The Castle of the Winds

by Michael Scott Rohan

  The lack of sympathy in his voice was startling, and Kunrad understood suddenly that his enthusiasm had been doing Merthian more harm than merely infuriating him. All unwittingly, the mastersmith had been demonstrating beyond all doubt who was the true maker of that armour. And, through that, all else, as well.

  Merthian’s cheeks looked sunken, his eyes wild. He knew. He cast Bryheren one hate-filled glance, and then slid down the stern mask-visor and hefted his sword, blade up, with an air of finality. Kunrad waited for him to to strike, but the lean Marchwarden made no such move, only paced sideways easily, circling him like a great hunting cat.

  Kunrad, in his dizziness, found himself thinking the thoughts behind that mask. Truth mattered less to Merthian than carrying his supporters. With the Syndicacy behind him, even the failed bid for a kingdom might be washed over as a necessary act of patriotism, in the face of greater treasons. Truth would follow where he led. Kunrad was the first barrier he had to break. He circled, waited, watched.

  Kunrad held his sword out in both hands, watching Merthian’s eyes beneath the mask; but that constant predatory circling was making his head and stomach swim worse than ever. He could feel tremors building in his sword-arm. Merthian’s sword darted out suddenly, and he swung to meet it. It was a feint, and he almost overbalanced. Again, and he twisted to meet it, and again it was a feint. Again they circled, again Merthian stabbed out at him, withdrew as a feint – then suddenly, as Kunrad’s defensive cut swept by, he slid and twisted, supple as a serpent, past his blade, and in.

  It was a move of consummate skill; and though Kunrad tried to twist away in his turn, he had neither the build nor the finesse born of long training and skilled instruction. A terrible cut came at him, he parried, it became another and another, a fearful chopping rain of broadside blows that came now high, now low, now from this side or that with a speed he could not possibly match, and sent him staggering backwards across the boards. He could not parry them completely. Now an edge struck him here, now a point there, bruising and stinging and destroying his control. The voices around him were a continuous roar, and somewhere among them a tearing scream. A ringing slash smashed across his chest, sending mailrings flying up into his face, and it was the end. He spun around, able to resist no longer, and fell heavily on his back, arms outflung. His unprotected head hit the floor a stunning bang.

  Above him Merthian loomed, and the air seemed full of fog, somehow; or was it the smoke of a forge? Another scream, and the young lord swung the bright sword high in the air, back across his shoulder, twisting back. The sword hovered at the crest of what must surely be a single devastating blow, a harbinger of night. But the blade did not fall.

  There was a single strangled cry from within the scowling mask, and the eyes showed wide and white. There was a faint squeal and clank of stressed metal, and a brief painful grunt of effort.

  In that instant Kunrad should have struck. He did not.

  His sword wavered in his hand, and the look of frozen horror on his face could have mirrored the one beneath the mask.

  The onlookers were struck silent, in the knowledge that something strange and terrible beyond their comprehension was taking place. Then abruptly, with a yell of frustrated anguish and a peculiar grating squeal of metal. Merthian twisted free, and his blow fell.

  Kunrad’s had less far to travel.

  It was not a slash or a cut, but a thrust as with a spear, straight up into Merthian’s side, as the blow he aimed exposed it. With the two men’s strength united it rammed home, just where the flat of Olvar’s blade had struck, in another land long ago. But this was no slash with a blunted trial weapon. This was the deadly point forged upon the corsair anvil so long since; and though there was no special spell within it, there was the strength of Kunrad’s will, and the longing to be free, and the deadly bond of love and hate that drew him ever after the shining thing he had created.

  This he had made the core and focus of his life, and it had pulled him along roads he never wished to take, and made him other then he had been. He had come to hate it even as he longed for it, almost more than the man who had riven it from him. And now he struck at it, straight up against those loricated sideplates; and where one, now, was the slightest fraction raised, the point went home.

  The mail beneath it, stretched to bursting point, tore like ripped cotton. The plates exploded outwards, peeling away before the widening body of the blade. Straight through the leather base it sliced, through padding and silken shirt and without distinction into the skin beneath. Between the ribs the edges passed, peeling them apart like the armour plates that had protected them. The sheer impaling force of that blow lifted Merthian bodily from the ground.

