CHAPTER 8

O ther than a short walk around town on Sunday morning and working on weaving my threads, I spent the day studying. In the evening, I did a deep scan of Zürich news on the internet. There was a bit more about supernatural creatures and mayhem in Zürich than I would have expected in Queen City.

A number of things were different in Zürich. Several members of the Parliament—or municipal council—were strigoi or lycans. Several more were mages or witches. The vice-chancellor of the university was a mage, and Master mage professors were common across several academic disciplines.

Although magic was in the open in the States, it didn’t have as prominent a place in society as it did in Europe. Mages—along with strigoi and lycans—kept a much lower profile.

Later that evening, while I was eating dinner, Frau Buckner approached me.

“Master Adolphus said that you’re having problems with Serafima,” she said.

“I just don’t want her lying on my face when I’m trying to sleep.”

She looked thoughtful. “That has always been her favorite room. She sleeps on the pillow.”

“So, I should go buy myself a pillow so we don’t have to share?”

She looked horrified. “Oh, no, we have more pillows. I’ll take one to your room.” And then she scurried off.

I thought to myself, if all my problems were solved that easily, I was going to have a very simple life. I did have an experiment I wanted to try, however.

Before I went to bed that evening, I put Serafima out in the hall, closed the door, and warded the room. It was pleasant not to have to fight with the cat for space, though I did use the new pillow Frau Buckner had provided.

And when I woke up in the morning, I found Serafima asleep on the other pillow. I checked my wards, and they were intact. As soon as I got up, she went to the door and yowled to be let out. Since I didn’t respond to her satisfaction, she scratched at the door until I dissolved the ward and opened it. So, I still didn’t know how she had gotten in.

* * *

S ometime after lunch, Master Adolphus asked to see my sword. He handled it, stroked it, cut his thumb on it, and enveloped it in magic. Then he asked me questions about it, about my father, and what I knew about the weapon’s forging.

“I’ve spoken with our most accomplished swordsmith about visiting his forge,” he said when he handed the sword back to me. “He’s expecting us this afternoon.”

Of all the things I hoped to learn when I moved to Zürich, the art of spell forging was foremost. Master Greenwood had told me he had high hopes for my ability to accomplish that.

Master Adolphus and I hiked over to the Guild Hall, where he commandeered a car and then handed me the keys.

“You want me to drive?”

“You know how, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but I’ve never driven in Zürich.” Before I left the States, Amelia had insisted I get an international driver’s license. I never had regular access to a car in the States, but at least in Queen City, I knew the streets.

The Master chuckled. “Neither have I. To be honest, I’ve never driven anywhere, so in this, you’re the expert between us.”

We drove out from under the Hall, and he directed me toward a road that led out of the city, along the east side of the lake. Traffic on a Monday afternoon was light, and it took us about forty minutes to reach our destination.

At the end of a long drive up a hill stood an old-looking stone house with a steeply pitched roof. The Master seemed quite cheerful when he climbed out of the car. I hoped I didn’t look as scared and shaky as I felt.

I followed him on a stone path around the house to the back, and then to a low stone building about twenty meters away. As we neared it, I saw that the side of the little house away from us was open, and I could hear blasts of sound.

We walked in through the nearest door and entered a workshop filled with sturdy tables and anvils set on stumps. On the open side stood a forge, already fired up, and the roars I’d heard came each time the bellows blew air into it.

The man who left his work and came to greet us was about my height, but I was sure he outweighed me by fifty kilos, and I doubted that any of it was fat. His arms were as big around as my legs, and his shoulders were the size of football helmets. He wore a welder’s mask and a leather apron. His aura showed that he was a strong geomancer.

“Adolphus! So good to see you. How are you doing, old friend?”

He and the Master clasped hands and hugged.

“I have brought my apprentice,” Master Adolphus said. “Meet Fraul Kaitlyn Dunne, fresh from the United States.”

They both turned to me, and Master Adolphus said, “Kaitlyn, this is Master Mikhail Orlovsky, the finest swordsmith in Central Europe.”

Master Mikhail showed me around the shop and pointed out a couple of swords nearing completion. I picked up the one with a finished hilt and found the balance to be perfect for a one-handed sword.

“Oh!” he said. “You are left-handed! I could make you a blade that fits you like a glove.”

Master Adolphus chuckled. “Kaitlyn, show him your sword.”

I drew it, and the glamor fell away. I presented it to Master Mikhail with both hands. He studied it, then ran his hand about an inch above it before lifting it from my grasp.

“Incredible. And you know how to use this?”

I nodded. “I’ve taken lessons since I was ten years old. It was my father’s, and he was also left-handed.”

“And where did he come by such a marvelous sword?”

“In Okinawa. He worked with a swordsmith there, but I don’t know the man’s name.”

“Kaitlyn’s father was also a spirit mage,” Master Adolphus said. “I am told that he worked with the swordsmiths at the Guild Hall in Queen City.”

Master Mikhail looked up. “Have you touched this? Do you have any idea what the magic in it is?”

