Unseen Secrets

by S. B. Sebrick

  "My help?" Keevan asked, befuddled. He stared at Nariem as if his father were holding an exotic animal and asking about breeding practices. "How am I supposed to help?"

  "The metal, like wood, has a grain to it. Unlike wood though, raw Danica's grain is always tangled at first, like a balled up spider web," Nariem reached up to the roof and tapped a thick beam above them, its grain clear to see in the orange light. "We need to straighten out the grains. Once they all run the same direction, a Tri-Being can add heat to one end, in order to spew ten times as much heat from the other."

  "That sounds pretty dangerous," Keevan added, intrigued. A fresh canteen hung from the wall, he pulled it free and set it at the foot of the forge. His constant thirst was a novelty among most Tri-Beings, who could solve such concerns with a thought and an inhaled breath. "How much is a good Danica spearhead worth?"

  "Enough to cover our cost of living for a full season," Nariem grunted with an eager smile. "Including all my shop's expenses. The Malik and his generals control all Danica production. One of their artisans is behind on an order, so last night I swung by and offered to help."

  "You said this morning you needed this done in a few hours," Keevan recalled, pulling his cloak off. He could already feel the thirst coming on in this heat, beads of sweat drizzling down his brow, neck and back. "How long does one of these usually take?"

  "One month, by a skilled artisan," Nariem said, chuckling at the look on Keevan's face. "They have to beat out and fold the metal hundreds of times to work out the grains. But I think with your help, we can do it faster. Much faster."

  "How?" Asked Keevan, backing away so fast he stumbled over the chair. Anxiety strangled his mind. A season's worth of wages? Was Nariem really betting so much on Keevan's input? Keevan felt both pleased by Nariem's faith in him, but terrified at the obvious flaw in his logic. "I can't work the elements. I can't even light a candle without help."

  "Just tell me what you see," Nariem ordered, putting the spearhead back in the fire.

  "It glows, big deal," Keevan said dismissively, relinquishing the elemental plane for a moment. Sometimes, he needed to see the man's face to tell if he were jesting or serious. The sinking feeling in Keevan's stomach worsened when he saw Nariem's intent eyes. The man meant every word. "This thing takes a month to make and you promised it in a matter of hours? Are you insane?"

  "No, just trusting," Nariem said softly, the heat around him wavered a moment, shifting back to ice as his breath left his lips in cold puffs of steam. White ice gathered on the edges of his sleeves and tunic like grey hair on an aged head. "Your mother and I have thought long and hard about this, Keevan. We think there's more you can do with your vision, if you're patient and watchful."

  "What makes you so sure?" Keevan challenged. They couldn't just put such pressure on him and expect results, it wasn't fair. The entire city was just like them, demanding more than he could give and punishing him accordingly. "It sounds to me like the city's already set on the fact I'll rank below a lowborn. They’re going to set me on a shelf somewhere until I'm forgotten, then the Harbor Guild can do as they like with me."

  "You have two choices, boy," Nariem hissed, slapping the side of the forge with his hot pincers. Keevan slipped instinctively into the elemental plane, just in time to see heat blossom about Nariem, steam rising from the edges of his clothing once kissed by frost. Sparks of metal flew through the air, cast off from Nariem's pincers, throwing up a momentary spider web of energy connecting Nariem to the fading bits of heat. "You can roll over and give up, or we can find a way for you to use that sight of yours. All I'm asking is that you try."

  Keevan took in a sharp intake of breath, catching on the memory of all those sparks floating in the air, and Nariem's command tying him to every single one. He looked back at the spearhead, peaking up at him from the forge's toothy maw of coals. There was something there, illusive, just outside his thoughts. Something important he hadn't put together yet. "Alright, Father. I'll try. But that's all I can promise."

  "Very well," Nariem agreed. "Can you see the grains in the spearhead? Look closely..."

  Keevan leaned over the forge, until the heat baked his face to the point of pain. The spearhead glowed, flickered and thrived with heat like something alive. Strands of energy reached out from Nariem hands and stomach, tickling the heat in the metal like a dozen fingers.

