The Hammer of the Sun (6 page)

Elof took the hint, and poured them both wine from a jug on a side-table; Roc downed his in one gulp, and held the beaker out for more. "Not bad," he wheezed. "Distinctly passable, in fact, though the soot's got into it again. Don't your forgeboy keep it covered up?"

Elof peered suspiciously into his own goblet ."I don't keep a forgeboy anymore; I get the prentices in to help as I need them."

Roc snorted. "No wonder place is a mess, then. I've half a mind to take up my old post again; you're not fit to look after yourself. What's this that's got you out of your bed so early?" He glanced at Elof from beneath his bristling brows. "Or kept you out of it all night, eh? My, my, must be something good and juicy!" He squinted at the small moulds, into the cold crucible. "Silver? Not stuff for the fleet, surely?"

"Hardly!" smiled Elof. "That's day-labour. This is to be a gift, a surprise, so not a word of it. Even to Marja…"

"Scant danger of that!" grunted Roc. "Smithcraft's not a thing we talk about; jewellery least of all. Well, these moulds look about ripe for cracking. Want a hand?"

"If you're not too weary," grinned Elof, striving not to let his misgivings show. But it would be a worse risk being seen to hide anything from Roc; he was no fool. And since he could see nothing of the craft within the metal, what harm was there? His stubby hands were every bit as deft as Elof s as they prised apart the metal shells and chipped at the crumbling clay within. Below lay the chalk, sintered now to the hardness of the rock it came from; but under Elof s impatient grip its edges flaked away, and he shelled it like some strange fruit, catching his breath at the gleams of bright metal that showed through. He brought down a jar of corrosive from the high shelf and mixed a weak solution in water.

"So!" said Roc, as they watched the chalk fizz and bubble away, revealing the clear outlines of the pieces. "Not bad. Not bad at all. Neat as Marja could manage, or any other master jeweller I know. But that's no surprise. They the way you wanted them, then?"

With great care Elof hooked the gleaming pieces out of the cleansing bath, ran them a moment beneath the waterchute and held them up, first to the red-tinged duergar lantern, then to the thin light that was filtering down the air-shafts. "Yes," he breathed, seeing the intricate pattern of lock and feather wind its way around them without the tiniest flaw or bubble to break its inexorable course. "Yes! They are. Indeed they are." They set a catch in his voice, for he had the true smith's love of all things harmonious and fair. Yet not only their perfection moved him, but the sight of the shimmers and flickers that to his eyes darted this way and that in the metal, like fish below clear ice.

With a friend's privilege, Roc reached up and plucked down one of the gleaming things, like rare fruit. "Bracelets, eh? But why open like that?"

Elof smiled. "Anklets, rather."

"Mmmh. I see; so they'll fit over the foot. But won't they need hinges?"

"No; the natural spring of the metal…"

Roc nodded, and his powerful fingers closed around the thick ring of silver, narrowing the split. "No!" barked Elof, and wrenched the fair thing from his hand. Roc raised his eyebrows mildly, and Elof smiled in apology. "After it's annealed, I was going to say. A long slow heating and cooling, to heal any inward stresses."

"All right," grunted Roc. "I wasn't going to risk closing it all the way, anyway; guessed you'd be wanting to work on the catch. Can't see how it'd undo, as it is."

Elof shrugged. "It's important they stay on securely."

Roc grinned in wry agreement. "Fair enough. She's an active girl, your Kara, more active than most. You'd be wanting anything you gave her to fit close and stay close, all right."

Elof relaxed, trying not to show how shaken he had been, how vital it was that those clasps should close only at the right time and place, and in no other. It was a fell thing he had shaped here, in its way, but there was no help for it. He had only to think of her drawn back to Louhi's clutches to make it all worthwhile again. He balanced the anklets in his palm, and was startled to see blood on the metal. It was his; he had reopened some of the worse cuts when he snatched the thing back. Well, on the outside of the piece it could do no harm; he turned to wipe it away on a clean rag. Then he froze. On the outside… But he had paid little heed to his injuries earlier in the work; he could have bled at any point, onto the wax, into the silver… The tokens; he could have added his own blood to that feather. And there was no way now he would ever be able to tell.

