Although Nebl still looked weak, ill even, he didn’t move or act it.

The man swung the hammer down, replicating the pure tone Vim had created.

“Ore is ore. No matter what you deal with, or what you’re making, it’s all the same. You heat it. You hit it. You heat it. You hit it,” Nebl said as he struck the burning orange metal again.

I nodded, even though I knew there was far more to it than that. He simplified stuff, it seemed.

“In time you’ll be able to tell where and when you need to hit it. Based off the color alone. Then you’ll learn the sound. Until you can do it all with your eyes closed,” Nebl said as he turned the billet around and began to hit it at a different rhythm.

“Do you intentionally make it sound like a song?” I asked him as I listened to the notes reverberate for a moment. Unlike the hard sounds of Lellip or my own hammer strikes… Nebl’s and Vim’s seemed to only echo once, even though just as loud and pure.

Not only were they pure… but there was a certain tempo to them. The loud note with each strike should hurt my ears, yet it didn’t… all because of the rhythm they hit along.

“No music. If you try to make music you’ll fail,” he said with a gruff voice.

Yet he was definitely making music.

Maybe that meant the music was simply a byproduct, not intentional at all.

How did that happen?

I sat a few feet from the anvil that Nebl was working at, and we were alone in the forge. Vim and Lellip had yet to return from the mine, and Pram and Drandle were out working in the farm nearby. I could hear Drandle every so often yell at Pram to sit down and rest.

“See that hotter line? In the center?” Nebl didn’t move the billet to show me so I had to stand up a little to see.

I nodded once I could.

“That will be the core. It’s too close to the edge, so I will need to move it a little,” he said, and then flipped it to begin hammering a different direction.

“Why doesn’t it melt? Like it does in the furnaces?” I asked.

“Different temperatures. This furnace is not as hot as the blast furnace, and that one over there isn’t as hot as this one,” Nebl said.

“Yes, but why? Why would how hot it is matter?” I asked.

Lellip hadn’t known the actual answer, and something told me Vim wouldn’t give it to me.

“Different melting points because of the metal’s density. There’s a science to it. I’ll teach you it if Vim allows,” Nebl said as he stepped away from the anvil to put the metal back into the furnace.

Science…

“Vim doesn’t like teaching stuff like that,” I said.

“Vim doesn’t like anything. He’s tired of losing what he likes. But he will teach you if you ask the right way,” Nebl said as he stared into the fire. His face was sunken, and although he had tied up his wild hair into a pony-tail… he still looked like he should be lying down not hammering away at a piece of metal.

For a few moments I said nothing as the furnace growled angrily, heating up the metal. Every so often Nebl would reach over to grab the little metal bar that opened and closed the air intake flaps. They were outside, and a lot bigger than one expected.

“Vim has learned that teaching certain things brings only disaster. He teaches someone something, and it gets them killed. Or others killed. Over the many years that has made him… hesitant. If a man like him can be such a thing, it is there that he is,” Nebl said softly.

I sat up straighter; I was a little excited to hear someone talk about Vim. Especially so, since it was from someone who so obviously knew him well and had known him for a long time.

“Smithing is the same. It’s something that can lead to other techniques. This forge especially. If you knew what I had to pay for this place…” Nebl went quiet for a moment, and then glanced at me. His hard eyes held my own and I waited for him to continue. “Do you even know who Vim is?” Nebl then asked me.

“The protector,” I said softly.

His hard eyes seemed to soften a little, and I realized that answer had been… maybe not wrong, but incorrect all the same.

“He’s teaching you how to protect yourself,” he said with a glance behind me. I knew he was looking at the leather pouch that held the weapons. I had leaned it up against the wall near the door, after he had invited me in to join him.

I nodded. “He said since I’ll be traveling with him, conflict is inevitable… so I needed to know,” I said.

“A regrettable truth. Yet he also asked for you to learn how to forge,” Nebl said as he glanced back at his metal. It must not be ready yet, for he looked away after a moment. Sometimes they left it in there a lot longer than I thought they would.

