The lower the sun sank, the darker the forest grew from the ground up.
Mujin stopped before a curtain of hanging vines. With the blade in his hand, he could cut through and be past them in two steps. Instead, he pushed the vines aside and ducked. A leaf caught on his shoulder and rustled.
Once through, he found thorns clinging to the cuffs of his trousers.
He picked them off one by one, then looked down at his blade.
It was a good blade. But the length best suited to trimming branches was different from the length best suited to thrusting through vines. Nor was there any reason to bend at the waist every time he cleared low grass.
The blade grew longer.
The two characters engraved at its base stayed as they were, while its tip extended a forearm's length. The handle lengthened too, leaving room for both hands. Mujin loosened his forward hand and swept the blade once through the air.
For its length, the tip turned lightly.
This time he shifted the weight toward the tip. The same blade pulled his wrist downward, its weight distributed for a powerful downward strike. When he drew the balance point back toward his fingers, the tip rose like a leaf lifted by the wind.
Mujin stepped forward and made a short cut.
The blade stopped exactly where his wrist stopped. Its length had changed, but it did not pull his body along with it. The balance he wanted settled at once within the steel.
“Then I won't have to change the handle, either.”
He laughed when he heard himself say it.
It was more than the handle. There had been years when, after finishing one blade, he would make several more for different purposes. Now he only had to change the one in his hand.
Still, he had no desire to combine every blade into one.
The thin spine of a fish knife, the weighty shoulder of a blade for splitting firewood. Each shape born of a different use had its own appeal. Being able to become anything was no reason to erase that appeal.
Mujin shortened the blade again. When it returned to the length he had first held, it rested comfortably in his palm.
He pressed the tip and bent it.
Below his thumb, the blade curved into a rounded arc. Its hardness remained the same. He pressed harder. The tip curled back toward the handle and formed a loop. Ordinary steel would have broken or twisted out of shape by now.
He let go, and the blade sprang straight with a clear ring.
Ting.
The small note spread through the forest.
Interest lit Mujin's eyes.
He remembered the feel of pulling a tape measure from the end of his workbench. The thin strip of steel could support its own length when drawn out, yet a finger pressed against its curved face would make it bend smoothly. It rolled back into its round case, then recovered its straight length when drawn out again.
He spread the blade into a long, thin strip.
Before the handle, the silver strip coiled like a snail shell. It formed a round stack about two finger joints across. He separated the surfaces so the edges would not damage one another where they touched. He left a smooth spine on the outside.
The blade shrank in his hand.
Mujin ran his thumb over the coiled edge. No corners stuck out. At the thought of extending it, the steel strip unfurled into the air. This time a long blade reached straight out, then split at the tip.
Two branches, then four.
He soon stopped.
There was no reason to spread blades wildly just to pass through a forest. Before the sight of multiplying edges, he pictured the vines that would catch between them and tear.
As he drew the split tips back in, another memory came to him.
An umbrella turned inside out on a rainy day. He had once taken one the hardware store owner meant to throw away and examined where its ribs had bent. Several slender ribs opened from a single point to support a broad surface. One rib was weak, but together they held their curve against the wind.
He restored the blade to its original shape and left it floating at waist height.
“I'll make that separately.”
Thin stems of metal rose from the ground.
The earth did not burst upward. Only what he needed slipped from the ore lodged among the roots. The stone stayed where it was. Iron and nickel gathered above his hand, and a strange silver-white metal lying far off on the mountainside reached him as a thin thread of light.
That metal held a repelling quality.
It was neither heat nor cold. Its grain sent pressure from outside flowing along its surface. Mujin mixed it with the iron. Rigid ribs became the frame, while the grain that dispersed impacts filled the spaces between them.
A round handle formed.
Eight ribs opened above it. A metal membrane thinner than cloth filled the gaps. Fully opened, it was wide enough to cover his shoulders with room to spare. The inside was matte dark gray; the outside had the muted sheen of a rain-wet stone.
Mujin raised it over his head.
When he lowered the rim a little, branches passed to either side without brushing his face. The membrane dimpled under their pressure, then quietly sprang back. The bending of the ribs never reached his wrist.
He tilted the handle forward.
The umbrella's curved surface flattened into a shield. The tips of its separate ribs locked together, and a thick rim formed around the edge.
