Jeff's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

The runoff crack had run dry. Jeff needed scales for the tempering fire, and only a handful lay by the anvil. He knelt to count them when a voice spoke behind him. "You've done the hard part," Marcus said. "Shame to stop now." Jeff turned. The stranger stood near the fire pit, close enough to touch the finished blade on the anvil. He had appeared the same way before, from nowhere, knowing things no stranger should know. He had helped pull scales from the pool once. Jeff still did not know why. His hand moved toward the blade. "You want it," Jeff said. "Say so." Marcus did not reach for it. He looked at the coals in the pit instead. "I want it finished. That's not the same thing." He crouched and raised the torch beside the pit. "Your fire's dying. You've got four scales. You need six to temper that steel right." Garrick stepped between Marcus and the anvil. He set his hand flat on the blade. "We don't know you. You come and go. You know the serpent's pool. That's enough to not trust you." "Then don't," Marcus said. "Trust the metal." He held the torch out, handle first, toward Jeff. "The pit burns hotter than your hearth. Temper it here. Fewer scales, more heat. You finish with what you have." Jeff looked at the offered torch. A trap would take the blade, not hand him a tool. He took it. "If you're lying," Garrick said, "the steel cracks and we're done." "I'm not," Marcus said. Jeff fed the pit with the dry wood from the iron pit. He struck the torch into it. The flames climbed, hotter than the hearth had ever burned. He laid the four scales in and set the blade above them. The steel took the color slow, then even. He watched the edge. It held. No crack. No warp. He drew the blade out. The temper had set clean. The metal rang when he tapped it against the pit's iron lip. Whole. Finished, but for one last thing. Jeff turned to thank the stranger. Marcus was gone. No sound, no splash, no step. Only the torch in Jeff's hand and the pit burning down. Garrick stared at the empty spot. "He wanted it finished," he said. "Why?" Jeff had no answer. He held the blade up to the firelight. The temper lines ran dark along the steel. It was done. Fully forged. Cooled, edged, tempered. His hands had stayed on it to the end, as he'd sworn they would. But the blade had no name. It would earn one, he'd always believed, the moment it was finished. It was finished now. And nothing came. The steel stayed silent in his grip. "It's done," Jeff said. "So why doesn't it have a name?"