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one of the old northerners?"
    "Indeed. That in itself was enough to interest me. All the greatest magesmiths have come from that stock, last survivors of the Lost Lands eastward, for it was among them that smithcraft was most cultivated, and so grew strongest. True smithcraft, the art that goes beyond the mere shaping of the metal, that is a rare and strange thing indeed, and not all possess it to the same degree, or at all. If a people lose sight of it, cease to cultivate it, it will fade from them. So it has for Roc's people, who became so great and so wise in things material they felt they no longer needed it, and in time ceased to believe in it; it was some barbarian superstition they left to their less advanced cousins. In the Northlands, by contrast, it was nurtured and studied as the sothrans studied war and trade and building in stone. Yet even in the north it has dwindled now, as the old peoples have become assimilated among the greater numbers of copper-skinned folk who fled east over the Ice from the rising power of the Ekwesh realm. For though they, too, knew the art, they were a plain folk more concerned with the soil, the catch and the seasons than any deeper knowledge. So in most of them the art has declined to that level. Wise smiths, therefore, seek their apprentices among those in whom the old stock runs strongest—Ingar, for example, with his eyes and face. Very rarely they find one of almost pure northern stock, and in them the art often runs strong. Such, I would guess, are you. But I do not need to guess about what is in you. When I look closely, with the eyes of my art, I can see it, though you know nothing of it yourself as yet. And what I have seen, I trust. You will make a good smith—but how good, only the future will show."
    Alv shook his head, bewildered. "Thank you, Mastersmith. I—I still don't quite… It's just that it's what I've always wanted—"
    "Naturally. That, too, is a sign. But you will see, when we reach my new home. It will not be too long, from the lie of the land. The beasts also, for they hunt near the forest margins at this season. And indeed—" He stood in his stirrups and pointed out toward the looming bulk of the mountains, presently no more than shadows swathed in clinging mist. Alv, copying him shakily, saw a long streak of greenish-brown only a league or so distant, filling the next low hollow and spreading back over the hills to rise up among the very roots of the mountain range. The contrast of the lush carpet of treetops and the cold sterility of those slopes was amazing; it looked as if all the life had come slipping and spilling off them into the valley, leaving only their bare bones to endure the icy weather. A narrow, muddy track led the travelers in among thick underbrush surrounding cedars, ash, maples and spruce, pines far taller than the ones Alv had known on the coast—and here and there, towering above the rest, stands of red-barked metasequoias reaching for the clouds. "And this is only a sparse little outgrowth of the woods to the east," remarked the Mastersmith, "Tapiau'la-an-Aithen, the Great Forest that casts its shadow over the heart of all this land. Think of that."
    Alv shook his head. "I can't, Mastersmith. But I'd love to see it one day. Have you?"
    The Mastersmith's mouth twisted wryly. "I have. As I hope you will, though you will need to be well proven and prepared before you venture into the realm of Tapiau. I barely escaped, myself. But here that power is weak. You will learn more about it—one day." Alv took the hint, and stifled all his eager questions.
    Ingar and the servants were looking around nervously as they rode in under the shadow of the trees, but nothing more than small green birds moved, bouncing around from bough to bough and cocking heads to eye these intruders with immense skepticism. Alv and Roc tossed crumbs to them. There were sounds deep in the forest, though; often they heard the groaning bellows of deer large and small,