Six Sacred Swords

by Andrew Rowe

  I stared at it briefly, shocked that I’d actually managed to find something connected to one of my friends here.

 

  I opened the box.

  Inside I found a note and the promised gift.

  Hey Sal,

  Looks like we got split up. No surprises, there. Tried to find you for a bit, but didn’t have any luck.

  My condition is getting worse.

  I came here because I sensed a powerful source of spirit sorcery. I’m sure you can understand why.

  The crystal helped me a little, but not as much as I’d hoped.

  I need to go hunt down something that can keep me stable. Probably going to be in one of the spires I keep hearing about.

  I’ll keep looking for you, but you might have to be the one who finds me. You should have a pretty good idea what to look for. Might need to wait for Lydia to find you first, though.

  The old man hasn’t sent the others yet, or at least he hadn’t at the time I was writing this. I don’t know what the holdup was, but I couldn’t wait for them. This place might have some real help for me, and I need it.

  I knitted you a little something, like I promised. Think of me when you wear it, yeah?

  I hope it fits, and I hope to see you soon.

  Much love,

  -Wrynn

  I picked up the note, folding it carefully. “Can you hold onto this for me until I find a new bag?”

  “Sure!” Reika packed the note away. “But what’s in the box? Is it magic?”

  I knelt down, inspecting what sort of thing the legendary sorceress had left for me.

  It was a shirt.

  Wrynn couldn’t read the future, but she always did have a weirdly prescient sense of humor.

  ***

  It seemed like a shame to put on the shirt while I was still bloodstained and badly burned, but there were a couple good reasons why I did.

  I didn’t really care about the fact that I was still standing around half-naked. I’d never had much of a nudity taboo, and Dawn and Reika had been around me while I’d been in various stages of undress plenty of times.

  I was, however, going to be going outside and exposing myself to the elements, and covering up was a good way to at least try to stave off getting infections from anything I was exposed to in nature.

  More importantly?

  It was a magic shirt.

  Wrynn Jaden might have had a sense of humor for gifts, but she was no slouch when it came to buying, selling, making, and trading magical equipment. This shirt was no exception.

  In truth, “tunic” would have been a better description. It was made out of black material with silver threading, and it went down almost to my knees. It fit me perfectly, in large part because Wrynn had already taken my measurements around the same time she’d taken a bit of what she needed to make this item.

  The black material that she’d formed the majority of the garment out of wasn’t cloth. It was woven from living shadow — which we called a “shade” in my homeland — taken from both her and myself. Wrynn was the Prime Lady of Shadow, meaning she was considered one of the most prominent users of shadow magic in my homeland.

  The silvery thread? That was part metal, part spirit.

  The finished product was called a shadeweave tunic, and making them was one of Wrynn’s unique skills.

  I knew exactly what the garment was when I put it on, because I’d seen her working on one before. I hadn’t realized at the time that it had probably been this very same tunic, which she’d intended as a gift for me all along.

  When I pulled the shirt over my head, I felt it briefly compress against my skin, then loosen and shift.

  Pieces of the tunic tore themselves off at the points where I was most seriously injured — my back, my left arm, and my leg near where my pouch had exploded.

  Those pieces pressed against my skin, and I felt a brief wet sensation while they adhered to it.

  Then I felt warmth in those areas as the patches began to work, slowly repairing the damage to my body.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and offered Wrynn silent thanks. My chances of surviving until I reached a town had just vastly increased.

  The magic of the tunic was simple enough in concept, but tremendously difficult to make. The bits of my own shade that Wrynn had used to make it “remembered” the state of my body at the time when they’d been taken. In other words, since I’d been uninjured, they possessed information on the state of my uninjured body.

  Then, when I slipped the garment on, it interfaced with my spirit to find changes that would be interpreted as “damage”, as opposed to other changes that might not be harmful in nature.

  The garment then began to find these injuries and broke off parts of itself to seal and gradually heal them. The garment then drew from the plane of shades to heal itself over time as well, until both the wearer and the tunic were whole.

  Functionally, it was like a much more complex version of the rings of regeneration that are more common on Kaldwyn. You can think of it as a customized version, rather than one that would work on anyone like a ring.

  For most people, a ring — or something similar, like one of Corin’s sigils with a regeneration function — would be superior.

  For me, however, the tunic was perfect. If I wore a ring of regeneration, my destructive aura would eventually break it.

  The tunic, however, was built with parts of my own spirit and shade. In theory, my aura would recognize it as part of me, and thus it would not be damaged by my aura.

  And even if that didn’t work, the tunic would repair itself if it was damaged.

  I also knew that the connection to my spirit had the potential to help me break free from mental spells, too, which was another advantage that the ring didn’t offer.

  Finally, it was just a bit tougher to tear than an ordinary shirt. It wouldn’t offer me the same amount of protection as a suit of armor or a shroud, but it was better than regular clothing. More like a Valian dueling tunic.

  All in all? It was a very, very useful gift.

  I mentally noted that Wrynn had more than paid back what she owed me for getting back a valuable item that she’d lost, and reminded myself to hug her as soon as I saw her next.

