The Hammer of the Sun (24 page)

"Silver, gold and crystal!" whispered Roc. "And yet they're clad like peasants…"

Elof felt the hair prickle on his neck; he was suddenly very near the answer to his puzzle, and he did not like the picture that was taking shape in his mind.

"Come!" said Ildryan gruffly. "Enter our ancient halls, be our guests as you were of our kin oversea! And feel honoured, for no man has been permitted sight of these gates for many a lifetime!"

Two duergar bent to Elof s spruce-lined litter, but he half rose suddenly, forestalling them. Ildryan's brow knitted. "Why linger?" he barked. "Where else can you go? Here there are no
zhaliki
near, but in the lands around the eaters of men will be combing the woods in wrath for you! Fools, shall we leave you to them?"

Elof hesitated. Warmth and light allured him, and a thirst for the security of old memories; he strained his eyes, and it seemed to him that beyond the inner gate he saw a tunnel sloping down to a dark mirror of still water, a sunless lake on which the dancing flames gleamed like gems in coronet. By that tranquil shore he yearned to lie and rest, rest from need, from thought, from love; he had endured too much of all, they were bound up in his agony and he pined only for surcease now, and recovery. But that other picture was becoming all too clear. He remembered another king under stone, and how loath he had been to let strangers depart, once they had passed such mountain-gates as these. If anything he trusted this one less, with his hungry face and burning, devouring eyes. Behind such defences, in apparent shelter from the turmoils of the outside world, it would be all too easy to forget that not only one's own folk might be entitled to justice, or that there might be some good, some right greater than their immediate gain.

"What is it you want of us, lord Ildryan?" he asked quietly. "That we shall show you how to wield that helm? But that was never in our bond - was it, Roc? Well then; since you forced us to it, we shall hold you to the letter of it. I will not teach you the use of that helm, here or below. I will bind myself to shape you as worthy a price in its stead, if you so wish; but I will make you nothing till I hold the helm in my own hands. Nor will I enter your gates till I have it. Hold the helm if you will, and much good may it do you. But if you are sensible, you will let me ransom it from you with other works - "

"The helm you shall not have!" spat Ildryan. "You who dwell above, creatures of fierce light and wayward airs, think you we are blind? Or fools? Will you seek to wrest our price from us, and fob us off with some trash of your tinkering? The Elders of your own land you may cozen, but we, we shall guard what is ours. No helm! Nor anything more from us, save blade and blow! Get you within, or die!"

Dull iron gleamed as arrow sprang to bow, stones into sling, and the duergar sprang forward, their eyes chiefly on Roc, not the sick creature they had been carrying. But he sprang up with ease, straight at the one who held Gorthawer, felled him with a single blow and snatched scabbard and belt even as they dropped; the black blade sang into his hand, and he stood there defiantly, swaying slightly. Roc stepped quickly to his side, and he rested a hand on his shoulder.

"So the duergar race forgets its honour indeed," rasped Elof, in so fell a voice that Roc jumped. "Along with all else…"

Ildryan's glare smouldered, but he raised a curt hand, and no shot was loosed. "We do not forget," he said contemptuously, "even to human filth. Get you from here, now, whither you will, to the cliffs or the Ice for all I care. Linger here but a moment and we may justly slay you as intruder and spy!"

"And the helm?" demanded Elof.

"
Adyitze
!" At Ildryan's curt command the duergar turned and strode by him within the gate. Teeth gleamed behind the tangled beard in what was no smile, and he hawked and spat on the grass beyond the door. Against the flickering light his hunched figure seemed to swell with the very intensity of his malevolence. "Bargain is bargain. What we have, we hold.
Dal'budye
!"

Even as the duergh spat his last dismissive contempt at them the huge slab of stone was swinging out across the soft light, and severed it with the smoothness of a sigh. For an instant the crag-face was seamed with glowing gold, then it faded and vanished. Sheer fury overcame Elof s weakness, he staggered forward and hammered the stone with his sword's pommel. But it rang as firm in one part as another, nor could his skilled eye and finger detect even the faintest breach.

