Authors: Bernard Evslin
He was plucked from the ice by a hungry mist-crone whose favorite fare in all the world was human blood—especially hero’s blood, drunk fresh from the skull. She stooped low, chittering, and plucked him from the ice floe and flew away with him toward her nest. But then she felt his heart beating and realized that he was alive.
“I’d better not eat him,” she thought. “He’s worth more than a meal or two. He’s a well-made young lad, and will make a fine slave for the smith demons. For such a one, no doubt, they will trade me ten worn-out old slaves, who, nevertheless, will furnish enough blood to last me through the season. Not hero’s blood, to be sure, but we’re in for a hungry winter, I know, what with Vilemurk’s defeat. And it behooves me and my sisters to lay up stores where we may. The Master grows angry when the winter is warm, and the pickings will be lean, lean. …”
The mist-crone flew with Finn to the crater of a volcano in the dead middle of Vilemurk’s secret domain. There she traded him for ten used-up smithy workers. Finn was taken down into the foul smoky depths of the mountain, and the mist-crone flew off, cluttering happily, bearing a bladderful of fresh blood and a sack of fresh skulls.
Finn awoke to find himself a slave in the smithy, which is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone. The hollow mountain is a loathsome sooty place, lit only by the volcano fire, upon which the twisted smiths forge their weapons. The slaves are used to tend the fires and work the bellows, and haul the ashes, and scrub the anvil. They are kept half-starved, allowed almost no rest, and are worked until they drop. No guard is kept upon them because they cannot possibly escape. Each one is chained by the ankle to a round flat stone so heavy that the slave can barely trundle it along. Nevertheless, he is expected to keep up with his work. If he falls behind he is flogged almost to death. So the slaves drag their stones about from task to task as nimbly as they can. When completely worked out, and of no more use to the smithy, they are either fed to the flames or sold to the mist-crones, for the smith demons can always count on a fresh supply of slaves. Vilemurk makes constant war on the other gods, and on humans, and is always taking prisoners. And prisoners of war in those days were always enslaved.
At first Finn didn’t care how soon he dropped from exhaustion and was fed to the flames. To labor ceaselessly in the strangling darkness, he thought, was worse than any death could be. He could hardly breathe, the air was so thick with charcoal dust and ash. And no matter how fast he worked he was beaten to make him work faster.
“Well,” thought Finn to himself. “If it’s time to go, I’ll take one or two of them with me. The next time one of them starts to beat me I’ll snatch the whip from his hand and knock out his snaggly teeth with its butt, and wrap the lash around his neck and strangle him with it. Then the others will bash in my skull with their iron mallets and that’ll be that.”
So he prepared for one last act of defiance, and immediate death. But then, for some reason or other, his wrath turned icy. His weird stubbornness arose, and his wits began to work.
“After all,” he said to himself, “I’ve served an apprenticeship at suffering. All heroes must. Did I not, when still a small boy, fall into the clutches of the Fish-hag? And was she not a mistress of torments? Did her flying needle not sew up my lips and stab me into obedience? Did not the old witch herself work out on me twice a day with a whip that cut my flesh as cruelly as any of these? And my flesh was more tender then. And did I not bide my time and seek wise counsel from the Salmon, and learn to outwit the Hag, and leave her defeated—bound to a tree, humiliated? And didn’t I make my escape then with full honors, and with her own tomcat, who has befriended me so well? And didn’t I learn from her endurance, and the power of silence, and some of the arts of strategy? Am I to forget all that because of some weeks’ discomfort? No! Finn McCool does not surrender so easily. He does not allow his enemies so easy a victory. His death will be dearly purchased. Let me think now. … Let me be true to myself and find a way out of all this misery, and pay back those who have made me suffer. That is the way of a man and a warrior.”
And so, instead of snatching his few poor rags of sleep that night, he lay there in his grime and exhaustion, trying to make a plan. The next day at the forge, he spoke to the head smith, who was just putting an edge to a splendid sword, and said:
“Pardon, master, but that blade looks dull.”
“What!” cried the smith. “Miserable earthworm! How dare you address yourself to me without permission. How dare you pass an opinion on a weapon I have forged? What do you know of swords anyway, slave?”
