"Thus it was shown in the text, lord. And it seemed to me right that you should have your crown so, who fought so valiantly in your youth for the right. But will you not don it, if only for the measure?"
Korentyn seemed genuinely much moved. He bowed deeply to Elof, and raised the work of bright silver, tall plated helm and many peaked crown, high above his head. The sun was falling westward, an angry bronze globe in the gray waste of sky, its long rays streaming in through the open doorway. They caught helm and crown, mirror-bright, and set upon its patterned plates a glow of fire, tipped its peaks scarlet as they did the mountain snows, awoke white fire and rainbows from the cluster of pale gems at its brow. The light seemed to shine through Korentyn's fingers as, slowly and with grave dignity, he lowered the crown onto his head. There for an instant it rested, framing his face, noble and serene as some ancient statue. Then the eyes flew wide, a spasm crossed the features, and they twisted in anguish. Korentyn screamed aloud, once, hoarsely; his fingers knitted with fearful tension, tearing at each other, at his garments. His tall frame convulsed and crumpled, and the Prince of Morvannec collapsed amid his streaming robes onto the stony floor of the smithy.
Roc and Ils cried out and ran to him, but Elof spread his arms and thrust them back by main force. Kermorvan rounded on him. "You! This is your doing! To him, who has shown you so much kindness! What have you done to him?"
"The cruelest thing I could possibly have done," said Elof, and in his voice was utter blackness. "I have restored him to himself."
"What… Enough of your folly!" growled the warrior, and plunged forward to the prince. But now it was Ils who jerked him back, thrusting him down on a bench, and so startled was he that he suffered it a moment. Elof looked down at him, his face bloodless.
"With the virtues set within that crown, that helm, I have broken the holds of the Forest, the fetters Tapiau has set upon him."
Kermorvan stared up at him, lips moving before he could speak clear. "You… you measure yourself against one of the Powers? You claim…"
"In a small space. For a short span of time. His mind and memory are laid clear now, set free with no sweet songs to cloud them."
"Free to remember…" growled Roc hoarsely, kneeling slowly by the prince's side. He could not continue.
"Free to remember a thousand years," whispered Ils, and tears trickled down her plump cheeks. "To remember, all at once… Poor man! Poor lost man!"
Abruptly Kermorvan barged past Elof and knelt by Ko-rentyn. Elof saw him raise a hand to draw off the helm, and nerved himself to intervene. But it was another hand that clutched Kermorvan's wrist, and thrust it sharply away. Korentyn's eyes were open wide, gray and desolate as the winter sky they mirrored. "My dear lord!" whispered Kermorvan. "Prince Korentyn…"
The tall man shook his head, slowly. "Prince no longer," he muttered, and his voice was a whisper, dry and unsteady. "Korentyn no more… Korentyn is dead. His shadow am I, nothing more; his mask, empty, eyeless, hollow within. So are we all, all this court, a play of shadows dancing on the wall, the dancers long since fled. Shadows of life, of love, of honor… All lost. All sped. His work, his doing, accursed be he…"
"You see, Elof?" hissed Kermorvan. "You torment him, and to what…"
"No!" croaked Korentyn, clutching again at Kermorvan's arm. "Not him! Not him, for this pain I would buy with my own heart's blood, if need be! It is Tapiau I curse, the Forest and its poisoned gift of years! So many years, so many, of seeing, understanding, yet being blind…"
"Seeing what?" Elof's voice grew strange in his own ears, harsh and imperious, tinged with night. "What have you understood?"
Korentyn stared up at him, wide-eyed. "I know that voice, I know it of old… Tapiau's will, that I have understood, his design for men. His grand design!" The long fingers clawed in the dust.
Kermorvan looked at him doubtfully. "We know something of that. To be immortals, or alfar, as suits men best, are mere not worse choices than that?"
"Are there?" There was no kindness now in Korentyn's laughter; it was cold and bleak. "Do you not see that there is no choice at all? Save whether to linger, or fall swiftly. To preserve the aspect of a man awhile, or surrender it at once. A year, a thousand years, what does that matter? The burden of the years is too great for any man, and the Forest knows that well. In time the change must come to all, slowly, subtly, insidious as poison." He looked down at his long fingers; his fists clenched in sudden spasm, and blood started between the taut fingers. "Do I not see it at work? Even now, within me? Look at me! Look at any of us! Are we not, all of us, on the road to the alfar form? And that is Tapiau's will."
