The Sage (33 page)

“You
have not,” Illbane agreed. “However, we must still bring the chest to the
Wondersmith.”

Culaehra
sighed, closed the chest, latched it, pulled the leather up about it, and
buckled the flap, then stood, heaving the burden up to his back again. “Well,
it will be a long climb, but I am pleased to have this load on my back
nonetheless. Lead on, gnome-folk.”

Yocote
turned away, but Illbane stayed him with a touch of his staff. “Not that
way—not upward.”

The
gnome turned back to him, frowning. “How, then?”

“Take
us to the lake of molten rock.”

Yocote
and Lua both stared at him, rigid. Then Lua said, “How did you know of that
lake, Illbane?”

“He
knows many things,” Yocote told her, “very many, and I am not surprised that he
knows of that. But Illbane, that place is very dangerous!”

“It
is indeed,” Illbane returned, “but we will not come so close to it as that.”

“We
need not,” Yocote said sourly. “The heat will bake us long before we see its
glow, and if that is not enough, the bad air will choke us!”

“Not
even so close as that, Yocote,” Illbane said, smiling. “We shall find what we
seek before danger rises.”

“The
noise is horrendous,” Lua protested. “That horrible clanging will break our
ears.”

Culaehra
frowned, puzzled. “How can rock be molten? And why would it make a clanging
sound?”

“Rock,
too, melts if the fire is hot enough,” Yocote assured him, “even as iron comes
running out of rocks when charcoal burns beneath it. As to the clanging, I have
no idea what makes it.”

“You
shall discover it,” Illbane told them. “Come then, Yocote—lead us past this
lake, to hotter water.”

“As
you will,” Yocote sighed, and turned to lead the way with an anxious Lua beside
him. Culaehra glanced at Illbane, decided he didn't like the old man's smile,
then bent his back under the load and followed his diminutive guides.

They
threaded through subterranean passageways all that day and the next, sleeping
around a campfire of torches that stayed burning but never shortened. Now and
again the narrow corridor opened into caves—some large, some small—then closed
about them again. Twice they paced long galleries, and Culaehra and Kitishane
marveled at the paintings of animals that cavorted on the walls, seeming almost
to dance in the torchlight.

“Who
made these?” Kitishane asked, her voice hushed.

“Our
ancestors tell us only that it was men who painted them, long ago,” Yocote
replied. “We do not know why they did so strange a thing.”

“Men's
deeds are frequently unexplainable,” Kitishane said, and followed the gnomes,
leaving Culaehra to scowl at her back.

Onward
they went, through night divided only by the light of their torches. Culaehra
did not realize how much warmer it had become until the first time he wiped his
forehead. Then he stared at the sweat on his hand and felt fear coil through
him. Was there truly a lake of molten rock? But there was no way to avoid
it—and no way to know why Illbane wanted to go there. Of course, Culaehra could
have asked, but he felt certain Illbane would only tell him to wait and see.
Onward he strode, following the gnomes.

Toward
the end of that day, they began to hear the clanging. It was distant and
muffled, as if by layers of rock, but it was insistent as a heartbeat. It would
sound several times, then lapse, then sound again, over and over for an hour or
more at a time. Then it would stop for a while, but would unaccountably start
up again.

Culaehra
was tempted to say that they were nearing the heart of the mountain, a heart
that was ill, but he glanced at his companions' faces and thought better of it.

They
spent another night in the rocky tunnel, camping at a place where it broadened
almost into a cave. They piled several torches together to boil water and for
the comfort that light gave amidst all that darkness, but they certainly did
not need it for warmth.

Mercifully,
the clanging did not sound the whole night.

They
woke, broke their fast, then marched onward, sweat streaming from every pore as
the heat grew worse and worse. Culaehra had to remind himself that Illbane had
said they would not actually come to the molten lake—but halfway through the
morning the gnome stopped where the tunnel branched. “To our left lies the path
around the Forge,” he said, “but if you wish to see it, we must go right.”

Kitishane
frowned. “What is the 'Forge'?”

