"Ignition!"

Cato shouted down as he dodged the shower of glowing cinders that shot out the top of the furnace stack. They bounced off the roof and began to land on and around him in a fine rain of ash. The roar of superheated air escaping out the top of the furnace was rattling Cato down to his eyeballs and drenching him in sweat.

To the side, the bellows pumped up and down without any apparent source of power. According to Landar, they would continue to do so for about an hour. That would be long enough. Landar herself had also demonstrated her ability to keep the furnace heated for over two hours, so that was fine as well.

He waved at Landar to increase the heat and was rewarded with a soft red glow on the underside of the soot cloud, the iron was beginning to melt. And then everything started to go wrong.

The cloud of soot rolling out the top of the furnace mouth began to descend once the roof of the warehouse began to heat up. Even worse, the burnt out air was impossible to breathe.

Cato coughed into a hastily bundled wad of cloth and held his breath. The air coming down from the roof was full of carbon monoxide and the choking smell was beyond tolerable. He stumbled away from the furnace, past Landar, who had also found some cloth but was still heroically trying to channel heat. Cato grabbed her shoulder and shook his head, then pointed at the bellows.

A second later, the pumping stopped and both of them ran out of the warehouse to fall down to the grass and the sweet cool air outside.

There was a long minute of choking and retching, where Cato could only hope they hadn't breathed too much of it. But after a while it began to look like they were getting off with only a mild headache.

"We were very very lucky," Cato said once he felt like he could talk again, "good thing we sent Danine to shopping. I completely forgot about ventilation. "

"Indeed," Landar agreed.

"How far can your magic reach?" Cato asked, looking back through the door. The top of the furnace was still glowing red but it would burn through the meager charge for the test quickly.

"The furnace is close enough to use magic on, but I won't be able to sustain much more than a few minutes of heat," Landar said, "do you want to continue the test?"

The note of incredulousness in her voice made Cato grin, "of course... not. We need to save the furnace, can you pull out both the slag and iron plugs? I don't want any molten iron in the furnace to solidify inside, getting them out afterwards will be nigh impossible. "

Landar nodded, "give me some time. "

Cato pointed up at the roof, "I'll go up there on the ladder and open the louvers to let the air out. Leave the doors open and we should be able to go back in by tonight. "

A few minutes of scrambling up to the roof and he was at the vents near the top of the sloped roof. Meant to let the air out on a hot day, the clay slats were almost too hot to touch, and even the roof was noticeably warm under Cato's hands. He shook his head, this had been extremely dangerous.

After pulling open the slats and scrambling away with held breath, Cato climbed back down to find Landar still concentrating. And still glowing in the magic sense.

"Is it that hard to..." Cato's question died as he saw the scene through the open door.

A ball of brightly glowing yellow liquid the size of a head was slowly drifting through the air. Globs of semi-molten iron dripped out the bottom and sides, hissing as they hit the stone floor. Then as it reached the sand pit, Landar poured out the molten metal through a hole in the bottom, stopping just in time to separate the darker slag floating in the upper half. Then the slag moved to the side of the pit and was dumped unceremoniously into the quenching barrel, in a cloud of steam.

"Wow. "

The sight of the glowing molten metal floating without support was not something Cato was going to forget any time soon. If anything, that ball looked more like a true ball of fire than any fireball the knights might throw, and was probably far more dangerous. Iron had a melting point upwards of a thousand and a half degrees after all.

"Haa," Landar collapsed onto the grass, panting in large gulps. It didn't help recover from magical exhaustion, according to Landar and Tori, but you felt tired and the need for air was a reflex that few people could ignore. "I haven't used so much magic since... two weeks ago, actually, but that's not the point. Working so far away really takes a toll on you. And trying to lift a ball of liquid," Landar shook her head ruefully, "that was harder than any control exercise I ever did. I don't think I could have got the ball that far if I was moving water, iron is very sticky. "

"It was very impressive," Cato said, still replaying the scene in his head.

