"Attention, attention, I beg to have your attention, honoured anuasoi guests!" Alcesidas's request put a damper on the bustle and clamour in the dining hall. Cradling steaming mugs of rosehip tea, the Holdsfolk were capping off a midday meal that had been prepared for them with sumptuous care. They had taken their repast in a rambling one-storied building, which sat at the end of a cobblestone laneway in a cavern so enormous that only the dull metallic hue of the vaulted sky told them that they were not in an aboveground world. After their rescue by the hammerfolk they had been brought to this place.
To most of the gathered Holdsfolk, what Alcesidas was saying would be meaningless, but his words sounded vaguely formidable and served to command attention by their very shape and texture, resonating as they did with the antique cadences of the orrthon.
Another man accompanied Alcesidas. He was quite evidently an oldling of the people, for he had gaunt deeply creased cheeks on which were planted a thicket of hoary whiskers resembling nothing so much as a weedy plot of ploughland left fallow and caught in the grip of an autumn frost. This old fellow was unusually bent over, stooped and shrivelled into a fleshless husk, like a rugose winter apple left clinging to the twig.
"Hush, hush, Prince Alcesidas bids you pay him heed." The old fellow's voice rose above the dying clamour, in accents that were those of quite passably fluent present-day Arvonian. He showed, however, a touch more formality and polish in his diction than was normal, for it was spiced with a hint of crisp upper-class Dinasantrian beneath the raspy hoarseness of age.
"Many thanks, Rimut," said Alcesidas, nodding to his wizened old companion, when he had all the curious faces of the upperworld folk cocked in his direction. "Ah, Master Kalaquinn, be not puzzled. Keep your seat and rest your weary legs," he added smiling, when he spied Kal push himself up from the board that was being continuously laden by bustling servers with baskets of fruits and honeyed pastries. "This is Rimut. He shall interpret for us into your own language. It is his great pleasure to do so. Moreover, it shall save your much-racked wits, Master Kalaquinn, for other deeper matters with which my sire and Meriones are certain to tax your mind and your tongue at eventide. You shall find Rimut more than equal to the task of rendering our meanings plain, both yours and ours, I doubt not. He has provided our sole acquaintance with the world beyond our forgeland realm in these hundreds of years that the hammerfolk have dwelt in the sequestered peace of Nua Cearta. With the waning of the Great Harmony, our king's grandsire bade Rimut learn the speech and ways of the people that do trod the soil of Arväon so as to convey the happenings of the upperworld to our knowing. This he did, dutifully, posing as a merchant of gems and precious smithcraft for some fifty years, even until the murder of your king Colurian and the abduction of his Queen and heirling prince. Dark had grown the times, and darker still since then, when we did again retreat into our hidden realm. But even now does our foul cousin Shadahr, scion of the malignant stalk of Sör the Usurper, press our peace with his incursions and loathsome alliances . . . But we shall not delve into that now—therein lies a longer story, full of the serpentine twists of fortune, and it best waits for another more fitting moment in time's march, Master Kalaquinn, when we are taking our ease over a beaker brimful of mead with the wise bard Meriones. As for the present moment, I wax overlong and tax your fellows' indulgence. So be pleased to let Rimut convey my sentiments to these your assembled companions." Alcesidas shifted his gaze from Kalaquinn to the folk at table, silent now, except for the homely clank of tea mugs, the earnest swish of garbed servitors, and the occasional whisper of child to parent and parent to child.
"I am Alcesidas, and this is Rimut, who shall be our word-changer during your stay with us," he continued now, pausing a moment in order to allow Rimut to assume his role of translator again after the private aside to Kalaquinn. "I am the eldest son of Magan Hammermaster, who rules over the caverns of this kingdom of Nua Cearta and the hammersons and hammerdaughters who herein dwell." Rimut repeated after the Prince, labouring over his words in a halting way that had more to do with his age than his lack of facility with the modern Arvonian of the Holdsfolk. "King Magan extends to you his greetings and welcome, and he invites you to come join him in the Hall of the Stars this very evening, as the light of the avalynn dims into dusk, so that we may make merry and feast together, hammerfolk and anuasoi, as we have not done in many a long turning of the seasons.
