"I will hear," she said. "And yet I could find it in me to deny all, if it would persuade you to stay."
Then, as they neared the end of the wall, Roc let out a startled oath and pointed. Ahead lay Plen Perthau, the Landfall Square, where the tall statues of the Watchers stood; but it had changed. On its farther side, where a block of rather dilapidated storehouses had stood, there was now a park of many young trees; but it was not that alone which startled them. For out of the trees, tall and grim, rose what was unmistakably the Tower of Vayde, that had stood in Kerbryhaine for well-nigh a thousand years. And at its foot, along the seaward edge of the park, stood two more statues, in line with the Watchers and of no less stature, upon a common plinth; the faces were living likenesses of Roc and Elof. Across the base were carved the words
Mhar Dasunyans. "In the hope of return
!" said Elof, deeply moved, in the northern tongue, and then he saw that there was a third place on the dais, standing empty.
"That one is not yet finished," said Ils tonelessly. "Not even my folk can easily capture so fair a likeness in stone." Elof did not reply; nor would he look at her as they rode on towards the palace.
"I scarcely know what to make of it!" said Kermorvan, when after some hours all was told to his satisfaction. He stretched out a long hand, and poured more wine for them all. "Save that I grieve for the sorrows of that ancient land; and for
yours
no less,
Elof. But I
would fear you, if you were not my friend."
Elof made no answer. They sat in Kermorvan's own apartments, at the summit of the palace, overlooking the harbour far below. The king held up his own goblet to the falling sun, watching the dark wine turn the faceted glass to a fire-ruby. "Now, I have heard what you have heard, seen with your eyes, yet I still do not perceive this plan of Louhi's. I find only dark suspicions. Why so?"
Elof sought to rise, and sank back angrily; he had a great need to pace the room. He felt pent with energy, like one of his crystals, with no way to release it. "I still have doubts myself. They made me slow to voice my thoughts, and yet -" He wrung his fingers tightly. "Yet I am sure. The swelling of the earthfires…"
"I noted that!" said Kermorvan. "What caused it, think you?"
"The Ice!" Elof answered curtly.
Kermorvan shrugged. "Very likely! But how? Louhi's power is the reverse of heat, as you yourself…"
The table quivered as the flat of Elof s hand cracked down, and the glasses rang. "Not Louhi! The Ice! That vast bulk of frozen water spread across the land! Have you ever thought what it must be doing to it?"
"Grinding it down…" began Roc, but Elof overtook him.
"And then? Lying on its new base, still carrying all the weight it's ground away, and all its own great weight of frozen water as well - what must it be doing to the land beneath? Crushing it down, that's what -"
Kermorvan snapped his fingers. "And forcing the earthfires up…"
"Squeezing them out like juice from a fruit!" Roc chipped in. "Yes, that'd be it! They'd come boiling up, as the furnace-fires did!"
"And the Vale of Kerys is rich in the fires, as Roc found out; they run in a great line right across it, almost straight in places - a seam in the earth itself. And now every single breach on that seam is cracking, every fire-mountain erupting skyward!"
"Aye, but what's the Ice to do with such fires? Surely they'd hinder more than help?"
"No! Remember what we guessed - and what Louhi herself boasted to me! The Ice seeks to chill the world, by mirroring back a great part of the sunlight that falls upon it; but it cannot chill it enough to allow the Ice to spread without check - not yet. In free lands, warmed by the sun, the seasons hold the balance; the winters at their worst are neither cold enough nor long enough to advance the Ice further than the summers can melt back. And the sun is a sign of hope, warming the hearts and minds of men, that Louhi fears almost as much! But if she could find a way to block off that sunlight -"
"The clouds of ash!" said Kermorvan. "But - surely they only rise briefly, and then fall?"
