The Silver Stone

by Joel Rosenberg

  Torrie helped Durin to his feet, the vestri’s callused hand gripping his assisting one strongly, although with a tremor that the old dwarf could not quite suppress.

  Dad was on his feet, facing the vestri, his stance rigid and formal. “Here is where we part, my friends,” he said in Vestri, his deep voice letting the gutturals rumble like distant thunder. “I thank thee for thy help, and thy loyalty,” he said, his voice formal, almost singsong. “And I hope we meet again, some day, in better circumstances than these.” He gestured at the dingy room.

  “I hope so as well, Friend of the Father of Vestri, himself the father of us all.” Durin bowed deeply, then straightened again. “I would—” He broke off into a fit of coughing, which ordinarily would have spoiled the effect, but the slope-headed little dwarf had wrapped a strange dignity about him as tightly as the tattered cloak he held closed with one bony hand. “I would … I would accompany thou, if it is permitted.”

  “Me, as well.” Valin took a step forward. “We’ve come this far, Friend of the Father. I am a stone-worker, and used to finishing what I start.”

  “And I,” the vestri they called Fred said.

  “I, as well—”

  “No,” Dad said, quietly, but firmly. “It is not permitted, because it would do no good. What will be here, will be. You all have lives to get back to. Some of you have families.” He produced a small leather bag, which clinked with the sound of metal-on-metal as he threw it to Valin. “You will see to the distribution of it.”

  Valin opened it. The gold inside picked up the light of the overhead lantern and reflected a buttery sheen on his face. He tied it closed and tossed it back to Dad. “Does thou think so little of the Children of Vestri that thou would buy our honor? Even with thine gold?” His expression could have been carved out of granite.

  “No,” Dad said, quietly. “The honor of you Sons of Vestri is not in question. Were there any dishonor among you, I would have been sold to my enemies for gold long ago, long before I had a son of my own.” He held up the leather bag again, and again clinked the coins inside. “But honorable ones can take gold, as well as dishonorable, and children will need to eat.”

  One of the other vestri reached a hand out toward the bag, but Valin slapped it away, a heavy, meaty sound. “No. We do not take money for this.”

  “Shh. Be still.” Durin held out a hand, and accepted the bag. He weighed it carefully in his palm. “It is for hungry children, Valin; there is no shame in feeding children.”

  Ian beat on the knocking post with the butt of Giantkiller.

  “Open the gate,” he said, his voice loud, demanding. “We would speak with the Table.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The Table

  High above the gardens of the Seat, a crier—more of a singer, really—marched about the ramparts on the wall, his firm baritone cutting through the rustle of the wind in the bushes.

  “The dusk is fully ended,

  “And remnants of twilight have fled.

  “Horses have been settled in their stables,

  “And children put to bed.

  “But before the day ends,

  “And before the day dies,

  “The Hour of Long Candles comes,

  “The Hour of Long Candles arrives,

  “The Hour of Long Candles appears,

  “The Hour of Long Candles arrives.”

  Well, Arnie Selmo decided, the locals had a taste for theater. Flaming torches thrust out from hidden sockets in each pillar, hissing and spitting as they cast flickering shadows all around the garden. The Hall had been impressive in the daytime, when the cool green of the vines wrapped around the tall columns, but at night, its white marble peeked through its clothing of vines like the bones of a long-dead giant.

  The six of them walked across the broad marble expanse toward the Table, their bootheels clicking against the stone like loud drumbeats.

  Ivar del Hival, Maggie Christensen, Torrie Thorsen, Ian Silverstein, and Thorian Thorsen walked in a single line, abreast; Arnie Selmo followed a careful couple of paces behind Ian, the way a good squire would.

  Playing at being the squire hadn’t bothered Arnie. You had to get along, and if that meant ignoring some things other folks would have thought of as slights, that was fine with Arnie.