"Come away!" growled Roc, dragging him back. "You heard what they said, another minute's about the extent of their honour. Then they'll shoot…" He jerked his thumb expressively at the heights above, that might conceal a hundred arrow-slots or a thousand, and draping Elof s arm about his shoulders he bore him almost bodily down the slope.

At the foot he paused, gasping, and they sank down amid some clumps of yellow-flowered broom. The first thing Elof said was "I could break that door…" His eyes wandered upslope. "Oh, more than mere skill shields it so, true. There is some great persisting virtue, something deepset, very ancient and strong. But… Yes, give me the time and I could break it."

"Aye," said Roc drily, "And to what end? To give their archers a clearer shot? You couldn't storm that place with an army, my lad. Anyway, they'd only repair the door soon enough…"

Elof coughed, and pressed his hands to his breastbone, wincing. "Would they? I wonder."

Roc looked at him. "Anyhow, if you were so eager to get within why'd you balk so at entering? I was suspicious, aye - but it looked as if you'd seen some good reason not to trust 'em, the blades behind their backs or whatever."

"I did see something, yes. Not blades. It was the contradictions, Roc, the gold and the crude clothes… Ils has told us often enough that the first coming of men to these lands, many thousand of years ago, drove almost all her folk to flee oversea. So, these duergar must be the descendents of those who remained. And of so close-knit a race, who would remain? Chiefly the outsiders, outlivers, solitaries, eccentrics, the cloven-minded…no great number among the duergar. Those least likely to come together in any kind of community. And the duergar need to live together to support their great arts and skills, more even than we do ourselves. What then? Separated, weakened, without the solid core of their folk, those remnants must have grown weaker still, their skills and knowledge dwindling. Some united at last, or more likely their descendants, but by then it was too late; too much was lost and they were too few to recreate it. Poor sorry remnants! All their ancestors' realm to wander in, all the riches they had had to leave behind them, yet aware that they could not shape anything half as fine. So, though they walk among lamps and gates of gold, Ildryan and his folk, their descendants, must
live as
hunters and gatherers, being too few and too unskilled to farm their mountain slopes properly. And so also they grow greedy and avaricious, even more than the worst of their kin in our land; they are hoarders more than makers, fiercely inward-looking and jealous. I did not dare put our lives in such hands."

"Should've thought they'd jump at your offer of another price, then…"

"Admit me to their forges, and betray the decay of their own craft? I, a human, and a pupil of a true master of their kind?"

"They could have learned from you…"

"They are too proud, and too afraid of being betrayed. If once we had entered those gates they would have found reason to keep us there, honour or no honour."

Roc frowned. "I'll give you that. I doubt they'd suffer it even from Ils or any other of their race, the black pride of them." He sighed, and his red hair flopped listlessly over his face as he bowed his head dejectedly. "Well then. Here we are, leagues from nowhere, adrift and helpless as ever we were, and without the helm. So ends my bargain, and a piss-poor one it was, it seems."

Elof laughed, though it stabbed his ill-used stomach muscles, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Never say that! From under that axe
it
looked fair and good to me. And I've my pack, entire, and Gorthawer! So if we've lost the helm, yet we have the gauntlet and all else; if my poor hammer's left to Louhi, I've the other half of the arm-ring in exchange, and count it cheap at the price. Most of all, we've our lives! That, and a few bites of food; and we've seen times enough when we'd have sold the one for the other, eh?"

Roc chuckled with reviving humour. "Truth enough. And no haggling! But it's the poor trade that galls me still; those chiselling bastards hadn't even the grace to set us on a good road."

"Perhaps there is none. Or none as they see it. But they did tell us something, without meaning to; they told us that Louhi does not control this land, and later said that no man had been permitted sight of their gates for many lifetimes."

"So?"

