Glamourhammer - 3. An Unlikely Encore

Helmhold awoke the next day feeling more level-headed, if still faintly rattled by the memory of his hammer’s rebellious jig. He had banked the coals overnight—like one’s sense of self-preservation after an evening in the Mended Drum—and it left the forge subdued and sensible once again. He nodded in satisfaction. This morning, he promised himself, there would be no nonsense. No un-dwarfish foot-tapping, no swirl or flourish in his hammer-strikes, and absolutely no thinking about multi-colored sparks. A dwarf measured his life in honest clangs and proper scowls, not in… dancing.

But the city of Ankh-Morpork, being what it was, had other ideas.

***

The Ring & Forge opened quietly under a pall of common sense. Helmhold stoked the embers, checked his hammers for proper dwarfishness,^1 and began to shape a modest piece of iron for a replacement gate hinge. Ordinarily, the rhythmic chiming of metal on metal was a lulling affair, something that soothed the dwarfish heart. Today, though, Helmhold had an itch beneath his beard, a subtle urge to shift his footing, to let his wrist dip a smidge at the apex of each swing. He steadfastly ignored it.

He was just hitting his stride—fully immersed in hammer, iron, and scowl—when the bell above his door jangled.

“Good morning,” a voice ventured. “Are you—oh!—are you forging something now? Don’t let me interrupt.”

Helmhold glanced up to see a small, sandy-haired man with an eager grin. The man’s clothes marked him as a clerk or scribe of some sort, which was a rare species in these parts, more commonly spotted near the Patrician’s Palace or lurking in stationery shops. “Welcome,” Helmhold said, punctuating the greeting with a curt nod. He resumed hammering, focusing on the hiss and squeal of hot iron, determined to maintain dignity.

Then, in the corner of his eye, he caught the customer’s face. It was rapt with fascination and the clerk’s eyes shone with something akin to wonder—or perhaps terror, which in Ankh-Morpork was often mistaken for wonder, in particular by street performers with flexible definitions of “audience participation.”

His gaze followed every lift and fall of Helmhold’s hammer, as though he expected each strike to produce not a shower of sparks but the secrets of the universe. There was a faint trembling in his hands, as if he might applaud at any moment, uncertain whether dwarfish forging was an art form or a sporting event.

A slight flutter of pride swelled in his breast. A dwarfish smith took pride in his craft, but dwarfs also weren’t above enjoying an admiring audience.^2 And so, without fully realizing he was doing it, Helmhold let his hammer arc with just a fraction more drama before landing.

Clang. A burst of sparks sprang free, darting across the gloom of the workshop like they were late for a very important conflagration. The clerk gasped, transfixed. Helmhold’s beard twitched, half in alarm, half in satisfaction. He repeated the motion, forging a subtle yet graceful cadence in the hammer’s descent. Each strike conjured a fresh flurry of sparks that took on fleeting, dancing shapes—flowers, spirals, or perhaps just fiery illusions brought on by the city’s questionable air quality.

When he glanced up, the clerk was applauding in a cautious, library-friendly sort of way. A surge of something strange and close to delight swept through him. He straightened his apron, reminded himself that he was a proper dwarf, then allowed a crisp nod and a small grunt of approval as if to say, Yes, indeed, I’m quite good.

“Pardon me,” said the customer, still clapping in a quiet, measured way, “but I’ve never seen forging like that. It’s… incredible. Are you taking orders? I need a custom gate latch for the Chamber of Tax Codices.”

Helmhold almost replied that forging was forging—straight up, no nonsense. But he heard the bell-like echo of his last strike resonate in his memory, and something about it filled him with subtle pride. *A gate latch, yes, a mundane thing—*but perhaps it could be just a little extraordinary.

He cleared his throat. “Of course. Let’s discuss the specifics,” he said, gesturing to the man. He took the order meticulously, as dwarfs do, but the man’s delighted glances toward the anvil did not escape him. When the clerk left at last, Helmhold stared at the still-glowing iron. His reflection gleamed in it, and for an instant, he saw a hint of that faint, newly discovered spark—both in the metal and in himself.

