Najila slowly nodded and kept her strange expression. “Red stone, or emberstone is the petrified blood of ancient Titans, slain by the Restless, their children.”
The moment Trav heard what she had to say, ancient, jumbled memories buried deep in Odin’s mantle sprang to life. Since several of them uncurled at once, and Trav hadn’t been expecting it, what he received was a confusing mess.
Flashes of violence, anger, betrayal, and bursts of power filled his mind until he shook his head and dispelled it. Nothing quite like this had ever happened before, but he could feel the truth in what Najila had said. Almost mechanically, he said, “Titans, creators of the Restless.”
“Their parents, or ancestors.” Najila slowly shook her head. “The Church would find this whole conversation heretical, but they’d claim your very existence is impossible. They are obviously full of shit.”
“Obviously,” said Trav with a grim smile. “You’ve told me that Kin at the highest level, at least in your old country, have a kill-on-contact order for new Restless. That sort of thing would hardly be possible unless those in power knew we exist.”
“Just so. I was sworn to secrecy on the matter, but I have known the truth since I was young.”
“The thing I don’t understand,” Trav said slowly, “is what your rulers plan to do if a powerful Restless, like one of the originals find their way back here. It would invalidate the entire state religion of your country at the very least.”
“It’s not my country anymore,” answered Najila quickly, but she frowned. “Every country on Asgard still has secrets, and relics. The most powerful Kin may not be a match for the most powerful Restless—not even close—but the Restless themselves ironically have created some powerful tools to kill each other that others can use too.” She shook her head. “Some of this is speculation on my part, but the three main countries on Asgard have plenty of paranoia. Since the masses live in hope of the gods returning, and those in power live in fear, I’m sure that they have plans.”
Trav examined what Najila had been working on again and asked, “Why are you doing all of this? This is not a hobby, you have tools all over the place, and a fairly efficient-looking operation here.”
“Well, yes.” She sighed. “The full truth of why Rahim and I are left alone is because I am also too useful to kill. Whenever a procession comes here from Kyvendi, I trade enchanted tools for supplies...at a loss.” Her face twisted.
“I...see. So you are basically paying for your safety.”
“Yes.”
“Wow.” Trav looked around and saw both Najila, and her situation, through different eyes. She’d given up everything she had, and even toiled away in what looked like a repetitive job on top of what was necessary to just live in the wilderness. No wonder she was so proud of the cabin she’d built. “You must really love your son.”
“Yes.” She flashed her teeth. “But how could I be worthy of life if I didn’t? Don’t misunderstand, the fact he is my son matters a great deal, but you have spent time with Rahim. Does he deserve to die, especially only for the fact he was born with a gift that others can’t understand?”
Trav slowly shook his head. Despite being Kin, the little boy had been growing on him. He couldn’t believe there would be a Rakshasa in this world, even a child, who could be so...nice. So far, Rahim didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body.
“I have protected Rahim. After realizing he would never be accepted by others of my kind, I have allowed him to find his own path. At this point, being out in this untamed place, I have seen the truth that I made the right choice. Maybe...maybe there is a different way for the Rakshasa to live.” Her eyes snapped up, and suddenly she was twice Trav’s weight of feline fury, hair bristling. “I will never allow anyone to harm Rahim!”
Out of nowhere, power unfurled from the Kin, obvious to Trav’s magical sight. It cloaked her, growing stronger.
Najila’s fierce love and protective instinct beat on the air, no doubt being fueled by her magic. Her eyes were wild, and lips began pulling back from teeth as she stared at nothing. The conversation had obviously triggered something primal. Not for the first time, Trav was reminded that he was not talking to a woman, or even a normal Kin. Najila was Rakshasa and her moods were unpredictable at best.
He gestured downward and softly said, “Simmer down, mama bear. You saved my life, so I owe you a debt.” Najila glared at him, and Trav began to truly get the picture that this Kin woman had been through so much, she was likely to go apeshit at the drop of a hat, at least where her son was concerned. For some reason, she’d likely just begun wondering if he was a threat.
