Chapter Twenty-Three

Urprox Screl sat alone on the old wooden bench, hunched forward with his elbows resting on his knees, carving knife in one hand, block of wood in the other. His hands moved deftly as he worked, turning the wood this way and that, whittling with small flicks of his wrist, the shavings flying out in front of him. He was making something wonderful, although he wasn’t sure yet what it was. The mystery was part of the pleasure.

A block of wood always suggested certain possibilities before he ever took a knife to it. You just had to look carefully enough to see what they were. Once you had done that, the job was half-finished.

The shaping always seemed to take care of itself.

It was evening in Dechtera, the light fading to hazy gray where the furnaces did not glare with their hot white eyes. The heat was oppressive, but Urprox Screl was used to heat, so it didn’t bother him to sit there. He could have stayed home with Mina and the children, dinner complete, the day at its close, rocking on the long porch or sitting out under the shade of that old hickory. It was quiet there and cool, his home removed from the city’s center.

Unfortunately, that was the problem. He missed the noise and the heat and the stench of the furnaces. When he was working, he wanted them close by. They had been a part of his life for so long that it didn’t seem right not to have them there.

Besides, this was his place of business, same as always, same as it had been for better than forty years. It had been his father’s place of business before him. Maybe it would be his son’s — one or the other of them. When he worked, this is where he liked to be. This is where he belonged, where his sweat and toil had shaped his life, where his inspiration and skill had shaped the lives of others.

It was a bold statement, he supposed, but he was a bold man. Or mad, depending on whom you asked.

Mina understood. She understood everything about her husband, and that was more than you could say for any other wife he knew. The thought of it made him smile. It gave him a special feeling for Mina. He began to whistle softly.

The people of the city passed down the street in front of Urprox Screl, hurrying this way and that, busy little beavers engaged in their tasks. He watched them surreptitiously from under the knit of his heavy dark brow without letting them know he was looking.

Many of them were friends — or what passed for friends these days. Most had been shopkeepers, tradesmen, artisans, or laborers for the same amount of time as he had been a smith. Most had admired him — his skill, his accomplishments, his life. Some had believed that he embodied the heart and soul of this city.

He sighed, and the whistling died away. Yes, he knew them all, but they paid little attention to him now. If he caught someone’s eye, he might get a solemn nod or a desultory wave. One or two might stop to speak to him. That was about the extent of it. Mostly, they avoided him. Whatever was wrong with him, they didn’t want it rubbing off on them.

He wondered one more time why they couldn’t just accept what he’d done and let it go at that.

He stared down momentarily at the carving. A dog running, swift and strong, legs extended, ears flattened, head up. He would give this one to his grandson Arken, his oldest girl’s boy. He gave most of his carvings away, though he could have sold them had he chosen to do so. But money wasn’t something he needed; he had plenty of that and could get more if it became necessary. What he needed was peace of mind and a sense of purpose. Sad to say, even two years later, he was having trouble finding both.

He glanced over his shoulder momentarily at the building behind him, a dark, silent presence amid the cacophony of the cit)

In the growing twilight, it cast its squarish shadow over him. The great doors that led to its interior were closed tonight — he hadn’t bothered to open them. Sometimes he did, just because it made him feel more at home, more a part of his work. But lately it had depressed him to sit there with the doors open and the interior dark and silent, nothing happening after all those years of constant heat and noise and activity. Besides, it only drew the curiosity seekers, suggesting to them the possibility of things that would never happen.

He stirred the wood shavings with the toe of his boot. Better let the past stay closed away, where it belonged.

Darkness fell, and he rose to light the torches that bracketed tht building’s smaller side entry. These would cast the light he needec to continue his work. He should go home, he knew. Mina would be looking for him. But there was a restlessness about him that kept his hands moving and his thoughts adrift in the swell of tht night sounds that rose with the coming of the dark. He could pick those sounds out, all of them, could separate them as surely as the shavings piled at his feet. He knew them all so well — as he knew this city and its people. His knowledge comforted him. Dechtera was not a city for everyone. It was special and unique and it spoke with a language of its own. Either you understood what it was saying or you didn’t. Either you were intrigued by what you heard or you moved on.

