The Trial of Steel

Dameks thought that no one understood Peturabo's mind.

After Peturabo made his bewildering move, Dameks, as king, instinctively observed his subjects. He couldn't help but worry if his authority would be undermined by Peturabo's discourtesy.

He saw the priest, head held high, looking up at Peturabo with his neck bent almost to breaking, his expression terrified, murmuring with trembling lips.

He saw beneath the upper half of the soldiers' faces, hidden by armor, their lips parted, their breath sucked into the iron helmets protecting them.

He saw the courtiers either tugging at the sleeves of their robes or their bodies tensed like fish caught in a net, some looking down to avoid trouble, others looking up at him.

Finally, he looked toward the center of the crowd. In the middle of the circle, envoys from other nations maintained their false etiquette, standing straight with elegant and steady expressions.

No one questioned Peturabo for his offense and abrupt actions, so Dameks forgave his momentary panic.

Then, he realized that the pauses Peturabo made in his speech were deliberately given to allow others time to exchange surprised glances.

Dameks felt a surge of emotion: perhaps this was the talent of the Son of the Almighty.

If his own son, the ambitious Harkon, the child destined to succeed him, possessed such talent, or if his second son, the weak Andos, the craftsman devoted to art, had such spirit, how fortunate would Lokos be?

How could the nations of other tyrants possibly breach Lokos's stable walls that had stood unchanged for six hundred years?

Though he himself did not dislike war, he knew that peace was what the common people desired.

As for Calipha, his only daughter. Although she possessed the uncommon sense of a leader, the Olympians would not allow a woman to be a tyrant, at least not while Lokos still stood.

"I forged a blade," Peturabo said.

When the truth came from the boy's mouth, it gained a decisive divinity. He merely had to stand there, with the flames of forging burning behind him, to become part of Olympia's ancient mythology.

"I gave shape to steel, made metal yield to me. I listened to the song of gold and iron, letting creation find its place under my hands, letting sharp weapons come into this world. A craftsman taught me this, and I put it into practice today; and I succeeded."

Mors listened quietly, his disheveled black hair covering half of his pale face. When Peturabo mentioned him, his eyelids closed and then opened, blinking once.

Peturabo's voice gradually lowered: "I have come here today to prove that I am indeed the person you believe me to be. And from the eyes of each of you, I see that you have already given me proof."

"Though you do not speak, I hear everyone saying I am descended from gods, the boy from the peaks of your mountains, a person not of this world."

Mount Tylephos, Dameks thought, he was referring to Mount Tylephos, perpetually covered in snow, its peak unreachable by anyone.

For so many years, the Olympians had persistently conquered each other, invaded lands, seized, and defeated, but no one had ever conquered Mount Tylephos.

That was no longer the realm of mortals.

"But!" Peturabo suddenly raised his voice, the sound striking Dameks's heart heavily.

"What proof have I truly given of this rumor? With a hammer, a furnace, a bellows? With a blade that any craftsman could forge with diligence? Is this the evidence I have presented? Is this all you wanted?"

He looked around, his serious face now carrying a hint of unrestrained sarcasm. If anyone had spoken with Mors, they would have noticed that this sarcasm was identical to the expression Mors often wore.

"My body, my strength, my knowledge, my memories, none of it exceeds the scope that mortals can touch," Peturabo said coldly. "I am mortal now, just like anyone present, two arms, two eyes, one... one heart."

"And now you tell me that I proved I am not mortal by doing what mortals can do. Think again, everyone, is this your reasoning?"

He let the words drift lightly through the hall.

The priest's head tilted even higher. Peturabo noticed him, so the boy looked at the priest, cold and resolute, anyone with feelings could perceive a deep mockery and strong disappointment in it.

"Is this how you prove gods are gods? Tell me, priest, is this how you steal the achievements of mortals to serve as proof of the gods' existence?"

Then he looked up again.

"You have proven your faith, and I have proven my philosophy," Peturabo said. "That your gods are indeed born of fictional fantasies."

Dameks eagerly clasped his hands on the wooden railing, even forgetting the golden scepter in his hand.

Peturabo's performance allowed the boy to stand on the stage he had built, towering over all the people of Lokos. This made Dameks earnestly want to defend his subjects.

A tyrant must defend his subjects, or he would lose face from this day forward.

Then, the golden scepter, which had fallen from Dameks's palm and was about to hit the ground, mysteriously suspended itself. A layer of frost crept onto the grapes on the low table near the tyrant's throne, coating the fruit's surface with an exquisite frost veil.

Mors let the scepter fly back into his palm, idly playing with it, his fingertips caressing the golden bird carved on the top of the scepter.

