He carefully cleaned her back while she tore into a bowl of porridge. Her back once again aching, she let him help her into a soft woolen robe.
“Is it time to begin forging?” she asked, feeling eager to begin. To have something to distract her.
The Keeper chuckled but led her back to the room where they completed the Binding and to the back wall, where the largest of the doors stood carefully sealed shut.
“Only those Bound to Noshtiz’s magic are ever allowed into the inner chamber of the well.” His voice was almost reverent as he slowly undid the locks.
Iryana held her breath as the door opened and the Keeper lit the torches lining the room.
It was decorated similarly to the outer chamber, but this room was much larger, with so much to look at that she struggled to choose what to take in first.
Her eyes gravitated toward the center of the room, and she immediately understood why the magic sources were called wells.
In the center of the floor was a ring of stone almost as high as her hips. A faint glow rose from within, and Iryana slowly approached. It was a much larger version of what had been in the outer chamber.
Leaning over the side of the well, Iryana saw magic-drenched earth. It reminded her of the gravies she sometimes made with milk, flour, and minced meat. It had the same texture. She could sense the magic, even stronger now that she was bound. Excitement and wonder thrummed through her.
Iryana looked around, trying to note everything.
Around the back side of the room and the well was a setup that reminded her of a blacksmith’s. There was a great anvil made from an extension of the stone from the well, a grindstone, and even an enormous machine similar to a printing press.
The stone on the opposite side of the well jutted out into something similar to an anvil, one of the tools for forging, she assumed. A few other anvils of different shapes and sizes sat against the right wall, along with two sturdy worktables and a wall covered with various hammers and other tools.
The left wall was lined with thick stone shelves covered with boxes of different sizes. A few of the boxes were stone, but most were made of wood. A few larger boxes—some nearly as tall as she was—were stacked on the floor. She didn’t know what they were for, but she wasn’t ready to stop for questions just yet.
On the back wall, directly across from the door, hung a huge tapestry. The main symbol of each element was stitched in a ring, with lines connecting each element to the others. Some lines were doubled, some single, and some dashed.
“Are you familiar with the workings of blacksmiths and normal forges?” The Keeper asked.
“I’ve never worked in one, but we had a blacksmith at the Kleesold post, and one of my cousins liked to help. I’ve always enjoyed watching them work when I had cause to visit.”
He gestured around the room. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the methods we’ve developed for forging our raw magic with that of the wells’ has been heavily inspired by traditional forging.”
“It makes sense,” Iryana said.
The Keeper moved next to her and looked down into the well. Like he had with the smaller well, he pulled a tendril of magic to dance before them. “Our raw magic is unwieldy; we can really only push it out and pull it back in. The magic in the wells is different, more fluid. It is controlled more easily but unless it is bound with our own magic, it will return to the well, and we can’t pull it into ourselves.”
Iryana focused on the magic in the well and found that she could touch it. The magic resisted her until she tried to pull it up like she did her own magic. Another dark tendril, smaller than the Keeper’s, rose out of the well.
The Keeper’s eyes lit up. “Very good.”
They worked together on controlling the tendrils until Iryana could make it dance and wave like him. It felt good, and she realized she was smiling.
“What do you want to forge?” he asked. “I assume your officers assigned you something?”
Iryana nodded; she had thought about it a lot on the walk to the temple. “Do you think I have enough magic to forge a dagger and both a beast spear and a bow?”
The spear worked well against the dakii, and she felt comfortable with that kind of weapon after training with Vaneshta. It would give her range, which was critical when fighting the dakii. It had to be a higher priority than a bow, although until recently she had always thought she would end up with an air-forged bow. She pushed the thought away.
“Easily. You have enough magic for a plow. The spear does not take as much as a great axe or hammer, and a bow is about the same.” He nodded and headed toward the shelves of boxes. “There are a few techniques that can be used depending on the desired forging. Most metal-forgings are rigid, so we use hammering and die striking or pressing. Each of these boxes contains a different die.”
Iryana followed, trying to guess what the boxes held. “There are so many.”
“Each temple has its own collection of techniques and dies. When the Elementi Conclave still managed the temples, knowledge was shared and traded more easily.” He looked past the shelves, as if sucked into his own memories. “We’ve only recently regained contact with the other temples of Noshtiz in this valley.”
Iryana ran her fingers along the various wooden dies. They all had seams dividing them in two, with leather latches holding the halves together. “Why wood?” she asked.
“Earth magic strengthens metal magic. The dies used in metal temples are carved by earth-forged tools, which allows for stronger metal-forgings.”