He picked up a stone from the ground and tossed it lightly.
The stone touched the shield and slid off to one side. Only a faint tremor remained in his palm.
“It'll stop something a bit bigger than rain.”
A smile touched his lips.
He folded the shield. Its eight ribs gathered together, and the membrane tucked neatly between them. Folded, it was no bigger than a short rod. After leaving a small mark on the end of the handle, he held it to his waist. A thin loop formed along his work belt to hold it.
The blade needed a sheath too.
Mujin made a thin steel sheath to fit it. He shaped the inside to accept the blade smoothly when he put it away and hold it steady while he walked. When he drew it, there was no sound of steel scraping steel.
His waist felt a little better equipped.
Only then did he notice the tears still in the shoulders and arms of his work clothes. There were no scorch marks, but the places worn thin from long use remained. Evening air seeped into his sleeves.
He turned up his collar.
A drop of water fell from a tree and struck the back of his neck.
Mujin looked up. Water gathered on each broad leaf, left there from the day. If it rained, a person would get soaked just walking through this forest.
“I'll need an outer layer too.”
This time he drew the metal into thread.
The threads were so fine they were invisible until they caught the light. They felt soft as they passed between his fingers. He began weaving them together, then stopped.
Woven straight, they pulled when he stretched out his arms.
He knew well enough why the underarms of his work clothes tore. He wove the section from shoulder to back on the bias. When he reached forward, tiny loops tilted to give him room. Around the neck, he used loops flatter than the thread, widening the area that touched his skin.
The metal cloth spread behind his back.
Mujin draped it over his shoulders. The cloak fell below his knees and wrapped around his work clothes. Its hem swayed as he walked. There was none of the heaviness of wearing metal. It felt like adding a layer of dry linen.
He swung his arms in wide circles.
The front hem did not catch on his elbows. The collar did not press against his neck when he bent over. The upper shoulders were close-woven enough to shed rain, while the inner back left space for moisture from his body to escape.
He spread the faint warmth held in the metal evenly between its layers.
His chilled back grew warm.
It was not the heat of sitting too long beside a forge. It was the pleasant warmth of putting on a coat freshly dried in the sun.
Mujin lifted the end of the cloak before his eyes. The forest's green showed through its fine weave. When he pressed it with a fingertip, that spot hardened like a tiny scale, then softened back into cloth.
He pressed the hem against a rough thorn.
The thorn's point slipped off. Not a single thread came loose.
Satisfied, he nodded, then changed the color. Bright silver flashed too conspicuously in the forest. He darkened the outer surface to an inky shade and left only the faintest warm copper glow inside.
The glow showed like a sunset only when the hem turned over.
“I can afford a little style.”
There was no mirror.
He floated a palm-sized metal plate before himself and checked his face and shoulders. An unfamiliar cloak hung beneath a familiar face. Gray threaded his disheveled hair, and stubble roughened his chin. Even so, one piece of clothing made him look fairly presentable.
The cloak still needed a clasp.
Mujin started to make a round ornament, then changed it to the shape of a hammer. That was too obvious, so he changed it again. What remained in the end was a square scrap of steel smaller than his fingernail. He smoothed its corners and put a mark in its center.
He liked its plainness.
He kept the metal mirror too. After rolling its edge to remove the sharp parts, he slipped it into an inner pocket. The pocket itself formed inside the cloak as he needed it.
Thinking of what to put in it made his hands itch.
He made tongs first.
Their jaws opened wide without requiring him to curl his fingers far. He gave the tips for gripping small objects a fine texture. The inner surfaces for holding thick objects curved gently inward. Where his thumb and forefinger rested, the surfaces angled slightly apart to avoid the callus on his palm.
Next came a hammer.
A handle of familiar thickness settled into the right hand that had been searching the air for a hammer handle. Mujin closed his fingers around it without a word.
A solid weight filled the center of his palm.
It did not need to be heavy. But he liked this weight. It felt as though his body knew where to strike before he did. He made one face flat and the other slightly rounded. He flared the end of the handle so it would not slip from his grip.
Two characters appeared on the side of the hammer head as well.
Mujin set a small piece of steel on the flat face of a boulder. He could shape the metal instantly if he wished. Instead, he held it in place with two fingers and raised the hammer.
