“WHY IS THE HEARTH EMPTY?” asked Anderle. Night had fallen. A dozen flickering rush lights made the smithy a temple of the Mysteries.
“That is always the first task, to make the fire . . .” His voice rasped with suppressed emotion. “The fire is the goddess with us, the power of transformation that hardens what was soft, and make soft things hard. Fire is change. Lady, will you bless the hearth?”
A shiver of memory passed through her as she remembered the frozen Lake where she had invoked the Fire. Had that been the moment when the balance tipped and the changes that had brought them both here began? She took a deep breath and stretched out her hands above the rock-rimmed oval on the floor.
“Be thou the womb, burn with desire, transmute and transform, Lady of Fire!”
He lifted the basket and tipped the glistening black chunks of charcoal into the hearth, cascading onto the packed earth with a curiously musical sound. Carefully he spread and banked them, with a depression in the middle opposite the point where the bellows pipe fit through the hearth wall.
“Sit, while I make a flame,” he told her, picking up the fire drill and the piece of soft punkwood that had been laid ready. She sensed that the energy he put into this action was also part of the ritual. As he looped the bowstring around the shaft of the drill and settled its head into the groove in the wood, she took her seat on the bench at the head of the hearth.
Surely, to kindle fire with a bow and drill was a kind of magic, she thought as he steadied the wood between his knees and began to spin the shaft with regular thrusts of the bow. To keep the drill at the correct angle and maintain the spin required considerable skill. Fascinated, she watched as he swayed to the motion.
“Spin the shaft and chant the spell . . .” she whispered. “Work the bow and wind it well. Harden shaft and swiftly spin, heat release the flame within. . . .”
He looked up, something kindling in his gaze that awakened an answering heat between her thighs. Startled, she stood, and found her hands lifting in the same pose as that of the clay goddess who watched over the hearth. Had he intended this? “The symbol is nothing, the reality is all,” was a watchword of the Mysteries. The bend and sway of the man’s body, the steady penetration of the drill, the friction that was even now beginning to kindle a faint thread of smoke from the wood, were both symbol and reality.
They had not discussed how he was to call the goddess into her, but Anderle realized that she herself had pronounced the spell. Her body moved in instinctive response to his motion, her breathing altered to match his. The smoke was a blue swirl; the scent of pine filled the forge.
“Lady of Fire, hear me . . .” Velantos whispered. “Lady of the Forge, be with me! I offer you my strength, I kindle your flame, in my need I call you! Lady, come to me now!”
Anderle could have called fire, but he had kindled a fire in her instead. She strained for completion, but it was her spirit that opened to receive the Power. Fire blazed suddenly as Velantos nudged dry reed and then thin shavings into the smoldering groove, and heat surged from Anderle’s sex to fill her whole body, leaving her consciousness no more than a corner from which to share the ecstasy. In a single swift movement he tipped the flaming kindling into the nest of charcoal and blew.
“Make Me a bed of coals—” she told him, and the vestige of Anderle that remained within noted that she was speaking in the tongue of the Middle Sea. His startled gaze turned to wonder. The charcoal was catching quickly. As the temperature in the smithy rose, she loosened the pins that held her garment and cast it aside. At the naked lust in the smith’s gaze, the fire within her grew. Smiling, the Lady gestured toward the workbench where he had laid the iron shards.
“Come, beloved, we have work to do—”
VELANTOS BENT TO THE bellows, pushing with strong, steady strokes to force air through the coals. At each blast, flames spurted upward, and each time they sank the coals retained a brighter glow. It seemed to him that the same glow pulsed from the body of the woman who stood on the other side of the hearth. The firelight burnished breasts still round and firm, gleamed on the curve of her waist and the sweet joining of her thighs. His own flesh ached with desire, but he had expected that. Now he had another use for that energy.
How swiftly the coals were heating! Sweating, he pulled off his own tunic and tossed it on a bench, then thrust at the bellows once more. Fire kindled the pieces of charcoal to a brightening sunrise glow.
