The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  Andvar stared at him in astonishment, but before he could speak, one of the lords sprang up onto the dais, caught Elof by the shoulder and whirled him round. A hard-planed face, neither old nor young, stared into his a moment from an almost equal height. A band of gold, finely worked, gleamed round his thick neck. Then Elof was clapped on the shoulder with staggering strength. "What he says is true, this man-smith!" barked the duergh. "He has changed, but I would not forget him. He saved most of that party, me and my girl Ils among them, so we got him away through the underhills. He earned that much help, and more, say I."

  "That's right!" shouted a female voice from the crowd, um id a growing rumble of dissent.

  Andvar raised a hand to quell the hubbub. "You were ever generous to men, Ansker. I will not say you did wrong, in that instance. But what this man-smith has unleashed—and why has it taken him well-nigh two years to seek our aid? If there is more to tell, man, you had better do so!"

  A bitter despair rose in Elof s throat, though Kermorvan was gesturing to him to go on. Whatever he told them, would this malign old creature ever agree to help a human? Not by the will of his folk, it seemed, unless perhaps this Ansker. He stole a glance at him. It was met by an encouraging nod, and the dark-haired duergar girl Ansker was talking to waggled her eyebrows slightly, and grinned, so that he remembered her also. He grinned back, and took heart.

  His words spilled out into silence, like a stone into a deep pit, till he told of the strange rider at his door. Ansker sat up then with a sharp hiss of disbelief, but the lords around him drew back, and the crowd muttered unre-buked. When Elof had finished, the duergar overlord looked at him long and silent, and when he spoke his voice was deeply troubled. "What then would you ask of us?"

  Elof held up his hands. "A key! A key to unlock the power that lies here! I unleashed this evil, as you rightly say. You cannot yourselves counter it, or you would have! Who else, then? Surely I have the power, if anyone—but I lack the knowledge! I have made master's work, but I am an apprentice still, and masterless. Be you my masters now!"

  The silence broke like a floodwall, and the duergar voices rose in a great roar to the high roof, disturbing bats there that flittered forth like living echoes. A spate of argument broke out, furious jabbering both in the northern tongue and a sonorous, rolling speech, and many surged down around the throne, milling and jostling. Kermorvan they almost ignored; it was Elof the row was about, and it looked to be savage. One or two of them came charging up the steps of the dais, and had to be thrust back. Andvar's looks grew blacker by the moment, until he sat suddenly straight and gestured to Ansker and the other lords.

  Their staffs hammered down on the dais in an echoing drumroll that washed away the contentious voices from the hall. Andvar smiled grimly into the sudden quiet. "So! Humans may be a rare sight, but that is no warrant for imitating them! We will hear my counselors on this, An-sker first who has walked most among men."

  Ansker bowed to Andvar, and turned to face the hall. The gold collar shone like a token of the authority in the lean face above, and the rich voice.

  "Lord Andvar, we should help him. We have to!" The hall droned like a nest of angry wasps, many muttering but not daring to raise their voices against their lord's fierce glare. "Think of it!" shouted the great duergh fiercely. "You've all heard what the creature Mylio is up to with the sword now—raising those savages up to assault the human lands—"

  Andvar shrugged. "How should that concern us, my good Ansker? Are we likely to see the Ekwesh galleys sailing along our mountain streams, laying waste to our deep wharves? Let man kill man, and we may sleep at our ease in the mountains once again."

  "May you indeed?" shouted Kermorvan suddenly, and the anger in his clear voice was startling. "Lord of the duergar, does your wisdom sleep? I have heard such words in the mouths of fat burghers in my own land, when I told them of the threat to the north. Nay, I have heard them from northerners even, who knew that the devourers could never come far enough south to menace them. And these last weeks I have seen their bones and their children's bleach under the sky! So I ask you this—when both northern and southern realms of men have fallen before this Mastersmith, what then should shield you? He knows you are here, he knows your ways, he covets your wealth and surely he hates your challenge to his will! And most of all, he is not driven only by his own greed, which might know a boundary, but by the powers of the Ice; what restraint have they ever known? So be your wharves above-ground or below, will he not be bound to seek them out sooner or later? Take heed it is not sooner than you think!" He paused, and from his great height cast a gold glance around the duergar court. "And consider this also. This man-smith, as you term him, Raven himself came to his aid. You can see as I could that he does not lie. Will you refuse to give what the powers themselves offer freely?"