"I shall leave Rimut here as your guide, your eyes and ears and tongue, and bid you make free of our domain, those of you whom curiosity beckons and to whom weariness is of small account. Visit our farms and our forges, our quarry pits and our armouries. Our folk and all that we have are at your disposal. You shall see that we are not delinquent in our hospitality, awkward and strained though our first meeting with your waterlogged Hordanu may have been—Nay, I should rather say our Hordanu, inasmuch as he is High Bard of all of Ahn Norvys both above ground and below and belongs to all who chant the ancient lays of the orrthon with a sincere and unblemished heart," declared Alcesidas with a benign smile, pausing after every phrase to let Rimut keep pace. For their part, the remnant folk of the Holding were assuaging the final traces of their hunger, basking in the golden midday beams of the avalynn tree which overspread the square just outside the large windows, filling the small hall with its filtered light. Even the children had become quiet and still in the sleepy contentment of the scene.
"For the nonce I bid you briacoil, doughty anuasoi, as an earnest of our common bond, since this ancient word of greeting and farewell remains one of shared sameness in your tongue and in ours," concluded Rimut, dutifully echoing Alcesidas who motioned now to Kalaquinn, as answering shouts of "briacoil" rose up from the sated Holdsfolk. Some of the men sidled up to Rimut, burdened with queries about even the little they had seen thus far of the fascinating underground kingdom of Nua Cearta.
"By my ten finger bones, is there aught of night here, or do yon trees shine all the hours of the day?" inquired Diggory Clout, his stout frame quite overshadowing Rimut. Alcesidas and Kal drew themselves aside. Kal smiled as the little man began to speak to the growing knot of Holdsmen. They might have been at the Burrows on any one of the countless evenings that Goodman Clout and his mates had gathered about the kitchen table to swap stories of ploughing, planting, and pasture, and endless boast and bluster. A piece taller and Rimut might have passed for Landros.
"The avalynn follows a cycle of light and darkness that copies in its small way the succession of night and day which is a distinctive note of your own rising and setting sun." Rimut was surrounded now by a gaggle of curious Holdsfolk, plying him with a countless round of questions.
The others drifted towards the open door following the children, emerging into the refreshing seclusion of the courtyard without, where benches were set beside well-tended beds of vivid spring flowers and bushes—musk violets and hedge roses, striped jacinths and geraniums, star flowers and red martagons. It was as if a flowery remnant of the Holding in the fullness of spring had been transported underground for their delight—an idle attempt to take the edge off their brooding fateful sadness, even as they revelled in the amazing sun-like warmth of the avalynn's golden fruits. Although they were now comfortable and secure, beyond danger for the first time since the Holding had been attacked, they fell to remembering those of their own who were not with them, those who, indeed, would never again be with them this side of the Birdless Lake, that stagnant mere, which had been broached for them by the ferocious steel of Ferabek's Black Scorpion Dragoons.
The silence of profound sorrow clutched at their hearts. Their mourning was now beyond tears and wails of protest against loss. It was a dark numbing grief. At this point, Marina broke into a dirge of such a haunted register, so deep with anguish, that the very globes of the avalynn seemed to throb in sympathy. Even those yet indoors turned away from Rimut and cast a glance outside. All the men, women and children fell still, silent, except for her. The tones rose and fell as a pure distillation of their sadness. As one, the Holdsfolk wept, the prick of the lament lancing the boil of grief which would otherwise fester and poison the heart of the people. In the intensity of that moment was wrought the work of mourning, mourning the lost—their countrymen, their beloved, and their Hordanu.
The bittersweetness of the melody lingered, hovering in the air even as its music faded. The Prince was visibly struck by the strains of the deeply moving dirge.
