by John Norman
"You speak," I said, "as though you had some objective."
"I do," said the Forkbeard.
Again we began climbing. Not long after we had again taken to the rocks, we heard and saw the Kurii, some two hundred feet below and to one side, following us.
It was shortly after the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, that we reached the peak of the Torvaldsberg.
Although there is much snow on the heights of the Torvaldsberg, there were also, on the peak, many areas of bare rock, swept by the wind which, on the peak, seems almost constant. I crossed a patch of snow, ankle deep, crusted, to ascend a snow-free, rounded rock.
I cannot express the beauty of the view from the Torvaldsberg. I have climbed it, I thought. And I am here.
There had been danger, there had been the struggle, the challenge, and then, here, suddenly, torturously purchased, humbling me, exalting me, was a victory which I felt was not mine so much as that of a world, that of vision, that of beauty. I had not conquered a mountain; the mountain when I had paid its price, that I might understand the value of the gift, had lifted me to where I might see how insignificant I was and how beautiful and precious was reality and life, and the sun on a bleak, cold land. Ivar stood beside me, not speaking.
"You were here once," I said, "as a boy."
"Yes," said Ivar. "I have never forgotten it."
"Did you come here to die?" I asked.
"No," he said. "But I have been unable to find it."
I looked at him, puzzled.
"I could not find it before,"he said. "I cannot find it now."
"What?" I asked.
"It does not matter now,"he said.
He turned about.
Approaching were the two Kurii. We watched them. They, too, interestingly, stopped. They stood together, in the snow, looking out, over the world.
Then they regarded us. We loosened our weapons. The Kurii unslung their shields, their axes. We drew our swords. The Kurii fixed on their left arms the heavy, rounded iron shields, took the great axes, seven feet in length, grasped some two feet from the bottom of the handle, in their massive right fists. I had never thought much of it before, but Kurii, like men, were dominantly right handed. I conjectured then, that like men, the left hemisphere of their brains were dominant.
Ivar and I leaped from the rock; the two Kurii, one to each of us, approached. Their ears were laid back; they were cautious; they leaned slightly forward, shambling, crouching.
Priest-Kings, I recalled, regarded Kurii and men as rather equivalent species, similar products of similar processes of evolution, similar products of similarly cruel selections, though on worlds remote from one another.
"Kur," I wondered, "are you my brother?"
The great ax swept toward me. I rolled over it, hitting the snow, slipping. I tried to drive in to thrust with my blade. I slipped again. The ax fell where I had been. A piece of granite, shattered from the rock, stung me. I stumbled backward.
The Kur, not hurrying, ax ready, stalked me. I saw its eyes over the shield, the ax light in its great fist. "Hah!" I cried, feinting as though to charge. The ax tensed, but did not swing. Then it snarled and drew back the ax, to the full length of its long arm. I knew the blade could not reach me in time. I charged.
It was what the Kur desired. I had been outwitted. The heavy shield, with fantastic force, with a sidelong motion, a sweep, struck me, fending me away, hurtling me for forty feet through the air. I struck snow rolling, half-blinded. The ax fell again, shattering granite.
I was on my feet. Again the shield struck me, like a hammer, the striking surface of which is more than a yard across. Again I was hurled to one side. I stumbled to my feet. I could not move my left arm. I thought it broken. The shoulder was like wood.
The ax swung again. I stumbled back. Crying out I lost my balance, turning, and plunged from the peak. I fell to a ledge twenty feet below. The ax, like a pendulum, swept down. I hugged the surface of the ledge. The ax swept past me.
I saw, to my right, a small, dark opening, irregular, jagged, about a foot in width and height I leaped to my feet and ran to the brink of the edge. There was no descent. The lips of the Kur drew back, revealing the fangs. I saw Ivar, on the flat above, wild-eyed.
"Ivar!" I cried. "Ivar!"
I heard the blood shriek of an unseen Kur. Ivar turned and leaped to the ledge below, joining me. The two Kurii stood on the flat above, snarling.
