Yana leaned against the dark anvil in a corner of the formation, inspecting her tools that dangled from hooks on the wall as the forge blazed and sent waves of heat through the comfortable coolness of the large space. Her long, webbed fingers were nimble, even with the sharp talons at the ends of each, and the way she worked made it easy to forget that she could spread those fingers into large wings to take flight. She opened and closed a long pair of tongs that she seemed to be loosening, and then she grabbed a hammer with a long handle and lined them up neatly on top of the anvil. She grabbed two chisels as well, one pointed and one flat at the end, and knelt next to the light of the forge that was so hot it distorted the view around it; even Yana seemed to be warped by the heat. She inspected the tips of the chisels and was happy with their appearance, then she lined them up on the anvil.
When she was satisfied with the condition of her tools, she walked away from the forge and along the back rock wall of the formation that was covered in patches of the glowing blue moss until she came to, and went inside of, what appeared to be a doorway in the rock.
Rusa sat quietly at a distance on the cool stone floor watching the Queen in her preparation. He enjoyed the warmth from the forge that was a mound of stone with a hollow center where the intense yellow-orange fire raged. He hadn’t been particularly cold before it was lit, but the heat was soothing as it radiated out to fill the large interior of the formation. He sat at a distance so the heat wasn’t overwhelming, but the size of the Queen and her tools made it easy to spectate.
He watched Yana return from the doorway and she rolled what appeared to be a boulder larger than him at her side and toward the forge. In the glow of the moss, Rusa recognized the shiny streaks in the boulder and his mouth fell open. It was bigger than any mass of the ore that he had seen in his days as a miner on Wiis.
“You have rhasd?” he yelled in surprise.
Yana giggled as she prepared to break the boulder that contained veins of the shiny metal with her hammer and chisel.
“Pultine said you were a miner of this stuff in your dull realm. I’ve never been convinced that something as nice as rhasd comes from anywhere but the Fonlands, but I guess you just confirmed it for me. Is your planet as illustrious as this metal?”
Before he could answer, Yana lined up her chisel on the boulder and struck the end with her hammer, sending a dull thud through the expansive space. She struck it twice more and the boulder split, and there were sparkling veins of rhasd in each half of the rock.
“To be so sturdy,” Yana continued, “it’s surprisingly easy to forge. Manipulating it is an experience. When rhasd is exposed, it changes the air, and it makes one hearty. It’s as though the rhasd wants to be freed and empowers whoever is freeing it to continue the work. That is why Pultine was so smitten with you, you are full of rhasd air from your years of mining. Your veins are ores of rhasd in your body by now.”
Rusa looked at his body with concern on his face.
“Don’t be worried. It’s the way that rhasd changes the air that made me so skeptical that it wasn’t of the Fonlands. It’s almost like the moss of this structure, or beings like your beloved pristine who possess Third Hearts. The air becomes medicine and enhancement in the presence of rhasd, just like Divine Essence does for Fonlanders. I would imagine that you are a fine specimen of your species of feathered and winged people, very strong, and you will likely outlive your peers. I’ve heard that rhasd air increases lifespan. You are a surprisingly good fit to accompany the pristine on her journeys between two realms. And very fit to take on the rhasd enhancements that I have planned for you. Pultine chose well.”
Rusa watched as Yana broke the boulder down further, alternating chisels as she worked, to a pile of stones that fit easily in her tongs. Then she grabbed one stone and held it over the blaze of the forge with the long tongs that allowed her to stand at a distance from the heat. The flame of the forge flared, as though air were being pumped into the mound of stones that contained it, but there was no blower to increase oxygen in the forge.
“What is it like in the mines in your realm?” Yana yelled to Rusa as she held the stone in the flame to burn off the rock that wasn’t rhasd. Despite the high temperature of the forge, there was no smoke. “Do you feel at home here in the Chamber?”
“I spent a lot of time in the mines in Wiis,” Rusa yelled, though he couldn’t be sure that she could hear him over the noise and distance. “But the tunnel we traveled through to get here was tighter than anything I’ve ever experienced and this is the most time I’ve ever spent underground.”
“I think the Chamber is cozy,” Yana said. She transferred the smoldering ball in her tongs to the surface of the anvil and wacked it with her hammer. As the clang of metal against metal dissipated through the formation, she chipped at the flatten material, exposing pure rhasd. After pounding the metal flat, she sat it aside and repeated the same process several more times. When she had a stack of the flattened rhasd on the stone floor next to the anvil, she lined them up on top in a single overlapping layer that was thick and hung over the edges. She struck the metal over and over to fuse it into a crude sheet that she took back to the forge with her tongs. She turned it in the blaze until the edges glowed red hot, and then she folded the sheet on the anvil, hammered it, and folded it again. Then she grabbed one of the gems that Pultine had stolen from Grootslang and put it on top of the pliable metal sheet that she folded to cover the gem. She smashed her hammer down on it and there was a poof of an explosive sound that was muted by the metal. Yana repeated the process until she had one solid mass of rhasd with a fine powder of the glittering green gem throughout that she worked into a flat sheet.
