A Wizard Comes To Town

Gage had never met a wizard before. Most people who lived in Dotton and the farmland that surrounded the small village hadn't, so it was no surprise that Gage, being one of those people, hadn't either. Wizards were solitary creatures, often compared to dragons- powerful, reclusive, and mysterious. Unlike dragons, they generally had a firm relationship with the King through their various schools and trade organizations. The kingdom sometimes called on them for services, but for the most part, their power, and the power of their guild, kept them independent. Gage, despite having never met an actual wizard before, had heard any number of stories. Wizards in their wrath, laying waste to cities. Wizards providing valuable but indirect support to young fools with magical swords. Wizards defending kingdoms, or going bad and being defended against.

None of the stories had prepared him for the silent young man who was now sitting against the wall just inside the entrance.

The boy had been waiting for him at the crack of dawn, standing patiently in the mud outside of Gage's shop with a signed document from the local mayor. The document requested, in the polite but firm language of the law, that the bearer be allowed to observe any and all manufacturing work conducted in the city, provided he didn't get in the way. Gage had grudgingly let him in and brusquely ordered him to stay out of harms way. Privately, he had expected an endless stream of questions and all sorts of other nosey-ness, but the kid had simple posted himself by the door, taken out a sheaf of papers, and begun to write. He occasionally looked up from his notes and stared around as Gage laid out his hammers, lit the forge, and brought out some bar stock.

As he prepared his workspace, Gage mulled the situation over. The document had refered to the boy as "Johan Scrivener, Wizard." Unless the kid was a lot more ballsy than he seemed, it was unlikely that he had somehow stabbed a wizard in a dark alleyway and stolen the papers, and if he had, he would likely be touring other shops with more valuable goods. There were a lot of threats in the blacksmithing trade, but few of them involved theft. First, because all of the merchandise was heavy as hell, and second, because robbing a man twice your size who collects weapons and hammers was a great way to find an early grave. No, the boy (Gage couldn't bring himself to think of a lad barely twenty years old as anything but a boy, wizard or no) was probably an actual, honest-to-gods wizard. The thought was uncomfortable.

Gage squinted at a note, scribbled on a scrap of paper that had been reused so many times that it was more gray than cream. An order for a short knife from a local, half-a-dozen hinges... he lifted the scrap and looked at the back, then the front again. He could have sworn there was more. Drawers opened and slammed as he rummaged through the various mismatched nooks and crannies on the lopsided desk, until he found another scrap of paper, even darker. Ah-hah. Twenty fittings for harnesses of various types, and a plow. The plow was going to take more than a day to finish off, and he was in no hurry. He dropped the second scrap on top of the first, then shoved both of them into the corner as he dug through the rest of the clutter for an apron.

In contrast to the chaotic desk, the actual workspace of the forge was remarkably clean. Gage had learned his trade from his father, who had smacked him more than once for leaving the forge a mess. Eventually, he had absorbed the rough lessons. The shop was swept every night. The tools were cleaned and oiled every day. The stock was carefully accounted for. A messy shop would quickly lead to sloppy work. He whistled as he selected a hammer and held his hand to the forge, testing the heat. Eventually, his worthless apprentice would arrive and work the bellows, but until then, it was no great effort to press the handle himself, stirring the fire with each movement.

He worked steadily for the next several hours, heating and hammering the steel for the short knife before quenching, reheating, and setting the piece aside, moving on to the hinges. They were finicky, but it wasn't particularly difficult to roll the edges of the iron around a rod of harder steel. It was mindless, almost. He remembered the first time he had tried to make a simple hinge, the frustration he had felt as what should have been a smooth curve had come out lopsided again and again. And again.

He snorted.

Twenty years of practice had taught him a few things, he figured. As an apprentice, he had concentrated intensely, tapping, adjusting, and tapping some more. All that tense effort, for a lopsided and dented hinge. These days he could do it with his eyes closed, almost. Two strikes, turn, two strikes, done. Another perfect hinge dropped onto the small pile, and he straightened, rubbing one fist into his back.

Sometime during the work, his apprentice, Rog, had appeared and taken over the bellows, glancing uncertainly at the wizard sitting calmly by the door. Gage glanced at them both, then caught Rog's eye and shrugged. He turned back to the forge.

