into the flames.
Then I focused my Will and constructed the hammer and anvil and tongs.
I suspect that if you went to that mountain behind the Hall of the
Rivan King, you’d find that they’re still there. They’re so dense that
they probably haven’t rusted down yet.
Riva hefted the hammer.
“It’s heavier than it looks,” he noted.
“That’s because it’s a magic hammer.” It was easier than getting into
the business of comparative density.
“I thought it might be,” he said quite calmly.
We sat on a log by that roaring fire waiting for the lumps of iron to
heat up. When they were finally white-hot, Riva raked them out of the
coals and got down to work. Somewhere along the way, he’d picked up
any number of skills. He wasn’t as good a smith as Durnik is, but he
was competent.
After about ten minutes, he stopped hammering and looked rather closely
at the glowing lump he had been beating on.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“These stars must be magic, too–just like the hammer. If they were
just ordinary iron, they’d have cooled by now.”
No, Durnik, I didn’t cheat. I think Belar did, though.
There are a number of versions of the Book of Alorn that rather blandly
state that I assumed the shape of a fox to advise Riva while he was
forging the sword. That’s sheer nonsense, of course. I’ve never taken
the form of a fox in my entire life. What is it about priests that
drives them to embellish a good story with improbable details? If
they’re that hungry for magic, why don’t they just spend a little time
and pick up the skills for themselves?
Then they’ll be able to play with magic to their heart’s content.
Riva continued to hammer on those two glowing lumps of iron until he’d
roughed out the shape of the blade and the hilt. Then I made a file
for him, and he started to smooth them out. He suddenly stopped and
started to swear.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“I’ve made a mistake,” he said sourly.
“I don’t see anything wrong.”
“I’ve got two pieces, Belgarath. How am I going to put them
together?”
“We’ll get to that. Keep polishing.”
After he’d dressed off the blade, he set it aside and started on the
massive, two-handed hilt.
“Does it need a pommel?” he asked me.
“We’ll get to that, too.”
He kept working. His face was streaming sweat from the heat of the
iron, and he finally threw down the file and laid the hilt on the anvil
with the tongs.
“That’s probably as good as I can get it,” he said.
“I’m not a goldsmith. Now what?”
I willed a barrel of water into existence.
“Quench them,” I told him.
He picked up that huge blade with his tongs and plunged it into the
water. The cloud of steam was really quite spectacular. Then he
dropped the hilt in.
“I still don’t think we’ll be able to put them together.”
“Trust me.”
It took quite some time for the submerged pieces of iron to stop
glowing. I had to refill the barrel twice before they started to turn
black.
Riva tentatively stuck his hand into the water and touched the blade.
“I think they’re cool enough now.”
“Take out the Orb,” I told him.
He looked around quickly.
“I don’t see any Angaraks,” he said.
“No. This is something else.”
He reached inside his tunic and took out the glowing Orb. It looked
very small in that massive hand of his.
“Now fish out the hilt,” I instructed.
He plunged his arm into the barrel and brought out that huge hilt.
“Put the Orb where the pommel ought to be.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. You’ll see.”
He held up the hilt in one hand and put the Orb against the bottom of
the handle. The click that came when they adhered together was clearly
audible. Riva gasped.
“It’s all right,” I told him.
“That was supposed to happen. Now pick up the blade and put the bottom
of it against the top of the hilt.”
He did that.
“Now what?”
“Push.”
“Push? What do you mean, push?”
“You know what the word means. Push the blade into the hilt.”
“That’s ridiculous, Belgarath. They’re both solid steel.”
I sighed.
“Just try it, Riva. Don’t stand around arguing with me. This is
magic, and I’m the expert. Don’t push too hard, or you’ll shove the
blade all the way through.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Do it, Rival”
The blade made a strange singing sound as it slowly slid into the hilt,
and the sound shuddered all the snow off nearby trees. When it was
fully inserted, Riva tentatively wiggled the two pieces. Then he
wrenched at them.
“What an amazing thing!” he said.
“It’s all one piece now!”
“Naturally. Grab the hilt and hold your sword up.” This was the real
test.
He took hold of the two-handed hilt and lifted that huge sword a foot
or so.
“It hardly weighs anything!” he exclaimed.
“The Orb’s carrying the weight,” I explained.
“Remember that when you have to take the Orb off. If you’re holding
the sword in one hand when you do that, the weight of it’ll probably
break your wrist. Raise the sword, Iron-grip.”
He lifted it easily over his head, and, as I’d hoped, it burst joyously
into blue flame, shearing off the rough edges and polishing the sword
to mirror brightness.
“Nice job,” I complimented him. Then I howled with delight and danced
a little jig of pure joy.
Riva was gaping at his flaming sword.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You did it right, boy!” I exulted.
“You mean this was supposed to happen?”
“Every time, Rival Every time! The sword’s part of the Orb now.
That’s why it’s on fire. Every time you raise it up like that, it’ll
take fire, and if I understand it right, it’ll do the same thing when
your son picks it up–and his son–and his son, as well.”
“I don’t have a son.”
“Wait a while, he’ll be along. Bring your sword. We’re supposed to go
up to the summit now.”
He spent a fair amount of time swishing that sword through the air as
we climbed the rest of the way to the top. I’ll admit that it was
impressive, but the screeching whistle it made as it carved chunks off
the air began to get on my nerves after a while. He was having fun,
though, so I didn’t say anything to him about it.
There was a boulder at the top of the peak that was about the size of a
large house. I looked at it when we got there, and I began to have
some doubts about what we were supposed to do. It was an awfully big
rock.
“All right,” Riva said, “now what?”
“Get a firm grip on your sword and split that rock.”
“That’ll shatter the blade, Belgarath.”
“It’s not supposed to.”
“Why am I supposed to split rocks with my sword? Wouldn’t a
sledgehammer work better?”
“You could pound on that boulder with a hammer for a year and not even
dent it.”
“More magic?”
“Sort of. There used to be a river running down the valley. It got
dammed up when Torak cracked the world. It’s still there,
though–under that boulder. Your family’s going to repair the world,
and this is where you’re going to start. Break the rock, Riva. Free
the river. You’re going to need fresh water in your city anyway.”
He shrugged.
“If you say so, Belgarath.”
Garion, I want you to notice the absolute trust that boy had. You
might want to think about that the next time you feel like arguing with
me.
Riva raised up that enormous naming sword and delivered a blow that
probably would have broken a lesser rock down into rubble. I’m sure
that the sound startled all the deer in Sendaria.
The boulder split evenly down the middle, and the two sides fell
ponderously out of the way.
The river came gushing out like a breaking wave.
Riva and I got very wet at that point. We struggled out of the water
and stood looking at our river with a certain sense of
accomplishment.
“Oops,” Riva said after a moment.
“Oops what?”
“Maybe I should have warned the fellows working down below,” he
replied.
“I don’t think they’ll be too happy about this.”
“They aren’t down in the stream-bed, Riva. That’s where they’ve been
dumping the excess dirt and rock they’re scraping off those
terraces.”
“I hope you’re right. Otherwise, they’ll probably get washed out to
sea, and they’ll probably swear at me for a week after they swim
back.”
As it turned out, our newly released river saved those Alorns months of
work. There were natural terraces under all the accumulated debris
they’d been moving, and that first rush of water washed those terraces