Sword of Avalon: Avalon

  When her guards commented on the improvement, she began to nag them to help. By the time Galid returned, a fortnight had passed. By then they were ready to beg him to take her away. That, it would appear, had already been his intention. Several of his men had come back with wounds, so they must have been fighting somewhere. Had they encountered Mikantor? No one would say. But Azan-Ylir was clearly no longer a secure location. On the second morning after his return, Galid hustled Tirilan into the chariot once more and bore her off across the plain. This time she was able to stand, although by the time they came to a stone shepherd’s hut by a dewpond, her legs were trembling with the strain.

  As the chariot came to a halt she jumped down, stumbling as she tried to force her legs to run. Foolish hope, for in three steps he had her. She saw his fist blur toward her; then pain exploded in her head. Half conscious, she was thrust into the dark interior. A bag of bread and a skin of water came after her.

  “I understand that you holy fools sometimes feel the need to retreat from the world,” said Galid, slamming the door. “Enjoy your solitude!” She heard the sound of a bar being dragged across, leaving her in the dark.

  THE FIRST NIGHT SEEMED endless. Tirilan tried to send her spirit in search of Mikantor, but Galid’s blow had left her too concussed to focus her will. She jerked awake at every squeak and rustle, her head throbbing so badly that by the time dawn lent a faint light she could no longer distinguish nightmare from reality. The ground seemed to rock beneath her . . . her stomach roiled but there was nothing in her belly to cast out. Cold and damp set her shivering, but far worse than any physical pain was the knowledge that she had lost Mikantor . . . no, it was Micail. The man he was then had been taller, with hair like a new-kindled flame.

  But I found him again, she thought, fighting her way back to awareness. I’m remembering the Sinking. She trembled as her mind filled with the image of a great mountain exploding in flames. We lost our world then, too, and yet we survived! Was that why Eilantha and Osinarmen had been born together once more?

  She slept at last, and when she woke once more the glimmer through the thatch had the golden glow of afternoon. The air smelled of damp earth and moldy straw, and a rustle of movement in the corner indicated she was not entirely alone. Her head still hurt, but it was becoming possible to think again. On her hands and knees she set herself to learn the limits of her prison. A faint illumination came through the thatching, but the stone walls were too high for her to claw her way out through the straw. She forced herself to eat the bread the mice had left her, and drink from the waterskin, wondering how long it would be before someone brought her food again.

  As the light faded Tirilan found herself weeping, afraid to endure another night like the one before. To her surprise, it was a memory of one of her mother’s scoldings that enabled her to regain control. There was no human experience, Anderle had told her once when she had skinned her knee, that could not serve as either a lesson or an opportunity. She had not appreciated the advice at the time, and she was sure that by calling this prison a retreat Galid had meant to mock her, but perhaps she could make it true. Then she would not be ashamed to face her mother and Mikantor when she saw them again.

  After casting a circle to discourage any vermin who might misinterpret her immobility, Tirilan settled herself cross-legged on the damp ground and began the counted breathing that would carry her into trance. From somewhere nearby came an intermittent rustling. Probably a mouse, she thought, and let the awareness fade away. The wind that always seemed to blow across this open country whispered and moaned in the thatching. This too she noted before letting the awareness go.

  Cimara had promised to teach her the secrets of this land, and one way or another, she was determined to learn. As darkness fell outside, she closed down her awareness of her surroundings in order to open and extend her perceptions of their inner reality. She sensed the life among the dense root systems of the grasses that covered the well-drained dry soil. Below the earth a porous layer of chalk allowed water to seep through to the clay beneath. Water carried energy, but the power in the land followed other paths as well, surfacing at the barrows and standing stones. She reached out to the spirits of the ancestors, remembering how her mother had called on them for help when she and Ellet fled the destruction of Azan-Ylir.