"Indeed. "

They shared a moment of silence.

"So uh," Landar spoke first, "what now?"

Cato looked up at the wisps of grey smoke drifting away in the wind. He still had a slight headache, probably a mild case of carbon monoxide poisoning? "I think that's enough for today. The furnace clearly works so the trial is a success, but doing this indoors is not a great idea. I should have predicted it and got some ventilation. "

He nodded and threw open the big double doors to let the air out faster. "I wouldn't enter this place for the rest of today either, the air inside will be poisonous. "

Landar nodded, "if it's similar to the stuff that comes out of a smithy oven, then that would be a good idea. "

"In the future though, we're going to have to think of a way to get rid of the exhaust," Cato pointed at the smoke, "just opening the ceiling vents aren't going to be enough. This was just the first time we fired it; to cast that iron bell of Kalny's, we'll have to move the air out of the warehouse. "

Landar nodded, "we need a chimney. "

"We could also exhaust the air forcefully," Cato mused, "a fan up there should work just as well since all the hot air rises to the roof anyway, we just need to force it out the vents. It might be faster to build than a brick and mortar chimney. "

There was a rapid patter of feet and they turned around to see Danine come rushing in with Tam right behind her.

"What happened!" Danine demanded, "I see smoke!"

"Is it burning?" Tam asked.

"The furnace is fine," Cato said, "we just needed a little air. But more importantly, we have iron!"

He pointed at the sand pit where the reddish iron blob was cooling slowly.

"Oh!" Danine was about to run into the warehouse when Cato grabbed her arm.

"Not so fast, the air inside is poisonous. See the smoke coming out?" Cato pointed at the roof.

"What happened here?" Tam asked, "I heard you were going to try to make iron but how does that make the air poisonous?"

Hmm, he couldn't very well explain about carbon monoxide poisoning. No one would understand it. "When you burn wood you get smoke like that. The difference here is that there isn't enough air to burn the charcoal in the furnace completely. If you breathe the air inside now, you'll be breathing in the half-burnt wood. Not good for you. We're waiting for the smoke to clear. "

Landar eyed him suspiciously, "you're not telling us the fully story, we can avoid the smoke by breathing through cloth. "

"It's technically true, but we can leave that for later," Cato suddenly threw in a question, "So Danine, did you figure out why the propeller toy I gave you flies?"

Landar looked at him weirdly but Danine just answered the question, "I think so. We worked it out together!"

She shared a grin with Tam, who returned it weakly. "When you spin the stick, the curved paper pushes the stick upwards!"

Cato nodded, "anything else?"

"It seems to push on the air to lift itself," Danine said, "but that doesn't make sense. I can't push on the air to fly. "

"If you push hard enough, you can," Cato said, "in my world, we had machines that flew on the same theory. Even the Elkas do the same, although they push the air by flapping their wings, these fly by spinning. "

"So why bring this up?" Landar asked, "does it have anything to do with our chimney?"

"Oh, I see!" Danine nodded, "it pushes the air to fly. What if you don't want to fly, but want to push the air? With a big one, you could push the bad air out of the vents!"

Landar stared at Danine and sighed ruefully, "well, I never thought I'd get shown up by Danine but alright, that is an idea. I don't think the stick will be enough though, it can't move enough air. "

Cato shrugged, "we need a bigger one. Landar, do you mind making another item?"

"And I have to recharge the bellows too," Landar sighed heavily, "at this rate, my special project won't ever get done!"

Cato wisely did not ask what the special was. He sincerely hoped no one would have to find out.

"They poured molten iron? What was it like?"

The man frowned as the description continued. "She said it was hot short? Those two words? I see. I knew it would be unworkable. "

That said, he hadn't expected Kalny to attempt to use iron for casting. Hot short iron wasn't nearly as bad if one never intended to work it. But how was he going to cast the iron? What mold could withstand that amount of heat?

"You said they poured the iron into a pit of sand. Tell me about the sand. Was there anything special about it?"