“I honestly don’t think I can learn this before I leave… there’s so much,” I said.

“The basics. And by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be competent enough before you leave,” Nebl said with a huff.

My ears twitched as I nodded. That sounded promising. Lellip wasn’t a bad teacher she was just… a little odd. She spoke quickly, and focused on her work. To the point that sometimes she neglected what she was actually doing. Though it was most likely my fault. I wanted answers to questions that no one really seemed to know how to answer. Or know if they should answer them to me.

Maybe I just needed to accept that some things weren’t supposed to be known, even though I couldn’t help myself.

My curiosity was dangerous. Not just to myself, but the Society.

“Do you know if he has a route in mind yet?” Nebl asked.

“Route? You mean throughout the Society? No… I do know we’re to eventually head to Lumen though,” I said.

“Lumen…? I see…” Nebl glanced at me for a moment before he reached in to grab the metal. He pulled it out, and with a single fluid motion took it to the anvil and hefted his hammer.

I blinked as some sparks flew upon his first strike, and then blinked on the second because of how solid of a blow it had been.

Even while weak, he was strong. Maybe even stronger than me.

“How can you hit it so strongly? When I do that it ends up breaking,” I asked.

“Because I know how and where to hit. Grab that hammer,” Nebl gestured with a chin to the nearby table. The one that had hammers and chisels and…

Standing quickly I obeyed. Grabbing the one that looked nearly identical to the one in his hand, I nodded.

“Strike it in the center. With me,” he said, and then right after hitting the billet… he hit the anvil.

The hammer made a strange ringing tone upon being struck, and he then hit the steel. Then he hit the anvil again.

“With me,” he ordered again.

Oh. I’m supposed to hit when he hits the anvil.

Stepping forward I nodded and got into position. It didn’t take long at all for him to hit the steel, and then tap his hammer on the anvil half a moment afterward.

I struck the steel, and noticed the way the hot flakes upon it curled a little. The steel itself seemed to bend just a bit, but not enough to ruin it.

Without a word Nebl struck the steel, and it was sent back into the former shape. The proper one.

I see.

Striking the steel right as he tapped the anvil, I nodded as I slowly understood what he was trying to have me do.

He wasn’t having me forge or shape it; he was simply having me hit it until I did so at the right strength. Each time I hit it, and deformed it because I hit too strongly… he reshaped it back, for me to repeat the process. Then he’d tap the anvil… either harder or lighter, telling me to do the same.

“Harder,” he told me after I hit it again. This time I had hit too softly.

About a dozen strikes later, Nebl huffed and spun the metal around. This side was much brighter than the other.

“Make it rounder,” he said.

Rounder…

It only took four times for him to correct my own hitting, before he seemed to have to stop fixing my mistakes.

Then another four hits later and he stopped hitting it completely. He simply turned the billet, tapped the anvil and nodded when I hit it.

He flipped the billet again. “Give it a corner,” he said.

Frowning at him, I wondered how I’d do that. I just made it circular… almost like a rod and…

But no, maybe it would be easy.

“Why do we hit it many times and not just… force it into shape? All at once?” I asked as I struck the billet.

“That is done. But you need the cast, and strength like yours and mine. Humans can’t do it yet,” Nebl said.

Oh…?

“And that only works for certain purities. Humans struggle with that too,” Nebl said.

“Oh…” I forged a second corner, and Nebl spun it again. To allow me to make the other corners.

“Your mind works at least. More I can say for most,” Nebl said with a huff as I finished up the corners.

Nebl hit the anvil three times in quick succession, and I hesitated. Did he want me to strike it three times quickly? But no, he stepped back and pulled the billet away as to put it back into the furnace.

“Why is this… steel so special?” I asked him.

“It leads to a new age. One that will come eventually,” Nebl said.

I hesitated, and thought of that painting at the Cathedral. The one with Vim.

