Free The Nightstone by Wil Ogden Page A

wore a red leather apron over a sooty white shirt and canvas pants. He had a lithe frame like a man who hadn’t yet reached twenty. Charles, though only twenty, had a thicker body. Perhaps Gus spent more time planning and less time swinging the hammer, Charles reasoned.
    “Amanda sent us over to help you get those decorative dragons done,” Heather said.
    Gus looked at Charles and nodded, “You look like a blacksmith. As long as you know what you’re doing and stay out of my way when I need to be at the anvil, have at it. The iron’s out back. I only use iron from the Red Clans, so don’t waste it.” Gus appraised them again, then, without another word, went back to his desk and picked up his charcoal.
    “What did he mean that you look like a blacksmith?” Heather asked as they walked around back to pick out some iron from the barn. “You look like Charles to me.”
    Charles pointed to the back of his wrist. “Strong muscles here mean that I’m either a blacksmith or a carpenter. He pointed to a different part of his hand, here would mean I’m a swordsman.”
    “I guess the muscular shoulders don’t hurt,” Heather said. “Only Gus isn’t as muscular as you, I wouldn’t have noticed the same muscles on him.”
    “Maybe maintaining an inn takes less smithy work than maintaining a coal mine.” Charles ventured.
    Gus had a few long rods of iron among his stock so Charles picked half a dozen of them and headed back inside. The coals were barely warm, so he stirred them up and started pumping the bellows. He showed Heather how to pull the rope quick enough to speed the heating but not so fast as to burn away the coal closest to the bellows. He didn’t need to explain the whys to her; he’d done that several times in the past.
    While the forge heated up, he stepped over to a rack of tools and looked for the right tongs, hammers and cutting chisels. A thick layer of dust covered the tool rack as he leaned over to blow the dust off, he paused.
    “Heather, come here,” he said.
    She left the bellows and stepped beside him. “What?”
    “The tools,” Charles said. “Look.”
    “Gus needs a maid,” Heather said.
    “It’s not about what he needs,” Charles said. “It’s about what he doesn’t need.”
    Heather looked at him like she didn’t want to play the guessing game.
    “Something wrong?” Gus asked. He’d stepped over to the forge and pumped the bellows a couple times. “I should have two pairs of round stock tongs.”
    “Oh!” Heather said. She elbowed Charles. She then said to Gus, “But you’re not sure?” With barely a pause she continued, “You’re not sure because you don’t use your tools.”
    “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.” Gus seemed nervous. Charles understood why.
    “I’m implying you can do this,” Heather grabbed one of the iron rods and heated it to a red glow.”
    “Of course I can,” Gus said. “Why didn’t you answer the Wizard call?”
    “Wizard call?” Heather asked.
    “You don’t know,” Gus said. “Well you should. When I said I only use Red Clan stock, you are supposed to respond, ‘Well, it is the hottest.’ That’s how we know we’re both Wizards. The red apron is a hint to ask about the Red Clan iron too.”
    “I didn’t know,” Heather said. “I thought I was the only one.”
    “You need to be trained,” Gus said. “You need to get to Melnith or Grabarden and seek one of the schools.”
    “There are schools?” Heather asked. “I thought Wizards were extinct.”
    “There are two, and they’re very secretive.” Gus put a finger to his lips. “Find a Wizard in one of those cities using the phrase I taught you and they’ll take you to the school.”
    “I will,” Heather said.
    “Do it soon,” Gus said. “More often than not, when a Wizard is untrained, they explode, usually killing themselves and sometimes blowing their homes apart, killing their families too.
    “We might be too late for that,” Charles