The Castle of the Winds

  The Castle of the Winds

  Michael Scott Rohan

  www.sfgateway.com

  Enter the SF Gateway …

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One Fair of Swords

  Chapter Two The Hand of the Ice

  Chapter Three Trail of Ashes

  Chapter Four The Light in the Marshes

  Chapter Five Faces in the Reeds

  Chapter Six The Hill of the Winds

  Chapter Seven Light Airs, Dark Waters

  Chapter Eight A Lord and a Lady

  Chapter Nine The Voice of the Winds

  Chapter Ten Ice and Steel

  Chapter Eleven Armour of Proof

  Website

  Also By Michael Scott Rohan

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Appendix

  Author Bio

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Of the mastersmiths in the Northlands that were, and of their marvellous skills, the Winter Chronicles tell many tales. Greatest is that of Elof, called Valantor, but there were others who, mere men though they were, also forged for themselves an enduring name in its pages.

  One there was who might have become a master among masters, yet in the end was counted the worst of failures, betrayer of his craft and squanderer of his inborn power and talent. So judged his fellow mastersmiths, who set down his story. Yet written in the margins beside it, in a hand unknown but always faithfully copied from manuscript to manuscript, generation to generation, is the simple phrase, ‘There is more to be said.’

  Much more …

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fair of Swords

  THE ICE LAY EMPTY beneath the cold moon, as if seeking a mirror for its own no less jagged and barren beauty. From sky’s end to sky’s end of that immense glacial wilderness nothing stirred save the pale sky-shadows, and the pattering wafts of powder snow. And yet faint shimmers of light glanced among the cold crags, and voices awoke. They sang in the glassy air like the chime and fall of icicles.

  ‘He is coming.’

  ‘We must see him, speak with him. We have taken too much on trust already.’

  ‘He will be here soon. He is making preparations. There is so little time, with these vermin. To dwell among them … I am weary.’

  ‘Soon others will carry on.’

  ‘He will be overawed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the right way! Nothing must go wrong now.’

  ‘Then you had best turn south again. At once!’

  It was a dream that woke him, as he nodded over his work. Suddenly, sharply, so that his heart raced and his breath came shallow. He seldom if ever remembered dreaming, and it shocked him. He looked around wildly, and saw that his work was cooling evenly, and the workshop was quiet. Through the open upper half of his door the sky was black, the stars pale; but suddenly a brighter light streaked between them, a brilliant, instant slash across the sky, rising to the zenith and falling away. ‘A starstone,’ he thought sleepily, stumbling to the door. ‘They don’t usually last that long.’

  But when he reached the door it had gone. The cold air on his cheeks woke him a little, and he stretched, yawned, groaned. Nothing met his eyes but the fading stars, and the moon impaled upon the distant summits, spilling its thin glare down their flanks. Around the horizon, like veils it drew before the dawn, fluttered the faint colours of the aurora; but a colder light shone beneath. He knew what lay there, not so many leagues distant, but rarely in his life had he given it much thought. Yet could it have been that he dreamt of – and the voices? He searched his memories anxiously, but they were already fading. He could remember only an urgent command, to go south. And that was nonsense, if ever he’d heard it. He’d never been to the South, where it was so hot men had red hair; and he never wanted to.

  So it began, as he told it, and as the Chronicles record. Perhaps it was only in looking back that he added meaning to that vision, and those words to the voices. Perhaps, though, some faint echo did reach into his sleep, of the powers that were stirring, the wave that was rising and was soon to sweep him away for ever. But a sudden sizzling creak from the furnace caught his ear, the first faint contraction he awaited. It drove away all other thoughts. Seizing the great tongs that stood ready, he knocked free the catch of the small door and swung it squeaking back. Shading his eyes against its withering breath, he plunged in the tongs and pulled out a chunk of metal, strange and uneven in shape, glowing dully in the near dark. He turned it this way and that, inspecting it by its own light, absently humming a slow tune. Then, without haste, he carried it to the great anvil, braced it against the heavy round-topped swage he had set up, and reached for the largest of the hammers he had ranged out ready. A tap or two and his hand went to a smaller one, and some time after that to a file. From time to time he thrust the metal back into the furnace, to renew its glow; he needed no other light. And as he tapped and scraped and shaped he sang, softly, in a tuneless baritone; words of holding, resisting deflecting, defending. He never faltered, and he never looked. Every tool lay under his hand as he reached for it, every word flowed, so that his mind and his eyes never for an instant left his work. For he was a mastersmith, and the virtues within him poured into the metal he was forming, and made them, for that moment, one.

  At last, as the darkness itself receded and the morning mists rolled over the town, he straightened up, sighed, plunged the darkened metal into the open fire once more, and then, with careful calculation, into the trough by his side. Steam squealed, the tongs shivered an instant in his grasp like something alive, and then there were only bubbles. He pulled the metal out and dipped it into a narrower jar, raising throat-stabbing fumes from which he retreated, and then into a sandbox. Enough for now, he told himself, as he washed away the sand and the corrosive pickling stuff. Polishing and decorating could wait. He would try it out now.

