In front of the abandoned fireplace Mark slumped to his knees, then let himself sink back into a sitting position. The air up here was thin, and stank of sulphur. It frosted the lungs and gave them little nourishment. At least his stomach had now ceased its clamoring for food; he had reached an internal balance with his hunger, a state almost of comfort… with a mental snap he came back to full alertness, finding himself sitting quietly on stone. Had he just started to fall asleep or what?
He didn't see what difference it would make if he did doze off for a rest. But no, there was something to do, something to be decided, now that he was here. He ought to see to that first, think about it a little at least. He'd come up here for some vital reason… ah yes, the sword. When he had warmed himself a little more, he'd think about it.
Still sitting in the faint sun-warmth of the high, sheltered place, Mark slowly began to notice how much unburned wood was lying about nearby. There were large chips and roughly broken scraps, and the half-burnt ends of logs that must once have been too big for a man to lift. He realized that he needed heat. He wanted a fire, and so he painfully began to gather and arrange wood in the old fireplace.
It should have been an easy matter to build a fire using this available material, but weakness made it hard. Drawing his hunter's knife, Mark tried to shave tinder and fine kindling but his hands were shaky, and the blade slipped from the half-frozen wood. He tried the sword and found the task much easier despite its weight and size. With the sword held motionless, its point resting on the ground and the hilt on his bent knee, Mark could draw any chunk of wood against the edge and take off shavings as thin and fine as he wanted. Then when he had his tinder and his kindling ready, his flint struck a fat spark from the rough flange of the sword's steel hilt.
The fire caught from that first spark. It burned well-alrhost magically well, Mark thought. Larger fragments soon fed it into respectable size and crackling strength. Then, after he'd rested and warmed himself a little more, he took his hunter's cup and gathered some snow from a shaded crevice, to melt and heat himself some water for a drink. Now, if only he had a little food… Mark cut that thought off, afraid the hunger pangs would start again.
He sat on the rocky ground with the unwrapped sword beside him, sipping heated water. And found himself staring at large symbols, markings so faint that he hadn't noticed them at first, painted or somehow outlined on the rock of the shallow caves rear wall. Several of the symbols had been partially obscured by the old stains of smoke. There were in all about a dozen of the signs, all of them drawn with inhumanly straight, geometrical sides; and the lines of one of them, Mark realized, formed the same design that appeared on the hilt of the sword. He took up the sword again and looked at it carefully to make sure.
After that he continued to stare at the wall-signs, with the feeling that he was on the verge of extracting some important meaning from them, until he was distracted by a sound. It was not the wind, or his own fire, but the deep chimney-roaring, louder than before, rising below the never-quite-ceasing whine of wind. It was too breathlessly prolonged to be the voice of any animal or human. The furnaces of Vulcan, Mark thought. The forge-fires. Whatever they really were, they were burning still, somewhere near to where he was sitting. And this old wood-fire place in front of him was… that thought would not complete itself.
Mark's sun-shadow on the face of the cliff before him was reaching higher, and he knew that behind him the sun was going down. He thought: I won't live through this night up here; the cold if nothing else will kill me. But in spite of approaching death — or perhaps because of it — he felt a strong and growing conviction that he was going to see Vulcan soon. And somehow neither death nor the gods were terrible; the shock of watching his father and his brother die still numbed Mark's capacity for terror. Now he understood that ever since he'd picked up the sword from the village street he'd been meaning to confront Vulcan with it. To confront him, and… and maybe that would be the end.
Trying to gain strength, Mark built up his fire again, with larger chunks of wood. Then he curled up in front of it, as if he could absorb its radiant energy like food. Again he had the sword's cloth wrapped round his own body as a blanket.
