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Dearest Readers, may you find your center in the earth and your reach in the skies.
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THE HIDDEN SWORD: A TALE OF BALDUR'S GATE
Book One: From the Earth | Chapter 38: Born of Earth and Sky (Part Two)
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Pieces of newly smelted adamant glinted in the candlelight, spread across the table, each lump thoroughly examined and assayed. Jet black, glossy, they reflected the flames in minute rainbows against the fragments of a starless night sky.
Her sight fell and lingered upon a diminutive chunk, unremarkable from the rest of its brethren. However, a string unseen, vibrating and familiar, tugged at the hand which of its own accord lifted to hover above the adamant, about to lay claim, then suddenly held itself back in hesitance.
Okami must have noticed her fascination with the piece, for he reached over and pushed it towards his apprentice.
"Keep it," he said indulgently, raising a finger to silence the evidently forming protest from the elf. "It is only fair that the one who brought the gift should receive a tithe of it. Use it for whatever purpose the gods may require of you."
Grateful, Irse grinned as she picked up the dark tile, rubbing with the side of a fist, and inspected the surface with an appraising eye. Almost tempted to try a bite. Not exactly sure what to fashion out of this one, but it might make for something useful. Perhaps, a neat little butter knife.
"Even with less a piece, we still have more than enough material for a katana," she said, tapping each tile for the count.
"Not a katana," Okami clarified, pausing to train an eye on her, that same look whenever he leveled a challenge at his apprentice.
"This time, we are forging a tachi."
Irse blinked, brows up in surprise. They discussed it before, this weapon a forerunner of the katana by a few hundred years, but never attempted to make one themselves. A blade with more pronounced curvature, the tachi's length spanned at least twice a hand's breadth longer.
She rubbed her palms, excitement warming them more than the friction. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go make a bigger sword!"
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Master and apprentice stood before an unlit open brick forge in a separate shed constructed for this purpose. Garbed in white, heads and hair bound in cloth bandannas to keep sight unhindered; a simple ritual of mindful silence each time they forged a katana on commission - no prayers nor chants, only a tangible reminder to put the thought and spirit solely to the task.
"I know we have never done this before, but I ask that we offer a simple orison before we proceed," Okami said.
She canted her head in a wordless assent to his request. A prayer, a plea to bless the making of this sword, but to whom?
He breathed in deep, pausing before uttering the entreaty. "The Master of Blades and the Shining One look with favor and grace upon the work of our hands," Okami appealed with a humble note, then bowed to the furnace.
Unquestioning, the elf followed in his gesture. Anyone else would have been surprised that her Teacher didn't invoke the Eight Million Gods of Kozakura, though if they were tied to their shrines and the forests and rice fields of his homeland, then they'd be too far to hear. And if there were truly eight million of them – well then, won't too many cooks spoil the broth?
And rather than any of the Faerunian deities favored by humans, he chose to call on one of the Seldarine. To another a seemingly mislaid devotion, yet Tethrin answered him before and when it mattered most. A second time shouldn't do harm, and a third, hopefully for something not involving accidental stabbings, would still be a charm. Besides, working with a material that is not of this world on a form they have not tried beforehand? They sure could use every crumb and drop of divine help.
Lord of Stabbity Souls and All, at the very least may this turn out into a sword and not something else, Irse prayed yet glanced up with a raised brow. Like a crooked elven nail.
"Light the forge," Okami commanded.
Start the fire with iron. Using a heavy hammer, Irse struck a thin length of cold steel until its tip glowed red. With the smoldering point, she set alight the edges of the bunched tinder, placed the burning kindling in the forge and shoveled more charcoal. As the flames fed and grew, gleaming embers floated to the air, a million signal fires to usher the beginning of their work.
But to create adamantine out of adamant, the former being hard on its own yet brittle, the ore must be mingled with other components - electrum and silver. Those they have in store but as currency earned and saved over the years. Irse weighed them according to need, scooped the discs in one hand and with the other plunked them into the crucible, counting one by one. Each coin an hour, a day of their lives labored in exchange, now to be poured into this one final work. No misgivings nor regrets, she affirmed.
