The Forge in the Forest

by Michael Scott Rohan

  To his astonishment the voice sounded almost hurt. I?

  / wish men well, for they have minds. Am I not one of the loyal Powers, loyal to that which was first and has been corrupted, the rule of pure mind? It is only the delusions, the distractions, the wastefulness of the flesh we seek to counter. So it is that here in the Gray Lands I seek to preserve thought, to save all that is best in men. I gather the minds of men about me as they are purged of their gross bodies, their thoughts freed from the foolish lust for growth, for change.

  Elof swallowed. His mouth was dry, but he could feel the sweat trickling down and pooling in the folds of his shirt. But anger triumphed, and hotter than caution it flared, hotter than fear, a new rage added to the old as he looked upon the emptiness in the eyes of those who had been his comrades. He had had enough of the lies of Powers, that were as self-serving as those of men. "Then you gather nothing!" he shouted. "What is real in men, if it survives at all, has slipped through your grasp! Any live human can see that! These are toys you show us, cunningly contrived to copy the actions of life! No more! Nothing!"

  "Nothing!" cried Ils, fired by his outrage. "Husks, shells, shadows, no more!"

  The same anger kindled among all the travelers, sparking from one to another as a forest fire leaps from tree to tree, and made the fiercer by the terror they felt. "Did you not hear me, Taoune?" cried Kermorvan, shaking his hard fist in the empty faces of the dead. "Without the power to live, to grow, men are no more than the sum of their memories! That is all you capture! That is all we see in these miserable, hungry things you show us! Emptiness and falsehood, that is your domain!"

  "Aye!" bellowed Roc harshly. "They've the shapes of folk, but where's the folk? Gone, anyone can see it! They're like empty gloves, these shapes!"

  "Like toys!" spat Bure. "Toys, that's all you make of men!"

  "Puppets to dance to your will!" yelled Tenvar. "Call yourself Keeper? Waster, despoiler, grave-defiler, bird of carrion, so I name you—"

  With fearful speed, without any warning, the shape of Holvar launched itself upward from where it sat, seized Tenvar in its arms and bearing him backward to the ground it lunged open-mouthed at his neck. Even as Kermorvan, with a great cry, swung up his sword and sprang right across the fire, Holvar's shade sank its teeth into Tenvar's throat, tore and worried like a wolf. Kermorvan's blade, a fire-lit streak of gold, slashed once, twice, about the thing, and in the same heartbeat Bure's sword hewed its arm and Ils' axe rang against its skull. It rolled back, but Tenvar lay still, his hands outthrust, rigid, clawing at nothing, his wide eyes still and unseeing. Elof, frozen with horror, saw the other shapes rise up as one, and he seized Gorthawer singing from the scabbard. The giant shape of Eysdan loomed over him; half-sobbing, Elof slashed wildly, Gorthawer sang a great dark note and the creature was hurled back among the advance of the rest. They halted, stumbling, and the black blade snarled in the chill air as he wove it back and forth before them. Back they swayed as it passed, like dark reeds upon the marshes, but inched forward when it was furthest from them. Then he heard Roc cry out as if in disbelief, and could not help looking. The creature that was Holvar, hewn and slashed as it was, was on its feet once more and clawing out with its good arm at Kermorvan's throat.

  "Run!" yelled Elof. "They fear my sword, it will hold them! Run to the far crossing while you can!" Then he whipped back to his own adversaries, and it was as well he did; he had the fraction of a heartbeat to duck aside as a long arm hooked at the air where he had been. In that instant's inattention Taoune's creatures had almost reached him. Gorthawer hissed out in their faces, and they dropped back, but only a little way. Elof heard crashing among the trees; at least the others were getting clear. As if in a dream, he noticed for the first time that his panting breath hung in silvered clouds before him, but that before these nightwalkers there was none. Another shape bounded up beside him, and in panic he almost cut at it before seeing Kermorvan. "I told you to run!" he shouted.

  "The others have a start now! Come!"