  Exulting, he stormed through to the back of his workshop and the little rooms where he and his apprentices slept. Even in the dark he knew Olvar was there,
snoring gently to himself, a long contour of darkness like a miniature hill. ‘Hoi!’ barked the smith. ‘It’s done! Up, up and into the saddle, you lazy slugabeds! It’s a bright day beginning!’

  The hill gave an uneasy quiver, snorted, broke wind, sighed happily and shrugged deeper into the worn fur covers of the cot. The smith growled and aimed a boot somewhere just below the summit. It was like kicking a rock, but a head shot out from under the cover. ‘That wasn’t necessary!’ complained a richly petulant voice. ‘I was just—’

  ‘Getting ready to sleep out the morning? No, I do you wrong. You’d never have missed breakfast – or breakfasts, in your case,’ added the smith cheerfully. ‘Well, today you can earn your bacon for a change. Up and out!’

  Olvar heaved his dark bulk upright. His cot complained bitterly. ‘I warn you, Master Kunrad,’ he yawned. ‘I’ll be working up an appetite.’

  ‘Then you can start on your own toes, and keep going. And you, Gille – Gille?’ The other cot stood empty. The mastersmith swore, pulled his heavy sheepskin jerkin off the hook and stamped out of his back door, across the rutted alleyway to the stables opposite. The air within was warmed by the beasts who nodded peaceably in their stalls as he strode by to the raised hayloft at the end and kicked the wicker panelling hard. There was a yelp, a flurry of hay and a slight, swarthy youth sprang upright, stark naked and staring wildly around. Then he blinked at the smith in the odorous dimness and sighed. ‘Oh, it’s you …’

  ‘Yes. Not her father, not this time and bloody well lucky for you too!’

  The young man shrugged elegantly. ‘I’m just a poor prentice. I can’t afford to marry and settle down. What am I to do?’

  ‘Take up knitting! If you’re trying to pretend you can’t afford clothes. Put some on or I won’t be able to face my sausages. Who is it this time, anyhow?’

  ‘This time?’ A round-faced young woman sprang upright beside him, clutching a crumpled gown as rather inadequate cover. The smith blinked.

  ‘Oh – er, hallo, Stejne, isn’t it? Well, yes, this is rather a popular place—’

  She shot a smoking glance at Gille, who had been frantically gesturing at the smith. ‘Popular!’ He gave her a studiedly boyish half-smile and a little shrug.

  ‘You wait!’ she snorted and turned away, making the gown even less adequate. But she took rather longer about stalking off through the hay than modesty demanded, giving Kunrad ample chance to admire the curves of her back; and as she passed him she launched a glance of a different kind under her long lowered lashes. It made him pray to the Powers that Gille hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Whew!’ said the young man, hopping on one leg to get straw out of his shoe. ‘See that, did you? Isn’t she a peach? I reckon you could—’

  ‘I could use a better couple of prentices!’ snarled the mastersmith, making as if to cuff him on the ear. ‘One does nothing but sleep and eat me out of house and home, the other can barely lift his hammer of a morn because he’s been banging away all night!’

  Gille ducked away easily. ‘You should talk! But I can still make you songs and verses for your great works, better than your own—’

  ‘And one of these days you’re going to make more than that, and who’ll have to cope with the father? Aye, fine, you’re a ready wordsmith, but I wish there was some way to keep your head and throw the rest of you away!’

  ‘Wouldn’t have a lot to sing about, then, would I?’ grinned Gille, flinging his shirt over his shoulder as they came out into the alley. ‘Anyhow, this is all your own fault for rising at such an hour! Look, the sun’s not even through the mist yet, and an hour or more till breakfast.’

  ‘I haven’t been to bed. I’ve been working. And we’re going to make good use of that hour. Get Olvar and—’ Kunrad grinned. ‘Come help me into my armour! Oh, and get some clothes on. Working clothes!’

  ‘These are my working clothes!’

  Nevertheless Gille was soberly enough dressed a few minutes later, as he and Olvar led the mastersmith out of his front door on to the open green beyond, beneath the high gate in the palisade wall of the town. At every step he clanked, but he was already moving more freely, testing and flexing the joints. As they passed the door he did a clumsy little dance step, and the mailrings and the plates and gadlings chimed faintly in harmony. The prentices stood back admiringly. ‘Something to see it all together at last!’ rumbled Olvar. ‘Ready for the big fairday! You’ve fixed the gardbrace, boss?’

  ‘It was in the cooling,’ nodded the smith, noting that the recut lining held the helm exactly level and unmoving on his head, and the visor’s browpiece no longer showed that slight tendency to tilt over his eyes. Mist droplets were collecting on the mirrored surfaces, beading the delicate inlays, trickling away down the fine fluting that both strengthened the plate and ornamented its flowing profiles. ‘I was too hurried with the first ones. This time I’ve been more careful. Well, shall we see?’