Clang.
The sound of struck steel rang through the forest.
Clang, clang.
The sound met the tree trunks and came back. Mujin parted his lips slightly. He had neither forge nor workbench, but as his right hand fell and his left turned the steel, he felt for a moment that he stood somewhere familiar.
Three more blows made a small hook.
He lifted it with the tongs and held it to the light. He left the hammer marks he had made by hand. After tidying only the grain on its inner curve, he fixed it inside the cloak. The tongs hung from the hook.
The hammer went on the opposite side of his waist.
He also made an awl, a fine chisel, and a short file. Each was shaped by small adjustments to the place his hands remembered. He set the gripping surfaces so his fingers would not strain needlessly, and gave every handle a different contour so he could tell how to hold it in the dark.
Once the small tools had found their places, Mujin opened and closed his empty hands.
He could make things even with nothing at all.
Yet carrying the tools made him feel he could go anywhere.
His stomach growled.
He looked down at it for a moment.
“Can't make that.”
The forest answered with a bird's cry.
Mujin walked on. This time the cloak's hem caught the thorns. He opened the folded shield to push up low branches. He had less need for the blade. It was simpler to lift living branches and pass beneath them than to cut them down to make a path.
Before long, the ground dropped away.
In the failing light, he first took it for a thick bed of fallen leaves. Black mud pooled where he had been about to set his foot. Beyond it, a fallen tree lay at an angle, and the sound of water came from below.
Mujin looked around.
He could have gone around to find a crossing. But there was no need to climb up and down the root-tangled mounds several times just to see the lay of the land.
A sheet of iron appeared before his feet.
It was wide enough to stand on with his feet together. He scored its surface with fine crosshatching so his soles would not slip, and curled its front edge up a little.
When Mujin stepped onto it, the sheet rose into the air.
It moved about a handspan above the mud. When he stopped, it stopped; when he turned, it turned with him. Black water passed slowly beneath his feet.
He looked down, then extended the back of the sheet.
There was no reason to travel standing up, either.
A low backrest rose. A seat curved in at a height that let his knees bend comfortably, and rims formed on either side for his arms. Mujin sat down.
“Nice.”
Wrapped in his warm cloak, he found the feeling of crossing the water thoroughly pleasant.
In the water pooled among the tree roots, insects made tiny ripples. As the sheet's shadow passed, a fish with a silver belly darted into hiding. Mujin slowed down. Being able to take a close look without wetting his feet was an unexpected pleasure too.
A low branch blocked the way ahead.
When he raised the sheet, the forest beyond the branch opened before him. He passed through the leaves and climbed to the middle height of a great tree.
The evening breeze washed over his face.
The treetops stretched along the ridge. Far off, thin smoke rose below a mountain peak. There was more than one plume. Several gray columns leaned in the wind and unraveled.
Mujin leaned forward.
There were low roofs beneath the smoke.
He could see a road leading down the mountain too: a dirt track that vanished among the trees and appeared again. The mere knowledge that a road existed changed how large the forest seemed.
He turned the sheet toward it.
He could have flown straight over the trees. But he had no intention of landing on a roof and startling the people below. He descended near the road. The sheet passed over the brush and stopped before a dirt track marked by two wheel ruts.
A bell rang somewhere.
It was not a clear bell. It was a small iron bell with a crack. Mujin sensed the shape of that crack before he heard the sound: its length and depth, even the place worn thin by years of striking.
Even so, he could not tell who had rung it or why.
He stood up.
People appeared farther down the road: a woman carrying a bundle of firewood on her head and a boy dragging twigs behind her.
The woman stopped first.
The boy stopped too, then saw what was beneath Mujin's feet and dropped the twigs.
The iron sheet was still floating a little above the ground.
“Mom.”
The boy's voice cracked.
The woman pulled him behind her. The bundle on her head tilted, and several branches fell.
Mujin lowered the sheet at once. He stepped off the broad plate once it touched the dirt and took a step back. Thinking that the folded shield and the blade at his waist might catch their eyes, he spread his hands where they could see them.
“I'd like to ask for directions.”
The words came out as they always did.
He understood the woman's reply too.
“Are you a mage, sir?”
Mujin thought for a moment.
