Ecdysis

Chapter 33. Parenting Hard

“Tell me, young daimon. If you are to sire a child with a wermage…will the child be a murk? Wermage? Or maybe something else entirely?”

Her eyes stared into mine as she brought the Orb higher. High enough to see the result without looking away.

“Something greater, perhaps?”

“No child of mine will be born…” the Orb flashed in denial, “…for the foreseeable future.”

Nanaya crinkled her eyes. “Accidents can always happen.”

I pursed my lips. “There will be no accidents. Aikerim Adal named me the Alchemist of Kiymetl for a reason. I will not sire a child while I am not free.”

“And yet my daughter and granddaughter are willing to bind you with my House. While Anaise might be young, naive, and rash, I would not have given Aikerim her personal Manor if I had questions about her ability. Moreover, she did not only approve this union but actively encourages it.

“These gifts of yours. Your compasses, spyglasses, dyes… I know that they will bring wealth to my House. Quite a lot of wealth, perhaps.” Her fingers brushed the trinkets on the table as her amber eyes glared at me. “But we are not that desperate! We are one of the richest Manors of Emanai and we achieved this status with patience and prudence. No, what my daughter yearns for you isn’t measured in gold, but power.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “There is more than gold in these gifts. They will reinvent seafaring as you know it.”

Nanaya dismissively swayed her tail as I spoke. “Spare me. I’ve heard such words countless times already. Every artisan that crawls into my palace to beg for gold would eagerly claim that her products would shake the world. What I did notice is the sudden growth of Aikerim’s magical skill.” Her fingers tapped on the table. “Bolstered by a certain daimon, perhaps?”

“You expect me to divulge my mistress’ secrets?” I asked rhetorically. “All that I can say is that her power is her own. If you wish to know Manoral spells, you need to talk to Domina directly.”

She scoffed, “Do not try to teach me the laws of Emanai. Or try to act stupid. You are yet to answer my first question — so?.”

“And I gave my answer right away. Right now my seed is that of a murk or even worse — it is weakened so that I won’t get anyone pregnant, period. Nothing more and nothing less.”

Matriarch scowled at my answer but didn’t say anything. The Orb of Truth was an insidious artefact, but it relied on my answers and I had no intentions of showing all my cards. Especially to her.

“Right… now…” she murmured, quickly picking up on the nuance. “Someone in your place would have been eager to sow his oats into a willing wermage of high status. And don’t give me that freedom excuse: we both know that a child of the Lady of the House would never be a slave. Yet you are stalling it personally, while continuing to enjoy Aikerim’s protection. No…she isn’t waiting for your children. That means her newfound skills.”

I rolled my eyes. “I do not know any Flow skills. I do not see Flow nor do I feel it. And, especially, I cannot control it. I have no Spark and I am a mu—”

“And you teach numbers.” Nanaya continued her thought without paying attention to the Orb of Truth. “Numbers that my brother, Virnan Shah, praises you for. That Al-Jabr of yours. Numbers that caught the eye of the Censor herself. I also read Aikerim’s letters about your knowledge. About the number system, that borrows symbols from the artefacts, and the bookkeeping system, that quickly solved any issues the new numbers caused.”

She spoke slowly, carefully choosing her words and mulling over each sentence before starting a new one.

“You have quite a glib tongue, young Erf, but I’ve seen your kind many times over,” the Matriarch concluded quietly and looked me in the eyes. “Do you know geometry as well as you know your numbers?”

I shrugged. “Some things cannot be compared. Especially since the more you learn about them, the more you recognise how little you actually know.”

“Are you being glib again?”

I spread my arms apart. “Aikerim Adal was quite insistent on what I should or shouldn’t say. To protect the secrets of the Manor, or something.”

She sat motionlessly on her couch, silently watching me, waiting for some crack in my posture that I would never give her. Nanaya Ayda was sharp enough to figure out the truth even with the faulty premise of me being a daimon. More than I was originally planning to divulge myself, but something that I expected to happen anyway.

The question now was whether that was enough to sway her mind and back Aikerim.

“Why do you seek the protection of my House?” Matriarch finally said. The Orb was once again in her grasp.

