"Looks like a cave-slug!" muttered Ils. "Slimy, pale and eyeless, never a drop of red blood in him!"
But the Mastersmith smiled courteously to her, and to each of them in turn, as if to demonstrate that he was not blind. "Welcome, Lady Ils, Lord Keryn Kermorvan. And to you, my boys, Roc and Elof, who is yet the Alv I knew. You see, I know you all. Your coming was not unheralded." Ils glared at Elof. "Not by Kara," he said quickly. "She did not know who was with me, or our names. This comes from within the city."
"Not unheralded, as I said. You are an innocent, boy, adrift in a world you do not comprehend, the play of forces beyond your perception, and beyond your childish concepts of good and evil, of rights and wrongs. Does not the storm drown many a mariner? And yet the selfsame wind will drive the ships of many more to safe and prosperous haven. You cannot have one without the other, a fair wind in one corner of the ocean must be fierce in the other. The world is a single great interplay, a linked chain you cannot even begin to envisage, of which even I have only been permitted to grasp a small portion. If great suffering is occasioned here, yet it is only in the cause of ridding life of all its merely animal horrors, that the rule of pure mind be restored in a world cleansed, a fair monument wiped clean of filth scrawled on it by fools, purified by the power of the Ice."
Kermorvan snarled something and pushed forward, but Elof held him back. "Throughout my growing years I heard this and much like it from you. Fine words! Fine enough, almost, to dignify a lust for wealth and power, bought even at the expense of your own humanity, I see. Almost, but not quite. The snare that caught me then, I will not step into a second time. But even if all you said were true, I still would prefer my childish notions, and my duty to those who have befriended me. I will never sacrifice them to some invisible future good, some fair wind elsewhere. Where the storm threatens, let it beware!"
The Mastersmith's blank face twisted a moment. "You have sacrificed them anyway. They who would fight the storm must endure its wrath!" And reaching swiftly among the heavy folds of the robe, he caught hold of a scabbard and hilt. So it was that out of the deeps of the years, the most fell work of Elof s own hands arose to confront him.
It gleamed in the wintry light, that sword, its flowing, enigmatic patterns bright as the day when he had deemed his work done, and exulted without a thought for what might thereafter befall. And as it shone before his eyes it seemed to him independent of he who brandished it. He saw it more as he would his own face distorted in a mirror crazed and shattered, a facet of himself malformed and twisted. It was in revulsion only that he thrust the gauntlet up to blot it from his sight, but that served him well. For no greater fear or horror descended upon him, yet Ker-morvan, barely within the blade's influence, was convulsed as by a bolt of lightning. The gray-gold sword twisted aimlessly in his hand. His limbs jerked, his spine snapped rigid, arching his head back, and from wide-stretched lips he shrieked aloud, terribly loud, a racking, tearing sound of animal terror and agony. He stumbled back, clutching at his head as if hot metal ran through it, utterly unmanned; he blundered into the wall and rebounded against Ils and Roc, so perhaps shielding them somewhat, though they cowered away as one would from the sudden opening of a furnace door. But they caught the tall man as he fell, bore him up swiftly and dragged him kicking back to the steps. His scream had done its work, nonetheless, for from the dark below echoed shouts, slamming of doors, the ring of steel-shod feet upon the stair.
The sword shifted its direction, wavered away from Elof and toward his friends, Kermorvan gray-faced and furi-ous, struggling to rise. But Elof sprang forward after it, keeping himself between it and them, and shouted back over his shoulder, "Get you below, and him with you! You might yet make the door—"
"No chance!" shouted Ils. "They come! We will help you—"
"You cannot! Hold the stair, cut your way out if you can! This is for me alone!" He saw her nod and swing herself down the steps, Kermorvan stumbling after her, and from below there came the sound of blade on blade, and Roc's angry bellow.