Saying he worked with iron was not enough, and explaining what he had received in the middle of the road would be difficult.
“I'm a blacksmith.”
The boy peered out from beside his mother. His gaze dropped from the hammer at Mujin's waist to the plate by his feet.
“Do blacksmiths ride those too?”
“I do.”
The woman pressed a hand to the boy's shoulder. But he already had the look of someone who had forgotten the twigs he had dropped.
Mujin pointed to the fallen firewood.
“Shall I carry it for you?”
Instead of answering, the woman looked back and forth between him and the plate. He did not hurry her. Meanwhile, he raised a low rim around the iron sheet, just high enough to keep the wood from rolling off.
The boy picked up the twigs first.
“Can I put these on it?”
Mujin nodded.
The twigs went onto the plate. When nothing happened, the boy hurried to gather the rest and pile them on. The woman hesitated a while before lowering the bundle from her head. She straightened her bent neck and let out a small breath.
At that breath, Mujin widened the plate a little more.
“Is your home far?”
“Second lane inside the fence. If you're looking for the inn, it's across the well.”
Her answer was longer than before.
“Though I don't know if they have any rooms left. People have been passing through lately.”
“As long as they have food, that will do for now.”
The boy looked up at Mujin's face.
“Are you hungry?”
“Very.”
For the first time, the child smiled.
The three of them walked along the dirt road. The iron sheet loaded with firewood followed beside Mujin as he moved. The boy walked backward several times to peer under the plate. The woman warned him once that he would fall, though she kept glancing at it herself.
The wind blowing from the edge of the forest was cold.
When the boy rubbed his arms, Mujin moved the mirror in his cloak's inner pocket and loosened the fastening at his neck a little. Watching him, the child asked,
“Is that iron?”
“It is.”
“Aren't you cold?”
Mujin held out a corner of the cloak.
The boy looked at his mother. She gave a cautious nod. His small hand caught the hem, then quickly laid his whole palm against it.
“It's warm.”
This time the woman looked surprised.
“Doesn't it get wet, either?”
Mujin brushed a drop left from the forest with the back of his hand. It rolled off in a round bead without soaking into the cloth.
The woman touched her own damp shoulder.
“That would be good to wear when gathering wood in winter.”
Mujin remembered her words. That use would never have occurred to him in front of a city's clothes racks. Some of the people who wore cloaks also carried firewood on their shoulders.
“The shoulders should be thicker, then.”
“Pardon?”
“When I make a cloak like that.”
The woman gave an awkward smile. Then she looked again at the copper glow inside his cloak. Even after learning it was warm, she still found herself drawn to it.
The village fence drew near.
Yellow light seeped between the sharpened logs. Two men holding spears stood at the gate. One called out a name as though he knew the boy’s father, then saw the iron sheet carrying the firewood and fell silent.
The other man's spear point lowered.
Mujin stopped. He neither seized the spear nor bent it. He merely moved the plate carrying the woman's bundle to the side of the road.
The woman stepped forward first.
“We met him on the forest road. He helped carry our firewood.”
“Carried it? That's not…”
The man pointed at the floating plate, then swallowed the rest of his words.
Mujin spoke.
“I'm looking for a place to stay. I'll pay.”
He remembered that his pockets were empty. Silver in a distant vein beneath his feet answered him. A small lump of silver formed between his fingers. He did not even know what currency they used here, so he could not simply stamp out a coin.
A small mark remained on the silver's surface.
“Will this do?”
The gatekeeper's gaze fixed on the silver.
The boy was still looking beneath the plate. The woman smiled as she rubbed the shoulder freed from her bundle. All three looked at the same thing, yet each wore a different expression.
At last, the spear point moved aside.
The smell of baking bread drifted out through the gate. Mujin lifted his head without realizing it. Low houses stretched beneath the warm light, and someone was setting down a bucket by the well.
It was a place where people lived.
He moved the iron sheet laden with firewood through the gate. The boy led the way, pointing out the road to his house. With every step, the copper glow inside the cloak's hem showed briefly.
The blade at Mujin's waist swung comfortably.
He looked back at the forest where he had awakened holding a single blade. Even in the darkness, the grain of metal remained clear to him. Mujin rested a hand on the hammer handle, then let it go.
And he walked toward the smell of bread.
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