  After that, I explained the shirt to Dawn and Reika. Reika in particular looked a little horrified by the bits of the shirt tearing themselves off to press against my injuries, but I assured her they were perfectly safe.

  “Okay.” I nodded to Dawn and Rei. “I feel a lot better now that I’ve got this on. It’s going to take a long time to heal me any meaningful amount, but it should prevent me from getting much worse while we’re outside, at least.”

  “That’s great. Let’s get out of here. I’m starving.”

  After slipping on the shadeweave tunic, I’d picked my mask back up and the two swords, but carrying all of that without a bag was awkward. “Can I borrow your belt? Mine got slightly annihilated, and I really shouldn’t be carrying two swords like this.”

  “Fine, I’ll add a belt to the list of clothes you owe me.” Reika slipped off her belt, removed the books from her belt pouch and shoved them in her backpack, and then offered me the belt and pouch. I accepted both gratefully, attaching both scabbards to the belt and slipping the mask into the belt pouch before I put on the belt.

  Belatedly, I also picked up the door handle, and glanced at the broken Heartlance.

  “Is this actually a magical item?” I asked the crystal.

  [Yes. It was a reproduction of the weapon that Velas used, but not nearly as powerful. The ring that Lydia used was also an inferior reproduction.]

  I was sincerely impressed that the crystal was able to make copies of magical items, even if they weren’t as powerful as the real thing. I was curious how it was able to do that, but I knew it probably wouldn’t offer me any detailed answers when I didn’t have a boon to spend on information. Instead, I had a much simpler question. “Can I keep
that, if you’re not using it? And maybe Lydia’s ring?”

  [Ordinarily, I repurpose items made within the tests. I have no further use for this spear, however, now that it is broken. The ring will be repurposed, however.]

  Shame I can’t keep the ring, but I’ll take what I can get.

  The spear looked fixable to me, but I certainly wasn’t going to say that and change the crystal’s mind. “Thank you.” I picked up the pieces. “Reika, can you put these in your backpack?”

  “Sure!” She tucked the pieces of the spear away in her backpack.

  While looking around, I found the remains of the purestone. It had been blasted to bits by the explosion in my bag. I picked up the largest piece and handed it to Reika, hoping it could be salvaged.

 

  Look, this one wasn’t my fault.

 

  I sighed.

  We all thanked the crystal for its help. There was a part of me that wanted to encourage the crystal to stop running potentially lethal tests entirely, since I had some ethical objections to the whole process, but I didn’t think I had any chance of success at the argument. A thousands-year-old crystal probably had a pretty good idea of what it was doing, and I doubted a small chat was going to change that.

  Beyond that, I didn’t really have the energy for an extended conversation about anything.

  I was exhausted. I needed a break. Maybe a nice hot bath, and a whole lot of medical attention.

  The crystal teleported us straight out of the shrine, back to where we’d entered.

  That would have been very convenient if the Tails of Orochi hadn’t been waiting for us right outside.

  Chapter XIII – Brandishing Swords

  We appeared right outside the metal doors of the shrine.

  It was mid-day, but the sky was dark with heavy clouds, and strong winds whipped at the nearby leaves and stones.

  Fortunately, our backs were to the door, so we could see the three figures, two of which already had weapons pointed at us.

  One of them was Kaito, the swordsman for the Tails of Orochi that we’d fought a couple weeks before. His sword was already surrounded by that swirling aura of black smoke he’d managed to hit me with last time, and I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of being scratched by it again. His nostrils flared and his jaw tensed as we emerged, but he didn’t strike. Not immediately, at least.

  The other two figures were unfamiliar, but since they were standing together in a group, it was fairly obvious that they were together.

  The second was a woman with dark blue hair and glasses. She had a blue rune on her forehead, which I recognized as being an attunement mark, but I couldn’t identify which it was. She was wearing a robe and pointing something at Reika that looked like some sort of crossbow with the whole top part missing and no visible form of ammunition.

  We don’t have firearms where I come from. I recognized that it was probably a weapon, given that she was pointing it at us and it looked to have a trigger, but I didn’t know exactly what we were dealing with. I’d heard about some local technology from Reika’s books, but they tended to be set in fantastical eras, and guns weren’t popular in them.

  The man standing — or really, more like looming — behind the others was the one who drew my attention. It was hard for him not to; he was at least seven feet tall, and his skin was entirely covered by iridescent greenish scales.

  He had no visible weapons, but that wasn’t a huge surprise. Reika didn’t bother with weapons either.

  “I told you they’d be out soon,” the woman said, glancing toward Kaito. She reached up with her off-hand and adjusted her glasses. “You never believe me.”

  “You told us they’d be ‘out soon’ seven different times,” Kaito grumbled.

  “This is not the time for bickering.” The scaled figure spoke last, his voice deep and resonant. It reminded me of how Reika had sounded when she was going for her traditional dragon effect back in the cave. “Wielder of the Sword of Dawn’s Bright Light, I greet you. I am Zenkichi, one of the Tails of Orochi. These are my servants, Kaito and Miyuri.”

