The Hammer of the Sun (43 page)

In a few curt words he told his friend what had passed; Roc could do nothing but shake his head. "It's beyond me, either of them - if you didn't but dream them both up -"

"
No/
It was more like awakening. This could be the dream… and I would to all the powers it were!"

Roc scratched his head, and chuckled. "Sorry; I'm all too real. Tell you what, though, I'll stand here awhile with you, if you will, and scan the skies; though your eyes are sharper than mine, and I don't think she'll come back. Not tonight, I mean," he added hastily. "But another night, for certain. And each time she's come closer; that's something, isn't it?"

Elof scraped a crutch in the snow. "Thanks for that comfort; I should accept it, I might - if she had not come so hard on Tapiau's warning! What did she mean? What was her purpose - and whose, her own or Louhi's?"

"Who am I to say? But it's a question better pondered within doors over warm wine. Or better yet, slept on. Will you not to your bed?"

Elof resisted, but soon let Roc draw him away. But ever and anon he looked about him as they made their way down into the hollow where the forge stood, spilling golden warmth across the snow from its open door. As they turned the corner towards it Elof cast one lingering look back; and stopped dead, though his crutches sank deep into the snow.

"What is it?" Roc whispered. "Do you see her again?"

"No!" whispered Elof. "Do you look there!"

"What then? The slope, the water, the further shore. Snow upon snow, and the first clear night we've had for an age and an age -"

"Clear it is, clear as glass… and as brittle. Look up, man, up! To the shore, the hills, the far horizon - there the night is not clear. A fell word is written on it, have you the eyes to see." Roc saw; and caught his breath in anguish. For that sight he also knew too well, and too many memories came flooding back. More than the light of moon or star picked out the peaks of the most distant hills; faint and tenuous though it was, there was no mistaking it. Like the light of some distant lake, impossibly still, the radiance of the Ice flew across the night; and in it, through it, the lights of the aurora danced and flickered.

"But it's hardly closer than it was!" exclaimed Roc. "Still far too far for any direct assault, whatever Tapiau told you…"

"There are other ways of being close! Perhaps he sensed Kara's presence, for something of the Ice must cling to her. Or did he mean… Roc, what wind has chased the clouds so swiftly?"

"Why, a bloody north wind, can't you feel it? Straight off the Ice, brrr…"

"Yes! All along the horizon, so the Ice can shine out clear. Like a signal… or a banner…"

Roc shrugged dismissively. "As far off as this? It'll not daunt us!"

"Aye, but is it for us? How will it look close to? Remember what Kermorvan and I told you of, on the glacier?"

Roc whistled. "As if the sky'd frozen and the stars come down to dance! A fine rallying for the forces of the Ice!"

Elof nodded. "That assault I foresaw - I'll wager it's that! It would make sense! To have it two years in the brewing, building up their forces - and these raids a mere sham of Louhi's devising, to keep them well blooded but preserve their strength!"

"And wear down Nithaid's!" muttered Roc. '"We'll have to warn him!"

"How far will he credit me, after I warned him last? Hel, they won't even be able to see that display from the mainland, they're too low! A few lights in the sky and words in my head, you know what he'll make of that!"

"Whatever he does, we've got to try!"

Elof frowned. "Yes. But there's little we can to till daylight; none save Nithaid himself, or one or two of the guards, would come near Elan Ghorenhyon by night!"

"Not even if we fired the whole forge!" growled Roc. "And they're all up at the palace. So be it, since it must! At first light, and may it be in time!"

But there was no need. If it should seem strange that the chroniclers count that one night's happenings as crucial, then let it be remembered that the weightiest of balances turn on the finest of points. It is known that, even as Elof and Roc spoke, lights danced in the sky over Kerys as over the Wild Lands, angry sparks of red and gold; the beaconfires sprang from hill to hill like the first sparks of a racing forest fire, and after them the golden flashes of the signal mirrors. Even as Elof flashed a mirror towards the guard-post on the harbour wall, royal messengers were spurring their lathered mounts across the slippery cobbles around the harbour, and ere he had sent his warning he saw beyond the walls the masts of the tall cogs stirring as they were warped from dock to loading quays, ready to re-embark the troops they had but lately released to homes and families. The assault had already begun.

