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Kanath and Vorlos

Hurricane Ivan

on Sept. 28, 2011

Kanath and Vorlos, the gauntlets of ruination and preservation respectively, affixed to a standard, atop a mountain peak.
Long, long ago, in the mountain kingdom of Eng-Gamell, in what would later be called the Mountains of Iron (see book one), there lived alone a skilled and humble blacksmith. This blacksmith, who scorned both money and fame, had but a single regret: that he remained childless. One day, when his forge had fallen silent for the evening, the Blacksmith took a walk around his mountainous home, pondering his problems. so caught up was he in his melancholy, that until the last rays of the sun had died, he did not notice that he had strayed far from the path and become lost. Waking from his reverie with a start, he was suddenly gripped by a terrible fear, of being alone at night in the mountains, where tales told of fearsome monsters and wicked enchantments.
As he was on the cusp of blind, fatal panic, he caught sight of a light glimmering forth from a cave, that seemed to him to be a glimmer of hope itself. scrambling across the night-lit rocks, he came at last to the cave, scarcely more than a fissure into the rock-face, wherein lay a small lamp, chained to the rocks. With a joyous cry, he seized the lamp, and, thinking to take it with him, shattered the chain with his forge-hammer. No sooner had he sundered the chain, than before him arose a mighty Ifrit*, fiery and terrible. The smith started to recoil in fear, but the Ifrit addressed him, saying "Thank you, O mortal, you have freed me from my timeless bondage. In exchange for this service, I shall grant you one boon, but only one, so choose your words with utmost care, O mortal." Without needing a moment to think, the smith implored the Ifrit: "Please, mighty one, bestow on me a pair of sons." "It is done" replied the Ifrit "When you return to your cottage, smite your anvil with your hammer, and there you will find your sons." So saying, the Ifrit clapped his hands, and disappeared in a burst of flame and brimstone.
Clutching the lamp to his breast, the smith scampered down the mountainside, unheeding of the night that had so terrified him in darkness, until at last he reached his cottage. The smith struck his anvil thrice with his hammer, and on the third stroke, the anvil split open like an egg, to reveal a pair of wailing babes. He gathered them into his arms, and there in the ash of his forge, named the eldest Kanath, and the youngest Vorlos.
Both boys grew up in the same cottage, but as they grew older, it soon became clear that they were as unlike each other as the sun and moon. Where Kanath loved destroying the sparse mountain shrubbery, Vorlos loved tending his garden, and where Vorlos loved forging ploughs and horseshoes in his fathers forge, Kanath would forge nothing but swords and knives and weapons of war. Despite their differences, The two brothers loved each other dearly, and there was little animosity between them.
Once they grew into manhood, they went before their father, and forged their masterpieces, Kanath a sword that could cut through any armour, and Vorlos a plough so keen that it could plough even the stones of the mountain. Finding no faults in their masterpieces, the smith had no choice but to accept them as full smiths themselves, and let them go to make their own ways in the world.
The smith never saw his sons again, for war had broken out between Eng-Gamell and its neighbours, in which both his sons fought. On hearing of the war, the smith immediately set out for the battlefront, fearing for the safety of his sons. But Alas, the poor smith arrived too late, and found his sons' bodies lying broken and lifeless on the battlefield, still clutching their sword and plough, surrounded by a small host of enemy cadavers. raising his head to the heavens, he let out such a mournful cry that for a time, the fighting stopped, as all turned to watch the grim spectacle of the old man lifting his sons' corpses onto a cart and taking them back to the mountains. This tale does not end there, or it would surely have been forgotten by history, to be one of the many great tragedies to be effaced by the sands of time.
The smith cremated both of his sons, and infused their ashes into a pair of gauntlets, which he named Kanath and Vorlos after his sons. These were no base gauntlets, for they were tempered with the ashes of murdered sons, forged in the fires of a father's fury, and quenched in the tears of a father's loss. These gauntlets were aglow with inner light, and possessed an air about them that reminded the smith of his sons.
The next day, the smith went to the palace of his lord, and without revealing their nature, made a present of the gauntlets to his lord. In his ignorance, the lord wore the gauntlets onto the field of battle the next day, and it seemed to his followers as if the very fires of war burned in his gut, such was his violence and skill. As the day wore on, the lord grew more and more terrible, and began to throw magic into the fray, as if he had suddenly become a sorcerer! Great gouts of fire erupted from his right hand, greedily consuming his foes, and a great shield floated at his side, warding him from harm, seemingly made of no more than light and air, but upon which all his foemens' blades broke. The lord won the battle that day, but when he removed the gauntlets, he was so sickened at what he had done, that he gave orders for the smith to be executed, and the gauntlets to be destroyed. When the Old Smith was dragged before the lord, and knelt to meet the headsman's axe, he crowed at his lord: "you fool, you will never be rid of those two as long as you live!No matter how you try to escape them, they will always be at your side when there is blood to be spilt, and they shall ignite the fires of war within your bosom until they consume you utterly!" Scarce seconds had passed since the smith's last words, before the headsman's axe fell, and with it the smith's head, and thus he spoke no more.
True to the smith's words, nothing could be done to be rid of the gauntlets. They were cast in a lake, thrust in a furnace, locked in a vault, and even buried in a canyon, all to no avail, as each time they were disposed of, the lord found them around his belt. when the next day dawned, and a new battle loomed, he had no choice but to don them, and once more became the avatar of death upon the battlefield.
The gloves remained with him until he died, years later, of an arrow through the eye in a war of conquest. Ignorant of the gauntlets' curse, the general whose soldiers slew the lord took them for himself, and he, too, became a terrible and cursed warrior. Kanath and Vorlos changed hands continually thereafter, from general to warlord, warlord to king, king to murderer, and so on down the ages. Every so often, as has happened recently, some brave soul takes it upon themselves to take the gauntlets away from the lands of men, and to perish there, and thus rid the world of a terrible curse. There they wait, and bide their time, for someone ambitious or foolish enough to seek them out. Most recently, a saint called Alefaas seized the gauntlets after a duel with their previous owner and, mounting them upon his standard, climbed to the highest and most remote peak of the Mountains of Night, and there fasted to death. There upon that distant peak, where only one man has trod, the brothers lie in waiting, their long, slow slumber, before some young fool can be gulled into putting them on.

*also spelled Efreet