The Mongrel Mage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

“If you’re willing to try, so am I.”

  “I’m certainly willing, but I know nothing about working iron or bronze.”

  “I can do that. Let me get the book.”

  Jorhan went into the dark and narrow hallway leading back from the front room, only to reappear almost instantly with a small leather-bound book, which he handed to Beltur. “The leather strip marks the page.”

  Beltur took the book. With a cover that was scratched and worn, even stained in places, the book looked ancient, and it felt that way as well. Yet Jorhan had said it was a copy of an even older volume. Rather than turn immediately to the marked page, he opened the book to the frontispiece, showing a line drawing of a smith at a forge. The title page opposite held only the title, The Compleat Guide to Working Metals, and beneath it the words, “A Fair Copy of a Volume from Cyad.”

  Frowning momentarily at the fact that neither the original author nor the scrivener nor copyist was listed, he then opened the bookmarked page and read over the words slowly, before going back over the parts that seemed important.

  … for a cupridium blade, one must begin with one part tin to twelve parts copper … not the one part in eight used for a bronze blade … once the melt is seething and the color is all the same, then the magus must infuse the melt with chaos sealed in order, as in a net woven of order, so that no part of chaos touches another except as bound with order … That net must be held for a tenth part …

  Beltur frowned. A tenth part? Of a glass? The book suggested what seemed similar to his shields, except he hadn’t the faintest idea what the spacing of the net “knots” should be.

  Finally, he handed the book back to Jorhan. “It may take a while to get the spacing of the order-chaos net right.”

  “Figured it might. I thought we could try it on small pours of that kind of bronze. We can pour a thickness into an open greensand mold, and you can do whatever you do with the order and the chaos. Wouldn’t do that for a finished piece, but there’s no point in a fancy mold when we’re working out just how to make the cupridium. Once we work out your side of the casting, we’ll start using regular molds that have been fired so that the bronze doesn’t cool so fast.” The smith shrugged. “Might as well get out to the smithy and see how we can make this work.”

  Beltur wondered at Jorhan’s optimism. Even though cupridium had been forged for hundreds of years, it was clear few smiths had ever done it, and he knew nothing of the process, and neither did the smith, really, except for the proportions of copper and tin.

  Once the two were in the stone-walled smithy, Beltur watched as the smith added small chunks of coal to the recessed hearth, then began to pump the bellows. He could sense the hot natural chaos released from the coal as it began to catch fire, and he realized that all forging resulted in the release of chaos. It had to. He’d just never thought of it that way.

  “Always liked coal for working with copper,” said Jorhan. “Coal runs in the family.”

  Beltur was surprised at how small the actual furnace was as well as the stoneware crucible within it that held the melting metal.

  “This is some of the base bronze I’ve already made, just like the book said. It’s not bad, but it bends too much. Even work-hardening doesn’t solve that.”

  About a fifth of a glass later, the smith lifted the stoneware crucible with wood-handled iron tongs and poured the orange-golden metal into the mold. “Now … it’s up to you.”

  Beltur immediately created what amounted to a small shield with spacing that felt like that of a fine fishnet. Except he realized that one layer of shields wouldn’t be enough. Quickly, he added two more layers, which he thought, given the comparative thinness of the melted metal, would be enough. You hope. Concentrating as carefully as he could, he worked at getting the order and chaos nodes where he wanted them, and then held them, waiting … and holding … and waiting. Jut holding didn’t take that much effort.

  Finally, he slowly released his hold, then took a deep breath. For better or worse, the order-chaos pattern was embedded in the metal. Still, he kept sensing, but the pattern held.

  “It’s set in the metal.”

  “It’s still too hot to work.”

  In time Jorhan finally lifted the small rectangle in his tongs from the mold and then brought it to the anvil, where he struck it with his hammer. The rectangle immediately split into three thick sheets. “What the sowshit? I never saw that before.”

  Beltur knew immediately what had happened. He hadn’t connected the three layers of shields. “I can fix that. Try to forge any one of the sheets.”

  The smith took one of the sheets and began to tap it with the hammer. He smiled, but only for a moment, when cracks appeared along the lines of the shield links.

