The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  "Breakfast?" inquired the forgeboy hopefully as they came out into the hall.

  "Yes, I'm ravenous! But let's go roust Ingar out of his nice soft bed first, I want to see what he makes of this."

  "He'll probably thump us with it! Oh well, I'll hang on…"

  Alv drummed merrily on the door of Ingar's room. They were not very surprised to get no answer, and kicked the door wide. "On your feet, journeyman, and meet your new master!" But then they stopped, slightly surprised. Ingar lay peacefully in his bed, sleeping on his side much as usual. But though he was facing the door, he had not stirred at all. Alv stepped forward, grabbed him by one heavy shoulder and shook him—and then fell backward with a yell of sheer horror.

  With a crisp dry rustle, exactly like the sound in Alv's dream, like the sound in the library, Ingar's body had caved inward where he lay, collapsed and crumbled to a heap of dark fragments, like a pile of dry leaves before an autumn wind.

  Roc, eyes wide, backed slowly out of the room and onto the landing, till he could back no further. Alv scrambled up, half-fell against the doorframe and out, and stood there staring back into the room—staring, he knew now, at what he himself had done. The back of his hand was against his mouth, and he bit into it to stifle a scream. The blade dropped, dully ringing, to the floor—

  And the Mastersmith stooped to pick it up. Whether he had come up or down the stairs they could not say. He was there now, unwrapping the folds of leather, and his dark eyes flared wide in his haggard face as he saw the completed blade inside. Then he looked up at them, and quickly past them to what they had seen. For a minute he stood there expressionless, then he looked down at the blade in his hand, and complete understanding dawned in his face. He threw back his head and laughed—a rich, carefree laugh, the laughter of sudden release. Then, abruptly, he rounded on them.

  "Well," he smiled, eyes still ice-bright with mirth, "so you were that determined to prove yourself! And you have cost me a fine journeyman in the process—though perhaps you didn't quite believe in my sentinel. Now you do! Still, it would seem that I have another journeyman to replace him…" The Mastersmith's voice had gone vague, almost dreamy, as if he was voicing his thoughts. He raised the hiltless blade high, and Alv could not but flinch, though in truth he would have welcomed being struck down in that hour. But the Mastersmith was only examining it. "Yes—yes… And there, yes, perfect… another journeyman, yes, and one who might well be capable enough to fill Ingar's shoes as well as his own… For boy, boy, this is craft of great power… Master's work…"

  And then suddenly he was himself again, and gazing at Alv with the same intent look as he had when they first met. "Who are you, boy?" he whispered, and his hand fell heavy on Alv's shoulder. "Where have you sprung from? Who was your father? Your mother? What strange hour, what remote place gave you birth?" The hand sprang to Alv's chin, tilted it back fiercely, so he staggered on weak legs.

  In that instant came a sound Alv had never heard before, echoing through the high windows of the tower, distant but deep and clear, like the ghost of a great bell tolling.

  The Mastersmith's hand fell away; Alv staggered and almost toppled down the stairs, but the smith hardly noticed.

  "Boy, this comes timely!" he said softly. "You have pleased me well—forget the fool, he pays the price of his own stupidity! Later today I shall set the stamp of journeyman upon you! But for now, get you to bed and rest, and you too, Roc! Until later!"

  He gestured with the blade, and Alv stumbled away down the stairs, hardly knowing what he was doing but wanting to be away, to escape, to run till he could run no further. But as they came to his room Roc thrust him firmly inside and thumped the door shut behind him.

  "You …" Words failed the forgeboy, and he almost threw Alv flat on the bed. Alv thrust his head in his hands, unable to think, unable even to weep. The forgeboy slumped into the single chair. "What'd he ever do to you, that was worth that? I suppose if he hadn't fallen for it you'd Ve tried to cozen me into it…" And then Roc's voice suddenly ran down like a spinning wheel, slowing, slurring, weakening. Alv looked up, startled, and saw the forgeboy swaying where he sat, eyes glazed, about to topple onto the floor. The surprise triggered something in him; he sprang forward and hissed in Roc's ear. "It's a spell! An enchantment! Something of his! Fight it—"

  Roc stared up at him and mumbled something. Alv shook him, slapping him—and abruptly the forgeboy was awake, eyes wide with horror. "I was just falling asleep— I couldn't help myself, I was just… Like something dragging me down!"

  "A spell," growled Alv. "He's going out…"

  "Ah," breathed Roc. "To answer whatever that bell-thing was." He shook his head. "He was going to kill you then, you know that? For finishing that sword, not…"

  Alv shuddered. "Yes. I wish he had…"

  "Could be you'll get your wish soon enough. Meanwhile we'd better be hopping!"

  "We…"

  "Yes! Come on! He'll stick us both, sure as sunrise— me just in case. And if he doesn't I reckon something else might, if we stay here—you saw how worried he's been these last weeks. What might that bell be about, then? So I'm off, and I don't give much for my chances alone in these mountains, so you'd better come along, you hear?"

  "I hear," mumbled Alv. "If you think I'd be of any help, I'll come."

