It had been good that Dorfindral and Kaika’s blade had allowed them to defeat one of the bats, since the rest of the team’s rifles had done little. Trip had managed to defeat one without too much trouble, with the soulblades’ assistance, but the backlash he’d experienced after killing it had almost made him an easy target for the next one. Since he didn’t know what else they would face, or if Agarrenon Shivar himself would prove anything but an enemy, he was glad he had allies along who could fight magic.
He just wished he could give Rysha what he had suggested in regard to that sword. The power to fully control it without forever having to worry that some enemy sorceress or dragon would know the command words and have the ability to turn it against her—or her allies.
He well remembered her turning on him in that ice chamber. Had he known the command words then, he could have stopped the battle without breaking her spectacles, but if there had been a dragon in the room that knew them and uttered them, his words would have been ignored. He feared that a new dragon era had come and that there would always be a dragon in the room—or in the sky—for future battles.
Even though they hadn’t found instructions in the iron box with the ingot and the map, Trip believed he could figure out how to reprogram the sword if he had some time to examine it up close. Unfortunately, he suspected he couldn’t do that without physical contact with it. And that would involve a great deal of pain. Simply touching that ingot for a split second had nearly put him on the floor.
Maybe that was why the mages that had come to imbue the commands in the swords had ended up dying. Extended contact with the chapaharii blades. But had it been a one-for-one tradeoff? A mage had to die each time one was forged? Or had a mage been able to program the terms—and had they instilled some of the weapons’ personalities too?—in multiple blades before dying? If so, why hadn’t they simply programmed one less than was required to kill them?
Trip still wondered if maybe Rysha had misinterpreted those ancient words. Maybe they’d spoken of self-sacrifice but not true sacrifice of one’s life.
Are you listening to us, Telryn? Azarwrath asked sternly.
Sorry, no. I’m thinking about trying to reprogram Rysha’s sword.
Now? The alarm in Jaxi’s single word surprised him.
Maybe she actually cared if he lived or died.
I don’t know if I can do it right now, in a single night, but it would be better if it could be done before we face Agarrenon Shivar. In case… just in case.
I won’t argue that, but you don’t know how to do it. You could be risking your life for no reason.
I don’t know how to make toys, either, but… it’s a mechanical thing. I have an aptitude for such things.
A sword is a metal stick, not a mechanical construct, Jaxi said.
I would have expected you to think of your physical self in more flattering terms. Trip’s comments were distracted, as he was still gazing thoughtfully at Dorfindral, debating how he might pick it up and carry it off to study and perhaps experiment on. It wouldn’t let him touch it with his bare hands. But what if he could insulate himself somehow?
Oh, I’m a magnificent metal stick, but I’m still a stick.
Would a glove do? Trip didn’t have one, but perhaps one of the others did.
He could wake up Rysha and ask her to carry it off to a quiet spot for him, but she might not be willing to help, out of fear that he would hurt himself. Might he ask Kaika? Or one of the others?
Perhaps, but he found himself reluctant to ask for help. In part because they might deny it. In part because he didn’t want witnesses as he possibly did something stupid.
Trip looked toward Blazer’s sleeping spot. She dozed by her rucksack, the flap open. She must have needed to take something out, because that iron ingot case rested next to her pack instead of being tucked inside. Iron that dampened the effect of magic, including the anti-magic of the swords.
Before he’d fully decided what he would do, Trip rose to his feet and headed for the box. He stepped lightly, not wishing to wake anyone up and have to explain.
Are you about to do something stupid? Jaxi asked suspiciously.
I’m going to try to help Rysha.
Ugh, you are going to do something stupid.
Trip didn’t reply. He needed to concentrate if he was going to pick up the sword without killing himself. Or even get the ingot out of that box without waking up Blazer.
He crouched near her head, wondering what he would say if she woke up.
Jaxi sighed. I can make sure they stay asleep while you do… whatever foolish thing you’re going to do.
