The Forge in the Forest

by Michael Scott Rohan

  At last, at the end of a long cold half hour, he clamped his fingers tight across the jewel. "Will that suffice?" Kermorvan asked, as he turned to climb back to the gap.

  "Even this weak sunlight is far stronger than torch or candle. If I let it out little by little it will last us many hours."

  "As long as you can maintain your grip," said Kermorvan, peering doubtfully down into the darkness, and swinging himself into the gap. "I go first, to be sure you do not slip!"

  "Very well, but first let us light our way!" He stepped up, and checked as he felt his feet slide out from under him. But in the same instant Kermorvan's steely grip closed on his arm, and he was able to lean forward into the darkness and stretch out his fist.

  Slowly, carefully, he relaxed one finger a fraction. Light pooled in his palm, glinting on the metal of the gauntlet, so that it seemed to float disembodied in the blackness. Then the glow began to spread slowly, spilling down the slope of loose rubble to where Roc and Ils, scratched and dishevelled, were awaiting them. Kermorvan swung himself nimbly onto the treacherous slope and moved down it with ease, Elof scuffling one-handed after him and trying not to dislodge too many stones. The air underground seemed fresh and cold as outside, with none of the odors of damp and niter he would have expected; perhaps it was too cold for that.

  "Now, Ils," called the warrior as the last of the slope crunched under his boots, "what is in this darksome cavern that you are so eager to show us?"

  "For one, what you're standing on!" she said. "Look well!"

  Kermorvan scraped idly at the layers of dust and dirt with his boot, then dropped suddenly to one knee. A plain pattern of concentric circles had appeared, in shades of red that shone startlingly rich against the dim dust. "A mosaic floor!" he exclaimed.

  "And as fine as any you've trodden, I'll warrant," said Ils. "Save perhaps among my folk. But this is no work of ours I recognize."

  Kermorvan rose suddenly and seized Elof by the arm, lifting it high. "And this no cavern, indeed!" A wave of pale light flooded across high smooth walls, glanced upon the angles of vaulting in the roof high overhead. Elof gazed around in astonishment; this was an intact chamber in a building, and of no mean size, at least twenty paces square. And it stood still, under the immense weight of the rock-fall that had shattered its upper levels. For how long had it endured thus? A hundred years? A thousand?

  Kermorvan nodded. "A strong building, Elof, as you said. But whose, I wonder, was the strength?"

  Elof looked around in astonishment. "I cannot say. But at least it offers some shelter for the night, this place."

  "A damned chilly one!" Roc grunted. "At least there's no damp, though, and no nasty things crawling about. Nothing live at all!"

  "Not even lichens and molds," muttered Ils. Her wide nostrils flared, and she sniffed. "And I smell no bats, which is odd; they love such places as these. The lands about must be too hostile for them. But as for us," she added, "there's just one little thing more…" She pointed to the darkness at the rear, and Elof, retrieving his arm from Kermorvan, sent light in the path of her gesture. The sudden flooding glow revealed a wide gap between floor's end and far wall, a well of blackness beneath.

  "Stairs," said Ils laconically. "Used to be covered by slabs of this mosaic; see their fragments strewn about it now. And as for where they lead, well, it's too black even for my eyes down there. But the air's fresh enough, in fact it's flowing this way. What'd that suggest to you, now?"

  "A tunnel…" said Elof, and whistled softly.

  "You thinking what I am?" demanded Roc.

  Kermorvan thumped fist into palm. "Kerys! This is the purpose in bringing us here! This is what we are meant to find!"

  Elof frowned. "Perhaps. But where can it lead? Around us there is only the Waste, and this hill of stones."

  "They must have fallen from somewhere," Roc pointed out. "A high place we were too deep down in that cleft to see…"

  "So sudden a rise in this flat land?" mused Kermorvan. "Elof is right to doubt. A tunnel it may be, but how long? Will we have light enough? We should go back outside, and scout…" His voice tailed off. Beyond the gap the glimmer of sky had vanished, and there was now only blackness. Night had come again to the Withered Marches, and it brought them deep unease.

  "Looks like we'd better camp down here, then, and wait for morning," muttered Roc. But he sounded less than happy with the prospect, and cast a suspicious glance at the sliver of darkness above. "Doesn't seem much shelter now, though…"

  Elof agreed. "Not open thus to the night, and with a second unknown darkness beneath us. And we cannot even build a fire here."

