Throughout that night the smithy rang. In the encampment of the elder folk they heard the forge music, and drummed and prayed. And when dawn spread the sky with glowing banners, Velantos lifted the black sword he had shaped and carried it outside to salute the coming day.
Then he turned back to the smithy, blinking as the shadows of the forge replaced the light. Now that the night’s labor was over, he could feel the ache in every limb. The sword was not finished—beneath his caressing fingers the metal was smooth, but the marks of the hammer would have to be ground out and the edges honed. As he crossed the threshold, the leg that had been wounded in Tiryns betrayed him and he stumbled, instinctively thrusting out the iron blade to break his fall.
He felt it give beneath him. When he straightened, recovering vision showed him that his lovely blade had bent like a bow. He whirled to face the Lady.
“What is this?” he cried, fury displacing his fatigue. “It bends like an old man’s pizzle! Better a bronze sword that breaks—at least you can stab your enemy with the ragged end. What have I done wrong?”
The iron had passed a handbreadth from the Lady’s face as he swung it up, but she did not move.
“You have done nothing wrong—but you are not yet done . . .” She sounded amused. “Put it on the anvil and hammer it flat again. Do not fear to mar it. The metal is quite tough and will not be harmed.”
Velantos realized that he was shaking. He did not begrudge the labor, but after so much effort, and hope, to fail now would destroy him as well as the sword. He laid it on the anvil and took up the smaller stone hammer. A few well-placed blows straightened the blade. He turned to the Lady.
“Very well—it looks almost the same. But I will not sleep easy, wondering how this weakness may be healed . . .”
“This day we will not sleep at all,” said the Lady, “though we may rest. The sword is formed, but not yet finished. For that, it must be cradled in the heat of my womb.” At his look of confusion She smiled once more. “Put more charcoal into the hearth and pile it high. Heave at the bellows until it glows like the rising sun. We shall place the sword within and pack the coals tightly around it. There it will grow an armored skin like a dragon’s hide. But we must be vigilant to keep the coals at the same heat until the sun outside glows red once more. For three nights you have put forth all your power. What is needed now is the patience to endure.”
“Patience has never been one of my virtues, Lady,” he muttered, and she laughed.
“Do you think I did not know?”
As Velantos brought more charcoal from the storage shed, he felt the pounding of his heart begin to ease. He had never heard of the technique the Lady was describing, and could not imagine what use it might be. But so far her directions had been good. To trust that she knew how to complete the task was all the hope he had.
By the time all was ready the sun was climbing up the sky. Once more, Velantos used the poker to open a way. Slowly, reverently, he slid the black blade into the hot depths of the forge, then adjusted the piled coals until no part of it could be seen.
“Should I ply the bellows now?” he asked.
“Net yet. You can estimate the intervals, for you know how this charcoal behaves. From time to time you will need to check the color and give the fire more air, but the iron will melt if it grows too hot, just as it will weaken if it is too cool.”
He nodded, swaying. For three days the desire to complete the work had driven him. Now he did not know what to do. He looked down at his strong hands, blinking. They were blackened by the work and bore a few scrapes he had not noticed at the time.
“First, we should eat . . .”
Velantos looked up as he heard her voice alter. The goddess had departed and she was only Anderle once more, shivering in the morning breeze that came through the open door. He forced his limbs to motion, took down her cloak and wrapped it around her, then guided her to a bench and made her sit down. Now he too felt the cold, and pulled on the tunic he had cast aside three days ago.
“This time they have brought us soup,” he said, picking up the bowls set by the door. “With marrow,” he added, breathing in the rich aromas, “and some kind of roots, and barley.” He handed one of the bowls to Anderle, then took his own and sank down beside her. She cradled it gratefully between her hands.
“We had a dish something like this when I was growing up,” he said as the rich soup began to restore him, “though they cooked it with more herbs.”
