Chapter 44 – Coaching in Heresy

Right after getting up, Grimbart had already enthusiastically set about turning Mirrsoss’ egg into an omelet. He served it well-seasoned with bread and fried bacon.

Benderast accepted his plate with a beaming smile and started shoveling the food in right away. “I love Egg Night,” he announced with his mouth full. “I mean, the result, that is.” He glanced cautiously over at Shaelith.

Mirrsoss sat next to Shaelith with her wings loosely folded, nibbling on her bread. Her antennae turned toward her. “Did you have one of your dreams again last night, Shaelith?”

Shaelith quickly swallowed her mouthful of omelet. “Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”

Mirrsoss rummaged through her shawl and pulled out the pendant she’d stolen. “Because of this one.”

The others watched curiously.

“While I was laying the egg,” Mirrsoss said, “the thing got warm. Just a little at first, but then it got really uncomfortable. And after that, it slowly cooled down again.” Her antennae drooped apologetically. “You told me to let you know if anything changed.”

So right when the presence was pulling on me in my dream visions then.

“Definitely no coincidence,” Shaelith said slowly. “That thing and the presence belong together somehow. There has to be a connection.”

“What thing?” Grimbart pulled the pan off the fire. “What is that?”

Mirrsoss opened her mouth, but Shaelith gave her a stern look, and Mirrsoss shut her mouth again.

“We found it here at the market in Bomfrey,” Shaelith said smoothly. “Mirrsoss sensed that there was something different about it, so we acquired it.”

“Acquired,” Grimbart repeated, frowning.

“Acquired.”

“Oh, you know that? I think I don’t really want to know the details,” Grimbart decided. He wiped his hands on the rag and held out his right hand. “Let me see it.”

The pendant was teardrop-shaped and dark, barely larger than a thumbnail. Grimbart turned it over, tapped it with his Chronosteel finger, held it to his ear, sniffed it, and then touched it lightly with the tip of his tongue. He even scraped it with the tip of a knife, which left no mark.

“I can tell over two hundred materials apart and some of them just by the sound they make when struck against metal.” He placed the pendant back in Mirrsoss’ palm. “But I have no idea what this is made of.”

Thaelon leaned forward and examined the pendant without touching it. “Definitely not wood,” he confirmed. Grimbart muttered something into his beard at Thaelon’s statement.

“Guys.” Benderast pointed at the pendant with his fork. “This is obviously a quest item. You can usually tell by the fact that you can’t sell them.”

“We don’t want to sell it anyway,” Shaelith sighed. “It’s somehow connected to the presence I told you about, so Mirrsoss will just keep taking good care of it. Maybe it will become useful at some point.”

Mirrsoss beamed and tucked the pendant back under her shawl.

“But don’t lose it,” Benderast said, suddenly quite serious. “Otherwise we’ll probably get a retrieval quest, and I hate retrieval quests.”

Grimbart snapped his Chronosteel fingers, a sound almost as loud as a gunshot. “Finish your meal, Benderast. Your lessons in faith are about to resume.”

Benderast just groaned.

~

Soon afterward Benderast sat cross-legged in front of Grimbart, who was quizzing him on the Eight Temperings of the Soul. Meanwhile, Thaelon had set out to tail Gwilet’s seconds, to find out if they were planning something sinister. Shaelith and Mirrsoss sat within earshot of Benderast and Grimbart, listening.

“The Heat,” said Grimbart to Benderast. “Verse and meaning.”

“Endure the fire willingly, for cold iron cannot be shaped,” Benderast said without hesitation. “The suffering we experience in the world is the heat of the forge. Those who always shy away from suffering remain unfinished.”

“Correct.” Grimbart nodded with satisfaction.

“And what,” asked Shaelith, stretching wearily, “will the human examiners want to hear?”

Grimbart tugged at his beard. “Hmm, I’m not exactly sure. You can never be sure with humans. Presumably, for them, the fire is the zeal of faith burning in their hearts or something like that. Something along those lines, if I recall correctly.”

“Why did they change it?” asked Benderast.

