Smoke! Fire! Hide!
Mielitta stood petrified on the threshold of the forge, her head fluttering with panic as the familiar white swirls caught at her throat. Dust motes whirled in the intermittent light of sparks as Declan heated and folded metal, heated and folded. She’d been coming here since she could toddle and nothing would keep her out of the one place she felt at home. Especially not this wave of alien panic, however strongly it flooded her with the need to dive down, deep and dark, protect the one who mattered most.
Stop it! she told herself as much as the bees. Her crisis in the Forest had left her mentally troubled, dealing with too many new experiences and her imagination had resorted to metaphor, imaginary bees. They were like panic-man, a useful visualisation, but they were still imaginary. They’d enabled her to draw on extra reserves of fighting prowess, which was amazing, but she needed to keep such mental aids firmly in their place. Which did not include panic about smoke in a forge!
They wanted deep and dark? That was fine by her! Deep, dark and calm, get in the jar, she told them.
Keep the One safe, keep the One safe, they buzzed as they scuttled into deepest darkness, where the noise calmed. They seemed almost torpid as Mielitta firmly stoppered the metaphorical jar containing the metaphorical bees, and entered the forge, her home.
Smithcraft had its own rhythm. First, sourcing the material in cold choice. Then, feeding the insatiable fire until it sucked on the raw metal thrust into its maw, transforming the steel under Declan’s watchful eye. Solitary, his face glowing red in the forge-light, he would stand, for a moment outside time, his gloved hand on the lance piercing the fire.
Mielitta had learned weaponcraft from watching Declan’s relationship with the fire-god who lived in the forge. She could sense the slip from conscious skill to instinct. One moment, a man was sticking a metal rod into a fire; the next, a master smith touched the spirits of fire and metal in partnership, in alchemy. As when Mielitta stopped thinking, nocked an arrow and let fly, knew whether it was true. She could have touched fire and metal this way too!
The rhythm changed. Now came the frenzy of folding, hammering, while the metal was hot. Sparks arced fiery light in the darkness, tracing the hardened muscles of a man’s arms, the glimmer of sweat on dusty skin. Leatherette aprons sizzled and blackened. Once they’d been pristine bales on the stone floor of Mage Fabrisse’s atelier, waiting for their life to begin.
Reminded of the news she bore, Mielitta jigged impatiently, knowing she could not interrupt yet. Not when Kermon was carrying the bucket of oil outside. She stepped out after him to watch. How could you tire of oil craft?
Speed was all-important now. Declan burst through the door with a super-heated metal rod, ready for its final transformation. He dipped the steel into the oil and the cauldron bubbled into flame. Even through human vision, with no ultraviolet, the colours flared in extraordinary combinations. Mielitta saw maroon edges to the white bubbles bursting on the surface, deep purple and indigo, a hundred shades of yellow and reds that danced into a wordless pattern that only she could read.
The One she read in the flames as they blazed and, too soon, died.
Pff. Their obsessions were leaking through the jar. She must work harder at how she lived with the damage from the Forest incident. She scratched absent-mindedly at her thigh, which still itched.
‘Mielitta,’ Kermon greeted her with a smile, his face no less friendly for being smeared with grease.
‘I see you’ve been promoted to bucket-carrier,’ she told him.
His smile faded, uncertain, and she was ashamed at her own spite.
‘It took me years to reach that level and I never got any further,’ she added, placatory.
Her intention rather than her words was enough to bring the smile back. He wiped his mouth, smearing the black over his cheek, and she couldn’t help smiling with him.
Declan was watching them closely, too closely. He grunted approval, and Mielitta’s stomach clenched. He needn’t think she’d forgiven either of them.
‘I’ll just put this on the anvil to cool,’ he told them.
She followed him back into the forge, where they could speak more privately. She sat on a table, swinging her legs over the edge as if she were a child again. The forge was briefly the dirtiest place in the Citadel but quickly became the cleanest. Every speck of dust was removed within minutes. ‘If dust gets into the fabric it will destroy steel, sure as fire burns,’ he’d told her. She knew that the forge cleaned itself by magecraft but she’d never known what else the Mage-Smith did that way. He was just Declan to her and he worked like any master smith would.
‘There’s something I want to talk to you about,’ Mielitta began, then looked pointedly at Kermon and changed the subject.
‘Would you make me a Damascene steel arrowhead?’
Declan looked up at her from under bushy brows and was blunt. ‘Why?’
