Signy moved the little piece of glass that Cair had handed her away from her eye . . . and nearly dropped it. "Everything got closer! It's magic!"
"There is no such thing, Princess," said Cair. "Just science. Understanding how things work."
"But with this I can do close fine-work," she said, her eyes luminous with excitement.
And so it was. Experimenting with a number of the lenses they found one that allowed Signy to see, clearly, what her fingers were doing. They had made a little wire holder for it. Signy marveled at her own fingers' deftness, now. The picture that was taking shape under her needle seemed almost alive. Now that she could see what she was doing, needlework was no longer a horrible chore. She could enjoy it, too, and finally see what other women had enjoyed about it. The gardens were flourishing—other than trips to pet the horses, she could work nearly without interruption on the embroidery.
In fact she had to slow it all down so that they could finish together. The dwarves, particularly Þekkr, came in to look and often to talk. They seemed fascinated by her, and she used this fascination to get a great deal of information from them, particularly about things magical. She was rather proud of herself. The deft fingerwork left her mind free to ponder many things. She reached certain conclusions over time, and, eventually decided to act on them.
That evening while they were sitting on what Erik had named "the council ledge" she explained. "I have learned a great deal from Þekkr about the arm-ring. I will not call it the arm-ring of Odin, but by its old name, Gullveig the Dripper. She was bound to the altar stone and within the weard stones of the Vé. She is powerful for both good and ill. The weard stones restrain her. Only at the time of the ancient sacrifice can the ring leave the stone, and then only to greet the weards so that she may know them. They are smaller, symbolic versions of old bautarstein that encircle the ancient kingdom. She guards them and they guard her. Taking the arm-ring from the stone magically is almost impossible . . ." Signy paused. "So there is only one place it could be," she said, calmly.
"Where?" asked Manfred.
"Touching the altar stone."
"It's not invisible," said Erik firmly.
Signy shook her head. "No. It is not. But it is there. Touching the stone."
Cair was quickest, beating Erik by seconds. "Under the stone?"
Signy nodded. "It is the only place where it could be, as I said. It must remain in the center of Telemark. At the spiritual and symbolic center."
Manfred looked at Erik, tilting his head on one side. "I reckon that answers the 'who did it?' question, too."
"My half-brother," said Signy in a matter-of-fact tone. "No other man could have lifted that stone." She paused for a moment. "Without those pulleys you're working on, that is."
There was a silence. Signy realized that they were all waiting for Cair to speak. After some time he did. "You know I don't believe the superstitions," he said. "Yes, I know it fits your theory, Erik, of whom your Christian mage was really pointing to with her wand trick. I know, too, that Vortenbras was itching to get out of the treaty he had with the Empire. But superstition is a question of belief. So even if the superstition is just that, Vortenbras may have known it and believed it. So he could have done the deed. And, true enough, only he could have done it. Unless Manfred of Brittany had sneaked in to do it?" enquired Cair with a lift to his eyebrow.
"Er. No."
"Good. I would have hated to have broken my oath and killed you. I'm getting quite fond of the way you grind charcoal," Cair said cheerfully.
"Well," admitted Fjalarr, glumly looking at the magnificent piece of artwork, "you've fulfilled the challenge, fair enough. I must be honest, this piece, superb though it is, is poor exchange for our gardens."
"I've done my best to see that they endure," said Signy.
Þekkr cleared his throat. "You wouldn't like to consider staying on? You and the glassmaker. He's clever for a Midgarder." The dwarf looked as if he was having his teeth drawn, but he had made the offer. "We could even consider better terms . . ."
Three months ago she could have asked for no more. To be needed . . . No, to be wanted, for her skills and for herself. "You're better without me here. I see too much," she said with a mischievous smile.
They looked at each other. "We wondered why you stayed," admitted Vitr. "You could have walked out so easily."
"As you said, intangible chains are the strongest. And loyalty binds me."
"Oh? We thought it was something else," said Sjárr, his spark-eyes dancing. "Well, let us go and see if that can hold you here, if he fails."
"He doesn't fail," she said with a calm certainty.
She was surprised that she had admitted that she knew who they were referring to, and even more surprised that they knew. She'd even toyed with the idea of calling him to her sleeping mat . . . That would have been an almost unthinkable concept, three weeks back. It was perhaps a good thing that the Franks were here.
In two sections, the steel disk went in through the hole. Manfred had fun attaching the two pieces together in a space where two hands did not fit, but at length the plate blocked the hole completely.
Vitr clicked his tongue. "Big and dim," he said, laughing. "The idea is to get through, not to block it up." He came up and, standing on tiptoes felt the welded bars that now protruded through the hole. "Or are you planning to hold on to these and pull it out?
Manfred shook his head. "Just wait and see how dim I am, Vitr."
The dwarf laughed again. "I can already see how big you are."
