Shaimini Na-su's hearth rang with the hammer of Batulbel. The afreet worked the iron and cobalt blank, folding it slowly, working the grains of black carbon into the blue steel created by his skill. Each blow rang in measured beat. Despite those watching, the demon of fire refused to rush his craft. How these two came to possess the spell to summon and bind him to their will, he pondered while making the knife they demanded. That spell normally rested only with the priests of Kvaeg. Neither of these were such.
The names they tried to give during summoning held no power, which told him they had no clue only a true name held the power of binding. When they figured that out, Batulbel noted the blood on the scroll cases. His anger stayed in check, bound by the spells. But his mind roved over the zisura used in his binding. The demon tested the bonds mentally, finding his captors left many loop-holes in the binding, allowing him to choose some aspects about the blade's enchantment. All they asked was for the power of shadows, the spell for opening minds and hinted at the binding to a path. Which path vague instructions left open for him to choose.
Sitting just beyond the heat of the borrowed smithy, two men from the Dark Coast sat in chairs, talking softly. Flexing his power, Batulbel bent sound from them to his ears.
"Hamat-tabal assured us. The scrolls will make the blade of shadows. You heard the Sang. This is the place the slayer of shadows will rise in. We even know he will be of the poisoners from the mountains." The human speaking seemed pleasing to the eyes of women, as two knelt at his feet, washing them with tongues. Deep olive skin barely seemed filthy to when Batulbel cast a glance at him.
His compatriot had no attendants. His hands straightened his black tunic and kilt as he stood to pace nervously. "Raish, that worries me most. Prophecy is a sword with no hilt, only edges." His orange waist sash held a rippled ax of Ganzer and the dreaded dagger, whose black and red hilt marked him as a slayer of men. "Those fools in the temples know nothing of blood and daggers, save when they gut someone to read their entrails."
"Those entrails rarely read wrong, Tehath my fiiend." Tension rose between them, Batulbel noted. The still seated one motioned the girls away. Despite speaking a tongue rarely heard this side of the Great Water, he did not want ears for the discussion to come.
"Still, I trust them not." Tahath's sash end swirled out as he turned sharply on his companion.
"These entrails said much, including that we would have this adaman." His use of a word only the seers used for arguments forced the standing man to take a step back in shock. "And they predicted we would have problems with the spell. More than we have already encountered, so your caution may be wise."
Tahath shook his head. "Truly, I was surprised that we only had to fight for an hour to control Batulbel." Hands twisted into warding gestures to the smith as he said the name.
"But this bodes well. The Dingiri smile upon us my tab. You are the best companion, the one I came to age with, standing beside me even as I dared this profession. But you must trust me more." Raish smoothed his kilt, standing slowly, meeting his friend's eyes.
Finding that gaze difficult to hold for long, Tahath turned his face back to the forge. "What else do I need to know?"
Moving beside his friend, the assassin spoke softly, forcing the demon to change his beat a hair to hear the words, missing the first bits. "... in the desert of ash. This is all we know. All the entrails said. Other than it will happen under the shadow."
Whispering his reply, Tahath noted the change in beat, which the demon hid with the folding of the metal forcing him to adapt it further. "The demon cannot be summoned outside a forge, the spells bind him only inside such walls or a temple."
Waving a hand, his companion spoke a hair louder, to be heard over the harsher beats folding required, making it easier for Batulbel to eavesdrop. "There are temples in that desert. Towns swallowed by the sands and ash with forges made by the beast people." Mention of the lamia of the desert gained him a dark glance. He pressed on. "Yes, they can kill us, but we are dangerous to them as well. Tahath, this is destined. The blade will be blooded and sealed before the last star strikes of the Shadow fall."
Watching the metal being settled onto coals by the deep crimson demonic hands, the balding man spoke too soft to hear over the popping gas pockets amid the coals.
As the forge settled down, Batulbel knelt as if watching the metal's shape, hiding his concentration at hearing words they wished even his slave self to not hear. The afreet concentrated on dimming his soul fire, the corona blazing normally when he touched his magics.
Breaking through, he caught a last small bit. "...so seek the train of the falling star. I still know not what that means. Nor could the erib bithi tell me more."
Tahath felt distrust even the fire demon detected from a distance in his aura. "Those who are bound into the houses of the gods forever should not look without them. They cannot understand what they left behind."
"Perhaps. But this is what we have to work with. The Sang himself read those entrails. Virgin entrails rarely lie or have doubts." Raish shook his head, making his own shorter ringlets of ebony dance around his face. "That was a costly gift to the gods, letting them take a virgin girl. They reward such generosity."
Still doubting, Tahath turned away to leave. "The star that falls. I think I have a glimmer of what that means. I will go into the bazaar again. Something I heard needs clarification."
Smiling, the assassin revealed teeth filed into an adder's fangs. "Do so, my friend. And learn to trust the gods. They will raise up the dominion of the blades again."
Tahath nodded moving away swiftly. After a few steps, he muttered under his breath, still in the range of Batulbel's spell. "Train of the falling star. No caravan has such a sigil. Useless prophecies, always twisting things into riddles. How do I find a caravan company that is falling... star or fortune?" He stopped, whirling around to face his tab. "Raish, did the Sang say mul or kakkab?"
The red sashed one turned to his partner. "Does it matter? Both mean star."
"Mul is close to Mu, what if it means fame not star?"
Raish smiled, even as he summoned the young women back to him by gestures. "Indeed. The conversation those men had at the inn. A company whose fortunes and fame are tarnished by failures and financial losses. Good thinking. See, the gods touch your heart to inspire you." Taking his seat, He motioned the women to continue as before.
Cursing the veiled words of the gods, Tahath left the smithy.
Batulbel smiled as he finished the fold. They would never find the flaw laying at the core of this blade. Buried deep, the afreet worked his own magics upon the blade. Something they forgot forbidding. Free will, Batulbel thought, was a wonderful thing, and whoever wound up wielding this blade deserved it And theses two fools earned the shock that would give them in the end.
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