by Sarah Zettel
“No one lets an enemy sit on his doorstep so that he can toy with him.” As Geraint spoke, the thought gained strength, becoming sure and solid within him. “No two leaders are cat and mouse in the game of war, not for long. The only reason not to defeat an enemy is that you cannot.”
“You do not know the one I fight,” King Gwiffert murmured.
“No, Majesty, I do not,” Geraint admitted. “I know only war and the ways of war.”
Grim and silent, the Little King stared out over the mountains that hemmed in his hall. His fingers clenched tight around the spear, releasing, drumming uneasily, clenching again, the visible sign of the disorder of his thoughts. “Can it be?” he whispered. “Can it be this whole long time I have been deceived in this too?”
Geraint held his peace. He felt agreement growing in the other man, felt it shift and settle into place. He saw it in the way his shoulders relaxed, in the way he pressed his spear away from his body, as if he no longer needed it quite so close to protect him.
When he turned to Geraint again, his eyes were bright and keen, very like the tip of his spear. “Sir Geraint, will you take charge of my men? Will you lead us against the Great King? I have done all I can, and I would not wait like a tethered bull for my doom when there might be a way to defeat it.”
Despite all the caution in him, Geraint’s heart swelled at these words. That he should lead, that his skills should bring such a victory as this must be … to take this back to Camelot and stand when the Round Table gathered and speak of his own doing for once rather than his brother’s. As much as anything, that was what had taken him back to Pont Cymryd. He had said as much to Gawain, and now his chance had come.
Be careful, Geraint. Be very careful. This was a great request to make of a stranger, dream or no, desperation or no. Yet it had been made, and the words rang very true.
“You yourself told me I do not know your enemy, Sir,” said Geraint, tempering his own desire with a vital truth before he himself forgot it. “I do not know if I could lead your men well.”
The king bit something back. A hint of impatience smoldered in his eyes. “Sir Geraint, I ask you this as a man who has nowhere else to turn. I cannot see beyond the maze that has trapped me for so long.” The king reached out with his free hand and gripped Geraint’s wrist. “You yet have clear eyes. You can find the way.”
Geraint froze in place, unsure of how to answer. Arthur had never touched him so, nor for such a reason. But Arthur was king in his own court and his own lands. He had not had known such fear as the Little King knew in many years.
A feeling of pettiness came over Geraint as he realized what he must next ask. He could not forget the other quest and the promises gone before, and yet, it felt as if were haggling over the price of market goods. Still, Geraint rallied himself. “If I do this thing, Majesty, I would ask a boon of you.”
“Anything within my power.”
How to speak of this? How to ask to take the only true protection this place had? Reluctance stirred in him, but he was too far gone now to turn back. “I am pledged to defeat the ones who stole my lady’s lands from her. The only weapon that will bring that will bring them down is the spear of Manawyddan.”
The Little King swallowed. His free hand flew to the spear’s shaft, covering it as if he thought to hide it from sight. It was too much. A misstep, but I had to try.
But the Little King bowed his head to Geraint. “Very well,” he said and for all he hung his head, his voice was more resolute than Geraint had heard it yet. “If you will free me from my enemy, the spear of Manawyddan will free you from yours.”
Geraint drew himself to attention and laid his fist over his heart in the old Roman salute. “Then let me see your men, Majesty. Let me speak with your captains, and we will begin.”
A smile, broad and confident, spread across the Little King’s lined face and unhesitating, Geraint followed him down.
Elen dreamed.
She dreamed the dream of the hawk in the sky, of the blue-eyed knight, and her blood flowing free, but instead of waking as she fell, she fell into a new dream. In the dream she saw Geraint. He ran through the woods of Pont Cymryd. Behind him ran a herd of red swine, their teeth and tusks shining yellow in the darkness. Geraint ran until his breath came in gasps and his eyes were wide with terror, and still the swine ran hard behind him. He tripped, and he fell, and the great red boar that led the herd reached him with its tusks sharp as swords and Geraint screamed …
Elen woke to darkness. The room was utterly black around her. She heard Calonnau scolding on her perch to the right and felt the agitated pulse of her heart, but she could see nothing. The scent of brazier smoke was faint and nearly cold. Only one star shone silver-bright through the window slit. Elen curled up against the darkness. Her lungs felt tight, her mind constricted.