Having alloyed the steel, now to purify the adamantine. They heated the pieces, and when blazing hot, flattened them. Molten slag leaped out in sparks as they pounded it out of the ingots, the process repeated for each fragment until the fully solid bloom no longer yielded to the hammer. Quenched in water, the scales broke off to reveal the true steel within. These Okami segregated, their hue and lineament determining their place in the blade – the kawagane or hard steel for the skin and cutting edge, and the shingane or soft steel for the core.
In prior years, she had asked why steel of differing hardness had to be used in forging a katana. Okami had explained that Kozakuran smiths developed this method to cope with the limitations in materials and knowledge. Mined ore needed to be imported from Shou and Koryu, costly and putting them at the mercy of these other nations. What they had plentiful instead were ironsand in the rivers and washed down from the mountains, but difficult to smelt in the type of bloomeries and furnaces used in here in the west, forcing them to resort to a tatara instead. Unfortunately, the fires of such an open-furnace could not reach temperatures high enough to produce consistent quality. Soldiers always returned from battle with broken or bent swords. Broken for being hard but prone to shattering, bent because it was flexible yet unable to hold an edge. This compelled their smiths to seek ways to bring together the best of both qualities, combining the hardness of the kawagane to maintain a sharp edge, with the flexibility of the shingane to absorb the impact of the strikes.
But here in Faerun, why not simply use steel from Nashkel, smelted from blast furnaces and already producing reliable durability, she had asked. Then life would be much easier, a simple matter of forging a single block into a curved sword.
To her question, Okami had simply shrugged.
"Certainly, we could do that," he replied.
But they did not, and then continued as he always had, as the smiths before him always did.
And through the years as Irse learned and worked, she understood. More than the result was the process, more than the destination, the journey. Two different steels forged together in an uncompromising path, perfectly united to achieve that precise balance – to be unyielding yet adaptable.
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First they worked on the kawagane, the blade's outer skin. Still separate, the tiles needed to be fused into a single billet for forging. The elf stacked them into a pile which she coated with damp paper and straw ash, then ladled slurry all over to form a clay ball, patted with kindling and placed in the forge to let the fire do its work.
A thought, a realization came to her as she watched and waited - that no amount of pummeling alone would ever force these tiles to mingle. Instead, it must take the hottest of flames to meld them into a single unit. And then she chuckled, amused. Unfortunately, people, flesh and all, happen to be more stubborn than iron, and might require more than fire at their bottoms and a hammer to their heads to make them work together.
After a while, the clay melted away to expose a single billet. Okami brought the now consolidated kawagane out of the forge and laid it upon the anvil. Still gleaming red and malleable, he stretched the billet, then folded it back along the middle. They then took turns at flattening the workpiece before it must be stretched and folded once more in a process repeated over and over to fully purify.
Okami swung the hammer and brought it down upon the workpiece, Irse leaning back with her own ready in the air. Then as he drew back for the next swing, she would come in and tap her own, the cycle echoing with unbroken rhythm, the strokes of two but the beating of a single heart.
As they paused to catch breath, Irse wiped at her dripping face. Useless, her forearms were just as soaked, blinding her even more. Grunting, she continued to mop at her eyes, twisting her arms if there were any blessedly dry spot remaining.
No time to step away and get a rag. Then she felt a cloth, cool and damp, enveloping and patting gently at her face for a brief godsent moment.
"My thanks," she murmured as soon as the cloth retreated.
Okami hummed an acknowledgment and bent to pick up the hammer once more.
Irse smirked as she tapped the edge of her tool on the anvil's surface. If this workpiece could speak, what would it say? Would it complain of the burning heat, the relentless strikes it must endure? Painful for now, perhaps even seemingly pointless, but utterly necessary if it must become worthy for use. The elf glanced at her own hands and arms, counting the now faded bruises, breaks, and even scars earned over the years, the hurts healed but the lessons forever stamped into muscle and memory.
