The Tempering of Men

by Elizabeth Bear

  The floors had been leveled, the spaces opened, and the light the lanterns provided was amplified and reflected through the use of lenses and mirrors to an extent Brokkolfr had never imagined. He thought of the glass prisms in the decks of ships, to bring light below: this was to that as a palace was to a croft.

  Bright, clean, warm, and beautiful—the alfden was nothing like a trellwarren, which calmed Brokkolfr’s hammering heart a little. In fact, some breaths brought him the scent of familiar flowers and the wet warmth of growing things, leaving him wondering—did the svartalfar grow food underground? And if so, how did they go about it?

  As Realgar and Orpiment carried Kari in, Brokkolfr also noticed that the few other svartalfar they encountered seemed to go out of their way to take no notice of the surface-dwellers suddenly in their midst. One or two stared, and the obvious guards at a great door drew aside, nodding—but no words were spoken and no questions raised. Remembering what Kari had said about the Iskryne alfar, the trellqueen, and granting of permission, Brokkolfr thought he understood. The other alfar would assume that either Realgar and Orpiment had permission for their actions or they were on their way to secure it. And so there would be no questions unless it turned out not to be so.

  A tidy way to run a town. If everyone could be counted on not to take advantage.

  Alfar, he concluded, were even less like men than he had always been told. He caught Kari’s eye, wishing that like Amma he could simply reach into Kari’s imagination and plant these ideas there. But Kari looked even more white-faced and drawn than before—Brokkolfr grimaced in sympathy as he imagined how the improvised litter and the uneven steps of the svartalfar were jolting Kari’s ankle—and Brokkolfr glanced away.

  At last, Orpiment turned off the seeming thoroughfare and—still carrying the front of Kari’s stretcher—led the little party down a vaulted side-corridor. Brokkolfr wondered if the patterns in the stone were signage. He thought he glimpsed repeating motifs, but that could be artistry as easily as tavern signs. And if this was a young svartalf colony, new in the past year, he wondered what glories would populate an old, established one.

  Although he was beginning to think that maybe this was not such a new colony. What had the alfar said when Kari pleaded ignorance that they had remained behind?

  Maybe they had been here all along, living under the feet of men, and men had never known it. If they grew food here, need they ever come to the surface? And he’d thought he and Kari had gone deeper into the caves than earlier explorers. Maybe there were svartalf warrens everywhere.

  He thought about Isolfr and the fragility of the truce between elves and men, and he caught himself dry-swallowing. Careful, Brokkolfr. This could end badly indeed.

  At last, they turned aside once more—three more svartalfar passed them in the interim, Brokkolfr burning up under the eyes of each one—and entered a tunnel the walls of which were inlaid with copper and silver between the flowstone. The flowstone itself Brokkolfr took as a sign that this passage was part of the natural caverns and not hewn from the living bedrock as so many of the others had been.

  Also, the floor here was waterworn, and though many feet had since polished it, Brokkolfr could make out the eroded shapes of eddies and ripples. They proved a blessing: the descent was steep, and Brokkolfr, though perforce hunched by the low roof, used them to brace his boots against so he did not slide down and send both svartalfar and Kari tumbling. His toes jammed up into the ends of his boots, and he bit his lip to keep from swearing.

  Orpiment glanced back over his shoulder. “Fear not, surface-dweller. We are nearly to my master’s apartments.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brokkolfr said. Cool air dried the sweat on his chest and back. The alf must have heard his labored breathing and interpreted it correctly. “I did not mean to complain.”

  The alfar were sure-footed, at least, and even managed to keep Kari’s litter somewhat level. Kari himself seemed to have given himself up to pain. He lay back in his borrowed shirt, eyes half-closed, and pulled the slack edges of Realgar’s robes over himself as best he could.

  Brokkolfr’s aching calves and toes—and the hunch of his back—were grateful when the descent ended.

  If Orpiment and Realgar’s master was a smith, there was here no stench of the forge or clatter of hammers. Instead, a trickle of water flowed down a petal-toned limestone abutment and the floor around it had been leveled with imported slates. The svartalfar paused with their burden, and Brokkolfr paused behind them.

  “Mastersmith Antimony!” Orpiment called, after a glance from the apprentice. “It is Realgar and I! We have come to beg your advice.”