"Strange things attend my mother's song. Indeed, her great-great-great-great-uncle was once Hordanu," explained Kal, carefully counting to make sure he had arrived at the proper degree of kinship. "One of the most gifted ever. Gamelyn, as he was hight. His whole being was rapt by music. He did breathe it as another might breathe air. Much evil did he stay in Ahn Norvys, although even he could not stem the incoming tide of rupture and falling away. So Master Wilum told me, rest his soul . . . Albeit his body will never be laid properly to rest, now that he lies unreachable in that pit beneath the Ellbroad Bridge, whatever may remain of him, at any rate." Kal fell into a reflective silence.
Slowly the drone of conversation resumed and Rimut was soon again mobbed by the query-laden folk. Kal and Alcesidas remained apart from the rest, shadowed by the limping figure of Gwyn.
"I had hoped, Master Kalaquinn," said Alcesidas, paying no more mind to Gwyn than did Kal, "to be your especial guide this day, before we come together for this evening's feast in the Hall of the Stars, to show you something of the modest sights of Nua Cearta. But our border rangers report strange and untoward signs in the tunnels of our northern marches, where up 'til now naught has happened to alarm us. It has been our eastern approaches for the most part that have suffered probing thrusts from Shadahr's scouting parties, as I know well, having been captured by one of them but a few nights past, well nigh to the cost of my life."
"How is that, Alcesidas?"
"I and one of our border rangers were set upon by a good score of them, ambushed I should rather say. The two of us, Ansgär and I, had been lured beyond a well-ensconced guard post by the pleading piteous voice of a man who had seemingly fallen by accident into a pit. He spoke like one of our own, and in that unsuspecting moment of naive trust we did not suppose at all that the matter could be other than it seemed. Thus far Shadahr's faithless forgemen had not made their presence known to us, except through faint traces of tracks and other slight signs that puzzled our cave-crafty rangers. Indeed only once did a forward patrol of ours espy by chance a skulking band of Shadahr's minions from an unseen hidden place. That is why we strengthened our guard posts in all the tunnels of the marches, exhorting our border rangers to even greater vigilance. Would that I had followed this counsel more closely myself!" Alcesidas indicated the door, and the two, still followed by Gwyn, rose, bowed their heads to the group, and made their way outside. Kal blinked in the mellow avalynn light.
"What happened then?"
"Alas it was I who proved to be least vigilant, and it was Ansgär who did pay the dearest price, giving his life in an attempt to save me from being captured. I too was fain not to give myself up except at the cost of my own life, struggling as I did with all my might and main. But they were too well prepared, with strict instructions to take us live as prisoners for questioning, so that Ansgär's death was a mistake and not intended on their part. The bellows-boy who did give him the fatal stroke was like to pay for this misstep with his own miserable carcass. And well he knew that this would be so, for he quailed and quivered the whole way back to their main quarters. As chance would have it, it was he who had played the part of bait to me and Ansgär. I did pity the wretch, even though he bore on his head the blood guilt for poor Ansgär. I shudder to think of it even now. Ansgär dead and myself trussed up tight, being led a captive, a royal hostage, to Shadahr's field headquarters in these Radolan Mountains. Down we marched, down towards the valley floor of Lammermorn, deep into the dateless caves and tortuous runs that riddle the under regions of your small nestled clanholding that has stood so many ages peaceful and inviolate. Alas for what I saw! Vast earthworks and ingenious sluices, newly filled lakes and pools, spilling their overflow into fathomless steeps and gorges. Great feats of delvers' skill employed to dam up and divert the springs that feed Deepmere." They stopped beside a small garden, awash with brilliant colour, and sat on the grass. The children played nearby on the verdant lawns, and Gwyn, kneeling in the path, pulled his pouch of marbles from his pocket and poured them onto the ground in front of him.
"So that explains why the level of the Mere has been dropping. But to what end?"
"Indeed, we know not, but surely one that is vile and wicked. However, they have not choked it yet. There are sources that are undammed yet, most especially the Seven Springs that nourish the Skell. But to stop up the source of the Skell they shall have to conquer Nua Cearta, inasmuch as the Seven Springs lie within our domain. And this conquest they are essaying by fits and starts to make good, aided and abetted by Ferabek, with a fund of resources that is beyond our command."
