by Andrew Rowe
After about ten feet or so of climbing, I heard the sounds of pursuit. I grunted and let go.
Body of Stone.
I hit the ground hard, but with my body reinforced, I didn’t suffer any harm. The impact was a little jarring, but that was it.
Release Body of Stone.
I broke into a run, escaping from the gap between buildings and into the crowd.
Sorry, Rei. I’ll be back.
From there, I had to push my way through the crowds to get out of the area. I eventually found a clothing store, went inside, and bought an overcoat and a hat.
No, not my trouble coat. That’s a whole other story. I’ll get there.
Anyway, I slipped the coat and hat on and slipped my mask off as I left.
There were still city guards swarming through the whole area, but none of them seemed to pay any extra attention to me. As I’d hoped, the mask had done its job.
It took me about a half an hour to work back through the crowd and find Reika.
I tapped her on the shoulder, and she whirled around, then gawked at me. “Where were you? And what is that outfit?”
“I’ll explain later. For now, we need to leave.” I took her by the arm and dragged her out of the area, still hoping to avoid making a scene.
I waited until we got back to near Grandmother Iron’s place on the arena island before finding a quiet spot to fill her in.
I explained everything I’d just dealt with.
“Wait...a feather?” Reika’s eyes widened. “A black feather?”
I nodded, removing it from my bag.
“A black feather mask...no! That was the Phantom Thief Ravenshade!”
There was a moment of silence before I replied. “...Should I know who that is? I think you mentioned her name once or twice before, but I really have no idea who she’s supposed to be.”
“Only the most famous thief on all of Kaldwyn! Well, aside from the Blackstone Bandit, maybe. But he has a whole band of thieves, and she works alone. And no matter who she steals from, she always vanishes, leaving behind nothing but her signature raven feather! She’s never been caught.”
I glanced at the feather, appraising. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“You’re going to try to catch her?”
“Eventually, I’m going to have to, right? Unless she comes to me, that is. She has one of the swords. We’re bound to meet again at some point.”
I’m not in a relationship with Reika.
Ugh. That is...definitely not how anything works, Dawn.
Meanwhile, Rei was softly growling at me for an unrelated reason. “I can’t believe you fought another wielder without me. That’s so unfair!” She folded her arms. “Next wielder fight is mine.”
“I...didn’t really have any control over that. I had no idea who she was when I started following her.”
“Bah.” She flicked me with a finger. “Fine. I forgive you. But I get to fight the next wielder anyway.”
“No promises.” After a moment, I decided to bring up something important. “Speaking of that, do you have any information on the other wielders?”
Rei froze, looking suddenly serious. “...I know about one wielder. A bit, at least.”
I blinked, surprised by her sudden change of demeanor. “What’s wrong?”
“Raizo.” She mumbled, almost too quiet for me to hear.
I took a step closer. “Raizo? As in the one who—”
“Killed my father. There’s...something else you need to know about him.” Her jaw tightened. “He’s the wielder of Cloudcutter. That’s why when he blinded my father, Dad didn’t regain his sight when he switched into his dragon form. Some of the sacred swords can injure spirits, much like yours.”
I frowned at that. “Can Dawn do the same?”
Reika shook her head. “I don’t know — that’s not one of the powers Dad told me about. I know that Cloudcutter and Soulbrand both can, though.”
“Soulbrand? That’s the fire one, right?”
Reika nodded. “Cloudcutter and Soulbrand are generally considered the most dangerous of the sacred swords.”
“Dawn is complaining,” I explained.
Reika put a hand on Dawn’s hilt so they could communicate. “You’re just as powerful as the rest of them, Dawn, but your abilities are more balanced. That’s what makes you better than the others.”
Reika cracked a grin. “You’re also the most beautiful, charming, and fashionable.”
I patted Dawn. “Later. I need to hear more about the other swords and wielders before we get distracted by another surprise.”
“Okay. Other swords. So, Cloudcutter is the sword of wind — or air, or lightning, depending on who you ask. It has abilities related to both wind and lightning. You remember that cutting wind that the forest spirit used? That’s one of the real Raizo’s techniques. I’m not sure if it’s from the sword or his own magic, but it’s something you should expect to go up against if you fight the real Raizo.”
I nodded. Having seen it a couple times, I’d formulated some reasonable counters, but it still would be best to prepare if there was a chance we might run into him soon. “What are the odds he’s one of the ones nearby?”
Reika tensed again, then took a breath. “Low, fortunately.”
“Fortunately?” I gave her a perplexed look. “I thought you’d be thrilled for a chance to avenge your father.”
