Spirit Sword

by Sam Ford

  Calm your heart. They were not slain by your hand. You are still innocent.

  "Then how..."

  We have the ability, in dire situations, to exert direct control over our Bearers. You are young and untrained, so it was much easier to wrest control than normal. I killed them.

  "How did you know what to do?"

  Cale Tannor... I am a sword.

  "Fair enough. Stupid question."

  You are my Bearer and I would follow you to hell and back. That said, my motives in saving you were not entirely altruistic. I crave a boon.

  "A boon?"

  Yes. It means I curry favor. I have not been able to hear any of the other Swords. Though there are so few of us left, I know they still exist. I can feel them, but they have all fallen asleep. I need to find them. I am the last of my kind. I need to know what has happened to the others. They have slept long enough. It is time to wake up.

  "But what can I do? I am just a boy."

  It is not a question of who you are and what you can do, Cale Tannor. It is the promise of who you have yet to become and what you might achieve.

  "Okay." Cale waited for a moment in silence.

  Yes?

  "Yes. I mean, we're kind of stuck together now, right?" Cale felt the sword chuckle at him.

  Indeed. I will be with you, Cale Tannor. Even to the ends of the earth.

  "Oh, you can just call me Cale." Cale stood, drawing the sword from the ground and hefting it into the air. It was far lighter than it should have been.

  And you may address me as you wish.

  "Whatever I want? You don't have a name?"

  Some Bearers choose to give familial names to their Swords. Most do not.

  "What did your last Bearer call you?"

  Sword.

  "Sword, huh?" Cale thought for a moment. "That works for me. Hello, Sword."

  Hello, Cale. Shall we begin?

  Chapter X

  The boots were a little on the large side, but Sword made him take them anyways, saying he would grow into them. In the meantime, he would just double up on stockings. Cale was fortunate enough to find breeches in his size, even if the other boy had not been so lucky.

  "Sword, I'm not comfortable just stealing other people's stuff," he told Sword as they rifled through the houses in town.

  It cannot be helped. You have need of goods and they have perished. You may give them a proper burial later.

  That had been the end of it, but not the end of the pillaging. Cale kept looking over his shoulder, afraid some person or ghoul would sneak up on him. Sword assured him that he would hear anything long before it ever reached Cale, but the feeling still lingered.

  At each house, Cale searched for the items Sword told him he would need. After he was done, he would drag out the dead into the street. By now, some of them had started to smell in the heat of the day. The larger men gave Cale quite the hard time, especially when he had to drag them down the stairs. But Sword helped, lending strength to Cale's arms in ways he did not yet understand. When he had to carry out the little girl with her chestnut hair and stuffed animal, he cried bitterly. Unlike his real brothers, Sword did not make fun of him. He watched, listened and reassured Cale that it would be all right. There was no shame in tears.

  In the end, Cale used the churchyard for the bodies of the slain. With no other plan, it was the best place to put them. Laid out under the noonday sun, the loss of life was hard to swallow. Cale even added in the town dogs for good measure.

  Do you want to say a few words?

  "Men are pure evil."

  No Cale, not evil. Men are neither bad nor good, black nor white, but rather creatures of gray. Yours is a species capable of great cruelty, yes. But also great compassion. It is up to you to decide what kind of man you will be.

  Cale gripped Sword in his hand. Holding him aloft, flame leapt forth, engulfing the bodies. Some of them were slow to catch, but others, such as the elderly, became engulfed quickly. Cale stepped back, the smell of death and roasting flesh making his stomach queasy and his mind reel.

  I have seen some of the savage tribes across the sea burn their dead. The Nubians entomb their great kings but leave their common dead in the streets. And I have heard members of the Red Nations travel for days to their sacred burial grounds, where they leave their dead in trees. People of the Orient leave their dead outside in what they call a sky burial.

  They watched the fire finally consume all the villagers, bathing the churchyard in warmth and color.

  Overall, I can think of much worse ways to leave this world than a pyre.