  His own last stroke fell wide. The sword he had bought that day long since flew by its maker, smashed down and stuck among the floorboards, half its length deep. And the onlookers, even Kunrad’s partisans, could not suppress a gasp of horror as the Mastersmith’s blade burst out in a spray of blood beneath the lower edge of the visor. The stern features flew back to reveal Merthian’s own, convulsed in silent agony as, impaled from rib to jaw, he slid down on to the crosspiece of Kunrad’s sword and sagged there, supported only by Kunrad’s upraised arm.

  Kunrad, aghast, flung the bloodied grip from his hand and rolled aside. With the ghost of a gurgling cry the Marchwarden toppled on to his face, and a strangely dull clatter of metal, as if the bright thing that had brought him to his end also lost its life. He lay kicking in his agony before the dais, while his blood welled out in a slow pool across the boards.

  Alais came flying down into the makeshift arena. Gille and Olvar capered wildly on the steps behind her. Kunrad himself rose on his hands and remained there, fell and cold, the blood fallen from his face and his eyes wide and stark as he contemplated the ruin he had wrought, like a man who beholds a demon in the seat of reason.

  Alais stood over them, but it was to the Marchwarden she stooped, and spoke in a low voice. ‘For those you slew and might have slain. For all the wrong you persuaded yourself to do, in the name of right. This had to be. Sleep now, and forget your pain.’ She rose then, with a face of set steel, and took Kunrad by the arm and drew him to his feet.

  He took one ragged, bewildered breath, and then his eyes seemed to fix on her, as a lost man’s upon a single light. And he flung his arms around her and kissed her there before the lords of her land, and she laughed and wept even as she embraced him in her turn, hungrily. Gille and Olvar danced around them, slapping them on the back, half weeping themselves. When Kunrad raised his head once more, his look was so strange that they faltered.

  ‘Boss, you did it!’ said Olvar urgently, as if to reassure him. ‘You triumphed!’

  ‘Though for a moment I feared you wouldn’t!’ added Gille. ‘Master, what happened? Why were you so slow to strike?’

  ‘Because it seemed as if I was fighting myself,’ said Kunrad. ‘And I saw why. I have not triumphed.’

  ‘But you have your armour now!’ protested Alais. ‘Justice, revenge – though I know you wanted that least of all. Your gold and the rest you can claim from Merthian’s estate, and the Syndics will reward you still more richly, I’m sure. And if you want more, Kunrad,’ she added, a little tremulously, ‘there is more. If you want it. So, Kunrad, what greater triumph will you seek now? What did you ever mean to?’

  He could not meet her gaze, and stood silent awhile, oblivious to the furore in the chamber. ‘What I thought … once … I thought I would go home, put a new roof on my forge, make new forms and swages and tools, and set to work again. Just as before, on the same quest. To find the last little flaw, to eliminate it entirely, to make – oh, not a perfect armour, of course. Perfection is lifeless. But one that fulfilled the power within me, that perfected me as a master-smith. To make something that would live in legend, and be a standard and a challenge to those who came after me.’

  ‘And that was the reason you have done all this, Northman?’ Alais stepped back. Lord Bryhere
n stood before them, his narrow countenance expressionless. ‘Let me see, have I understood this aright, from his lordship’s somewhat excited account? Chased Merthian the length of your land, got yourself into the corsairs’ hands and out again, into Merthian’s hands and out again, alerted Lord Kermorvan, helped him seize the Castle of the Winds, and led his forces to rout the corsairs with some magical river of metal I scarcely comprehend? And finally, of course …’ He gestured.

  The body before the dais lay very still now, and the dust settled slowly on the brilliant metal, and dulled the shining surface of the blood-pool. One of the officials was lowering a cloak over the face. Kunrad would not look. Bryheren turned to the Kermorvannen. ‘Chief Secretary Kerynan! Would you please have that removed. And cleaned up. All that, sir, simply to return to the labours of a craftsman?’

