Ald cursed the humid air of the jungle after he tried, in vain, to start a fire by using runework. He needed the heat to melt the forgewood, for which he had spent days shaping clay molds. He could improvise ropes and threads by using hide and sinew, but for the cogwheels he still preferred forgewood to either bone, which was hard to carve, or normal wood, which required a more careful handling and retained the fibrous nature of the material. He wanted forgewood cogs. Easy to make, easy to replace.

And the fire he needed remained stillborn. Another approach was needed. Maybe an approximately flat stone with runes drawn on its borders could serve as a sort of griddle to melt the wood.

“I am good at using tools, not at making them from scratch,” He lamented. In his forge he had some tools of his own making, sure, but he had never lacked a good forge or a decent hammer. He had never lacked matches or a relatively dry environment to work.

His nails dug into his scalp until it hurt. For days on end he had carved wooden pieces and wedges, shaped molds and even selected some rocks to use as hammers. And now the climate wasn’t cooperating. The tinder was too wet to be of any use, the greyed sky menaced with crying again anytime.

“I need fire, damned forest.”

From a nearby hut came out Telesa, one of her monstrous fingers extended with difficulty so a dove would perch on it. Ald’s glance told her she wasn’t welcome by his side, but Telesa had always been good at ignoring what others told her. As the bird hopped to her shoulder, she sat by the Felsian she admired — not for what he had done, but for what he represented.

“Lady in White, can you grant fire to our guest?”

“He doesn’t want fire,” Dole said. “He wants to go home.”

“And for that I need fire, Unkindness!” Ald spat wiping a bit of saliva from the corners of his mouth and placing it upon the heat-generating runes carved on a stick. He stuck the stick on the tinder and waited, but not a single thread of smoke rose from it.

“You can return anytime. The only issue would be crossing the river. You doubt your desire to save Felsia.”

Dole’s words were statements, not guesses. And this angered Ald further, made him swing the branch against the dove, careful to not hit Telesa with it. “My doubts are my problem. Stop messing with my head. You and your ilk are not welcome in my heart of hearts!”

Alds words were venomous, and this delighted Dole, whose representation as a dove flied in circles over the Felsian and the misshapen heads. It elevated, like a ghost incapable of touching the branches, and kept flying through them. “You want fire, Ald Elvisatcaught? Then stand back, and let it descend from the firmament.”

Thunder rolled. No lightning could be seen. A warning thunder, a sound that ought not to be.

Carefully, Telesa took Ald from the Wrist and pulled as she shuffled her feed away. “Come.”

Considering the stirring of the skies, Ald didn’t protest. He skittered into a hut, and ,a moment later, the world flashed white out of it. The land trembled, the walls shook, and the air seemed to catch fire for a fraction of a second. Every hair of his body stood on end as he shivered, fearing for life. Every movement felt like it would make the atmosphere explode . A lightning strike, so nearby. Unkindness definitively had the powers of a deity, but she lacked the wisdom of the progenitor gods.

HE crawled out scared, expecting to see destruction all around, the materials and tools he had so carefully gathered torn and scattered by the heat and the explosion, respectively. But all he saw was his little pyre burning calmly, not a single leaf blown away by the thunder strike.

“I am glad I am mortal, so someday I shall be free from your twisted sense of humor.”

The bid landed on his head, ahd peeking out from his forehead, looking him into the eyes. “Wherever your soul goes when this is all over, I can follow. I have visited Mother’s abode more than once. She regards me with an special title, even.”

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“Which one?” Ald groaned.

“Anima non grata.”

Ald let himself fall before the the fire, sitting almost like a monkey, with his back hunched, his palms up, and his knuckles resting against the soil. What sort of entity was he serving? The progenitor gods had never warned Felsians against Unkindness. She wasn’t named in any books he knew of — clearly, not in any books available to the public — nor mentioned in the registered answers from Father, which were, supposedly, registered in its entirety, save for clandestine summons by individuals not affiliated to the Felsian government. Supposedly. Most Felsians had a copy of the registries, more or less up to date, somewhere in their homes, and he was no exception. And Mother never spoke to them.

