The Forge in the Forest (58 page)
SMITHCRAFT
The accounts of smithcraft in the Book of the Helm confirm that in those years the sheer science of metalworking reached a height rarely if ever equaled—and not only in the remarkable person of Elof himself. The technique he used in the creation of the crown-helm is unmistakably that now known as electrolysis, or electroplating. This— as the account is careful to make clear—he did not discover for himself, but drew from the ancient lore of his craft. He was, however, probably the first to develop it for fine plating of metals; there is no evidence that the Elder folk had anticipated him. In assuming they had Ils lets slip that patronizing attitude to men typical of even the friendliest duergar. They did undoubtedly use electrolysis for refining rare metals; whether human smiths learned this of them or developed it independently cannot be said.
If it seems improbable to find electricity known and used in such an otherwise untechnical culture, we should remember that true smithcraft set very different values upon ordinary technology. Also, we should consider the skilled silversmiths of the ancient city of Baghdad on the river Tigris, who in the early years of this century were found electroplating with primitive batteries of copper and iron in ceramic jars of acid; they were assumed to have learned the technique from the west. There is now reason to doubt this. Among recent archaeological discoveries in the Middle East are small ceramic jars containing copper cylinders plugged with asphalt and containing corroded iron rods—in effect, batteries of much the same kind. They were found in at least three sites, all dating from the time of the Roman Empire, and all around the Tigris near Baghdad.
There is no doubt that the smiths of Elof s day understood at least something of the nature of electricity, though from a very different standpoint. When Elof set out to reforge his strange inheritance with lightning he undoubtedly knew what he was doing, though, encouraged by his mysterious visitor, he may have underestimated the appalling risk. But it is likely that little else would have allowed him to straighten so curious a blade; the glimpse he had of its content is curiously reminiscent of modern high-tensile materials such as carbon-fiber, which may be highly resistive to heat and impact. He had studied with a duergar mastersmith, and they, at least, had a very shrewd grasp of the forces at work with matter. Elof, in describing his hammer, shows that he had learned much from them, and in the greatest trial of his life, when all else seemed lost to him, it was this knowledge that was to prove crucial.
THE CHRONICLES
Why the Book of the Helm was so named is hard to say, whether for the strange crowned helm that broke the will of a Power, or the other, brought back into the world after long ages beneath the Ice, like a symbol of renewal and rebirth. But almost certainly it was for the Tarnhelm, second of Elof's youthful creations that were to haunt him throughout his turbulent life, and shape it as he had shaped them. For it was the Tarnhelm that lay behind all the conflicts and struggles of this time, that wrought for him both peril and final triumph, and brought him in the end to the fulfilling of his promise and his desire.
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