The Hammer of the Sun

by Michael Scott Rohan

  About the feet of the distant cliffs were green woods, glowing with the lighter hues of seasonal trees, but these soon gave way to low hills, plains and grasslands wider than any Elof had seen since he crossed the desolate country off ancient Morvan. Through them a river flowed out of what seemed to be a chain of small lakes, widening swiftly as tributaries, like branching veins, led into it from the cliffs; as the cliffs turned away into the distance, so it snaked after them, growing ever wider and wider till it seemed to become a great lake again. And if distance did not deceive him it broadened still further, became like a sea lapping at the horizon's lip as if eager to spill out across the sky itself; many long islands were set in it. Yet it was not this sight alone that set Elof s pulses racing, but what he saw thus far off on the edge of sight, extending between grassland and river, a rolling country mottled with a regular mosaic of many shades, chiefly green and brown. Upon this side of the river the same pattern repeated itself in the lands eastward, woodland, grassland, mosaic, till they blurred together; so fine was that mosaic and so great the area it covered, he still found it hard to accept it could all be fields. Around great cities he had seen such chequered patterns of fields; but from here they seemed like flecks as fine and as numerous as the lichen upon the rocks beneath his clutching hand. So small they looked that he might almost reach out and scrape them away as easily; yet he looked upon the works of men.

  "It's a rich land," said Roc, his voice unwontedly soft. "Rich and spacious. Makes home look pretty damned small, doesn't it?"

  "So it should!" Elof retorted, equally softly. "And so it should, Roc. Or have you not guessed where we are? To what place we have come and by what paths? I know it, Roc - I know this place! I know the stone of those cliffs, layered and tortuous like that; I know the colours of those fields, the span of the river beyond them, the contours of that hilly island there; even how the winds play about the cliffs as they converge… see, you can see it in the swirling of the clouds there!"

  Roc stared at him, astonished. "When you've lived all your life half a world away? Or," very darkly, "is it that you can look back along the River to some life you have lived before? How in Hel's name else could you have set eyes on anything here?"

  "Through page and paper, scroll and book, words enscribed! They showed me this whole scene, little by little, a word here, two words there; but I never realised it, I saw only the parts, never the whole picture. But now, here, I see it! It springs out at me from every corner of my reading, so strongly it shaped the minds of those who wrote. I pieced it together from a hundred casual examples, a thousand chance comparisons. The cliffs, the coloured fields, they came from manuals of mining I pored over as prentice. That island there from some old treatise on mapping; the river and its currents from clauses in some leaden-heavy charter of commerce. The winds blew about the pages of ancient almanacs. Roc, from a fraudster's scrawls on divination I could tell you the very stars that will rise!" He gazed out solemnly over the expanse before him. "This is a cradle, Roc; a mighty cradle, for it bore within it high beginnings. It is our cradle, Roc; the birth and nursing of all that makes us what we are, our folk, our histories, our wisdoms, our follies. All that has driven us since our first youth began here; all that we achieve now is measured against the best of this place. This below us is the Vale of Kerys, greatest of all vales; and greatest of all rivers is this which flows through it, the Saltflood, Yskianas, the River at the World's Heart. In this vale, by this vast stream, for centuries beyond count was encompassed the high and ancient realm of Kerys, the City of the Lowlands, the very heart of the world itself."

  Roc paled as he contemplated that awesome prospect, and his voice grew choked. "Is that so? Then I'm given a gift I've longed for since I first heard those names, in old tales my poor mother told me. To see them as you name 'em, that shakes me to my core. How my lord Kermorvan'd envy us! Worn and wan as we are, he'd change his chair of state to be with us! But then… what lies there now?"

  Elof shook his head, and his voice sank to a whisper. "Ah, there the words have no answer. Five thousand years have passed since the fleets left this land to found our own! Yet longer than that it had endured already; more than twice as long, some say, more than ten thousand years. Therefore it may endure still; yet if so…"

  "What is it?" demanded Roc. "Your face just went like a wet midsummer, clouded over…"

  "If so…" Elof swallowed. "If so, then the Ice comes hard upon it, to be so close. And its strength must have waned terribly. Do you not know now that fortress to which they took me? Yet you've sworn by it often enough! That was, that must have been the High Gate of Kerys, legendary strength of strengths, built to deny any enemy access to the valley mouth. And who holds it now?"