***

By evening, The Ring & Forge had quieted. The last embers in the forge died down, glowing dull like the last dregs of optimism in an Ankh-Morpork traffic warden. Helmhold swept up stray bits of metal and cinders, efficient as always. He exhaled a breath that tasted of iron filings and smoke—comforting, in a dwarfish way. The city’s shadows stretched across the workshop windows.

That was when he heard it: a soft, pattering noise, tap-tap-tap, like tiny footsteps scurrying across the cobblestones outside his door. He paused, broom in hand, heart thudding in quiet alertness. Another sound: click-click-click.

Gripping the broom handle in a manner reminiscent of a dwarf about to engage in a minor siege, Helmhold strode out to the shop’s dim front area. Nothing stirred. He checked near the furnace, behind the barrels, and under a bench. The forging tools watched impassively. Then, rounding the corner of his workbench, he almost collided with a trunk.

A trunk. With legs. Legs adorned in what might generously be called high-heeled footwear—though dwarfs, used to stout boots on sturdy feet, could only regard them as profoundly suspicious. More baffling, the trunk was pink. And glittery. It shimmered in the dim lamplight as though it had rolled through the set of an experimental theater performance about sequined unicorns, and it radiated the sort of unapologetic self-confidence usually reserved for nobles, actors, and very large cats from Lancre.

Helmhold lowered the broom. He had read stories, of course, about sapient pearwood. Luggage that followed their owners around. Luggage that was fiercely loyal. Luggage that occasionally ate the unwise. But pink? With heels? He prodded it with the broom tip, careful not to commit any personal offense.

It creaked open a fraction, as if offended by the broom’s bristles. Helmhold stepped back in case it decided to bite. But instead, the trunk hopped forward, its little high heels tippity-tapping on the forge floor. Then it swivelled around, presenting itself like a model on a runway, and gently bumped against Helmhold’s leg in what might be interpreted as a greeting or possibly an attempt to trip him.

“So, you’re… my trunk now?” Helmhold ventured, eyebrows climbing high into his low hairline. Still, the trunk displayed no inclination to devour him, which was a plus.

He carefully patted the trunk, admiring the quality workmanship. “My, my, aren’t you a pretty thing?” He nodded full of appreciation, making the trunk turn a slightly rosier shade of pink.

After a moment, its lid creaked open bashfully, revealing what looked like a plush, pink interior—like something you’d expect in a particularly flamboyant dwarfish boudoir, if dwarfs would admit to having boudoirs at all. Helmhold, being a practical dwarf (with occasional lapses into showiness), decided that if the trunk was set on adopting him, then refusing something so valuable might only cause more chaos.

He nodded warily. “Well, come along then. Mind yourself.” The trunk’s lid snapped shut with clear satisfaction, and it waddled after him, tippy-taps echoing across the workshop’s stone floor. Helmhold permitted himself a small sigh. It could be worse. He could have found the trunk gnawing on his best hammers—or, worse still, organizing his tools into alphabetical order. There were limits to what a dwarf could tolerate.

***

The next few days passed in a blur of clanging metal, swirling sparks, and a curious trunk that perched (in as much as a trunk can perch) in the corner of the workshop, occasionally rearranging its little heels. News spread about a dwarf smith who put on a forging show worth seeing—sure, dwarfs made fine metal, but rarely with such flair. It wasn’t that Helmhold performed elaborate dances, but there was a rhythm in his strikes, a suggestion of grace you wouldn’t expect from a creature built so close to the ground.

A surprising number of customers trickled in, not just to buy chain-mail or an ornamental hinge, but also to linger a bit, “just browsing”. They all watched Helmhold at work, whispered to one another when the sparks, for just a heartbeat, appeared to swirl in unusual patterns. Muffled gasps filled the gaps between the hammer strikes. A few times, Helmhold caught himself nearly humming under his breath. He tried to stifle it, clearing his throat and blaming the city air.

On the third day, a distinctive dwarfish figure stepped inside. Lance-Constable Cheery Littlebottom of the City Watch (whose lipstick was as much a badge of office as her actual badge) peered around with polite curiosity. Helmhold paused mid-swing, taking in the uncommon sight of a dwarf wearing lipstick so openly. To a traditional dwarf, this was like seeing a mine cart wearing a flamboyant hat. Yet Cheery wore it with calm self-assurance—pink, if he wasn’t mistaken, though it was probably called something like Rose Overload Blush No. 5.