  "Take your time," Nariem insisted, claiming Keevan's chair.

  "Walk over there," Keevan said, pointing to the opposite end of the forge.

  Nariem rolled his eyes and got back to his feet. "You couldn't have looked a little longer? I was getting some rest."

  "Your elemental field shifts when you move. Walk over there," Keevan repeated.

  Nariem did so with a chuckle and a knowing smile. Keevan watched the Tri-Being's field of elemental control shift as he moved. Nariem's strands of energy didn't reach out more than a dozen feet in any direction, another sign of his midborn parentage. Masha's extended five times as far.

  "Walk back," Keevan said. As Nariem walked around the forge again, he watched Nariem's field dance over the coals, changing its positioning as if they were live limbs constantly adjusting their grip on the elements with each adjustment in angle. But where the spearhead lay, the field's touch remained the same. Nariem's strands of energy were fixed to the same spots on the metal regardless of where Nariem stood, like ropes staked into the ground.

  "Entry points," Keevan whispered, feeling a shudder of elation creep through his chest. Which meant that the hottest points on the spearhead not connected to Nariem's field were where the heat was exiting the metal. If you lined up those points together, then they could amplify each other's heat and ...there, they'd have it. All the heat would enter and one end and exit through the other.

  "What do you see?" Nariem asked excitedly. He stood alongside Keevan, staring down at the spearhead, as if half expecting the metal to get up and dance.

  "Hand me that poker," Keevan said. Holding the metal claw over the spearhead, he pointed. "These are the four major places where the metal is accepting your heat. Here, here and here are where it's leaving the spearhead."

  Nariem stared in shock for a moment, then bellowed a laugh and slapped Keevan on the shoulder. The blow knocked Keevan back a step but the joy of his discovery swallowed up the pain. "Ho-HO! Did I not tell you? That's amazing! No Tri-Being in Hiertalia could have seen that. Let’s get to work, son. I think we're onto something here."

  It was still painstaking work. The thick, muggy air felt like a mattress of heat wrapped around his face. Searing pieces of metal sometimes broke free, with each blow on the anvil, burning leather or skin on contact. Even the steam from the cooling barrel threatened to scorch Keevan's exposed flesh if he stood too close. Still, opening the windows would cool the forge off too much and make it all that more difficult for Nariem to maintain his heat-inducing temper.

  Nariem heated the metal, hammered it out over the anvil and cooled the spear head again and again. Getting the grains to line up was particularly nasty, for sometimes entry and exit points lay side by side. Moving them to opposite ends of the spearhead took some clever work on Nariem's part. Once he was forced to heat only half the spearhead to a malleable level, and leave the rest at a normal temperature. The water barrel overflowed from so much concentration.

  Keevan kept detailed track of those points. His tunic, brow, neck, arms and breeches were slick with sweat. He eased his thirst with the canteen at his side. Nariem's command of water was sufficient to pull mouthfuls up from the cooling barrel as well as into Keevan's canteen. Since Nariem siphoned all the heat he could into the spearhead, he didn't sweat at all.

  Soon the entry and exit points were lined up, though the resulting jumble looked ugly, twisted and misshapen. Once the Danica grains were aligned though, reclaiming its spear-tipped shape was the easy part. Then they only needed to sear the metal and purify the Danica with the greatest heat Nariem could manage.

  "Most who
fear you are connected to the Harbor Guild. They spend so much time protecting our shores from discovery, they still haven't gotten used to the idea of a Sight Seeker living among us. I’m not sure they ever will," Nariem admitted, focusing more heat into the spearhead than the coals alone could provide, outmatched by his righteous anger. He hammered the metal back into its triangular shape, paying careful attention to the edges of the blade to keep them serrated.

  "What about Issamere as a whole? Will they ever accept me?" Keevan asked nervously, abandoning his elemental vision. He stared into the glowing metal in the furnace, unwilling to see the look on his father's face at the question. He immediately regretted asking, when Nariem's heat faded into a sudden, icy chill of sadness. The twisted spearhead turned a dull, cool grey. The coals even flickered feebly, like a living thing clinging to life. Keevan met his father's eyes then, lips pursed guilty for slowing their work.

