Read Online The Anvil of Ice by Michael Scott Rohan - Free Book Online Page A

virtue of binding and fidelity laid on it. They'll sell their souls for a really fine one—or better, their influence. Can you manage that on your own?"
    Alv swallowed. "Y-yes, Mastersmith. With Mochain's treatise on the patterning of gold…"
    "From the East wall. Very well, you may safely take it. Mind that the ring looks good, now! Graceful, nothing clumsy, but the pattern clear upon it. Now off about your work!" Alv fled willingly, half afraid he would blurt out the thoughts whirling around in his head. So he would become a journeyman—that he had never doubted for a moment. But the Mastersmith was assuming he'd be willing to stay on here, free or not; well, safer not even to think otherwise—for now.
    "Why set you to make a daft thing like that?" asked Roc, when he found Alv shaping the fine beeswax for a casting. " He's got no use for it, that's for sure! And no more have we, worse luck!"
    Alv sighed. He found Roc easier to tolerate than the others, but at times he could be tiresome. Still, it was true enough, what he said. The Mastersmith had no use for women, or any other desire of the body; he was cold, ascetic, saving his passions only for his work and his intrigues. His household had perforce to live as he did, which suited the younger men not a bit. Even Ingar had been heard to complain—but not when the master was around. "How would I know? Maybe he has a customer in mind—"
    "Up here? Even the randiest ones won't come galloping over fifty leagues of frozen Northlands just for one of those!"
    Alv snorted impatiently. "Well, maybe it's to teach me a money making skill, then. Get me a stand to mount this on, will you? And a set of carving tools—fine ones, and sharp!"
    He hummed to himself as he scraped at the wax, a smooth sweeping tune that seemed to fit the gentle curves; it had no words as yet. He would find those in the symbols he would engrave around the serpentine shape, symbols taken from that ancient book and elsewhere in his ardent studies. It was up to him to weld those words together in song, as it was to blend the symbols into a harmonious pattern. The right song, the right pattern, the right fine alloy of metals sunk cleanly into the mold, without crack or bubble—they would take the impress of their creator's power, and enhance it in the form he chose. When the blank wax model was complete, he laid it down gently and turned to his books, selecting and composing, scribbling on his slates, always with that smooth shape before him. A full week that labor alone took him, in which he slept little and only remembered to eat when Roc thrust food under his nose.
    "Here! Stick your snout in a stewpot for a change!" Alv threw down the heavy scroll with a growl of disgust and grabbed the bowl and the slice of black bread. Roc watched him with amusement. "Don't bother to thank me, will you? The stew's not that bad, the beast's only been dead a week."
    Alv remembered to stay polite and mumbled an apology. "Thinking too hard…"
    "Not such a dawdle as you expected, eh?"
    Alv gave him a withering stare. "You wouldn't understand. It'll do as it is—but I've got to be sure it's perfect, you hear, perfect!"
    "I hear. I won't wait up, then. Don't fall asleep in your stew!"
    Alv hardly heard him. That was the real problem—that half-felt memory that seemed so vital, that nagged him every time he stared down at the symbols scored on the slates before him. He had a pattern, a good pattern, and parts of it had cost him much labor. But some small characters had seemed to fall into place almost naturally, as if by instinct; the result looked good, but he couldn't work out why, or find any other remotely satisfying version. He distrusted that. He had followed a shadow, something cast in his mind, a shadow of the days when he was a child, before he'd come to this place. And that was ridiculous, because then he'd known no smithcraft. He swore, and sent the bowl spinning across the room to crack against the high anvil.