Looking at the kindling, she reached deep inside her to find her magic. Drawing out just a touch, she blew it into the firepit. Flames sprang up instantly.
Next she sent her power outside through the wall, to the other end of the tube through which the outdoor bellows pumped air under the fire inside. Since that summer, when Sandry had made the four friends’ magics into one, they had been able to talk in thought-form and to enter each other’s minds if they needed to. The ability was quite useful, particularly when one of them needed something from the others. Tri-is… Daja mind-called.
I know, I know. The magic under Trisana Chandler’s reply felt like cool winds and heavy mist. I had to pull the bellows out of the opening. You might want to stand away from the fire.
Not too much at first, Daja told her, then backed up. The burning heap of kindling fluttered, then blazed as air from the outside was thrust in under its flames. Daja heaped fresh charcoal around the sides of the kindling. Once it had caught, she added still more. Now give me some real air, she told her friend.
The answer came in the shape of a heavier stream of wind rushing through the opening under the forge. More charcoal caught. Daja stacked fuel until she had the right kind of fire to work her iron rods with.
Just keep it steady for now, she mind-called to her friend. I hope you brought something to read.
She felt Tris settle on a bench near the opening in the wall. Using one hand the other girl picked up a book. With the other she drew a skein of breeze from the sky into the bellows-hole.
It’s A History of Volcanoes, Hot Springs, and Mud Pots in the Mountains of Emelan. There’s a lot of information in it, Tris explained.
Sounds ravishing, Daja commented. Letting the magical conversation go, she grabbed a handful of long, thin iron rods, carried them over to the forge-fire, and put them in to heat.
She felt bad for Tris, stuck behind the forge. Her redheaded friend would have liked nothing better than to ride with the duke and their teachers, exploring the valley. Unfortunately, when Tris got cross, small winds turned to big ones. No one wanted her anywhere near the grassfires they had gone to inspect today.
Unlike Tris, Daja had no interest in grassfires and had said as much to her teacher Frostpine. She had wanted him to give her something new to work, like the ruddy copper that was mined in these parts. Instead he’d assigned her the most humdrum task an apprentice could get.
Nails, Daja thought tiredly. Barehanded, she drew a thin, cherry-red iron rod out of the fire. I dream of forging swords and crowns and armor, but what does he give me? Nails. She carried her rod over to the anvil and examined its gloryless surface.
The light in the small building was poor, the outer air smoky. The forge-fire itself was sinking to become a steady wash of heat over red coals, without giving much light. She would have to do something about that.
Daja reached a hand toward the forge and twitched her fingers. A rope of fire rose from the coals. A second finger-twitch brought the rope toward the anvil. She stopped it a foot away, then thought for a moment. Her plan was to shape it like a branch of candles, but something else nudged her, wanting to press its own image into the flame. She let it roll away from her and into the rope. It split, then split again, turning itself into a multitude of fibers. These began to weave themselves in and out of each other. When they halted, a grid of flame hung in the air, like a broadly woven square of cloth. Daja could have stuck a thumb into the gaps between the fire-threads, but she wasn’t sure what the result might be. The fiery cloth did cast a strong light on her work area, and wasn’t that the important thing? She left it alone.
Using her hammer, she resentfully tapped a groove into her iron rod. Where would she be right now, if her family hadn’t drowned? Probably south in the Pebbled Sea, underway for their winter berth. The wind, just starting to turn chilly, would be tumbling through her braids, filling her nose with clean salt air—not this dusty, smoky stuff.
Jamming the rod’s pointed end into a hole in the metal lump called a nail header, she gave the iron a hard twist. The rod broke neatly where she had cut the groove into it. And our ship wouldn’t have a cargo of these, she thought, putting the longer piece of rod aside. We’d have, oh, spices from Bihan, and gold from Sotat. Maybe some flower-perfumes from Janaal.
With a hard, quick hammer-blow, she put a flat head on her nail. Lifting the nail header tool at the back of the anvil, she upended it: her finished nail dropped into a water bucket near one of her feet. Steam hissed out in a tiny plume. Sighing, Daja fished for the cool nail and tossed it into a second, empty bucket. With the ease of practice she put the nail header on the anvil, right over the hole made for it. The remainder of the first rod went back into the fire to heat. She grabbed the next iron rod to begin the whole chore over again.
Daja worked steadily, ignoring the sweat that trickled down her cheeks, back, and sides, dreaming of ships under full sail in the Pebbled Sea. She was big for her years, deep-chested and thick-waisted, dressed in a boy’s thigh-length black tunic and black leggings. The leather apron that protected her clothes was grimy and spotted with burns. The steady glow of light from her fire-weaving played over skin as brown as mahogany; a wide, full-lipped mouth now tight with unhappiness; and large, deep-set brown eyes. The only touches of color about her were a scarlet armband and red ties at the ends of her braids.
“You are the smith?” a female voice inquired behind her. “I have work to be done.”
Daja turned, squinting. At first it was hard to make out the woman who stood in the wide doorway—the sun was at her back, leaving her face in shadow. The only thing clear at first glance was that she had but one leg. The other, cut off at mid-thigh, had been replaced by a sturdy length of fitted wood.