Peter woke to the sound of celebrating. Loud, happy voices, music, and laughter. Marla wasn’t in the tent. He managed to stand up, though his legs shook in protest, and realized he was naked. He dropped his shoulders and looked up with an exasperated face. It seemed he had slept so soundly Marla managed to strip him without his waking.
His clothes were folded on a stool, still damp from being cleaned. Peter smirked; for someone who complained of being treated as a servant, she was awfully quick to act his servant of her own free will. A few minutes later he walked out into late afternoon sun, squinting, and tried to orient himself.
In the end he just walked towards the noise.
Being greeted with cheering as if he was a hero made him uncomfortable, but he awkwardly smiled and nodded. Marla appeared to guide him to a seat. “You slept well?”
Peter nodded. “What’s going on?”
“The trapped miners are out. Some of them were hurt or in desperate need of water, but everyone survived. They all credit you.”
“Why? Because I had the brilliant idea of climbing over a boulder instead of moving it?”
“Had they not been so exhausted, I doubt they would have had trouble thinking of it themselves.”
“I hope so. Now what?”
“Most of the other volunteers have already left, but I thought it best if we let you sleep where you were. We can stay and celebrate or head back to town, it’s up to you.”
“I think we should at least stay for a little while. It seems rude to just ignore the party where you’re the guest of honour.”
“Good. Hungry?”
“Very.”
There was plenty of food and drink, and Peter helped himself. Many people thanked him, and he thought it would be the end of it, but then came gifts. Once the miners who had been trapped learned he was the man with the lantern, they started reappearing with handfuls of uncut crystals. He found himself smiling awkwardly and thanking them, hoping each would be the last.
When the foreman joined him, he looked at the bowl of gemstones and snorted. “Seems the lads are grateful. These aren’t worth much until they’ve been nicely shaped, just so you know. There are vaults full of them in town, waiting to be processed or sold.” He picked one up and looked at it closer. “I thought so. These are from the reject pile, ones that have too many flaws to waste our time on. Still, a handsome pay for a day’s work, yes?”
Peter picked up a few and looked at the light passing through them, not really knowing what he was looking for. “I came as a volunteer, to do what was right. I expected nothing in return.”
“That makes it all the easier to be happy you’ll leave with these. Now, about these rail carts you mentioned. I’ve got a desk set up when you’re ready. Not that I’m going to drag you away from this.”
“Oh, I’ve had more than enough. How am I meant to carry these, though? Take the bowl?”
“Leave them there for now. Everyone here sees so many of them it might as well be a pile of manure.”
Peter followed the foreman to a shack containing an office, where he was offered a chair. The foreman left, and Peter started drawing. He tried to include as much information as possible, with at least two sides of each part. After the rails and wheelsets, he moved on to the twin lift and some safety mechanisms. Not knowing what was known to these people, he sketched out wheel bearings and tried to think of anything else that might be useful. He had just included a crude black powder recipe when Marla came in to check on him.
“Having fun?”
“Not exactly, though I do enjoy this kind of work.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve forgotten something important.”
“What?”
“No one here can read your writing.”
“Oh. Right. I guess I could redraw all the diagrams and tell you what I’ve written so you can write it in your language.”
“Or I can just write the translations in the empty spaces you left.”
“If you can fit it in, I guess.” To his surprise it actually worked.
A cart was waiting to take them back to town before dark, with a sack of uncut gems. Peter suspected there were twice as many as when he left the table. This ride was more pleasant than the last, as there was no urgency, though it did take a bit longer.
It wasn’t much longer before Peter was up in his room, stretched out and thinking of a nap.
Marla dragged him out shopping as soon as shops started opening the next day. For the most part Peter didn’t mind it, this town was significantly different than where he had arrived. He just didn’t have any money or know what it would make sense for him to buy. Until they arrived at a shop with several old looking swords on display.
