Seablood

by Cameron Bolling

  After Maloia carried in the last box, she wiped her hands on her pants and approached Oleja.

  “I have to get back to my duties in the medical ward. Before I go, this is for you.” She held out a cloth pouch bound with twine. Metal clinked within. Oleja took the bundle.

  “Tinkering parts?” she asked.

  “Money,” said Maloia. “About a week’s living expenses—food and the like, and enough to keep even your appetite sated. The first month’s rent here is paid as well. But after that, you will need more. How you make it is up to you; you’ve received an offer for your employment already. Keep it in mind.”

  Oleja put the money pouch down on the counter, choosing to ignore Maloia’s hints towards Sreovel and the forge again.

  “Thank you.”

  “It wasn’t all from me—I collected from those willing to donate. There are good people here in Ahwan, happy to help a stranger. That’s why it’s wise never to judge someone before you have gotten to know them. But anyways, yes, it’s not much but it’s enough to get you on your feet.”

  Oleja raised an eyebrow. Maloia’s eyes went wide.

  “Oh, it’s a— I didn’t mean—”

  Laughter from Oleja cut her off. Sheepishly, Maloia let out a chuckle of her own.

  “I appreciate it, Maloia. I will see you soon.” And then, after a tight embrace, Maloia was off.

  “So, what are you going to do for work?” asked Wil, unloading another box of scraps.

  Oleja shrugged. “I want to find a forge somewhere, both to help out at and make money as well as to use for my own projects. That’s my only idea so far.”

  “Good luck,” said Wil. “I’ve looked for that sort of work before, and even I couldn’t find somewhere that would have me. Forges in Ahwan are few and far between, and they all run small-scale operations that parents pass on to their children when they grow too old.”

  “That’s what Maloia told me,” said Oleja, her shoulders slumping. Part of her had held onto a hope that Wil—or one of her other friends—might know of something Maloia did not, but that did not seem to be the case. “Although, she also brought me to a forge out here in the North Run, up the hill a ways.”

  All three of her friends stopped and looked at her.

  “The earthborn’s forge?” asked Cyrah, incredulity and disgust in her words.

  “Yes, I met the owner. Sreovel.”

  “Why in the world did she take you there?” asked Wil.

  “Well, I need a forge. And like you said, most won’t take me.”

  “I’d rather walk all the way out to another city and use a forge there than spend one second working alongside an earthborn,” said Cyrah. “I can’t believe how close you live to that beast as it is.”

  “Even letting just one of them live in Ahwan is too many,” added Brashen.

  “Agreed,” said Oleja. “I said I would rather die than work there.”

  Cyrah snorted. “Good.”

  “Oleja, where do you want all of this stuff?” asked Wil, gesturing to the neatly sorted boxes of components.

  “Oh, uh… let’s put those in the cupboards over here.”

  Cyrah whirled around. “These are for storing food!”

  Oleja waved her off. “I’ll put food elsewhere, the cupboards will be for tinkering materials.” Cyrah groaned. Oleja and Wil began carrying boxes from the desk to the counters.

  “What if you just started your own forge?” asked Brashen while beating the dust and dirt from the broom at the back door.

  “Yeah!” said Cyrah. “Run that earthborn out of business and then she’ll have to leave the city. And you’ll have your forge. You know tons, you could set one up yourself, right?”

  “I’ve done it before.” A true claim, at least at the most basic level. She had made herself a makeshift forge in her workshop down in the mines of her village, just functional enough so that she could make the handful of specialized parts that she couldn’t dig up out of The Heap, like arrowheads and her knife. But for her armor, she cut each plate of metal from larger sheets already close to the shape and size she required, and anything requiring extra work she looked to one of the village forges for, the shops mostly dedicated to making tools and mining equipment. No one batted an eye if she went to reshape what looked to them like nothing more than an old piece of metal.

  But if she wanted to create a facility fine enough to rival Sreovel’s forge—a facility in which she could make the prosthetic she needed as well as weapons for soldiers and tools for the people of the city—she had a lot of work ahead of her.