Lately, for the first time in his life, he was thinking that perhaps he had heard about as much of the city’s language as he cared to He was contemplating what that meant, his carving momentarily forgotten, when the three strangers approached. He didn’t see them at first, cloaked and hooded in the darkness, just a part of the crowd that passed on the street before him. But then they separated themselves from its flow and came toward him, and there was no mistaking their intent. He was immediately curious — it was unusual for anyone to approach him these days. The hoods bothered him a little; it was awfully hot to be wrapped up so. Were they hiding from something?

He rose to meet them, a big, rawboned man with heavy arms, a deep chest, and wide, blocky hands. His face was surprisingly smooth for a man his age, brown from the sun and strong-featured, his broad chin thinly bearded, the black hair on his head rapidly receding from his crown toward his ears and neck. He set the knife and carving on the bench behind him and stood waiting with his hands on his hips. As the trio slowed before him, the tallest pulled back his hood to reveal himself. Urprox Screl nodded in recognition. It was the fellow who had visited with him yesterday, the Borderman, come down out of Varfleet, a quiet, intense man with a good deal more on his mind than he was giving out. He had purchased a blade from one of the shopkeepers and come to compliment Urprox on his workmanship. Ostensibly. It felt as if there might be something more to the visit than just that. The Borderman had said he would be back.

“Good as your word, I see,” Urprox greeted, reminded now of the other’s promise and wanting to take matters in hand early — his city, his home, his rules.

“Kinson Ravenlock,” the Borderman reminded him.

Urprox Screl nodded. “I remember.”

“These are friends who want to meet you.” The hoods came back. A girl and an old man. They faced him squarely, but kept their backs to the crowd of passersby. “I wonder if we might speak with you for a few minutes.”

They waited patiently as he studied them, making up his mind.

It was nothing he could put his finger on, but something about them bothered him. An uneasiness stirred inside, vague and indefinable. There was an unmistakable sense of purpose about these three. They looked to have come a long way and to have endured some hardship. He felt certain the Borderman’s question had been asked as a matter of courtesy and not to offer a choice.

He smiled affably. He was curious about them in spite of his misgivings. “What do you wish to speak to me about?”

Now the old man took charge, and the Borderman was quick to defer. “We have need of your skills as a smith.”

Urprox kept his smile in place. “I am retired.”

“Kinson says you are the best, that your work is the finest he has ever seen. He would not make that statement if it were not so. He knows a great deal about weapons and the artisans who craft them. Kinson has traveled to a good many places in the Four Lands.”

The Borderman nodded. “I saw the shopkeeper’s sword. I have never seen work like that, not anywhere. You have unique talent.”

Urprox Screl sighed. “Let me save you the trouble of wasting any more of your time. I was good at what I did, but I don’t do it anymore. I was a master smith, but those days are gone. I am retired. I don’t do metalwork of any kind. I don’t do specialty work, and I don’t accept commissions. I do wood carving, and that is all I do.”

The old man nodded, seemingly unfazed. He glanced past Urprox to the wooden bench and the carving that lay there, and asked, “Did you do that? May I have a look?”

Urprox shrugged and handed him the dog. The old man studied it for a long time, turning it over in his hands, tracing the shape of the wood. There was genuine interest in his eyes.

“This is very good,” he said finally, handing it to the girl, who accepted it without comment. “But not as good as your weapons work. Your true skill lies there. In the shaping of metal. Have you been carving wood long?”

“Since I was a child.” Urprox shifted his stance uneasily. “What do you want from me?”

“You must have had a very compelling reason to go back to wood carving after being so successful as a master smith,” the old man pressed, ignoring him.

Urprox felt his temper slip a notch. “I did. I had a very good reason, and I don’t want to talk about it with you.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do, but I am afraid that you must. We need your help, and my task in coming here is to persuade you of that.”