“Like many a slave,” said Finn, “I was a warrior once, and the son of warriors. I am Finn McCool. My father was the great Cuhal. His sword, by common admission, was the finest ever forged. That blade could shear off a bull’s horns or a boar’s tusks as if they were twigs. I have seen my father scythe down an oak tree as thick around as a span of oxen with one whisk of that sword. I have seen him cut through rock. And I know for a fact, because the sword became mine upon my father’s death, that it could cut through any link of any chain ever made. It was this sword that cut away Lyr’s manacles when he was Vilemurk’s prisoner, and set him free to turn the tide against your lord in his recent war. For I, myself, gave that sword into the hands of the one who struck the chains off the sea god.”
“That was your sword?” said the smith wonderingly. “Your very own, the blade of Cuhal? We knew, of course, that it must have been that blade that cut Lyr free, for no other could have done it. We forged the manacles right here in this workshop. I forged them myself. As for the sword, I must tell you that it was made by my own father, who passed all his craft to me!”
“If you’re as good as your father,” said Finn, “why can’t you make a sword as good as the one he made for my father?”
“It was not made for your father,” said the smith. “It was ordered by Vilemurk himself to give as a gift to one of his favorites, the Prince of the North. It was stolen by your father.”
“Not stolen. Taken as honorable booty from the hand of a dead enemy. My father, Cuhal, defeated the Prince of the North in a mighty battle, as you well know.”
“Nevertheless,” said the smith, “we have no call for such weapons these days. Vilemurk has ordered none that fine. But if he did, I would be the one to make it, I, I myself, son of my father.”
“What do you mean there is no call for such a blade?” said Finn. “Does the call have to come from Vilemurk? Do you not hear your own pride speaking sometimes in the pulse of your blood during a sleepless night? Does it not say, ‘You cannot prove that you are the man and the smith your father was—for you have done nothing to equal what he has done?’ Do you never hear the teasing voice of your pride? Can you bear to live out your days in this smoky mountain laboring at these cheap weapons, never being able to prove that you have something special you can do? That you have a skill that can be matched by no other man or demon? For a skill unused is no skill at all. Your father might as well have taught his craft to that pillar of rock. For you have done nothing with it, and you will not be able to teach it to your son. It will have died of disuse.”
“Stop it!” cried the smith. “Your words sting worse than those blind worms who gnaw at the roots of mountains and come through the rock at night to torment crater folk. Stop talking, I say! Not another word! Or I’ll fling you into the fire straightway.”
“You can stop me from talking,” said Finn. “And you can fling me into the fire. But you will remember my words all the same, and they will burn in your mind. For I am only your own idea of yourself speaking. I am your thwarted pride speaking, and that you cannot silence until you do what you know you have to do.”
“Enough,” roared the smith. “I am as good a craftsman as my father. And I shall prove it … this very night. All night long shall I labor, and you will abide with me feeding the fire. And I shall forge such a blade as will make you forget the sword of Cuhal.”
“Permit me to doubt it,” said Finn politely. “I believe your talents have grown rusty through years of disuse, and that you will not be able to forge such a blade. But I will await the outcome with much curiosity nonetheless.”
All night long the smith labored, bringing to his task all the cunning and all the lore learned by the mountain trolls through thousands of years of forging weapons since the first metal was smelted from the first ore dug out of the earth. For all that time, in an unbroken line, these helpers of Vilemurk, these twisted volcano demons, have been forging weapons for the gods, and for such heroes as have been able to steal them. And this smith was indeed a patient and clever craftsman. And he brought such a proud fury to his work that night as to go beyond his own skill and invoke a magic of craft beyond craft. All night long, Finn stoked the fire for him, and worked the bellows, watching closely, but keeping very still.
From a special bin the smith took a bar of volt-blue metal. This metal had been dug out of a meteor, which had flamed briefly in the sky centuries before, and then buried itself in the earth. After the meteor cooled, it showed a curious gray rock streaked with blue metal which the mountain trolls had taken as a prize. Only head smiths were allowed to work this metal from the sky, and only on the most special occasions. It was the hardest, most flexible metal in all the world, and took the sharpest edge. Finn recognized it—his father’s blade had shone with the same silvery blue light—and his breath caught with excitement, but he was very careful not to show the smith how he felt.
