A Blade For The Fox
I have seen the special 360 people in this particular year of my life, watched them, written stories about them, thought about them sometimes perhaps as a spatial 360°, listened and quietly empathized with them, been stern with them, been kind to them. I will miss them all, every single one, including the ones who don't quite know me, never wanted to know me, will possibly not ever know me – or I them. My last post was about blades. I was thinking about this when I wrote that post...
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"It's all a matter of blueness. You have to get it just right, the way you hold the edge to the flame, watch the colours curl across the metal as it changes. You see, since all things have fire in them, you must see clearly as it responds to flame. Then you will know what sort of blade it can be. People are like that too."
I kept my gaze trained on the fire. The man crouched next to the great hearth blew gently along the grain. Wisps of breath-fog steamed, making twisty patterns on the hot steel. The steel turned over in his grasp; the rough gloves he wore seemed unaffected by the heat.
"There's also the smell of it. A metal sweats when hot: some essence of it rises with the wind of the fire. Some metals smell poisonous, and their stench will make a man ill, spoil his seed and curdle his blood. Some metals smell sweet, or warm—but they may be just as easily poisonous. We choose the woods to be burnt for the flame; we choose them carefully, that their own vapours may mingle with and destroy the evil in the metal."
A bright green smell came into the room. The blade seemed brighter for a brief moment. I peered into the light to see what was happening, but I saw nothing strange.
"And that is the testing of the blank, even before one does anything craftworthy to it. As with a man, the testing by closeness to fire shows much. When you have done it, though, you can begin to think about how to temper the metal. What you quench the hot metal in is very important—some metals will shatter in the quench, some will weaken or be brittle in time to come."
He turned, rising, dark and serious.
"Making a knife is like making a man. Can you do it?"
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"It's all a matter of blueness. You have to get it just right, the way you hold the edge to the flame, watch the colours curl across the metal as it changes. You see, since all things have fire in them, you must see clearly as it responds to flame. Then you will know what sort of blade it can be. People are like that too."
I kept my gaze trained on the fire. The man crouched next to the great hearth blew gently along the grain. Wisps of breath-fog steamed, making twisty patterns on the hot steel. The steel turned over in his grasp; the rough gloves he wore seemed unaffected by the heat.
"There's also the smell of it. A metal sweats when hot: some essence of it rises with the wind of the fire. Some metals smell poisonous, and their stench will make a man ill, spoil his seed and curdle his blood. Some metals smell sweet, or warm—but they may be just as easily poisonous. We choose the woods to be burnt for the flame; we choose them carefully, that their own vapours may mingle with and destroy the evil in the metal."
A bright green smell came into the room. The blade seemed brighter for a brief moment. I peered into the light to see what was happening, but I saw nothing strange.
"And that is the testing of the blank, even before one does anything craftworthy to it. As with a man, the testing by closeness to fire shows much. When you have done it, though, you can begin to think about how to temper the metal. What you quench the hot metal in is very important—some metals will shatter in the quench, some will weaken or be brittle in time to come."
He turned, rising, dark and serious.
"Making a knife is like making a man. Can you do it?"
Labels: Blades, Metallurgy, People
etched with acid at 7:34:00 pm
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