Flashback [Glass Reverie] The Workings of Glass

[Azira]

22nd Winter 506AV, 8th Bell

It was the one bendi that she actually considered skipping. She never wanted to have anything to do with glassworking, the image of what it had done to her mother forever etched into her memory. She did not want to risk that happening to her, didn’t want to be in that place of heat and molten glass/ She had once aspired to being a glassworker just like her mother until the accident had chased such dreams away. The small glass animal figurines that the woman had so often brought home to her as presents had always fascinated her. They had been beautiful small miniatures of their real life counterparts, exquisitely detailed to the eyes of the young girl. Her mother had been good at her craft, Azira knew, and she had wanted to be that good too. After her mother’s death, she hadn’t been able to stand the sight of the glass animals and had smashed them to pieces after her own world had been so irreparably shattered.

Something that she’d wanted to avoid was being forced upon her but despite her ingrained fears she would not skip her bendi. Terrified as she was to enter the place that had killed her mother, the girl was even more terrified of breaking the rules. The last thing that she wanted was to be punished and drawn to the attention of her peers. They tormented her enough as it was and she didn’t need any more trouble from them. Therefore, the Yasi dragged her feet all the way to the Glass Reverie, trailing behind the other youths who had been assigned to the same bendi as her. They chatted happily in their little groups that did not include Azira in them. The girl didn’t mind. She preferred to be left alone. The others were only ever cruel to her after all but it still would have been nice to have a friend in spite of it all.

She continued to lag behind as she saw the other Yasi disappear into the glassworks ahead of her. She hung back even as the last of the other youths entered ahead of her leaving her alone out in the Warrens, the tunnels quiet at so early a bell. Azira slowed as she drew nearer to the entrance, pace decreasing until she came to a stop. A number of things struck her as she peered into the workshop of the glassblowers, most of her senses assaulted at once. The scent that issued from the work area couldn’t be described as pleasant and the youth couldn’t identify all of the harsh odours. Burning, the stinging scents of things that she couldn’t put a name to, the air hot as it entered her nose. It made her nose wrinkle in an effort to keep the near painful olfactory attack at bay. The heat that came from the place was great, hotter than many of the places that she’d visited in the city. It was a dry heat that enveloped her even where she stood, eyes watering as she peered within. A cautious step was taken forwards into the room that was aglow with red and orange light.

“Hey you! Am I teaching you today too?” Her eyes travelled to the source of the voice. The movement was casual as the girl hadn’t realised that the words were addressed at her instead attracted by the voice itself. It was only when she caught sight of the speaker, a man, who was so clearly looking at her that she realised that he must have been talking to her. Her eyes flitted to the other Yasi gathered before him a short way off from the side of the entrance. One of them whispered to a peer, both youths’ eyes settling on her as they started to snigger. The whispering grew, seen rather than heard. Her face was already warm from the heat of her environment but now it genuinely seemed to be aflame as she became aware that she’d become the centre of attention for so many. She nodded hastily, moving to stand by the man with her head bowed for fear of meeting the eye of one of the other Yasi.

An eye strayed upwards, the golden orb catching the man who had called her. His head was high above her, his frame just as great as his height. Broad shoulders topped large, muscular arms with veins seeming to pop out from under the skin. They ended in big hands that held some sort of metal pipe that he twirled absentmindedly between them. The movement held her full attention until the man addressed them as a group then her eyes travelled up to his face and stuck there. “Right so I’m Nevin and as you’re all just starting at glassworking, I’ll give you a tour of the Reverie and introduce you to the tools of glassworkers.” His voice was deep; the words spoken at a volume and tone that made Azira feel at ease. It was no wonder that both her eyes fixed on him, amazed at the deep melody of his voice. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her in here, nothing bad. She didn’t know why she thought that but she just felt it with absolute certainty. The sound of his voice didn’t seem to leave room for any other interpretation.

“You aren’t to get in the way of the glassworkers or touch anything unless you’re told you can, got it?” Azira nodded obediently. There weren’t many glassworkers around the place yet but she knew better than to interfere with their work; it could lead to an accident. Nodding the man gestured with the strange pipe, indicating that they should follow as he made his way over to one of the large structures in the middle of the room, which seemed to glow with fire from within. The girl stuck close to Nevin as she followed, rarely turning her sight from him for more than a few ticks.

The structure that the glassworker led them to was what he called a batch oven. He pointed out the other three, the massive structures taking up most of the available space in the room as far as she could tell at least. Maybe some of the room was obscured from view by the ovens but she’d have to wait for the rest of the tour to find out. If they were ovens though the child wondered what they cooked in them. Glass? It was the only thing that Azira could think of being heated in them and she knew that they needed the glass to be almost like liquid to work with it so it seemed to make sense.