And it will all be worth it when your forging and tempering are finally done, Irse silently assured the blade being formed before her.
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Done with the skin, she prepared the tiles for the core. Eyes fixed on the fragments, Irse permitted her thoughts to drift through the crackle of the forge fire and the quiet of the air.
Shingane, the heart of the sword. Often in her childhood, the grownups relished admonishing the young elf to put her heart into a chore. Not sweeping the stables clean enough? Put your heart into it. Not memorizing poetry perfectly enough? Put your heart into it. Not being less enough of a pest? Put your heart into it.
Not so with her Teacher. Whether she failed or even succeeded in a task, he only asked her – Where is your heart?
Strangely, she never had an answer to that.
Where was her heart? Left behind in her former home? Irse ached to see her Father and friends but felt sure she would return one day. A thousand steps away and a sudden turn back, a walk through the gate only to find everything and everyone waiting and still the same as the day she departed. For after all, Candlekeep had stood for centuries, its walls and halls and people unchanging. What were a few years more? Her home could wait, the yearning still there but the tethering cord now slack. Then perhaps, her heart dwelt no more in the past.
With her parents? For as long as memory reached back, a longing to see their faces in her dreams had been the only thing sure to make the elven child wind down from a day of mischief and motion and climb under the covers. Imagining which of the two gave her the color of her hair, the sound of their voices singing of their pride at calling her their own, drowning out the scoldings of the Master of Tomes and his lackeys, washing over the sadness in Gorion's eyes. Were they not the reason why she defied the walls and found the road? And yet, as the years went on, the sense of urgency waned, the quest pushed to the back of the shed like the least prioritized commission. Perhaps because elven lifespan stretched further than human lifetimes; if her parents yet lived then what is a few years more of waiting, and if dead, then a few more years of not knowing?
Then maybe, her heart wasn't in the future as well.
Where then could her heart be?
Sparks floated up from the forge, small, brilliant, fleeting. The eyes followed them as they sailed a path in the air to the door where the blacksmith leaned against the frame, resting and ruminating on their work. Irse stared at him, suddenly forgetting her musings, not numbering the time, watching without intent. Only seeing.
Perhaps feeling eyes upon him, Okami lifted his head from his thoughts, turning to cast an acknowledging nod at her. And a slight smile.
Irse winked in return and resumed watching the forge. An odd sense of peace and contentment descended upon her, the question set aside. After all, why seek further when the heart already rested exactly where it should be?
Here, in the now and the infinite.
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What should have taken them a quarter to half-year of work only required almost a couple of months, for with no other commissions on hand, the pair burned through the day candles and midnight oil, stopping only to eat and sleep. At Irse's suggestion, they hired Old Tucky to bring them meals, freeing up her Teacher from cooking duties and her from slicing and dishwashing work. The other village ladies might have been willing, but the elf didn't trust them not to put strange things in the blacksmith's food.
Finally, both skin-edge and core were now thoroughly purified from the folding, ready to be fused into one. Okami fired and molded the kawagane into a long trough-shaped channel while Irse heated and stretched the shingane which they fitted into the trench of the former.
Like a metal sausage in an iron puff pastry, Irse chuckled and salivated at the thought.
Into the forge the combined piece returned, heated, hammered to seal into a single billet, fired once more and drawn out to the length of the tachi. Then after days of painstaking drawing, shaping, scraping, and grinding, the rough workpiece now lay before them, bearing the crude unsharpened similitude of the tip, cutting edge, and the barely discernible curve of the spine.
Irse drew breath, deep and apprehensive. Beside her, Okami gripped the edges of the table, shoulders tense. The easy work done and over, the difficult and crucial part yet to come – claying and hardening the blade.
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Four hired youths, Thadd among them, worked feverishly at the bellows to feed air into the forge. Whenever weariness crept in and weakened their pace, the young man belted out a battle song he had penned.
