The Puppet of the Omnigods

Ernärt

‘Clean out the place, Ernärt. And that will do for today,’ Heimdallr the blacksmith said, throwing his hammer away.

The blonde-haired apprentice wiped her soot-smeared face clean and glanced at the retreating blacksmith. She loved Heimdallr and watched him with both admiration and compassion. She knew how hard his life had been since his parents had died almost forty years ago. Left alone with his newborn sister at eleven years old, he’d had to sell their old hut outside the city and move to this little forge. Young and inexperienced, Heimdallr consequently lost the regular customers his blacksmith father had acquired. This happened shortly before King Hieldibald’s madness reached its peak, causing unrest in all of Svalen. Bandits, smugglers and assassins had invaded the capital, causing food prices to rise. Heimdallr had been forced to watch his little sister starve. Her skin blistered and her beautiful blonde hair dropped out. She stopped sleeping, which made her extremely weak and aggressive. Heimdallr watched the life drain out of her fragile body until she passed away two days before she turned six. Her death greatly affected Heimdallr. He became a hermit who drowned all his pain in endless hours and days of work.

More than thirty years had passed since then. The blacksmith had finally acquired the skills of his father, and now could afford an apprentice: Ernärt. She had worked with him for more than ten years. Unfortunately, Heimdallr’s passion and hard work were not enough to restore the reputation and contacts his father had had. Big orders were going to his competitors and neighbors who descended from famous blacksmith dynasties. Ernärt knew her master was no less skilled than any of them, and she also knew age made it difficult for him to work as hard as he had before.

But everything had changed when the new year came. A few days before he turned fifty, their smithy was unexpectedly visited by King Friedmund himself. Although half-blind in his Maeridian Mantle, the king liked the handicrafts of the master, and ordered a sword and a helm for his personal collection. His visit made Heimdallr famous throughout the kingdom and soon large orders came in from the richest citizens of Magnus-Urbe. He worked days and nights without a break to keep up. Ernärt saw how exhausted he was by the end of the day and how difficult it was for him to keep the pace at his age. But she also knew that after all these years he was happy at last. And this was all that mattered to her.

‘It’s done, master!’

He heard the soft voice of Ernärt and turned around at once. The old wooden floor was clean, instruments back on their shelves, and the old anvil shone as new once again.

‘Good, child. Now I think we could fetch some quenching oil from downstairs,’ he said, his head jerking toward the basement.

Ernärt nodded and disappeared quickly beneath the trapdoor. As she climbed down the ladder, she thought of the day she had first met Heimdallr. It was a rainy evening almost eleven years ago. The streets of Magus-Urbe were empty, drowning in a great rippling puddle that covered half of the capital. Ernärt was with a group of vagabonds, when a strange twinkling light seeped out of the walls of the nearest smithy and attracted her attention. She had witnessed glowing wisps before and some of her fellow tramps suggested she was seeing waves of information. This made the rest of the group laugh, for it was a well-known fact that only thaumaturges and loonies could see light where there was none.

Ernärt detached herself from the band and moved toward the smithy, peering into a glowing cloud that hid behind the window. She was soaked to the bone. The louvers burst open and the glowing cloud turned into a dour, bulky man who peered at her as if he had seen her before. Ernärt jumped back in shock, stumbling on a stone and toppling into a puddle. It took her a moment to resurface again. (She was so small she could have actually drowned in there.) She prepared to haul herself up, when the tall red-bearded blacksmith materialized over her, cloakless and hunching. Despite his brutal features, his face looked disconcerted and pitiful, as if he had hurt her really, really badly, and was desperately hoping she might find a way to forgive him. They stared at each other silently for almost a minute, until the man reached towards her and Ernärt put her little hand in his…

Ten years had passed since Ernärt became his apprentice and adoptive daughter. She spent every single day with him in the smithy, helping with forging and keeping house. She scarcely left the place, for the smithy had become her true home and sanctuary. She worked twelve hours a day just like her father, but never complained about her harsh life and never wanted more. She was living her father’s life, dreaming to make the respected dynasties of Magnus-Urbe pass his handicrafts down through the generations. She knew Heimdallr deserved recognition like no other blacksmith in Svalen, and she was going to help him get it.

