position. The air up here was thin, and stank of sulphur. It frosted the lungs and gave them little nourishment. At least his stomach had now ceased its clamoring for food; he had reached an internal balance with his hunger, a state almost of comfort… with a mental snap he came back to full alertness, finding himself sitting quietly on stone. Had he just started to fall asleep or what?
He didn't see what difference it would make if he did doze off for a rest. But no, there was something to do, something to be decided, now that he was here. He ought to see to that first, think about it a little at least. He'd come up here for some vital reason… ah yes, the sword. When he had warmed himself a little more, he'd think about it.
Still sitting in the faint sun-warmth of the high, sheltered place, Mark slowly began to notice how much unburned wood was lying about nearby. There were large chips and roughly broken scraps, and the half-burnt ends of logs that must once have been too big for a man to lift. He realized that he needed heat. He wanted a fire, and so he painfully began to gather and arrange wood in the old fireplace.
It should have been an easy matter to build a fire using this available material, but weakness made it hard. Drawing his hunter's knife, Mark tried to shave tinder and fine kindling but his hands were shaky, and the blade slipped from the half-frozen wood. He tried the sword and found the task much easier despite its weight and size. With the sword held motionless, its point resting on the ground and the hilt on his bent knee, Mark could draw any chunk of wood against the edge and take off shavings as thin and fine as he wanted. Then when he had his tinder and his kindling ready, his flint struck a fat spark from the rough flange of the sword's steel hilt.
The fire caught from that first spark. It burned well-alrhost magically well, Mark thought. Larger fragments soon fed it into respectable size and crackling strength. Then, after he'd rested and warmed himself a little more, he took his hunter's cup and gathered some snow from a shaded crevice, to melt and heat himself some water for a drink. Now, if only he had a little food… Mark cut that thought off, afraid the hunger pangs would start again.
He sat on the rocky ground with the unwrapped sword beside him, sipping heated water. And found himself staring at large symbols, markings so faint that he hadn't noticed them at first, painted or somehow outlined on the rock of the shallow caves rear wall. Several of the symbols had been partially obscured by the old stains of smoke. There were in all about a dozen of the signs, all of them drawn with inhumanly straight, geometrical sides; and the lines of one of them, Mark realized, formed the same design that appeared on the hilt of the sword. He took up the sword again and looked at it carefully to make sure.
After that he continued to stare at the wall-signs, with the feeling that he was on the verge of extracting some important meaning from them, until he was distracted by a sound. It was not the wind, or his own fire, but the deep chimney-roaring, louder than before, rising below the never-quite-ceasing whine of wind. It was too breathlessly prolonged to be the voice of any animal or human. The furnaces of Vulcan, Mark thought. The forge- fires. Whatever they really were, they were burning still, somewhere near to where he was sitting. And this old wood-fire place in front of him was… that thought would not complete itself.
Mark's sun-shadow on the face of the cliff before him was reaching higher, and he knew that behind him the sun was going down. He thought: I won't live through this night up here; the cold if nothing else will kill me. But in spite of approaching death — or perhaps because of it — he felt a strong and growing conviction that he was going to see Vulcan soon. And somehow neither death nor the gods were terrible; the shock of watching his father and his brother die still numbed Mark's capacity for terror. Now he understood that ever since he'd picked up the sword from the village street he'd been meaning to confront Vulcan with it. To confront him, and… and maybe that would be the end.
Trying to gain strength, Mark built up his fire again, with larger chunks of wood. Then he curled up in front of it, as if he could absorb its radiant energy like food. Again he had the sword's cloth wrapped round his own body as a blanket.
The next time he awoke, he was cold and stiff, and the world was totally dark around him except for a million stars and the brightly winking embers of his fire. Slowly and painfully Mark turned over on his bed of rock, twisting his aching body to get the nearlyfrozen half of it toward the fire. His face and the backs of his hands felt tender, as if they'd been almost scorched when the flames were high. But they began to freeze as soon as they were turned away from the remaining warmth. Mark knew he ought to make himself stand up, move his arms and walk, and then build up the fire again. He knew it, but he couldn't seem to get himself in motion. Deep in the middle of his body he could feel a new kind of shivering, and now he was almost completely sure that he was going to die tonight. Still the fact had very little importance. Get up and tend the fire, and it will save you.