  In truth, as he realized afterward, Alv was no help at all, for it was Roc who had to take the lead in everything. It was Roc who listened till he heard the great door thud softly closed, Roc who led their hesitant way downstairs with Alv trailing behind, in every sense a shadow, Roc who collected clothes and cloaks and boots and swords, and filled wallets with food from the kitchen, with Ernan snoring peacefully in the next room. Alv went and did as he was told without apparent sense or feeling, save once only. That was when Roc vanished down into the forge and reappeared with a bundle that rang of metal, which he thrust at Alv. Alv fell back as if it contained a poisonous serpent. It was Alv's own set of tools, which all smiths crafted for themselves early in their apprenticeship, and which held an affinity for their hands.

  "Grown too dainty to carry our own, are we?" sneered Roc as he gathered up the spilled tools.

  "I'll touch them no more!" Alv spat out. "They're tainted—"

  "Aye, well they may be, but tainted or not, they've got to earn us a living once we're out of here! We can't afford to be particular—speaking of which," he added hopefully, "you couldn't manage to open his strongroom, could you? All that gold?"

  "You saw how he guards his knowledge," Alv grated. "Do you imagine he would set any lesser guardian over his wealth?"

  "Pity," grunted Roc. He shouldered the tools himself, but tossed both food wallets at Alv. "Ah well, he'd surely hunt us down then. You can manage the gate? So be it. Off we go." He swung the door wide, but paused, and looked around. "Not a bad berth, if you didn't mind the swink. And Ernan. Let's hope you can earn us a better." Alv drifted out after him, unheeding.

  At the gate they delayed long while Alv fumbled with the lock. His fingers seemed as numb as his heart and grown clumsy, as if unwilling to leave the place. And in that they reflected some part of him, for here he had found his first true home, and had first been treated with any humanity, any dignity. But at the last it slipped open, and the bare valley lay ahead of them in the last light of the vanishing moon. "Uphill!" said Roc decisively. "He'll think we've taken the forest road, if he cares to go after us." He looked up at the cascades of the waterfall, and the stair of rocks alongside, no longer icy in the growing thaw. From the summit of the first fall a long ledge led back to the crest of the pass. "Might save ourselves a step that way. Allowing we don't miss a longer one, if you take my meaning. Well, are you game?"

  It made little enough difference to Alv, and he clambered up obediently after Roc. They were both climbers of experience from their excursions with the Mastersmith, and much stronger than the run of young men their age. Roc's weight told against him, and he was puffing and blowing before they reached
the top, but Alv hardly seemed to notice the effort. He sat patiently and waited while Roc bathed his scarlet face in the fall, yelping with the chill, and when they set off again trailed after him as before, saying no word. They came upon thick snow as they neared the summit of the pass, for it was above the margin of the mountain's snowcrest at that season; Alv trudged through it unnoticing. But as they breasted the summit, he seemed suddenly stricken; he leaped at Roc, seized his arm and threw him violently down in the snow. Gray-faced and panting, he pointed down into the pass beneath.

  Roc's angry outburst died on his lips. A hundred feet or so below him stood a tall boulder, just where the road across the pass flanked a steep drop. The moon had fallen below the mountains now, but snowglimmer and the lightening sky were enough to show him the shape that lurked in its shadow. A human shape, its face hidden from him— but not its dark robes, and he knew them at once. "Our late beloved master!" he whispered. "May he wait there for us till he freezes!"

  He made to get up, but Alv pulled him down. "Not for us! Or he would be waiting on the other side of the boulder— hsst!"

  Roc's eyes widened, and he flattened himself down in the snow. Further along the slope, just below the level of the ledge, a shadowy group of figures had appeared round the side of the mountain, marching surefootedly down the steep snowbank toward the road. Alv caught his breath. They were unmistakably the same strange shapes the Mastersmith had dealt with before, whom he had taken for mountain spirits or something of the kind. But as they passed below him they sounded all too solid, with a crisp crunch of boots in the snow. He heard their voices, too, speaking a tongue he did not recognize, gruff and peculiar but not in any way sinister. There was even a brief burst of laughter, silenced by a sharp word from the head of the column. There might have been thirty or forty of them, and from the tall shafts many of them shouldered, and the subdued metal jangle of their gear, Alv judged them to be a party of warriors. They came to the road, and their boots rattled and clattered on the ancient stones as they headed up the pass, and the first dawn glimmer filled the sky.

  Then Alv and Roc realized who it must be that the Mastersmith awaited. A kind of sick apprehension grew on Alv as he saw the Mastersmith step out from behind the rock into their path, though they were still some hundred paces away. He spoke, and then the leader of the column-quiet voices, but angry words, that was clear. Then Alv saw the Mastersmith snatch something from his shoulder and cast aside its wrapping, and the Iceglow gleamed on the strange blade he himself had completed only five or six hours since.