After some prodding about the green sand, the man had no more clue than the boy. It was clear the sand pit had not been overly damaged by the iron. But all the wisdom of the Ironworkers said that past attempts to make iron castings with sand molds resulted in the sand exploding. The man had done his research to see if what Kalny was attempting was even possible.

According to the Ironworkers' knowledge, what Kalny was doing was not possible. Not just the furnace itself that was supposed to somehow produce iron in unheard of quantities, but even to make enough to cast an entire iron bell the size of a person. He suspected the guard had given Kalny an impossible request to get rid of him but that didn't mean that if Kalny managed it, he wouldn't get more requests. And there was the matter of the strange sand used for the mold, the double bellows which was a closely guarded guild secret, now this last thing called a fan.

He thought all of it was just a scam Kalny was falling for but with this pouring, the furnace appeared to work. If that was the case, then what about the others?

There was only one explanation for this strangeness. The businessman Kalny was a familiar customer and there was no sign he could do any of this. No, the reason had to be that young stranger.

"Who are you, Mr Cato?" the man muttered, flicking a coin to the floor.

Rather than viewing him as a competitor, it would be more accurate to treat this man as a precious resource. Someone who could invent all of that was a genius not seen since the time of the First. The Ironworkers simply had to have him. They might even grow powerful enough to challenge the nobility!

The man began to laugh. A low malicious laugh that sent the Fuka boy scurrying away.

Danine hummed to herself as she looked over the now familiar landscape of Corbin. She was now getting quite good at climbing up and down buildings and running across rooftops. She had been here for more than a month now.

All in all, life was looking good. Her noticing how the propeller on a stick worked and thinking of using it as a fan was certainly the highlight, Cato had treated her far less like a kid after that. There were other things too. Like how she could remember and write all of the Inath letters now and actually wrote another letter to her mother all by herself. And her magic was getting considerably powerful nowadays, the last time she went all out until she got sleepy, she actually managed to bring a cup of water to boil. That was powerful enough that Landar finally told her to restrict herself when throwing practice pebbles with magic.

She was well on her way to 'finding herself', Danine thought. Whatever Cato meant by that.

Even better, her mother hadn't objected too strongly to Danine staying with Cato. Her letter could be interpreted to mean that Danine could stay with Cato. If you stretched the wording a little. Which was a good thing because Danine had the feeling that things were about to get more exciting. She didn't know why but there was something in the air today that made her feel bubbly and excitable.

On the other hand, the little ball of gloominess sitting next to her was being silent and depressing. On a day like this when things were looking up? Why, Danine ought to be a good friend and cheer Tam up.

"What's the matter?" "Um, I want to-"

Danine blinked as both of them spoke at the same time. "You go first," she said.

"I need to tell you something," Tam said, looking down at the roof darkly but didn't elaborate.

Danine tilted her head in confusion, "did you do something bad? Something I wouldn't like?"

Tam nodded.

"And you're worried whether to tell me in case I don't want to be your friend afterwards?" Danine guessed.

Tam looked at her in shock.

Bingo! This was how it went in all those romance stories she heard from Ryulo! Danine grinned, "of course now that I've worked out that you like me, you'll just have to spit it out. "

Tam seemed to go even more into shock. Danine took it to mean that she was on the right path. "Don't worry, even if it doesn't work out, we can still be friends. I can still teach you magic," she smiled at him, wagging her tail excitedly. She was about to get her own romance!

Tam sighed, shook his head and smiled all at the same time. "It's not like that," he said, "I really do have something to tell you that you need to listen to. "

Danine frowned, "does that mean you don't like me?"

"Uh..." Tam looked a little panicked but there was no escape from the trap, "it's not like that. I do like you, but only as a friend. "

Danine pouted. It was still too early she guessed.