Startled, Mark raised his head, croaked out a halfformed question. The words had come to him as if in someone else's voice, and with the force of a command. He could not recognize the voice, but it made a powerful impression. Now, once he'd moved his head, the rest was possible. He sat up, rubbing his arms together, preparing himself for further effort. Now his arms were able to move freely. And now he forced himself to rise, swaying on stiffened knees, but driving his legs, torso, everything into activity. Halfparalyzed with cold and stiffness still, he gathered more wood and fed the flames when he had blown them back to life.
Then, Mark lay down near the new flames, wrapping hiself in the blanket again. He rubbed his face. When he took his hands down from his eyes, a circle of tall, silent figures was standing around him and the fire. They were too tall to be human. Mark, too numb to feel any great shock, looked at what he could see of the faces of the gods. He wondered why he could not recognize Ardneh, to whom his mother prayed so much, among them.
One of the goddesses — Mark couldn't be sure which one she was — demanded of him: 'Why have you brought that sword back up here, mortal? We don't want it here.'
'I brought it for my father's sake.' Mark answered without fear, without worrying over what he ought to say. 'This sword maimed him, years ago. It's killed him now. It's killed my brother, too. It's driven me away from home. It's done enough, I'm getting rid of it.'
This caused a stir and a muttering around the circle. The faces of the gods, shadowed and hard for Mark to see, turned to one another in consultation. And now the voice of a different deity chided Mark: 'It was time enough, in any case, for you to be leaving home. Do you want to be a mill-hand and a rabbit-hunter all your life?'
'Yes,' said Mark immediately. But even as he gave the answer, he wondered if it were really true.
Another god-voice argued at him: 'The sword you have there has done hardly anything as yet, as measured by its capabilities. And anyway, who are you to judge such things?'
Another voice chimed in: 'Precisely. That sword was given to Jord the smith, later Jord the miller, until you, mortal, or your brother had it from him. It's yours now. But you can't just bring it back here and be rid of it that way. Oh, no. Even leaving aside the question of good manners, we…'
And another: '…cant just take it back, now that it's been used. You can't bring a used gift back.'
'Gift?' That word brought Mark almost to midday wakefulness. It came near making him jump to his feet. ''You say a gift? When you took my father's arm in payment for it?'
An arm, long as a tree-limb, pointed. 'This one here is responsible for taking the arm. We didn't tell him to do that.' And the towering figure standing beside Vulcan (Mark hadn't recognized Vulcan till the instant he was pointed out) clapped the Smith on the back. It was a great rude slap that made Vulcan stagger on his game leg and snarl. Then the speaker, his own identity still obscure, went on: 'Do you suppose, young mortal, that we went to all the trouble of having Clubfoot here make the swords, make all twelve of them for our game, never to see them properly used? They were a lot of trouble to have made.'
For a game… a game? In outrage Mark cried out: 'I think I'm dreaming all of you!'
None of the gods or goddesses in the circle thought that was worth an answer.
Mark cried again: 'What are you going to do about the sword? If I refuse to keep it?'
'None of your business,' said one curt voice.
'I suppose we'd give it to someone else.'
'And anyway, don't speak in that tone of voice to gods…'
'Why shouldn't I speak any way I want to, I'm dreaming you anyway! And it is my business what…'
'Do you never dream of real persons, real things?'
Smoke from the fire blew into Mark's face. He choked, and had to close his eyes. When he opened them again the circle of tall beings was still there, surrounding him.
'And, anyway, if we gods wish to play a game, who are you, mortal, to object?' That got a general murmur of approval.
Mark was still outraged, but his energy was failing. His muscles seemed to be relaxing of themselves. He lay weakly back on rock half-warmed by fire. Despite all he could do, his eyelids were sagging shut in utter weariness.
