Oderica the Smith
This bonus chapter for Among the Burning Flowers was originally written for Waterstones. It can be read at any time.
The first complete account of the creation myth of Yscalin and the legend of Oderica Vetalda, as collected, annotated and translated by Jannart, Duke of Zeedeur, in CE 970
I will make known a legend true.
The first of our gods was begotten of Erto, the broad land that endures our steps.¹ Silence reigned and all was cold, but her own burning heart kept her warm, like a hearth. Indeed, so hot burned Erto that Hemin, the vast sky above her, sweated and thundered from the rising heat; his belly was charred as he slept. When he could stand it no longer, he drove his mighty silver anvil upon Erto and broke her skin, so violently that sparks flew back to him to form the stars.
Erto convulsed in agony. The sweat and tears of Hemin rained down and flooded her wounds, and so formed Mari, the sea, who vowed to his father Hemin that he would calm Erto. Once more Erto shuddered, and from her deepest scar came forth her daughter, Anbaura, who loomed over the land.
Anbaura looked upon the barren waste of Erto. All was shattered by the anvil, the cold waters of Mari filling every open wound. She reached within herself and formed a blade of divine gold, quenching it in Mari, so it might drain some of his strength. With it, she carved high places his waters could not reach, but still he attempted to cover all Erto, spurred on by his incensed father.
To guide his son in the darkness that benighted all, Hemin forged a silver lamp that only Mari could behold. In her blindness, Anbaura drove her blade into Erto, and Erto quaked anew, forming the Nine – great stone giants like Anbaura, rising up from the deep chasms.
They rose from her scars, mighty giants of stone, among them Fruma, firstborn and strongest; Sibunda, the seventh and wisest; and lastly Niunda, the ninth, the wrathful.
The Nine reached into Erto and drew forth molten fire. Niunda, the highest, hurled it into Hemin. It glowed like an ember in him, outshining the silver lamp, yet still Mari drove onward.
At last, Anbaura faced Mari alone. She broke her own body into a torrent of salt, so much that Mari could not devour it all, for Niunda’s fire was burning him away.² At last, he accepted bitter defeat.
Erto mourned her daughter, who lay unmoving upon her. Trying to wake her, Erto began to turn, over and over. Pitying her, Hemin offered peace at last. For half the day, the great blazing scar in his body – our sun – lit her face, reminding them both of their battle. For the other half, the silver lamp glowed, guiding Mari to the shore, from whence his waters turned away.
❀
Fruma, firstborn of the Nine, grieved for selfless Anbaura. In his solitude, he carved small figurines out of the clay of Erto, dampened by the war. He filled these carvings with the salt of Anbaura, laced them with his own copper, and soon they began to walk on Erto. These were the first Yscals.
The Yscals loved their creator, but Fruma was so weary from the war that he doubled over and fell asleep. Soon his siblings followed. His children never stepped upon his slopes, not wishing to disturb his rest.
For many centuries they lived in peace beside the slumbering Nine. Erto was quiet, and Hemin gentle with his rains, and Mari never trespassed on the Yscal-land that Anbaura had crafted.
Then came the Gulths, the warriors from the North. These were cut from ice, not clay; some had manes as red as blood.³ They climbed on Fruma, built a tower on his back, and struck him with hammers. Fruma rumbled in his sleep, but did not wake, even as he bled rivers of copper.
‘We must not allow this,’ the Yscals agreed. ‘They are breaking him to make their swords, so they may conquer Yscal-land.’
And so the Yscals marched to war, leaving behind their young and frail. Among those left behind was Oderica, tall and strong, black of hair.⁴
‘I wish to fight,’ she told her chieftain. ‘I am skilled in the art of the spear.’ ‘Thou canst not fight,’ he answered. ‘Thou must stay beside thy hearth and look after thy brothers.’
Eight brothers had Oderica, all younger than she. Their mother had marched to war against the Gulths. Oderica tended the hearth and hunted deer to feed her brothers.
Then came word of a grave loss. The warriors had been taken or slain. Oderica was filled with fury.
‘I wish to fight,’ she told her chieftain. ‘I am skilled in the art of the bow.’
‘Thou canst not fight. Wait until thou art older,’ he answered. ‘We will send a fellow tribe.’
A yew tribe⁵ was sent with the Yscal warriors. Soon they, too, were imprisoned. Oderica wept in anger.
‘I wish to fight,’ she told her chieftain. ‘I am skilled in the art of war.’
‘Thou canst not fight,’ he told her. ‘Are thy brothers not still young?’
But now the eldest brother was sixteen, old enough to care for the others. He came to her deep in the night.