Now the sword swung no longer, but pointed straight at Elof, and he felt the sheer power of it pour about him as if it were a rapid he was fording, ever threatening to sweep him off his feet. Desperately he closed his fingers in an attempt to catch it in, but there was too much, too strong a flow, it spilled between his fingers and poured its frothing waves of fear and horror into him. His hair bristled, his heart hammered, it seemed that the floor split at his feet and an abyss gaped there, himself swaying on its brink, hearing the shrieks that echoed upward. He struggled against the current, gasping, choking like a drowning swimmer, and his sight began to dim. Images of terror swirled up before his eyes, shapeless at first, then shadows that gathered and coalesced, flying at him like dark wings riding a stormwind.
He flung his own sword up against them, and for a moment it too became a thing of horror in his hand, dripping with marsh-slime that became the foulness of a corpse split open, rotting and reeking down across his hand, pooling about his ankles, bogging down his steps. But only for an instant. Another image rose up around the marsh-blade, the hand that had first wielded it and clutched it down into a mighty death, that hand no longer blackened and shrivelled but strong, fell, resolute, the hand of a man hewing foes down in droves before him even as his life ebbed and the marsh ensnared his limbs. Elof had taken that blade as his, set himself within it, and with it he had, all unknowing, taken on him its weighty inheritance. He could not now dishonor it by doing less.
He fought forward, thrusting himself into the heart of the terror he faced. He dimly heard the sounds echoing in the stairwell, hoarse shouts, the dull hammering of arms, the harsh rasping gargle of a life flowing away. All the black dreams he had dreamed came flooding back against him then, all the visions his fever had conjured up, sweating there among the soot of his forge upon the Marshlands—the clawed fingers, the bodies in the wagon, Ingar crumbling away under his hand, Kara a mocking wraith, all mingling into one fearful shape of death and decay, and endless liquescence of life.
He felt as if he could endure no more, as if his heart and mind and will were tendons in a tortured hand, stretched to their limits and beyond, only waiting the last vicious twist to snap in consummate agony. But in none of the fearful things did he find that final force. They came not new to him, as they might have. In his trials and suffering he had faced them, and the worst of him they embodied, once before. And though they still clawed at the very depths of him, yet he found he could face them now. In grief and regret he leaned forward against them as he might into a gale, and like leaves they scattered around him, stuck a moment and were whirled away. He could acknowledge the guilt that was in him, and balance it against what else he found there. He could guess at a price to be paid, make a clear decision. He was sure of himself at last.
Something more?
He struck forward still like a swimmer, on, on, and felt the rush of horror falter an instant, the darkness ebb. His eyes cleared suddenly, and he found himself staring almost into the Mastersmith's face. Beneath the weird mask's frame it was its own gray mask of fear, that Elof should win so close. The pale man staggered back, waving the sword wildly to fend him off, and then in a paroxysm of utter panic and desperation he swung up the patterned sword and struck with all the force in his smith's arm, straight at Elof's unshielded body below his breastbone's end. And thrust him through.
Elof folded forward around the surge of icy, incredible agony, staring foolishly down at the thing that invaded his body. Detached by pain, his mind floated free, watching his own red blood spill out along the blade as an idle spectacle, an interesting exercise, seeing it flow among the patterns he himself had set there, linking them, uniting them at last into a script he could read, a pattern he could understand, that leaped fully formed into his mind. He knew at last the whole meaning of the symbols he had set in the sword.
And dimly, through his roaring ears, he heard an exultant yell from the stairs, a cry of sheer joy from Ils's powerf
ul lungs, and the sound of a body clattering down steps. Roc too was shouting, and above all there rose like a vengeful trump the bitter cry "Morvan morlanhal!"
Then he was convulsed again by agony as the sword was jerked free of him, with a cruel twist to it that seemed to tear him asunder. Yet he laughed, laughed aloud as he clutched his hand against the wound, feeling the blood run warm across the gauntlet. There came the sound of many running feet, and cries of fear cut short, and the noise of more who fell and, toppling their fellows, went tumbling away into the depths, a panic, or rout.
"The biter is bitten!" he gasped, and staggered back against the wall. "The thief is robbed, and by his own hand! Do you hear, Mylio, do you hear? Something more was needed, he told me, and now I know what, indeed! You, master that you are, must needs be greater yet, and steal a power that you did not understand! You would have a sword to cleave the mind, to set a man's own fears against himself and drown his reason in its own black depths! But the edge that would cut the spirit is blunted by grosser things, a sword of the mind may not also strike the body! Yet you have made it do so—and what is it now?"
