Temir stared with unseeing eyes at the still distant dawn, another sleepless night plagued by those vague visions; they filled him with a nameless urgency but gave little indication as to what he had to do. It worried him, everything did these days, the reports of strange sightings, rumours of powerful things which could not be seen clearly but wreaked havoc where they went, the growing murmurs of the rise of a dark force which seemed to turn invincible as the days progressed. It left him uncomfortable, giving rise to questions for which he could find no answers.

He would not have paid much heed to either those or to his visions, but then, being the royal blacksmith, he could see the remnants of the battles, small or big, even if he was not at the fore front of it. It was a war, the wind whispered; a war as never seen before, a war that had no precedent; for how did one fight an enemy who was rarely seen? And in the rare occasions that it had been sighted, few had lived to tell and even then, what they spoke was a garbled account of fear and terror.

It was no time to be dreaming and thinking about those dreams, if he could call them that. He had tried to forget them, tried not to pay any heed, but to no avail, for those visions had increased in periodicity and he had started to hear voices too, though he could not understand what he was supposed to do and the sleepless nights were taking a toll on him; he earned quite a few quizzical stares, as he muttered to himself while going about his work.

Five weeks after the visions and voices started, and after yet another sleepless night, Temir walked along the path which ran around the winding hillside. It was a cold and windy time, and though it would be dawn soon, the skies were dark and gloomy. He stood atop the hillock, it served as a watch point and as he stared, he finally accepted that he had to do something. In a burst of frustration, he screamed to the heavens, "But do you not think you should let me know what exactly I have to do?"

He felt foolish at his words, but froze when he heard the distinct whisper, "Do what you do best."

Temir blinked, wondering what sort of guidance that was. What did he do best? He was a blacksmith, beating steel was all he knew, and he was quite good at it, which was nothing unexpected, after all he came from a family of blacksmiths, his father, his grandfather and his grandfather's father and grandfather, and maybe a couple of great grandfathers before him, all were smiths. 

The call of the iron ran in his blood. 

He turned around and walked back to the smithy, he could beat that frustration out on the iron.  Marching into the makeshift smithy, he looked around; it was still to early for the apprentices to be at work, even if they started at dawn. He stood in the centre, seeing the still burning furnace; the flames were low, there would not be put out at night, too much of time lost in getting it going when the work started, it was better to spend on the coal to keep it burning. Temir looked around, the half finished blades, the lumps of iron, the anvils and his own hammer at the back of smithy; his fingers itched to start, yet there was something holding him back.

When he caught sight of his worn leather bag, he walked in and picked it up. Reaching inside, he pulled out a few nobs, he had three of them. Each was in the shape of half an egg, around five inches in diameter and two and a half deep, smooth with pearly markings. It even felt different, not like the normal ore that he worked with; he remembered the travelling merchant from whom he had purchased it from or rather had been gifted with them; the traveller had loved to talk. He had said that it was called wukku and cited a long list of the fanciful items that could be wrought from it. Temir heard him out in silence, more in politeness rather than belief, for there was no way iron would not rust. Yet the traveller, dressed in vivid coloured clothes; the man who came from the far east  and spoke in a sing song accent, he had been vehement. His skepticism must have shown, for the traveller had given a knowing smile and had refused any sort of payment, stating, "I will consider myself to be paid in full, the day you make this into a piece that hums."

Temir had simply shrugged the whole encounter away.

Now, in the wake of the dreams and in confused thoughts, he could only think of that button of ore; he ran his callused thumb over the surface, over the markings, wondering what he could do with it. Shrugging his thoughts off, he set to work. He heated one button to red hot and then hammered the hot piece into a strip, watching the metal turn red and yellow as it flattened. When the strip was thin enough, he plunged it the water trough to cool it.

The iron strip shattered.

Temir bit off a curse, of all the things to happen, this was the least expected. He dropped his hammer and looked at sizzling water, trying to ignore the startled gasps of his assistant. He had almost gasped too; he had forgotten when it had happened to him last, that a piece he had worked on had shattered because he had misjudged the heat of the iron or the coldness of the water. How long ago had that been? Years. When he had been a young child helping his father at the Royal Smithy close to the soldiers' barracks. When life had been simpler. When he had been young and friends with the King's son. When the friendship between a blacksmith's son and the crown prince was not frowned upon though it had not been encouraged either.