“At Avalon, this was festival fare,” Anderle replied. “Our food is healthy, and plentiful except when we are fasting, but we rarely eat meat, and strong flavors make us think too much about the body when we are trying to focus on spiritual things.”
That explained a lot, thought Velantos. “Just now our bodies need feeding,” he said instead. She nodded, and he heard her spoon scrape the bottom of the bowl.
“What was it like, growing up by the Middle Sea?” she asked.
His chuckle rumbled in his chest. “What I remember most just now,” he answered, “is that in the summer, it was warm.” He got up and poked the fire, saw that the coals still glowed orange, and sat down again.
“Will the goddess tell you when it is time to take the sword out?” he asked.
“I believe so,” the priestess replied. “I can feel Her presence like a pressure within my skull, perhaps in the same place I was lurking when She was here. I think that when you need more direction, She will come in again.”
“Then you remember what we have done?”
“I retain images, though I do not always understand.” She sighed and set down her bowl. A companionable silence fell between them. He could hear the sweet song of a warbler from the trees outside. It was a winter bird in the lands from which he came.
It was the first time, he thought, that he had been in Anderle’s presence and felt at ease. But truly, he was too tired to feel either lust or irritation, and so, he supposed, was she. For the first time they could see each other as they truly were. Without thinking, he had put his arm around her, and she leaned against him gratefully.
They continued so, sharing stories or sitting in silence, as the sun passed its zenith and journeyed westward, rising every so often to feed more air or fuel to the fire. At some point during the day Velantos slid from the bench to sit with legs outstretched and his back against it. He only realized that he had slept when he heard the wheeze of the bellows and started awake to see Anderle kneeling to work them on the other side of the hearth.
“I am sorry—” he began, but she shook her head.
“You have done your work. It is the part of the man to labor to plant the seed in the womb, but after that, all he can do is to take care of the mother and wait while it grows.”
“Are you saying that this sword is our child?” His lips quirked in unexpected amusement.
“After three nights of forging, do you have to ask? Rest. When the blade comes from the forge, you will have to polish and sharpen it and give it a hilt, as the father raises the child. But I think that watching over it is my task now.”
WHEN VELANTOS OPENED HIS eyes he found himself surrounded by fiery light. For a moment this seemed quite natural, as if it was he, not the sword, that lay in the hearth. Then his vision cleared, and he realized that the light was coming through the doorway. Through the trees he could see a flicker of orange light that must be the setting sun.
Panic jerked him upright, casting the blanket that had been drawn over him aside. His pulse slowed as he saw Anderle—no, it was the Lady of the Forge—standing beside the hearth.
“My Lady, is it time?” His heart begin to pound once more.
“This is the hour when the Sword from the Stars must come forth from the womb of fire.” Her voice was measured and slow. “Take up the tongs and draw it out. Lay it on the anvil to make sure it is straight, but only for a moment. Before it can cool, you must put it into the tub of brine.”
“But that will soften it again—” the smith
exclaimed.
“Fool! This is not bronze! A quick quench will soften copper, but like the slap that wakes the child to life, the shock of the water hardens iron. Move, man! The time to bring forth has come!”
She stretched out her hand, and fire seared his veins. With a single swift movement Velantos took up the tongs in one hand and in the other a shovel with which he lifted the coals. Parts of the sword had glowed while he was forging it, but now what he saw in the depths of the forge was a sword made of fire. Swiftly he gripped it, carried it in a swirl of smoke to the anvil. A practiced eye saw that it was still straight and true. He lifted it again, poised it over the brine tub, and with one last frantic glance at the goddess, plunged the blade straight down.
It hissed like a serpent, and he began to believe that it might have grown a dragon’s hide. The water bubbled around it and released a cloud of evil-smelling steam. Velantos held it steady until the water stilled, and then, hardly daring to breathe, lifted it free.
“From fire and water it is born . . .” said the Lady. “After passion, peace. . . .”
The blade was already cool enough to hold in his bare hands. The dark surface seemed opaque, but along the thin edges ran a rippling border of paler gray.