“Take the first of the shards and set it among the coals,” the Lady said. “Heave at the bellows until it glows like the sun.”
He cast her a doubtful look, for a white heat was far too great for working bronze, but her face remained calm. In any case, the time for calculation was past. He could only go forward, and trust that the goddess he served understood iron as well as she knew bronze. The coals pulsed white-hot, and far more quickly than he would have believed, the piece of iron glowed white as well.
“Now you must take it from the fire,” said the Lady. “Set it on your anvil and take up your midsized hammer. Stroke from one end to the other to compress and beat out the iron, gently but firmly, as you would caress a lover. . . .”
With his left hand Velantos reached for the tongs and used them to grip the dull end of the shard, swung it over to the anvil in a shower of sparks, and essayed a tentative tap. More sparks flared, but there were no explosions. Had he not heated the iron enough before? The ductile metal yielded to his hammer, stretching, extending. As it cooled, the color deepened. He felt the moment when it began to resist him, thrust it once more into the coals, and began to work the bellows again.
“You are the hammer,” she said softly, “and I am the forge. The Sword is the child we are making together, by your will, from my womb.” He looked up from the bellows, and could not tell if her eyes shone or only reflected the flames.
Once more the metal was glowing. Once more he returned it to the anvil and began to shape it, always tapping down its length in the same direction, teasing out pockets of air, driving out impurities. Again and again the iron made the journey from fire to anvil, until he had forged the rough metal into a single solid bar.
And then it was done. Velantos looked down at the cooling metal, watching the glow fade until it was a dull black. No longer the unformed meteor, it held now the shape that he had given it. He heard a step and looked up. The Lady stood before him, a beaker of clear water in her hands.
“Drink and be restored, and then take up the next piece and begin.”
Three times more, Velantos set tongs to a raw shard of meteor and thrust it into that fiery womb. Three times more he stroked and shaped the glowing metal. And when he had finished, the Lady directed him back to the first length, and he began again. Three more times each piece was heated and hammered, heated and shaped, until he had four black strips a little less than the length of a sword. He laid them out on his workbench, running his fingers along the gray-black surfaces with a dull wonder. The lamps had all burned out, and the only light was the glow from the forge. From the stillness and the feel of damp in the air, it must be close to dawn. His neck was stiff, the muscles of his upper back and shoulders were aching, and his right arm trembled from strain. He shook his right hand to loosen fingers cramped to the shape of the hammer’s shaft.
He heard a sigh and turned. The Lady had sunk down upon the bench—no, it was Anderle, blinking in confusion and wrapping her garment around her.
“Is it done?” she asked.
“By the Lady’s grace it is begun,” he answered her. “Now we need rest . . . and food.” On a chest beside the door he saw a wooden platter with meat and cheese, and wondered who had put it there, and when.
Velantos carried it over to the priestess, but she had eaten no more than a few mouthfuls when her eyes closed and she slumped against his shoulder. He still had the strength to lift her, a little surprised to find that tenderness was his only response to the lissom body in his arms. All his desire was spent, as if he had been making lo
ve to her all this time, and in a way he supposed that was true.
He laid her down upon the bed and pulled the blanket over her, and with that, exhaustion took him and he sank down beside her and knew no more.
VELANTOS LAY CRADLED IN warmth, as if he had been laid in the forge. Then he tried to move. Suddenly all the muscles of his back and shoulders were screaming. He had thought himself inured to the labor of the forge, but forging was a small part of bronze work, and in the past moon he had not even been doing much of that.
I must get up . . . he told himself. The iron is waiting . . . and the goddess. . . . He opened his eyes and tensed with alarm as he realized the other side of the bed was empty. Then someone touched his shoulder and he turned to see Anderle kneeling beside him, a clay beaker of steaming soup in her other hand. Or rather it was the goddess, for she was once more naked, and the flesh that touched his burned from within. Obediently he drank, feeling the heat spread through his core. When he set the beaker down, she began to knead his shoulders, and the same heat suffused his muscles, driving out the pain. He closed his eyes. This is how the iron feels, when I hammer it out, hot from the forge.