“You humans are mana-resistant, which means our grafts and augmentations don’t work with you. The fire in the depths doesn’t accept you, so they’ve claimed the fire up there for themselves and turned our faith into a doctrine of light and zeal.” Grimbart snorted. “That’s why there’s that stupid sun above the anvil. Go on. How many temperings are there?”

“Eight,” said Benderast. “There are nine verses, but only eight temperings, because the counting stops with the Honing.” He raised his index finger, just as he’d seen Grimbart do. “The Fitting isn’t counted, because the smith’s work ends at the edge.”

“Very good,” said Grimbart. “The other humans will naturally say nine, but you’d better not correct a king.”

Then, gritting his teeth, Grimbart compared his version to the human version of the verses in a book he’d obtained from Tancred.

“What?” asked Benderast.

“The Fitting,” he said, shaking his head. “For us, it reads: Serve the work you cannot see, for nothing leaves the forge without a purpose.” He held up the book like a piece of evidence in court. “It says here: Serve the plan that has been ordained for you, for nothing leaves the forge without a purpose.”

“And that’s… bad?” Benderast asked cautiously.

“Definitely not good,” Grimbart grumbled. “They’ve taken the work that no one sees and turned it into a plan that assigns everyone their place. That’ll suit those nobles just fine, I guess. Keeps the peasants humble.” He scribbled frantically in his own notes. “It’s a bad translation, yes, but it also borders on Planforgery.”

“What are you writing there?” Shaelith asked.

“A list of complaints.”

“And what are you going to do with it?”

“Nothing. For now, I’ll keep them.” He continued to leaf through the book grimly, searching for other errors. “Maybe I’ll send them to the Crucible someday. They should know there, in detail, what the humans here have concocted.”

“What is Planforgery?” asked Benderast.

“It’s the great heresy.” Grimbart continued writing without looking up. “It’s a grave presumption to claim to know the Forge Father’s plan.”

“Ah. Planforgery, I see.” Benderast nodded slowly. “And if someone pretends to know the grand plan, and then explains it to everyone without being asked… that would basically be ‘plansplaining.'”

Shaelith had a hard time not bursting out laughing and simply exhaled loudly through her nose.

Grimbart thought for a moment, then jotted down the word. “Plansplaining,” he said, nodding slowly. “That’s a good word. I’ll remember it.”

Certainly can’t go wrong introducing the vocabulary of twenty-first-century mainstream online feminism into dwarven theology.

“IN THE SPIRIT OF PREPARATION,” Honor boomed from the pole, “I could familiarize you with all 81 verses of the popular religious hymn ‘Hammer Me, Forge Father, Let Me Feel Your Blows,’ which-“

“No,” everyone said at once.

“Just ONE verse.”

“No.”

Honor rustled indignantly at his pole.

“The Quenching,” Grimbart continued, gesturing for Benderast to respond.

“Recognize your form and then hold it,” said Benderast, “for the unquenched soul takes no edge. This means that each of us has a form that has always been destined for us, we merely have to recognize it. And the Quenching serves to hold fast to it of our own will. You essentially choose your true ideal form after you have recognized what it is.”

Recognize your form and then hold it.

The memory of her birthday night two years ago at the balcony railing came to the surface. How she had bid farewell to the boy she once was with a carafe of moss wine. It had been the night she had recognized her form and decided to hold onto it. And everything else since then had followed that decision, and all in all, she was very happy with it.

I guess I must have pulled off a flawless quenching there. Moss wine really is so versatile.

“I thought you dwarves took everything in your religion literally and made fun of humans for interpreting everything as allegory. But I feel like ‘The unquenched soul takes no edge’ is also an allegory.”

“No, it’s a paraphrase.” Grimbart looked as if he had been waiting just for that question. “The Forge Father’s plan is unknown and perhaps unknowable. We are forged, but for what purpose? Maybe not even the Forge Father knows. Does every smith know the situations in which the blades he makes end up in? The forge contains the fire, not the battle. So any discussion of the purpose must inevitably be a reconstruction, including ours. But our reconstruction is, in a sense, true to scale, for we ground it in fire, ore, weight, and matter, in the very same substances and qualities which the world is made of. Humanity’s reconstruction merely consists of ideas, of words upon words.”