The swordmaker heated the bar of metal red-hot, and plunged it into a vat of water until it cooled off. He did this three times, then heated it white-hot, and this time plunged it into a broth made of lion’s blood to give the blade courage, and fox’s blood to give it cunning, and owl’s blood so that it would never sleep in its sheath—all mixed with crystalline ice water from the frost king’s own fountain. Each time he worked the molten ingot, shaping it into a murderous elegant slenderness. Finally, on the forge lay a tapering two-edged blade, each of the edges honed razor sharp—and it came to a needle point. Before putting the final edge on it, however, the smith made its hilt. He twined leather strands about the rounded end of the blade. The leather had been cured from the hide of a new born bull calf; it was soft and very tough. Then he inlaid the leather with delicately spun gold wire. This combination of bull-calf hide and gold filament made a supple handle which could fit itself to any grip, and allowed the warrior to keep his hold on the hilt in the shock and ruck of the most violent battle.
The hand-guard was no simple crosspiece but a deep cusp made of brass leaf, beaten thin as flower petals and welded together leaf upon leaf, making a guard that was as supple as leather and tough as steel. No blade could shear through it to wound the swordsman’s hand.
Finally, just as night ended, and the great gong sounded to call the slaves from their brief sleep, the smith honed the edge of the blade for the last time, wiped it down with an oily rag, and held it gleaming in the forge fire.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he said to Finn.
“Beautiful,” said Finn. “As beautiful as the sword of Cuhal. But—can it cut as well? We must try its edge.”
“Here,” said the smith, thrusting the sword into Finn’s hand. “You try its edge. You will find it can cut this anvil in two. And when you have satisfied yourself that it equals or surpasses the sword of Cuhal, and that I, I am the author of this blade, I, and no other—why, then you will give it back to me and I will strike the head off your shoulders for your insolence.”
“Well,” said Finn. “I suppose it could be considered an honor to be decapitated by the best sword ever made—if such it is—but let me try it first before you finish your boast.”
Finn made a pass or two in the air.
“Ah … nicely balanced,” he said. “So far, so good. Now for the test.”
But he did not strike at the anvil. He struck at his own ankle. As the smith stared in amazement, Finn struck off the chain which manacled him to the stone. He did a little dancing step, and laughed into the smith’s face.
“Why … nothing makes you feel as light-footed as being chained to a rock for a couple of months.”
“What are you doing?” whispered the smith in horror.
“Testing your sword. Indeed, it is everything you claimed. It cut fairly through my chains. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were good at heads, too.”
Before the smith could take a step backward, the blade glittered in the forge light once again, and swept the troll’s head off his shoulders. And Finn himself, moving swiftly and silently as the shadow of flame upon the rock wall, fled up the hills of slag, up, up, up, his feet spurning the ash, and raising clouds of fine gray powder. Two sentries leaped to stop him. The blade flashed again, and two heads rolled in the ash. And Finn was out the mouth of the crater and rushing down the slope so swiftly he did not seem like a man at all, but like a goat leaping or a stone dropping.
Down the slope he rushed, down to the level ground, never breaking his stride. Onward he rushed, hurdling logs, leaping streams, into a girdle of trees. Through the trees, onto the beach. There, riding his luck, which is another name for hardship challenged and overcome, he spied a small skiff hidden in the reeds. It was a slender little coracle, made of hides stretched over wooden ribs—something like our canoes. He pushed it into the surf, jumped into it, and paddled away as swiftly as he could.
When he lost sight of land and knew that he was safe from pursuit, he stopped paddling, looked into the depths of the water, and said:
“O, great Lyr, God of the Sea, you whom I rescued from captivity, O Lord of the Deep, I ask that you return favor for favor. Keep the sky fair and the waters calm, and give me a favoring wind that I may reach the shore of Ireland which I left so long ago. Any shore at all of the lovely land, I don’t care. I’m no hard bargainer. Put me ashore at Leinster, Munster, Meath, or Connaught. I’ll settle for any of them, and walk the rest of the way, rejoicing. But let the wind be fair. …”