The Fire Queen

Chapter 51

Uraia and I were careful to be discreet upon returning to Aseron. The only person we told was Klara, who, when we told her, was happy to hear the news. Uraia spent the night with me in my room every night but aside from that nothing changed. I carried out my duties as queen as normal, which included quick trips to Gronden and Menten to reassure them that there was no cooperative relationship between Aseron and Dranii. Our next trip would be to Theran to discuss the matter of the creation of a new system of rules for governing the realm. For this trip I planned to allow Boris to make all of the preparations that he felt were necessary for the trip. In Dranii, King Gregorio had advised me to do what he does: dispatch the royal procession ahead of time and join them later by flying to them with Myra, that way I wouldn't have to endure the interminable trip. This was an excellent idea which I informed Boris of my intention to utilize. Boris made no objection to this, so long as the effect of me arriving in Theran accompanied by a large party wasn't compromised he didn't care.

I left Boris to his preparations and took another flight to Galand to get a look at how much progress Brumli and the dwarves had made since my last visit. It had been a few weeks since I had last been to Galand and in that time the dwarves had used the rock that they had quarried with their dynamite to build new structures and they had completed work on a large furnace for their metalwork.

"The tools we're using keep breaking on us, we need to make our own tools."

"I'll make sure you've got the ore you need to make new tools for yourselves. Just out of curiosity, why are your tools so much stronger than ours?"

"We work the steel at a much higher temperature, that allows us to compress it more and add more layers."

"And how do you get those higher temperatures?"

"We burn high quantities of coal in a high pressure cauldron like this one," he said, showing me to the furnace, "the combination of lots of coal, high pressure and frequent oxygenation produces high temperatures that allow us to bend any metal as much as we want, though I'm sure those temperatures are nothing compared with what she can produce," he said, speaking of Myra.

"Let's find out."

I stood back and watched as Brumli took hold of a large fragment of ore with a pair of tongs and held it in the furnace for Myra to apply her flames to. After just a few seconds of Myra blowing flames onto the ore Brumli removed it from the furnace, placed it on an anvil and began striking it with a hammer. Myra's flames had made the iron so soft that Brumli had to work fast to shape it before it cooled down and hardened. He struck each side quickly three times before dipping the iron in water, then it went back in the furnace for Myra to fire it up again. He repeated this process several times until I was able to perceive that he was crafting a blade. Once he had managed to form the shape of the blade he used a stone to scrub off any imperfections that remained from the forging process and attached it to a handle that he had ready. The handle had a red leather grip, and had my sigil etched into it where the blade met the hilt.

"It's so light," I said to Brunli when he handed it to me.

"That's because the steel is pure."

"Thank you Brumli."

"I was going to make for you as a surprise as a way of thanking you for what you've done for us, but when you arrived here I thought that what would make it the perfect gift was to forge it using your phoenix's flames."

"Can you make one of those furnaces and send it to the capital? I'd like to show it to the blacksmiths in the city."

"We can do that, it'll take a few weeks though."

"There's no rush, I have other business that I need to take care of."

The other business that I needed to take care of was Bandor. I left Galand with Myra and flew north to the village to speak with him. I didn't like what he'd said to Uraia about her being an outsider and I wanted to know if he had made any progress on deciding whether to allow me to build schools in the Northlands where the Okwari children could be educated. Bandor wasn't at the village when I arrived, I spoke with Chief Kendor when I arrived and he told me that Bandor was off visiting one of the other villages.

"I wanted to speak with Bandor about the conversation that we had with him when we stopped off here on our way to Dranii; he said some things that I wanted to clear up with him."

"You weren't happy with what he said to you?"

"He called Uraia an outsider because of her decision to leave and join the bandits, and he said that my offer to educate the Okwari children was not too different from the effort that was made by the first pilgrims to civilize the Okwari."

"I don't like what he said about Uraia either, but you have to bear in mind the circumstances of her departure."

"What do you mean?"

"Uraia is not...normal. I protected her as much as I could but she understood that she would have to leave eventually, and when she was old enough to do so she did."

I had no idea that Uraia had had to deal with being made to feel ostracized like this, and learning of this only made me angrier at Bandor for what he had said to her.

"I need to know what Bandor's intentions are, whether he's planning to cooperate with me."

"Bandor is still finding his way as a leader, you can't pressure him to make big decisions that affect all of the Okwari so early in his time as chief."

"I've got big ambitions for the kingdom and I want the Okwari to be a part of them, but if Bandor decides to stand in my way then the Okwari will be left behind."

"I understand that you want what is best for us, but the distrust that exists among the Okwari toward those with white skin runs deep."

"But you helped to take care of us when we were exiled, you sent warriors to help me take the throne and to help me fight off the Volstaff invasion, so why all of a sudden is there all of this suspicion about me?"

"All of that was done on my orders, and there was plenty of opposition to my decisions. I agreed to help all of you when you were exiled here because I knew your father and I knew him to be good man; I agreed to fight your battles with you because I believed that as queen you could be a bridge between us and the rest of the kingdom."

"That's what I'm trying to do, and we've made great progress."

"Yes, but it is because so much progress has been made that we must proceed slowly; if we don't, the progress that we have made could be undone."