In a room crowded with pre-dawn shadow, Corinth woke from restful slumber.
It had become common over the last few months for him to wake before the sun, and he let his gaze trace across the texture of the ceiling rafters, following the maze of woodgrain from beam to beam until light began to trickle in again. Somehow it always snuck up on him. He looked outside to find the sun fully risen and walked downstairs to greet his mother for breakfast.
She was already at the stove, frying an egg for each to mix in their morning oatmeal. They were a lucky pair, she often told him. Many wouldn’t be able to raise a child on their own, let alone in a house with a second bedroom, but her inscription work paid well and kept them housed and fed. One of the benefits of living near the university was a cadre of wealthy researchers with an endless desire to see their names carved onto things. He sat, and it was only a few drowsy moments before she passed him his bowl, brushing his hair into order as she passed.
“You’re meeting with Striver Paten this morning, right?” She asked, hoping to stir his thoughts into motion.
He nodded. “Yeah, he said today was candles.”
He spooned up the last of his oatmeal, eager to finish it before it went cold, and then cleared the dishes from the table. He washed what little remained from them in silence, and only when it was done did he look up and realize she was waiting for him to say something. “Umm, what are you working on today,” he finally asked, and she smirked at him.
“Nothing too unusual, though I had a couple researchers say they’d be bringing in rockglass in a few days. Apparently they made a few canes and things out of it.” She shook her head. “Seems like a waste, to me. Using your time and expertise to make a walking stick.”
He shrugged. “They love to stand out. Remember when one of them went on a spree making lodestone bracelets? He nearly got thrown out for wasting resources. What was his name again? Oll- Olnit…?”
“Oltrim, Seeker Endrim’s son. And he’s still there, so don’t make too much fun of him,” she chided. She didn’t even try to hold her grin back, though, so he knew he wasn’t the only one to remember still. “Alright, off with you! Daylight’s burning, and the candles should be too.”
-
Candles was both the best and worst task you could be given at Apothet’s temple. Walking in, the first thing most people noticed was the hundreds, thousands of candles, all lined up in rows along each wall. The task was simply to light them all, one by one. But Apothet’s blessing was over fire and metal didn’t make him generous, nor his servants opulent; the candles didn’t stay lit. You’d light the first off whatever fire was at hand, and then use its flame to light the next. Then you’d extinguish the first, and light another with the newly lit one. And repeat until you reached the end of all the rows upon rows of candles, or more likely gave up or fell asleep.
When Striver Paten had explained it to him, he hadn’t understood the point of it, so the Striver had demonstrated a few dozen. Just as his attention was beginning to drift, Paten told him to look at the candle just lit. After a moment, he caught the trick: it was cast-iron. And aflame.
Interspersed within the rows of tallow were iron candles, some painted or coated with wax to disguise themselves, others unashamed in their places. If, in the depths of the monotonous task, Apothet decided you were worth bringing into his fold, one of the metal candles would light. Striver Paten said the painted and coated ones were to not interfere with the student’s faith that it might light, whereas the dark metal was for those who were confident that the will of the gods was more important than such tricks.
Either way, Corinth had started working on candles that day. It had been eight months, and even as the afternoon dragged on he still hadn’t seen a second metal candle alight.
Most days weren’t so full of drudge and optimism, though. Usually it was cleaning around the altars, or prying up melted wax from beneath the rows to cast new candles from. On occasion, the Striver would allow a student to spend a day in prayer in the temple. That usually meant he thought the student was losing heart.
Today was candles, though, and he dutifully started the process. Within a few minutes he had the rhythm and was trying to distract himself enough that he might not spot metal until it burned beneath his wick. Down the row another student was prying at hardened pools of wax, and Corinth tried to strike up conversation.
“Hey Elnet,” he said, eyes still watching the wick’s flame.
“Corinth,” Elnet answered, looking up. “I didn’t realize you were here today. How’s the candles been going?”
He watched a wick start to glow beneath his fingers. “Not the best, got distracted last week and spent minutes heating up a painted one. Nearly burnt my fingers when the heat spread through it. How about you?”
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“About the same. I thought I saw sparks from one of the coaters, but it was probably just the layers melting.”
Corinth nodded, shuffling slowly down the line towards him. “Yeah, that hurts a bit when you notice.”
“It does, doesn’t it? You feel like finally you might be making some progress and then it snuffs into smoke.” Elnet shook his head, walking to the other end of the rows to stay out of his path.
“You’ve been here, what, five weeks?” Corinth asked, skipping over cast-iron nestled in a nook.
“Just broke two months, actually. I’m not sure I’ll stick around once the last of the spring snows melt though.” The boy sighed, leaning onto the knife handle and popping a thick ring of wax out.