I sat across from her. “The same reason as many others, I would say. So that I can pursue my craft without being bothered by every single opportunist in Samat. I prefer to live a luxurious lifestyle but, rather than demanding it from Aikerim, I am willing to create the luxuries myself. Both for my own family and hers.”

“You gave her soap simply because you wanted to smell nice?” Her eyebrows rose.

“Exactly. My first task in this Manor was to wash raw wool: smelly greasy lumps of fur, full of dirt, dung, and sheep oils.” I grinned as I palmed my fist, cracking my fingers. “As you can imagine, I was not fond of such treatment.”

Her ears twitched as she understood my message. I’d shown her a glimpse of my strength today. Strength that she assumed I possessed all this time.

“I am of a sensible kind, however.” I spread my palms apart, wide open. “Instead of threats and demands, I brought gifts. Gifts that would make her notice me and make her richer in the process. Gifts that, even if my Domina was greedy and unjust, would still ensure I would not be sent back to the washing pits. Because she would need someone to make more soap.

“But, most importantly…” I leaned over and pushed the three nautical instruments closer to Matriarch, “I gave these gifts to learn what kind of mistress my Domina was. Was she wise to recognise the golden swan and patient enough to wait for golden feathers to fall on their own? Or was she greedy enough to pluck all these feathers at once, making her instantly rich yet killing the swan?”

Her tail shifted as she glanced down. “Did you ask her to marry Anaise at that time as well?”

“I asked her for protection. For safety to craft new things so that she could have them. Unobstructed by other slave overseers. Or her elder children, eager to deny what Anaise had rightfully claimed for herself.”

She understood my implication in an instant, although there was a certain bitter look for me likening Matriarch’s Amanzhan to Domina’s Amalric.

But, if the shoe fits, wear it.

“Who else is chasing you? As far as I could tell, there are more than ‘opportunists from Samat’.”

“Apart from the other Dominas of your House, you mean?” I immediately hit back. “Well, I can’t ignore Sophia Shebet Chasya, who didn’t appreciate being bested by your brother. The Esca, to a certain degree, but they have been largely dealt with. I have no external enemies — only those that see my golden feathers and find themselves eager to pluck some for themselves.”

“Like the mountain clans that would undoubtedly bother the entire Emanai once they hear of someone stealing Fulad?”

I scoffed. “First of all, my knowledge is mine alone. It was freely given to me and I have every right to share it with anyone I please. Second of all, I won’t be making Fulad. Not only do I not need it myself — I do have a head on my shoulders and can understand the risks. If mountain clans ever descend on Emanai, it would be due to the gossip and fear-mongering among your kind.”

“And what of…others?”

“I am not running from anyone from ‘above’.” I hid my smirk at my interpretation. “There are more like me out there than there are people in the entire Emanai. I am not that special or unique, just a bit unusual in these lands, that is all.”

The tail slammed on the couch as Matriarch scowled at her Orb. Cryptic and useless.

“I will call off Amanzhan Irada. Or any other Domina of Kiymetl. For I find your gifts to be worthy of consideration. But if you wish to see my granddaughter in your sadaq, you will need to try harder. I want to see your sincerity: your knowledge is the Manoral secret of my daughter, but you can provide your children to Kiymetl. And teach them in your craft.”

“Once Anaise is willing and I am free — there will be children, yes.“

“No. Those would still belong to Anaise and Aikerim. As Matriarch, it is my task to mend the rifts between all Kiymetl Manors. Preventing one from taking over the others. Whether it is the Manor of Amanzhan Irada…or the Manor of Aikerim Adal. I will pick appropriate candidates myself for you to sire children with.”

I sighed. “I do not think that my sadaq will agree to such inclusions.”

Some called politics prostitution. Aikerim did warn me multiple times but it still felt rather odd to discuss something like this so brazenly. Odd and unpleasant.

“Hold your horses, daimon. I am not just handing over my relatives for you to claim into sadaq; you will provide your seed and teach them. Nothing more.”

“Then you will wait and for a long time too. I will not entertain such ‘unions’ before my sadaq has my firstborn, including Anaise. And I will make sure that they are born at the most opportune time for them.” I got up and fixed my dress. “That is my unspoken promise to my wives and my unborn offspring. You can underestimate my gifts all you want, but I will not let you underestimate my children.”

