Guilds & Glaives

by David Farland

  Jazen swallowed. “I’m not from the city.” If he told this man he was from Smattac, and word ever came about a runaway bondservant, Belzec might be able to claim him back. He wasn’t sure. It would be safer not to say.

  Again, the man studied him. “Runaway,” he said at last, as if there was no question about it. “Not from the city, you say.”

  Jazen said nothing.

  “Any good?”

  Jazen lifted his head. He was good, even without the—extra help he sometimes had.

  “My name is Gilé,” the old man said. “I sent my last ‘prentice on his journey two months ago. Not looking to bring along another, not at my age. But you sound like a likely lad. Know something about metal. Like to swing a hammer again?”

  Jazen lifted the chopper. “Was this your prentice’s work?”

  Gilé smiled. “Mine, boy.”

  “I’d like to see your forge,” Jazen said.

  It was smaller than the forge in Smattac, but there were the bellows, the tongs, the chisels, the heap of charcoal as high as his shoulder against the wall of the little courtyard behind the shop. Underneath the shed-roof, the cubbyholes for tools, for bits and pieces of metal, for wood and leather and all manner of materials for hilts. And the forge: hooded by strong metal curved over the fire pit, smoldering, the smell of fire and hot metal so familiar he could not tell if the pricking in his eyes was from cinders or homesickness. The weight of the iyiza in the pouch at his waist was suddenly very heavy.

  “There’s an apron, boy,” Gilé said. “Care to show me what you can do with this?” He tossed a round bar the length of his forearm to him.

  Jazen took a long look at the bar, hefted it, and swallowed. Then he flexed his shoulders. “Yes,” he said. “I would like that.”

  Gilé didn’t tell him where anything was, but answered readily enough when Jazen asked, diffidently at first and then, when the old man sounded nothing at all like Belzec, with more assurance and finally with an abstracted concentration on what he was doing. As he stoked the forge-fire (please, Gods of my unknown father, no demons now! Not now!), Gilé asked him questions about what he was doing, what he planned to do. How hot did he want the metal to get? How could he tell? As Jazen tried the swing of several hammers before selecting one, why that one and not another? As the bar heated and Jazen turned it in the flames, pausing only to pump the bellows, what did he think the bar was good for? As he set the red-hot metal on the anvil (thank you—perhaps the demons couldn’t find him in this huge city?) and got into the rhythm of his swing, what would he quench it in, and why? All manner of questions about methods of firing, and materials he had used, what he had made and by what techniques. At last, the third time the now-flattened bar was returned to the fire to re-heat, Jazen was able to spare enough of his attention to realize the man was probing him, seeing how much he knew, where the holes were in his ability and education. There was no accusation or condescension in the questioning. It was simply a matter of measurement. He also never asked what, exactly, Jazen was making. He was letting the younger man show him.

  But it was the third time that disaster struck, as he was beginning to truly relax. The afternoon was wearing on, and Jazen was beginning to think he should ask if he could come back the next day. Gilé had stepped away to check the shop doors and get some more water for the two of them to drink. Sweat was pouring off Jazen’s back and gathering in his eyebrows, itching at the nape of his neck where he had tied back his hair. The metal was beginning to redden again—

  And there were demons dancing along the blade, celebrating the sparks that flew.

  They were tiny things, a dozen of them at least, at first barely distinguishable from the sparks themselves, then the height of his thumbnail, but even so he could see the features on their faces, hear their laughter in the roar of the forge. As they twisted and turned and raised flickering arms, the metal beneath them turned redder, brighter, and Jazen cursed helplessly, pulling the metal out and slamming it onto the anvil, raising the hammer high to try to beat each one of them to death somehow. Instead of cooling in the open air, the bar stayed red-hot under their tiny, naked feet, and Jazen looked around frantically for the quench tub, desperate to try to drown them even at the cost of ruining all his work.

  To see Gilé standing behind him, a skin of water in his hands, and an expression of utter delight on his face instead of the horror he should have felt.

