Tylywoch ~ 14 Swordsmith III
By Len Morgan
“Gone?” He repeated in stunned disbelief, a lump
forming in his throat.
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” said the house
steward, “we thought she had told you.
Her father is to be our new ambassador to the Cheilin Empire you see;
it’s a great honour.” He continued in a more conciliatory vein, “of course you
realise there could never have been anything permanent between you and Bianne,
she is promised to a Cheilin prince.
Whilst you are obviously an admirable young man, a tradesman nonetheless doesn’t begin to measure up to a prince.
How long would it be before she started counting what she had given up
to be with you? I would suggest that
you forget her, and seek a nice young woman with a background more similar to
your own.”
Jax turned slowly from the door and walked away his legs unsteady like those of a newborn calf. Tears blinding his eyes and flooding his cheeks, deep down, he was seething with anger. He would not turn round, he would not let her servant see his true feelings so obviously and indelibly etched on his face.
.-…-.
Had he turned, he would have seen her waving frantically
calling tearfully from an upper window, crying aloud but in vain because he was
too proud to turn.
“Come back Jax, I love you!” but her heartrending plea was
in vain, her cries went unheard. She
watched him walk away “Don’t believe them Jax, listen to your heart, you must
know I will love you forever?”
“He is a fine young man and probably he would make you very happy, but he isn’t yet sixteen, and I don’t think you could really be happy as a tradesman’s woman. You are a Cantro, and destined for greater things,” her father the colonel pleaded. “Angel, I know you don’t think so now, but what I do is for your own good! You will thank me later, when you are married to prince Taleen Surbatt, of the 9th Clan of the Cheilin Empire.
.-…-.
“Women!” said Terrek philosophically. “They are the best and the worst thing that could happen to a man” He put his arm around Jax’s shoulder in reassurance. “Come partner, it’s not the end of the world. If I had a silver skale for every time my heart has been broken I would never be sober. Come, let’s get drunk! You can forget and I can remember…”
Jax awoke to the ringing of hammer on anvil. He raised his head and groaned; In his head, a heavy ball of iron covered in spikes, crashed from side to side as he moved, “Gods! What have I done to offend you?”
Outside in the bright sunlight, Terrek swung his hammer without a care in the world. He swung it with a will, and uncanny precision, a blade sprang into being as if in answer to his will, blow by blow, its perfection becoming reality. Then, as the steel cooled to cherry red, he quenched it in a barrel of thick green chemical soup of his own creation; the recipe of which he had promised to reveal to Jax on his sixteenth birthday together with other jealously guarded potions, incantations, and concoctions. Terrek would reveal all the secrets he used in the working of metal magic. Seeing Jax was up and about he smiled, “you look terrible, but you can’t die yet, it’s six more weeks to your coming of age. I want you to complete your training with my old master. I gave him a vow, that while he lives I will not reveal his secrets to another. However, if I should find an apprentice I considered worthy, I would send him back, to be finished. You will not only be a great sword-smith, but with his help, you will also become a great metallurgist! Now be a good fellow and dunk your head in my barrel.”
Jax did as he was told, then wrinkling his nose in disgust asked “Why?”
Terrek burst into fits of laughter, “No reason. I just wondered if you would be foolish enough to do it!” he took to his heels as Jax raised a sword with a roar and gave chase.
.-…-.
He left Terrek’s forge following the verbal instructions he’d been given, with orders to commit them to memory. The journey took him five days, at last despite fleeting doubts, he found the cave just as Terrek had described it. The sun stood high in the heavens, and he had to shade his eyes in order to make out the squat muscular figure standing in the mouth of the cave, silhouetted against the glow from within.
“WELCOME JAX!” he called grandly in a deep baritone, from
his high vantage point. “I’m Orden, and
this is my domain. Climb up, come
inside and I will show you around my forge.”
As Jax clambered onto the level plateau beside him, an
involuntary invocation, escaped his lips “You're a Dwarf!?”
“I’m a Jellonan!”
he answered in mock hurt, What we lack in stature we more than make up
for in strength and brains! We are a
race apart neither man nor myth.” He
looked up into Jax’s face, his violet eyes glowing and flashing with iridescent
flecks of yellow. “Terrek has told me
much about you. If you show half the
promise he claims, we will make of you a passable craft-master,” he chuckled
and his gravelly voice re-echoed from the surrounding hills. His skin was the texture of leather and
brown like coffee grounds, his hair sparse and wispy grey-white, and when he
smiled his image transformed and he became remarkably childlike, his eyes full
of mischief curiosity, and vitality; qualities you seldom encounter in the
elderly; years have no bearing on age he would say, in Jellona I would be
considered an adolescent.
As they entered the cave, large flat plates of pale opal
glass that covered the roof of the cave, began to glow blue-white. The glow intensified to rival the sun as
they passed beneath then returned to pale opal again as he progressed beyond
the influence of that particular plate.
They were moving towards a red glow, Jax experienced intense heat as
they drew nearer, and had to halt unable to progress further.
