Part 64

The forge is breathing. Like a living being.

Inside the iron mouth of the furnace, the fire lies in wait, sharp and restless. It licks at the darkness with a hunter’s patience. Its molten light, red and gold, spreads across the room. On steel, on scarred wood, and on those things that have endured silent violence for decades. Shadows climb the walls, then collapse again, never still.

Every surface tells a history. The long iron rods lean against the planks like soldiers waiting for orders. The tongs hang from hooks, their jaws blackened, their handles polished smooth, carrying the memory of hands from long ago. The hammers rest where they were last placed. Marks on their heads, the imprint of embedded palms. In the centre stands the unyielding iron anvil. The anvil bears the scars of a thousand blows, each strike a decision, each strike a moment of heat and will.

The air is heavy, filled with the smell of coal smoke, hot metal, and old ash. The scent clings to the throat, settles in the lungs, as if the room claims breath for itself, entering as memory. Somewhere steel hums, a faint, almost imagined sound.

Here time moves differently, measured not in hours but in temperature. Steel tells when it is ready by its colour. The furnace does not hurry. It waits. It knows that anything truly worthy of being made must first collapse in heat, in softness, at the edge of destruction.

And in the light of the fire, this room becomes more than a workshop. It becomes a border where raw material takes on purpose. And the fire, patient and eternal, teaches iron how to become something beyond itself.

At the edge of the city of Joremir, in this forge, usuf sits. Young, tall, and remarkably well built. There is a hard, indistinct beauty in his face that does not glitter in light but awakens in shadow. His eyes are like thick mist, as if in every glance he examines something bottomless. His long hair touches his back, a fine blue garment on his body. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up.

Usuf sits on a cold stone bench. At his feet rests an old iron pot, beside him a great shield, and behind him steam rises like mist from the furnace fire.

The bright noon light paints the city in gold. The blazing sun above throws down fierce rays, whose intensity makes the distant mountain peaks appear even clearer. And beneath it, a city crowned with chimneys. And from those chimneys, smoke coils lazily into the sky, making the clarity of the daylight even more mysterious.

In one corner of that stillness stands an old yet remarkably strong forge. The weapons hanging across the walls are silent witnesses, smelling of iron and marked by fire. The ash and old stains clinging to the forge door have not yet faded.

Inside this forge sits usuf.

Hamad has sent him. One single task. His words still echo in usuf’s ears, “Bring a pouch from the owner of the forge.”
Yes, the task is simple. But since it was sent by Hamad, the wealthiest man in this city and his genuine friend, usuf knows this pouch is not just any pouch.

But there is no sign of the owner of the forge.

Usuf waits. And the waiting stands in the thick shadow of the forge like a stone-cold anticipation.

The owner of the forge is an old man named Kufar. Once a royal blacksmith whose swords never rusted. Now at seventy five he walks with a limp, but in his eyes the fire still burns.

At last, Kufar entered, pushing aside the door curtain. In the rhythm of his walk, an unknown pain seemed to echo.

Usuf stood up. His chin was firm, lips pressed tight, his gaze wrapped in iron.

Kufar was about to say something.

But Usuf scolded him and took the pouch. He said,

"I told you, there should be no delay."

There was no anger in his voice, only a cold cruelty. This was that same voice which once stopped the sound of the shadow soldiers' horses on the hill above the city.

Kufar said nothing. He only held out the pouch.

The pouch was very heavy.

Usuf showed no interest in seeing what was inside.

The blacksmith workshop, filled with smoky activity, had turned into a living mystery. A hum of busyness echoed all around.

Outside, it was a harsh noon. The sun stood directly overhead, its light making everything shine. All around was silence. Only inside the workshop was the smell of iron, and from somewhere far away came a harsh sound, like the tune of a madman.

Usuf’s face was stubborn, and his eyes were deep. As if all the mysteries of daylight had gathered and hardened within his gaze.

Usuf’s horse stood waiting. Black, tall, with red lines in its eyes.

Usuf tied the pouch behind him and looked once toward the sky. There was still no question in his eyes, only the veil of duty. His hand touched the horse’s neck.

The horse made no sound, it simply stepped forward. And they set out toward home.

Under the noon sun, the journey began from the edge of the city. A single pouch, light, and an unknown future ahead. Far away, at the city’s peak, the wind seemed to whisper, “It is flowing, that day… the day when the old door will open again.”