[i]CLANG[/i] [i]TING-TING[/I] [i]CLANG[/i] [i]TING-TING[/i] Pavel’s hammer sang against the iron and the anvil, working the length of red-hot metal he held, with an almost songlike quality. Across the be-freckled skin of the man’s face, the fiery glow of the forge set the beads of sweat to gleaming like fiery diamonds. His eyes, narrowed as they were into a focused glare down to his work, shone like polished cherry wood disks—alight with much more than the reflection of the burning embers stoked by the bellows. The ache of muscle and bone registered only distantly to Pavel as his hammer paused with a final strike against the iron. With his tongs, Pavel turned the length of metal onto its edge, and inspected it with a singular, critical eye. His mouth turned up at the edges in the barest of smiles. Satisfied with his handiwork, Pavel plunged the length of iron into a barrel of cool water. The hiss and sizzle of the scalding metal was a pleasant finale to the hard and ringing symphony of his hammer strikes. The young blacksmith let out a fulfilled breath of air, and it immediately turned to a white cloud of steam. It was only then that Pavel perceived the frigid evening air that forced its way through the open walls of the smithy, fighting away the hardwood-fueled heat of the forge’s belly. Another small smile crept to his lips, and a shiver thrilled down the length of his toned back. To Pavel, there was nothing quite so satisfying an endeavor as hard, honest work. It drove the cold from the bones, and filled the heart and soul with a calmness of purpose like nothing else could. With this thought upon his mind, Pavel removed the length of iron from its bath, and set it carefully next to its pair on a woolen cloth beside the water basin. With another few hours of crafting, the iron strips would find themselves pinned together into a set of hinges for the new grain barn. The hinges would be balanced as best as fallible human eyes and hands could achieve, and only a modicum of grease would be required to allow the heavy timber doors to close with but a gentle push. Anything less would not be acceptable to Pavel. A trait he had inherited from his father. [i]Father…[/i] The smile that had found his face vanished instantly. It had happened this way for years, the sneaking pariah of what had become of his father would suddenly pop into his mind like a soap bubble. The thought would burst, and expel the pleasantness of the moment like nothing else could. No matter how hard Pavel worked to keep his mind free and clear of such burdens, the eternal tempest of past and present would find the shores of his thoughts. Pavel looked up, staring beneath the eaves of the smithy, and up the small hill towards the handsome cottage just a stone’s throw away. The squat structure was built of warm and stout timber, with a high pitched roof covered with long planks of cedar. The roof was invisible now, as it was blanketed with a thick crop of snow, but Pavel could see the planks in his minds-eye even now. He had helped lay those planks, when he was but sixteen, and he knew every inch of their surface. His father had clucked and chided over him patiently as the pair had milled and planed the lumber themselves. The elder Alekseyev had looked upon his son with a proud eye as he offered the occasional tip in the placement of nails, or the most efficient way to grip the hammer. In a rare moment, the memory teased a pleasant warmth to Pavel’s heart. The current squalid, drunken existence of the Mikhail Andreyevich Alekseyev was forgotten to the son for the most fleeting of instances, replaced instead by the man he had known as a boy. The man his father had once been. The man that Pavel wanted to be now. As if called forth by the memory, a faint yet distinct voice carried on the wind through the walls of the cottage, and out into the frigid air. The emotion fell from Pavel’s face as the sound met his ears. Though faint with distance, the words were all too familiar to Pavel, and he had no need to strain to understand them. “Alla!” The voice came softly, fading in and out with the wind. “Why did it have to be Alla!?” Pavel’s features masked themselves into a neutral expression that could have been carved of granite. Turning to the forge, he deftly withdrew another length of iron that had lain heating in the bed of coals. With his tongs he placed the iron upon the anvil. In his right hand, the hammer rose, and set poised to strike. Again the voice called, this time with more anguished force. “ALLA!” Pavel struck the red-hot iron. The blow sent sparks flying from the metal. “Alla!” His next blow rang out louder than the first. The one that followed was even louder, and louder still. The hammer strikes crescendoed and quickened, elevating the sound in the smithy until all that could be heard once more was the symphony of hammer, anvil, and iron. [i]CLANG[/i] [i]TING-TING[/I] [i]CLANG[/i] [i]TING-TING[/i] [center]* * * * *[/center] [center][i]Later that night.