Wil Ogden - The Nightstone

“I expected you would convince me,” The captain said. “But I need proof I can trust.” The captain walked to the cabin door and opened it to allow a young woman to enter. Julivel recognized the captain’s daughter. “Mischa’s mother was a gypsy queen, a master of fortune telling. Mischa has some of her mother’s gift.”

“This won’t work,” Julivel said. “Prognosticators cannot perceive my future.”

“Mischa will try.” The captain sat his daughter across the table from Julivel.

She placed her hands on the table palms up. “Place your hands in mine,” She said.

“This won’t work,” Julivel said, but put his hands in hers anyway.

She closed her eyes only to open them again and look at Julivel, clearly puzzled. “When were you born?”

“The last day of winter.” Julivel told her his birthday.

“What year?” she asked.

Tired of the nonsense, Julivel answered with the truth, “Next year.” The truth was complicated. “I know how fortune telling works. I also know that no man has a future until after he is born.”

Her hands tightened on his. “Sometimes I only need to read the past of a man to learn his future,” she said. “And you have a most complex past.”

Julivel pried his hands away. Reading his future was one thing, but there were things in his past he didn’t wish to share.

“You speak the truth, there is no danger to anyone on this ship,” Mischa said. “There are so many lies in your life, starting with your name. You are an odd mix of good and evil. I have never seen so much evil in a man. Your past leads to a far greater evil in your future. The truly odd part is that you have a good heart and a kind soul. Mister, you scare me more than any man I have ever met. I can advise you to some degree. You must not allow the demon Darien to possess that gem. He will bring death to many if you keep it from him, but he will bring death to all if you do not.”

When Mischa said demon, it sounded like she was calling the man something more than simply an onerous person. Darien’s being an actual demon meant Julivel had to put more thought into the puzzle.

Charles climbed the path from the river to his master’s shop. Six buckets of water hung from the thick wooden pole across his shoulders. He muttered to himself about how foolish he’d been to start the day’s work without checking the cooling barrel to make sure the water was deep enough. He’d been an apprentice to the town’s blacksmith for as long as he could remember, checking the water was among the first things he was supposed to do each day.

If he hadn’t been in a rush to complete the project before the master arrived, he wouldn’t have forgotten. Maybe Segric would have allowed him to make the sword, maybe not. It wasn’t his first sword, just the first one he was making for himself.

When he stepped into the workshop, he immediately noticed Heather standing by the anvil. She held his unfinished blade in her hands.

“Isn’t that hot?” Charles asked. He’d left the blade on the anvil still glowing. It had taken him some time to get the water, adequate for the glow to fade, but not sufficient time for the metal to cool enough to touch.

Heather dropped the blade onto the anvil. She stammered for a moment before answering, “Well, yeah.”

Charles dropped the buckets and rushed to check on her hands. “Are you okay?” He could see no evidence of a burn on her hands. He reached for the blade to see how much it had cooled when Heather grabbed his wrist. “Don’t. It will burn you.”

“But,” Charles started to ask her why she was not burned, but she placed her finger over his lips and whispered, “What I’m going to tell you, you cannot repeat.”

Charles nodded.

“I’m a Wizard.” Heather said.

“There’s no such thing,” Charles said. “Fire magic was wiped out ages ago when the Wizards tried to destroy the Abvi Kingdom.”

“Both what you say and what I tell you are true.” She reached into the forge and pulled out a burning lump of coal. “Didn’t you ever wonder why my father and I, the only two Abvi in Blackstone, are so far from the Abvi Kingdom?” She tossed the coal back into the forge.

“Your father came to town to make sure the coal mining wasn’t damaging the local wilderness,” Charles said. “We all know the story. He runs the mine now because he has a couple centuries of experience with the mine.”

“We’re here because my magic is forbidden,” Heather said. “If the Abvi knew, they might have me killed. So I’ve lived here, as far from the major trade routes as my father could find among the civilized races, since just after I was born.”

Of the people Charles had met, only Heather’s father, who served the nature goddess as a Tempest, could use magic, though Charles had never thought of it as rare. The shop used magelights to illuminate the workspaces and several of the tools had been enchanted to not wear through use. Such was the work of the water college, the Mages. He only heard fantastic rumors of the abilities of fire magic, most of them horrific. “What can you do?” Charles asked. “I mean other than handle hot objects.”

Heather picked up the unfinished sword. “You still need to bevel the edge, maybe allow it to stretch another handbreadth or two?”

“Right,” Charles said.

Heather closed her eyes and the sword began to glow red and then brighter orange and then yellow. Charles stepped back, any hotter and the steel would burn, throwing sparks. She ran her hands over the length of the steel and the shape of the steel changed with her touch as if she were molding clay.

“Hand me another chunk of metal this size or bigger,” Heather said, holding out one hand and lowering the end of the sword to rest on the anvil.

Charles grabbed a bar of iron stock and placed it in Heather’s hand, careful to make sure she could hold the weight before releasing it. The iron glowed bright and hot after only a moment, but as it warmed, he could see the sword blade blacken. Heather held the sword out to him.

“This is cool enough to touch now,” She said and Charles took the sword from her. “It should be springy without being brittle. I can create heat, but cannot make it go away. I can only move it from one location to another.” She set the hot iron bar on the anvil. Charles bent the blade then let it bounce back to its shape. The temper was exactly where a sword blade should be. “You can manipulate the crystalline structure of the metal?”

“You should know that’s only a side-effect of the heat manipulation,” Heather said. “I can heat it to the point where I can shape it by touch, and I can control how and where the heat leaves the metal, as long as I have somewhere to put it. I’ve heard you talk enough about your blade-making to understand how it’s supposed to be inside.”

“Just, wow.” Charles said. “You can do in seconds what it’s taken me three years to learn.”

“I learned as you did,” Heather said. “I can also light candles. Now, is your work done for the morning? Are you up for a long walk in the woods and a picnic?”

He always had work to do, but none of it needed to be done before lunch. “Let me cool the coals,” Charles said. “I’ll meet you by the birches. Will you be bringing the food?”

“Who said anything about food?” Heather winked then giggled as she spun and walked with a sassy bounce from the workshop.

The afternoon clouds tried, with little success, to hide Amethyst, the huge violet moon. Charles lay on the blanket staring up, somewhere between bliss and unconsciousness. Heather lay beside him breathing deep. “I love our picnics,” she said.

“I should go back to the forge,” Charles said. “I am supposed to have a dozen cart hinges ready by tomorrow morning.”