The armor and spear he had in that painting had been the same color.

“Did Vim teach you how to make it?” I asked softly.

Nebl was quiet for a moment, which was strange for him. He seemed to answer so quickly, and so surely…

He then turned to look at me, and I shifted a little. I held the little hammer tightly in my hands, and wondered if maybe I should have kept that question to myself.

“You’re a dangerous one, aren’t you?” he said.

Blinking, I looked down at the hammer and wondered if he thought I had been trying to intimidate him or…

“I mean your questions, Renn. They sound so innocent, until you realize what they are,” Nebl said with a chuckle.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. I hadn’t meant to ask something I shouldn’t.

“Vim did teach me how to forge. At least, more than I knew at the time. No, I don’t know where he learned it or how he did. But it’s safe to assume he simply acquired it somewhere. Maybe another member taught him or it’s some forgotten technique from a destroyed nation he once knew,” Nebl said.

He sounded serious in his answer, yet at the same time his answer had sounded… a little too ambiguous. It made me wonder if he was just giving me an answer to satiate my curiosity or if he was telling me the whole truth, and honestly didn’t know.

For now it was probably the best answer I could get on that matter. He had said earlier that he knew the science behind the steel, but wouldn’t tell me until he got Vim’s permission. Or rather, until I got it.

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Maybe that was something similar.

“Lellip says you refuse to make weapons,” I said, changing topics.

Nebl shifted a little, but nodded. “That is the family rule, yes.”

“Can I ask why?” I asked.

“You just did. But yes you may. If I make weapons… if we make them,” he corrected himself, “Then the resulting chaos will be on my hands. If I forge a sword and it stabs a young child thru, it would be the same as if I had done the deed myself,” Nebl said.

I nodded, since I understood that viewpoint completely. I didn’t entirely agree with it, but from a moral standpoint it made perfect sense. One could argue anything you did could be seen in that way, like the hammers he used to forge other things, but I knew the truth in the matter.

Weapons were weapons. They were tools, yes, but how often were they used as tools for good?

“Plus in all truth… no one has asked for weapons in many years. Lilly and Yangli had been the last to request them, I believe,” Nebl said.

Lilly had? “Lilly did?” I asked. I didn’t know who this Yangli was but if they were anything like Lilly then…

Nebl pulled out the hot billet, but paused before going to the anvil. He stared at me for a moment before finally bringing the metal back to the anvil.

“I do hope your obvious knowing of Lilly is pure happenstance and not because you’re one of her flock,” Nebl said coldly.

“Hm? No. I met Lilly while searching for Vim. I only spent a couple days with her,” I said as I prepared to hit the steel again.

“Good. Stay away from her. She flew too close to the sun. Stay away from Yangli too,” Nebl ordered as he nodded and informed me to go ahead with hitting.

Striking the hot steel, I spent a few minutes being focused on the metal. I wasn’t sure what he was making, but he seemed to want it to form an elongated square of some kind.

“Did you make weapons for them?” I asked as he turned the billet over.

“I made them one. Yes,” Nebl said.

One. I wonder if this was before or after she had lost her wings.

“Did Vim make them any?” I asked as I hit alongside his taps on the anvil.

“No. He did not.”

After a few more strikes the billet started looking… well, exactly what he had seemed to want. A rectangle of some kind.

“What are you making?” I asked as he turned the billet around to study it.

“We are making a post insert. To go into the ground,” Nebl said calmly.

A… a post insert? For… for something like a fence? “For a fence?” I asked.

“For a sign. To warn others,” Nebl said gently.

Oh.

“For the mines,” I said as I understood.

He nodded. “For the mines.”

Vim had mentioned that they were mining into something dangerous. Some kind of clay.

“Will they heed the warning?” I asked as I stepped back as he went to hammering the billet himself. He was now hammering it on the top, as if to make it wider.

“Likely not,” he said.

Yet still he’d do it.

