by F. E. Hubert
forward in the reeling depths of darkness, but once he was back between the shimmering glows and sparkles of his mind, it was as if he’d never left them. He walked on. His feet were numb from the damp chill and he stumbled more and more over the uneven flooring as it became harder to lift them.
He still clutched his meagre supply of firewood, but there was no way his cramped hands could tell if the shapes they were holding were still there. Twice he almost dropped them with the panicked jerk that was meant to ascertain their presence. He walked with his head bowed and almost shambled past the pale blue glow to his right, thinking it another figment of his tormented imagination. Through a thick haze of numbing fatigue he managed to angle towards it, just before he plunged into a blackness all of his own.
“Wake up, you sore excuse for a hero,” Mufroen blinked, at least he thought he did, and realized he was lying flat on his face. He rolled over, blinking into the dim of the chamber. “How are you supposed to fight your way out, lying down?”
Mufroen disentangled himself from his cape and robes with some effort and looked around the room. The disintegrated remains of what looked very much like a treasure chamber come armoury were scattered over the floor and against the walls. A once proud lance bowed sadly over the large stone chest standing against the back wall. Behind it he saw the faint glow of light refracted on silk, he stepped towards the slumped form with quick steps.
“Oi! What’s it take to be taken seriously around here? No touching the pretty lady until after you finish the quest. And win of course, otherwise you die, and you can’t be touching her when you’re dead.”
“Uhm..” Mufroen hesitated and realized there was no good way to ask ‘who, what, how and where?’ without adding to the confusion.
“Pfff..” The voice let out a long sigh that conveyed the accumulated annoyance of years of being overlooked. “In the coffin, you twerp.”
Stepping gingerly around the rusting arrowheads and discarded pots that littered his path, he stepped up to the catafalque supporting the stone sarcophagus. The light was too dim to make out the etchings along its side and lid in any detail, but the lid was askew and showed him a brighter slice of the blue-glowing light. It took several sideways shoves with most of his, admittedly modest, weight behind it to open the casket far enough to make out what was inside.
“Bloody about time,” Mufroen gaped at the object that lay on the now decayed but clearly once lush and rich fabric. “Ow bullocks, don’t tell me I took all this effort to guide a gaping mute down here. Then I’ll never get out.”
“Uhm.. You’re a sword.”
Later, he would have to admit that this was even beyond stating the obvious. If there were a template or mould from which all swords ever crafted derived their shape, than this was it. The scabbard that that encased the blade was of a material that was black to the point that it exuded the blue sheen that brightened the chamber they were in. Undecorated, it looked as fresh and clean as the day it was made. The same went for the sword’s grip, although the dust lay on everything thick enough to make Mufroen’s eyes water with every step, the pommel and cross-guard looked as if they’d just had a polish and wipe-down a moment ago.
“Yes, I’m a sword. Big shocker. Now close your gap before you swallow any more of that dust and get us the hell out of here!”
“What about the quest,” He asked, staring at the sword he now held in his hand. In felt light and slightly sticky, like the grip was holding his hand as much as his hand was holding the grip. “You said there was a quest before I can take Rheena.”
“Well,” Mufroen was already getting used to talking to a sword and it talking back, but now he could swear he saw it flinch, which is quite the accomplishment without an actual face to do the flinching. “I was sort of hoping we’d skip that entire chapter. Just grab her and run. And for the love of Zimtar, don’t drop me.”
“Don’t worry,” Mufroen grinned, showing a set of teeth that already showed the sharp line between upper and lower teeth that came with living in the desert and slung the belt over his hips with practised ease. Rheena seemed to be unconscious, but she was light as a feather and fitted comfortably over his shoulder.
Three paces after leaving the chamber a bone-jarring rumble stopped Mufroen in his tracks.
“What’s that?”
“Eeehh..” Came the miserable reply from down by his hip. “I’m afraid the quest just woke up.”
“Woke up..?”
It was not easy to throw a demanding look down at your own hip, while carrying a limp body nearly your own weight, but Mufroen managed it. And was rewarded with a contrite moment of silence.
“Well?”
“Let’s just say the casket wasn’t just for me and the other inhabitant seems to have noticed I’ve gone.”