  The hard words echoed out into a silence as absolute as any Andvar had commanded. Anger still simmered through it, but shot through now with doubt and apprehension. Heads turned to their lord as he sat slumped in his great chair.

  "My wisdom does not sleep," said Andvar at last, icily. "I do not fear any of them, Ekwesh, Mastersmith, even the Raven-Wanderer. You do not know the power of our mountain fastnesses, man."

  "I do," said Kermorvan calmly. "I am here."

  "With help!" barked the old lord over the rising disquiet. "And you were known and caught at once! As for Raven, even allowing the tale true, we may honor him, but we do not march in his steps!" He gestured up to the image that towered over his throne, and Elof could see now that it was rich beyond price, the flames alone made with many gems and rich metals. "We owe allegiance to one power only, and that is Ilmarinen the Smith, who alone of all the ancient powers keeps true to his trust! He shaped us our refuges of old from the coming of men, and he will not desert us now!"

  Then Elof saw the jagged work of silver upon the anvil, and understood. "He shaped you the mountains, then, to preserve your folk, and their wisdom? I for one am glad, for I have learned to value great craft, and I revere those who use it well. But lord of the duergar, have you ever thought why your folk were preserved? Was it simply that you should all grow inward and apart, here below, and contribute nothing to the world outside? I know little of the powers, but I cannot believe they would waste riches thus. Was it not rather for such a day as this, when the dark arts of the Ice we both hate may be countered by your ancient good?"

  "That's telling!" shouted a clear voice, and the girl bounced up onto the dais beside him. "That's the word!" To his surprise, other voices echoed her, and were not shouted down. There was a shuffling in the hall, a sound of taut unease.

  Andvar, staring open-mouthed, recovered himself and glared. "Do we then need humans and children to teach us our purposes?"

  "It seems we do," said Ansker quietly. "The powers do not tolerate stagnation forever, we know that. Lord, we have been complacent too long already. I hold myself as responsible as the rest. We must begin to act, and where better than here?" The buzz of voices swelled, and Elof felt a shiver of excitement at the change in it. Andvar was turning this way and that to his other counselors in a debate that grew more heated by the minute.

  "So!" he said at last, and the silence fell again. "As I said, my wisdom does not sleep, and I fear no outside assault, whether by its minions or the Ice itself. But this man-smith shapes doubt as skillfully as evil weapons, and sets my folk against my will. Well, have your way, then. Ansker, you hold yourself responsible, you say? Then I will, also. Hear my decree! You may take this creature and teach him what you will, for two years at most. That is time enough for us to judge him, and see whether we may safely let him go, knowing as much of us as he does. But we must meanwhile be sure of him. For that length of time he will never, upon pain of death, set foot beyond your dwelling and forge. Well, are you satisfied?"

  Behind him Elof heard Kermorvan utter some exclamation under his breath. He was dismayed himself. Two years, without open air, light of moon and star… And in that time w
hat would be happening in the world outside? But what he had come for, he had found. He bowed low to Andvar, and to Ansker. "If Ansker will have me, I am honored."

  Ansker smiled. "Have you some work of yours about you, lad?"

  "I… fear not, my lord. Except the hilt of my sword, which was taken from me at my capture."

  Andvar gestured, and a guard came forward bearing his blade and Kermorvan's two broken ones. Ansker unhesitatingly picked out the dark blade. "The others are Sothran work," he said absently, and sniffed. He peered at the hilt, rubbed his finger up and down it, and tilted it to the light. "What virtue did you set in this?" he demanded.

  "I do not know, lord. I made it when I was… unwell… and did not try to give it any." Ansker's mouth twitched, and he turned to the girl. "Look upon this, Ils!" Together they pored over it a moment, and then suddenly they burst out laughing. "Oh, it has a virtue all right!" chuckled Ansker. "But you did not make the blade?"

  "No. I found it, in the marshes of the Debatable Lands."

  "Ah," breathed Ankser, nodding. "It is a strange thing. But the hilt is fine work for a human, sir apprentice."

  "Then it is settled," said Andvar grimly. "And I suppose we must extend our forbearance to this Sothran his companion."

  "Your magnanimity honors me, lord," said Kermorvan coolly, and bowed. "But warm as was your reception, I have no wish to stay. So by your leave—"

  "I give you none," said Andvar thinly.