“Oh, I would be. I’d also die in the process.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected that kind of pessimism from Reika. She’d always seemed extremely confident in her abilities. “We beat Zenkichi.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Barely. Zenkichi was probably about the same level of strength my father was. Raizo was stronger than that when I was a child, even without Cloudcutter. And, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, carrying a sacred sword makes you grow stronger. The magic fuels you, increasing your power more and more over time. Consider how much you’ve already gained, then extrapolate that to over a decade.”
That was...concerning. I could see why she thought we’d be out of our dominion against him.
That only made me want to fight him more.
And I did have one more thing to mention. “I don’t think he’ll be gaining strength from his sword as quickly as I am.”
I shook my head at Dawn. “No, not that. I mean we do—”
“What I meant is that I have that whole thing where I pick up magic from items more easily than most people do.”
Reika gave me a considering look. “Yeah, that’s fair. Spirit bond to your sword from a young age and all that.”
I felt a pang of guilt. I’d put that idea forth as a hypothesis to her before, and that might have been a factor...but I suspected that the main reason was something different. Something I hadn’t been quite ready to tell her or Dawn yet. In part because I was uncertain about the truth, and in part because I didn’t know how they’d react to my suspicions.
I should have trusted them more.
While I was searching for something to say, Reika kept talking. “What’s your other sword supposed to do, anyway?”
“Cut things?” I shrugged. “Cut them a lot?”
Reika glared at me. “Don’t be evasive. You’ve been asking me and Dawn about all our powers for a while, and we’ve been honest with you.”
I sighed. “You
already know most of what I do. It has an aura that disintegrates everything around it. When functioning properly, the aura can cut through anything — body, spirit, shade, everything. That’s why it’s so effective against regenerating creatures like Zenkichi.”
“Sure. But a lot of swords can do things like that. I mean, maybe not the disintegration, but the anti-regeneration and spirit-cutting parts aren’t uncommon. And the disintegration seems like more of a hindrance than an asset.”
I felt mildly insulted on my sword’s behalf. “Presumably the disintegration was built to deal with the defenses of something on the scale of a worldmaker. Cutting through otherwise impervious scales and spells, that sort of thing.”
“I guess. That just seems so...boring. And if it’s a god-killing sword, I’d expect it to have a lot more powers, like Dawn does.”
“Oh, no. That was just me using metal sorcery. I can do that to any sword.”
“Yes. Give me insight points.”
“I didn’t betray you, I just teased you a little.”
“The rock that you were buried in is a fallen comrade now?”
I sighed.
“Now, now, Dawn. Don’t threaten your wielder like that. Even if he did betray you a little.” Reika had the audacity to wink at me after that line.
“Right...anyway, sword powers. Yes, the Sae’kes is supposed to have other abilities. The problem is that distinguishing between the legends and realities is difficult. Until recently, I believed it was made by an entirely different set of deities, and for a completely different purpose.”
Reika frowned. “How’d you find out about the truth?”
“Old sage. And honestly, even he might not have been telling me everything. But his stories made more sense, so I suspect they have at least a bit of truth behind them.”
“Okay. Did he tell you anything about what powers it should have?”
“Not exactly,” I admitted. “It’s more that he told me about the sword’s true origin. Knowing that, I now have an idea of what some of the abilities are supposed to be. But one is dangerous, one is unusable, and the last is unethical.”
Dawn glowed a little bit brighter for emphasis.
I rested a hand on my sword. “You recall what I said about the other name the sword had?”
“Dominion Breaker.” Reika nodded. “And dominions refer to the type of magic in your homeland. So, it has some sort of anti-magic power?”
I was impressed by how quickly she’d picked that up. “The other abilities I’m aware of could be considered anti-magic in some respects, but probably not in the way you’re thinking.”
Reika leaned closer. “You could just start telling us what the abilities are with a little less preamble, you know.”
“Fine, fine. So, the foundation of the Dominion Breaker’s powers comes from some kind of dominion that I still haven’t been able to find much information on. It’s something that relates to absolute annihilation. The disintegrating effect is one form of that, but it has a second, more dangerous application.”
“More dangerous than disintegration? That’s hard to picture.”
I nodded. “There’s a reason this thing was never actually intended to be used. The other application of the dominion is that a type of essence that explodes when it comes into contact with any other essence...and that explosion, in turn, often causes other nearby essence to also explode.”
Reika stared at me.
I kept talking. “The first application of that is called the Spell Breaker technique. It’s exactly what it sounds like; it’s used to destroy spells. But not like void sorcery, which negates the magic in an area. And not like constellations, which can cut a spell off from its power source. No, the Spell Breaker makes spells explode.”