“Here, you will need this,” said Orden handing him a hard face mask and a suit of stiff white material. The eye slits in the mask were glazed with a dark brown smoky crystal. “I know how fragile your human bodies are,” he said “It's amazing that you were able to develop any metallurgy at all, come I will show you the fires we have tapped from beneath the earth, from the molten core of the world.”
The word that sprang to his mind was ‘Clinical’. Everything was meticulously scrupulously
clean, there was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. No dust, no clutter.
Orden continued as if reading his mind, “any possibility
of contamination has been removed. Even
one extraneous dust mote might be enough to convert a valuable and complicated
compound into useless waste. Nothing
must be left to chance if we wish to obtain consistent results in metallurgy.”
Jax reviewed the arboreal exterior of the cave in his
mind, a mountain overgrown with trees shrubs, and strange unfamiliar plants, in
wild profusion. This place had always
been avoided by Abalons, being viewed as haunted and inhabited by dark
spirits. Nobody had ever dared enter
the enchanters wood uninvited, yet here in this cave was a level of technology
he could never have dreamed could exist here on Abbalar. “You have no town, no fields for crops, and
no contact with the world beyond this mountain?”
“This mountain existed before men walked the earth. It was and still is a volcano. We channel its destructive energies for our
own ends. There are natural shafts and
channels, leading from the molten source to the hearths of our forges. We have added extensively, modifying and
extending them. The mountain is
honeycombed with tubes and tunnels that channel heat to our homes in winter and
provide the volcano with a multitude of safety valves that prevent continual
eruptions. He grasped a large wheel
close to the forge hearth turning it one-half turn. Thunder roiled in the bowels of the
earth. “TAD – the god of fire is
clearing his throat!” Orden grinned
with amusement. A moment later a stream
of white-hot molten lava flowed down a narrow channel. Orden dipped a bar of metal beneath its
surface, immersed for a second only, he removed it in a bright white state. Placing the block in an indentation on his
oversized anvil he pulled a lever, releasing an enormous hammer the size of his
torso. It pounded the bar three times,
with earth-shaking force. What Orden
removed was no longer a bar, it had become a broad flat blade straight and
shining.
Jax gazed in amazement at perfection that would have taken
him half a day to accomplish by hand.
“This is just a blank produced in this way to save time
when blades are required in quantity.
It will cool slowly and receive a master's attention when required.” He
seemingly tossed the blank carelessly into a cage with other similar blades, it
fell neatly into place, ranked with practised precision. “Blades and Swords are only a small part of
our production. The essence of our work
is precision. We cast and press shapes
in metal, for purposes humanity will be unable to comprehend for another
thousand years if ever.”
“We! You are not
alone? I see no evidence of
habitation…”
“We live within, come I will show you to your
quarters. You must have a private
place, within our community, where you can be alone and at peace with
yourself.”
Jax followed him down winding twisting tunnels cut into
solid rock. He knew he would very soon
have been lost had Orden not indicated the chevrons pointing upwards or down,
at each junction.
At length, they entered a corridor of doors. “You have been assigned room 147, third from
the far end on the left.” Said Orden presenting him with an intricate key,
worked in bronze.
“Thank you,” said Jax heading for his room, conscious of
being tracked by those bright violet orbs.
.-...-.
The key turned smoothly and silently in the lock. A faint scent of citrus escaped through the opening door, lingering momentarily before being hurried away on a breeze. Inside, the room was dimly lit but as he entered the pale blue light became brighter. The walls were of smooth white material, warm to the touch. There were chairs and a cot bed, covered in white linen sheets. There was a second door, but he never got to explore further. He felt unaccountably tired and sat on the edge of the bed. Laying the kiln clothing and mask on the floor beside him, he stretched out briefly, closing his eyes...
He smiled, as his nostrils detected the
familiar aromas of Mistress Kaarp’s kitchen, bacon, eggs, new bread, and
sausage, good memories he thought and smiled again briefly.
He opened his eyes, it was dark. He sat up and the light slowly
returned. He was conscious of busy
activity on the other side of the door he hadn’t yet explored. He went through to discover Orden seated,
with a child-like grin on his face. Jax
accepted the proffered seat opposite.
Orden pushed a plate his way, piled high with food, “It's about time you
woke up” he said, “eat hearty, we have a long day ahead of us.”
Jax needed no second bidding, he tucked in. It was good, almost as good as… no that
would be blasphemous. Returning to his
sleeping quarters, he found his pack resting against the external wall, by the
door.
“wear light cotton, kiln clothing, and your mask, I thought we might discover what you know of steel, Its components, and how they combine to produce the purest crystalline forms…”
The days flew past, in a constant round of exciting new discoveries. New compounds, challenges, and techniques. Days became weeks, weeks of constant learning words of magic to imbue power to their creations, time taken up with theory and practice, gaining active experience. But, in all that time he never once met another living soul. Orden was perpetual motion, always animated and full of energy. He kept Jax occupied from early morning, before sunrise, until long after the sun had set. He collected Jax from his room each day and returned him at night. At mid-day they stopped briefly to eat lunch and drink ale belch and talk, returning to the soul-cleansing work of creation. To Jax, it seemed an idyllic life but, unreal and dreamlike, there had to be something more.
(to be continued)
Copyright
Len Morgan
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