And unlike other times she’d begun getting worked up, this time Rahim was not here to calm her down.
Trav looked Najila right in the eyes, back straight. In this situation, he could speak from the heart, and likely still say exactly what this crazy Kin wanted to hear. He coughed and said, “Since I owe you a debt, I promise that so long as I am here, I will assist you in protecting Rahim to the best of my ability.”
“Swear it!”
“I swear.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Trav felt something move in his mantle and thought, uh oh, what did I just do?
“Good!” Suddenly all the tension left the air and Najila smiled. “While you are here, you may use my workshop if you’d like.”
Trav blinked at the sudden change, and released tension he hadn’t known he had. Najila hadn’t been cruel, or antagonistic before, just...business-like. Now she was almost acting friendly. “Are you sure? A lot of this looks expensive and delicate.”
“If you break anything, I will break you, of course.” She smiled, and Trav wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. Trav decided he would be careful either way.
“Where do you get all of this emberstone?” he asked, gesturing at little bins of the stuff.
“I get all of it now when the convoy arrives to resupply me.”
“Oh.” Trav suddenly realized where at least some of the emberstone he’d mined for years had been going. He studied the bins of it all around the cave workshop, waiting to be used, and he no longer felt as odd about taking advantage of Najila’s invitation. How many people had he met, and grown to care about had died while mining this stuff?
He gently picked up a piece the size of his pinky nail and said, “I guess I’ll give it a try.”
Chapter 10
“Let’s see,” Trav mumbled to himself. “Ah. Narnaste is next. Yeah.” He sketched a design on a thick piece of paper with a charcoal pencil, thinking about what he could build that would complement his valkyrie best.
For the last ten days, other than chipping in to help contribute around the cabin, Trav had been working in Najila’s workshop. At first, she’d been indulgent. Then, it’d been obvious he was starting to get on her nerves by always being in her personal space. But by the end of the second day, he’d figured out how to reproduce most of the tools she was making to trade with the convoy from her former country. Then he’d worked all that night, completely filling her quota.
She’d been mildly surprised, but Najila was a practical sort of Kin. Since she didn’t need to work on enchanting anymore before the resupply convoy visited next, Trav then had the workshop to himself.
He’d been experimenting.
Whether Odin’s mantle was having an influence on his motivations or not, in this instance, he wouldn’t be able to tell, and didn’t care. Even his pre-Asgard self would have found this interesting. Enchanting was fascinating and Trav liked to build things—he’d even done a few steelwork odd jobs back in the US. In Najila’s workshop he’d even begun forging, using snippets of his own knowledge and the deep well of Odin’s memories to begin creating proper tools and weapons for his valkyrie team.
The valkyries had all finally begun moving toward his position about a week ago. Trav felt relieved that he’d be reunited with them—he was willing to admit he’d missed them.
He’d already made a new bow for Ysintri
ll with an enchantment to basically double her draw strength using the same energy, and even adjust it. She would also receive a belt knife that had been reinforced and would sharpen itself.
For Yaakova, he’d focused on utility—the harpy really didn’t need any weapons. He’d crafted a necklace to help keep her dry, hopefully even if she was in her bird form. He’d been working on a communicator for her too, a way for her to actually talk to him while she was scouting, but he hadn’t completely solved that problem yet.
Jang-mi was not a valkyrie, just a friend, but Trav wanted to do something for her, too. He’d crafted her a set of bracers made of leather and steel. If she crossed both bracers over her body, they would generate a short-lived, but powerful shield against magic and projectiles.
Now he was working on a new weapon for Narnaste. After having watched how she fought several times, he knew just the thing for her. As a giant wolf she didn’t need much help, but in her original form, in tight spaces, she could use a better weapon than what she currently carried.
