The Forge in the Forest (49 page)

"What's true, you damned doubletalking loons?" hissed Ils, an instant ahead of Elof.

Kermorvan shifted on the stone. "That there is, and has long been, an… say, an undercurrent within our folk. A mirror image of all we believe and stand for, a hater of all we revere, a worshiper of what we shun the most. A secret reverence of the ancient Powers. A hereditary cult of the Ice."

Bryhon nodded. "A fair summation. Save that we despise, rather than hate. And we do not merely revere." His voice became suddenly smooth, and yet beneath it, like quicksand beneath a firm crust, was the tremor of a growing excitement. "We
worship
. As we have done ever since the first days of men, among the former, lesser, Winters of the World, before even the rise of Kerys the Accursed. From Kerys we came to Morvan, and from Morvan westward, though by ill chance here in the east our line failed also. And in all that time we have striven against the spreading, corrupting filth that is mankind. Whithersoever men flee, so shall our faith flee with them, to the utmost corners of the Earth, to the last breath drawn. It is mind we worship, bold and independent, freed from the stinking cesspool of the body. We seek the utter cleansing of the world, the cooling of that corruption, the frenzied, thoughtless ferment that is life. We atone for our flesh by subduing it to the service of the purest mind, we seek its mortification and the suppression of its demands…"

"And meanwhile you lust after power and possessions," said Elof dryly. "Spare me sermons I have heard before, Bryhon. I know their worth."

"Do not judge me by your late master!" snapped Bryhon urgently; a nerve had been touched. "That he was something of a hypocrite, I allow, though he thought himself a strong believer. But is this hypocrisy?" With savage energy he thrust back his right sleeve almost to the shoulder. "Or this?" He pulled apart his jerkin to bare his barrel chest.

Kermorvan exclaimed in horror. Roc cursed. Ils turned away, looking sick, and Elof felt his own gorge rise. The wide skin of the upper arm was a lacework of scars and weals, some old and faded almost to whiteness, one or two new and angry half-healed scabs. The chest was the same, save that there were also thinner weals curling right round his body, as if lashed with a whip of hot wires. "To this exercise of faith I have devoted my life, as my father and his fathers of our line before me! And you, boy, you dare name me traitor!"

Roc spat at him. "Aye, and all your cracked forefathers! Hella fry the pack of them in their own mad filth!"

Kermorvan gave a sigh of astonishment and even pity. "I can guess now why you have never taken a wife, last of the Bryherens."

Bryhon tilted his head. "We are bound to wed only in later years, and solely for the engendering of heirs, of course, not for mere pleasure."

"Of course. But I meant… other things."

"Small wonder he got here safely!" muttered Ils. "Not even the Hunt would soil their claws with him! He might enjoy it!"

Bryhon's eyes widened at the mention of the Hunt, but he regained his composure at once. "So that's the company you've been keeping all this while, is it? But do you think it much to have crossed this land just once? These last few years I have crossed and recrossed it many times."

"Over the Ice, of course," said Elof.

"Only at first," Bryhon answered. "The Ekwesh we had to bring that way, though it meant losing a good few. But they are brothers in blood of the Hidden Clan, and took that as they should. No, I tread a faster way, and a darker. How, you of all men should know; the means was of your making, after all."

Elof snapped rigid in his chains. "The Tarnhelm!" he cried.

"Indeed. Lady Louhi had it of your master. But she has honored me with its use, many times, in preparing the taking of this place and the assault on Kerbryhaine. I was concerned lest you had seen me appear with it, that night on the battlements, but your wits were fortunately slower than I expected. Your late master had only then finished giving me an exaggerated idea of them."

"So it was you betrayed us to the Mastersmith!" said Ils, in tones as silken as Bryhon's own.

He shrugged. "Naturally. By the helm's aid I could take frequent counsel with him, to ensure that I and those few followers I would still need should be safe when Kerbryhaine fell; the smith and I were kin from afar, but that made us more rivals than allies. And of course I summoned the Ekwesh to waylay your expedition when you set out. If there had been more of the Hidden among them it would not have been so mishandled."