Then he spun abruptly back toward Benderast, and his finger shot out, pointing at him. “The Temperings! Go! All eight, backward.”

Benderast took a deep breath. “The Honing. Hone yourself on hard things, for the blade without edge cannot cut.” And then he actually recited all eight in reverse order without a single mistake, providing explanations as he went, without faltering even once.

Then Grimbart placed his hand on Benderast’s shoulder and said, “We’re done for today.”

~

In the late afternoon, Shaelith went over to the market alone to get fresh supplies for the group.

The tent city had become increasingly crowded over the past few days, which is why the carpenters were building more and more stands for the Lists. She could easily imagine what Thaelon would say about that.

The wood for what’s already standing there alone has easily devoured an entire forest.

On the way, she encountered a middle-aged knight with a magnificent mustache. His tabard bore the image of an almost comical-looking bellowing stag, and he was leading a lady demurely by the arm.

When he saw Shaelith, he turned a shade paler and steered his companion in a wide arc around her. He did so quite unobtrusively and without quickening his pace, but Shaelith noticed it anyway. He bowed his head toward his lady, and as they passed by, a snippet of their conversation drifted over to her.

“… bewitched the banner-“

That was all she could make out. The sounds of the market drowned out the rest.

The fact that no one dared to address the rumors with her, to say it to her face, whether out of politeness or fear, was, of course, the insidious part of it. So she could do nothing about it. What was she supposed to defend herself against if nothing was out in the open?

You can’t exactly challenge someone to a duel over whispered gossip. Not that I’d duel with anyone here anyway. But still.

She hurried through her errands and then returned to her little camp as quickly as possible.

Thaelon had meanwhile returned from his surveillance mission and reported back to them. Apparently, Gwilet’s seconds had spent the day loafing around and drinking astonishing amounts of ale and wine. “If they’re actually preparing something right now,” he said, “they’re not doing it in a way that would have allowed me to catch them in the act.”

“The day after tomorrow is the big day,” Grimbart noted. “I think Benderast is well prepared.”

“At best,” said Shaelith, “Benderast actually has a chance this time, if we can trust Obelaine’s assessment of her brother’s piety. At worst, he might at least command their respect a little bit.”

“And after that, the Largesse trial,” said Thaelon.

“What the hell even is ‘Largesse’ anyway?” Benderast asked. “I probably can’t hope it’s about which one of us is the bigger hunk.”

“Not quite. That’s where they test how generous you are.”

“Doesn’t it matter then… well, how much money you actually have?”

“That’s exactly the problem. We can’t outspend a prince,” said Shaelith. “At least not with gold.”

“But what else can we use?”

“I don’t know yet.” She sighed. “I’m still working on it. We’ll figure something out.”

“Don’t worry too much about it. I’ll start my comeback arc by the List at the latest.” Benderast grinned at the group. “Punching someone right in the face is a lot easier than dancing and praying.”

~

She lay awake for a long time that night next to Mirrsoss, worrying about how they should approach the Largesse trial. Maybe Thaelon, Grimbart, Mirrsoss, and she herself could just lend him a hand right away during the trial?

Largesse can’t just be about who has the most money. We all owe Benderast at least one favor, so why should he have to do without our help and friendship, which his Largesse has earned him in a way? Doesn’t sound quite convincing yet, but maybe we can make something of this.

Suddenly there was a loud rustling from the neighboring tent, followed by a murmur. She lifted her head and listened. Benderast’s snoring stopped.

“Come on! The Folding! Go!” Grimbart.

“Huh? Oh…” Benderast mumbled sleepily. “…fold in what you learn… no, wait…”

Apparently, Grimbart had made good on his threat to test him in his sleep if necessary.

Shaelith smiled into the darkness.

Hopefully it’ll be enough for the trial.