  No point in taking offense, particularly when you could take advantage. While Ian and Ivar were eating at formal tables, having to worry about which fork—well, eating-prong—to use, Arnie was in the kitchen, his wooden or chipped or everyday plate piled high with tasty bits of this and that, his ears filled with shop talk and laughter.

  Not a bad trade. Useful, even.

  And besides, sometimes it put him in just the right position. He had known that that Eriksdottir girl was going to propose to Ian hours before Ian did, and why a child by Ian would be a safe bet for her even if Ian didn’t turn out to be this Promised Warrior. Giving out condoms to young men who were too shy to ask for them or too preoccupied to think of it was something Arnie had been doing before Ian had been born, and it had felt kind of nice to have to do it again.

  Sometimes, like now, it put him in another good position, as he kept pace behind Ian. Ian held that spear out in front of him, almost in port position, while the rest of them took up a formal stride, each with a free hand on the hilt of a sword.

  There were advantages to letting others go first, after all.

  Thorian del Thorian’s first and last lesson from his own father had been in self-control, and while he had, for some reasons he could explain at least to himself, abandoned many of the good and wise lessons he had learned at the feet and sword of Thorian del Orvald, that one had stayed with him. It served him well, as he paced across the marble floor in pace with his… his companions.

  Self-control. That was the key. It didn’t matter how many times you had faced it, and had survived—the very idea of going to die was frightening. But while he had let his tongue admit it, he would never let his face or body betray it. That was different.

  That would shame him, among his svertbren. And worse. And yes, there was worse than to be shamed among his svertbren, his comrades-in-arms.

  Still, it was a strange thing, to think of Maggie Albertsdottir as a comrade-in-arms. The Bersmal word svertbror was best translated as weapon-brother, or sword-brother; it was a masculine term, like brother or husband or warrior.

  But in the Hidden Ways, with a sword and knife in her hand, she had shown that being a svertbror did not require a sütinrod, and from Harbard’s cottage to the Seat, she had reminded him of something that he had already known, and had no business forgetting, even for a moment: battle was first joined with the mind and the spirit, not the arm and the sword. She had parried Harbard—and on his own ground, by the Ghosts of the Old Ones!—with a smile and a whisper and a shake of her pretty head, and had even kept that victory to herself until she had decided to share it.

  A svertbror, indeed, that one. He had been raised to think of money and commerce as women’s work, while men handled matters of governance and battle and honor, and had been silently aghast at the way women in the Newer World did not see their place—although as a guest in their world, it was not something he would have commented upon, awkward as it made them look.

  But things were different with this one.

  He forced himself not to sigh. He hoped such unwomanly ways had not shriveled her womb beyond use. It would have been nice to at least know that he would be a grandfather before he stepped into the final blackness.

  But so be it. Young Thorian had seen a test ahead, and had steeled himself for it, even though he feared it. No other could have read his concern and his decision—young Thorian del Thorian had learned his lessons well—but his father could see it.

  Thorian del Thorian would not… what was the phrase? He would not rant and rail and whine against the slings and arrows of misfortune, be they outrageous or justified. That was not his way. It could be that whatever test, whatever danger, faced the
m would leave his son dead on the ground. That possibility always existed; the world was filled with danger. So be it.

  But it would not happen easily, and it would not happen without Torrie’s father going first.

  It had been many years since Thorian del Thorian and Orfindel had helped Robert Sherve pull Torrie, all wet and bloody, from his mother’s womb, but that had changed everything, that one moment. From that instant on, as long as there was life and breath in Thorian del Thorian, no sword would so much as prick his son’s little finger without passing through his own heart first.

  He didn’t give a sideways glance. That might be read. A duelist from the House of Steel never signaled a move in advance, and Thorian del Thorian had been born a duelist of the House of Steel.

  And if today he would die, he would die a duelist of the House of Steel.

  Karin, min alskling…

  She would understand. She understood him all too well, perhaps.

  So be it.

  Ivar del Hival tried to keep calm as he walked in step with the others. It only seemed fair that the Middle Dominions should have a representative here in front of the Table and Seat, and while Ivar del Hival was hardly what the Scion or His Warmth would have chosen as an emissary, that didn’t much matter to him.