Peter walked straight to the swords, hands behind his back, and leaned this way and that to see as much as possible. None were like the one he had found, but all had similarities.
“Looking to purchase a sword?” A voice asked from nearer than he had expected. He turned and side-stepped to face the shopkeeper, a thin man with an oiled mustache and pointed beard.
“Not exactly. I found one in a pond when I fell in. The blade needs professional attention, and the handle scales crumbled and will need to be completely replaced.”
“And you’re looking for a buyer?”
“Selling would probably be the most practical thing to do, aside from not having dragged the thing along with me, but I was hoping to restore it for my own use.”
“A pity. I don’t do that, but I can make some recommendations. Maybe I could interest you in a dagger?” Before Peter could say no, Marla kicked him in the foot. Instead, he smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Excellent. This one here is a rare piece indeed. Forged from Akorkin spirit iron.” Peter let the man continue on his spiel, paying more attention to Marla. To his surprise, she bought it, and got the names of some shops they should investigate.
Out on the street, when they found a quiet spot, Peter asked “what is Akorkin spirit iron, anyway?”
“It comes from a long way off, and the merchants claim it is magical, that it is imbued with spirits to make it stronger. It has no trace of magic, though, yet no one has been able to reproduce it.”
“Does it arrive here as finished products, or blocks of metal to be worked?”
“Blocks of metal. When it arrives, it is covered in mystical swirling patterns, almost like wood grain. It goes away in the working, though, leaving it looking the same as normal iron.”
“You have cast iron here, yes? As well as normal iron?”
“Yes, you’ve seen cast iron pans.”
“I have some suspicions. Assuming that dagger is what the man said it was, there are two tests we can do. One involves a grinding wheel in a dark room, the other enough acid to submerge the blade in a jar.”
“That sounds like you’re planning to do some magic yourself.”
“No, just science.”
“Why? For fun?”
“No. Well, yes, but if I’m right, I’m going to make this town very rich.”
“You think you know how to make Akorkin spirit iron?”
“Yes, but more importantly … I know how to make even better steel.”
They continued to several other shops, mostly of interest only in relation to his sword project, before Marla took him somewhere for the first test of the dagger. “Oh, I need a bit of iron, and a bit of cast iron, scraps or nails will do,” Peter remembered just before the shop owner shuttered the light. His three pieces of metal in hand, Peter got the grindstone spinning and touched the iron to it, producing a few fine sparks. Next, he touched the cast iron to it, causing a huge plume of big sparks. When the dagger touched, it produced fine sparks like the normal iron, but in a spray that looked like that of the cast iron.
“That’s what I thought.” At Marla’s look, he elaborated “The sparks are caused by carbon mixed in with the iron. Below twenty-five parts in ten thousand, it’s normal iron. Above two hundred parts in ten thousand, it’s cast iron. In between, it’s steel. Less carbon is like normal iron, more is like cast iron. Which type you want depends on what you are making.”
“What is carbon?”
“Lamp black, soot, charcoal. It’s what you are left with when you burn meat and bone, so adding a dead animal in the melt will contribute carbon to the iron.”
“The swirly pattern isn’t made by trapped spirits?”
“No. It’s made by forge welding two different steels together, folding them in half, welding, folding, eight folds in total.”
“Why did you need the acid?”
“Because the pattern never went away, you just can’t see it anymore.”
“And the acid can bring it back?”
“Yup. It takes a while, though, so we might have to leave it overnight. I never asked, what is mined nearby?”
“Gemstones and ores. Quartz, garnet, tourmaline, topaz, and olivine, mostly. The ores can contain gold, silver, copper, tin, and iron, though there are a few others, too.”
“And it gets processed here? They don’t ship unprocessed ore?”
“Yes, why?”
“I’d like to see the iron furnaces before we leave, if possible. If I have to spend months or years developing proper furnaces, it won’t be worth it to try to make Akorkin spirit iron.”
“I’ll ask around. I suppose you want to go back to our room?”
