Dear Cato,

    We're very sorry for Danine's actions. She must have caused you a lot of trouble.

    Don't worry about us, if you can't handle Danine, please send her back, but otherwise we will entrust her to you. Please act as her guardian in our stead.

Irld & Arbor

Cato put down the short letter as Danine bounced out of their room in high spirits. To be honest, Cato had been worried that she was finding it boring in Corbin. He thought she might even ask to go back. But looking at her racing around the warehouse in happiness, he was clearly worried for nothing.

He picked up the tiny roll of paper. The other message.

Huh. "A hidden message" was all that was written on it. And it wasn't in the blocky writing style of the Inath knights. Tulore maybe? She was the only one in the village who Cato knew could write.

Hmm. Cato examined the tiny piece of paper more closely. Holding it up to the light. Roasting it over a candle.

No mysterious words revealed themselves.

Then he smacked his forehead. Gods, he was stupid! The letter!

Closely examining the letter revealed traces of crinkles, as if someone had run lines of water across the paper.

"Danine!" he called her back to the large work desk, "can you heat this paper up? Please don't burn it. "

She looked up at him curiously but shrugged and focused her magic.

Almost like magic, the words revealed themselves on the back of the letter.

    Arbor and I don't like Danine staying with you but the council overruled us. Tharoden and Banage said that they don't want you to forget the Fukas. Tulore is helping me hide this message to you.

   I feel that using Danine like this is a betrayal of everything you've done for us. So I'll just be honest. I worry for her safety, Inath is an unknown land and Danine is still too young. I don't care about any of their schemes, please send Danine back safely. I beg you.

Irld

Cato looked at Danine's face as a complex mix of emotions marched across it.

"This is quite the decision. "

Danine looked up at him in surprise.

"Yes," Cato said, "Whether you stay here or return is up to you. "

He held up a hand as she began to think.

"Consider both sides carefully," Cato held up fingers for each point, "the council wants you to stay with me, if you return, they will know your parents defied them somehow. Your mother wants you to come back, so if you don't go, you know she will worry about you. And if you stay, there is a chance you will learn useful magic or skills to teach the other Fukas. I'm sure the council considered that too. "

Danine nodded and paced for a few moments, "Cato, what do you think? Should I stay?"

"That's up to you," Cato smiled.

"But how can I decide something like this?" Danine exclaimed, "council business? Teach magic to the village? How can I decide that?!"

Cato shook his head, "you said you wanted to be like me. To be someone important. Is this how someone important who others listen to would act?"

Her eyes widened and there was a look of dismay on her face. Clearly her running away hadn't been completely thought through.

"Relax, I'm not scolding you," Cato said gently, "But you were unsatisfied with just being a Fuka girl who couldn't do anything. You wanted to be someone more. This is how it is. You have to decide. "

"But what if I pick wrong? What if I get lost in Inath or worse? Mama will be-"

"Then you live with the consequences. It's called responsibility," Cato watched her squirm for a few more moments before taking pity on her. He smiled, "of course, I'm still here and I'll still help you when you need it. I'm not going to abandon you, even if you go back, you can still change your mind in a year or two. "

Danine looked down at the letter again, thinking.

"I... will not return," she said finally, "I... I want to do this. If I go back now, I feel like I will never get another chance. "

Cato nodded, "all right, I'll help you write the reply. "

Danine picked up the paper and quill. "I should write this myself," she said, trying to sound determined but failing, "I have to apologize to mama. "

The woman pushed open the heavy wooden door with a loud creak and peered up into the dim morning light filtering in through the louvers near the roof. The stone floor had a few more scuffles and marks but the dust had been replaced with chips of wood and ashes.

In front of her, a strange structure loomed that hadn't been there before. Wooden beams and struts were anchored securely to holes drilled in the floor, bracketing a much more sturdier bronze frame. A short staircase sprouted from one side, leading to a platform near the top of the framework. In the center was a dark unfamiliar shape. The darkness of wrought iron. The cylinder squatted there, with mysterious holes and sluices at varying heights for unknown purposes.

Surrounding the structure was also a series of fired clay troughs, with channels carved into the top of the surfaces. To one side, disconnected from the rest, was a large clay block of the sort used in bronze casting, but the woman was sure this block would never see bronze. After all, the piles of black charcoal, white limestone and the dirty red of good iron ore kind of gave it away.

"Is it done?" she whispered.

"Not yet," the voice behind her made her jump.

"Cato!" she ruffled the boy's hair roughly with a grin, "you nearly killed me from shock!"

"Then you shouldn't sneak into a highly classified area," the boy standing behind her said, "welcome back Landar, I didn't expect you so soon. You said it took two weeks one way and you're back in three!"