Urprox stared at him, more than a little astonished at his candor.

“Well, at least you are honest about your intentions. But now, of course, I am forewarned of them and am prepared to reject any argument you put forth. So you really are wasting your time.”

The old man smiled. “You were already forewarned. You are astute enough to discern that we have traveled some distance to see you and that we must therefore consider you quite important.”

The weathered face creased deeper. “Tell me, then. Why did you give it all up? Why did you quit being a smith? Why, when you had been one for so many years?”

Urprox Screl’s brow darkened. “I got tired of it.”

They waited for him to say more, but he refused to do so. The old man pursed his lips. “I think it was probably more than that.”

He paused a moment, and in that moment it seemed to Urprox as if the old man’s eyes turned white, as if they lost their color and their character and became as blank and unreadable as stone. It felt as if the old man was looking right through him.

“You lost heart,” the other said softly. “You are a gentle man with a wife and children, and for all your physical strength you do not like pain. But the weapons you forged were causing pain, and you knew that was happening and you detested it. You grew weary of knowing, and you decided enough was enough. You had money and other talents, so you simply closed your shop and walked away. No one knows this but you and Mina. No one understands. They think you mad. They shun you as they would a disease.”

The eyes cleared and fixed on him anew. “You are an outcast in your own city, and you do not understand why. But the truth is you are a man blessed with unique talent, and everyone who knows you or your work recognizes it and cannot accept that you would waste it so foolishly.”

Urprox Screl felt something cold creep up his spine. “You are entitled to your opinion. But now that you’ve given it, I don’t wish to talk to you anymore. I think you should leave.”

The old man looked off into the darkness, but he did not move from where he stood. The crowds had thinned behind him, and the night had closed about. Urprox Screl suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. Even this close to familiar surroundings, to people who knew him, and to help if he should need it, he felt completely isolated.

The girl handed back the carving of the dog. Urprox took it from her, looking deep into her great dark eyes, drawn to her in a way he could not explain. There was something in the look she gave him that suggested she understood what he had done. He had not seen that look in anyone’s eyes but Mina’s. It surprised him to find it here, in the eyes of a girl who did not know him at all.

“Who are you?” he asked again, looking from one face to the other.

It was the old man who spoke. “We are the bearers of a charge that transcends all else. We have come a long way to fulfill that charge. Our journey has taken us to many places, and even though you are important to its success, it will not end here. You are but one piece in the puzzle we must assemble. We have need of a sword, Urprox Screl, a sword unlike any other ever forged. It requires the hands of a master smith to shape it. It will have special properties. It is intended not to destroy, but to save. It will be both the hardest and finest work you have ever done or will ever do.”

The big man smiled nervously. “Bold words. But I don’t think I believe them.”

“Because you do not want to forge another weapon in your lifetime. Because you have left all that behind, and the pact you made with yourself will be compromised if you relent now.”

“That states it nicely. I reached an end to that part of my life. I swore I would never go back again. I see no need to change my mind for you.”

“What if I told you,” the old man said thoughtfully, “that you have a chance to save thousands of lives by forging this sword we seek? What if you knew that this was so? Would that change your mind?”

“But it isn’t so,” Urprox insisted stubbornly. “No weapon could achieve that.”

“Suppose that the lives of your wife and children were among those that you would save by forging this sword. Suppose that your refusal to help us would cost them their lives.”

The muscles in the big man’s shoulders bunched. “So my wife and children are in danger now — is that how you wish me to see it? You are indeed desperate if you are reduced to making threats!”

“Suppose I told you that all of this will come to pass within the next few years if you do not help us. All.”

Urprox experienced a whisper of self-doubt. The old man seemed so certain. “Who are you?” he demanded a final time.

The other stepped forward him, coming very close. Urprox Screl could see every seam in his weathered face, every stray hair on his graying head and beard. “My name is Bremen,” the old man answered, his eyes locking on the smith’s. “Do you know of me?”

Urprox nodded slowly. It took every ounce of strength he possessed to hold his ground. “I have heard of you. You are one of the Druids.”

