The Crystal Empire (4 page)

Sedrich’s eyes were calculating. He reached down to tousle
one of the a
n
imals between the ears.

He didn’t have to reach far.

“Yes, Father, the paddle wheels need to rotate independent
of each other, so the boat may be steered.

“I’ll make a drawing after supper.”

“We have charged man, that he be kind to his parents; his mother bore him painfully, and she gave birth to him; his bearing and his weaning are thirty months.”—
The Koran
, Sura XLVI

Sedrich Owaldsohn was a blacksmith, as anyone could tell from the ebon lines imprinted upon his palms, his fingertips, underneath his stu
b
by fingernails.

Had the man purified himself ten times a day, instead of the required five—Owaldsohn was ne’er one to permit cleanliness to lapse into em
p
ty ritual, as his son would attest, presenting well-chafed skin as ev
i
dence—his vocation would have marked him nonetheless. It had been thus since he was himself a boy. When yellow iron bellows in the quenching bath, be it oil or water or icy brine, the outer layer is tran
s
formed into ink, giving the blacksmith his name.

By the time the pair were hungry for the evening meal, Young Sedrich’s arms were black from the shoulder down—a first intimation he’d follow in his father’s profession. They’d spent the remainder of the day heat-treating steel billets for shoulder-bow prods, replacement parts for hunting wea
p
ons fashioned from hair-fine glass, bound together with tree sap hardened with a substance which was a secret of the village re
s
iner. The stock would be of bonded wood, even linen.

There had been talk of renewed trouble with the Red Men. The ca
n
ton was in the throes of grim preparation.

Owaldsohn claimed his greatsword from a nail driven in the shed-rafter where it hung when he was working. Whistling up the dogs, they began walking the hundred yards separating the smithy from their family home.

It was a warm evening in the summer. Owaldsohn’s claimstake, d
e
fined on this side by a sea-cliff, overlooked the eastern ocean, upon whose su
r
face the slanting sun, low over fields and forests to the west, picked out an occ
a
sional whitecap. Partway to the house they paused, hoping to glimpse an iceberg, or, perhaps, to catch the rarer sighting, even more fascinating, of a spouting whale.

“Father,
look!
” the boy shouted. “A
ship
, at the edge of the world! It must be passing tall! It twinkles, flashing and fading in a rhythm, as if...as if—”

“I see it, son, although just.”

Owaldsohn put a hand on Sedrich’s shoulder, peering with middle-aged eyes in the direction his son was pointing.

“As if what?”

“As if the sails were somehow turning like...like windmill blades, o
n
ly—”

He paused, lacking words to continue.

“Horizontal,” his father supplied. “As if in the same plane as a gris
t
mill. I believe you’re right, now you point it out.”

He looked at the boy.

“To what purpose, d’you suppose?”

Sedrich screwed his face up, concentrating.

He shook his head.

“Think about your own boat, Sedrich.”

The boy laughed. “Why, you could gear such a contrivance to a pair of paddle wheels, Father! You could—”

Owaldsohn joined his son in laughter. “And what a stench old ta
t
tooed Woeck would raise o’er that!”

The glittering alien vessel disappeared.

They resumed walking.

“
Hello, the house! Ilse, we’re home!
”

As they trod the walkstones leading to the long log structure, Sedrich saw what his father had. His mother had arrived already. Her staff lay propped against the doorframe, a sign she was available if needed.

The staff was as tall as she, a finger’s width in breadth, fashioned of copper. His father would have given much to learn its secret, brought by Mi
s
tresses of the Sisterhood from the Old World, sacred to ceremonies of forging from which all save Mistresses were excluded. Ilse herself had f
a
shioned it, as was required. At one end it tapered for some distance to a needle-sharp point. At the other, a crook, also sharp-ended, presented a broad surface, back of the bend, which could be used, and often was, as an effective club.

Sometimes Owaldsohn would, with a grin, offer to fashion her a be
t
ter one. In equal humor she would, of course, refuse. Annoying, for a blac
k
smith to see butter-soft alloy ensorcelled into something rivaling honest metal in steel-hard durability. It wouldn’t have been impossible to learn its secret. Yet, not for immortality itself would Owaldsohn have violated the trust which lay between them.

Just now, both crook and pointed end were lacquered with dried blood. Both dogs sniffed curiously and growled.

“Mother’ll be in a bad mood,” Sedrich observed.

His father grimaced in agreement, reaching for the latch-rope.

The stoop-stone had been scrubbed and was already drying. Thus Sedrich understood that little Frae Hethristochter had already gone for the day. He surprised himself by feeling disappointed. Frae was a neig
h
bor-girl who helped Ilse with the house. An unusual arrangement it was, a potential source of jealousy among the village women had it not been for his mot
h
er’s sacred duties. The child’s widowed father, for all he was closer to Sedrich’s age than Owaldsohn’s, acted by mutual consent as a local arbiter. He often spoke for the village in regional councils.

“He is also a cheap son of a bitch,” Owaldsohn growled as if in a
n
swer to Sedrich’s unspoken comment. “Willing to put an infant to pro
f
itable labor!” He shook his head.

Sedrich knew what he was thinking. Apprenticeship was one thing—any child must learn a trade. However, in this village of a hundred hou
s
es, Sedrich and Frae were the only children between babyhood and ma
r
riage
a
bility. Of all the loose confederation upon the eastern shoreline—or at least those hundred villages within a week’s energetic walk—this one was considered fortunate. Neighbors were inclined to offer an opi
n
ion—if they did nothing else—regarding how a child was raised.