Landar grinned and pointed at the Reki tied to the fence surrounding the warehouse. "I borrowed that," Landar said, "rode by myself all the way back. "

Cato raised an eyebrow, "you mean you stole it. No, no, don't need to make excuses, I know your kleptomaniac tendencies range from interesting ideas to highly dangerous summoning stones. Clearly a Reki is nothing if not expected. "

"It'll cost them less than sending me back in a carriage," Landar grinned, "enough talk about home, I don't want to think about it anymore. So, did you even leave any work for me?"

"I could show you, but are you sure a noble and delicate Iris lady like you should get herself dirty in such a place?" That earned him another cuff on the head, "all right, fine, come in and I'll tell you what I need your magic for. "

She raised her eyebrows questioningly.

Cato smiled, "even if my world never used magic in making iron, that doesn't mean we can't use magic. It'll make things much easier. "

Landar frowned as he began to explain the process, walking her around the floor. Where the iron ore and charcoal would go and where the iron and slag would come out, were easily understandable.

"You want me to use magic to tap the molten iron?!" Landar said incredulously, "How do you know it won't just burn through my magic? There's enough wood in that structure to turn into a major disaster if I spill any. "

Cato shook his head, "it doesn't work that way, I think. You know the exercises you left Danine to do? She can push the candle flame around with magic, by combining deflection and acceleration. I also saw similar things in the battle with the zombies. You can push fireballs but not the heat coming off it, which matches with what I know from my world. I think magic will ignore the heat, more like they don't interact at all. "

Landar frowned, "but we do know a few other things. I haven't taught Danine how to yet, but there are a few magical materials you can create and they most definitely respond to heat. In fact, they behave like normal things like rocks, water and air. "

Cato raised an eyebrow, "really? That's interesting but those are not the same as the six basic functions?"

"No, they're not the same. It's a bit more complicated to create magical materials. Anyway, I expect you will run a test. Do you need magic for anything else?" Landar asked.

"I need a heat source, the charcoal over there isn't actually enough for the amount of iron ore. I've used a smaller brick furnace for testing and without magic, I need more than three times the weight of iron ore in charcoal. Most of it is needed for the heat. I expect magic can replace that, we're a bit short on charcoal for the main test," Cato said, tapping his forehead in thought, "right, we also need to pump air into the furnace, lots of air. "

He led Landar over to the side where a familiar forge bellows lay. Except that this one was hugely oversized, it would need more than one person just to move it. "If you still have enough magic, you can try running that as well. I'm sure Mr Kalny will be glad to have less people watching this happen, he wasn't happy when I told him he needed to hire some people to pump the bellows. "

Landar raised an eyebrow at the list of tasks. They were simple enough, the tools were doing most of the work. "Heating things is easy. It's just a question of power, for which you should count yourself lucky to have me. The problem is that I can't do that many things at the same time. Spellstorms could control a few spells at the same time but not different types of spell, heating the iron and pumping bellows are fundamentally different. And I don't have spellstorm training. "

She frowned, "I don't think you want to hire another mage, that's pointless. "

"Might as well go find some men looking for extra money?" Cato nodded, "I can tell Kalny that. "

Landar held up a hand, "can you wait a day? I want to try something. "

"Mm?"

"I could use alchemy on the furnace. Just like the arrows, except that it'll heat the contents. When you're ready, I'll set it off then use my magic on the bellows. " Come to think of it, that was an interesting problem. Landar tried to plan how the magic would have to look. "We don't normally use alchemy for simple heating, but the principle's the same as the arrows. It's just the same physically bound magic after all. "

"Actually, if you're going to make a magical item," Cato interrupted, "I'd rather you did the bellows. "

"You don't trust a new item? It's not going to blow up like my other 'specials', this one is simple. " She never really expected anyone to like her messing around with doing unknown things, but it still hurt a little coming from Cato.

"It's nothing to do with that," Cato said, seemingly not even noticing Landar's discomfort, "You can't control the magic after you set it off, right?"

Landar frowned at him but Cato was still looking at the furnace, "no. Or, actually, I could do it, it would only take a few seconds to re-establish control, but then I'd have to concentrate on the furnace and can't do the bellows. "

"Then the bellows are less critical. The furnace temperature has to be controlled and this is still something of an experiment. I might need to change the temperature half way through and you can't control it if it's a magical item. But the bellows are fine, if you can just set them going, I can control the air supply by blocking the inlet if I need to," Cato got a distant look on his face, "also I'm curious about whether you can actually do the bellows. The central paddle has to rise and fall repeatedly against air pressure, and it has to move between the top and bottom points. It's not as simple as the magical arrows. "

Oh. Landar hid her embarrassment in the dim light, it was just her own misunderstanding. "I'll have a think and tell you if it's possible tomorrow," she said, determined to not let him get the best of her. No sleep until she had a magic bellows!

