The Anvil of Ice (17 page)

After a while he turned and went into the house—if house it was, for there was only one room roofed, the forge itself. It was little better than a shack, but the roof was solid and the old front door of ironbound oak still strong; he would set more iron around its rotten edges, and remake the rusted hinges, till it could have defended a fort. Walls, roof, door and a warm bed on the brick ledge by the forge—he needed no better. He busied himself arranging the great heap of provisions they had left him, enough by themselves for a month or more. He had hooks and line here, too; later he would go fishing, and find dead wood to dry as kindling for the peat. He need look no further ahead than that; let the future dispose itself as it would. But even as he thought that, the face of Kara arose before him, and for a time he felt utterly and completely bereft.

So began his life in the tumbledown smithy on the salt-marshes, and a lonely life it was to be. Over the remaining months of that first summer he lived by tending to the travelers who passed that way, usually in caravans—shoeing their horses, making new knives and weapons to replace those lost or broken, repairing their harness and their trade goods, their wagons and carts and occasionally the carriage of a more important traveler. He did his work well, for it had no call for any power in it, and he could have been very well paid. But most often he took his fee in metal, the stuff of his trade, or food, of which all who journeyed through the Marshlands carried a good surplus against emergencies; he supplemented what he had with catching fish and trapping birds—or shooting them, when he found enough sound wood to make himself a bow and arrows. For the most part it was a meager living, for travelers were rarer even than usual on the road that first year, and he feared the coming of winter, when none at all would pass; he knew he had to hoard his small store against it, and smoked his catches over the forge, or preserved them in salt he made from the pools. He might have fared better by taking advantage of those who needed his help most, as Kathel had suggested, but that went against his nature. So his existence was harsh, harsher even than his childhood, and he had had many years of good living since then. And the marshes themselves made it harsher still, for they were a dank and sinister place indeed. In the heat of high summer they seemed hotter than his forgefire, hazy, fly-ridden and fetid; strange fish stirred sluggishly in the lukewarm pools, and foul gases rose from the quaking mud. The tall grasses yellowed and wilted, and dangerous bogs took on a thin deceptive crust to tempt the unwary foot too far. The road shone mirrorlike under a rippling curtain of air, and in it travelers approaching or departing seemed to appear and dissolve like visions, from and into nothing. But for all this, as summer drew into autumn and travelers became rarer still, Alv began to range further and further afield among the marshes. He seldom worried about missing a traveler, for in that flat country his sharp sight could make out anyone approaching along the hum-mocked crest of the road a long way off. At first he went in search of better places to fish and hunt, and these he found. But also he had not forgotten the lore of metals he had learned, and knew that strange stones of good iron could be found in such huge marshes, though none knew why or how they came there. It was in searching for these, with a crude rake he had made, that he found the place he named the Battle Lands.

It was a wide space of the marshes which began some two leagues away near the first island on the Causeway; he never found where it ended, for it seemed to span the whole heart of the marsh. And surely the place was as black and hazardous a heart as that fell place would have, all overgrown with thick clusters of black rushes whose stiff spear-tipped leaves could leave deep stab wounds in leg or questing hand. Worse, the whole area was spotted with broad shallow depressions, up to a hundred paces or so wide. These seemed to mark the path of some watercourse far below ground, for they were brimful of mud that was always liquid and sucked down what fell into it like the maw of a giant. And they were not constant, but would change from week to week, as if the water were seeking new courses under what had once been solid ground. Alv found them first by falling through a thin skin of rotting vegetation, and only pulled himself free with his rake. But when he had rested a little he thought the pit a likely place for iron, and raked as far as he could reach. He was surprised when at the first pass the tines hooked something that could not possibly be an ironstone. But it felt hard, so he drew it in, expecting some half-decayed root or branch. So he was even more startled to see before him the blackened remains of a breastplate with corroded rags and tags of chain mail still attached to it, and of no type or style he knew. There was enough metal left to be valuable, so he took it and thought little more of it, until some hundreds of paces further on, in more solid mud, he pulled up a clump of colorful marsh samphire to pickle and found an arrowhead tangled among its roots, and after that the peak of an iron helmet, again of no kind he knew. He raked another pit, and came up with yet more armor, but to his horror there was part of a body yet inside it, a headless trunk, withered but tanned brown and preserved by the marsh.