  Kermorvan nodded feelingly. "A tunnel may lead down or up! I think before we decide to rest, we should at least have some idea what lies below. We may find some corner there that is safer, or at least more easily watched."

  Ils shrugged. "I'm ready enough. And I confess, the further I am from that black sky, the happier I'll be."

  "Then we will take a morsel of food, and explore it ere we rest," said Kermorvan. "But Elof, hoard that light of yours, and warn us when it grows dim! Its last glimmer is our lifeline!"

  When they had eaten a little and rested, it was with drawn sword that Kermorvan led them down the stairs. Behind him, as he commanded, came Elof, arm outstretched and already beginning to ache, and with him, her large eyes peering eagerly into the darkness, was Ils, whose duergar strength could best support him if he lost his footing on the rubble-strewn surfaces. Roc brought up the rear, casting many a nervous glance back at the shadows that rushed in as the light passed on. It was no easy descent, for though cut into hard stone the steps were narrow and steep and hollowed with wear, and at the top they were strewn with rubble that had spilled down. Very deep that stair led them, angling this way and that, so that the travelers never knew what to expect round the next corner. But for long there were only more stairs, till at last it came as a jolt to find the next step as level as the last, and hear the faint echoes of their footfalls go fluttering away into air grown suddenly wider, cooler. The stair had become a level corridor, its rounded roof supported by arches whose plainness gave no clues to their builders. Through other arches other descending stairs opened into it, but at its end, only a few paces away, there was a wall of blackness. Elof's light reached no further into it than the fringe of an enormous flagstone, and yet somehow, perhaps through a change in air or sound, the impact of space and emptiness beyond was as tangible as a wall. Involuntarily Elof clenched his fingers, and the light vanished. Quickly he held up the gauntlet again, and as he did so it clinked against metal; something creaked, slow and harsh, startlingly loud in the corridor.

  "What was that?" hissed Kermorvan. Hastily Elof turned the light that way, and saw the warrior's tense shoulders relax a little; heavy hinge sockets protruded from the wall, and dangling from them the sorry fragments of what must once have been a strong gate. But as he stepped out into the space beyond, Kermorvan's manner was still watchful, and Elof, following him, saw why.

  It was no mere cavern or tunnel. On either side of the gate the walls stretched out as far as the light would reach. Their stonework was immense, yet somehow rougher and more ancient than in the chamber above. The flagstones too were larger, and laid without pattern or ornament. Kermorvan gestured to Elof, who very gradually unclenched his fingers a little further. Light welled and spread over the dusty stones, but the blackness seemed to swallow it, and he had to loosen his grip still further. Then he sprang back and caught Gorthawer ringing from its sheath; Roc growled and snatched his mace, Kermorvan dropped into fighting stance and his blade hissed and flickered in the still air, defying the tall and sinister bulk that seemed to burst in among them through the leaping shad-

  ows. But Ils only laughed, caught Elof by the arm and held it steady, and they breathed more easily. The shape no longer seemed to move; it was so close they had almost blundered into it. It was only a pillar, squat and unadorned, first of long ranks that stretched out glimmering into
shadow, supporting the wide low vaultings of the roof. If it had only been higher this place would have seemed like some great hall, or even the square of a prosperous town, for its walls were pierced with gaps of deeper blackness, doorways and alleys leading away into night. Roc clicked his tongue in wordless astonishment.

  "Well!" whispered Ils. "Whatever this place is, at least it is not small. But clearly it was built more for strength than beauty."

  "Couldn't be some old warren of your folks, could it?" suggested Roc.

  Ils shook her head. "The masonry is excellent, but we have seldom built in such a fashion; we favor the living rock. Well, stair and corridor are bare enough, and poor places to linger; we might fare better here. Let us look!"

  They spoke still in whispers, because the slightest sound echoed and carried so clearly in the still air, and because the hall was that kind of place. It reminded Elof of the great tombs and shrines of Bryhaine, but with an air of power about it that all their decorations and stained glass could not match. Even when they found many of the pillars cracked or broken like diseased teeth in a healthy mouth, and that a great part of the ceiling had collapsed, burying a good quarter of the square, it did not diminish the aura of strength; rather it increased their wonder that so much more of this ancient stonework still held firm, without sag or cracking that Ils' keen gaze could detect. Somehow they felt no less safe beneath it, and sensed that strange atmosphere enhanced.