  Brokkolfr had not seen a door since the one that was guarded, and he did not see one now. Perhaps svartalfar simply did not go where they were not invited.

  But the scrape of a foot and the swish of fabric came from within, and then around the edge of the flowstone came one of the more elaborately arrayed svartalfar Brokkolfr had ever seen. He had seen mastersmiths before, even Tin in her formal gowns, with her inlaid teeth and her embroidered robes that puddled on the floor all around her. But nothing like this.

  Antimony—and now he could not for the life of him remember if antimony was a metal or a mineral, and of course there was no cue to wolfcarl eyes in an alf’s face or body what its sex might be—wore ivory woolens that draped in folds like the very flowstone from arms that spanned wider than Brokkolfr’s, though the alf scarcely reached his chest. Embroidery in shades of blue and rose and purple trimmed every fold, and around the hem, heavy fringes swung.

  Antimony’s hair was the same ivory color, looped in braids woven through with a tapestry of wire and jewels. Fingerstalls of some white metal clicked with each gesture, the alf’s dark flesh visible through elaborate piercings and filigree.

  This, Brokkolfr thought, is what a wealthy old alf looks like. This is an alf-jarl for sure. And I’m standing in the foyer of a grand alf-house. And Kari’s harsh breathing told him it was no dream.

  Antimony raised its wizened-apple face and frowned, the edges of a long mouth drawn down sharply between a ragged nose and a precipitous chin. “Well,” it said in clear tones and perfectly understandable language. “What have we here?”

  Whatever Brokkolfr might have answered was cut off by the patter of running feet—like half-grown kittens, he thought inanely—and the squeal of voices as a tumble of tiny svartalfar emerged from the chambers behind Antimony and sprawled across the foyer floor.

  A moment, and he was able to distinguish: there were three of them, each no higher than his knee. Two were dressed in the same deep orangish-red; the third—slightly older?—wore dark blue. But a moment was all he had before Realgar and Orpiment flung themselves across the room, putting themselves bodily between the humans and the svartalf children. They had dropped the litter, and Brokkolfr’s attempt to save Kari ended with them both on the floor in a tangle of elbows and knees and bruises.

  “Ow,” Kari said in a teeth-clenched whisper. He’d gone an ugly color; that “ow” was just barely instead of a scream.

  “We have no wish to harm your children,” Brokkolfr said with what dignity he could.

  “No,” said Master Antimony, “and I see that one of you is hurt. Realgar, Orpiment—” He or she—she, surely, for those had to be her children now clinging to her robes—dropped into the svartalfar’s language, but Brokkolfr didn’t need to understand the words to recognize a lecture when he heard it. He stayed where he was, letting Kari grip his hand hard enough to leave bruises, and waited. They couldn’t escape, and at least Antimony didn’t seem to be angry at them.

  Then one of the little ones said defiantly and in speech Brokkolfr could understand, “But, Dama, you have guests.” Brokkolfr guessed Antimony’s lecture must have widened in scope as it went. Lectures often did.

  “Yes,” Antimony said, “and this unseemly behavior is preventing me from tending to them as I should. Thallium, please try to keep Cinnabar and Alumine better discipl
ined.”

  “Yes, Master Antimony,” said the blue-clad svartalf. Not Antimony’s child, then—a servant or a fosterling? Watching the assured way Thallium held her hands out to the younger children, Brokkolfr guessed she was a fosterling. The two orange-red svartalfar—twins?—went reluctantly, both of them looking back at Brokkolfr and Kari as Thallium led them away.

  “Now,” said Antimony, “let us begin again.” She held up one long knobbly finger, cutting off whatever Orpiment had been about to say. “I wish the surface creatures to tell me first.”

  Brokkolfr and Kari goggled at each other. Brokkolfr would have been much happier to let Kari do the talking, but Kari was still too pale and panting and in no shape to play leader. Brokkolfr thought about standing up, but if he did, he would be towering over the svartalfar—which first of all seemed rude, and second of all meant he wouldn’t be able to see their faces. Thus he stayed where he was and said, “We were exploring.”

  Antimony’s eyebrows went up, but she nodded for him to continue.

