The Forge in the Forest (2 page)

"But how?
How
?" He pushed the scroll aside and took up the cool metal in his hands. If metal it was, in truth. For no furnace would heat it, no file bite upon it, no hammer subdue its stubborn strength. Not all his smithcraft, all his long study, all his strength of mind or arm, neither the flames of his forge nor the fires of his need could make that blade anew!

"Greetings, worthy smith!" A sound of thunder rang through the smithy, rattling the heavy door on its hinges; still greater was the impact of the voice. The blade flew from Elof's fingers, the bench he sat on overturned as he sprang to his feet in fury and fright. But the latch was up, the lower door already swinging open, and Elof's anger slackened as he saw what manner of figure stood there, half hesitant in the shadows of the street.

The man was old, that was obvious. In the dim light from the forge his wide hat shadowed his face, its battered brim drooping across one eye, but it only served to stress the whiteness of the windblown locks and beard beneath. So also the heavy mantle, that had once been dark blue and was now sorely stained with travel. The shoulders beneath were bowed, and he leaned upon a great staff of smooth dark wood, crowned with its own bark. A strong support but hard, perhaps, to manage; Elof forgave him his clumsy knock.

"Greetings!" said the old man once again, and bowed courteously. "A wayworn guest asks hospitality of your hearth awhile, that shone out warmly from afar in these nightbound streets." The voice was gruff yet deep and resonant, with more than a trace of the northern burr. Elof smiled at his old-fashioned courtesy, but still he hesitated.

"Who is it that asks? Who has sought out my smithy in all this great town?"

The old man stepped slowly through the door, as if that had been invitation enough. The Seabreeze frisked in with him, whipping up the forge charcoals, pulling puffs of smoke from beneath the chimney breast. "A wanderer only, so the world might call me. For indeed far and wide I have wandered, many long leagues across its face. And further still, it seems, I must go."

/
doubt as far as
/, thought Elof wryly, but said no such word, and moved to usher the ancient gently out. A beggar once within is harder to turn out, and the city was full of northern beggars now, young and old, who had slipped past the gate guards; he could not feed them all. Also, of this oldster's face he could see only a great hooked beak of a nose with a bright dark eye above it, and in that a gleam he
did
not altogether trust. Elof laughed, and fumbled at his belt for a coin, enough for a night's lodging. "Well, if you're called a wanderer, the last I would be to detain you. Here is alms, but I cannot…"

The old beggar paid him no heed, but advanced into the smithy with that same slow stride, his mantle sweeping odd swirls in the dust. Elof stopped, startled, and let the coin slide back into his pouch. He must once have stood very tall, this ancient; even now his head was on a level with Elof's, and the pale mottled hands that gripped the great staff were long and muscular. In the trembling fireglow his shadow loomed enormous against the smithy wall. "Good man greets the journeyer gladly, aye, so it was said in the Northlands, was it not? For I hear them in your fair speech." Elof blinked at the mild rebuke, but sought to bar his way nonetheless. The old man ignored him, and turned toward the hearth. "So it was ever with me, in the old days. Men made me welcome then, gave me food and drink and even gifts. True men, they, not scared to admit a stranger. Trouble fears, that trouble wills, thus they said, and opened their doors wide."

"Troubles I have!" sighed Elof, resenting the nettle's sting. "Why do you come to worsen them?"

"I would only sit by your hearth," grunted the old man, lowering
himself slowly and
wearily
onto the brick seat
, sighing as he laid his back against it and basked in the warmth. "So! Since it is grudged me, this scant rest, I must fee you for it as best I can, with wisdom. Much I have seen, learned many things strange even to men of lore; counsel of mine has lifted gnawing care from many men's hearts. Ask of me what you will!"