  When her body’s needs at last called her back to consciousness, a little light was filtering through the straw. She dozed then, and woke only when she heard the clattering approach of a chariot. She found herself almost disappointed when it was not Galid but Keddam who opened the door of her prison and tossed in another bag of supplies.

  The days that followed passed in much the same way. Between visits from her captors, Tirilan’s spirit sought refuge in trance. On one of those journeys it seemed to her that she was in Avalon, in her mother’s garden. “Where are you? Are you in danger?” asked Anderle, but Tirilan did not know where she was anymore, and could not reply. She tried to take swan shape to fly to Mikantor, but he was fighting, and she dared not distract him. In her waking hours she was aware that she was getting weaker, and tried to force her body to exercise, but increasingly, it was easier to walk in her dreams.

  “TINK, TINK, TINK, TAP . . .” Velantos worked the hammer around the bit of bronze, drawing it out to form a flat half-circle, then setting it on the workbench to start a new row of scales. It was simple work, but it eased his mind. “Tink, tink, tink,” and then a tap on the small bronze anvil to maintain the rhythm as he shifted the position of the bronze he was working on. He had completed a goodly number already. In the firelight they glinted like sunlight on the sea. The women of the old race were preparing the tunic of boar’s hide to which those scales would be riveted. When Mikantor put it on, he would look as if he were wearing a dragon’s skin.

  And what weapon will this great warrior hold in his hand? The unwelcome thought intruded once more, breaking the rhythm of the hammer. Velantos suppressed the impulse to cast it across the room. He wondered if Anderle had repaired the wall of the smithy at Avalon.

  The men of the elder race had worked well, and the smithy on the ridge was complete, with space for all his tools and straw mattresses at each end for him and the boy, where Aelfrix was snoring now. Beyond the beech grove an encampment of the elder folk had sprung up. The women brought food to the smithy each day. The weight of their expectation had been added to Anderle’s vision and Mikantor’s hope. Velantos had everything he needed, except, he thought grimly, the courage to begin again with the sword.

  The hilt, at least, could be made of bronze. He had done that already, as an affirmation that one day there would be a blade for it to hold. He took it from the doeskin bag and hefted it, running his fingers across the grooved grip wound with gold wire.

  Setting the bronze aside, he drew back the leather he had wrapped around the iron shards and picked up one of them, rubbing his thumb across the place where the metal had begun to curdle and run. Clearly it could soften, and if so, it could be worked. But what if his hammer hit another hidden flaw? He took up the tongs and set the piece in the fire, then bent to the bellows to pump up the flames.

  They leaped as the deep orange of the coals began to brighten, and presently a shimmer of silvery lavender swirled above. Brighter and brighter they glowed; he snatched out the iron as the first bright flickers sparked from its surface, laid it on the stone anvil, and tapped, swearing as scales of metal began to fall away. Even a few strokes had begun to shape the iron, but at this rate, by the time he flattened it, half of its substance would have flaked away.

  Shaking his head in frustration, he plunged the glowing end of the shard into the quenching brine. The only way to learn was to try and fail and try again, but he dared not risk the iron.

  “Lady!” He turned to the image of the goddess. “This work is not for my own glory, but for Yours, and only You can teach me how it must be done!” Carefully he set the piece of iron at her feet. It was the only thing he could think of to do. If the
gods wanted this sword made, they would have to take a hand.

  He worked his shoulders back and forth, only now realizing how tense they had become, then thrust a chunk of oak wood into the center of the hearth, banking the live coals around it to smolder through the night.

  “Sleep . . .” he whispered, “as I shall sleep. Send me good counsel . . .” He stripped off his tunic and crawled beneath the blankets, and somewhat to his surprise, slid into slumber almost immediately.

  VELANTOS DREAMED AND KNEW that he was dreaming.

  He walked through a landscape like one of the fire mountains in the lands of the Middle Sea, and with another part of his mind understood that this was a forge. Around him glowed boulders of every shape and size, stretching away to the rim of the caldera, or perhaps it was the wall of the hearth. With the logic of the dream it did not seem strange that he should wander here. This was his element.

