This place was a stark contrast to the rest of the city. Hearth Forge seemed designed and carefully maintained to provide a good living for the people calling it home. This forge at it's very heart though was all business. I could hear hammers fall. I could smell hot steel. I could see the flurry of activity all around me. There were plenty of busy workers, mostly forgeborn but some goblins as well. Just trying to take it all in made me dizzy. How was it possible that none of this had been audible outside? Despite the heavy double door I should have been able to feel the vibrations caused by some of the heavy steam hammers that seemed to be in use here.
It all was a little overwhelming. Finally someone approached me. It was a forgeborn but not one of those fashioned in the image of the goblins. This one looked more like a Gorgon, except she stood a little taller, especially due to her hair. Glowing crystal fibers coated in thin metal films and gathered into a number of braids that moved much like I would a Gorgon's hair to move. She looked me over briefly before extending a hand. “Come, our mother awaits.”
I followed her, almost as if in a daze, as she led me through the labyrinth of busy work places. After a little while we reached a spot where a forge was set aside from the others. This one was busy as well but that is where the similarities ended. This forge was being tended by some more forgeborn similar to the one who had escorted me here and one other who easily dwarfed them. Not only was she almost as tall as me but she sported of gracefully curving horns as well. Her skin was strange as well. It seemed old, yet ageless. Finally realization dawned upon me. I had seen metal like that only once before. My father's crown! Titanium! And her whole body was made from it!
Then my eyes met hers and my knees buckled. It was as if I were looking into a star's heart. Not that I had ever looked into a star's heart but that was the only comparison that came to my mind and yet I knew that it was lacking. At the same time it felt as if her will were pressing down on me, almost to the point where I was about to be crushed. After a moment the pressure ebbed away though. Then I felt a delicate yet powerful hand on my shoulder. As I looked up my gaze met those eyes again but this time it wasn't as if they were ready to burn my soul anymore.
As I grasped the offered hand she pulled me back onto my feet. “Come, Keza of the domain Zoth. I would like to talk with you.”
I could only nod dumbly. I had felt the Maidens' touch but not like this. Not in person. “You …” My voice failed me as I tried to address her.
She tilted her head. A thick braid of hair similar to that of the other forgeborn shifting slightly behind her as she did so. “You can call me the Arcanist. That is what people tend to call me these days.”
The other forgeborn crossed her arms in front of her chest and pouted. “We don't. We call you mother.”
“Yes. Yes, you do.” The Arcanist patted her head and some of smaller forgeborn's hair wrapped wrapped around her fingers, as if to return the affectionate gesture.
She motioned for me to follow. “Come.”
My knees were still a little shaky as I followed her back the workbench where she had been working. As she picked up something that looked a lot like a beating metal heart I shifted my gaze to the larger project she and her assistants, her daughters, had been working on. It was another forgeborn. It was massive and in passing it might have appeared as if it were a male demon. There were differences though. The most obvious were the legs and feet. The joints were different and it had cloven hooves instead of normal feet. His fingers ended in powerful claws. Overall it was a little disconcerting.
As the Arcanist placed the heart in his chest energy poured forth into his body, a little like the barely contained power that almost but not quite leaked out of every one of the Arcanist's joints. At the same time flames started pouring forth from his body, playing around it like a deadly aura, without harming the metal he was made of. His hands flexed as the Arcanist's daughters put the last plates across his chest in place.
The Arcanist caressed his cheek, ignoring the flames as well. “Bale'rock, go forth. There are battles that need to be fought and won. The things that would pour firth from the deepest depths need to be kept at bay. Your sisters will provide you with arms and armor.”
I watched him stomp off, accompanied by the Arcanist's daughters. He was obviously made for war. He was impressive in just about every regard. Yet my heart ached as I watched him leave. I turned to face his creator. “Will he ever know peace?”
The ancient forgeborn looked at me for a long moment before she answered. “Maybe. I doubt it though. There were many others before him and I suspect there will be more to follow. I have sent so many off to fight and die …” She sounded terribly old and tired as her voice trailed off.