  “Oh!” Gilé said, just audible over all the noise. “The fire people! They come for you, too!”

  It was late that night before the forgemaster and his new apprentice—he insisted on calling Jazen that, despite his half-hearted protests—stopped talking. By then they had eaten, and Gilé would not let Jazen try to find his way back to the Street of Scribes in the dark. He made a cot on the floor of the shop for him before stumping his way back into the two rooms overhead where he lived.

  Jazen stared up at the ceiling, listening to the footsteps overhead, the creak of the boards. This was nothing like his little room in the house of Vettazen and Firaloy—it was cramped and really nothing more than a pair of blankets for him to lie between.

  On the other hand, it was so much better than the dirt floor behind the forge in Smattac where he had slept for as long as he could remember.

  Gilé had seen the demons—the “fire people,” he called them—and had not reacted in horror or rage, had not called for Jazen’s immediate death. He had agreed, chortling, that perhaps not mentioning them to anyone else would be a good thing. Even sophisticated Mirlacca would not accept little dancers of fire making their cutlery and door locks. But Gilé had not only seen them before, he had used them. They were a part of everything he made, although his previous apprentice had never once evoked them and Gilé had made quite sure the boy had never seen them in his own forging.

  Did this mean he could desert the people who had taken him in, helped him escape his bond, given him a place among them, welcomed him? Could he walk away, take up the apron and hammer and learn—and he had so much to learn!—from Gilé instead?

  And if Immatus refused to present the Charter to the Emperor, would it even matter?

  He owed Vettazen and Firaloy so much, for not turning him away, for welcoming him, for not condemning him when they saw the demons in his fires. He wasn’t sure what his role in their plans could be. Here, at least, he knew exactly what was expected of him, he knew what he could learn, and the old man wanted to teach him. And he, too, had seen the demons, and accepted them, welcomed them even.

  It was a long time before Jazen got to sleep.

  Over the next few days Jazen went back and forth between the metalworkers’ quarter and the Street of Scribes. At night he puzzled over the spell Adri had given him, painfully sounding out the words, trying to identify the listed herbs. During the day he worked with Gilé, trying new techniques to forge metals he had never tried before, seeking to control the fire people so they wouldn’t make the metal so hot it became brittle, learning what materials made the best hilts and how to fix them firmly to the tang.

  Gilé was careful never to let anyone else enter the forge while they worked. It would not do, he said, to let others see the fire people. His own old master had been burned at the stake for letting his own wife see him talk to the fire people.

  At the house on the Street of Scribes, the household met for the early meal, but no one was in the mood to talk much. Meleas stayed mostly in the stables. Adri seemed busy running errands. And the masters spoke mostly to each other and to friends they brought in. Jazen found he missed the comfortable exchange of small talk, even the reading lessons, but he was focused now on Gilé, and working metal, and more and more on the iyiza weighing down his belt pouch.

  It was after Gilé showed him how to achieve the watered pattern in the steel by folding metal over and over on itself in layers that he realized what the bundle of metal was supposed to be for. He had made a half-dozen knives, sturdy working blades that had passed Gilé’s critical eye, b
efore he finally dared to bring out the iyiza and put it on the work table.

  Gilé’s brows raised. “Ah,” he said, fanning out the metal strips with his fingers. “And this is yours? Do you know what this is, youngster?”

  Jazen thought of the lifetime he had spent being beaten and cursed, working for no pay and bad food. He had learned more from Gilé in less than a month than he had in all his years with Belzec. “It’s mine,” he said defiantly. “I earned it.”

  His teacher gave him a long look. “Very well, then,” he said at last. “What you have here is very high-quality metal, mostly high-carbon iron, but some other things as well that alloy well—if you can forge it properly. These bundles come from the north, mostly, and it’s rare to find them bundled and ready for work like this. The superstitious say they’re cursed, that things you make from iyiza are never what you intended. They’re either very, very good, or they turn on you. Are you sure? Are you ready?”

