Naeed sits on the chilly stone ramp long after he fails to persuade Remara to talk to him. Subdued, Na’Stra sits on his lap, quietly grooming her hide and fiddling with Naeed’s fingers.
After those few words, Remara only offered her faceless stare for anything else he said or asked. Eventually, she turned and climbed back up the way she had come.
So Naeed waits as four dots of light make their way from Underscoop across the barren plain toward the forge. As he watches, three of them stand somewhere near the base for a bit, then begin a swift rise straight up the side of the cliff, passing him on what looks like a flat platform attached to an intricate rope system. The fourth light jogs up the ramp at a brisk pace, gradually taking the shape of a man the closer it comes.
He pauses as he reaches Naeed, clicking his tongue. “All of Underscoop to set in, and you set there? Overheader, maybe, but surely blocking’s a rudeness everywhere.”
The man’s arms strain the sleeves of his tunic. He gives off a pale yellow glow and his face is a soft round shape, but his torso is a solid square.
Na’Stra scrambles up to Naeed’s shoulder as he stands, still gripping the mushroom cap. “I’m sorry. I’m Naeed, a guest of Third Left Tierman Alleyu. This is Na’Stra, my friend. I was hoping to talk to Seventh Right Tier’s forgemaster, is that you?”
The man scratches his chin. “If only. I’m Mearu, Tenth Right Tier’s forgemaster, second best to that lucky lighter. Still, today’s my turn at forge. Can pass a message if you need.”
Naeed peers at him. “You’ve worked here long?”
“Aye. Since I scrambled through apprenticeship.”
“Then you know Remara.”
Mearu’s features rearrange into a frown every bit as forbidding as the rock they stand on. “What about it? What’s it t’you?”
“I know her.” He hedges the truth, unsure how much time the forgemaster has for details. “I haven’t seen her in years, but I found out she was here. She met me just now, but she won’t talk to me. The Remara I knew before couldn’t ever stop talking or asking questions.”
Mearu’s frown softens into a weary expression as Naeed continues, gesturing back at the glorious lights of Underscoop. “And in a place like this, you wouldn’t sleep for all the questions she’d have for you. She’s acting strange. Did something happen to her? Is she okay? Is she sick?”
The Tenth Right Tier forgemaster measures Naeed, sweeping him head to foot and back with a stare. Finally, Mearu sighs, “Lad—you look to be a youngish lad, and talk as one—you sound like someone what cares. Mebbe even knew her in the b’fore, though you musta been a babe.”
He shrugs, scratching his chin. “Truth is, we’ve no idea how to help our little forge flame. So, listen. Don’t know how she was before. She came same as you met her, a bit worse even. ‘Bout seven… nine?... year back, t’ward end of my apprenticing, she tumbles down the lightcrack up there, gone splat. But no worse for wear, hurts her none at’all. Bunch of folk go see if she needs help, but she makes this horrible noise and runs off, faster’n we can follow.”
Naeed’s barkskin prickles as he listens. If it was that long ago, this is certainly not either Remara that he’s known.
“She haunts the edges of Right Tier for weeks, never letting any get close before runnin’. Forgemasters see her slip outta the furnace most mornin’s. Some fuel’s always gone, but forge runs hotter than we ever get it every time. Incredible work we get done on that kinda heat.
“One night, a forgemaster camps out and waits. Catches her. Asks what she is, what she needs, how we can help. Finally talks, she does, and her face is blank and voice is scary, but the words are sad. Says she just wants to help somewhere she can’t hurt, and can’t hurt no one if no one’s there to hurt. Asks if she can stay. Asks us to leave her be, an’ she’ll give all the heat she can for a little fuel every night.”
Naeed’s lips part in astonishment. “She’s just… been doing this? Alone? For nine years?”
“Seven or nine. Talks sometimes, but rare as Moon’s egg. Once left us papers ‘bout flameproof cloth, like a request. Don’t have the same plants down here the papers talked of, but managed sommat like it after lots of tries. We’ve a few weavers that love a challenge, an’ the forgemasters all wanted t’give our little forge flame somethin’ back. So, got her a set made. After that, sometimes she stays to watch us work. Sometimes she walks Right Tier a little bit. Sometimes she answers a question or two, long as it isn’t about where she’s from.”
Maeru shakes his head. “But, no. Nine years, I never seen the lass you described. Barely talks. Never eats nor drinks. Never sleeps in rooms she’s offered. Just stays in the furnace or wanders the mineshafts while we work. Burrowers say sometimes she stays with’em. They like that kinda heat.”
“Has she said anything about what happened to her?” Naeed asks. “Even a hint?”
