milliways_bar | (no subject)

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teja

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This morning, Teja is sitting by the fireplace (where the fire is banked low, due to the season), unarmed, and having a rather substantial breakfast.

Tea, pancakes with honey and pepper, bread, moretum, and cured meat as well as some fresh figs, and an orange. After some time spent travelling on the quest for Kate and Doc, it is indeed good to be back in this peaceful place, well-bathed and out of his armour. Teja was rather astonished when he realised that for those that had remained in the bar, only one single day had passed.

Still, it had been good to be about again, and to fight again; to wear armour and swing his axe and be the Teja that he Goths had known and trusted: - enough to make him their king when all was lost.

But now, it is good to be back in his home for the afterlife.-

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Weyland approaches the fire, uncharacteristically on edge and trying (not entirely successfully) to hide it. He carries the two small boxes he refuses to let out of his sight even for a moment, along with a large mug of beer, and he gives Teja a polite if wary nod as he settles into a chair nearby.

"Greetings, Weyland," Teja says, looking up from his tea. "I take it it was you who locked to forge from within, the day before I left?"

"Greetings," he says, "and yes, it was. I hope I did not keep you from your work, but I had a very special commission, and... I am much quicker with them than I used to be, at least. Inspiration struck, and it had to be done."

"No," Teja says. "It is not my forge alone -- and I had nothing urgent to do. Later, I was gone, in any case. I hope the cats did not disturb you -- I have made a little swinging door so they can come and go as they please."

"I didn't even notice them," he says, and sips his beer. "If they were there. They may have decided it was safer to stay outside. It would certainly have been quieter, if they were looking to sleep."

"They can be very quiet," Teja says, "and they are used to the sounds of a forge by now. They do sit by the entrance and watch me hammer on a billet of folded steel, at times, with big round eyes. But if they did not disturb you, all is well -- unless their presence, even unseen, would have marred your work?"

"Only if they had touched it--and they would not have; they would have to be mad to try to touch hot metal. Or if they had broken my concentration, which they did not. But simply being there, no... unless they would be inclined to give away my secrets."

"They do not talk, not even to me," Teja says, "and I would not have Yrael turn me cat-shaped just to question them about your techniques. Some of those, I might see when we make the mirror through which my Adalgoth may contact me at his time of direst need -- but I would not try and work magic, in any case. I work metal, and that is where I turn my curiosity to -- folded steel, not objects of hidden power!"

"Ordinary cats, if they are anything like the animals I know, would only see it in their own terms anyway. They would see little difference between your crafting and mine, except that mine, I imagine, involves more blood. Beyond that, it is men hitting hot metal with hammers, making noise and sparks."

He takes another sip of beer, glancing toward the fire.

Teja nods. "And I would not know your secrets, as it is," he adds. "Not from my cats, not from any man that might give them to me. I will work with them, if that is how it turns out, when you make the mirror for my Adalgoth to find me, but after that, I would not touch these things again. I would not do magic -- I was made free of a whole library of magic, in this place, but only read the books on philosophy, and meaning, and general crafts that they also have there, to base their magic on analogies from words without it."

"It is better that you not know," he says. "Use magical objects if you like, but do not make them. I am stronger than you are, in the places where they burn and tear apart--they would destroy you more quickly and thoroughly than they have done to me."

He looks to the boxes, to reassure himself that they are still there. "Better to work with simple things. Safer."

Teja nods. "They are complex enough without magic," he agrees.

"Someday I will return to that," he says. "No magic besides the simple wonder of shaping the formless into something useful and beautiful. And I will be happier."

"And there are still such marvels that can be made that way!" Teja says. "From simple diligence and craftsmanship -- swords of folded steel that will cleanly cut a feather that drifts down upon the blade!"

"I have made things," he says, "without magic, but still marvels. Swords that can cut through steel; armor that cannot be pierced. Jewelry that will win a woman's heart."

"Indeed," Teja says, "and those are best. I have made such things."

Winning a woman's heart without setting the aquarium on fire would be something that Teja could aim for with the next such commission.

But most likely, in that case, it was Guppy's perpetual bad luck that was to blame, not the workmanship on the ring Teja had made for him to win his lady.