"What's amiss with you now?" grunted Roc. "You've a face on you the colour of milk, and sour at that."

"I… It's nothing. Just… an effect, one that might turn out good or bad, I've no idea." He choked down his sudden flood of anxiety. There was always slight contamination when you touched something, a flake of skin, its natural oils; that mattered little, so why should this? And after all, could he really be bound up any more closely with Kara than he was? It might even strengthen the thing. He smiled wearily. "I was really wondering… I've a fair amount of silver left that I'd like to find a use for. Do you have any notions?"

Roc fingered his stubbled chin. "Not just now, but then my mind's that muzzy, I've not slept; something to help us on our jaunt south, that's a good an idea as I can hatch right now. Me for the palace, and some breakfast. And a bath; they should have the bathhouse warming nicely by the time I get there. You could use one, after your labours; set you up. Coming?"

Elof considered a moment. "Why not? But hear me; if Kara is there also, not a word of the gift, remember!" He shut away the anklets in a secure cabinet of iron, and closed up the forge with as much care. Then they went together out of the Guildhalls and into the winding streets of the northerners quarter, at whose heart the great building stood. A light spring rain was falling, making the scale-tiled house-roofs shine, gurgling out of the open-mouthed dragonheads at their gable-ends or running in sheets down their wall timbers, caulked tight as ships with the figures brightly limned in red and black upon them; little rivulets chattered down between the cobbles into the central gutter. Roc looked at the ships rolling at anchor, and up to the ornate weather-vanes on the house-roofs, and groaned.

"Wind's swinging around the compass again; clear dawn when I came in. Ah well, that's spring for you; that'll give us an interesting time at sea, that will, just like always."

Elof grinned sympathetically; Roc was unhappily weak of stomach in a lively sea. "You know," he remarked, watching the vanes creak back and forth over the tiles, "That was no bad thought of yours. Something to help on the voyage, indeed. I'll think on that!"

And so he did; even as they took their ease in the royal baths, stretching out weary limbs on the steam-room slabs and drifting in the heated pools, his mind dwelt on it still. Then friends and fellow-courtiers came to join them, and later Marja and Kara, and the demands of the day took over his thoughts. His other, deeper concern he forgot entirely for that time, the matter of the blood. Yet in the years to come he had cause to remember it, and wonder if this petty accident might indeed have played a strange part in his fortunes. For to the effects of true smithcraft, say the annals of that day, it was ever hard to put any bounds, and never more so than in the hands of Elof, called Valantor.

From that day forth he had in any case little leisure for thought; the day of departure was near, and his was the ultimate responsibility for all the work his helpers, men and duergar, had made ready. What spare time he had he devoted to reforging the extra silver; he would leave nothing so perilous behind to suffer the whim of chance. This work was less subtle, for the forces of nature might be stronger than the turning tides of heart and mind; but it cost him much hard labour incising its pattern with maul and chisels, and beating down an inlay of gold wire into the troughs thus made. He had chosen the complex pattern, coiling and intertwining in the Southland style, that represented Amicac, the Sea Devourer, embodiment of the terrors of the oceans. But it represented also their regality and strength and as such it was the favourite emblem of the boldest corsairs, and fitted his purpose well. From time to time he would sing snatches of old fisherman's shanties he remembered from his youth in Asenby village, songs chiefly concerned with summoning fine weather and catches, simple but strong. More often, though, he whistled hard between his teeth as he worked, recalling the pipe-whistles the seawise smiths of Nordeney used to forge for mariners to summon up the breeze. And as often happened to him, a work he had started casually took hold of him, and ere it was finished he had set within it a surpassing craft and strength.

