The Hammer of the Sun (31 page)

But as the platform neared the top of its run and he came among the buildings, he saw that all this too was a work of skill, and not just a vainglorious facade. Had the Strength actually been as it was made to seem from afar, it would have been ugly and intolerable close to; the streets through which their escort hurried them would have been overshadowed valleys, deep and dank, the noble arches and doorways around dark cavern-mouths - a gloom-ridden place, horribly airless and oppressive. Instead their impressions were of brightness and space captured within the lightest possible cage of stone. Enormous windows in walls reduced their weight, and left pillars within to uphold the roof; but fair works of coloured glass filled them, and the rays of the sinking sun shining through them and playing over street and wall turned the Strength into a shimmering hoard of jewels. From any reasonable angle or distance the whole vast edifice had been contrived to seem fair and consistent in itself, both its several buildings and the greater whole they made up. Some strength, perhaps, had been sacrificed; it might not have with-stood the rigours of endless northern winters, so much closer to the winds and the snows off the Ice. But then it was built for the south; and it was yet a place that great armies would break against, and lesser ones flee at the very sight of, and nonetheless a dwelling fit for all the arts of peace.

Winding their way along the walls they came at last to yet another such platform and ramp. As it lifted under them Roc shaded his eyes against the dust glare, and, looking out over the hazy magnificence of the view, he sighed in deep content. "Well, whatever else there may be, this is all the legends tell of this realm, and more. Can't you see here all the roots of Kerbryhaine, of Morvan and Morvanhal that now is, aye, even of your own little towns in Nordeney with their painted slats -see, in yonder patterned window, the same style? It's well named; the strength of our folk it is, sure enough."

Elof nodded slowly. "It is; for it embodies so much wisdom and skill and sheer cunning of mind and hand. This must have been a fair size of hill once, but what can you see of that? Nothing. As if they'd melted it down and moulded it anew from the hot blood of the earth. But there is something strange about some of these buildings - sergeant!"

"By yer leave, gentles?"

"Those buildings down below there - yes, that one… and that. Look down through those huge windows and what d' you see? Exactly. Nothing. They're spic-and-span, they've some of them painted walls or hangings, but scarce a stick of furnishing in them all."

"Small wonder there, sir; them as dwells there are well content with little. They're tombs, those are."

"
What
? Every one?"

"More'n a few, sir, aye. For in what better hallow should the kings who built the Strength wish to lie, in halls befitting their glory and power? All their lives they'd be working on them, as splendid as they could make'em. 'Twas always intended thus, as I've heard, sirs, hallow and palace and place of strength together, a living show of their power. As the old saying goes,
The Strength of Kerys is its mighty tombs
."

"So long as it lies not buried with them!" said Roc quietly, as the sergeant turned away once more. "What a pile of wealth to heap upon your own dry bones?"

Elof nodded. "What needs the greatest of men more than two strides of ground, if only he leaves a worthy name? And all the show in the world cannot enhance that. Remember Dorghael Arhlannen, how simple it was, and yet the feeling there?"

"Aye, that I do! These gilded boneyards fare ill by comparison - whup, here's the end of our ride!"

There came more streets, more looming buildings, and another ramp; this one was shorter, and ended before tall gates in an encircling wall; upon their dark wood the image of the bull's head with gilt sun between its horns stood out in weathered relief. The platform creaked and juddered to a halt, and Elof thought he heard, echoing up from the slots below the winding gear, the distant groans and gasps of exhausted men. Then the sergeant bellowed at his shaken men, and they formed up around Elof and Roc more closely than before. As the gates ground open the travellers saw they had at last reached the brow of that carven hill, for against the sky of evening, taller even than Elof had guessed, arose its mighty crown, the Horns of the Bull that held the sun.