  Taking on responsibility came naturally. That was, after all, what life was all about. It was the same in dueling, or in politics, or in draughts. You moved the little wooden disks across the checkered board, and positioned them as bloodlessly as possible, waiting for the moment when a small offering could be turned into an opponent’s bloodbath. A move here, a thrust there, a hint of an intention to move here or thrust there, and it would all come together.

  It was starting to come together, and he even had a feel for who the other players were.

  He was not surprised to see the Margrave of the Hinterlands sitting at the Table with the rest. The purpose—well, at least one purpose—of the trip to the Seat was for Ian to get to know Marta, and for her to gauge the chances of a union with her family. It would have been just fine with the margrave if she had managed to get with child by him—Promised Warrior or not, he was still Ian Silver Stone, the killer of fire giants—but if she could ensnare him with more than that it would be all the better. Whether Ian survived facing the Table or not mattered much less to the margrave.

  As it did to Ivar del Hival. Survival was one thing; success was another. Ian must succeed, and in that Ivar del Hival had common cause with Harbard, although Ivar del Hival had long dismissed as trivially unlikely the idea that preventing a war was Harbard’s only objective in all this, or even his primary one.

  Gods, like men, lie.

  A time would come when the Crimson and Ancient Cerulean companies would again be assembled to ride south out of the Cities, but now was not that time. The Cities were not what they once were, and they were not what they someday could be.

  So let the pieces march into their place, Ivar del Hival thought.

  And if he was to be one of the pieces pushed toward the center of the board, well, what of that? This would hardly be the first time.

  Let the game begin.

  Ian stopped a few feet away from the Table, as though answering a silent command. He more felt than heard the others do the same.

  Somehow, he had been expecting something grander and more impressive, but the Table was, well, a table, stretching most of the way across the width of the Hall. It had a leg at each corner, each looking like a slice out of the much longer columns that supported the Hall’s roof.

  There was something impressive, certainly, in that it was a single expanse of white stone that apparently needed no support along its length—for there certainly was none. The long, smooth surface held only the empty scabbards and naked swords of the men who sat behind it. The flames of the rows of candles lining their approach danced in the mirror surfaces of the brightly burnished blades.

  Ian had never seen any of the Tyrsons without his scabbard clasped in his hand until now. He’d had silly visions of the Margrave of the Hinterlands having sex while clinging onto his, but somehow the vision wasn’t amusing right at the moment.

  Not a lot was amusing right at the moment.

  The Margrave of the Hinterlands set the palms of both his hands, metal and flesh, against the surface of the Table and pushed himself to his feet. There was nothing effete or vague in his expression as he looked at Ian and his companions with eyes that looked like they ought to have shutters behind them.

  “My fellows of the Table,” he said, his tenor voice more penetrating, less silky than Ian remembered, “I present you with Ian Silver Stone and his… companions. They bring with them the spear Gungnir as testimony that they come from one known as Harbard the ferryman, Harbard of many names. He and they carry with him and them a request for the Table, and I invite my fellows of the Table to consider, each and all, whether the Table shall hear this request.” He sat down, neither quickly nor slowly.

  Several seats down, another man pushed himself to his feet, just as the margrave had. “I did not hear my fellow the Margrave of the Hinterlands make a request,” he said, his voice thin and reedy with age. He coughed into his hand to clear his throat before continuing. “I understand that he neither vouches for this Ian Silver Stone nor accuses him of wrongdoing,” he said and unceremoniously dropped back into his chair.

  The margrave nodded, and a whisper passed up and down the line of seated men.

  The square-jawed Argenten Horcel Tyrson was the next to rise; he, like the margrave, set his hands on the Table and used it to push himself to his feet. “I join my fellow the Duke of the Highland Reaches in noting that my fellow the margrave only notifies, and does not request.” He lowered his voice. “I am, unlike my fellows of the Table, not of the nobility, nor do I seek to be. I have always felt,” he said, raising his right hand, his silver hand, “that the weight of the honor of the silver hand of an argenten was sufficient burden for me to carry through life.