More word soon followed. The first assault had spent itself among the maze of Elof s defences, with terrible slaughter done by the light garrison; but they themselves had taken great losses, and feared another such attack would leave them unable to man the wall. There were signs that one was mustering, greater than the first; but strange beasts prowled the lands around, and terrors stranger still, and trackers and spies who sought to discover more did not return. Nithaid was needed, and that very afternoon he set sail with such force as he could gather from the city, leaving his commanders to raise levies from the other lands and follow.

Elof and Roc were watching from the vantage of the forge as the flotilla departed; but they were surprised to see the king's cog drop anchor in the lee of Elan Ghorhenyan, and Nithaid himself be rowed ashore. His greeting was unceremonious. "What's this about a warning of yours?" he was bellowing before his boat scraped onto the shore. "How'd you come to know something was afoot?"

Elof told him only of the lights over the Ice, making no mention of Tapiau or Kara, and he tugged angrily at his beard. "It looks bad!" he muttered. "And you can't tell me more? No more cunning tricks to hand?"

Elof studied the king a moment. His heavy face seemed to have loosened, coarsened; he had grown fatter, and there were dark pouches under his eyes, stale wine on his breath. "I have nothing ready to show you, King."

Disappointment and desperation chased like clouds across Nithaid's face, and the veins at his temples bulged. "
Nothing
?" he barked, then, with a glance at the men in the boat, he lowered his voice. "Nothing at all? What've you been about these past weeks, then? What d'you think I treat you this well for? You're still a thrall, by Verya, and you'll serve as one! Are you needing the lash to remind you?"

"I do have a work in hand," Elof answered truthfully, "which may be of great service against the Ice. But it is not yet finished -"

"Then finish it, man! Finish it today, while I watch!"

"King, if I could, I would, believe you me. But you should know by now that smithcraft cannot be hurried. It will take some weeks still. But when it is done, I promise, the first to see and wonder will be you!"

"If I'm still here," muttered Nithaid, and then added "If I'm not, you are answerable to my sons, remember! The throne will be theirs soon in any event. I grow old; I can stand little more of this…" He drew a deep breath, then straightened up, turned on his heel and stalked back to the boat. Over his shoulder he shouted back "I'll have it the moment I return, mind you!"

"There goes a man afraid!" observed Roc thoughtfully as they watched the king rowed back to his ship. "Looking for some straw to clutch. Now he'll be telling the rowers he's had counsel from the sorcerer, so they can spread the rumour to hearten his troops…"

"And so he can blame anything that goes amiss upon me!" said Elof, with a grim smile. "Well, to work; I have a promise to keep now. At least it will be many weeks more till we are disturbed again."

In that, as it turned out, he was wrong. It was only some three weeks later that Roc's cry brought Elof hurrying and stumbling up from the depths of the forge, the light hammers and shapers he had been using spill-ing from the pockets of his forge-leather. He leaned on the window-ledge and squinted into the bright morning sun. "You're right!" he said in some surprise. "A royal barge, painted like a jaybird and flying the Sun emblem! But Nithaid never uses such a thing to come see us…" He and Roc looked at each other.

"Someone more fond of pomp and luxury… I'll wager it's
them
!"

"No stake!" said Elof dryly. "I can see them; and it's here they're headed."

"Then do you go clean up and don a robe, something ceremonial! The more magesmith these two see and the less thrall, the better!"

Elof nodded thoughtfully.

When a horn sounded a flourish from the hill outside, it was Roc who swung open the heavy door of the forge; Elof smiled to himself as he heard the flourish falter. Someone was evidently nervous at finding himself here. The two tall figures who stepped over the threshold, however, could hardly have radiated a more arrogant confidence in their manner and their rich dress, scarlets and greens; it might only have been interest that had caused them to hesitate before the great sun symbol upon the door, or the dimness within. Elof had closed the shutters and plied the bellows to the forgefire by whose hearth he now sat. He had donned a robe Nithaid had given him, and which normally he hated; it was of smith's black, full about the sleeves and hood, worked about breast and cuffs with symbols of smithcraft in gold, and he suspected it had belonged to Amylhes. But now it served his purpose admirably; he had pulled the hood over his face, and as he rose from the hearthside he felt he looked every inch the sorcerer. The crutches he could not help, but to offset them he held, as if ceremonially, a huge long-shafted hammer. The sight of him, shadowed against the head-high forgeflames, stopped the princes in their tracks.