  Nariem's grime-covered face was streaked with moisture now, he quickly rubbed the tears aside. "Son," he said, "You've already won over your mother and me, a few of our friends as well. You be true to your heart and treat others with respect and kindness. This city will open its arms to you. It is a privilege that is earned though, and not one easily given. Whatever happens at the Ranking, you must promise me you will do your best. Don't give up."

  "I promise, dad," Keevan agreed. He donned his elemental vision as well, turning Nariem's tear-streaked face into a cloudy white blur. He sheepishly returned his attention to the twisted Danica before them. "I think this last one will do it. The grains are lined up. You just have to sear it."

  Keevan gave his father a one-armed hug. It was an eerie sensation, touching a person while using his Sight Seeker vision. Nariem's field shifted under Keevan's touch, his father's appreciation for Keevan burning away his sorrow. Warm gratitude bubbled up in Keevan's chest as well. He wasn't useless, at the least, he could guarantee Nariem's success as an artisan. He could also influence his father's emotions and through those, his elements. What other ways could his elemental vision serve?

  A thin but steady stream of ideas tickled at his mind. How much more could he see, understand and do than the Tri-Beings? As long as he had Tri-Beings to work though, at least... He yearned to share this with Bahjal, his Rhetan friend, but the warm light of dawn already peeked through the windows. Little time remained to finish the order.

  "Start at the base and think about our last trip to the mines," Keevan whispered, letting Nariem fully bury his senses in the spear head. "Remember the trouble you had with that Pagoda nest under the bridge? That was annoying, wasn't it?"

  "Indeed," Nariem echoed bitterly. His red anger gathered at the weapon's base, they had to harmonize the metal with escalating temperatures building toward the spear's tip. In essence, instructing the Danica. "Annoying lizards. Couldn't catch them if the Gods themselves ordered it. Had to poison their water supply, without losing our own. Tricky business."

  To Keevan's elemental vision, he saw thousands of strands of fire and water energy link Nariem to the spearhead's base. Just the memories of those hated lizards strengthened the heat around him. The red, bitter glow of irritation mixed with heavy moisture associated with purpose. Tri-Beings were emotions and a tangled weave of varying elemental counterparts.

  "Got it," Nariem sighed in tired relief, holding up the shiny, red spearhead. "Now to merge the fibers and make sure it amplifies."

  Without another word, the heat around Nariem shot into the spear with startling speed, without any help from Keevan. It burned so brightly, Keevan had to cover his eyes. He felt a blast of white hot air lick the sweat from his skin and ruffle his hair as Nariem fired an enhanced blast of heat from the spear head, into their chimney.

  "See, son?" Nariem said, dipping the spearhead into his barrel of water. It steamed and hissed like a creature possessed, before he pulled the cool metal free. "Together, there's so much more we can accomplish. That's what we need to show Issamere, before the Harbor Guild can have their way. Somehow, we have to show them all."

  Keevan grinned widely, until a stray thought caught his attention. He hesitated a moment, then with a nervous gulp. He considered watching his father's reaction in the elemental plane, but he wanted to see Nariem's face when his father answered. "Dad, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

  "Of course, you can," Nariem said sleepily, pulling a roll of oiled leather from a shelf, one of the safest ways of transporting Danica. "Just get the window open first, I hate this much steam. Makes the anger linger."

  Hurrying to the nearby wall, Keevan unlocked the windows and relinquished the elemental plane. The change in temperature struck like a physical blow as a stiff dawn breeze cut into the smithy. Despite the sunlight, without the glowing elements of red and yellow and blue, the shop reverted to its usual shades of black, grey and the dull brown of worn leather. Nariem sighed contently as the cool air touched his skin, wrapping the weapon in the boiled leather. "Thank you. Steam does not bring any pleasant emotions to my mind."

  "I could guess as much," Keevan said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. The motion left the back of his hand streaked with grime. Flecks of coal, smoke and bits of metal colored his clothes and skin ebony.

