Elfhome

It was nearly the same thing that Tinker had said just days before. It touched Oilcan deeply that this male that he just met was so willing to commit completely. It reminded him of his own instant affinity to Merry because she had reminded him of his lost mother.

“Thank you, Grandfather.” He put his hand on the male’s shoulder, ignoring the slight scoff from Tinker.

Forge swallowed him into a full hug. “Oh my child, I don’t know if I’ll be able to bear losing you so soon after finding you.”

“You can stay as long as you want,” Oilcan said. Really, they needed all the domana they could get.

Forge hugged him tighter. “I will stay to the end.”

For a moment, Oilcan thought he meant until the end of the war. Only when he caught sight of Thorne giving him a look full of understanding sorrow that Oilcan realized that Forge meant until Oilcan died of old age.

37: Days of Past Not Forgotten

Oilcan spent the next few days finding tables and chairs, buying paint, tracking down yards and yards of fabric and a sewing machine, raiding his various stashes of paintings for artwork emotionally safe enough to hang, and making countless trips to Wollerton’s for the massive bathing room renovation. He also tracked down yet another cell phone for Tinker and programed it for her. All of this meant he spent a lot of time away from Sacred Heart. Since Thorne always came with him (and usually a rotating foursome of Forge’s sekasha in the name of learning the city), it left the children alone. With the oni doing raids all over the city, he was glad that Forge was at the enclave, overseeing construction of outer walls and defensive spells.

When Oilcan found time to spare, he would check in on Forge. The male was more than willing to patiently explain how he was building the spells into the wall’s foundations to create the enclave’s powerful barrier protection. Again and again, Oilcan found echoes of his grandfather in the elf. From the way Forge handled his project management to the way he pulled at his hair in frustration, it was obvious that more than just genetics been handed down through the family.

It delighted Forge to see the habits in Oilcan. “Amaranth always had paint on her hands and in her hair and on her face; usually right on the end of her nose. I think it was because she would do this.” Forge pressed the back of his hand to his nose to demonstrate.

Oilcan laughed and checked. He had a swipe of soldering paste across his nose from welding the bathing room’s water pipes. “Yeah, that’s how it got there. Tinker is worse than me. Five minutes into anything and she’s got a smudged nose.”

Forge was showing Oilcan how to vary the shield spell when a slight tension went through Forge’s Hand.

Iron Mace drifted onto the worksite. “Ah, I wondered who was tapping the stones.”

“I’m just teaching him how to protect himself.” Forge said.

“You weren’t taught our esva as a child?” Iron Mace motioned with his hand as if conceding a point. “Well, more of a child.”

Oilcan sighed. Insisting he was an adult made him feel like a four-year old shouting “I’m a big boy now!” Forge had studied architecture during the days of pharaohs and Iron Mace had been using four numbers to record his age when Amaranth had been born. It was no wonder that the two couldn’t see him as anything but hopelessly young. “My mother knew Elvish, both Low and High, and a handful of songs, but not much more.”

Mace pressed, apparently not believing that Oilcan was untrained. “Unbounded Brilliance made no permanent record to school his children in their inheritance? He left them ignorant of his clan and his family and all the vast store of knowledge we had when humans were still squatting in caves?”

If his ancestor had left anything, it was in the codex with a warning built into the spell-lock: trust no one. Still, Oilcan had to keep to the truth. “We didn’t know that Unbounded Brilliance was Stone Clan domana until a few days ago. If he’d told his son anything about the spell stones or the esva, it was lost long ago.” Certainly they hadn’t been aware that the spells of the codex were inscribed on stones and could be cast remotely. His mother had taught him the domana finger exercises between rounds of patty-cake and cat’s cradle.

“How does your cousin know the esva then?” Mace asked.

Oilcan wasn’t sure but he could guess. “She probably saw Jewel Tear and Forest Moss cast spells and copied them.”

Forge laughed. “What did I say, Mace? We breed true — too clever for our own good.”

Iron Mace scoffed.

Forge glanced beyond Iron Mace and shook his head. “This is a war zone, Mace. You should keep your people closer.”

Iron Mace scoffed. “I’m safe here.” He waved to the nearly completed wall. “You have the passive protections in place and you are here with two of your Hands. I see no point at wearing my people to the bone. They have to rest sometime.”

“You would not have this problem if you took another Hand.”