  Beltur sighed. He’d been afraid that learning how to forge cupridium would be anything but simple.

  “You did something all right, Mage, but what we’ve got is too hard to work-harden. It doesn’t work out under the hammer, or it splits.”

  “I can do better, but I think it’s going to take some work.”

  “Smithing always takes work.”

  More than half a glass later, when Jorhan tried to work the second metal rectangle, the smith’s hammer just rebounded from the metal. He struck harder, but the metal didn’t deform at all. Jorhan looked up and shook his head. “Something that can’t be worked…”

  “Couldn’t you just cast it?”

  “Making a mold that precise, where any imperfection shows up and can’t be ground out, where you can’t remove risers or sprues … that’s not going to be useful.”

  Beltur was getting hot, and he stripped off his tunic and hung it on a peg by the smithy door. Then he returned and waited while Jorhan heated more of his basic bronze. This time, as soon as the metal was in the mold, he imposed a linked pattern of three levels of modified shields, with even smaller amounts of order and chaos in a finer net.

  When Jorhan began to hammer that piece of bronze, it neither split nor cracked, but the hammering revealed a slightly raised pattern on the surface of the metal.

  “I think I need an even finer order-chaos pattern,” said Beltur. “At least, if you want to work-harden it.”

  “We’re getting somewhere,” said the smith.

  But not all that quickly.

  The fourth casting, with an even finer shield netting imposed by Beltur, turned out to be workable, but softer than ordinary bronze, according to Jorhan. The fifth, with more of the thinner links, but spaced more closely, was again unworkable.

  Before Jorhan could begin to heat another batch, Beltur held up a hand. “Do you have some ale or something? I’m getting dizzy.”

  The smith looked annoyed.

  “I know it doesn’t seem like it to you,” Beltur said, “but trying to place order and chaos inside hot metal takes a lot of effort, and I need a little something to eat or drink. Ale works better and faster.”

  Jorhan looked closely at Beltur, then laughed. “Hadn’t thought of it that way. Be the same for an apprentice smith first off.” He added some coal chunks to the fire, then said, “This way.”

  Beltur followed the smith back to the house.

  After drinking a mug of ale even more bitter than the brew his uncle had preferred, and part of a stale loaf of bread, Beltur felt much better, and the two returned to the smithy.

  Another glass passed—with two more attempts—before Jorhan declared, “This one is workable. Not quite as strong as I’d think might be possible.”

  Three more brass rectangles later, the smith smiled. “That one! Can you do it again? With a real mold? We’ll try a dagger this time.”

  Beltur nodded and blotted his forehead. He was stripped down to his smallshirt and dripping wet.

  A glass later, the two waited as the mold cooled, and Beltur had finally stopped having to blot his forehead and stood in the smithy doorway, letting the wind dry him and his damp smallshirt.

  “Can you remember what you did on the last one?” asked
the smith, a hint of apprehension in his voice.

  “I can.” That wasn’t exactly true. What Beltur had finally worked out, through all the efforts, was more a sense of feel as to how the net-like spread of order and chaos had to mesh with the metal.

  Before that long, the brisk wind had mostly dried Beltur, and he watched closely, both with eyes and senses, when Jorhan opened the mold and eased out the blade. He kept watching as the smith brought the cupridium to the anvil and lifted the hammer.

  “Tough to work. That’s as it should be.”

  Beltur kept sensing the metal as Jorhan worked, but the pattern held.

  “Demon-shame,” muttered the smith, finally holding the blade up.

  Beltur tensed, as he had just about been ready to don his tunic.

  “Not you,” replied Jorhan to the unspoken question. “Me. The mold wasn’t my best. Wasn’t sure how good you’d be on a full-sized casting. It’s not a loss, though. This could fetch a gold in the right hands, once I’m finished.”

  A gold? “Daggers are worth that much?” After pulling on his tunic, Beltur moved toward the anvil, his eyes on the dagger.

  “Not daggers. A cupridium dagger. There aren’t many left, and no one’s forged one for years. Not in Spidlar.”