  "Dad, every time we work with fire, you never need me to suggest a memory for that last emotion. When you commanded pure rage like you did on the tip of the spear, what were you thinking about?" Nariem wordlessly wrapped the leather parcel, tying it shut in a triangle shaped bundle. He stared at his son for a moment, as if measuring something only he could see. Keevan shifted uncomfortably against the cold breeze and the intense inspection, tightly hugging himself.

  "Your mother and I were traveling with the Scholar's Guild when they found you. We'd received troubling news the day we rescued you from the sea," Nariem paused, taking a deep breath, pulling a chair over to the window. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the cool air.

  "You've always known Masha cannot conceive children. That's what made finding you such a gift," He craned his neck to one side and the other, stretching out stiff muscles as he spoke. His stomach rumbled in hunger but he sat resolute, determined to answer his son's question before satiating his own hunger.

  "Yes, you've mentioned it," Keevan echoed, pulling up a chair of his own, but setting it close to the still-lit furnace. It took Nariem and Masha years to understand their son's inability to combine emotions and elemental movement. Needs like warmth for survival, not just anger, were strange thoughts to all Tri-Beings. Like needing to drink water every day. He was glad to talk with Nariem so personally outside the elemental plane. He liked to see people's physical faces when they spoke to him.

  "What we haven't told anyone, is we know who made her barren," Nariem said, jaw clenched in a sudden rage so massive even the open window couldn't absorb it fast enough. Thin flames peeked out from under his fingernails. "He was banished from this city fifteen years ago for crimes against Issamere, no one's heard of him since."

  "Who?" Keevan pried, leaning forwards. His heart beat so fiercely he could feel the blood push through his ears with each pulse.

  "Touric, Masha's brother," Nariem said, spitting the name as if it were profane. "He didn't think your mother's choice in marrying a Haldran blacksmith was good enough. When he couldn't convince her to change her mind, he took steps to keep her unable to conceive a child of an 'impure' bloodline. He used a rare toxin we didn't find until it was too late."

  "He was exiled for trying to dethrone the Malik, right?" Keevan asked, recalling the histories he'd studied as a child. "He tried to take over the Suadan Temple and then the palace. It was a bloody uprising. He had a lot of followers.

  "Yes."

  Dawn's yellow glow peeked in through the window, making Nariem look another decade older and a touch more haunted. The people of Issamere bustled about outside, setting up their shops or riding by with heavy wagons loaded with goods.

  "The Etrendi are nothing like the Rhets you spen
d your time with," Nariem warned, raising a finger in caution, speaking through clenched teeth. "They hold their bloodlines, their power, their wealth and their reputations above all else. You find a way to feed any of those and they'll keep you, until you lose your usefulness. Remember that."

  "I will." Keevan said sincerely. "I'm sorry if that question was intrusive."

  Nariem bellowed a hearty laugh. "You are a Sight Seeker my boy, the only one on all of Hiertalia. The very nature of your power is to see what others can't, to meddle, in essence. But I appreciate your tact. You will be a force to be reckoned within the next few years."

  "Hardly," Keevan sighed. "I know you well, father. The only way I can manipulate the elements is literally, through you. I can't do that with other Tri-Beings, not without knowing them just as personally."

  "You are fifteen now, my son," Nariem said, a hopeful flicker sparkling in his eyes. He reached up and tapped a thin scar on Keevan's scalp, peeking out from under his unkempt hair. "Who knows, perhaps this year your powers will progress beyond sight alone."

  "Perhaps," Keevan said with a wistful grin. Inwardly though, he recalled that many scars serve only to cover what can't be healed any further.

  After what Nariem just shared however, Keevan wasn't going to argue with his father's optimism. Hope was a great emotion to center a Tri-Being on. It didn't carry any heavy elements with it, just a soft, warm glow Keevan would see if he bothered to use his Sight Seeker vision.

  Lightning cut through the early dawn outside, splitting the cloudless sky and stroking their ears with a distant boom. Nariem stood, peeking out the window. "That's odd. Only the lightning Temple is permitted to use a blast like that within the city, but Raejins don't live in that district." Another flash, closer this time, accompanied the sudden excitement of a dozen distant voices.