Orson Card - Maps in a Mirror - The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

One day when the work was slow, the smith was easy.
“Off to the woods with you, Lad, the berries are ripe.”
And Alvin gratefully let the bellows sag
And thundered off in the dust of the summer road.
Ran? He ran like a colt, he leaped like a calf,
Then his feet were deep in the leafmeal forest floor,
He was moss on the branches, swingin low and lean,
His fingers were part of the bark, his glance was green—
And he was seen.

He was seen by the birds that anyone can see,
Seen by the porcupines that hid in the bushes,
Seen by the light that slipped among the trees,
Seen by the dark that only he could see.
And the dark reached out and stumbled Alvin down,
Laid him laughin and pantin on the ground,
And the dark snuck up on every edge of him,
Frost a-comin on from everywhere,
Ice in his hair.

Ice in the summertime, and Alvin shook,
Crackin ice aloud in the miller’s pond,
A mist of winter flowin through the wood,
Fingerin his face, and where it touched
He was numb, he was stricken dumb, his chin all chattery.
Where are the birds? he wondered. When did they go?
Get back to the edge, you Dark, you Cold, you Snow!
Get north, you Wind, it’s not your time to blow!
I tell you, No!

No! he cried, but the snow was blank and deep
And didn’t answer, and the fog was thick
And didn’t answer, and his flimsy clothes
Were wet, and his breath was sharp as ice in his lung
Splittin him like a rail. It made him mad.
He yelled, though the sound froze solid at his teeth
And the words dropped out and broke as they were said
And his tongue went thick, and his lips were even number:
“Dammit, it’s summer!”

With the snow like stars of death in your eyes? “It’s summer!”
The wind a-ticklin at your thighs? “It’s summer!”
Your breath a fog of ice? “Let it be spring!
Let it be autumn, let it be anything!”
But the edge of the world had found him, and he knew
That the fire of the forges would be through,
That the air would be thick and harsh at the end of the earth
And all the flames a-dancin in his hearth,
What were they worth?

“Oh, you can cheat the trees, so dumb and slow,
And you can jolly the birds that summer’s through,
But you can’t fool me! I’ll freeze to death before
I let you get away with a lie so bold!”
And he laughed as he was swallowed by the cold,
He sang as the ice a-split him to the core,
He whispered in his pain that it wasn’t true.
“You can bury me deep as hell in your humbug snow,
But I know what I know.”

And look at that! A red-winged bird a-singin!
Look at that! The leaves all thick and green!
He touched the bark so warm in the summer sun,
He buried his hands in the soil and said, “I’m jiggered.”
“Oh, blacksmith’s prentice boy,” said the red-winged bird.
“Took you long enough,” said Prentice Alvin.
“Came now, didn’t I? So don’t get snippety.”
“Just see to it you don’t go off again.
Where you been?”

“I been,” said the red-winged bird, “to visit the sun.
I been to sing to the deaf old man in the moon.
And now I’m here to make a maker of you,
Oh yes, I’ll make you something before I’m through.”
“I’m something now,” said the lad, “and I like it fine.”
“You’re a smithy boy,” said the bird, “and it ain’t enough.
Bendin horseshoes! Bangin on the black!
Why, there be things to make that can’t be told,
So bright and gold!”

A thousand things, that bird was full of talk,
And on he sang and Alvin listened tight.
Till home he came at dark, his eyes so bright,
His smile so ready but his mood like rock,
He was full of birdsong, full of dreams of gold,
Dreams of what he’d draw from the smithy fire.
“How old is old?” he asked the smith. “How tall
Do I have to be for hammer and tong?
It’s been so long.”

The smith, he spied him keen, he saw his eyes,
He saw how flames were leapin in the green.
“A redbreast bird been talkin,” said the smith,
His voice as low as memory. “So young,
But not so young, so little but so tall.
Hammer and tong, my lazy prentice boy,
Let’s see if they fit your hand, let’s see if the heft
Is right for your arm, the right side or the left,
See how you lift.”

Out they went to the forge beside the road,
Out and stoked the fire till it was hot.
The tongs fit snug in Alvin’s dexter hand,
And the hammer hefted easy in his left,
And the smith had a face like grief, although he laughed.
“Go on,” says he. “I’m watchin right behind.”
The flames leaped up, and Alvin shied the heat,
But deep in the fire he held the iron rod
Till it was red.

“Now bend it,” cried the smith, “now make a shoe!”
Alvin raised the hammer over his head,
Ready for the swing. But it wouldn’t fall.
“Strike,” the blacksmith whispered, “bend and shape.”
But the red of the black was the red of a certain bird;
Behind his eyes he saw the iron true:
It was already what it ought to be.
“I can’t,” he said, and the blacksmith took the tool
And whispered, “Fool.”

The hammer clattered against the stone of the wall,
But Alvin, he took heed where the hammer fell.
“There’s some can lift the hammer,” said the smith,
“And some can strike,” and then he spoke an oath
So terrible that Alvin winced to hear.
“I’m shut of you,” said the smith. “What’s iron for?
To be hot and soft for a man of strength to beat,
To turn the fat of your empty flesh to meat
For the years to eat.”

When the smith was gone, poor Alvin like to died,
For what was a smith that couldn’t strike the black?
A maker, that’s what the redbreast said he’d be,
And now unmade before he’d fair begun.
“I know,” he whispered, “I know what must be done.”
He took the hammer from the wallside heap
And blew the fire till flames came leapin back
And gathered every scrap at the fire’s side
And loud he cried:

“Here is the makin that you said to make!
Here in my hand are the tools you said to take!
Here is the crucible, and here’s the fire,
And here are my hands with all they know of shape.”
Into the crucible he cast the scrap
And set the pot in the flames a-leapin higher.
“Melt!” he shouted. “Melt so I can make!”
For the redbreast bird had told him how.
A livin plow.

The black went soft in the clay, the black went red,
The black went white and poured when he tipped the pot.
Into the mold he poured, and the iron sang
With the heat and the cold, with the soft and the hard and the form
He forced. When he broke the mold it rang,
And the shape of the plow was curved and sharp where it ought.
But the iron, it was black, oh, it was dead,
No power in it but the iron’s own,
As mute as stone.

He sat among the shards of the broken clay
And wondered what the redbird hadn’t said.
Or had he talked to the bird at all today?
And now he thought of it, was it really red?
And maybe he ought to change the mold somehow,
Or pour it cool, or hotten up the forge.
But the more he studied it the less he knew,
For the plow was shaped aright, though cold and dark:
He knew his work.