The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  "Good," said the Mastersmith calmly, wiping his sword on still-quivering fur. "Since nobody is hurt, let us be moving on at once, for if they regain their nerve and decide to stalk us, we shall have no peace by night. You have seen," he added, turning to Alv as they mounted up, "a useful alliance of subtlety with force. Never forget it. They were more afraid of the fire than our swords, though it could do them less harm. So are the weak in mind led or driven, be they beast or man. The art of the true smith can be turned to great ends in this world, and often by applying its simplest skills. That flame seemed uncannily bright, did it not? Yet no magecraft at all was needed for it—simply two items of knowledge. First, that a certain rare metal burns thus when very pure. Second, how to find and purify it. Simple enough—but do not scorn such trifles, for all that, when you come to master the greater craft. As you will, soon enough."

  "Mastersmith…" Alv felt a cold tingle of excitement stir behind his belt, and an icier one of apprehension. He had to ask, and yet he was afraid—afraid he would offend the master, show himself up as stupid or unsuitable. But the Mastersmith looked at him with keen eyes, and raised an eyebrow. Alv had to risk it. "Mastersmith—why? Why me? What made you choose me? Wh-why are you so confident I'll be able to do all these things?"

  The smith considered. "You feel it is a burden, that confidence? Set your mind at rest. I have reasons for it, and some I had from the moment I saw you."

  "You mean—because I look like one of the old northerners?"

  "Indeed. That in itself was enough to interest me. All the greatest magesmiths have come from that stock, last survivors of the Lost Lands eastward, for it was among them that smithcraft was most cultivated, and so grew strongest. True smithcraft, the art that goes beyond the mere shaping of the metal, that is a rare and strange thing indeed, and not all possess it to the same degree, or at all. If a people lose sight of it, cease to cultivate it, it will fade from them. So it has for Roc's people, who became so great and so wise in things material they felt they no longer needed it, and in time ceased to believe in it; it was some barbarian superstition they left to their less advanced cousins. In the Northlands, by contrast, it was nurtured and studied as the sothrans studied war and trade and building in stone. Yet even in the north it has dwindled now, as the old peoples have become assimilated among the greater numbers of copper-skinned folk who fled east over the Ice from the rising power of the Ekwesh realm. For though they, too, knew the art, they were a plain folk more concerned with the soil, the catch and the seasons than any deeper knowledge. So in most of them the art has declined to that level. Wise smiths, therefore, seek their apprentices among those in whom the old stock runs strongest—Ingar, for example, with his eyes and face. Very rarely they find one of almost pure northern stock, and in them the art often runs strong. Such, I would guess, are you. But I do not need to guess about what is in you. When I look closely, with the eyes of my art, I can see it, though you know nothing of it yourself as yet. And what I have seen, I trust. You will make a good smith—but how good, only the future will show."

  Alv shook his head, bewildered. "Thank you, Mastersmith. I—I still don't quite… It's just that it's what I've always wanted—"

  "Naturally. That, too, is a sign. But you will see, when we reach my new home. It will not be too long, from the lie of the land. The beasts also, for they hunt near the forest margins at this season. And indeed—" He stood in his stirrups and pointed out toward the looming bulk of the mountains, presently no more than shadows swathed in clinging mist. Alv, copying him shakily, saw a long streak of greenish-brown only a league or so distant, filling the next low hollow and spreading back over the hills to rise up among the very roots of the mountain range. The contrast of the lush carpet of treetops and the cold sterility of those slopes was amazing; it looked as if all the life had come slipping and spilling off them into the valley, leaving only their bare bones to endure the icy weather. A narrow, muddy track led the travelers in among thick underbrush surrounding cedars, ash, maples and spruce, pines far taller than the ones Alv had known on the coast—and here and there, towering above the rest, stands of red-barked metasequoias reaching for the clouds. "And this is only a sparse little outgrowth of the woods to the east," remarked the Mastersmith, "Tapiau'la-an-Aithen, the Great Forest that casts its shadow over the heart of all this land. Think of that."

