The Knight

Thunrolf had a horse, and so did his knights, but Pouk and I had to walk, and so did most of the ones that came with us. The road got steeper and steeper, and finally there was a long flight of stairs where the ones that had horses had to leave them, and then more road, and then more stairs with snow and ice on them clear to the top. Some people stopped there and went back, but there were men-at-arms watching us, and we did not try. I told Pouk it was not much to somebody who had climbed to the top of the Tower of Glas, and he told me it was not much to somebody who had climbed to the top of the mainmast as often as he had. We cheered each other up like that, but the truth was that it was a stiff climb, and when I had gone up the stairs in the Tower of Glas with Uri and Baki we had stopped to rest every so often. Going up the Mountain of Fire, nobody stopped at all.

We got to the top, and it was beautiful, just beautiful. Down in the lowlands it was already night and you could see lights in the towers along the bottom wall, and here and there out past it, out in the jungle, where somebody had a little house or maybe just a campfire. Up where we were, there was a fresh cool wind and it was still sunset. The clouds over the sea were gold and gray, and I looked at some and thought, you know, a bunch of knights might ride down that valley any minute. And when the sun got just a little lower some knights did. They were tiny and way far away, but I could see their flags and the gleam of their armor and it was just beautiful. I will never forget it.

Only I never got to see where they were going, because I heard a hammer and looked around to see what it was. The smith had locked a gyve (a kind of iron ring) around Pouk’s ankle, and he was pounding a staple into a big rock so that Pouk would be chained to the rock.

When he was through, Thunrolf told Pouk to pick the rock up and carry it. Pouk tried, but it was so heavy he had to drop it after a couple steps. Finally one of the servants who had come along to watch helped him carry it, and we all went up to the very top. There was a sort of stone terrace there, shaped like a fingernail-cutting, that the Osterlings had built. When you stood on the edge you could look down into the Mountain of Fire. It was not straight down, but a steep slope with rocks jutting out of it in places. It went down and down. You could see way down deep because it was lit up by fire at the bottom. The opening up where we were standing was a long bowshot across, or a little more. But it got narrower as it went down.

Thunrolf made Pouk come over to the edge, and I kept telling myself he was not going to throw him in, because that was what the Osterlings did. I believed it, too. Then the servant who had been helping carry let go and Thunrolf gave Pouk a little push, and he went over the edge.

He rolled and banged around down the slope and tried to grab on to things and hold on, but the rock always pulled him loose. That was when I went for Thunrolf.

The men-at-arms would have killed me then if he had let them, but he made them stop. I had knocked down one and broken the arm of another, but the other knights were holding on to me so I could not fight, and there were too many men-at-arms between me and him. They had the points of their pikes and halberds up against my face and my chest. The knights were holding me, and all they had to do was shove them in. Thunrolf got the smith to put a gyve on my right hand. There was another gyve on the other end of the chain, and he held it up and showed it to the knights.

“Now then, bold Sir Able,” he said. “Do you still maintain that man is your friend, and not your servant?”

I said, “Yes. I told you the truth.”

“My Lord.” Thunrolf sort of smirked when he said that.

The knights that had my arms were trying to twist them, but the strength of the sea was building in me like a storm. I could hear the surf and feel the pounding of the waves. I did not want them to find out they could not twist them, not even with three holding each arm, so I said, “My Lord,” very quick. “I told you the truth, My Lord. He’s my friend.”

“That’s better.” Thunrolf smiled at me. He was still holding up the empty gyve, and he was having a good time. “If he is really your friend, he has been wrongly accused—accused by his own tongue, but wrongly still. Look down, can you see him?”

The knights let go so I could go over to the edge and look. I could not see Pouk at first, but pretty soon I did. The rock he was chained to had gotten stuck on an outcrop, and he was trying to get it loose. I yelled to him to stay where he was, that I would climb down and get him out.

Thunrolf said, “Ah!” You could tell he liked that a lot. “You will if I permit it. Not otherwise.”

I was about ready to rush him again, just trying to get a clear shot at him, but I said, “Please, My Lord, please let me. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Let me go down and bring him back up.”

Thunrolf nodded. “I will, Sir Able, if you mean it. You are willing to risk your life in my Mountain of Fire to save your friend?”

I said, “I sure am, My Lord,” and started to climb over the edge.

He motioned to the other knights, and they stopped me. I felt like pushing them in, and I could have done it, too.

“You may go,” Thunrolf told me, “but not alone. You shall have a companion, another bold knight to help you with your friend and the stone. Who will volunteer?” He held up the gyve again.

Nobody said a thing.

“Let me have a volunteer. Any knight present.” Thunrolf waved the gyve.

I was like him. I thought that two or three would, and maybe all of them, and he would have to choose. But none of them did and you could see some of them backing away a little bit. I did not say anything, but I knew Sir Ravd would have volunteered, and I wanted to tell them.

Thunrolf got mad then. He called them poltroons and cowards, and I could see they wanted to kill him for it, but even so there was no one who would let him put the other gyve on him.

About then I looked down again, and Pouk was gone. I could not see him at all, and I knew he had gotten his rock loose and tried to climb up holding on to it, and had fallen down deeper than ever.

I grabbed on to Thunrolf’s arm then. “I’m going,” I told him. “You can put the other one on me.”

“No,” he said, “one of these cravens must go with you. I want to see—and I want them to see—who turns back first.”

They would not even start, and I told him so and climbed over the edge. He still had the other end of my chain and one of the men-at-arms grabbed it too, and they stopped me. It was going to be a tough climb with two hands, and I knew that if I tried to pull them in, more would grab hold.

“This is your last chance,” Thunrolf told his knights, “your final opportunity. Speak now.”

I stuck my head up over the edge and yelled, “Put it on my other hand! I’ll go!”

I have been awfully surprised here, and more than just once or twice. I know I have said that already, and it is the truth. That was one of them, because Thunrolf put that gyve on his own wrist and snapped it shut, gave his knights one last look, and climbed down with me.

As we went deeper and deeper the air got hotter and hotter and it was harder and harder to breathe. There was smoke in it, and we coughed a lot. I knew there was a good chance we would both die, and I did not want to.

(This is one of those places where it is hard to tell the truth. It may be the hardest of all. I think it is. I went outside and walked around and looked at the sea and the mountains and the beautiful place where we live. If Disiri or Michael had been there I would have talked to them about it, but they were not, and I had to decide for myself. I have, and this is the truth.)

If the Mountain of Fire had been a volcano like we have back home I would never have done it. I knew it was not, and that was one thing that kept me going. I knew that there was another world under Aelfrice, and that it was the sixth world and was called Muspel. I knew that the hole in the middle of the Mountain of Fire went there, and that was where the fire we saw was, and where the smoke was coming from.