  “We didn’t know … I’m sorry, we had no idea you were here. We didn’t mean to trespass.”

  Realgar said something explosively.

  “Realgar says you broke the cave ice in—” A long phrase in the svartalfar language: the harmonics made Brokkolfr want to shake his head like a wolf coming out of the water.

  “We didn’t mean to do that, either,” he said.

  “Clearly,” Antimony said. “If it had been your intent, you would have been more careful not to harm yourselves.”

  “Realgar,” Kari croaked, stopped, cleared his throat. “Realgar said something about reparations.”

  “Yes,” said Antimony. “Realgar, fetch—what do you surface creatures drink? I do not wish to poison you.”

  “Ale?” Brokkolfr said, trying frantically to remember what he’d seen the svartalfar drink when they were at Franangford.

  Antimony seemed pleased. “We have ale. Realgar, fetch ale, and then I think you should go see if Sceadhugenga Baryta will come.”

  “But, Master Antimony—”

  “It is foolish to discuss reparations until the extent of the debt is known,” Antimony said. “I will have to go look at the damage, and in the meantime, the creature is suffering.”

  “Kari,” Kari said. “My name is Kari Hrafnsbrother. And this is Brokkolfr Ammasbrother. We are wolfcarls of Franangford.”

  “Oh,” Brokkolfr said, sharply reminded. “Kari, they’re going to be looking for us soon, aren’t they?”

  “Um,” said Kari. “I’ve lost track of time a little.”

  “And all Amma and Hrafn can tell them is that we went underground. Vethulf is going to skin me alive.”

  “No, he won’t,” Kari said, and his chill fingers closed around Brokkolfr’s wrist in what was meant to be comfort.

  TEN

  Shortly after first light, Amma burst among the chaos of Franangford’s construction like a fox shattering a henhouse door. She jogged heavily, limping on one forepaw, her gravid belly swinging with the jounce of her trot. As she ran toward Viradechtis, Vethulf almost dropped the handles of the barrow he was pushing, remembering just in time that to do so would risk spilling a load of stone over Sokkolfr, who was pulling. Rather than breaking his werthreatbrother’s feet, Vethulf set the lever end down carefully and then turned, ready to sprint to whatever assistance was needed.

  Amma reached Viradechtis as Viradechtis was standing, still-drowsy, and threw herself at the konigenwolf’s feet in supplication like a puppy. Kjaran was there, suddenly, hackles lifted but ears up, and through him Vethulf felt Amma’s pleading.

  A cool draught seemed to brush over Vethulf’s skin, redolent of leaf mold and ancient water. It was Kjaran, relaying for Amma—Brokkolfr and Kari’s scent fading, along with the scent of their torches, into that bottomless moistness and then the echoes of their footsteps fading, too. A long time passed. And then, through Hrafn and the pack-sense, Amma felt the echoes of Kari’s pain.

  “A cave?” Vethulf felt the blood rise through his face. “They went into a cave? Without telling anyone?”

  Sokkolfr pushed the loose, sweat-drenched strands of hair off his forehead. “Hrafn waited at the cave.”

  The pounding of footsteps as Isolfr—lanky, breathing hard—arrived on the scene, the laces of one boot flopping dangerously with each stride. He was running hard enough that he leaned back to slow, arms spread wide like a big bird landing. He rocked to a stop beside Viradechtis and dropped to one knee. One hand in her ruff, he reached the other out to Amma.

  Amma, rising to her feet, whined.

  “We’ll find him,” Isolfr said. “Don’t worry.” He looked up at Vethulf; Vethulf nodded.

  “We’ll need ropes,” he said. “Candles, torches.” His mouth dried. They’d need—what would they need? Wolfcarls were not miners.

  “Shovels,” Sokkolfr said. “Picks. Water. Stretchers.”

  Vethulf was just turning to begin collecting supplies when something else echoed through the pack-sense—Ingrun in a panic as white as Amma’s, reaching out in need across miles of forest to her konigenwolf. The fear in it doubled Vethulf over, hands on his knees, gasping in referred nausea.

  “Skjaldwulf,” Vethulf said, the name twisting like a tapeworm in his gut, as Isolfr’s ice-pale face went as white as the scar that crossed it.

  “Mar,” said Isolfr.

