Blood and Iron
He looked up at the doorframe, reluctant and impressed, reaching out a hand to touch the wood to make sure it was still the door that led from his workshop to the hall, and then looking back to the two men on the other side, in the room hundreds of miles away.
"Every time you do this," he said with a small chuckle, "I am all the more impressed."
He crossed over the threshold, distance vanishing in less than a heartbeat, feeling nothing more than if he had passed from one room to the next, his robes trailing, the bundle held in his right hand close to his chest.
Chamberlin Locke stepped forward to greet him, extending a hand.
"Daishinji-san, I'm delighted to welcome you to Key House after all this time."
The older man took his hand, shaking it firmly.
"Please, Chamberlin, dispense with the formalities. Have we not known enough for long enough?"
"Quite so, quite so," Chamberlin said, shaking the older man's hand with enthusiasm, before hastily turning to indicate his companion, a swarthy man with a tired yet kindly expression. "Although we met some years ago in Kyoto, you will not know Harland here, so please allow me to introduce our family's own blacksmith, Harland Locke."
The other man stepped forward, offered his own, which Daishinji Hideaki accepted also.
"I am pleased to make the acquaintance of another smith."
Harland looked faintly embarrassed.
"Young Chamberlin speaks too highly of me. I have but an ounce of your talent, sir."
"Please, you do yourself a disservice. Our art is not one for those who do not steel themselves."
He smiled at the joke and released the other man's hand, taking then the length of the bundle in both hands and presenting it to them.
"However, as regards our mutual trade, I have finished the work you required of me."
He presented the bundle before them, yet neither man took it, both hesitant, unhappy perhaps that such a thing might be required in the world.
"Hideaki, I can't thank you enough," Chamberlin said.
Daishinji caught the other man's unwillingness, studying his expression as he looked down at the proffered gathering of rags and the unseen metal that resided within.
"And yet you are reluctant to take possession of it," he noted.
Quickly, Chamberlin looked up.
"I mean no offence—"
"And none is taken," Daishinji assured him.
"However, it is a sad occasion that asks for the forging of a sword that might cut through anything."
Slowly, with practiced experience, Daishinji began to unwrap the bundle, untying the rope that bound it, unfolding its layers until the blade was revealed, hilt cast in black and gold, metal glistening in the gaslight of the study into which he had been invited.
"This metal you gave me to work with is strange, gentlemen," he said, the weapon revealed at last in its entirety, a large companion key nestled amongst the rags, the sword revealing a lock in the hit where it might be turned.
The two others exchanged worried glances.
"It lives up to every warning you gave me when working with it," Hideaki continued. "Had I not been prepared I would have been quite taken aback by its whisperings."
"You did not pay heed to them, I hope?" Harland asked.
Daishinji looked up from the blade, smiling sadly.
"I am practised in ignoring the invitations of demons sadly." He turned his gaze to Chamberlin. "As you may remember."
The other man nodded.
"When we first met, the, ah… what did you call it?"
"The meggido," Daishinji said, and then added, "from the Hebrew, Har Məgīddō."
Chamberlin nodded slowly.
"Yes. Quite the same thing, I imagine."
Reluctantly, but with a sort of awe, he reached out and took the sword, hefting it up, feeling the weight in his hands.
Daishinji held up the key, offering it to him.
"You would like to test its capabilities?"
With equal reluctance, he took receipt of it.
"Not in the slightest," Chamberlin smiled sadly. "Again, I trust you, Hideaki. I hope to discover the true power of such a weapon's destructive capability only it is most direly required and not a moment before."
He handed both sword and key to his older relative, who in turn weighed them in his grasp, apparently more experienced with the use of weapons, and then carried them across to brickets in the brickwork apparently prepared earlier, affixing the sword with due reverence.
"I thank you once more for your efforts, old friend," Chamberlin said, turning back to him.
A moment of doubt seemed to cross Daishinji's face.
"This metal is well guarded, Chamberlin?" he asked.
The younger man's smile faded slightly.
"As best it can be," he said.
"I dread to think what might happen if it were to come into the hands of those with evil intent."
"So do we," Harland said, joining again the conversation, "and whilst Key House still stands, we will be here to ensure that such never happens."
Chamberlin Locke nodded, equally determination.
"Wielding your Sword Key if necessary."
"Kagiken Chukumichi."
Both men looked at him questioningly, and he smiled.
"My unofficial designation."
"Kagiken Chukumichi," Chamberlin repeated. "Charming."
The smile faded slowly, the meeting of these three men tinged with an ever-present sadness.
"We tried threading the metal through paper, creating playing cards of a sort to dilute its potency, yet the cards remained just as dangerous, same as the watches and stamps we attempted also to fashion, and so we remained with keys as the method we employed, staying true to our own family history and our first unfortunate encounter with the whispering iron."
Daishinji nodded.
"There is a man, an Englishman, who talks of such things. He has attempted to contact us, requesting access to our libraries."
Harland grunted softly.
"It's a dangerous time. Peace brings with it an appetite for interests that no man should have occasion to think about."
"And yet still preferable to war," Chamberlin said sombrely.
Harland nodded with sincerity, and there came a moment in which none of them spoke, until, at last Daishinji became aware of the warmth of the furnace from his workshop, the door still open behind him.
"Gentlemen," he said at last, "it has been a delight to meet with you. I hope that on the occasion when next you call on me, peace will have continued to prevail, and you will have no need for further weapons to guard it."
Again, Chamberlin extended his hand.
"I too, old friend. I too."
Yet even with the heat of the workshop at his back, Daishinji Hideaki had begun to feel the suggestion of a cold, winterly breeze coming in from the direction of Europe.