“The
lake of liquid rock of which I have told you. The gnomes and dwarfs alike call
it the 'Forge of Agrapax,' because there is an old legend that it once was the
fire for the god's smithy—pure silliness, of course.”

“How
close would we have to come to see it?” Culaehra asked.

“Close
enough to be very hot, not close enough to burn. It is a sight to overawe, they
say.” Yocote fairly quivered, his eyes gleaming.

Culaehra
recognized the signs and smiled. “But you have never seen it, is that it?”

“Never,”
Yocote confirmed, “and I would most surely like to.”

Culaehra
turned to Illbane. “Is it important for a shaman?”

“Very
important,” the sage told him.

Kitishane
smiled. “Then let us see.”

Yocote
laughed and leaped, knocking his heels together. “Then let us go!” He turned
away and strode smartly up the right-hand tunnel. The companions followed, only
Lua hanging back in misgiving.

The
heat grew worse and worse as the tunnel climbed. Several times Culaehra touched
the rock carefully, ready to snatch his hand away, but it never grew truly hot.
Finally, they came out onto a broad lip of rock and found themselves in a huge
cavern, lit by a ruddy glow.

“Carefully
now.” Yocote lay down on his belly and crawled forward till his face thrust
over the edge. He gasped and froze, staring.

Curiosity
triumphed. Culaehra shed his pack, lay down, and crawled forward; so did
Kitishane and, after a few minutes, even Lua. Only Illbane stepped near the
edge, leaning heavily on his staff.

The
caldron seethed below them, glowing red. It was the full width of the cavern, a
roiling expanse of thick, viscous liquid. Here and there it mounded into huge
bubbles, which swelled and burst. Culaehra stared, spellbound, and might have
stayed so for an hour or more if it hadn't been for the blast of heat that
struck his face on an updraft. He pulled back quickly, and so did the rest.
They stared at one another, shivering in spite of the temperature. “If ever
there was a home for demons,” Culaehra finally said, “that is it!”

“Hotter
than any furnace.” Yocote's habitual self-possession seemed shaken. “No wonder
they call it Agrapax's Forge!”

As
if it had heard him, the whole cavern suddenly reverberated with a clang that
seemed to engulf them all. It went on for several minutes, three clangs, a
pause, then four or five, a pause, then some more. At last it stopped, the
echoes fading away, and the companions stared at each other, pale and shaken. “It
couldn't really be ...” Kitishane stammered.

“Could
it?” Yocote asked.

“Not
in here, no.” Illbane beckoned. “Come.”

He
led them down from the lip of rock, back into the sloping tunnel, and they
gasped with relief as the heat abated. Culaehra was amazed—only minutes ago he
had been thinking how hot this tunnel was, and now it seemed cool!

Illbane
stopped at a branching of the way. “Through here.”

Yocote
stopped, staring. The tunnel they had climbed slanted downward to the left;
this one led off to the right, level but turning. “This was not here when we
came by! I never saw it!”

“Never
saw it, though it was here,” Illbane agreed. “We would not see it now, if
Agrapax the smith had not become curious about us.”

“But
generations of gnomes have passed this way—I can see their signs! Dwarfs, too!
How could a door to Agrapax's smithy be here, and they not know it?”

“Because
dwarfs and gnomes are natural things underground, and part and parcel of the
stone and ore that Agrapax knows and loves so well,” Illbane explained. “But
human beings below-ground are very much out of place; we have aroused wonder in
the Wondersmith. I doubt not that he wishes to see who has come so near his
domain, and knows that the natural curiosity of our species will draw us in.”

“He
judges me wrong, then!” Culaehra said. “Murrain take you, Illbane, for you have
taught me fear!”

“I
only reminded you of it; you had learned it in your childhood,” the sage said
absently, and led them into the branch. The clanging began again, seeming to
sound all about them.

Suddenly,
the tunnel opened out, leading them to a huge archway. The clanging was louder
now, much louder, and the cavern beyond was lit with a sullen glow, like that
of the molten rock, but highlighted and shot through with the bright yellow and
orange of flame, with flashes of something much brighter. The companions froze,
for through that archway they saw two mighty legs wide apart, each as thick as
an old oak, hairy and scarred with burns here and there. The feet wore sandals
that were bound with crossed leather straps, up as high as they could see.