“It is funny. We could try and warn them. We could try and teach them… yet they’ll still fail. They’ll still make mistakes, and commit atrocities… yet we are the exact same. Vim could stop many of us from making horrible mistakes, saving our lives, yet we do not allow him to. He could have stopped Lilly and Yangli. He could have forced them to not do what they did, yet he knew it didn’t matter. He knew the end result would happen, whether he stopped them or not,” Nebl said as he hammered the metal.

Staying silent, I wondered exactly what had happened. Something to have made her lose her wings, yes… maybe even her children. Or at least one of them.

“Hadn’t Vim helped them?” I asked softly.

“He stood with them when the moment came, since that is his duty. But he did not help them get to that point. Some see that as a failure on his part. Others see it as his proper duty. To let us decide our own fate, and he only needs to aid us when we ask for it,” Nebl said.

“He helps, even when we don’t ask for it though,” I said, as I thought of Trek.

“Then you’ve not been with him as long as I had thought. But that’s to be expected. You’ll learn the truth soon enough,” he said.

I shifted and squeezed the handle of the hammer I held. Was he saying that Vim really wouldn’t help someone, if they hadn’t asked for it? Would he stand back and let them die, if they hadn’t previously accepted his aid?

Surely not. Right…?

“He’d save us if we were in danger, Renn. But… sometimes that very danger is our own doing. Our own mistakes. One must pay their dues, not even Vim can stop the law of the world,” Nebl said as he stared at me for a moment. The square orange metal piece was starting to lose its luster. It needed to go back into the furnace soon. Although cooling off, it was also now far bigger than it had been. What had earlier been about the size of my forearm was now nearly as wide as the anvil it sat upon. And about the size of my closed fist in height.

“He saved you,” I whispered.

“And got angry over it,” Nebl said.

“At them, for not helping you,” I shook my head as I spoke.

“He did. But don’t think he hadn’t gotten angry at me too. For letting myself get in such a situation in the first place.”

Nebl examined his handiwork for a moment, and then grunted. He lowered the metal clamps he used to hold the steel he was working with and sighed. “A poor result. Vim would use this moment to tell me it was proof I still need rest,” Nebl said.

I of course could not see anything wrong with it. It looked… perfectly symmetrical, and laid flat on the surface. Nothing about it told me he had failed in any way.

Though odds were whatever was wrong with it, was my fault. I didn’t do very much of the hammering, and he had hit it alongside me as to correct my mistakes but that didn’t change the fact I had a hand in it its failure.

“Maybe you should rest?” I asked him, deciding not to voice the obvious.

“I will. But I also need to move. To breathe in the flames and heat. Metal needs to be heated to be fixed,” Nebl said as he nodded, as if sure his words were the whole truth and the only truth.

I knew he didn’t really think he was made of metal… but he sure did look it to a degree. Even with his sunken body, he looked muscular. Firm. Powerful. It made me wonder what he had originally looked like. He was about my height, however… and he slouched a little which only made him seem even shorter.

“Come. Let’s work the bellows for a moment,” Nebl said as he stepped away from the anvil.

Leaving behind the metal he had been working on, I wondered if it was okay to do so. It wasn’t anywhere near as bright orange as it had been but it was still hot.

Yet there was no reason to doubt the man knew what he was doing.

I joined Nebl to the section of the wall that large ropes hung from massive wooden poles. There were also circular pipes on the ground that one could step on, to work the bellows that way. When Lellip had done it the other day she had done both at the same time, and had also struggled until I had gone to help her.

She just didn’t have the weight behind her, I think.

Grabbing one of the hanging ropes, I nodded to Nebl who grabbed his own. Half a moment later the bellow blew a massive amount of air into the main furnace. The blast furnace roared as I pulled on the rope as well, sending another wave of air into it.

“The air is everything for a fire. Take it from the fire and it dies without a whimper,” Nebl said as we waited for the bellow to reset. It slowly rose back upward, making an odd noise as it did.

