by P. D. Kalnay
She seemed angry. Lyrian was often arrogant, irritated, or aloof, but it was rare that she actually became angry. Spending so much time with her had shown me the truth of what Ivy had said: fae were colder and less emotional than humans.
“Good day, Jakalain. We shall begin again tomorrow.”
She left without another word. Maybe my trying something different and failing to show complete obedience had upset her. Possibly, it was my general incompetence. Lyrian talked more about patience than she practised it. What had gotten her so huffy? I had no idea.
Chapter 21 – Third Time’s the Charm
One and I wrapped up another round of Titan Word Memorisation. I’d learned almost three hundred words by then. Two was down in the city watching over Ivy, and Three silently kept us company. As I set my stick of charcoal on a workbench, it occurred to me that I might ask Three what information he held and have him write out the answer. Then I felt like a jerk because I’d promised to finish him, so he’d be able to speak, on the first day we’d met, and had done nothing in the way of figuring out how. I didn’t have a clue how to fix things with Ivy, but this I could do.
“One, do you have the build logs for you guys?”
“Yes, Master. I contain the written log for myself and observational logs for Two and Three.”
He’d seen the whole process with Two? Excellent.
“Can you tell me how to make his jaw and complete him so he can talk?”
“Yes, Master, much of the work is accomplished.”
“It is?”
“You forged Three’s jaw, shortly after his creation, Master. It sits in the smithy awaiting enchantment and installation.”
This might be easier than I thought.
“Do you know why I didn’t just finish him?”
“No, Master, but it was near to the time when you left the island. Perhaps, the other matters were more pressing.”
I had time on my hands now.
“How long will it take to finish the job?”
One considered that.
“Five days, I would guess, Master.”
“How long did it take Marielain Blackhammer to do the same job on Two?”
“A few hours, Master.”
That’s what I’d figured. Still, he’d been in the enchanting business for centuries by then, and I’d had no formal training.
“We’ll start tomorrow.”
Maybe old Marielain had a reason for not completing Three. I’d ask Three himself, when he was finished.
***
I told One to meet me in the smithy the next day, and he awaited me there by the time I made the long trek down. Around halfway to the bottom, I tried to glide by letting columns of air slide a few steps ahead of me, allowing my weight to pull me forward and downward. It worked well for twenty or thirty steps. Then I picked up speed and couldn’t maintain the same tight spiral as the staircase. I slid another dozen steps before coming to a stop; all I bruised was my pride, and my butt. After picking myself up, and dusting myself off, I hobbled the rest of the way.
The smithy was as I remembered it, and my improved night vision made the red glow from the symbols on the walls ample for working. On the way to the smithy I wondered why I’d never gone back. I immediately knew the reason when I walked through the doorway. The smithy wasn’t a place for making ordinary things. Any forge could make tools, nails, or hinges. The Smithy was a sacred place, a place where objects of significance should be crafted. Strangely, it was also my place. The dim room stank of sulphur, but it was still the place I felt most at home. Weird.
“Master.”
One waved me over to a work bench that was bare of tools. Sure enough, a black piece of curved iron, the right size for, and same colour as Three sat on top of it. I picked up the partially completed jaw, discovering that the holes for the pivot points had already been drilled or punched at the ends.
“It looks complete,” I said.
“The enchantments must still be engraved, Master.”
The metal was smooth and unmarred. One, Two, and Three were covered outside, and I suspected inside, with the language of the Titans, engraved as finely as on any of the other things I’d made.
“Do you know which symbols are needed?”
“I believe so, Master. Two and I are identical in that regard.”
“I’ll just copy you then.”
I’d been about to ask if he knew where the engraving equipment was, since the smithy was surrounded by thousands of tools, but then I noticed that the racks and shelves above the bench were filled with gravers, files, and little hammers. It was obviously the bench Marielain had used for fine work. I lifted One up onto the bench, and my hands found the right tools with little conscious help from my brain. Hours later, my hands were so painful that I had to stop working; the pain had added a tremor that no force of will could still. I was less than a quarter of the way done. One’s five day assessment looked to be accurate.
For the next four afternoons I copied the symbols on One’s jaw. I didn’t understand half of the words or how they fit together, but that didn’t matter. Most people have no idea how their computer or car functions. They push a power button or turn a key and it works. Enchanting was like that. If you had the talent and good instructions, you could make an enchantment work. A person with no understanding of electronics can solder components on a circuit board, following instructions, and end up with a working device. It’s better to understand, and I tried to learn as much as possible as I went, but it wasn’t required. By the end of the fifth day, my hands were like claws; I’d finished with the engraving.
My hands were so bad that I had to wait a day before asking Three to join me in the smithy. Most of the magic would happen in adding his final part, and I listened to One explain the process five or six times to be sure I had it memorised.
Three stood on the anvil nearest to the forge. I set a small hammer and his jaw beside him. Two rivets sat in the white-hot glow of the forge fire. When they were hot enough, I pulled the rivets out with long tongs and carried them to the anvil. Three held his own jaw in place while I flattened each rivet, leaving enough looseness so his jaw could still pivot.