Two people could be direct. ‘Because Kermon took the job that should have been mine and you owe me severance for my apprentice-work.’ She couldn’t keep up the cold tone. Her voice cracked a little though she still swung her legs, defiant as a five-year-old who refuses to come off the swing.
‘Think of it as a parting gift, for luck in my life. You have been like a father to me.’ She couldn’t say more so she stopped, aware of Kermon, who couldn’t help but listen, however much he busied himself with arranging pieces of wood and metal on shelves.
Eyes like green pools in the darkest part of the Forest, Declan growled. ‘I am a father to you and will take none of your nonsense. You’re a girl and that’s that. I should have been firmer with you but what’s tempered can’t be put in the flame again and you’re not as well-tempered as I’d like.’
Mielitta bit her lip and her legs stilled. When she spoke, her voice quavered. ‘That’s the trouble – I’m not a girl and I’m not a woman. So if I’m different, you should let me do what I’m good at!’
‘You’ll lead a Perfect life, girl, whether you like it or not! You must wait until Shanagra finds you ready for the Maturity Test. Maybe there’s a reason she hasn’t, with the mouth you have on you for answering back!’
Was he going to hit her? She’d not been chastised so since she was little. But no. He stepped back, calmed, came to some decision.
‘Kermon,’ Declan called, in a voice that brooked no refusal. ‘Are you ready to make your smith-piece?’ It was not truly a question and would not be asked twice.
Mielitta drew up her legs onto the table, hugged her knees. It should have been her. She knew the pattern she would have made, folding just so, to make an army of interlaced waves that moved like wings when the light caught them. Everyone would have marvelled, asked who he was, this new smith. And Declan would have said with pride, ‘Not he, but she. My daughter, Mielitta.’
Instead, Kermon glowed, made no hesitation. ‘I am ready, Forge-Mage Declan.’
I am ready. I am open. Mielitta silently mocked the courtesies. Well, I am ready and I am open but only for what I choose. And I have been to the Forest, and survived, and you haven’t. If she was going to be treated like a child, then she would behave like one.
‘Then treat Mielitta as your client and you shall make her an arrowhead. Note your client’s requirements, then go to the archery yard to collect an example for a template.’ Declan went over to the assistants to rearrange their work, leaving Mielitta more red-faced than any fire could have made her.
Kermon looked down at the floor. In the V-neck of his grubby workshirt she could see the hair on his chest. The silence grew. Then they both spoke at once.
‘I want–’ Mielitta began.
‘I know I’m second-best–’
‘Yes,’ she told the honest hazel eyes raised to hers. ‘but neither of us has a choice so there’s no point arguing. Let’s just get this over with.’
‘You might be surprised,’ Kermon told her. ‘Don’t judge my work before you see it.’
‘I’ve seen the best Damascene steel in the world,’ she said. It was just a fact, not an insult.
The apprentice took no notice of her words or her tone. Declan had taught him well. She was a client.
‘You know what’s possible,’ he observed, ‘so is there a design you would like?’
‘Yes, I want–’ She saw again the beauty of an arrowhead, a flight of wings in steel, aerodynamic and streamlined. And she let it go. Why would she punish Kermon? It wasn’t his fault.
He was studying her face as if he could read it, as she had studied the cauldron of oil. Afraid no doubt that she would condemn him to failure, or at least to admitting his lack of skill.
‘No,’ she said. ‘it’s your smith-piece.’ She gave him a weak smile. ‘So, surprise me.’
He nodded, his face composed, serious, older than she’d thought. ‘It will be my best work.’ He gave a rigid little bow, left, and Mielitta realised she was alone with Declan. Her face flamed again. How was it that one person could reduce you to childish ways with just one word? Well, she would show him and he would be proud of her! She opened her mouth to tell him about the Forest and not one word came out. Stoppered, she thought. Shit!
‘Well?’ Declan’s deep voice was comfortable, reassuring as a blanket. ‘What did you really want to talk to me about?’
‘My Maturity Ceremony is tomorrow,’ she announced. She couldn’t help sounding like a child who’d hit a nail with a hammer for the first time. However, the impact was everything she could have wished.
Declan looked stunned. ‘B-but,’ he stammered, ‘I thought you weren’t going to…’
She’d certainly practised the next line. ‘I’m a late starter,’ she told him. And then for good measure, ‘Mage Yacinthe said so. And that the Ceremony was to go unremarked because it’s just me, and the circumstances are exceptional. So as not to make a fuss over me being a late starter.’
‘But nobody told me,’ Declan said, looking at her strangely.
