Broad and squat with shoulders like river-smoothed boulders. Coal black streaks braid through a face that looks as if it has been pressed into a glowing hearth; soot lives in the creases of his cheeks and the calluses on his palms look like miniature topographies. He walks with a small, deliberate stomp that sounds like a hammer settling on iron. His beard is braided into three thick cords, each woven with a different scrap token: a copper rivet from his first apprentice, a tiny iron gear from a famed clockwork he repaired, and a sliver of blue-glass from a merchant who tried to haggle him down. Unexpectedly delicate hands peek from those scarred palms. When he plants them on a blade to test the temper, the motion is light and precise, like a scribe at work.