Again, the smile. “Are you frightened by that?”

“No.”

“Of me?”

The big man said nothing, his jaw clenched.

Bremen nodded slowly. “You needn’t be. I would be your friend, though it might seem otherwise. It is not my intention to threaten you. I speak only the truth. There is need for your talent, and that need is real and desperate. It extends the length and breadth of the Four Lands. This is no game we play. We are fighting for the lives of many people, and your wife and children are among them. I do not exaggerate or dissemble when I say that we are all they have left to defend against what threatens.”

Urprox felt his certainty waver anew. “And what exactly is that?”

The old man stepped back. “I will show you.”

His hand rose and brushed at the air before Urprox Screl’s bewildered eyes. The air shimmered and took life. He could see the ruins of a city, the buildings flattened into rubble, the ground steaming and smoking, the air thick with ash and grit. The city was Dechtera. Its people all lay dead in the streets and doorways. What moved through the shadows picking at the bodies was not human, but misshapen and perverse. Something imagined — yet real enough here. Real, and in the vision of Dechtera’s destruction, all that would survive.

The vision vanished. Urprox shuddered as the old man materialized once more, standing before him, eyes hard and set. “Did you see?” he asked quietly. Urprox nodded. “That was the future of your city and its people. That was the future of your family.

That was all that remained. But by the time that vision comes to pass, everything north will already be gone. The Elves and the Dwarves will be destroyed. The dark wave that inundated them will have reached here.”

“These are lies!” Urprox spoke the words quickly, out of anger and fear. He did not stop to reason. He was incautious and headstrong in his denial. Mina and his children dead? Everyone he knew gone? It wasn’t possible!

“Harsh truths,” Bremen said quietly. “Not lies.”

“I don’t believe you! I don’t believe any of this!”

“Look at me,” the old man commanded softly. “Look into my eyes. Look deep.”

Urprox Screl did so, unable to do otherwise, compelled to obey.

He stared into Bremen’s eyes and watched them turn white once more. He felt himself drawn into a liquid pool that embraced and swallowed him. He could feel himself join with the old man in some inexplicable way, become a part of him, become privy to what he knew. There were flashes of knowledge given in the moments of that joining, truths that he could neither challenge nor avoid. His life was suddenly revealed to turn, all that had been and might be, the past and the future come together in a montage of images and glimpses that were so terrifying and so overwhelming that Urprox Screl clutched at himself in despair.

“Don’t!” he whispered, shutting his eyes against what he was seeing. “Don’t show me any more!”

Bremen broke the connection, and Urprox staggered back a step before straightening. The cold that had begun at the base of his spine had now seeped all the way through him. The old man nodded. Their eyes locked. “I am finished with you. You have seen enough to understand that I do not lie. Do not question me further. Accept that my need is genuine. Help me do what I must.”

Urprox nodded, his big hands clenching into fists. The ache in his chest was palpable. “I will listen to what you have to say,” he allowed grudgingly. “That much, at least, I can do.”

But he knew, even as he spoke the words, that he was going to do much more.

So Bremen sat him down on the bench and then took a seat next to him. They became two old friends discussing a business proposition. The Borderman and the girl stood silently before them, listening. On the street beyond, the people of the city passed by unknowing. No one approached. No one even glanced his way.

Perhaps they could not even see him anymore, Urprox thought.

Perhaps he had been rendered invisible. For as Bremen spoke, he began to recognize how much magic was at work in this business.

Bremen told him first of the Warlock Lord and his invasion of the other lands. The Northland was gone, the Eastland invaded, the Westland at risk. The Southland would be last, and by then, as the vision had shown, it would be too late for all of them. The Warlock Lord was a creature of magic who had managed to survive beyond mortal life and had summoned creatures of supernatural strength to aid his cause. No ordinary weapon would destroy him. What was needed was the sword that Urprox would forge, a thing of magic as well as iron, a blade that combined the skills and knowledge of both master smith and Druid, of science and magic alike.