"Ferabek! I am not overly surprised."
"You do follow my story passably well, Master Kalaquinn Wright. The Old Tongue seems not to addle your head and put you off," remarked Alcesidas. "I may converse with you as I would with a fellow hammerson. Nay, more, a kin brother of the same rooftree."
The riddles had been a watershed. It seemed to him now the most natural thing in the world to hear the venerable language spoken, more natural even than the colourful earthy highland brogue of his upbringing, which he used in tandem with the more polished diction that had been imposed on him and countless other schoolboys over the years. The old language touched him deeply. By a strange paradox it had become at the same time exotically strange and reassuringly familiar. He felt like a wayfarer, who, far from home, in some lonely waste, has come upon the moss-covered ruins of a glence in a forest meadow that he half-recognizes from a dream that has haunted him from childhood. The ancient words came tripping naturally off his tongue as if they were more hallowed here in the bowels of the earth, more homey and maternal, more fitted to his mortal nature. It was a feeling that had come to him before, but only fleetingly, during a recitation of the orrthon, when the glence stone seemed to him to radiate strange powers rooted in the earth. But here in Nua Cearta there existed a more constant feeling of hallowedness for which he could find no immediate explanation. Perhaps it was because he was no longer simply Kalaquinn Wright, but Wilum's successor, the Hordanu, Guardian of Wuldor's Howe and its ancient mysteries, of which the Old Arvonian tongue was not the least.
"I am most highly flattered, Prince Alcesidas, for that my slender knowledge of your venerable tongue is all book-learned."
"All the more are you to be applauded for your ability to speak it. And pray, do drop the title Prince and call me Alcesidas plain and unvarnished, inasmuch as we are friends."
"I thank you for the name of friend, which I am full aware you do not proffer lightly, as do our greedy-gutted wheedling anuasoi who traffic with Ferabek in the Dungheap, as we have come these days to call the lowlands of our folkdom. And you too, my friend, please call me Kalaquinn plain and unvarnished. But come, do continue with your story, Alcesidas. I am on tenterhooks to learn of how you slipped your dire predicament."
"Oh so, by the veriest skin of my teeth, Kalaquinn! Indeed it may be said in a manner of speaking that it was Ansgär who saved me."
"Ansgär? Was he not killed when the trap was sprung?"
"Indeed, Kalaquinn, he was." The hammerson prince sighed heavily before continuing. "You see, the foul Burren forgemaster Shadahr was expected to arrive within hours to review for himself the ingenious work of damming and undermining that had been done by his bustling army of colonizing retainers. In view of this, Shadahr's stoat-faced taskmaster, Stoläm, thought it prudent to await his master before undertaking to interrogate me in earnest. What is more, he had surmised from the cut of my weeds and the cast of my face that I was no common hammerson whom he had caught in his ambushment, even though I refused stoutly to tell him who I was. He merely laughed and said that Shadahr would have his will of me with or without my leave.
"You should have seen his complacent drooling, Kalaquinn, his wry sneer when he bade his underlings to lock me up in their dank lightless dungeon, where crawling things did torment me, drawn by the smell of fresh blood from the shoulder wound that I had received whilst I was being taken. I scarce dared relax my guard for even the smallest hairsbreadth of a moment and found myself wishing passionately that my spirit had been sent with Ansgär's across Lake Nydhyn or that Shadahr would not be late in coming. The silence and the darkness were like the tomb, a horrible stillness. And Stoläm had not the need to station a turnkey to keep watch over me, so strong and impregnable was the vault in which they had laid me." He paused, caught in the moment again, then went on. "Exhausted as I was, I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew there was a jangle of keys and the door of the dungeon swung open with a creak that awoke me with a start. They have come for me at last, I thought, with an unreasonable surge of relief. But no, imagine my surprise to see beneath the prying beam of a helmlamp the figure of the very man who had dispatched the hapless Ansgär, all alone and looking very much dishevelled, and wounded, as if he had been in a fight. There was a frightened hunted manner about him, for he kept glancing over his shoulder, as if in fear of being followed.