  Alv shook his head. "I can't, Mastersmith. But I'd love to see it one day. Have you?"

  The Mastersmith's mouth twisted wryly. "I have. As I hope you will, though you will need to be well proven and prepared before you venture into the realm of Tapiau. I barely escaped, myself. But here that power is weak. You will learn more about it—one day." Alv took the hint, and stifled all his eager questions.

  Ingar and the servants were looking around nervously as they rode in under the shadow of the trees, but nothing more than small green birds moved, bouncing around from bough to bough and cocking heads to eye these intruders with immense skepticism. Alv and Roc tossed crumbs to them. There were sounds deep in the forest, though; often they heard the groaning bellows of deer large and small, the snorting of wisants and, always in the far distance, the deep coughing growls of meat-eaters on the hunt. Once, looking back, Alv saw a single doe slip silently across a clearing they had just passed through. When they came to a wide river, there was a swift crashing in tie undergrowth as some large creature dashed away; bright blue birds flicked up shrieking out of its path. A moment later the travelers came across its slaughtered prey on the bank, a huge beaver also as big as a man.

  "A daggertooth!" muttered Ingar, twisting the tinderbox nervously. Daggertooths preyed on even the largest forest beasts.

  The Mastersmith shook his head. "Look at the windpipe-pinched shut, not punctured. Therefore it was one of the biting, not stabbing, cats—smaller and less dangerous. In any case, not even a daggertooth would attack a party this size."

  But the others kept casting anxious glances behind them as they went splashing through the ford, and that night they camped in a ring of thornbushes, with two fires lit, and set a watch. From there on, however, the forest began to grow thinner as the land rose sharply; the heavy undergrowth became sparse, and many kinds of tree were no longer seen. What grew around the path now were chiefly pines, firs and other hardier evergreens. Toward the end of the second day the path itself grew wider and firmer, no longer a muddy track but a well-surfaced road with shaped stones set along its edges. Here and there the res-iny scent of the forest became newly sharp and strong, and looking around Alv saw the stumps of pine trees freshly hewn with the chips still lying around them, the light flooding into new clearings through the ravaged canopy. As the hours passed, he could see that a great quantity of wood had been taken from this forest, some very recently, and wondered who was cutting it. The Mastersmith, perhaps, to build his house or fire his forge—but there seemed to be almost too many stumps even for that. He could ask—but that might look stupid; better mention it casually to Roc, later. They camped that night where the trees stood tall and untouched.

  All throughout the next day the trees grew thinner, the land steeper, until the forest died away to mere clumps and coverts huddled against the hillside, in one of which they camped. When they rose the next morning the travelers found they had a clear view back over the forest and out over the lands they had crossed. Alv was startled to see how high up they were; the forest lay stretched out below him, right to the moorlands beyond, silhouetted against the dim dawn sky. He turned, and blinked with surprise. He was in the mountains now, truly; they were all around him, as thickly, it seemed, as the forest had been, and the sun spilled blood down their flanks. As the travelers rode on, the last clumps of trees dwindled and finally seemed to fail altogether; the slopes on either side were covered in coarse grass, or bushes and scrub that clung to shelter as if in fear of being blown away. The only sounds of life were the drone of biting insects and the harsh screams of unseen birds of prey, echoing down the wind. By evening even t
he smaller plants had all but vanished, and the road was leading them across a broad slope, stony and bare, between two lowering dark peaks that looked like roots put down by the sky. The wind whistled bleakly between them, and somewhere in the distance there was the sound of falling water; it reminded him of the little falls on the hill streams, but much louder and deeper. As he watched, night fell, and the weary ponies plodded on through the pale afterglow. But the Mastersmith gave no word to halt, and with a sudden thrill Alv realized they must be near enough to reach the house tonight.