  "Yet it seems wholly empty," Kermorvan muttered, stirring the rubble in one of the doorways with the toe of his boot. "And unmarked, undecorated, as if it were not in everyday use…"

  "Not wholly!" hissed Roc. "There is something here… Elof! Do you let me have more light! But be careful!"

  Rubble from the fallen roof had piled up like a landslide against one wall, and he was clambering eagerly up onto the heap, scrabbling away at debris covering what appeared to be a plaque of carved stone. Elof, straining to hold his hand higher, could make out some design on it in relief, but not what it represented. Kermorvan hoisted himself up on long limbs to look closer, and a frown settled on his face.

  "A crest of some kind… A design like a flame, with something behind it, something beneath… But it cannot be…" And he too fell to digging away the rubble. Then he paused, and sat back on his haunches. "A beacon," he said softly. "A cresset, such as is burned on the tops of our tall towers to guide ships at sea. And behind it is shown the outline of a wide-sailed ship… Kerys! I have never seen it drawn thus, but I know the sign well. Past all error, it is the emblem of our Mariners' Guild." He looked around, and shook his head in sheer disbelief. "Then… it was my people who built this place?"

  "Aye," breathed Roc. "Must've been… But why? And where are…"

  The sound that stopped his words was all the more sudden in rising out of such utter silence, the more frightening in being, in this sterile place, the voice of something alive. But it was not human. It was a deep coughing growl that came echoing out of the darkness. That it was far distant did not diminish the menace of it, and it jolted them back to the dangers of the realm they were in. Heads turned, bodies tensed, hands caught at weapons, too suddenly; the disturbed rubble shifted beneath them. Whose foot it was that first slipped, whose balance that was lost, did not matter, for none could have avoided it. Elof certainly was not to blame, for it was down upon him that the others slid and tumbled among a landslide of loose stone and stinging, choking dust. He had no time to resist, nor any hope of it; the slide landed with a thunderous, torrential crash, his legs were whipped from under him, and he fell backward, arms flailing. His head hit the paving with a stunning ring, his fingers clutched convulsively and sagged open. For a moment it seemed that lightning struck in the chamber, so bright was the glare that filled it, showing every nook, every corner in stark relief and jagged shadow, setting every mote in the billowing dustcloud agleam and dancing like iridescent jewels. It showed the travelers to each other, sprawled in grotesque attitudes, wide-eyed, dishevelled, dustsmeared, blood-streaked from cuts and scratches. Then it was gone.

  Utter blackness rushed in on them, a darkness so absolute it seemed solid, more stifling even than the dust. Elof, struggling feebly to rise, found himself seized by strong hands and dragged swiftly free of the rubble. "No bones are broken?" hissed Kermorvan in his ear. "Good! Get back to the wall, that way! Stay silent!" Elof blundered into the cold stone and leaned there, fighting to quieten his breath, to listen in the absolute darkness; it was all too easy to imagine something, drawn by the noise, rushing toward them. But after a moment he heard Kermorvan's urgent whisper again. "Nothing stirs! So we have a few minutes, at least! Is all the light gone, Elof?"

  "Yes!" he choked. "I am sorry…"

  "No fault of yours! Ils, if you can see anything…"

  "Nothing!" she gasped, her voice shaken.

  "Look back!" whispered Kermorvan harshly. "Do you press your back flat to the wall here, so, and you will be looking back the way we came, to the stairs! Some faint glimmer of light might yet filter down…"

  "Still nothing!" Her voice was shaking, and that was a rare thing. "It will still be night out there…"

  "There might be moonlight!" insisted Kermorvan with savage urgency. "Move your head about, there may be a pillar in the way! Come, girl, you are our only hope!"

  "No!" she sobbed. "I have walked too long by day… If we wait till dawn… Ah!"

  "What?"

  "Light… very faint, but true light… but that cannot be the way we came down!"

  "We have no choice!" muttered the warrior grimly. "Even if it leads us onto that beast, that way we must take! To linger is to court the same fate, for surely it will be able to hunt us by scent and sound!"

  "And if there are more stairs on the way? Or worse obstacles?" demanded Ils.

  Metal tapped softly on stone. "I will feel the way with my sword. But the nearer we come to the light, the better you should see such things! Take my hand, and Roc yours, and Elof, do you bring up the rear this time!"

