is known. However, some deductions are possible. If they used any name of themselves, it was
alfar
, but the duergar, with customary clear sight, named them the Children of Tapiau. For in truth they had been reduced to children, dependent on him for all things. Though their bodies were well adapted to life in a natural, primitive world, the picture of them in the Chronicles suggests that their minds were not. For they appear to lack both the vices and virtues of truly primitive humans, that sheer raw energy which allows them to survive and grow. They were dangerous warriors, but only at Tapiau's behest; among themselves they never fought, save in sport. This peaceable nature may seem a virtue to civilized folk, yet even the most manlike apes may murder and wage tribal war for no good purpose; it may be an urge they need. Nor did the arts of peace fare any better among the
alfar
, to judge by Mor-huen's fate. How long could such a people survive in the great changes that were to come? And could they ever again climb up the same long slope? If enough of them survived unaltered, it is possible they might manage to endure. Certainly in other lands there survive legends of a race of ageless, supernatural beings at once sylvan, rustic and strange, yet with courts and kings excelling in splendor those of common men. Perhaps Tapiau had been at work there also, with greater success. But where the great forests of Brasayhal once ran no such traditions endure, nor is there any trace of the folk who roamed them.

Perhaps in the end the fabric of men proved tougher and less apt to Tapiau's hand than he suspected, and their descendants regained their manlike forms. But it may or may not be significant that in the jungles that endure far to the south there are legends of a man-sized arboreal ape, though no apes have ever lived on that continent; all that has ever been found are peculiarly large and long-limbed monkeys.

THE DWELLERS UNDER THE TREES

The other strange beings that Elof and his companions encountered should not, strictly speaking, be spoken of as people. They were as Tapiau described them, races of minor Powers. Yet their tasks and natures confined them to bodily form, and in those forms they lived, and even perhaps bred; and they undoubtedly had minds of some order, though very unlike those of men. In no account does Tapiau volunteer any more information to Elof about them; but in some texts passages are added which name them, apparently from duergar lore and traditions. Ils herself may have discovered these, though apparently she knew little or nothing of them at the time. The most human in shape, the creature who took Ermahal, is named
rhuzalkh
in the duergar speech. They did not think her wholly malign, for she did not seem to kill; and of those lost from the company Ermahal alone did not reappear among Taoune's shades. Yet they dreaded her, for she would ever provoke and strengthen dreams and illusions in an apparent need to share them, perhaps to feed on them. In doing so she would ensnare the dreamer wholly, luring him away down strange pathways from which few returned, and those lost and wandering in their wits. Always they were happy, which to the duergar seemed worst of all.

The monstrous lake-dwellers the duergar named
vady-anei
, and feared far less. In body they were as described, not unlike massive seals, yet with grasping forelimbs and huge heads. Formerly their dams had been found in many rivers and lakes, and it seems they were once set to watch and ward such places; they were simple of mind and savage of temper, though seldom dangerous unless disturbed.

When the duergar waterways under the mountains were first made the
vadyanei
had often invaded them, endangering ships and their crews, and been hard to displace; but for thousands of years no more had been seen of them. Both these creatures were unknown to men, and had no names in their tongues. Not so the creatures of the Hunt; they were known in the folklore of Bryhaine as one of the principal terrors of Aithennec, where Tapiau no doubt set them to deal with intruding men. As a group they were named
helgorhyon
, probably meaning the Wild Hunt, but the individual creatures were called
gourvlyth
, which means approximately the same as the modern word werewolf; the duergar name
vrkalak
means as much also. That implies some identity with men, yet by all accounts they were twice the size of a man, and there is no tale of them changing skin or shape; on the other hand, they were never seen by day. But it is more likely the name refers to their shape, and the mind that lay behind the brows of a beast. Certainly they were of a fearsome intelligence, and once on a scent no ruse or guile could turn them aside; Elof and his companions were fortunate in their escape that only
alfar
were nearby. Most probably the Hunt was still west of the Meneth Aithen, to guard against Ekwesh incursions. Their original task was said to have been countering the creatures of the Ice, and as such they were valued, even worshiped by the ancestors of the duergar, who had suffered from it once before. That men knew them only as terrors of the night and the treeshade was perhaps unjust; it is worth noting that while they terrified the company, it was only Kasse the wrong-doer they actually slew. And even his murderous bargain they justly kept.

THE CONFLICT OF FORCES

In the Book of the Helm, for the first time, the two great forces of the Long Winter come into direct conflict-smithcraft in the hands of a man, albeit an extraordinary man, against the controlling wills of the Powers them-

selves. And if there is no doubt to whom the first honors went, still there is more to be explained.

THE POWERS

The events of the Book of the Helm brought Elof into far closer contact with the Steerers of the World than any man in the memory of his times; though in the Chronicles accounts of others may be found. He learned much of their strengths and weaknesses, and, as the Chronicle suggests, he acquired much of this from Tapiau. No doubt the wily Forest lord, sensing that here was one on whom his usual allurements would have little hold, and divined the thirst for knowledge that was one of Elof's ruling passions, and sought to ensnare him with that instead. For though he might have held men by force, he preferred to give them at least an illusion of choice; the illusions he had woven for himself were the less disturbed thereby.

Yet it is improbable that Tapiau would reveal so much of crucial importance about himself and others as freely as the accounts have him do, and all at once. It is more likely that he let fall the information in tantalizing morsels, underestimating perhaps Elof's formidable mind and memory, and his ability to smelt and weld facts and truths as surely as he could metals. Also, many truths that Elof later learned from Kara may have been placed here by later compilers.

For the sake of concision many interesting speculations that are put into Tapiau's mouth have had to be omitted from the main text, but as one or two have a bearing on the tale they are worth repeating here. One concerns Louhi, and her need for the Tarnhelm. She was an immensely greater creature of her kind than Kara, and seemed able to shift in and out of human shape at will; why then could she not assume others as easily? The answer seems to lie chiefly in the great strain the Ice put upon her; human form came easiest to most Powers, having the capacity of mind closest to their own, and she had little energy to spare. Yet she now found she had to change, if only to keep up with Kara. The transforming powers of the helm were of a different order, masking rather than reconstituting the shape, and the power in the helm was not hers.

Another puzzling aspect of Louhi, or her true self Taounehtar, is her exact relationship to Taoune; by some accounts she was his daughter, but by others his consort. That is put in the voice of Raven, and carries all the more authority. That Taoune had long been reduced to an impotent shadow of his former power, as Tapiau suggests, is probably true. But the Chronicles tell that Tapiau had less share in that than he made out.