"Strange," said Kermorvan quietly. "To think I almost believed you meant your wish, that we would reach our goal…"

"I did!" said the dark man, as if mildly surprised. "It was my duty to prevent you, but I hoped you would manage nonetheless. Because here I would be free to settle with you myself, as I could not without sacrificing my influence in Bryhaine. Here I could fight you openly, and end you and your decayed line at a stroke."

"Well then!" blazed Kermorvan suddenly. "Here you see me! You have only to speak the word. Unbind me, return my sword! Then let us see which way the stroke falls, which line is ended!"

Bryhon shook his head. "Pain it is to me, but I cannot. I came chiefly to tell you as much, and add my regret. That grace is denied me, and your lives allotted to another. A matter of discipline, I believe, a certain stiffening of the will, and a fit requital for many strayings. And on your part, reward enough for the trouble you have caused us. Madness and despair await you before your death, for such is the gift of the one who is sent you." He looked round quickly at the open shutter, and when he turned back fine beads of sweat glistened upon his high forehead. "I must not be here. I have lingered too long as it is. Tomorrow I return to the west, to set in motion again that cleansing strife you have hindered, and the assault that shall follow. Do not delude yourself that any shall halt it. The raven is a carrion bird, and cares not whose bones he picks. Farewell!" The low steps were taken in one stride, the door slammed, the key twisted sharply, metal squealing upon metal. Then there was no sound save the quiet harmony of wind and sea, far below.

Elof sought to speak, and could not. Nor could the others; the terror they had read in Bryhon had infected them all. The man had been deadly afraid of being caught up in what was about to happen, even of witnessing it, though his strange shadow-life must have acquainted him with horror enough. A sudden clink of metal made Elof start and tremble, till a sobbing breath of effort told him it was Kermorvan straining furiously against his bonds, and vainly. Elof too tried, till the very seams of his jerkin were ready to burst, or the threads of the muscles beneath. But the steel of chain and manacle held firm, and he toppled on his side in the dust, gasping. Fear settled on that darkened cell as slowly, as thickly, as the disturbed dustmotes that drifted down through the bright moonbeams. Suddenly they leaped up, those dustmotes, as a blast of chill air whistled in the cell, and another, another, a pulsing beat like great wings. The motes sprang and swirled and sparkled like metal, ever more thickly, more brightly, till it seemed that the dust swirled into shadow, into solidity, into a slender shape of light and shade. There in the moonlight it took form, and out of the moonlight it seemed made, a thing of silvery brightness and blackest night. Brightness it wore as mail, night as a cloak outspread like black wings, one with the outer darkness of the cell. Bright was the helm it bore, black the fierce bird-eyes of its visor, black the
long
spearshaft, bright the gauntlet that brandished it high above their heads. But brighter than any,

blacker than all, were the spearblade at its tip and the swirl of patterns set thereon. They caught at the eye and held it, yet Elof stared past them as if they were not there, at the fair face half hidden beneath the visor, the lips that moved, that voiced his name.

"Alv! Elof! Look upon me!"

In awe and terror, in sick apprehension, he could scarcely find voice. "Say, then, who you are, so fair, so grave! Show me your face!"

Like distant chimes on a chill night rang the answer. "When I am armed for war, who meets my gaze thus leaves life and light behind. They alone may look upon me now, who are marked for death at my hand."

A deadly shudder shook Elof, a qualm of chill like the onset of some bitter fever. A grim laughter rose unbidden to his lips, for that voice, changed as it was, he knew. "So will you slay us here, bound and helpless as we are? Speak then, bold one! Set your name to the deed!"

"Of the Morghannen am I, the Valkyrior, Givers of Life, Choosers of Death. A Warrior of the Powers am I, and from them is your death my charge. My name is Kara."