“Lellip said that fire could last for weeks without fuel,” I said.

“It can. But it’ll grow weak,” Nebl said as the ropes we held went tight again. It was ready to be pulled once more.

I pulled my own rope as Nebl pulled his. The blast furnace roared even louder this time, being fueled by two bellows at the same time.

The room quickly became hotter, even though the blast furnace wasn’t open. Nothing was in it being melted. Yet still I could tell that only a few pulls of the rope had increased the temperature severely.

“How are these made? Why can they refill themselves of air so easily?” I asked as I stared at my bellow. Only a small portion of it was here, the rest was outside. In here all I could really see was the mechanisms used to pull and lift it. It looked made of leather.

“I’ll teach you how to make one. It involves pressure. These are massive, but the hole in which the air flows outward is small. About the size of your tail,” Nebl said as he went to pull his rope again. Mine wasn’t ready just yet.

My tail…?

I glanced at it right as my rope went taught again.

So about the size of my wrist.

Glancing at the blast furnace, I wondered where the air actually went into it from. It was huge, nearly reaching the top of the ceiling, and took up half the building all on its own.

Pulling my rope, I heard the hiss of air until I heard the roar of fire instead.

Was there really a fire in there? It also almost sounded as if there was… liquid. I sometimes heard swishing and sloshing when the bellows were used, too.

Though I guess of course there was liquid in there. When they poured in the ores up top, it came out as molten metal which I supposed was a liquid?

“That is enough,” Nebl said as he stepped away from his corner.

“What happens if it goes out?” I asked.

“It’s exceedingly difficult to light it once it’s cold. And then it takes weeks to get it hot enough to melt steel. It’s just a pain to let it happen, but it does sometimes,” Nebl said.

Looking at the rope I had pulled, I noticed the wear and tear. It’s been used for years and years.

There were four bellows. Or at least, four hanging ropes. Four places to pull. I wasn’t entirely sure if there were four bellows or not. From outside there were just two large additions to the building, so it was hard to tell how many were where.

It really seemed like this place had been made with far more workers in mind than just Nebl and Lellip. Pram was also a possible worker, though unable to help since she was pregnant… but from what I could tell Drandle didn’t help much. At least not in the smithy.

Nebl and Vim had mentioned something along the lines of Nebl having lost children. Sons especially.

“Come. Let us go over lighting a furnace,” Nebl gestured for me to join him as he walked to the third furnace. The one that wasn’t lit, and the one he had said wasn’t as hot as the one he had just been using.

I nodded, excited to learn. It all felt… a little haphazard, as if there was no set method to it… but I knew that didn’t matter.

We weren’t humans after all. We had time, a lot more than then.

Nebl wasn’t in a rush, simply for that reason.

“What about your post?” I asked.

“I’ll need to redo it. It’s not wide enough,” he said.

Really…? It honestly didn’t seem that wrong. Lellid had mentioned that he and Vim were something of perfectionist however.

“I apologize,” I said.

“Was not your hammering that failed it, but the temperature. I had let it get too cold,” Nebl said.

Too cold? Yet it had formed into the shape needed all the same hadn’t it?

Maybe he was just being kind. Yet I knew he was the kind to also tell me the truth, all the same… so maybe it really had been the temperature.

“You’ll find people and metal are the same, Renn,” Nebl said as he noticed my disappointment.

“The same?” I asked as he pulled open the furnaces latch. To where we’d in a moment be shoveling coals into.

“Mendable. But only if you break them first,” he said.

I blinked at his sudden statement, and realized he was still on the topic from earlier. Or rather, we had never left it.

“Are you saying that Vim wishes he could break us? Or rather the Society? As to fix what he thinks needs fixing?” I asked.

“I’m saying Vim waits until we break before he fixes anything. But that’s not his fault. We as a whole forced him into that corner. We fought back and disagreed when he had wanted to do it another way. Now it’s the only way he’s allowed to do it,” Nebl said.