Cobbles rang beneath their feet as they were marched briskly off the platform and across a wide square. Elof slipped and stumbled, for he was gazing at the towers. They looked subtly newer than the others at their feet, and their resemblance to horns was no accident; their outermost faces were flat and hard-edged, but the inner faces were shaped carefully into a graceful continuous curve, as across the brows of a gigantic bull. Below them, at the level where eyes would be, stood two round drum turrets, many stories high and faced with graceful colonnades that flanked the front wall of a palace, a greater than any on the hill below, and a fairer. Midway in that wall a tall arched doorway opened, and above it a wide balcony whose canopy was in the form of a high helm crowned with a circlet The helm shone silver, the circlet with the lustre of fine gold and the sunlit fire of encrusted gems. To Elof that crown, like the overwhelming towers, seemed more vulgar than splendid; it hardly seemed to belong against the calm strength of the palace, almost as if it had been added later - recently, even. Then he frowned with sudden understanding. That balcony fell midway between the towers. When they captured the sun,
it
must seem to stand above that balcony, that helm like a crest; and how would a man seem who chose to appear beneath it then?

There were sentries waiting within that arch; a great many sentries, their mail brightly gilded, the shafts of their long spears a gaudy scarlet, as were the bobbing horsetail crests on their helms. One among them bore a surcoat of black worked with the crest of the sun between horns in heavy gold thread. He stepped forward unhurriedly, without surprise, a slender man with greying blond hair, and the sergeant saluted with great deference. Somehow, swift as the ascent had been, some message had passed more swiftly, and they were awaited. The man in the surcoat inclined his head politely to Elof. "I am Irouac, officer of the King. He will hear you at once, gentle sir, if you will come this way; but your sword, I fear… Not in his presence; no-one may, save his guard alone. I myself will bear it beside you; and I must search your burden also."

Elof s teeth clenched and his fist closed unbidden on Gorthawer's silvered hilt, but he knew he would achieve nothing by resisting; with the best grace he could summon, he unslung the bag from his shoulder and passed it to Irouac, then slowly drew the sword from his belt. The officer's eyes widened as he touched its edge, and he held it gingerly by its quillions. "A noble weapon, this! I understand you are a smith; of your own forging?"

"Of my re-forging. It was forged in the deeps of time, by a hand unknown to me. It came to me… as an inheritance."

"A rich one, then! It is fit to be a legendary blade of old, such as Belan that was Glaiscav's, or Talathar; that would fit its colour."

Elof smiled; his lore was being gently tested. "It would indeed,
talath
being a word in the Old Northern for the Dark; the Coming Dark. But whose blade might that have been?"

Irouac waved them in before him; the red-crested sentries closed in behind him, leaving their escort unceremoniously out on the steps. "This way, good sirs! The king
will
receive you in the main hall, only within these doors ahead -
Open, there
! Whose sword, sir? Why, I hoped rather that you might know that, for the last that is told of that hero was of his setting out oversea to seek the land you come from; Talathar was lord Vayde's sword, Vayde the Great. Was he simply lost at
sea, then? Did he never come among you, and find the
hero's death foredoomed to him, after all? Well, well. And has this blade a name?"

Elof swallowed in a dry throat; he was aware of Roc beside him, staring, speechless. "Vayde did come among us, sir," he answered with an effort. "I am thought by many, though by what ways I know not, to be distantly of his kind. And the blade has a name, sir, of my bestowing; it is Gorthawer. Know you what that means?"

"Why yes," said Irouac. "It means…" Then he hesitated, licked his lips, almost let fall the blade he held. "It means Nightfall."

The officer hurried on. Elof followed after him, but he hardly noticed the tall arches of the outer hallway, windowless and gloomy, nor its rich murals, dimmed now in shadow save where the declining sun shone down through the windows of the gallery above and shed a splash of sudden colour on the walls. He was elsewhere, wandering lonely over infinite grey marshes. Under cool heavy skies, with the smell of salt in his nostrils and the sharp black rushes rattling like an enemy's spears, the grass-flowers sprinkled like a spray of fresh blood; he was seeing
the
mass of bodies the bog had brought up in the spring thaw, cloven corpses from a thousand years past, some thirty or more, and one huge frame whole, still grasping a black-bladed sword. A sudden pang, and he was back at Morvannec as it then was, on that terrible, glorious night when a free people had bought their freedom anew in blood, when the light had first shone on that great statue of the Watcher, and shown him a face so like and so unlike his own. Vayde's face, Vayde's blade - and Korentyn who had known Vayde had seemed to recognise his very voice… Yet he was not Vayde; whatever twists and turns the River had taken, whatever the unknown parentage he cared for so little, he had never been more sure of that. Vayde was reputed a giant in stature, and so the Watcher's image showed him, Vayde, by such chronicles as Elof had bothered to consult, was a warlord, a schemer, a man of unpredictable and frightening temperament as his wrath-stamped countenance suggested, wielder of a cold and deadly justice; worse, he was certainly a necromancer who trafficked with strange forces in his strange tower, who had prolonged his life to twice that of ordinary men, and only incidentally a skilled smith. He had served good kings and good causes with ruthless loyalty, and sometimes by fell deeds they would never have countenanced themselves. What could Elof find of himself in all that? Little or nothing. If he was honest with himself, a certain ruthlessness; but not half so much. No word of love, and what had driven Elof most of his life save the quest for love? If Vayde had ever loved, no chronicler had thought to mention it. Uncertain tales were told of his eventual end, but all agreed it had come about in the turmoil when Kerbryhaine drove out the refugees from Morvan, whom he favoured. It could well have been in the Marshlands, then…

