Garm quirked his eyebrows and stood also, seeing at last two little people standing in the doorway. They came up only to the belt of a norn, and they were gray, with giant ears swept back from their childlike faces. One was male, dressed in a greatcoat over a buttoned-up vest and brown trousers. He wore two large gauntlets with gems hovering over the backs of them. The other figure was female, decked in bluish body armor that looked jury-rigged, as if she changed its dimensions constantly. Despite their strange voices, they looked intently serious.
"Oh, there you are," said the slightly taller creature. "Eir Stegalkin, I presume. I'm Master Snaff of Rata Sum, asura genius. I've been told you're the best."
"Told by whom?" Eir asked. Asura. Of course they would be asura. Short, smart, and irritating.
Snaff smiled, bowing. "I cannot reveal my sources." The younger asura shot him an annoyed look, as if he often revealed his sources. Unperturbed, Snaff continued, "This is my associate, Zojja, genius-in-training."
She also bowed, but her scowl only deepened.
"We've come for a commission," Snaff said.
"I'm not accepting commissions," Eir replied.
The little man wandered into the workshop, glancing sidelong at the statues that towered all around. "Really? What are all these, then?"
"I mean, I'm no longer accepting commissions."
Garm trotted up behind the male asura, who reached only his shoulders. The wolf snuffled the creature's greatcoat, which smelled of swamp water and fern spores.
Snaff seemed none too concerned with having a big black wolf hounding his steps. "Well, that's a shame, an artist of your caliber no longer taking commissions. There are only three possible reasons: One, that you are retired, which clearly you cannot be, given your age and the bits of stone and wood all over your floor; two, that you've somehow gone haywire, which your hair does seem to indicate-"
"I just got up!"
"Or three, that you have found your subjects of late unworthy of your genius, which judging from this rogues' gallery of puffed-up posers, I would guess to be the reason."
"You have guessed well, little master." Eir stepped into a pair of trousers and drew them on beneath her nightshirt. "I am tired of watching fools go to their deaths."
Snaff smiled, spreading his hands. "We're not fools."
"But she just said she liked fools," said the apprentice.
"I didn't."
Zojja dragged a finger through a pile of shavings on the floor. "You said you are tired of watching fools go to their deaths. If you hated them, you would never tire of this. Ergo, you must like them."
"You may have something there," Eir conceded.
"Well, then I suppose," Snaff replied, looking askance at his apprentice, "I would be wise to say that we are fools. Except that fools aren't wise, in which case my apprentice's inquisitiveness has once again landed us in a conundrum."
"Once again," Zojja said almost pridefully.
A grin was fighting its way onto Eir's face. "Hypothetically speaking-"
"I love hypotheses!" Snaff broke in.
"-if I were taking commissions, whose image would you want?"
Snaff's grin grew from Eir's own. "My assistant's, of course."
Eir looked at the petulant young asura and asked, "Why?"
Snaff shrugged. "She's got a good head on her shoulders. And that's all I want. A head and shoulders."
"Well," Eir said, "that's a pretty small statue. I'm a pretty-big-statue maker. Maybe you'll want to find a smaller sculptor."
"Except that her head needs to be five times taller," Snaff said.
Zojja shot him a look of annoyance.
"I suppose that is a commission worthy of my talents, but it'll cost you. Twenty silver."
"A bargain," said Snaff, reaching beneath his greatcoat to grasp a bag on his belt. "This will be a bust in stone, of course."
"In wood, of course," Eir clarified. "It'd be twenty gold for stone."
"Ah," said Snaff, reaching to the other side of his belt. "Then gold it will be. Twenty, did you say?" He opened the bag, a pile of coins shimmering within the burlap.
Eir's eyes widened as she peered at the bag.
She snagged her leather apron, mallet, and chisel belt and led the way outside into the courtyard. The others followed. She guided them along her stock of boles and boulders. "This one is granite, which is very hard. This one is marble-too expensive in this case. Here we have columnar basalt. This is limestone…"
"Basalt!" exclaimed Snaff. "That's volcanic rock, yes?"
"Yes," said Eir, standing beside a large gray chunk. "And this one is particularly dense."
"Perfect for depicting my student!"
Zojja hit him.
Eir cocked an eyebrow at Zojja. "You should show more respect for your master."
Snaff rubbed the spot she had hit and smiled tightly. "Most asura assistants get browbeaten by their masters. With Zojja, it's the other way around."
"Why do you put up with it?" Eir asked.
Zojja glared. "I'm not sure if that's your business, giantkin."
Eir stared back. "Your master might put up with your abuse, but I will not."
"Now, now," said Snaff, chuckling lightly. "It's quite flattering to have you two fight over me."
Both women gaped at him in amazement.
"I think I understand," said Eir to Zojja.
Snaff just beamed. "Well, good then. All things are mended. Let's get started. Zojja, why don't you stand over there in the light?… Yes. Excellent. And, of course, Eir, you know where to stand. And I'll step out of the way so that neither of you can hit me."
Eir stepped up before the block of basalt, drew a large chisel from her belt, set it to the stone, and lifted the mallet above her head. "Wolf, guide my hands." She brought the mallet down, shearing off a chunk of stone.
Basalt was a tricky medium, formed of cooled lava. The question was how it cooled-quickly beneath the ocean or slowly on land. Land was better. This particular stone had come from the throat of a long-dead volcano. It had cooled slowly, and it was amorphous, without striations. As Eir worked into the block, she sensed it had no hidden faults or fissures that could split her work. It was solid.
As was her model. This annoying little creature had a solid will. She held her nose up and remained still, seeming to sense the importance of this moment.
Eir worked the stone to bring forth Zojja's features. That lemon-shaped head, those great eyes, her button nose, her small, determined mouth, her perky chin… but hardest of all were those ears-shaped like a rabbit's, but swept back from her forehead so they seemed almost like small wings.
"How's it coming?" asked the apprentice.
Eir wished she hadn't moved. Her previous expression had been perfect-focused and slightly proud, willful and determined. Now the lines had shifted to dubious and frustrated. "Well," Eir replied, "could you try to get the old look back?"
"What old look?"
"The look that you are smarter than everyone else and that they will be shocked when they realize it." Suddenly, the look was back, and Eir shifted to a smaller chisel to capture it.
Nearby, Snaff idly sized up a floor-to-ceiling drake in alabaster. "It's good to be immortalized, my dear. Most apprentices don't make it, you know." He turned toward Eir. "Maybe you didn't realize that, but they're always handling caustic substances, building precarious mechanisms… Unless they're clever, they just don't make it."
"And Zojja, here, is clever?" Eir asked as she finished the little snarl beneath Zojja's right nostril.
"She's here," Snaff pointed out.
Eir stepped back from her sculpture. "Yes. I suppose she is. In both ways. The likeness is complete. Come see."
The two asura walked toward the sculpture with the numb air of people who cannot believe what they see. Though the statue was five times the actual height of Zojja, it was dead-on. Eir had captured not only the young asura's expression but also her personality.
Zojja's look of wonder slowly soured. "Why did you have to make me look so big?"