"Not the finest ash! It was all around me in the upper airs, and higher still, as high as I could see; at that height it might hang there for days -"
"Years!" said Ils unexpectedly. "My people know of this; the airs owe their colour to the dust they bear, and the sunsets are known to grow more colourful after truly great eruptions. The effect may last years -" She sat up suddenly. "And many have thought this may affect the climes, as well! By filtering the sunlight, blocking its richness a little. But no more than a little, a few wet summers, a trifling time! That could not aid the Ice very much!"
Elof shook his head grimly. "One eruption, no. But along the length of Kerys I passed by something like twenty! Not counting," he grimaced, "one more I unleashed myself. And these eruptions are continuous, not dying, but growing, spreading, laying waste the land about. All that in one small region - small, compared with the rest of the world, anyway. The last few winters have been terrible, long and cold; pure chance, perhaps. But every year the ice-islands have been coming further south - till now they are lodging in the very inflow of the Great River…"
Kermorvan stared into his wine a moment, then downed it in one swift draught. "I understand now," he said softly. "I believe you are right. Though it is hard to think on such a scale - but not so for the fee, no doubt… But if it is so gradual, what makes you think the balance will be tipped so soon?"
"For several reasons! First, because Louhi told me the Ice need only advance a little further; second, because the upsurge of the earthfires has been so sudden and violent only in this last year; and thirdly -though I am less sure of this - because Louhi was relaxing her war against Kerys. Because she was ready to conclude a show of peace - with me as the price!"
Kermorvan tapped his fingers on the table. "Let me see if I follow that. It cannot have been only out of revenge; she must have feared you could thwart her, somehow… But how, by the High Gate?" Then he slammed down his fist. "That's how! Thanks to you this man Nithaid had driven back her armies, defied the worst she could do. Another season, and he might have assailed her in the Gate itself - and that she could not risk! Because she must have that place to be sure of freezing the Great River!"
Elof sat back with a sigh. "The Gate! That was the missing piece of the pattern! That was what I did not understand! And it comforts me; for as you say, she must have had the next season in mind, just as Tapiau warned! I feared she might strike sooner!"
Ils shook her head. "Unlikely! She will need time to build up a great enough cloud; there will be no mistaking it then! It will hang like a pall over the land. Nor would she waste its power striking in summer, when its effect is least; most likely she will wait till the end of winter, and then build it up gradually to prevent a thaw."
"So we've got some time?" Roc demanded. "Fine; but how can we use it, that's the question! How thwart a power that turns earth and air against us? Elof, you said you'd some idea…"
"A weapon - it might help. Though mere men cannot assail the whole mass of the Ice…"
"But the Gate?" demanded Kermorvan. "The Gate is her weak point here! What men built, men may assail!" He rose abruptly, and strode to the window, surveying the city that was his life's achievement. "Less than Kerys or Morvan we may be; but where they are sundered, we are united! Where they have faltered or fallen, we stand free! We have a fleet, great enough to bear the strongest force we can raise across the Seas of the Sunrise. And we have you, Mastersmith of the Skilled Hand, and your weapons; they may give our spear-shaft its striking head. That spear we shall cast into the balance of the world. Then let us see which way it turns!"
Chapter Ten
- The Shieldwall Breaks
The wind blows fair
Across the wide sea -
My blackhaired girl
It takes from me!
Sorrow, you winds above,
Sigh for me and my love!
You Western girl,
Ah, you blackhaired girl,
You wild lover of mine...
The voice came echoing eerily down through the gloom from the masthead above, chanting in time to the slow splash of the sweeps. Whichever young sailor it was had a fine voice, but it ground upon Elof's nerves like the wail of a pent-up dog. He shifted uncomfortably where he sat, hunched up against the high stern-post, but only made himself more uncomfortable. His life had left his body a mass of scars, and in this damp weather it seemed that every single separate one of them grew taut and ached. The scars around the silver rings had even begun to bleed a little. But Kermorvan was not the kind of man to countenance silencing the singer for so petty a reason - nor, he had to face it, was he himself. Besides, it helped keep the ships together. He pulled his cowl over his head and rested his head upon his knees; but because he had to support them with his arms, it was hardly restful. Just as he gave up and resolved to enjoy the song, it broke off abruptly and became a shout.
