several hours at his task, losing all sense of time in his absorption with the metal Work.
At last Flint sighed, wiped the soot from his hands and brow with a handkerchief, and ladled a drink of water from the oaken barrel that stood by the door to his shop. As he stepped outside into the afternoon sunshine, a smile touched his face, easing the lines that crisscrossed his forehead. The path leading to his front door passed through a stand of aspen trees. Their pale, slender trunks swayed gently in the breeze, as if they were faintly bowing toward the dwarf, and their leaves rustled, flickering green and silver and then green again. His hand moved slowly to his chest, as if it might ease a heart aching with the beauty all around. And part of him still hurt with the Speaker's sadness.
But then Flint noticed a few traces of gold high in the trees, and he felt, deep inside, that same restlessness that had plagued him all his life. There was a coolness to the mornings now, sharper than the gentle coolness of the summer nights, and there was a heaviness to the gold of the late afternoon sun. And now the trees.
All of it spoke of autumn and carried his thoughts to Solace and the houses tucked high among the vallenwood trees. The leaves of the giant trees would just be showing the first touches of variegated colors about their fluted edges, he supposed, and he sighed again. Autumn was a time for traveling. He should be going home, where he belonged.
With a start, Flint found himself wondering if Solace really were where he belonged. He had settled there years ago more out of weariness at wandering than anything else, in those days after he had left his impoverished village to find his fortune in the world. And how was living among elves any different for a simple dwarf from Hillhome than living among humans? In either case, he was the odd one; he couldn't see that it made much difference. Besides, he thought, breathing the cool air deeply, there was a peace here he'd never felt anywhere else.
Flint shrugged and stepped back inside his shop, and soon the ring of his hammer drifted on the air.
Flint looked up from his work several hours later and saw that the clock-the one he'd made from oak, with counterweights fashioned from two pieces of granite-showed the time nearing the supper hour. His thoughts, however, were not on food or on the silver rose he was fashioning at the request of Lady Selena, a member of Porthios's crowd who'd overcome her distaste of dwarves shortly after she'd realized that 'fashions by Flint' were the new style among courtiers.
'It's time!' he exclaimed, put his hammer down, and banked the coals on the forge's furnace. Every few weeks he followed the same ritual. He splashed his face and arms in a basin, washing away the sweat and smoke of the forge. He grabbed a sack and, opening a hutch built into the stone walls, began filling the bag with curious objects. Each was made of wood, and Flint lovingly smoothed an edge here, polished a curve there. Suddenly, a figure, a shadow in the window, crossed his peripheral vision, and he straightened and waited. Another commission? His heart sank. He knew the elven children had been watching for him for days, watching for the dwarf who appeared on the streets every other week or so, presenting hand-whittled toys to every youngster in sight. He hoped no one would delay him now.
Flint thought he heard a scuffling outside and stomped to the doorway to check. But he heard and saw no one.
'Fireforge, you're growing old. Now you're imagining things,' he complained as he went back to loading the sack.
He felt a warmth deep inside as he touched each of the wooden toys. Metal was good to shape; it gave one a sense of power as the cold substance submitted to the hammer and took on shape by the force of the forger's will. But wood was different, he thought, stroking a wooden whistle. One did not force wood into a shape or design, the dwarf said to himself; one found the shape that lay within it. There was no time Flint knew greater peace than when he sat with a carving knife in one hand and a piece of wood in the other, wondering what treasure lay hidden within its heart.
'It's like folks are, my mother used to say,' he explained to his shop at large, which was as familiar to him by now as a close friend. 'Some folks are like this metal, she'd say,' and he displayed a metal flower brooch to the deserted room. 'They can be forced into line. They'll adapt. Other folks are like this wood,' and he held up a tiny squirrel, carved from softwood. 'If you force them, they'll break. You have to work slowly, carefully, to see what's within.'
'The key, my mother said,' he intoned gravely to a stone bench near the door, 'is to know which is which.'
Flint paused as though waiting. It occurred to him that a fellow who made speeches to his furniture probably had few friends. With the exception of the Speaker and Miral and the city's children, most elves were reservedly polite with him. But there was no one to slap on the back and treat to an ale at a tavern, no one to swap stories with, no one he'd particularly trust to protect his back on the open road.
'Perhaps it is time to go home to Solace,' he said softly, a look of sadness crossing his face.
Just at that moment, a thump resounded from right outside the door, followed by a quickly stifled 'Oh!' He paused only a heartbeat in his movements and tiptoed to the open portal. Suddenly, he leaped through the doorway, booming, 'Reorx's thunder! To the battle!' and laying about him with the carved squirrel as though it were a battle-axe. With a flurry of dust and a shriek of 'Tanis, help!' a wispy figure topped with ash-blond curls sped away between the pear trees and the aspens. Her turquoise playsuit mirrored the deepening sky of twilight.
'Lauralanthalasa!' Flint called, laughing. 'Laurana!' But the Speaker's daughter had disappeared.
The elf girl had called to Tanis, but Flint saw no evidence of the half-elf. Presumably, from Laurana's call, Tanis's afternoon archery lesson with Tyresian had been concluded.
Smiling, Flint went back into his shop. He was grinning still when he emerged, tossed the bag over his shoulder and bounded out the door of the shop. In the center of Qualinost, at the foot of the rise crowned by the aspen groves of the Hall of the Sky, stood an open square. It was a sunny place, bounded on one side by a row of trees that seemed to have grown especially for climbing and, on the other side, by a small brook spilling into a series of moss-lined pools. Between the two was plenty of space for running, shouting, and playing all sorts of noisy games. The square was a perfect place for children.
The sun had begun to dip into the horizon when Flint's footsteps brought him to the square. Dozens of elven children, dressed in cotton outfits gathered at neck and wrist and ankle, halted their games as the stocky dwarf stepped across the footbridge and into the clearing. The children stared at him, none daring to break the silence. Flint glowered, his bushy eyebrows drawn down almost over his steely eyes, and then he snorted, as if they were hardly anything to bother with. He marched through the square, his back turned to all their wondering eyes.
Finally, an elf girl dressed in turquoise dashed forward to tug at the dwarf's sleeve. Flint whirled, his eyes flashing like flint on steel. Oh ho! Flint thought, keeping his expression dour, so it's Laurana, is it? 'You!' he exclaimed. The other children turned pale, but Laurana held her ground. He continued, 'Were you spying on me?'
Laurana tilted her head, and one pointed ear tip poked out of her profusion of curls. 'Well, of course,' she said.
'What do you want?' he snarled. 'I haven't got all day. Some folks have to work, you know, instead of playing all the time. I've got to take a very important order to the Tower, and it's nearly sundown.'
The elf girl chewed on a pink lower lip. 'The Tower's the other way,' she said at last, green eyes sparkling.
Tremendous self-possession, Flint thought, for a youngling; must be the royal blood. Or else it was the figure of Tanis lounging in the background that gave Laurana courage.
'Well?' he demanded again. 'What do you want of me?'
'More toys!'
Flint looked amazed. 'Toys? Who has toys?'
She started to giggle and pulled on his sleeve. 'In the sack. You've got toys in the sack, Master Fireforge. Admit it. You do, now.'
He growled, 'Not possible.' But the cries of the children- 'Yes.' 'Toys!' 'Last time, I got a carved minotaur.' 'I want a wooden sword.'-drowned out his reply. They swirled around him like a multicolored maelstrom. 'Oh, all right,' he muttered loudly. 'I'll take a look, but the sack's probably full of coal. Just what you deserve.' He peered inside, hiding the contents from the children, who crept closer.
