New teams of oxen arrive carrying pallets of tin, trunks of iron, even church bells, the teamsters whisper, from sacked Christian cities, dragged here over hundreds of miles. The whole world, it seems, has sent tributes: copper coin, bronze coffin lids of noblemen centuries forgotten; the sultan, Omeir hears, has even brought the wealth of an entire nation he conquered in the east, enough to make five thousand men rich for five thousand lifetimes, and this too will be pitched in—the gold and silver becoming part of the apparatus too.

Back cold, front burning, the fabric of the tent swimming behind heat blurs, Omeir watches transfixed. The foundry men, their arms and hands wrapped in cowhide gloves, approach the blearing, wavering inferno and climb scaffolding and pitch raw pieces of brass into an enormous cauldron and skim away the dross. Some constantly check the melting metal for any sign of moisture while others check the sky while others pray prayers specifically bent on the weather—the slightest raindrop, a man beside Omeir whispers, could set the entire cauldron hissing and cracking with all the fires of hell.

When it is time to add tin to the molten brass, turbaned soldiers drive everyone out. During this delicate moment, they say, the metal cannot be looked at with impure eyes, and only the blessed may go in. The doors of the tent are drawn and tied, and Omeir wakes in the night to see a glow rising from the far end of the field, and it appears that the ground beneath the tent glows also, as though drawing some stupendous power up from the center of the earth.

Moonlight lies on his side and presses his ear against Omeir’s shoulder, and the boy curls up in the damp grass, and Tree stands to the side, his back to the tents, still grazing, as though bored by the ridiculous fanaticisms of men.

Grandfather, Omeir thinks, already I have seen things I did not know how to dream.

For two more days the massive tent glows, sparks rising through its chimney holes, and the weather stays fair, and on the third day the foundry men release the molten alloy from the cauldron, directing it through channels until it disappears into the molds belowground. Men move up and down the lines of flowing bronze, knocking out bubbles with iron poles, while others throw shovels of wet sand upon the casting pit, and the tent is dismantled and teams of mullahs take turns praying beside the mounds as they cool.

At dawn they dig away the sand, break apart the molds, and send tunnelers beneath the apparatus to sling chains around its girth. These chains they tether to ropes and the lead teamsters gather oxen in five teams of ten each to try to drag the Destroyer of Cities out of the earth.