by Mark Anthony
Miral, the Speaker’s mage, had told Flint the story of Kethrenan Kanan and Elansa and the birth of Tanis. But he had not mentioned the existence of another brother. The Speaker seemed to wish to speak, and Flint knew no one but himself that he would trust with the Speaker’s secrets. Taking a handful of glazed almonds, the dwarf chewed one and prompted, “Arelas …?”
The Speaker turned. “My youngest brother.” At the rising of Flint’s furry brows, he went on, “I barely knew him. He left Qualinost as a little boy. And he died before he could return.”
“Why did he leave?” Flint asked.
“He was … ill. We could not cure him here.”
The ensuing silence stretched into minutes, and Flint cast about for a response. “It is a sad thing when a child dies,” he said.
Solostaran looked up suddenly, a look of surprise creasing his features. “Arelas was a man when he died. He was returning to Qualinost, but he never got here.” The Speaker stepped back toward Flint, seemingly trying to control his emotions. “Had he lived another week, he would have found safety here. But the roads were dangerous, even more so than today.” The Speaker sat heavily.
Flint found himself unsure what to say. After a short time, the Speaker asked the dwarf to leave him.
Almost mindless of the parchment drawings, Flint walked somberly back to the small shop the Speaker had given him, a squat building southeast of the Tower. Here, in the last few months, he had wrought many things: necklaces of jade woven with near-fluid chains of silver, rings of braided gold as fine as strands of hair, bracelets of burnished copper and emerald.
The workshop stood at the end of a small lane in a grove of pear trees. Climbing roses entwined about its wooden doorway. Flint, remembering his mother’s fondness for morning glories, had planted the flower at the feet of the roses, and the pink, blue, and white blossoms now intertwined with the white, pink, and yellow roses.
The dwelling had been awarded to Flint for as long as he wished it, but how long that might be, the dwarf was unsure. Certainly he would stay until the end of spring, he had told himself at first; after all, what was the use of journeying so far if he only went dashing back home right off? Still, thoughts of his warm house far away in Solace—and of a foamy tankard of ale—often ran through his mind. Elven ale had proved to be a pathetic imitation of the real thing, as far as the dwarf was concerned, although it was head and foam above elvenblossom wine.
Busy as he was, what with near-daily appointments with the Speaker and more commissions for his work than he could shake his hammer at, it was hardly surprising that the last day of spring had slipped by quite unnoticed and the warm, golden days of summer stretched out before the dwarf.
Often the window of his shop could be seen glowing as red as Lunitari, late into the night, and it was not uncommon that the first elf to wake in Qualinost the next day did so to the ringing of hammer on anvil. Many marveled at the dwarf’s diligence, and just as many hoped the Speaker would make them the lucky recipients of a gift of one of Master Fireforge’s creations.
On this afternoon, he stomped back to the heat of the forge, hefted his iron hammer, and once again used blazing fire and the blows of his hammer to transform a lifeless lump of metal into a thing of beauty. He spent several hours at his task, losing all sense of time in his absorption with the metalwork.
At last Flint sighed, wiped the soot from his hands and brow with a handkerchief, and ladled a drink of water from the oaken barrel that stood by the door to his shop. As he stepped outside into the afternoon sunshine, a smile touched his face, easing the lines that crisscrossed his forehead. The path leading to his front door passed through a stand of aspen trees. Their pale, slender trunks swayed gently in the breeze, as if they were faintly bowing toward the dwarf, and their leaves rustled, flickering green and silver and then green again. His hand moved slowly to his chest, as if it might ease a heart aching with the beauty all around. And part of him still hurt with the Speaker’s sadness.
But then Flint noticed a few traces of gold high in the trees, and he felt, deep inside, that same restlessness that had plagued him all his life. There was a coolness to the mornings now, sharper than the gentle coolness of the summer nights, and there was a heaviness to the gold of the late afternoon sun. And now the trees.
All of it spoke of autumn and carried his thoughts to Solace and the houses tucked high among the vallenwood trees. The leaves of the giant trees would just be showing the first touches of variegated colors about their fluted edges, he supposed, and he sighed again. Autumn was a time for traveling. He should be going home, where he belonged.