"Hail, my lords!" he said, and his voice rang beneath the high rafters of the forge. "You honour the Isle of the Sorcerers with your presence. How fares the king your father in his wars? Does he send word by you?"

Behind the princes he saw Roc striving not to laugh; he evidently thought Elof was simply out to keep these young popinjays off balance. But Elof's purpose was more serious, and he pressed it home. Were these the new lords of Kerys he spoke to? The thought that Nithaid might be dead flamed agony in his heart. "Do you set foot here today by his command?"

The older one - Geraidh, was that his name? -looked Elof up and down with elaborate unconcern, and then turned to a workbench and idly picked up an elaborate piece of gold-work, a gem setting in fine wire. "Quite cunning!" he remarked. "I see now why he trusts you with so much gold. But then you have shown yourself worthy of trust, have you not? Many and oft a time; and yet you have reason to hate him - is that not so, Master Valant?"

"I have never pretended otherwise, prince."

Geraidh rounded on him sharply, taken aback by this casual mode of address. But he held back his words, and stood stroking his curling black beard, though something burned still in his eyes. "You hate a man, yet serve him faithfully…" He looked around. "And for a poor reward, it seems to me - eh, Kenarech?"

The younger prince chuckled. "I wouldn't kennel my hounds in such a hovel as this. You're a puzzle, sorcerer; gold flows through your hands, yet it seems that little sticks. I think our respected father has been rather unfair."

"Quite so," mused Geraidh. "I think that such service deserves its proper reward. You know that he has left the kingdom to us jointly, Master Valant? Well, if my brother is agreeable, I think we can certainly do better for you than this."

Kenarech chuckled. "Of course! We'll set you free, sorcerer - how about that, eh?"

"At the very least!" said Geraidh emphatically, gazing a little reproachfully at his brother. "Freedom alone is small repayment. In the old days a king would have ennobled a smith for that armour alone. I think a barony might be in order - a titular one, of course, with a stipend instead of land, to free you from respon-sibilities. To allow you to remain with us at court and practice your art there."

Kenarech chuckled. "Say then, would you not rather serve a better master? One who rewarded you more to your liking?"

Geraidh stiffened, and his dark eyes flashed a sudden anger at his brother; Elof read in it a warning. If it were possible to have them talk more freely… They would have to believe they were on safe ground for that. He bowed his head slowly, and laid down the hammer. "I have done so, in the past. Gladly would I do so once more."

The two young men visibly relaxed, and Kenarech
smiled mockingly at his
brother. "You will serve us, then, sorcerer."

"That may be," said Elof cautiously, "when your father wills it."

"Yes!" chuckled Kenarech, "And willed it he has! For his last testament is made. Made - and witnessed."

Elof bit his lip. "Do you tell me he is dead, then?"

"Cannot your dark arts reveal the truth of that?" inquired Geraidh sarcastically. "What if he is?"

"What indeed?" said Elof calmly, and shrugged. "That, if I mistake not, you will tell me."

Kenarech glanced nervously about him. "Send your man away! This is not for the ears of thralls…" Elof, smiling inwardly, glanced at Geraidh, but saw only fierce and wary attention. Well and good; for all their scorn they had soon forgotten that he also was a thrall. Imperiously he waved Roc outside; Roc tugged his forelock and altogether overdid his show of deference, mopping and mowing. Fortunately neither prince paid him the least attention. Their eyes were fixed on Elof. On Kenarech's smooth brows beads of sweat had sprung out; he sought to speak, but his voice had dried up to a hoarse croak. Geraidh's eyes narrowed, and he tossed the gold-work into the air and caught it deftly. He was a burly man like his father, but taller and leaner, and at some twenty-four years a far more impressive figure. Save in the eyes; his were narrowed, and without Nithaid's glittering vitality. "Under his will we inherit you with all else. We may do with you as we will, sorcerer. You would not wish to displease us, I am sure; but I need say no more than that." He smiled suddenly, a handsome, engaging smile. "You see, it is not my way to govern with threats. Or my noble brother's. We are not… shall we say, so single-minded as our father. We would not spill blood needlessly, nor dice with the lives of men. We believe in justice and peace."