“The gifts that need decades to bear fruit?” she asked rhetorically to my back.

I stopped in front of the door and glanced back. “Bring the Esca delegation to the Feast and see what happens, then. Have a good day, Matriarch.”

XXX

The visit to Domina didn’t help my mood. While Aikerim wholeheartedly agreed with me that Anaise and my sadaq would come first, she was less helpful about me being whored out for political babies. At least Matriarch didn’t call dibs on arranging my firstborn marriages. Although I had suspicions that it was already half expected and the only reason she didn’t say it out loud was that by Emanai standards these dibs already belonged to Aikerim and Anaise.

Everyone wanted something in return. While some preferred to grease their palms with gold, others tried to lather their cunts with spunk. Or both.

It would have been easier if all she wanted was to jump on my dick for a bit just because she could — it wouldn’t have been the first time that I’d traded a bit of my pride to gain something more important in turn. But this was about the futures of my children. Emanai child-rearing and early education were barbaric by my most optimistic views and they had zero idea how to raise ‘nanite-positive’ children. Well maybe they did — based on their lore about daimonas who were born with adult hearts — but I had little trust in their centuries-old stories about their freaks of Flow.

Nor was I planning to let Nanaya raise my children by Emanai standards of culture and morals. Wishing for a Utopian world where no one had to work, men could dance and paint, women could study sciences, and everyone had at least ten slaves granted to them by the state. How progressive!

No. I would raise all my children with my morals in mind. Lif would kill me if I ended up as the reason some nanite-wermage Genghis Khan bathed this world in blood with their power over tech and magic.

I walked into the bio-printer’s room and immediately extended my already-tentacled arm. A slight feeling of frisson and I felt myself connecting to the organic machinery in front of me. Myriad of reports ranging from the important ones about nutrient supply and gestation estimates to mundane data about room temperature. I shrugged them all off — all systems were nominal — and thought of the new commands.

A familiar handshake thought and a new wave of reports flooded my brain. Images of tools and constructs with the corresponding memories of their uses and characteristics. I had to pick carefully: the bio-printer had three mature wombs and one was already in use.

It spent most of its developmental time creating multiple glands for specific bulk products. They were the source of spider-silk and other fibres as well as multiple oils, resins, and lubricants I was bound to use in the future. Living tech was too obvious and I had no plans of making it in bulk. Easier to explain a sudden appearance of a ‘magical’ thread rather than the huge spider that can knit socks in its spare time.

I thought approvingly at the image of a huge dragonfly, feeling one of the wombs quickening with action, and checked on my earlier request. The embryo was growing well and soon I would find myself in possession of a cuddly yet slimy worm with too many teeth in its mouth. Perfect for wound debridement, ointment secretion, and many other medical uses I was bound to need in the army.

And the ideal thing to have around if Irje should find herself stabbed once again. Or if the upcoming days ended up rather hot and required me to engage in more aggressive actions: it was always easier to fight when no one was dying in my arms.

Disengaging from that process, I continued my search for something more…aggressive. The bio-printer was not exactly a military-grade technology, especially the one from shuttle stockpiles, but there were some ‘options’. Every ship required maintenance tools and other gear designed to make hard and tedious tasks a little bit easier by using a splash of power from a nearby power source.

And some of them had a bite.

I grinned to myself as the bio-printer formed the second zygote — Lif always found it enjoyable when I was personally trimming her.

These two would undergo a different gestation process. Instead of slowly growing inside the bio-printer, they would be laid as eggs first. A rather costly process but it would allow me to keep them on me at all times and hatch them even if I was far away from here. By my own free will or not.

With another ‘peace of mind’ project initiated I allowed myself to sigh in relief and detach from the busy tree in front of me. It would need a significant increase in nutrients to support the new demands, however. Yeva needed to be informed.

Unfortunately for my plans to speak with my dear wife, I was accosted by an angry gremlin first.

“Stop hurting my Yeva, you brute!” Vera swung at me with a recently picked-up tree branch.

“Er…what?” The statement was so absurd that I completely ignored the waving stick. She was still a child anyway and had little force behind her swings. Feeling still at loss I glanced at the other two adults nearby.

