He jumped at the hollow creak from behind him. The turret door was swinging open, and the Mastersmith stepped out. He, too, blinked at the light, and his face was drawn and anxious; his rich blue robe was creased, and he looked as if he had not slept. But when he saw Alv the weariness fell away before his usual suave good will. "So you also seek wisdom on the heights, boy? No doubt about what you undertake today? No need of my counsel? Good, I am glad, for I fear I must leave you for a day or so. I hate to do so, at such a time, but it must be. The world presses on me, as I had hoped it would cease to in this place."
Alv smiled ruefully. "I am sorry, Mastersmith. It will be difficult, but I am rested and ready."
"Good. Then try to have your work completed by tomorrow, when I return."
Alv bowed his head to hide the grin he couldn't suppress. He could have asked for nothing better! "Indeed, Mastersmith. I will."
The gloom of the forge seemed to hang more heavily around him after that, and with it the note of tension in the air. For a while he prowled around the anvil, nervously selecting hammers and shaping tools and laying them out within easy reach, pinning endless sheets of notes to every surface he could easily see. But at last he took up the rod that was the sword's spine, and the
others
that were
its
body, and sang long slow words over them as he bound them tight in metal bands and thrust them into the fire. Now the note of) the bellows changed, for moments of great heat were needed. Alv set Roc to work the piston of the hand-bellows, and its quick panting breath echoed his own as he grasped the rods with pincers and maneuvered them in the small circle of blue-white flame. Then he pulled them out in a flurry of cinders, struck three quick blows with the heavy hammer, and thrust them back into the fire. After a minute or two more he repeated this, and motioned Roc to stop, letting the wheel-driven bellows take over. He sang when he could, in eerie harmony with the
soft
song of the charcoal, squinting at his notes and listening for the moment when the sword itself would begin to sing, and spit out a few light sparks—the first sign that the steel itself was beginning to burn, which it must not do. He sang of the tree that had once grown, drinking in the wind and the light of the sun, and of how he had mastered it, cut it down and burnt it to charcoal, because the time had come for it to give back the air and the fire. He sang of the metal that had lain deep in the veins of the earth, unshaped, unseen, till he had mastered it, dug it out and purified it, commanded it to take other shapes and forms. As they had been mastered, let wood and metal combine to teach mastery; as they had obeyed a mightier command, let them in turn enforce obedience. His words fell into time with the vast strong breath of the bellows.
That mighty ash tree,
How boldly it burns,
How noble the blaze it's made!
To leaping sparks of light
It returns
But its strength it leaves to my blade!
Bellows, blow!
Brighten its glow!
And when the thin voice came from the steel, the note harmonized with the tones of his chant. That was it! He hauled the body of the sword out, the top of it an erupting fountain of yellow sparks, and struck, and struck, and struck and struck till the mighty anvil rang and rocked on its huge hardwood base, twisting the spitting steel this way and that across the anvil, narrowing his eyes against the exploding haloes of sunbright metal. As it darkened he brandished it at Roc, who sprang to the bellows, and he thrust it deep into the charcoal, twisting it about to clean it. Then, verse after gasped verse, he was wrenching it out again and striking with all shapes and sizes of hammer. From time to time he would seize a page of his notes and rush into the library, wiping his hands on any rag he could find. Once or twice, unable to leave what he was doing, he would yell through the open door to Ingar, who fussed and grumbled somewhat, but was willing enough to read out or copy a particular passage or symbol for him. Most often it was to the North wall he was dispatched, to those pages of the
Skolnhere-Book
the Mastersmith had annotated.
Alv's labor was backbreaking, but as he worked through long hours of the day, his intense frown began to lighten; for all his weariness, he was grinning with delight as at last he plucked the steel from the fire, braced it against the anvil, seized one of his chosen fullering tools and with minute precision tapped it home to narrow and shape the tip. Roc expected a war whoop of delight as Alv finally plunged the steel into the quenching trough, but when the steam cleared he was gazing at the narrow dark blade he held with only the faintest and tightest of smiles. He stroked a finger along the raised spine, feeling how smoothly it merged into the sloping surface of the blade.
"Is it all right?" demanded Roc. He exchanged anxious glances with Ingar, who had heard the hiss and was peering round the library door. "You haven't gone and—"
"Oh no," said Alv quietly. "It's fine. It's perfect, in fact. All it needs is…"He picked up the two remaining rods, and clanked them against the thick dull edges. "These. D'you feel up to another few hours of this?"
Roc stared. "If you do, yes—once I've had a drink and a bite, that is. But… you mean you're going to finish…"
"Yes, of course. But off with you quickly, if you want
some
food—and bring me something I can eat here—"
Roc scuttled off, but Ingar stayed, frowning. "Wasn't the Mastersmith going to—"
"He's in a hurry for it, it seems," said Alv. "Remember I met him on the tower this morning, before he left? He told me he wanted it finished when he gets back tomorrow. So finished it will be." He held the cooling blade out
at arm's length, squinting
own it for tiny irregularities, and his bright eyes met Ingar's. After a moment the journeyman turned away, shaking his head in confusion.
"Whatever you say yourself! Well, I'm going back to my work."
"Oh, before you do," called Alv, "could you just check these characters for me—my hands are covered in soot—" He reached out and plucked off two leaves of thin parchment he had tacked to a shelf. But hampered by the blade, he missed his grip; they went fluttering into the draft of the firepit, twisted upward and were consumed in an instant. Alv, goggle-eyed, burst out in a stream of curses that raised Ingar's dark eyebrows.
"My," he said mildly, in his best-bred voice, "really, you must have quite shocked those cattle of yours. Well, don't take on so, if you remember the reference you can copy them again—"
"Before this cools? I've got to match the edges!"