I nodded at Dawn. “The stronger the spell, the larger the explosion.”
Reika glanced at the Sae’kes with an expression of concern. “...And you said that can cause a chain reaction?”
“Depending on the type and amount of essence involved in the original spell, as well as composition of the other mana types nearby.”
Reika made a thoughtful expression. “Does that only apply to spells?”
I winced. “I was getting to that. That’s why I said this is dangerous — aside from the obvious danger of countering a powerful spell. The answer is ‘no’. Spell Breaker could work on artifacts, enchantment runes...or, in a worst case, the ambient magic in the air. I don’t know what kind of saturation of ambient magic would be required to cause an explosion, but I’m willing to bet that using it inside something that is known to be mana rich — like, say, a spire — would detonate the mana in the air. Needless to say, virtually nothing would survive that.”
Reika’s eyes narrowed for a moment, giving me an unexpectedly intense examination. “...Would you survive that? You mentioned that your sword’s aura doesn’t hurt you.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “My understanding is that the disintegrating aura and Spell Breaker draw from the same dominion, but that doesn’t mean they’d interact with me in the same way.”
“You haven’t tested it?”
I shook my head. “I just learned that the Sae’kes and the Dominion Breaker are the same sword right before I went to Kaldwyn. The only knowledge I have about the Dominion Breaker’s capabilities is from myths and legends. It’s also currently broken. Using a potentially lethal new technique with a damaged artifact designed to kill worldmaker-class deities seems like a bad idea.”
“Fair point. But it might be good to know if a small amount of that essence harms you.”
I shrugged. “If I can find a safe way to test it, I’ll consider that. Fixing the sword is the first step in the process, as far as I’m concerned.”
Reika gave me a thoughtful expression, then after a moment, she nodded. “What about the other ones? You said one was unethical — does that mean you could use it, and choose not to?”
“It’s really more of an extension of the last power, although I’m considering it a separate technique because it’s something I don’t ever want to have to use.”
“What is it?”
I hesitated, then explained. “I call it Mana Breaker. And the idea is, well, people and monsters have mana inside them.”
Reika’s jaw hung open for a moment as she processed that. “...Okay, yeah, that’s pretty awful.”
I winced. “Theoretically, yes. I’d need to cut them first, to get the sword’s mana inside their body...but I’m reasonably confident it would work. And given the intermix of mana types in someone, it’s very likely it would cause a chain reaction, like Reika mentioned before.”
I glanced at Dawn. “You don’t see a problem with using something like that, Dawn?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Because it’d be an awful way for someone to die?”
<...Does that matter? It’s not like their corpse is going to care what condition it ends up in. I mean, unless they end up as a ghost, in which case yeah, I suppose they’d be pretty upset at you.>
I tried to look at it from Dawn’s perspective. She’d never had a humanoid body, at least as far as I was aware. Perhaps she didn’t understand the visceral reaction I was having.
Maybe it wasn’t even just that. Maybe my own standards weren’t rational.
&nbs
p; “That...” Reika took a breath. “You might even be able to kill someone like Raizo with that.”
I waited for a moment.
“...But you shouldn’t.” She nodded to me. “Not if it’s not something you’re comfortable using. And for someone like Raizo with a lot of mana, the chain reaction problem would be terrible. You’d probably kill yourself, and everyone else nearby, in the process.”
<...Yeah, admittedly, that’s a pretty big downside.>
I was relieved that Dawn and Reika saw the practical problems with the technique, but that wasn’t why I was objecting to it. I just...found the idea discomforting.
“I might be able to learn to control it, limit it to a smaller area...but I still think it’s too awful of a technique to use. My hope is that I’m never faced with a situation where I need it. Once you slip and start to use techniques like that, it’s hard to stop.”
Reika gave me a pat on the arm. “I’ve read stories like that. I think you should keep in mind that type of power might be necessary someday, but I agree that you shouldn’t use it lightly.”
I took a breath, trying to get the image of using that technique out of my mind. “Anyway, I couldn’t really use it right now, even if I wanted to. Too much of a risk while the sword is damaged.”
That was deferring the problem, but for the moment, I was glad for that.
“Okay. Last power.” I was glad to change the topic. “The titular Dominion Breaker technique. It was sealed in the sword with an incantation in four parts, only one part known to each of the worldmakers that forged it. One of those worldmakers died without passing their part of the message on. Thus, the technique is lost, presumably forever.”
“...What did it do, that they’d need to put a four-part incantation to prevent it from being used?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
I patted her hilt. “Let’s go ahead and stop talking about that, Dawn.”
I turned to Reika. “Can we talk about the other wielders for a bit?”