“It has a scroll, yes?” Marl asked.
“It must,” Columba said, pulling the knife from his belt. “Just as this knife must have a scroll embedded somewhere in it.”
They compared the two objects. The steel used in their manufacture was identical, bearing patterns of hammer impacts that were indistinguishable.
“The same forge and steelsmith,” Columba said.
The rubies were identical in size and cut, the number of facets no different. “The same rubycutter,” Marl said, “and perhaps cut from the same motherstone. Plus, identical to the stone embedded in the face of the belt buckle, I"m sure of it.”
“Made at the same time, do you suppose?” Ari asked.
They conferred on the respective tales they had heard regarding their creation. It didn"t appear that they had been created contemporaneously, the