Geraint. She must find Geraint. She threw the covers off and planted her feet on the stone floor. Calonnau scolded once more, angry about being woken to her own darkness, but already she was calming, getting ready to sink back into her own dreams of open skies and clean wind.
Elen was used to navigating dark rooms and shuffled to the brazier. She prodded at the ashes with the stick from the waiting stack of kindling and found one coal with enough life in it to be coaxed into flame. From its tiny fire she kindled a rushlight plucked from the basket nearby.
In her memory, Geraint screamed, and screamed again.
She hurried into the corridor. It was cold. Elen almost felt she should have been able to see her own breath. The walls were so close, she couldn’t even straighten both arms out across the breadth of the corridor. The painted images pressed close, crowding her, squeezing her mind and gripping her wounded throat and wrist. Yet it was those images she followed out to the great hall.
For all this place had more rooms than any she had ever seen, the king had found it was necessary to lodge Geraint in the hall with the servants and the men of war, so Geraint had told her, with many apologies. Their host seemed to think complete quiet was necessary for her healing and it would be discourteous to contradict him. Elen bridled at that, but she knew he was right. So, she remained in her grove and he went to the great hall, and now she hurried after him, biting her lip, trying not to see the boar’s tusks flashing before her mind’s eye.
At last, she came to the great open archway, and she saw a pile of men’s bodies. She froze, and looked again, and saw they were only sleeping, crowded together on pallets, sharing blankets, lain this way and that. A few women lay bundled with their husbands. If they followed the same custom as back home, the unmarried women would sleep elsewhere. There were only a few beds, plain things with thick mattresses that might well be straw rather than feathers. What she did not see was a bed for the king. However, the plain pallet by the nearest hearth held Geraint. He lay on his side, his arm pillowing his head. His face relaxed in sleep, his strong arms bare to the faint glow of the banked coals.
Looking at him, so soundly asleep there, the urgency of her nightmare bled from Elen. He was only as tired, as worn as she was. He had sworn himself to hard labor, she knew. When he came to her chamber during her brief waking that evening, he told her what he had promised the Little King, and for what price.
“Mother Don protect …” she had gripped his hands hard. “Geraint, what have you done?”
“I’ve bought us an honest chance, Elen,” he answered, wondering at her anxious exclamation, as, in truth, she did herself. “Now we may get what we need, and what your people need, without deception, or betrayal of our host.”
“But we also swore we would give the spear back to the Lady and the Lord,” she breathed. “How may that now be done?”
“You swore if it did no dishonor it would be done,” Geraint reminded her. “If it is the spear of his fathers, we surely cannot give it to their hands without dishonor.”
She bit her lips. Her throat hurt too much for more speech. Her weakness shamed her. She was afraid, but she could not tell w
hy.
“Deception fails before truth, Elen,” said Geraint firmly. “If we act honestly, honor will shield us.”
In other circumstances what he said might have been the words of a nieve boy, but there was so much magic here … Before the gods and the fair folk, what he said was true.
She drew back, moving out of the doorway, leaving the ones in the great hall to their own dreams. She would tell him her nightmare in the morning when they could think on its meaning together. He was safe. Surely tonight they were both safe. What could touch them this deep in the heart of so much stone?
Elen rubbed her eyes and took herself back down the corridors the way she had come. When she at last reached her own door, she paused. The thought of returning to that room was suddenly smothering, like the thought of climbing into an open grave. But neither could she stay here. So much stone kept her safe, sure, like a cage kept one safe, like a cell. The painted world around her brought no relief. She needed to see the moon and the stars, to know if it rained or it was fair. Even a single breath of free air would be some relief.
