Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

"It was never meant for your kind, that knife. Cold iron, it is, and hard as it could be made, though brittle with it. That's why it broke. The tiniest fault would be enough. This is a different matter, though."

He took the Dead Knife back from his son.

"This was made by the High Maker of the Six Courts. Fey metal, it's near enough unbreakable." His voice was filled with respect as he examined the leaf-shaped blade, then put the point on the surface of the table and flexed the end of the blade, the tip bending so it formed an elegant curve. He let it go and it sprang back, ringing lightly with a clean clear note.

"Here, it was made for hands like yours." He passed it across, holding the back of the blade so I could take the handle.

The wooden handle was smooth with use. It had a metal core that spiralled back around the handle end so that it formed part of the handle. As soon as my hand touched the metal, the blade shivered and went black. It didn't just darken, it went completely black. I turned it and it moved without reflection, giving it an odd hollow aspect.

"It was made to respond to the Feyre, just as the Quick Knife was made for human hands," Ben added.

I put it on the table and slid it towards Blackbird. As soon as my hand left it, it returned to the dull metal it had been. She hesitated and then tapped her forefinger on it, lightly, to test it. Nothing happened, so she picked it off the table and it flickered to life. The blade changed colour, turning ruddy grey and then glowed a dull red.

"It's not hot," she said, but was then startled as the blade burst into flame, long licks of flame travelling up the blade away from her hand.

"Wicked!" That was the boy, James. It was pretty impressive.

She turned the blade in her hand, the fire rippling up the blade like a burning brand. "What happens if you-"

The fire along the blade turned blue and intense, the tip turning slowly white, spreading down the blade. I realised that I could now feel the heat coming off it, though Blackbird was unaware of it. She placed the blade back onto the wooden table and then picked it up quickly as she realised it had scorched the surface of the bleached pine. The dark outline of the blade was there, scorched into the surface of the wood.

"I'm terribly sorry…" she apologised, glancing at Meg. The blade returned to yellow flickering flames again.

She turned it this way and that, looking for somewhere heat-proof to place the burning knife.

"Here," I said, "give it to me."

She hesitated, then passed it to me and for a second both our hands touched the knife, my open palm and her fingers on the handle. The flames went black, like the reverse of fire. They still rippled off the blade, but they were flames of shadow, not light.

I glanced up and met Blackbird's look. She felt it too; a meeting in the metal, a mingling of her magic and mine. Her eyes widened and she snatched her hand back. I had felt her warmth. What had she felt that made her snatch her hand away like that?

The blade went black in my hand. It was cool, cold even, and I was about to place it back on the table when I changed my mind.

"What did you do to make it hot?" I asked her.

"I just focused on it, like you do with the Ways," she answered, clearly as mystified by the knife as I was.

I focused my will gently on the knife and tried to connect with it. It was as if it answered but there was only vast emptiness. I reached further into it and it appeared the same, like a bottomless well. It didn't react to me the way it had to her. I shrugged and was about to put it down when I had another thought.

I reached within and let the darkness inside me connect to it, then pour into it.

The room vanished.

When I poured the darkness into the knife it took me aside, slipping between the cracks of the world. We're so used to describing geometry in terms of up and down, in and out, that the vocabulary to describe it is inadequate. There were places all around me at impossible angles, intersecting with each other, passing through each other. My eyes refused to register the complexity of it all.

I floated through them, sampling each one as if flicking through the pages of a paperback. In some it was night-time and others not. Some were searing cold or unbearably humid. It was like a dish with too many flavours, or an orchestra with every instrument playing a different tune in different time, I was overwhelmed by it.

It wasn't like being lost on the Way. I wasn't lost, I was just disoriented. I knew where I was because I was there. I could be anywhere though. I could be in the farmhouse in Shropshire.

There was a shriek.

"Oh God! You made me jump."

Meg Highsmith had her hand across her chest as she calmed herself. Blackbird burst through the doorway from the yard.

"Are you all right? Where have you been? Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," I admitted under the barrage of questions. "Where did everyone go?"

"They're readying the forge. You've been gone over two hours."

"Have I?" I looked at the knife in my hand and then placed it carefully on the table. It faded to grey. "Two hours?" I glanced at my watch, confirming what she was saying, but still finding it hard to accept.

"Where were you?"

"I'm not sure. I think I was in lots of places, all at once. They all overlapped, it was confusing. Some of them were different, really different."

Jeff Highsmith burst into the door behind Blackbird. "What happened? Are you OK?" He looked to his wife.

"I'm fine," she echoed my remark. "He just made me jump. One second he wasn't there and the next he was."

"You've been gone for hours," Blackbird repeated, coming close and looking up into my face. "I didn't know what had happened to you. You just vanished."

"I was floating." I tried to conjure up a mental picture of the myriad of places jumbled up together but it just made my eyes ache. I tried again. "There were facets of places, like slivers." I shook my head, trying to clear the fogginess shrouding my thoughts.

Meg Highsmith was practical. "Do you want tea? Tea is supposed to be good for shock."

Blackbird declined her offer. "No thank you, Mrs. Highsmith. I think we should go. We've prevailed on your hospitality too much as it is. Is there anywhere nearby where we could stay the night?"

"I'd offer you a bed here, but…" Jeff trailed off, looking at his wife. She didn't say anything, but her answer was written on her face.

"That's OK, we understand."

We could see they were not going to be comfortable with us in the house, given what they'd seen, and neither would we be comfortable there. There was too much iron in the place.

"Let me phone down to the village for you," she suggested.

She went through the door into the rest of the house. Jeff stayed with us, unwilling to leave us unsupervised, but with nothing to say.

"Would you put the knife back in the box for me, Jeff?" I nodded towards the Dead Knife resting inert, its shadow burnt into the tabletop beside it. I didn't want to touch it again and find myself somewhere else.

He nodded and there was a brief moment of discomfort as he opened the box and slipped the Dead Knife in next to the broken one.

"What time should we return to collect the new knife tomorrow?" I asked him, taking the box from him and passing it back to Blackbird to stow in her bag.

"If you come late morning, we'll have it finished."

"Thank you. I appreciate that we've just appeared and asked you to drop everything to do this."

"That's the agreement, isn't it?" he shrugged.

"Yes, I suppose it is. Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Not unless you can hold a pair of tongs over a hot forge?" He smiled at our expressions. "No, I thought not."