“You’re getting to know me, are you?” Marla laughed and punched Peter in the shoulder.
Peter spent the rest of the day stretched out on the bed, catching up on his journal. He occasionally dipped his hand into the gem sack and pulled out a few to look at. When he tired of that, he unwrapped his blade and examined it yet again. He dozed off before Marla returned.
The next day they retrieved the dagger from the jar of acid. As Peter had suspected, the acid hadn’t been very strong and the etch was just dark enough to be visible. After rinsing and drying the blade, he showed Marla. "I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been scamming you, but here is your proof. Damascus steel.”
“What’s Damascus steel?”
“Oh. What your Akorkin spirit iron is called where I’m from. Hundreds of years ago, the only place my people could get it was from a trade port called Damascus. It didn’t originate there, that’s just where it was sold.”
“Oh. Okay. And you say there is even better steel than this?”
“Yes. What makes this steel so much better than just a one type is that the folding and shaping works out impurities and averages out the carbon content. It’s better to just start with the right steel. The tricky bit is getting it hot enough and not contaminating it.”
“You know how, though?”
“I know a bit, but I’ve realized the methods I know of rely on technologies far beyond what will be available here.”
“We keep coming back to that.”
“Yeah, I should probably just stop trying to make the things you don’t have here.”
“It would take us less time if you did.”
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” He laughed. “What is the plan for today?”
“I have some things to tend to after we drop your blade at the bladesmith you picked.”
“Is there a bath here?”
“Of course! Why? Are you going to go without me?”
“I just might. Or maybe I’ll go for a walk down to the river and wait for you to drag me to the bath with you.”
“Why?”
“For something to do?”
“Okay. And here I was going to offer you a few coins so you could shop on your own.”
“That’s a good idea, actually. I understand your currency now, if not your haggling.”
As promised, once they had dropped off his blade Marla handed him some coins. Before he left town, he found an old bronze bowl that was so dinged up the owner gave it to him. He seemed surprised Peter actually wanted it and refused the smallest coin offered. It wasn’t quite the right shape, but it would do. He also bought a small shovel like a gardening trowel and a bucket.
Peter really did go down to the river and explored until he found a nice gravel bar. He lost himself in playing at gold panning, though he really did find a few pieces he could barely pick up. He nearly leapt in the river when someone spoke in his ear.
“Why are you washing the rocks?”
It was the dryad again. Peter had hoped he was done with her, as she made him uneasy. He realized that was foolish, though.
“I’m washing the small stuff off the big stuff and letting the light stuff float away. Then I take the big stuff out, and sometimes there are some tiny pieces of gold left in the pan.”
“You’re looking for gold?”
“Among other things, yes. I don’t need them, though, it’s just for fun.”
“You’re strange.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Hey!”
“This is what, the fourth time we’ve met? I still don’t know what to call you.”
“Honeyhips will do, Peter.”
“You know my name already?”
“Of course!”
“Aren’t we a long way from your garden?”
“I was just teasing you. I live wherever I am.”
“You don’t have a home? A shelter where you keep your belongings?”
“Well, yes, I do, but … it’s not like a human’s. It’s somewhere else, and I can go there from wherever I am.”
“That didn’t make sense.”
“Sure it did, you just don’t know it. You’re here, now, but you aren’t from here, right? Well, some of us can make little bubbles in what is between the worlds. They’re easier to step into than completely separate world. I have one of those, and that’s where I built my house.”
“Sounds nice. Do you think I could learn to do it?”
“Probably not. Maybe you’ll learn enough before you go home, though. I might even take you home with me. Not today, though!” Honeyhips ran behind a tree but was nowhere to be seen when Peter got up and looked.
Peter spent another hour or so panning and dumping the stuff that might have gold into his bucket, then headed back to the Inn. Once there, he put it all back in his pan and shook it around and poked at it to find all the bits of gold, which is what he was doing when Marla came in.