  * * *

  Skjaldwulf woke cold and stiff, with Mar’s tongue in his ear. That wasn’t one of Mar’s usual tricks, and when Skjaldwulf tried to push him away, he found his hands were tied behind him. He turned his head and retched, the world spinning. There was nothing in him to vomit except bitter yellow threads of bile, and the effort nearly split his head.

  He’d seen men with cracked skulls live and die, and you could never tell which would be the case until a hand of days had passed. It was good news that he had awakened clearheaded, though bad that he had vomited.

  Awake? Mar said anxiously, and Skjaldwulf could feel that his brother was hurt, pain in his ribs and skull, metal bars on his face, and something twisted choking-tight around his neck. That brought Skjaldwulf to grim alertness. It was full dark, though there was a dim red edge of light from a fire somewhere behind him. I’m here, brother, he said to Mar, and the heat of Mar’s half-voiced whine washed over his face. Where are we? What happened?

  Mar was experienced and deep-minded enough to give Skjaldwulf a coherent string of images: Skjaldwulf slipping and falling hard; the foreign soldiers barking and howling at each other; Mar bounding forward to stand over Skjaldwulf’s body, snarling at anyone who approached; the threat hiding in the trees, watching for an opening; the arrival of more foreign soldiers and another jarl, this one riding a long-legged horse rather than driving a cart. The threat doing the right thing and getting out of range, and Skjaldwulf heaved a sigh of his own, grateful that they had not let themselves be snared with him. The new jarl barking at the soldiers, a blinding pain in Mar’s head, then being dragged by something raw-sharp around his neck, left cold and frightened beside his brother, who would not wake and would not wake.

  That was all Mar knew. Skjaldwulf was still bewildered; they had been taken prisoner, but why? Why capture them when killing them would have been easy and reasonable?

  His eyes had adjusted to what little light there was; he could see the chain that bound his brother. It was obviously an improvised restraint, looped around Mar’s neck and then around—Skjaldwulf squinted through darkness and blurry vision—a tree. If he’d had his hands free, he could have released Mar easily, but they were firmly tied, and he discovered when he tried to roll over that they were pegged to the ground, so that Mar could no more release him than he could release Mar. The foreign soldiers might not have encountered trellwolves and wolfcarls before, but they learned quickly and they were taking no chances. Skjaldwulf was surprised they’d left him and Mar together—surprised that, even if for some reason they did not want to kill their human prisoner,
they’d left Mar alive.

  Mar whined again, and a voice said from somewhere beyond Skjaldwulf’s head, “Are you awake then, wolf-witch?”

  It was a woman’s voice. The words were heavily accented but understandable, except … “What did you call me?” Skjaldwulf twisted and craned and managed to get the speaker within his field of view, although as not much more than a blot of shadows. And the effort left his head throbbing blackly.

  The blot shrugged. “The Rheans say you must be a witch to have command of such a monstrous wolf, and I do not argue with the Rheans.”

  Skjaldwulf’s reflexive response was to protest that he did not command Mar; the idea was abhorrent. But it was also not the most important matter facing him. “Rheans?”

  “The men wearing skirts. They name themselves for their goddess, Rhea Lupina.”

  “You aren’t a Rhean?”

  “Me?” A snort—almost a laugh. Grief, said Mar, naming the woman, as wolves did, by scent. Grief and bitter herbs. “I’m no Rhean, wolf-witch. I’m a Brython. At least, my mother was. My father was one of six Iskryners who raped her. When I was twelve, the Iskryners raided again and she killed herself rather than fall into their hands.”

  Skjaldwulf had seen a few Brythoni and half-Brythoni thralls; they were a comely people, darker than Iskryne-men and finer-featured. He even knew a little of their mountainous homeland, learned when he was a skald’s apprentice. Before Mar.

  Your wits are wandering, old man. “What do these Rheans want with me?”

  “They want you to tell them how to defeat your witchcraft. And don’t tell them you’re not a witch, Iskryner, because if they don’t need you, they’ll have no reason not to kill you. And they have seven reasons to want you dead, for you killed seven of their soldiers before you were brought down.” She got up, a shadow against the firelight, and stood looking down at Skjaldwulf for a moment. “The Rheans burn witches,” she said softly, and walked away.