Trav used rune magic and Hex to work with the steel he’d found in Najila’s shop. Just like he had before, he’d found magic to be a great way to speed up crafting simple tools. However, this time, he wanted to make something special.
Rune magic could make blacksmithing more convenient, but there was no shortcut to understanding how steel behaved.
He’d toyed with the idea of experimenting with the composition of the steel that Najila had on hand in her workshop. Then he’d changed his mind. After testing it, he’d decided it was actually of decent quality and not worth his time to enhance. There was doubtlessly better steel back on Earth, but he had access to magic here. The materials he had to use would be good enough.
Trav summoned Hex from his belt and inscribed a complex rune equation on a large copper ring that he’d found lying around, and on a pair of leather gloves. The enchantment on the gloves wouldn’t last long, but would be good enough. He built a fire in the forging area, then positioned the ring near it. It was set up to fuel the enchantment Trav had placed on it by absorbing heat and then processing it in complex ways.
The bucket of water that Najila doubtlessly used for quenching her own blacksmithing projects wasn’t big enough for what Trav wanted to do, so with the help of some magic and the clay by the shore of the nearby lake, he built a new bucket from enchanted earthenware. This new quench tank was tough enough to handle massive changes in temperature and a small rune equation on the container would help make his job easier, too.
There were several hammers in the little workshop, but Trav chose two, then enchanted them with a couple of simple rune equations. They’d be powered by the kinetic energy of swinging them, which Trav privately congratulated himself as a clever thing to do.
A bar of steel seemed to be ideal for the project that Trav had in mind, so he put on his gloves, grabbed the material, and ran it through the copper ring. As he passed the steel through the ring, he mentally triggered one portion of its enchantment, and the steel in his hands instantly heated up to red hot. He didn’t need to test it with a magnet to know it was hot enough to work with.
His gloves had been enchanted to easily withstand the heat of the red-hot steel. The rest of Trav’s body hadn’t been, though. He’d overlooked the problem but it was easy to solve. He just held the steel in one hand, summoned Hex with the other, and made a quick temporary rune equation in the air to protect him from fire and heat. The magic didn’t even require that much energy before it began working.
Then it was a simple matter to draw out the steel, using the enchanted hammer. Once the basic shape of the blade and tang had been completed, Trav began fashioning a simple, cup-shaped guard. The guard and pommel didn’t take long, and after that he worked on cleaning up the blade.
Since he could magically enhance his tools to be more effective, and he’d done similar crafting before, he had the basic parts of a rapier crafted far faster than he’d expected.
Next he adjusted his copper ring, and prepared for one of the most cheat-like uses of magic he’d come up with. One more pass through the ring made the blade steel white-hot, and another pass had rapidly cooled and annealed the metal.
Najila had a number of files around the shop. Trav selected a few, and gave them all temporary hardness and efficiency enchantments. Then it was a simple matter to shape all the metal parts he’d crafted, removing material as easily as clay.
He used the copper ring again after this, bringing the steel up to the proper temperature for hardening. Using a small washer, he crafted a simple device that would let him know if he had reached a good temperature for the steel he was using. He did a few passes through the copper ring, heating up all the steel relatively slowly until it was ready for quenching. Then he checked the enchantment he’d placed on it. “Good,” he said, nodding with a smile.
This entire process seriously felt like cheating now.
Trav dunked the blade into the quench tank, and didn’t even feel slightly worried about a warp. The rune equation on the tank itself would prevent any warping, and helped to create the exact sort of steel composition he wanted.
After that, Trav tempered the blade three times until he was satisfied. Making magical tools out of random scraps around the workshop took a lot of the guesswork out of the process. For instance, the thermometer that Trav rigged up from some bronze scraps was far more accurate than anything he’d ever used before on Earth.
When it was time to finish the sword up, Trav used his enchanted files, changing their efficiency whenever he needed to. He also enchanted a ratty cloth to polish the blade with only a few passes. When the components of the sword were complete, he used rune magic to mate all the pieces together, fusing the entire weapon together as if it were one object, even the wooden grip. Without magic, this would not have been possible.