"Dawn ho!"
The order was given to dim the lanterns, and looking where he knew the east must be Elof became aware of a trace of light, pallid and sourceless, spreading like thin milk. "Not before time!" said Kermorvan, watching his officers scurrying about, seeking the sun with their navigation devices. "Between playing ducks and drakes with ice-islands and striving to keep the fleet together, we're losing track of where we are!"
"Somewhere close!" said Elof. "I feel it! In my bones, in my blood I feel it!"
"A shame we cannot ask them for our heading!" remarked the king wryly, shifting his fur cloak more firmly around him. "All mine can sense is this numbing clammy chill! The very flesh will not shut it out. When I awoke this morning my cabin was full of it, my mailshirt a mass of rime where it hung. And this is spring!"
"No!" said Ils grimly, from somewhere beside him. "This is still winter, a long winter, a Winter of the World. Its cold fingers reach out even across the oceans now; how fares the land, I wonder?"
"
Dawn ho
!" sang the lookout once again. "
And the mists are clearing! Wind arising, mists lifting
!"
"What wind?" called Kermorvan through his cupped hands. There was no reply for a moment. Elof bit his lip; most probably it would be from the north, as usual, and bring down more ice among the fleet. It was a miracle they had lost no more than two ships so far, and no lives; a miracle, and Kermorvan's keen planning and brilliant seamanship.
"
South wind! South and fair
!" The mastheader's whoop of joy, echoed from the deck, flowed naturally into song once more.
My sweetheart, pray the southern winds To speed me to you once more
-
Ah, smiling wind, blow stronger still, My girl lies lone ashore
…
But then all voices died away, for around them the fog seemed to heave and shrug like some vast indolent beast, before rolling the deck. Behind it trailed a mass of serpentine streamers like ghostly banners, shredded and pale, through which they saw faint shapes gradually appear to left and right of them, their fellow ships like rime-encrusted skeletons under their bare masts. But ahead of them, at the margins of sight, it was as if the mists grew solid, drew aside only to settle and condense on the rim of the world, becoming, as it seemed, a great jagged reef of whiteness rising straight out of the waters. High against a sky of sullen lead it towered, and glittered bright and cold.
"
Land ho
!" sang the watcher. "
Land
..." But then his voice faltered; in face of that eerie mass he could not be sure.
"What is this?" exclaimed Kermorvan in amazement. "Whole mountains of ice rising from the very sea itself? The glaciers cannot have come this far south already!"
"No!" said Elof, rising awkwardly and shading his eyes with a hand. "Nearest us, yes, those are ice-islands, fused almost into a ridge. But for all the snow that shrouds them, those are true hills behind! You look upon the eastern shores of the ocean, my lord; and if I mistake not, the coastlands of Kerys itself. The end of our voyage is within sight!"
"And the beginning of something more terrible, I doubt not!" muttered Kermorvan. "Battle, war, slaughter, while the foes of life look on and laugh!" But then his grim features softened with wonder, and he seized Elof's arm. "Kerys!" he repeated. "The shores of Kerys…" His blue-grey eyes glittered like the sea beneath. "It is much to have come so far, to have looked upon them…" He sighed, and then his mouth tightened again. "However, we must reach them. And we cannot pass that ice-wall. See how it curves away there, to either side! Elof, could this be the Bay of the Gate ahead? And that be the wall you passed through in your escape, the grounded ice-islands?"
"Yes!" breathed Elof. "Yes, it could! So if we follow it north or south, we will come to land!"
"South, if you please!" smiled Kermorvan grimly. "Better we do not sail straight into the arms of the Ice at once, but try to reach whatever endures of Kerys first. Always assuming," he added, "that we're allowed to reach the shore unmolested…"