When Tanis didn't answer, Solostaran sighed and prepared to go. "I will send Miral with salves. Get some sleep." His tone grew gentler. "Can I have anything or anyone sent to you, Tanthalas?"

The reply, when it came, was so soft that the Speaker barely heard the words.

"Flint Fireforge."

Chapter 6

"You can drop that oven by the furnace, lad," Flint said as he led the way into the clutter of his shop.

With a groan of relief, Tanis let go of the heavy sack. It plummeted to the floor.

"I didn't mean that literally," Flint growled at the winded-looking half-elf as he carefully set down the sack that had rested on his own shoulder.

"Sorry," Tanis said wearily, rubbing his aching arm.

The two had just returned from an ore-gathering trip, though Tanis wondered now how he had ever managed to let the dwarf talk him into it. An hour or two ago, in the early morning sunshine, Flint had led the way south out of the city, empty sacks in hand. After a pleasant mile, the forest had given way to a rocky outcrop, littered with rusty-looking chunks of stone that Flint said was iron ore. Ten minutes later, Tanis had found himself staggering under the weight of the load the dwarf had lifted onto his shoulders.

"Wouldn't it be easier to bring a horse to carry this back?" Tanis had asked through clenched teeth.

"A horse?" Flint said with a snort. "Are you daft? Reorx! No dwarf in his right mind would trust a crazy animal to carry his ore."

Tanis knew there was little point in arguing with the dwarf. Flint had lifted his sack-which must have held five times the ore Tanis's had-as if it were filled with feathers and started back toward the city. Tanis had followed, stumbling along as best he could, reminding himself to be wary next time Flint suggested they go for "a nice little walk."

Tanis had visited with Flint nearly every day, ever since the Speaker sent the dwarf a message late in the evening a week ago, asking him to go to the half-elf in his quarters in the palace. They'd spoken of precious little of importance in that visit-weather and Solace and metalworking and carving-but Tanis, looking a bit battered, seemed to draw some comfort from the meeting. Since then, the half-elf's scrapes and bruises had nearly faded, but the rift between him and the Speaker's heir would be much longer in healing.

"But how are you going to turn that rock into iron?" Tanis asked now as the dwarf lifted the heavy cover of the furnace out behind the shop.

"You'll only learn by doing," Flint told him. "At least, that was what my father's father, old Reghar Fireforge, used to say. Or so my mother says he said."

The furnace was round, as tall as the dwarf, made of thick, fire-scorched mudbricks. The bottom was funnel-shaped with a small hole, and below that rested a crucible the size of a helmet. Under Flint's direction, Tanis half-filled the furnace with layers of iron ore, hard coal, and a chalky kind of rock that Flint called limestone. Through a small door in the bottom of the furnace, Flint lit the coal, then Tanis helped him replace the lid.

"What now?" Tanis asked.

"We wait," Flint said, dusting his sooty hands off. "Once that coal starts to burn hot, the iron will melt right out of the rock, leaving the slag behind, and drip down into the crucible. But that will take a good day, so we might as well turn our hands to another task."

Flint showed Tanis what the iron would look like after it had collected in the bowl: a heavy, black lump he called "pig iron," though Tanis didn't think it looked at all piglike.

"Is that what you forge into swords and daggers?" Tanis asked, and Flint guffawed.

"You need a few lessons in metal-smithing, lad," he commented.

"Me?" Tanis asked. He had watched the dwarf at work at the forge, and he knew how much strength and will Flint exerted to force the metal into the shape he desired. How could Tanis ever make something as hard as iron do what he wanted?

The sparks in Flint's eyes told Tanis there was no room for argument. The half-elf listened carefully as the dwarf explained that pig iron was too brittle to make a good blade; it had to be heated to melting again. Flint showed Tanis how, putting the pig iron in a crucible and setting it amidst the coals in the fire pit by the heavy iron anvil. He made Tanis work the bellows until the coals looked like liquid jewels. As the iron melted, it gave off curls of black smoke. When it cooled, it would be wrought iron, Flint explained, and not nearly so brittle as pig iron.

"But if it's too soft, it couldn't possibly make a good sword," Tanis complained.

Flint nodded. With a pair of heavy tongs, he heated a lump of wrought iron in the coals until it was glowing hot. He set it on the face of the anvil and sprinkled it with a fine black dust that looked almost like coal dust, except it was shinier. Flint called it Reorx's Breath.

"You see, long ago," Flint said, "a wicked thane ordered his smith to forge an iron sword that would not lose its edge. If the smith failed, he would be put to death. It seemed an impossible task, but the smith was a favorite of Reorx's, and the god breathed upon the smith's soft iron sword, making it strong and hard, so that its edge would long remain bright and true."

With his hammer, Flint folded the glowing lump of metal over on itself and then pounded it flat. He heated it in the coals again, sprinkled on more of the black dust, and then pounded it flat once more. He repeated this several times.

"What we have now," Flint said with satisfaction, holding the hot lump of metal with the tongs, "is a piece of metal that will be hard enough to be strong without being so brittle that it will easily break. This, Tanis, is steel."

Tanis gazed at the glowing metal in a new light. Gold was beautiful, and elves delighted in silver, but in these dark times, steel was the most precious substance on Krynn.

"What are you going to do with it now?" Tanis asked.

"I'm not going to do anything with it," Flint rejoined. "You are."

"I can't forge steel!"

"Neither could I until I tried," Flint said gruffly, and he thrust a heavy hammer into Tanis's hand.

Obviously, there was no way out of this. Tanis sighed. First he had to decide what to make, but that was easy enough. For a long time, he had wanted a hunting knife like Porthios had.

Guiding his hands, the dwarf showed Tanis how to heat the steel, how to hold it on the anvil with the tongs, and how to strike it with the hammer so that none of the hot, flying scale hit his hand.

"Don't just flail at it, lad," Flint said. "It's your will as much as your arm that shapes the steel. Picture what you want it to look like. Get the image good and clear. Then strike the steel and see what happens."

Tanis followed instructions, thinking how much easier it was to learn from Flint or Miral than from Tyresian. And the knife began to take shape.

Tanis felt a warmth creep up his arm and into his chest. It's only the heat of the forge, he told himself, but somehow he knew that wasn't so, and he thought that maybe he understood a little of what Flint felt when he stood here at the anvil, discovering a blade in a lifeless lump of metal and releasing it with fire and hammer, with heart and mind.

"Now quench it while it's still red-hot," Flint said, and Tanis plunged the thin, pointed strip of steel into the half-barrel of water by the anvil. Steam hissed into the air, glowing red in the light of the furnace. "Quenching makes the metal harder," Flint explained.

Tanis pulled the blacked, rough strip of steel out of the water and looked at it critically. "It doesn't really look like a knife."