The next time he awoke, he was cold and stiff, and the world was totally dark around him except for a million stars and the brightly winking embers of his fire. Slowly and painfully Mark turned over on his bed of rock, twisting his aching body to get the nearlyfrozen half of it toward the fire. His face and the backs of his hands felt tender, as if they'd been almost scorched when the flames were high. But they began to freeze as soon as they were turned away from the remaining warmth. Mark knew he ought to make himself stand up, move his arms and walk, and then build up the fire again. He knew it, but he couldn't seem to get himself in motion. Deep in the middle of his body he could feel a new kind of shivering, and now he was almost completely sure that he was going to die tonight. Still the fact had very little importance. Get up and tend the fire, and it will save you.
Startled, Mark raised his head, croaked out a halfformed question. The words had come to him as if in someone else's voice, and with the force of a command. He could not recognize the voice, but it made a powerful impression. Now, once he'd moved his head, the rest was possible. He sat up, rubbing his arms together, preparing himself for further effort. Now his arms were able to move freely. And now he forced himself to rise, swaying on stiffened knees, but driving his legs, torso, everything into activity. Halfparalyzed with cold and stiffness still, he gathered more wood and fed the flames when he had blown them back to life.
Then, Mark lay down near the new flames, wrapping hiself in the blanket again. He rubbed his face. When he took his hands down from his eyes, a circle of tall, silent figures was standing around him and the fire. They were too tall to be human. Mark, too numb to feel any great shock, looked at what he could see of the faces of the gods. He wondered why he could not recognize Ardneh, to whom his mother prayed so much, among them.
One of the goddesses — Mark couldn't be sure which one she was — demanded of him: "Why have you brought that sword back up here, mortal? We don't want it here."
"I brought it for my father's sake." Mark answered without fear, without worrying over what he ought to say. "This sword maimed him, years ago. It's killed him now. It's killed my brother, too. It's driven me away from home. It's done enough, I'm getting rid of it."
This caused a stir and a muttering around the circle. The faces of the gods, shadowed and hard for Mark to see, turned to one another in consultation. And now the voice of a different deity chided Mark: "It was time enough, in any case, for you to be leaving home. Do you want to be a mill-hand and a rabbit-hunter all your life?"
"Yes," said Mark immediately. But even as he gave the answer, he wondered if it were really true.
Another god-voice argued at him: "The sword you have there has done hardly anything as yet, as measured by its capabilities. And anyway, who are you to judge such things?"
Another voice chimed in: "Precisely. That sword was given to Jord the smith, later Jord the miller, until you, mortal, or your brother had it from him. It's yours now. But you can't just bring it back here and be rid of it that way. Oh, no. Even leaving aside the question of good manners, we…"
And another: "…cant just take it back, now that it's been used. You can't bring a used gift back."
"Gift?" That word brought Mark almost to midday wakefulness. It came near making him jump to his feet. "'You say a gift? When you took my father's arm in payment for it?"
An arm, long as a tree-limb, pointed. "This one here is responsible for taking the arm. We didn't tell him to do that." And the towering figure standing beside Vulcan (Mark hadn't recognized Vulcan till the instant he was pointed out) clapped the Smith on the back. It was a great rude slap that made Vulcan stagger on his game leg and snarl. Then the speaker, his own identity still obscure, went on: "Do you suppose, young mortal, that we went to all the trouble of having Clubfoot here
make the swords, make all twelve of them for our game, never to see them properly used? They were a lot of trouble to have made."
For a game… a game? In outrage Mark cried out: "I think I'm dreaming all of you!"
None of the gods or goddesses in the circle thought that was worth an answer.
Mark cried again: "What are you going to do about the sword? If I refuse to keep it?"
"None of your business," said one curt voice.
"I suppose we'd give it to someone else."
"And anyway, don't speak in that tone of voice to gods…"
"Why shouldn't I speak any way I want to, I'm dreaming you anyway! And it is my business what…"
"Do you never dream of real persons, real things?"
Smoke from the fire blew into Mark's face. He choked, and had to close his eyes. When he opened them again the circle of tall beings was still there, surrounding him.