We were at the clearing beside the blast furnace. The process was in full swing and the furnace was tapped a few times to drain metal and slag: workers already knew what they were doing and there was a pile of red-hot pig iron bars cooling to the side. It hadn’t been long since Isra and Yeva could step aside and observe, rather than teach by example.

Probably why Vera was here: the little limpet noticed the opportunity to cling again, no doubt.

At least Isra looked as confused as I was. Yeva was amused.

“I heard it all! You were fighting her all night and she was crying really hard!” Vera wailed out loud, making me cough awkwardly.

“Look, Vera…how am I supposed to explain it.” I tried to dodge the swinging branch while frantically constructing the ‘birds and the bees’ talk. “When a man and a woman love each other very much-“

“I know what sharing a bed means!” My shin got smacked once again. “You lay together when the sun sets and then you go to sleep apart. And you were slapping her!”

“Yeva!?” I begged. “A little help here?”

“Oh I don’t know if I should be helping brutes,” Yeva mused with that tinkling laugh of hers. “After all those things you did to me all night. My, I might be having trouble walking even now.”

Isra just stood there silent and slightly red. Unsure whether she should be doing something in this situation or not.

I pouted; no one was on my side anymore.

Yeva smiled and crouched in front of her defender. “Vera, do you remember when I gave you a strawberry before dinner? Just one to see if you like the taste.”

The vicious attack froze mid-swing as the gremlin gulped. “Maybe?”

“Remember how I found you all red and strawberries gone?”

These words made Vera look away and shuffle her feet. “Umm, I wanted to try some…”

“Yes, you did.” Yeva smiled. “And then you wanted more and more and suddenly all the strawberries were gone.”

“Sorry…”

She ruffled her hair. “Well, I wanted to share the bed with my husband. Then I wanted some more and more and then it was already morning.”

Well, that was rather blunt. Although when I thought back about it, children in Emanai were rather familiar with procreation. Especially on the farms: animals weren’t hiding it and living in cramped communal spaces meant very little privacy for everyone around. I saw plenty of fucking among the slaves when I was a kid myself. Willing or not. My main concern at that time was mostly about the noise interrupting my sleep rather than some moral issues.

“You mean you aren’t angry at me eating berries?” The kid picked up on the most important part of the statement.

“Well, I am not hitting you with branches. Am I?” Yeva smiled through the blindfold.

Vera looked down at her weapon, scowled up at me, and threw it away with a huff. Some rivalries were hard to put aside, it seemed.

“And apologise to my husband.”

“Do I have to?” she immediately whined.

“Vera.” There was a sudden seriousness in Yeva’s voice. “While you are my helper — he is the master of the estate. Just because he treats you well does not mean you are allowed to abuse it. Think what would have happened if this was your previous overseer.”

The kid visibly shrank. “I am sorry.”

“Good girl. Remember — you can talk to us. You can argue and it is okay to be wrong: you are young and still learning. But I will not let you grow stubborn and prideful just because you think that you will get away with it under my protection. Do you understand?”

She nodded with a sniff.

“Good. Since you properly apologised, why don’t you run to the kitchens? I think Aziz still has some berries left over.”

That was a temptation Vera couldn’t ignore. Sparing us with a final scant glance, the munchkin scurried away.

Isra coughed awkwardly.

“So, Isra, how do you find the new furnace?” I asked right away.

“Can I speak honestly?” Receiving my nod, she sighed. “I find myself conflicted. I see the metal flowing and there is quite a lot of it but…my senses are screaming at me.”

The minotaur waved at the makeshift air pumps that constantly pushed air into the furnace. “All my life I was taught to be careful with bellows, not to overfeed the fire lest I end up with short iron. You, on the other hand, asked Wrena to make you that! It all feels completely backward to me. And the quality of this iron…”

Isra shuffled through her apron and pulled out a piece of pig iron, broken in half. “Well…it is short iron.”

“Your senses are correct, Isra Haleh. If that is what you call ‘short iron’ then yes that is exactly what we are making here. Obviously, the process is inefficient and we will modify the furnace further, but the product will not change. We will make these air pumps out of iron, so that they can blow hot air instead, and keep ‘short iron’ hot and liquid rather than let it cool into bars. This is not the final product — this is a blank that still needs to be turned into a sword.”

