Sword of Caledor

by William King

  He set the blade on the floor and inscribed a chalk circle around it. Swiftly he inscribed runes around the edges of the circle, making the signs of Isha and Hoeth and numerous minor deities of knowledge. He relaxed and began to chant. His heartbeat slowed, his breathing deepened, his spirit hung loosely within his body. He inspected the aura of the old sword.

  And it was old, he realised, an artefact of the ancient time when mortal gods had walked the Earth. It had been made when magic flowed much more strongly through the world. He could tell from the brutal strength of the spells, so difficult to replicate in the modern era, that magic had been more abundant when this weapon had been made. The world had been fundamentally different.

  Slowly, it seeped into him, the realisation that his father was right, Aenarion had held this blade. He had fought and killed with it. He had trusted his life to it. It was a weapon intended to be wielded by a hero, one touched by the power of the gods. He was not sure that his brother would ever be able to use its full power. He did not lack the heroism. He simply had not passed through the Flame of Asuryan as Aenarion had.

  Teclis had touched the Flame, using his own magic, during the final battle with the Keeper of Secrets. He could sense resonances of it within the blade, most likely simply traces of the fact that Aenarion had handled it. There had been a direct link between the Phoenix King and this weapon. Echoes of Aenarion’s blazing ferocity could be felt by someone sensitive enough.

  Beneath that there were echoes of another personality, one of more interest to Teclis. The presence belonged to one infinitely sadder, wiser and far less bold, the first of the true Archmages, Caledor. He too had handled this blade and he had done so before Aenarion. The spellwork flowing through it was his.

  Teclis looked at it, fascinated. It was as individual as hand-writing. That was always the case. Two mages could cast the same spell and it would look and feel different to the knowledgeable observer. It would flow in a different way, be cast with different levels of energy, sometimes would get different results. Magic was always personal in that way.

  What could he tell about Caledor from his work?

  The elf had been meticulous– the runes on the blade had been inscribed with care, and the flows of fire magic through them were still bound as tightly today as they were the day the sword had been forged.

  He had been strong-willed. No one could have bound one of the Elemental Spirits of Vaul without being so. He had not been at all artistic. The magic was utilitarian. There was none of the florid scribblings of trace energies that many mages used to leave their own mark on spells and artefacts. The elf that had made this sword had been grimly determined to create the most powerful weapon he could for his friend. He had not been concerned with imprinting his own personality on it.

  And, of course, that single-minded determination had left the strongest mark possible. Now he had a sense of the wizard as if he had been standing in the same room with him, of the indomitable will, the desperate courage, the despair.

  Caledor had not been a warrior. He had never wanted to fight. It was not in his nature. He had been driven to it. He had been a maker where Aenarion had been a destroyer. He had made even this sword with reluctance, but having been driven to it he had made it to the best of his ability. He had put all of his genius into the creation of something whose purpose he despised.

  We live in the shadow of titans, Teclis thought. We live in the world that destiny-cursed pair created. This sword is like the whole history of our people. It bears the stamp of Aenarion and Caledor.

  He thought about the Vortex, which, even to this day, protected and maintained Ulthuan, channelling its magical energies, keeping the continent above the waves, draining the fatal power of the winds of magic from the world. Caledor made our land, in the same way as Aenarion shaped our people. The whole continent was part of his vast geomantic design.

  Teclis considered the scope of the mind that could do that – plan and execute the most powerful spell in the history of the world in the midst of fighting the greatest war ever. The same elf who had forged this blade had forged a continent. The world had been fundamentally different when Sunfang had been made, and Caledor had been the one who altered it when he created the Vortex.

  Surely there was something to be learned from understanding this spell work. So thinking, Teclis threw himself once again into studying the weave and pattern of the magic and imprint of the elf that had made it so.

  Hours later, grimly elated, exhausted and at the end of his strength, he felt that he had grasped the essential nature of the magic. He thought that perhaps one day he would be able to forge a weapon, if not as powerful as this one, at least of a similar level of sophistication.

  ‘You have penetrated the blade’s secrets?’ his father asked. It was not really a question.

  Teclis took up his pen. ‘I have discovered a very great deal. Let’s get it all down while it is fresh in my memory.’

  Teclis slumped wearily into his armchair. He looked over at his father and saw that the old elf was transformed. His face had lit up with something approaching joy. He looked as if he was about to burst into dance. In his hands he held the scrolls containing the notes that Teclis had made during his examination of Sunfang. He kept running his gaze over the runes again and again, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing.

  ‘What is it, Father?’ Teclis asked. His father looked as if he was about to burst into tears. He did not seem able to force the words out.

  ‘I think we have found it, my son,’ he said. ‘I think we have found what I was looking for over all these centuries. I think we found the missing piece of the puzzle.’

  Teclis found his father’s excitement contagious. Weary as he was, he rose and limped over to where Prince Arathion stood. He looked over his father’s shoulder at the complex mass of magical notation that he had left on the parchment.