Gradually, Elen became aware of a noise. It was soft, but insistent. A double beat, very like her heart in Calonnau, but sharper. Metallic.
A forge? It had the sound of a hammer on metal. But within the walls? How could that be? She held herself still, straining to listen.
Ching-ching. Ching-ching.
Yes, it was a smith’s hammer, but not a hammer for iron. Something lighter, more delicate. What was being worked so late at night?
The noise nagged at her, making her uneasy, like an itch just beneath the skin.
Ching-ching. Ching-ching.
Part of her said that this was a foolish thing, that she should go back to her bed and let the night spin itself out as it would. But part of her felt she had been too long abed already. The stone walls oppressed her. She could not go back tamely to her false grove. She needed to know she could still move.
While she thought this, the strange sound continued, never speeding up, never slowing. It was as if it had always been there. It was only now, when the busy sounds of day were silent that she could hear it.
Ching-ching. Ching-ching.
She glanced down the hall the way she had come. To the right, there was painted with a field of grain and trees heavy with fruit. To the left, was a pasture of cows and bulls, their heads held up to the sun. She drifted down the righthand way, only to have the noise grow fainter. She turned toward her left hand, and followed that way.
The walls flickered in the rushlight, making their painted images move in eerie parody of life. Trees shifted in the light as their natural counterparts would in the wind. The hides of the cattle and horses rippled. Men’s eyes blinked. The hammer’s ring led her around a left-hand turning and then a right. Doors passed her shoulders, right and left. How could one place have so many doors? So many tiny rooms holding … what? Were the people of this place behind those doors? Or was there treasure? What could there be that anyone would want to keep so hidden?
Although the floor beneath her feet stayed level, she had the sensation of sinking more deeply into the earth. The stone around her became darker, the air more still and damp. The paintings became steadily more strange. The scenes of prosperity and abundance now held fantastic monsters — a beast that was a horse with a man’s torso carrying a screaming woman in its arms, a snake with seemingly a dozen heads, a woman in a chariot pulled by great dragons.
Her lungs labored to breathe. She could not feel her heart. She should not have left Calonnau behind her. The absence distracted her mind, worrying at her, even more than the sound she followed.
Then, beyond another left-hand turning, Elen saw light. She rounded the corner. Ahead, one of the doors was open, just enough to let the red glow of a fire spill out across the stones.
Ching-ching. Ching-ching.
Cold with fear, Elen hesitated. She had come so far, and she knew so little. There was some secret there, and it was unwise to spy on such things without protection. But, perhaps this secret could help her and Geraint understand this place, and their host who spoke so freely, but kept so much shuttered behind his eyes. She gathered her courage and stepped into the wedge of light that spilled into the corridor.
A wave of heat rolled over her. Beyond the door was a forge. It was a wide, open crucible larger than any she had ever seen. Flames lept up here and there, greedy and pale over the bed of livid, orange coals. Beside them, a huge, brown man, wearing nothing but a leather apron stood behind an anvil that shone like silver in the powerful light. His head was bald and mottled red and black, with only a few tufts of brown hair sticking out. His hammer was a light and slender thing that looked like a toy in his great fist. He brought it down on a gold chain that draped across the silver anvil, a swift, double-beat.
Ching-ching.
It was wrong that this was here. This space, these stones were not meant for a forge and its fire. She knew that, instinctively and certainly. The chain shone brassy, almost bloody in the firelight, each link barely the size of her little fingernail. It was long, impossibly long. It lay in heaps and coils on the floor, in places as high as the smith’s ankles. Her gaze travelled the tangled length, searching for the end, or the beginning, and finding neither. It came to her it was endless, and yet the mountainous man stood weilding his small hammer, and making it longer yet.
As if he heard her thought, the smith lifted his head. He turned directly to her, and Elen bit her tongue to keep from screaming. His face was a single massive scar, twisted and lumpish, the skin peeling off from the raw flesh beneath, all slick with sweat. He had no eyes. Blind he worked on the delicate, endless chain. Blind, he knew she was there, and he grinned, a gaping grin at her that showed all his yellow, ragged teeth.