With a start, Flint found himself wondering if Solace really were where he belonged. He had settled there years ago more out of weariness at wandering than anything else, in those days after he had left his impoverished village to find his fortune in the world. And how was living among elves any different for a simple dwarf from Hillhome than living among humans? In either case, he was the odd one; he couldn’t see that it made much difference. Besides, he thought, breathing the cool air deeply, there was a peace here he’d never felt anywhere else.
Flint shrugged and stepped back inside his shop, and soon the ring of his hammer drifted on the air.
Flint looked up from his work several hours later and saw that the clock—the one he’d made from oak, with counterweights fashioned from two pieces of granite—showed the time nearing the supper hour. His thoughts, however, were not on food or on the silver rose he was fashioning at the request of Lady Selena, a member of Porthios’s crowd who’d overcome her distaste of dwarves shortly after she’d realized that “fashions by Flint” were the new style among courtiers.
“It’s time!” he exclaimed, put his hammer down, and banked the coals on the forge’s furnace. Every few weeks he followed the same ritual. He splashed his face and arms in a basin, washing away the sweat and smoke of the forge. He grabbed a sack and, opening a hutch built into the stone walls, began filling the bag with curious objects. Each was made of wood, and Flint lovingly smoothed an edge here, polished a curve there. Suddenly, a figure, a shadow in the window, crossed his peripheral vision, and he straightened and waited. Another commission? His heart sank. He knew the elven children had been watching for him for days, watching for the dwarf who appeared on the streets every other week or so, presenting hand-whittled toys to every youngster in sight. He hoped no one would delay him now.
Flint thought he heard a scuffling outside and stomped to the doorway to check. But he heard and saw no one.
“Fireforge, you’re growing old. Now you’re imagining things,” he complained as he went back to loading the sack.
He felt a warmth deep inside as he touched each of the wooden toys. Metal was good to shape; it gave one a sense of power as the cold substance submitted to the hammer and took on shape by the force of the forger’s will. But wood was different, he thought, stroking a wooden whistle. One did not force wood into a shape or design, the dwarf said to himself; one found the shape that lay within it. There was no time Flint knew greater peace than when he sat with a carving knife in one hand and a piece of wood in the other, wondering what treasure lay hidden within its heart.
“It’s like folks are, my mother used to say,” he explained to his shop at large, which was as familiar to him by now as a close friend. “Some folks are like this metal, she’d say,” and he displayed a metal flower brooch to the deserted room. “They can be forced into line. They’ll adapt. Other folks are like this wood,” and he held up a tiny squirrel, carved from softwood. “If you force them, they’ll break. You have to work slowly, carefully, to see what’s within.”
“The key, my mother said,” he intoned gravely to a stone bench near the door, “is to know which is which.”
Flint paused as though waiting. It occurred to him that a fellow who made speeches to his furniture probably had few friends. With the exception of the Speaker and Miral and the city’s children, most elves were reservedly polite with hi
m. But there was no one to slap on the back and treat to an ale at a tavern, no one to swap stories with, no one he’d particularly trust to protect his back on the open road.
“Perhaps it is time to go home to Solace,” he said softly, a look of sadness crossing his face.
Just at that moment, a thump resounded from right outside the door, followed by a quickly stifled “Oh!” He paused only a heartbeat in his movements and tiptoed to the open portal. Suddenly, he leaped through the doorway, booming, “Reorx’s thunder! To the battle!” and laying about him with the carved squirrel as though it were a battle-axe. With a flurry of dust and a shriek of “Tanis, help!” a wispy figure topped with ash-blond curls sped away between the pear trees and the aspens. Her turquoise playsuit mirrored the deepening sky of twilight.
“Lauralanthalasa!” Flint called, laughing. “Laurana!” But the Speaker’s daughter had disappeared.
The elf girl had called to Tanis, but Flint saw no evidence of the half-elf. Presumably, from Laurana’s call, Tanis’s afternoon archery lesson with Tyresian had been concluded.
