What You See
WC: 2,513
WC: 2,513
His hammer struck the anvil and the familiar peal of metal striking metal comforted him. But only a little.
Over a year ago his home had been in one of the remote villages on Hiemas, where the cold air made his joints ache, and the biting wind blasted his face as frequently as the forge fire. It was weather to live in and be reminded that you were not simply alive, but that you lived. You were doing something. You had purpose.
Now? Now he made his home where the air was dry, and the temperatures ran as hot as his furnace. Where the night’s cold was a shadow of what he had known, what he had loved. It reminded him every night that he was not in Hiemas, that he was not home. That it would never compare. Not for him.
No, now he lived on Aridus. Far, far, away from that familiar world but also aware from that horrifying figure with the tattered hood, and phantom words. Even now he could still hear the rasping voice, stuttering, grasping for a single word, “...F...orge… F…f...o...orge….”
That solitary encounter had been enough to frighten the old smith that he had decided to move. It hadn’t been the threat of vistra, nor the wild beasts in the forest surrounding his home, or even the bandits that roamed the roads.
All it had taken was a tattered hooded cloak, and one dead arm dropping to the ground.
As a testament to his determination, not even the cost of moving all the way to Aridus had deterred Ilan Cudere.
Convincing Cecile hadn’t been difficult either. For more than fifteen years his wife had wanted to move, stated it on more than a handful of occasions, but she knew what Hiemas meant to him and never pushed him to move. Viskar bless that woman. She didn’t bother questioning the sudden decision either. Who would?
He would.
The hammer fell again in a constant steady rhythm, beating down and slowly shaping the metal.
If Cecile came to him one day, asking to do something that he knew she would rather not, he’d sit her down and force a confession. If it was something he could fix with his hammer, he would. And you’d be amazed at what a hammer could fix.
But even if she had asked him, he knew she couldn’t fix it. Nothing could. Something was wrong, gravely wrong, and not with him. No, it was the world.
It was like the world was the same, just slightly… off. Like it was listing, only no one could tell.
No one but him. He could feel it, but couldn’t tell how or why. The Viskar certainly wasn’t going to tell him, nor were any of the vis in all of their infinite wisdom. What he wouldn’t give for just a fragment of that knowledge, that wisdom. He’d be able to live the rest of his life quietly, avoiding any and all trouble.
Ilan inhaled sharply, drawing in more hot air from his workshop into his lungs. The familiar fire there felt suffocating, but exhilarating. He loved being here. More than he had ever loved serving in a militia. Sweat ran down his arms and chest in streams, and the grip on his hammer was beginning to feel loose.
He’d have to stop soon. He didn’t want to. But it was late, and he was already close to being done.
He went back to work, the ringing strikes of his hammer on cooling metal dominating the space that was his sanctuary. As he worked, in between one set of strikes and the next, he heard something move in the room beyond the workshop.
Immediately he was thrust back to that night, the cold wind slipping in between the cracks of his door, the strange trespasser slithering out from the adjacent room. He half expected to see everything play out again as before, with the trespasser trying to sneak out like a snake from between rocks, embarrassed at being caught and ready to beg for his shelter.
His grip on his hammer tightened, briefly, as he held it aloft. As if he was being caught mid-swing, and was now deciding if he should hit his metal, or hit the intruder.
Rather than some stranger, Cecile’s kindly face peered in through the doorway.
His shoulders relaxed, and he lowered his hammer slowly until he could set it down on the table nearby.
That’s right, he reminded himself, this isn’t Hiemas. The workshop’s connected to the house. Strange that they’d chose to do that, here, where it gets so Bell-damned hot.
Cecile eventually stepped forward, and Ilan felt the familiar warm beat of love in his chest. Time and age would never diminish what he felt for her. How lovely he found her, and how much he needed her.
She smiled at him like the it was the first time they had met.