  For once, his father was ahead of him when it came to understanding magic. He simply could not see what it was that the older elf was so excited about. Then again, he told himself, he was tired and he did not have his father’s long experience of studying this sort of spell. It was quite possible his father was the greatest expert on this sort of thing in the world. He had concentrated obsessively on it for centuries.

  ‘I don’t see it,’ Teclis said.

  ‘There,’ his father said, his finger stabbing towards one section of the inscription. ‘Do you see it now?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘I think this is the missing part of the weave, the thing that has prevented me from being able to reactivate the armour over all these centuries. I think this is the magic that will enable me to bind all of the complex spells together and make them work. It will be expensive and it will take time but I think I can do it.’

  Teclis began to vaguely see what his father was getting at. It was not something that would have excited him, or even have got his attention had it not been pointed out to him. It was a relatively simple thing but once he looked closely at it he could see the cleverness of it.

  It was a small, intricate piece of spellcraft, designed to link together a mesh of other spells, reinforcing them and letting them draw on each other’s power. Anything inscribed with this particular rune would be much stronger and yet much easier to use. It was something that was difficult to spot because it was so embedded in the rest of the spells on the blade, but once you saw it…

  ‘I see it now,’ Teclis said.

  ‘I knew you would – eventually,’ said his father with a smile. ‘It is quite brilliant and I can see how it has eluded me for so long. It will take quite a bit of work to recreate the links in the armour but once that is done, I should be able to bring it back to life. Of course, I won’t be able to make the spell as strongly as Caledor did. There’s less magic in the world now.’

  When he said that his father looked troubled. ‘Although that
may be changing. The winds of magic have been blowing much stronger recently and there is an odd taint to them. You must have noticed that.’

  ‘I have only just returned to Ulthuan, Father, and all of the spells I have worked have been in this shielded laboratory.’

  ‘Of course, but you will see what I mean the first time you try to work magic outside.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for that but now I’m going to bed. It’s been a very long night and I am very weary.’

  His father did not look tired. He looked younger and more energetic than Teclis had seen him look in decades. He looked keen to begin working on his lifelong project once more. Suddenly and ominously Teclis was reminded of Leiber. What if his father did succeed? What if he lost his life’s purpose? What would happen then?

  He told himself it was just the tiredness speaking, that there was nothing to worry about, but he had a very strong foreboding that this discovery would prove bad for his father. He was a wizard and he respected his forebodings for they very often proved correct.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Drink!’ said Orysian. He handed Tyrion a skin of wine. He was already quite drunk. Wine had spilled from the corners of his thick-lipped mouth and dribbled down his chin. A challenge glittered in his narrow eyes. It was obvious in his wine-thickened voice.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Tyrion, seizing the wineskin and tipping its contents down his throat in one long, theatrical swig. The rest of his companions laughed. All of them except the human slave who carried the lighted lantern seemed vastly amused.

  Tyrion loved this, striding through the night-time streets of Lothern with his pack of friends, elves with whom he had spent many a night carousing down by the docks or in the taverns and brothels of the old city. Looking at them he understood his aunt’s words about the bad reputation he was getting for himself.

  They were all of about his age or younger and they were all heavily armed and ready for a fight with members of any other faction they might encounter in the streets of the city. Of late, such running street battles had become part and parcel of life in Lothern – what was worse, in various areas the humans seem to be getting involved, fighting proxy wars on behalf of their patrons.

  Lothern had become a much more violent place in the last century than the relatively peaceful city-state Tyrion had known in his youth. He had to admit that he was part of that problem.

  He was one of the elves who took the most joy in street-fighting. He had a reputation for it and he was seen as a champion of House Emeraldsea. His grandfather and his aunt had disapproved but they were of an older generation, born in a simpler time.

  They did not really understand the new world bred of riches and foreign trade and the opening of Lothern to a tidal wave of new money and goods.

  At this moment, with the wine burning in his belly like liquid fire, Tyrion did not really care what his aunt or anyone else thought. He swaggered along with his hands hitched into his sword belt, daring any passer-by to look at him the wrong way. Very few could look him in the eye. They were afraid and there was something intoxicating about their fear.

  This was not his usual practice – he liked to think of himself as a peaceful elf except when provoked, but at this moment in time he would welcome some violence. His companions sensed that. They were going out of their way to be provocative to anyone who got in their way, knowing that when Tyrion was in one of these wild moods there were very few people in the city who could stand against them. Merchants hastened into their shops, passers-by scuttled across the streets.

  Only the soldiers of the City Watch held their ground and even they looked nervous, for they were outnumbered by this mob of richly garbed young elves. They knew also that these wealthy trouble-makers had the influence to avoid the consequences of breaking the heads of a few poor guardsmen.

  The sight of them gave Tyrion pause. The guard were just doing their jobs, trying to keep the streets safe. They were not the enemy. They did not need trouble from the likes of him. They were the sort of elves he had led on battlefields. He had no quarrel with them.

