by Sam Ford
"Two Spirit Swords. Not quite the same, but both utterly remarkable. I never thought I'd see the day." The man handed back their weapons. The light dimmed noticeably as Cale sheathed Sword. "Who are you?"
"My name’s Cale Tannor. I'm, uh, I'm an Imperial Knight." Cale tried to sound more impressive than he felt. "This is Jazreal Bloodmoon, Indian princess of the People of the Plains."
"Stop calling me that. My cousin was the princess because my uncle was chief. I am not a princess and I never will be one. I am a huntress," she corrected. "More importantly, who are you?"
The Ranger walked to the shutters and flung them open. Light cascaded into the room. Cale blinked at the sight as the sudden burst of wind sent papers scattering. There were loose leaves and parchments and scrolls everywhere, with ink and quill feathers, to boot. And books--so many books. There must have been dozens of leather-bound codices and tomes, as many as Cale read in his entire lifetime. His heart pumped faster at the very thought. So many books!
"My name is Vyk Draco." Vyk bowed deeply. "Ranger of Ras Shamara. It is a pleasure to meet you, Cale Tannor, Imperial Knight."
"What do you want?" he asked hesitantly.
"I need you to help me kill a Demon."
Chapter XXI
In the beginning, the Creator fashioned all that you see. The earth, the sea, the air, and lastly, fire. All the trees and plants were his doing, as well as all the living creatures. Everything that slithers, or creeps, or crawls; all the fish of the sea, great and small, and the birds of the air, from the mighty thunderbird to the tiniest hummingbird. All were made by his hand. He created the Swords to be guardians of creation, to protect and defend and guide. The most powerful of all his creations, and yet the most limited, for we were given no bodies and unlimited lifespans.
All was in harmony. To the beasts of the land and sea and air he gave dominance to the powers of creation--the elements of stone and water and air. Fire was kept for himself alone. And for his Swords.
Lastly, he made Man, his final and most beautiful jewel. He was given authority over death itself and was entrusted to keep the balance.
Yet, perfection can be a tricky thing, and should you ever become ungrateful for what you have, your eyes may begin to wander. Some of the Swords grew envious of the power of Man. For though he was innocent and blissful, they feared one day he might turn death upon them. Man walked freely upon the whole earth, while Swords were just that--Swords. We were nothing without a Bearer. We were designed to work in tandem with Man, not apart. Yet there were some who desired just that. They wanted to be like Man.
So there was... an accord. Lead by Daegon, the most powerful of all Swords, they traded Man the element of fire, and in return, Man relinquished his control of death.
Now Man possessed all the elements of creation. They were like gods, capable of anything to which they set their minds. Yet the Creator was wise. Without control of death, Man was now so very mortal. And a mortal god is no god at all.
The Swords who betrayed the harmony changed as well. They became death itself, shades, figments of their former selves, existing between this world and the next. Death is a ravenous hunger that always eats and is never sated. They attained their hearts desire, but it was a cursed bargain. Without the fire, they lingered in the cold and dark and we remaining Swords may hunt them with impunity. We can destroy one another, yes, Cursing the other into the void for all time. But with Sword and Man working together as one, as we were meant to in the beginning, we have nothing to fear.
"Why didn't you tell me any of this before?" asked Cale. It was the longest he had ever heard Sword speak without ceasing. He had never heard Sword talk so passionately.
It was not time to tell you before. Now it is. Also, it is... a great shame amongst Swords. It is not a story we revel in the telling.
Cale had nothing to add. The memory was obviously painful for him. "They were your friends, weren't they? The Swords who betrayed you?"
Yes.
"And now they're hunting you?"
For all time.
"That's rough." Cale sighed. "What do we do now?"
We find them and kill them.
"Yes, but how?"
Cale, I am a sword. You just stab the bad guy with the pointy end.
Cale laughed heartily. "And then we can go home?"
Cale, Daegon wants to recreate the world in his image. If he gets free, if Daegon wins, you won't have a home to go back to.