“Wait a minute, I know this story,” Mufroen said as he resumed a sturdy pace to where he believed the exit was. “You’re the sword that’s supposed to keep the desert kings from rising. You’re the sword of the sands! Why did you let me take you?”
“King, singular, actually. And, well – Have you ever tried lying in a casket, guarding a dead body for all time? Let me tell you it gets distinctly tiresome after the first few centuries.”
“What do we do, should I put you back?”
“No! I mean, I think it’s rather too late for that. I suggest you run. Fast. And while you do that, I’ll try to come up with a plan.”
Rheena had woken from the jostling on his shoulder and was pacing alongside him by the time they saw the glow of daylight ahead of them, just before it was blocked by something.
“Any plan yet?” Mufroen asked, pushing Rheena to safe distance as he grabbed the sword’s grip.
“Nothing definite, no.”
“Great help you are,” Mufroen grumbled as he drew his new sword from its scabbard and almost dropped it to the rocky floor as it came free. The scabbard was of no remarkable length and Mufroen expected to see a blade of similar dimensions, maybe slightly longer, since scabbards have a tendency of appearing shorter that the steel they contain. Not this sword. It seemed to unfold itself as it was drawn, revealing a blazing span of blade-shaped lightning that reached easily more than twice the length of the sheath that now dangled empty at his side.
Despite its dimensions, the sword handled like one of the light double swords he practiced with and Mufroen couldn’t help laughing maniacally while he hacked away at the shape between them and the exit. Much to his disappointment, his slashes didn’t seem to impress what time had left of the sand king.
In the glow of his sword he could make out the withered extremities of the shape that staggered toward them through the inconvenience of his repeated hits. He saw more than one strike that would have left any man of flesh and blood mortally wounded, bounce away from the dehydrated bones and tendons, taking only polite slivers of tissue.
“He doesn’t seem impressed.”
“I WAS AFRAID OF THAT -”
“Holy -”
“YES, THE SCABBARD DOES TAKE OFF THE EDGE QUITE IMPRESSIVELY, DOESN’T IT,” The sword nodded its tip to the side. “YOUR GIRLFRIEND SEEMS TO HAVE A PLAN.”
Mufroen glanced over his shoulder to see Rheena waving frantically for his attention and pointing at the lit torch she was holding out to him. He looked back to the oncoming desert king and decided that she might have the right idea. The lack of flesh kept the sword from stopping him, but with a bit of luck he’d catch like last year’s timber.
Lighting the other two pieces of cloth-covered stalk from the first, she thrust the newly lit pieces in his free hand as she ran around him and toward the approaching figure’s flank. Waving her already dimming flame worked as the proverbial red cloth and the ancient sand king staggered to a halt and creaked like dry leather, changing his direction toward Rheena.
“Now!” She screamed, but Mufroen had already seen his chance and stuck the flimsy torches between the creature’s ribs.
The effect was, mildly put, impressive. The body
that had been drained from all its moisture over too many ages to comfortably think about in the dark, burst into flame with a loud ‘Whoof!’ and burned painfully bright for a moment. Then it simply collapsed in a heap of ashes. Mufroen and Rheena ran out into the hot brightness of midday.
“PUT ME BACK IN THE SCABBARD PLEASE, I’M MAKING MY HEAD RING.”
Mufroen was happy to oblige as he guided pale-skinned Rheena back into the shade of the cave mouth. After a tentative check of the pile of ashes, prodding it with his boot, he walked back over to her.
“Very much a pile of ash. We should rest, then we can set off at nightfall,” He looked at the delicate woman next to him with unease. She looked very soft and the desert was a hard place, even on a good day. “I’m sorry to say we lost our sled, so we’re going to have to walk.”
She seemed to read his mind and smiled at him in a way that would have been roguish on anyone else. “Don’t be fooled by all the make-up and frilly clothes, I’m not made of sugar,” She looked out at the burning sun with a worried frown and then smiled up at him again. “Maybe you should teach me how to preserve water, just looking at all that sand makes me want to drink a lake.”
And so, that night found a strange threesome making their way across the desert sands.
***