Hearts ablaze with banners bright
Swords a' gleaming, torches alight
Up! Up! O'er hills we rise
Our feet to tread the morning skies
Watching her friend heave and chant and rouse the spirits of his fellows, Irse beamed approvingly, tapping a toe in step with the cadence. After all, she had warned him plainly – any songs about flowers and eyes like moonlit pools must be sung only in Kerda's presence, and no sappy ballads were permitted before the forge. Disobey, and the elf had threatened to smack his behind with a flaming poker.
Okami pulled down the drapes and slid the door shut to keep out any light even from the summer moon. He and Irse nodded at each other as they solemnly approached the fiery furnace.
Seemingly a lifetime ago, one of the village folk jested how during this stage of their work, they resembled a pair of anxious aproned midwives. Irse had laughed at the image of it. Should have taken to yelling 'push' with each hammering.
Tonight, master and apprentice stood before the forge for what might be the last time, and now Irse truly saw the womb of fire as it nurtured the blade that lay within, seeded by the sky and now awaiting its own birth into this world.
This was yaki ire, the tempering. Nestled in flames, the blade lay coated in a paste of powdered charcoal and sandstone mixed with clay, the thick layer on the body and spine allowing this section to cool slower and retain its toughness and flexibility, the thin layer along the cutting edge allowing the steel there to cool faster and become very hard. When tempered and polished, the boundary between these two steels could be seen – the hamon, an exquisite wavy line encompassing its length.
But how could one tell if it has been heated exactly right? For this, the treatment must always be performed during the deepest hour of night and in the sealed shed, the darkness an uncompromised canvas wherewith to judge the color of the flames and the glow of metal.
Okami scraped the coals, gathering them around and over the rod. When done and he had moved back, Irse motioned to the young men to hasten at the bellows. In time the fires climbed high, curtains of orange and at its core the hues of a candle flame's heart. With a pair of tongs, the blacksmith withdrew the metal. It glowed deep crimson through the slurry. A twitch of dissatisfaction on his lips and he sent it back into the fire.
Several times more, her Teacher removed the metal from the furnace and put it back in, disappointed with the color. Watching him pitch more coals into the forge and move the rod back and forth through the flames with a wag of his head, Irse felt a pit beginning to lodge itself in her stomach – what if they fail? Not the first that one had succumbed to the intense heat and cracked during the process. With ordinary iron, failure simply meant starting over with the now scrapped steel. With the otherworldly adamantine, it would be a pronouncement – that such work lay beyond their abilities and not meant for their hands. All effort and the precious material gone to waste.
Okami stepped back and in the absence of his shadow, the fires in the furnace flared greater, the light and heat blinding. Irse shielded her face, darkness veiled her sight. Stillness, then a determined huff, fingers curled into a fist, Irse pulled her hand away and crept closer to look into the fires. And saw.
"Teacher," she cried.
The blacksmith had likewise seen through the flames and understood.
"Go," he commanded.
Grasping with a pair of tongs, Irse swiftly pulled the blade from the forge, holding it aloft. Flushed with the amber of twilight, flowing to the golden-white brilliance of the sun at its zenith.
"This is it," she declared.
"Yes," Okami affirmed.
Irse plunged the steel into the trough of water, steam rising with a furious hiss. It wrenched and fought her grip, warping forwards before bending to the final curve, the hard and soft metals within striving against each other in a final union as violent as their nature and purpose.
Soon quenched and calmed, she withdrew the rod from the water and presented it to her Teacher. Okami regarded both apprentice and steel for a moment, then bowed a welcome greeting to the blade.
It was done. They have brought a new sword into the world.
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Everyone set about their final tasks before dawn, the young men at putting away the implements and cleaning the floor, the blacksmith and his apprentice to removing the clay. Having received their compensation the day before, the boys dawdled no further and filed through the door except for Thadd who lingered, intrigued as he watched the pair scraping the slurry from the metal. Crouched between them, he leaned over and placed an arm around man and elf.