  "I don't mind!" grunted Roc, barging into Elof as they shuffled along the wall like a troop of blind beggars.

  "Kermorvan is right!" Elof whispered. "Gorthawer is sharper than your mace for anything to run onto in the dark!"

  "Quiet, and follow!" said Kermorvan, and his voice had his sword's edge. "Now comes the worst of it!"

  And indeed it is recorded that, although there were dangers as great, few hours in all that long journey seemed worse to Elof than that travail in the dark. For in the blackness he could do little but find one footfall after the next, sliding and scraping across the stones, and listen, and think: he lost the sense of the passing moments, and the fires of his fancy burned high. It brought back to him the stairs of Vayde's Tower, and the black emptiness he had sensed there, the wrath and regret that churned the very dark. Here too the dark seemed full, but of no single feeling; it was empty, yet filled with complex patterns, like the molds for some intricate jewel. It pressed in on him like a vast crowd, insistent, demanding. Were they the builders of this place, these thronging phantoms? He sought to separate them, to bring some distinct image of them into his mind's eye now that his outward sight was made useless. But what rose up before him was a single face, a startling image that faded even as it became clear, yet seemed burned into his memory. Haggard it looked, hardened, yet in its way handsome, the jaw firm under a short white beard, the nose straight and strong but flanked by eyes that burned like coals out of deep sockets, belying the lines of age about them, the forehead deeply furrowed beneath thick white brows and hair. It was a commanding countenance, strong and wise, yet holding an alarming ferocity. And somehow it was known to him. He felt a great need to recognize it, and he wrestled with it in the blackness. He thought of Korentyn, or Kermorvan at his most lordly and ageless, but this man they resembled only in stern kingliness and strength; there was no likeness of feature. And this face wholly lacked the calm kindness native to them both; he felt that even its compassion would be fierce.
It puzzled and haunted him all through that dark time, and for long thereafter, ere he came at last to the truth of it.

  How long they walked thus in the blackness they never knew. Elof could gauge it only by hunger and thirst, and lack of sleep; he was not hungry when they set out, but he was ravenous ere the end. He thought it foolish to dwell on that; time enough for food when they had light. They had their packs, at least, and Kermorvan Bure's also. There was food enough for a few days, if they were careful; though by then they had better be under the sun once more, and among living things. But where their way was taking them, that they never knew. They went a good way round the walls of that deep hall, across the mouths of many doorways and corridors that led off from it, whither they knew not. Every moment they awaited that dreadful growl once more, or a sudden silent rush out of the shadows; Elof clutched Gorthawer tight, leaving the hammer at his belt, for it was little use if he could not see its target.

  At last Ils found the opening that was the source of the light, and they turned to follow it. Kermorvan sought to blaze the wall with his knife at this point and others, to mark the way should they need to return, but he could seldom be sure whether he was marking an alcove or a corridor, or even whether he made any visible mark on the unyielding stone, and he soon gave up. Ils tried to count her steps, but the way was too long, and there were too many stumbles. That they passed through at least one other hallway they were sure, for they touched more pillars. But it was far from there to the light.

  Deep into those winding ways it led them, from open space to narrow way, till Elof began to fear it might be some wisp of foul air, like the marshfires that led travelers astray. But Ils insisted that it was growing brighter as they drew nearer, and Kermorvan pointed out that they seemed to be following the flow of the air, raising hopes that it might be another way out. They heard no more of the terrible growls, and that, too, heartened them. At last, as they made their way down a wide lane, it seemed to Elof that he could see something more than the shifting colors of the eye in blackness, and a moment later he was sure: he could make out the shapes of the walls at the end, silhouettes against a faint greenish glow. It was not long before Kermorvan also saw it, and Roc, and they hastened to find its source. The lane ended in another open space, this time round in shape, its upholding pillars arranged in circles. But as before, some were damaged or altogether broken, so that the stone roof had cracked in many places. Between those cracks some stone had fallen away and left a wider gap; it was through this that the light came, a long streak in the roof. Kermorvan blinked. "I had not thought us so close to the surface," he remarked. "We may indeed find a way out here! Let us look closer, but this time take more care!" The air here grew very cold. They edged closer, clambering more carefully over the heaps of debris, gathering under the precious glow. Kermorvan was the first to reach it, and look up. But all he did was stand there on the rubble, saying no word even when Elof staggered up beside him. He saw why at once.