"Can we please get back on topic?" Tam said, shadows creeping back onto his face. When Danine nodded, he continued, "Cato is in danger. I think. Someone very bad wants something from him. I don't know what. "

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Danine raised an eyebrow as Tam clammed up after that. She frowned and paced slowly around Tam, who just guiltily watched her. "Who is that person? Why is he so bad? And that's not everything is it?" she said after a while. Somehow she had the feeling...

"I think he's connected to the Ironworkers," Tam said, still watching Danine, "he knew what you were doing with the iron. "

Danine thought quickly. Tam couldn't have gotten all that just from overhearing that person. Come to think of it, Tam had been getting more and more depressed over the last few days. It started two weeks ago? Right when he asked to learn magic and then asked to see Cato, as if he was working up to a harder request. Hm. "Did you talk to him?" Danine asked suddenly.

Tam jumped a little then nodded guiltily.

"And he learned about Cato- ah. I see," Danine nodded to herself, noting how he reacted to her guess, "well, now that I've figured it out, you may as well tell me everything. "

And with that, Tam suddenly broke down into tears. Danine blinked in surprise, she had guessed he was about to break and give up the details but not like this. She had intended to grill him lightly in revenge for the earlier embarrassment. Oops?

She sat him down on the roof and stroked his ears and tail as he told about the nightly meetings with the strange and dangerous man. Tam even told her about the money the man had given him. Well, his tail could do with some grooming but it really was quite nice. Perhaps she could poke him a little to get another- ha! No, bad thoughts!

"It's not so bad, you know," Danine said once he was done, she still cuddle close to him, it seemed to keep him calmer. "Sure, that man probably is from the Ironworker's Guild and he probably doesn't like Cato. And you did accept money from him. Oh, and you even told him where to find the warehouse. "

Tam seemed to shrink a little at each accusation she leveled at him. "On the other hand, I never explicitly told you this was secret. I mean, we were pretty secretive and I guess you knew we wanted to keep it secret but we didn't actually say you had to," Danine made up an excuse for him on the spot.

"I..." Tam rummaged in his pockets and produced a few coins, "Please, these should belong to you. "

Danine raised an eyebrow at the wealth in his hands. There was more than a few rimes there. "No. They're yours," she said firmly.

"How can I spend these, when I betrayed you to get them?" Tam cried sadly.

"It's all right," Danine closed his hands around the coins, "you take it. I don't know what sort of life you lead but I can tell you need this more than I do. "

"How can you be like that?!" Tam exclaimed, "just being so carefree and... and... I don't even know how to say it!"

Danine blinked at him, bemused. What was she like? "Carefree? I might be acting a little weird because I'm bored all the time, but how am I carefree?"

"Just like that!" Tam said, "you don't even know what it's like to live in Corbin. The nights when you wonder if there will be food tomorrow or how you will fix your shoes for the tenth time or whether you will be beaten by any humans who think you're a monster! And you complain of boredom! Just... how can it be?!"

That was unexpected. Danine gulped, she knew that Tam was probably not eating well and never had any money. She had taken care to never bring it up and always paid for food even if it made him guilty. But she didn't know it was this bad. "I'm sorry?" she said unconvincingly, "But why can't you go start a farm? Then you at least never worry about starving. "

"My mother moved here after bandits burned down our farm and killed my father," Tam shuddered a little, "mother still wakes up screaming sometimes. And I'm not strong enough to farm by myself. "

Oops again. Danine tried to think of another way but farming was really all she knew about how to live. Come to think of it, she had no idea what Tam and his mother did to live here in Corbin. They probably earned these coins to buy food... by doing what?

Oh, but then there was one place they could get a farm. "Tam," Danine shook his shoulder and looked at him seriously, "go north to Wendy's Fort. There is a village of Fukas there. It's where I come from and if we can convince Cato to write them, I'm sure you can join. "

"A village?" Tam asked wonderingly, "of Fukas?"

Danine nodded, "I grew up there. We used to be further north but then we had to run from the zombies. Don't worry, I'm sure they will help. "

"Wait, you said Wendy's Fort. The monsters come from there!" Tam's eyes widened just a fraction, "it's too dangerous!"