Ingar sighed deeply. "Oh very well, if that's important I suppose I can copy them for you—that's not really helping you. The North wall again? The
Skolnhere-Book
? What page?"
Alv remembered the page that set the limits of his knowledge, saw in his mind the ugly, mocking little countenance, and beside it the Mastersmith's forbidding finger, resting on the long parchment marker—the marker he had that morning detached and, without opening the book enough to read, slipped in several pages further ahead. "Everything beyond the
nakina
character!" he called, and held his breath.
From the library silence drifted like a freezing cloud.
Then there was a sudden rustle of paper, exactly as in Alv's dream. He jumped violently—but then Ingar's voice called out cheerfully, "Well, that's only four or five figures, before the chapter ends—and they're simple enough. D'you want the notes as well?"
"If you would!" Alv called back, trying to keep the unsteadiness out of his voice. Four or five, only? Surely, then, his suspicions had borne rich fruit. All the other symbols from that chapter had ended up in the sword, in one form or other, buried deep now in its twisted heart. So there was a good chance it was the remaining ones the Mastersmith planned to incorporate in the edges—how logical, and how typical of him, that there should only be four or five! And on that chance Alv had taken a greater gamble—either that there was really no mysterious power shielding the books, or that Ingar would be immune because he'd been through them before in his researches, as the chalk marks proved. The Mastersmith wouldn't have bothered stopping
him
before the crucial page, because he hadn't a quarter the skill to make use of his knowledge. A logical gamble, but a good one—
if
he'd won!
Alv seized an oily rag and wiped down the sooty blade, staring along the thick edges for irregularities that might hamper the welding—anything to keep busy, to think about something else. He set the thin edge rods to heat near the rim of the firepit, fixed the blade in the leg vise on the far side of the anvil and set to work tapping the edges into a gentle curve to match the blade. The purer steel was much harder to work, and he had only just finished the first one when Ingar tapped him on the shoulder. He laughed at Alv's convulsive start. "Don't get so wrapped up in your work! You might wreck everything, jumping like that! This is what you needed, isn't it?"
Alv swallowed, and forced himself to look down at the slates clutched in Ingar's plump hand. "Y-yes, it's everything I need—I'll have to work out a couple of my verses again, though…"
"Well, that you can do for yourself. I'm only a channel, remember? A conduit. I contribute nothing."
And may that save your soft hide for you
, thought Alv,
when the Mastersmith finds his bluff's been called
!
But aloud he said, "I thank you, sir journeyman! If I get through this—"
"Oh, you will, you will," said Ingar patronizingly. "Well you may labor all the watches of the night, but I don't have to. I'm a tired conduit—and dry, too, with all this smoke in here. Me for a stoup of Sothran wine, and then bed."
"Sleep well!" said Alv, and was surprised to find the gratitude in his voice genuine enough. Ingar might infuriate him in any number
of
ways, but he was not a bad man at heart. Not his fault, perhaps, if he preferred the security of serving the Mastersmith to striking out on his own; he'd just never had to struggle for anything. And because he'd never disobey the Mastersmith, it hadn't occurred to him that Alv would.
Well, let one person use you, and others may also. So turns the world
!
He perched the slates on his workbench and read through them carefully, struggling to make out Ingar's script, which disintegrated when he was hurried. And as Alv did so the cold certainty grew in him that these strange bastard things were the final symbols, the only ones that would have to show on the surface of the sword—inscribed around the edges, perhaps even inlaid for clearer effect, but that could wait. As long as they were there… But
why
was he so sure? And what on earth was the right way to arrange them?
Difficult
…
perhaps even dangerous
…
Roc brought him a bowl of something hot and meaty, and he supped away at it absently while he read. The notes were tantalizing, all about the shape of the characters, hardly anything about their symbolic associations or effects. And yet as he gazed at the forbidden characters he seemed to see them in an order, a definite grouping. He clawed at his hair. There
was
something he recognized, a memory he couldn't quite grasp, but felt was terribly important. A pattern, a web of symbols set in metal… In his mind he traced and retraced all the studies he could remember, and found nothing like it. Such a faint memory-it seemed to date from a time before… Before he'd come here? His childhood? Impossible. Where would he have seen smithcraft then?
And then memory washed over him with the clear cold thrill of the waves he'd once played in. That ancient thing, that cattle goad! The markings on it! He could see them clearly, glinting in the sunlight—small wonder, when he'd studied them so long. Symbols, of the kind he was using now—one or two among the commoner ones he had already chosen. They were, now he saw them, very like the ones he had set upon the armring; a memory of them, perhaps, had inspired his design. But there above them, enclosed in a cartouche of tracery, were counterparts of the characters he was looking at now—simpler, but unmistakable. A simpler power, possibly—but the way they were arranged, the pattern…
His mind seemed literally to spin, the symbols scrawled across the slates tumbling together in a whirlpool, slotting almost of themselves into an arrangement that was intricate but logical, fluent—
perfect
!
For half an hour or so he scrawled feverishly on his own slates, terrified that in writing down one thing he might forget another. But the pattern held with its own inner strength, and he had it all, and the song to go with it. Then he was up and running for his anvil. The bowl went clattering unnoticed across the floor.
In minutes he had the second edge worked fine and tight, and he bound both to the body of the blade with wire and metal bands. Ignoring the scorching heat, he leaned out over the firepit to choose a clear spot, and slowly and gently slid the bound pieces into it. This was the most difficult part. Ordinary pattern-welded swords were made with the edges welded to the body pieces before they were attached to the spine, but the unity that gave this sword its power had to grow from the center outward, like a leaf. And if, once welded, it broke, then like a leaf it would wither and die, and all his effort go to waste. With long pincers he lifted the pieces, but swore and pushed them back down.