Then I tied the symbols from the jaw to those on his head and to a few inside of his chest. I drew power from his flake of a heart. The power contained in that tiny scrap of condensed Blood of the World Tree was staggering. If I’d had the senses at Gran’s that I now possessed, I wouldn’t have touched the stuff. I went slowly, binding one symbol at a time until the job was finished. Three’s heart contained enough raw energy to destroy the both of us and a chunk of the island. It was another thing I just knew. Completing Three was easier on my hands, but harder on my blood pressure than the engraving.
The rivets were still glowing red when I picked him up by the waist and jammed his upper body into the cold-quenching tub. The smithy had a big tub of something I’d never imagined. One said it was ice sand from the peaks of the Barrier Mountains at the furthest edge of the world. The sand felt as cold as snow, and slippery like an oily tub of tiny glass beads. Those granules were painfully cold to the touch and never warmed or melted. They gave the same kind of sub-zero quench that stainless steels require. Pretty cool. After a few seconds I pulled him back out. A bonus to using the ice sand was it produced no steam to fly up into your face. I set Three on the floor, and One came closer to examine my work.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” Three said. “Thank you.”
One and Two had squeaky little voices, appropriate to their statures. Three had a deep, gravelly voice, but he was wider than the others.
“He has a deeper voice than you and Two,” I said to One.
“He has your voice, Master,” One said. “Your old voice.”
“Do you have any books inside you?” I asked Three.
“A single volume, Master.”
“What’s it about?”
“I contain the personal journal of Marielain Fireborn Talantial.”
Chapter 22 – A Blast from the Past
One and Three met me back up in the apartment. The tunnels that Three had dug were smooth and easier for them to navigate than the stairs. I was parched by the time I got there. Next time, I’d take water down with me. They found me out on the balcony practicing my new hobby: searching for Ivy’s shimmering hair on the streets below. Fruitless or not, in the rare times I sat out on the balcony, I couldn’t stop my searches.
“Three do you know why Marielain never finished you?”
I’d learned my lesson about asking the obvious questions right off the hop.
“Yes, Master. He determined that his words would be more secure if I couldn’t speak, and he didn’t know for how long he would be gone.”
I supposed that made a selfish kind of sense. I was itching to hear my former self’s thoughts from his own mouth, more or less. Hearing One recite technical texts wasn’t ideal, but listening to a diary read aloud might be pleasant.
“Could you read me his last entry, please?”
Three stood in front of me, with his arms crossed, and began without preamble.
“Losing the boy has proven to be more serious than expected. The years I spent, moulding him into a man, have gone to waste in a single naive action. The one thing I could never teach him, that head must always lead heart, has proven his downfall. Perhaps, I should have explained his significance in the greater scheme of things. I feared doing so would alter the course of his destiny. Now, the greed of a small group of fools has brought my plans to ruin. I haven’t even the questionable comfort of knowing that Janik’s banishment was the work of the Destroyer.
I’ve placed the sword in the hands of Sirean Silver Mantle. When her fires cool, she may prove a useful alley once more. Until then, I shall have to push forward alone. Most of the knights have left the island, and the Houses are making themselves at home below me. I’ve successfully fought off the urge to enrage the earth and end them in fire. No doubt this place will be needed if the doom I foresee is to be avoided.
Yesterday marked my thousandth name day. I feel older than my years, and tomorrow I shall leave this place. It will be strange to travel without the boy at my side. I must confess that I’d grown used to his company. No answers to my dilemma will be found here. The secrets this place holds are already mine, but none of that will aid me now. When I sail tomorrow, I shall leave the Arath behind to serve as the weighty anchor it has always been.
Three, you will divulge none of my words and protect yourself before all other considerations.”
Three went silent.
“Was that it?” I asked.
“Yes, Master, you left us the following day.”
My former self sounded like a super-grumpy old man.
“He doesn’t sound like a very nice guy,” I said, half to myself.
“I believe the Master was more upset by the death of Janik Whiteblade than he wished to admit, even to himself,” One said.
“What sort of guy was he—I?”
“The Master was the greatest enchanter and smith in the world,” One said.
That felt like only part of an answer.
“You can tell me honestly,” I said. “You guys are free now, and that means you’re free to speak your minds. I want you to.”
“The Master could be strict,” One said hesitantly.
“And thoughtless of others,” Three added.
“He wasn’t particularly sociable,” One said, “even for one of the Fae. The Master had kindness deep inside him, but…”
“It rarely came out,” Three finished.
Basically, a total jerk. I’d suspected that from what Three had recited.
“The Master bore heavy burdens,” Three said, “and great sadness.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can only recite the Journal word for word, at your express command, though I am free, Master. That is how you made me. To properly explain will require many of the entries.”
“How many entries are there? I mean you guys were made around forty years before he left, right?”