“You too?” he said. “He’s got you too, Sister?”
Elen’s tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. The smith’s hammer came down again and again, never faltering. His burnt fingers seeing the way when his eyes could not.
“Who are you?” Elen croaked.
He drew in a hissing breath. “I’m the first one. I’m responsible for all the others. All of them are my working.”
She watched in a kind of horrified fascination as he reached for his tongs. He pulled a fine wire from the forge, he laid it against the chain. He pressed the hot metal into place, twisting it with his tongs and his scarred and scabbed fingers. She smelt burnt flesh, but the smith did not flinch. His movements were deft and quick, his touch unerring. He could not be a living man. He could not be real. “Why?”
“For pride, for greed,” he said, lifting the delicate hammer again. “For the son who does not understand for his own blood.” He lifted the hammer again, beating the new link into place. Yet, he did not work on the end of the chain, for it had no end … she shook her head. She had seen what he had done, and yet she had not seen it. Vision. This was vision, and prophecy. She must hold fast. She must not become bemused or she would lose herself. “Why labor for such things?”
“Because while the fire burns, I labor. So do you, little sister. So do you!” He laughed then, a high-pitched childish giggle that pierced skin down to bone and left pain behind.
Elen’s courage shattered. She backed away from the door, turning to flee back into the darkness. She shook with the cold of her fear, and behind her she heard the laughter over the endless sound of the hammer forging the endless chain. She barely found her first turning. She dodged around the corner, and made herself stop. She pressed her back against the wall so that her trembling knees would not drop her to the floor and tried to regain her wits.
It is a nightmare. A bad dream only. A vision. I have seen worse. It cannot hurt me. It was not a true thing.
Wasn’t it? whispered a tiny voice inside her empty breast. Was it not?
The tremors increased. Get outside, she thought wildly. Get outside. I need the air and the sky over me. I need to see the moon. I’ll know where I am then.
But whi
ch way was the moon? Right then left then right again, and she’d be back in her own cell … her room. Where was Geraint? She was alone in this stone maze.
No. Think. You felt you were descending coming to this place. There must be a way to ascend again.
She grit her teeth and began to walk again. There was a way. There was a way. The moon and the sky were there. She would find them. Left and right. She walked. The air grew lighter. The sound of the hammer grew softer. The feel of her heart came to her, strong and sure. The monsters were replaced by cattle, grain and orchards. Not so far from her room then. Right again.
A breeze touched her cheek. Elen froze in place. Yes. The scent of summer greenery wafted by her. She turned her head. A little past her right shoulder was a narrow archway, so dark that in the failing rushlight, she had mistaken it for another closed door. But it was another corridor, and a draft of fresh air wafted out of its darkness.
Hope rising in her, Elen hurried down the tiny side hallway. The image of a lake set deep in black and brooding mountains surrounded her, Ahead, she saw another door, banded with metal that gleamed whitely in the failing rushlight. It stood slightly open, as the last one had been, and through this there came the unmistakable feel of the open air.
She did not pause for caution. She flung the door open and stepped out into the cool summer’s night. The moonlight poured down from the clear sky accompanied by the glimmer of a million-million stars. Elen lifted her face to that light. She inhaled great lungfuls of the night air. The weight of the stones slid from her spirit and the trembling eased from her limbs. She could think clearly again. She could find the calm in herself. She could breathe — Oh, thank the gods! — She could breathe.
“Chwaer?”
The sound of Gwiffert’s voice started Elen badly. Now she saw the Little King standing beneath a grove of trees that rustled in the cold and gentle breeze. She was in a garden, she realized. The lawn beneath her feet was short and soft as wild grass could never be. The trees were perfectly straight. They must have been pruned and tended across tens of years. Gwiffert stood at the edge of a pond as round as the full moon over head. It reflected that lady’s face perfectly in its still, dark mirror.