“The sun and moon, you mean? Yes, I suppose so.”
“The world is full of marvels,” Tin said. “You will want to watch your head, I believe, for you are much taller, and although it is shameful to delve in haste, sometimes it is also necessary.”
Isolfr, who was already ducked almost double, was about to say that watching his head more closely would require a second pair of eyes, when the hand he had in front of him for precisely that purpose jarred hard against a lump of rock hanging down from the ceiling of the tunnel like a tooth. He couldn't quite bite back a yelp.
“Chalcopyrite. Er. Copper ore, you see,” Tin said, not quite apologetically, but as one who realized that strange creatures might not understand the natural and obvious. “We haven't time to mine the vein properly now, and it would be waste more shameful than haste to discard it in the rubble.”
“Of course,” Isolfr said politely and proceeded from there with even greater caution.
The way went downward until Isolfr swore he could feel the weight of the mountains like Mimir's knee on his
back. Better Mimir's knee than Tin's troll-spear, though. Viradechtis seemed to agreeâor, perhaps, to feel that there was no need for caution. She trotted forward boldly, nails clicking on the hewn stone underfoot, stopping every dozen yards to crane back over her shoulder and see what might be taking Isolfr so long.
Isolfr wished he were better reassured by her lack of caution, but he followed with what trust was in him and eventually they came to a tunnel that was greater than the first, where he could stand upright. His thighs and calves and his lower back protested when he straightened, to the point where he thought he might almost rather have stayed cramped.
This
tunnel was nothing like the rough-hewn one that led to the trellwarren; it was spacious, wide enough for five svartalfar or three men abreast, and tallow lanterns flickered every few hundred feet, casting warm yellow pools of light through panes that looked like smoke-ambered crystal. By the nearest, Isolfr could make out the fine fluted patterns that curled along the walls of the hall. Hall, because he could not in honesty call it a tunnel. Not after the trellwarren.
“Follow me,” Tin said, striding past as if he no longer needed to keep Isolfr under watch.
That alone would have warned Isolfr that his behavior would be measured. The high queer resonance of svartalfar voices rang around corners and echoed from place to place, and Isolfr could no more say whence they spoke than he could say how many there were. He laid a hand on Viradechtis' shoulder, and as she seemed inclined to follow Tin, so he followed her.
Finally, he could tell that the voicesâor some of them, at leastâcame from ahead. There was more light there, too, pools of it, and it occurred to him that there must be ventilation shafts somewhere because the air he breathed was cool and fresh, and the fires burned clear. “Hold your spears,” Tin said and stepped forward through a narrow place in the hall. “I am accompanied.”
Viradechtis was untroubled, and so Isolfr went boldly,
comforting himself that if he died here, it would be with his wolf at his side.
What he found beyond the stricture in the passage was a cavern perhaps the size of a herdsman's hut, a dozen or so svartalfar gathered around a fire that flickered hot and ghostly close to the coals. They looked as like Tin as Isolfr looked like his threatbrothersâwhich was to say, to a type, but not a matched setâand somehow that simple hominess made it possible for him to draw a breath.
“Fellows,” Tin said, standing aside as more than one of his companions laid hands on their weapons, “May I present Isolfr Viradechtisbrother, and his mistress, Viradechtis Konigenwolf.”
The svartalfar tipped their heads to look at him, birdlike, first one eye and then the other. He could see now, in the better light, that they had long arms for their low stature. He could not tell the length of their legs, but he wondered if their lack of height was more a matter of twisted backbones. Certainly their reachâas one stretched a hand out, beckoning imperiously, jewels gleaming on his handâwas frightening. “Come closer to the light, creature.”
Viradechtis regarded them all with lively interest, and Isolfr knew that
creature
had been directed at him. He swallowed hard against a mixture of indignation and anxiety, and stepped forward.
“So,” said the svartalf who had spoken. “We have heard your racket echoing down through the trellwarren and wondered what manner of beast it was that sang so.” And again,
sing
did not mean what Isolfr was accustomed to it meaning.
Tin coughed and said, “Not
beast
. He says he is a man.”
Eyebrows went up around the circle, rendering the svartalfar's faces even more grotesque in the firelight. “There have not been men seen near Nidavellir since my mother's mother's time,” said one of the other svartalfar. “What brings you north then, creature, or do you but follow where your mistress leads?”
“She is not my mistress,” Isolfr said carefully, “any more
than I am her master. She is my sister. And she and I and the Wolfmaegth and wolfless men of the North came into these mountains to kill trolls. We did not know that Nidavellir lay beneath them.”
“Then where did you imagine it to lie?” He could not tell if their curiosity was honest, as Tin's had been, or if they mocked him.
“You say men have not been seen near Nidavellir since your grandmother's time,” he said, with a bow to the svartalf who had so spoken. “It is more generations of men than that since we last had any knowledge of the svartalfar. I knew of youâbefore todayâonly from stories.”
“As it should be,” another svartalf said. This one, he thought, was older than the others; it had something of an old man's querulousness. “We want nothing to do with men.”
“Yes. Why
did
you bring it down here, Tin?”
“The queen-wolf would hardly have stirred without him,” Tin said, unperturbed by the note of accusation. “And it is true, as he says, that he and his kind are killing trolls. The warren above us is no more.”
That seemed to please them, if he was hearing the harmonics of their mutterings correctly. But, “We want no men in our delvings,” the old svartalf said stridently over the others. “Just because it kills trolls, Tin, doesn't mean it's a friend.”
“I do not wish to be an enemy,” Isolfr said, and that made all of them laugh.
“With a queen-wolf at your side, we will believe you,” said the svartalf whom he had tentatively identified as the jarl. It cocked its head at him. “Though we would believe you more readily if you would put down your axe.”
