As soon as he closed his eyes he found himself in a place he knew well, almost as well as the plains. It was dark there, and he couldn’t see the walls or the roof; it was a tunnel under a city, garlic and coriander together, a cellar under a factory, the proof house. He turned round – that involved kneeling down, feeling for the plank walls of the gallery – and saw that Alexius had got a fire going; he saw the smoke rising straight up into the vent-hole in the roof, with its blackened edges.
‘You’re early,’ Alexius said.
‘We’ve been making good time,’ he replied. ‘Is there a lot to get through?’
Alexius shook his head. Oddly enough, he wasn’t wearing Alexius’ body this time, or rather he’d put on another man’s face over his own (like a visor) so that he’d become Anax, the Son of Heaven who had failed. ‘Shouldn’t take long,’ he said. ‘Fetch the hammer and we’ll make a start.’
He remembered the feel of Bollo’s hammer in his hands – big, heavy, definitive, the measure of all things – but for the first time (and how many times had he been here? He’d lost count) he noticed that the hammer was in fact the Empire, because of course nothing can survive Bollo’s hammer, it’s just a matter of seeing how long it continues to offer resistance and the manner in which it eventually fails -
The first piece to be tested was an arm; a low-specification, munition-grade arm, made of ordinary flesh and bone, not expected to pass above the first degree of proof. Anax laid it on the anvil and Bardas reduced it to pulp with a few well-placed blows.
‘Fail that,’ Alexius said. ‘All right, next.’
He put a torso up; it was quite well made, with skilfully formed pectorals and well-defined ribs, and it was stamped with the plainsmen’s mark, usually a guarantee of quality. Bardas started with a couple of heavy bashes across the breastbone – ‘Thought so,’ Anax commented, ‘fancy decoration on top of poor material’ – then methodically broke the ribs, as easily as snapping off icicles. ‘Fail that,’ said Anax, and Bardas swept it off the anvil into the scrap.
‘Next,’ Alexius said, and Bardas put up a head. ‘Collector’s item,’ he said, because it was the head of a Son of Heaven, the late Colonel Estar. ‘Always wanted to see how well one of these would do,’ he said, and swung the hammer, putting a lot of left elbow and right shoulder behind the blow. The skull crumpled but stayed together – ‘That’s quality for you,’ said Anax – and it took him seven blows to wreck it completely. ‘It’s the bone structure that does it,’ Anax pointed out. ‘That high-domed forehead, see, and those cheek-bones. I’ll pass that in the second degree; still not good enough for the purpose it was made for.’
Another torso; female this time, with small round breasts and sloping, rounded shoulders. It had been made in the Perimadeian style but the patina on the surface suggested the sunlight of the Island. Breaking the ribs and collar-bone was easy enough; but the flesh was soft and springy, like the quilted silk armour of the far-eastern provinces, easy to bruise but next to impossible to crush, the force of the hammer blows just seemed to soak away into it, like water into sand. In the end, Bardas managed to ruin it by trapping it between the hammerhead and the edge of the anvil. ‘Third degree pass,’ said Anax. ‘Impressive.’
‘Cheating, if you ask me,’ Bardas replied.
Next was a hand; a girl’s hand with long, slender fingers. Instead of the hammer Bardas used the eight-pound axe, and the fingers came away quite cleanly. ‘Now the hammer,’ Alexius said, and Bardas smashed it across the back, expecting it to pulp. It didn’t. ‘Ah,’ said Alexius with a smile, ‘that’s a genuine Loredan, you see. Tough as old boots, they are.’ By the time he’d wrecked it to his satisfaction, Bardas had worked up quite a sweat.
‘Let’s have that head there,’ Alexius said. ‘Now,’ he went on, turning it round in his fingers, ‘here’s a challenge for you. Let’s see just how strong you are.’
Bardas grinned; the head was bald, with a strong jaw and a big, soft mouth. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said; but the first, second and third blows glanced harmlessly off the curved surface of the skull, and the head, opening its eyes and winking, forgave him.
‘I’ll pass it if you like,’ Alexius said sardonically. Bardas didn’t reply; he laid the head on its side and hammered on the jaw until the hinge cracked, then attacked the temples. He made some inroads but had to give up when he hit short, caught the shaft of the hammer on the side of the anvil and broke off the head.
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I’ll use the axe.’
‘All right,’ said Anax, ‘but it’s not the right tool, so it won’t be a fair proof.’
‘So what?’ Bardas replied. The axe made a better job; but by the time he was satisfied there wasn’t much edge left on it, and the blade was notched where he’d hit directly on one open, winking eye. The head forgave him again as he shoved it off the anvil. ‘Fifth degree proof,’ Alexius said. ‘They don’t make ’em like that any more.’
Bardas was tired. He wiped away the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist and asked, ‘Is that it?’
‘Almost,’ said Anax. ‘One more head, and then we’re done.’ And he reached under the bench and produced the head of Colonel Bardas Loredan. ‘All right then, Mister Clever,’ he said. ‘Crack that if you can, and I’ll buy you a jug of cold milk.’
Bardas frowned. ‘What with?’ he said. ‘I’ve bust the hammer and the axe is useless.’
Alexius scowled at him. ‘Don’t be so pathetic,’ he said. ‘When I was your age we proved everything with our bare hands, we didn’t faff about with hammers. Stop mucking about and get on with it.’
So Bardas hammered on the piece with his clenched fists, which were of course harder than any axe and heavier than any hammer; but try as he might, once he’d battered away the skin and the flesh, he couldn’t make so much as a little dent in the skull. ‘Quality,’ Anax muttered. ‘Don’t think you’ll ever crease that, not even with a drop-hammer.’
‘Rubbish,’ Bardas replied irritably. ‘I can break anything. Bloody fine assistant deputy viceproofmaster I’d be if I couldn’t. Here, give me that.’ He pointed to an arm which Anax had picked out of the pile; it was Colonel Bardas Loredan’s sword-arm, neatly sawn off at the elbow. He cut off the hand with his thin-bladed kitchen knife, the one he used for jointing and skinning the carcasses, and swung the massive bone round his head with all the strength he could muster. Steel on steel, the noise was; because Colonel Loredan’s head was a helmet and his sword-arm a vambrace, cop and lames. ‘You can always tell the quality by the sound it makes,’ Anax reminded him. ‘Listen to that, best Mesoge steel. When you’ve done with that skull, I’ll have what’s left for a planishing stake.’
‘There won’t be anything left,’ Bardas grunted; and he attacked the piece as if it was an enemy and his life depended on the outcome. In the end, honours were roughly even between the arm and the skull; both were dented and twisted, but nothing a good armourer couldn’t mend by beating out over an anvil. Quality like this can always be mended by hard, skilful bashing between hammer and anvil; no reason why it shouldn’t go on for ever.