Mystery of Steel

The next day, after morning exercise, I stand at the bow of the ship once more to let the fresh air and briny spray cool my sweaty flesh as the Hostia Negra cut through open sea toward Greece. That peninsula I called home, the place I had spent my whole life, had now disappeared behind us while new shores could not yet be seen ahead. There was a sensation of being between places, a short recess to catch my breath before the adventure to come. I turn around to watch Cassie practicing her archery. She was taking shots at a target that she had made out of a chunk of wood wrapped in padded canvas attached to a rope. From the yardarm Grub would hurl it out over the water then Cassie, from the rolling deck, would pepper it with cheap practice arrows as it fell. More often than not her aim proved true. The woman had a gift, no doubt.

When Kreer exits the cabin to scan the deck his attention locks onto me and a little knot forms in my belly. Though he and Rosa had developed a respectful teacher-student bond through her language training he and I had remained at a distance thus far during the journey and that was not by accident on my part. It was a fool’s hope that the telchis’ curiosity about my sword might be forgotten in the hustle-bustle of ship life but it was a hope I’d clung onto. The sword would invite questions. Questions that, if answered truthfully, would lead back to Rosa’s special talent for ‘playing’ with magic. As he approached, moving in that uncanny way of his, I just knew my luck had run out.

“Kreer.” I nod. “A fine morning.”

Cutting through my niceties he confirms in an instant that my hopes had been for naught. “Come to our cabin. Bring the sword.” With that he turns and walks back the way he came.

Taking a deep breath I prepare myself for the test to come.

A few minutes later I knock on the door with my sword inside it’s bundle in my hands and Rosa at my side. Kreer opens the door. He notes Rosa’s presence but makes no comment. “Come in.” After Rosa and I enter the private cabin Kreer gives the captain a wave, probably communicating that he’d be unavailable for a time, then closes the door. “Sit.” He motions toward the table where Nikias had spoken to the people of that island days before.

Unbothered by Kreer’s curt manners Rosa practices her ‘seeing noises’ and makes her own way to the bench. He nods to her. “Very good, but still unfocused.”

“I’m working on it.” Rosa says brightly, showing no signs of the nerves that gripped my insides. “We can’t wait to see what you make of Quin’s sword. It’s quite a mystery.”

With a deep breath I lay the blade onto the table and unwrap it for the curious Kreer then sit beside Rosa. Beneath the table she rests a steadying hand on my thigh.

Kreer forgos the pleasantries and immediately sets to studying the weapon. Two thick fingers run down the flat of the blade then traces the pommel then down the hilt to the pommel. From the bench beside him he pulls out a folded bundle, not entirely dissimilar to the leather kit Cassie kept her carving tools in. He lays out a series of disks about two inches wide carved from coral all around the sword.

“I will be casting spells. They will not target you.” He says, informing me to respect my wariness but in no way asking permission.

“Would you like to hear its story first?” I’d given a lot of thought to what I would say in this moment and in the end I had settled on the truth with a single omission. Not only was the truth easier on my mind and my soul I was genuinely curious about the sword myself.

“No.” He says. “I will hear what you have to say afterward, Quintus. I will see what is before your mundane observations warm the air to tilt my focus.” Then, rather ominously, he adds. “Steel holds no motives, only truth. Steel you can trust.”

He casts one spell which causes one of the tools, a plain iron rod, in his array to shine a pure white near as bright as the sun if you looked directly at it then another which causes the disks to glow a smoldering orange. He sets the rod into a stand to give him light to inspect the weapon. Under the glaring light patterns of the interwoven copper with steel are revealed that seemed to dance like flickering flames as my gaze ran across it.

Lightly holding the grip he lifts that side a few inches off of the table and leans closer. As Rosa and I watch in silence he taps the metal, he views under a magnifying monocle, he flips it over and back again, and lays his hand over the blade for long silent seconds. His face is incapable of showing emotion though I had distinct sense that the mage was in state somewhere between confusion and awe. Taking a tiny hammer he strikes the blade and listen closely to ring. All at once he sits up tall looking to the blade then to us then back to the blade again.

“Vulcan had no hand in this weapon.” He states. “No god nor man had this upon his anvil.”

“I never said Vulcan created it.” I say respectfully. “That was a story spread by priests.”

“This was not forged at all. How…” He casts another spell. “No magic. None. Not even a residue. Something older?” He says, perplexed. I glance beside me to see if Rosa was messing with his spells but she sat listening with rapt curiosity. He casts another spell, the power of which makes the air in the room hum for a moment. “Pah! What is this?” He whispers. “Miracle or…abomination?”

“Abomination?”

“There are ways to hide magic.” He mutters, ignoring my question. Rosa’s grip tightens on my leg at his mention of magic being hidden. Understandable given that she had used her power when we boarded to disguise our rope and other items. “This hilt is standard roman issue but…stretched.” He says, identifying the parts that came from my father’s pugio accurately. “Common human steel but fused with a copper that has traces of my people’s craft. Not an alloy, a cold fusion. This is impossible. Or it should be.” Without warning he pulls his thumb across the edge of the sword. Pit, pit, pit, pit. Drops of crimson blood drip down onto the face of the blade. Beside me Rosa’s nostrils flare as she catches the scent. As he still held one side of the weapon up by its pommel the blood runs down the length of the long tapering blade toward tip…until the rivulets shrink and disappear altogether! Before our eyes the crimson looks as if it is soaked into the metal itself, like sponge drinking in wine It is only then that the battle with the harpies flash through my memory and I watch again as the sticky amber harpy blood disappears from the blade. I recalled noting it at the time yet with all that had happened since then it had slipped my mind. “Blood magic?” He whispers. “Ancient.”

Blood magic. The words elicit another memory. The blood running through labyrinth design on the base of the ruins on which we used to train, the red liquid moving impossibly with a life of its own, drawn inexorably inward toward the fearsome minotaur residing in the center of the maze. The blood, absorbed by the ring in the beasts nose, brings the metal horror that would take the lives of two of my friends, and nearly all of us, to life!

“This should not exist.” He says, not in horror but simply as a statement of fact. Then, looking at me, he says. “Do you even know what it is you wield?”

“No.” I confess.

“Mysteries wrapped in mysteries.” He whispers. “You’ve seen the blade’s work, but have you heard it’s voice?”

“Voice?”

Lifting the pommel side higher he takes up the tiny hammer once more and strikes the blade. The chime of metal fills the small room. Kreer then makes an ear-splitting whistle at the very edge of what a human ear could register. The hairs on my body raise as somehow the pitch gets higher and louder. The ‘song’, really just an impossibly high note held impossibly long, resonates with the chime of the sword’s metal until the blade itself is singing with the mage.

Wait…no. No! This was no duet. While Kreer’s voice gave the metal the vibration to amplify it’s ring, the blade itself now sang its own tune! Twisted, garbled, as if heard down a long and twisting brass tube, I hear the distinctive notes of an ecstatic battle chant! One that I had heard before in a deep bellowing voice in a language from far, far to the north calling upon gods with names like Odin and Freya.

“Toke!” Rosa gasps, her eyes widening as my dead mentor’s final song is heard in the land of the living once more. “That’s…Toke!”

All at once Kreer’s piercing note cuts off and the blade gradually falls silent, Toke’s death song becoming only an echo in my ringing ears. We sit a moment in stunned silence all staring at the sword. Kreer gently rests the sword back onto the table. Folding his hands in front of him he then shifts his focus from the weapon to its wielder.

“Quintus Quintilianus.” He says. “Why do you carry a soul inside of your blade?”