The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  Friends. He had never had friends when he was a boy. He felt suddenly like sending them back, like ordering them back, instead of casting them away in this mad enterprise of his own making. Kermorvan too, who should only be asked to fight against an ordinary foe, and not the unnatural wiles of smithcraft. Let mage take mage, cancel out both, let the normal folk, the unstained, untainted folk go on to lead their normal lives, as was their right. But not his. Upon the Anvil of Ice he had met his forging, and the stamp of it he would never quite lose. What if he succeeded here? What would he be then? Where would he go?

  Picking his way around ruin and slain, he could find no answer. Here the fighting had been fiercest, the city folk rallying under the warrior-hero's memorial. How many of these bodies sprawled here had died calling on that name, wondered Elof, looking with dimming eyes for his return? And what name would he call on, when his turn came to join them?

  Suddenly, Kermorvan, leading with drawn blade, thrust out his arm and fell to a crouch. Elof saw then what lay ahead. As they had expected, there was a rough barrier thrown between intact battlements, and behind it an em-berglow lit the forms of Ekwesh guards, nodding wearily. They had settled how to deal with this, and as Ils and Roc drew level they sat a moment to get their breath. Then Elof drew the black sword, ready to muffle its strange voice, but it was a soundless thrilling tremor in his hand, Ils hefted her axe, and Roc twirled the mace into his hand by its wriststrap. Kermorvan waited a moment longer, snapped down his visor and sprang away, bounding from stone to stone with his cloak blowing like some vast bat, up on the battlements and across the barricade before its sleepy sentries could rouse. There were ten Ekwesh there, but they were swept down as by a wind before they could utter a sound, stricken where they stood or hewn over the wall onto the ravaged roofs beneath. Then the travelers were dashing along the last length of the wall, heading for the dark arch of the door that led into the tower.

  It was not locked, for its lock had been smashed out from within, no doubt when the Ekwesh took the tower. Beyond it Elof saw at first only a wide hall, lit by a single guttering lamp, and a few doors ajar on darkness. It was the smell of the place that struck him first, a smell of still air, heavy with age and dust, and the peculiar scent of damp heavy cloth. He realized then that the strange bulky shadows in the corners were great gathered swaths of tapestry, a material so heavy and so dusty that it looked like stone in the half-light, its colors faded, its pictures reduced to meaningless swirls. Cobwebs, equally dusty, hung around it as if in mockery, and from the great octagonal table at the center of the room. But around this the dust had been quite tracked away by the passing of many feet. At the far side, one wide double door opened onto a wide flight of stairs, lit by moonlight flooding through high casements in the tower wall. On these the dust was less disturbed, so that individual footprints could still be seen.

  "He'd come here," whispered Roc softly. "Seem like home to him, it would. But which way? Up or down?"

  "On the floors below lie the public rooms, halls and audience chambers, and below them butteries and servants' quarters," Kermorvan whispered. "Those stairs serve the private apartments, only four floors of those, two to a floor and one on top, with a great open gallery. I am certain now there is somebody living in them. The Ekwesh would normally ransack a place like this, looking for gold thread in the tapestries, if nothing else; this has been kept undisturbed. So it will surely be someone not of their people who is up there."

  "Then let's be searching!" said Ils cheerfully. "I'll spy out your way, save you blundering into the furniture, right?"

  In single file they made their way across the wide stone floor, treading with infinite care lest a boot scrape too loudly. Roc found that most difficult of all, and more than once he staggered and almost overbalanced against the table. But in the half-light on the stairs it again proved to be Elof who saw best, and he took the lead. It was a wide spiral staircase, as in the Mastersmith's tower; three could walk up it arm in arm, and its roof was high and vaulted, hung about with shadow. More tapestry lined the walls, less dusty; Elof could make out whole scenes in the fitful moonlight, lines of wagons, battle and slaughter under trees, and once on a great plain. It was an uncanny place such as he had never before been in, and he sensed that his friends liked it no better. He felt a strange deep chill run through the middle of his body, from chest to groin, and his feet felt numb and weak. What had this Vayde been like, who might yet walk here? He could imagine hearing footsteps high above, strong heavy feet marching inexorably down through the dark on this staircase, where they could only go over you, or through … And yet that somehow failed to chill him. He felt a different terror in this place, a clinging sense of anguish, sadness, ultimate loss, and somewhere beneath it a consuming anger that seemed to echo around the walls like an ancient cry of resentment. That frightened him, because it so closely matched something in himself. If he failed here and was broken or struck down, would he too become part of that? Would the voice of his misery also echo down the long years?

