Free Book of Iron by Elizabeth Bear Page A

itself over and over again, writhing, twisting. Bijou tried to watch, but even to a Wizard’s eye, the arcane twisting was nauseating.
    She felt the change of air pressure when they broke through, though—and the sparkle of new energy joining them. The guardian must have been waiting for just such an opportunity.
    That black hand—utterly black, as if light fell into it, like a shape cut out of the universe—lunged from the gap they had made, and reached toward Maledysaunte and Kaulas. They grabbed his fingers with their joined hands, and there was an abrupt pop—not so much a sound as the shift of air pressure against the drums of her ears.
    The stasis bubble unraveled like a snagged sweater, leaving them standing in the chill of the cavern surrounded by the echo of the water running down.
    “How long?” Maledysaunte asked the guardian as he stepped back, lowering his hand.
    “Thirteen seconds,” he said.
    Bijou felt her eyebrows climb, but said nothing. Of course, time had slowed inside the bubble. Of course it had.

Seven
     

They began to smell burning soon after. A dull glow crept around a curve ahead, limning the crooked edge of the stone. Bijou turned off the torch and they made their way forward on tiptoes, each one testing each step before committing his or her weight. Another few cramped strides brought her to the corner.
    Mouse-soft, Bijou leaned around the edge and peered up a limestone dam almost as tall as she was to a great cavern that flickered with light and heat. The warmth of wet air made her realize suddenly how cold she was and had been. Skin that had long since stopped stinging and settled into the corrugations of gooseflesh burned anew.
    The stream broke over the dam to her left, trickling down the surface in a series of rivulets in yellow and white limestone channels. Beyond that—beyond the limestone wall she faced—another small underground lake stretched to a stony bank beyond. It was from that bank that the light and the smells of burning emanated.
    A woman bent over a great stone block, a stalagmite whose top had been sliced away to make a flat surface. A great black anvil was set upon it. Bijou the Artificer owned anvils of every shape and size, from a silver-working rig you could balance on the palm of your hand to a monster four men couldn’t lift. This was the largest she had seen.
    The light and heat came from a forge nearby. As Bijou watched, aware of the rest of her group slinking up behind her, the woman—pale-skinned, stripped to the waist except for a leather apron, her long light hair twisted into a straggling knot at the nape of her neck—moved easily between one and the other, stirring coals and checking heat levels. Bijou noticed that there was no bellows and no smoke. A magical fire .
    “The Forge Unquenchable,” Maledysaunte whispered.
    Bijou gave her a sideways look and whispered back, “It’s in the book?”
    Maledysaunte nodded. “It is where the Book was forged.”
    Their voices should not have carried across the lake, but perhaps Bijou should have thought about whispering galleys and the acoustics of caves. Because the woman—Dr. Liebelos, of course—stood up from her forge with her fists in her back and stretched tiredly. Sweat gleamed on her face as she said, “Is that you, Wove? I’ve been expecting you.”
    “Wove?” Kaulas asked.
    But even as he spoke, Salamander moved forward. She set her eft down at the edge of the water and turned right, to clamber up the jumbled boulders that slumped there. They made a kind of awkward ramp or stair, and Salamander scrambled up it.
    “Her cradle-name,” Maledysaunte said, already moving to follow. “Let’s not wait for an invitation.”
    Riordan required an assist to get up the bank, but still they made it as a group, in seconds. Salamander had paused at the top, hanging back until they could join her. Now the seven moved forward as one, six following Salamander across a narrow stone bridge. Bijou was