Smiling, Flint went back into his shop. He was grinning still when he emerged, tossed the bag over his shoulder and bounded out the door of the shop. In the center of Qualinost, at the foot of the rise crowned by the aspen groves of the Hall of the Sky, stood an open square. It was a sunny place, bounded on one side by a row of trees that seemed to have grown especially for climbing and, on the other side, by a small brook spilling into a series of moss-lined pools. Between the two was plenty of space for running, shouting, and playing all sorts of noisy games. The square was a perfect place for children.
The sun had begun to dip into the horizon when Flint’s footsteps brought him to the square. Dozens of elven children, dressed in cotton outfits gathered at neck and wrist and ankle, halted their games as the stocky dwarf stepped across the footbridge and into the clearing. The children stared at him, none daring to break the silence. Flint glowered, his bushy eyebrows drawn down almost over his steely eyes, and then he snorted, as if they were hardly anything to bother with. He marched through the square, his back turned to all their wondering eyes.
Finally, an elf girl dressed in turquoise dashed forward to tug at the dwarf’s sleeve. Flint whirled, his eyes flashing like flint on steel. Oh ho! Flint thought, keeping his expression dour, so it’s Laurana, is it? “You!” he exclaimed. The other children turned pale, but Laurana held her ground. He continued, “Were you spying on me?”
Laurana tilted her head, and one pointed ear tip poked out of her profusion of curls. “Well, of course,” she said.
“What do you want?” he snarled. “I haven’t got all day. Some folks have to work, you know, instead of playing all the time. I’ve got to take a very important order to the Tower, and it’s nearly sundown.”
The elf girl chewed on a pink lower lip. “The Tower’s the other way,” she said at last, green eyes sparkling.
Tremendous self-possession, Flint thought, for a youngling; must be the royal blood. Or else it was the figure of Tanis lounging in the background that gave Laurana courage.
“Well?” he demanded again. “What do you want of me?”
“More toys!”
Flint looked amazed. “Toys? Who has toys?”
She started to giggle and pulled on his sleeve. “In the sack. You’ve got toys in the sack, Master Fireforge. Admit it. You do, now.”
He growled, “Not possible.” But the cries of the children—“Yes.” “Toys!” “Last time, I got a carved minotaur.” “I want a wooden sword.”—drowned out his reply. They swirled around him like a multicolored maelstrom. “Oh, all right,” he muttered loudly. “I’ll take a look, but the sack’s probably full of coal. Just what you deserve.” He peered inside, hiding the contents from the children, who crept closer.
About twenty feet away, Tanis sighed loudly and selected a new pear tree to lean against. His face held the bored look of the adolescent—although he did remain at the scene.
“Bent nails,” Flint said, rummaging in the sack. “That’s what I’ve got in here. And rusted curry combs and worn-out horseshoes and a month-old loaf of quith-pa. That’s all.”
The children waited for Laurana to take the lead. “You always say that,” she pointed out.
“All right,” he sighed. “Here’s an idea. You put your arm inside the sack and pull something out.”
She nodded. “Fine.” She placed one hand near the opening. “Just watch out for the baby sea dragon,” the dwarf said. “It bites.”
She snatched back her slender hand and glared at Flint. “Want me to do it?” Flint finally offered.
Laurana nodded again.
He pulled something from deep in the corner of his sack, a gleeful grin on his face. She gasped, clapping her hands, and suddenly she wasn’t the Speaker’s royal daughter, but an ordinary elven girl. Frowning still, he laid the object in her hand.
It was a flute, no longer than the span of the elf girl’s hand, but perfect in every respect, carved of a bit of vallenwood that Flint had brought all the way from Solace. But he knew its tone would be sweeter than any other wood, and this was proved true as Laurana raised the flute to her lips. The tones that bubbled forth were as clear as the water in the brook.
“Oh, thank you!” Laurana exclaimed, and ran over to Tanis, who stooped to examine her treasure. Laurana’s brother, the elf boy called Gilthanas, and the other elven children pressed about Flint, begging him to please look and see if there was anything in his sack for them, too.