She nodded politely at him. “I heard you have quite the forge here.”

“Mm,” Helmhold managed, strangely tongue-tied. He noted the bold color on her lips and how it caught the glint of the forge light. Something about it reminded him of the colorful sparks he’d been seeing. Well, a traitorous little voice in his head mused, why not?

Cheery asked for a small commission (a new style of watch badge with a discreet dwarfish sigil), which he immediately set to work on. There’s really no use in getting on the wrong foot of the city watch, otherwise they might aim Carrot his way to talk encouragingly about customer satisfaction. She observed his forging process with keen eyes, nodding appreciatively at each well-timed strike. Helmhold flushed with pride again. He hammered a little harder, coaxing extra trails of sparks. Cheery smiled, evidently pleased by both the craftsmanship and the show. She departed soon after, leaving Helmhold uncharacteristically thoughtful.

That evening, once the last of the customers had gone and the city lamps outside cast their uneven glow across the workshop, Helmhold sat on a low stool near the pink trunk. He eyed it warily. It eyed him back, in that unnerving, lid-ajar way.

“You’ve seen me… doing that. The forging thing,” he muttered to it, as though confiding in an old friend or a suspicious piece of furniture. The trunk merely creaked. He sighed and pushed the lid open. The interior was fuzzy, pink, and entirely too cheerful. Next to a well-used anvil, it looked like a visitor from some alternate dimension of glitter and sparkles.

He froze. Nestled inside was a small array of unfamiliar items: ribbons, several shimmering dresses that looked more costume than clothing, and—he lifted one gingerly—a tube of lipstick so dazzlingly bright it outshone Cheery’s by a factor of blinding.

Helmhold’s beard bristled. Dwarfs, as a rule, did not talk about male or female or anything in between. They especially did not talk about wearing dresses. But there was something about the rustle of sequins, the enticing gleam, that reminded him uncomfortably of the swirl of the sparks at his anvil. In the dim hush of the forge, he remembered how Cheery had worn her lipstick with casual conviction. The trunk seemed to be offering him an invitation, though in typical sapient pearwood fashion, it was an invitation that might not be refused.

He closed the lid, his pulse thrumming in his ears. “Daft nonsense,” he muttered. Yet as he swept the forge that night, he couldn’t help thinking about the new swirl in his forging style, and the colors dancing against hot metal. Maybe… maybe a little more color wasn’t so outlandish.

***

Morning broke, dull and gray as usual, but Helmhold found himself unusually anxious. The trunk’s contents had haunted him in his sleep. Before he fully decided what he was doing (or why he was doing it), he opened the trunk, rummaged, and extracted a shimmering, glittering garment that looked suspiciously like it had once belonged to an overambitious performer at the Royal Art Museum’s interpretive dance night.

“A quick look,” Helmhold told himself. He donned it over his sturdy dwarfish trousers—and discovered that dwarfish trousers plus a glitter dress created a look that even the city’s most daring fashion critics would struggle to describe politely. Next came the lipstick, which he applied with all the expertise of someone who had previously only wielded hammers. The resulting smear was uneven enough that a passing troll might have commented, “Now that’s a rough finish.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the ancestral voices of dwarfish tradition wailed in horror. But as he studied himself in a piece of polished metal, the mix of mortification and a bizarre excitement pushed him forward. For a final flourish, he snapped off a few bristles from the old broom in the corner and jammed them into his braided hair, creating a spiky, half-broom half-beard effect. Why? Possibly because once you’re already wearing a glitter dress, everything else just follows in due course.

With his throat uncomfortably dry, he opened the shop. As the first curious onlookers wandered in, he set the iron to the forge, letting the metal heat. Then he gripped the hammer and took the stance he’d developed: lighter on his feet, ready to shift his hips (yes, dwarfs have them) with each strike.

Clang. Sparks flew. The watchers gasped. Helmhold tried a second blow, experiencing the rhythm of the forging bubble up. Sparks spun in brilliant arcs, colors dancing. He felt the urge to sing. Dwarfs don’t do elaborate melodies. They chant war ballads, they croon funeral dirges into their beers, they sing serious songs while drinking and songs about serious drinking. But an irrepressible melody forced its way up his throat—out it came, off-key and alarming, like a cat attempting an aria while sliding down a drainpipe.