  "Your pardon, lord!" said Kermorvan more heatedly, "but what is the good of imprisoning me here? I am no smith, there is little I can do in your land, and much of moment awaiting me in the world outside. I came only to guard and guide my friend over a difficult road—"

  "Nevertheless, you came! And as for guarding and guiding, you would not get far if you tried to return without your friend to shield you—"

  "But he was shielding me!" said Elof confusedly.

  "Do you really think so?" smiled Andvar contemptuously. "Do you imagine light is so easily seen from our airshafts, or the gates on them so lightly protected? There is a virtue in them, that they cannot be told from the stone in which they are set, save by our people. And yet you, Elof, saw the light from afar, your friend only saw how it might be broken. What else, I wonder, have you all unknowingly found throughout your travels, what menaces has the power in you held at bay?" Elof gaped, shaken to his core. "But as for you, fellow, no more debate. You leave us, if at all, when he does. Though I agree we have little use for you. A human warrior!" He sniffed. "I would not trust such a one bearing arms for me. Still, we shall find some useful employment for you. The mines, perhaps-"

  "Do you mock me, Lord Andvar?" Kermorvan's face had turned pure white, save dashes of red that burned in his cheeks, and his eyes as empty as the sea. Towering over the duergar, he strode forward. Guards clashed their spears together in front of him, and they were thrust aside like stalks of grass; the blades leveled at his back, but he paid them no head. "Keep me here, if that is your will. Have me rot in your dungeons, if that suits your whim! But do not try to make me your slave or your beast of burden! I was not born to such usage, though I will endure any hardship in this world, be it only honorable. I would sooner walk from here to the River than lift the lightest burden of a slave!"

  The crowd growled, and Elof suddenly felt very alone among them, for he did not understand the wrath that had come over his friend. "Don't be an idiot!" hissed Elof. "You worked on the ram with me—"

  "That was necessary, a soldier's task!" said Kermorvan frostily.

  "Well, this-"

  But Kermorvan was deaf to all else, and his voice rang clear as the hammered silver on the wall. "Hear me, Andvar, and consider well! For I am no common man. My forefathers through many generations have sat in judgment as you do now, upon a chair of stone, robed with the authority of the law and the will of their folk. They have condemned men as the law dictated, to prison or to death— but never to be a beast of burden! If they had, so it was held among us, they themselves would have borne greater disgrace, and their rightful authority would have fallen from them like a tattered cloak. And so it may from you, lord and king. For will you have it said that you stoop not only to our level, but far, far below it?"

  No duergh stirred or spoke. Kermorvan stood tall among I hem, like a tree against a stormy sky, his face set hard as their palest marble. Elof stared, for he had never seen the man so. Time hung round him like a heavy mantle. Andvar seemed old, his halls ancient, and yet Kermorvan who was young bore as great an air of antiquity, as if he were only a link in a great chain that stretched unbroken away into the deeps of time. The lordly, even condescending, manners had hardened into something immensely strong and ageless, like statues he had read about of ancient kings, and the wrath that had blazed in the gray eyes had frozen into a bleak, terrible justice. And before those eyes even the lord of duergar seemed daunted and cast down.

  When he spoke his voice sounded quivering, almost querulous, after the ringing music of Kermorvan's. "I meant neither disgrace nor mockery," he muttered. "Labor in the mines is esteemed a work of solid worth to us all, those who undertake it hardy and strong."

  "And courageous!" added the girl Ils, firmly. Elof eyed her; he detected something in her voice, something left unsaid, and he could guess what. Mines would suit the bravest, true—but only those who could offer no better skill of mind or hand. Among these worshipers of skill they would be little esteemed. Kermorvan, though, appeared not to see that, because abruptly he stepped back and bowed stiffly to Ils, and again, less deeply, to Andvar.

  "I thank you, lady," he said. "And I accept your given word, Lord Andvar. Since that is so, though the task is very strange to me, I may accept it with honor."

  The sudden release of tension in the hall was almost tangible, but Elof was torn for a moment between common sense and his duty to his friend. He did not wish to see Kermorvan made a fool of, but if he told, then all was awry again. Worse, though, might follow, if that fearsome warrior worked it out for himself. In desperation he looked at Kermorvan—and saw a rueful twinkle in those chilly eyes, that both startled him and lightened his spirits. Kermorvan knew very well what had not been said—and was pretending he did not. Elof sprang down from the dais, and wrung his friend's hand. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing for me!"

