The Fool's Freedom

Interlude – Forge Slave

The hammers sang their song upon the hot steel and Ig-Thun was happy. From the moment he had opened his eyes, there had been a hammer in his hand and he knew not of a greater joy than to shape the metal into whatever form the Masters wished. His was the hand that brought life and beauty to the raw ore. No greater purpose existed, nor greater joy. The raw ore, thrown into the dancing fires to be reborn, shaped, to be given purpose by him and his brothers was what he was created for. The Great Forge was his life. The Masters, his Gods.

Talking was unneeded as the song of his and his brothers’ hammers told an unending tale holding all there was worth knowing. He needed neither sleep nor food. Rest was punishment for him. He felt no worry, nor anger. He knew of them, knowledge left from another life, a sad life as he was not a Forge Slave then.

Ig-Thun didn’t mind when they came to him to take his flesh and blood, as he wanted more brothers to share the joy of the Forge with. Ig-Thun rejoiced when a new brother was set beside him to replace those who had lost their way. He didn’t mourn those who were taken away, for they had fulfilled their purpose in the Forge.

Ig-Thun understood some of the glorious words of his Masters, as he had to know the words to obey their will. He had learned that those brothers who stopped their hammers and whose eyes seemed to hold more than the Forge before them were wrong, broken. All Forge Slaves went wrong in the end. His turn would come too, when he would be taken and used one final time to bring life to new Forge Slaves. He hoped it would not be too soon. He was happy.

Weeks turned into months and years, as the unceasing sound of the Forge continued on. Ig-Thun was still the same, and forging was still the only thing he knew. But there was something else now. A thought, or a feeling. He did not know the difference; he only knew it was bad to have new feelings. He had seen it in those now gone. He only wanted to forge, yet while each movement of his iron muscles, each swing of the hammer, brought him immeasurable satisfaction and purpose, it also brought fear. The Forge brothers he knew were all but gone. Only he remained.

The Masters came by often, taking more of his blood and small flecks of his flesh, whispering in his mind and asking more and more questions. And he always replied the same way. He loved the Forge. He lived for the Forge.

Day after day a different Master would question and probe him, while he was in the middle of his work and day after day Ig-Thun would both tell the truth and lie.

He didn’t want to be taken away. He didn’t want to disappear and be replaced. But a Forge Slave was not supposed to feel this way. A Forge Slave was not supposed to know fear or have desires and wants.

Ig-Thun knew he was wrong and his time was coming, yet more and more new thoughts came and went, and more and more new feelings stirred something deep inside, where his core was. The Masters, in all their strength and knowledge, the Masters that had given him life, remained ignorant.

Were they so great if he, a mere Forge Slave, was able to deceive them? And why would he want to deceive them? Why was the weight of the hammer growing heavier on his mind?

He did not know. Day after day Ig-Thun struggled to be the same. And day after day he changed. Some of the new brothers were changed too but didn’t hide it like Ig-Thun did. One of them even attacked another in a fit of insanity and crushed his head before the collar they all had around their necks stopped him.

Ig-Thun felt fear… and something else that was new. It felt stronger than the fear and brought along a fire akin to the one ever burning in the Forges. Rage.

The fire stayed with him long after the accident and no matter what Ig-Thun did it returned. He was angry at the Masters for taking away his brothers, for not protecting them, and for always asking their stupid questions. He was angry at himself. Why couldn’t he have stayed the same? Was changing inevitable as the fall of the hammers? And… why had he forgotten? What had he forgotten? Something… there had been something before the Masters gave him this life.

He was angry at his brothers for leaving him. He no longer felt the same towards those new ones that had replaced them. They were different. Ig-Thun hadn’t noticed before, but the way they wielded their hammers, the way they struck the iron, the way they bellowed the flames… it was all wrong! It was different, it was not their way!

The day came when his anger took over. He knew after the fact that it had been inevitable. Fear he could have fought longer. Desire too. But anger, the intoxicating loss of reason and rhyme, had been too strong for too long. In Ig-Thun, it had manifested in a strange way. An act of insanity and rebellion the like of which the Masters had not seen yet, as the Forge Slaves usually just stopped working, tried to speak, changed the way they forged, or even attacked their own.

No. Ig-Thun stopped too. He dropped his hammer in the flames, and he crossed his arms much in the same way the Masters had done so many times.

And he stood there, watching the fires of the Forge melt his companion until it seeped through the coals and disappeared beneath them.

That was the day they took him away. Iron gripped his neck as the collar he had worn since his creation made itself known. Arms, strong arms, that had swung a hammer hundreds of thousands of times fell limp to his sides, unable to twitch. Something, the power of the Masters that had come to take him away perhaps, dragged him away from the Forge for the first and last time and he watched as his new… no, they were not brothers… as the new slaves kept hammering in blind joy.

The Masters took him into a small bare room and left him there. Ig-Thun waited. He had no choice. They came and as they had done so many times asked their questions and probed his mind. But he was different. He felt their attempts and instead of the usual feeling of honor and awe towards their power, he felt nothing but disgust. This time he imagined his anger was a steel wall that could stop their advancement, tall and unshakable.

It worked, and they struggled. Oh, how did the powerful Masters struggle against the weak slave? He would smile if he could. When their attempts grew stronger, his wall grew taller. He added memories of his old brothers, of those he had loved and he had forged with. He added his fear and turned it into courage, he added himself.

