The Non-Human Society

Chapter One Hundred and Seven - Renn - To Hammer Again...

      Although Nebl still looked weak, ill even, he didn't move or act it.

The man swung the hammer down, replicating the pure tone Vim had created.

"Ore is ore. No matter what you deal with, or what you're making, it's all the same. You heat it. You hit it. You heat it. You hit it," Nebl said as he struck the burning orange metal again.

I nodded, even though I knew there was far more to it than that. He simplified stuff, it seemed.

"In time you'll be able to tell where and when you need to hit it. Based off the color alone. Then you'll learn the sound. Until you can do it all with your eyes closed," Nebl said as he turned the billet around and began to hit it at a different rhythm.

"Do you intentionally make it sound like a song?" I asked him as I listened to the notes reverberate for a moment. Unlike the hard sounds of Lellip or my own hammer strikes... Nebl's and Vim's seemed to only echo once, even though just as loud and pure.

Not only were they pure... but there was a certain tempo to them. The loud note with each strike should hurt my ears, yet it didn't... all because of the rhythm they hit along.

"No music. If you try to make music you'll fail," he said with a gruff voice.

Yet he was definitely making music.

Maybe that meant the music was simply a byproduct, not intentional at all.

How did that happen?

I sat a few feet from the anvil that Nebl was working at, and we were alone in the forge. Vim and Lellip had yet to return from the mine, and Pram and Drandle were out working in the farm nearby. I could hear Drandle every so often yell at Pram to sit down and rest.

"See that hotter line? In the center?" Nebl didn't move the billet to show me so I had to stand up a little to see.

I nodded once I could.

"That will be the core. It's too close to the edge, so I will need to move it a little," he said, and then flipped it to begin hammering a different direction.

"Why doesn't it melt? Like it does in the furnaces?" I asked.

"Different temperatures. This furnace is not as hot as the blast furnace, and that one over there isn't as hot as this one," Nebl said.

"Yes, but why? Why would how hot it is matter?" I asked.

Lellip hadn't known the actual answer, and something told me Vim wouldn't give it to me.

"Different melting points because of the metal's density. There's a science to it. I'll teach you it if Vim allows," Nebl said as he stepped away from the anvil to put the metal back into the furnace.

Science...

"Vim doesn't like teaching stuff like that," I said.

"Vim doesn't like anything. He's tired of losing what he likes. But he will teach you if you ask the right way," Nebl said as he stared into the fire. His face was sunken, and although he had tied up his wild hair into a pony-tail... he still looked like he should be lying down not hammering away at a piece of metal.

For a few moments I said nothing as the furnace growled angrily, heating up the metal. Every so often Nebl would reach over to grab the little metal bar that opened and closed the air intake flaps. They were outside, and a lot bigger than one expected.

"Vim has learned that teaching certain things brings only disaster. He teaches someone something, and it gets them killed. Or others killed. Over the many years that has made him... hesitant. If man like him can be such a thing, it is there that he is," Nebl said softly.