Mulling over her life, Ernärt touched the ground, stepping into a puddle of a slimy liquid that must have leaked from the barrels in the opposite corner of the basement. She was wiping it against the floor when the space shook, grumbled and dust crumbled from the ceiling. The trapdoor had just slammed shut. Outstanding, she thought to herself, groping for the ladder in the dark. She stepped into another puddle, then a third, before weak waves of light broke into her shelter. Marveled, Ernärt squeezed her eyes shut, but even through her closed eyelids she saw two glowing wisps floating outside their smithy. A surge of excitement rushed through her spine; she hadn’t seen glowing silhouettes for years! She had even begun to think she had imagined them when she was younger. But now, here they were. The ghostly shapes were spinning and bobbing, circling around their smithy like satellites. Ernärt watched their beautiful dance until they stopped at the front door and soared inside. She began to discern the outlines of the room upstairs: anvil, oven, instruments and walls. The glowing shapes stopped overhead, and the next moment she noticed a crimson stream, gushing in the world of lunar-white. Then a second red stream appeared, and a Heimdallr-like figure fell to his knees, clutching at his heart and neck.

Ernärt gasped, the realization of what had happened dawning on her. ‘Fa…’ she tried to call for Heimdallr, but only hoarse wheeze came out of her mouth.

The figure of her father collapsed into a quickly growing blood puddle. For a few seconds, Ernärt saw nothing but the silhouette of a crimson heart. The pulse was getting slower and slower until it dissolved into the void. Her hands sliding against the wall, Ernärt sank to the concrete floor. The visions looked only slightly more real than a dream. But deep inside, she knew her father was dead.

Ernärt didn’t see the glowing silhouettes relocate to the trapdoor, but they smashed against it, and a flash of light washed over her for a moment. Terrified, she crawled back to the opposite corner, casting quick glances sideways. The trapdoor thundered again, but no light came in. Surprised, Ernärt looked back at the ceiling. One of the cloud-figures toppled down unconscious, while the other rolled back to the entrance. Three armed men appeared right above the place where Ernärt hid. The shocked, cloudy figure pulled a sabre off his sheath, slashed the closest man on the face and punched the neck of the second with his long thorny tail. Both wounded men bounced back: one holding his blood-smeared face and the other clutching at his blood-gushing neck. And both fell instantly.

Confidence returned to the creature – it turned decisively to the last standing man with a bold, eerie smile on its face. The room filled with waves of action, which died instantly as if wrapped in a Maeridian mantle. The man used a moment of confusion to throw a flask of hazy liquid into the monster’s face. Yelling desperately in pain, the creature toppled over and rolled toward the anvil. The man pulled his sword out and lunged forward to finish it. The room filled with a dazzling white flash, forcing the agent to avert his eyes. When he turned back, he saw nothing but a dissipating white mist.

‘I can’t believe it. The king was right about the thefts!’ Ernärt heard the voices coming from the room upstairs. ‘And we thought he’d gone mad after pulling that Maeridian mantle off! How is this even possible?!’

A short pause hung in the room.

‘What did they steal?’ The second voice came, more reasonable and calm, ignoring the question of his comrade.

‘Don’t know. There were only instruments in the forge. The only jewelry was on the neck of the apprentice. Some polyhedron figurine made of silver. But she is gone...’

‘How could you have known they would attack this exact forge?’

Another short pause.

‘A jet of informational waves escaped from this place,’ the voice said, sounding rather puzzled. ‘I have never seen smithies leak information. So much metal.’

A moan came from somewhere nearby.

‘He is dying, O’Dreeaen,’ the first agent said, bending over their injured colleague. Blood was gushing from his neck.

‘Take him to the nearest tower – I will chase the bandits. The rascals couldn’t have gone too far,’ O’Dreeaen shouted from outside the smithy.

Left alone, the agent grabbed his wounded comrade and rushed into the night street.

The azure silhouette of the front door resurfaced, revealing fat slanting raindrops pattering the porch of the smithy. It was raining. Just as it had been eleven years ago when Ernärt had first come to Magnus-Urbe.