Sword Sirens

by Edmund Hughes

  “I responded when you first reached out to me,” said Evastria, “I sensed your plight and made the decision to allow you to establish the bond.”

  “You had a choice in it, then?” asked Ari.

  Evastria gave him a small smile. “Of course.”

  Kerys had apparently woken up, and she was slowly making her way down the stairs with a confused and slightly fearful expression on her face.

  “Kerys, this is Evastria, an ancient enchanted construct capable of transforming into the magical greatsword, Azurelight,” said Ari. “Evastria, Kerys Weaver.”

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” said Evastria.

  “She’s a… what?” asked Kerys.

  Ari gave her a quick explanation of everything he currently knew, with Evastria politely butting in at a few points to correct him.

  “Back up,” said Kerys. “How is any of this possible? Magic… I thought that was just a legend. A metaphor used in history and Dormiar’s teaching to speak of power and ignorance.”

  “Magic is no legend,” said Evastria. “Mystica is the Sai word for the inherited magical trait, which roughly translates to ‘the power’ in your language. It is the innate means through which a small percentage of gifted souls can manifest magical essence into the form of spells and abilities.”

  “If that’s the case, why were there never any recorded cases of mages being born in Golias Hollow?” Kerys asked, as much to Ari as to Evastria.

  “You and your people are of the Hume line,” said Evastria. “The Hume were never born with mystica, though your bodies still produced the requisite essence.”

  “What?” asked Ari. “That seems a little unfair. So the Saidicans had magic, but humans, or the Hume, didn’t?”

  Evastria opened her mouth to answer, and then hesitated.

  “I apologize, Lord Stoneblood,” she said. “I mean no offense by this, but in truth, your people were slaves to the Sai. It is possible that the lack of mystica in your bloodline was an intentional decision.”

  “You look human, or like a Hume, as you call it,” said Ari. “What’s the difference between the Sai and the Hume?”

  “There are few differences beyond the ability to use magic and some slight physical attributes, such as height and hair color,” said Evastria. “The Hume were created long before I was born, bred using an ancient technique that rendered their line unable to inherit mystica.”

  It was strange hearing her make such a stunning revelation so casually. Ari looked over at Kerys, who shook her head, mouth still agape in surprise.

  “I…” Kerys ran a hand through her hair. “There was nothing about this in the histories, Ari. Though I guess I can see why they might have omitted it, if it was something that Dormiar and his followers wanted to forget.”

  Ari leaned against one of the walls of the common room and steepled his fingers.

  “This is a lot to take in,” he said. “Let’s start with something small. Evastria?”

  “Yes?” Evastria instantly stood to attention, raising a closed fist against her chest in salute.

  “Can I call you Eva, for short?” he asked.

  He took a bit of satisfaction from the surprise that flickered across her face.

  “Of course,” she said. “If that is what you’d prefer.”

  “I want to know what you’d prefer,” said Ari. “Evastria, Azurelight, or Eva.”

  She hesitated again, blinking her eyes a couple of times.

  “Eva… sounds pretty,” she said, quietly. “I like it.”

  “Eva it is,” said Ari. “Here’s our current situation. We have no food, only a small amount of water, and few other relevant supplies to speak of. No real weapons, aside from you and a small knife that I have in my belt. And we’re under siege by these strange, cursed monsters that come out every time it rains.”

  “My people knew them as the Weatherblight,” said Eva. “I am familiar with the basics of their methods. They pose a… significant threat.”

  “Are they what wiped out the Sai?” asked Kerys.

  Eva didn’t answer right away.

  “I do not know,” she said. “Forgive me. My time dormant has left me with significant holes in my memory.”

  “Amnesia,” said Ari. “That’s a little inconvenient, but we can work around it. What’s the last thing that you do remember?”

  Eva opened her mouth to answer him, then scowled and shook her head.

  “I am unsure,” she said. “My apologies. It feels a little like trying to remember a dream. I know that I was last active in the time after the fall of the Saidican Empire, but not much more than that.”

  “That was over three hundred years ago,” said Ari. “Dormiar’s blood. It certainly explains why you were rusted into that scabbard when I found you. Were you with your master up until the end, Eva? Do you think there might be anything else of use back in the cave where I found you?”

  “I do not know,” said Eva. “It is possible, but my recollection is so sparse that if there was anything left to find, I doubt I’d be able to aid you in searching for it.”

  “That’s understandable,” said Ari. “I think I’d probably have a few gaps in my own memory if I took a three-hundred-year nap.”

  “I will still, of course, offer whatever help I can,” said Eva. “Along with advice, whenever appropriate.”

  “Your advice would be welcome,” said Ari. “What do you think we should do?”

  “You have one advantage that you forgot to include in your list,” said Eva. “This tower. It’s ancient, older than the Sai even, and built architecturally sound enough to survive the years. Properly provisioned, it would make for an adequate base.”

  Ari chewed his lower lip.

  “I’m not sure if it would hold up against a fisher attack,” he said. “But it’s better than us being out in the open, and probably better than any other place we could find to hole up in, for now.”

  “I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad idea,” said Kerys. “I do like it here.”