  He stopped. They had come to a landing, a wide corridor running down between rows of doors, some small and plain, some high and ornate; one in particular on each side rose above the others, double doors with an ornate transom window above them. But the dust of the corridor was undisturbed. They looked at each other, and Elof gestured up the stairs. Kermorvan nodded, and they moved on. The next floor was the same, the same corridor, the same undisturbed dust, and the next also, and Elof began to wonder if they were being foolish, if the Mastersmith were not peacefully asleep in one of the very tents they had passed by out there in the twilight. He turned, hesitantly, wondering if he should not go down at once, while time yet remained. But it was then, if ever, that he felt a true presence in the tower. The darkness rang like a bell, like a voice, a vast wordless forbidding note. He looked wildly at the others, but they only looked doubtfully back at him. They had heard nothing, that was clear. What could he, but shrug and lead on?

  And on the next floor, the last before the top, lines in the dust led down the long corridor together to the high doors, where they divided, one turning into each. Elof flexed the fingers of his gauntlet. Kermorvan added grimly, and hefted his sword. "Roc! Ils!" he mouthed, in the faintest of whispers. "Best that someone guards the stairs—till we are sure—" They looked sulky at that, but nodded. Kermorvan arched his eyebrows questioningly, and waved his sword from left to right. Elof shrugged and gestured to the lefthand door. Carefully, minutely, he picked his way down the corridor on silent feet. The door was unlatched; he put his ear to the crack, and heard a sound of breathing, soft, even asleep. He nodded to Kermorvan, bit his lip, and very gently pressed the door a little way open, enough to see dimness and dark inside, and slip his fingers round the edge, lifting the heavy wood slightly and so moving it without the hinges creaking. Then he held up a hand for Kermorvan to wait, pointing to his eyes; it was ill-lit in there, and he could see better. Ker-

  morvan's mouth narrowed, but he nodded in return. Elof peered cautiously through the narrow opening.

  He found himself looking across a large gloomy room and through another set of doors, standing open, into a wide, high-ceilinged chamber. It was lighter than it had first appeared, for two tall casements flanked the curved wall opposite, set in deep bays with an upholstered seat beneath each. Between them, almost to the high ceiling, rose the pillars of a great bed, carved with tracery, and hung about the tapestry less gray than that below. It was gathered back, so he could see that in the bed a figure lay, and that the hair against the white pillow was black. He swallowed hard and stepped forward, half crouching, gauntlet outstretched with the fingers wide, sword clenching tightly in his other hand. One step, two, three—light, careful strides that carried him across the open expanse of the room, between the pools of moonlight that the pale sky spilled through the windows. He had all but reached the end of the bed when something caught his eye, a light shape draped carefully across one of the windowseats—a garment, a mantl
e, all in white. He gasped involuntarily, and in a sudden whirl of fabric the figure in the bed sat up. He saw the bedclothes fall away from a slender body. It was a woman, the moonlight bathing her small breasts, showing him her face. It was well for him his dry throat strangled his startled cry. He tried again, and could whisper no more than her name.

  "Kara!"

  She started, peered into the dark. "Who…" And then she gave a little gasping shriek and rose on her knees, the armring gleaming under the moon, as he flung himself onto the bed and into her arms. He gathered her up against him, marveling at the warmth, the slightness, the sweet scent of her, the startling strength of the arms round him. They babbled at each other, foolish incomplete words, their cheeks ran wet and they knew not nor cared who it was wept; their lips met but could not cling for lack of breath. He let fall his sword, his hand caressed her back, hers his, and the two acts were as one, the product of a single will.