"Look!" I cried to him, indicating the opening. His eyes saw the opening. They glinted. I moved the fingers of my left hand. There was feeling. I did not know if the arm were broken or not. I thrust the sword into its scabbard. Ivar nodded.
One of the Kurii, snarling, leaped to the ledge with us. I hurled a rock at it. The rock struck the shield, bounding with a clang away, down into the abyss.
I thrust the Forkbeard toward the hole. He leaped to it, and squirmed through. The second Kur dropped to the ledge. I threw another rock, weightier than the first. It, too, with a sound of granite on metal, was fended away, this time by the shield of the second Kur.
I leaped to the hole and forced my body through the opening. The Forkbeard caught my hand and dragged me inside. One of the long arms of a Kur thrust inside, reaching for us. The Forkbeard thrust at it with his sword but the blade was diverted, his arm striking against stone. The Kur withdrew its arm. We crawled back further in the tiny opening. Outside, we could see the heads of the two Kurii, peering within. Their tentacled paws felt the width of the opening. One of them thrust his head within and half a shoulder. The Forkbeard, sword poised, crawled to thrust at it. The Kur withdrew. Then, both of them squatted down, some feet out on the ledge. Kurii are patient hunters. They would wait. I rubbed my left arm and shoulder. I lifted the arm, and moved it. It was not broken. I had learned that the Kur shield could be as devastating a weapon as the war hammer of Hunjer. I wondered how many who had learned that had lived.
I looked outside. The Kurii were waiting.
"Come with me," said Ivar. His voice was excited. I turned to face him. I wondered how deep might be this little cave. I expected not more than twenty or thirty feet at most. On my hands and knees I crawled to join him.
"Here," said Ivar. "On the wall!"
He took my fingers and pressed them to the wall. I felt marks, rather vertical, with angular extensions.
"You have found it!" he cried. "You have found it, Tarl Red Hair!"
"I do not understand," I said.
"Follow me!" whispered Ivar Forkbeard. "Follow me!"
Chapter 16 - THE WAR ARROW
Following the Forkbeard, on hands and knees, I crawled down the narrow passage, at one point turning to my left side to slide through a narrow aperture. Within this aperture, I extended my hands and then, carefully, hands held up feeling, I stood up. To one side I heard the Forkbeard fumbling about in the darkness. I heard the strike of two small pieces of iron pyrite on one another, taken from the Forkbeard's belt wallet, and saw a scattering of sparks. Then it was dark again. "There is cut moss against the edge," said the Forkbeard. There was another scattering of sparks. This time the sparks fell into a heap, one of several, each about five inches high and four inches wide, of miniscule, lace-like moss twigs. This tinder flared immediately into flame. In that instant I saw we were in a large, squared passage. I saw a torch in a ring, one of others. There was carving in the passage, rune letterings and pictographs, in linear borders. Before the bit of flaring moss turned to a million red pin points the Forkbeard took one of the torches and thrust it to the moss. I saw that, near some of the patches of moss, were pieces of flint and steel, near others tiny piles of iron pyrites. I shivered.
The Forkbeard lifted the torch. I, too, took a torch.
Neither of us spoke.
The passage extended beyond us, disappearing in the darkness beyond the light of our torches. It was about eight feet in height and width. It was carved from the living rock. Along its edges, spaced some twelve feet from one another, on both sides, were to
rch rings, with unlit torches, which might be lit. The piles of tinder and flint and steel, or iron pyrites, lay now behind us, or to one side. I lifted the torch to the borders, running linearly down the chamber, disappearing into the darkness before us. The lettering was in the high, angular script of the north; the pictographs seemed primitive.
"These are old runes," said Ivar.
"Can you read them?" I asked.
"No," said Ivar.
My hair rose on the back of my neck. I looked at one of the pictographs. It was a man astride a quadruped.
"Look," said I to the Forkbeard.
"Interesting," said the Forkbeard. "It is a representation of a man riding a mythological beast, doubtless an illustration based upon some saga with which I am unfamiliar."
He continued on.
I lingered by the pictograph. I had seen nothing like it on Gor.
"Follow me," said the Forkbeard.