He came back to himself with a start. Roc had jogged his elbow. Glancing quickly around, he saw that they stood now on the threshold of a long hall, stone-flagged and shadowy, save for a window at the far end, through which the sky of evening showed ruddy and fierce. The buzz of voices hung heavy on the darkening air. Torches and lanterns were being lit along the walls, and by their flicker they revealed a considerable company there, seated around long tables, strolling about or simply lounging, kicking their heels against the rush matting that covered most of the flags. "Not here yet!" breathed Irouac thankfully. "Come along! Come! Not to be kept waiting!" He led them swiftly down the middle of the hall, where lines of pillars marked out a central aisle, lit very brightly by lamps before curved mirrors of metal cunningly worked into the pillars; they revealed the flagstones worn almost into grooves beneath the mats. Irouac halted them some twenty paces from a wide dais of white, not very high but surmounted with an immense carven chair of oak and some kind of yellowed ivory, clearly ancient work. Its back reached twice the height of a man, with a heavy canopy of ivory above it shaped to seem like cloth blowing in a wind, cloth intricately inlaid with gold, and each arm was a small table of ivory, their carven edges worn almost smooth by the rubbing of robed sleeves. There were images in the carvings that looked like scenes from a tale, and he was just striving to make them out, when the crowds at the side rustled into sudden life, there was a single clear note upon a trumpet, and a voice called out "Clear the way! Stand aside, all men! He comes, the Lord Nithaid of the Lonuen and of the Ysmerien comes, High King of the Land of Kerys and all its folk!
The King comes]"

There was a frantic stir and rustle in the background, chairs scraping against the floor and feet shuffling, and a growing hubbub. Forgetting his other concerns, Elof waited eagerly to see this king of an ancient line, this remote kinsman of his friend Kermorvan. "Think he'll be like him? Like as was Prince Korentyn?" Roc whispered.

"In body, who can tell?" Elof whispered back. "In mind and spirit, let us hope so; there is a bond of blood."

"Aye, but that's no guarantee; some of Kermorvan's kin were right sons…"

He said no more, for the crowd to their right scurried apart. Many threw themselves upon their faces and beat their brows upon the matting; everyone else fell to their knees, and all but a few, Irouac among them, bowed to the floor. He tugged furiously at Roc's sleeve; Roc glanced anxiously to Elof, who rebelled at the thought of grovelling as no man did before his own revered king. But not wishing to offend, he compromised by sinking slowly to one knee, Roc copying him, and with head erect sought his first sight of the monarch of this enormous land.

But strangely enough, it was not he who appeared first. A little girl in a bright red gown, a child of no more than ten summers with a gold fillet around her chestnut hair, came skipping unconcernedly along the cleared way, stopping to look back and giggle. Behind her stalked older boys, tall and sturdy in cloth of gaudy green and gold, with gold bands twined about their brows; at fifteen or sixteen they were almost men, but their faces, though well enough, were set as arrogantly as only rawest youth can be. Elof could see that they were chafing under the weight of
the
huge hands laid on their shoulders, at least in public; well, so might he have. Perhaps he himself, at the height of his own blind self-regard, had managed to look that unpleasant; and such a father as this might lay a formidable burden on his sons.