Owaldsohn laughed as he perceived that Sedrich’s thoughts para
l
leled his own. “Well, son, it could be worse. To a man of Oln Woeck’s beliefs, for example—Fiery Cross and Sacred Heart—our practices of cleanliness are empty rituals, imposed by a community which would burn him out did he not make some visible concession to them.”

“
Thou shalt not suffer a rat to live
,” intoned Sedrich, echoing the teachings of an admittedly brief lifetime.

Ah, well. Hethri Parcifal held to the customs. Mother esteemed Frae a bright girl, learning the way of the Sisterhood from simple exposure to Sedrich’s family. She’d turn out proper e’en if she lacked a mother of her own to teach her.

“
As in the days of our fathers
,” Owaldsohn responded, “
so ne’er mote it be again
.”

They entered.

The small house was spotless, walls scrubbed until, had the bark not been peeled in the building of the place, there would have been none left in any case. Curtains, clothing, bedding were changed each morning. Despite the day’s warmth, flames rolled in an enormous hearth.

Sedrich scarcely noticed.

Twin models of decorum, Willi and Klem took places flanking the great door. They were as clean as the house itself, having spent most of the day, as was the wont of their breed, bathing in the salt-surf.

Hanging the greatsword on the wall beside a massive shou
l
der-bow—from this weapon’s cranequin had young Sedrich got the idea for his boat-crank—Owaldsohn strode across the polished hardwood floor to embrace his wife.

“Put this day aside,” he murmured, “now we’re home together.”

“How is it you always anticipate my mood?”

Ilse Sedrichsfrau, initiated Ilse Olavstochter, was a small woman, slender, dark-haired with a tracery of gray, her cheekbones high and prom
i
nent. Unlike the blue eyes which marked her husband, hers were dark, set like those of Red Men, slanted, with foldless lids in oval fra
m
ing. She wore a homespun shift, her flower-decorated hair bound back with patterned ri
b
bon in anticipation of the evening ritual. She was more often visible to neighbors in robes of the Sisterhood, her hair unbound, flowing over her shoulders toward the small of her back.

“Your staff outside,” replied her husband, peeling off his work-stained vest, “wants cleaning.”

She shook her head, a sour look on her face.

“Let the night air cleanse it first. Perhaps then ’twill be fit to touch.”

“Gunnarsohn’s house blessing?” Sedrich asked.

She nodded. “I don’t understand what people think about.”

“You speak of Ivarsohn, the house-carpenter?” Owaldsohn sneered. “A Pest upon him!”

Ilse chuckled. Used to her husband’s language, she didn’t flinch at the obscenity.

Owaldsohn skinned off his knee-length moccasins, placed them in a cabinet on an outside wall with vest and breechclout. Ilse put in Sedrich’s garments before she closed the door.

Sedrich himself, bare and shivering, padded off to another room.

From a table candle—dinner was already laid but would wait until a
f
ter the ritual—she lit a stick of pungent incense, placing it before a grille below the cabinet. A draft drew it, through the wire racks and the clothing they held, out into the evening stillness to mingle with incense from other dwel
l
ings. Compounded by the Sisterhood, people could breathe it with the mildest discomfort. Yet no insect could live within its fragrant e
m
brace.

Owaldsohn growled, pulled the eagle feathers from his tangled hair. Holding his breath, he tossed them into the cabinet, slamming the door behind them.

The puff of smoke he released thus dissipated.

Ilse laughed. “Ivarsohn left the place with open spaces along the walls and under the roof. Gunnarsohn failed to notice. The house is sawdust new, Husband, yet I killed three large rats before the blessing could be completed!”

He wrinkled his nose. “Hence the stains upon your crook. Well, isn’t it what the blessing—and the Sisterhood—are for, my love?”

“Ivarsohn’s a Cultist,” she replied with ill humor. “Each year grow they in number and influence. ’Tis a bad omen.”

“A pox,” Owaldsohn roared, “upon Thor Ivarsohn, Oln Woeck, the whole smelly gaggle of superstitious shave-pates!”

He told her of Sedrich’s morning confrontation.

She shook her head. “No Mistress ought to criticize the Cult, nor would the Cult in theory take issue with the Sisterhood. ’Tis no matter of choosing ’tween them. Each has its place in the way of things, pr
e
serving trad
i
tion, protecting the present—”

“Caring not a fart for the future!”

“
Sedrich!
”

He laughed a wicked laugh. Heaping more charcoal into the already blazing fireplace, which jutted, open upon three sides, into the broad room, the naked blacksmith climbed five tiled steps, easing his grimy body into the tub above it. The younger of the massive canines, Willi, whistled wis
t
fully. It had taken the family months to discourage both dogs from joining in the family bath.

Owaldsohn groaned with pleasure as the near-boiling water sloshed about him.

“Did you speak to me, Mother?”

The boy had reappeared, a towel wound about his loins, displaying a r
e
cent adolescent modesty. His father sometimes teased him, threatening to invite Frae to bathe with them some evening.

The boy’s blushes were soon lost in the color the hot bath brought to his skin.

“No, dear.” Ilse was the last to join them, bearing a tray of colorful tumblers beaded with condensation. “To your father, who often says things in haste he oughtn’t.” Her vocation wouldn’t permit her to pa
r
take of fe
r
mented or distilled beverages, and Sedrich, she maintained, was too young. Nor would Owaldsohn drink alone. Thus did they i
m
bibe—the blacksmith in a grudging spirit—of cold peppered fruit juice, as steam from the heated waters rose about their shoulders.