“There is another furnace, remember?” Yeva added as well.

“Ah, right! So it would take this iron and turn it into steel?” Isra sighed with visible relief.

“Tool steel, weapon steel, or anything in between.” I shrugged. “Remember our previous conversation about what makes steel steel? Well, the ‘short iron’ is loaded with carbon, the next step will somewhat reverse the process and lower the carbon level in turn, leaving us with the actual product we are seeking.”

“You know, you could have asked me this too; you didn’t need to wait for Erf to come,” Yeva said.

“Well…I wasn’t planning to at all…” Isra coughed. “But after seeing you with that kid, I thought I could.”

“Yes, you can. I know that our relationship has seen some ups and downs but you will always be able to speak your mind around me and voice your concerns if you have any. While I want you to keep silent about my secrets, please speak up if I am about to sit down directly on a glowing-hot secret.” I edged closer and whispered conspiratorially. “Just don’t tell my wives; if they hear I was about to brand myself I would be the butt of their jokes for days to come!”

Isra chuckled a bit stiffly but sighed with relief once she saw an amused Yeva to the side.

“So you are saying that you used coal to remove ‘air’ from iron ore and now you will use ‘air’ to remove ‘coal’? This sounds…I am sorry.”

I laughed. “Don’t be! Because you are absolutely right — it does sound weird. But there is a trick to this madness. You see ‘iron’ and ‘air’ make rust or iron ore, while ‘iron’ and ‘coal’ make different steels, cast iron, wrought iron, and short iron. Both of these groups are usually solid. Or liquid, if they are hot enough. Coal is solid as well. But what do you think ‘coal’ and ‘air’ make together?”

Isra blinked. “Well smoke.”

“Exactly — smoke. And the first thing smoke does is fly away if you let it.”

“So you go back and forth and let impurities fly away like grain shells during threshing?”

“And if something doesn’t fly away that is what limestone is for — it soaks up the rest and is subsequently poured out as slag to the side.”

The bells tinkled on her horns as she looked at the furnace once again. Just as the workers were pouring a new charge of ore, coke, and limestone in.

“Will the other furnace be just as fast?” she whispered, wide-eyed.

“No. But it would be leagues ahead of folding and re-folding metal until a sufficient amount of carbon is burned out. These bars will be melted once again but in a reverberatory furnace that will keep them far away from burning coals. There you could slowly mix the ‘puddle’ and let the extra ‘coal’ escape into the ‘air’.”

“Erf,” she whined, “just tell me how fast!”

I shook my head and did some calculations. “You remember when we talked about getting you a proper steel anvil, one fit for your size and stature?”

I was lifted, shaken, and overall rattled. “Yes! So how long? A tenday!?”

Yeva coughed.

Her hands suddenly let go and I fell with an ‘oomph’ sound. “I was thinking about two or three of these per day, actually.”

“By the Three-Horned Gods,” Isra whispered, looking at the ever-growing pile of pig iron bars. Only to cautiously glance at The Divine Castle and wipe her hair tori in reverence. Her rings were made out of silver.

Yeva picked me up and dusted off my khalat.

“You really are soft with children. Both small and large,” she whispered. “How was the meeting by the way?”

“I broke her down, it is my duty to build her back up again. Especially after she pledged her loyalty to me. About Matriarch…” I sighed. “She wants my children.”

Yeva glanced sharply at me and I shook my head. “I made it known to her that my sadaq takes precedence whether she likes it or not. She agreed to call off Amanzhan but we might still end up with a scorned Matriarch instead.”

“That does not sound very promising…”

“No, it does not. Are Irje and Anaise still training in the field? I think I should head out there. Get my armour properly runed and ask Anaise to show me some wermage spells in action. Perhaps I might come up with some ideas there, or just get some additional practice.”

So much to do…

The Divine Ritual was fast approaching and I still needed to tinker with my lithoscanner. At least so that I could get proper reference blanks for Isra with a precisely measured Iron-Carbon content. The whole ‘origin of magic’ would have to wait until my smith could mass-produce armour steel.

So little time…