"And, anyway, if we gods wish to play a game, who are you, mortal, to object?" That got a general murmur of approval.
Mark was still outraged, but his energy was failing. His muscles seemed to be relaxing of themselves. He lay weakly back on rock half-warmed by fire. Despite all he could do, his eyelids were sagging shut in utter weariness. He whispered: "A game…?"
A female voice, that of a goddess who had not spoken until now, argued softly: "I say that this Mark, this stubborn son of a stubborn miller, deserves to die tonight for what he's done, for the disrespect he's shown, the irresponsible interference."
"A miller's son? A miller's son, you say?" That, for some reason, provoked laughter. "Ah, hahaaa!.. anyway, he's protected here by the fire that he's kindled, using magical materials and tools. Not that he had the least idea of what he was doing when he did it."
"What is so amusing? I still say that he must die tonight. He must. Otherwise I foresee trouble, in the game and out of it, trouble for us all." "Trouble for yourself, you mean."
And another new voice: "Hah, if you say he must die, then I say he must live. Whatever your position is in this, I must maintain the opposite."
They're just like people, Mark thought. His next thought was: I'm almost gone, I'm dying. Now the idea was not only acceptable, but brought with it a certain feeling of relief.
During the rest of the night — his gentle dying went on for a long, long time — Mark kept revising — his opinion of the wrangling gang of gods who surrounded him on his deathbed. Sometimes it seemed to him that they were conducting their debate on a high level, using words of great wisdom. At these times he wanted to make every effort to remember what they said, but somehow he never could. At other times what they were, saying struck him as the most foolish babble that he had ever heard. But he could not manage to retain an example of their foolishness either.
Anyway, he completely missed the end of the argument, because instead of dying he finally awoke to behold the whole vast reach of the sky turning light above the great bowl of rock that made the world. The near rim of the bowl was very near in the east, almost overhead, while the northwest portion of the rim was far, far away, no more than a little pinkish sawtooth line on the horizon. And to the southwest the rim was so distant that it could not be seen at all.
Mark was shivering again, or shivering still, when he woke up. Now he was cold on both sides. The fire was nearly out, and he immediately started to rebuild it. Somewhat to his surprise, his body moved easily. For whatever reason, he had awakened with a feeling of achievement, a sense that something important had been accomplished while he lay before the fire. Well, for one thing, his life had been preserved, whether by accident or through the benevolence of certain gods. He was not at all sure of the reality of the presences he'd seen. There was no sign of gods around him now, nothing but the mountain and the sky, and the high, keening wind.
Except for the obscure symbols on the wall of stone, and the remnants of that large and ancient fire.
The need for food had now settled deep in Mark's bones, and he thought, with the beginning of fear, that soon he might be too weak to make his way back down the mountain. He had to implement his final decision about the sword before that happened; so as soon as he had warmed himself enough to stop his shivering, he turned his back on his renewed fire and the old forge-place of the gods. Keeping the blanket wrapped around himself, he slung bow and quiver on his back again, and took up Townsaver. He carried the blade as if he meant to fight with it.
Testing the wind, he tried to follow the smell of sulphur to where it was the strongest. It took him only a few moments to stumble right against what he was looking for, in the form of a chest-high broken column of black rock. The middle of the broad black stump was holed out, as if it were a real treestump rotting, and up out of the central cavity there drifted acrid fumes, along with some faintly visible smoke. At certain moments the smoke was lighted from beneath with a reddish glow, visible here at close range even in broad daylight. A breath of warmth came from the fumarole, along with something that smelled even worse than sulphur, as foul as the breath of some imagined monster.
Somewhere far below, the mountain sighed, and the wave of rising heat momentarily grew great.
Mark lifted the sword. He used both hands on the hilt, just as his brother Kenn had held it with two hands during the fight. But no power flowed from the weapon now, and Mark could do with it as he liked. Without delaying, without giving the gods another moment in which to act, he thrust the sword down into the rising smoke and let it fall. Father, Kenn, I've done it.