"Congratulations! It's a… blade," Thadd announced with shared pride and an admiring nudge at each.
At her friend's words, Irse slumped, hands on the ground, half-sobbing and three-quarters laughing. Okami raised his chin and exhaled with eyes closed, shoulders eased and lightened.
They exchanged cheers over a job well done, though Thadd declined an offer to stay for breakfast. No doubt preferring sleep over having his elven friend guilt him again into yielding half his serving of bacon to her. With that, the young man bid them a good day and left.
Finally removing the last layer of clay, they found only dull and raw steel. Yet in the coming days it would be polished painstakingly with stone to perfect sharpness and assembled with the carefully wrought hilt and fittings.
"We should name it," Irse suggested, beaming at the now slumbering blade on the anvil, wiped down and swaddled in clean rags.
"Bestow a name upon a sword?"
"Why not? Special stabbers ought to have fearsome monikers, don't they?"
The elf rubbed her chin and knuckled her temple, forgetting the ash on her hands. Now what might be a proper name for such a weapon?
Sausage Slicer.
Blade of the Blood Pie.
Cucumber Cutter.
Irse wagged her head. Nah, none of them felt right.
"Kogitsune."
Irse glanced up. Okami looked at her with the eyes of one seeing something before him for the first time.
"Eh?" she muttered, baffled.
"The name of the sword," he replied with his quiet smile and repeated. "Kogitsune."
Clearly a word in Kozakuran. Irse raised her brows in recognition but understood it not.
"What does it mean? A title, maybe?" she asked, then scowled. Better not be the name of some woman he met on the road!
"It is-," Okami began but seemed to hesitate, clearly gathering a suitable explanation. "A creature of my homeland, not of this world, sent by the gods to aid the good or beguile the wicked to their ruin."
Irse narrowed her eyes, feeling the conversation taking on a familiarly unwelcome route. "Not some ugly demon monster is it?"
He chuckled, clearly reading her mind, and remembering. "Not a Bakeneko, but a shapeshifting spirit able to take on any appearance, often that of a human to conceal its true form, of which the most powerful has nine tails."
Irse quirked her nose as she pondered the name, rolling it around her mental tongue. Kogitsune. As he said, a helper from the heavens in an unassuming form, much like how this blade came to them. Good enough for her. She flashed him a thumbs-up and amusingly, Okami appeared relieved at her approval. Finally, they brought it outside, and the blacksmith examined the raw work in daylight, uttering grateful dedications to Tethrin.
Just glad it didn't turn out into a crooked nail, the elf silently thanked the Master of Blades.
Irse rubbed her eyes, heavy from exhaustion but brimmed with relief. Against the vivid scarlet of the morning horizon, the unpolished blade paled gray, humble, and uncomely. Yet in her sight, this steel born of the fires of earth and sky will always outshine all the gold and jewels in the world.
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Etchings on the Anvil:
Didn't say these before to avoid spoiling the chapter but will disclose now to give credit where it is due. Irse, Okami and his surname, and the forging of their sword were inspired by the Japanese Noh play, Kokaji. Though in the legend, under orders of the Emperor did the smith Munechika forge a katana ("Kogitsunemaru") and Munechika's smithing partner is the god Inari in the guise of a human boy/fox spirit.
And so the name be a nod to the legend and to Irse's character.
EDIT: "Kogitsune" means "Little Fox", but don't tell Irse that, ne? ;P
Lost so much sleep trying to reconcile real world mechanics with fantasy raw material. And so, a thousand apologies for finally screaming screw i- I mean, deciding to take liberties with the process. Though adamant is a distinct element from iron, for the purposes of implementing the traditional process here (and for the purpose of Irse's meditations), adamant/adamantine got written as possessing the same characteristics as iron/steel, except having the canonical magical properties. Sources did say that adamantine has ferromagnetic attributes. Close enough for me by a hamster's fur-breadth. ^ᴥ^