“Nay. One or two’s done tried askin’ over the years. She just slips off all silent.” Mearu pauses, then lifts his eyes up, mumbling, “One thing’s different. She changed the way she looks. Made herself all plain, like a child’a ours, but with no face. Didn’t come here lookin’ like that.”
Naeed leans forward. “Not human? What did she look like?”
“Mind you, we don’t get many down here, but time to time a skyte wanders down our way, takin’ all kindsa notes. Asking questions. Eating, laughing.”
Naeed jerks back so fast Na’Stra nearly tumbles off his shoulder. Mearu eyes him curiously but finishes the thought.
“She came down with fingers an’ toes like theirs, an’ head’o’hair wild-floating like they have. No wings, though. Odd bit, that. I mean, hot glass wings is useless, but so’s hot glass fingers like that what can’t weave like skytes. If she can change it all, why not a pair o’ pretty wings too?”
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Being brushed off by Remara is only the third worst thing to happen to Naeed today. The second worst happens as he storms back over the plains toward Underscoop, lost in all sorts of bleak thoughts, and trips over a stone. He crashes facefirst into the dust. Immediately the poisonous powder clogs his nose and seeps in between his teeth. Gagging, he lurches to his feet, vision blurring, and staggers toward the sound of rushing water.
It takes a stomach-churning ten minutes before he finds the river and another five for Na’Stra to guide him to a shallow bank where he can strip and plunge into the water to wash the tainted soil off. This prompts the worst thing to happen, not only that day, but in years.
“What sort of metals are under those discorded deathplains?” he moans. He sits in the shallows, absorbing and expelling river water to leach the poison out.
Na’Stra plucks a glowing reed from the riverbank. She doesn’t answer.
He twists around to look over at her. “You still haven’t said anything.”
Na’Stra grumbles, “What you want, matchsticks-for-legs?”
“I want to know what you think. Why this Remara… how can she act like this? And why was she with skytes for so long that she came down here looking like them?” The second question comes out on a raw, wounded note. “How could she do that?”
Na’Stra picks apart the reed stalk a tiny piece at a time, casting each glowy bit into the river to watch it float off. She offers a non-committal sound.
He drags himself out of the water and grabs his clothes, returning to the shallows to dunk them in. “Maybe she didn’t know better. The first one I met didn’t even know what pain was, maybe this one doesn’t know about skytes. Maybe she found out what they’re up to and it shattered her and that’s why she won’t talk to me.”
There’s a long-suffering sigh from the bank behind him, and Naeed snaps, “This isn’t a joke! When skytes attack, people die. Whole houses implode in a second! Everyone inside burns so fast that there’s nothing left to bury. All that’s left is a crater! Our last Remara, she understood pain. She tried so hard not to hurt anyone.”
He wrings his tunic viciously. “Everyone thinks skytes are so gentle and friendly. If a Remara found them, of course she’d be fooled. Then if she found out one of them was lying to her… it just makes sense. Doesn’t it?” he demands, dragging the damp tunic over his head.
“Logchild is making extra childish story,” Na’Stra answers. Her voice is calm. Firm. The sort of voice she probably used on angry nestlings to show them someone in the world was still in charge and would keep them safe. “Doesn’t know anything. Makes up how he wants it be.”
The patience game. The patience game. Naeed takes a deep breath, feeling for all the world like he’s swallowed a bellyful of fire, and grates out, “Then tell me what you think is going on.”
Na’Stra is so still between the bobbing reeds that she could pass for a stone embedded in the riverbank. The smooth profile of her head tells him her earfins are down, though whether in anger, sorrow, or apprehension, he can’t tell.
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Finally, she sits back and declares, “Think she doing like you do.”
Naeed wrings out his loose pants, glaring. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Lookit her doings. Big yellow metalworker say she fall down here. Don’t talk much. Was with skytes for awful long time if’n lookin’ like ‘em when she come. Thinkin’ somethin’ bad happen. Somethin’ she no wanna look at never again. Maybe even somethin’ she did bad.
“So she run longways an’ fall down an’ stay here. Long time, all goes okay, maybe can be forgetting it all. Then all’a sudden you comes, yellin’ you knows her name and has big exciting news that there’s lotsa her? Nah. She wants forgettings, not more news or friends what knew her.”
“That’s an awful stretch,” he says, pulling on the pants. “But even if it’s true, what does all that have to do with her doing like I do?”
Na’Stra stretches her long neck high, flares her earfins defiantly, and deliberately breaks the rules. “Not liking look at past, too. Hide hard. Is why you ran off angry at last ‘Mara. She wanted talk at skytes, then when you mad, she ask questions you hate.”