The Mastersmith leveled the sword at him, and Elof laughed only the louder. The gray man turned, ran to the stairs, recoiled and pointed it into the dark gap, jabbing desperately at the air as if to drive something back from the opening. But out of it, step by measured step, inexorable as fate, rose the terrible figure of Kermorvan. No longer did that fearsome warrior falter or fall. He had lost his helm, he was wounded in face and leg, but the blood that sprayed in gouts across his mail, that steeped his sword and sword arm scarlet from point to shoulder, was not his own, nor did it shine brighter than the wrath that sprang glittering uselessly with the sword, and Elof wept weakly with the pain of his mirth. "Where are your guards, Mylio? Call them back, bid them slay your foes for you now. Why do they flee? What is it that has gone out of them?"
Then the Mastersmith whirled, and with the speed of madness he hurled himself upon Elof, the sword that was now no more than a sword upraised to strike him down in a last hopeless vengeance. But Elof swept up his own sword, as the hand in his vision had done. Then, with the arm of a smith who had proved mightier, half falling forward, he hammered it down to meet the thing he had made. With a cry like an eagle, black blade stooped clashing upon patterned metal, struck through unstaying and past, down through the painted wood of the Thunderbird mask, through the blue-steel death's head within, through the softer skull beneath and on, on, down, to cleave the Mastersmith Mylio nearly in two.
A husk, a spilled thing, was dashed to the grimy stone of the floor. The halves of the patterned sword dropping spattering among the blood, and as Kermorvan ran up, horrified, they twisted and flexed there like some unclean beast severed, till little by little the cords of metal sprung, split, separated, unwound and writhed apart.
Up the stairs now, yelling exultantly, came Ils, one arm black with blood, bearing up Roc who was gashed badly in the leg and shoulder. But she fell silent as she saw the body of the Mastersmith, though she looked on it unmoved and snorted, "Surprised the thing still bleeds red."
Then they saw Elof, and stumbled toward him, forgetting their own ills. But he waved them back, hugging his own pain to himself. Kermorvan stooped, seized the shattered body and swiftly dragged it out onto the balcony. He looked out, and saw below him on the riven wall black-clad men mustering, slow and reluctant, tall chiefs and shamans in patterned robes screaming at them in furious exhortation. Then Kermorvan laughed aloud, a bitter laugh and cold, and blew a great blast on the horn he bore, and it went out and echoed across the rooftops, among the towers. Other horns answered it, horns that sounded many different tones, silver and gold, brass and steel, the dour blaring of steerhorns. For the alarm had spread, and many waited and watched. And he raised up in his arms, high over his head, the grim thing that had been their chiefest enemy, and the bloodrun seemed to stain the very sky red with dawning.
Many cries arose then from the wall below, but from beyond the untaken walls a solemn fanfare sounded, and the first faint light glinted back a thousandfold from moving files and blades bright-burnished. And atop the golden crown of the highest tower a small bundle rose up the mast, broke and fluttered wide. It was a battle pennant all of sable, with upon it a sunburst in gold and a raven rising to seize it. Kermorvan cried out in a voice that echoed about the walls of the city, that leaped across the scaled roofs and quivered in the very windows of the crowned towers, "Morvan morlanhal! Morvan shall arise! Up, Bry-haine, and strike them down! For see you, see! They fall!"
And with a heave he hurled the body of the Mastersmith out over the balcony, to plummet limply down upon the broken wall below, and at the very feet of his driven chieftains, held by the power he had long usurped, to be dashed there into shapelessness. Awesome it seemed to them, and terrible beyond words, that what they had deemed so powerful should be so suddenly cast down. They fell back, and their clansmen with them, scraping frantically at the blood that bespattered their robes lest it carry with it some taint of that fearful reverse.