“Unkindness, before I continue, tell me: why should I? What do you get out of this? Answer!”

A single feather sprouted from the ground, and in a grotesque spectacle of deformed birds growing like a tumor, it took the shape of The Lady in White. “Entertainment. And a chance at saving the part of Felsia I care about.”

“I will save all of Felsia, not a part. The First and Last City will stand forever.”

“I’ll hold you to those words, Ald. Not the first part, the second. It’s not possible to save all of Felsia. After you meet father something will be lost, no matter the choice you make. To lose something or to lose it all, those are your main choices.” She was drawing a chicken on the dirt with her fingers as she spoke. “Imagine you are good friends with this chicken.”

“You are immortal, you could take your time to learn how to draw,” Ald ribbed, and how good it felt for him to do so.

“Hush. Let me finish my example. As I said, you love this chicken. A celebration comes, let’s say, the Day of the First Brick, and you get a craving for some stuffed bird. You have three options here: kill and cook the chicken, and lose a friend. Keep your friend, and lose a dinner, or let the chicken free outside the walls or give it away to avoid temptation… and lose both your friend and your dinner. Running away is releasing the chicken.”

Ald erased the drawing by scratching it off with two nails. “a dinner and a friend are not comparable. “

Unkindness smiled without showing teeth. “Unless you are starving.”

“Well, I am not.”

“Starving and in denial. Wonderful combination. Besides which choice is the dinner and which the friend? Sometimes, it isn’t as clear cut, Ald. Now, I granted you fire, my disgraced chosen one. It won’t burn forever.”

Ald reached for a bowl of stone he had attached to the bifurcated end of a long branch, and could use as a ladle to melt the wood into. Forgewood didn’t need extremely high temperatures to be turned into a workable material, so the still-rather-green bough that served as a handle wouldn’t have any danger of catching fire, so long as he held it high enough to avoid direct contact with the flames. The he saw the little branches of forgewood start to lose form in the bowl, he turned and regarded his benefactor with a soft, yet serious, stare. “Gratitude is owed. And so is an apology.”

“Thankful and sorry. Unbecoming of you, almost. I take you are not letting the chicken free, Ald?”

“Whatever I can save of Felsia, Unkindness, I will. Not because I am a chosen one or a hero. Not even because I like you a tiny bit. It’s because Felsia is my only home. It’s because I am tired. I want to end this and go to sleep.”

“Forever?”

“No. But I feel like a whole year would be needed to undo the damage of this trip on my body. Maybe I could apply for sagehood after returning home. I don’t wish to have them all watching over my shoulder for the rest of my life, after what I have learned in this trip.”

“You won’t. Whatever you do, you won’t sit among the sages of Felsia, Ald. That, I can tell you.”

“Fine. Then I will keep on being a farmer and blacksmith. Now let me work.”

Like a petard going out, Unkindness popped out of existence, an explosion of feathers that make Ald curse under his breath. She was getting too comfortable with his company. He almost preferred his few fist appearances, where there was this mystical aura around her arrivals and departures. He pulled the ladle from the fire and looked at the molten wood. The sinew and hairs holding the stone bowl steadfast seemed to have dried out due to the heat, and would need to be replaced soon. But the implement worked well enough to serve his purposes, despite the annoyance the constant need for repairs would present.

He hurried to look for one of the claw molds and pour the liquid wood into it, careful to not waste a drop as , with circular movements, he filled the whole ring of the cog. It would need some sanding or hammering to reach a working state, but that was the advantage of forgewood: by controlling its temperature, you could shape it like you would wood, or like you would metal.

An hour later, he had three cogs of different sizes an, ready to be properly refined, each flaw corrected through the process he deemed more adequate.

They would make part of a good set of wheels and a steering mechanism, letting him use a lesser enchantment that would work on flat surfaces whenever he reached some terrain where the arms from the spell he adapted from the menagerie would be unnecessary. The menagerie’s arm-conjuring spell required blood. Spinning a wheel could be done with drool or tears.

Soon enough, Ald thought, he would meet Father. He was sure of it. And he had many questions he would need to answer if he wanted to be rescued.