“Now, stop shoving,” Flint said testily, “or I’m liable to leave at any second, you know.” But somehow, despite the dwarf’s grumbling, when the bag was empty every child in the square held a new, perfect toy. There were tiny musical instruments, like Laurana’s flute, and small puppets that could be made to dance on the palm of the hand, and miniature carts pulled by painted horses, and wooden disks that rolled up and down on the end of a string tied to a finger.
All of the toys were made of wood, each carved lovingly by the light of the fire. Flint would work for weeks in his spare moments, filling up the cabinet, and then, when he’d made enough, he would find some excuse to pass through the square. Not that he’d ever admit it was anything other than chance that sent him when he just happened to have toys in his sack. He would merely scowl.
As he folded up the empty bag, Flint searched the gathering of children with his eyes. The dwarf saw Tanis, now sitting on the edge of the square, apart from the others near one of the pools. He sat cross-legged, staring silently into the water, where Flint could see the faint shadows of fish drifting by. In the midst of all this elven loveliness, there was something about Tanis, with his human qualities, that seemed decidedly familiar to Flint. The elves were a good people, but once in a while he found his thoughts turning to the times he had spent with folk a bit less distant. At any rate, he had come to the square like this four or five times now, and always Tanis had hung back from the other children when the dwarf was giving out the wooden toys. Tanis was growing old for youngsters’ fripperies, but still … He wasn’t all grown up yet. Not that Tanis hadn’t seemed interested. Nearly every time the dwarf had arrived at the area to pass out toys, Flint had looked up to see the youth’s not-quite-elven eyes upon him, as if he were studying the dwarf. Flint would motion for the boy to come forward, but he never would. He would just keep watching with that thoughtful gaze of his, and then, when the dwarf would look for him again, he would be gone.
But this time would be different. Flint thrust a hand in his pocket, making sure the one last toy he’d been saving—a wooden pea-shooter—was still there.
The rest of the children had dissipated, gone home to suppers of venison with fruit sauce, basted fish, or quith-pa with roasted fowl. The only figure in sight was Tanis. The Speaker’s ward sat by the pool, arms clasped about his knees, resting his chin on them, watching Flint with his hazel eyes. He wore a loose white shirt and tan deerskin breeches, clothing reminiscent of that
of the Que-Shu plainsmen, quite unlike the flowing tunics and robes that full elves preferred. He stood, unfolding his husky frame without the sense of grace that the other elves carried. Tanis brushed back a wing of reddish brown hair.
“Tanthalas,” Flint said, nodding.
The half-elf echoed Flint’s nod. “Master Fireforge.”
They stood, both seemingly waiting for the other to make the first move.
Finally, Flint gestured at the pond. “Watching the fish?” he asked. Brilliant start, he thought.
Tanis nodded.
“Why?”
The half-elf looked surprised, then thoughtful. His answer, when it finally came, was delivered in a nearly inaudible tone. “They remind me of someone.” The half-elf didn’t meet his gaze. Flint nodded. “Who?”
Tanis looked up sullenly. “Everybody here.”
“The elves?”
The half-elf signaled assent.
“Why?” Flint pressed again.
Tanis kicked a clod of moss. “They’re satisfied with what they’ve got. They never change. They never leave here except to die.”
“And you’re different?” Flint asked.
Tanis drew his lips into a straight line. “Someday I’m leaving here.”
Flint waited for the half-elf to say something else, but Tanis seemed to consider his part of the conversation over. All right, Flint thought; I’ll give it a try. At least he’s not slipping away into the shadows, for once. “How was today’s archery lesson?” the dwarf asked.
“All right.” The boy’s voice was a monotone, and his eyes were focused on the pool again. Children chattered and screamed delightedly in the distance. “Tyresian and Porthios and their friends were all there,” he added.
It sounded appalling, given the way Porthios’s friends felt about the half-elf. Flint wondered what he could say to cheer up the Speaker’s ward. “It’s suppertime,” he said, thinking, Sparkling conversation, Master Fireforge. What was there about this lad that rendered him conversationally inept?