It happened three times more ,  each time the blade shattered when dunked into the water, before Temir concluded that the problem lay with the base iron, not with his methods. Gathering the pieces, he placed them in a crucible and heated it, gradually melting the iron into a smudge that he hoped he could rework with, though with the burning in air would reduce the tensity of the iron. It was an after thought that he flung in a piece of the new button. The molten mass mingled and pearl strings formed, or maybe he just imagined it. As the metal was poured out to cool in the sand bar, he heated the third button to start afresh.

Each thump of his hammer echoed in the dog's howl, the harder he hit, the louder it howled, pain and agony keening in its cries. Temir knew that the mutt would have to be put down, a mangled dog did not have much chance to survive but he did not have the heart to do it nor allow anyone else to do so. Yet, as he pounded the button to the length of the blade, the howls resounded to his hammering, frustration at having failed three times flowed in his veins, irritation at his inability to work on that particular ore thumped in his head, and the persistent sense of urgency pounded in his arms. As he beat the piece one last time, his frail thread of patience snapped, and instead of immersing the iron into the water, he stalked outside and plunged it into the body of the howling dog.

The hot iron sizzled through the warm blood and steam rose, the coppery stench of blood mingling with the smell of the cooling iron. Temir stood aghast at what he had done and yet felt a slight tingle of exultation when he saw the blade, it appeared to be cooling, without a hint of a crack.

Three weeks later, Lenjil, the prince, held the sword, one that had taken Temir hours of sleepless nights to finish. Each time Temir had folded the blade back on itself and hammered the heated raw blade, the cooling had produced pearly swirls, a design that the iron seemed to be imprinting on itself. The accidental cooling method that he had discovered had imparted the blade with far more tensity and flexibility than the iron he usually worked with. It had not made him happy to find livestock to plunge the sword in but then as the work progressed, regrets and hesitation had faded away. When he finally finished the sword, he was proud of it and hoped that he had managed to do what those visions had deemed it imperative for him to do.

But when he watched Lenjil test it out, he knew that there was still something missing. The blade was great, perfect length, perfect balance, perfect weight and a beautiful swing, it was a graceful arc when swished through the air and a sharp fine edge that just sort of glinted. He could make out that Lenjil was impressed though his face did not reflect his full satisfaction. As though he could make out Temir's thoughts, Lenjil turned to him and said, "it is an impressive weapon and has sort of beauty, though drab and divested of all ornamentation. And you spent three weeks and ran through quite a number of live animals to make it."

"You were expecting it to be of gold, encrusted with rubies and a large on, preferably the size of a duck egg, to be embedded in the pommel? I am a blacksmith, my prince, I make swords with blades meant for war, not dainty broaches to delight your lady friend."

The prince slapped his friend on the back, it showed his powerful muscles, for Temir, well-built and only a couple of inches shorter than Lenjil, staggered forward under the blow. The irritation dissipated when he heard Lenjil say, "well, you must admit that the picture you paint does make a pretty one, and though I agree that it is not practical to have a sword like the one you described, do you not think something is missing with this one? I cannot find any flaw but I can read you well, my friend, you are not happy with it. I would think it is a masterpiece but you do not think so. Why is that?"

Temir grimaced and answered...

"It does not sing." finished Aindri, her faced flushed as she sang the words. She had been hearing the story from her grandfather ever since she was six months old and he told her stories instead of singing her lullabies. And since the only tales he knew were of battles and blades, those were the tales he told. Now, five year old Aindri insisted on being told a story, or two or a dozen before she fell asleep. And of all the stories her grandfather told her the one about that sword that could sing was her favourite. It did not matter that everyone in the small village that she lived in dismissed those tales as made up ones, fables spun by the imagination of the grandfather who, with his words, painted images of the stories he told. All the other villagers considered him to be slightly senile yet completely harmless and none paid any heed to his stories, other than Aindri. Not even the fact that he could fight with a stick or a sword, with equal ease, lent credence to his stories.

Only Aindri believed every word he said.

That night she held her grandfather's hand and whispered, "Tatha, when I grow up, I shall find that sword and make it sing. I promise, I will be the one to find it. And I shall make it sing."

Karmappa grew numb at her words and a hushed prayer escaped his lips, "Hey Bhairava, please, she is just a little girl, you should not heed her words. She does not know what she is saying. Please let her be."

But then, Kala Bhairava, the Lord of Time, to whom Karmappa had sworn obeisance all those eons ago, was not amenable to changing the course of things; if pled with stringent devotion, he might make things easier for his devotees, but nothing could stop his march or alter what would be. Thus all of Karmappa's prayers fell on deaf ears.

And so Aindri grew up into a young girl with those dreams on her wrists, as she learnt to fight, both with her hands and a sword.

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