  Ari looked from Kerys over to Eva and slowly nodded. His burden felt lighter than it had the previous night or even earlier that morning.

  “So do I,” he said.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Lord Stoneblood,” said Eva. “I would offer the suggestion for you to order me into my sword form, for the time being. Until we have a chance to strengthen our bond, your essence will not flow between us in a manner that will keep me sufficiently refreshed and able to maintain my incarnate form.”

  “Can you translate that into slightly less confusing terms?” asked Ari. “I lived most of my life up until now in a cave.”

  Eva nodded, though Ari could sense Kerys rolling her eyes from where she stood next to him.

  “Our bond is still weak at the moment,” said Eva. “It prevents me from maintaining my current state, my incarnate form, by drawing the required essence from your reserves. By keeping me in my sword form, I will not run the risk of overdrawing my own meager reserves of essence, and I can still help you in other ways.”

  “Such as?” asked Ari.

  “Cutting things, milord,” said Eva.

  Ari couldn’t tell whether she was being serious or if she’d made an extremely dry joke.

  “Okay,” he said. “Can you do it yourself, or do you need my help, or…?”

  Eva stepped forward. She took his hand into hers. Her fingers felt surprisingly cold. Slowly, she lifted Ari’s palm and pressed it to her cheek. He stared into her eyes for a silent, intimate moment, and then Eva flashed, disappearing and leaving the greatsword, Azurelight in her place within Ari’s hand.

  “Wow,” he muttered. “I know they say that seeing is believing, but this is almost too much.”

  “You will grow used to it in time.” Eva’s voice spoke to him in a quiet whisper, from all directions. Ari looked over at Kerys.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  “What?” said Kerys.

  “I am speaking
to you through our bond,” said Eva. “She cannot hear me.”

  Ari nodded slowly. He tried to do the same and speak back to her without actually forming the words out loud, but he couldn’t quite figure out how.

  “Aristial,” said Kerys. “We need to have a little talk. Alone.”

  Ari winced, recognizing her tone of voice.

  “Of course, Kerys,” he said. “Eva, I’ll be right back.”

  He set the sword down and followed Kerys upstairs and into the small bedroom they’d spent the night in. She made sure the door was closed and scowled at the wall, letting her fingers play with a lock of her blonde hair.

  “How much of what she’s told us do you actually believe?” asked Kerys.

  “The stuff that I actually understood?” Ari shrugged. “I don’t have any pressing reason to doubt the claims she’s made, given what we’ve already seen her do.”

  “Really?” asked Kerys. “You don’t think there is any possibility of her having an ulterior motive?”

  “It’s possible, but what would the point be, Kerys?” he asked. “Look at our current circumstances. She has absolutely nothing to gain by trying to swindle us.”

  “You’re too trusting,” said Kerys.

  “Hey, I was the one suspicious of Jed and his bunch,” said Ari. “And I was more or less right, in the end.”

  “The only reason you’re accepting her claims without question is because she calls you ‘Lord Stoneblood’ and has a pretty face.”

  “She does have a pretty face, doesn’t she?” said Ari. “And her body looks even—”

  “Aristial!” snapped Kerys.

  Ari took one of her hands into his and gave it a small squeeze.

  “Look,” he said. “It’s just the two of us. We could use all the help we can get right now. Trusting Eva could make the difference between whether we survive or not.”

  Kerys frowned and glanced away. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

  “No,” said Ari. “But I’m a lot less sure about our odds if we decide to refuse her help.”

  Kerys let out a small sigh. “I guess you’re right,” she said.

  “I’m always right,” said Ari. “But I know how much admitting it takes out of you.”

  “Shut up,” said Kerys, flicking him on the shoulder.

  The two of them headed back downstairs and found Eva, still in sword form, resting across the table. Kerys’ suspicions had made him curious about what else she might be able to share with them, but it was already mid-morning, and they needed to take advantage of every second of clear weather that they had.

  “We should set out,” said Ari. “Our main goal for today is just to replace what we already had. We need food, and we need water.”

  “Right,” said Kerys. “I thought about it as I was falling asleep last night, and I have a few ideas about how we can get started.”

  Ari made his way across the common room over to his pack. He’d already taken out the sleeping pad, the torn leather covering of the kellowack, and his spare change of clothing, all of which were laid out across the floor to dry.

  He took out his old, now useless breath scarf. Then he had a thought. He threaded it through the metal clip on the scabbard and tied it around his shoulders diagonally, letting Azurelight hang sheathed across his back.

  “We’ll use this to hold everything we gather,” said Ari, picking the pack back up. “It’ll help us save time.”

  Kerys had drifted over to one of the other doors on the first level that they hadn’t yet opened. The wood made a groaning noise, scraping against the stone as she opened it and poked her head through the doorway.

  “What do you make of this?” asked Kerys. “It almost seems like a privy, but it’s weird.”

  Ari furrowed his brow and joined her. The room was small, consisting of a single, circular holed throne that definitely was a privy, and an odd, cylindrical tube that jutted out from the roof over a metal grating.

  “Huh,” said Ari. “That is weird.”