He let it fall then, and left that place, but he soon conquered his loathing of it enough to return, for the whole land was a treasure trove of metal. Some immense battle had taken place there once, or perhaps many, and other tragedies besides, and the ceaseless ferment of the bog brought many sad remnants back to the daylight. Once he came upon a whole wagon standing proud of the mud, with rags of its hide cover clinging to the metal hoops, and tackle dangling stiffly from its front. And when he waded cautiously out to it over the half-hardened ground, he found in the mud inside those it had carried, the bodies, still recognizable, of a man, a woman, two children; their hair gleamed golden in the slime, though their clothes had rotted to shreds. One of the man's hands yet grasped at a length of hide cord, which had surely been reins, but the other clasped at the fragments of an arrow in his chest.

"You were fleeing," said Alv aloud to the dark dead faces. "Who knows what from, or why? But they shot you, man, and your cart ran off into the marsh. And they cut your team free, and left your wagon, and your folk, to sink…" He felt his eyes prickle, and with a sudden surge of revulsion he ducked down, put his back to the rotting wood and with a single fearful heave tipped it out and over into the still liquid heart of the pit. The upturned wagon sank slowly from sight, its burden hidden beneath. "Sleep again," he said harshly, as the blood-red grass flowers hissed in the wind. "Sleep, and forget. There is injustice enough walks free and alive in the light of day."

As autumn drew on, and darkness closed around the day, the marsh became yet more terrible for him. Rains pounded the land, washing what had been firm paths into treacherous slideways to the dark pools. The song sparrows and mockingbirds fell silent, and the sad notes of plover and sandpiper, the harsh croaks of rails and faraway screams of seabirds echoed across the flat land. The mists came rolling in off the distant sea till only the scant treetops could be seen, like stark fingers clawing up, and in that mist the shadows grew weird and treacherous. Some seemed to walk by themselves, strange thin forms stalking beside him or behind him, whichever way he turned. At night eerie cries echoed under the black obscuring clouds, pallid lights danced in the shadows beside the Causeway, and sleet and moaning wind battered at his door like great hands knocking. He kept it well barred, and seldom stirred outside. When once he did, on a night that was crisp and clear, he saw an immensely tall figure, glimmering gray in the starlight, go gliding across the frosty grasses like smoke in a breeze. He stood rock-still till it had passed, then backed slowly inside, softly shut and barred the door and sank down behind it, shaking.

Not long after that, as autumn merged into a black, biting winter, he was just settling down for the night when he heard the unmistakable clop and rumble of a caravan approaching from the north. Wearily he went to the door and watched its lanterns advancing through the mist—a small party, eight or nine wagons and a carriage. He was glad when its troubles turned out to be even smaller—a single sheared axle-pin on the lead wagon, which he was able to replace from his prepared stock, filing and beating it to a solid fit with a few minutes' labor. He turned to store away the fine slab of bacon and pitcher of wine that were his fee, ignoring the caravan as it rumbled off. But he glanced up at the carriage as it came toward him. At the half-open window a slender arm rested; its long sleeve fluttered aside, and in its shadow he glimpsed the serpentine shape of his armring.