‘Defend our maker,’ he told her. ‘Thou hast learned to fight the longest. Let me guard the hearth.’
So when the other tribes marched in the morning, Oderica was among them, carrying her bow and spear.
They fought the Gulths on the plain below Fruma, where Hemin once brought down his anvil. The Gulths carried blades they had made from Fruma, which shone like the evening sun. All spears were broken on their shields; all arrows glanced off their bright armour. They chained the Yscals and forced them to climb Fruma, all the way to their vile fortress, Karkara.
The Gulths wished to claim Yscal-land. Each day they forced the Yscals to dig copper, so they might forge even more blades for slaughter. In fear of their lives, the Yscals burrowed like ants through the flesh of their god, making him bleed. Each day they cut their own skin in penitence.
But Oderica would not lift the hammer. Now matter how many times the Gulths pressed it on her, she always laid it down.
‘Strike the rock,’ the Gulths told her. ‘Bring us copper for our weapons, and thou wilt have food.’
‘I cannot strike my maker,’ she answered, ‘no matter how my body hungers.’
‘Bring us copper for our weapons,’ the Gulths told her, ‘and thou wilt have water.’
‘I cannot strike my maker,’ she answered, ‘no matter how madly I thirst.’
‘Bring us copper for our weapons,’ the Gulths told her, ‘or we shall leave thee in a cell to rot.’
‘I cannot strike my maker,’ she answered, ‘no matter how alone I lie.’
The Gulths stoned and scourged her, but still Oderica refused the hammer. At last, the Gulths bound her in chains and threw her into her cell to die, lest her courage inspire the other Yscals.
After three days, Oderica felt her end look upon her. In her thirst, she had licked her own sweat until it stopped running. She lay down and awaited the end, knowing she had not disgraced her father.
‘It is not thy hour of death,’ a voice said. ‘Come to me, daughter.’
A crack opened in the wall of her cell. Oderica crawled inside it, for she had nothing left to lose.
‘Fruma,’ she called, ‘is it you, Father?’
‘Yes, devoted child. Wilt thou come to my forge?’
‘I know not what a forge may be; neither can I see my own hand, though it is before my eyes.’
‘Hearken to me,’ Fruma bid her. ‘I will guide thy steps.’
Oderica followed his voice, which filled her with both joy and dread. Blindly she stumbled through the dark, and the mountain slowly opened for her, ensuring she came to no harm.
At last she found the forge of Fruma. A mighty furnace and a thing she would know soon to be an anvil.
‘Father,’ she called, ‘is this your forge?’
‘It is my forge. Here is where I hold the blood of Erto, and where I made the sun that rages in Hemin.’
‘Do you feel the Gulths upon your back?’ she asked him. ‘Do you feel them striking you?’
‘I feel them, but I cannot fight. I must be still, or Hemin will bring down his anvil once more. But thou canst be my hands, acting in my stead, for Hemin made no truce with you,’ Fruma answered. ‘Come towards the furnace. I will light thy eyes, so thou may see in the dark of my belly.’
Oderica did as he commanded. A hammer struck the anvil, and two sparks flew into her eyes, striking her blind.
For days she lay in a fever. When she woke, she could see more than ever, and her eyes were lit with golden fire, casting a glow upon the walls.⁶ She bathed in the steaming water in her chamber, then went to the forge once more, following the veins of Fruma, now revealed to her gaze.
Fruma invited her to sit beside his forge, where it was warm. Still she could not see the god, but only heard his voice. He had left her a dish of moss⁷ and a cup of wine to quench her thirst.
‘The Gulths require two substances, dug from my core, to make their swords,’ Fruma told her. ‘I give thee a third to destroy them, an ore they cannot smelt. With it, you shall be their match.’
‘What is this substance, Father?’
‘One that I placed within thee. Iron it is called; it reeks whenever blood is spilled. Bronze may defeat it, but easier it is to find, and with it in thy hand, only skill will decide which rival shalt triumph. I will teach thee to forge it. Though the labour will be hard, I will be thy patient guide.’
‘What of the Gulths while I am learning?’ Oderica asked him. ‘They will destroy your suffering children.’
‘They will take much of Yscal-land,’ the god replied, ‘but thou wilt take it back.’
❀
There was no day or night in the depths, except where drops of sunlight fell. For nine dark years, Oderica learned to forge iron, smelting it with the heat of Erto. She made thousands of swords and spears, sets of armour and round shields, spurs for horses, arrowheads. At last, she had enough to arm all of the Yscal tribes.
‘Another metal can be made from the same ore,’ Fruma told her. ‘Iron can withstand bronze, but steel triumphs above them both.’
‘Give me steel, then, Father,’ Oderica implored him. ‘The Gulths are strong, and we are weak.’