  Roc's hands clenched on the stone as if to clasp it to him, to deny it furiously to others. Elof saw the horrified anger seething in him, and understood it well. To the sothrans, far more than to the northerners among whom he had grown up, the ancestral land and all things about it were sacred, imbued with reverence, enshrined in memory. They had made it the measure of all their aspirations and the warranty of their oaths, the more so as they thought it lost to them among the impenetrable shadows of time. And no part of Kerys was more sacred to them than the High Gate. "That's the bloody worst of all! In her damned cold clutches'. And if that's fallen, what else stands? Will we just find a nest of her thralls here too?" He stopped, and blew out his cheeks with sudden relief. "No, surely not! Or else this land'd be lousy with them, too. No, it's got to be as you reasoned it; there's men in the Old Country still, true man and enemies of the Ice. Might be glad to know they've kin fighting the same fight, eh?"

  "It's possible," agreed Elof, straining his eyes for any trace of life across all that wide vista. "We should seek a way down these cliffs, I think, in any event Where else is there to go?"

  Roc shrugged. "Where indeed? Short of trying conclusions at the High Gate." He peered over the brink, and shuddered. "Damned if I'm beetling down that! But it's lower to the east here, more of a slope than a cliff. And the sooner we get you some food and rest, the better. Feel up to another stroll?"

  They grew weary indeed as the day wore on, and they clambered and scrambled along the overgrown margins of the cliffs; hunger shook their limbs, and though root and berry grew more plentifully than above, still there was little to lessen it. It remained a wild land, with no sign of man's hand upon it. But Roc in particular refused to be downcast, and kept searching the landscape all around with squinting intensity that earned him many a stumble over obstacles nearer to hand, and once or twice great danger at the cliff-edge. His persistence, though, was rewarded while the sun was still well up the sky, for as they came down a steep bushy slope towards a deep gully in the golden cliffs he let out an abrupt whoop of triumph, and pointed to tiny flickers of light in the distance.

  "That's mail, or I'm an ape of Hella!" he swore. "Yes, see there; soldiers, and clad in no Ekwesh fashion either!"

  Elof shaded his eyes, and let them focus. "Yes… they are pale-skinned…"

  "I'll take your word for it!" said Roc good-humouredly. He stepped forward, waved his hand and let out a hail that went echoing away down the gully's water-eaten walls. Elof s keen eyes saw pale specks of faces look up, hands point, and a great scurry break out; one went running back down the steep slope - a messenger, perhaps.

  "Ah, Roc," he said, shaking his head, "I wonder, was that wise? You're not normally so trusting. I would sooner have watched them a while from hiding first, weighed them up…"

  Roc shrugged, a little shame-facedly. "Well… maybe you're right; though I'm sure they'll be no friends to the Ekwesh, at least. Do you go hide, then, and watch over me…"

  "Too late, I fear; they've seen two, and finding only one would breed suspicion in the mildest breast. I'll come down with you. No don't bother yourself, the slope looks easy enough and I'm feeling much better…" He knew well that it was as much concern for him as eagerness to gaze upon Kerys that had made Roc imp
etuous. But he had spoken only the truth; the sun was shining, the air was mild and filled with strange fragrances from the sun-warmed bushes, bay and thyme and myrtle, and whatever his doubts, whatever the weakness of his limbs, it was no effort to relax. As they reached the gully's head Elof heard a distant jingle of metal rise on the light breeze, the crazy carillon of mail and harness, and the rolling clatter of hooves among the loose stones. A cloud of dust rolled up over the edge of the slope, and out of it, with a roar like a breaking flood, a squadron of horsemen in light mail came charging up the gully, long rows of pennons fluttering from the lances upright in saddle racks behind each rider. Behind them on foot ran a file of mailed soldiers with halberds levelled. Across the gully the horse spread out, lances poised to sweep its length, while their leader, with the foremost of the footmen at his stirrup, came trotting forward to loom over Roc and Elof.