  ‘Well,’ said Kunrad, slightly surprised. ‘Naturally. In all my worst moments I dreamed of it, believe me! I had other reasons, of course. To help my lads there – and later, well, my Lady Alais, who befriended me. And her father …’ He seemed to search back into a distance, and then raised his head suddenly to look the Chief Syndic in the eye. ‘And other dreams. To avoid one more damn-fool drop of bad blood between North and South. War! Everyone talking of it, nobody wanting it, nobody willing to stop it. How could that ever be right? There can’t be―mustn’t be – war between us. That carving of yours, out there – Morvan! We were the same people when we built that! Two metals mingled in a hard alloy! We let the Ice tear it apart, and we’ve been weaker ever since!’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Bryheren cautiously. ‘You are not the first to believe so. But too many errors have been made, on both sides perhaps. Such a division cannot be – what is the term – soldered together so easily, in one generation, or ten perhaps.’

  ‘But must it be torn wider? We were brothers! We could be again!’

  There was an uneasy stir around him, and Kunrad became aware he had the attention of the whole chamber. Even the officials tending to the corpse looked up.

  ‘Simple words,’ said Bryheren, not unkindly. ‘Bold ideas, flowing from the heart, not the head. You are more than a mere craftsman, clearly; but you cannot hammer the hearts of men true upon your anvil, however worthy your intention. Simple ideas, believe me, have cost more lives and more prosperity than deeper insights, careful and considered.’

  ‘You mean, like your bloody Warden’s, here?’ The gruff voice made them turn. Kermorvan, to Kunrad’s astonishment, was standing up, and very slowly, very painfully, making his way out of his seat.

  ‘You should be in bed!’ cried Alais, ‘And being tended!’

  The old man’s eyes glittered, and his moustache bristled. ‘Not after such a tonic as this day. You’ve eased a greater pain than any wound, my lad!’ His sons were at his side again, helping him slowly down the stairs. ‘He’s right, Bryheren. War was part of Merthian’s plan, wasn’t it? The plan of the Ice, that means. Well? Why should you want to do the Ice’s dirty work for it? The North helped us. The bloody duergar helped us, even. Are we going to show nothing in return but ingratitude and suspicion? Listen for the glaciers laughing, then, as they lie over Morvan! Or can we not at least try to be friends?’

  Bryheren’s face did not change, but the voices around him were less certain now, less harsh. ‘We must debate this at leisure, my Lord Kermorvan. But your contribution will be … valued. For now we will make no hasty moves, one way or the other.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Kermorvan curtly. ‘For now.’

  He sagged suddenly, but less drastically than before. Arenyn eased him back to the nearest bench, and he subsided on to the cushions with a great sigh of relief, and an agonised wince. He shot out a ham hand and closed it about Kunrad’s arm. ‘But his lordship’s question was fair, my lad! I’ve a mind to ask you your intentions, myself. D’you mean to drag my daughter all the way back to that little smokehole of yours on the edges of the Ice?’

  ‘Anywhere he wishes!’ said Alais contentedly, seizing Kunrad’s other arm. ‘If it gave birth to him, it must be a wonderful place.’

  ‘It is, in many ways,’ said Kunrad sadly. ‘But I see now how small it is, and how confining. I have looked on a wider world, and gained a wider understanding; but the price was high. I can never be content there again. Neither in the place, nor in myself as I was. I have found my armour. But I have also found the flaw.’

  ‘Well then!’ said Gille brightly. ‘You can make it anew, master. Olvar’ll be only too happy to test it again, won’t you, Olvar?’

  ‘You don’t understand!’ said Kunrad with a bleak insistence. ‘I told you, I felt, suddenly, there at that last moment, that I was fighting myself. I was. I found the flaw in that armour, all right. I suspected I would, calculated I might use it, even, never dreaming … I know now why it haunted me. Why I felt I needed to find it so badly.’

  ‘Mastersmith, how can we understand?’ protested Olvar. ‘What is this flaw? How’d you come to see it?’

  Kunrad laughed, but there was little warmth in it. ‘Oh, that was easy. I hesitated. I designed that armour around myself; and I hesitated. It seems I always do. Oh, I have slain when I must, but never gladly, never without that first instant of hesitation; even deep down in my mind, I guess, beneath the surface of my thoughts. But when I pretended to strike a killing blow at you, Olvar, I did not hesitate; for at any level of thought I would never truly wish to harm you. And what happened then?’

  ‘Powers defend us.’ said Gille shakily. ‘Master, it can’t be that!’

  ‘It can, and it is. In every slightest facet of the shape, and in every virtue. It must run all through the structure of that armour, like a warning graven deep in the metal. Small wonder I could not find it! If I hammered it out in one place, it would only show up again in another!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Alais.

