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Conan was to become.
    But Conan wanted it now. “What do you think, Father?”
    “Close, very close.” Corin bounced the blade on the anvil. The metal quivered and rang sweetly. He stabbed it into the fire again and nodded to his son. “A little more heat.”
    Despite the aching in his limbs from all his chores and all the training, Conan pumped the bellows with all the vigor he could muster. Sparks flew and heat blossomed. Using tongs, his father turned the blade over amid the glowing coals, then drew it out. “Get the small hammer.”
    Conan did as he was bidden and shaped the weapon where his father pointed. “Gently, boy, but firmly. A smith, a swordsman, must maintain control of his tools. Smooth that out. And there, and there.”
    The boy hammered carefully, relishing the peal of metal on metal. Something about it bespoke strength. So unlike the hiss and skirl of steel on steel in battle, where strong blades became vipers. The sound coaxed from the sword and anvil by the hammer meant that he need never fear the blade betraying him. This he had come to understand.
    Corin inspected his handiwork, then glanced at the cooling trough. “Go get more ice.”
    Conan ran out and chipped ice from a block, then carried it back into the forge and dumped it into the trough. “When you asked me which is more important, fire or ice, you never told me the answer.”
    Corin raised the blade, and in the shadows beneath the forge’s roof, the metal still glowed dully. “A blade must be like a swordsman. It must be flexible. A sword must bend, or it will break. And for that to happen, it must be tempered.”
    The smith plunged the sword into the trough. Ice melted, and water bubbled and steamed with the hiss of a thousand snakes. “Fire and ice. Together. This is the mystery of steel.”
    “Is it done, Father?”
    Corin nodded. “Yes, but you’re not.”
    “But you have taught me much.”
    “Do not misunderstand me, Conan. You have learned much—more than boys half again your age. But it is not in what you know, but how you apply it, that we will see how great a swordsman you will become.” Corin folded his arms over his chest. “Do you remember when I asked you that question? When I shattered your sword?”
    Conan’s face flushed. He had been so proud of what he’d done, and then found it was worthless. In an instant he had gone from victorious to defeated. “I remember.”
    “Did you think the question fair?”
    The boy shrugged.
    “Did you wonder why I had let you proceed without giving you the answer, and telling you something so important?”
    Conan glanced down. “You wanted me to learn to hammer before I could make a sword?”
    His father leaned back against the anvil. “In part, you are correct. But there is something you need to know, about men, about yourself. Men learn in one of two ways. Some observe, ask questions, think and act. Others act and fail, and if they survive their failure, they learn from it. Clever though you are, my son, you do not ask questions. You think of your ignorance as a failure.
    “So you failed at your first attempt to make a sword. Have you learned from it?”
    Conan could not bring himself to meet his father’s gaze. He considered the man’s words and wanted to deny their truth. He couldn’t, at least not about men in general. But Conan wanted to be more. He was destined to be something special. Great warrior and more, as his mother desired. And yet his father was right. He didn’t like asking questions just in case he revealed ignorance about something everyone else knew.
    Does that make me weak? Conan frowned. Maybe just stubborn.
    He looked up. “Which were you, Father?”
    Corin roared with laughter. “Your grandfather was a man of great passions and tempers. He did not reward failure in himself or anyone else. So I would watch. I would maybe ask a question—though, I admit, with him I asked for a story to hide my intention. I learned to do things correctly and