Nar

A Nar held in the palm against a scrap of copper does nothing for a while. Then it begins to warm, and goes on warming, steadily rather than all at once. No flame, no working, nothing done to it. Metal is enough.

They are mined a very long way east, out past Kijinxi toward the Daelands, and they reach Idir only by commerce and not often.

The Gemsmith house kept the stone Koa had been carrying for a few days to identify and test it, and gave it back named: a Nar, badly rough-cut, and worth far more than it looked. Whether the appraisal was Cleven’s or his father’s was never settled; both men were named for the gem work the company brought to that house. Whoever it was offered to cut it properly, warning that the work would run to months and might ruin the stone. It was still on the bench when the party rode west, and how it came out was never written down.

A second turned up later in a pocketful of gems out of a slime-guarded storeroom. The party was short of money and had earmarked the whole pocketful for appraisal and sale. What the appraisal made of it was never written down.