“Overhears what?” said a new voice from the doorway.

The stranger who walked in was the antithesis of Garmun—short and wiry like a ratter. Everything about him suggested potential action—his smile, just on the verge of malice, his hands, holding his thick belt as though it were someone’s throat, the sharp line of his cheekbones, suggesting some nomad blood. His physicality was so overwhelming that it almost distracted from the dog’s scalp hanging from his belt.

So this must be one of that new department that the Gumiren—those filthy nomad invaders from the South—had concocted for collaborators. What was it called? The Consistory, yes. The secret police of the Raven. Dog-men, the commons called them. A kind name for a traitor against his own people.

“I’m not open to new customers,” said Llun, trying to keep his tone light.

“That’s a relief,” the stranger said, with more gentleness than Llun expected. “No one will bother us, then.”

He closed the door and dropped the black curtain over the door-window.

“What a pleasant smithy you have here, Brother Llun.”

Llun stiffened as the stranger began to look around the smithy. Like a bitch on the scent, the stranger’s pointed face bore down on the cluttered left counter of the smithy. He pulled out two interlacing shields of iron leaf-work tracery so fine they almost looked woven. Each held a heraldic icon of a raven in flight.

“Well, that’s…” He didn’t finish, but to Llun’s surprise it sounded like he was about to say “beautiful.” What? A Raven’s man actually admiring beauty for its own sake?

Llun’s stomach churned. It was all wrong: there was genuine admiration in the stranger’s eyes. He appreciated the shields as things of beauty, not as objects to buy or sell. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The Raven’s men followed a script. They were supposed to ask where Llun was going to sell these useless trinkets, and when he hemmed and hawed about beauty and artistry, they would threaten Llun with something horrible.

Llun had seen enough of the Gumiren’s work to know that the threats of the collaborators were never idle—weavers with one eye burned out just so their depth perception would no longer be of any use, sword-wrights with their right hands chopped off at the wrist, potters with broken feet.

Damn them all, he thought bitterly.

But this one was admiring decorative shields that had no practical use whatsoever. Llun had made them merely for the sake of beauty.

“What possessed you to make such a thing?”

Llun’s hammer stopped in mid-air. It was the choice of words. “Possessed.” No, this was no mere inquisitor. This man understood the creative process. What it means to make something, and how it feels to be taken by the hand of the Maker.

“It made itself,” said Llun, hesitating. “I was just the instrument.”

The stranger gasped with pleasure, as though Llun’s words had given him a taste of something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Maybe this was an impostor? A motley fool who put on the dog-scalp to ridicule the Consistory? But such people did not walk the streets for long before their bodies were used as decorations for lamp-posts.

“Llun,” said the dog-man, and looked Llun directly in the eyes.

The lack of the “Brother” before Llun’s name frightened him more than the direct gaze. This collaborator was something new. Yes, he was likely an artist. An artist of torture and death.

“Llun, you stand there, gawking like a fool, telling me you made something for the sheer pleasure of artistry?”

The stranger’s right index finger caressed the outline of the raven, as though he could memorize shapes better with his finger. Could he see it, the true picture? The hammer slipped in Llun’s hand and almost landed on his thumb. Careful…

“Yes.” Llun’s voice didn’t remain as steady as he would have liked. The stranger noticed. His smile was an adder’s smile.

“Who taught you to waste your time like this?”

So they had come to it at last. The stranger wanted Llun to be an informer to the collaborators, a friend of the dogs.

Not on my life.

“No one,” said Llun, continuing to beat the nails. “Don’t think I use my work-time on these things. I give all the Great Father’s time to my customers, as anyone, even fat Garmun here, will tell you.” The builder looked like he wanted to kill Llun and run away from him at the same time. “I do this…art…in my own time.”

The stranger raised his eyebrows slightly, faintly amused. Llun immediately realized his mistake. He shouldn’t have said anything about having the luxury of time for himself.

