The seven of us headed back to the village, where I was introduced to a Blood Bonded family of Sheowon potters. As was the case when I met any new Sheowon, their first reaction was terror, which was only managed due to the presence of and explanations from the two elders.
Unlike Ushem’s Bonded family, these Sheowon mostly focused on their craft and only developed their Blood enough to use it as a tool for their work. They also had some children present, which despite Owawu and Brumesh’s explanation of who I was, seemed to be a source of nervousness and stress for the parents.
It was a source of stress for Ushem, Pliwa, Keo, and Lowar as well. I could feel the tension radiating off them from behind me. It was uncomfortable, but it would take more than a day or two before I earned any true trust.
As the conversation drifted away from me and towards their craft, things started to relax. The fact that I showed a genuine interest in the pottery and firing techniques seemed to ease their minds, and showed that despite how I looked, I was a person, not a total monster.
Unfortunately, their firing ovens and kilns weren’t going to be sufficient for what I had in mind.
I was not a smith, but I had picked up a lot of second-hand know-how in my last life. We had needed smiths to build out Nialdan, but even beyond that, forging metal was something near and dear to my heart, on account of my skills.
Swords, in particular, had been a passion of mine, and while I had my beloved mandiblades, one of the few ways I was happy to use my wealth as lord of Nialdan was continuing to purchase swords. Not only did I collect valuable swords, but I commissioned some, too, especially as my children and grandchildren grew and developed an interest in their own. Giving them their first swords was always a special day.
I shook my head and took a controlled breath, banishing that direction of thought and refocusing on the metalworking. My interest in swords had driven me to want to learn more about the process of making them, and I probably frustrated quite a few smiths in my lordship days, insisting on witnessing the process as my interest developed.
Kilns created stable high-heat environments to harden and dry clay pottery, but this involved sealing up the items in a thermally insulated chamber. That might work to smelt the bog iron, if I could get it really hot, but to forge iron, I would need to remove the material from the heat to work it, then place it back in to reheat, repeating until I had my final shape.
An insulated chamber would aid in maintaining even temperature, but the fact that it wasn’t sealed meant it would bleed too much heat to the open air to maintain the temperatures needed to forge. To counter that, I needed a hotter fire, which required oxygen. Building the base forge would be fairly trivial for people who could build kilns; the difficult part was the bellows.
As per usual in this world, the issue I was facing was a lack of wood. Most of the bellows I had seen in Argadian smithies used wood parts, and replicating those one to one with clay or stone might not work, but the principle was doable even with primitive materials. Ultimately, any piston and gasket could work to push air. With some hide leather for the gasket, it was definitely possible to construct something with clay that would do the trick.
The Sheowon already knew that blowing on fire caused it to heat up faster—anyone who had ever started a fire knew that much—so it wasn’t hard to explain the principle of what I was trying to do, though there was some disbelief that I could work the bog iron like clay once heated up. The potters caught on to what I was describing fairly quickly, and were intrigued about how they could use it for kiln and oven design.
When it came to working with me, side-by-side, for the entire project, the Sheowon potters were less enthused, shrugging off the responsibility and citing their existing workload. Doing the whole thing myself would add a ton of additional time to the development of a proper forge, as I’d need to learn all sorts of things about working with clay and how to fire it first, but I couldn’t force these people to help me if they didn’t want to.
“I’ll help him,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned to find a Sheowon looking at me. He was probably around my age, maybe a little younger. It was still a bit hard for me to estimate the age of Sheowon, especially the males, since they weren’t Bloodied. Given his height, I figured that if he wasn’t already considered an adult, he was on the cusp, but he was alone—unusual for an adult Sheowon—so he probably hadn’t yet Bonded.
“Ibriya, no,” one of the female potters said.
“Get out of here, son,” one of the males said.
“But I can help!”
“You’re still only an apprentice.”
“Exactly,” Ibriya said. “Which means I can help him without it affecting your work.”
“Yes, but—” the female, his mother probably, started to say, but her eyes darted at me and then fell to the floor. Suddenly, the room felt tense again, like when I had first entered.
“If you’re worried about me hurting him, you needn’t be,” I said. “The All-Bonded has corrected my ways. Nothing can change what has already been done, but She brought me here, and I will do you no harm.”
“See?” Ibriya said. “Who are we to question the All-Bonded? Surely She would want us to help Her chosen.” The younger male’s smug smile told me that he didn’t necessarily believe or care about that, but he was happy to use it as ammunition for his argument.
The potters looked to Owawu and Brumesh, but the former simply shrugged while the latter scowled.
“As far as we can tell, he was blessed as Her missionary. Besides, he has some interesting ideas,” Owawu said. “I personally would like to see them come to fruition.”
“I don’t entirely trust him either,” Brumesh said, before motioning to Ushem. “But he will be under guard the whole time. If not by an elder, then by Ushem and his family.”
Given the fact that I was allowed to even be in the village by the elders, there wasn’t really a good reason to prohibit Ibriya for helping me with my project, so after a few more grumbling complaints were settled, it seemed like I would have the help I needed.