  Brashen leaned the broom in the corner and brushed his hands together. “I have to get to work,” he said. “Oleja, here’s a housewarming gift for you. Or something. I don’t know.” From a bag he withdrew a glass jar filled with some thick red concoction.

  Oleja took it and peered at the goo. “What is it?”

  “Oh, it’s jam. I make it from the berries I grow.”

  “What do I do with it?”

  “You… eat it? Usually on bread or something.”

  “Ah. Thank you.”

  Brashen started towards the door.

  “I’m going to head out too—I’ve got work soon as well,” said Wil.

  Oleja thanked them both for their help, and with a round of farewell waves, the two passed through the front door and headed off down the path. Oleja watched them go, hand in hand, laughing about something together. Brashen pushed Wil playfully as they walked, but it was the look they gave each other that caught Oleja’s attention most.

  “Don’t mind them, they’re always all lovey like that.” Cyrah spoke from just behind Oleja; Oleja hadn’t realized she’d been watching the pair as well.

  Cyrah made a gagging motion and then cracked a grin.

  “Not one for courtship, then?” asked Oleja.

  “First off, never call it ‘courtship’ ever again.”

  Oleja furrowed her brow. “What do you want me to call it then? Any other term seems far more crude.”

  “Romance?”

  “Never heard that one.”

  “You aren’t missing out on much,” said Cyrah, her grin returning. “No, I’m not one for romance, or courtship, or whatever else you want to call it. I don’t really long for the bond of romance, nor for someone to keep my bed warm. I’m really quite content with some friends, and with my studies in the stars.”

  Oleja watched Brashen and Wil disappear around the bend in the path. “I think I can understand that in some ways. I could do without the bond of romance, as you say. It seems tiresome—always being with another and having to stay at their side rather than go off and follow at your own will whatever it is that draws you. And yet I don’t think I’d mind having someone to keep my bed warm.”

  “To each their own,” said Cyrah with a shrug.

  “But anyway,” said Oleja, a sudden heat rising to her cheeks. “You study the stars?”

  A light sparked on Cyrah’s face, bringing stars into her eyes as if summoned there by name. “I do! I know all of the knowledge we have left from the Old World about stars and space… which isn’t a lot, unfortunately, but I work with the scholars’ guild to uncover what we can, and that’s my area of expertise. Back in the Old World, it was called astronomy and astrology.”

  “Does it have anything to do with making pictures from the stars?” asked Oleja after a moment of consideration.

  Cyrah’s eyes went wide. “Constellations, yes! How did you know that? Do you know any?” An unrestrained giddiness and disbelief ran through her words.

  With pursed lips, Oleja shook her head. “I do not, I’ve only heard that the people of the Old World did such things. There is one in my village who may know some, though. His name is Ude.” A pang of longing swelled in her as she said his name. A gentle smiled tugged at her lips.

  “I hope to meet him one day and find out what he knows. We only know of a few constellations for certain, but some of the other information I have pieced together hints
at many. There is a scorpion, and the ‘hydra,’ and Orin, a hero. Others, too. I’ve also found information about a constellation called ‘Venus,’ but I don’t know where that one is yet. Maybe I never will. Like I said, the information we still have is scant.”

  “I’d like to see them sometime, if you’ll show me.”

  “I would love to!”

  Still standing at the window, Oleja wiped her fingers across the dirt-tinted glass. Dust and grime parted, staining her fingertips, leaving four clear streaks on the pane.

  “Here,” said Cyrah as she tossed a damp rag to Oleja. Oleja went to the windows one by one and cleaned them, inside and out, until peering through them did not paint everything in a hue of brown. Cyrah took the time to dress Oleja’s bed in the fresh linens that came as a gift from her to Oleja.

  “Do you ever make new constellations?” asked Oleja as she scrubbed at one of the windows.