“Are you sure you are ready for this?” Yana asked Rusa as she leaned the sheet of rhasd that was almost as tall as she was against a wall. “It is traumatic and you may not be the same afterwards. But honestly, I can’t say what will happen to you, I’ve never remade one such as yourself, so full of the rhasd already. This may be a very easy modification for you, though the gem is of the Fonlands.”
“What exactly will you do to me?” Rusa yelled as he approached Yana. The heat of the forge was dying down and he could stand to be closer.
“I will strap you down to the stone and flay you with my talon. I will remove your limbs from your torso, including your wings and head, and I will give you a second skin of this rhasd laced with Grootslang’s gem to fortify it and to give it the ability to regenerate itself and the body that it is grafted to. I can leave your head attached if you doubt the regenerative abilities of the gem, and I will work fast to line the inside of your skin with the rhasd so that it can do the work to heal you. It works very quickly. And you can be asleep through the whole thing. I can send a siafu to get you something strong to keep you under the whole time.”
Rusa swallowed hard and shook his head slowly. He scratched at the feathers on his face that gave him a healthy beard at his chin.
“Is there any benefit to removing my head?”
“I will use rhasd plates to reattach your limbs which will increase the strength of your neck, and all of the joints of your body. You have that knee like Pultine, I can do those too. You will have a full range of motion with no worry of weakening, no vulnerability. This will always be your body for as long as you live, there will be no getting older if you are still young in your lifecycle. There will be aging, but it will be slow relative to your species.”
“Then remove the head, and the knees, and any other joints that make sense. Anything else you suggest?”
“I suggest you really think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Do you understand what it means to die? I’m not familiar with your species, but you will probably die when I flay your body, no? And you will surely die if I remove your head? The rhasd will definitely heal your body to better than what it was, but will you be the same animating essence that currently controls your body? Will you still be Rusa after you are resurrected? I’ve done this to sturdier warriors than yourself and some of them are just as I remembered them before, and they said it was like going to sleep and waking up with a better body, but others came back different. Some had no memories at all of their lives before. One was unable or unwilling to speak ever again. You will likely be fine, but there is a chance that you won’t wake up from this. Are you ready for that?”
Rusa nodded thoughtfully.
“When I met Pultine, I was setting her up to be murdered by her greatest enemy, and the biggest threat to my home in the Earth Realm. She saved my homeworld and she forgave me and I owe her my life because I tried to end hers. Even if I’m not the same after all this, it will be worth it.”
Yana nodded, then she turned to grab something from behind the anvil. She held what looked like a large pair of scissors in one hand, grabbed the sheet of rhasd with her tongs and approached the forge that was a small, steady blaze of light at the tip of the mound of rocks. Yana used the tongs to lift the sheet over the light and heat and she was able to control it with one hand to pass the entire surface of the sheet over the shrinking flame. She lay a portion of the sheet on the anvil and began cutting with her large scissors.
“I will start with my armor,” Yana said to Rusa who watched her cut the metal. “I have something to tend to above ground that I’d hoped Pultine could help me with since Sakpata’s so distracted, but she needs her ax for her own thing. When I finish my armor, I will make two axes for Pultine. She only asked for one, but she will be a sight with them, and she can charge the rhasd with her light energy. They’ll glow as brightly as she does and can expel her energy in explosions that won’t damage the weapons. They will be as beautiful and pristine as she is. As her axes cool, I will start work on you. You have time to prepare yourself, or to change your mind if you would choose to. There is food fit for an Fonlander, it should do for a Wiiser. There is water as well, and a place to rest if you need to sleep. Just ask, or sleep where you are and eat when I take breaks.”
Rusa nodded in acknowledgement. He looked at the forge while Yana worked on the metal sheet. It was only a glow and eventually Pultine climbed out of the mouth of it, her normally dark skin now glowing yellow-white. She had been the very controlled fire that blazed hot enough to melt rhasd and she’d only emerged from the mound of rocks when she felt that the heat and energy she expelled that was contained by the rocks, had subsided to a level that was safe enough to avoid catching anything on fire. It took a lot of effort for Pultine to burn that hot, but she was the safest heat source to use in the confined space of the rock formation.
“Let me know when you’re ready for me to fire up again,” Pultine said as her glowing, yellow-white wings expanded and she descended the mound of rocks.
Rusa watched her fly into the distance of the formation, then he turned his attention back to Yana who used her hammer to work pieces of the metal. Rusa sat silently for the long time it took Yana to fashion and decorate the pieces of her armor. He fell asleep and woke twice, eating each time he woke, sitting close to watch her work. When she was done, she smiled at Rusa.
“When Pultine’s ready, I’ll fuse the pieces together and bang out her axes. Then you’re up, pretty boy.”
Rusa was filled with anticipation.
PRL Serials 