Illbane
stepped up to the edge of the archway, beckoning them forward. Slowly and with
fear coiling within them, they came, and found themselves staring up, up, at a
torso that seemed far too large for the legs, shoulders far too broad for the
torso, and arms as thick as the legs, knotted with muscle and gleaming with
sweat.

Above
all was a huge head with a grizzled beard and bright eyes that reflected the
fire. It was a homely face, smudged with soot and filled with the intensity of
the fanatic.

He
stood three times the height of a man, surrounded by neat stacks of metals and
gems and other materials that receded into the gloom of that huge cavern. He
worked before a forge that bubbled with molten rock. As they watched, he took
tongs to hold a bar of metal just above that liquid fire, raising his other
hand to pull on a beam that must surely have been the trunk of a century-old
tree. When he did, flame roared up from the molten rock to surround the metal
bar. The giant smith released the handle; the roaring and the flame ceased as
he transferred the bar back to an anvil that stood taller than a man, as large
as a rowboat, made of black metal that must surely have weighed a ton or more.

He
worked in silence, his eyes glowing as he beat the bar into shape. Kitishane
could have sworn he had not even noticed their entrance, that they were far
beneath his notice—but finally he set the bar aside to cool and spoke in a
voice that reverberated through the great cavern like the rumble of an
earthquake. “What are you doing here, Ohaern?” He turned to glare down at
Illbane. “Why must you come blundering into my smithy? Isn't it enough for you
to spend your centuries bedding my wife?”

The
companions stared at Illbane, thunderstruck.

But
Illbane's face swelled with anger, and he spoke to the giant as though he were
an interfering village gossip. “She was never your wife, Agrapax!”

“No,
but she should have been, for there are precious few Ulin left, and we two are
the mightiest of them. You stole her from me, mite!”

“I
could not steal what you did not own! You never had any claim to her, nor
should you have, for she could never have commanded your attention for long!
Always, always, your mind would have drifted back to your forge, and off to
your smithy you would go, to pursue your next project and leave her forlorn!
No, never could you have been a true husband, for you were ever wed to your
art!”

“The
same old cant.” The giant smith turned and spat into his forge. “The truth of
it is that I am too ugly for any woman— except the one time when she wished to
number the Wonder-smith among her trophies. I am bandy-legged and lame, singed
and squint-eyed, big-nosed and lumpen. Well, no matter—my metals love me, and I
love my metals,”

That
last, Kitishane thought, was the only true claim. Well, no, the giant was
homely, but certainly not ugly—and though his proportions were odd, those huge
muscles exerted an attraction all their own. He was not the sort of man a woman
would choose for a lover—but for a husband? Quite possibly, if he were not so
bad-tempered.

For
Culaehra, though, the effect was devastating. He was a man of action, a warrior
who had always felt strangely superior to the smiths whose weapons he used—but
here was a smith who could have crushed him absentmindedly, flattened him with
one stroke of the huge hammer and gone back to shaping his iron, scarcely
missing a beat! Here was a smith who had so little regard for anything but his
art that he might just have done it, too, had Culaehra come there alone.

But
he had not—and that made it worse. To feel himself dwarfed by a smith was bad
enough, but to find that the teacher who had disciplined him and trained him,
and whom he had dared defy, was the fabled Ohaern, made him feel a total fool
for ever having had the temerity even to think of rebellion! A perverse desire
rose in him to deny it, to tell himself that this oldster was only an ordinary
mortal named after the great hero. But to hear Agrapax himself address the man
as an equal, almost a familiar—though a disliked one—and to hear Ohaern respond
in kind, daring to rebuke a god, made Culaehra's very soul seem to shrink
within him. And, if he could have denied anything else, he certainly could not
mistake the focus of their quarrel. Ohaern had been lover to an Ulin woman! His
vagabond teacher Illbane had been, perhaps still
was,
her paramour!

Who
could they be speaking of, but Rahani herself?

The
mortal sage Illbane, whom he had tried so hard to regard as a contemptible old
beggar, was consort to a goddess, to
the
goddess!