Element. Flame of Elisar. Marie K. JETH

opened with the “Great Master Blacksmith” appearing in the doorway, wearing an apron all black with smoke, a wrinkled shirt, his face and hair all wet. He must have just chilled himself with a bucket of ice-cold water, which he always did.

      “Hey, dear!” he greeted me with his low yet tender voice.

      “Hey, hope you are having a nice day here! Saw me coming?” I sat on an enormous bench at the door.

      “Could not miss you, of course. You are just an arrow fire when moving, could see you from far away. Must have covered a long way, huh?” he chuckled. “Brought my stuff?”

      “I sure did!” I gave a nod producing a beautiful deep blue flask out of my pocket. “Listen, Truvle, what is this? I did not have the time to ask Mammy but judging by the flask this is not a common order,” and I gave him a sly look.

      “Well, I guess it didn’t take you long to figure out that one,” he said and returned the look. “How long did you travel this time? Another record set?”

      “Nope…,” I gave a deep sigh, a little forced, probably. “The valley is full of water again, up to your knees, the waterfalls are getting strong. Last time I spent less than an hour… and now – longer. It’s all the water.”

      “Yeah, spring is early this year, lots of water,” he uttered watching the clouds hugging the hillside like a blanket would cover a little child sleeping.

      The road from our place to Truvle’s workshop ran through the Falls Valley, which looked like an oval-shaped bowl, where from its northern side, five waterfalls – each of different power – fell on both sides, thus creating a whitish water mist, which, turning into clouds, hid most of the valley.

      Further on, they all came together creating the Full-Flow River, which rushed out of the valley leaving a happy and sound roar behind.

      Typically, that way would take one whole day to cover. For me that was a couple of hours’ job. Round trip, I mean, which gave a major advantage to our family business, so to speak. Elixirs and medicines would not wait a day or two to be delivered to the customer. A healing brew had quite an acceptable shelf life retaining its effect for up to two months. Elixirs, Fillers, though, had an effect that never lasted long – no more than three days, and then they broke up into totally stupid ingredients. And there were even some that lived just several hours. So, judging by the flask, it was one of these that I had just brought to Master Truvle; it means it must have had some enormous effect. So I went on fiddling with that piece of blue and shimmering glass, yet again trying to fathom its magical purpose.

      Seeing my eyes glued to the flask, the blacksmith decided not to torture me any longer and snapped, “Come on. Will show ya something. Guess you’ll like it!”

      And a fast sly smile that flashed across his face in the next moment was a dead giveaway behind his anticipation.

      As we stepped into the shop, dry heat and a slight smell of cinders overwhelmed us. The place was small and lit by bright and smooth light of a humming forge.

      Truvle’s forge was not a simple one either – it had the happily crackling Everlasting fire, which had become so popular in the Highlands. Of course, that was due to our family’s contribution as well. Nargara likes experiments, so when the blacksmith asked her to help him make his craft better, she took it up with great enthusiasm. That was a path of cut and try, where Nargara spared neither time nor her ingredients. But the outcome was worth it – she exceeded even her own expectations. The fire proved really bright and smooth. And it was powerful indeed.

      That made Master Truvle famous throughout the entire area given the quality of the steel he forged and hardened. Besides, he got more and more orders for magical blades; they were tailor-made, which, in turn, made them very expensive, and that made happy not the honored Master alone, yet also the quiet witch and her daughters.

      The point of the magic here was not the fire itself, as many would believe, but the wood. A piece of wood impregnated with a special concoction just never burned away. And now the blacksmith had three of such logs, and the heat they produced was just right.

      A red-hot blade was on the anvil, as if it was a great king sitting on his throne in solemn silence, and throwing one single glance at the weapon was enough to see that the blacksmith had vested it with his entire skill and power.

      Truvle loved making weapons with a secret, which typically was quite tough to crack. Once he would come up with a short blade that fanned out each time you turned the gem on the handle, then he forged a sword, which would fork out into an unseen steel snake tongue as soon as you turned the guard. Well, that was his hobby – not to create just a weapon, but make some sort of a deadly masterpiece. Apparently, he did it to have the victim of that very work enjoy the beauty so much as to be happy to get killed.

      Another thing he loved was giving names to his creations – an arbitrary right he, as a typical creator, would never concede to anyone else. Each of the things he made was one of a kind, so Truvle’s clients were not just commoners, and never poor.

      And now, with some crazy fanatical gleam in his eyes, he looked at the weapon and whispered, “Order from the capital. Some extremely powerful Mister… perhaps even from the Supreme…”

      “Why perhaps?” I could not resist asking.

      “The order was brought by a servant… a very strange person, all wrapped in a cloak. I couldn’t even see his eyes from under the hood… Just whispered he would be back in seven days, and then stuffed into my hand a note listing all the details he wanted in his weapon, and disappeared,” the smith sounded thoughtful and a little nervous.

      “You didn’t like him, did you?”

      “Him? No… the voice was really strange… as if rustling… But the moment he paid me I nearly fell in love with him,” Truvle chuckled picking the tongs.

      I smiled. Yeah, people coming to this area were strange sometimes but a good order they placed would immediately excuse anything we did not like about them. I took another curious glance – the blade was solid and well-balanced, nothing less to expect from the Master, though.

      It took a gracious turn coming to a thin and sharp point, while the body itself was decorated with curls and whorls resembling waterfalls. They went up to the handle getting larger and more visible, while at the crosshead the streams of metal hugged tenderly a huge light-blue gem and then split into two peculiar lines getting lost in the tight handle. Despite the red light coming from the flame, the gem shimmered blue. And the back of the handle featured a special mark – tongs crossed with a hammer all enveloped in flames – Master Truvle’s trademark that stood for the top quality.

      “Beauty…” I gasped. “Truvle, you outdid yourself!”

      “Oh, come on! Just spare my blushes!” the blacksmith was definitely happy with the praise, and I could tell immediately he was proud of his own work.

      However, I was rather skeptical seeing his face red with the heat, and tried to see if I could make it even brighter, and here the blade caught my eye again: What was the secret that the genius blacksmith hid here this time?

      I gave it another glance… looked intently at the handle … Okay, patience was definitely not my strong point! I waved my hand.

      “Well, giving up! What is it this time?”

      “You know, nothing special this time… Strange as it is but it is all about the right filler here. And the transformation elixirs your Mammy makes, they are unbelievable,” his voice was full of respect and even revealed a shade of awe.

      I noticed that sort of admiration several times before when this strongman mentioned Mammy. It looked like the honored Master was not indifferent to the equally honored Witch. I even tried to make fun of him from time to time.

      “Today, the elixir will do the job. The customer insisted so…”

      “And the gem? What is it?” I was once again impatient to learn more.

      “It’s a topaz. The client brought. Must be not just a simple pebble either, but that would be too much beyond my mind,” Truvle frowned.

      Topaz…