  "Well, what marvels have we here?" He did not deign to lift his visor, but it was a young man's voice, clipped and scornful. He eyed their tattered and bloodstained garb. "Whose men are these, that he lets them stray about the borderland? Or could it be that they're masterless men, good-for-naught outlaw vermin? Out for pickings?" That was evidently what he believed. "Those men there! Let them declare themselves, person and purpose! In the name of the King!"

  Curt and ominous as the words were, the travellers exchanged wild glances, .hearts pounding. For though the speaker's accents fell strangely on their ears, they had understood his words, and all that they implied. Peculiar though it had become, it was recognis-ably some form of the Sothran tongue he spoke.

  "With no hesitation, friend!" exclaimed Elof, and saw the men start, listen and then understand. "We sought you with that in mind, for we are charged with an errand to him. But we are fleeing the Ekwesh -"

  "Oho!" exclaimed the leading footsoldier less harshly, for all that his voice was rough, and with a glance up at the rider he advanced upon them. The other footmen looked scarlet-faced and panting, but he seemed to breathe easily enough. The face below the helmet was lantern-jawed, of late middle years and weathered the hue of brick; his nose and cheekbones were a mess of scarlet veins, and wispy colourless eyebrows shadowed very cold blue eyes. His expression was still suspicious, though he was evidently taking in the marks of their exhaustion and Elof s bloodstained clothes. "Been mixin' it with the man-eaters, have yer? Well, but What'd you expect if you go strayin' off into the Highlands, then? As soon clamber up Hella's quim; what sort of a way is that to be gettin' to my lord king?" He stiffened suddenly. "Or don't tell me the bastards bore you off from the Lowlands…"

  "They took us some way northward," said Elof. "A week's march, maybe. For that is where we came ashore, when our ship foundered. We are not of your land, soldier, but from its sundered kin across the oceans; we come as emissaries and as friends."

  The mounted man straightened up in the saddle so sharply his armour rattled, and the other soldiers exclaimed in a blend of excitement and disbelief, cut off at once by a peremptory wave of his glove. "A marvel indeed, it seems!" he remarked to the footman. "An emissary from all the way over the seas, he claims?"

  "I do," answered Elof calmly, but with weight. He seldom minded how he was addressed, but he was not going to defer to this young puppy who would not address him directly.

  "Well now!" remarked the footman, with an elaborate show of courtesy. "That's fine, very fine. Because, by Verya, an emissary's got no cause to conceal his name and quality from lawful authority, has he now? From a captain of the First Line like his lordship 'ere?"

  "No indeed!" said Elof, increasingly nettled, though he knew well he could not reasonably expect to be believed at once. "I make you free of them. I am Elof, called Valantor, Mastersmith of my land's guild, and this is Master Roc, my friend and helper." He raised a hand to his neck, striving to stop its trembling, while the captain swung himself dubiously out of his saddle. "As earnest, my stamp of rank."

  Captain and sergeant took one look at the carved jewel Elof held out to them then looked hard at each other. "Ah…" began the captain uncertainly; but the sergeant seemed in no doubt. He rapped out an order, and behind him the ranks rippled like mown grass; the horsemen bowing low to their saddlebows, the footmen hastily kneeling. So did the sergeant, but upon one knee only; the captain, after dithering a moment, bowed low from the waist. Roc cocked a sardonic eye at Elof. "Know any more tricks like that?"

  "I'm not quite sure what I've done!" admitted Elof. He had murmured, and in northern dialect at that, but the soldiers were on their feet so fast he feared they had overheard. Then he understood; the salutation had been impressive but perfunctory, a purely formal honour to someone they were giving the benefit of a considerable doubt. These folk evidently valued appearances.

  "Still, shows they've a sound respect for smithcraft anyhow," remarked Roc. "You ought to like that."

  "And something about the land itself, perhaps," answered Elof quietly. "If so, I like that less."