  “I’ve never seen one in Gallos.” And only Athaal’s here.

  “You’re better than I’d hoped,” confessed the smith.

  Beltur wasn’t so sure how good he was. More than seven glasses of work to cast one real dagger, and not a large one at that. “It took some work.”

  “Smithing always does.” After a pause, Jorhan asked, “You’ll be here tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be here. Seventh glass?” Where else would I be that I can actually earn silvers?

  “That would be good.”

  “What would be good?” asked Athaal from the door.

  “Well,” replied Jorhan. “That your friend here can actually do what’s necessary to help forge cupridium.” He held up the dagger. “Be worth a great deal once it’s fine-finished with a proper grip.”

  Athaal froze where he stood, if but for an instant.

  “It only took all day and close to a score of failures to figure it out,” said Beltur dryly. “And two mugs of ale.”

  “Ale well spent,” said Jorhan. “Oh … wait a moment. I need to pay you.” Still carrying the dagger, he hurried from the smithy.

  Athaal looked to Beltur. “You obviously pleased him. I’ve never seen him that eager to part with coins.”

  “It was harder work than I thought it would be.”

  “Most magery that pays is.” Athaal’s words weren’t quite a reproof.

  “I think you’ve already shown me that.” Beltur half wondered why Athaal sounded the way he did, although Beltur couldn’t have described exactly what that was. “This was harder.”

  “That’s why there’s not much made of cupridium anymore.”

  At that moment, Jorhan returned and pressed two coins into Beltur’s hand. “Here you are. Two silvers. One for the day, and one for the dagger.”

  “Thank you.” Beltur took them and made sure that the silvers were secure in his belt wallet.

  The smith inclined his head to Athaal. “Thank you for introducing Beltur. I’m in your debt.”

  “I was glad to be of help.”

  Jorhan turned back to Beltur. “Tomorrow, then?”

  “I’ll be here.” Beltur looked to Athaal. “Shall we go?”

  Once the two were walking away from the smithy and down toward the road, Beltur asked, “How was your day?”

  “Moderately successful. Not nearly so remunerative as yours.”

  “For the moment,” Beltur pointed out. “You provide services to a great many. This is only the second time I’ve really done anything on my own.” For all of the two silvers in his wallet, Beltur was well aware of how uncertain his position in Elparta remained.

  For a moment, Athaal said nothing. “We should hurry. It is later than usual, and Meldryn will be worrying. He always does, you know.”

  “He’s very protective of you.”

  “He is. I feel the same way.”

  “Then we should hurry,” replied Beltur with a smile.

  XXXII

  Sevenday morning found Beltur southeast of Elparta at Jorhan’s smithy, working on adding order and chaos to two simple candlestick molds. For some reason that Beltur didn’t understand, but Jorhan did, one of the candlesticks ended up with a bubble in the side. The second pour worked out, but it took Jorhan a great deal of effort to do the finish work on the candlesticks.

  “Why do you think it happened that way?” asked the smith.

  “It might be my fault,” replied Beltur. “The bronze in the base of the candlesticks has more metal. It’s thicker, and I probably should have used just a hint less order/chaos there. I’m still having to go by feel.”

  “I don’t know as someone will pay as much for these.”

  “They won’t break easily.”

  Jorhan grinned. “I know someone who might appreciate them.”

  “Oh?”

  “Don’t worry about that. Go to the kitchen and get yourself some ale. I need to heat the next set of molds.”

  The remainder of the day was largely a repetition of the first few glasses, although the last casting was another dagger, rather than a candlestick. At perhaps a fifth past fourth glass, Jorhan called a halt, then handed Beltur two silvers. “Oneday morning? I don’t work much on eightday. Besides, I’ll need the time to get more molds ready and finish up what we cast today.”

  “Then I’ll see you on oneday morning.”

  Beltur was heading north on Bakers Lane when the city chimes rang out fifth glass, feeling more than a little tired after his day … and after carrying shields all the way back to the city. He was also almost bemused by the fact that, after eightdays in Elparta, he had so suddenly earned the five silvers or so in his wallet. And if it weren’t for Jorhan and the City Patrol, you’d only have a fraction of that … and not much in the way of prospects.