She could even see how it might be useful for her own smithing projects.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Red stone, are you sure of that?" the voice said.

The boy nodded.

"Interesting," the man nodded in return, digging out a coin from his pouch, "you may go. "

The boy disappeared and the man turned to look across the street, "what exactly are you doing, Kalny? Iron ore? You have no idea how to smelt iron do you?"

The man shook his head at the foolishness of the food merchant. Challenging the Ironworkers was he? That oversized smelter of his would melt the iron and ruin it into unworkability.

Still, something had to be done about that. Even incompetent upstarts eventually learnt some skill if left alone. And if you left one alone, no matter how ineffectual, more would be encouraged.

He would need to do something, and soon.

"And that, basically, is how this will work," Cato said, putting the finishing touches on the large diagram he was illustrating on the sheet of cloth draped on one wall. Kalny, Landar and Danine were sitting in a row, looking over the diagram. Danine's friend, Tam, wasn't around, Kalny didn't like the idea of people outside their little circle getting to know the secret blast furnace.

How he expected to keep something this big a secret was beyond Cato. It also went against Cato's plans but Cato could deal with that later.

"I will have more details as we go through further cold trials. I think we can begin hot trials within the week. What about the bellows?" Cato asked Landar.

Amazingly, she shifted uncomfortably, "actually, they're proving to be harder than I thought. The handles keep breaking. "

Kalny, sensing that the talk was shifting towards mechanics that he didn't understand, got up from the bench and dusted himself off, "well, you seem to have everything in order, even though I can't believe you can smelt more iron ore than will fit into the furnace. "

Cato shrugged, "I've explained that. The furnace, when it's ready, will operate in continuous mode and-"

Danine piped up, "Mr Kalny, what Cato means is that more iron ore goes in as the iron from the old ones come out. "

They all looked at her and Cato silently reminded himself not to think of Danine as a young kid who understood nothing. She had a sharp mind, if only she would use it consistently. "That's exactly right, Danine," Cato smiled at her.

"I understood that," Kalny rumbled, nodding his head, "Cato, you need to speak in simpler terms so I can understand. "

"I will try my best in the future," Cato said, "can I ask you to give Landar another day for the bellows? We might have to delay the hot trial if she can't get it to work, unless you want to hire some men. "

Kalny shook his head, "take your time. The last shipment of charcoal was interfered with... by someone. I don't know who but it's definitely not the work of simple bandits. "

They shared a moment of silence at the revelation. Someone out there knew about this and was trying to disrupt their supplies.

"What's done is done, you just have to make the iron. Let me worry about catching a thief," Kalny said and turned to the door, "come, Livnon. "

The servant standing by the door bowed and shot a disdainful look at Danine before following Kalny out. Cato suppressed a sigh, this happened every time Kalny brought his servant over and Cato wondered why the man and his obvious prejudice was even there.

"I think I know what's wrong with the bellows," Landar said, "they don't go up and down in straight lines. "

She moved her hands to demonstrate, "when you pump the bellows, the paddle that moves goes like this, which is almost straight up but not exactly straight. If I make my spell push straight up and down, this bends the paddle and after a few hundred blows, the wood breaks. "

"Why don't you make the spell push in the direction you need to move it in?" Danine asked.

"It's too hard, the direction keeps changing as it moves," Landar sighed, "Danine, you've been practising magic for the last weeks, how far have you come? Can you make the ball float yet?"

Danine shook her head, "it keeps falling off, even if I push it up. "

"It's the same reason why this is so hard," Landar explained, picking up a familiar stick from the table with the four vanes sticking out the top, "when you're pushing the ball, you need to control the spell to make it change, which is why trying to keep a ball afloat is a common practice exercise for control. By the way, no one manages to keep it afloat for very long, don't be too disappointed with your progress. When enchanting items, you need to build that control into the spell when you're casting it, not just altering it on the fly. And once you enchant, the spell doesn't change by itself. "

She released the stick and it spun in her hand like a top. Not spinning fast enough to fly, but it still managed to stay upright. "I can very carefully craft a spell to follow the pumping motion of the bellows, like the much simpler one that spins this toy," Landar flicked the stick hard and it toppled over onto the floor. Still trying to spin, the stick began to rotate in circles. "The problem with the bellows is that the spell has to push it very hard and if you're off by just a bit, the bellows start to bend to the side and this breaks the paddle near the hinge. The spell can't correct for any bending or deforming. Trying to detect these things is more difficult than the magical arrows, for arrows you at least control the impulse you're trying to detect. "

Cato walked around . The problem was in fact the same issue that modern manufacturing plants faced. When faced with an outside factor that couldn't be controlled, the number of situations the machine had to deal with ballooned uncontrollably. Without some sort of artificial intelligence, or image recognition, dealing with the messy real world was very hard to impossible. And this Inath didn't even have standardized measurements, thinking about digital computing and control theory was pure fantasy.

