Rise of the Living Forge

“You want to pull the girl’s soul out?” Esmerelda asked, raising an eyebrow.

She and Arwin sat in a pair of rickety wooden chairs within her cluttered shop. Esmerelda had pulled them out the moment he’d walked through her door and let her know that there was something he needed her advice on. Unfortunately, he was having a bit of difficulty actually conveying just what it was that he wanted her to help him with.

“No. Not at all.” Arwin pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and repressed a sigh. “I want an imprint of her soul.”

“Just use the real thing. Works better.”

“I don’t want the real thing,” Arwin snapped. “I want Reya’s soul to remain in her body, where it belongs. Why would I be looking to rip somebody’s soul out to make them a weapon?”

“Because it’s deeply ironic.”

“I — well, yes. I suppose it would be. But that’s something you do to someone you really fucking hate, not your friend.”

Esmerelda stared at him for several long seconds. Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Never seen a demon worried about friends before. You’re a weird one.”

“A what now?”

“Never mind,” Esmerelda said with a shake of her head. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Okay. We’ll be happy little lassies with flowers in our hair. That’s what you want, right?”

“I don’t think that’s what I—”

“You want a copy of someone’s soul without actually stickin’ your pointy bits through the real thing.”

“I do not like the way you phrased that,” Arwin said. “But yes. I don’t want to injure Reya in any way. This needs to be something I can do for all of us. I basically want to cast her soul in some form of magical mold so I can work with it.”

“Its an interesting thought, but I don’t know how you’d do that without some immensely powerful magic materials,” Esmerelda said with a frown. “Souls are slippery things. They don’t mesh well with other materials. If they did, there would be a lot more liches wandering around.”

“But is it possible? If anyone would have experience with something like this, it would be you.”

Esmerelda’s cheeks reddened and she coughed into her fist. “You flatter me. I… don’t know how you could do what you’re proposing, but what if you were to use a bonding reagent?”

“A what now?”

Esmerelda reached up to her head and plucked a white hair free without so much as flinching. The hair coiled around her finger like a snake and she held it up.

“Something that connects you to your target. It’s a very common technique used in a lot of dark magic. Attacking someone from a range is incredibly difficult when you don’t know where they are. But, if you’ve got a bit of something to connect to them, then you can use sympathetic magic to form a connection. It’s what that bastard Twelve did to control his clones. Each of them probably had a tiny piece of his real body in them somewhere.”

“Huh,” Arwin said. He tapped a finger on his chin in thought. Playing with dark magic didn’t exactly sound like a wise idea, but there was no inherently evil magic. It all depended on how it was used. “So you’re saying I could try to establish a connection between Reya and the item by using some of her hair?”

“I am. It wouldn’t quite be her soul, though. It would be her. Body and soul alike. There’s a bit of a difference there.”

“Would it be dangerous for her?”

“Not as long as you aren’t casting a spell intentionally meant to hurt the girl. The item you make will just be an item. Sympathetic magic doesn’t always cause backlash when the connection is severed. The object would have to be very powerful for something like that to happen."

"I see," Arwin said, rubbing his chin. “That seems like it could work.”

“It might. I don’t know if it would accomplish exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s the closest thing I can think of.”

Arwin was already rising out of his chair. “No. That’s perfect, Esmerelda. Thank you.”

I won’t mention the bit that it took me nearly an hour to get a single useful answer out of you. Curses or not, the poor old lady just wants someone to talk to. She must not get out very much.

“Any time,” Esmerelda said.

Arwin paused before he left the store. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “You know, you can spend more time with the others. There’s no reason to sit cooped up in this dusty old shop. You wanted to join the Menagerie, didn’t you?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Bah. Who would sell items to people if I left?”

“There’s more to life than selling cursed shit. Get dinner with Madiv or something. God knows the vampire needs something to focus on other than following Lillia around asking if she has orders for him.”

“I… suppose I’ll think about it,” Esmerelda said. “Does this mean you’re officially accepting me?”

Arwin grunted. “So long as you don’t go selling cursed items to normal people.”

“What? You expect me to give up my livelihood?”

“How much gold have you made in the last month?”

There was a long pause before Esmerelda answered. She cleared her throat. “Ah… none. I haven’t sold anything.”

“So it’s not a livelihood.”

“A girl has to have hobbies, Arwin.”

“Find a new one — or only sell things to people that actually deserve them. No ruining innocent peoples’ lives. That goes against everything the Menagerie stands for.”

With that, Arwin strode out of the store. Esmerelda stared at where he’d stood for several long seconds. Then she blew out a slow breath, the look on her face growing thoughtful.