"But… He's not one of the evil Powers, is he?" spluttered Roc. "The ones of the Ice? I mean, if the Forest's not on the side of life, who is?"
"Of life, yes," said Korentyn bleakly. "But of men? Are we, as we are, on the side of life untrammeled, unbounded? Of any life save our own? One thing of worth these long years beneath the trees have taught me, and that is that all nature is one, that when we waste it we spill our own blood, we tear bread from our own lips. That lesson it is the lot of all men to learn in time, perhaps. But Tapiau would not have us learn; he sees in us the wasting of his domain, the taming of his power. He fears us, as the first Powers feared the coming of life into the lifeless perfection of their world. Yet he dare not rebel as they have, for what would become of the Forest then? He seeks instead to force men into the mold he thinks best. To strip us of what sets us most in conflict with all else that lives…"
"Our minds," said Elof heavily. "As I feared. He told me that unending life was only for the heroes among men. But I see now that no man cheats the River without a price. Such life is for nobody. In the world outside, with all its chances and perils, it could not be. Only here, in this womb of the Forest, can the bodies of ordinary men endure thus. And that robs endurance of all meaning! For what value had your life here, what purpose? To tread the same paths over again, to dance the same dances, say the same words, act the same pale acts of love sunken to ritual. And all the time his hand lay on your minds, told you this was perfection, the best you could hope to find. Perhaps he truly believes it is, so little does he comprehend men. Small wonder you have all grown weary in time, however hard you fought to remain yourselves. And as you grow weary your minds cloud, your bodies change. Until you are driven to lay aside your humanity as a relief from lingering pain. Small wonder."
Silence fell. Korentyn drew himself painfully to his knees, gazing at Elof in growing puzzlement. But suddenly his eyes shifted, staring past the smith, out of the doorway into the mass of trees beyond. Elof moved to bar it, lest he should try to flee, but then he also saw what had caught Korentyn's eye.
"See!" croaked the prince. "See! Snow falls! The first snow… Snow on the Forest!"
Kermorvan blinked like a man awaking from deep sleep. "Aye, my lord! A few flakes, only. And it cannot lie long, for spring is not far off. What of it? Let me…"
"What of it?" Korentyn twisted toward him, seized his arm once more with a frightening urgency and scrambled to his feet. "It comes every winter, now. But it did not fall, not then, not here, even this far north, ever… There was no snow when first I came here."
Kermorvan's face grew suddenly grim. "What is it you seek to tell me, my lord?"
Korentyn stared out into distances further than the trees. "Can you not see?" His voice grew clearer, edged now with a bitterness and a desolation that tore Elof's heart. "Why, it means that even a great Power may be blind to what he does not wish to see! It means that even Tapiau may welter in his own self-deceiving. For all that he has done to us, he has done in the name of helping us, saving us, even if only as animals among other animals. But even in that he fails! Across his boundaries the dark trees of Taoune'la spread, and behind them the barrens, the tundra, that smooth the paths of the Ice." The prince laughed again, and Elof shuddered at the sound. "There is snow on the Forest, where once there was none! And where the snow comes, the winters worse
n, the icecaps lengthen, the snow line sinks ever lower, the cold creeps ever southward, southward… till glaciers spawn in the Meneth Aithen. Till down these very slopes they sweep, to meet their chill brethren of the north. And what of the Forest then?" He laughed again, but in the taut furrows of his face tears glistened. "Why did I endure, to come only to this?"
"You told me why," said Elof quietly. "You told me, and I understood. To pass on the wisdom in your charge, that was your wish, and your purpose. For such a chance, if no other, you have fought to remain yourself throughout long centuries. Give us now what counsel you can!"
Korentyn turned to gaze at him. "And that chance you have made possible. Hear me, then, what counsel I can give in pain and haste! You must flee, and soon. At the Forest margins its power is weakest. Join one of the hunts that is being readied, the hunt for onehorns, for that will turn near the Forest's northern margins."
"Northern?" asked Us, alarmed. "Is that not the most perilous way?"
"Aye; southward is less so, or was in my day. That is the way Lord Vayde took Ase and her followers, sailing southward from Morvannec into a great bay that opens there, and thence up a river and across the margins of Forest and Waste. A hard route, but with fewer great perils than these trees, or the haunted swamp and barren of Taoune'la. But from here the south is too far, near three times the distance, and through the Forest's heart; you could never escape the alfar, or worse sentinels. Seize what chance you have; flee north and follow your quest!"