How did real factories solve these sorts of problems?

Cato stopped his pacing and snapped his fingers. That's it! "Simple," he grinned, "don't change the spell. We change the bellows into one that works when you move it up and down. "

He sketched out a rough drawing of how it would look. "In fact, let's make it a double bellows since it's just stacking another one on top. The middle paddle goes straight up and down and if you make the holes on the side and metal rails to guide it, the paddle will constrained to this path. That should make it much more stable. "

Landar picked up the drawing with a frown, "you move the middle? I never heard of a bellows with three paddles. "

Cato drew a quick sketch of the inside. "When you move the middle paddle up, the top bellows exhales and the bottom inhales, and vice versa. Double bellows give much more consistent blowing and work better, we don't really need it but I was intending to build one for a bigger furnace anyway," Cato explained, "seriously, you never heard of this before?"

Landar shook her head. "I suppose this is another invention from your world?" she asked.

Cato laughed with a note of despair, "seems like everything is. Bellows are obsolete in my world. We have fan blowers instead. "

Landar looked curious but Cato shook his head. "We need steel, good steel. "

He could almost see her wilting.

"How come your world is so crazy?" Landar complained, "everything nice takes good steel. Or impossibly precise tools. Or substances that not even the First heard of. "

"Inath is pretty good too," Danine joined in, "you have so much food. "

"But our things are easy to understand," Landar explained, "your village understands trading food. Corbin is just a bigger town. "

"Mm," Danine nodded, "the Char clan have always traded hunting meat for wind eyes. "

"His things are not the same," Landar pointed at him accusingly, "how come they're so much better than ours?"

"What do you mean?" Cato raised an eyebrow.

"I mean how come you have so many miraculous things? Skyscrapers. Steel buildings. Huge panes of glass as tall as a person! The miracle you call electricity! If it wasn't for this," Landar waved at the furnace behind her, and the smaller demonstration furnace outside, "and the few things that came with you, there's no way I could believe you!"

"What can I say?" Cato held up his hands, "I mean, we have been inventing things for hundreds of years. Something like this blast furnace is unsophisticated. To be honest, the only complex thing I've seen about your magic is that summoning stone. "

Landar rolled her eyes, "I'd like to see what you call sophisticated. "

Danine perked up at that as well, and Cato found both of them looking at him.

"Come to think of it," Landar said slowly, "we tell our stories of the First and the Tsar. They built great things and were wonders at magic. Surely Cato's world told stories like that too. Or did you learn so much, have so much power that nothing stood above you even in your imaginations?"

"Funny you should say that, but Inath and this entire world is a bit like the sorts of stories we tell too," Cato said, "Magic. Monsters. Knights in shining armour. Our stories have those too. Although," he pointed at the same blast furnace," we generally don't put things like that inside. "

"Anyway," he continued hurriedly, Danine was beginning to stare daggers at him, "we do tell science fiction stories. I'm not a very good storyteller, you still want to hear one?"

They nodded simultaneously.

Hm. Oh why not. What harm could it do?

"And with his laser disabled from faulty heatsinks, that's when he fired his jumpjets and kicked the enemy in the back of the head! One lucky critical hit later and the opposing robot simply fell down and stopped moving," Cato waved a hand dramatically, "as it would turn out later, the kick had driven in the cockpit door and crushed his enemy to death!"

To be honest, he was making it up as he went along. It wasn't as if Cato had a eidetic memory, all he could do was fill in the blanks of half-remembered stories with more plot holes than one could count.

It didn't seem to matter to Danine though. She listened closely, alternating between rapt attention and utter confusion. As expected, robots was a bit too much for her to understand. Even if he thought humanoid robots and the individual heroics of the tale would be more relatable, she couldn't quite grasp the idea of a machine doing things, much less a giant bipedal robot that shot strange things like energy weapons and missiles. She did understand dramatic tension however and cheered at all the right parts.

Landar on the other hand... Landar had a maniacal grin that was already beginning to make Cato worry. That same grin she had when he mentioned the bowgun, only this time it had gotten wider and more crazed with each demand for details on lasers, composite armour and computers. Audiences weren't supposed to interrupt stories to ask physics questions, but Cato had the feeling that she wasn't asking them to poke holes in the story unlike certain other fans on Earth internet.

When he had gotten to the point where the hero made his grand entrance with the giant robot, her eyes had transformed into miniature twin stars.

He wrapped up the story with a final kiss from the damsel in distress. Landar shot out of the warehouse with a dark and positively evil laugh.

Cato gulped as a sense of foreboding went down his spine. It was just a science fiction story, it wasn't as if any of the concepts had enough detail to work and she couldn't even make an animated pair of bellows. It would probably be all right.

Almost certainly. Right?