The second, outer, heavier plate and the black powder had Vitr rolling on the floor with laughter. "Oh my, Midgarder. This is priceless. Magic, no doubt." His expression said exactly what he though of Midgard magic, or at least of Manfred as a practitioner of it.
Manfred looked tolerantly at him. "I'd stay down there. Or come a lot farther back around the corner preferably. The sort of charm I'm going to work here will very possibly twist that beard of yours into knots popping out of your tail end."
Vitr sat up. "Wait. I must fetch the others. This is too good to miss."
"Sure. Can I fetch my friends, too?"
Vitr gave him a stern look. "Don't be silly, now. They're busy. And so should you be. We've got another load of locks for the kobolds to finish. I talked with Fjalarr about that piece of Midgard 'magic.'" He pointed at the metalwork. "You're wasted carrying ore. It's into the foundry with you, lad."
Manfred knew he ought to treat the "promotion" with disdain. But it was flattering, coming from the black dwarf. He had time to carefully lay a trail of the black powder that Cair had mixed so precisely. It took them nicely back around the corner. Manfred knew little of explosives—he was a Ritter, not a bombardier. All he knew was that this was dangerous stuff. It was mildly funny, though, that the corsair was distinctly envious that Manfred got to play with his toy. Manfred grinned to himself, thinking of Cair behaving like a mother hen last night. "It is that the powder is tightly enclosed, you understand. That is why it must be rammed in a cannon. Otherwise it just burns. And for heaven's sake, Manfred, be careful with the stuff."
"You aren't."
"That's because I have some idea of what I am doing," Cair had said loftily, and in Manfred's opinion, untruthfully. There was a certain amount of devil-may-care luck involved in Cair. One day it would run out on the man—or that was Erik's theory. Manfred reckoned that Cair would simply produce the next plan, and if that failed, go on to the next . . . as long as his explosives didn't blow him up to an accounting with his maker.
Manfred knelt, and hauled out his tinderbox. "Here," said Sjárr, "you want a spark?"
"Yes," said Manfred and then looked up just in time. "Hey. Come away from there." Vitr and Þekkr were heading around the corner, toward the explosive. And the trail of powder was fizzing and burning along behind them. "This way! NOW!" He yelled in a voice that brooked no argument, that could have brought walls down by itself, without gunpowder.
The two dwarves turned. Vitr jumped, seeing the fizzing trail burning behind him. Manfred had lumbered up to the two, grabbed one startled dwarf in each hand and flung them as far as he could up the passage. They were remarkably heavy for small men. He dived after them himself, nearly impaling himself on the very affronted Vitr's dagger.
Then . . . the charge exploded. Vitr dropped his dagger. A piece of the roof dropped, too. None of them heard it. Belatedly it occurred to Manfred that a cave was also a good enclosed space.
As if by magic—and it was entirely possible that it was—Fjalarr appeared. He was saying something. Manfred couldn't hear anything right now. But he seemed reassured by the intactness of his brothers. Then others appeared—humans and other workers, with Erik and Cair in the forefront, and Signy a little farther back, all looking worried and then relieved. Saying something because their lips were moving. Manfred allowed himself some of the choicest expletives of Venice in describing Cair. Manfred couldn't hear them, but by Cair's grin, he could.
Manfred couldn't lip-read too well, but he was willing to bet the fellow said, "I told you so."
Hearing was beginning to return now and they all walked cautiously around the corner to where the dust was settling slowly. Someone had the intelligence to bring along a lamp from the wall sconce.
And to his horror, Manfred saw that the wall of adamantine still stood. The metal plate was somewhat buckled. He touched it gingerly, and it fell with a clang to the floor.
It still stood! After all that! He kicked it in disgust. And had to leap for safety as the admantine wall fell down in a shower of cracked crystal. Well, a large part of it fell down, along with another piece of roof that came with it, in sympathy.
"I hope," said Þekkr, "that your attempt at the fulfilment of your challenge is less exciting than your companion's efforts." He seemed to find it funny.
Erik looked darkly at Cair. "It'd better be."
"Good," said Sjárr, his grin like a half-moon in his black beard. "I'm not standing too close anyway. Not after last time."
"I still think we should give them back to Bakrauf," said Vitr with an evil chuckle. "The old troll-wife will be paying us through the nose for repairs from their last efforts. I shouldn't have thought she'd want them back. I mean, they've cost us a priceless wall of adamantine so far. Now we'll have to get someone to put it back together again."
"She must be crazier than we thought to be prepared to buy them," agreed Sjárr. "Well, Midgarder. Go to it. Tell us if we have to duck."
Erik dusted his hands. If something did go wrong he'd be flattened. "This is just simple mechanics," he said with a confidence that he wished was real.
The biggest problem had been to find something to attach the pulleys to on the roof. Erik had noticed that the passage was wider at the top than the bottom. The three iron-hard poles could not—without being lifted and turned—come down.
"The lever is good," said Sjárr. "We understand those. But the rest is . . . interesting."