Your eternal and enthusiastic support is surely why Sardelle values you so.
I sense sarcasm. Do you want a metal stick up your butt?
Not at this moment. Trip stuck out a finger to make sure he was right and that he could touch the iron box.
He could. As he’d suspected before, the box, no doubt designed to insulate the tainted ingots inside, ingots that would give any mages in the vicinity extreme headaches, was made from normal iron.
He opened the lid and immediately felt the power of the ingot inside, the way it repulsed him and made his head throb.
Though he wanted nothing more than to shut the lid on it again, he instead tipped the box on its side, carefully dumping the ingot onto the corner of Blazer’s blanket. He marveled that none of the others felt anything from the ingot and that they’d strolled through that quarry without a reaction to the strange iron within.
The ingot landed with a soft thud, and Trip glanced at Blazer’s eyes. Her lids remained shut, her breathing steady. As Jaxi had promised.
Thank you for your help, he thought without sarcasm as he lifted the box and stepped back.
This is because you were kind enough to make a toy for my handler’s children, not because I think it’s a good idea.
So noted. He gazed down at the box, willing the iron to bend and morph in his hands.
Uh, you shouldn’t be able to do that. Not to iron.
Rysha keeps telling me I’m a special boy.
No, she says you’re an odd boy, and I agree wholeheartedly.
She doesn’t seem to mind.
Because she’s an odd girl. Clearly, you should keep her.
Trip wished he could, but he feared he’d screwed up and lost that possibility forever. At the least, he could give her more power to control her destiny, to retain her independence as she went into battle. That, he sensed, was the most important thing to her.
The metal warmed in his hands as he willed it to stretch into a new shape. After a minute, he held a long set of tongs.
Again walking as quietly as possible, he moved to Rysha’s blanket. Would the sword scream some warning into her mind as he tried to take it?
Jaxi? Can you make sure she stays asleep for a few minutes too?
Another sigh. I’ll try. I don’t think I can override Dorfy’s warnings.
Moving quickly, Trip clasped the ends of the tongs around the scabbard. He tensed, waiting for sparks of energy to lance up his arms and through his body like lightning. But they didn’t.
He lifted the scabbard and carried it at tongs’ length like a blacksmith moving a near-molten bar of iron straight from the forge. He headed along the pool, up over the ledge where he’d sat earlier, and past stalagmites and mounds of damp lumpy rocks.
Trip tried not to feel like a thief as he looked for a spot to work on it, but he wanted to be far enough away that they wouldn’t hear him if he whimpered while handling the blade.
“Or scream out in agonizing pain,” he muttered.
You may need to take it out of the mountain if you’re hoping to avoid people hearing you caterwauling.
“No, this is far enough.” Trip climbed down into a wide depression between two lumpy rock formations, a quiet nook looking out over the pool. The rocks rose high enough to block his view of the camp—and the camp’s view of him. “I’ll bite down on a stick if I need to.”
Good luck finding a stick in here. I haven’t seen a tree yet on this continent, and all those desert bushes are more thorns than wood.
I have a metal stick if I get desperate. Trip placed the chapaharii sword down on the rocks, let go of the tongs, and sat cross-legged next to it.
We’re going to have cross words if you bite down on me. Also, that could be extremely unhealthy for your lips.
Unhealthy? Azarwrath asked. Are you suggesting that you carry some disease he might contract?
No, I’m suggesting I’m sharp. Unlike your fifteen-hundred-year-old dullness.
I assure you, my sharpness has only grown over the centuries.
Trip used the tongs to shake Dorfindral out of its scabbard, and angry images flooded his mind, images of the sword slashing his throat, stabbing him through the heart, and hacking him into tiny pieces.
“It’s good to be loved,” Trip murmured, pushing aside the scabbard, then setting down the tongs again.