  “I say this neither claiming nor denying virtue in that. Elsewhere we are argenten, and ordinary son, margrave and count and duke and commoner. Here, though, we are fellows of the Table, and perhaps my … commonness gives me another view of the matter.

  “I would see some proof of the virtue, of the steadfastness, of the soundness of this Ian Silverstein, or Ian Silver Stone, or whatever he chooses to call himself.” His eyes were fixed on Ian’s. “He is, by his own claim and admission, a killer of fire giants and kölds. Surely he has the courage to put his hand in the mouth of the Wolf, as have all who sit here tonight, a night, an Hour of the Long Candles, where the Table meets on a matter of honor and war.” He folded his arms across his chest, but did not sit down for a moment. Instead, he stood, his eyes locked on Ian’s.

  Ian didn’t hesitate to meet that gaze. He held it, until a throat-clearing from another of the seated men drew Horcel Tyrson’s glare.

  Horcel Tyrson nodded and gestured a quick apology, and flopped back down into his seat.

  Another man, tall, all in black save for the copper color of his artificial hand, which was matched by a double row of coppery buttons down the front of his tunic, was next to set his hands on the table and rise. Apparently, the rule—at least for the folks behind the Table—was that you had to be standing to speak, and that only one could stand at a time.

  “My fellow the Argenten Horcel Tyrson,” he boomed, “is correct. If we are to give any serious weight at all to the words of this messenger, this herald, than he must stand the test.

  “But what if he were to fail the test? And what if he were to fail the test not because of some failure in his message, but of some failure in himself?” He looked up and down the table, as though expecting an answer, although if Ian had the rules figured out correctly, the question was entirely rhetorical. “What if he is a flawed messenger—no Promised Warrior, no Tyrson-to-be, just an ordinary herald—with a true message?” He gestured at Ian with his flesh-and-blood hand. “Should we then deny o
urselves the hearing of the message?” He spread his hands theatrically. “I await the wisdom of my fellows on this.”

  Another rose. “My fellow the Margrave of the Gilfi’s Mouth speaks with words that puzzle me. What message could be borne by one so flawed that we should trouble our ears with it?” He extended a hand toward Ian, but Ian had no inclination whatsoever to step forward and shake it. “We have all heard the rumors of a team of assassins dispatched to prevent his words from reaching the Table, but there have been no such assassins run to ground, and look! Here he stands. Could it be that someone, for some reason, decided to buy him credibility by starting such a rumor? Could it be that even as we sit here at the Table, the Crimson and Ancient Cerulean companies of the Middle Dominions ride forth, to sweep through the Hinterlands and inward, gutting Vandescard like a cook with a sharp knife coring an apple?” He glared at Ian as he sat down.

  Marta’s father rose again. “My fellow the Duke of Bight’s Bay perhaps speaks less wisely than is his usual custom. I have long since established watch posts on the approaches to the Hinterlands. I’m sure that the other margraves have done so as well, and perhaps some of the counts and dukes. Were riders pouring down from the Dominions, like ants out of an anthill, swift messenger birds would have long since been dispatched, and we would know of that.” Grumbles of agreement moved up and down the table. “And while perhaps things are different on the shores of Bight’s Bay, I can assure my fellow that should the Hinterlands be called to battle, my troops will give a good account of themselves in my absence, and miss this hand and this sword only a little.” He allowed himself a small chuckle. “No. We of the Table must decide on many things, but the absence of the swords of a few dozen old men… no, that will not decide the issue one way or another.” He sat down.

  Another rose. “Yes, that is not the issue. I say that my fellow the Margrave of the Hinterlands is right; I say we should hear the message, and then proceed to the testing of worthiness.” He gestured to the broad curtain behind him. “We can decide how seriously the message is to be taken after that. These ears do not come virgin to this table; they have heard lies and evasions before.”