  “What’s this?” Kerys brushed dust off the wall next to the metal grating, revealing two circles carefully carved into the stone. The lines glittered, as though they’d been embossed with gemdust, and each of the circles was filled with intricate patterns that looked like a complex form of writing.

  “They’re magical wards,” said Eva, through the bond. “I will need to examine them more closely to tell you exactly what they do, but I believe at least one of them is for heating water.”

  “Eva says that it’s a magical ward that can heat water,” said Ari.

  “How?” asked Kerys.

  “Through magic,” said Ari. “Obviously. Try to keep up, Kerys.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him, and Ari grinned back at her.

  They took the time to open the other two doors on the tower’s first level. One led to what seemed to be an empty storage room with shelves and nothing else of interest. Ari had been hoping to find some chairs to furnish the common room with, but he didn’t see any.

  The other led into a small, cozy kitchen with a long counter made of both wood and metal, a small closet with a rusted door, and a few wards scattered across various surfaces. Ari conferred with Eva, and her best guess was that one of the wards could be used to heat the metal section of the counter for cooking, while another would cool or freeze any food placed inside the small closet.

  “Ask her how to make them work!” said Kerys, excitedly. “Think about how useful that would be, Ari! We’d basically have a miniature cold cave for storing perishables, and we’d never have to bother with campfires for cooking.”

  “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Kerys,” said Ari. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

  “The wards require essence to be activated,” said Eva. “It would take you a prohibitively long time to provide enough of your own essence to make them workable.”

  “How long?” asked Ari.

  “Weeks, perhaps even months, for each one,” said Eva. “There is another way, but it will require us to strengthen our bond first.”

  “What is she saying?” asked Kerys.

  Ari shook his head. “Just that it’s going to take us a while to take full advantage of the tower. It doesn’t sound like a simple process.”

  “Then let’s just leave it for now,” said Kerys. “We should get moving. I’m absolutely famished, and it’s starting to make me grumpy.”

  “I have no interest in seeing you get grumpy,” said Ari. “Come on, let’s go.”

  The harrowing escape they’d made through the river and forest the previous night had thrown off Ari’s sense of direction. The tower was situated in a small clearing just up the hill from the river. He and Kerys spent a minute walking in a spiraling circle through the nearby forest, getting a sense of their immediate surroundings.

  There was a small, sandy beach at the bottom of the hill, near where they’d originally washed up. Ari refilled the waterskin, drinking deeply from it before passing it to Kerys and topping it off.

  “How far do you think we ended up from where the encampment was?” asked Ari.

  “The river was flooded last night,” said Kerys. “I think it washed us further along than we realized. I’m not sure if it would make sense to try to head back there for the rest of our food.”

  Ari nodded, though he felt as though there was more to Kerys’ reasoning than just that. The fishers had all but wiped out the group of survivors. If there were still people left, it wasn’t as though he was looking forward to encountering them again. Not after the way Smalls had treated Kerys. And if everyone at the encampment was dead, returning to it would be an even more unpleasant experience.

  “It probably isn’t worth it, anyway,” he said. “We should try to shift to surviving off what we can scavenge. That’s where our food is going to be coming from from now on.”

  Kerys was already a step ahead of him. She’d found a small patch of berry bushes growing next to the river and had started to pick t
hem. They were tiny red spheres, similar to cave cherries, but a little smaller.

  “We have to test them to see if they’re safe to eat or not,” said Kerys.

  “Don’t we do that by, you know, eating them?” asked Ari.

  “Aristial Stoneblood, you’d be dead by nightfall if you started eating random berries off the bush,” said Kerys. “There’s a method to it. First, take one of the berries and squeeze the juice against your skin.”

  She passed him a berry. Ari shrugged and squeezed it against his wrist, resisting the urge to lick the rest of the juice off his fingers.

  “Done,” he said. “Now what?”

  “Wait for twenty minutes,” said Kerys. “See if it develops into a rash.”

  Ari did some more exploring as he waited, paying careful attention to the underbrush in search of any edible tubers he recognized. When he returned to Kerys, she had him repeat the procedure again, but this time with the juice in his mouth, and under his tongue. The berries were more tangy than sweet, but he still found the taste quite enjoyable.

  “I think they’re safe, Kerys,” he said.

  “So do I,” she said. “I’ll pick as many as I can, but we’ll probably need more than just berries if we’re going to survive.”

  “Leave that to me,” he said.

  He strode off into the forest and spent the better part of an hour unsuccessfully foraging for food. The area around the river was clearly fertile, but there weren’t many fruits or berries around that stood out as obviously as Kerys’ find. He found a small, prickly bush with green berries and tested one against his skin, only to find the patch red and itchy a few minutes later.

  “Eva,” whispered Ari. “Any suggestions about the best way to find food in the woods?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Eva. “Fishing, perhaps?”

  Ari gave it some thought and decided that it was probably their best bet. He doubled back to the tower to get the rope, from which he carefully unwound several long, fibrous strands. He twisted them together, tying a knot on both ends to form a proper line.

  He made his way back to the beach and spent a few minutes digging for worms with a flat rock. There were plenty to be found just under the surface, which was good, as the ones he found immediately began to wriggle away from him, and he wasn’t interested in storing them in his pockets.