" 'Up, up, Magan hammerson,' he urged. 'Do not fear. Up, up, or it will be the worse for both of us before this night is through. There is no telling when they will find the keys gone and the guardhouse untenanted by living flesh. I am hight Staelef, and I repent me sorely of having killed your companion. Understand that it was either him or me. Do you be sure that it was not my wish to slay him, since now on his account my life is forfeit. It be beyond a doubt he will order me to be fed to his tunnel wolves. Thus I throw myself on your mercy, Magan hammerson, howeverso you be hight. I know the tunnels and byways hereabouts. I shall help you escape back to Nua Cearta, so long as you do take me with you and promise me sanctuary in your kingdom.' 'Is this another piece of shameless trickery?' I asked in disbelief, now standing to face him in the glare of his helmlamp. 'To what end would I trick you now? Here now, take this broadsword of mine and thrust me through, to make a summary end of it. Sooner a good clean stroke to speed me off than the jeers of my comrades garnished by the fangs of hungry tunnel wolves.' He was in the veriest earnest. 'Well, then, Staelef, we shall join forces and you shall enjoy sanctuary in Nua Cearta,' said I, swallowing my violence of distaste for the slayer of Ansgär and disdaining to give him my name. But I had precious little else to lose and I could see that the poor trembling wretch was in fearfully desperate earnest, as indeed was I."
Kal winced. The image of Relzor's cringing form at the wall atop the Stairs floated before his mind's eye.
"And so he handed me his dagger, a fine jewelled one, well worthy of the craft of a hammerson, and then the two of us crept out of that foul place, with Staelef leading the way, his broadsword drawn and ready for whatever chance might put in our way. About two score paces on, we passed the small eight-sided guardhouse where Staelef had dispatched the lone guard and obtained the keys to the dungeon. Here we turned into another long tunnel that passed dangerously close to one of the larger caverns. Staelef drew the shutter of his helmlamp as we stole past that bustling place, in an agony of fear lest we be noticed. But, thankfully, there was none to mark our skulking progress.
"Staelef opened the shutter of his helmlamp again and on we went, 'til we reached a heavy oaken door, mortised into the granite of the passage. He swung it open and I followed him through, whereon I was startled by a din of fierce howling coming at us from the darkness ahead. I drew back, but Staelef, undaunted, strode boldly onwards, bidding me step smartly and not to falter. The sinister chorus grew louder and more threatening, while Staelef strode on in silence. This kindled the flame of my mistrust. I began to fear that Staelef had a notion to play me false." Again Relzor's face leered before Kal's mind. He tried to blot out the image, rubbing his brow and eyes with the palm of his hand, listening as the Prince continued his narrative.
"Indeed, I was sore troubled. 'Yes, my pets,' Staelef began to say. 'We shall give you meat, but not at my expense. Yes, you shall have your fill.' He laughed so loud and incautiously that I misdoubted the wholeness of his mind and grew anxious lest we be discovered. Then, as he swept the light of his helmlamp forward to the left side of the passageway, which had broadened out into a chamber, I saw what made my heart skip a beat. Behind a palisade of iron bars, only roughly visible in the murk of their rocky cage, there leapt and pawed a massed throng of bodies, their sleek grey forms merging together, with only their bright feral eyes and snapping fangs to distinguish them one from the other. Well I remember, Kalaquinn, a sour choking smell of urine and fetid pelts. These were Shadahr's tunnel wolves and ravenously hungry, it was clear. I gave them a wide berth, for I was in no small fear of those angry muzzles that tested the gaps between the bars as far as they might. But not so Staelef, who began to fumble with the circlet of keys that he had taken. He found the key he wanted, one with a wolf's head incised on it, and bade me to go wait for him at the door which closed off the upper end of this chamber, a good half of which had been partitioned off as a cage for the tunnel wolves. Brandishing the wolf's-head key, he admonished me to keep the upper door open in readiness for him, and to be prepared to close it in all haste.