"It's Cato. He gave us the means to defend ourselves," Danine said proudly, "it's nothing like the Inath battlemages but the bowgun means that we can fight off monsters if we need to. And besides, we live near the fort. The Inaths help defend us. "

"That... Does such a miraculous place exist?" Tam shook his head.

"It does. I told you I grew up in my village. "

Tam looked at her, guilt warring with hope. "I think I know why you're special," he said finally, "most people would say living near Wendy's Fort is crazy. Perhaps you are crazy. "

Danine raised an eyebrow, "feel free to join us in our craziness. "

The realization hit her like a blow right to the ribs. Tam looked at her in the same way that she looked at Cato. It wasn't exactly the same of course but this was the same feeling she got when she watched Cato decide the fate of her village with the council.

Tam was actually looking up to her with hope. There was someone who she could help! Right here!

Danine grinned, the buoyant feeling in her chest made everything seem more wonderful, "Come, we have to tell Cato about your problem. Oh, and we have to warn him too. "

"This is a problem. "

Cato rubbed his chin while looking at the Fuka boy. He was starting to grow a bit of stubble but after seeing the wickedly sharp knife these people used to shave, Cato was resolved to do it as little as possible. The lower the chance of accidentally knifing himself the better.

The atmosphere in the warehouse turned smelter was faintly curling with tension. Kalny sat across the work table, Cato had sent for him immediately and got Tam to tell his story again. Landar had disappeared to goodness knows where, something about a backup plan.

That left Danine and Tam to stand at one end of the room. Cato sighed, Danine knew something about how bad the problem was but seemed to think that Cato could dig his way out of it. Full confidence in Cato. He wished he knew where Danine got that confidence from, it wasn't like Cato had the answer to every situation and this one seemed to be just a bit more dire than the last.

Zombies didn't send assassins after your head. Even if Landar and Kalny agreed that assassins only happened one time and was the equivalent of declaring total war.

"The Ironworkers know about this," Kalny said with a heavy air, "so the disruption of the charcoal supply is their fault. I should have seen it, only they would even know that charcoal is an absolutely required fuel. "

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty," Cato said dryly.

Kalny paused in confusion then shook his head, "What are we going to do?"

"What do you think the Ironworkers will do?" Cato asked.

"They'll try to disrupt how we work, maybe send some thugs to leave a calling card," Kalny narrowed his eyes, "in the worse case, they'll destroy this furnace. "

"Can you even do that?" Cato asked incredulously. Surely such mafia-like tactics would get the law enforcement, what there was of it, coming after the perpetrators.

"Simple actually. The local militia aren't good at investigating things, you just hire someone to give the orders. There are people who can do it without being traced. " Kalny shrugged, appearing all too familiar with the process, "in fact, I'm sure the Ironworkers will have their own underground people. Wouldn't be surprised if some of them belong in the militia too. "

Cato closed his eyes. This was even worse than he thought. "You're no stranger to this either, are you?"

"Of course not, no one gets a contract like I did for Wendy's Fort without dealing a little. You have a problem with that?" Kalny eyed Cato.

"It's one of the things I'm trying to fix," Cato said, "it's inefficient. Like now, you're going to have to hire some people to protect this place. Aren't you?"

Kalny raised an eyebrow, clearly not what the businessman expected. "You're not what I expected, I had you pegged as a strict do-gooder but it seems there was a misunderstanding. Who are you, really?"

"Me? I'm Cato. " Cato merely smiled.

They shared a look.

"Well, what should we do with you?" Kalny regarded the two Fukas trembling beside the table.

"It really is a very dangerous situation," Cato joined in, "people are likely to be dead once this is over. "

Even Danine was starting to look a little worried. Her ears flicked between Kalny and Cato rapidly and both their tails were coiled tightly against their legs, something that Cato was beginning to recognize as seeking comfort.

