From the jagged horn of a broken peninsula to the North, stretching for a full 90 kilometers down some of the harshest coastline known, Ironstar of Fishes, the Salt from the Sea was one of the oldest Fortresses in the explored world. As old, perhaps, even as the MountainHome. Some of it's residents claimed as much, anyhow, pointing towards ancient Runes carved in the walls of sea caves, or in long abandoned salt mines deep underneath the greater Fortress, who's meaning could now only be guessed at, puzzled over. A near-certain sign of it's great age.
The heiroglyphic language still used today had existed, more or less extant, for over four thousand years. That much was known from the Kings Roll--a legendary work of art in the MountainHome, that consisted of a miles-deep dry well, it's sides carved in baroque fashion, with an unbroken chain of Mountain Kings, the deeds of their lives, and records of their extended families. This was often quite extended, considering that all the Kings were construed to be somehow related to one another. It wasn't quite understood why blood between kings was important. The tradition had apparently been borrowed from the humans, back when the stories claimed they were still quite numerous and powerful. Tradition being tradition, though, it still was kept.
Other citizens indicated ancient half-dissolved areas where the coast lapped it's way through what might have been dining-halls, or statue gardens, in days long past. Some of the oldest statuary, crafted from rocksalt long gone molten, moulded in silver long gone black, had even been buried, just like the bodies of long-dead relations, in full funeral regalia. The most elderly residents could still remember the event of their childhood, when the last of those chosen few works went into the ground. Their grandchildren and great grandchildren now picnicked in these hallowed ruins, or fished from wasted fountains shellfish from the sea.
He remembered playing along the shore, as the setting sun transformed the foaming waters into gold. He was eight years old at the time; his family, neighbors, clan, around him. The memory became a touchstone for him: The restlessness of the water, constantly in motion, compared to the overall contentedness of the tides; always rushing in, always drawing out... The contentedness of the moment, for himself.
As one of the children, he'd felt very safe. As adults, it's impossible to ever feel as safe as a helpless child, protected by simple belief and abject trust. It is the breaking of that security, by whatever means, which often heralds our childhood's end.
Whatever it's great age, the citadel of Ironstar never captured the renown of other places. It was a good place for living, with plenty of fish, endless fields of saltrice, and a slow but steady trade in fine red coral, scrimshaw, meerschaum, pearls, salted fish, rocksalt and seasalt, and a little amber. But there was damned-all mining, and little real wealth of any kind. The unambitious stayed, were mostly contented with being merely content.
One of the few trades still lively with business was in the field of bronzeworking. Retiring soldiers found Ironheart to be quite welcoming to those of a military background, and settled there. There was a need for old soldiers with steady nerves. The smithing trade grew up around them, and over the immense ages had reached a high art. The cost of importing metals was expensive though, and despite the trade and the area's good reputation, the number of trained armourers and weaponsmiths was kept at a maintainable low, as many moved on to newer mines.
Baromek had been surprised by his father's decision, but the thought of doing something different than his many brothers and sisters was intriguing. Would the strong scent of hot copper really be so different from the sharp smell of salt?
Thoughts of the waves-their relentless boiling energy, coupled with an almost gentle urgency, as they slowly converted towering cliffs to beach brought low-were carried through to his apprenticeship. He was given over by his father to an ancient, half-mad armourer. Some senile high master who nonetheless remained well-respected, though also well-ignored, by his fellow guildmembers.
He learned first, the endless hours pumping the massive bellows in his strange new home with the low ceiling of soot blackened beams. He was grouped with two girls of his age whom he hadn't known, but whose families were friends of his father.
He was the scrawniest, tiniest boy in the entire Fortress. That played into Baromek's father's decision to apprentice him to a metalcrafter, instead of teaching him the ways of wind and rope. The fact was, his mother had been afraid he'd be washed into the sea, and his father-grand esteemed Boatlord of the whole Fortress-had caved to her soft, restless wishes.
From his twenty-fifth through his thirtieth year, the bellowswork shaped him as surely-and as slowly, it sometimes seemed to Baromek-as wave shaped stone. He stayed frustratingly small, but grew hardened and wirey on his lean frame, shoulders and legs thickening and bowing like a plumtree's trunk.
And his face changed too, growing lean and fine: with long sandy-coloured hair, stubborn seagreen eyes, pearly teeth, and plump, angry coral lips .
As the smallest of three apprentices, the two much larger sisters had taken to holding him down and kissing him, by turns, as a sort of game. He hadn't liked this game at first, certainly didn't understand it, but the girls, who's family was involved in various aspects of baking, would often steal molasses candy, warm gingercakes, and other sweets from the kitchens, and share them with him.
