As for the king, he was gazing questioningly at mac Art.
“It’s from slumbering Egypt this bauble comes, and men have killed each other for it. Excepting the most ignorant of them, that slaying was not merely for its value as precious metal.” Cormac paused for effect. “I am content to test its powers in your deathly tower, lord King, in attempt to remove the danger. As I believe I can.”
Veremund disrupted the silence so that Zarabdas jerked; the king brought a hand down on the table in a slap of decision.
“A noble offer,” Veremund said, “to be treated nobly!” And he strode to the door, which he flung wide so that it banged echoically. He gave the ornate ring from his first finger to a guard in a leather war shirt studded with iron. “Take this for authority, and fetch me Motsognir’s Chain from the treasure room.”
Turning back swiftly, Veremund surprised gape-jawed looks of consternation on the faces of Irnic and Zarabdas. Their dismay did not escape Cormac, or Wulfhere either. While the reivers did not know what Motsognir’s Chain might be, they grasped well that it was kept in the treasure room. They traded glances of bland meaning.
“My lord-” Zarabdas ventured.
“I know to the word what is on your tongue to say. Let it rest.”
Zarabdas let it rest. Nobody said aught more. Mage and horse-soldier were clearly plagued by unease, while the king’s guests were all waiting attention. Veremund himself did not seem disposed to talk until he had that which he’d sent for, and wise men obliged kings.
It came.
Three strong servitors were bent by the weight of the thing called Motsognir’s Chain. The guard led them. Behind, the very mirror of grave dignity, came a Hispano-Roman in grey and tawny brown, with a ring of ornate keys stapled to his belt. Anthemius his name, they soon learned: he kept the king’s monetary records and had responsibility for the royal strong room. Hair stuck out in grey and russet shingles from his oddly-shaped skull. His eyes blinked and watered much.
Him the two sea-rovers scarce gave a glance. The great chain was forged of nine times nine massy links and each was deeply incised with an ancient rune. Through the last-or first-link ran a large iron ring, a circle of smaller runes cut around it.
Every link was of shining silver.
“Aye, look well,” Veremund bade his guests. “This thing came from the land of my fathers, long agone, when they saw rivers but never in all their lifetimes the sea. The dwarves made it. It bears the name of their king. Time out of mind has it been the chief treasure of the Suevic kings. Anthemius: how burn the trenchfires?”
“Low, lord King. However, we feasted late and the coals are hot still. I have had the great hall cleared and more fuel thrown on. None will be there to gawk.”
“That’s well. Wulfhere Hausakliufr, Cormac mac Art-what you see now you will long remember. It is my desire that you speak no word of it in Brigantium. This chain has a special property, the which is hardly a secret, but… one does not make public display of such. Thus it is dismissed as rumour even ten leagues away, and thus there be fewer ambitious thieves to guard against.”
Veremund led the way to his long dining-hall. His serving men laid the chain out straight on the floor’s strewn rushes. Beside it, the long fire-trench breathed hard dry heat between its stone hearths. At the king’s bidding, Wulfhere paced the chain, nor was Wulfhere loath to do so. Twelve strides took him from end to end of Motsognir’s Chain-though his strides were a deal longer than most men’s.
“Twelve,” he rumbled.
Veremund gestured to his serving men. They lifted the chain and walked forward, the chain hanging down in curves between them like a mighty silver serpent. With a concerted lift and heave, they flung it into the fire. None need say aught; all watched. The silver chain curled and writhed in that heat like a thing alive, a bright segmented worm with a black head.
Is it to come alive, then? Cormac wondered, and his nape-hairs stirred. His swift-swerving eyes checked the positions of other men, lest he must fight; his was not an unsuspicious mind, ever.
Flames obscured the chain. Heat struck the reivers’ eyeballs as they peered closer. Sight blurred in the smoke. They narrowed their lids.
“Cormac,” Wulfhere muttered only half aloud, “an the thing be not changing, Fenris eat me!”
“Aye,” and the Gael did not ask, changing how? He’d sight as keen as Wulfhere’s, and he seldom put questions with small likelihood of useful answers. He watched. They all watched.
At last the chain went still. Veremund the king gave orders. With a long-handled iron hook, his serving men fished it from the trench-fire. The hook was for hot cauldrons; the chain was hot, and they stretched it hearthside a second time so that it lay cooling.
“Captain Wulfhere: will you tell me its length now?” the king invited, smiling.
Wulfhere Skull-splitter looked at him, wondering if he were being made sport of. A pointless sort of joke… but he trod the measure again-and stopped in bewilderment ere he reached the chain’s end.
“Twelve!” he announced, and paced on. “And… five more! Cormac! ‘Tis nigh half as long again as it was!”
“Right you are, Captain,” Veremund smiled. “Such is its property: the chain grows in fire. The longer since it was last so heated, the more it grows-whereby you will see there are limits to the wealth it can provide. A too-greedy man might even exhaust its powers.”
“Like that yarn of the goose that laid golden eggs.”
“Aye. One must be sparing, and cunning smiths and armourers such as I must have do not labour cheaply. Another reason why this curse on my harbour-tower is so dire. I have been seeking to increase Galicia’s seatrade, which has been worse than poor these last thirty years-and by Ertha!” The pagan oath slipped out unregarded. “Such as this business in the tower could ruin all!” Veremund grimaced, made his little throaty snuffing noise, and grew calm. “However, Motsognir’s Chain is still a bauble worth the having. And settles, methinks, any doubt as to whether I can properly gift those who do me service.”
“My lord King understates,” Cormac said. “And impresses us much, as I daresay we show. Yet were it wise to show such treasure to outland pirates?”
He’s spoken the very thought the king had warned Irnic and Zarabdas not to utter, and he knew it. Yet this ought to be said thus plainly at the outset, and answered in the same way.
The king spoke. “Zarabdas.”
The mage’s hand rose to the winged solar disk that hung pendent on his chest. The while he stared at Cormac mac Art, who met that gaze. Numbness and darkening entered into his mind. He felt a sense of heaviness; a great weight seemed to grow in him, as if Motsognir’s chain had been looped about him invisibly, and that without pressing more on one part of his body than another. Like the chain, the sensation grew, a steady, increasing drag throughout his entire organism. Cormac’s very bowels sagged in his belly. His bones went leaden. The blood ceased to flow in his hands, pooling heavily in hands he could scarce lift. His heart laboured. The thought came, and with it horror: Any tyro sworder could take me now! He sweated. He struggled to move. His very bones seemed to have gone heavier and were dragging at his muscles, down, heavy, heavier… The inexorable weight rooted him to the floor and grew still stronger. The Gael gan tremble with the stark effort of merely standing upright.
“Cormac!” Wulfhere stormed. “What’s wrong, man?” He rounded on Zarabdas. “Ye scrawny wizard! Whate’er it is ye’re at, stop it now-else I’ll see your head this chain’s length apart from your body!”