  There was something ugly about the faces of his companions, an expression of brutality and superiority that did not sit well on their fine features. Tyrion realised that exactly the same expression was on his face and he did not like that. He did not like to think he was simply part of the herd.

  He forced himself to pause and smile and consider the reasons why he was doing this. He knew that it was not wise. No matter how tough an elf was it was still possible for anyone to be killed in the rough and tumble of a street brawl. He had lost a number of friends that way over the years.

  It was wasteful and it was stupid. There were few enough elves as it was and with more humans appearing in the city every year it set a very bad precedent and example. The humans would see that the elves were fractious and divided and they would realise that it was a weakness. It was one that the elves really could not afford to display in a city where they were even now outnumbered by strangers.

  He wrestled with his own anger, looking for the reasons and finding them easily enough. He did not like the way his aunt had spoken to him and he did not like being treated as if he were some sort of lackey – he was of the blood of Aenarion, after all. He smiled with genuine mirth; he certainly had the mad pride associated with that particular bloodline. It was coming out now. The wine had made sure of that.

  His aunt had her own reasons for doing these things. Tyrion understood that. The trick was going to be to make sure that he did not do anything rash because of that. Knowing her motivations, he could put these to good use and manipulate his aunt for his own purposes, or at least he hoped so. It was never wise to assume such things with elves who were so much older and more experienced than he was. Although he was already very confident of his own gifts in that particular area.

  He looked around at his friends. They were taking their cues from him. They seemed to sense the conflict in his mind. A few of them still looked angry and spoiling for a fight, a few of them looked as if they were waiting for him to say something funny, most of them just looked confused.

  He grinned at all of them and spread his hands wide and said, ‘Come, let us visit the Golden Lion and I will buy you all some fine wine – there is much to be celebrated. I have found the blade of Aenarion, a thing lost for many centuries. It is an omen of great things.’

  Most of them laughed but Orysian said, ‘I thought you wanted to blood it this evening. Our enemies have been casting aspersions on the bravery of House Emeraldsea in your absence. I thought you would have brought this fabled blade. We are all dying to get a look at it.’

  Orysian was a brute, Tyrion thought. He wanted to be thought tough and he was. He wanted to be the centre of attention the way Tyrion was, but he could not be, because he lacked Tyrion’s good looks and charm. Tyrion knew the other elf would have challenged him to a fight, if he had not been so certain he would lose. Instead he contented himself with sniping resentfully at Tyrion. Still these things made him easy enough to handle.

  ‘It would be a very bad omen to blood the blade of Aenarion on asur,’ said Tyrion. ‘That is why I have left it with my brother this evening – so that I will not be tempted! Anyway, I have had enough fighting over the past few months to last me for at least an evening. While you were drinking in the taverns of Lothern, I was fighting lizardmen, carnosaurs and flesh-eating plants in the jungles of Lustria.’

  A look of disappointment passed over Orysian’s coarsely handsome features and he said, ‘Doubtless you will bore us with all the details before this night is out.’ Tyrion could see that Orysian was going to be the problem here, so he singled him out for attention.

  ‘Don’t worry, I will regale you with endless tales of my own heroism and bravery which you will, by the end of the evening, envy even more than my startling good looks and wit and charm.’

  ‘I have heard it
said that words can be just as deadly as swords and our friend Tyrion is about to prove that by boring us all to death,’ said Orysian, rising to the bait.

  ‘As ever, jealousy is an ugly thing,’ said Tyrion. ‘I have seen you bore a few of your enemies with the sword. The last time I saw you fight I thought it was your intention to watch your opponent die of old age… and let us never forget that they were elves.’

  ‘It would still probably have been preferable for them than listening to your stories,’ said Orysian.

  ‘Then imagine what it would be like for them to listen to yours. Heroic tales of the number of courtesans you have kissed and bottles of wine you have drunk interspersed with stories of the cakes you have knifed to death.’

  All of the others were laughing now. Even Orysian was amused and flattered to be singled out by the hero of the hour. Tyrion smiled at them all, having turned the mood to his own wishes. He kept it up all the way to the Golden Lion. He did not want to fight tonight. He had too much to think about.

  Like a conquering army, Tyrion and his companions burst through the doors of the tavern.

  ‘Drink!’ Orysian shouted.

  The Golden Lion was crowded. Glittering elven courtesans glided from table to table. Glowstones shimmered in chandeliers illuminating everyone. Servants carried goblets of hallucinogenic wine to gold-inlaid tables, or hookahs of Arabyan kif to those elves who desired it.

  It was a vast place, furnished with articles from every corner of the globe, carpets from Araby and clockwork automatons from the Worlds Edge Mountains. Hanging from the ceiling was the huge skeleton of some aquatic monster harpooned by the tavern’s owner back when he was a simple sea captain, or so he claimed.

  It lay on the edgy territory between the human quarter and the Great Dock. It had once been a warehouse as could be seen by its huge internal area, with an enormous ceiling and many landings looking down over the central pit. On these landings there were still the loading bay doors where hauliers had lifted cargoes into the warehouse.