Sharpening the blade was stupidly easy using magic. Trav put the entire sword in a vice, and used a magically enhanced stone to create a wicked edge, then some mundane leather to strop the blade. The rapier he was making was meant to be a thrusting weapon, but Narnaste was strong, and it’d be a shame not to give it an edge. He’d made the blade with a very strong, diamond cross section, but had also kept the blade wide enough to have a cutting edge. Since he was making the weapon for a superhuman Kin woman, allowing the sword to be a little heavier than a normal rapier hadn’t been a problem.
For Narnaste, this weapon would still be relatively light, and most importantly, still very well balanced. The simple knuckle guard and bell-shaped guard would protect her hand.
The last step took far more attention than Trav had spent on all the other steps of making the sword, combined. Fusing the parts of the sword together made it easier to enchant using emberstone, but still tricky. He carefully inscribed half the rune equation on an emberstone nugget, the other half on the butt of the hilt. The enchantment would make the sword extremely tough, better at penetrating, difficult to dull, and most importantly, highly magically resistant.
As Trav worked on the rune equation, he decided that if the sword was to have a name, it would need to be something about piercing, or stabbing. The blade would probably penetrate right through most magical shields, maybe even armor. Trav might not be as strong as Odin had been in the ancient past, but the rapier he was almost finished with, while plain-looking, would be incredibly deadly.
Once all the rune equations had been painstakingly finished, Trav carefully attached the emberstone to the butt of the weapon, then enclosed the sparkling red stone with a thin shell of enchanted steel he’d made. He’d had a chance to study Najila’s enchanted weapons earlier, and while she was right that the emberstone was shielded, the last step he’d just taken would hide the magical nature of this sword unless it was actually being used.
Trav was not an expert with a rapier, and neither would be Narnaste at first, but she was a fast learner. Trav had never seen a weapon quite like this one on Asgard before, likely because a mundane rapier would be
too delicate for Kin to fight with. He held up the glittering sword and its deadly point twinkled, flashing with the magic-powered overhead lights in the workshop. It had grown dark outside a while ago, and since the shop had been occupied, the lights had automatically come on.
Najila might not be anywhere near as good with rune magic as Trav, but what she could do had surprised him sometimes.
A light clapping behind Trav spun him around, and he cocked an eyebrow at Rahim. The Rakshasa boy seemed to have been sitting on a barrel in the corner, watching him, and Trav hadn’t even noticed. “What is that?”
“A sword.”
Rahim rolled his eyes, and in his normal, serious tone responded, “I can see that, Mister Trav. What kind? It looks like a spear, but a sword. Who is it for?”
“It’s called a rapier, but what makes you think I made it for anyone in particular?”
“Mama always says that people work better and are more focused when they are doing something for someone else. I watched you make a few things a few days ago, but today you were really working hard.”
Trav didn’t really know how to respond to that, so he shrugged and spoke the truth. “I made it for someone in my family.”
“On Asgard?”
“Yeah.”
“Are they one of the people you are waiting for?”
Trav blinked and one of his legs almost gave out from surprise. He absently searched behind him with a groping hand before sitting down on a dishing stump. The concave dip in the wood that helped forge out curves was not very comfortable. “What?”
“You are waiting for someone, right? Mama says it’s probably a group.”
“Why...why hasn’t she said anything about this to me?”
Rahim gave him a strange look. “It’s obvious. She was ready to follow you, or talk you into coming back if you ran away since I Saw that you should be near us. You never ran away, though, or even tried to journey very far. Mama said you were probably waiting for someone, especially since you got a weird look on your face sometimes. Then the last few days you’ve been making weapons and tools that don’t seem to be for you, and probably aren’t going to sell them, so…” The boy’s voice trailed off and he shrugged.
Asgard Awakening 2 Page 9