Forge Home Quicksearch Advanced Search Random Story Upload Story Upload Help FAQ   Forge by Swiss Title: Forge Author: Swiss (dragonswissarmyknife@hotmail.com) Characters: Iolaus, IolausJr, Hercules Challenge: #22 - Forge Summary: A little son learns some things from his father about fire, and about life. Because the idea of Iolaus the blacksmith is intriguing, and because his poor surviving child isn't even cannon enough to have a name. ~ His father taught him about fire. He'd had to, since that was how his papa made their living. And since his mama was gone and someone couldn't watch him every day, he spent a lot of time playing at the edge of the forge's heat, just outside or inside that temple of flame. In fact, one of his first memories was of that familiar workroom bathed in dancing shadow, the white-hot dancers in the basin hazy to his infant eyes. And the warmth, like a blanket that cuddled him in his basket, while his father's mellow voice sung sweet and strong, lulling him beside the crash-bang tempo of a hammer and bellow. Thus his first lesson was that fire meant home, safety, warmth, and his father. It was the very best lesson. ~ The second thing he learned about fire was that it burned. His father took him over to the fire-breathing portal, pointing out the tools to him, and the flame - to the panting fire and luminescent ember. "You don't play here," he'd told him, stern as wrath. Surprisingly sternly, because that wasn't usually his way. "It will hurt you if you touch it," the man said again, and he spread his hands for the child to see. Scores of marks climbed the interior of war and work-worn fingers. Shallow, shiny groves crisscrossed his palms and wrists - some old and pale, but many a living, livid red; swollen, waxy, and painful. "Oh," the little boy had moaned, reaching reflexively to sooth the wounds. But when he moved his father had caught his wrists and gently turned the little hands up to the forge's light. They lay cradled there in the cup of his papa's brown fingers - clean, baby smooth, perfect. "I want them to stay like this." The rough pads of his father's thumbs gentled his delicate digits, warmed tiny half-moon fingernails and his soft, unbroken skin. "Don't go near the fire without me," he told him. He was using the important voice, and Acteon listened as though a god was speaking. His papa said, "Don't go near it, until you're big enough that I can show you how." ~ Acteon watched without a sound as his father prepared the animal, neatly carving it and arranging their offering on the small woodside alter. It was a simple stone-hewn thing, but well worn with hands and fragrant with hunters' prayers. Klonus, his friend - an age mate and almost cousin - touched the rust stained top tentatively, scrunching his nose in disgust. "Ew," he commented definitively. And his father grinned, rolling his eyes where only his son could see. "It's a way to say thank you, and ask for blessing before a hunt," his father explained patiently. Unconvinced, Klonus stood shaking his head. "We don't do this at my house. We don't pray to the gods." Again, that secret `boy's-too-like-his-father' smile, before out loud he said, "Yeah, Herc's damn stubborn that way. And you'll notice that your family eats a lot of tasty stewed cabbage." The boy opened his mouth to speak, righteously outraged, but then seemed to think better of it. Loyalties aside, he could hardly refute that they might all starve if it wasn't for Uncle Iolaus, however much the gods had to do with it. Acteon felt a deep pride in his father, knowing his skill. He was learning too; already his father had taught him to set the rabbit snares, though the intricate weave of ties were sometimes still to difficult for his inexpert fingers. Both boys looked on in reverent silence as the older hunter lit the flame and the offering was consumed. Father and son folded their hands, and the son of the son of Zeus reluctantly followed suit - suspending his disbelieve because of a wholly trusted mentor, but still a bit anxiously as though breaking a rule. Acteon listened to his father's litany to Artemis - soft and measured, a well learned psalm - and watched the smoke curl up to the heavens while the fire crackled merrily below. The aroma rose too - woodsmoke, animal hide, and fresh meat. Together a perfume to those that filled their table and lived their lives on the paths of the forests. Fire, he learned, was for sacrifice. And it could carry prayers. ~ Fire purified. Often, the son would watch his father about his trade. He would sit on the barrel just outside range of the sparks, and take in the muscle-rolling, back wrenching labor. A heating, pounding, cutting, crushing, tempering, clashing panorama of cacophony and toil. He though this father moved like a bronze god - straight out of the stories. He was all fluid grace and economy of movement; the easy, lifetime-trained smoothness of an athlete and warrior. Acteon liked to watch him, his father's lines so bright, even under the tough leather apron and second skin of sweat. He liked to dream that he might grow up and be like that someday. Something special. Sometimes in his watching - the movement and the tools and the works they made - his father would tell him things about his craft. Once he'd been commissioned for something special, a job from one of Thebe's lords, and he'd demonstrated the way the intense heat made the metal burn like the sun, how it straightened and perfected, the smoothing lines and true colors. He'd told his son about refiner's fire, a metal worker's truest parable. Curious, Acteon had pointed out the pile of slag to the opposite of the completed craftsmanship. His father told him, "Some metals just aren't worth working. The fire tells that too." It bothered him, and he said so. He thought it wasn't fair. But his father wasn't one to soften reality. He told his son - gentle but firm - that very little about living was