“It must be strong in both ways,” Bremen explained. “It must be able to withstand the worst of what will be sent to destroy it, whether iron or magic. The forging must make it as invulnerable as possible, and that will be difficult. Science and magic. You will provide the former, I the latter. But your work is paramount, because if the sword lacks the physical characteristics needed to sustain it, the magic I supply cannot hold.”

“What do you know of forging metals?” Urprox asked, interested now in spite of himself.

“That metals must be combined and tempered just so for the alloy to gain the necessary strength.” Bremen reached into his robes and brought forth the formula that Cogline had supplied.

“This is what we will need to achieve the desired result.”

Urprox took the sheet of paper and studied it carefully. He nodded as he read, thinking. Yes, this is the right combination of metals, the proper mix of firings. Then he stopped, smiling broadly. “These temperatures! Have you looked closely at what this mix requires? No one has seen such temperatures in the firing of metal since the old world was destroyed! The furnaces and the formulas alike were lost forever! We haven’t the means to achieve what is asked!”

Bremen nodded calmly. “What heat will your forge withstand? How strong a firing?”

The smith shook his head. “Any amount. Whatever heat we can generate. I built the furnace myself, and it has layered walls of stone and earth to insulate and preserve it. But that is not the problem. The problem is with the fuel. We lack a fuel strong enough to produce the amount of heat this formula requires! You must know that!”

Bremen took the formula from his hands and slipped it back inside his robes. “We need maintain the higher temperatures for only a short period of time. I can help with that. I possess the means that you lack. Do you understand?”

Urprox did. The old man would use magic to generate the necessary heat. But was that possible? Was his magic strong enough? The temperatures needed were enormous! He shook his head, staring at the other doubtfully.

“Will you do it?” Bremen asked quietly. “One last firing of the forge, one final molding of metals?”

The master smith hesitated, come back briefly to his old self in these past few moments, to the man he had been for so many years, intrigued by the challenge of forging this weapon, impelled by consideration for the safety of his family and his neighbors, of his city and his land. There were reasons to do what the old man asked, he admitted. But there were reasons to refuse as well.

“We need you, Urprox,” the Borderman said suddenly, and the girl nodded silently in agreement. All of them waited for his response, expectant and determined.

Well, he thought, his wood carving was not of the same quality as his metalwork, that much was true. Never had been. It was an escape, though he might argue otherwise. Come right down to it, it was foolish to claim that it was of any real importance. So what would it mean for him to cast one last blade, a weapon that might have significance beyond any other he had ever forged, that might be used in a way that would save lives? Did the old man lie about this? He could not be absolutely sure, but he did not think so. He had been able to tell something of men, as he could of metal, all his life. He felt it was so here. This man, Druid or no, evinced honor and integrity. He believed in his cause, and it was clear that he was convinced that Urprox Screl should, too.

The big man shook his head, smiled, and shrugged. “Ah, well. If it will get you out of my life, I will make you your sword.”

They talked until late into the night of what was needed to undertake the forging. Urprox would have to bring in fuel to fire the furnace and metals to mix the alloy. It would take several days to bring the temperature up to the level necessary to begin the process. The forging itself could be done fairly quickly if Bremen’s magic was sufficient to raise the heat beyond that. The mold for the sword was already cast, and only small modifications were needed to give it the shape that Bremen required.

Bremen showed him the medallion he had hidden within his robes, showed him the strange, compelling image of the hand clenched about the burning torch. It was called the Eilt Druin, the Druid told him, and it must be embedded in the hilt of the sword when it was cast. Urprox shook his head. It would melt from the heat, he advised, the workmanship too fine to survive the tempering. But the old man shook his head and told him not to worry. The Eilt Druin was forged of magic, and the magic would protect it. The magic, he intoned, would give the sword the power necessary to destroy the Warlock Lord.