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I shuddered. “What kind of war are you fighting that someone like him couldn't win it?” I gestured around us at all the other busy forges. “What kind of war needs all these weapons?”
She looked at me for another long moment. “The same war I have been fighting ever since we decided to break free of the Ancient's bonds of servitude. We might have defeated them and gained our freedom but the terrors they unleashed to fight us still hound us, still gnaw at the roots of the world.” Her voice became quieter until it was barely more than a whisper. “It is not a war I have been winning ever since I lost the support of my sisters. It has been getting worse ever since the one you call the Devourer has started stirring again.”
She shook her head. “But let's talk less about me and more about you and your plight. These things are more of an immediate concern than our eventual doom should I fail.”
I opened my mouth but I was lost for words. At least for a short moment. “The Maidens, they were fighting these things from the deepest depths alongside you?”
She arched an eyebrow but decided to humor me in the end. “They were and so was our fallen sister. From all of us she was the one best suited for the task. Methodical. Persistent. Throughout. Committed. But with every battle she fought, with every victory she won, she descended a little deeper into madness. Until one day we just couldn't let her go on as she had. We tried to talk. We tried to reason. It was much too late for that at that point though. She turned against us. We couldn't kill her either. She was our sister after all. Instead we imprisoned her. And ever since she has been struggling to break free.”
She sighed and shook her head. “You have seen how she has become. The millennia of her imprisonment haven't been kind on her. She is more of a rabid beast now than anything else.”
I felt tears in my eyes. Before I could think better of it I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a hug. “But you, you didn't join the others in watching over her. You … someone …”
She patted my back. “Yes, someone had to stay behind and fight. Thus I have been creating almost nothing but terrible weapons ever since. When I taught your people the secret of the forgeborn, the goblins and the children I created in their image here, those have been some of my very few glimpses of light ever since then. I liked creating all kinds of other things but there is no more time for that.”
For a moment we stood in silence. “I'm afraid. Not just afraid that I might loose the war. I'm afraid that I'm loosing myself. I have been walking the slippery slope our sister walked back then ever since and I'm afraid that I'm slipping. You have seen my youngest son. He will fight, probably without ever knowing what he is fighting for and it is breaking my heart.”
The next words formed directly in my mind as I held onto her closely. “It's not so much that I need someone to defeat my fallen sister. I need someone to be ready to defeat me should I ever fall like her.”
It was almost too much for me. How could I face not one but two ancient figures of unimaginable power? This was all too much!
She pushed me away until I stood at arm's length again. “One step after another. Let us figure out how I can help you with your most immediate concerns. You need a new weapon.” She brushed over the scales of my armor. “And you need new armor as well. This one served you well but I don't think it will be able to keep up with your growth for much longer. It and its enchantments are struggling already.”
I nodded, my mind still reeling. “The dragon …”
Now she laughed. “Sadly there are no easy ways to kill a dragon. You shouldn't focus on it too much either. I think it is just another pawn my sister is willing to sacrifice. Maybe we can come up with something to give you a fighting chance though, should you have to face it again.”
I couldn't quite believe what I heard. “The dragon, that monstrosity, a pawn?”
She nodded while inspecting my armor a little closer. “Indeed, a pawn. A terrible and deadly force of nature but in her eyes still a pawn. She needs a suitable vessel to break free of her chains and return to the world in the flesh but she would never settle for an overgrown lizard.”
Finally realization dawned upon me. “The vampire!”
She nodded again. “That would fit her much better. A host much more suitable for her usual kind of skulduggery. Now, take that armor off, so I can take some measurements. And while we are at it we might as well do something about your horn as well.” She brushed her fingers against the stump of my cut horn as she spoke those last words. “Would you like to watch as I form the metal and anchor the spell matrices into it? You have a very intuitive grasp of magic, don't you? Maybe you could learn a thing or two while we are at it.”