He rested his elbows on his knees, his chin on his intertwined fingers, and focused on the length of steel, a bluish gray that glowed with pale green light. The dual edges were sharp even after more centuries than Azarwrath had existed. Odd that iron interfered with magic and hindered mages, but that steel could become a powerful conduit and container for magic. Why did the addition of carbon change its properties so? Was there anything in that he could use? He imagined extracting the carbon in the sword for long enough to handle it, then placing it back in, but he feared he would destroy the weapon if he attempted that. In truth, he hadn’t the foggiest idea how it might be done.
He opened his thoughts to the soulblades in case they had any insights, hoping they weren’t still arguing. For the moment, silence filled his mind. Were they, too, studying the blade?
Minutes passed as Trip gazed at it, and he began to see more than a single slab of steel. He saw individual molecules combined together to create something larger. Most of those molecules appeared homogeneous, sort of a dark blue to his senses, but intertwined with them were molecules with a green tint. They had been altered somehow to have a different appearance and a different function from the rest.
Almost like cancer cells, Azarwrath mused. Though presumably not malevolent. Just different in goal and function from the majority of those in the body of the sword.
With his healing knowledge and experience still rudimentary, Trip didn’t think the analogy helped him. But he did realize that the magic was in those altered molecules. He would need to interact with them and not the rest of the sword. He realized as he nudged one with his mind and the atoms inside seemed to vibrate that maybe he could. He nudged a couple of them, checking to see what altering their structure would do, but as soon as he stopped focusing, they returned to their original state.
Further, a warning growl sounded in his mind. Dorfindral. The sword seemed to be telling him it would fight him, not willingly allowing him to alter it.
Trip drew his focus outward, away from the microscopic level he’d somehow been seeing with his senses. He tried to see the magic as a whole, the pattern it wove as it threaded through the mass of the blade. And it was a pattern, he realized. Not unlike the loom punch cards he’d been likening it to. The commands were stored in the pattern of molecules a long-dead mage had altered.
The longer he studied it, the more Trip believed he could change the pattern. Though he feared that he would have to touch the blade with more than his mind in order to do it. Maybe that was how mages in the past had inserted their programming. They’d touched the swords, causing the blades to react by attacking them, and then used the weapons’ distraction to work their magic. So, if he distracted Dorfindral, he might be able to slip past its defenses and change the pattern.
“Only one way to test the theory,” he murmured.
He reached for the blade but paused, his hand in the air above it. Even a foot away, he felt Dorfindral’s displeasure, that antagonistic force it sent out toward him.
But that wasn’t what made Trip pause. He was wondering what new words he should program into the sword. They should be words or terms that meant something to Rysha but that would be hard for others to guess. Ideally, he shouldn’t be able to guess them either, but he had no idea how he could program the sword without knowing the words himself. Besides, even if that were somehow possible, the first time she thought them at the sword, he would likely hear it. Unless he got better at staying out of other people’s heads. That was certainly something he should work on.
“Let’s just see if I can actually alter anything,” he whispered. He could worry about specific commands later.
Trip took a deep breath and touched his hand to the naked blade.
Agony ricocheted up his arm, as if a bullet had been fired into his body and was trapped inside, tearing through all his muscle and flesh as it bounced around. He panted, fighting the pain and also the intense urge to yank his hand away. He pressed his hand harder to the blade, snarled, and tried to once again see the molecules. But what had been easy before was elusive now with his mind so distracted.
“Focus,” he growled. “Focus.”
Blackness encroached on the edge of his vision, and he realized he might have been an arrogant fool to believe he could change anything, to even believe he could survive when others far more experienced than he had died trying to do this.
21
Wake up!
Rysha sat bolt upright, clutching a hand to her chest. She didn’t think she had been sleeping hard, but it took her a moment to remember where she was. She looked around for what had woken her. Some danger? No, she’d heard someone speaking, hadn’t she?
Yes, you heard me, Jaxi spoke into her mind. Get up. Trip needs your help.