“Sorry about my parents,” Ibriya said after we stepped away.
“It’s okay, I get it.”
Ibriya shot me a grin. “So you really think you can mold bloodstone?”
“Mold might not be the right word, but if I can get it hot enough to glow, I should be able to beat it into a new shape.” I had to figure out the tooling, but I should be able to carve crude tools from stone to start.
“Sounds… violent,” Ibriya said. His eyes darted to my chest, though he tried to hide it.
I couldn’t blame him, since every Sheowon I met glanced at my markings at some point; it was hard not to when they were so much shorter than me, as it was staring them right in the face. I would need to get some hide so I could make a shirt like many Sheowon wore, though clothing alone wouldn’t make me fit in.
“Well, first we have to cook it in a special kiln that uses the forced air to get extra hot, although we’ll need more bloodstone to make that worth doing,” I said. “So before we do anything, we need to see if we can make the bellows.”
*
After discussing the project a bit more, I parted ways with Ibriya. The day was growing late, so we began to make our way back to Ushem’s house.
“So this will let you repair your boat?” Owawu asked, using the Uli word for it. I couldn’t help but wonder what far-future anthropologists and historians would think about that language contamination, if it survived, but that would likely pale compared to the sudden leap in metallurgy with the presence of worked iron, if I succeeded at that.
“Possibly,” I answered. Working the iron was really just something I thought I could do to impress and maybe help the Sheowon, to get accepted, but metal was theoretically useful in all sorts of construction. Metal parts would weigh down my boat, but if nothing else, simple rivets could be a big help. Nails would be easier to make, and would normally be an important part of boat-building, had this been a normal wooden boat. “I think there will be a lot of possible uses for it, though.”
I honestly wasn’t sure if this was where I should put my energy and focus. It had only been a day, after all. Hopefully I found a future friend in Ibriya, but… was any of this even possible? I would need to figure out the fuel issue, too. Forced air was one step in the process, but could I even make something usable as charcoal with turf and dung?
Perhaps there was a better way to integrate and gain Sheowon trust. I latched on to making metal because it was something recognizable and unquestionably useful, from my perspective, but how much would it actually help these people?
Thinking through the immediate primitive uses of metal, so many of them came down to things that the Sheowon had no real use for. There was a bunch of metal tooling that would make further smithing easier, but to what end? Making weapons was out of the questions for the peaceful people, and for the same reason armor wasn’t helpful. Metal knives might help animal processing and cooking, but they didn’t need them.
When it came to tools, the Sheowon had pretty limited needs. They didn’t need axes, since there weren’t trees to fell, and they didn’t need hammers to drive nails since there was, again, no lumber. Each time I thought of something I could try making, I could come up with a reason it would be pointless in this world, or was far simpler to just use Blood, bone, or stone.
The stone blocks they built with were probably a pain to make, and metal was definitely helpful for stone cutting, even if they could use Blood instead. Pickaxes and sledges to break large rock would be helpful, and it would open the doors to better mining. They would make it easier to get actual coal, for fuel, and more ore to work, but again, to what end?
Construction was the main place I could see real benefits, allowing them to expand their building potential, even without lumber access. Perhaps it would open the door to simpler sturdy roofing so they could build larger structures. But could I even successfully forge the kinds of things that would actually do that? Biting off more than I could chew wouldn’t help me earn any trust. If not this, though, what else could I do? What did I have to offer them?
Thinking back over the day, I searched for something I could actually make to improve Sheowon lives, immediately.
The bog iron came from the peat, and digging the peat was where I saw the most inefficiencies. It was a crucial part of their civilization, and it was also one of the only places I saw them using up their Blood. Once upon a time, they had probably dug it by hand, but Blood was more efficient, even though it was a limited resource and exhausting to use up. Humans would have used a metal spade or shovel, but that was hard to replicate with stone, and stone digging tools would be so heavy and tiring that it might make Blood seem easier.
“I think I may have an idea that would help your people,” I said slowly. “But I’m not sure if it’ll work.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing it,” Owawu said, then stopped. “Well, this is where we leave you. Tomorrow morning, Yishola will meet with you.”
I frowned. “I’d really like to get started on the bellows.”
“There’s no rush, Mali,” Owawu said, despite being the Sheowon elder most interested in my creations.
After saying goodbye, I turned back to my four guards-slash-hosts. They had largely followed at a slight distance through the day, at the ready in case I turned on the elders at any point; I could see visible relief and relaxation as the elders walked off.
“Sorry for dragging you around all day,” I said. “Hopefully in time this won’t be necessary.”
Keo scowled, but she was the one who would be the hardest to convince I wasn’t a danger. The other three weren’t exactly fond of me, and were being cautious, but I believed they could eventually come to see that I wouldn’t do them any harm. Once I could do something to truly improve their lives, maybe they could even come to trust me.
“Come on, let’s head home,” Ushem said, stepping forward. “It’s getting late, and I’m hungry.”