Isolfr hesitated only a moment before complying. The odds against him were not substantially worse without the axe, and Viradechtis still seemed content to sit and observe. They might care little for him, but he thought they would not kill him in the face of Viradechtis' obvious favor.
The jarl leaned sidewaysâthat terrifying reach againâand picked up his axe, turning it over in his long, knob-knuckled hands. “Primitive,” he said, “though I imagine your smiths do the best they can, given what they have to work with.”
A bright look under the eyebrows; trying to pretend the throbbing wound on his shoulder troubled him not at all, Isolfr said, “No smith of my people would dream of competing with svartalfar. That much, our stories have remembered for us.”
That pleased them, and the svartalf holding his axe said, “I am called Silver.” It seemed to be a cue, or a decision, or something that Isolfr could not read, for the others named themselves as well: Mica, Flint, Granite, Gypsumâeven the cantankerous old svartalf grudgingly admitted his name to be Shale.
Isolfr bowed and asked the question now urgently uppermost in his mind: “Tell me, Masters, what will you do with me?”
That occasioned some muttering back and forth. Silver seemed to be in charge, judging by the way his long pointed ears flicked under his hair as the other svartalfar spoke in turn, and Isolfr felt more confident in thinking of him as the jarl. Earrings clattered one on the other, and Isolfr wondered how the svartalfar ever managed to sneak up on anything. He waited with concealed impatience while they discussed him, worried about his werthreatbrothers and what they would think when he did not reappear. And worried more about what Tin had let slip earlierâthat the svartalfar were driving the trolls out of their warrens, and thus down upon the men.
At last, Silver straightened from his huddle with the other svartalfar. “We aren't certain it's safe to let you go,” he admitted, shrugging. His long, broad hands made wings in the darkness. “But we can't take you deeper, and we can't very well keep you here until the last cold comes down on us all.” It blinked at him shrewdly, long upswept strawberry-blond eyebrows gliding together over the top of a whittled-looking nose. “What do
you
think we should do
with you, Isolfr Viradechtisbrother? Since our sister assures us of your good conductâ”
“Sister?” Surprised, he looked at Viradechtis. She had dropped her elbows to the floor and stretched out, clearly content to nap while the two-legs carried out their incomprehensible pack-games.
Silver laughed, a grating multitoned sound. “Not
your
sister. Ours. Tin.”
Foolish man
, his tone implied.
Isolfr stared hard at Tin. Nothing about the svartalf said
woman
to him. “Forgive me,” he said, very carefully. “I had thought himâherâa male. Your sexes seem very alike to me.”
This seemed to amuse the svartalfar extensively, if their chiming noises were anything to go by. “You haven't answered the question,” Silver said when they had finished laughing at him. Isolfr wondered now if Silver was male or female, but determined not to ask. Maybe the names were a clueârocks for males and metals for females? In any case, it was hard to imagine a male svartalf wielding his troll-spear with any more deadliness than Tin.
“I must return to my people,” Isolfr said. He kept his eyes on Silver's face, not on the axe heâshe?âheld. “As fast as I can. They need to know the trolls have marched south, because south is where our families are.”
Silver rolled the haft of Isolfr's axe dismissively between his hands. “What are man-families to us?”
“There are wolf families too,” Isolfr said, trying to keep the rising panic from his voice. He must have failed; Viradechtis was at his side, her ears up and the fur of her hackles slightly raised.
“Hmmm.” Glances traded between the svartalfar, and more of that musical muttering. “But it's seen svartalfar,” Shale said. “It's seen our tunnelâ”
Silver was nodding, sagely, sadly. Isolfr's hands went cold with fear and he felt Viradechtis rumbleânot out loud yet, but thinking about it. They would fight if they had toâ
“Let him give his parole,” Tin interjected, tapping the butt of her troll-spear on stone.
“Parole?” Isolfr and Silver both glanced at her at once, startled.
“He's a queen-wolf's pack-brother,” Tin said, reasonably. “His word is no doubt good.”
Raised eyebrows, thoughtful mutterings. He gathered that they did not particularly wish to kill him; they were not, he thought, a warlike people, for all their fearsome weaponry. And he understood then that they were frightened, and even why.
“I will bring no harm upon you,” he said, interrupting their debate. “I swear it by Othinn's spear, by my sister's strength, and by my own honor.”
“You will not speak of us to others of your kind?”
“I will not. I promise.” And part of his mind asked him how he thought he was going to convince Grimolfr and the other wolfjarls without explaining how he knew that the trolls were fled south, but he pushed it away. He would think of something.
Another colloquy, muttered, crashing. Silver stopped it with a brusque sideways sweep of his long hand. “Enough. This creature has done us no harm, and I do not want its blood-guilt. It was brave enough to go rooting deep in a trellqueen's warren, and it companions a queen-wolf, and
she
, I believe, we can all agree to trust?” Said with deep irony, and the other svartalfar winced. And nodded.
“If I am wrong in my estimation of you, Isolfr Viradechtisbrother, do not mistake. Your death will be spoken of in hushed and trembling whispers for centuries to come.”
Isolfr believed it. “You are not wrong,” he said, meeting Silver's strange, bright eyes.
Silver nodded. “Good, then. Your axe.” And the long arm extended, spinning the axe to present Isolfr with its haft. “Tin, you brought the creature in, you had best take it out. And do something about its bleeding while you're at it.”
“Come along, Isolfr,” Tin said, not unkindly. “Are you hungry?”
Viradechtis came to her feet, yawned mightily, and shook herself. Isolfr bowed awkwardly to the svartalfar around the fire and turned to follow Tin. “No, I thank you, lady.”