  "Yeah, maybe." Cale walked away. He couldn't watch any more. He was sick of watching townspeople die and villages burn. "Me? I never want to see another flame again. Just stick me in the cold, dark earth."

  Speaking of which...

  Sword needed to retrieve his scabbard. That meant going back in the water and digging through the mangrove roots till Cale found where he had been before. Then he still had to dig into the soil to find the sheath. It was an exceptional scabbard, Sword explained, an extension of himself. It allowed for both Spirit Sword and Sword Bearer to avoid most unwanted attention. A most useful trick, especially if the legends in Ras Shamara implicated the Imperial Knights in some foul conspiracy. They would want to avoid any attention they could.

  Another half hour, and Cale finally pulled the scabbard from the water. The leather belt came with it, or what was left of it. Out also came the spine, ribs, arm and skull of some grubby, black skeleton. Cale yelped and tried to calm down. Sword said nothing.

  The sheath was made from the same material as Sword, polished rust red and engraved with more runes. Once Cale got it cleaned up and polished, he found a new sword belt and set it to rest upon his hip. Sword still said nothing. He only stared at the skeletal remains.

  "You alright?" Cale walked over to where he had left Sword planted in the ground. He could still hear him talking when he wasn't holding him, but only faintly. Sword said their connection was still new and would grow in time.

  This was Oltho. He was my previous Sword Bearer.

  "Oh. I'm sorry," Cale said slowly. "Were you together long?"

  At last count, Oltho numbered our years together two and forty. That was some time before he died, however. I cannot even guess after that.

  "Oh, wow," Cale didn't know what to say. He thought his father may have been forty-two when he died, but he doubted it. Strangely, Cale realized how few people he had known in his life.

  There was a battle. Many Swords and their Bearers were lost that day. I heard them cry out, and then there was nothing. Oltho succumb to his wounds shortly after. The villagers buried me with him so I would not suffer the same fate as my siblings. They planted us beneath a tree beside the river.

  "When was this?" Cale asked softly.

  I have no measure of time.

  Cale thought for a moment. "Who was king at the time?"

  There was a revolution. The good King Ulrich had just been overthrown and murdered by his young son. No one sat the throne when Oltho was struck down.

  "The Calamity. That was almost two hundred years ago, in the old kingdom."

  Two hundred years. This is a long time?

  "For people? Yes. For Swords? Maybe not."

  Cale. Could we... bury him?

  Cale looked up at the sun. It was nearly noon and they still had a lot of work to do. Then he remembered his own family and his own inability to give them a proper rest.

  "Of course, Sword. We can do that."

  It took another half an hour to bury him. The grave wasn't too deep, but then again, there wasn't much of Oltho left. Cale laid him to rest, covered the bones with dirt and washed his hands thoroughly in the river. Sword never said a word, not moving from where Cale had left him. Apparently, Swords really couldn't function on their own.

  "Do you want to say a few words?" asked Cale.

  Oltho. I am sorry you died. I know it was in the Creator's plan, but still I
am saddened. I paid for your life in blood--you may testify to that. Oh, how I sang on that dark day! Your wounds were too grievous, your blood too slow. They laid us down beneath the spring sapling. I slept beside you for two hundred years, my friend, my sworn brother. I have awoken. There are others that need me. You were not my first, you were not my last. But I will always remember you, Oltho, my dear friend. Bid the Creator greetings for me. Farewell.

  Cale wiped his face on his tunic sleeve. The words, though ancient and old, were still understandable to Cale's ears. Not quite a song, not quite a poem, Sword's eulogy was unlike any manner Cale had heard people speak before. Was this how all Swords bid farewell? Was this just a song? And why did it elicit such emotion in him? Cale was unsure how to ask these questions.

  Let's go, Cale.

  And just like that, it was over. Cale plucked Sword from the ground and sheathed him at his hip. Satisfactorily, even without a hand on his hilt, Cale could understand Sword just fine. The scabbard acted as an extension of Sword--rather than muffling the sound, it allowed Cale to hear even better.