  “Sometimes I do, just to make groups of stars that are easier to remember,” said Cyrah. “Other people do more often, but they don’t know about the constellations from the Old World, so they make entirely new sets. It’s not like I can stop them, of course, and perhaps the sky deserves new life in this new age, a rebirth just like everything else. But I still think it’s interesting to study what people saw up in the sky a thousand years ago.”

  Oleja pondered Cyrah’s words. Perhaps one day, once she saved her people and immortalized herself as their hero, they would make a constellation for her, too. A hero, like Orin, or whatever Cyrah said. Like Tor, Ude’s father—he needed a constellation as well.

  Oleja Raseari, skyborn, hero, destined to dwell forever amongst the stars.

  “Some people in the Old World used to use the stars for other things, too. I mean, besides navigation and timekeeping and all of that. Some believed the stars could tell us the future, or influence who we are.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. That’s the ‘astrology’ section of my studies. It’s very fascinating. I’ve been practicing it—at least what we still know. I think the stars have a lot they can tell us; after all, they’ve been there since the Old World, unchanged, perhaps watching us in some capacity. I use the stars alongside meteor patters to sort of… meditate on the future. Rituals, you could call them.”

  A nod and a hum carried Oleja’s response to Cyrah. In her mind, she lived as a fabled hero worthy of a whole sky’s worth of constellations.

  The two finished unpacking Oleja’s things and setting up her cabin, and as the sun dipped lower in the sky and the afternoon grew old, Cyrah left, and Oleja stood alone in her cabin.

  Tor trotted in through the back door not long after, a rabbit hanging limp from his maw. He dropped it on the wood floor and panted.

  “You’re lucky the others are gone, they’d throw a fit about that,” said Oleja with a grin. Picking up the rabbit, she stepped outside to where an old ring of stones marked a fire pit behind the cabin, and after piling up a mound of dry twigs and small branches for a fire, she skinned the rabbit and set it above the fire to cook.

  The hill behind the cabin grew steadily steeper as it rose higher and higher, soon turning to a cliff and stretching up to reach a peak high above. Boulders scattered the slope around her, some three times as tall as her, others small enough that she could pick them up with one hand, and still more filled every step in between.

  A base of appropriately-shaped boulders and stones could form a suitable forge, but if she wanted it big enough to melt all the metal she needed to make herself a new prosthetic—as well as weapons, tools, and whatever else the people of Ahwan needed—she would have to make it big.

  She started by clearing a spot on a level section of ground behind the house. Even just clearing branches and logs and piling them for later use in fires, plus pulling up the scraggly underbrush and small saplings proved to be a demanding task as she worked with her old prosthetic which threatened to give out at any moment. She moved cautiously, making sure not to strain it, and when finally she finished she had enough room to start with.

  After a quick break to eat her meal, she got back to work. Making her way up and down the hill, she surveyed the boulders nearby until she found one that sufficed—a wide, flat stone to use as a top section. Situated behind it with her back braced against the uphill-facing side, she found footholds, and then pushed.

  The boulder leaned up, shifting as Oleja strained. She pushed harder.

  Cracking sounds sprung through the forest. Oleja looked down. One of the metal reinforcements on her prosthetic hung freely, the bolt jutting from a fresh crack in the wood. Panicked, Oleja picked up her left leg, using only her right for leverage. The boulder sagged, and then crashed back into the dirt.

  With a groan of fury, Oleja sized up the boulder again. She needed a different strategy.

  Many long minutes walking around and thinking brought her back to the pile of wood she cleared to make space for the forge. An idea ignited in her mind there, and she took a thick, sturdy branch of medium length.

  Back at the boulder’s side, she selected another smaller rock from nearby and situated it near the larger one. Wedging the branch beneath the boulder she wanted to move, she leaned it on the second one, forming what resembled a smaller version of the catapult she had used to launch herself out of the canyon.

  After a test of the branch’s strength, proving it sufficient for the task, she leaned her weight against the free end. Up the boulder rose, propped on its side. Oleja got her end of the lever all the way to the ground before looking up. The boulder still balanced there, the force falling short of what she needed to free it.