Nebl handed me a shovel, and I went straight to shoveling a few loads of coal into the furnace. Lellip had already explained to me that it only took three or four at most.

As I shoveled, I thought about it. Maybe Nebl was right, even if I didn’t want to agree with him.

Vim protected us, yes… but most of the time it seemed he came in to help only after there was a problem. He saved Lomi, but had not done anything to stop her village from burning in the first place. He had dealt with the Sleepy Artist, or rather the paintings, but had not done anything to ensure Lughes and the rest hadn’t made such a mistake in the first place.

After all if the lack of paying taxes was really the cause of such a tragedy… why hadn’t Vim made absolutely sure they were doing it? He understood the fine workings of the human society well, after all.

“Is that why we’re dying? Is that why we’re losing?” I asked as I loaded the last bit of coal needed.

“We’re losing because none of us are willing to do what we need to. Or rather… none of us are willing to let Vim do what he needs to,” Nebl said.

Although I wanted to ask what that was… I wasn’t able to bring myself to actually ask the words. Since I somehow knew already. I stabbed the shovel into the pile of coal that lay against the furnace, and then stepped back.

“Close the door, and light this,” Nebl offered me a white rope of twine… it was dry, but smelled oddly.

“What is this?” I asked. I didn’t like the smell at all, it made me wince.

“It’s soaked in kerosene. A very flammable liquid. We make it with clay and stills. Another thing I will teach you if Vim allows,” Nebl said.

Another. Wonderful.

Taking the small strand of rope from him, I noticed it was hard. Very hard… the kind of hard that made me question if it was really rope and not something else.

“And a match,” Nebl then offered a match. A long one, with a black tip.

“And how are these made?” I asked.

“A similar tool, but one with ignition. The ones you’re probably familiar with use sulfur. They don’t burn long, and not very hot. This one will, so be careful with your ears and tail,” Nebl warned.

Another tool. Another warning.

For a tiny moment I thought of all the things here. The many things that probably didn’t exist anywhere else, or if they did… did so only where Vim allowed.

How did he come to have such knowledge? How did he decide who got to use it, and who didn’t? What did he know that no one else did, simply because he wouldn’t tell anyone?

“Has Vim ever told you no? When you asked to learn something?” I asked him as I put the white rope into the little chamber right below where we’d stick the metal we’d want to heat. Near the end of the small chamber, were coals. Some of them looked half burnt already, from a previous ignition.

“Only three times. But I know better than to ask for what I don’t deserve, or can’t handle,” Nebl said as I then slid the match along the brick stone real quickly.

It came alight with a spark, and I quickly stuck the lit end of the match up against the white rope.

The white rope didn’t spark alight as the match had… but it did ignite quickly. As if made of paper. And the whole thing went aflame smoothly as well.

“Just leave the match in there, it’ll burn away with the wick,” Nebl said.

Wick. That had been a wick! Of course!

Feeling a little stupid for not realizing the obvious, I did as he said and slowly closed the little iron door.

“Leave it open just a hair. To let it breathe,” Nebl said.

“Ah,” I nodded. Right. Airflow. He had just explained that earlier. I made sure to keep it open just enough.

“Forging is just like us,” Nebl then said.

As the furnace slowly lit, I glanced at the old monkey as he stared at the open door—at the flame within.

“Like us?” I asked softly. What’d he mean?

“We don’t learn until we get hurt. We don’t understand until the world forces us to. We don’t care until we must,” he said softly.

Shifting a little, I wondered if all of our older members were so… odd sometimes. Though I knew this conversation had been fueled by my own questions and queries. So I shared in the blame.

“If something isn’t what you want, hit it. Then hit it again. And again,” Nebl said.

Recognizing the phrase, since it was what Lellip had put on his gravestone, I nodded slowly. He wasn’t looking at me, but instead the furnace, but I didn’t want to be rude.

He was probably right after all…

Even if I didn’t want to agree with it.

Especially when Vim was the one he was talking about.