balanced scales

The Robin of Feinfall remained in his workshop late the night of the execution. The room was lit up like day for visiblity; a hairsbreadth mistake could ruin a piece, and Hardy was working on something especially difficult.

The flames of eleven candles and thirteen lamps wavered with every quick motion he made. Eleven and thirteen. Lucky and not.

Hardy Robin was a superstitious man. He believed in balance and equality, justice and penance. Not too much good, not too much bad, or the scales would tip and his life would come shattering down around him. What better way to preserve balance than to light his work, to guide his hand, with the flames of the lucky and the unlucky?

Two soft taps from the hammer to the chisel. Pushing metal with even numbers and shining it with odd. A silver armlet glinted under the Robin's careful spindly hand. The pattern was one he had learned in Derneth the month before. Already he had five finished armlets wrapped in cloth upstairs in his attic storeroom, and one armlet already sold to Hilly Sparrow.

He had them numbered, the candles and lamps. Lit them in the same order every night. One through thirteen for bad luck, then one through eleven for good. Every candle burnt out within a minute of the other ten, and every lamp ran out of oil within a minute of the other twelve. It was a pattern, a delicate balance of life and death and flame. Hardy was very careful not to tip the scales.

Two more soft taps from the hammer, and the silver ridged upward, following the delicate line of a spellberry vine. Eleven candles and thirteen lamps flickered. A lingering raindrop plinked against the windowsill. Then a second one. Even numbers.

The Robin smiled.