“I consumed the written journals, Master. There was an entry for almost every day since the Marielain Fireborn Talantial came to this place. Most are brief.”
“How many years is that?”
“Eight hundred and forty-two years, Master. In addition to the seventeen which I recorded.”
Wow, that was a big diary. It must contain every secret I wanted to know.
“Start with the first one,” I said. “We’ll do a bunch every day.”
“As you say, Master.”
I got more comfortable while Three began the first entry in Marielain’s journal.
“I arrived on Knight’s Haven today with little more than the clothing on my back and this empty book. The cost of passage drained what remained of my meagre coins. Yet, there is an undeniable freedom and excitement in throwing off tradition. Although life as a pauper will be more difficult than life as a prince, my heart tells me that I have made the true choice. Something has called me here. That call has become a shout in my ears, now that I’ve arrived. When I’ve finished my meal, I must leave this tavern and find my rest under the stars. Hopefully, tomorrow, I’ll learn the purpose of my journey here.
I ignored the siren call of this place since I was boy. With Telain’s marriage, my last hopes of finding contentment blew away like so much smoke. Knight’s Haven is a strange place to begin my life anew, but others have done so. Will this be far enough to drive her face from my dreams? The night will tell.
That was the first entry, Master. The next was written four days later.”
I nodded for Three to continue.
“Yesterday was a day of unprecedented discovery. After two days of treacherous climbing, I reached the highest peak on the island. From below, the peak appears whole and unremarkable. Finding the top sheared free from the stone of the island was surprising. That surprise was nothing compared to the hammer. A great black hammer sat atop the peak, waiting under a crust of salt. I know not where it came from, nor who left it there. I do know that it belongs to me, or possibly, I belong to it. The Arath, for that is its name, is as much a part of me as the hand that held it. It’s a fearsome weapon that has waited uncounted ages for my arrival.
Rough steps cut into the rock led me deep under the mountain itself, where I discovered a forge like no other. I’d fruitlessly searched the lands of my people seeking my one true place. Today, I found it. The call I have heard for so long has gone silent.
That is the end of the second entry, Master.”
I’d felt the same way the first time I set foot in the smithy. The Arath only caused me pain. It both accepted and rejected my touch. There must be something different about us, I thought.
Over the following weeks I listened to the journal entries in order. I tried to squeeze in as many as possible every night before bed. It helped to take my mind off of Ivy. Short or not, listening to all of them would take years of evenings. Many were only a few lines long and most were dull. Marielain was like me when he got going on a project. He had no time for anything else. I was years into hearing about day after day of digging out the workshop by hand before I decided that maybe it’d be better to skip ahead.
***
Three had just finished the zillionth entry about a long day spent excavating the workshop. There were hundreds of thousands of entries all told, and even if I listened to a hundred every night, it would take eight or nine years. Being thorough was one thing, but I couldn’t stand any more of it. Marielain had recorded the interesting information, regarding crafting things and enchanting, in the books that One and Two contained. I was ready for something more exciting.
“Three, is there an entry about meeting Janik?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Please, read that one.”
“I met the new High Commander of the Order today. Apparently, he was raised to the Mantle years ago. I hadn’t realised that Aldrich had d
ied, or that so many years have passed since I’ve ventured outside. I suppose I should have. I vaguely noticed that Jard’s grandson had taken over the delivery of food to my doorstep, but had thought nothing of it. Possibly, my grocer is likewise deceased.
My studies concerning the roots of the World Tree and my failed attempts to get my flying machine off the ground have both consumed and frustrated me. The knight who waited at my threshold was little more than a boy. I doubt he’s seen fifty summers. My agreements with the Order involve my assistance in certain matters, so I shall have to shelve my current projects and ponder a solution to their problem. Though I have little interest in general in what my neighbours do, I have to question raising a callow youth to their highest station. I believe he said his name was Janik something or other. If he lasts long enough, I suppose I’ll commit it to memory.
That is the end, Master.”
Huh, not the most epic meeting of two legendary heroes.
“Three, keep reading the entries that mention Janik from there.”
“I didn’t intend to rush down to the Hall. I had intended to tidy up the projects I’m working on and make a leisurely answer to the summons. My dreams demand otherwise. It has been centuries since I last dreamt. Meeting the boy, who now leads the Order, rekindled those dreams. After a long and fitful night, I am certain our destinies are intertwined and that he will play some important role in the battle I’ve foreseen. Whether he is friend or foe is yet to be determined.
I learned today that my people have been banned from setting foot on Knight’s Haven. Good riddance, I say. My agreements with Order predate and supersede that ban, and a few of the knights are themselves fae. The Order’s commander wishes me to find a way to remove the sea water that seeps into the bases of the gate towers. My first instinct was to tell him that I had nothing to do with their construction and wasn’t obligated to fix the problem. Regardless, I don’t believe that submerging the gears will affect the function of those ancient machines. Instead, I agreed to find a solution. I wish to study the boy and learn how he fits into the puzzle. If he is a piece that must be discarded, it would be best done sooner than later.”