[/i][/center] The scream from within the village breached even the thunderous reports of Pavel’s hammer. Looking up, Pavel set his work aside and stared down towards the heart of Adishi where the sound had emanated. From his vantage point, set above, and some distance from the center of town, Pavel could not see who had cried out. He had no time to look long. Like a roiling, living, inky tide of baleful scorn, the black wave that the cry had heralded crashed against smithy and cottage. Choking, chattering cascades of horror enveloped Pavel, thrusting him back. His head fell downward, his equilibrium thrown by the force of the wave, and the sheer terror that chilled his veins. The anvil, unmoved and stoic amidst the roil, broke Pavel’s fall, and his grip upon consciousness was lost in a singular, petrifying, and blood-curdling cry. [center]* * *[/center] Pavel’s eyes opened slowly. He blinked, his mind trudging up into the realm of reality with painful sluggishness. His vision came back just as slow, finally focusing upon the stone form of the forge just scant inches away from where he lay. Turning his head, Pavel was met first by a shock of pain from the base of his skull, then secondly by the sight of the anvil that seemed to tower above him. In that long eternal moment upon with his back upon the floor, realization found Pavel at last. In spite of the nauseating spike in the back of his head, he sat bolt upright and gasped with fresh dread. Around him, things were eerily quiet and ordinary. Looking about, he saw that his tools, as well as the fire in the forge seemed undisturbed. The iron band that he had been working was yet still steaming upon the earthen floor, and the night air beyond the open walls of the smithy seemed no more ominous than any other countless winter night. Using the anvil to help lever himself upward, Pavel stood to uncertain legs. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and threatened to bring him back to the ground. With gritted teeth and tightly shut eyes, Pavel forced the wave away, and willed himself to hold his ground. It was after this herculean effort that fresh cries came to his ears. These were not screams of warning or terror, as the one that had preceded the obsidian wave had been. No, these were cries of anguish and of his disbelief. The import of these voices were not lost upon Pavel, and his gaze snapped upward to the cottage just beyond. [i]Father…[/i] As fast as his continued bursts of nausea would permit, Pavel set out up the worn path towards the cottage. Slipping and stumbling upon the fresh snow, he made the threshold, and shouldered the door open. The warmth of the cottage’s interior washed over him, as the fire in the large hearth danced with a virility that belied the darkness that had just swept across Adishi. “Father?” Pavel said hoarsely, stepping inside. His eyes scanned the room, alighting upon the heavy oaken table and its chairs, the stone hearth, the sideboard and cupboard, the pot rack. As with the smithy, all seemed undisturbed, and as regular as he had left it hours before. Save for one—his father’s chair was empty. Set close beside the fire, covered with blankets of wool and fur, was a well-worn rocking-chair. The chair was a fixture that was occupied by Pavel’s father almost ceaselessly. Save for the occasion the man had to relieve himself, or when he was forced outside the walls of the cottage to retrieve more drink, Mikhail Alekseyev availed himself of that singular seat. But now, it sat conspicuously free of its usual burden. A sense of dread prickled the hair upon the back of Pavel’s neck. With eyes wide, and his breath coming in short, hushed gasps, he began to step around the table. Every new move forward brought more of the floor and chair into view, and with that view came an ever sinking pit at the bottom of his stomach. With a silent gasp, Pavel froze. His last step had culminated in the vision he had feared to find, but somehow knew existed the moment consciousness had returned to him after his fall. There, lying on his side, his face partially lit by the flames of the fire was the body of Mikhail. What little life had still glimmered in the hopeless man’s eyes, Pavel could clearly see existed no more. His father was crumpled upon the wooden floor, as if in death he had fallen from the seat of his rocking-chair, and had moved in one last effort with his dying body. Pavel collapsed to his knees. There, just out of reach to his father’s dead, outstretched fingers, was the bright, clear, and shining glisten of a bottle. The liquid inside did not make itself even to the neck of the sideways bottle, and none of the spirit had been spilled upon the ground. Too much of it had been consumed. Mikhail Andreyevich Alekseyev had used his final moments to reach for the only thing that he had cherished since his beloved Alla had been taken from him. Pavel stared in sorrowful disdain. His face turned to scowl, which then contorted into a mask of some unknown emotion. Tears welled at the corner of the man’s cherry wood eyes, and for the first time in over a decade, Pavel wept.