“What an odd demon,” Esmerelda mused to herself. She slowly rose to her feet and flicked a hand. Her chairs folded themselves up and ran off into the back of the store with the clatter of wood on wood. “He actually wants a hag like me to help people. He’d really trust my word that I’m only selling to the scum of the city? Just like that? It would be so easy to lie, you fool.”

Arwin wasn’t there to answer her. Esmerelda’s shoulders slumped and she shook her head.

“Damn convincing demon. I don’t know what nefarious plan he’s building up, but something about his damn eyes would make me feel so guilty if I lied. I suppose a small change in business models wouldn’t hurt too much. It’s good to keep things fresh when you get older.”

***

Reya was already in the Infernal Armory when Arwin returned. She had several plates of food next to her, about half of which had already been fed to the maw in the center of the back room.

“Don’t give it too much food,” Arwin said as Reya scraped the contents of another plate into the grinding mechanism. “It’ll get spoiled.”

“Silence,” the Infernal Armory said, its words brushing across Arwin’s ears alone. “I like this girl. She is permitted entry to my premises. Particularly when she comes bearing offerings. All should treat me in this manner.”

“Sorry,” Reya said. She straightened to her feet and brushed the dust off her knees. “It looked hungry.”

“How does a building look — oh, forget it. It was hungry. You’ve become its favorite human right up until its time for someone else to feed it. Are you ready to get back to work?”

Reya grinned and nodded. “Yeah! Did Esmerelda give you any ideas?”

“One, and that gave me a few more. I’m going to need some of your hair,” Arwin said. “I think I can establish a connection between you and the bracer I’m trying to make with that. Sympathetic magic.”

Reya started to nod. Then she hesitated. “Twelve’s magic? That’s not going to mean it’ll kill me if it breaks, right?”

“No. There’s not nearly enough power going into this for something like that. I’ve already asked Esmerelda about it to be safe.”

“Oh, great. That’s good,” Reya said through a sigh of relief. She lifted Wyrmhunger to her head and cut a strand of hair away, holding it out to Arwin. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Arwin said, taking it from her. He made his way over to the anvil and she started to re-sheath the dagger. A thought passed through Arwin’s head and he tilted his head to the side. “Hold on, Reya.”

“What is it?”

“Keep the dagger out,” Arwin said. “That thing is linked to you really closely. Maybe it’ll make it a bit easier for me to listen for your soul.”

“Sure.”

Reya held Wyrmhunger before her and the smithy pulsed as it awakened, black tendrils slithering through the air and driving into Arwin’s back. She approached Arwin, putting her free hand on his back, and the two of them got back to work.

Infusing a bit of a monster into a piece of metal was something that Arwin was no stranger to. Reya wasn’t a monster, but the principle was no different, and infusing it with the piece of Brightsteel should have been simple.

Unfortunately, that was far from true. He didn’t hear so much as a hint of a song when he tried to link the hair with the metal — and the combination failed shortly afterward.

Reya handed him another strand of hair.

“I think I might have felt something that time,” Reya said. “I think it was the best try yet.”

Arwin took the hair with a nod.

They got back to it.

Another attempt came and went to similar results.

Reya wordlessly gave him another hair.

Minutes stretched to hours and the day ran into the night. The glow of lava illuminated the Infernal Armory as the two of them worked, seeking to find the connection they were looking for.

Every attempt failed — but not in the same way that they had before. Bit by bit, Arwin ripped down the wall in their way. Each mistake taught them more. It revealed more of the puzzle. The defeats did nothing but motivate them even further.

And then the defeats stopped being defeats.

Arwin learned to direct Reya’s magic into her own hair rather than the item as a whole, infusing it with her energy. He encased her energy with his own to protect it from the heat of the molten lava.

And, as they worked on what must have been the fiftieth attempt that night, he heard something that had been absent through every other attempt.

At the back of his ears, so distant that he almost missed it, was a distant duet.

It was a familiar one. One voice was one that he’d never truly heard, but he recognized it almost instantly as one of the first items he’d created.

The voice was Wyrmhunger’s.

Alongside it was a playful, flitting tune. A thrum that resonated deep within Arwin, growing louder the more he focused upon it.

It was the sound of Reya’s soul.

“I hear it,” Arwin whispered. He looked back at Reya and a huge smile split his features.

“I feel it,” Reya said, her voice distant. “It’s so strange. I… feel something. In my chest. What is that melody?”

“The metal,” Arwin replied. “Don’t worry about it. Just relax and focus on yourself. Don’t worry about anything else. I’ll take things from here. Now we’re really cooking. Lillia might have to give us a spot in the kitchen.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Olive.”

A laugh slipped from Arwin’s lips before he could stop himself. He knew he should have been concentrated on the task at hand, but the delight that gripped him was too strong to suppress.

He could feel it deep in his soul.

This was what they’d been working for.

Your secrets are mine, Twelve.