There was tall, willful Andosil: She of the piercing violet eyes and storm-black hair. An introspective girl who tended to sleep overlate, she made up for a very mild shyness, with a fierce temper, coupled with an almost bohemian attitude towards life. She tended to hide a bit behind her more outgoing sister, but it was her palpable intelligence alone that had convinced their parents to turn the inseparable pair over to a more challenging career than baking. Pretty enough, in an absent-minded way, but both awkward and intimidating.
There was round, happy Chorth: The sun to her sister's moonless night, Chorth could hardly be caught without a smile on her broad and positively lovely face. While she didn't possess an artistic beauty, her eyes were shining opals, and the friendly grin on her wide, open face, framed with the buckwheat-honey curls of her forest of hair, forcibly dismissed any and all faults the viewer might find, as inconsequential. Her looks were matched by her good nature. Intelligent and wiley, she still retained an inner sweetness and openness that her sister had long ago discovered she couldn't ever match, yet couldn't live without. Chorth created friends where there were none, and well kept the ones she had. Beneath those factors, however, lived, however cozily, an avaricious soul. Chorth didn't possess more than a single dram of meanness in her whole body, and from that tiny trace came whatever steel her buoyant soul possessed, but of greed and of jealousy she held within her continents entire, and worlds.
Mostly, the two sisters treated him as a cross between a pet and a toy, but even that had it's benefits. For one, the two were quite possessive of him, and quick to thrash any of the larger boys in their agegroup who might take it into their head to pick on what appeared an easy target. And as females, even the sons of Nobles weren't safe from their wrath.
Between the dull hell of the bellows, and the fierce but futile struggles against being used for kissing practice, he grew quite strong and agile, while remaining small and quick. After the first year of being an unwilling kissing target, he had learned the fundamentals of wrestling, although he was just coming into an age where the attentions of two very large and strong, but not uncomely, females, strangely didn't seem as completely appalling as it once had...
A further humiliation was lain on Baromek when violet-eyed Andosil, the slightly older of the pair, came up with a cunning business-model: She would charge a small bronze coin to the other young girls in the Fortress, and while the sisters held him down, a third female might pay to kiss him for up to an hour.
It was a good plan. Despite his small size, he was good looking, and growing quite remarkably handsome, underneath the sweat and dirt. Noone had ever mentioned it to him, and there wasn't a mirror or still pond to be found along the broadly lain blueschist path between shore and forge, so it was a bit of a mystery to Baromek as to what that meant, other than more strange girls to cause him chapped lips.
After nearly a month of this, one of the Noble girls offered a silver coin if he would be properly bathed--and offered it to Baromek, directly, who at this point had quite had enough of the "kiss-the-monkey" role. Noone could claim the boy was stupid, and he quickly demanded a portion of this, and a cut of all subsequent fees, in return for performing whatever strange acts that this "bath" business entailed.
The sisters, while quite proficient by now in making him do whatever they wanted by force, had never had to hold him down, under water. The younger (and sweeter) sister, opal-eyed Chorth, was afraid the boy might drown. Andosil admitted the wisdom of this, when it was explained to her, which was helped by an-albeit deeply buried-fondness for the handsome boypet.
This fondness had lately been expressed by the presentation of a succession of mostly uneaten fisherberry pies, which Baromek had begun sharing with the ancient and near-immoble armourer. The armourer's name had apparently been misplaced, along with his teeth, and the better part of his mind. He was friendly enough though, and bright-eyed, despite his advanced age and advanced rheumatism. The two males often shared their lunch, while the girls ate at their clan's many kitchens.
The old man was obviously glad of the company, even if he'd long forgotten what to do with it, other than to put it to work. The enfeebled elder was still quite sharp about his trade, but at times became confused about which Fortress he was in--one of atleast three, possibly more considering his mumble-speak--and whether his wife was still alive (the first one wasn't, and neither was the one after that. The third was, and brought him his lunch, regular, although that seemed to be the extent of their relationship, beyond long, extremely slow walks the two ancients took on a weekly basis, hand in wrinkled hand. They didn't share a house, which had apparently become overwhelmed by their extended families. He was always glad of a visit from his wife and their many grandchildren, but he lived and slept at the Forge--a common enough situation among older couples, where one-more commonly the female-may continue to persue a profession, whilst the other-usually the male-chooses to concentrate on the family, while quite often involving themselves in the Fortress's military reserves, thus acting as an immediate defender for the family's children, while being around to actually help raise them.).
