This chamber, I knew, had been built by men, and the passages carved from the very stone of the mountain itself. That must be accounted for. But it was not difficult to do so Perhaps there had once been a Torvald, hundreds of years ago. If so, it was not impossible that it had been his wish to be interred in the great mountain. We stood, perhaps, within, or at the brink, of the tomb of Torvald, lost for long ages until now, until we two, fleeing from Kurii, from beasts, had stumbled upon it. Perhaps it was true that Torvald had been buried in the Torvaldsberg, and that the tomb, the funeral chamber, had been concealed, to protect it from the curious or from robbers. And, in such a case, legends might well have arisen, legends in which the mystery of the lost tomb might figure. These would have spread from village to village, from remote farm to remote farm, from hall to hall. One such legend, quite naturally, might have been that Torvald, the great Torvald, was not truly dead, but only asleep, and would waken when once again his land had need of him.
“Wait!” I called to the Forkbeard.
But he had entered the chamber, torch high, moving quickly. I followed him, swiftly, tears in my eyes.
When he looked down, torch lifted, upon the bones and fragile cloths of what had once been a hero, when the myth had been shattered, the crystal of its dream beneath the iron of reality, I wanted to stand near him. I would not speak to him. But I would stand behind him, and near him.
The Forkbeard stood at the side of the great stone couch, which was covered with black fur.
At the foot of the couch were weapons; at its head, hanging on the wall, under a great shield, were two spears, crossed under it, and, to one side, a mighty sword in its scabbard. Near the head of the couch, on our left, as we looked upon the couch, was, on a stone platform, a large helmet, horned.
The Forkbeard looked at me.The couch was empty.
He did not speak. He sat down on the edge of the couch, on the black fur, and put his head in his hands. His torch lay on the floor, and, after some time, burned itself out. The Forkbeard did not move. The men of Torvaldsland, unlike most Gorean men, do not permit themselves tears. It is not cultural for them to weep. But I heard him sob once. I did not, of course, let him know that I had heard this sound. I would not shame him.
“We have lost,” he said, finally, “Red Hair. We have lost.” I had lit another torch, and was examining the chamber. The body of Torvald, I conjectured, had not been buried in this place. It did not seem likely that robbers would have taken the body, and left the various treasures about. Nothing, it seemed, had been disturbed.
Torvald, I conjectured, doubtless as cunning and wise as the legends had made him out, had not elected to have himself interred in his own tomb.
It was empty.
The wiliness, the cunning, of a man who had lived more than a thousand years ago made itself felt in its effects a millennium later, in this strange place, deep within the living stone of a great mountain in a bleak country.
“Where is Torvald?” cried out Ivar Forkbeard.
I shrugged.
“There is no Torvald,” said the Forkbeard. “Torvald does not exist.”
I made no attempt to answer the Forkbeard.
“The bones of Torvald,” said the Forkbeard, “even the bones of Torvald are not here.”
“Torvald was a great captain,” I said. “Perhaps he-was burned in his ship, which you have told me was called Black Shark.” I looked about. “It is strange though,” I said, “if that were the case, why this tomb would have been built.”
“This is not a tomb,” said Ivar Forkbeard.
I regarded him.
“This is a sleeping chamber,” he said. “There are no bones of animals here, or of thralls, or urns, or the remains of foodstuffs, offerings.” He looked about. “Why,” he asked me, “would Torvald have had carved in the Torvaldsberg a sleeping chamber?”
“That men might come to the Torvaldsberg to waken him,” I said.
Ivar Forkbeard looked at me.
From among the weapons at the foot of the couch, from one of the cylindrical quivers, still of the sort carried in Torvaldsland, I drew forth a long, dark arrow. It was more than a yard long. Its shaft was almost an inch thick with iron, barbed. Its feathers were five inches long, set in the shaft on three sides, feathers of the black-tipped coasting gull, a broad-winged bird, with black tips on its wings and tail feathers, similar to the Vosk gull. I lifted the arrow. “What is this?” I asked the Forkbeard. “It is a war arrow,” he said. “And what sign is this, carved on its side?’ I asked. “The sign of Torvald,” he whispered. “Why do you think this arrow is in this place?” I asked. “That men might find it?” he asked.
“I think so,” I said.
He reached out and put his hand on the arrow. He took it from me.
“Send the war arrow,” I said.
The Forkbeard looked down on the arrow.
“I think,” I said, “I begin to understand the meaning of a man who lived more than a thousand winters ago. This man, call him Torvald, built within a mountain a chamber for sleep, in which he would not sleep, but to which men would come to waken him. Here they would find not Torvald, but themselves, themselves, Ivar, alone, and an arrow of war.”
“I do not understand,” said Ivar.
“I think,” I said,’that Torvald was a great and a wise man.
Ivar looked at me.
‘In building this chamber,” I said, “it was not the intention of Torvald that it should be he who was awakened within it, but rather those who came to seek hirn.”
“The chamber is empty,” said Ivar.