  The path led him toward the center where the fire was hottest; with each gust of wind the red and orange shapes around him pulsed to a white-hot glow. But each step was harder, the waves of heat a palpable pressure against which he must force his way.

  What was he seeking? A lightning prickle of power passed through him as he realized that he faced a Presence, and in the next moment his vision shifted, and he perceived the form of a woman within the column of flame. Seeing Her, he recognized the Lady he had served for so long. Her flesh was shaped from white fire; Her hair streamed with flame borne up by the blast. He could not meet Her eyes.

  “So, beloved, you have come. . . . Why do you seek Me here?” Her voice both warmed and burned.

  “I seek Your aid to shape a sword,” he replied.

  “A sword of iron,” she echoed, “as you are iron. Are you ready to submit yourself to My fire?”

  “What must I do?”

  In answer, She opened Her arms.

  This was death, he thought, but for a smith, what better death could there be? He stepped toward Her and the fire enfolded him.

  Consciousness split. He was standing in the smithy, staring down at the glowing human shape upon the anvil, and knew that it was his own.

  “You are the smith and you are the iron . . .” came the Voice of the Fire. “You shall forge yourself into a weapon for the one you love!”

  “But how will I remember?” he cried.

  “Look at Me. . . .” She whispered, “Look at Me . . .”

  The Lady still stood among the flames. Her color had deepened. Her body glowed with the rich orange of the setting sun, but Her hair and eyes were now the color of the charcoal before it meets the fire. Slender, intense, it was Anderle’s face and form he was looking at, Anderle’s voice that had spoken those final words.

  Velantos woke, ears still ringing with Her final “Remember . . .” and on his lips the name Anderle. He untangled himself from the bedclothes and knelt by the fire, half afraid of what he might see. The coals were veiled by a thin layer of ash, but a shimmer of heat in the air above them told him that they waited only for a breath to wake to glowing life once more.

  His muscles ached with the memory of labor. The knowledge he needed lay within them, waiting for the word that would set them to work once more. But who would say that word? He only remembered that he must surrender himself to the fire.

  Or to Anderle—he thought grimly. He had seen the Goddess speak through her at rituals on Avalon. If she could surrender her own will to the Lady of the Forge, he would face Her fire. He heard Aelfrix whistling outside and clambered to his feet.

  “Summon Grebe,” he said as the boy came through the door. “I must send a message to Avalon.”

  BY THE TIME GALID came back, Tirilan had lost track of how long she had been a prisoner. She stumbled as he led her blinking into the sunlight, amazed at the solid vividness of the world.

  “Have you enjoyed your retreat?”

  “Yes . . .” she said slowly. “I thank you. I have learned many things . . .” From his expression, this was not what he had expected to hear. The skin beneath his eyes was dark and pouchy, as if he had not been sleeping well. She took a deep breath and felt her focus return. “What do you intend to do with me? I am no use to anyone rotting here. . . .”

  “It is true that it would be simpler to slit your throat and be done with it. But that’s so final.” There was a bench by the old sheep pen. As she stumbled again, Galid shoved her toward it and she sat down. “Much as I’d enjoy seeing Mikantor’s face when I tell him how you died, it will be much more entertaining to tell him how I plan to kill you. To save you, I fancy he will give up everything. Perhaps I’ll tie you where you can watch what I do to him . . .”

  Tirilan lowered her eyes to hide the terror that threat awakened. It was harder to keep her voice steady this time.

  “What good will that do? You control the plain, but you are not the king. You make nothing grow, nothing prosper. The powers in the land do not speak to you. What were you seeking when you betrayed Uldan all those years ago?”

  Galid frowned as he realized that she really did want to know. And she realized that he had no answers.

  “I think you are a hollow man,” she said softly. “The wind blows through you, and soon it will blow you away. The ancestors will not welcome you—it will be as if you never lived at all.”

