CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN IN DOUBT, TAKE THE VALUABLES AND RUN
FLORENCE spent the rest of the afternoon – as they walked along the hot, dusty road – telling Andy and Menka how she came to ‘own’ her sword.
“The last job I had was to guard one of the princes of Norcrest – the second-youngest, I believe. Easy enough at first. The biggest issue was the prince himself. When he wasn’t being a spoiled-brat – yes, I called him that – he was being a depressed spoiled-brat. He used to threaten to harm himself if he didn’t get what he wanted and, naturally, we had to obey, as we didn’t want to think of what would happen if we didn’t.”
“Hmmmm.” Menka scratched his chin in mock-thought. “He would have offed himself and you would have had to find a better job? No harm.”
Florence sighed. “It doesn’t work like that. When I arrived, most of his staff were already sick of him and I quickly joined the club. At night, I would sit in the kitchen with the maids--”
Menka interrupted with a fake-yawn and she glared at him. “Sorry, I was wondering if you could just skip to the part where you kill this prince brat and take his sword.”
“Menka,” sighed Andy, “I was listening to that. I think you are just being rude.”
“I don’t care.” Menka rolled his eyes.
Florence sighed loudly. “I was getting there. Can I continue now?”
“Go ahead.” Andy smiled at her.
“Meh,” muttered Menka.
“So, anyway... At night, I used to talk and sit with the maids. They might have been a bit gossipy and too concerned with the romantic-circles of the place than anything else, but they did have an uncanny ability to know everything that was going on around the prince. I told them how I was a mage and used to go to college, and in return they told me about a sword that the prince kept in a glass-case above his bed and how it was ‘possibly’ magical. I was intrigued, so I waited until he went out and snuck inside his chambers.”
Menka smirked from under his hood. “Oooooh, badass.”
“Was it magical?” asked Andy.
“Yes it was,” she answered, “I could feel its energy from across the room. Quite-powerful indeed. However, I couldn’t tell much more than that. I was interested to know where he got such a sword, however, and why it was sitting unused in a glass-case.”
“So you stole it?” Menka grinned. “Wicked.”
“I’m getting there,” said Florence, rolling her eyes. “I got out unseen and he returned and the job went on without anything unusual. However, the prince was getting worse and worse. His horse died – it was of a very-rare breed and his father, the king, refused to send him another one, instead sending a more-common horse. This made him very mad and he locked himself in his room, not speaking, eating or drinking for several days. Eventually, we had to bust down the door and force him to take in sustenance.”
“Why not let him off himself?” asked Menka.
“That bit is obvious,” said Andy, answering for her. “If he died, it would be likely that Florence and the rest of the staff would be thrown in prison or executed, if the king thought them responsible.”
“Seriously?”
Florence nodded at Menka.
“This royal stuff is more hardcore than I thought.”
Florence continued: “Later, the maids told me that the horse hadn’t died of natural causes; that someone had strangled the poor animal to death.”
“Ooooooh, the plot thickens,” said the sword.
Florence blinked, having forgotten that it was still out of its sheath. She looked over at Andy and noticed that he had attached it, unsheathed, to his belt – so it could be happy with being out, and then Andy himself wouldn’t have to carry it drawn for the rest of the day and look hostile to any travellers passing in the opposite direction. The sword itself seemed to have talked itself out, having gone from the annoying constant chatter of the morning to adding the occasional comment to their conversation, mostly keeping to itself. It added evidence to Florence’s theory that it was really just misunderstood.
“Carry on,” said Menka.
She nodded. “Meanwhile,” she continued, “the prince had calmed down a bit from his ‘episode’, having reverted to his old demanding ways. But now we knew the threats he made weren’t just threats and we had to be more careful. Things were fragile, but okay. But then, one night, he came back from a night out slightly drunk but mostly angry, swearing at everybody and heading right for his room.
“A little while later, I was patrolling the hallway near his quarters and heard banging and breaking glass, the sounds of a scuffle coming from his room. The door was jammed but I was lucky-enough to have a spell ready to blast it open. But I was already too late. Stuff was thrown around the room. Someone had broken his sword’s case and it was abandoned on the floor. The window was open and the night’s hot breeze blew onto a figure slumped over his desk, blood dripping out of his mouth. At first, I thought someone had broken in, and they had fought, before killing the prince. However, on closer inspection, I saw his fingers were still clutching an almost-empty vial of poison.”
“So he did kill himself?”
“Yes,” she answered, “and tried to set it up to look as if someone had broken into his room and killed him. I suppose he just really hated his guard and wanted to blame them, or maybe didn’t want anybody to know that he had been weak-enough to kill himself.”
“Why didn’t he just hire an assassin?” asked Andy.
Menka snorted. “What kind of assassin would accept a contact to kill their client? Only a really stupid one.”
“Maybe he tried that,” she said, “but as you say, nobody would take the job on. So anyway, there I was, in the prince’s room looking down at his dead body. That was when I realized that by being the first on the scene – and alone– I had just set myself up as being the most-likely killer. I was in trouble. I knew that even if I ran down the stairs yelling ‘the prince killed himself’, it would probably be me that ended up in the gallows.”
“So you ran off with the sword?” Menka smirked. “Classy.”
“Yes, I did. I figured that it didn’t matter what I said. I would be taken as the killer anyway. So I did exactly what someone would expect the killer to do – take the most-valuable item, his sword, and get out of there.”
“I...” Andy paused in thought, while the sword started to whistle in the short silence that followed. “I like your way of thinking.”