  Even as they glanced aside to speak, the wave of dark creatures leaped silently forward. Elof struck down the clutching thing that looked like Borhi, and Kermorvan, with a hoarse yell of fury, slashed at the thing that was Kasse, sending it crashing backward into the dying fire. "Run now!" he shouted, and seizing Elof by the arm he all but dragged him up the far side of the hollow. Out among the pines they charged, over the barren carpet of dead needles and out, out again into the open air, so cold now in the latter hours of the night that it was like breathing the starlight raining down on them; it turned to cold fire in their straining lungs.

  They overtook Ils, Roc and Bure as they neared the crossing. They were the shortest of limb; Kermorvan had been right to win them a start.

  "Should we stop again?" wheezed Elof. "Hold the pursuit back once more?"

  "No!" gasped the tall man as they drew level with the others. "In the open they would only run past us… At the crossing-stones we may hold them…" But even as he spoke they saw dark shapes thrashing through the harsh bushes ahead, hastening to cut them off from the crossing. He set a faster pace, to take Elof and himself into the lead. "We may manage to cut our way through! There are not many…"

  He was cut off by a sudden strangled shriek. A tall lean figure had come bounding up behind Bure, clawing and clutching at his trailing cloak, and even as they turned they saw it catch hold and spring upon him as he stumbled, sending them both sprawling among the thorny scrub. Kermorvan spat a curse, whirled about and sprang back with all his lithe speed. He struck out once, tearing the creature loose; it folded its limbs as it fell and sprang at him. His sword scythed in the air, and clove the figure in half as it leaped. At once Kermorvan stooped to Bure, but stood abruptly, shaking his head, and came running back to the others, swinging a pack in his hand.

  "Run!" he shouted, and there was a wilder horror in his voice than they had yet heard. "That was Tenvar took him! Run, ere Bure comes after us in his turn! Run, for the last stretch!"

  The horror of that thought, of being pursued by the friends they had seen slain a moment since, stampeded them all. But as they charged down the last slope Elof's heart sank in his breast; the instant's delay had cost them the crossing. Dark figures were massed there now, and some were already streaming up the slope toward them. But he saw Kermorvan raise his sword with set face, and copied him; here there was no retreating, and if they fought well enough, some at least might win through. He read the same knowledge on Roc's face, and on Ils', and wondered crazily if in minutes to come he might not be fighting her semblance, or she his. Together, without shout or war cry, they plunged into the last stand of bushes.

  Then he almost fell over, as something huge and black shot up flapping before his face. A harsh scream tore his ears, and from far downriver he heard it answered. He looked wildly that way, toward the distant Forest where heavy rainclouds swept over the horizon, rising to envelop the sinking moon. Like winged daggers against the clouds he saw two black silhouettes rise to meet, wheeling, cawing and squawking in idiotic triumph at what they had found. The bushes blew and riffled into his path, snaring him, holding him; all through him there coursed a sudden thrill, an awareness of some vital change, and a thought that was almost too great for his mind to contain. Then he cupped his free hand skyward, and shouted to burst his lungs.

  "You there! You searching sentinels! Tell your master! Tell him, ravens, with all speed! I call in my debt! What is owed, I reclaim!"

  It was as if the world had stopped, a moment of breathless, prickling hush so profound that Elof held his breath, though his lungs labored with the effort. It seemed he must listen, listen hard. The wind was changing. That was what he had felt! From the southwest came a stirring in the air; the light flickered as a vanguard of the cloudbank touched the chill moon and passed across it, blotting it out. A cold droplet, heavy and wet, stung his upturned face, another, two more… But for a moment more the moonlight broke through, and in its brief gleam he was appalled
to see the dead leap forward.

  Then the moon might have come crashing down upon the earth, so great was the blast of white-violet light that shattered the night. Into the ground before them it struck. Elof reeled from the impact, and the downpour that crashed to the ground like a curtain of steel chain almost knocked the travelers off their feet. Elof recovered, staggering, soaked in an instant, and then, as abruptly as the lightning, something huge plunged out of the rain into the midst of them, and he and Kermorvan had to leap for their lives. It was a horse, an immense beast and white, and its shrill neighing rang louder than the wind, the stamp and trampling of its huge hooves louder than the thunder and the roaring rain which danced smoking from its flank. A rider it bore, Elof could see boots in the black stirrups, but all above was hidden by the blinding torrent. Across their path charged the beast, then it wheeled and reared up against the rain and came thundering back, so close to Elof that he had to jump once more, lost his balance and crashed down onto the hard wet earth, almost losing hold of Gorthawer. Strong hands seized him and dragged him up.