Urprox Screl didn’t know if he believed this or not, but he accepted it at face value. It was not his problem, after all, to decide if the sword would do what the Druid intended. It was his job to forge it in accordance with the formula provided and the science he possessed, so that it would emerge from the firings as strong as possible. Three days, then, to prepare. But there were other considerations as well. Everyone knew that he was out of business. The moment materials began to arrive, there would be questions. The moment the furnace was fired, the questions would increase. And what of the attention that the forging of the sword itself would draw?

But the old man seemed unconcerned with this, telling Urprox Screl not to worry, simply to go about his business and to concentrate on readying himself and his forge for the task at hand. While preparations were under way, he and his companions would remain close at hand and deal with whatever interest the population of the city might evince.

So it began. They separated that night with a handshake to bind their agreement, the three outlanders more satisfied with the result than Urprox Screl, but the smith was excited and intrigued by the task set to him in spite of his misgivings. He went home to his family and in the slow hours of the early morning sat with Mina at the kitchen table and told her of his decision. As it always was between them, he held nothing back. She listened to him and questioned him, but she did not advise him to change his mind. It was for him to make the choice, she said, because he understood better than she what was being asked of him and how he would live with it afterward. For her part, it seemed as if he had been shown good reason to accept the work offered him, and judgment of the men and the girl should be based on his own evaluation of their character and not on the rumors and gossip of others.

Mina, as always, understood better than anyone.

Hard coal, mined in the Eastland borders and shipped west, filled the fire pit and the fuel bins of the forge by midday next. The doors to the building were thrown open, and the first firing began.

The forge was lit and the heat brought up. Metals arrived, requisitioned in accordance with Cogline’s formula. Molds were uncovered and brought out for cleaning. Disdaining help, Urprox worked alone in the shadowy, hot interior of the building. Help was not necessary. He had constructed his forge so that winches and pulleys guided by a single hand could move everything required from one comer to the other. As for the inevitable crowds that gathered to see what he was about, they did not intrude as much as he had feared. Instead, they contented themselves simply with watching. There was a rumor given out — from where, it was not certain — that Urprox Screl was firing the furnace not because he was back in business as a smith, but because he had a buyer for the forge who wanted to make certain that it would work as advertised before he laid down his money. The owner, it was whispered, was from the deep Southland, a man who was visiting with his young wife and aged father. They could be seen from time to time at Screl’s side, or by the entry to the forge, or about the streets of the city, coming and going in pursuit of further information concerning their intended acquisition, trying to determine if the purchase they sought was a reasonable one.

For Urprox, the time passed swiftly. His doubts, so strong thai first night, vanished with the unexpected exhilaration he experienced at preparing for the challenge of this unusual firing. No smith living had ever worked with magic in the Four Lands — at least not to anyone’s knowledge — and it was impossible not to be excited by the prospect. He knew in his heart, just as Kinson Ravenlock had acknowledged, that he was the best at his trade, that he had mastered the skill of shaping metal into blades as no one else had. Now he was being asked to go beyond what he had ever attempted, to create a weapon that would be better than his best, and he was enough of a craftsman to appreciate the extent of the confidence being placed in his talent. He still did not know if the blade would accomplish the task that Bremen had set for it, if it would forestall in some way the invasion the old man had warned against, if it could in any way protect against the threat of the Warlock Lord. These were questions for others. For Urprox Screl, there was only the challenge of applying his skills in a way he had never dreamed possible.

So wrapped up was he in his preparations that he was two days into them before he remembered that there had been no mention at all of payment — and in the next instant realized that it made no difference, that payment in this case was not important.

He had forgotten nothing in the two years since he had closed down the forge, and it was rewarding to discover that he still knew exactly what to do. He went about his business with confidence and determination, building the heat in the fuel pit, measuring its potency with small tests that melted metals of varying hardness and consistency. Additional fuels and materials that he had requisitioned arrived and were stored. The Druid, the Borderman, and the girl stopped by to study his progress and disappeared again. He did not know where they went when they left him. He did not know how closely they monitored his progress. They spoke to him only occasionally, and then it was the old man who did most of the talking. Now and then he would question his commitment to this task, to his belief in the old man’s tale of the destruction that threatened. But the questions were momentary and fleeting. By now he was like a runaway wagon, rolling ahead with such speed that nothing could slow him. The work itself was all that mattered.