"
Kara
!" It was if the name was wrenched out of him, though he had known it from the first. He gazed up at her, his thoughts awhirl like the dust, unable to take in what he saw, what he had been told. He could not accept her as the girl he had first spoken to, lost and unhappy as any daughter of men might be, as the slender form he had held and kissed in an hour of dark danger. Yet, just as surely, he knew this was her, that this was the truth of her, and the consummation of the fears that Tapiau's words had sowed in him. And he remembered also how afraid of Kara the Mastersmith had seemed; his heightened awareness must have sensed some peril in her. Elof could not fly from the truth. He had dared to love one of the Powers; how foolish she must have thought him! His heart seemed to wither within him, as once he had seen a man wither and known it for his own work.

It was like drowning, like being back in the Forest lake with dark claws dragging him down. Sickness, emptiness, loss welled up over his head. The world, the act of living, seemed suddenly alien things, beyond his understanding, and he pulled darkness about him like a shroud. For him nothing remained… Yet even as that thought came to him, he knew it was not true. His very desperation came to aid him. His friends, bound beside him, they remained, they would suffer if he could not help them. So that was left him… and a memory of whispered words. "
Kara
! Is this then what you are? Then you choose also between truth and falsehood. For once you swore to me that you were of no common sort. And true is that! But you swore also that you would not change!"

The mouth twisted, the helm flinched, yet haft and blade did not. And grave, implacable came the reply. "What I am, I am. The sentence given I must execute. That pain is mine to bear without ending. Make ready, and be still."

Elof swallowed desperately, and fixed his eyes upon the blank mask of the helm. "Hear me! Are you then a Warrior of the Powers? But which Powers? A Giver of Life. Are you a Chooser of Death? Then why do you serve those who admit no choice? By whose will do you deal out death?"

The upraised blade wavered. "By the will… that binds me! Seek not to change its working, nor delay. No fear, no weakness has it that you or I could challenge. Seek not to worsen your agony, and mine! Even now…"

"Even now?" He heard himself shouting, his voice echoing in the vault. He strove to force strength into his words, to drive them upon metal at his forge. "Even now you are tormented, Kara! Even now you are torn! Torn between your will, and that which is set upon you! Between what you are, and what holds you in thrall! Be what you name yourself! Choose freely!"

A shiver rippled through the mailed flank. The spear faltered, fell away. Then she jerked violently, her head thrown back as if some sudden hand had seized her at the
neck. Her voice rose to
a
cry. "Upon me you look! I have no choice left me
!" Back flew the cloak, scattering shad-

ows. High rose the spear, madness shivering at its tip, and at his heart it drove.

The patterns on the spearblade seemed to writhe and uncoil like a nest of snakes, and strike full into his eyes. Darkness and cell wall vanished, he was hurled and buffeted amid a torrent of boiling blood that softened his flesh like wax and washed it from his bones, while shrilling voices shrieked wordless taunts in his ears. "Kara!" he screamed, over the voices, over the torrent's thunder. He struggled to hold on to his thoughts as they were broken and scattered, his memory as it dissolved and leached away; to one perception he clung, one sudden rock in the torrent, the sight of her arm upraised as the cloak fell back, and upon it, leaping like understanding to his eyes, a sudden flash of gold. "Kara!" he cried out. "By what you took upon yourself I conjure you! By the virtues I set within it I command you! For by my armring also you are bound!" Abruptly he was sprawled on the cellar floor, every muscle clenched and cramped in shrieking rictus, and above him the birdmask stooping. He drew a tortured breath. "Yet in those bonds… lies only freedom. Kara, by what you are you have sworn! Be yourself, then! Be free! And as ever you loved me, aid us! They do have fears, we are their fears! From the city they hid us… and so you may thwart them! Do what they feared! Rouse the city! Summon—" The arm flashed forward. The blow fell.

He screamed something, he convulsed against the immovable chains even as the blade chilled his neck and struck downwards. The cell lit with a flash of white fire; he felt the blasting force of the blow, and it was as if it rebounded on Kara. Her head snapped back, her spine arched, and behind him the stone wall splintered, the taut chains shattered and flew ringing apart. His hands sprang free. Kara shrieked aloud, the dreadful shrilling cry of a wounded falcon; vast wings beat once in the narrow space, the open shutter smashed to splinters, and with wrenching suddenness she was gone. Elof fell face down upon the earth.