The audience flinched. Helmhold’s forging momentum faltered, and his voice cracked in a truly pitiful note. He felt heat flush across his cheeks. This was madness. He sounded like two clashing cymbals trying to impersonate a donkey. Even the lumps of hot iron on the anvil might have considered turning cold in protest.

Just as mortification threatened to drown him, the pink luggage wobbled forward on its tiny, high-heeled feet. Its lid banged open, and out sprang a small, mysterious box. It flipped in midair to land squarely on the workshop floor, revealing row upon row of miniature seats filled with tiny, bespectacled imps. Before Helmhold could wonder if they might also be wearing lipstick, the miniature conductor rapped his baton: the imp orchestra launched into a thunderous, brassy beat—something so poppy and danceable that it verged on downright heretical in dwarfish culture.^3

The entire workshop seemed to vibrate with an infectious, thumping rhythm reminiscent of a Morporkian pub at last orders. The imp vocalists—sporting sequined jackets no bigger than a postage stamp—watched Helmhold’s mouth intently. In a bizarre reversal of normal lip-sync, they shaped their harmonies to match the movements of his lips, effectively overwriting his off-key bleating with a powerful, vibrant melody. They learned from him while he learned from them, his off key singing coming more and more sure now. “I learn, I learn,” he belted enthusiastically along to the music while he swung his hammer, but the imps overpowered him with a translation of his words into old Ephebian, “Disco, Disco”.

It was the strangest bit of arcane wizardry anyone had witnessed that afternoon (and in Ankh-Morpork, that was saying something). Whenever Helmhold’s mouth opened wide in a strangled note, the imps soared into a glittering refrain; if his jaw tightened on a discordant pitch, they somehow twisted it into a triumphant disco swoop. In no time at all, the workshop was drenched in a full-on dance-pop anthem that practically demanded the crowd start stamping their feet. Several watchers tried to do just that, though some missed the tempo—Ankh-Morpork citizens had never heard such a beat, and their attempts at dancing looked a bit like drunken semaphores.

For his part, Helmhold hammered away at the iron, forging to the pulsing bass-line. Sparks flew in cascading arcs, matching each wail of the imp trumpets, each pounding of their tiny drums. He couldn’t help it—he gave in to the beat, letting his shoulders roll and his broom-bristle hair flip alarmingly. The lipstick glistened in the forge light, bright enough to rival any wizard’s staff.

As the imp choir rose to a climactic chorus—something that sounded suspiciously like I Will Survive (the Mended Drum Remix)—the crowd erupted into cheers. Their enthusiastic applause thundered through The Ring & Forge, echoing off the rafters. In a final flourish, Helmhold brought his hammer down in one last, defiant CLANG, the sparks flaring in a radiant display, as though the metal itself had joined the disco.

With the final note, the imp orchestra snapped their instruments shut. Their conductor gave a crisp bow, the box folded itself closed, and the pink luggage swallowed them all with a smug click. Helmhold stood there, chest heaving from the exertion, the smell of heated metal mingling with the tang of sweaty adrenaline, unsure whether he’d just invented a new dwarfish art form or lost his entire dwarfish dignity in a single, glittery meltdown.

But the crowd’s thunderous applause told him, at least, that something extraordinary had happened. And for a dazed moment, as he surveyed the sea of delighted faces, he felt a flicker of pride beneath his mortified blush. He offered them an awkward curtsy—yes, a dwarfish curtsy, broom-bristles bouncing, lipstick half-smeared across his beard. The city had shaped him yet again, and in that bizarre, disco-charged moment, Helmhold Hammerfest felt strangely—wonderfully—alive.

^1 A proper dwarfish hammer is heavy enough to intimidate trolls, sturdy enough to survive a rockfall, and completely free of “decorative” elements like engravings or inlaid gemstones. Traditionalists frowned upon such frivolities, except, of course, when they were doing the engraving.

^2 Despite the rumors, dwarfs do have an appreciation for applause—provided it’s done in a suitably reverent manner, i.e., with a proper scowl and a nod.

^3 Dwarfish music is typically limited to deep, resonant chanting or the occasional drinking tune about how many trolls one’s uncle has accidentally dug through. Disco pop was… new.