used to whip up fear and resentment against humans.
The KUP had fallen idle since Esau’s mysterious disappearance several months ago, which also coincided with the Sons of Adam’s suddenly going to ground. It wasn’t really
I sighed and tried to push my worries aside. Canterbury and I had a lot of work ahead of us, and fretting about something I had no control over or say in wasn’t going to help us meet our deadline. Canterbury had been paid half the commission up front, and promised the rest upon delivery. Needless to say, the financial well-being of Canterbury Customs hinged on finishing the installation on time.
I would have to say that outside of falling in love and acquiring magical powers, joining the workforce has been the biggest change to my life since moving to Golgotham. After I refused to give up Hexe and move back in with my parents, I found myself cut off from my trust fund. No doubt my parents hoped I would wither up like a worm on a hot sidewalk. However, all it did was make me even more determined to stay put.
For the first time in my life I was living without a safety net, just like most Americans my age. Luckily I had a skilled trade to fall back on—in my case, welding and metalworking. I was also lucky that Hexe’s childhood friend Kidron was willing to put in a good word for me at Chiron Livery.
I’m not going to lie—banging out horseshoes on an anvil is hard, dirty work. After my first week, my arms were so sore I could barely lift them over my head and my left thumb was the size and color of a plum. But, instead of quitting, I took my first pay voucher and settled that month’s grocery bill. After six weeks, I was arm wrestling my coworkers on the line and no longer hitting my thumb on a regular basis. As much.
However, I will admit to being bored with the assembly line nature of the work and bummed there was no outlet for creative expression. But what bothered me the most was that by the time I got home, I was normally too tired to focus on my art.
Then, two months into my job as a blacksmith, I was approached by Canterbury and offered a job as a striker—essentially working as his apprentice. I jumped at the opportunity, as he was not only a well-regarded Master Smith but also a ferromancer.
One of the biggest misconceptions humans have when it comes to magic is that it’s like water from a tap, with the only difference being whether it’s hot or cold. The truth is, there are as many different variants of magic as there are specialties in medicine. For example, weather witches summon storms; pyromancers control fire; necromancers work dark magic using the bodies of the dead; and ferromancers shape and control metal.
While centaurs normally are without magic, Canterbury was quite literally a horse of different color, courtesy of a Kymeran father. While he could be a bit of a taskmaster at times, we got along very well together and I had become quite fond of him. In many ways he reminded me of my old art instructor at Wellesley, Professor Stobaugh, who had been the first to suggest I focus on metalwork rather than on the more traditional clay and stone.
Unlike the other businesses along Horsecart Street, Canterbury Customs did not have a proper storefront. Instead, it was located in Fetlock Mews, a dead-end alleyway situated between Perdition Street and Shoemaker Lane. The mews was lined with two-story stables that served as both places of business and homes for various centaurian farriers, wainwrights, and saddlers. Although Chiron Livery churned out most of the horseshoes used by the centaur and ipotane communities, there was still plenty of commercial business for those who catered to Golgotham’s carriage trade.
As I walked onto the shop floor, I saw my boss and mentor inspecting the armature for the wings of the clockwork dragon that took up half the workspace. The scale-model saurian was scattered about—a head here, a leg there, another leg somewhere else—like a classic car undergoing restoration. But in this case we were trying to rebuild a model that had not been seen on the road—or the skies—for over a thousand years.
Canterbury wore a leather blacksmith’s apron over his upper torso, as well as safety goggles, and kept his chartreuse mane short and tail bobbed for fear of flying sparks from his forge. Although he had the power to shape metal without the use of tools, he also utilized traditional fabrication methods as well, in order to conserve energy. After all, magic can be exhausting work, even for someone with the constitution of a horse.
“Morning, boss. Here’s that liniment you wanted,” I said, tossing him the bottle. “Hexe says to keep it off your Kymeran bits.”
“Understood,” Canterbury replied, catching the package with a six-fingered hand. “And don’t forget to punch in.”
I nodded my understanding and plucked my card from its slot on the “out” board of the antique time clock hanging on the wall and slipped it inside the slot in its face, accompanied by a loud “clunk,” then dutifully placed it in a slot on the “in” side of the board. It seemed a lot of trouble for a single employee, but Canterbury was a stickler for punctuality.
“Do you think we’ll make the deadline for the museum?” I asked as I opened my work locker and removed my safety gear.
“There’s no ‘thinking’—I
“What part of it are we working on today?”
“The right foreleg,” he replied, picking up the bar of steel sitting on the workbench in front of him as if it weighed no more than a two-by-four.
I watched in mute admiration as Canterbury stroked the metal as if it were a kitten, causing it to instantly soften beneath his touch. He then reworked it, like a potter at his wheel, with nothing more than his hands, teasing it into a new shape. Within minutes what had once been a simple steel bar was now the shin bone of a dragon.
Canterbury stepped aside, so I could pick up the piece with a pair of tongs and quench it in the nearby water bath. Although he had used his bare hands to shape the steel, the finished piece was as hot as if it had just been pulled from the heat of a forge. There was a mighty hiss and a plume of steam arose from the converted horse trough, as if the dragon we were assembling piecemeal was trying to communicate with us.
Once the tibia was properly tempered, I would then fit it into the articulated knee joint and weld it into place. After that we would construct the ankle and move on to the foot. In many ways, what I was doing with Canterbury was no different from what I had done creating my “action figures,” save that instead of scrounging salvage yards for found metal, I was working with a living machine shop who could literally fabricate any necessary part by hand.
“What about the skin for this thing?” I asked, as I pulled on my welding gloves. “It doesn’t seem right to send him out into the world with all his cogs and gears hanging out.”
“I asked the Curator about that. She said the museum would be providing an actual shed.”
I wasn’t surprised that they had a dragon skin that had lasted so long. Hexe’s mother had a suit of armor made from the same thing standing in her foyer. That shit’s hardcore. We continued to labor over the clockwork dragon for the rest of the morning, until Canterbury signaled it was time for lunch.
As I retrieved my lunch pail from my locker, a tall, good-looking man with blond hair entered the workshop unannounced. He was dressed in a full-length mink pimp-coat, an open-necked velour shirt, and a pair of extremely tight pants cinched by a thick, buff-colored suede belt. It wasn’t until the belt unknotted itself from about his waist and dropped to the floor, switching back and forth like the tail of a cat, that I recognized the visitor as Bjorn Cowpen, the leader of Golgotham’s huldrefolk, a council member of the GoBOO, and owner of several adult entertainment establishments located on Duivel Street.
“Good afternoon, Councilman,” Canterbury said, bobbing his head in ritual greeting. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“I’m in the market for a new carriage, Master Canterbury. Something suitably upscale, of course. Chiron tells me you’re the best in Golgotham.”
“Lord Chiron is most kind,” the centaur replied, “but not inaccurate. There is nothing my apprentice and I can not fabricate.”
The huldu turned to look at me as I sat at my workbench eating my lunch. “You have a female apprentice?”