I left the pictograph to follow him. I wondered on the man who had carved it. It was indeed old, perhaps ancient. It was drawn by one who had been familiar with a world unknown to Ivar Forkbeard. There was no mistaking the quadruped on which the rider was mounted. It was a horse.
The passage now enlarged. We felt lost in it. It was still squarish, some twenty feet in height and width. It was now much more decorated and carved than it had been, and, in the light of the torches, we could see that much color had been used in its decoration. Pictographs were much more numerous now, and, instead of being linearly bordered the walls were now decorated in columns of runes and designs, and pictographs. Torches, unlit, in wall rings, were still illuminated as we passed near them. Many of the columns carved, with painted surfaces, on the walls, reminded me of rune stones.
These stones, incidentally, are normally quite colorful, and can often be seen at great distances. Each year their paint is freshened, commonly on the vigil of the vernal equinox, which, in the north, as commonly in the south, marks the new year. Religious rune stones are repainted by rune-priests on the vigil of the fest-season of Odin, which on Gor, takes place in the fall. If the stones were not tended either by farmers on whose lands they lie, or by villagers in whose locales they lie, or by rune-priests, in a few years, the paint would be gone, leaving only the plain stone. The most famous rune stone in the north is that on Einar's Skerry, which marks the northland's southern border.
"Can you not read these runes?" I asked Ivar, again.
"I am not a rune-priest," he said.
Ivar's reply was not a little belligerent. I knew him able to read some rune markings. I gathered that these, perhaps because of antiquity or dialect, were beyond him. Ivar's attitude toward reading was not unlike that of many of the north. He had been taught some rune signs as a boy, that he could understand important stones, for in these stones were the names of mighty men and songs of their deeds, but it had not been expected of him that he would be in any sense a fluent reader. Ivar, like many of those in the north, was a passable reader, but took care to conceal this fact. He belonged to the class of men who could hire their reading done for them, much as he could buy thralls to do his farming. It was not regarded as dignified for a warrior to be too expert with letters, such being a task beneath warriors. To have a scribe's skills would tend to embarrass a man of arms, and tend to lower his prestige among his peers.
Many of the north, then, were rather proud of their illiteracy, or semi-illiteracy. It was expected of them. It honored them. His tools were not the pen and parchment, but the sword, the bow, the ax and spear. Besides simple runes, the boy in the north is also taught tallying, counting, addition and subtraction, for such may be of use in trading or on the farm. He is also taught weighing. Much of his education, of course, consists in being taken into a house, and taught arms, hunting and the sea. He profits, too, from the sagas, which the skalds sing, journeying from hall to hall. In the fest-season of Odin a fine skald is difficult to bring to one's hall. One must bid high. Sometimes they are kidnapped, and, after the season's singing, given much gold and freed. I had not, of course, intended to insult the Forkbeard.
"There is one sign here, of course," said the Forkbeard, "which any fool might read."
He pointed to the sign.
I had seen it frequently in the writings. Naturally, I could not read it.
"What does it say?" I asked.
"Do you truly not know?" he asked.
"No," I said, "I do not know."
He turned away, and, again, I followed him.
We lit new torches from the wall rings and discarded our old ones. We then continued on our journey.
Now, to one side and the other, we passed opened chests, in which we could see treasures, the spillings and tangles of coins and jewelries, rings, bracelets.
We came then to a great arch, which marked the entrance to a vast room, lost in darkness beyond the flickering spheres of our uplifted torches.
We stopped.
Over the arch, deeply incised in the stone was the single, mighty sign, that which the Forkbeard had not explained to me.
We stood in silence, in that dark, lofty threshold. The Forkbeard was trembling. I had never seen him so. The hair on the back of my neck lifted, short, stiff. I felt cold. I knew, of course, the legends.
He lifted his torch, to the sign over the door. "Do you not know that sign?" he asked.
"I know what sign it must be," I said.
"What sign?" asked he.
"The sign, the name-sign, of Torvald."
"Yes," said he.
I shuddered.
"Torvald," I said to the Forkbeard, "is only a figure of legend. Each country has its legendary heroes, its founders, its discoverers, its mythic giants."