He was surprised at how much he had missed it. The acrid smell of fuel as it was consumed in the flames, the clanging of raw metals on their way to the crucible, the sear of the fire against his skin, the rise of ash and smoke from the furnace chimney — they were old friends come to greet him on his return. It frightened him to think how easily he had abandoned his vow not to go back into his trade. It frightened him even more to think that this time he might not be able to walk away.

On the third night, late into the evening, the three came to him for the last time — the Druid Bremen, the Borderman Kinson Ravenlock, and the girl whose name he never did learn. The forge was ready, and they seemed to know this without being told, arriving after sunset and greeting him in a manner that indicated they had come to witness the fulfillment of his promise. The metals they needed for the firing were laid out, the molds set open and ready for the pour, and the winches, pulleys, chains, and crucibles that would guide the raw material through the various stages of preparation carefully set in place. Urprox knew the old man’s formula by heart. Everything was ready.

They sat together for a time in the shadows of the forge, waiting for the city to quiet and its people to sleep, letting the heat wash over them and the night draw on. They spoke little, listening to the sounds, lost in their separate thoughts. The populace of the city churned and bustled like waves washing against the rocks of some distant shore, always just out of sight. Midnight approached, and the crowds drifted to the ale houses and pleasure dens, and the streets began to clear.

The old man rose then and took Urprox Screl’s hand in his own and held it. “You must do your best work this night,” he advised firmly. “You must, if we are to succeed.”

The smith nodded. He was stripped to the waist and his muscles glistened with sweat. “I will do what is needed. Don’t you forget to do the same.”

Bremen smiled at the rejoinder, the seams of his aged face etched deep by the light that seeped from the furnace, back where the fires flared through cracks in the bin door. “You’re not afraid of this at all, are you?”

“Afraid? Of fire and metal? Of shaping one more weapon after thousands, even if it’s to be forged with magic?” Urprox Screl shook his head. “I should sooner be frightened of the air I breathe. What we do here tonight is no different than what I have done all my life. A variation perhaps, but no more. Besides, what is the worst that can befall me? That I fail? That won’t happen.”

“The magic is always unpredictable. Even if you are steady in the application of your smith’s skill, the magic might not prove sufficient.”

The smith studied the old man for a moment, then laughed slowly. “You don’t believe that. You are as much a craftsman as I. You would die before you let the magic fail you.”

There was a long silence as the two faced each other, the heat of the forge washing over them, its light flickering raggedly against their lined faces. “You are taking a final measure of me,” the smith observed quietly. “Don’t bother. It’s not necessary. I am ready for this.”

But the old man shook his head. “The measure I take is of what this will do to you. You cannot work with magic and come away unchanged. Your life will never be the same after tonight. You must sense that.”

Urprox Screl gave the old man a slow, ironic smile. “I depend upon it. Let me confess something. Save for Mina and my children, I am sick of my life. I am tired of what I have become. I didn’t understand that until you came. Now I understand it all too well. I would at this moment welcome any change.”

He felt the other’s eyes probe him for a moment, felt their weight settle somewhere deep within, and he wondered if he had spoken too rashly.

Then the old man nodded. “Very well. Let’s begin.”

There would be stories of what happened that night for years afterward, tales passed from mouth to mouth that would take on the trappings of legend. They would come from various sources, but all would have their genesis in the glimpses caught by passersby who paused for a momentary look at what was taking place within Urprox Screl’s great forge. The doors stood open to the night so that fresh air could be drawn in and stale heat vented out, and those who forced themselves close enough were witnesses to visions they later declared to have been born out of madness.

A sword was forged by Urprox Screl that night, but the manner of its shaping would be forever in dispute.