"Kathel has kept his word!" said Kermorvan. "And now, Elof, we must get you—" But where Elof had stood there lay only the black sword, sadly wrung and twisted in a pool of bright blood, and from it a trail that led them to the stairs.
Down that last flight Elof stumbled, sick with agony, coughing down the blood that bubbled in his throat. From the streets below came the first clash of arms as the men of the city, heartened anew, cast off the night and swarmed out to engage their oppressors. And from the Ekwesh camps came stuttering drums, urgent now and uncertain. But Elof paid them little heed, for they and all else seemed to reach him now from behind a thick, a stifling gray curtain, and he yearned to cast it off, to be free. Only there was Kara, still Kara, he saw her all the more clearly when all else had faded, and he knew he must reach her room. He found it by staggering along the walls, almost falling against the door he had left ajar. But even as he plunged through he saw the bed empty and the high windows crashing open in the wind, and he dragged himself across to them. Below him the Ekwesh, neither a driven force nor a coherent army any longer, were streaming away through the streets they had lately taken. Under the fluttering ensign of Raven and Sun the men of the city fell upon them without let or restraint. Even women and children snatched up the weapons of their fallen enemies and harried them as they ran, hewing without mercy any who fell or were cornered. The few who stood to fight were overborne and trampled before their weapons could bite, shieldwalls broken before they could form. No longer driven to attack, no longer held in concord with their ancient rivals, riven of the will that had led them so far into this venture, of the sorcery that had smashed the walls before them, and witness to its last fearful fall, the reiver chieftains broke, panicked and turned to run. Under banner after banner sounded the call to retreat, to regain the ships and the freedom of the sea where they might yet be secure. Rout and riot overtook them amid the rattle of the drums, and those who were yet within the city saw their own ships being pushed half-manned from the beaches, being cut from their anchors and sails frantically unfurled. So it was that at last none sought anything but the harbor and the escape, rather than face the wrath of the folk of Kerbryhaine. And to their own lands they carried a fearful rumor of that wrath, but also of shame unshriven, dishonor unavenged, a smart and fester worse than the wounds they bore.
But Elof did not look upon what he had brought about, for he was staring eastward, into the golden light that poured now across the distant hilltops, bathing the land as if to cleanse it of the stain of war. Circling there, vanishing into it with great slow wingbeats, flew two huge swans, one white, one black. And about the feet of the black one there shone a gleam of silver.
Then Elof's weakness overwhelmed him at last, and he sank down, away, onto the seat where the mantle had rested. His hand, now black and stiff with blood, sank away from his chest. And there stood Ils, and Roc, and Kermorvan, staring at him in pity and horror, but also
in a strange dismay. He looked down, and tore suddenly at the ragged edges of his jerkin, laying bare his flesh beneath. No more than a faint line marked it, and it faded even as they watched. His wound had closed.
Thus it was that Elof came to the true end of his apprenticeship, and the warrior-servants of the Ice were for a time driven back from the Southland. So concludes the volume of the Winter Chronicles named the Book of the Sword. But it records that Elof was to lie ill, despite his strange healing, for many long months, till spring was come again, and the beat of swan wings across the sky. Only then, as the Book of the Helm recounts, did he set off on his journeyman's travels, that were to bring him in the end great understanding, great suffering, great love and the name of Elof Valantor, Elof of the Skilled Hand, mightiest of all magesmiths amid the dark days of the ancient Winter of the World.
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Appendix
Of the land of Brasayhal, its form, nature and climate, and of its peoples and their several histories, such as are set forth in that volume of the Winter Chronicles called the Book of the Sword.
The authors of the Winter Chronicles were writing, as men must, for their own times; they left much unexplained that we no longer know, and less often explained at length matters we would today take for granted. Also, they were quite rightly concerned with setting down living experience, and not merely telling a coherent tale. In reducing the Book of the Sword to the fashion of such a tale, therefore, much detail has had to be added—often by guesswork, however informed—and much omitted. This account cannot replace what is lost, but may at least round out the picture. Only what is most relevant to the immediate tale is included; other matters, such as the nature of the Ekwesh society, must wait until more appropriate points in the narrative.
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