The Red Master

I have been accused—by Gefu, no less—of “overcompensating with hammer and flame.” He says it as though steel were a crude language. Today he brought one of his apprentices to my forge. The boy’s sleeves were singed from some classroom mishap, and Gefu had the gall to look smug about it. “Field study,” he called it. Field study. The boy could not hold a hammer properly. His grip was all wrist and no will. I placed my hand over his and adjusted it. “Again,” I told him. Gefu lingered by the doorway, beads clicking softly between his fingers. He never steps fully inside the forge unless he must. Claims the heat interferes with delicate attunement. I suspect he dislikes sweat.

I let the boy strike.

The hammer glanced off the billet and jarred his arm. He winced but tried to hide it. Gefu’s beads clicked once—approval, perhaps, or amusement.

“Again,” I said.

This time I did not guide him. I only watched.

His shoulders tightened before the blow. He was thinking too much—calculating angles, reciting some silent theorem Gefu had etched into his skull. The hammer fell carefully.

Steel does not reward careful.

It rang wrong.

Gefu cleared his throat. “Precision begins in the mind, Torez.”

“And ends in the hands,” I replied.

I took the hammer from the boy and struck once—clean, decisive. The billet flattened obediently, edges spreading in honest response.

I handed it back.

“Do not ask it to move,” I told him. “Make it answer.”

The boy swallowed and swung again. Harder. The blow bit true this time. A proper note sang from the anvil—bright, unashamed.

Gefu’s beads stopped clicking.

“There,” I said quietly. “Did you feel the difference?”

The boy nodded, breathless. “It pushed back.”

“Of course it did. It is not an idea. It is iron.”

Gefu finally stepped one pace inside the forge, just enough for the heat to touch his robes. “And yet,” he said mildly, “without the idea of a blade, it is only iron.”

I smiled despite myself.

He was right, in part. I had envisioned the blade before the first spark leapt. I always do. But vision without resistance is indulgence. Thought must collide with something stubborn.

I took the billet once more and drew it out under steady blows, speaking as I worked.

“Your master teaches you to shape the unseen. Good. Necessary. But if you cannot command your own weight, your own breath, your own strike—your magic will be thin.”

The boy watched the metal lengthen, transform.

I quenched it. Steam surged upward, wrapping us all in a hot white shroud.

When it cleared, I pressed the cooling steel into his hands.

“Now,” I said, “return to your lessons. And when Gefu tells you power begins in thought, remember this sound.”

I tapped the blade lightly against the anvil.

It rang—clear, undeniable.

Gefu met my eyes across the heat-haze. There was no smugness now. Only that familiar spark of challenge.

“Next week,” he said, “you will bring one of yours to my hall.”

“Gladly.”

He turned to leave, beads whispering once more.

I wiped sweat from my brow and looked at the boy still staring at the blade as though it had spoken.

Steel is not a crude language.

It simply refuses to lie.