  "Run!" screamed Ils in his ear, and Roc's voice echoed it.

  "Run!"

  "Run!" cried Kermorvan. "They come!"

  His legs obeyed faster than his mind; he was running before he knew it, running blindly into the sheeting rain, his only guide Ils' hand on his arm. He glanced back, and saw shapes in the grayness bounding hard on their heels. Ils' grip slipped from him, and he whirled round, ready to fight. But then the great horse was among them again,

  plunging, snorting, wheeling about as if to trample them all. Its huge flank slammed into him, sending him reeling off backward in the mud till he plowed into Roc, who had fallen to his knees. Elof hauled him up, and they staggered on after Ils' voice. The next few minutes were sheerest nightmare, of icy mud and drumming, stinging rain, of falling and being helped up, of helping others up, of losing hold of someone and screaming frantically to stay together, and, most of all, of fighting to stay out from under those maddening, terrifying hooves that came charging out of the storm at every turn or step, whenever they were least expected, making the travelers jump aside or be knocked off their feet. There might have been a thousand horses around them, yet Elof knew that there was only one. And always there was the rain, roaring in his ears, hammering on his head till his mind seemed malleable as any metal, his thoughts struck shapeless. Time lost its meaning. How long he had been running, or where to, he had no idea. There was only the mud, the endless ache of exhausted limbs, the hands that dragged him on, the others he dragged in turn, and always, always the white horse plunging, the cascading rain. But suddenly, as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped.

  In the sudden blackness Elof tripped; he had no choice but to stop running. He risked a hesitant step forward, stumbled and barked his shin on some sharp straight edge of stone. Then he cried out in surprise as he was himself rammed in the back by a small but solid weight. "Ils?" he gasped.

  "Here!" came her voice from behind him. "The others?"

  "Here!" said Kermorvan, so close beside them that they both started. "And Roc?"

  "Here!" they heard him say, but he was not so close, and his voice sounded strange, as if there was a faint echo behind it. "What in Hel's halls was that all about? And where are we now?"

  "I guess," said Kermorvan carefully, "that on some trifling debt our mastersmith has been given full repayment, and an excellent rate of use! And that more than one Power found us when we quit the Forest. But to answer your second question, I fear we must stand quiet and await the dawn. Do not move till you can see! Who knows now where we might be…"

  Silence fell, broken only by heavy breathing. But despite their fierce run, nobody was panting, and Elof felt no more tired than he had before; his limbs had been aching just as badly then. Very slowly he stooped to touch the stone at his foot, and the contact sent a shiver of excitement through him. Cold and bleak it felt, covered with lichen, but its shape, its sharp edges, were regular, formed, made. Then he looked up, and saw that the blackness had turned to gray, but it was the gray of evening, not dawn. Beside him stood Kermorvan and Ils, staring wildly at the immense heap of rocks that loomed up before them, high enough to blot out all else, spreading out like arms on either side to form a small bay or cleft. In a narrow gap at the base of the wall stood Roc, and he was gaping idiotically, not at them but past them. They looked at each other, and as they turned Ils gave a little shriek, and Kermorvan swallowed visibly. The end of the bay was open. Before them, clearcut in the cold air, a vast plain stretched out unbroken to the far horizon, flat and barren save for the frost-twisted remnants of grass and bush. The cold was devastating, the light clear but thin, as if here the sun were forever veiled. In all that chilly emptiness no bird sang, no beast moved, no figure stirred. And of island, of river there was never a trace. They were utterly alone.

  Chapter Eight - Dry Grasses

  "So!" said Kermorvan stiffly, as if surprised to find he could speak. He smiled thinly. "I am glad I never doubted your earlier experience, Elof. Here we are, still together, and it seems none the worse for… whatever has become of us."

  "So, indeed!" said Ils sharply, fixing Elof and the barren lands beyond in a single impartial glare. "Here we are, and where's here? It still looks like part of Taoune'la to me, and no better than the one we left, with the night drawing in. What Ve we gained?"