"Watch."
Using the enormous pole as a lever, Erik rolled the rock onto the net bag. If that broke he'd eat it—if he wasn't squashed flat. He'd tied those knots himself, and every good Icelander boy had done his time fixing and making nets. A net spread the load.
Now it was attached to the pulley. They'd tested these as exhaustively as possible. But there was no real way to test them on that rock—or with the rock's weight. And the rope was locally braided stuff. Who knew how strong it was?
Still. The pulleys were threaded. He hauled. The rope cracked alarmingly. Erik could feel veins standing out on his forehead.
"You don't have to haul it right through the ceiling, you know," said Vitr. "We like it. Can we have these devices? You've no further use for them now?"
Erik was so startled to discover he'd done his task, that he nearly dropped the boulder on himself. Lowering it gave him time to think.
"I'll bargain for horses. And to save us time arguing I'll settle for four of ours."
Vitr chuckled. "It'll save us feeding them anyway. Interesting principle, that double pulley."
The air was full of colored smoke. Cair brushed his bird with feathers and muttered in what, unless Erik was much mistaken, was Latin.
All four of the dwarves watched curiously as Cair readied the metal construction for flight. It looked, Erik thought, like a vicious kingfisher. Cair had carved the body out of soft wood and then cut it in half. Each half had been pressed into the molding material and the impression filled with wax. Then Cair had patiently hollowed the wax and used gypsum to fill in the hollow. Then he used his "lost wax" casting skills to cast the two halves. Careful soldering had joined it all together, with the glass paraphernalia inside. The only opening now was the throat. It was a work of art, Erik had to admit. The wings were separate and solid pieces of thin artistry. Only the join—a thin leaf spring of the finest and most flexible sword steel that Cair had been able to scavenge, was rather unlifelike. Still, it meant that when you tapped the wings they "flapped." The eyes, made from a broken amber bead Cair had produced from his pouch, seemed to glow with life. Cair had put his heart and soul into this piece of work, and he was a craftsman and an artist born, by the looks of it.
It might be very impressive, but Erik still didn't see how in the Hades it could fly or that Cair could even pretend it that did. He also knew Cair had very little time to do whatever he was planning to do. The bird had a bellyful of hot coals that should very soon melt the solder or start it whistling—he was not sure which would come first.
Cair chanted in Latin as he attached the horsehair cord to the bird's legs. He appeared as calm as any man could ever be. Only the professional bodyguard could pick up the small signs of tension, the slight nervous mannerisms.
"It has to fly properly, not be whirled around your head," said Sjárr, looking suspiciously at the horsehair cord.
Cair nodded. "If I was going to do that I would have attached the cord to its wings. This is just to restrain it from flying away before it sings. Now. You interrupt my preparations."
Erik could hear the faint hiss of steam. So could the dwarves. "What's that?" asked Fjalarr, eyes narrowed.
"Merely the magics beginning to work," said Cair. "Now. Aves per aspera." Holding it by the legs he raised the bird above his head.
The hair on the back of Erik's neck prickled as he saw the wings lift and snap straight again. They were vibrating slightly.
And then Cair flicked it up. Well, that was how Erik saw it. It might have looked like someone releasing it, too.
The bird hung, flapping its wings, just under the cave roof. Then began to whistle as water from Cair's dropper dribbled onto the plate of now very hot iron within and turned to steam, with nowhere to escape but through the whistle just inside its throat.
Cair turned to his hosts. "My challenge is done. Now take us to the princess, and let us go."
The dwarves stared in incredulous delight at the iron bird. Erik had to prod them to get their attention. Cair had warned him that the whole thing just might explode.
He'd had enough of Cair's experiments with explosives for a lifetime. Anyone who didn't want that to be a very short lifetime should have that attitude.
Manfred and Signy were waiting with the horses. The dwarves had refused to let them in "because she might assist" and poor maligned Manfred "because he might make something explode." Huh. Did they ever have the wrong sow by the ear.
Bifröst bridge shimmered. It certainly didn't look in the least like a bridge. It looked like a rainbow. If he hadn't been quite so expectant of explosions behind him, Cair would have never ever ventured onto such a thing. Well—except that Signy had already stepped onto it, and her horse was prepared to follow. Horses would follow her anywhere. The rest of them were not so privileged. They had to blindfold their horses before walking out onto a bridge that felt solid enough beneath your feet but looked to be made of light and air.
"I do not believe in magic," said Cair, firmly not looking down. Those were clouds down there.
Erik was plainly suffering from similar problems. Or at least one problem, perhaps with being above the birds on a shimmering transparent bridge of many colors. "How does a man who doesn't believe in magic make a metal bird fly? What's that except magic?"
Cair snorted. "Magnetism. I had put a lot of magnetic ore on that rock shelf in the roof. That's what the leashes were for. Had I not anchored the iron bird down, it would have stuck to the roof."