The Vampire & Her Witch

”Well, now,” he breathed. ”I’ve never seen that happen before...”

A curl of pale smoke drifted up from the pan where the fiery oak had been. Jocelynn leaned forward and peered into the oil. The twig was gone. The leaves were gone. Only a few flakes of grey ash floated on the surface, and even the golden hue the leaves had lent to the oil had faded, leaving it as dark and dull as any other quenching oil.

”Hmpf,” Erkembalt said.

Erkembalt took the tongs from her hands and lifted the dagger out of the pan. The blade was black with scale, just as it had been before. But in a few places where the scale had cracked and flaked away, Jocelynn caught a glimpse of the steel beneath. It wasn’t the cold, grey silver she’d expected. It had a faint, warm glimmer to it, a hint of red and gold, like the last light of a setting sun.

Erkembalt fished a brass-rimmed eyepiece out of his apron and clipped it over his spectacles. He peered at the blade through one lens, then flipped down another and peered again. His tail had gone perfectly still behind him.

”Is something wrong?” Jocelynn asked nervously, afraid that she’d damaged the blade somehow. She’d let Erkembalt guide her hands as best she could, but the sight of a tree made of flame rising up out of the oil had been more than a little startling. If she’d moved it the wrong way in the oil and warped the blade...

”Wrong? No,” Erkembalt said as he slowly examined the blade. ”Different than I expected, but that isn’t a bad thing. Only a fool believes he can perfectly control the outcome, even when he sets up all the conditions for success,” he said, glancing at Aspakos over the rim of his spectacles.

Aspakos lifted his taloned hand from Jocelynn’s shoulder and bent low over the blade. Whatever he saw in it seemed to satisfy him, and it was only a heartbeat or two later when he spoke again.

”Finish it, old friend,” the sorcerer said quietly. ”Then we’ll talk.”

Erkembalt grunted, and Aspakos returned to his seat at the table without another word.

”Right now, this blade is as hard as glass,” Erkembalt told Jocelynn, turning back to the forge. ”And it’s as brittle as glass, too. Drop it on the floor, and it might shatter like a dinner plate.” He laid the dagger on a flat iron plate at the edge of the coals. ”Hard isn’t the same as strong. Now we give a little of that hardness back, so it learns to bend instead of break.”

”How do you know when you’ve given back enough?” Jocelynn asked.

”The steel tells you,” Erkembalt said. ”Watch the bare patches where the scale came away. They’ll change color as they warm. First pale straw, then something closer to dark honey. When you see honey, call it. Not before and not after. I’ll prepare the next steps while you watch.”

It should have been a boring task, but somehow, it felt just right to Jocelynn as she watched the dagger resting on the iron plate.

Her belly was still warm from the potent, blackberry-flavored ’essence of wine’ and her head felt light and a little floaty. The fire from the forge had banished the last of the chill in her body and Sir Ollie was nearby, working the bellows to keep the flame burning at that same, steady orange glow.

Her world had become very small at the moment. Nothing outside of the workshop seemed important, but the dagger in front of her was very important, and she put all of her attention on this one task.

Where the scale had flaked away, the bare steel began to blush with color. First a pale straw yellow, creeping slowly outward from the spine. Then a deeper gold. Then...

”Now,” she said when the colors looked right. ”Master Erkembalt, now.”

”Already?” Erkembalt said as he returned to the forge. ”So it is,” he agreed as he reached out with a pair of tongs and plucked the dagger off the plate to set it on the anvil to cool.

”Good eye,” he said with a hint of something almost like pride in his gruff voice. ”You can stop now, Sir Ollie,” Erkembalt said. ”We won’t be needing the forge again tonight. Thank you,” he added after a brief pause. ”It’s a fine blade, in part because of a fine heat.”

”Happy to help.” Ollie said as he wiped the traces of soot from his hands. ”If you ever need help again, and I’m free, just ask,” the flame-haired witch added. ”I haven’t worked a hearth like this in a while. It’s nice to do something simple and familiar from time to time,” he said with a genuine smile.

”I doubt you’ll have much time to waste on me,” Erkembalt said. ”But if you ever ask me to forge you another blade, expect that I’ll put you to work,” he said, pointing the tip of a claw at Ollie to punctuate his words before he turned back to Jocelynn. ”Now comes the long part. This is where most apprentices quit.”

He set a flat grey stone on the workbench in front of her, along with a shallow dish of oil thick with fine grit and a pile of clean rags. Then he showed her how to lay the blade flat against the stone and push it along in long, even strokes, always in the same direction, until the black scale began to come away in a dull grey slurry.

”Long strokes,” he said. ”Even pressure. Don’t rock it and don’t rush it. When your arm gets tired, switch hands. When both arms get tired, keep going anyway.”

For a moment, Jocelynn just stared at the knife. She couldn’t move. The air around her had gone cold again, and her hands began to tremble. Her fingers curled back away from the blade as a sensation like pinpricks enveloped them, and in the distance she heard echoes of voices she’d hoped never to hear again.

The voices of Percivus’s acolytes, Niklas and Samlet as they stood over her in the cold, dimly lit cell of the Lothian Dungeons while forcing her to embroider altar cloths for the Inquisition...

”...this work is for the Holy Lord of Light. How can you be tired when His task isn’t finished yet?”

”...mistakes profane the work. Simple failings fester into wickedness when we don’t pluck them out...”

”I, I don’t know if I can,” Jocelynn stammered as her hands curled all the way into fists. ”I, I’ll make a mistake and...”

”No you won’t,” Ollie said, sitting down next to her on the workbench. When he did, the chill instantly left the air as his warm, sheltering presence pushed it away from Jocelynn, but the task still looked daunting.

”Don’t worry about being perfect,” Ollie said as he placed a hand reassuringly between her shoulder blades. ”Remember this morning when I was chopping herbs? Remember how fast I went?”

”Mmm,” Jocelynn said, nodding hesitantly.

”I started slow,” Ollie said. ”This is the same. We’re in no hurry. Go slow until the motion feels familiar, then you can go faster,” he said. ”If you don’t finish tonight, we can come back in the morning to finish, right, Master Erkembalt?”

Erkembalt’s tail twitched at Ollie’s question, and for several heartbeats, he didn’t provide an immediate answer.

Then, the Cypress Knight spoke again.

”It can wait till morning, if it needs to,” Ollie repeated. ”Right, Master Erkembalt?”