The girl’s thoughts were proven correct as the man explained the batch oven’s usage. He explained that the crucible held the molten glass-Azira winced at that, recalling her mother’s burns-and how the glass could be left there for days at a time until air had gone out of it. He explained that air bubbles in the glass made it unworkable as it became fragile and more likely to fall apart as a glassworker tried to use it. The youth tried to commit all of his information to memory. It was entirely possible that he’d question them on the subject once the tour was over and she didn’t want to seem like a fool if she couldn’t come up with the right answers.

Nevin drew their attention to the metal pipe in his hands. “This is a blowpipe. You heat the end in this rectangular hole here,” he pointed the pipe in the hole’s direction, “so that it’s hot before you put glass on the end of it. You put the pipe through this hole here-where you can see into the crucible-and into the glass. You turn the blowpipe so that it gathers on the end and you spin it until you have the amount you want to work with. Then you roll it on one of those marble tables up against that wall.” He pointed again so that all the Yasi turned to look at what he’d indicated. “Those are called Marvers. You roll the glass on them so that you can shape it and then you blow.”

The man fell silent as a woman approached the batch oven with blowpipe in hand. The Yasi were gestured out of the way by Nevin but they were still able to see what was going on. They watched soundlessly as the woman carried out the process that their teacher had just described. Azira watched the glass come out like a thick liquid on the end of the pipe. It didn’t drip even though it looked like it should, although it did seem to react almost lazily to gravity. It was hard to tell though because the glassworker kept turning it, stopping it from escaping. How had her mother had an accident involving that stuff? The process seemed very safe after all. It seemed that it was going to remain a mystery.

Her attention was snapped away from the glassblower with her blowpipe as Nevin led them to a new section of the Reverie. She wondered just how big the place was and just how long this tour was going to take. Probably long enough that they wouldn’t be able to try their hands at anything themselves. The girl wasn’t even sure that she wanted to try it herself although she was almost worried that the idea would grow on her. The idea that she would be attracted to a craft that she’d held so long as detestable made her feel guilty. Her mother had liked it so it was excusable if she found she liked it herself. Regardless of what the overall outcome would be, the girl was still eager to learn in spite of the subject and so she followed in Nevin’s steps ahead of the rest of the group. She was going to ignore the other Yasi for the rest of the day and pretend that Nevin was the only person here. Well he was the only person worth paying attention to at least.

[Azira]

Their teacher seemed to be leading them over to the marble tables, the marvers and as she grew closer Azira could see that there was more than just these tables. They were allowed to have a walk alongside them as long as they didn't disturb any of the glassworkers. There were open cabinets over the tables and when the girl stood on her toes to peer into them she could see that they seemed to contain all sorts of tools although what they were and what they were used for were a mystery to her. It'd be interesting if Nevin explained them to the Yasi. At the end of each table was a barrel of what appeared to be water. Once they'd had their little look the master glassworker had them gather around him again.

"Now you've had a look at the marvers and you can see that above them we have these cabinets of tools and at the end of each table you have a barrel of water." As he spoke, he took all of the tools out of one of the cabinets and laid them out in a row on the marble surface so that the Yasi could see them from where they were gathered around as the man began to explain each one. The first thing that he picked up looked like a big pair of tweezers. He didn't hold them at the top, pinched between forefinger and thumb as tweezers normally were but held them around the middle, wrapping his whole hand around them.

"These are called jacks. Now you can use the points to etch lines into the glass and you can use them to pinch or shape," he explained, indicating the two pointy arms of the tool. He flipped it around so that the more rounded end was facing downwards in his hand before continuing. "You can use the end to smooth the glass if the surface isn't as smooth as you want it to be. It can do the same job as a marver but you can only concentrate on smaller areas with it so you can use it on something like the punty. I'll explain in a chime what that is." The jacks were put down and the man began to explain what a punty was with the use of hand gestures.

"Punties are a bit like blowpipes. They're metal rods but you can't blow into them. You have a little glass on the end of them and you can stick it to one end of a glass piece that's on a blowpipe. Then you can break it off the blowpipe and have the whole piece on the punty. The punty goes on the bottom of whatever you're making so you have to think carefully before you start making something or else you could make it the wrong way round by mistake. I'll see if I can find someone doing it later on so you can see what I mean. You can also make parts on the punty that don't need to be blown into and attach them onto the main piece." His punty explanation finished the man next picked up a wooden paddle and showed it to them allowing them to pass it around to look at as he explained its use.