  I nodded. “I’ve heard of you.”

  I didn’t mention that the context had been Reika telling me how bad of an idea it would be for us to fight Zenkichi. He wasn’t just a member of their organization — he was one of their leaders, and either a part or full hydra that was hundreds of years old.

  To my side, Reika tensed at the name, and her hands balled into fists. I hoped she didn’t attack immediately. Even if I was at my best, I didn’t think fighting him was a wise idea. And I was far from at my best.

  “Good.” Zenkichi gave me a strained smile. “That will make this simpler. Surrender now and hand over the sword, and I will allow you to live.”

  I was in a bad position, in the literal sense. I had my back to the metal doors, which were now closed. The Tails of Orochi were about ten feet away from us, blocking the road. There was a bit of room to maneuver to the sides, but not a lot.

  “Why are you so interested in Dawnbringer?”

  It was a question that I’d been curious about for a while. The Tails of Orochi had been following us for days now, and presumably, they’d been monitoring Dawnbringer somehow — probably with divination magic — even prior to that. That was a lot of time and energy to invest in a single item, especially on a continent where magical weapons seemed to be common. Kaito already had another magical sword, and I’d seen several other enchanted objects and traps. The Tails of Orochi seemed to have a particular interest in Dawnbringer, and while I had some guesses about why that might be, I wanted a direct answer.

  Meanwhile, I sent a thought in Dawn’s direction.

  I’m not going to hand you over, I’m just gathering information. And I need a minute to strategize.

 

  Zenkichi looked me up and down, appraising. “You truly do not know?”

  I shook my head, quickly assessing the battlefield while we talked.

  Road and statues are stone, I can work with that.

  “No. Dawnbringer is a brilliant weapon,” I began, hearing Dawnbringer snort at my pun, “And has religious significance to many. But you’re not wearing a sword, presumably because you don’t need one. And I doubt you’re believers in Selys’ scriptures.”

  Meanwhile, Reika was looking more and more agitated. I could tell she was ready to get the fight started, and I hoped she’d be willing to delay just another moment for me to get some answers.

  Zenkichi gave an open-mouthed smile, revealing vicious fangs. “Quite on the contrary, human. You could say that we are Selys’ most fervent followers.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that. “What do you mean?”

  While he talked, I kept thinking.

  Doors are closed, but I can get them back open if I need to.

  “For centuries, Selys has nurtured and cultured humanity. She created many, including our own species, to serve to train your pitiful people more effectively. But time after time, century after century, you have failed.”

  I glanced at Zenkichi’s disciples. Kaito was eyeing me equally closely and had a determined expression. The other one — Miyuri, apparently — seemed strangely distracted. Something about her expression bothered me, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint it yet.

  “Failed?” I asked, prompting him to continue.

  He’s not stepping forward to talk. Probably a ranged fighter, but I can’t count on him being fragile.

  Zenkichi stood up a little straighter, his gaze drifting upward. “Your species was given an eminently simple task. Climb the spires and defeat the god beasts to earn the blessings of the goddess. And you were given every advantage. Attunements. Items of vast power. And monsters, like ourselves, to serve as training for the greater challenges above. And yet, centuries later, how many humans have s
ucceeded? A handful, if even that.” Zenkichi wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Your species is weak. But we are not. And we have realized that we do not need to stand idly and watch as humanity wars upon itself and wallows in its greed.”

  Kaito spoke next. “We will succeed where humanity has failed. We will grow strong enough to face every challenge the spires offer and prove that we, not humans, are worthy to be Selys’ chosen.”

  Something finally clicked together in my mind.

  “That’s why you want Dawnbringer.” My eyes narrowed. “You intend to defeat the god beasts yourselves.”

  “No,” Zenkichi corrected, “We intend to kill the god beasts. Only then will we have proven that we have outgrown humanity and become the true inheritors of Selys’ will.”

  Reika stepped forward, looking more and more agitated. “And then I assume you’ll eat them, too. Just like you do with my people.”

  “True,” Zenkichi turned his gaze to Reika, smiling softly. “There’s no need for good meat to go to waste.”

  Reika snarled, stomping forward. I put a hand on her shoulder to slow her. She glowered at me, but stopped moving for the moment. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop her from charging much longer, and I didn’t blame her.

  I leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Soon.”

  She nodded curtly.

  “I see you talking to your dragon there. Have you made a decision? I have been quite patient with you.”

  My heart was thrumming rapidly in my chest, and I was itching to fight. But I knew that we were at a disadvantage, I planned to offset that with teamwork. “Can we have a moment to discuss this to ourselves and make a decision?”

  Zenkichi turned to Miyuri. She closed her eyes for a moment. The mark on her forehead flashed, then she said, “He’s not going to agree. He’s just stalling.”

  Silence fell in the aftermath of Miyuri’s words. The winds around us began to rise, and I saw the leaves on the ground stir, as if anticipating what was to come.

  Kaito’s eyes narrowed and he shifted to a high stance. From the intensity of his expression and the tension in his jaw, I could see that he was ready to leap forward at any moment.