fair, but that was the way it was. It was where value came from. He'd caught the metaphor perhaps better than his father expected. He asked, "Can you chose to be special?" The lines of the man's face grew pensive and thoughtful. Finally, he said, "I'm not sure, Acteon." It had disappointed his child, and the boy had started to turn away. Only to find strong arms gripping him, dragging him close. His father's eyes burned then, like a prophecy. He finished, "But, I think that you can." ~ Fire was complicated. It hurt when it helped. He remembered an anatomy lesson, an old hunter's trick. He'd brought home an animal, an injured baby fox that he'd found mewling somewhere while he was playing. The long gash had trailed the little canine's whole inner thigh. Blood had poured out, hot and heavy. "Blood is your essential stuff - it keeps you alive," his father told him. He'd pressed his child's small hand over the trembling creature's breastbone, let him feel the flutter of the racing heartbeat. He showed his son the pulsing artery, carefully pinched off while he heated his knife. "This is the important one, the one we have to close off to save him." Acteon had held the weak, struggling creature while his father did the deed. He'd held the panting, heaving animal, petting him compulsively. "He's crying," he'd said, a little tearful himself. His papa had nodded, grave but so sure. He'd soothed, "It hurts, but it's good for him. Things are like that sometimes." He thought he understood the lesson, but he hadn't, not really. He was benevolent to most all creatures, but the little fox had only been a pet. The real day he experienced the awful healing, hurting power of fire was the day he'd watched it used on his father. The men had been on a trip, just a short adventure with Uncle Hercules. Acteon had been staying with Klonus and Aneson when the two men had come tumbling home. "Papa!" he'd cried when his father came in limp under Hercules' shoulder - boneless, breathless, and streaked sanguine. Oh, it was everywhere, tracked down his side. Instantly the floorboards were wet with it, and more with each heaving breath, each pounding heartbeat. "Keep him back, Klonus," Hercules had snapped, and Acteon was pulled crying to the edge of the room. He watched the adults save his father, somewhere amidst the horrifying screams and writhing. "It hurts, but it will save him," he said it to himself. But he still would never forget the way his father looked on that table, or the smell of jagged, black, and sizzling flesh. ~ The last thing he learned about fire was that it ate up the dead. When he was four, a sickness spread through the village, a terrible thing that made people burn with fever and blisters, infection, fluid, and finally death. And it spread like the plague. The men burned the bodies in piles outside of town. He'd seen the wheelbarrows, caught sight of the dangling arm of a little dead-eyed boy before his father pulled him inside. "Papa," he had cried, helpless with confusion. And his father had cradled him against his shoulder, murmuring. He'd buried his face in his father's collar, and tried to smother the aroma of burning and human flesh under the safer smells of leather, cedar, outdoors and ash. "Fire purifies," he father reminded him, whispered soft. Some days later when the memory hadn't left him, his father told him more, "That's why they burn them, to keep the sickness away." The child must have whimpered, because his father had soothed him, "Hey," he said, brushing back the uneven bangs, "Dying is part of everybody's life, the last part of our journey. Heroes and warriors and kings are burned by fire too. It's an honorable thing." But there must have been disbelief somewhere in his expression, some residue horror. Because next month when his father had gotten a message, he packed a bag for his son too. "We're going to Corinth," he'd said, and they had. An old companion, an Argonaut, had died. The ceremony had been different than the mass, gloryless pyres. There had been stories of good deeds, flags, friends, and songs. There was sadness, of course, but Acteon though it was dim - that maybe the warmth of the fire tempered the grief. Uncle Jason held him while his father went to the bier and paid his respects. He watched, his eyes on the light from the fire, tangled in his father's hair. And he remembered looking into the flames, and wondering, `Will that ever be me?' ~ Iolaus gave his small son up to the fire, because he couldn't bare the thought of laying his fair, beautiful boy in the dirt, and covering him with cold earth. In life, the child had been alight, and there seemed a tragic rightness that he'd find his way to his mother, his nameless brother, in an equal breath of fever and flame. His little boy. Hercules' hand was a weight on his shoulder, silently peering into his face as the tears made tracks in the ash streaked grime. His friend had had to pull him back as the body went up, because nerveless and stricken - or perhaps ready for his own death - he had almost been unable to let go of that small hand. So many times he had held it, a perfect fit in the pocket of his own. He hadn't want to let go, and Hercules had to brush the growing smolder from the front of his vest. "Iolaus," the bigger man called to him softly. Hours later, when the women had long gone and he was left alone with the husk of his child. Not quite alone, "Iolaus, it's cold." Hands - gentle, insistent pressure turning him from the pyre. A palm against his forehead, against the side of his face, "You need to come inside," the demigod led him gently; a lamb, a phantom, a wraith half-awake. "It's freezing." The irony struck him across the face sharply enough to knock loose another river of tears. Iolaus chocked on a hollow, hallowed, gurgling sob. He cried. No, he thought, he wasn't freezing. He was burning. He had burned up with his child.   Please post a comment on this story.