  The prentices exchanged glances. Gille hefted the big, roughly made sword he carried. So did the smith – and took a swing at him. Gille ducked it as easily as ever, and as the glittering arm passed he struck at the opened shoulder joint. The long blade struck the ornamented shoulder armour, and skipped off across the new gardbrace, the one unpolished point, to slither feebly down the smith’s back. ‘Perfect!’ whooped the smith behind the stern features he had moulded on to the visor’s facemask. ‘Another!’

  Gille, recovering, drove at the chest armour. His point struck, driving the breastplate back on the fine mail beneath. It linked, stiffened and spread the force, and the smith parried skilfully. ‘Hardly felt it! Another! You now, Olvar!’

  The burly prentice swung up his sword with stolid unconcern and brought it down on the high crown of the helm. The smith disengaged easily, and it clanged and clattered across the other shoulder. ‘Featherlight!’ jeered the smith cheerfully. ‘Come on, laddie, you’re holding back! These are blunt edges, remember? Put a bit of weight behind it or you’ll get no breakfast!’

  Like most of the smith’s threats, this meant nothing and Olvar knew it. His cut to the left thigh clanked away of its own accord, off cuisse and greave, to stick in the turf. ‘Ha!’ growled the smith suddenly. ‘I’m going to chop off your head, you great useless lump of buffalo lard—’

  He whipped his sword back with enough forceful intent to startle a more imaginative man than Olvar. As the mastersmith twisted back, swinging the blade high to deliver what would be a devastating blow, the prentice lashed out in a wild clumsy parry. But the sword quivered at the crest, did not fall. The mastersmith gave a strange choking cry; and then the edge of Olvar’s sword, with all his huge strength behind it, smashed into the loricated plates that shielded his side, with a noise like new forging. Appalled, the big prentice let fall his blunted blade. But even as it struck the ground the smith toppled with it, like a steel statue, flat on his back, jingling as the helm bounced off the hard earth.

  Gille sprang over him, fumbling with the helmet straps and gibbering. ‘Olvar, you idiot! Master! Master Kunrad, are you killed? Olvar, oaf, wantwit, don’t just stare, go fetch a healer, you sow’s head! Fetch Mistress Metrye, and the Guildmaster – run!’

  A gaggle of inquisitive neighbours carried the mastersmith to the healer’s house on a door, still in his magnificent armour. Everyone had browbeaten the prentices so thoroughly that they were shaking too much to remove it. En route Gille managed to unlace the tabs of the plate collar, spilling out the smith’s dark tousled curls but, mercifully, nothing worse. Kunrad’s face, normally best called amiable, was unmarked, but very pale. He groaned suddenly, and his carriers almost dropped him. But he raised himself on one elbow, and said thickly ‘Twist the catch about, idiot!’ and dropped back with another groan.

  ‘Master!’ moaned Gille. ‘What happened? Why didn’t you move when that ox Olvar—’

  ‘Not … fault,’ said the smith clearly enough. ‘Mine … ’nother flaw … tell you ’bout it when …’ His voice uncoiled like
a broken spring.

  ‘He’s cracked a rib or two and rattled his brains,’ said the silver-haired woman severely. ‘Which if he is very unlucky will leave him little better than you two morons. But it’s much more likely he’ll be his old self in a day or two, with rest.’

  Gille breathed out. Olvar sat down hard, and almost destroyed the bench. ‘Thank you, mistress,’ said Gille. ‘Well, at least his armour is well proven. I thought he’d been cut in two with that blow!’

  The old woman picked up the breastplate, angled it to the window and sniffed. It mirrored the painted planks of her house, wild images of seabeasts she had never seen, and shipbattles her father had fought in; but to the prentices’ sight it showed something beneath, a burning shimmer like sunlight on clear water, transient yet somehow embedded in the metal. To her eyes as well, they realised; for often healers had a touch of smithcraft in the blood. ‘Strong stuff indeed, by the look of it.’

  ‘Masterly!’ breathed the Guildmaster. Like Olvar, he was one of the copper-skinned men whose forefathers had first come from over sea, and his narrowed eyes were like coals above his cheekbones. ‘Getting it ready for the spring market, was he?’

  ‘His great project,’ said Olvar hollowly. ‘His dream. Beyond any fair I could think of. The greatest armour that ever smith since Ilmarinen made, it was to be. He’s crafted suit after suit till he came to this pattern, all the time he could spare from supporting himself and us – and then he’s made three of the type, shattered half the pieces testing and stuck the best ones together.’

  ‘Testing,’ huffed the Guildmaster, who headed all the local guilds and hence the town. ‘Like this?’

  ‘And on us, sometimes,’ said Gille, wincing at the memory.

  ‘So?’ mused Metrye. ‘Then I suppose he’s earned what you gave him this morning.’

  ‘He said it wasn’t our fault!’ protested Olvar.