His stomach clenches, tightening everything between his gut and jaw. “That’s… that’s not—”
“Is. Is too same thing. Been doin’ it b’fore I came, too. Tell me is a lie.”
He stares at her, glowering, and breaks the rules right back. “You know an awful lot from before you met me. You knew I could grow flowers on my head the first day. You even knew what I was. How did you know all about me before you met me?”
“Have ways. Why?” She bares her teeth, flicking a tongue out at him. “Gonna yell lots and run ‘way from me, too? Can’t. Logchild too slow to shake old voidflyer.”
Five years into their travels together, Naeed loses the patience game. He slams the soggy shoes onto his feet and storms up the bank toward Na’Stra. He snatches for her, but she is already gone. A moment later she leaps out of a shadow by his feet. Diving at her, he tries again. This time, she reappears two body-lengths away, spitefully flicking her tongue out.
“Who even are you?” he shouts, running at her. “You show up one day, flying out of my chest, and you already know all kinds of things about me. Who sent you? Who told you about me? Was it Yettle? It was Yettle, wasn’t it?”
Once again she vanishes, flying out from between his shoulderblades a moment later. “Not havings to tell you anything, bratty worm-ridden stump-face.”
He whirls on his heel, missing the tip of her tail by a hair. “It was Yettle! Say it!”
“Never knowing your rotten old tree-lady!” Na’Stra shouts back.
“Liar! You’re a liar!” He scoops up a handful of rich, loose soil and hurls it in her direction. “I don’t travel with liars! Go find some other Twixt to harass for flowers, I don’t want you around!”
She’s on his shoulder in the next breath. She nips his ear hard, nicking him deep enough to draw sap, then vanishes again as he punches the air where she was.
“Already saying, logchild too slow,” she calls from overhead. “Gots no choice in where I goes, only I chooses where I goes and I chooses watching out for screaming baby here what can barely stand on his own feet.”
His vision blurs as the remnants of toxin give a ragged edge to his rage. He swings his fists overhead, shouting, “I’ll run away!”
“Good. You be doing that. Again. Lost count how many times you run off, but don’t work this time. Can’t lose voidflyer.”
“I’ll outrun you!”
She laughs. “Would be fish flyin’ day to see tree outrun voidflyer on wing, funny boy.” She stops laughing, resuming a calm tone. “Even if’n outrun me, you always has shadow.”
“I’ll find a place so full of light, there’s no shadow for you to use!”
“Is no such place out there. Have to be real small, like room. Shadows outside room, so I waits for you outside room. Or hire burrower. Break down wall.”
This time he finds a rock, hurling it at her at the speed and accuracy of rage. It falls far short and to the right, and she scoffs loudly.
“For all I know, you’re as bad as the skytes!” he screams. “Tell me who you are!”
“You knowings that peoples stare at you now?”
“Tell me!”
“Wanna know real bad?”
“Yes! It was the forest! The forest sent you!”
“Really really really wanna know?”
“Tell me who sent you!”
“Okay. I be telling you.” Her voice pops up behind him, and he whirls to find her crouched a few feet away on the ground, eyeing him warily. “But you first.”
His vision swims as he staggers toward her, only for her to vanish yet again. “What…?”
“You. Go. First. Not that hard of understanding.” Her voice is behind him again. “I be telling you, but first you telling everything. All of it. From beginning.”
His lungs seize up. “I… I don’t…”
“Does too understand what I want. Stupid not that stupid. You explain all things what happen. Why you run off to be tree. Why you run away from trees. Why run away from Remaras. Why run away from voidflyer. Is always running. You want answers? Only if trading.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Isn’t?” She rises up out of the reeds on her hind legs, sneering at him. “Am traveling with you for longtime, child. Knowings some things, guessing others. Doesn’t push, because you gets mad and runs. Every time, gets mad and runs. I see it gonna be happen again because this new ‘Mara, she too close to skytes, so you gonna get mad and run again. How many times?”
He takes a step back, winded by the accusation.
“We be done with this. You tell all, and you tell to her.” She stretches a limb out, pointing back toward the barren plain. “You go back and sits her down and tell her this. You do that, I give answer.”
“What… tell Remara? What… why? What does she have to do with this?” he demands, pointing back and forth between Na’Stra and himself.
“Two stones-for-brains doin’ same things. You hide, she hide. You say you no hide, and you hide every day. Probably she say she no hide, but she hide down here in actual hole.”
She spits in disgust. “Both is stupid, not listening me. Maybe listen each other, both knowing how to speak idiot. Then, after idiot-speaking done, I answer you.”