"I've thought of a punishment suitable for something like this," Cato said, nodding to Kalny. At the mention of punishment, Tam looked up at Cato with watery eyes. Cato grinned, "since we clearly can't trust you, I'm sending you somewhere far away where you can't do any harm. There's space somewhere up north, I hear?"

The shocked look on Danine's face was too much and Cato burst out laughing. "But... that-" she sputtered blankly.

"Thank you!" Tam suddenly dropped to his knees as he finally processed what Cato said.

"It's not a problem," Cato said, "while I don't think you'll continue to do it, I doubt Kalny will ever trust you near this place again. "

As the Tam began to cry profusely, Cato continued, "you need to talk with your mother first and I will have to write letters... no, let's have Danine write the letters, I'll just add my opinion to it. And you will need some time to move. For the moment, you'll have to stay away from here but I'm sure Danine can still find the time to meet with you. "

Tam nodded his agreement furiously. Cato looked at Danine, "this is not your fault, but you did make Tam think I'm going to solve all his problems. So I'm going to leave writing the letters to you. You'll have to convince the village council," Danine's bright expression suddenly evapourated, "and I'm not going to help you write this one. You started this idea of moving to the village, so you take responsibility and finish the job. "

Danine gulped and nodded. Cato nodded back. Good.

That settled, he turned to Kalny, "so, have I restored my do-gooder credit?"

Kalny rubbed his head with an unreadable expression, "frankly, I have no idea what to think. "

Cato was about to make another quip when there was a crash from outside the warehouse.

They ran outside to find Landar slowly moving a very large crate across the ground. She wasn't even trying to push the crate but instead moving it along with magical force, the wooden base was even scraping up the grass as she moved it across the little space between the warehouse and the low outer wall. The cart and Reki that had got it here looked suspiciously battered too.

The crate itself was a wooden box with strangely cut planks that started and stopped at seemingly random lines. What was far more alarming was the feeling of magical power inside the box. That level of power and density was not something Cato expected to see here.

They were more like the enchantments one would feel on the walls of Wendy's Fort. The preposterously strong magic can from inside the box, in a concentrated shell of dizzyingly complex geometric shapes. In fact, the enchantments here were even sharper and denser than the ones on the fort walls. Whatever they were enchanted with, there was something inside that could contain enough power to demolish the entire warehouse and probably a good portion of the nearby buildings.

"What is that?" Cato asked.

"Our backup plan," Landar said, unhelpfully. She patted the box with a satisfied smile as she parked it next to the main door.

"How much power is that?" Cato couldn't help but ask again.

"This? I've been using every drop of my magic I could spare since I started building it. It was painful, but completely worth it. I even grew in power a little!" Landar began to chuckle under her breath which built into the same disturbing laugh. "I might never even get to use it, this thing is powerful enough you could feel it three streets away. "

"Excuse me," Kalny interrupted her, "I would very much like to know what it does. "

"It will make your security problems go away," Landar said.

Cato shivered, what had she done? Built some kind of sentry gun?

"Let's say we have a problem, what do you need to do?" Kalny asked.

"Simple, I get in and make the problem go away. "

Get in? Cato looked at the lines in the crate's exterior wood again. Oh no, she didn't...

Kalny was also understandably nervous about the magical power, "will the problem go away together with a large section of the town? We could always let them have the furnace. "

"It's not like that," Landar waved a hand, "I can control it. It probably won't destroy the warehouse. "

Cato closed his eyes. He expected to meet one eventually, when magical knowledge had advanced a little, but Landar didn't get the memo.

"Landar, did I tell you that science fiction in my world is called fiction for a reason?" Cato said, "It's not supposed to be real. "

Landar waved a hand dismissively, "it's too cool to not get built. Any alchemist worth their salt would get fired up after they heard that story. "

"It doesn't mean you can go ahead and build a robot suit. " He said it. He really said it. It was time to acknowledge that Landar was officially lacking in all common sense.

"Common sense is optional. "