  “I think I am,” Jazen said. “Do you?”

  Gilé laughed. “Let us see what you can make with hammer and flame, youngster. Tomorrow, you can begin.”

  That night, Jazen reviewed the spell Adri had given him, assembled packets of the herbs the other apprentice had listed, sounded his way through the short verses over and over again until he knew them by heart. He wasn’t sure why he was doing it; he was making a knife, after all, not casting a spell. But he recalled the look in Adri’s eyes, and thought, I am an apprentice here too. I may as well. What harm can it do?

  The next day, at Gilé’s forge, he sprinkled the herbs in between the strips of metal, feeling a little silly as he did so. The next step was to weld them together. He bound them back together with wire and checked the color of the fire before using the tongs to place the bundle in the forge. Gilé watched approvingly, nodded, and then left him alone to take care of the shop. This was Jazen’s work, and his alone.

  Plus, he thought, a little magic. Maybe.

  He pumped the bellows and set the bound iyiza into the flames. He thought he could almost see the shredded herbs catch fire, leap up and smolder into the block of metal as it heated, as he worked the bellows and turned it over, as it began to slowly turn red and begin to glow. And then the fire people, the demons, came.

  They were bare sparks at first, along the edges where he could still see the different kinds of metal in distinct layers. They grew as the metal glowed brighter, and then they began to dive through the metal as if they were playing in water, and they twisted around and looked at him, laughing joyously as he sweated.

  He pulled the glowing block out of the forge, set it on the anvil, and reached for his hammer.

  You who come from fire and seed

  Make this now to what I need

  The hammer fell. The fire people laughed. He swung it harder, even blows, stretching the block into a longer strip, no more a stack of metal layers but one piece. As it began to cool, he hung the strip over the side of the anvil and began to fold it back upon itself until he could no longer feel it give to the hammer, and then he put the reformed block back into the flame and watched the fire people come again.

  And again.

  And again.

  He lost count of the number of times he folded the iyiza, never letting it cool back to blackness, never letting the fire people die away.

  This the tool that I do make

  For all I need for my own sake

  For a sorcerer, he thought, Adri made a poor poet.

  And then, finally, it was the right length, the right thickness, and the demons were almost the size of his own hand, diving through coals and metal alike and reaching out to Jazen as he hammered, looking him in the eyes, and he felt a connection to the flames as he never had before, never at Belzec’s forge, never, as if with each blow of the hammer he pounded a piece of his own soul into the metal fabric shaping itself at his hands.

  You who come from fire and seed

  Be this now as I shall need

  You who come from seed and fire

  Shape yourself to my desire

  That this shall be my own blade

  That fire and seed and magic made

  It was almost enough. His hands were blistered and bleeding from holding the hammer, switching hands at every seventh blow. He lifted the shape with the tongs to plunge it into the quench and then remembered the last instruction.

  He would not bleed on the red-hot blade and invite cracking. But he could wash the blood and sweat from his hands in the quench.

  And as the knife went in, the fire people screamed and dived into the metal itself to hide from the cooling liquid. But there were no clicks and cracks in the metal, and as he drew it out it blossomed one last time in sparks and flame.

  Gilé found him, then, slumped beside the anvil, staring at the metal lying there. Jazen felt he could not have lifted his arms for one more blow to save his life. What had been a pile of metal strips was now a recognizable knife blade with a sturdy tang, a shape with one long edge and a solid, curved spine.

  “It needs honing,” Gilé said. “Polishing. And a good hilt.” He picked it up, inspecting the length of metal for warping, for cracks, and found none. He swung it experimentally. “This is good work, boy. Very good work.”

  Jazen nodded, rolled his shoulders, and winced. Gilé laughed. “Better than even you know, boy.”

  * * *

  Immatus looked smug as he cut the flesh from his bird. “I understand what a disappointment this is for you, Ser sr’Islit, but the facts are the facts. There is no magic since the Yaan Maat was defeated.”

  “So the fountains do not stink of blood at noon?” Vettazen asked quietly.