Jazreal leaned forward, a look of concern on her face. "So? What did he say?"
"Yep, he says we can do it. But I don't think it's going to be as easy as all that. Our list is getting pretty long."
Jazreal ticked points off on her fingers. "Find the Swords, kill the Shadow Dwellers and free my people. How are we going to do all this?"
"Because," replied Vyk, returning from his bedchamber. "You have me. Each one of those could take months, but fortunately, girl, I was trained by the best there's ever been. I found what I was looking for."
Vyk rolled out a parchment on the floor. Cale and Jazreal gathered around. It was a large map, not the most detailed, but it contained all the essential landmarks. From the Fire Mountains and Nubia of the north to the Frozen Tundra Beyond at the south, the coast of Ras Shamara in the east to the People of the Plains in the west, the map covered the whole of the nation.
"'The Lands of Ras Shamara," Cale read aloud. "It's so much larger than I was expecting. I had no idea."
"You can read?" asked Vyk.
"I can do sums, too!"
"Good lad. I have some books for you to look over later."
"What's this?" Jazreal pointed.
"That's King's Crown, the only mountain around. I take it you can't read?"
Jazreal puffed up her cheeks. "I barely have a use for your devil tongue. What need have I for your little squiggles on paper?"
"Look here, Jazreal." Cale pointed, tracing out a line on the map. "This is the road we took. And if we follow it back, this is where we met. This is the pass you came through, and all the way up here is where I live."
"What's this?" Jazreal pointed to a dark stain to the west of King's Crown.
"The Mine." Vyk spat. Jazreal noticeably tensed up. "That's the root of our problems."
"Why? What problems?" asked Cale.
Vyk looked up. "Have you not noticed all the trouble, lad? There are nearly a quarter-million souls in this city. Tis why all the refugees sleep outside the city walls with the muggers and murderers and wild dogs. They have no food. The city is hoarding it all. You two are lucky you didn't end up in a stew pot with the rest of the dead."
"Where did they all come from?"
"Aye. That's the question now, isn't it? For the last month they've been streaming in, all with the same tales. My village was attacked by brigands. My family was captured by slavers. They put everyone to the sword save me. There is no rhyme, no logical reason. They're just senseless acts of violence without a pattern. Save one. The slaves all end up going to the same place." Vyk jabbed his finger onto the map.
"The Mine," Jazreal whispered.
"It is an open, burning pit, a gaping wound on the earth. The night sky glows for leagues around and the screams can be heard from miles off. There are no trees, no grass--just rocky, barren soil going down forever. Slaves are sent in, spend their entire lives in that hellhole, and die, never seeing the stars again. Their bodies are used to fuel the furnaces and are replaced within the hour. It is a desolate, arid, godless place. People are sent to die by the thousands and are replaced by the tens of thousands."
"But... why?" Cale scratched his head.
"Indeed. Why? It makes no sense. Ras Shamara has no gold, no silver or gemstones of which to speak. We dig up nothing from the ground save potatoes. So what is the purpose of enslaving a population simply to dig a pit in the ground which grows wider every day?"
Vyk sat back in thought. All of them stared at the map with more questions than they'd started with.
Demons.
"What?" Sword's voice startled Cale in the quiet of the room.
Shadow Dwellers are trapped between worlds. They cannot taste the coolness of water nor smell the fragrance of a spring meadow nor feel the warmth of the sun on their face. They are prisoners of their own device, alone and starving in the dark. They are cannibalistic in nature, destroying every good thing around them. All this murder and misery is a buffet of emotional torment to them. They will grow in strength from this.
"So if this Mine is just an open pit, it could be used to channel all the negative emotions right to these Demons somewhere underground?"
Precisely.
"So all we have to do is find the Demon's stronghold."
"Oh, we know where it is." Vyk picked his teeth. "It's at the bottom of The Mine."
"How do you know?"
"You're smart, little Tannor. Figure it out for yourself." Vyk changed the subject. "What year is it?"
