Had the worlds always been one way, or did the worlds also change, shifting and transforming?

A hammer’s pounding started up at the forge.

“Maybe we’d better go back,” I said.

“Blacksmiths have no love for cold mages, it’s true,” said Vai, “but we can use this to our advantage.”

“How is it to our advantage to have a blacksmith have no love for you, Andevai?” Bee asked.

“Why would you give speeches to gatherings of people, Beatrice,” he responded in exactly the same tone, “when so many are hostile to what you have to say?”

“Because I may change their minds if only they hear and understand the important things I have to tell them!”

“Just so,” he agreed.

Folk gathered to watch us approach the forge. Inside, the bellows kept pace, and the fire kept burning despite Vai’s halting twenty paces away. That was part of the blacksmith’s magic. A white-skinned man with a burn-scarred face and work-marred hands emerged, wiping his palms on a cloth. He spoke with a rough dialect, but I was beginning to get an ear for it.

“Ye is a magister,” the man said. “We like not having truck with yer kind, mage. Some of them mage House soldiers was a-coming through here yesterday. They carried the banner of Five Mirrors, but they had riding with them some men wearing tabards marked with the four phases of the moon.”

Vai showed no emotion, but it was all I could do not to react to the mention of soldiers from Four Moons House. The courier simply could not have gotten there and back so quickly.

“We thanked them kindly and showed them the road out of here. Yet they still went a-taking a lass and a lad and four stout sacks of turnips with them, as they are having the right to do. So if ye must take anything from our peaceful village, take it, and then with our favor, ye may walk out that road likewise, and be quick about it.”

“Perhaps I am the one the soldiers are looking for,” said Vai.

The blacksmith looked him up and down, for he was wearing his laborer’s clothes, having packed away the precious dash jackets. “Ye is a workman’s son, not a fancy magister.”

“I am a village-born lad, but I am a cold mage likewise. You know how it is with the mage Houses. They take what they want and bind it to them.”

“That, indeed!” said the blacksmith. The village folk murmured in agreement, as they would make interjections when a djeli told a tale. I could not help but notice that men stood in the front ranks with the women and children in a separate group at the back.

Vai went on. “Besides that, I have something to tell you. For many generations have blacksmiths and cold mages stood at odds. You know this to be true.”

“I know it,” said the blacksmith, and from within the crowd people echoed, “I know it!”

“Blacksmiths keep the secret of fire, and a dangerous secret it is,” said Vai.

“That’s true,” said the blacksmith, “but ye must be knowing it is no fit subject for standing out in the public square, to be speaking of such mysteries. Especially not in front of women.”

“There is a way for fire mages and cold mages to work together,” said Vai, “as I have had reason to learn in the western lands across the ocean, which are ruled by a people called the Taino.”

The blacksmith’s blond hair was shaved to stubble, although he had a long beard. He scratched his bristly hair now. “Ye speak like a madman. Why have ye come here?”

“I speak truth. We seek to escape the mage House. I admit we need food and drink, but that is not all we are about.” He glanced at Bee with a lift of his chin.

As in the game of batey, she took the pass. “Are you a free village? Do you rule your own selves? Or are you bound to a prince or a mage House, all that you have and your own labor and children besides chained by law and custom as their property? I know the answer from the words you have already spoken.” Some nodded, while others stared with frowns, wondering what path her speech would take. Perhaps they weren’t sure they wanted to hear such words from a woman. “You are not the only ones who dislike the tithes and chains by which people are bound. We are bound likewise, yet we fight.”

“How can ye fight?” said the blacksmith with a curt laugh. “Best to give them what they want and see their backs as they are leaving.”

“Words can fight when enough people know there can be another way,” I said.

Vai said, “Let fire mages and cold mages work together, and we can break down the power of mage Houses and princes.”