"Thrusting the key into the door of the cage that held the tunnel wolves, he turned it once until it clicked open and then ran towards me. With feverish swiftness we swung shut the huge wooden door behind us. And not a moment too soon, for there came a chorus of hideous growls on the other side and furious scraping noises. We could feel dull thuds that made the door shudder, and I realized in horror that they were throwing their bodies at the wooden barrier in a rage. Staelef stood there for a moment, quite unconcerned. 'Do not worry. They shall soon tire of this and find the door by which we entered standing open and beyond that much warm flesh to stay their hunger. In the meanwhile we shall be halfway to Nua Cearta.' Then he took the lead, as we scaled our way back up towards the valley floor of Lammermorn, through caves and lairs that delve the earth beneath Deepmere, both those of ancient origin and the ones freshly dug by the Shadahr forgemen. We were able to stay clear of the small encampments they had set up to aid their work, for Staelef knew their locations quite well.
"The most dangerous moment came when, at length, we had nigh reached a chamber beneath Owlpen Castle, for we were attacked by two of Stoläm's scouts who had taken part in my capture and who had recognized me as well as Staelef when they espied us from the other bank of a broad river that we were following. We supposed at first that we had shaken them. But not so. They lay in wait for us, and sprang on us as we approached the Castle. One of them was dispatched by Staelef, although not before he himself received a mortal hurt. The other pursued me to beneath the Castle and, more wary of wounding me sorely, clipped my arm with his sword—a flesh wound, as it turned out, that bled like a river in spate. My spirit swelled up with remorseless anger at the sight of my blood. Grabbing tight hold of his arm, I shook the sword from it. We grappled together at close quarters, teetering closer and closer to a pool that I saw to be filled with yffarnian water ivy. I succeeded in tossing him into the unyielding grip of its tendrils and fled up a set of stairs that were clearly a secret passage into Owlpen Castle, although not before I had examined Staelef for a sign of life, to no avail—"
"The Pool of Retribution! The trail of blood—It was yours? We first saw it by the Pool and along the ways through the Castle."
"Yes. And it was fortunate that I happened to light on the devices of the passageway readily enough, else I had been captured once again by my enemies. In the Castle I rummaged about—"
Alcesidas paused for a moment, and then his face lit up as if he had solved a problem that had been perplexing him. "Re'm ena, I have it. It is that portrait in the Castle. That is where I have seen your face."
"I am afraid I do not understand you, Alcesidas. There are old pictures and portraits stored at Owlpen Castle, I know, of kings and Hordanus and other folk that have filled important roles in Arväon down through the ages. Master Wilum showed them to me once, years ago, when I was yet a small boy. They fill a musty wardrobe behind the Overlord's Chamber, stacked one against the other in a row. When I was given a glimpse of them on that sole occasion, Master Wilum was so overcome by a watery rheum from the eyes and a fit of uncontrollable sneezing that he never saw fit to go into that wardrobe again. I know that he did not, for when I asked him about them again some years later, he told me that he did not think the old pictures and portraits important, that this passion for portraiture was a thing of recent vintage in Arväon, a sorry vanity for preening varlets. So I know not whereof you speak, Alcesidas, for I have not set eyes on any of these things since that one time."
"Let it pass, then, Kalaquinn. All the same, the resemblance is beyond strange. Would that I had read the legend carven on the bottom of the frame! But there was scarcely time for that, when all my thoughts were of escape in all due haste. Now returning to my story—"
The hum of voices grew suddenly louder. The press of Holdsmen around Rimut had spilled out into the courtyard, some remaining with the ancient hammerson, some drifting to where their families took their rest amid the gardens and lawns.
"Where was I now?" Alcesidas continued, as the two young men pushed themselves off the grass and turned to rejoin the group. "Oh yes, I looked everywhere and, as chance would have it, found a coracle, with which I rowed myself across Deepmere and then wended my way first up to Folamh and then down into the safe haven of Nua Cearta where now we rest and speak, and where my father Magan holds his regnal seat, and where we shall feast tonight in the Hall of the Stars."