Demesne

They were able to quickly ascertain that the new alloy had the same properties of copper. It bent like unalloyed copper did, it was easily shaped by simply hammering it, and it wasn't any harder or more elastic than copper was normally.

It was when they heated the alloy sample again—both to undo the work-hardening from the hammering and to confirm what Lori had perceived earlier—that it showed an unusual property. While copper was known for getting hot easily and conducting that heat well, it usually took a few moments for it to get hot and to spread across the metal.

The metal sample became hot instantly as soon as the corner of the sample touched the binding of firewisps that Lori had formed to heat it. Firewisps quickly spread across the entire sample, and the sample began to glow orange almost immediately. Lori hastily deactivated the binding, and as soon as she did the sample immediately stopped glowing, the firewisps disappearing soon after. By the time that Lori reached out to touch it, the sample was cool enough to touch again, and seemed to be the same temperature as the tongs holding it.

Rian picked it up, and Lori watched as firewisps spread across the sample once more as it became the same temperature as his fingers. "This is so strange," he said. "It was literally glowing hot just a little bit ago, but now…" He held the metal out to one of the smiths—on his apron was burned 'Artelego'—who took it and examined it before leaning down to touch it to the still-hot mold it had been poured onto. The man pulled it back instantly as it probably became very hot, but as soon as it lost contact with the mold the sample became cool again. "Don't get me wrong, it's very interesting… but also very strange. "

"It's become a very good conductor of heat," Lori agreed, gesturing for him to write that down, making Rian reach for his slate again. "The heat exchange across the entire sample is nearly instantaneous, and it sheds heat just as quickly."

"Would this be a good metal for a cooking pot?" Rian said thoughtfully. "It would spread the heat evenly across the whole pot, and being directly on a heat source makes the 'loses heat quickly' part not so problematic…?"

"That might be the only thing it's good for," Lori said.

"I don't know. I think it might be a good material for drawing out heat from wood-fired steam drivers. Having a material like this would be very useful for condensing the steam back into water to be reused."

"How do you know how a steam driver works?"

"One of the saws in the lumber mill I worked at was a hybrid steam driver that could be fueled by wood or a bead. We burned all the bark and rotted wood and things that were no good for wood-pressing. I just asked about it and old Virr was more than happy to explain how it worked," Rian said cheerfully. "Never burn sawdust in one of those things. It'll explode."

"It's sawdust. Of course it'll explode."

"Look, I was younger and stupider, all right? The important thing is nothing burned down but my eyebrows."

Lori stared at him. "Rian, if we ever have a steam driver in the demesne, you are forbidden from getting within four paces of it."

"I'm not going to put sawdust in a steam driver!"

The third alloy sample was set aside for the moment. Besides its admittedly interesting thermal properties, it was physically close enough to unalloyed copper as to make no difference. While there was probably a use for it—Rian had been muttering about a copper plate and double-layered pots—that could be considered later.

There were five more alloys to make, after all.

Firewisps had been the easiest to do, as heat was spread all through the heated ingot, which was why they had done it first, but fortunately the smiths had been able to suggest a solution once Lori had told Rian how she was having trouble thinking of how to disperse some kinds of wisps through the copper, and he had told the smiths.

The solution had been embarrassingly simple.

Copper shavings.

The smiths had prepared the raw material for her, using knives and files to make copper shavings from a large ingot. It was part of what had taken things so long, along with the work they had to do for the sawmill, as well as repairs of the metal tools around the demesne. Lori was just glad gold lining didn't need to be reapplied to the insides of their copper pots. They didn't have any more gold for that.

After the crucible received a quick scrape for any slag that might be stuck inside it, a measure of copper shavings were poured in, followed by some fine white Iridescence.

"So," Rian asked as the crucible was placed on the ceramic block that would keep it off the floor, the binding of firewisps that would heat the insides of the crucible already anchored inside it well away from the white Iridescence, "which binding are you going to try next?"

"Airwisps," Lori said. "While I admit to also being very curious as to what would result should we perform this alloying with lightwisps and darkwisps, airwisps are where this methodology is most likely to fail, so I would rather we get it out of the way."

The shavings ensured that there were a lot of empty spaces—relatively speaking—between them, allowing for there to be space for the binding to be technically inside the copper. Lori wasn't sure if that was important, but if they had been melting a solid ingot, the airwisps that would be anchored to the white Iridescence would be from the air above it. While that might work—this was an experiment after all—the previous instances with the earthwisps and now the firewisps had involved wisps that were in the copper, so that was the methodology she was trying to replicate, as it had proven successful already. And short of using some kind of metal tube to blow bubbles into molten copper—which she wouldn't have been able to anchor to white Iridescence because the latter would have dissolved into the liquid—this was the best way of having air be 'in' the copper while still allowing her to anchor its wisps.