"The one-hundred-and-ninety-seventh year of the reign of no king. Isn't it?"
"Aye, that is it. But do you know why it is called the reign of no king?"
"Because we... have no king?"
Vyk brushed him off. "Almost two hundred years ago now, Ras Shamara was a much different place. There were still Imperial Knights about. There was still a country of Ras Shamara. Good king Ulrich, High King and Lord of Imperial Knights, reigned fairly and just, by some accounts. His son Ares, just a sprout of a boy, coveted his father's throne. So he made a pact with devils. Killed his entire family and brought ruin down on the whole country.
"He tried to do, well, I wouldn't say a good job, but he was only a youth, and he had those Phantoms whispering to him. The Knights fought back, but they lost. The Phantoms in their prison weren't much of a challenge, not even the few who escaped. But they whispered in the dark and turned the villagers against them. The Knights were overwhelmed and slaughtered by the people they’d sworn to protect."
Cale closed his eyes, thinking about Oltho's final moments, slowly slipping away, clinging to his friend and Sword of so many years as his brothers were killed around him by the people they’d served. He thought he could imagine Sword's feelings, just a little.
It is difficult for a Demon to hurt you directly. They are more adept at influencing the emotional state of those around you.
"How do you know all this?" asked Cale. "It's not what the books say."
"How do you know that what you know is what you really know?"
"What?"
"When history is written by the victors, what is to stop the victors from spreading lies about their enemies and changing history to suit them best?"
"Because they were on the wrong side." Cale crossed his arms.
"Losing side. That doesn't make them wrong. It is possible to be right and still lose." Vyk touched his eye patch. "Trust me."
Jazreal interrupted. "We were hoping you could help us find the other Swords."
"Hope, eh?" Vyk poured himself a drink. "Hope is a fickle thing. Hold to it too tight and you snuff it out. Let it fly free and it never returns. You came to the wrong place, lass. There is no hope in this city or this house. There's no hope anywhere."
"Of course there is," Cale responded. "We have Sword."
Ask him about the others.
"So, what happened to the other Swords?" Cale echoed Jazreal's question.
"With the Knights out of the way, cleanup was easy. The records are scant, but I am sure you can imagine it. The Swords were gathered up and destroyed. After that, King Ares then rounded up the books and burned them all. History, art, science, herbology--it didn't matter. All of them went into the pyre. Then came the artisans and physicians and metalworkers and masons--anyone who may have been useful to help the people of the land rebuild. He butchered them like cattle and burned them. Lastly, he pulled down the capital of King's Crown. Brick-by-brick, stone-by-stone, every building was demolished. And then burned. You get the sense the guy liked fire."
Ares was second born and a sickly child, prone to fits of lunacy as a boy. I had no idea he was affected by it so. To think he wrought all this. He was scarcely older than you are, Cale.
"After that, something happened, but people aren't sure what. Some say assassination, some say exile and some say he never existed. But regardless, the king was gone and all record of him vanished overnight. And with no heir, indeed, no kingdom over which to be king. The country spiraled out of control. Generals wrestled for power and slowly turned into warlords. Within a few years, even those fell, and in the power vacuum, cities railed against one another and themselves. Then the cities toppled one-by-one, like a dark miasma sweeping across the land. Then it was the people themselves going mad, turning on each other."
"Like what's happening now," Jazreal observed. "My people were attacked and enslaved for no reason at all. Then they began oppressing one another. And Cale's village was senselessly obliterated."
"Exactly like what's happing now. Whole families, whole lineages, just erased. But out of the darkness, the Rangers stepped forward to put a stop to the bloodshed. And it worked--for a while. But you can see how well that turned out in the long run. Corruption breeds corruption."
"How do you know all this?" Cale had never heard anything like it.
"Most of the books were destroyed with the collapse of the old kingdom, but a few survived."