  "Do we need to bury them, too?" Cale looked across the river at the raiders’ dead bodies.

  The jackals have to eat, too.

  Cale thought about that as he walked back to town. One body beneath the ground. Black roiling smoke rising from the temple courtyard for the others. And still more to be pickings for the wild animals. Death seemed so arbitrary, the way people handled it even more so. "If I want to bury them, could we?"

  I see no reason why not. Do you want to?

  Cale thought back to that night, with Tully looking up at him with terror in her eyes, shouting for him to run as the Ranger slowly closed in. These were not the same lot, but Cale couldn't figure they had done any better to the people of this town. "No. Leave them."

  Do you have everything you need?

  "I think so." With one last look around town, Cale ended up back where he started, at the bakery. Sword's instructions had been fairly clear. A green tunic with brown trousers, the newest boots he could find into which he would grow and an oil canvas travel bag appropriate for the road. A pound of smoked bison, a pound of mealed corn, a pound of beans, a pound of bacon, a pound of cheese, a pound of good white flour from the bakery and an iron pot. A water skin, a wine skin, three loaves of bread, four more twice-baked and sliced into rusks. A bedroll to sleep on, a woolen blanket and a coat for the road. Two knives, a roll of linen and twine, a spice kit, a sewing kit, flint and tinder. Salt to eat, salt to trade and coinage for payment.

  Cale found no money other than some copper pieces and a few silver heads with their edges shaved. He suggested finishing the raider's work and prying the gold from the temple, but Sword would hear none of it. Apparently sacred places should be respected, regardless if you practiced their beliefs or not.

  Ready?

  "Absolutely." Cale took one last look around. The town did not seem so large now, he realized. The buildings were older, some of them half-deserted. The villagers did not seem quite as numerous as in Urt. The world wasn't as big once you stepped foot in it. "Which way?"

  South.

  "South it is." Cale squared his shoulders, shifting the heavy bag and set to walking. He tipped his hat low across his eyes. "Let's go."

  The day was perhaps farther gone than Cale would have preferred, but they made good time. The cobbled stone stopped at the border of the town, but the road was well-worn with travel. Fields of flowers lined their path, adding to the sense of a pleasant journey. Eventually, Cale lost sight of the town, and the smoke, and the river altogether. Prairies and hills rolled out before him, dotted with trees in their late-summer splendor.

  Sword was a pleasant enough traveling companion, keeping Cale occupied with stories and tales of old, as well as pointing out trees, rocks and other landmarks he recalled. He seemed to know the name for everything, as well as its place in the world. He was perhaps a bit dry at times, but maybe Cale just did not have a good grasp on Sword humor yet.

  Cale, for his part, plied Sword with a thousand-and-one questions, eager to learn everything about the world. "So where are we going to find the other Swords?"

  They may be scattered. The main armory of Ras Shamara was last at the capital.

  "How far is that?"

  We will have to see. Your legs are shorter than Oltho's.

  "How far have you traveled?"

  I have traversed all of your country of Ras Shamara, from the icy tundra of the south to the fiery mountains of Nubia and farther north still, past what your scholars once called the equator. I have seen more of this world than you know exists. You are still young. We will see much of it together.

  "What's the biggest animal you ever saw?"

  Myself? Perhaps a mammoth. A great, lumbering creature with mighty tusks and an arm for a nose. You would like them. Other Swords have told tales of creatures larger still.

  "Are the sky and water made from the same thing because they are both blue? And that's why it rains because the sky is falling?"

  The sky is blue because it filters the light of the sun. The water is blue for the same reason, and because it reflects the sky. Who told you this?

  "My brother Aaron. I said he was wrong because I read it in a book, but he said I was stupid. Then my brother Byron hit me."

  Tell me of your family, Cale.