  Carefully, Oleja shifted, attempting to use the lever to shove the boulder the final distance. But as she eased up on the pressure, the boulder’s weight pulled it crashing to the ground, wrenching the lever from Oleja’s grip as it flung the branch upwards. It twirled in the air once, twice, and then landed nearby.

  Again, Oleja’s anger surged, but after letting it run its course for a moment, she silenced it. Retrieving the branch again, she searched for something else, and found what she needed nearby—a third rock, big, but not so large that it took more than a midsized shove to get it moving. She rolled it over to the others.

  She gave the boulder a fierce glare and then threw her plan into action once more, using the branch in the same way as before. Seated firmly on the free end of the lever, which once again held the boulder at its zenith, she reached over and rolled the new rock under the boulder. It wedged tight between the dirt-covered underside of the stone and the damp earth.

  Slowly, cautiously, Oleja eased up on the lever. The branch fell free, no longer supporting the weight of the massive boulder. The boulder, meanwhile, didn’t move. With a surge of relief, Oleja stood, and then threw her weight against the boulder.

  The boulder, which had sat there immobile for Oleja knew not how long, teetered forward and then rolled. Momentum carried it down the slope, skidding at first but then rolling as it gained speed and crashed against obstacles in its path. Smaller rocks were crushed to gravel in its path.

  Except, as Oleja noticed too late, the boulder didn’t know when and where it was meant to stop, being only a boulder and all.

  It struck the level patch of earth where Oleja meant to set up her forge and sailed right by. With a strong bound that left an imprint of itself in the dirt like the tracks of a mighty beast taunting its tracker, the boulder skipped over the ground, narrowly missing Oleja’s cabin, and continued on its path down the hill. The forest called out in pain as the boulder tore through the landscape until, when at last it lay somewhere far out of sight, the forest fell to stillness once more.

  Oleja sunk to the ground. Fire and the chill of despair clashed in her chest. Several labored breaths passed through her lips, though if it was the lifting that strained her lungs or the agony of watching her failures crash through the forest, she couldn’t say. All she knew was that her chance of dragging the boulder uphill sat at something around zero�
��at least until she had a new prosthetic, and the strength she once possessed.

  To build the forge, she needed the prosthetic, and to make the prosthetic, she needed the forge. What kind of sick joke played out around her now?

  A long time passed before Oleja stood. Cracking filled the air, and the sounds of wood straining, readying to break. She didn’t look down.

  To her left, the North Run continued northeast as it wound between the mountain peaks. Smoke rose there, drifting lazily through the warm air. Oleja descended the hill to her cabin, ignoring the protests of her prosthetic.

  Her tinkering bag rested on the desk. She hefted it up and slung the single strap over her shoulder. A brief and fleeting trickle of relief entered her, like the warmth of fire on cold hands when the fire lies just an inch too far away. Her knife, sheathed, lay on the desk next to it, and her crutches leaned against the baseboard of her bed just behind her. Oleja grabbed each in turn. The knife she clutched tightly in a white-knuckled fist.

  “Tor!” she called, then followed it with a shrill whistle—a trick she learned from Maloia. The coyote bounded in through the door. He looked at her expectantly.

  “We have an errand to run.”

  Chapter Nine

  A heavy double door lay just before her. The roar of the river filled the air, joined by the creaking of immense wheels. Despite the noise, it could not drown out the sound of Tor, growling at Oleja’s side.

  Along the walk, her grip on her knife only grew tighter. She carried her crutches in her other hand, dragging them along in case of an emergency but knowing she couldn’t wield her knife while using them. Fortunately, her prosthetic held together.

  If she wanted to set up her own forge, she needed a new prosthetic, and the only way to get one was to use Sreovel’s forge. She’d go in there and keep the eclipser at bay while she made her prosthetic, and then be off as soon as she could. After that, she could build her forge and never need to return.