"You must come with us," said Kermorvan quietly. In the dim firelight of the forge he seemed to have grown, almost to the equal of Korentyn's height. "Morvan's scattered children, east or west, have need of Korentyn Rhudri to lead them once again."
Korentyn shook his head slowly, and the crown flashed and sparkled among the shadows. "Not so! Not when they have Keryn again! For you are more like him than I would have thought possible, save perhaps that you have not yet come to believe enough in yourself. Seeing you, I could believe in truth that the River does cast us up upon its shores once again; and so, perhaps, the fear of it, the avoiding of it, is a cheat and a deception after all. If that is so, then perhaps we may meet once again. But not now. For I am out of my time, and strangely altered, no longer fit to wrestle with the world. That I leave to you, kinsman, descendant, brother, worthy bearer of our name, to you and these friends who follow you, valiant and wise. Do you succeed where we have failed! And my blessing upon you!" Kermorvan knelt before him, and Korentyn raised him, and embraced him.
In the turmoil of his heart Elof stepped forward, and he also bowed his head and knelt. "I ask no blessing, my lord! Only your justice, and your forgiveness, if you can spare it! For the deception I wrought upon you, and the cruel pain I cost you. But you know why these things had to be."
Then Elof looked up into Korentyn's eyes, and felt sick and faint at the torment he saw there, a mind rent asunder in its struggle to be free. "I know none better," said the prince, and that same air that Kermorvan bore, of justice and judgment out of the deeps of time, seemed to settle about him. "You are clear-sighted, young smith; you have wisdom and power beyond your years. You have done a deed few if any mastersmiths of my own time could have equaled. Do you yourself think it master's work?"
Unable to look away from those agonized eyes, Elof nodded. "Aye, lord. For it was as I planned it, from the start, the virtues I set in it harnessed and controlled. But it cost me dear."
"Then for that," said Korentyn sternly, "as was a prince's right of old, I name you now a smith born, made and proven, a master of your guild and mystery! Arise, Mastersmith, and prosper!" Elof stumbled up, startled, and felt Korentyn's hard hand on his shoulder. "And for that deed I hold you quit of the ill you have done me. But hear the doom I lay upon you in requital! For you have also a gift for cunning and ruthlessness; already it has served you ill, and may do so again. As well that you and others should be warned. So from this day forth you shall bear the name of Elof Valantor, which may mean the Skilled Hand, but also the Hand Hidden. Bear it with honor, but do not forget shame! And bear it with my blessing."
Elof swallowed, though his mouth was dry. "Lord, I will. And may I never value mastery greater than the mastery of myself, and the truest desire of my heart."
Korentyn nodded. "So be it!" Then he stepped back suddenly, and stared out at the forest, turned all to white beneath the rising moon, and spoke softly. "And farewell, all! To you, smith so wise, yet unknown even to yourself! You, strong craftsman, worthy citizen! You, princess of our elder kin! You, warrior who could be a king, in the full flower of your youth and strength! See how it ends! Think on me!" And with clawed hands he tore the helm from his head, and hurled the heavy thing the length of the forge, to crash and roll among the coals of the hearthfire. Roc, with a cry, reached for the tongs. But Elof waved him back, and shook his head, and his voice was bitter with grief and disgust.
"Let it melt!"
When they looked back, Korentyn was gone. His long paces in the snow led back to the castle, but that night they saw him there no more, and in the dawning he was gone, departed as he had planned to with the westward hunt. And whether the prince ever came back to the Halls of Summer they never knew, for no mortal man looked upon Korentyn Rhudri again.
Chapter Seven - The River of Night
Shoulder-deep among the thick bushes the huge beast threw back its head, shaking its shaggy mane in the thin sunlight, its long horn gleaming. Elof and the alfar woman ducked hastily lower on their high branch, though they knew it could neither see nor smell them this far downwind. Strings of soil-caked roots hung from its mouth, tangling among the fringes of coarse cream-white fur as its champing jaws pulled them in, its breath steaming in the cold morning air. Its small ears flicked, its little wrinkled eyes blinked about, reddened by the new-risen sun: then it snorted thick clouds from its nostrils and went back to its rooting.