The elder was a good listener, even if at times he seemed to be listening, and toothlessly commenting on, an entirely different conversation that had happened in the past. Baromek didn't much mind: As the seventh son of a fleet captain, his father had been a distant, sometimes frightening figure, that many adults were quick to obey or get out of the way of. His mother was sweet and kind, but 'Niluns' was a big family, and her attention had been spread beyond thin, even before his birth.
He got along with his many siblings, but they visited briefly and seldom, busy with their own lives.
Despite the grueling work, the old man treated him as a grandson, and always had time to mumble semi-coherant advice or confused encouragement at him, whenever the boy seemed to need it. Perhaps he thought Baromek was his grandson. In any case, the armourer and the two girls became the closest thing the young boy had to a family.
It wasn't a bad life, all told.
After the bath (They'd borrowed a large bar of soap from the armourer's wife, and the two girls took turns coyly peeking at him washing in the large tidal lagoon that the armourer drew his quenching water from, while giggling and shouting harsh, and sometimes slightly lewd, instructions.), the sisters took him to their family tailor and had him fitted for two tunics made of flax, and a pair of shear spidersilk shortpants, with some of their hoarded wealth.
It took a longer time than the bath had, to get him into the clothes. The worn leather apron and loincloth he'd always worn before seemed so easy: No measurements to be made, lengths to hem, cords to lace, or bodyparts to fit inside of anything. It was soft and comfortable from many years of use. Not to mention, he had to endure the constant giggling and poking-fun at his expense, followed by more than the usual number of kissing-bouts.
He still was quite confused as to whether he liked that part or not, but the humiliation of it all was still a sore-spot. He'd had to remind himself that going along with it still wasn't as bad as being sat on by the two sisters, whilst they did what they wanted with him, anyway. As the youngest and smallest, his own family had often treated him much the same--minus the emphasis on kissing, ofcourse. And being clean was more comfortable than being filthy, in the end.
He didn't like to admit that, after the trials he'd been put through to get to that state, but there it was.
After the earlier offer of the silver coin, the two girls demanded that he bathe atleast once a week. He didn't really mind it. Baromek had to admit that it also seemed to increase business--a business he now got a small but satisfying percentage of. Many of the girls his age, especially the Nobles--not that there were that many Noble girls, even in such a large Fortress as 'Ironstar of Fishes, the Salt from the Sea'--previously had seemed turned off by the caked-on filth.
Nobles were a strange lot. Baromek hadn't yet figured out what they were for. He'd asked the sisters about them. Andosil quietly claimed that Nobles were Nobles because they were the only ones who's faces would fit on coins. A neighbor had told her so, though Andosil hadn't understood it.
Even Chorth didn't seem to think this make any sense. She said their father thought Nobles were around only to give purpose to useless things, like the coins, but that without them, many people would starve, especially useless people like artists and philosophers. She added that one of their brothers who was a soldier claimed Nobles started wars so that the sorts of people who liked ordering others around could either die off quickly, or get good jobs as beggars, once their limbs were gone. She also said that he claimed a proper soldier learned to follow orders in the least idiotic way possible, while keeping their persons and families intact, or to just avoid orders altogether--which usually involved staying as far away from any Nobles as possible, on a given battlefield.
Whatever the reasoning, people tended to do what Nobles demanded, even when it was something bizarre.
One of those Noble girls, who's father was an alchemist who had supposedly bought his title, for some strange reason, had the sisters hold him tightly while she rubbed a thick tar into his scalp and thin beard, supposedly to kill off some sort of infestation he'd been completely unaware of. He'd put up quite a dramatic fight over that, and the sisters watched him very closely for a week afterwards, as he was made to leave the putrid gunk in.
He admitted to himself that his head did itch a lot less, after the procedure, although Andosil whispered agreement with him that the Noble girl was likely crazy, and the procedure half-cocked, even as she forced him to follow through with it.
Another, the youngest daughter of a visiting baron, a girl tinier than even Baromek, had shared a skin filled with strong spirits. Drinking it caused Baromek to giggle quite a bit, himself, and the sisters--giggling and flush-faced, themselves--eventually hadn't needed to hold him down, as he--and for the first time, enthusiastically--kissed the pretty little Noble.
The women of Fortress Ironstar mostly went around unbearded, except for the elderly and the few woman soldiers. Female soldiers always wore beards to match the males. The potential for disturbing discipline--as well as the risks to captured female prisoners--were considered too great to do otherwise.
The delicate silver locks of her curly beard tickled his chin in fascinating ways. Combined with the powerful liquor, it was a turning-point for him, and Baromek finally decided he liked the attention he was getting.
After that, things got more interesting...
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Topic: The Birth of an Artifact (Read 19945 times)