  Kermorvan shrugged in slight embarrassment, surprised at himself. "Not only for you. For the first time I find it better bending to a wind than falling altogether; too much is at stake. I am sure my ancestors would understand. Let it pass, you have what you need; let us hope two years will be enough."

  "They had better be. Let us hope the Mastersmith does not strike against your land before then."

  "Yes. It depends whether he chooses to overrun the north completely first. But if I were he, I would not, for the real threat to him lies in my land now."

  "And ours!" said Ils cheerfully. Kermorvan bowed again, but Elof looked her up and down with rank curiosity. The strange duergar face looked well on her; in fact, she was more than comely in anyone's eyes. Her black hair, cut short and very curly, came almost to her brows; her wide, intelligent eyes were very clear and brown, her nose pert and snubbed over an enormous, infectious grin. She wore boots, a short heavy kilt and a dark tunic, sleeveless and caught in at the waist with a richly ornamented belt of leather and mail, on which hung a long sheathed knife and various less recognizable things. The tunic, baring large areas of white skin, made her look startlingly buxom to human eyes, but also revealed the play of hard muscles in her arms and shoulders. She returned Elof's look with equal frankness, and suddenly reached out, tweaked his upper arm and jabbed him in the ribs. "Not as weak as most humans, just underfed! Well, we'll look after you—"

  "Be sure that you do!" said Andvar harshly. "For mark you, I hold you both answerable. The warrior you will take down to the wharf and there commit to the custody of Bayls of the mines. But this one is your responsibility! And on you, man-smith, I lay one further charge. We m
ay let you return to your kind, one day. Say what you will of us then, good or ill, we care not! But we alone may share our wisdom. Swear by your very craft that you will never reveal its secrets! Now take them from my sight! And blindfold, that they learn not the ways!"

  Kermorvan snorted contemptuously, but Elof swore his oath, and then they went forth from the hall. Guards led them hooded through long corridors, and through heavy-sounding doors into a wide space where the air was fresher and cooler, and sound less confined. Over cobbles they walked, and the sound of running water grew ever louder, until their feet drummed on some surface of planking that creaked against stone. There the guards handed over Elof to the care of Ansker and Ils, and Kermorvan to Bayls, who was harsh and curt of voice, and ordered him aboard ship at once. The warrior laughed. "So it begins. Bear up, my smith, and learn well! Don't flatten your thumbs on the anvil! Make it all worth our whiles!"

  "I will!" said Elof fervently, wishing he could find better than that to promise. "And you, have a care of that high head of yours on the roofs!" Ils helped them shake hands, and Kermorvan was led aboard. Elof stood listening to the light flapping of sails and creak of hull and cordage as the boat was made ready, feeling once more alone and adrift, blaming himself for his friend's plight. Suddenly he felt the hood being tugged up over his head.

  "No guards around to tattle, so away with that foolishness!" said Ils firmly.

  "Well," said Ansker indulgently, "since we must pen you up, it would be a shame indeed not to have at least one sight of the duergar realm. Behold, then!"

  Elof, blinking, looked from him to Ils, and then, slowly and unbelievingly, around him. It had felt so exactly like the open air on a cool summer's evening that he had not stopped to think just where they might be. He stood on a wide river wharf full of bustle and movement, a well-made work of wood upon a stone slope; white sails were being unfurled, flapping in the brisk breeze that was rising along the stream. But that stream flowed in through a dark cavern mouth in one of the walls, and only a little way further on it vanished again into another wall. Elof's eyes followed that wall, up, up, expecting to see a strip of the sky over high valley walls. But sky there was none, and he had to fight not to shrink down under the weight that oppressed his mind, beside which all the works of man looked small. For above the wharf rose steep streets of houses, small but solid, their windows glowing in the dusk light, and above them in turn, cresting the hills, the walls and turrets of a strong citadel, lowering in the stone. Its many circles of walls, so smooth they might have been hewn entire from the stone, dwarfed both the houses and the strong towers and galleries that ringed the surrounding walls. But great as it was, that citadel was dwarfed in its turn. For the little town and all around stood within the bounds of a vast cavern in the living stone, a wide hollow hill as it seemed, and overhead was stone unbroken save for small channels and crannies whence came the scant light, dimmer than the lanterns by the river. He thought of where that river must lead, of other wharves in other caverns under the high hills. And the realm and power of the duergar loomed very great before him, like some vast beast which has lain sleeping and all but forgotten for long ages under the earth, but might yet arise to awe the very daylight.