The journal was sitting atop the anvil. He’d found it immediately on entering but had no idea where it had come from. The notebooks on his desk remained where he had left them. It was their contents that had him here so late? again. One was aged, the pages yellow and brittle to the touch. This one was the cause of Kruger's mental unrest. It never seemed to matter how often he put the thing down and walked away, invariably he would return and read once more the notations in the margins. Formulas rested there, and they had captured his mind. The main pages were filled with techniques that he knew already, those he didn’t were understood. The process of the smith who wrote the journal was the same as any smith would pass on.
Forge temperatures, brine calculations, and heating times for the metals worked with. Folding techniques were present, but all of this was things he'd mastered long ago. The other notebook was his, within its pages were calculations, drawings of spirals that spun out in different directions. At the base of all those pages was a final word, failed. Kruger picked up the leather bound journal and opened it, the pages were blank. He was in a way grateful to whoever had left it there. It gave him a mystery that didn’t have his mind reciting numbers and trying to fit them into his formula. It freed him enough to start the fires in the forge and close the door to the shop. Kruger locked it tonight, he didn’t want to be disturbed in his contemplation.
The forge fire flickered off the walls and filled the air with the sulfurous smell of brimstone. Lighting the forge had been the key to the mystery. The answer had him smiling as an inscription on the inside cover became visible by the flicker of light and shadow. For my smith who keeps my claws sharp. Of course it would have been her. He had last seen her at the inn, she had stood over his shoulder and pointed to the notebook on his lap asking if he’d remembered to square a variable. She was gone just as quickly though, Kruger had begun to believe that she had been a hallucination brought on by the constant struggle to make his numbers function the way they should. Maybe she was telling him something by leaving the journal for him to find. That it wasn’t enough to simply calculate and recalculate. Maybe he needed to clear his thoughts somewhere too? Maybe she was right.
He sat and pulled a pen from his desk, setting aside both notebooks and putting the journal in the place. The tip of the pen hit the page, but Kruger was drawing a blank of where to start. He closed his eyes, and all that came to his mind were those repeating cycles and the spiral that went along with them. This was where he would begin.
24 March 2014
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55... It’s so strange, I can see them and count them out to infinity. I know in my heart that infinity is where the event happens, yet that is wrong. The event should be controlled. I ought to be able to see. No, I ought to be able to program where the event occurs. I ought to be able to limit the diameter of the opening so that only what I need comes through. There is a failing somewhere, but the formula always works mathematically. I can't see it with my naked eye but I can feel the point where the tunnel bends away and chaos knows exactly where it ends up.
I see now what caused the flaws in my early creations. Five stable points was not accurate enough. It may have gone close to where I wanted it, but somehow it was slightly altered. I'm seeing these spirals everywhere now. I watched a dust swirl roll up the street the other day and knew the calculations that created its funnel. I could see every factor that created the swirl. The opening at the end of the street where the wind entered the block is where it began. The wind hit the face of the gem cutter and rebounded into the solid wall of the stable across from it. From the alleyway another influx of wind put a spin to the first, feeding energy into it until it was strong enough to raise the dust and carry it along.
It's worse than that though, I knew that for the little funnel cloud to form in that particular spot, the wind had to come from the exact angle it was. In my head I could see every viable place for such a formation based on the wind's direction. I feel like I am going mad here, these concepts are so hard to explain to anyone. I don't have the right words. The realization had me altering my bellows though, and watching the effect on the flames in the forge. That experiment led me to create a variable exhaust from the bellows. I can now change the angle they blow from, I can reduce the opening to change the pressure at which they blow. The result, greater heat that is able to be precisely where I need it.
This gives me more variables to work with, and I have been. When did I realize what it was that I had? Not till after Brian had given me the other smithy surely. I believe I understand now, there are seven pieces that possess the ability to aid in these gateways. I have discovered that I now have two of them. That's what has changed, I feel it differently than I did before. What would happen if I had them all? What more could I do? Maybe it is me? It stands to reason that I am that eighth anchor point, my mind is so unstable now. I fight everyday to keep the numbers from overwhelming me and sitting down to do more calculations. I am chaos.
Image Credits: Horn of Plenty and Time and Unity
