“Can you not read these runes?” I asked Ivar, again.

“I amnot a rune-priest,” he said.

Ivar’s reply was not a little belligerent. I knew him able to read some rune markings. I gathered that these, perhaps because of antiquity or dialect, were beyond him. Ivar’s attitude toward reading was not unlike that of many of the north. He had been taught some rune signs as a boy, that he could understand important stones, for in these stones were the names of mighty men and songs of their deeds, but it had not been expected of him that he would be in any sense a fluent reader. Ivar, like many of those in the north, was a passable reader, but took care to conceal this fact. He belonged to the class of men who could hire their reading done for them, much as he could buy thralls to do his farming. It was not regarded as dignified for a warrior to be too expert with letters, such being a task beneath warriors. To have a scribe’s skills would tend to embarrass a man of arms, and tend to lower his prestige among his peers. Many of the north, then, were rather proud of their illiteracy, or seml-illiteracy. It was expected ofthem. It honored them. His tools were not the pen and parchment, but the sword, the bow, the ax and spear. Besides simple runes, the boy in the north is also taught tallying, counting, addition and subtraction, for such may be of use in trading or on the farm. He is also taught weighing. Much of his education, of course, consists in being taken into a house, and taught arms, hunting and the sea. He profits, too, from the sagas, which the skalds sing, journeying from hall to hall. In the fest-season of Odin a fine skald is difficult to bring to one’s hall. One rnust bidhigh. Sometimes they are kidnapped, and, after the season’s singing, given much gold and freed. I had not, of course, intended to insult the Forkbeard.

“There is one sign here, of course,” said the Forkbeard, “which any fool might read.”

He pointed to the sign.

I had seen it frequently in the writings. Naturally, I could not read it.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Do you truly not know?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “I do not know.”

He turned away, and, again, I followed him.

We lit new torches from the wall rings and discarded our old ones. We then continued on our journey.

Now, to one side and the other, we passed opened chests, in which we could see treasures, the spillings and tangles of coins and jewelries, rings, bracelets.

We came then to a great arch, which marked the entrance to a vast room, lost in darkness beyond the flickering spheres of our uplifted torches.

We stopped.

Over the arch, deeply incised in the stone was the single, mighty sign, that which the Forkbeard had not explained to me.

We stood in silence, in that dark, lofty threshold. The Forkbeard was trembling. I had never seen him so. The hair on the back of my neck lifted, short, stiff. I felt cold. I knew, of course, the legends.

He lifted his torch, to the sign over the door. “Do you not know that sign?” he asked.

“I know what sign it must be,” I said.

“What sign?” asked he.

“The sign, the name-sign, of Torvald.”

“Yes,” said he.

I shuddered.

“Torvald,” I said to the Forkbeard, “is only a figure of legend. Each country has its legendary heroes, its founders, its discoverers, its mythic giants.”

“This,” said the Forkbeard, looking up at the sign, “is the chamber of Torvald.” He looked at me. “We have found it,” he said.

“There is no Torvald,” I said. “Torvald does not exist.”

“This,” said the Forkbeard, “is his chamber.” His voice shook. “Torvald,” said he, “sleeps in the Torvaldsberg, and has done so for a thousand years. He waits to be wakened. When his land needs him, he shall awake. He shall then lead us in battle. Again he will lead the men of the north.”

“There is no Torvald,” I said.

The Forkbeard looked within. “For a thousand years,” he whispered, “has he slept.”

“Torvald does not exist,” I said.

“We must waken him,” said the Forkbeard.

Ivar Forkbeard, lifting his torch, entered the great chamber.

I felt grief. It seemed to me not impossible that, at the root of the legends, the sagas, of Torvald, there might be some particles of truth. I did not think it impossible that there had once been a Torvald, one who had come to this land, with followers perhaps, more than a thousand years ago. He might have been a great leader, a mighty warrior, the first of the jarls of the north, but that had been, if it had ever been, more than a thousand years ago. There was now no Torvald. I felt grief at what misery, what disappoint ment, what disillusionment must now fall to my friend, the Forkbeard.

In his hope to find one strong enough to stand against Kurii, one who could rally the men of the north, he was bound to be disillusioned.

The myth, that dream of succor, of final recourse, would be shown barren, fraudulent.

This chamber, I knew, had been built by men, and the passages carved from the very stone of the mountain itself. That must be accounted for. But it was not difficult to do so Perhaps there had once been a Torvald, hundreds of years ago. If so, it was not impossible that it had been his wish to be interred in the great mountain. We stood, perhaps, within, or at the brink, of the tomb of Torvald, lost for long ages until now, until we two, fleeing from Kurii, from beasts, had stumbled upon it. Perhaps it was true that Torvald had been buried in the Torvaldsberg, and that the tomb, the funeral chamber, had been concealed, to protect it from the curious or from robbers. And, in such a case, legends might well have arisen, legends in which the mystery of the lost tomb might figure. These would have spread from village to village, from remote farm to remote farm, from hall to hall. One such legend, quite naturally, might have been that Torvald, the great Torvald, was not truly dead, but only asleep, and would waken when once again his land had need of him.

“Wait!” I called to the Forkbeard.

But he had entered the chamber, torch high, moving quickly. I followed him, swiftly, tears in my eyes.

When he looked down, torch lifted, upon the bones and fragile cloths of what had once been a hero, when the myth had been shattered, the crystal of its dream beneath the iron of reality, I wanted to stand near him. I would not speak to him. But I would stand behind him, and near him.

The Forkbeard stood at the side of the great stone couch, which was covered with black fur.

At the foot of the couch were weapons; at its head, hanging on the wall, under a great shield, were two spears, crossed under it, and, to one side, a mighty sword in its scabbard. Near the head of the couch, on our left, as we looked upon the couch, was, on a stone platform, a large helmet, horned.

The Forkbeard looked at me.The couch was empty.

He did not speak. He sat down on the edge of the couch, on the black fur, and put his head in his hands. His torch lay on the floor, and, after some time, burned itself out. The Forkbeard did not move. The men of Torvaldsland, unlike most Gorean men, do not permit themselves tears. It is not cultural for them to weep. But I heard him sob once. I did not, of course, let him know that I had heard this sound. I would not shame him.

“We have lost,” he said, finally, “Red Hair. We have lost.” I had lit another torch, and was examining the chamber. The body of Torvald, I conjectured, had not been buried in this place. It did not seem likely that robbers would have taken the body, and left the various treasures about. Nothing, it seemed, had been disturbed.

Torvald, I conjectured, doubtless as cunning and wise as the legends had made him out, had not elected to have himself interred in his own tomb.

It was empty.

The wiliness, the cunning, of a man who had lived more than a thousand years ago made itself felt in its effects a millennium later, in this strange place, deep within the living stone of a great mountain in a bleak country.