  Captain and sergeant were conferring, while the horses began to stamp and chafe in the lines. Now the captain turned back to them and doffed his helm, revealing a square, slightly boyish face below blond curls, with a nervous flutter at the corner of one eye. "Well, noble sirs," he began, a fraction more politely. "I regret, though it is hardly surprising, that I have no orders concerning such unexpected guests. This is too deep for me, or any, I think save my lord the King himself. And his Court Smith." His eyes, lighter blue than the sergeant's were studying Elof's face for any sign of dismay at that, and themselves grew uneasy at what they read there. "I am taking steps to send you to him at once, and speedily; the transport that landed us awaits still at the riverhead. Aurghes here will command your escort. For your own safety, please be guided by him in all things, however restrictive this may seem. As you have had occasion to find out, these are troubled times. We will provide horses for you - or if the mastersmith cannot ride," he added, considering Elof's blood-stained clothing and forestalling an angry outburst from Roc, "we will happily draw him down in a litter…"

  However polite, it was a command; Elof shrugged, unwilling to be hoisted about like a sack of potatoes.

  "Of course. If it is not too far, I will try to ride. But ere we depart, we have endured days with little food, and stand in some need…" The captain nodded curtly, gestured to the sergeant, who snapped his fingers at his men; they fumbled around belt and harness, and produced the usual scraps and morsels that patrolling soldiers will carry with them. They were mostly young men, some very young, their faces much like any of their contemporaries in Morvanhal, but without the open quality he might have expected there. When he thanked them they neither grinned nor saluted, and some bowed their heads in an instinctive way that irritated him. Then at a word from the captain two dismounted and held their stirrups for Elof and Roc; evidently they were meant to do their eating on the move. Elof wavered as they helped him up; the saddle was not the kind he was used to, high-bowed and stiff. The captain rode past and the troop wheeled into formation around them, Roc urging his mount clumsily up to Elof s side. "All right?" he growled. "I know you rode a bull bareback and all that as a lad but…"

  "I'm fine," said Elof impatiently. "Just let me get some food in me…" But the captain barked an impatient order, and the troop wheeled about as one, fell into file and went thundering away downhill. The travellers' mounts responded with the rest, so swiftly they almost toppled their riders from the saddle; there would be no sudden escapes on these well-trained beasts. Over the slope they clattered, stones scattering and rattling away in little avalanches beneath their hooves, and a cloud of yellow-white dust boiled up around them, sparkling with mica. Not even that, though, could keep Elof from the food he had been given. It was rough, some kind of tough dark bread and even tougher morsels of dry meat and cheese, but it heartened him so much he had to take care not to overeat, and be sure Roc had his share.

  He needed it, for the ride that began thus soon gave him cause to regret his pride, and ere
it ended left him slumping in his saddle, borne up by Roc at his side. At first he could still take notice of the view from the path, looking down upon low and tangled scrubland and then the tops of dense pinewoods, cool in the evening haze; but by the time the troop went thundering among them the light was failing, and his sight blurred. They looked strange, stunted, so much lower and thinner they were than the pines of his own land. And though their familiar scent drifted around him, it was oddly mingled with others he did not know. Even the soft bird-calls among the branches sounded strange. To his exhausted mind he rode through the distortions of a feverish dream, subtle and sinister; he doubted even the flecks of light that flickered in the distance, flitting this way and that about a great bulk of shadow beyond the trees. He half feared that even the solid shadow of Roc at his elbow might suddenly distort and melt into some nightmarish shape. Only when he heard the sharp challenge of a sentry, in much the same words as in his own land, did he realise the shadow was a wall, and that they had come to some kind of strong place; he heard sounds he knew well from campaigns with Kermorvan, the familiar firelit bustle of a busy military post. "Stand! Who goes? Under which King?" "Under Lord Nithaid," answered the captain coldly. "And about his business. Anehan captain of horse, with…" The hesitation was slight, but it rang in Elof s hearing. "Arrivals to take ship for the City at dawn. So pass us to the landing-stage, and look lively about it!" They clattered on through a narrow arch; the wall was high, and had a strange look about it, but in the torchlight Elof could not be sure why. They passed between a cluster of buildings, low and austere, and into the looming shadow of a tower. It was of no great height, not more than four or five stories, but very strong in the building, and fortified all around its peaked roof. It reminded him unpleasantly of the Mastersmith's lair, and that added the final touches to the nightmare. The riders passed through another gate, and beyond the lights; darkness fell deep again. He could not think why the hooves sounded so hollow all of a sudden, and when they helped him from his saddle, heavy-limbed and shaking, he stepped down into that darkness as if it were deep water.