“What a shame,” said the Consistory man. “You should rest during your free time, Brother Llun. It will help you make better nails and horseshoes and braziers. Useful things. Will you accept a gift from the Great Father? A gratis pass to one of the houses of rest?”

The dog-man leered. Llun flushed, embarrassed. Did the dog-man really think that sort of thing appealed to an artisan? How typical. The smith working off his frustrations with a romp in the hay.

Llun struck the nail so hard it cracked in half.

“I don’t fraternize with prostitutes,” said Llun. His finger bled where the cracked nail had pierced it. Concentrate!

The Consistory man smiled, gentle as ever. “I didn’t say a thing about fraternizing. And why use such a crude word as prostitute? I believe I have heard them better described as purveyors of pleasure.”

Garmun chortled, then tried to disappear. For a man of his size, that was not easy.

“Anyway, I don’t have time for that nonsense,” said Llun.

“Nonsense? It is all sanctioned by our Great Father himself. Are you suggesting that anything his greatness allows is not worthy of your time? I will not say coin, because I have already offered you a gratis pass.”

“That is not what I meant to say.” Llun stopped hammering, put the hammer down, and wiped his hands on his apron, which only made them dirtier. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe I have the honor of your name, Brother?”

That should bring matters to a head, whether or not Llun’s head would be the cost.

“Ah, my mistake! My name is Aspidían. You may have heard of me.”

Oh, Heights. Aspidían? The right hand of Yadovír, the traitor who had opened the gates of Vasyllia to the invading army of Gumiren. Some even insinuated that Aspidían was more than his right hand. By all accounts, he was a monster that had killed over one hundred true Vasylli with his own hands.

“Brother Llun.” Aspidían’s face no longer showed interest in anything. He leaned against the wall in assumed fatigue, the very picture of a man who had seen too much and wished merely to be left alone. “I would be most honored if you would come to the Consistory’s halls on the morrow, perhaps at three hours after sunrise? I would like to employ your skills in a most important matter. Good day to you.”

“As you say, Brother Aspidían.”

As soon as he left, the forge coughed, the bellows sighed, the anvil begged to be struck again. Everything in the smithy heaved out a relieved breath. Garmun was near to tears of hysteria.

“Brother Llun, Brother Llun,” he whispered, as if expecting the inquisitor to be eavesdropping just outside the door. “Do you know what this means?” He threw his hands up above his head. “Who will make things for me now? Don’t you know you are the best craftsman in Vasyllia? Have I ever told you that, Brother? Have I?” Both sweaty hands, fleshy and fat, wrung Llun’s arm, kneading it like bread, though even his massive hands hardly encircled the width of Llun’s arm, hardened by years of the smithy. “Why must it be you? I know the Great Father needs an occasional example for everyone’s instruction, but … why you?”

“Calm yourself, you fat fool. Why not take the man at his word? Perhaps there is some manner of work to be done?”

Garmun guffawed. “You madman of an artist! Don’t you know what they do to people like you? Have you forgotten Dashun?”

Llun tried to stop the grimace, but failed. Why did Garmun have to mention Dashun of all people? Llun was sure he would never forget the sight of Dashun’s mutilated body. But what was worse? The torture, or the way he had publicly recanted all his beliefs and convictions? He had read aloud a text prepared for him by the Raven. Then he had collaborated with them, even uncovered a conspiracy against the Gumiren. And still they killed him horribly.

“You exaggerate,” Llun said, coughing to cover the quaver in his voice. “I’m no danger to anyone. I am simply an odd, self-absorbed craftsman.”

“Brother Llun, do you know anything about Aspidían?” He raised both hands, palms out. The gesture to ward off evil.

“Your nails, Brother Garmun.”

“Brother Llun. Oh, my dear friend.” Garmun wept, blubbering like a woman. Perversely, Llun remembered the jesting commoners and the purported pregnancies. He couldn’t help himself.