What that girl has, Louhi has
…

He stood in desperate confusion. If that was Kara—but if it was Louhi… And Louhi might well be there also-heading south—
why
? He remembered what Ingar had called her—a
schemer, a troublemaker—a great lady out of the Southlands, probably
… Was she returning there? As the carriage drew level with him he craned his neck to see, and made out another indistinct shape inside. He could dimly distinguish the face of the woman at the window, wreathed in something light-hued—but whether that was blond hair or a white hood, he could not tell. The woman did not see him; she seemed to be looking straight ahead, toward the Causeway. He had only to call out… And risk an encounter with Louhi. That might be almost as perilous as meeting the Mastersmith. Doubt held him a crucial moment, and the carriage rumbled by. And as it passed he saw the dim face turn; whoever she was, she was glancing down at him but without any sign of recog-nition. He stood, frozen, realizing only then how great were the changes that wanderings and labor and hardship had wrought in him, and the shame of them rose like bile in his throat. He felt then that even if it was Kara, he dared not move or speak to acknowledge himself, in the state he was. He let the carriage pull away. But as it passed her gaze seemed to linger on him, and as the carriage reached the Causeway he heard the window slam down, saw the white-wreathed head half lean out and look back. In a spasm of anguish he turned away as if uninterested, cursing himself for every kind of coward. He did not look again till the grind of the wheels had dwindled into the distance, and the caravan was fading like a dream beneath the livid face of the rising moon. Then he walked stiff-legged back into the mean forge, and collapsed onto his bed.

That midnight Alv awoke bathed in sweat, though the fire was low, and racked with sudden shivers. When he tried to stand, it was as if the marsh had run under the floor, and quaked. His bones ached, his teeth chattered, and before long his lungs seemed on fire. When he looked down at his hand the firelight seemed to shine right through it, as if he was fading away. With the last of his strength he fetched in more peat; he laid food to hand, and an infusion he had made from the bark of a certain tree which he had learned was a specific against some fevers. It was this, perhaps, that brought him over the worst of his illness, but it lasted many weeks and all but killed him. At times he lay raving beside the dying fire, seeing faces arise to haunt him in its lambent flames. The dead of Asenby came shimmering around him with the Headman and Hervar, all blackened, leading them, showing off their wounds with malign pride; the family from the wagon gathered around his bed, staring at him with wide shriveled eyes, and Kara moved among them, let fall her cloak to show herself as naked and withered as they. And in the corners of the forge, now here, now there, calmly surveying it all, stood the bulky frame of Ingar; as Kara appeared he threw back his head in a hearty laugh, and as he laughed he slowly, very slowly, cracked and crumbled away. Alv felt streams of whitehot silver run down his cheeks, but they were only tears.

Mercifully he grew lucid long enough to feed the fire before it died, and once to rekindle it when it had, though he was very weak and had to crawl. At times he choked down a draft of the bitter drug, and sometimes even a morsel of food when his stomach did not revolt. So he lived, and one night before the turn of the year the fever broke, though the morning found him almost too weak to move. The worst of winter was not yet upon him, and though it sorely taxed him and he had barely enough food, by degrees his health returned. Cocooned in his blankets, he huddled in the smoky darkness while the winds howled outside and the silent snow fell, and grew used to his misery, and patient under it, and awaited its ending in peace.

And one morning, though the marshes still gleamed with ice, and snow clung to the flanks of the Causeway, he was able to come out into the fresh dawn air, and find in it a taste and promise of spring. He breathed deeply, and spread his arms wide, and found room in his mind and heart for nothing but sheer delight at being alive. It was as if in those hours of illness he had at last faced what tormented him and met its agonizing price; the fever-flame had burnt it out of him. He could still suffer for what he had done, feel a chill shiver of horror and regret, but it had faded now into a memory, no more. He was cured of more than his sickness.

The sun arose in glory, reborn from the old year that was gone. "And I also am reborn," he thought, "here all alone. Am I still the boy they called Alv? Surely not. That was never his name. Better to be a nameless, lonely smith of the Saltmarshes—one alone, but one made whole…"

And then he remembered the lines from the ancient book, the words in the old tongue he had found when he made the helm, and among them the one that had two meanings.
Elof
, one alone;
Elof
, the smith.

So that is my name
! he thought, as if he had known it all along.