‘Not yet. You must prove yourself first. When another threat rises, send a worthy heir to my crucible, to bring forth the bones of all thine enemies. Only then shalt I reveal the art of steelmaking.’
❀
In the nine years Oderica dwelled in the mountain, the Gulths had marched from Karkara, all over Yscal-land. Their tongue and laws had conquered all others, and every mountain was in ruin, even those that were the gods. Sibunda had suffered worst, her body hollowed and flooded by water.⁸
Oderica had grown tall in the dark. Sweating at the forge had given her a godly strength. She armoured herself, knelt at the crucible, and held her own iron sword, the one she had quenched in her blood.
‘Father, I thank you,’ she said. ‘I will drive them back to their city, so none shall wake thy siblings again.’
‘Break not my trust in thee,’ Fruma said, ‘or I shall bring a mighty reckoning on thy descendants.’
‘Your iron is within our blood. To you we shall always be faithful.’
‘Then go with my love, ironsmith.’
Oderica climbed out from the depths of Fruma, into the cell she had been held in, where her eldest brother – the one who had once seen and praised her strength – now languished. He rejoiced to see her, for all thought Oderica long dead. Together they passed out iron blades and shields to all the prisoners, and with her blade, Oderica broke the bronze locks on their cells.
The Yscals fought the Gulths anew and drove them out of Karkara, from whence Oderica sent iron to her people. The Gulths were afraid, for they had never before laid eyes upon this dark metal, which met their bronze swords with-out shattering. At last, they withdrew to their own domain.
Oderica was crowned the first of many queens of Yscal-land. She was reunited with her brothers, who became her guards, and took the name Vetalda.
‘I lay a curse upon the Gulths,’ Oderica proclaimed. ‘May they one day feel the rage of Niunda, as Hemin did.’
And so they would.⁹
In later years, the Yscals chose Dreigo Vetalda as a worthy heir. He brought with him the bones of every Gulth the Yscals had slaughtered, and Fruma placed them in the forge with the iron.
‘Behold,’ the god said to Dreigo. ‘From death and grief, I bring forth steel.’
¹ Erto and other names in this story are Nurthran in origin. The early Yscals were believed to speak Edini – the ancestor of modern Ersyri – and this story takes place before Gulthaganian had spread across the northwest of the continent. This either means the early Yscals had contact with Nurthran-speaking tribes, such as the Inyscans, or an older version of the legend exists. Erto and other names in this story are Nurthran in origin. The early Yscals were believed to speak Edini – the ancestor of modern Ersyri – and this story takes place before Gulthaganian had spread across the northwest of the continent. This either means the early Yscals had contact with Nurthran-speaking tribes, such as the Inyscans, or an older version of the legend exists.
² A story to explain the existence of the Eria, the salt desert to the south of Lasia, which the Yscals, like the rest of us, would not have been able to cross.
³ The first Ments were banished from the North by superstitious Hróthi, who saw their red hair as a mark of the fire god Mentun. These redheads were gladly received as soldiers in the imperial army of Gulthaga, where they were praised as great warriors. For more, see the excellent A History of Mentendon by Kastien Gadaron of the University of Ostendeur.
⁴ Oderica is unlikely to have been the birthname of the historical figure. Most likely a later Yscali form of the Edini name Daruka, which can still be found in the Ersyr.
⁵ Evidence suggests that the northern Edini people, like the Inyscans, had previously worshipped trees. At some point, the Yscals split from other tribes by turning to worship of the mountains and away from the sacred groves, but it appears this religious divergence was mostly cordial, and both groups continued to work alongside one another.
⁶ Eyes with a golden tinge are not uncommon in Yscalin, with the names Melaugo (‘honey eyed’) and Glesaugo (‘amber eyed’) being found in every region, but it must be said that the so-called Eyes of Oderica, which run in the House of Vetalda, are especially vivid, bordering on true orange or gold.
⁷ Possibly miners’ folly, a moss that grows at the entrances to some caves in Yscalin. My esteemed friend Niclays Roos, an anatomist of the University of Brygstad, has voiced the possibility that Oderica was simply experiencing a vivid hallucination caused by this moss, which causes visions when ingested in significant quantities.
⁸ The Saurga Mountains in central Yscalin, which are rich in red gold and other metals, still bear the scars of ruinous Gulthaganian mining. The highest peak, which lies close to the Vetalda stronghold of Hart Grove, is called Sibunda.
⁹ The First Great Eruption of the Dreadmount destroyed Gulthaga utterly in BCE 2. It is thought that Niunda – the ninth, the wrathful – was the name the Yscals had given that mountain.