"What, not worried at all about how you're going to do this with waterwisps?" Rian said.

"Water is only dangerous because it will turn to steam. If it's already steam, it shouldn't be an issue," Lori said.

"Can we not be in the room when you try, just in case?"

"… fine."

"You heard her men, we can run away and hide when she tries with water!"

There were relieved sighs all around from all the smiths. Lori swept an annoyed look over all of them, but… well, she could hardly fault their worry given how dangerous adding water to very hot metalworking was. Instead, she said, "Let's get this done."

Lori claimed the airwisps running through all the gaps between the copper shavings, forming them into a binding. Briefly, she realized she could have done the reverse, claiming and binding all the air in the crucible and then adding the shavings. Well, a thought for next time, although she dictated it to Rian for future reference. Rian was on his second writing slate, the first one carefully set aside to keep the writing from getting smudged.

Once the airwisps were bound, she anchored them to the white Iridescence—some of which had also settled among the gaps between the copper shavings—before activating the binding of firewisps to start heating the copper. As the copper started to melt and liquefy, the airwisps started moving, though that was as much from the now-liquid copper beginning to occupy the voids they'd been in as the white Iridescence they were anchored to beginning to move.

This one was more fascinating to watch. Even as the earthwisps of the melting copper disappeared as the metal turned liquid, she could keep track of the substance through its firewisps to some degree. And so she was able to perceive that even as the copper melted completely, the airwisps she had bound to the white Iridescence didn't rise up into the crucible, but stayed intermixed with the firewisps of the molten metal. Unlike the airwisps above it, they weren't roiling or shifting violently or simply just rising up. Instead, they were moving with the firewisps, presumably being carried along by the molten metal's currents. It was not unlike the way airwisps were sometimes present in water, somehow dissolved into it, except this wasn't water…

After she finished dictating this for Rian to write down, the copper was poured into the mold.

Unlike the previous alloy, this one remained hot for some time, the airwisps dissolved into the metal disappearing from her awareness as the earthwisps that indicated the metal had solidified appeared. All that was left was to let it cool…

…so they dropped it into a bucket of water.

As the water bubbled from the steam, one of the redsmiths—Duvar—said, "It's too big."

"Come again?" Rian asked.

"The copper we just poured, L—Rian. It's too big. Me, Sherdon, and Virr all measured the shavings earlier this morning. I know how much copper was supposed to go into the crucible, and what came out was too much. I'd have to drop it into a cup to be sure, but the copper in that bucket looks like it's a little bit bigger than it should be. Maybe… a twentieth bigger?"

"Are you certain?" Lori said sharply

The redsmith turned towards her directly. "Yes, your Bindership. Normally I'd have thought it would be because of that white stuff, but we all know by now that it just disappears into the molten copper."

Lori nodded. "Rian, write that down. Someone get a saw ready. I need to see the inside of that metal."

"You think there are bubbles inside the copper?" Rian said as he wrote, flapping his hand back and forth as soon as he was done.

She shook her head. "I don't feel any voids of airwisps, so there shouldn't, but I want to confirm just to be sure. Especially since…Duvar… says that the copper is bigger than it should be."

Once the bucket stopped bubbling and Lori cooled the copper down the rest of the way—it probably wasn't necessary to cool the copper like that, but it cleaned most of the soot off the copper in the process as well—the piece of copper was secured, a scrap of leather was placed under it to catch any copper dust, and a hardened metal saw—bought from Covehold—was used to cut through the sample. When the sample had been cut through, there were no visible bubbles or anything to explain the supposed increase in volume, which the other redsmiths also confirmed.

The larger of the two pieces were given to the smiths, who proceeded to hammer at the copper to test it for altered physical properties. To Lori's eyes, it seemed to flatten out easily enough, but once they were finished, the smiths and redsmiths reported that working the metal was easier somehow, as if it were softer than it had been previously. And when they heated the metal again to treat the work hardening the hammering had likely caused…

"Is it just me or does it seem to be taking longer to get hot?" Rian commented.

"It's not just you," Lori said, staring at the copper sample, which had been folded over to make it more compact. One end, the end that was touching the binding of firewisps that was supposed to be heating it, was glowing hot. The rest of the length of the metal, while also hot, didn't seem as hot as it as it should be.

Rian tilted his head. "An insulator? I mean, the other one was a heat conductor…"

Lori deactivated the binding of firewisps. "We'll see. Set that aside to cool, and someone keep an eye on it. Tell me if it seems to take longer to cool than copper should. Let's get the crucible filled up for the next alloy."

Hopefully, they could make one more alloy before lunch and do the other three afterwards.

And then…

Well, she'd see about whether it was possible to alloy using bindings of more than one kind of wisp at a time.