  “And if I am,” he said through gritted teeth, “how am I different from all the rest of you, clinging to life in a dying land? What is the use of being an ancestor if there are none to follow?”

  After so many days of silence, every sound was layered with meaning. He meant his voice to hold menace, but what she heard in it was pain. She bit back a cry as he gripped her wrist.

  “There is only now, my dear, and while I am alive I will wring from life everything I can. If I cannot feel pleasure, I will feel pain, and if I cannot give pleasure, I can surely make you feel agony!” Suddenly his dagger was in his hand. “Shall I begin by cutting off one of these pretty fingers as a gift for Mikantor?”

  He slammed her hand against the wood of the bench and set the blade of his dagger against the crease where her little finger met the palm.

  “Just a little more pressure and it will be off,” he whispered. He pressed and she winced as the sharp edge split her skin. “But I will wait until I find your beloved—the finger should be fresh enough for him to recognize it as yours.” Laughing, he lifted the blade and let her go. “That moves you, does it?” She drew a shuddering breath and he grinned. “This opens up all sorts of possibilities—your pretty nose, for instance . . . how if I leave you alive, but spoil your beauty. Will your fine warrior still want you then?”

  “Will you?” she whispered.

  Her vision had adjusted and she saw him clearly—the lines cut by cruelty and rage, the flesh that sagged from too much food and drink, and deep within those pale glinting eyes, desolation. He knows his time is over, she thought, and fears . . . what? Sharper than his knife was his need, and her heart, opened by those endless nights, responded.

  “Will my blood ease your thirst? Then drink—” She held out her hand, where red drops were beading along the line his knife had made. As he recoiled, she sighed, and then opened her arms. “If I will love you, freely and without force, will you let Azan go?”

  For a moment Galid simply stared, all expression gone; then his fist swung up and he struck her to the ground.

  “Whore!” he hissed. “All of you, stinking, deceiving whores!” He staggered toward the chariot. “Drive!”

  “What about her?” asked the charioteer.

  “Throw her back in her hole. She can rot there. . . .”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The setting sun that bathed the downs in a fiery glow sent Anderle’s shadow into the smithy before her. She paused in the doorway to let her vision adjust, waiting until she could see the man who stood by the hearth. Velantos had dressed carefully to meet her. His sleeveless tunic of saffron wool had patterned banding at neck and hem, but he seemed thinner, as if he had been fasting. S
he remembered him wearing that garment at the Midwinter Festival. He had not prepared himself for her, she realized then, but for the goddess he served. The smithy had been swept, the hearth was clean and empty, but the shelf on which he had placed his clay image of the goddess bore a bunch of early summer flowers.

  “You came . . .” he breathed.

  “You called.”

  After the way that they had parted, for him to send for her argued great need. At Avalon she had no purpose but struggle to make sense out of her dreams. Here at least there might be something she could do.

  “Lady—be welcome here. I see now that I dreamed true,” he added. “When you stand in the sunlight your skin is the color of the coals, the color of Her skin. This is why I sent to you. I ask you now, will you let Her speak through you to tell me how to forge the Sword? Will you trust me? Will you trust Her?”

  “Will you?” she replied.

  “I must. I am sorry for what happened at the smithy on Avalon.” He coughed, and she realized what that admission had cost him. “I ran away from you—I cannot run from myself. I was proud of my skill. I rage because I know nothing. But in my dream the Lady of the Forge speaks. She said I must surrender to the Fire . . . If you give the fire a voice, then I will know what to do.”

  Anderle believed him. She had seen that look before, when an initiate prepared to take the herbs that would break down the barriers between the worlds. Sometimes death came with the illumination. One must be willing to accept either outcome. For the first time she understood that smiths were also a priesthood.

  Her own heart beat heavy and slow. “Priestess to priest, I will work with you, and if your Lady wills it, as goddess to smith as well.”