Such was the turmoil of those last days that he could not finish it till the very eve of the fleet's departure, checking its balance carefully on its steel mounting and giving it a last buff and polish. It only remained for him then to gather up the tools he always travelled with, and close up his forge for the summer. Last of all he took the anklets from their cabinet and thrust them into an inner pocket; then he locked the doors behind him and hurried out and into the ways leading up to the palace, seeing that the sun was almost down. That night Kermorvan was feasting all the mariners of the fleet, some two thousand in all, at a great banquet of state that would fill all the wide halls of the palace, and he should attend. Not that it mattered much if he was late; but Kara might be anxious. As it was, they managed to make their entrance a few minutes before the King himself took his seat. Till then the centre of attention had been Ils, queenly in white among her guard of thickset duergar, but Elof was uncomfortably aware of all eyes turning to Kara, for the beauty of her and the mystery, garbed in a gown of forest green and set about with the jewels he had made her.

"Do you hear them stir, down there at the crews' tables?" she whispered, as they took their seats at the high table. "Do you know why? Folk from the west or the remote townlets, who have not seen me ere now, they turn to their neighbours and whisper, "
Is that not she, the strange one, the shapeshifter that he took from the Icewitch? What is she, in truth? And what is he, that he loves such a one
?'"

Elof chuckled. "And their wiser neighbours will answer that if they cannot see good reason, they must be blind! Or fish-blooded! And for your inner self, they'll cite the courage you showed in freeing their king, the ways you've helped us on our journeys… scouted for us, healed for us, fought for us -"

"For you!" she said quietly, clutching his hand beneath the table. And then to a flourish of music Kermorvan entered, and as one the crews rose to cheer and stamp. He acknowledged the rowdy tribute with a quiet nod and a lifted hand, and moved smiling to take his place between Ils on his right hand and Kara on his left. The feast began then, and it was a merry one, though neither long nor drunken; Kermorvan wanted his crews fit on the morrow, and would have a severe way with any who were not. It was well before the middle hours when Elof and Kara made their way back to their apartments. As Kara laid aside her jewels Elof opened the chest, took out the cloak and made as if to drape it about her shoulders. But her own strong hands held his wrists, and she shook her head, smiling. "Do you keep it for me still; pack it among your own gear, and give it me only at need, take it back when that is past. I would not add to your worries on such a voyage as this!"

Elof s mouth quirked; he understood only too well that she was paying him back, very gently, for having asked it of her. He put aside the cloak and drew her to him, and the anklets he left in his pockets, without a further thought.

But on the next day's dawning, when they went aboard the longship
Prince Korentyn
, flagship of the fleet, at its anchorage in mid-harbour, Elof had his other work ready to hand. Kara, bare-legged, swung through the boarding port with a lithe grace; he clambered unsteadily after her, while the wherrymen swayed up their heavy packs to the deck. Together they made their way aft to the sterncastle, where stood Kermorvan, directing the disposition of his fleet. His clear voice was ragged and cracking with the effort of shouting orders; messengers scurried this way and that about the gently heaving deck, and the signal flags fluttered like bright butterflies in the crowded harbour. He had no more than a glance to spare for the newcomers, and that of relief; they were the last aboard, for Elof had been carrying out some final refitting aboard other vessels. Already aboard with the king was Roc, and also Ils, as she often was in these days; that was natural enough, in that she also was a ruler, seeking to establish and extend her realm in the Meneth Ledannen, and was hoping to bring many more of her folk eastward on this expedition. Only Elof, who had once by chance overheard a strange conversation, was inclined to wonder what more might lie behind this, and he kept his own counsel. She was leaning on the rail now, squinting in the morning sun, regarding the confusion with her wide sardonic grin; it broadened, if anything, when she saw Elof and Kara, and she waved them lazily over.

"Scurry, scurry, scurry! Everyone rushing about at the behest of their feelings, too busy to stop and think! That's men for you. Or humans… eh, lady Kara?"

Elof stiffened slightly. He was very fond of Ils; but what she thought of Kara he had never been sure, and this stress on humanity made him uncomfortable. In many ways Kara was more human than the duergar, and knew it. But Kara only smiled, and took Elof's arm. "I find they have some uses, both of them. What's amiss, here?"