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‘That dagger can be many things,’ she continued remorselessly. ‘It serves as the tool of slaying, and no matter how blunt the edge, it draws blood each and every time. Blink sleepy eyes open, Hunn Raal, and reach for the goblet – to numb every cut you make upon your own soul.’
‘No more, I beg you—’
‘Who will bless your beloved altar? That question is asked again and again, day upon day, year upon year. A lifetime of that one question. Set that gift of blessing outside the borders of your flesh, or claim it as your own – the choice matters not.
‘But should you curse instead of blessing, Hunn Raal, ah, that is entirely of your own making. And so wounding yourself, you make a habit of wounding others. A life’s habit.
‘And yet,’ she added in vicious contempt, ‘your Urusander dares speak of justice. If he would have it, who would be left standing?’
The child, hovering in the air, flecked with ashes, blinked languidly.
‘Send it away,’ he whispered.
The conjuration vanished. ‘Balance. The blessing and the knife. The time has come, Mortal Sword, to forge us the symbols you will need.’
As if tugged, Hunn Raal stumbled forward, and moments later found himself standing beside Bilikk. The blacksmith was weeping, but no tears survived the scalding heat.
‘The First Forge. Oh, it manifests in myriad ways. I doubt Draconus found it beneath a sky of white. In his place of finding, it would be dark, with the sky sheathed in impenetrable smoke. Only the glow from the forge’s eager mouth to guide him. Hunn Raal, have you brought what I asked?’
The Mortal Sword reached to the hide-wrapped object he had strapped to his weapon-belt. He loosened the bindings and let the hide fall away, revealing a length of bone, sun-bleached and weathered. ‘Dog,’ he said. ‘Or wolf, if it matters.’
‘One more elegant in its irony than the other, Hunn Raal. The dogs of my children, or their wild brethren. Found on the plain, yes?’
‘Yet another of my commands that left the scouts bemused, but they found what you asked for, goddess. But is this all we are to have? A thigh bone to make the Sceptre of Light? What need for a forge?’
‘Light’s essence dwells in fire.’ He sensed her amusement. ‘You have recovered your arrogance, Hunn Raal. Your sly superiority – the drunk’s first and only game. But you remain utterly ignorant. He kept you all children, and that was a mistake. And in your isolation … when at last he offered you all a mother, it was too late.’
‘Enough of your insults. Bilikk waits – guide him in what must be done.’
‘I am not the one to guide your blacksmith,’ she replied. ‘Here, the will of the First Forge commands. It chooses whom to use. If you had come alone, your lack of talent, the dearth of your knowledge and skill, would have yielded a poor result. But this one, I imagine, will prove a worthy source.’
Bilikk had remained kneeling, motionless, his head lowered with his chin on his chest.
Proffering the thigh bone, Hunn Raal said, ‘Here, take this.’
But the man made no response.
Tapping his shoulder with one end of the thigh bone elicited nothing. Crouching, Hunn Raal leaned close to peer at Bilikk’s face. ‘Abyss take us, the fool’s dead.’
‘Well, yes. You have need of his skills and experience. I think we are ready—’
As if he had been punched, Hunn Raal’s head snapped back, and in the stunned confusion filling his mind, he was assailed by a sudden rush of memories not his own. Fragments, shredded and momentarily nonsensical, images flashing in his thoughts, igniting behind his eyes – the village was little more than his extended family. He knew them all, and there was warmth, and any child – every child – was safe. In those years, had he known it, he had lived in a paradise, in a realm where love abounded, and even the common petty rivalries and disputes as might plague any large family proved rare and quick to wither on the vine.
There was something there. The commonplace was made somehow sacred. There was no reason for it, nothing he could point to, and dwelling in its midst felt wholly natural, and in those early years he had no sense that the world beyond the village was any different. He – I—
How we lived was how we were meant to live. How we lived
was, I soon discovered to my horror, what others only aspired to, or dreamed of, or cynically dismissed as impossible.
I was a child there, and then an apprentice to Cage, learning the art of the forge. For all the hard tools of the farmers and the coopers and wheelwrights, Cage’s greatest love was in the making of toys. From castoffs, from tailings, from whatever he could find. And not simple creations for the village children, either! No, my friends, Cage crafted tiny mechanisms, physical riddles and elaborate jokes that confounded and delighted all.
For all his size, he was a gentle man, was Cage. Until the day he left the smithy and walked to the far end of the village, went into the house of Tanner Harok, and there broke the man’s neck.
Paradise was a living thing, like a tree, and occasionally, among its many roots sunk deep into the rich earth, one root turned foul and infected, and finally rotten.
Infidelity. A word I’d not even understood until then. A crime of betrayal. The victim was trust, and its death sent shock through the entire village.
Poor Cage. So bitterly perfect in his naming – he’d found his knowing a prison, tormented by what he could not ignore.