  "It's all right," he whispered breathlessly. "It's all right…" he repeated, without knowing whether anything would ever be right again.

  "Elof-"

  He held her at arm's length suddenly. "How did you know? How did you know my new name?"

  "Louhi!" breathed Kara, shivering violently. "She knows it! She's here! In the other room—"

  Suddenly she gasped and broke away from him, looking past him to the door. In the middle of the room stood Kermorvan, his face so utterly void of expression that it contrasted weirdly with his ready stance and blade. He swallowed convulsively and was about to speak when Elof furiously waved him out. "And beware the other door!" he hissed. "I'll follow! Get out!" He turned to her. "He's a friend, he meant no harm…"

  "Then bid him for his own good go far from here!" said Kara bitterly, and then anxiously, "Oh, Elof, be careful! You're in terrible danger! I've heard her talk to the Mastersmith about you—"

  "And he is here too."

  She nodded, and shut her eyes as at some sudden pain. "I tried to escape! I did try, on a journey southward! I broke free! But—" She brought up her legs from beneath the covers. Round each ankle wound a strangely coiled ring of silver, and they were bound together by a thin, intricate chain that was the length of a short stride only. To Elof s narrowed eyes a gleam coursed through it that was not of the moonlight. An anger to match his own flashed into her eyes. "She caught me. And at her behest, he did that!"

  In a rush of fury Elof caught the chain up in his fingers, as if to twist it apart, but he could not, nor would even the black blade do more than scratch the metal. "A forge!" he growled. "We will get you to one, and see then whose will is the stronger! And Louhi, she dies this minute—"

  "No!" gasped Kara. "No, you must leave, she will destroy you! She will call him upon you! Think! If she can hold even him in thrall—"

  "I will cast him down first," said Elof between dry lips. "Then we will see, she and I! Where does he sleep, do you know that?"

  She pointed upward. "The highest floor, the great chamber. There he dwells, but sleep? I do not think he sleeps. He is changed, grown even stranger than he was. I think she does that to those she holds—"

  "But she is not changing you?"

  Kara took his hand and held it to her breast, and he felt the heart leap beneath. "I am of no common sort," she whispered, and smiled through her tears. "And a stronger chain than any he can forge was already upon me. I will not change!"

  He nodded. "Nor I!" She kissed him again then, more solemnly. "Now get dressed, you must come—"

  She shook her head, and pointed to her ankles. "I cannot."

  "I am not leaving you here alone! Not now that I've found you again—"

  "You must! Does your friend not wait?" She stared out of the casement, to where the pale moon sank. "But listen, love, life, if ever any chance or power parts us anymore, follow the dawn! Seek to the east! And I, if I win free, shall quest westward for you, in the path of the moon! I swear it! By all that I am!"

  He nodded, for he could not speak, touched her lips once more, and rose, catching up his sword. He looked at her there, watching him, and felt his heart blaze up within him, as if her gaze kindled it to flame. But as he backed away, and she sank and dwindled into the shadow, so the flame died, faded, till only the darkest ember remained. With a last glance back he stepped through the open door— and almost trod down Ils, standing rock-still in the middle of the corridor with a terrible look on her face. He glanced anxiously at the far door, but it was undisturbed, and he waved her angrily away.

  The others were gathered on the stairs. "Who is she?" demanded Kermorvan. "Can we trust…" He met Elof's eyes, and said no word more.

  Roc nodded. "I've seen her, once, and I know A—Elof. If he trusts her, why should not we?"

  "Fair question!" asserted Ils. "She is this Louhi's and not yours, that much I heard. Remember, our lives and many others depend on it. If he is not up there, if mean-while she raises the alarm, then we are cut off. We cannot fly off this tower!"

