The Forkbeard lifted the torch. I, too, took a torch.
Neither of us spoke.
The passage extended beyond us, disappearing in the darkness beyond the light of our torches. It was about eight feet in height and width. It was carved from the living rock. Along its edges, spaced some twelve feet from one another, on both sides, were torch rings, with unlit torches, which might be lit. The piles of tinder and flint and steel, or iron pyrites, lay now behind us, or to one side. I lifted the torch to the borders, running linearly down the chamber, disappearing into the darkness before us. The lettering was in the high, angular script of the north; the pictographs seemed primitive.
“These are old runes,” said Ivar.
“Can you read them?” I asked.
“No,” said Ivar.
My hair rose on the back of my neck. I looked at one of the pictographs. It was a man astride a quadruped.
“Look,” said I to the Forkbeard.
“Interesting,” said the Forkbeard. “It is a representation of a man riding amythological beast, doubtless an illustration based upon some saga with which I am unfamiliar.”
He continued on.
I lingered by the pictograph. I had seen nothing like it on Gor.
“Follow me,” said the Forkbeard.
I left the pictograph to follow him. I wondered on the man who had carved it. It was indeed old, perhaps ancient. It was drawn by one who had been familiar with a world unknown to Ivar Forkbeard. There was no mistaking the quadruped on which the rider was mounted. It was a horse.
The passage now enlarged. We felt lost in it. It was still squarish, some twenty feet in height and width. It was now much more decorated and carved than it had been, and, in the light of the torches, we could see that much color had been used in its decoration. Pictographs were much more numerous now, and, instead of being linearly bordered the walls were now decorated in columns of runes and designs, and pictographs. Torches, unlit, in wall rings, were still illuminated as we passed near them. Many of the columns carved, with painted surfaces, on the walls, reminded me of rune stones. These stones, incidentally, are normally quite colorful, and can often be seen at great distances. Each year their paint is freshened, commonly on the vigil of the vernal equinox, which, in the north, as commonly in the south marks the new year. Religious rune stones are repainted by rune-priests on the vigil of the fest-season of Odin, which on Gor, takes place in the fall. If the stones were not tended either by farmers on whose lands they lie, or by villagers in whose locales they lie, or by rune-priests, in a few years, the paint would be gone, leaving only the plain stone. The most famous rune stone in the north is that on Einar’s Skerry, which marks the northland’s southern border.
“Can you not read these runes?” I asked Ivar, again.
“I amnot a rune-priest,” he said.
Ivar’s reply was not a little belligerent. I knew him able to read some rune markings. I gathered that these, perhaps because of antiquity or dialect, were beyond him. Ivar’s attitude toward reading was not unlike that of many of the north. He had been taught some rune signs as a boy, that he could understand important stones, for in these stones were the names of mighty men and songs of their deeds, but it had not been expected of him that he would be in any sense a fluent reader. Ivar, like many of those in the north, was a passable reader, but took care to conceal this fact. He belonged to the class of men who could hire their reading done for them, much as he could buy thralls to do his farming. It was not regarded as dignified for a warrior to be too expert with letters, such being a task beneath warriors. To have a scribe’s skills would tend to embarrass a man of arms, and tend to lower his prestige among his peers. Many of the north, then, were rather proud of their illiteracy, or seml-illiteracy. It was expected ofthem. It honored them. His tools were not the pen and parchment, but the sword, the bow, the ax and spear. Besides simple runes, the boy in the north is also taught tallying, counting, addition and subtraction, for such may be of use in trading or on the farm. He is also taught weighing. Much of his education, of course, consists in being taken into a house, and taught arms, hunting and the sea. He profits, too, from the sagas, which the skalds sing, journeying from hall to hall. In the fest-season of Odin a fine skald is difficult to bring to one’s hall. One rnust bidhigh. Sometimes they are kidnapped, and, after the season’s singing, given much gold and freed. I had not, of course, intended to insult the Forkbeard.
“There is one sign here, of course,” said the Forkbeard, “which any fool might read.”
He pointed to the sign.
I had seen it frequently in the writings. Naturally, I could not read it.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“Do you truly not know?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “I do not know.”
He turned away, and, again, I followed him.
We lit new torches from the wall rings and discarded our old ones. We then continued on our journey.
Now, to one side and the other, we passed opened chests, in which we could see treasures, the spillings and tangles of coins and jewelries, rings, bracelets.
We came then to a great arch, which marked the entrance to a vast room, lost in darkness beyond the flickering spheres of our uplifted torches.
We stopped.
Over the arch, deeply incised in the stone was the single, mighty sign, that which the Forkbeard had not explained to me.
We stood in silence, in that dark, lofty threshold. The Forkbeard was trembling. I had never seen him so. The hair on the back of my neck lifted, short, stiff. I felt cold. I knew, of course, the legends.
He lifted his torch, to the sign over the door. “Do you not know that sign?” he asked.
“I know what sign it must be,” I said.
“What sign?” asked he.
“The sign, the name-sign, of Torvald.”
“Yes,” said he.
I shuddered.
“Torvald,” I said to the Forkbeard, “is only a figure of legend. Each country has its legendary heroes, its founders, its discoverers, its mythic giants.”
“This,” said the Forkbeard, looking up at the sign, “is the chamber of Torvald.” He looked at me. “We have found it,” he said.
“There is no Torvald,” I said. “Torvald does not exist.”
“This,” said the Forkbeard, “is his chamber.” His voice shook. “Torvald,” said he, “sleeps in the Torvaldsberg, and has done so for a thousand years. He waits to be wakened. When his land needs him, he shall awake. He shall then lead us in battle. Again he will lead the men of the north.”
“There is no Torvald,” I said.
The Forkbeard looked within. “For a thousand years,” he whispered, “has he slept.”
“Torvald does not exist,” I said.
“We must waken him,” said the Forkbeard.
Ivar Forkbeard, lifting his torch, entered the great chamber.
I felt grief. It seemed to me not impossible that, at the root of the legends, the sagas, of Torvald, there might be some particles of truth. I did not think it impossible that there had once been a Torvald, one who had come to this land, with followers perhaps, more than a thousand years ago. He might have been a great leader, a mighty warrior, the first of the jarls of the north, but that had been, if it had ever been, more than a thousand years ago. There was now no Torvald. I felt grief at what misery, what disappoint ment, what disillusionment must now fall to my friend, the Forkbeard.
In his hope to find one strong enough to stand against Kurii, one who could rally the men of the north, he was bound to be disillusioned.
The myth, that dream of succor, of final recourse, would be shown barren, fraudulent.