"I would be even happier if I would see people again, after they have commissioned me to make things," he says. "You had best not be planning to leave--I would be very disappointed if I went to all the trouble of making the mirror for you and you never returned for it."

"I have but lately returned," Teja says, "from a quest to seek some friends from this place, that had been abducted by demons -- I went with other friends of theirs, and we were gone awhile. No, if I go, I will come back here. And I do not even have the third vial of blood yet. Toki, and Tonio-- but a third man to remind me of Adalgoth, I am still waiting for. I will know when I meet him."

"I will hold you to that," he says. "I haven't so many interesting projects to work on that I would let another one fall away--the boredom is the worst, always. Work of interest is increasingly rare."

"Then, when I found the third man to remind me of Adalgoth, I shall find you, and we shall make the mirror," Teja says. "It is not that there was any hurry. I shall stay dead, and in this place, for the time being."

"If you can think of anything else in the meantime that you would want to have made, I have a lot of free time," he says, and sips his beer. "It's complicated here, harder to get certain materials that are much more available back in my world."

Teja thinks about this a long while. "I would have a weapon, like a dagger maybe, that glows when one of those demons that were driven out of Kate, Doc and Brand, is near," he finally says. "That way, one could see of another is possessed, or free of them. It would be truly useful, not only to me."

"I would need a demon," he says after a moment. "Possessing a person, or out on its own, wouldn't matter. Like calls to like--if you can bring me one, I can make it quite easily."

"That would be hard," Teja says. "We were lucky to leave them in their cavern, at last. They are not to be trifled with. But there is a man here that was possessed by one for centuries."

"Bring him to me, then," he says. "There would probably be enough residue left within him to work with, though it would of course be more difficult. Do the demons have any victims?"

"These men that they possessed," Teja says. "They use them as vessels for their own ends."

"But none who are... clawed to death, torn apart, by the demons? Victims like that, who have been touched, physically, are easier to work with, although that would involve your finding the dead and bringing them in here, and that might be a violation of the health code, yes?"

He lights a cigarette. "I have made, in my time, many weapons to target murderers, by using parts of their victims. Traces always remain. Nothing happens unseen."

"They are not demons of that sort; they need vessels to act," Teja says. "We will have to rely on Brand of Amber, and the other two living victims. If they were corpses, I would not hesitate to bring them. They are not forbidden here -- only violence, enmities from one's own world, and lewdness. Corpses fall under neither."

"But children might see them, and be upset," he says. "Not everyone here comes from a time as... brutal and open as ours. No matter, though--living victims work just as well, although more complicated, because parts of the dead can be burned, where one generally does not with the living."

A pause.

"Mind you, I have met living victims so intent on vengeance that they would let parts of themselves be burned. Women, mostly."

"But they would have seen corpses -- men and women still die, even if it is not in battle," Teja says. "An aunt or neighbour, dead in childbirth; one that died in an accident in the fields or woods, or with those fast vehicles they have!"

Pause.

"And as for burning parts -- hair and fingernails can still be burned, can they not? And we can ask them for blood, also. They would wish to help us make such a thing, so the demons will not go undetected in the future."

"My world has made death unnatural also," he says. "Best not to ask about that. Children generally do not see the dead, and if they do see them, they have usually been painted up so they look alive, just sleeping. They would be frightened if you were to bring a corpse through here, especially one who died violently."

Another sip of beer. "They can be burned, yes. But the more you give, the stronger the magic is. For all things."

"A world that seems deathless," Teja muses. "It would give men the delusion of being immortal."

Pause, while he ponders. "I will ask Brand of Amber how much he would be able to help, when I next see him."

"As long as he is willing to help, there are things that can be done," he says. "If he is unwilling to help, but you are determined to have it made, it can still be done. But it is easier when the one giving the materials is willing."

A pause.

"Or extremely unwilling, depending on the nature of the work and of the materials. But for this, the demon would best be unwilling and the victims willing to help with the crafting."

"I will speak to them, then," Teja says -- no more speculation before more facts are established to put on the table and work with.

"It would be a pleasure to work on," he says. "Ask them, then, and... you know where I can be found. In here, in the forge, or otherwise in my room. That sort of thing, I think, would best be discussed in private."

"Indeed," Teja says, and gets up to go about his business.-

Weyland nods, and settles back to resume drinking. And plotting.

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