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“He didn’t say anything, but he was incredibly good-looking Tall, lean, big nose, brown skin He tooksticking up out of the sand At the top was a big crater full of black earth with things growing in it A whole tribe lived in little cells carved out of the rock in a ring around it”
“Where did they get water?” Eliot asked
“I wondered that too I found out But I’ll get to that
“They were a pretty hard crew This guy who saved me, he was the leader, they called him the Fore him, or that I was, and that this desert was all part of Fillory now I thought about letting it go, since he saved my life and all, but come on: an invasion’s an invasion Or an annexation Anyway I figured I’d better put it out there up front, that they were now free to enjoy the benefits of being a seer embrace of the Fillorian empire
“But the Fore none of it! He was very firht? It pissedaround
“I liked it there For a bunch of people with no obvious ene style: they all carried a personal weapon , and when it hit soure out where it came fro speech about how great it was Forged in the desert, slew a god, that kind of talk He said it acted as a focus for ic—amped up your discipline—but I never saw him use it like that
“I decided I was going to win the out around the place, trying to get into the rhythms of the tribe You wouldn’t have believed it, a queen of Fillory on her hands and knees pulling parsnips out of the ground, eating these gross grubs they sieved out of the sand—I tried to think of therubs And you knohat? I didn’t even ry I can’t rery than I did out there
“And I slept with the Foremost I didn’t love him, but I liked him a lot, and I loved his world I wanted to be part of that place And God knows he was easy on the eyes Sex with hi to bed with the desert
“After about three months—”
“Wait,” Eliot said “You’ve been in Rockville for threeon in Fillory?”
“In Filloryto protocol What did you think was going to happen? You set up a country right, it runs itself I got those people thinking I could hear their thoughts, for Christ’s sake They were scared to piss in the shower No ere they going to try anything
“Anyway after about threeto stay any longer I had to undergo their initiation rites It was a major deal, every year a couple of people died But I didn’t care I wasn’t ready to leave And if you passed, you got one of those black-s by halves”
“I will never say that,” Eliot solemnly promised “Janet, this is kind of intense”
“I know And you haven’t even heard the intense part So I’ you about it, but what the hell, here’s what it was The Foremost took me out of the city, back out into the desert, and then he kneeled doith me and picked up a handful of sand and told ht? But so I looked at the damn sand
“And after a while I began to notice that there were little glittery bits in it Not a lot of therain with a shiny sheen to it I started to get it That was the black metal the weapons were rain in a thousand, the Foremost said
“He gave me a canvas sack and told me that I had to sit alone in the desert until I’d filled the whole sack with just rains, one by one I was like, filled-filled? Like overflowing? Or just, you know, a nice amount? He said I’d know because when I was finished, when the sack was full, so called the Smelter would come It would turn the ore I’d collected into pure metal and fashion a weapon for me”
“Really?” Eliot said “How incredibly nice of it”
“Well, I know Pretty convenient You’d think I would have been suspicious But I had to have one of these things Had to
“So I stayed out there I would take a handful of sand, make a little pile in my palm, pick out the black specks and sort of brush theic, it was just me and my sack and my bare hands After a few hoursand just about crossed By the ti was filling up, you could weigh it in your hand, but it was going to be a race to see whether I finished or went insane first
“It was pretty bad All the usual stuff happened that happens in an ordeal I peed myself I practically went blind I threw up at one point It was really, really unpleasant But at the saaeaknesses and iht a lot of that kind of crap while I was collecting rains”
“Janet” Eliot didn’t knohat to say He’d never heard her talk this openly about her feelings Whatever happened out there, soed He hadn’t seen it till now “Janet, how could you do that to yourself?”
“I don’t know, I just knew I had to I picked and I picked and I picked My hands were shaking like crazy The sun was going down the third day when I started to feel like e sack— pretty full If somebody asked you for a sack of ore you wouldn’t be eive it to them
“Supposedly if you had even one grain of regular sand in there the Smelter wouldn’t come, and I don’t know if I believed that or not, but I kept shaking the bag and fishing around in it to see if so of black metal It felt cool, and oily, and so dense It had a special smell I was proud of it I just could not wait to see what kind of weapon came out of it I knew that whatever it ould be like the sharp, unbreakable expression offor my whole life
“I guess my defenses were low, because a lot of stuff ca thinking about for a long ti to Brakebills for the first ti if they’d let her in I thought about how shitty I was to her before she died or whatever I thought about Julia waiting for Brakebills to co alone in her roo
“I thought about you, and how I used to feel about you, and how bad that felt I thought about how far you’ve coether when you cauess I never told you that Everybody does”
“Thank you” She hadn’t It felt good
“I thought about this one ti school I never think aboutout You know ht? Now I think it was too early, but at the time I just assumed it was nor anyh year for my family—I had a baby brother die of SIDS—and I think they kind of forgot aboutand such They just figured I’d take care of myself
“Which I guess I must have But it was a pretty bad year”