“No?”
“Nah, there’s too much to be done when summer picks up. I usually work in my dad’s shop when the heat comes and the visitors really flood in.”
“Makes sense, I guess. I’m here for the long run,” Corinth said, holding two wicks together.
“How long has it been?” Elnet asked, leaning on the edge of the rows.
“This is month nine,” he admitted. “I just- oh you cast iron ass!” He slammed the metal candle down on the wooden stand, the wind from his movement nearly blowing out the other one.
Elnet’s face crinkled as he tried to hold back laughter. Eventually the candle was replaced and Corinth continued down the row.
“As I was saying,” Corinth said, trying not to laugh himself, “I just can’t abide the thought of giving up. This is my only way into the university, and what can I really accomplish outside the walls? Short of joining a convoy and moving off the mountains, that is. I need this.” He wasn’t laughing by the end, and it took a few candles before Elnet asked the obvious.
“But why do you need to do that? I wouldn’t mind it, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no shame in running a shop in town and getting along. My family’s lived here for half a hundred years like that.”
Corinth sighed. “I don’t know. It seems like the university is the only place where things change, where something new gets made or discovered every year. How many farmers or shopkeepers just do the same thing every day, the same things your father, and his father did for all those years? It seems so pointless.” Corinth stared at the flaming wicks in front of him. “It seems like trying to light a cast iron candle, only forever without the hope of flame.”
Elnet looked sideways at him, and shrugged. “Well, hopefully you’ll get it soon then.”
He went back to scraping at the wax, and the conversation died. Corinth thought about the words yet unsaid. About the stories his mother had told him about the pale-skinned captives brought back from the desert. The tales of the expeditioners, of foreign mages that fought with deathly fury, ripping apart metal armour with their bare hands and killing with even the lightest blow. He stared down at his own pale hands, nothing like the rich brown of the people of Derudt, and wondered if such power might be lying in wait there.
As he went along the rows though, feeling the morning slip away with the quailing shadows, all the warmth of the temple seemed to run from him. By the time he gave up he was shivering in the heat of noon, and when he held the last candle, the flame nearly extinguished from his gaze alone. Just the light breeze as the Striver passed was enough to blow it out.
-
Corinth walked along the edge of the woods, leaving footprints in the thin layer of snow not yet melted. Elnet had seen the snow as the end of his efforts in the temple, a natural boundary that would require something significant to thrust him through, but to Corinth it was no such thing. He’d started at the temple a few months after the melt the previous year, and while it reminded him of the length of futility he’d endured, it promised no end to it.
Even at the bare edge of the village, where it turned into wilderness and unsettled lands, he could see the university rising. It was easily the tallest building around, so he couldn’t really hope to escape it the sight. If that was even why he’d started to wander. Truthfully, he had no notion of why he’d struck out on his own. Striver Paten didn’t mind, of course; he believed it was foolish to force his students to toil for hours on the candles. In his eyes, it was their own relationship to forge. Corinth would receive neither recrimination nor sympathy from him.
As he walked forward, burn marks and jagged cuts started to appear on the trees, signalling the end of his path. The next stretch was the testing area for new construct designs, and not even the researchers themselves would delve there without good reason. At best, you’d end up with shards of glass in your foot. At worst…
Corinth turned to follow a lightly-trodden path back, studying the scarred trees with idle curiosity. The results of several designs were hinted at – bursts of heat, thrown shards, even a patch of charred wood that looked like a hot iron had been pressed against it for an extended time – but it galled him that the mysteries of this craft might never be revealed. How could people stand to live next to a fountain of divine truth yet never drink?
Slowly, the trees thinned to reveal stone walls and glass windows, shards twinkling in the afternoon sun from inside a multitude of rooms. He could only see experiments from the first three floors, yet there were wonders enough to steal his breath all the same.
He pressed his hands against the stone walls, wishing fervently that he might find himself inside, or that a researcher might come by and take an interest in him. He closed his eyes, and prayed that when he opened them and lifted his hands the potency of his yearning for this place would have scorched the stone beneath them. He stood for minutes, not wanting to open his eyes and let the fantasy be broken, but finally grit his teeth and checked.
When he lifted his hands, all that showed was his shadow.
-
He ate a sullen dinner, upset enough with the world itself that he couldn’t hold a steady conversation with his mother. Lying in bed in the light of the setting sun, he only felt worse knowing he might have upset her.
He drowsed despite the early hour, thoughts looping through learned prayers and visions of metal candles burning. By the time he came back to himself the room was dark. The faint light outside was unable to find traction as he traced the beams overhead.
There were no dreams of burning metal when he slept, only uneasy reveries of shifting shadows and crooked teeth, and strange faces watching him from beyond the endless horizon.