“Bend it—” the Lady said then. He looked at her in alarm. “Bend it, for if you do not test it now, you will always fear—”
She was right, he thought grimly. And if it failed, he could plunge what was left of it into his own heart. He swung the blade down, set the point in the earth, and leaned. His heart stopped as he felt it give. He jerked back, his cry of anguish cut short as the sword quivered in his grip like a live thing and flexed back to its original shape once more.
Velantos fell to his knees, holding the sword in both hands, examining it as closely as ever a father examined his newborn child. But there were no tiny cracks along the edges, no distortion in the blade. The sword was without flaw.
Weeping, he cradled the blade against his breast. When he could see again, he found Anderle beside him. Her eyes were shining with the same exultant light that he knew must blaze in his own. From somewhere outside he could hear cheering.
“We have done it,” she said softly. “Drink to your triumph, my dear—” She held out a clay cup. “The elder folk have sent us mead.”
He needed the support of her arm to get upright again. He took the cup, turned, and tipped it hissing onto the coals. “To You, my Lady, with all my heart,” he whispered. “This is Your miracle. . . . And yours,” he added, turning to Anderle. She poured more mead into his cup and he drank it down.
Then, very carefully, he set the sword on the workbench and his cup beside it, took Anderle’s from her hand, and pulled her against him. She stiffened in surprise, but not, he sensed, in rejection. Kissing her, he felt the heat grow between them. He stroked down her back, waiting for the yielding that was like the moment when the metal ceases to resist the hammer. It came swiftly—they had had three nights of foreplay, after all. The bed was before them. All thought ceased as he lifted her in his powerful arms.
TWENTY-SIX
My Lady . . .”
Anderle stirred unwillingly as the soft voice broke through her dreaming. And they had been such lovely dreams too. . . .
“Lady, you must waken! There is a messenger!”
She started to turn, realized that Velantos’ arm was lying across her breast and smiled, understanding that it had not been a dream after all. Carefully she moved his hand and sat up, rubbing her eyes and blinking at the pale light of dawn. It seemed strange to have slept through the night, but she could see the sword lying on the workbench. All her dreams, she thought with a surge of joy, had come true.
Velantos murmured her name and reached for her as she eased out from beside him. Even in sleep he looked happy. She supposed the smile on her own face was the same. Her skin was still sensitized by the touch of his work-roughened hands. She dropped a kiss on his palm and tucked it beneath the blanket as she drew it back over him, then rose, found her cloak and pulled it around her, and went to the door.
“What is it that cannot wait until we are properly awake?” she asked the woman who waited by the door.
“A man comes from Avalon. He says he must see you now!”
Anderle looked past her. The messenger might have come from the Tor, but he was no man of Avalon. Her throat tightened as she recognized the gray cloak with a swan’s feather tucked into the pin that marked him as one of Mikantor’s men. She pushed past the woman and joined him under the trees.
“You are Ulansi, are you not? What has happened?”
“I am sorry, my Lady—” he babbled. “I thought I would find you at Avalon, but they said you were here. I came as quickly as I could, but I have been nearly half a moon on the trail.”
“Never mind that!” she exclaimed. “Has harm come to Mikantor?”
“My lord is well in body, so far as I know—” He swallowed. “It is your daughter, Holy One. Galid holds her prisoner. . . .”
She staggered and he put out an arm to steady her. The muscle was like oak beneath the taut skin. Velantos’ whole body had been like that, hard against her own.
Galid! Her heart raced as she remembered his threats. What would he do to her child? If she offered to take Tirilan’s place, would he let the girl go? Could she make such a sacrifice without abandoning her own duty?