The work continued through the day and into the afternoon. Gage steadily worked his way through the fittings, keeping one eye on his apprentice as the boy labored, first over the bellows, and then at the second anvil over a much smaller pile of fixtures. He would likely give a discount to the customers who received Rog's work. They were certainly uglier, but the kid needed practice working on things that were actually going to be used. Gage had heard of other masters setting their apprentices to building puzzles or other useless shapes to teach particular techniques, but he didn't approve of this. There was more to the craft than simply knowing the tools: there was a pride in seeing your work being used by your neighbors. A good smith needed to know how his work was used. Without the how, the fastenings themselves were just shapes made from iron or steel. If you had the how, then sometimes it was possible to make better fastenings, better hinges.

Hours later, Gage straightened once more and turned to drop the last fitting on the bench, only to come face-to-face with the young wizard.

He almost jerked back in alarm, but managed to control the impulse, barely. They stood like that, in the heat, as Rog continued to hammer behind him, oblivious. Gage was sweating heavily, both from the labor and the nearby forge, but the wizard... wasn't. His gaze was just as cool, and for the first time, Gage noticed that his eyes were an icy blue. That didn't seem right. Gage could have sworn they were brown, when the kid had first approached him.

"Yeah?" He asked roughly.

"Why did you quench and reheat the hinges entirely, but only quenched the edge of the blade?" Johan replied, his eyes on the pile of hinges.

Gage glanced down at the smoking pile of iron, confused, and then back up at the boy, who held his papers and short pen expectantly. He noticed, abruptly, that the inkwell for the pen was a clever little tube attached to the wizards belt. The cap had a neat hole in the middle, allowing the pen to dip in, but keeping the majority of the ink from spilling out. Copper, if he wasn't mistaken.

"The quenching hardens the steel, an' heating softens it. Quenching the hinges makes them hard, and reheating takes some of that away. They need to be hard so they don't bend under the weight of a door, but too hard an' they'll crack. The knife needs a hard edge for sharpening, but a flexible spine, so it don't shatter." He answered.

Rog had finally noticed their conversation and set his work aside, drifting closer as he pretended to wipe his tools down and return them to their positions on the nearby workbench. Gage could almost see the boy's ears twitching as he listened.

Johan nodded and made a few notes as Gage spoke, and as he glanced up again, Gage was shocked to realize that his eyes had become brown again. Some sort of trick of the light? No, there was no blue light in the small workshop. Some kind of wizard thing, more like. He scratched his beard uncomfortably and then crossed his arms over his large chest, scowling. The little bastard was probably casting some sort of spell on his shop, and he'd have words with the mayor over this. The mayor was what Gage thought of as a "fancy" man- someone who's work involved papers and meetings, rather than producing anything of value. Not unlike wizards, come to think of it. The difference, of course, was that the mayor wouldn't reduce his shop to splinters when confronted.

"Thank you." Johan said, as he finished writing. He nodded deeply, almost a short bow, and then walked out of the shop without bothering to say goodbye.

Gage scratched his head again as Rog sidled up to him. The two men stood in the heat of the forge and stared through the door, which had been propped open to release some of the heat, watching the wizard as he walked carelessly through the churned mud of the street, bent over his notes. They looked at each other.

"Who th' hells was that?" Rog said, finally.

Gage grunted, still annoyed.

"Had papers from the mayor that said 'e was a wizard. Allowed to tour any local shops an' whatnot." Gage said the word "tour" with a snort, and then turned back to cleaning the shop. Rog followed after him, wide-eyed.

"A wizard? In Dotton?" He asked.

"Yep." Gage stacked the leftover scraps from the hinges and dropped them into a barrel by the wall.

"Why?"

"Dunno." Gage replied.

"You didn't ask?" Rog said, and then backed up abruptly as Gage stood to his full height and turned on him.

"No. I didn't ask the gods-damn wizard what 'is business was. I don't know, I don't wanna know, and if you 'ad half the sense your ma thinks you 'ave, you wouldn't want to know either. Stay away from him. Stay out of his way. An' if he shows up with a piece of paper from the gods-damn mayor, you do what you gotta and split as soon as you can. Understood?" Gage thundered, his brow heavy with annoyance, both at his overly curious apprentice, and the frustratingly calm young man who had made his shoulders itch most of the day.

Rog ducked his head and muttered something that might have been "sorry", "yessir" or some combination of the two. Mollified, Gage relented, exhaling heavily and shaking his head.

"Now grab me some stock. We've got a plow to make." He said, in a calmer tone. Rog hurried to obey.