"Now these wooden paddles help to shape the glass when you're using the marver. You turn her blowpipe with one hand so that it rolls on the table and then you use your paddle with the other hand so that you can smooth or flatten it depending on what you're doing." The paddle was passed into Azira's hands and the Yasi examined it with interest, tracing her fingers over the smooth, slightly scorched surface before passing it back to Nevin. "Now its wood so it can burn if it gets too hot and you also want it to be cool like the marvers while you're shaping so that's where the water comes in," the glassworker explained, patting the lip of the barrel beside the marver. "You cool your paddle in there and you use it wet so that it doesn't burn while you work on the glass."

He picked up a thick cushion of material that seemed to be burned and showed it to them. "This is leather, which you use to polish the glass by hand and it lets you push the glass if you want to without burning yourself. The leather does all the burning instead so you have to get rid of the ash once you're done with it or you'll end up with ashy glass." The leather cushion was returned to the table and a cone on the end of a rod was picked up next. "This one is a puffer. You stick the cone end into the glass and you blow through this here tube to make a hole for the opening of a vase or a cup for example." This tool was returned to the table too.

The sheer amount of information was staggering and there were still tools on the table. The girl was struggling to remember all of the names and uses and couldn't help wondering just how the glassworker's remembered how everything worked. She supposed that if you were using them then it was probably easier but she wondered just how many steps you'd have to follow in order to make something. There was still another wall of stuff across from the marvers and now that she was over to one side she'd could also see that there was a larger space at the back of room with what looked like more ovens. The Glass Reverie was also growing busier now, the many glassworkers setting about their work with great levels of concentration. If that concentration slipped - as it seemed it so easily could with all the different steps - then the consequences could be horrible.

Her attention was returned to Nevin once again as he picked up two different pairs of scissor like things. "These are shears," he announced, waving the objects in his hands. One was held up for their main focus. "This is a diamond shears. What that means is that you can cut glass off four sides at once. That's what they do, cut off glass that you don't want. Now this other one," the second pair of shears was presented for their inspection, "this one is a straight shears. What it does is in the name: it cuts straight. You can make a seam with it when you cut away glass, you can cut around the lip of a piece or you can cut into the lip. You have to use the shears on hot glass though or you'll break them. Cold glass is too hard so you might need to heat it up when you're working on it if you want to use them."

"How do you reheat the glass? In the... the... big oven?" one of the Yasi asked, gesturing back towards the batch ovens in the centre of the room.

The master glassworker shook his head. "Good question but no, you don't heat it in the batch oven. We have other ovens for reheating glass that's being worked on. They're at the back of the room and we'll get to them in a little while." The heads of the Yasi swivelled in the direction that the glassworker had mentioned but in vain; they had no idea what they should be looking for. "This is a ladle." The heads of the Yasi swivelled back as yet another new tool was presented to them. How many of these are there? she wondered as the man explained that it too could be used to shape the glass but that they also used them to ladle glass into moulds over near the batch ovens.

She examined the table, checking off each tool in her head that she'd already seen. Ladle, shears, jacks, paddles, leather, puffer. There were only two tools that she couldn't identify and so they were the only ones left to be introduced. The girl sighed quietly with relief. She'd been sure that the lesson about tools would go on forever. How did anyone remember all of these things?

"This one is a diamond tip cutter. A metalsmith has put bits of diamond into the tip so it's extra sharp. Not a tool to be handled lightly," the man warned as he displayed the small, pointy rod. "You can use it to cut lines in the glass. Wherever you cut, the glass will snap off cleanly." The cutter was returned to the table and the last tool, a rod with a bend in the end, was picked up. "And this is definitely not a toy. This is a fire torch. You turn this ring at the bottom and..." He demonstrated, turning the ring slightly as he held the bent end of the tube away from both himself and the children. A jet of blue flame shot from it for a few inches, which earned a chorus of "oohs" before the man turned it off again. "It can get hotter than that. The more you turn the ring, the hotter it gets. It can get so hot that you melt it and it can't work anymore, which is why apprentice glass workers are watched closely. These things aren't easy to make and so they're hard to get. Wouldn't say there's more than a couple in the whole city that can make 'em."

He allowed the awe of the children to die down a bit before he actually explained its use. It was a magic stick so of course he had to wait a chime before they stopped whispering and staring and pointing at the thing. Azira was no less awed than the others. How did it work? It had to be magic. She knew there were people who could make fire with magic but how did you put fire in the stick so that it could turn on and off and be as hot as you needed it? It was an object beyond her comprehension and hence an object of wonder and mystery.

The glassworker gave a cough, which silenced them instantly. "So this fire torch lets you heat small bits of glass rather than the whole thing. It has to be used very carefully as it can get almost hot as the batch ovens and that's certainly hot." The tools were each returned to the cabinet, the fire torch going in last once it had cooled a bit before the man started to lead them to the back of the room. Yes, this was going to be a very long tour by the looks of things.