“No,” I said, “we are within it.” I put my hand to his shoulder. “It is not Torvald who must awaken in this chamber. Rather it is we. Here, hoping for others to do our work, we find only ourselves, and an arrow of war. Is this not Torvald’s way of telling us, from a thousand years ago, that it is we on whom we must depend, and not on any other. If the land is to be saved, it is by us, and others like us, that lt must be saved. There are no spells, no gods, no heroes to save us. In this chamber, it is not Torvald who must awaken It is you and I.” I regarded the Forkbeard evenly. “Lift,’ said I, “the arrow of war.”
I stood back from the couch, my torch raised. Slowly, his visage terrible, the Forkbeard lifted his arm, the arrow in his fist.
I am not even of Torvaldsland, but it was I who was present when the arrow of war was lifted, at the side of the couch of Torvald, deep within the living stone of the Torvaldsberg.
Then the Forkbeard thrust the arrow in his belt. He crouched down, at the foot of the couch of Torvald. He sorted through the weapons there. He selected two spears, handing me one. “We have two Kurii to kill,” he said.
Chapter 17 Torvaldslanders visit the camp of Kurii
It was very quiet.
The men did not speak.
Below us, in the valley, spread out for more than ten pasangs we saw the encampment of Kurii.
At the feet of Ivar Forkbeard, head to the ground, nude, waiting to be commanded, knelt Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar.
“Go,” said Ivar to her.
She lifted her head to him. “May I not have one last kiss, my Jarl?” she whispered.
“Go,” said he. “If you live, you will be more than kissed.”
“Yes, my Jarl,” she said, and, obediently, slipped away into the darkness.
The ax I carried was bloodied. It had tasted the blood of a Kur guard.
We stood downwind of the encampment.
Not far from me was Svein Blue Tooth. He stood, not moving. It was cold. I could see the outline of his helmet, the rim of the shield, the spear, dark against darkness.
Near us, behind us, stood Gorm, Ottar and Rollo, and others of Forkbeard’s Landfall. It was some Ehn before the Gorean dawn. On a distant world, lit by the same star, at a comparable time, men turned in their beds, mercury vapor lamps burned, lonely, heavy lorries rumbled down streets, keeping their delivery schedules, parts of yesterday’s newspapers fluttered down lonely sidewalks. With us stood Bjarni of Thorstein Camp, and with him he who had in the formal duel carried his shield. At Bjarni’s shoulder, too, stood the young man, scarcely more than a boy, whom he had in that duel intended to fight. With the boy, too, was his friend, who would have carried the shield for him. The war arrow had been carried. It had been carried to the Inlet of Green Cliffs, to Thorstein Camp, from Ax Glacier to Einar’s Skerry; it had been carried to the high farms, to the lakes, to the coast; it had been carried on foot and by swift ship; a thousand arrows, each touched to the arrow of Torvald, had been carried, and where the arrow had been carried, men had touched it, saying “I will come.” They came. Captains and rovers, farmers, fishermen, hunters, weavers of nets, smiths, carvers of wood, tradesmen and traders, men with little more than leather and an ax to their name, and jarls in purple cloaks, with golden pommels on their swords. And among them stood, too, thralls. Their heads were not lower than those with whom they stood. Among them was the lad called Tarsk, formerly Wulfstan of Kassau, to whom Thyri had once been given for the night. In the night of the attack he, at the Forkbeard’s encampment near the thing field, with an ax, had slain a Kur. I remembered finding the carcass of the animal beneath the fallen, half-burned canvas of the Forkbeard’s tent. Thralls are not permitted to touch the war arrow, but they are permitted to kneel to those who have. Wulfstan had handed the Forkbeard the ax, disarming himself, and had then knelt before him, putting his head to his feet. Thralls may be slain for so much as touching a weapon. He had taken dirt from beneath the feet of the Forkbeard and, kneeling, had poured it on his head. “Rise, Thrall,” had said the Forkbeard. The young man had then stood, and straightly, head high, before the Forkbeard. The Forkbeard threw him back the ax. “Carry it,” said the Forkbeard. On another world, lit by the same star, in another place, dawn, too, drew near. The distant light in the great cities, unknowing, soon to be occupied with the concerns of their days, piercing the haze of daily, customary poisons, first struck the heights of the lofty buildings, reflecting from the rectangular windows, like sheets of burnished copper reflecting the fire of the sun. Men would soon be up and about their duties, hurrying from one nothing to another, to compromises, to banal degradations, anxious lest they fail to be on time. They would not care for the blackened grass growing between the bricks; they would take no note of the spider’s architecture, nor marvel at the flight of a wren darting to its nest among the smoke-blackened, carved stones. There would be no time. There would be no time for them, no time for seeing, or feeling, or touching, or loving or finding out what it might be to be alive. Clouds would be strangers to them; rain an inconvenience; snow a nuisance; a tree an anachronism; a flower an oddity, cut and frozen in a florist’s refrigerator. These were the men without meaning, so full and so empty, so crowded, so desolate, so busy, so needlessly occupied. These were the gray men, the hurrying men, the efficient, smug, tragic insects, noiseless on soft feet, in the billion iron hills of technology. How few of them gazed ever on the stars. Is grandeur so fearful that men must shield themselves with pettiness from its glory; do they not understand that in themselves, and in perhaps a thousand other intelligences, reality has opene,el its eyes upon its own immensity; do they shut their eyes lest they see gods? We could see now a glimmer of light on the peak of the Torvaldsberg.