It was agreed who was present. They passed through the smoky, ash-laden air like wraiths, bent down against the heat and glare of the forge, surging upward momentarily to cany out a task in response to the demands of the casting, then ducking away again. There was the smith, the acknowledged master of his trade, the man who had given up his work for two long years and then, for a single night, without a word to anyone, gone back to it. There was the old man cloaked in his black robes, the one who seemed at times almost ethereal, at times as hard and certain as stone. And there were the Borderman and the young woman. Each had a role to play. The smith and the old man worked shoulder to shoulder in the forging of the weapon. The younger man served as their helper, acting on command to fetch this or carry that, lending his strength and weight where it was needed. The girl stood by the door and made certain that no one tried to enter or linger too long to watch. Strangely enough, she was the one who made the strongest impression. Some said she changed shape to warn off those too curious, becoming for an instant a netherworld beast or a moor cat. Some said she danced naked before the great furnace in a rite that aided in the tempering. Some said that if she but looked at you, your mind was lost. All agreed that she was more than what she appeared.

That there was magic in use that night was unquestioned. The heat of the fire was too intense, its glare too strong, its explosions, when the molten ore spilled, too raw. Some said they saw green light lance from the old man’s hands to feed the fires of the forge, saw it give aid to the winches and pulleys in lifting the casting away from the flames, watched it hone the blade after its molding to smooth and polish its rough surface. While the master smith sent the various metals into the furnace, while he mixed and then stirred the alloy, the old man muttered chants. The metals would go into the fire and come out again. The molten one would be poured into a mold, tempered, and hammered out again. And each time the old man’s magic would flare brightly in support. Oh, yes, there was magic employed in the forging and make no mistake about it, the tale-tellers all agreed.

They spoke as well of an omnipresent image of a hand holding forth a burning torch. No one understood its significance, but it was a specter that seemed to appear everywhere. Some saw it on a medallion the old man took from beneath his robes. Some saw it reflected by the fires of the forge on the walls of the building.

Some saw it rise out of the fires themselves, newly born in the pit’s hottest core, a spirit risen from the dead. But those who saw it last saw it fixed to the handle of the great broadsword, fused with the metal cast in the forge, the image burnished and glowing, the hand clenched at the joinder of blade and pommel, the flame rising upward along the blade toward its tip.

The casting, tempering, shaping, and honing of the sword took the remainder of the night. There were strange noises beyond the clang of the smith’s hammer and the whoosh of steam as the blade was cooled. There were colors in the firing that no one had ever seen before, a rainbow spectrum that transcended all experience of forging in a city of smiths. There were smells and tastes in the air that did not belong, dark and forbidding. The people who approached the forge that night took quick, anxious looks, wondered at the fury of what they witnessed, and then passed on.

By morning, the casting was complete and the three strangers were gone. No one saw them depart. No one knew where they went. The sword was gone as well, and it was assumed that the trio had taken it with them. The forge stood empty in the dawn light, its fires cooling as they would continue to cool for many days.

Some few who ventured too close to the still open doors claimed that the earth sparked beneath their feet as they tried to peer inside.

Magic, they whispered. You could tell.

Urprox Screl went home and did not come back. The forge, he announced, was closed once more. He spoke to his friends and neighbors in a normal way and assured them that nothing untoward had happened that night. He had cast a sword for potentiai buyers, and they had gone back to consider the value of their purchase. He smiled when he said it. He seemed quite calm. But his eyes had a haunted, faraway look.

Within a month he had left the city. Mina and his children and grandchildren all went with him, the entire family. By then there were rumors that he had sold himself body and soul to the dark things that lived north. No one wanted much to do with him. It was just as well that he was gone, everyone agreed.

No one knew where he went. There were rumors, of course.

There were always rumors.

Some said he went north into the Borderlands and settled his family there. Some said he changed his name so that no one would know who he was.

One man claimed, years later, to have seen him. A trader of jewelry, he traveled a broad stretch of the Four Lands in search of new markets. It was in a small village above the Rainbow Lake, he reported, that he had come upon Urprox Screl.

Only he wasn’t using the name Screl anymore.

He was using the name Creel.