“Though I am grateful for the pleasure of your visit, I know that you did not come just to see old Inchkeith. There is business to be done, aye?”

“So it is,” Durwin nodded. “We do have some business to discuss with you.”

The craftsman took a long pull on his pipe, his cheeks caving in completely. He blew them out again in a long, thin blast of smoke. “I like nothing better,” he said. “But perhaps your business is not so urgent that it will not wait until I have shown you some of my latest works.”

“By all means,” urged Quentin. “I would very much like to see some of your achievements.”

“You twist my arm, sir!” laughed Inchkeith, getting up from the table. “Follow me and you will see something to suit your fancy, I dare say.”

They left the gleaming hall by a side entrance and were at once in a low, dim room where rank on rank of polished armor stood emptily at attention, waiting for their knights to lend them life. It looked the very armory of a king, so many swords, bucklers, helms and breastplates did they see.

Through this low-beamed room they came to another, smaller than the first and darker. It contained lances and spears of all sizes and description, and halberds without number. The long-shafted weapons were all bound together in neat piles like new-mown sheaves of grain, bundled and waiting to be thrashed. In the gloom Quentin could see the steel points of lance and spear, and the smooth sharp blades of the halberds glimmering as they passed.

“Ah! Here we are. Watch your step. There. This is my only true home-my workshop,” shouted Inchkeith above a new din.

For they had stepped down into a room warm with the fires of the forge and loud with the clangor of steel on steel. The room was easily as large as the great hall, if not larger, and it was filled with the bustle of industry as the sons of Inchkeith, and various servants, went about their work of forging steel and iron into weaponry. There were tables and odd-looking devices which defied adequate description all over the place, from one end of the oblong room to the other. At each table, and surrounded by curious trappings, a man labored over his craft: here a blade being affixed to its hilt and handle, there a wooden shield receiving its hide covering, and over across the way a truncated knight was acquiring his breastplate.

Quentin was dazzled by the display, for it was totally unlike anything he had ever seen. Inchkeith led them through the maze, pausing at each table to impart some finer point of craft to the workman there. And wherever the eye chanced to wander, it glanced upon a shining example of the armorer’s art. Quentin doubted whether in all the world there was anything to compare with Inchkeith’s workshop.

Quentin looked upon the table and saw, among an assortment of strange tools whose purposes he could but guess, a long broad sword, a mighty thing, fully a span in length. The hilt was jewel encrusted and gold, and the scabbard was silver engraved with scenes of the capture of a bear. It was every inch a work of excellence and skill.

“Do you like it?” asked Inchkeith, following Quentin’s gaze.

“Like it? Sir, it is the most handsome of swords. A treasure.”

“Here. You may examine it more closely.”

With his left hand, and lamenting that he did not have the use of his right, he drew the sword from its sheath and heard the cool whisper of the sliding steel.

It was made to be used with two hands; yet it was not much heavier than its shorter cousin and was superbly balanced. Even with his left hand Quentin could feel the lift of the blade and the almost effortless way in which it followed the movement of the hand. Quentin passed the weapon to Toli, who made it sing through the air; he saw the light of admiration leap to the Jher’s dark eyes.

“The blade is of a special steel I have begun making. It will shear iron. This one”-he spoke as if it were but one fish of a thousand in his net-“I have made for King Selric of Drin. It is all but finished.” He carefully replaced the sword and turned to them with a twinkle in his eye. “Now I will show you my masterpiece.”

Inchkeith hobbled from his table to a low arched door set in a recess in the wall nearby. As he passed the end of the table he took up a lamp and lit it from a taper. After adjusting it, he proceeded to heave aside the heavy bolt which secured the door. “This way,” he said, and he disappeared inside the blackened doorway.

The three followed their stooped guide into a small round chamber, and it was a moment before their eyes could adjust to the darkness and the dim lamplight. When Quentin raised his eyes a gasp escaped his lips. Before him stood the most handsome suit of armor he could have imagined, but that alone was not what took his breath away.

Quentin saw before him the very armor he had seen in his vision.

It was real. It existed and was flashing in the light of the lamp as if it were wrought from a single diamond. Polished smooth, bright as water, it shimmered before his dazzled, unbelieving eyes. Without heeding the others, Quentin moved toward the place where it stood on its stanchion, as if the object had beckoned him closer.

The armor, pale and shimmering silver in the lamplight, was without ornament or device of any kind. All its surfaces gleamed like gemstone, flat and clean, reflecting a luminous radiance.

The helm was magnificent, having a simple slotted visor and a crest which was nothing more than a thin ridge from brow to crown. And, quite unaccountably, from the shoulders hung a cloak of the most exquisite chain mail Quentin had ever seen. He could not resist touching it. He reached out a tentative fingertip and the mail rippled like liquid silver, sparkling and dancing in the flickering light. The tiny, individual rings sighed like the fall of snow upon frozen ground as they quivered beneath his touch.

“It is as light as goose down,” said a voice close to his ear. Inchkeith was standing at his shoulder, his face lit with pleasure at Quentin’s unutterable amazement.

“Who is it for?” Quentin managed to croak out with effort.

“Ah, there is the wonder of it!” The craftsman’s voice was but a sigh. “No one-at least not yet. I fashioned it after a design that came to me in a dream. I saw it and knew I must make it. I believe the owner will come to claim it one day. Until then…” His voice trailed off.

“I notice that it does not have a sword,” Quentin remarked suddenly. “Why not?”

Inchkeith the master armorer cocked his head to one side and frowned. “You have touched it there, my lord. I saw no sword in my dream and so made none.”

“Then come, Master Inchkeith,” said Durwin. “It is time we talked.”

THIRTY-FIVE

ESKEVAR PACED his inner chamber with long, impatient strides. He held his hands clasped behind his back and cast his eyes to the floor. “The fools! The fools!” he said under his breath. “They will bring the kingdom down.”

He had been two days in his tower-pacing, worrying. He had eaten and slept but little and his features, now more lined and tightly drawn than ever, bore the effect of his distress. Often he had occasion to anguish over the stubbornness of his nobles, but now he saw clearly that the fate of the nation lay in their hands and they seemed oblivious to the threat.

Once and again he lamented the power, or lack of it, that stayed his hand from more drastic action. In days of old he would have ordered his lords into battle with but a wave of his hand; they would have had to obey or lose their lands and privilege. In days older still, in the time of the first Dragon King, the kingdom was ruled by the will of the all-powerful monarch; then there had been no lords to question the command of the King.

Ah, but before that had been the time of the northern kings, when each man, by the point of his sword, could become king in his own eyes, and the realm was divided into tiny territories of scratching, biting, self-important despots who swaggered about their principalities spoiling for a fight and a chance to increase their holdings through the overthrow of a neighboring monarch.