The sword fell at once into invisibility. Mark heard the sharp impact that it made on nearby rock, followed by another clash a little farther down. Holding his breath, he listened a long time for some final impact, perhaps a splash into the molten rock that an Elder had once told Mark lay at tire bottom of these holes of fire. But though he listened until he could hold his breath no more, he heard no more of the falling sword.
Mark looked up into the morning sky, clear but for a few small clouds. They were just clouds, with nothing remarkable about them. He realized that he was waiting for a reaction, for lightning, for something to embody what must be the anger of the gods at what he had just done. He was waiting to be struck dead. But no blow came.
What did come instead was, in a sense, even worse. It was just the beginning of a sickening suspicion that his throwing the sword down into the volcano had been a horrible mistake. Now he had made his gesture, of striking back at the gods for what they had done to him. And what harm had his gesture done them? And what good had it done himself?
In thirteen years, Jord had never made this awful trek, had never thrown the gods' payment for his right arm back into their teeth. For whatever reason, Mark's father had kept his arm-price hanging on the wall at home instead. Never trying to use it, never trying to sell it, not bragging about it — but still keeping it. Mark had never really, until this moment, tried to fathom why.
One thing was sure, Mark's father had never tried to rid himself of the sword.
The spell of shock that had been put on Mark in the village street by the evil magic of violence began at last to lift. He realized that he was alone upon a barren mountainside, almost too weak to move, many kilometers from the home to which he dared not return. And that he'd just done something awesome and incomprehensible, completed a mad gesture that would make him the enemy of gods as well as men.
He hung weakly on the edge of the smoking, stinking stone stump, growing sicker and more frightened by the moment, until he began to imagine that the voices of the gods were coming up out of the central hole along with the mind-clouding smoke. Yes, the gods were angry. In Mark the feeling grew of just having made an enormous blunder. The feeling escalated gradually into black terror.
Only his lack of energy saved him from real panic. Doing what he could to flee the wrath of the gods, leaning shakily on the black rocky stump, Mark started round it to reach its far side, from which the mountainside went rather steeply down. As Mark moved onto the descending slope, the stump he
leaned on turned into a high crooked column, the way around it into a definite descending path.
Mark had not followed this path for twenty steps before he came upon the sword. It was lying directly in his way, right under a jagged hole in the side of the crooked chimney-column, through which it had obviously dropped out. One bounce on rock, the first impact that he'd heard, then this. Altogether the sword had fallen no farther than if he'd dropped it from the millhouse roof.
Even in that short time it had encountered heat enough to leave it scorching. Mark burned his fingers when he tried to pick it up, and had to let it drop again. He had to wait, shivering in the mountain's morning shadow, and blowing on his fingers, until the unharmed metal had cooled enough for him to handle it.
Chapter 3
"I am still amazed at the extent of your recent failure, Wearer-of-Blue," Duke Fraktin said. "Indeed, the more I think about it, the more amazed I grow."
The blue-robed wizard's real name was not the one by which he had just been addressed. But his real name — or, indeed, even his next-to-real name — were not to be casually uttered; not even by the lips of a duke; and the wizard was used to answering to a variety of aliases.
The wizard now bowed, though he remained seated, in controlled acknowledgement of the rebuke; he had a way, carefully cultivated, of not showing fear, a way that made even a very confident master tread a little warily with him.
"I have already said to Your Grace," the blue-robed one responded now, "all that I can say in my own defense."
There was a small gold cage suspended from a stone ceiling arch not far above the wizard's head, and inside that cage a monkbird screamed now, as if in derision at this remark. The hybrid creature's ineffectual wings made a brief iridescent blur on both sides of its thin, furred body. But its brain was too small to allow it the power of thought, and neither of the men below it paid its comment the least attention.
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