Master Adolphus shook his head. “I’m not sure exactly what spells are laid in it. I’ve wondered if he might have used spells of the Illuminati.”

With a shrug, Mikhail said, “I have an Illuminati blade, and the magic in this is different. Well, no matter, shall we see what we can do with our poor skills?”

He walked over to the forge, pulled down his face mask, and put on a pair of huge insulated gloves. Then he used a long set of tongs to pull a white-hot bar of steel from the forge, laid it on an enormous anvil, and proceeded to pound the crap out of it with a hammer the size of my head. The metal cooled to red, then darkened, and he shoved it back into the forge.

Then he pulled out another bar and beat the hell out of it for a while.

When he returned that one to the forge, he turned to me and asked, “Was your father a large man?”

“I guess so. I mean, he always seemed big to me.” I thought about it. The last time I saw him, I was fourteen. “Probably around one hundred ninety-five centimeters and a hundred kilos. He wasn’t muscled the way you are.”

Mikhail laughed. “Few men are, but it’s not necessary to be a good smith. But you, I think, would have to add some muscle to work your own swords.”

“Well,” I said with a grin, “I guess instead of attracting the boys with my girlish figure, I could wrestle them into submission.”

The two masters laughed.

Soon, Master Mikhail pulled the first bar of metal out of the forge again. Master Adolphus sketched the rune for strength in the air above it, then the runes for fire, earth, air, and water, and joined them to the first rune. He pulled magic from the ley line—all of the colors—and fed them into the complex rune. The runes merged into a single rune and sank into the metal as Master Mikhail started to beat on it.

They did that three times with each of the bars, and then Mikhail quenched them in a large barrel of oil.

“Well, that is done,” he said, pulling off his gloves. “Now is to finish shaping them, sharpening, and polishing.” He cocked his head at me. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to try your spells on an athame ?”

I glanced at Master Adolphus, who said, “It doesn’t hurt to try. The worst that can happen is Mikhail has to melt it down again.”

“Will those swords cut through a personal shield?” I asked.

Mikhail gave a slight shrug. “Depending on how strong the shield is.” He hefted his huge hammer. “I can beat through almost any shield—if someone is fool enough to stand still and let me.”

“But the swords, they don’t block magic?”

He and Master Adolphus shot a glance at each other.

“No,” Mikhail said.

“What are you thinking?” Master Adolphus asked me.

“My sword won’t cut through a woven shield, but it will penetrate most personal shields. And it will block fireballs, lightning, and most energy bolts. I’m wondering if we could incorporate a null-magic spell into the forging.”

The two masters stared at each other, their brows wrinkled in thought.

“It would have to be the last spell laid,” Master Adolphus finally said, “or the other spells would be repelled.”

“We could try it with the dagger,” Mikhail said. “The smaller amount of metal works much quicker.”

“First,” Adolphus said, “Kaitlyn, can you create the linked rune like I did?”

I managed it on my third try. It wasn’t easy juggling five master runes and then linking them together. And when I finally did it, the rune fell apart the moment I fed magic into it.

“Again,” Master Adolphus said. So I linked the runes again.

“Now watch,” he said, pulling the threads from the ley line. I saw that he gave them a bit of a twist to hold them together and keep the bundle from fraying.

I nodded, and he said with a soft smile, “All right. Kaitlyn, you can do it slowly. We all have some years left to us, and we’re not in any hurry this afternoon.”

So, I did it all again, sketching and linking the runes, then slowly pulling the strands of magic into a twisted rope and feeding it into the final rune. Master Mikhail pulled a bar of metal less than a foot long from the forge and set it on the anvil. He picked up a small crucible from the corner of the forge and poured molten silver over the steel.

I let the rune settle onto it, and he beat the rune and the metal together. When he thrust it back into the forge, he beamed at me.

“Well done, Frau! Well done!”

We went through that twice more, then he said, “Now, let’s try your experiment. Are you ready to cast a null-magic spell for me?”

I bit my lip and admitted, “I can’t do that. I don’t know how.”

Adolphus said, “It’s not something normally taught to an apprentice, and since there were no other spirit mages in Queen City, there wouldn’t have been anyone to teach you anyway. I think for this experiment, I’ll cast the spell, and we’ll see if it works.”

Master Adolphus was so adept that it was difficult to follow what he did. As best as I could tell, he sketched a complex integrated rune, then another, and then a third. When he blended the three together, the air itself blazed like a cold flame, and when he sank it into the new blade, the metal itself seemed to swell like a rising loaf of bread until Master Mikhail beat it flat, using a smaller hammer than the one he’d used on the swords. When he quenched it in the oil, the reaction was a burst of steam like an erupting mini-volcano.

“My, that was certainly different,” Master Mikhail said. “Do you suppose the spell took?”

Adolphus shook his head. “I guess we shall see. When will it be ready?”

“Saturday?”

They both looked at me.

“I can’t imagine anything I’d rather be doing this Saturday than spending my day with you fine gentlemen,” I said.