“My lord marched off with most of the Companions to help the Ai-Akhsi king deal with some brigands who’ve been troubling him. The lady Tirilan went away with Queen Cimara to learn the ways of the land. I was still in Carn Ava—one of my cousins was there—I hadn’t known he was still alive, and Mikantor said I might stay. So I was there when Soumer—he who’s now Galid’s right-hand man—came driving up in his chariot and demanded to see the lady Nuya. When the priestess came out, he dropped Tirilan’s shawl in the mud before her, said that he had Tirilan prisoner, and if Mikantor wanted his whore back he should come to Azan-Ylir.
“But we have spies in his household—she is not there, and no one knows where he has hidden her now. We sent our best runner north to fetch Mikantor, and they sent me to you because I knew the way to Avalon. The Sacred Sister has asked all the tribes to gather on the Plain of Azan.”
At least, the priestess thought with a bitter relief, this news had not come while they were still forging the sword. Now the conflict was not between duty and duty, but only between duty and desire. From what Velantos had told her, the steps that remained to complete work on the sword were all things he understood. He no longer needed the goddess to hold his hand. Her heart ached at the pain he would feel when he found her gone, because that pain was her own. But better he should think she had abandoned him than that he should follow her and fail to complete the sword. She thanked the goddess for the miracle She had wrought in the forge—she had no right to expect happiness as well.
She gestured to the woman. “I must go with this messenger. When the smith awakens, give him food, and tell him that when he has completed the sword he must take it to Mikantor at the Plain of Azan.” Because, by the time the weapon was completed, that was where he would surely be.
“I have to return to the war band—” said Ulansi when the woman had gone, “as swiftly as I may.”
Anderle gave a short laugh. “Go ahead, if you think you can go faster, and never fear for me. I have ways to pass unseen, and I know Azan. I will search for my daughter. Tell Mikantor to gather an army that will destroy Galid once and for all.”
VELANTOS SAT IN THE doorway of the smithy, grinding the sandstone down the length of the sword. Beside him was a bowl of half-eaten porridge. The elder folk were still feeding him, but where before they had feared to distract him, now they feared his wrath. The smith scarcely noticed that he had not spoken to another human being for three days. Even Aelfrix was gone. First on one side, then on the other, but always in the same direction, he pushed the stone outward to smooth the surface from the swelling center to the honed edge. Already
it gleamed like the wing of the gray goose in the sun.
The labor required coordination and judgment, lest one grind too much of the metal away and unbalance the blade, but compared with the forging, it was a simple, repetitive task. Once, he had welcomed this part of the making, a time to sit and think and work his own magic into the blade. Now, thought was his enemy.
Why had Anderle left him?
He had assumed they would take the sword to Mikantor together. He was sure she had told him that she had the materials with her to make the scabbard when the sword was done. And yet she had scurried off without a word to put out whatever brush fire was burning at Avalon. She had been in charge there for too long, he thought angrily. She had left a dozen full priests and priestesses on the holy isle—why did she think she was the only one who could fix the world? Grimacing, he ground out his anger and his frustration into the sword.
Sunlight flared as he lifted it. The shape he had forged had been true, but it had veiled the sharply drawn form he was revealing now, as a caul veils a newborn child. At least, he thought grimly, he could still trust his craft.
He put down the sandstone grinder and picked up the fine-grained greenstone, working it carefully down the blade to smooth away the faint lines that were like the vanes of the feathers on a bird’s wing. Even the most highly polished bronze gleamed no more brightly than the reflection of the setting sun in a pool. But the meteor sword was beginning to shine like the sun at noon.
“Blaze like the white-hot coals from which you were born! May your light blind the wicked, your fire sear all evil away!”
That radiance illuminated his spirit, but his heart still ached with uncomprehending anguish for the loss of what he had so briefly known.
ANDERLE’S NOSTRILS TWITCHED AS she carried the pitcher of ale into the central hall of Azan-Ylir. The hide that had covered the carved bull’s head on the wall was moth-eaten, and none of the rich hangings and gilded ornaments with which Galid tried to disguise his spirit’s poverty could dispell the pungent aroma of urine and spilled beer. It had been worse, the other women assured her, before the half of a moon that Tirilan had been a captive here.