  When he entered the house, he could hear voices coming from the parlor—and some of those voices belonged to women. Jessyla and Margrena? Or someone else? He forced himself to walk down the hall calmly, then entered the parlor, seeing Margrena and Jessyla sitting side by side on the padded backed bench.

  Jessyla smiled, if briefly, while Margrena did not.

  “I told you he wouldn’t be long,” said Athaal. “He’s not the kind to make you wait.”

  “I would have hurried if I’d known you were here,” added Beltur, seating himself in the straight-backed chair across from the two healers. Then he realized that Jessyla was wearing the darker greens of a full healer, and not the pale greens of an apprentice. “Congratulations,” he added warmly.

  Athaal looked puzzled for a moment, while Margrena frowned momentarily. Jessyla feigned confusion.

  Despite Jessyla’s expression, what Beltur sensed was that she just might have been pleased. “She’s wearing the greens of a full healer. She wasn’t when I last saw her,” he explained, ostensibly to Athaal, even as he offered a smile to Jessyla.

  “She passed her trials just before we left,” Margrena said quickly.

  “Where are you staying?” asked Beltur, assuming that they were with Margrena’s sister, since he hadn’t seen any bags or duffels.

  “We’re staying with Grenara. For now, anyway.”

  “Where does she live?” Beltur asked.

  “Near the north market square, on Crafters Way,” replied Jessyla. “I think that’s right.”

  “It is,” said Margrena. She then looked to Athaal. “I almost forgot to tell you. Waensyn came with us. He’s staying with Cohndar. He’d thought to stay with Felsyn, but that didn’t work out. Grenara wasn’t about to host him.”

  “He’s always seemed nice enough,” offered Athaal, his voice pleasant, but neither warm nor cold.

  “That wouldn’t matter to Grenara.”

  “She doe
s things her own way,” stated Jessyla bluntly.

  Margrena looked hard at her daughter.

  Jessyla looked back at her mother. “She does.”

  “How bad is it in Fenard?” asked Beltur quickly, given that he’d asked the question that had led to Jessyla’s reaction.

  “There aren’t any blacks left in the city, and probably not many anywhere else in Gallos,” replied Margrena. “If there are, they won’t be there long, one way or another.”

  “The only whites left are lackeys to that demon Wyath,” snapped Jessyla.

  Beltur couldn’t help but wonder if Sydon happened to be one of those lackeys. If he isn’t, he’s likely dead.

  “Some of them just might be trying to stay alive,” suggested Margrena. “Beltur’s uncle was one of the more powerful whites. Look what happened to him for just avoiding Wyath. He wasn’t even directly opposing the Arms-Mage.”

  “The Council is concerned that Denardre might attack Spidlar,” said Athaal.

  “They should be.” Jessyla stopped short after a sharp look from her mother.

  “The Prefect is increasing the size of his army,” Margrena said. “Wyath is also training the remaining whites in how to use chaos most effectively.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Athaal.

  “Dhurra told me. That’s why she and Pietryl went to Sarronnyn.”

  “I missed the reason. What was it?” asked Meldryn from the doorway.

  “She wanted to go where there wouldn’t be any fighting. Her nephew is a squad leader. His company was being trained to work with some of the Prefect’s mages.”

  “That doesn’t explain—” Athaal began.

  “She said there was no telling whether the Prefect would attack Spidlar or Certis, and she didn’t want to guess wrong and have to flee again.”

  “I wasn’t aware Sarronnyn was that formidable,” said Athaal mildly.

  “It’s not,” replied Jessyla, “but the Westhorns are, and so is Westwind.”

  “Your point is well-taken,” said Meldryn. “Gallos has not had the best of fortune in dealing with Westwind.”

  “I can’t believe that Pietryl would have agreed.” Athaal frowned.

  Margrena smiled. “Dhurra can be quite firm. She told him that he could come with her, or stay in Gallos, or fly to the Rational Stars, but she was going to Sarronnyn.”