The origins of this week’s story prompt photo are a little muddy in my memory. I know I took it on a family walk during lockdown 1. Okay, that’s not true — at this point the lockdowns blur together somewhat, but I think it was the first one. I’m mostly sure that it was in Blairadam forest just off the M90.
At first glance I’d assumed it was ‘just’ a strange looking tree. When I had a closer look it turned out to be a tree sculpture made of rusty steel (Or plain iron, I suppose.) objects. I assume it has something to do with the area’s mining heritage, but have thus far found out nothing more about it.
Me being me, an iron tree naturally leads to ideas of magic and nonsense. One day, perhaps, I’ll write something set purely in the real world. Although that could be the most fictitious sentence I’ve ever typed.
Arthen scowled as he dragged another ruined tool from the acid bath. Pliers that had been perfectly repairable a day before were now utterly beyond use. He laid the pliers on a towel and dumped a mallet, whose only fault was a cracked handle, in its place.
He carefully rubbed the pliers dry then, as instructed by his master, scuffed the surface with a wire brush until his soul could take no more. Preparations were finally complete. On that poor tortured tool at least. It would rust quickly once it was out of the workshop’s dry heat. He threw the wrecked metal onto the pile of similarly defiled detritus. Feedstock for his masters latest project.
The whole thing was deeply worrying to Arthen. Destroying damaged tools in that manner was dangerously close to heresy in dwarven culture. Already there were grumblings in the nearby revel-halls against Forgemaster Corath. If he was not careful he could be run out of the Delving, excommunicated and exiled from his people.
In principle, Corath’s actions shouldn’t reflect on his apprentice. That was the law. Unfortunately, law and reality were uneasy companions who would ignore each other as much as possible. If Corath were to be cast out Arten would struggle to find an apprenticeship with another Forgemaster. Legally he would be unsullied by his master’s sins, but it would be all anyone could think of when they saw him. He would be ruined.
Wearily, Arthen prepared the Forgemaster’s tools and workspace. Like any master craftsman, Corath insisted on exacting standards at his forge. Outsider’s might think of dwarven workshops as dingy, grimy caves in rough-hewn tunnels within the bellies of the mountains. Well, they were fools. The workshops of a Forgemaster, even in the midst of a Crafting, were clean and tidy enough to make an elven banquet hall seem like a beggar’s hovel.
On balance, while Arthen didn’t approve of his master’s recent methods or his latest project, only one course remained to him. Serve Corthen to the best of his abilities and hope the Forgemaster knew what he was doing. But that was the lot of any apprentice within any Craft.
Forgemaster Corthen entered as Arthen laid the last tool in place. Somehow he always knew the right moment to arrive. Under his arm was a box containing the most valuable treasure in the whole Delving. Dragon Ash. The remains of a fallen dragon, consumed by the fires of his foes and reduced to a fine red powder. A pinch of Dragon Ash would allow a Forgemaster to bestow magical properties on the workpiece during a Crafting.
Corthen approached the forge. He bowed his head and whispered the Crafter’s Prayer. Arthen’s voice joined in heartfelt echo. The next few hours would determine his fate, one way or the other. The end of the prayer died on his lips as he saw what the Forgemaster was doing.
That settled it. Banishment would be a mercy now. Arthen and his master would be lucky to escape with their lives. Corthen had opened the Dragon Ash casket and had upended it into the forge. A supply that large should have lasted for hundreds of years. Surely no creation could be splendid enough to save them now. Yet that was their only hope. In this crime Arthen was complicit — he should have stopped his master, at least limiting the damage if not preventing it entirely. All that remained was to help his master and hope their Crafting was sufficient to redeem them.
The following hours were a blur of hammering and heating, shaping and beating. The ruined tools were further warped. The clean precision of their once crisp lines were slowly wrenched and tortured until they looked organic. One by one Forgemaster Corthen and his apprentice twisted metal into blasphemous shapes and fused them together.
Bitter bile rose in Arthen’s throat as the Forgemaster laid down his hammer and stepped back to admire the form of his creation. They had created a tree. Twisted gnarled so that it almost seemed alive. The pure, sacred surface of metal was pitted and pocked as a tree’s living bark.
“Arthen, the bellows, please lad,” whispered Corthen.
“You’ve killed us both,” was all Arthen could manage in reply.
“Trust me now lad,” said Corthen. “If this works it will change the world. If it doesn’t, I will stand in your defence and take your punishment upon my own shoulders.”
Arthen nodded. His master had given a solemn vow. According to the ancient laws of the Dwarves no judgement could now fall on Arthen for what they had done.
He bent to his duties and drove the bellows. The forge’s fire roared and the temperature soared until it was as hot as dragon fire. Corthen grasped the flame-pipe, a flexible tube of interlocking stone links that would guide the dragon-flame onto the workpiece. With this final step the magic of the Dragon Ash would be activated.
Arthen gasped when he finished his work and looked at last at the completed Crafting. Although the tree appeared unchanged, the difference was somehow apparent. The tree was alive. He watched as the carefully crafted metal flowers dropped their petals one by one. The inner structures of the flowers, a mystery to Arthen until that day, swelled into fruits.
Corthen reached up and plucked one. Grinning like a school-boy he bit into it. A rush of juices escaped his lips and dripped into his beard. Arthen fell to his knees, unsure if he was in awe of the tree or his master.
“If we work no other magic in our lives,” said Corthen, “at least we will have Crafted this. Now we can grow crops within the Delving itself.”
Brandon Lim 