“Thirty years,” he began, his voice was hoarse and rough from spending the whole day at his forge. He was thirsty, but only now realized it. He wished he sounded more like the love he felt. Clearing his throat, he raised one hand up to his mouth before restarting, “Thirty years, and you walk into my temple after we move. I’m beginning to wonder if it was the cold that kept you away.”
Her smile widened, and suddenly the wrinkled lines around her eyes disappeared. Her green eyes sparkled, and he forgot that they were pushing fifty years in age. He wasn’t old and jaded man that preferred the company of his hammer and anvil. For a moment, he thought the grey in her hair had disappeared, returning to the dark nut-brown he so fondly remembered.
“Since we’ve been making so many changes recently,” she replied without a moment's hesitation. She had always been bolder than he was. More willing to poke at him and make him blush. He went to great strides to make sure she did not succeed. She did anyways. “I figured one more change couldn’t hurt.”
Ilan only replied with a terse grunt before he turned back to his work. The metal was getting too cold. He had to dunk it now or the whole thing would go to the scrap.
Using the pair of tongs that held the metal, the old blacksmith picked up what was supposed to be the final part of his order, and shoved it into the barrel of treated water to quench the heat.
Water hissed and steamed, faint white coils of slipping upwards until they became nothing.
He didn’t want to talk now. Not with his work almost done. Not with him feeling as if he was working in the maw of a beast instead of his workshop. Why was he so on edge?
“It could,” he grunted. He pulled the metal from the water and turned to set the worked metal back on the anvil. Tomorrow he’d begin the engravings. For now he could start tracing the lines, marking the different parts that he was going to have to order from some of the other craftsmen.
Cecile was at his back then. Her small arms trying to wrap around his waist, to hold him still long enough for her to say something without his work getting in the way. Her head rested on his back, and they just stood there for a long time as the forge began to die.
“I know it couldn’t have been easy,” she began, “moving all the way out here. But I want you to know how happy you’ve made me. Being able to come back home after all these years…,” Was she crying? She sounded like she was fighting down tears. Why would she be crying? “I was so happy when you told me you wanted to move.”
Ilan looked down at her arms wrapped around him. At how her tanned skin contrasted to his naturally dark skin. “I’m too old to deal with the cold,” he tried to sound dismissive, as if leaving his home hadn’t been a tough decision. Once again the image of that decaying limb came to his mind, and he reaffirmed that leaving hadn’t been tough. It had been the right decision. It meant Cecile was safe. “Besides, I needed a challenge. The aridusians merchants like my work, and buy a lot of it. The craftsman here don’t like that, so they talk my work down, as if they could do it to.”
He forced a smile at this, and felt odd that it fit so readily on his face.
“Still… all your friends, your family….”
He laughed. He needed to laugh for her. He couldn’t have her worry, or feel like she was responsible. He couldn’t have her sad. Not his angel. “We didn’t even move back to your town! We’re both starting fresh.”
“But my family is a few days away, and yours--”
“Is right here,” he said, interrupting her. He reached down for her arms, and gently took hold of it. He pried himself free of her feeble grip and turned around so that he could wrap her up in his arms. He looked down at her, his brown eyes staring into the green starry pools that were her eyes. “I ain’t got anything but a couple of cousins, ‘sides.”
He held her there for a long while before pushing her to arms length and fixing her with a serious look. In his best no-nonsense tone, he told her, “Don’t you dare start getting all emotional on me because you think I’ll be lonely. I got everything I need from the woman I love and married, to my tools. So long as I got those…, well everything will be alright.”
Cecile seemed to relax at this, and gave him a defeated smile, reluctantly replying with, “If you say so, dear. I still feel like I pushed you into this somehow. All those years of--”
“Of telling me you weren’t happy, and I selfishly ignored you,” he interrupted. “You married me, and I you, but I didn’t tell you how married I was to the land. Had you know before we took our vows before the Viskar’s watchful eye, I think we’d have moved a long time ago.”