Elof grinned. "So, that implies that once men had such sights. Which tells us that men and duergar once had dealings, however slight; that once there were men in these lands. And since these ragged duergar alone would not keep the Ekwesh out
of
this land, almost certainly there still are. Strong men, at that."

Roc whistled softly, and looked around him. The sun was all but gone now, save for a few pale streaks upon the dark overcast, and a last slash of fiery orange at the horizon, barbed with the silhouettes of the trees. "Maybe. May well be. And enemies to the Ekwesh could be good friends to us. But where? Which way do we turn, in this wild country?"

Elof gathered his strength, and hauled himself shakily to his feet. "We are still high up among the hills, here. We should be able to find some vantage point without much effort…"

"Aye, but can you…"

"I told you; I'm better. Come!"

Roc's doubts were evident; but he did as Elof bade, and sought only to support him when he tripped over tangled roots or loose stones in the soft earth
slopes
. They forded a small stony stream that chuckled as its cold fingers tugged at their ankles; Elof drank deep of its waters, and seemed much refreshed. Slowly but steadily they climbed again, and very soon espied a pale notch of sky between the shadows of the crags; towards this they climbed for their vantage. The slope was very steep, but it was carpeted with tough grasses whose tussocks gave hands and feet good purchase, and they soon neared the top. On the ridge they paused to catch their breath and await the moonrise, for there was little light to see by through the overcast cloud. But Elof, looking down, could make out that the grass on the northward face of the slopes was far less lush, low stuff unfit for grazing; bare rock showed through the soil in places. It made him uneasy, and he strained his eyes northward. So it was that when the moon arose he saw its first glimmer alight upon a rough terrain of dark hill and mountain, the same as that through which the Ekwesh had borne him, broken only by the winding silver threads of broad rivers and the sparkle of the mountain snow-caps. But above them another light leaped up, like a mist of silver spray from a breaking wave, and it hung there pale and clear, gleaming upon the clouds till they too seemed turned to rivers of ice, walls of winter looming above the world. And Elof, in his wounded heart, cursed the day that first he saw it.

"The bloody Iceglow!" said Roc. "This close?"

Silently Elof pointed. Between two of the most distant snow-caps shone a speck of something whose light put them to shame, a glittering frost-jewel in the brittle air. "Its herald," he said softly. "Or its child. It is there, and it advances. It is causing the snow-caps to spawn new glaciers of their own."

"So much for the North," said Roc, after a moment. "Westward lies the castle and the seas and the maneaters; our best hope there'd be to pass their cordons somehow and steal a smallish boat. Don't much reckon on that, d'you? Thought not. Which leaves east and south." They turned, and looked out over a dimmer, softer landscape, where crag gave way to high hill, and the dark tangle of lush forest softened the contours of the land; there was no trace of snow. A light mist, or perhaps a passing rain shower, made the distance hazy, yet they could just make out there the mellow gleam that might be some wide river or lake. From south to east as far as they could see the view was the same, a generally lower and well-grown range of hills, and beyond it haze and uncertainty.

"Looks all right," said Roc. "Got to be better than the north, anyhow."

"And if there's anywhere better yet, inhabited lands even, southward's where they will be," agreed Elof. "There lies our road. To the South!"

Yet even as he said it he cast a last glance up at the crags. He could not quell his heart's ache to recover that miraculous work which had given him a brief glimpse, at least, of the keen heights and dizzying freedom of a Power. He doubted that he could ever shape such another, without the unparalleled library of the Mastersmith Mylio to hand, or the ancient lore of the duergar. Worse without its aid he could hardly believe he would find Kara again, or keep her if he did. To memories of bright light and rushing air and fair laughter he bade farewell, and to the free sharing of strange shapes and sensations, a world untrammelled by mere human limitation. Sorely as that life had taxed him, he yearned for it, as for a fair dream too suddenly shattered. But hard upon that yearning came a gust of bitter self-mockery and disgust, and it drove him so fast down the slope that Roc was hard put to keep up.