Biddy looked at them thoughtfully, and leaned against the wall, folding her arms.
"Cutlery isn't usually my stock in trade," Biddy said. "Pretty, though."
"Oh, come on," Kit said. And Nita added, "I wish you'd ditch the accent. It's really bad."
"What?" Biddy said.
Nita had to laugh. "I'm sorry. It's probably good enough to fool the people around here, but it wouldn't fool a real American for very long. The morning after I met you, I was wondering why you sounded so weird. Now I know." She laughed again. "You may be one of the Powers that Be, but you're no more perfect than we are. Especially not at sounding like you've lived somewhere you've never been!"
Biddy looked faintly shocked. Then she leaned back again, and she too laughed a little, and fell silent afterwards, looking at the Sword. "Well?" Kit said.
"Well," said Biddy. 'May I see it, then?"
Kit went to her and handed her the Sword, hilt-first. She took it, and held it up to examine it, laying it for a moment across the flat of her forearm. "Not much changed," she said. "Though it's more tired than I remember." "You can do something about that," Nita said.
Biddy glanced over at her with a humorous look. "You have a lot of confidence in my abilities," she said.
"You'd better believe we do," Kit said. "We've worked with the Powers before."
"Not all of us are of equal ability," Biddy said. "And spending time in a physical body tends to affect one's ability to do one's job."
"The last Power we worked with took on the Lone One after spending ten years in the shape of a macaw, sitting on a perch and eating sunflower seeds," Kit said dryly,"so I wouldn't sell yourself short, if I were you."
Biddy sighed and looked at the Sword. "How long have you been here?" Nita said.
"Since the beginning," Biddy said. She turned the Sword over again and looked at Fragarach's flat, as if searching for flaws. "I never left. Couldn't bear to."
Nita boosted herself up on to the fence rail.
"You were one of the ones who made Ireland, then."
Biddy nodded, turning Fragarach over again. "The first of the blow-ins," she said, and smiled slightly. "Here." She handed Fragarach back to Kit.
"The stories say that the Tuatha came bringing the Treasures from the Four Cities," Kit said. "Those are just parts of Timeheart, aren't they. And you were one of the ones who had made the Treasures in the first place."
"I was the Smith of Falias," said Biddy, "among others. I made Fragarach. yes." "And then the stories tell about Govan, the smith of the gods, who came to Lugh the Ildanach," Nita said, "and how they went away together and took the Spear of Victory, Luin, and forged it full of fire and a fierce spirit. ."
She looked at Nita and nodded slowly. "That was me as well." "You could do that again," Kit said.
Biddy frowned. "I doubt it," she said. "The worlds aren't what they used to be, and neither is matter."
"Your anvil is," Kit said.
"That can't be used as anything but an anvil," Biddy said. "Its nature is set, from time's beginning almost."
"But if you could get some more of that old "original" matter — you could do it. You could make another Spear!"
"What do you take me for?" Biddy said, laughing hopelessly. "You really didn't understand me. When you live in the physical world, you have to do it in a physical body. Those are the rules. And if you're going to spend as long in a mortal form as I have, you give up a lot of your power by necessity. It would burn the body out, otherwise, and the brain; physicality just isn't robust enough to bear our state of being for very long. The memories all ebb away after a while. And why shouldn't they? I did my work well — too well." She laughed, with some bitterness in the sound. "I fell in love with what I made, and couldn't leave it. You're quite right that we're not perfect, especially that way. Once I had finished my part in making this place, I didn't want anything more but to be here in peace, for ever. The One released me to do that — just to be here, and be useful in my small way, until I'm required to give my power back at the end of things. I do my forgework, and live in the place I love."
'Then make yourself useful," Kit said, sounding grim. "Otherwise 'this place you love' is going to be nothing but a big pile of cinders, after Balor gets through with it."
Biddy was shaking her head. "This is one use I can't be. I haven't the power to pull matter here from the heart of time, or its beginning either! And wizards or not, not even the Seniors have that kind of power!"
"I know someone who does," Nita said, "at the moment, anyway." Kit glanced at her, uncomprehending for a moment — then got it, and his eyes glittered. "Never mind that now. The memories may ebb — but you can't have forgotten how you made that." Biddy's eyes lingered on Fragarach. "No," she said. "That I remember very well." "And the Spear," Kit said.
"I remember some of the details," Biddy said softly. "But I had that other Power to help me, the one they called Lugh the All-Crafted."
"I can't get you someone who knows how to do everything," Nita said, grinning, "but I can sure get you someone who thinks she does. Second best, maybe. But take it or leave it."
Biddy stood there, her eyes downcast, irresolute. "Come on," Nita said. "We could require it of you, in the One's name. Once a Power, always a Power, regardless of how much or little of it you have left. Those are the rules, as you say. But. ." She broke off.
Nita and Kit stood quiet. Biddy stared at the ground.
She looked up, then. "It's better than doing nothing, I suppose. Tell me what you want of me." "Come and have some tea at my aunt's," Nita said. Kit groaned.
Some hours later almost all the free chairs in Aunt Annie's kitchen were full of wizards, all talking hard. Most of them there knew Biddy, and there had been some shock at Nita's announcement of who else she was besides the local farrier, but Fragarach's response to Biddy couldn't be explained in any other way. Shock had been quickly put aside in favour of plan-making. "It was Ronan's idea," Nita said, and Ronan blushed right out to his ears. "We can make another. We can!"
"I'll entertain explanations of how," Johnny said, sitting back and stroking his moustache. "Don't tell me you're thinking of pinching some ur-matter from Timeheart, either, because it won't work. That matter is structured differently from the way matter was at the beginning of Time in this universe."
"Timeslide, then," Kit said.
Johnny shook his head. "We would need a wizard with enough power to drive that kind of a slide back far enough. You're talking billions of years." Kit bent over to Nita and said, "Should I?"
"I think you'd better," Nita said, and sighed. It had been so quiet until now, relatively speaking. "It's after dinnertime. See if you can do it without raising the alarm, if you know what I mean." Kit nodded and went out. "It might help," Aunt Annie said to Johnny, 'if we understood a little more about exactly what kind of matter's needed."
"Well, you've got a bard around here somewhere, haven't you?" he said. "Let's hear the authorized version first, and then Biddy can give us what she remembers of the technicalities, so that we can work on the spelling proper."
"Hmm," Aunt Annie said. She went to the door. " Tualha! Kitty kitty kitty! Tuna!"
The kitchen immediately began to fill with meowing cats. "Do you really think this will work, Shaun?" Doris said.
He stretched, then shrugged. "It's our best chance, I think, considering that no envelope presently extant seems to be suitable. It seems as if the Spear's soul burns out its containers the way — well." He looked at Biddy, then away.
The catflap clattered as Tualha scrambled in through it. She stood there, very small and black, with her small tail pointing straight up in the air, and said, "Mew."