Just like nobody told me Kermon was taking my place as your apprentice. She knew it was wrong to enjoy such a petty revenge but it made her feel less child, more equal. Anyway, why should Declan have been told?
‘I expect the children usually tell their parents, and that’s what I’m doing. The Maturity Mages have more important things to do.’
‘You want this? To be an adult. You’re sure?’ What was the matter with the man? One minute he wanted her to fit in like a good girl and the next he wanted to sow doubts about the joys of adulthood?
‘Of course,’ she told him. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
He licked his lips before replying. ‘No reason.’
‘And,’ she’d saved the best until last. ‘I’m to assist Mage Yacinthe in the library.’
‘That’s nice,’ he said, his tone listless.
‘I’ll be busy,’ she said airily. What with doing all the work in the library and visiting the Forest. ‘But I’ll try to visit now and then.’
‘That would be nice. But you know you can’t use weapons when you’re a woman. The arrowhead you asked for – you can never use it.’
‘I know.’ She smiled sweetly, pure woman. ‘It’s just for luck, for the memories,’ she lied.
‘For the memories.’ Suddenly he looked so old, his face crushed.
She jumped off the table and hugged him, seeking shelter one last time in the blackened apron and hard-muscled arms. She was nearly as tall as he was now.
‘Children grow up,’ he murmured. ‘Become forged, become adults. It is the way of the Citadel. I didn’t think… but of course you must have your place here too.’
Trust Declan to think of people in steelworking terms. ‘I don’t mind being forged,’ she told him and again, he looked at her strangely. Was that fear in his eyes? He blinked and the strangeness was gone.
This wasn’t what she wanted for her last afternoon as a child with her parent. ‘Tell me about my finding,’ she demanded. She’d heard the story a thousand times but it was their story, their bond, and she needed to hear it once more, now.
‘I’m fetching knives from the kitchen,’ he began, ‘minding my own business and I’m walking along the passage, when I hear this noise.’
‘Where?’ she interrupted, struck by a sudden thought. ‘Where was the baby?’
‘We haven’t got to that part yet,’ he objected. ‘But it was – you were – on the way to the west courtyard door, I think, by the inside wall. Yes, definitely the inside wall.’
‘I thought so.’ Where I hid my memories. A wall with history, indeed! She didn’t explain herself. ‘Sorry, I won’t interrupt again.’
‘So I head towards the noise, which starts as a little cough then turns into a full-size baby’s cry. And sure enough, when I turn the corner, the baby noise is loud and clear but there’s nothing to be seen but stone walls and stone floor, same as always. Then the wall sort of shimmers and forces out this little basket, as if hands are pushing it through the wall into the passage. The wall goes solid and there you are, screaming. I put a finger to your mouth, say sh but you latch onto that finger, suckling away, and I know you’re hungry.
‘So I put the knives in my pockets, pick up the basket and take you to the nursery. And you know the rest. Same as all babies in the Citadel, you’re shared out with the mothers so none of them gets tired of mothering or stuck with a tricky baby all the time. And I get to do a share of fathering, seeing as you’re my Foundling, in a manner of speaking.’
He looked at her then, with all the pride she’d hoped for. ‘A special father. And you go to school with all the children…’
‘And I watch the other children become adults while I’m passed over,’ she finished for him. ‘But it’s my turn now. You understand that, don’t you.’
‘Better than you do,’ he told her and kissed her forehead.
‘Tell me about the name,’ she ordered. ‘You missed that bit.’
‘In that basket, you were all wrapped in white and I could see some writing pinned to you. I thought it was going to say something about where you were from but it was just one word. Mielitta. And when I said the word aloud, the writing faded and disappeared so nobody else ever saw it. But I spelled it out to the Nursery Mage and she said it had no meaning so it must be your name. And that’s what you’re called.’
‘She was wrong.’ Mielitta was fierce. ‘My name does have a meaning – it’s who I am.’
Declan shook his head. ‘Still shouting after eighteen year-cycles,’ he teased her. ‘I should have known to walk on by when I heard that screaming. Still, I’m glad I didn’t.’
The tension between them vanished like bubbles from oil and they spent the last moments of Mielitta’s childhood choosing wood for handles.
Dead, piped the voices in her head as she debated the virtues of yew – beautiful patterns, the spalting so prized by craftsmen – versus walnut – plain but less prone to crack in cutting.
Dead, they told her again and she wished she could tell Declan about the living beauty that was wood in the Forest. But the words stuck in her throat and she settled for the affection between them as parent and child. More was not possible for they already lived in different worlds.