She took his face between her hands and kissed him, and from lips to groin he burned with her fire. When he could think again, she was standing by the forge. They had slept through the day. On the workbench a lamp flickered brightly. More charcoal had been added to the hearth, and the new coals were already beginning to glow.
“Arise, oh my hammer,” she told him, “and thrust the iron into the fire!”
When he worked with Katuerix they had heated bits of bog iron and hammered them together. Could he weld the iron strips he had forged the day before? It must be possible, for the goddess had stacked them together and was clasping them against her breast. When she held them out to him, they were already hot, as if they had been in the fire.
Reverent as if he were touching a woman’s body, Velantos drew the poker toward him to open a way through the coals. He gripped the stack of iron bars with the tongs and gently slid them into the glowing valley, then moved to the bellows.
Again and again the fire flared and fell. The iron was beginning to glow. Velantos looked at the Lady and saw her smiling, watching the fire. Not until the metal glowed sun bright did she gesture to him to take up the tongs. He gripped the duller end of the pile tightly and swung it over to the great stone anvil, grasped the large stone hammer, and swung. Sparks flew, but he could feel the iron yield.
“Strike with strength and weld it well—hammer’s heft beats out the spell. Many melding, four to one, hammer till the work is done!”
He did not know if the chant came from his lips or hers. Now he must put forth all his strength, heating and beating, brushing off loose scale and hammering again. The iron strips gave way beneath his blows, softened and lengthened, flowing, clinging, melding until a single glowing shape lay in the fire. Obedient to her soft suggestions, Velantos brought it to white heat once more, hammering it wide and flat, twisting and folding and beating it out again.
As the stars wheeled across the night sky and the sparks flew about the forge, the Lady stood beside him, murmuring spells, and he beat their magic into the iron. Courage and command were in that chanting, endurance and honor, certainty and skill. He hammered in the virtue to strike surely and to cleave clean, to find the right target with each blow.
When dawn came, the smith drew from the fire a dully glimmering iron bar. The patterns that all that folding and twisting had melded within it were sensed, rather than seen, but he could feel the power within. He set the iron upon the workbench and found that food and drink had been provided, and the priestess was herself once more. They ate and drank and lay down together, sharing their warmth, emptied of desire.
ANDERLE WOKE AS THE last light of sunset was shafting through the doorway, bathing everything in a warm glow as if the smithy had become part of the hearth. Velantos still slept beside her, curled on his side with one arm laid protectively across her thigh. In sleep his face had a curious innocence, the lines carved by purpose and passion that sometimes gave him such a ferocious aspect smoothed away. She understood now that this was a man who would sacrifice everything, even himself, for a worthy goal. No wonder they had struck sparks—they were far too alike, she thought with an inner smile. He was thinner than he had been when she arrived. So, she supposed, was she. To carry a god took energy, but she had only to let the power of the Lady flow through her. He was burning from within, consumed by the power he was putting into the work as the fire consumed the coals.
Contemplating those rugged features, she felt her heart wrenched by an unexpected surge of tenderness. She lifted a hand to touch him and then stopped, trembling. One day, she promised herself, we shall lie like this and make love, but if I touch him now, we will waste in bed the power that should be spent in the forge. . . . Even the thought of embracing him was enough to send a pulse of sensation through her flesh. Gently she moved his hand and eased from beneath the covers, wrapped a cloak around her, and stepped outside.
When she returned, she found that a wooden bowl full of steaming stew had been set beside the smithy door. Though she had not seen them, it was clear that the elder folk were keeping watch and anticipating their needs, as they had taken Aelfrix into their keeping when she arrived. She brought in the food and set it on the workbench. The rich scent awakened her hunger and she ate eagerly.