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When the Underscoop dims, the forge will close. According to the forgemaster’s story, that’s when Remara will slip in and begin amplifying heat for the next workday. Without forgemasters working there will be far fewer sparks flying around, so it should be safe to walk in and talk to her.
With that in mind, Naeed spends the rest of the day stretched out on the riverbank, watching brightskippers and tiny snails roving about the shallows. He can’t bring himself to go back and browse shops or pick up a cooked snack while he’s waiting.
His head is a whirlwind of thoughts, arguments, denials, and bargaining. Scenarios where he badgers Na’Stra into forgetting all of this churn up every other minute, but they fade quickly.
He could let this all go, leave this Remara behind—as she clearly wants—and never ask Na’Stra who sent her again. But then he will never trust his old traveling companion. Then the poison of it will be in his face his whole life long.
Or Na’Stra’s whole life long. She’s old. I only have to wait a few more years.
The thought of her dying with this ugliness still between them sickens him most of all. There was no need to think of such things with the ageless Yettle, or Remara. But Na’Stra?
Hours pass. As the foliage on the bank gives its first flicker of dimming, Naeed rises to his feet—his clothes finally dry—plucks another mushroom cap for light, and begins the long trudge back across the dead plains. Small wings beat overhead, but no words chide him onward. There’s only resentful silence all the way across the plain and up a dozen ramps.
He meets Mearu on his way up and presses himself against the wall to let the man scoot past. The second-best Forgemaster pats him on the head and grumbles, “Luck to ye, lad. By your face, you need it.”
He's sure he will.
He reaches the triple-wide opening lit in leaping hues of orange and gold. Even as he stands outside the doorway, a wave of heat smacks him in the face like a blow. Beyond is a vast space with a forge and a furnace—the forge still has a small blaze at the center—set on either side of the opening in order to vent the smoke out and up toward the overhead crack.
Further in, he spots three anvils, many barrels bristling with tool-handles, and various wall-mounted racks filled with hammers, tongs, and shovels. Ingots of metal are stacked in one corner while in another, chunks of rock are heaped several barrow-fulls high. There’s coils of chain, wire, kettles, pots and water-jars strewn around. Sword blades with no handles and double-edged axe-heads lie in neat rows on a long stone block table in the center of the room.
He sets the mushroom cap down by the doorway. Entering closer to the low-smoldering furnace, Naeed scoots past quickly and finds a stool at the far end of the stone table, an area cloaked in deep shadow. He perches there as Na’Stra swoops in.
She shrugs out of her little pack and sets it safely on the ground. Then she selects a spot at the edge of the lit forge’s embers, and nestles in among them. After three seconds it’s hard to distinguish her from the rest of the coals.
They still haven’t spoken. He’s never seen Na’Stra show this much restraint. It would be impressive if he weren’t sickeningly furious with her.
There. Movement in the doorway. Remara slips into the room, turning her head back and forth. Naeed tenses, preparing to run after her if she bolts.
She doesn’t behave as if she’s seen him. She approaches the forge, its blaze still crackling gleefully at its center, and lifts a child-sized shovel from its hook on the wall. She scoops a mound of coal from a spilled-open sack next to the forge and brings it up four stone steps, tossing it into the forge. After a few repetitions of this, she returns the shovel to its place and sheds her clothing. Hanging each piece on an empty hook, she mounts the four stone steps up to the forge and seeps, formless, into the coals.
The gleeful crackle of flame in the center goes out as it is sucked into her, then whooshes back with a throaty roar.
Light bursts out, seeking all hidden nooks in the room, chased by scorching heat. Again, it implodes on the forge, sucked back in, and whooshes out. The temperature changes hit Naeed like hammer blows.
Reeling, he clutches the edge of the table. This is a mistake. He shouldn’t be here while she’s working. He’ll catch fire any second.
“Heeeeeey flamey lady, is nice heat you got. Am liking, but is bit much for fool-acorn-brain.”
The room goes dark blindingly fast. Remara rises up among the coals and backs away from the right side of the forge, where the voidflyer uncurls.
Na’Stra pipes up again. “S’okay, s’okay ‘Mara, no can hurt me. Am liking good heat, but tree-boy’s back over there. Came to tell you something, but heat not so good for wood.”
Once again, he considers leaving.
Once again, he can’t bear the alternatives.
Rising, he approaches the cooling forge—now ticking loudly at the temperature change—and sits on the stone steps. Remara is plastered against the opposite wall.
Gritting his teeth, he mumbles, “I know you don’t want to see me, but Na’Stra insists I need to tell you something. So… I have a story for you. Just… be patient. Let me get this over with, even if it doesn’t make sense to you.
“Once, I was a human child in the town of Carvenhold. My name was Nail.”