  Immatus took a deep drink of his ale. “There are some residual effects, of course, and that is the most notable. They were great and terrible sorcerers. But it does not last long, no one is harmed. We simply have no need for a Guild to study a magic which is fading away to nothingness. You are asking for privileges you cannot possibly earn.”

  At the other end of the table, Jazen spread butter across a roll.

  “Ser Immatus, you are very certain of this.” Firaloy sounded very sad.

  “Of course I am. It is simple truth. If you really were able to produce magic, then of course it would be a different tale, but you cannot. No one can.”

  “Hedge witches …” Vettazen began.

  “Ser, do not insult me. Do you suggest a Guild for the makers of herbal potions?”

  Jazen was beginning to be very tired of the constant kicking his ankle was getting from Adri, beside him.

  “I suggest there is more to all of this than you know.”

  Immatus snorted. “If you would give me some more of that excellent bread, Goodwife. Now that bread is something I might consider magical!” He roared with laughter.

  Jazen got up and picked the basket of bread out of the air as it was being passed from Meleas to Firaloy, walked around Vettazen, and put it down in front of the Palace functionary. “May I offer you my spreading-knife?” he asked, offering it hilt-first, as was proper. The smear of butter on the wide, dull blade gleamed in the light from the torches. “Do be careful, Ser. It’s sharper than it looks.”

  Immatus reached for another roll, good brown bread thick with seeds, then took up the offered implement. He sank the edge of the spreader into the roll, pushing it hard against the crust. The dull, rounded edge barely dented it. Immatus shoved it back impatiently to Jazen, who took it and pushed lightly against the bread in the man’s hand.

  Better than you know.

  And Immatus yelped, as the knife transformed from a dull butter-spreader into a single-edged blade of water-patterned metal three times the size that went through the soft bread and into the meat of his palm. The roll was turning a mushy red as blood poured over the table. Immatus dropped it and stared at the sharp blade stuck in his hand and screamed.

  Jazen reached over him and pried the knife out, panicking. He wasn’t supposed to cut the man, just show him how the knife
changed. He had no idea why it had turned lethal; he had barely used any pressure at all. He cast a terrified glance at the masters, hoping they understood the mistake. Meanwhile, Immatus’s gaze followed the blade and watched it transform back into a small, meek, innocuous, and very dull butter-spreader.

  “You cut me,” he gasped. “You cut me!”

  “Impossible,” Vettazen said quietly. “There is no edge to that blade. No point. You said so yourself, Ser: There is no human magic. So how could a mere spreader cut you?”

  “It was—” Immatus tried to clench his bleeding hand and cried out again as his hand refused to obey. “My hand!”

  “I did mention, Ser—” But Vettazen caught Jazen’s eye and shook her head sharply. She was watching Immatus and didn’t seem angry at him at all. Jazen nodded with cautious relief, picked up another piece of bread and wiped the butter and blood away, then thrust the spreader—now a knife again—into the sheath at his side. Immatus’s eyes grew wide, rolled back, and he slumped off the chair.

  “Oh, dear,” Firaloy muttered. “And us without a healing spell. Adri, I don’t suppose—”

  Adri shook his head, helplessly, just as Immatus’s eyes opened again.

  And opened wider.

  And glowed.

  He shook his head and snarled something in a language none of them had heard before, and licked at his hand. “Not enough,” he said, and before their startled eyes the deep wound stopped bleeding and Immatus got to his feet. “Give me that knife, boy.”

  Jazen swallowed and stepped back, his hand on the hilt. “No, sir.”

  “Give me the knife, boy.” Immatus swung his once-injured hand in Jazen’s direction and all the dishes and remains of the carefully prepared dinner went flying. Jazen,Vettazen, Meleas, and Adri staggered from a blow that never touched them. “Give it to me now and I might let you live!”

  “Yaan Maat are notorious liars,” Firaloy gasped, and from the floor threw one of their good goblets at Immatus’s head.