He spoke in a low voice, "Look, Father! How warm the sun is, and how clear the sea is. Icarus sings, soaring at heights never reached in this life, enjoying a freedom unprecedented in history. He sees everything on the earth laid out before him, sometimes thinking that Helios's sun chariot is within reach."

Dameks had no time to analyze Mors's work, even though his intellect was telling him that what Mors said was a condensation and artistic representation of what was happening.

He had to deal wholeheartedly with Peturabo, who was meeting his gaze.

"Peturabo," Dameks said, doing his best to maintain his magnanimity and dignity.

He said kindly, "Faith only contacts you when it resonates within your heart; the gods do not force their subjects' affection."

"If you believe so."

Dameks felt the weight of the iron crown on his head, drawing strength from it: "Everyone present has witnessed your talent, and wise men with talent deserve some arrogant privileges. Any intelligent ruler should do so, shouldn't they?"

"Regardless, Lokos will always open its doors to you and the craftsman Mors. Although you were so resolute when you threw the blade into the furnace, I still wish to have your answer: why did you destroy your work, Peturabo?"

He subtly changed the subject.

Peturabo glanced back at the furnace, then surveyed the hall, from the electric lights decorated as candles on the ceiling, to the steaming automatic gears around them, to the shields held by the soldiers beneath the towering stone pillars, the armor they wore, and the attire and adornments of the courtiers.

Then he spoke, "You are a man of reason, Tyrant, so I will speak with you."

Dameks did not know if he should be happy about this.

The boy said, "There are many things I do not know. I want to know where the power for the electric lights comes from, if there are better designs for steel machinery. I need to learn. Of course, I am not an impolite person."

"Mors told me that for every harvest, there's a price to pay, and the cost should be decided by both parties," the boy said, his expression a little complex. "I will learn everything I can at Lokos, but I will also contribute my labor."

"Will you be forging more weapons?"

"No, that's not my talent. The reason I burned the blades was precisely for this. I have no intention of crafting weapons for anyone. I am a craftsman. Waterwheels, plows, roads, stone mills, sculptures, paintings, ritual vessels, bronze statues… that is what I will leave behind at Lokos."

The boy paused here. "If I had known how to forge sickles and plows, I would have reforged the blades into tools for the people. But I don't."

"What about war?" Dameks asked cautiously. "Child, war is necessary. The peace of one nation like Lokos will not purify the violent desires of other lands like rain from snow-capped mountains."

The boy's indifference deepened. "Fortifications, city walls, machines, blades. I do not favor this path, but that does not mean I am not skilled in it."

Just as Dameks was about to speak again, intending to appease Peturabo, he heard the priest below trembling as he operated his limp tongue. "Lord Peturabo, if you are mortal, then where did you learn your forging knowledge? Did the Lord Mors you speak of teach you? And who is he?"

"Perhaps Lord Mors is an emissary of the gods, sent by them to be your mentor, and he simply didn't tell you."

Dameks instantly felt a surge of anger. He was frustrated that Mors was fiddling with the golden scepter, preventing him from striking the ground. He could only slam his palm against the wooden railing. "Priest Fedra, stop your instigation! To speak so carelessly in front of guests invited by Lokos, have you not realized how absurd your actions are?"

He shouldn't have listened to the church today, blinded by Fedra's obedience, and invited these troublesome religious charlatans to uphold some tradition!

Peturabo immediately glanced at Mors. Mors lightly tapped his lower lip with his fingers, looking down calmly, not only unmoved but unwilling to even feign encouragement.

This was all the non-answer he would give. Dameks began to speculate about a conflict between the two, but he couldn't figure it out. Or perhaps this was simply how craftsmen interacted with each other?

Peturabo withdrew his gaze and walked forward. For a moment, Dameks thought the boy was about to kick the priest.

Thinking of the consequences of such an action, Dameks first felt worried, then realized he was somewhat looking forward to it.

This would give him a reason to have a minor dispute with the priests of the church, who were always spreading fearful prophecies, and in turn, become closer to the Nine Sages of Pelkontia.

Peturabo did not do that.

"If you always cling pathetically to the tragic myths and sacrifices in your mind, and try to force divine causes onto everything in the world, then reason cannot save you—you cannot be saved by something that does not exist in your heart."

Peturabo said this as he stepped past the priest, too lazy to waste any more words.

His energy was focused more on Mors.

Mors' silence at this moment carried a more genuine weight. His gaze and his waiting were an undeniable entity; his attitude no longer needed words to describe.

Language itself was a ruler constructed by humans to quantify this world, a transformed modulus.

Peturabo gritted his teeth, abandoning further hesitation.

"Mors is an excellent craftsman. I have never seen a complete work of his in reality, but his skill undoubtedly surpasses the sum of Olympia's achievements. My experiences so far are enough for me to make such an assessment."