  "He is there!" said Elof coldly, and gazed about him. "I should never have doubted it, I felt it on the stairs. The very stones cry out in protest, every metal fastening rings alarm in my mind. She warned me, wishing me to escape."

  Kermorvan eyed Elof anxiously. "You grow strange to me, in this strange place. I would not trust what that lithe little creature said, with the bonds that lie on her soul. But I fear we have no choice. We must venture it now." Ils bowed her head. "Yes, you are right. We are at her mercy, then. Lead on!"

  The night hung deep across the last staircase, for the moon had set now. Elof clambered on, step after step, and the warning of the forest rang over and over in his mind, Something more! Something he would know when most he needed it. Fear, the chill fear of failure, fanned the dying ember at his heart. Tapiau, Raven, you unknowns, you mocking powers, when else will I most need it, if not now? I am within my enemy's walls, he holds the girl I love in thrall, I go to face him with a weapon he may brush aside in scorn—when if not now?

  He rounded the last corner, and stepped up into sudden light.

  It was no ordinary light of lamp or fire, no healthy glow but a bluish sea-deep gloom, the daylight of drowned men. It came spilling down the stairs through the wide ceiling trap in which they ended, fantastically shadowed by the wrought railing to either side. He stepped cautiously up till his eyes were level with the floor above, and peered quickly around. The apartments here stretched the whole width of the tower, a great central chamber leading out onto a wide curved balcony. Around the walls of the chamber, behind a circle of carved pillars, were various other doors, all closed, and there seemed to be nobody visible. The chamber itself was a mess, a clutter of old furnishings and dusty hangings like the tower below, but intermingled with newer things that lay strewn in heaps about, rich things for the most part, vessels of precious metals, rich garments and hangings, arms and armor well decorated, bright jewels and ornaments, carvings, paintings. By the balcony, against a pillar, stood a robed statue of some white stone, a hideous mask of Ekwesh fashion tilted casually atop it. A chest of coin stood open against the far wall, and above it a faceted globe of glass in a curiously wrought stand, from which the strange light came. And everywhere lay books, heaps of books, stacked scrolls and bound boards laid in eccentric piles. Trenchers of food lay here and there atop them, half-eaten. The air was heavy and stale, with a hint of foulness, as if some beast had laired there awhile. But in all the confusion nothing stirred.

  Slowly, carefully, Elof mounted the last steps, and Ker-morvan behind him. The warrior's face darkened with anger as he took in the scene; the creamings, this, of the loot of the city, the small part so far captured. Elof knew the warrior must be seeing not only the worth of it, but the bloodshed, the shattered homes and ruined lives that were the price each piece bore. Kermorvan looked around and nodded jerkily, clearly thinking this a likely enough lair for the Mastersmith. So too did Ils, by her face. But Roc dared to whisper a doubt that mirrored Elof's own. "He was ever so damned particular! Woul
d he dwell in such a sty now?"

  "Kara said he had changed! Perhaps this is what she meant…"

  "Perhaps indeed!" said a thin smooth voice, though they had scarcely breathed their words in each other's ears. As one they turned to look across the room, to the black gap of the balcony. And there the statue, too, as they had all thought it, turned to face them. "But I am sorry if you find fault! These are the hardships of a campaign among allies largely uncivilized. Though I confess I grow more forgetful of the common things of every day, the temporary impurities of life, the fouled soil in which thought must for the moment grow."

  Elof and Roc, who had known the man before, could only gape. The voice, once resonant, had thinned to a dry metallic edge, and the rest of him had withered to match it. The skin on his hands was white and featureless as the smooth swath of gown he wore, the strands of his hair, once lustrous black and curling, could now have been the fibers from which the gown was woven, lying lank about his face. And as they watched he tilted back the long-beaked mask of the Thunderbird from his face, and it too was white, the beard shrunk to blanched wisps. Even now it might still have been a statue's face, or more properly a death mask, for the same placid calm rested upon the closed eyelids and faintly smiling mouth. Then the eyes snapped open, and they also were white, clouded and milky behind lashless lids.