  "Wherever we are," said Elof absently, gazing around him, "I am sure there is some purpose in it, though we may have to search for it. Perhaps the rocks would offer us some refuge…"

  "A perilous one!" snorted Ils. "This whole hill is some huge ancient fall of scree and boulders, with barely enough earth about it to hold stable. It must've hit something, some standing rock or outcrop maybe, to fan out into this little notch."

  Elof shook his head. "No outcrop." He tapped the stone he had touched in the darkness, and others strewn about. "This one, that, those over there; weathered, but the shapes are still visible. Something of dressed stone, something manmade… or made, anyhow."

  Ils shook her head incredulously. "Strong enough to break that fall?"

  "So it would seem," said Kermorvan quietly. "Some of the boulders were shaped also."

  Once he had pointed it out, the fact was inescapable. Many of those immense bulks, looming against the cloud-roof, had once been subdued to a shaping hand, and this evidence of its strength held them in awe a moment. Then the rough excitement in Roc's voice broke the spell. "To Hella with those pebbles! Come see what I've found!" They saw him still standing in the gap between two tall stones, staring down as if at something on the ground and beckoning them urgently. He climbed up a little, to squeeze his rounded frame further in; then, with a sudden outraged howl and a deep bouncing, echoing rumble, he vanished. Elof and the others ran to his aid, Ils for once in the lead despite her shorter legs, bounding over the loose rock with sure-footed ease. "Hold on!" she shouted, and flung herself down on the edge of a protruding stone. "See? There's loose rubble everywhere…" But even as she spoke the edge where she knelt collapsed, the stone pulled free and tipped her down into the darkness in a flurry of rock and dust. Kermorvan, leaping up, made a futile grab at her disappearing ankles. A rumble and rattle echoed out of the dark, and a jolting shriek.

  "There's rubble indeed!" Roc's sardonic tones echoed eerily out of the dark, and the sound of Ils coughing and swearing, sounding more angry than hurt. "A whole loose slide of it!"

  "Are you all right?" Elof yelled.

  "Aye, considering!"

  "Don't move, we'll pull you up…"

  A ghoulish chuckle floated up to them; Ils was evidently undaunted by her fall. "No! Do you come down! There's something you should see. But your eyes will need some light. And mind your head, long man!"

  "Come down?" demanded Kermorvan. "To what purpose?" Elof tapped him on the shoulder, and indicated the stones flanking the gap, that had kept it from collapsing or being blocked with debris. Very worn and weather-scoured they were, tho
se massive tilted slabs, but upon their inner surfaces the remains of neat edging and beveling still showed clear. Kermorvan raised his eyebrows, and nodded.

  "Very well! But what can we use for light? We have only our tinderboxes, and what little oil and kindling is in them…"

  Elof smiled. "I may be able to do something about that. Wait now!" From within his tunic he pulled his gauntlet of mail, and drew it on in one smooth movement. "One could wish for more sun or brighter, but still… Now where is the west?" Kermorvan pointed, and Elof swung round and extended his hand, as if he would capture in the gem at the center of the gauntlet's palm all the pearled radiance of the westward sky.

  "There indeed the sun sinks," said Kermorvan grimly, as he stood waiting, wrapping his cloak round him against the intense cold. "Over Bryhaine, over Nordeney, over all that we have left. All that now depends on us, little though it knows it, upon our quest. And there remain only four of us to fulfill it!"

  "The four who threw down the Mastersmith," said Elof quietly, not looking at the tall man.

  "I know," Kermorvan answered. "And I think it no accident. Perhaps we were simply the hardiest, the most alert, most accustomed to long and perilous wanderings, most inured to frightening encounters. Perhaps there was something more; who am I to say? But sorely though I regret the others, I could ill have spared any of you. So, since we have come this far together, let us not be parted ere the end!" He stood straighter then, and his gray eyes shone, bleak and grim as the skies, yet as lasting, as untouchable. It was Kermorvan as he had been, and yet not so; it was as if his determination had indeed lost some of its fire, but become thereby all the harder. He had not lost his doubts; but in that awful moment by the fire he had confronted them, defeated them, made good use of them to grow stronger. It was a path Elof knew only too well, a journey he himself had made.