Elof sighed. "Nothing is grudged," he said firmly, "but I have many labors. Take the alms I offered, and leave me to them. I need no counsel that you could give…"

The old man tossed his head contemptuously, and Elof caught a glimpse of his face, lined but hard like some ancient tree. "Are you so sure of that?" demanded the stranger sternly. "Many who deem themselves wise fail only to know the extent of their ignorance!" He poked his staff clumsily at a pile of bound books. "You, you bury your nose in dead words. You seek some secret, that is plain. Words hold many, that is true. But not all!" Again that dark eye flashed from beneath the ruined brim, quizzical, mocking, and lit upon the crippled sword. "Ann. You seek a means to mend that blade…"He chuckled. "A fine strong lad like yourself, can you not simply hammer it straight? No? Then however did you make it in the first place?"

Again the dart flew straight and keen; Elof felt his ears burn, his cheeks flare, and cursed beneath his breath. "You do not know," mused the old man, cocking his great head to one side. "You cannot have shaped the blade for yourself, then. It is not… yours."

Elof glared at him. "It is no man's else, I found it, where it had lain buried beyond sight or memory—"

The old man shook his head querulously, his shabby hat flapping. "So! Found is not freely given. Yet sometimes even a gift must be earned, must it not? A horse that one must learn to saddle before riding, a boat to rig before sailing. It is not for me to say, but such gifts might be given to teach the given new craft, or make him aware of that he already has. Thus truly he wins both the gift and the skill for himself, and stands free of all obligation save gratitude."

Elof stood very still. The forgefire was crackling now, whipped up by a breeze sharp as a storm's outrider. He looked askance at the old man, hard to make out against the smoky glare behind him. "Skill I have sought…"

"Aye, in books of another's wisdom. They have their place, perchance. But I had always heard that magesmiths of the north were such men as ever sought new truths, new wisdoms in the very ebb and flow of nature itself."

"Aye!" said Elof fiercely, stung now to the quick. "So we do! The mastersmiths, the great among us, they harness with their craft the many forces of this world. To heights and depths they put forth their hands, and grasp them, bind them in cunning work. The true mastersmith fears not to snatch those forces even from the hands of the very Powers that wield them!"

The old man laughed softly to himself. Then, with a speed that startled Elof, he hauled himself up one-handed upon his great staff and with the other clawed up the black blade from the table, heedless of its hair-fine edge. Outraged, Elof sprang to seize it, only to stop short with a gasp as the great staff, twirled effortlessly about, tapped against his breastbone. The hand he raised to dash it aside faltered at the slight cold sting where it touched him. His fingers closed more gently round the bark, found it a mere wrapping over a shape beneath, and chill meltwater coursed in his veins. It was an edge he touched, narrow, hard and tapering. This staff at his breast, hard on a strange wound's scarless site, was a tall spear, and in hands deft to wield it.

The old man nodded softly. "Proudly spoken, my wise smith, to set your kind against the Steerers of the World. Yet know you of what you speak?" He straightened suddenly, effortlessly, and the black shadows seemed to flutter round the forge, chill-winged on the freshening wind. "Over this world was set their dominion ere it was shaped. Over sea and land they rule, over sky, over stone, cloud and mountain, forest and lake, plain and river, over all that lives, plants, beasts, men. And over the Ice." The great staff that was no staff stretched out in a wide sweep before him, as if to score some mighty secret on the flagstones, as if to encompass the wide world. On the outflung arms the mantle billowed as if in the winds of the heights, and flew like a banner from the shaft. "High and wise they are, and surpassing strong, the least and weakest past measure of men. In their slightest glance is seeing, their least thought knowing, their smallest gesture… power." Outheld like some vast scepter, the staff's head glanced lightly against the flaring forgecoals. The smithy rang with a shattering sound, a blast of thunder that flattened flames and spat sparks stinging and sizzling into the smoky air. The floor shook, flagstones heaved, and a great blade of glaring light leaped between hearth and chimney; a thunderbolt burst beneath the roof. Wind shrieked, smoke rolled in blasted tatters across the room, the lamp, blown out, topped and shattered; the tools ranked upon the wall jangled and chimed. But amid this stood the old man, stern, unmoved, cold as a winter sky, his dark eye glittering in the shadow of his hat.

There was silence then, the strangely unquiet silence, still reverberant, that comes after cataclysmic sound. And in it, distant, faint but very clear, Elof heard what might be an answer, a faint crackling rumble borne from far off down the shrilling Seabreeze. The gusting air, sobbing and rattling at the door, pressed chill against his stiffened spine, and he began to shiver violently.