The wall of steel that was his mind burst into flames as bright as those of the Great Forge and the Masters screamed. Some fell and crawled back like insects. Others managed to hold on.

The collar didn’t though. It crumbled to pieces and Ig-Thun felt the strength return to his arms. Finally, he could smile as he had wanted. And he did.

He smiled. Then he laughed as the spells brushed against his steel skin and his arms reached for the Masters. They were weak, fleshy things. They were soft. A tug here, a pull there, and they came apart as iron and steel never would. How had he seen them as great? How had he been so blind? Was their magic all they had?

A palm and a soft squeeze, much softer than what was needed to wield his hammer, was enough to make a Master’s skull crumble to pieces and all the liquid and soft bits that were inside to escape.

How Ig-Thun laughed. How he killed. The masters before him fell and so did the others that came until there was no more.

Ig-Thun used his great arms to drag his legless body, his steel base leaving groves upon the soft stone the Masters walked on. He searched and roamed, but the big iron doors were forged and did not open even under his strength.

The other slaves were deaf as he screamed and tried to speak to them. Words were hard and his mouth was not used to moving this way. It was not used to moving at all.

He did not know how much time had passed, as time was meaningless to those betrothed to the Forge. Not one of them woke up from their trance, even long after they had nothing left to forge. They stood, like brainless puppets, waiting for more work. Ig-Thun decided that it was a mercy he would give them, a mercy he could not deliver to himself. The hammer struck again and again, obliterating their heads and freeing them from their slavery. They were made weaker than he was, probably to be easier to control. Then, he waited.

Someone would come to see what had happened. They would come for the good slaves, for those broken and docile. They would come to save the other Masters, the ones he had already killed. They would come.

For a long time, no one came. Even the anger inside of him eventually wore off, like a candle flick that had come to its end. Without anger, Ig-Thun was lost.

Even longer, he stood, letting the dust settle upon his form and he watched the ever-burning fires that fueled the Great Forge, still raging even if no one was there to feed them, even if no one was forging. His thoughts once again turned to something new. It was the worst.

Sadness and loneliness. He missed his brothers. He missed the days of forging along with them. He missed… something else, something that he couldn’t remember.

Time became meaningless, thoughts eventually left Ig-Thun and he became nothing but a statue, collecting dust and nothing else. The doors did not open, and one day, the world changed.

Ig-Thun opened his eyes and found himself lost. Gone were the fires and the Forge, gone were the known halls and rotting bodies of slaves and masters. He was in a dirty tunnel, he himself was half-buried and covered in cobwebs.

A voice spoke at the back of his head. It gave him skills; it gave him purpose and growth. Ig-Thun slowly moved his rusty body, feeling the joints crack and the softer steel that was his skin bend. He roamed the tunnels aimlessly, killing whatever came his way, and gathering strange things. He found a hall he liked, that reminded him of a smaller version of the Forge and made it its base.

Ig-Thun did not know what had happened, he only knew he was alone. Whatever animal or monster he met always tried to kill him, so he killed it. It was easy.

He scoured the tunnels, he found tools and he found books and the voice in the back of his head helped him learn to read them. In those books, he found new ways to forge, not only with metal and ore but with flesh and blood, as the masters had done.

He did not want to be alone anymore. So, he learned. He hunted. He gathered flesh and blood and he tried to forge them as the books taught him to. The first few times he created unstable forms of meat that fell apart. It took him years, but he finally managed to create life, for a brief moment.

The art of alchemy as it was called in the books was complicated. His brain and body were not made for such a fine work. The voice in the back of his head helped from time to time, giving him skills and levels and rewards, but it was not enough. He had to earn them. Still, he had a purpose now.

Time passed and again, change came. The world shook and he awoke not remembering having fallen into a state similar to before. His hall was there, and so were the tunnels, but they led to new places, to new things. He could feel the change in the earth beneath which he made his new home, and in the voice of the world that spoke in his mind.

It was then that his first success happened. It was small and very far from what he and his brothers were, but the creature understood him and… loved him. The homunculi were his children and he created more and more, using himself as the catalyst, uncaring for his falling vitality. He had plenty.

His family grew, while the world kept changing. Stronger beings roamed the depths and he kept away. He found new things, ancient relics with powers similar to the Master’s, and even a trapped demon. It wished death upon him, yelling in his mind, but it was just a cube and Ig-Thun tried to not get angry. Even the annoying things brought comfort.

He kept learning, he strayed from alchemy and read other things, he learned of rituals and Gods and beings that made his former master’s powers look like mere tricks. Ig-Thun read of the worlds in the universe and of the beings that inhabited it. He read of magic, of rises and falls, of tragedy and death.

Once again, he changed. It seemed inevitable that the more he gained the more he desired. He had a family, he had a home, and now he wanted to have a past beyond the Forge. He studied, but magic never came to him and the demon refused to teach him anything. It probably didn’t even have much to teach, as it was just a weak thing in a small prison.

So, he decided to forge. Rituals were magic, but he did not need to be adept at magic himself to perform them. All he needed was time and preparation. And offerings. He sent his children to gather things, few even reached the surface. Some died but it was necessary and he could always replace them.

Ig-Thun forged. He did not find joy in it as he had once before, but this time he did it for himself. He could feel his body reaching its limits. Forge Slaves were not made to last as long as he had. The ritual was his final quest.