  Kunrad shook his head, as if trying to loose a clinging thought. ‘I will try to explain it. There is – an assumption, say, that I have, without intending it, embodied in the shaping of that armour, at every stage from the first vague image in my mind to the last, minutest refinement. An assumption that, before an extreme blow that takes the armour to the limits of its flexibility, a blow that must inevitably kill, the one who wears the armour will make one slight – instinctive – hesitation.’

  Bryheren stared. ‘Can such an idea live in a mere thing of metal?’

  ‘Doubly so. In the deep refinement of the shape, and in the virtues I have poured into it, out of my deepest self, my inborn craft.’

  ‘There’s something to it, Bryheren,’ rumbled Kermorvan. ‘Believe me!’

  Alais looked wide-eyed at Kunrad. ‘And if whoever it is doesn’t hesitate?’

  ‘Then the flow of the whole armour is destroyed! Every joint, every sliding plate, every ring perhaps, is suddenly set in an adverse position, abutting, clashing, jamming, locking, one against the other. I made that suit a living, flowing thing, and sought to test such possible adversities out of it. But there was one I never could; one, or a hundred, who knows? Merthian did little real fighting in that armour, and mostly from horseback in a mêlée, where it was not tested to extremes; or he would have discovered it sooner. But you saw it come to pass!’

  ‘It looked as if he froze to stone,’ said Bryheren wonderingly.

  ‘And then struggled against it,’ breathed Alais. ‘Struggled fearfully …’

  ‘Can you wonder?’ shivered Gille. ‘What that moment must have been like to him, struck suddenly rigid, expecting death at any instant?’

  ‘The loose fit may have worsened the condition,’ said Kunrad grimly. ‘All he needed to do, though, was relax. But he could not, not then! He fought free, as I tried to, and at the cost of bending those sideplates a little, again as I must have done. I saw, and I understood; and though the seeing of it felt like death to my own heart, I struck.’

  ‘But you hesitated first,’ said Alais. ‘We all saw that. Almost too long.’


  Kunrad nodded. ‘Yes. And that was all the confirmation I needed. I did not make the perfect armour, that I guessed. I know now I never could have, and now—’ he swallowed violently. ‘Now, I never will. You had clear sight, Alais, when you saw my face in that mask. The flaw is not in the metal. It lies deeper. It lies in me.’

  Kerynan Kermorvan contemplated him gravely. ‘Sir, many would not call that a flaw at all.’

  ‘No, brother!’ laughed Alais, in sudden joy. ‘Not I, for one! I love you ten times the more for it, my lord of men!’

  ‘Then it’s worth it,’ said Kunrad, ‘whatever the cost!’ And again he embraced her. But she saw clearly the bleakness that still lay in his eyes.

  ‘Not wholly a flaw,’ he said, his voice choked. ‘Not as such. I would far sooner be as I am, than a slayer without conscience, or a self-deceiver. But in the life I chose, and the craft I loved, I stand condemned.’ He stroked Alais’s hair, but his voice did not change. ‘A voice spoke to me, an age ago as it seems, naming a price, a price I might have to pay, worth more than the matter I sought to win. A life I must lose; or a way of life. I did not understand him then; now I do, and my note is called in. I cannot ever be the greatest of weaponsmiths in my day, a name to last the centuries among armourers. And if I cannot, then where is the fuel that must feed my furnaces? I abandon my craft, and all the vain ambition that made me live. I cannot be a man of peace, and live to make the weapons of war.’

  He raised his eyes to Bryheren. ‘My lord, will you see to it that Merthian is entombed in the armour he wears? For I give it him now, and wish to see it no more. I will strive at smithcraft no longer.’

  Gille and Olvar stood open-mouthed with shock. Alais gaped, unable to speak. Even Kermorvan goggled. Only Bryheren, who understood him the least, spoke.

  ‘For such a man as you, Northerner, there will always be valuable work to be done. In my service, for example. A man who knows the ways of Nordeney – No? Well, perhaps you are right. I have nothing against trustworthiness, in its proper place. But in the service of the new Marchwarden, then. For one must be appointed without delay, to heal the damage that has been done, to root out these corsairs and, yes, to mend our fences with the North. If we are not to have immediate war, we must have peace no less swiftly. Come, we must talk.’