“Had I known,” she countered, some of the old coy fire returning to her voice, “I think the Viskar might have blushed at what I would have done.”
He snorted, “You were hardly a devious woman, my love. I doubt you grew up with a sinful thought passing your mind.” She slugged him playfully, and gave him a side-ways look, telling him that she could tell him otherwise, but wasn’t. He’d won this round. He turned her around gently, then, and started moving her towards the door. “I need to clean up shop. I’ll be in shortly.”
He leaned down and pecked her cheek before he let her leave the workshop, closing the door behind her as she left.
After Cecile left, Ilan went about putting his tools away and choking the forge.
The work was mechanical. Though he might have moved, his workshop had been set up almost exactly as it had been at their old home. If he wanted, Ilan could walk through the room, or even work really, blindfolded. The quality of his metalwork might decrease, but the fact that he could brought the laicar immense pride.
As he worked, the candle burned low. The flickering light of their flames cast long shadows into the darkest corners of the room, and suddenly Ilan felt as if he were being watched. Spectral eyes watched him, floating somewhere he could not see, in a body that was not there.
No,he told himself, forcing himself to dismiss the foreboding feeling. No one was there in that workshop except for himself. There would be no visitors tonight.
Something clattered to the ground, startling the old smith. He spun on his heels immediately, looking for the source of the clamor, only to see his hammer lying on the ground next to the anvil and a cloaked figure hovering over it.
A cold shiver ran down Ilan’s spine as he recognized the tattered cloak. It was exactly like the one from a year ago. That couldn’t possibly be, as he had thrown that one into his forge fire and watched it burn.
The visitor lifted their hooded head and looked in Ilan’s direction, and grated out a single word, stuttered and broken as it was, “Fffff… fffoorrrrg…. Fffffoooorrrrgggggggah. Fffffooorrgggeeeeee.”
“I won’t make anything for you monster,” the smith shot back, fear layering his voice. He didn’t know what this thing was, but it was wrong. It shouldn’t exist. It was something the Viskar damned. “Begone with you! Leave my home and never return!”
The creature seemed to writhe beneath its cloak, rolling its head back and forth as if to deny the words it heard. As it convulsed, it struggled to chant the same solitary word it always did, “FFffffoor-- Ffooooorrrrrgeh…. Fooooooorrrrrrrggge! Fooorgggge!”
Ilan had been away from the militia for years, but even so his training came to the forefront of his mind. He had to act, now, every ounce of his body told him to move. It told him to spring on this monster.
Move!
Act!
Now!
His body moved on its own, crossing the room quickly until he pounced on the visitor, tackling them to the ground.
Something was wrong.
Something was beneath the cloak, but it was too light. Too insubstantial to be anything.
Then Ilan remembered the arm. How it had fallen to the ground when he had pulled back the cloak a year ago. What would he find this time?
He would know soon enough, as the cloak and Ilan hit the ground with a sickening snap. The snap of bones breaking, but they weren’t the smith’s.
Ilan rolled off the cloak immediately and pulled it away. There, on the ground, lay a decaying arm amid a poorly reconstructed skeleton. The only piece Ilan didn’t find was the skull.
He stood there in the dying candle light, terrified and confused. What was this monster, and why did it want his forge?
Whatever the reason, he couldn’t run any more. If the creature could chase him all the way across Araevis to this Vis-forsaken desert land, then it could chase him to the bottom of the Copia ocean if it wanted.
But this was beyond him. He was a smith.
He needed help. Would the priests be able to help? Would Castus show him mercy with this horrible lot? Or was this perhaps some sort of punishment? Had Castus decided to tally Ilan’s past sins?
No priests, he decided. But he would have to find someone else, and that would take time. How long would it take that creature to be back? Another year? He didn’t know.
All that he did know was that he was scared for his wife’s life, and he couldn’t wait. The search would start tonight.