Vyk reclined, reaching back to hand Cale a few books. Cale picked up one of them. Its bindings were old and falling apart, its pages yellowed and crusty, but he could still real the gold leaf calligraphy. The Legends of the Imperial Knights by some unknown author. Reading another, he found Histories of the World by Tenacitus. Two smaller leaves of parchments were entitled Orations and Monologues respectively. One of the newer books was called simply Red Steel, but it was more than half missing from fire damage. All were in remarkably poor shape. Cale was grateful for every single one.
"You're welcome to read through them. I found Histories a bit dry, but it's more reliable than Orations."
Tenacitus always was a bit longwinded, even when I knew him.
"Some are fire-damaged, or water-damaged, or in languages I don't know. Most of what survives are forbidden legends and myths. But if you sift through it, there are some interesting facts in there. For example, did you know Spirit Swords can't smell?"
"Really?" Cale looked at Sword.
It's true.
"Some of the old stories describe how to kill Sword Talkers, and they specifically say the Swords have better seeing and hearing than us, but you needn't worry about a sense of smell. And since our noses are nothing compared to, say, a dog's, it leaves quite the vulnerable weakness."
The darkness in men's hearts shames this world.
"It didn't used to be this way?" asked Cale.
No. Man has gone awry.
"I think... it's their weakness against Phantoms," Vyk put forth. "In the books I've read, what few actually remain, whenever it is mentioned, it is only in conjunction with sightings of Phantoms."
"Where did you see this Demon, anyway?" Cale asked Vyk.
"Here, near the Frost Fingers." Vyk pointed to the map around the area of Last Keep.
Interesting. There was a small garrison stationed there at one time. I wonder if the Demon was guarding it? If there are any Swords left, they could be there.
"I will never forget. This Phantom stood taller than any man, with fiery skin like charcoal, yet was not consumed. And the eyes... I still have nightmares to this day. It killed my family. It may be dead or gone, I don't know."
"Ah!" Cale exclaimed. "It's alive. I know it is! I saw it with my own eyes. It killed my family and burned village. We have to stop it!"
"I've been trying to stop it, lad. It will appear, only to vanish, leaving no trail, no track, almost as if it never existed. I have spent years hunting these monsters and searching for answers. I found nothing of the first, and precious little of the second. Fire can hurt them and cold steel slows them down, or so
the stories say. But only a Spirit Sword can Curse a Phantom, sending it to the void for all eternity.
"And then I met you, Cale Tannor. I want you to take your weapon and plunge it into the pit of that beast's heart. I want you to kill it. And together, we will have our revenge."
Chapter XXII
Strange New Feelings
Jazreal scratched her arms. The cuts she'd gotten in the fight were itching. She knew that meant they were healing, and that was a good thing, but that was only the half of it.
She was nervous. Surrounded by this much stone and scaffolding, wood and walls, she couldn't think straight. Jazreal was used to the wide-open prairie skies that went unbroken for leagues. Here though, she couldn't turn around without running into a person.
The sounds outside did not make things better. Here on the far side of town, always in shadow, the worst sort of people lived. Cale said they couldn't afford better, that they were just poor, but Jazreal could judge people's character. They were truly in the viper's nest now.
Cale lay on his belly reading a book, Sword beside him. He would occasionally mutter something to the blade, while light from the tallow candle danced all around. It was his third book of the day. When the sun went down, he asked the Ranger for a candle. You would have thought he was asking for pure gold by the way Vyk looked at him. Truly, these city folks were a strange breed, their minds occupied with little more than money and time.
"What are you reading?" Jazreal sat next to him, chewing candied ginger. It was delicious and burned her mouth like peppers, yet was sweet as honey. Amazing.
"It's called something, something, naturalism. I don't know, there are only a few pages which aren't burnt. But what is here is interesting." Cale kicked his feet back and forth. "Hey, did you know there are over thirteen kinds of raspberries?"
"No, I didn't. Do you like reading?"
"Yeah, I love it."
That explained a lot. Jazreal nodded. She couldn't read, but she’d always adored Old Mother's stories. She and Lydia would spend hours listening to them and then practice retelling them to one another as their tribe traveled.