"This," said the Forkbeard, looking up at the sign, "is the chamber of Torvald." He looked at me. "We have found it," he said.
"There is no Torvald," I said. "Torvald does not exist."
"This," said the Forkbeard, "is his chamber." His voice shook. "Torvald," said he, "sleeps in the Torvaldsberg, and has done so for a thousand years. He waits to be wakened. When his land needs him, he shall awake. He shall then lead us in battle. Again he will lead the men of the north."
"There is no Torvald," I said.
The Forkbeard looked within. "For a thousand years," he whispered, "has he slept."
"Torvald does not exist," I said.
"We must waken him," said the Forkbeard.
Ivar Forkbeard, lifting his torch, entered the great chamber.
I felt grief. It seemed to me not impossible that, at the root of the legends, the sagas, of Torvald, there might be some particles of truth. I did not think it impossible that there had once been a Torvald, one who had come to this land, with followers perhaps, more than a thousand years ago. He might have been a great leader, a mighty warrior, the first of the jarls of the north, but that had been, if it had ever been, more than a thousand years ago. There was now no Torvald. I felt grief at what misery, what disappoint men, what disillusionment must now fall to my friend, the Forkbeard.
In his hope to find one strong enough to stand against Kurii, one who could rally the men of the north, he was bound to be disillusioned.
The myth, that dream of succor, of final recourse, would be shown barren, fraudulent.
This chamber, I knew, had been built by men, and the passages carved from the very stone of the mountain itself. That must be accounted for. But it was not difficult to do so. Perhaps there had once been a Torvald, hundreds of years ago. If so, it was not impossible that it had been his wish to be interred in the great mountain. We stood, perhaps, within, or at the brink, of the tomb of Torvald, lost for long ages until now, until we two, fleeing from Kurii, from beasts, had stumbled upon it. Perhaps it was true that Torvald had been buried in the Torvaldsberg, and that the tomb, the funeral chamber, had been concealed, to protect it from the curious or from robbers. And, in such a case, legends might well have arisen, legends in which the mystery of the lost tomb might figure. These would have spread from v
illage to village, from remote farm to remote farm, from hall to hall. One such legend, quite naturally, might have been that Torvald, the great Torvald, was not truly dead, but only asleep, and would waken when once again his land had need of him.
"Wait!" I called to the Forkbeard.
But he had entered the chamber, torch high, moving quickly. I followed him, swiftly, tears in my eyes.
When he looked down, torch lifted, upon the bones and fragile cloths of what had once been a hero, when the myth had been shattered, the crystal of its dream beneath the iron of reality, I wanted to stand near him. I would not speak to him. But I would stand behind him, and near him.
The Forkbeard stood at the side of the great stone couch, which was covered with black fur.
At the foot of the couch were weapons; at its head, hanging on the wall, under a great shield, were two spears, crossed under it, and, to one side, a mighty sword in its scabbard. Near the head of the couch, on our left, as we looked upon the couch, was, on a stone platform, a large helmet, horned.
The Forkbeard looked at me. The couch was empty.
He did not speak. He sat down on the edge of the couch, on the black fur, and put his head in his hands. His torch lay on the floor, and, after some time, burned itself out. The Forkbeard did not move. The men of Torvaldsland, unlike most Gorean men, do not permit themselves tears. It is not cultural for them to weep. But I heard him sob once. I did not, of course, let him know that I had heard this sound. I would not shame him.
"We have lost," he said, finally, "Red Hair. We have lost." I had lit another torch, and was examining the chamber. The body of Torvald, I conjectured, had not been buried in this place. It did not seem likely that robbers would have taken the body, and left the various treasures about. Nothing, it seemed, had been disturbed.
Torvald, I conjectured, doubtless as cunning and wise as the legends had made him out, had not elected to have himself interred in his own tomb.
It was empty.
The wiliness, the cunning, of a man who had lived more than a thousand years ago made itself felt in its effects a millennium later, in this strange place, deep within the living stone of a great mountain in a bleak country.