"He taught me forging, he taught me how to live, he is changing me, yet there is no superfluous relationship between us. We simply appear together often, and he is always about to leave, not by divine guidance, but by his own will."

He paused and continued, "I will never deny his help, nor will I recognize him as a mentor against his will. I am qualified to respect him like this, but what right do you have to speculate about him and belittle him as a messenger of the gods?"

Dameks quickly made his voice louder than any potential discussions from others.

"Peturabo," the tyrant began, "you have proven yourself, both in talent and ability. The city-states and fortresses of Lokos will await your designs, and craftsmen and scholars will gather before you. Whether it is knowledge, or bricks, or worldly honor and flowers, whatever you desire, as long as you can bring glory to Lokos."

"And what about Mors?" Peturabo asked.

"How should we treat the relationship between you and the craftsman Mors, Peturabo?"

In Peturabo's eyes, Dameks saw some echoing emptiness, some trivial tremors, some low, dim colors, and some vague pain; these emotions were not separate, but like a mass of congealed molten iron, uniformly coalescing into a gray shadow. He perceived emotions not through reason, but through shared feelings—this reminded Dameks of his own father, whom he quickly forgot again.

"He has no relation to me, tyrant. Although I have expectations of him," another pause, "and reliance."

The next second, Mors suddenly appeared in the center of the circular platform.

No one saw how he so abruptly shifted his form in the public eye; he simply materialized there, as if he had been standing there for a long time.

"Peturabo is one of my apprentices," Mors declared arrogantly, putting an arm around the boy's shoulders. "And I am a craftsman."

His actions were stern and rough, lacking any inquiry into others' opinions, but Peturabo joyfully accepted Mors, allowing the dark-clothed craftsman to embrace him with his arm, as if he had been waiting for a long time.

Mors lowered his head slightly. "Do you want to stay here, Peturabo?"

"Yes," the boy said.

Mors smiled. "Tyrant, you heard him."

Dameks pulled himself together, suppressing his panic at the unexpected turn of events, and immediately began to handle various matters in an orderly fashion.

He ordered the soldier Putrocles to prepare to escort the detestable priest away, announced new decisions to his courtiers one by one, consolidated his authority with hearty laughter and occasional sternness, braced himself against Mors's half-smiling gaze, and inwardly calculated how to deal with the alliance of the multi-national sages of Olympia in the future…

These matters consumed a good deal of his thought. Though still in his prime, he was by no means young, and his emotions had fluctuated greatly today, leaving him quite fatigued.

Only after everyone had dispersed and the lights had dimmed, and Mors and Peturabo left together—Peturabo even amusingly kicked the priest as he departed—did Dameks relax onto his soft couch, breathing in the sweet air of the empty palace with great relief, sighing with the mental exhaustion of the past two days.

Then he saw, on the low table beside the couch, beneath the intricately carved fruit platter holding grapes still dripping with icy water, a soft note.

It should be noted that he was merely using the term that best fit its function from his knowledge base to interpret this "note."

On this seamless, incredibly smooth, and agile thin white creation, beyond the imagination of mortals, was written the ending of the story Mors had told.

As Dameks read, he genuinely savored the fruit of abundant and profound astonishment. After finishing the story, the juice of this full fruit slowly brought a hint of wondrous sweetness.

He had envisioned several of the most common tragic endings from all the dramas on the planet Olympia, indulging in the artistic beauty of disaster from imperfection, and deducing the duo's inevitable end from the preceding clues, yet not once did he anticipate seeing a complete story from Mors's pen.

"I am about to touch the sun, and my wings are scorched by fire, yet I am about to touch the sun, and my desires are no more. Will you abandon me? Then bid farewell, my father, for this is not the first time you have left me. Father, I am falling into the sea!"

"Do not be alarmed, my son, there is an island ahead, and my wings still allow us to land there. Rest on that island, and I shall name it Icaria; your name will be a symbol of the place of creation."

"Henceforth, craftsmen shall enjoy paradise. Though they are far from the world, dwelling on the island for a long time, hunting, building, and planting; their works, however, transcend mortal scales, making stone carvings wrought by human hands, like myths, enter eternity."

"People often describe the works of the craftsman Daedalus and Icarus, saying they were the origin of artists who breathed soul into their creations."

"In the past, when masters carved stone statues, the statues could only close their eyes, let their hands hang down, and their bodies lie in a soft, unawakened slumber; it wasn't until the two first touched the chisel that the statues opened their eyes, shining like gilded gold, reached out their hands far forward, and moved their legs, as if eagerly wanting to embrace the world."

Finally, at the end of the note, a line of small text was written with a fine brushstroke.

"I did not create this story. I merely returned it to the world."

Thanks to the great knife-carving-wallpaper boss orz