  Hours went by. Stars came out, and the moon rose, and heads sagged with weariness; Ernan seemed almost asleep in his saddle, and Roc was swaying where he sat. But the Mastersmith was wide-awake, and so, to his own surprise, was Alv, drinking in the mountain air. Darkness seemed to flavor it, like cool, bitter wine. The moon was sinking by the time they neared the top of the pass, and just as they crested the slope it slid down behind the peaks. But instead of the sudden darkness Alv expected, a new radi-ance seemed to hang in the sky, paler and clearer even than the light of moon or star. The crest and the peaks stood out sharp against it, and their snowcaps caught it and sparkled like frozen jewels. Abruptly the Mastersmith reined in his pony and swung down. Frost crunched beneath his feet. He beckoned to Alv, who followed suit, and came trudging up to join him.

  "Look, boy!" hissed the Mastersmith softly, with something as near passion as Alv had ever heard in his voice. "Do you see it? D'you see it there? Look at it, the glory of it, blazing back from the earth into the heavens!"

  "I see it, Mastersmith," breathed Alv, full of wonder. "Behind the mountains… it stretches as far as I can see… shining on the clouds like a reflection from a great still lake… but… what is it, Mastersmith?"

  "No lake, boy. You see in reflected glory the power that has come down to cover the Northlands, the power that ruled this world of old, that was many times dispossessed and thought defeated, and that yet holds it in its grip. And that grip is tightening! You see the, Great Ice!"

  The words were flung out across the mountains, their hollow echoes riding the wind like spirit voices. The glare seemed to grow more intense, and even Alv shivered in his boots; the wind sucked the warmth out of his very blood. "No," said the Mastersmith after a moment, and his voice had dropped to a deep whisper, "you do not see it yet, not truly. But you will, one day. As I did. You, when you have served as apprentice and journeyman, and become in your turn a master, you will set out alone and unattended over the Ice, walking and walking on into the emptiness, enduring its hardships and braving its terrors, and the ordeal will purify you. And if you do not fail at the test you will come at last to the heart of it and there commune with the powers behind it. In their hands you, the master, will again become an apprentice. You will learn new knowledge, new skills, new purposes—new thoughts. Thus you yourself will be made anew—hammered, tempered, forged on the Anvil of the Ice!" The Mastersmith swung round and gripped him violently by the shoulders. His eyes stared deep down into Alv's; the fierce white light blazed and rippled in their depths, and in Alv's brain a piercing point of pain awakened as if in answer. In a state halfway between terror and ecstasy Alv felt his feet leave the ground. The Mastersmith held him out at arms' length as if he weighed nothing at all, as if released he would flutter away on the wind. "Yes, boy," whispered the smith at long last, "there is power in you, true enough—great power. But that is not something you can take for granted. More than any other attribute it must be developed—and disciplined! It must be carefully nurtured, boy, in a climate of thought, pure thought, if petty humanity, the passions of the ape, are not to creep in and weaken it. Pure thought without taint or contamination—that is what lies out there. That is the secret behind the Ice."

  He released Alv so suddenly the boy almost fell on the stony slope. "And that is why I came here," the smith went on, in his normal dry voice. "To be away from the stifling presence of massed humanity, the meaningless demands of the herd. Up here, where few things are living save ourselves, we may aspire to a communion with the Absolute. For the moment it is checked by the mountain-barrier, but not forever—no, indeed. It can afford to wait. Before ever man was, those powers set their hands upon this world and they have never lifted it; in their service we can learn much, and achieve great art and power. Here alone is true life, and here I have made my new home." He gestured down into the valley below. "There is my house—and from now on, yours also."

  Alv looked down into the shadows. A little way along the valley its wall became a sheer cliff face, down which a mountain stream fell in great cascades from the snowline high above. Just beyond it, founded on an outthrust arm of the cliff wall, rose a squat square tower of stone from within an encircling wall. Its summit was open and flat behind high crenellations, but to one side rose a wide round turret roofed in metal, cold-sheened in the clear pale light. Here and there on the flanks of the tower shone squares of warm yellow and red light and plumes of smoke or steam drifted up like banners into the icy air.