  "Well," Cale cut a strip of smoked bison to chew on. "There are--there were five of us. Plus Ma and Pa, I guess. Aaron was the oldest and Regina, his twin. Then there was my brother Byron and Tully, my other sister. Last, there was me. I was the runt. I'm not very strong and can't run for long, so Ma just kept me inside with her and the girls. I didn't get to go out much, but I learned to cook and sew and read."

  What of your father?

  "Pa? He... he was harder on us than he should have been. Aaron handled it okay, but sometimes I could hear Byron crying at night. And Pa drank a lot. My family used to make leather, but Pa lost the tannery before I was born. He would drink and gamble and scream, and the farm never had many crops so we herded pigs. I hate pigs now. But bacon is okay, I guess. Byron used to hit me when the others weren't looking, and Aaron and Regina ignored me."

  Do you miss home?

  "Yes, every day. But more than that, I miss Tully. She was my best friend. I thought she would be with me." Cale wiped his eyes and tried not to cry again. He only failed a little. "What about you? Do you miss your home?"

  You are my home now.

  "Tell me about your family."

  My family?

  "Yeah. You said you had siblings. Does that mean you have a mother and father?"

  Not in the way you are thinking. We Swords were made by the Creator's own hand. Swords were forged at the same time, together. Swords share the same spirit, the same sapience. But our personalities and intellect are our own. So we are siblings, but not identical.

  Cale gave that some thought. "Then are you even alive?"

  Pardon?

  "I mean, people and animals have parents. Even trees spring up from seeds which come from other trees. Rocks can split from other rocks, but that doesn't mean they breed--you just have two smaller rocks." Cale looked at Sword at his hip. "So are you alive like a tree? Or did you just split like a rock?" Sword was silent for so long, Cale was afraid he had offended him. What was he thinking?

  How do you know you are alive?

  "Because... I am?"

  Yes, but if you were asked to prove you existed, how would you do so? If Byron said you were nothing but a figment of his imagination, how would you react?

  Cale thought as he walked. "I suppose... no, that won't work. I could..." Cale trailed off. "I don't know."

  Then do you even know you are alive at all?

  "I think so."

  Just so. You think you exist, therefore you do. I believe I exist, therefore I do.

  "But that wouldn't prove to anyone else that we're real. I can't see your thoughts."

  And that you must take as a matt
er of faith. Swords represent the powers of creation. We have served all mankind for millennia. If either of us is not real, then both our species are crazy.

  "Do you speak other languages then?"

  Human languages are easy. You just open your mouths and noise comes out. Saying something intelligent is far more difficult.

  Cale had nothing to refute that. "How do you work?"

  In what manner?

  "Like with the fire. You said I have that power within me but you release it. How does that work?"

  Through our bond, our connection. We share blood now, as have all the Knights who came before you. We are as one.

  "Okay. But how?"

  That you might also consider a matter of faith.

  "What is faith?"

  Faith is an assurance of things that are hoped for. It is evidence of things humans cannot see.

  "Like ghosts?" Cale asked. "Wait, are ghosts real?"

  It depends on what you mean by ghosts. But no, faith is something else entirely. It is within everyone, Man and Sword alike. It is a complete confidence in something, a trust or a bond. Faith is the motivation for action. It is not the absence of fear, but rather the belief that there is something greater. Something that goes beyond what can be seen.

  "Like love?"

  Exactly! Like love, or hope, it is more than simply an emotion. It is a driving force which penetrates all living things. It holds us and binds us to one another. That is our faith, that is our power, that is our bond.

  "I don't really understand, Sword."

  You will. In time.

  He walked in silence for a while, thinking on Sword's words. By the time the sun was low in the west he was ready to stop for the night. Sword showed him how to set up a camp, gather wood for a fire and how to secure their supplies to avoid marauding animals. Cale used the flint and steel to start a fire. Sword could have done it instantly but said anything worth doing was worth learning the hard way first. Supper was sliced bison boiled in water and flour, with a rusk for a spoon. After his meal, Cale washed up, cleaning the cook pot in a nearby stream. Reclining by the fire, Cale watched the stars come out one by one.