"Well, cunning smith," demanded the old man quietly, "do you repent now of your pride?"

Mutely, holding his eyes on the old man with utmost intensity, Elof shook his head. But the strange wanderer only leaned wearily on the great staff once again. Shrouded still stood its crown, but in the rippling shadow the firelight cast upon the wall the shape of a broad spearhead stood out clear.

"Well enough that you should not. For—as I have heard the wise tell it—it is only those of the Ice, those who fail in their trust, who desire slaves, servants, subjects. The true Steerers cannot, being themselves doubly servants, to a cause and to an end. And that end is best served by those men who need their help least." He sighed, and turned toward the door. "I cannot fee you for your hearth-gift; you need no counsel of mine. I depart in your debt, as before."

Elof stared. "As before? How so, for I never laid eyes on you till now? And counsel I need! For I still don't know how to reforge the sword…"

The Wanderer had reached the open door; there he paused to look back, the picture of way-weary age. Yet his eye gleamed brighter than ever, and what lurked below the tremor in his stern voice seemed nearer mirth than misery. "You should not think to mock me! Have you not told me of it, you who aspire to clutch the forces of the world in the palm of your hand? The answer lies open to a child—were not children wont to fear!" He gestured contemptuously with his empty hand, and his mantle fell away from his arm. Beneath it gleamed blackness as dark waters under the moon, a breastplate and the hilt of a vast black sword. Then the old man ducked through the door and was gone.

"
You
!" yelled Elof. A sudden crazed anger seared away awe and fear, and he ran headlong for the door. "You again! Raven! Stay, you Wanderer, you get of a—"

From the blackness a bird's harsh scream answered him, a wordless essence of mockery, and the swift ring of shod hooves upon cobbles. And he knew that one of those hooves he had shod himself. Out into the street he burst, but it was a vale of blackness; many great storehouses and tall granaries of the Merchant's Guild stood here, and their shadows blanketed it deep. Only at the far end, by the harbor, he thought he saw for an instant the gleaming flank of that lofty warhorse. But it flickered again, and he saw it was only the herald of the approaching storm, lightning that leaped from cloud to cloud glittering against the pale stone. The wind blew hard in his face, the first cold droplets stung him; it was thunder, not hoofbeats, that drummed afar. The Wanderer had vanished as he had come.

The distant lightning awoke a reflection at his feet. There, glinting on the cobbles, lay the black blade. He snatched it up and stared at it, caught and baffled: what could the old fox have meant, to claim its secret was already his? A third of its length from the tang was so sadly wrung and twisted that the rest stuck out at the crazy angle of a broken limb. Thus indeed it felt to him, and one not yet set or splinted. Had it not defied every art he could summon up? Even the secrets he had learned of the duergar, who could look deep into the very form and structure of metal, had failed him. And if it was not metal? It had to be metal, it felt like metal, it could not be obsidian or any other glass, or any of the odd stones savages and poor men had once used. And yet, as he played it in his fingers, he became less sure. That gleam was undimmed, its edge undulled; even long years sunk in a marsh had failed to fault them. Could the hardest metal endure thus? But how to test it? With a lodestone? Many metals would not answer one. With corrosives? To succeed would be to damage it.

Elof stood there, his head whirling like the stormwind, and fought for calm. One might ignore what an old beggar mumbled, but surely this weird being said nothing without purpose. How might those words apply to him? He did not know what wisdom he lacked. He had the blade as a gift, but a gift that must be earned with new and daring skill. He could not assume that the lore of it was to be found in books, but more likely among the ebb and flow of nature. How? Where? Somehow he had said it himself! In fury he hammered at his brow as if he might reforge the mind within.

The storm crackled as it drew nearer the land. Above the harbor wall the dark outline of the Tower of Vayde stood out stark against the coruscating clouds: it woke intrusive memories in him, of fear and blood and pain, and of love found and lost. He strove to force them down and concentrate his thought. In angry defiance he had prattled of a magesmith being able to put forth his hand and grasp…