“I do, too,” agreed Menka, “but I would have sold that sword by now. ‘Powerful’ or not.”
“I would have kept it around,” said the sword. Was that a hint of... flirtation in its voice? “For being such a babe.”
She groaned and saw Menka roll his eyes as they continued walking, the sun slowly sinking in the sky. Shadows lengthened as it lowered and Florence noticed that Menka’s shadow was considerably larger and darker than it should have been, when compared to hers and Andy’s. The sword, not liking the silence, had started singing some impromptu love-song to her sword, many of the lines telling of his ‘family jewels’ being ‘large and guaranteed to please’. This turned out to be worse than the silence. She was only moments from interrupting before Andy did.
“So, about your sword.”
“Hey, I was thinking about your sword, too!” the sword cried.
“Yes,” prompted Florence, wondering what he would ask. Not what the sword would ask. She was certain its question would be one-hundred-percent useless and immature.
“Did you ever figure out what was magical about your sword?” he asked.
“Well,” interrupted Menka, “it isn’t named, so it can’t be that powerful.”
“It’s named,” confirmed the sword.
Florence ignored it. “Well, neither is your sword...”
“But my sword isn’t powerful, is it?” he shot back, smirking again.
“Yes, I am!” cried the sword, sounding offended. “And I do have a name: the sword!”
“How can you consider that a name,” said Menka, “if it isn’t even capitalized.”
“Stuff you,” shot the sword. “You know what, damn you all. I was gonna say what I knew about Florence’s sword, but whatever, since you don’t want to listen to what I say...”
Menka rolled his eyes.
Florence just sighed, wondering if the sword actually knew anything, or if it was just trying to make them feel bad. She then remembered that she hadn’t answered Andy’s question from before, thanks to Menka interrupting and starting a fight with the sword. She had noticed that Menka liked to interrupt conversations a lot, expressly if they didn’t have anything to do with him. Maybe he had an issue with feeling left-out, or maybe he just enjoyed annoying people and making himself the centre of all positive- and negative-attention. It seemed the sword had the same issue, too. Maybe that was why Menka hated the sword so much, and vice versa. Because they actually weren’t that different after all. ‘But back to Andy’s question,’ she thought. “Andy.”
“Yes.”
“To answer your question from before, I haven’t yet figured out what it is that this sword can do.”
“Does it have any ruins or symbols?” he asked.
“Just one, in the blade. I don’t recognize it, though.”
“Here,” he said, motioning with his hand for her to let him have a look at her sword.
She carefully slid its long blade up over her head and gingerly passed it to him, letting him admire the blade. “All I know,” said Florence, as he ran his fingers over the ruin and frowned as it flickered a bright red, “is that it isn’t human-made, and doesn’t activate like a normal rune or mark. The blade itself is definitely man-made, though.”
“It’s dwarven-made, I think,” he rubbed it again. “So to activate it, you will probably have to say its name.”
“How do you know its dwarven-made?” she asked.
“Well, it isn’t elf-made or man-made, so I just assumed it was.”
Menka snorted at Andy. “Wow, so logical.”
“You know how to read dwarven?” he asked.
“Of course I don’t!” Menka rolled his eyes. “I can barely read human.”
“Seriously?” Florence asked.
“I don’t have time for reading, or learning.” Menka snorted. “Who would?”
“I,” said Florence.
“Me too!” chimed the sword.
Andy chuckled. “I can read, too.”
“Losers,” Menka muttered, before speeding up and walking ahead of them.
“Sword, do you know what the rune says?” Florence asked.
“Oh, so now you are interested in what I have to say,” the sword answered, its voice heavily laced with sarcasm. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”
Andy rolled his eyes at her. “Hey, Florence, wanna see a magic trick?”
“Uh, sure?”
He passed her back her sword and drew the sword, waving it around in the air a few times.
She wondered what he meant by ‘magic trick’. “Maybe this isn’t the time for magic tricks, though.”
“Of course it is.” He grinned. “Sword,” he said, while continuing to wave it around, “so are you going to tell us if you know what it says or not?”
“Ha,” the sword laughed at him. “Why would I do--” Andy hit the sword against the ground and it swore at him. “You are a bully, you know that--?” More bad-words.
Ahead of them, Menka laughed.
“Just because I’m immortal, doesn’t mean you can--” More smashing against the ground. “--Beat me until I tell you what it says.”
“Ah,” said Andy, stopping his hitting. “So you do know what it says.”
Florence frowned, not sure what she thought of this magic trick. Well, if the sword was immortal…
“What gave you that impression?” snarled the sword.
Andy chuckled began using it to attack the soil again.
“Okay, fine, whatever. I was gonna tell you anyway. Māpura!”
Florence felt a heat in her hands and yelped as she looked down, seeing that the entire blade of her sword had caught aflame. She swore and dropped it.
“Holy...” Andy muttered.
Menka looked back at them and raised a shadowed-eyebrow. “I suppose that’s kind of impressive.” He shrugged.
“How do I turn it off again?” she asked the sword, carefully trying to pick it up without burning her hands.
The sword snorted at her. “Māpura.” The flames instantly went out.
“So I just say ‘Māpura’--” It caught alight again. “--And it turns on and off. Māpura.” It went back to its shiny, but flameless, self. “Okay, that works. How did you know that?”
Andy placed the sword back on his belt.
It chuckled at her. “I know everything.”
ns 15.158.61.48da2