Where? Remembering the bats, she shifted to the side, reaching for Dorfindral. But the sword wasn’t there.
Confused, she looked on her other side and then up by her rucksack.
He’s got it. That’s the problem.
What? He can’t even touch it. Rysha hadn’t taken off her boots or any of her clothing, not in this monster-infested cave system, so she surged to her feet quickly and grabbed her rifle.
He got creative. He’s trying to reprogram it for you, but… come on. Hurry. I can’t break the lock he’s got on it. I’m hoping you can. This way.
Even though Jaxi didn’t give further directions via words, Rysha felt an otherwise inexplicable pull in one direction. It guided her past the others, Blazer, Kaika, Leftie, and Duck all sleeping still, and then along the pool. The team had left a couple of lanterns burning low, and as soon as she headed up a rock formation and into pitch blackness, she realized she would need one.
Before she could turn back, a blue light appeared up ahead, hovering over the shoreline a third of the way along the pool. It showed up in the reflection of the water and drove shadows away all around it. The light was enough, Rysha decided, for her to make her way to it. Assuming that was Jaxi.
It’s not the dragon. Hurry up.
Yes, ma’am.
Rysha ran over the uneven rocks the best she could, but she had to climb and jump often. Once, her toes slid off a dubious foothold, and her knee slammed down on the rock, all her weight behind it. She kept from crying out, not wanting to wake up the whole camp, but she swore vehemently under her breath. Only worry for Trip propelled her back into motion without stopping to investigate what was sure to become an epic bruise on her kneecap.
“Worry about it later,” she ordered herself, scrambling over the next rock mound.
When she reached the blue light, it faded so she could look at it—under it—without squinting. She sucked in an alarmed breath.
Trip sat cross-legged but flopped forward, his chest and head on the ground, his hand pressed to the flat of Dorfindral’s green-glowing blade. He appeared unconscious, or worse.
It would be better if he was unconscious, Jaxi said. He’s in a lot of pain. Go yank his hand away. Please.
Rysha leaped down into the hollow he??
?d chosen and dropped to her knees, ignoring the pain in her right one. She gripped his arm to pull it back, but his fingers tightened around the sword. Blood dripped onto the stone floor as the edges bit into his hand.
“Trip,” she whispered. “Stop. Let go.”
Rysha rested her palm on his back, wincing at the spasms of pain that coursed through his body, as if he were some prisoner being flogged over and over with a whip. With her other hand, she gripped Dorfindral’s hilt, but she dared not pull the sword away, not with Trip’s bare fingers wrapped around the edges.
“Meyusha,” she told the sword, speaking the words with the firmness of a drill sergeant barking commands. “He’s a friend. Ease off. Meyusha.”
Green light flashed from Dorfindral, as if an explosion had gone off, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Some alien, intangible energy surrounded her, something she couldn’t identify, but the air around her crackled with power. That power also crackled around the sword and around Trip.
The chapaharii blade is prepared, Trip’s voice rang in her mind. Your arrival is timely.
His body wasn’t moving, and she still sensed the pain flogging him over and over, but the words came out calmly, as if another Trip who was completely detached from his body spoke them.
What do I do? she yelled back in her mind.
Choose new command words, words that will mean something to you but that won’t be easily guessed by others. Especially by me.
How can I—you’re right here with me. How can I tell them to you without letting you know them?
Trip hesitated. Direct your thoughts at the sword. I will try not to listen. Also, I believe I can key the sword to your blood to give you and your descendants the highest preference in the sword’s eyes. But please hurry. I—the heart in my body is close to failing.
Shit, Trip! Tears sprang to her eyes, and she was tempted to yank the sword out of his grip, and the hells with his hand. He could magic his fingers back on later if they fell off.
Just hurry and choose. It will not take long to finish this.
You could have warned me so I would have something prepared. Rysha groped for appropriate words, knowing she would never ask him to do this again. She hadn’t asked him to do it once. She’d been afraid it would be like this.