L. Modesitt - The Chaos Balance

“Wizardry…how do we know it will last?” mused Fornal.

“Everything they have done so far has lasted,” said Zeldyan. “Everything.” She shivered, and her green eyes were deep as they fixed Fornal’s.

Slowly, slowly…he looked away.

Gethen nodded to himself, almost imperceptibly.

After leaving Ayrlyn with Weryl, Nylan slipped out of their chamber, glad that the coolness of the night before remained into the morning, and down the stone steps and out into the courtyard.

He followed the sound of the hammer to the southwest corner of the keep, where, against the outer walls, rested a small square building beside a small open gate. Although the gate would be necessary for deliveries of charcoal and iron stock, he reflected, there was no guard at the smithy gate. Was the lack of guards a reflection of the high esteem in which the regents were held or a reflection of the sad state of the armsmen and the treasury of Lornth-or both?

The angel smith turned from the gate toward the sounds of the hammer and anvil. A battered and unpainted sliding door was pulled open, revealing the smithy inside, where the smith and his striker already worked. For a time, Nylan watched the burly smith. With shoulders as broad as a wine barrel and arms like tree limbs, the smith’s hammer seemed more like a toy in his huge fist as he forge-welded a ring together on the anvil horn.

The odor of hot metal, quench oils, and forge coals drifted around Nylan, and he rubbed his nose gently as he watched.

Abruptly, the dark-bearded smith set the hammer aside, used the tongs to place what looked like a harness hame ring on the forge bricks, and nodded to the striker at the bellows. Then he stepped away from the anvil and toward Nylan.

“You be the angel?” His voice was high-pitched, surprisingly for such a big man.

“That seems to be what everyone calls me,” Nylan admitted. “I’m Nylan.”

“They say you’re a smith. I’m Husta. Regents asked if I’d mind lending fire and an anvil.” Husta inclined his head and grinned wryly. “No smith likes to be told. But they been good to me.”

“I had to learn it alone,” Nylan said. “I’m probably a poor smith, compared to you.”

“Got any work?”

Nylan looked around, then eased out the blade. “I had to do weapons, mostly.”

Husta extended his huge hand, then touched the blade, studied it, and slowly shook his head. “Be not three men in all Candar could match that.” He grinned. “You use the dark forces and the fire, do you not?”

Nylan nodded.

“An honest mage. One who doesn’t mind using his hands.” Husta laughed. “You be doing blades here?”

“No. It’s an idea I told ser Gethen about, and he said he would talk to you.”

“Aye. He did.” The burly man shook his head. “Good man, and lucky we are that he be one of the regents. Sure be wishing that poor Lord Sillek had lived-talk was he didn’t want to fight the angels, begging’ your pardon, ser Nylan. But those stiff-necked holders…they worried about a bunch of women on a mountaintop. Ha! My Cethany’ll have told ’em not to mess with ’em, she would. Women are tougher than men most ways, even if they can’t heft a big blade or a hammer.” Without a pause in his words, Husta nodded at Nylan, motioning him toward the striker who stood by the great bellows. “Corin, this is the angel smith. Work the bellows for him like you would for me, ’less he tells you otherwise.” Husta glanced at Nylan. “That be all right?”

“That’s fine, and I appreciate the help.” Nylan stripped off his shirt.

Husta gestured to an old leather apron hanging in the corner. “Use that. Old, but it stops sparks.”

“Thank you.” Nylan hung his shirt on the peg from which the apron had come.

“If you do not mind, angel, I’d lief watch as you work.”

“As you please,” Nylan answered pleasantly, knowing that, once again, he faced some skepticism.

Husta grinned, not unpleasantly.

Nylan wandered over to the dark inside corner where the rod stock was heaped, then looked at the scrap bin. For a moment, he stood in thought, trying to assemble mentally what he had in mind. Finally, he selected a length of the narrowest stock. “This-and perhaps some cuts from the scrap plate there-they should be enough.”

“Lord Gethen pays for the stock. So long as you waste none, it’s no matter.” Husta laughed, again a high-pitched sound.

The silver-haired smith nodded and pointed to the hammer. “Might I use that, or would you prefer I use another?”

“Use it you may, and I thank you for asking.”

Nylan nodded and hefted the hammer, fractionally heavier than the one he had used on the Roof of the World, though not by too much, then set it down while he set out the rod stock beside the anvil and found a pair of tongs. He looked at Husta.

The big smith nodded, and Nylan took the tongs, using them to ease the first section of rod stock onto the coals.

Once laid on the forge coals, the iron heated quickly-at least compared to the finished blades and higher-tech alloys he had been working. With the tongs he slipped the cherry-red rod onto the big anvil and, using firm strokes of the hammer, began to fuller it into the thinner strips he would need, sensing the grain of the metal and the tiny fluxes and the unseen white shimmers that told of impurities and weaknesses. Compared to what Nylan had used on the Roof of the World, the smith’s stock was soft iron.

“See…” bellowed Husta to the striker. “He’s worked out that bubble there. Have to learn to know the metal, like a lover, know where the hidden rough places are. You can see if you look hard enough.”

Nylan almost felt guilty, because he couldn’t see half of what he sensed, and clearly Husta had learned to use his eyes far better than Nylan. The angel smith held back a shrug. He had to use what senses and skills he had, and he was glad he had them.

Still, in three heats, he had the first long strip rough-finished.

Three more finished the second, and another three the third.

“Ah…” Husta cleared his throat and glanced at the sky.

Nylan blotted his sweating forehead with the back of his forearm and lowered the hammer. His eyes took in the lack of shadows, and he realized it was nearly midday. Had he been working that long?

“Would you join us for bite?” asked Husta. “Bread and cheese, and some ale-and pale sausage-meat stuff, not that blood crap.”

“I’d be pleased.” After setting the hammer aside, Nylan had to blot his forehead again. In the comparative heat of the lowlands, sweat seemed to flow from every pore of his body-and it was spring, not summer.

“Over here.”

The bigger man hoisted a long bench out of the back of the smithy and set it in the shade outside. “Cooler here. Can see you’re used to a colder place.”

“The Roof of the World is a lot cooler,” Nylan admitted.

Husta poured the pale liquid into a tin mug, then into a wooden cup. He handed the cup to Nylan. “Good ale. Got it from Gherac for some piping. Pipes are a friggin’ pain.”

The angel smith nodded. He hadn’t even tried something like piping, although he supposed he could. It would involve bending thin sheet around a rod or cylinder, not that difficult compared to ensuring that the welds were tight.

“You work hard,” the big smith said. “Good rhythm, too. Got to have rhythm in this craft.”

Nylan took a sip of the ale, which was surprisingly cool and bitter, and sat, straddling the end of the bench clearly reserved for him.

“He strikes hard,” observed Corin, as if Nylan were not present, as he pulled up a battered stool. “Wouldn’t think it, but he never stopped.”