The bar of iron lay where Velantos had left it. The metal was cold, but to eyes trained to see the spirit within, it held a subtle glow. The raw energy she had sensed within the shards had altered to a contained blaze of power. But it was not yet focused. That, she thought, would come when it had been given the shape of a sword.
It was dark now. She lit more rush lights and fixed them in their holders of stone, and tipped new charcoal into the hearth. On the bed, Velantos sighed and stirred. It was time to work once more.
Anderle hung the cloak from its hook and combed out her hair. She could feel the presence of the goddess as a pressure behind her, patient and a little amused. “Lady of Fire,” she whispered, “naked I stand before you. May both preoccupation and passion depart from me. For the cause of Life and the good of this land, I offer myself as a vessel for your will. . . .” She let out her breath in a long sigh.
For a moment she hovered on the edge of awareness, and then, softly, smoothly as the metal absorbs the heat of the coals, the goddess came in.
“NOW! TAKE THE IRON from the fire—”
Velantos looked at the Lady in surprise, for coals and iron alike glowed with the rich orange of the setting sun on a hazy day.
“It is hot enough. The welding is done . . . now you must shape the blade.”
He nodded, and with swift efficiency lifted the iron bar from the forge, holding in his mind the image of the finished weapon. Now he would need not only his great strength, but all of his skill, and everything he had learned when he struggled to create such swords from bronze. Then, the casting had accomplished half of the labor. Now he would have to forge the metal into the shape he desired. It would be difficult and demanding work, but he had spent enough time tapping around the edges to straighten and harden bronze blades to imprint that shape in his muscles and bones.
He laid the glowing end upon the anvil and began to flatten and shape the base and tang to which he would rivet the hilt. It was a simple form, and would give him a place to grip the iron while he worked on the rest of the blade. The metal cooled and he laid it once more in the forge, pumping the bellows until it began to glow.
Back to the anvil came the iron. The hammer swung down. “Tap, tap, tap, ting”—he found the rhythm, drawing the softened metal out and working it away from the center toward the sides. Muscles loosened, flexing and releasing as he swung. To weld the iron bar had forced a singular focusing of will. This part of the work was different, requiring a flexible coordination of hand and eye, of heart and will. Turning and tapping, he persuaded each glowing section of metal t
o take its new form. With each stroke of the hammer, he felt the substance of the metal changing, as the flesh of a woman changes beneath the arousing fingers of her lover. And as making love also changes the lover, his soul flowed into the hot iron.
And presently, as he bore the evolving blade from the forge to the anvil and back again, he became aware that the ringing of bronze hammer on iron had become the foundation for a song. From the lips of the Lady came a sweet descant to the rhythm of the hammer, an answer to the wheeze of the bellows and the whistling of the flames in the coals.
Sometimes it was pure music, and sometimes words surfaced from the song. She sang of the dark spaces of the heavens in which the iron had floated, cold and alone, of the searing flight that had ended as it buried itself in the soil. The elder folk had told him how their fathers had dug it out, still smoking, and tried to hammer it into some useful form, and that too was in the song. She sang of the trees that had captured the light of the sun in the forest, and the long slow smolder in a womb of turf that transformed them into charcoal. She sang of their delight as they were at last allowed to blossom into flame. A forge song she sang, a song of fire and iron, a song of the sword, writhing beneath the hammer as it sought its destiny.
When he glanced up, he could see the Lady, shining and singing in the light of the fire, and found himself striving to incorporate the long sleek curve of waist and thigh into the shape of the sword. Thinning from the center on one side and then on the other, drawing the iron from the narrower neck downward to the swell of the blade and then inward once more, he persuaded the metal to take the form he envisioned so vividly. He had believed that when he cast bronze he poured part of his spirit into the mold, but this intense, extended forging was an altogether more active and intimate creation, like the grapplings of love when a man strives to give his seed. But what he was forging into this sword was his soul.