  Alv could only gape. He had never seen anything so large, except the Halls of Guild, and they had been low and flat, not many-storied like this. And it was all of stone!

  He had never even dreamed it was possible to build entirely of stone, and shuddered at the difficulty and danger of it. He found his voice at last, as they remounted and went riding down the steep road into the valley. "Mastersmith—it's amazing! But how was it all built—up here?"

  "It was built for me," said the smith drily, "with rather unusual help. I had to pay for that, and I am still paying, when I must. But it is strong, and houses all we need, including great stores of supplies. I think you will find it comfortable."

  After the smith's words about the Ice and the meaningless demands of humanity Alv was inclined to doubt that, but when the high gate of polished granite swung silently shut behind him and the door of the tower creaked open, a welcome tide of light and warmth flowed out, and the aroma of baking bread. That almost reduced him to tears, for all his newfound dignity, because he remembered it from years of passing by homes that were not his, doors at which he might only beg, and never enter as his own. But here as the Mastersmith and Ingar went in, Ernan, Roc and the wrinkled old woman who had opened the door all stood aside, and they ushered Alv in before them. The central hall around him was simple enough, stonewalled and flagged, strewn with rough matting; the great table and benches were of plain solid wood, as were the seats around the fireplace that filled the far wall. But it seemed like a palace to him, and almost unbelievable that he was able to stand and warm himself by the fire undisturbed, then join others at the table to eat bread and meat and drink mulled ale. All this was new to him, and he thought then that for all his life long he could want nothing better. And indeed, though others might have found it a lonely or uncanny place, he was happy enough to spend all the years of his growing in that house.

  In fashion it was like no other house of men in Norde-ney at that time, being built of stone blocks after the manner of the great towns of the south, but far larger in size, and so dressed that not even the keenest edge of the winter wind could force a particle of snow or ice between them. They were bedded deep in foundations of living rock, not only for strength but for heat. The fires under the Earth burned strong and high in that place, and often the hillsides around would vent great gouts of smoke and steam, and a fearful throbbing like the breath of some great beast; at times the ground itself would tremble and heave, as if that beast stirred under the intolerable weight of the Ice. But no tremor disturbed or weakened the Mastersmith's great house, though at its very roots there opened a deep cleft in the rock, through which its hot lifeblood yet ran; the stone drew up so much heat from below that often the spray of the falls splashed into steam against the wall. But the house was placed and built with a hand and a cunning past that of men, and so remained warm at all seasons in that bitter land, where living men could never otherwise have dwelt. On the stillest of summer nights the grind and crack of sto
ne would resound from the far side of the mountains, under the quarterless siege of the Ice; all through the half year's winter the frost would grip like a steel vise and the snowladen winds would come shrieking down off the Ice, seeking the least crack or crevice to begin their ancient game of splitting the stone. But crevices there were none, such was the work; frost and snow alike steamed away to nothing.

  At the base of the tower the heat was fiercest, for there was the Mastersmith's great forge, a wider chamber like a cave in the living rock, but with high vaultings curiously carved. When the Mastersmith first led Alv down into it, the day after their arrival, the boy fought not to flinch at the thought of the great weight of stone overhead. But as his eyes grew used to the reddened, flickering light he forgot his fear in wonder at the look of the place. He had grown up wondering and marveling at the village smithy; this place so far surpassed it that he was moved with a feeling almost of worship.

  It had something in common with Hervar's lair, the fire-pit at one end and the scatter of anvils around it. But here, instead of two or three, were a hundred or more of all shapes and sizes, ranging from small shaping blocks on workbenches to an immense slab, as high as his shoulders, that seemed too huge for any merely human hand to work at; some hero of old such as Glaiscav might have forged arrows here, or Vayde his sword. As he peered more closely he saw poised over it in the gloom what almost confirmed his feelings, two immense metal hammers with wooden hafts thicker than his thigh.