"Be he not a beauty?" whispered the alfar woman, half hugging Elof with the spidery arm she kept across his back, nervous he might fall. "And his winter white not yet shed. Long I am watching that one, hasty to have the chase of him, but only this year is he of a lawful age. Already the young males best him at the matings, so he forages alone; soon he will be too old to run far, and then the wolves will have him, or the daggerteeth. Or some nightwalkers. Better and quicker he falls to us!" White teeth flashed in her long brown face.
Elof smiled; though his muscles creaked from endless hours crouched among treelimbs. "Better indeed!" he whispered back. "And all the more honor to us that you share this hunt, Hari!"
"Honor is ours, lord!" Haf! whispered, stabbing Elof still more keenly with shame at the deception he planned. And yet… That odd name Hari was a diminutive of Halveth, an ancient and honored woman's name among the northern royal kin. What blood flowed in her veins? What great lord or lady of Morvan had let fall the shackles of their old life to become her parent? She looked around. "Ah, Gise comes! Do you watch with Lord Elof, Gise, I go to fetch the others." Silently she slithered along the branch and was gone. No less silently, Gise's massive frame, clad in an alfar tunic and harness, swung down in her place beside Elof.
Elof looked around, anxious, angry. Gise was at home here, so much so Elof still wondered whether it had been safe to trust him. "By all the powers, Gise!" he hissed as low as he could. "I tell you once more, you've got to come with us! We'll need you, you of all people!" But the big forester only looked away, and shook his head slightly. Elof grabbed him by the shoulder. "You joined this venture to aid the Northland fugitives! It's your duty!"
Gise shook his head again, firmly; more than ever he seemed to fumble for words. "No, Master Elof, no! You, where you will; me, I stay. Like I said to my lord 'fore now. A new home it was I came t'find, and that I have, and damned if I'll leave it!"
Elof sighed. "So you fail us, as well as Arvhes; nothing will detach him from the court."
"And why not?" whispered Gise, the accusation stinging words from him. "Him 'n' me, we're the
oldest! We've not the summers left to build new lives, not like you younkers. What'll we find, us, that's better than this? They're gentle folk, these, though a mite slow in the head; take you in, not fuss you. Not jealous with their women, either. I've one among them already, maybe a little 'un on the way." He jabbed a blunt finger into Elof s chest. "You, wise master, don't you go prating to me of your long tomorrow! What's it to me, so far hence even my sons' sons won't see it? You tell me in the here and now what life's better for a forester like me!"
"A free one?"
But Gise shrugged. "Free's as free does, to a plain man like me. The Forest's not half the hard taskmaster your Headmen or town elders were back home; you should know that, master, from all I hear of your beginnings."
Elof grimaced; there was truth in what he said. Now, though, he had fewer doubts; Gise had not changed much, if only because little change had been needed. But that, oddly, made it harder to leave him behind. "If only it did not feel so much like abandoning you…"
Gise grunted. "The River for that! We choose with our eyes open, Arvhes and me. More open than yours, maybe. Hist now, lest he hears us, he below!" But it was to the heights he looked, for just then a soft rustle in the foliage announced the arrival of the other hunters. There was a slight springing of the branch beneath them and Kermorvan inched silently along it. Elof was glad to see him so limblithe after many months of inactivity; they would have need of all his skill and speed for this. Kermorvan's brows arched as he saw the beast their prey.
"Does the onehorn please you, lords?" demanded Hafi softly. "No easy quarry is he! Against his hide mere arrows from the treetops do not serve. Spear or halberd it must be, in belly or throat where he is softest, on the ground and close to! We stalk him through the leaves and of a sudden drop down, fft!"
Elof swallowed, and stole another look at the brute. The idea seemed impossible; the great horselike head was carried higher than any horse's, the horn on it alone almost as tall as himself. It was bulkier even than a dragon, and, save for that living wall the mammut, the largest beast he had ever seen on land. This was madness, and yet Kermorvan was taking it quite calmly, deciding with Hafi which trees would be best. Finally they waved to the others, and the alfar moved up to help the humans through the branches. Elof needed little help, even with the halberd slung across his back, and the clumsy pack the alfar had tried to persuade him to leave. He had grown used to this way of getting about; there was no denying the thrill of being at home so high up. It made the Forest seem a different place, less hostile, more fascinating in the richness and variety of the life that worked out its purposes below. It was like nothing he had ever experienced in the world outside…
The Forge in the Forest Page 23
