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

the valley below. "There is my house—and from now on, yours also."
    Alv looked down into the shadows. A little way along the valley its wall became a sheer cliff face, down which a mountain stream fell in great cascades from the snowline high above. Just beyond it, founded on an outthrust arm of the cliff wall, rose a squat square tower of stone from within an encircling wall. Its summit was open and flat behind high crenellations, but to one side rose a wide round turret roofed in metal, cold-sheened in the clear pale light. Here and there on the flanks of the tower shone squares of warm yellow and red light and plumes of smoke or steam drifted up like banners into the icy air.
    Alv could only gape. He had never seen anything so large, except the Halls of Guild, and they had been low and flat, not many-storied like this. And it was all of stone !
    He had never even dreamed it was possible to build entirely of stone, and shuddered at the difficulty and danger of it. He found his voice at last, as they remounted and went riding down the steep road into the valley. "Mastersmith—it's amazing! But how was it all built—up here?"
    "It was built for me," said the smith drily, "with rather unusual help. I had to pay for that, and I am still paying, when I must. But it is strong, and houses all we need, including great stores of supplies. I think you will find it comfortable."
    After the smith's words about the Ice and the meaningless demands of humanity Alv was inclined to doubt that, but when the high gate of polished granite swung silently shut behind him and the door of the tower creaked open, a welcome tide of light and warmth flowed out, and the aroma of baking bread. That almost reduced him to tears, for all his newfound dignity, because he remembered it from years of passing by homes that were not his, doors at which he might only beg, and never enter as his own. But here as the Mastersmith and Ingar went in, Ernan, Roc and the wrinkled old woman who had opened the door all stood aside, and they ushered Alv in before them. The central hall around him was simple enough, stonewalled and flagged, strewn with rough matting; the great table and benches were of plain solid wood, as were the seats around the fireplace that filled the far wall. But it seemed like a palace to him, and almost unbelievable that he was able to stand and warm himself by the fire undisturbed, then join others at the table to eat bread and meat and drink mulled ale. All this was new to him, and he thought then that for all his life long he could want nothing better. And indeed, though others might have found it a lonely or uncanny place, he was happy enough to spend all the years of his growing in that house.
    In fashion it was like no other house of men in Norde-ney at that time, being built of stone blocks after the manner of the great towns of the south, but far larger in size, and so dressed that not even the keenest edge of the winter wind could force a particle of snow or ice between them. They were bedded deep in foundations of living rock, not only for strength but for heat. The fires under the Earth burned strong and high in that place, and often the hillsides around would vent great gouts of smoke and steam, and a fearful throbbing like the breath of some great beast; at times the ground itself would tremble and heave, as if that beast stirred under the intolerable weight of the Ice. But no tremor disturbed or weakened the Mastersmith's great house, though at its very roots there opened a deep cleft in the rock, through which its hot lifeblood yet ran; the stone drew up so much heat from below that often the spray of the falls splashed into steam against the wall. But the house was placed and built with a hand and a cunning past that of men, and so remained warm at all seasons in that bitter land, where living men could never otherwise have dwelt. On the stillest of summer nights the grind and crack of stone would resound from the far side of