  For an instant Alv's mind writhed in torments as twisted as the substance of the sword. His skills, his learning, his very life he owed to the man who waited below, though he had long since lost any illusions about why they were given. He had seemed useful, that was all. But whatever his motives, it was the Mastersmith who had first treated him with any human decency. A metal once alloyed is not so easily made pure; a great debt there remained. And these nightshapes, what did he owe them? They were many against one, and well armed, against an untried weapon of a different kind. But something deeper in him, some clearer sight, saw differently. Everything about the smith seemed colored with a treachery blacker than the shadow he lurked in, a menace darker by far than the bluff and open manner of the warriors. Rightly or wrongly, Alv could bear it no longer. Before Roc could catch him, he sprang up, cupped his hands and yelled. His voice rang between the mountainsides. "NO! Get you back, get away! The blade has a power—"

  The little knot of figures scattered in the instant the blade was leveled at them, bounding up the mountainside with the speed of squirrels. Only the leader and three or four others failed to run in time, or perhaps stood their ground regardless. Nothing visible happened, but something seemed to pass across them with the force of a blow; they crumpled before it, staggered and howled as if in agony or madness. The leader tottered to one side, clutching at his head, and stepped straight out over the side of the road. Another ran wildly in a circle, slipped and went skidding out after him. The others tumbled threshing into the snow, heaved and lay still. And in the next second the blade swung up toward Alv and Roc.

  Panic descended on them both like a cloud, and they turned and fled wildly up the mountainside. They ran and ran, slithering and tumbling in the snow, barging blindly into rocks and into each other, hardly seeing. It was accident only, perhaps, that they ran in the same direction and passed behind a tall outcrop of the cliff, into deep shadow.

  Without warning hard hands grabbed them and forced them struggling to the ground. With all their strength they could not break free, nor could they reach their swords. A lantern flickered, and a burst of yellow light shone in their eyes. Alv stared at the ring of faces that bent over his—strange faces, all with the same cast, broad and coarse-featured with heavy brows; some were grim and gnarly, some round and wrinkled like a winter apple, and one alone was smooth-skinned, snub-nosed—a girl's face, grinning. Then the light vanished, and the strong hands scooped them up in the air, bouncing them along to the crash and crunch of boots in snow. Alv, too confused to struggle, felt the icy air flow past him at an incredible rate, and realized he was being carried up the slope toward the mountain crest. But all of a sudden the air became warmer and the echo louder, and the shadow around him as deep as midnight- For what seemed like hours he was bumped and bounced along, and the only recognizable thing he heard over the grind of boots was an occasional strangled protest from Roc. Then, equally abruptly, he was pitched forward on his face. Something hard struck him in the small of his back as he tried to get up, and then the mountain seemed to collapse onto his legs. But as it struggled away he realized it was Roc. He sat up, and the light flicked on again in front of him. There was the girl's face, grinning impishly, and a hand waving. With a final roguish waggle of her eyebrows she receded into shadow, and the light went out. From some distance away they heard, or more truly felt, a soft heavy impact, and then nothing.

  Alv could do nothing but sit there and stare stupidly into the darkness. It had all happened too quickly. After a moment he felt the wind on his face, and realized he was out of doors—still, or again? But it had been on the edge of dawn when they seized him, and here it was dark. He turned and looked around, and saw the peak of a mountain silhouetted against grayish clouds, and others to left and right. But in front of him there were none.

  "We're on the other side of the peaks," he said won-deringly. "And further down. The sun's not reached here yet."

  "Don't be daft!" gurgled Roc, sitting up next to him. "You know that'd be a long day's climb from the house— a week by the forest roads!"

  "Be still, then," said Alv softly, "and see. For dawn is upon us."

  And before long the clouds above were turning to white, the sky to gray and then blue, bright blue, and in the clear air the land spread out before them. They sat at the high head of a mountain valley, on barren rock among the last thin shreds of snow. But not far below them green growth circled a little lake, and below it another, and another, all the way down the valley like a giant's stair, until at last all they saw was a glimmer of blue water between the burgeoning trees.

  "We're away," whispered Rock, in utter awe. "We're only a morning's march from the lowlands, we've a head start. We're safe!"

  "Yes," said Alv. "We're safe." And he bowed his head upon his knee.

  Chapter Four - The Smith of the Saltmarshes

  So began his first great wanderings, in a lifetime filled with them. Terrible enough he was to find them, for he had lived all his life enclosed in small spaces, first in little Asenby, where he found no happiness, and then in the Mastersmith's house, where he believed that he had. His flight had been all in panic, driven by starkest need, thinking only of what he was escaping, the memory of what he had seen that moment in his master's eyes; he had not stopped to consider all that he was leaving behind. Only later, that night and through the harsh days that followed, did the true sense of what he had lost settle upon him—his past security, h
is promised future. At the first he was glad enough of his freedom, and went with a light heart for all the grief and guilt that haunted him, and the fear of pursuit.

  To avoid it, that first day, they walked down the valley to the south and out into the woodlands beyond, stopping seldom, eating as they walked, saying little. They halted at last only when darkness forced it; the moon had long since risen, but shed little light through the trees. They made camp among thorny bushes under a high cedar tree; Roc thought to build a fire, but Alv would not let him. "Have it your own way," grunted Roc, cramming his mouth with dried meat. "Our cloaks'll keep us warm enough, but there'd better be no hungry beasts about. Beardogs, bears, the odd daggertooth—"