On the Shoulders of Titans

by Andrew Rowe

  That was...a bit of an exaggeration, but it wasn’t going to make me look any worse, so I didn’t correct it.

  Keras nodded thoughtfully. “All right, so you need an edge. I have some extra weapons, but they’re not in Valia. Maybe I could bring you one before the end of the year, if there’s time.”

  I thought about that. “Keras, we were talking about trying to enchant something for Deni together before. Maybe we could practice by trying to enchant a weapon for Patrick?”

  Keras turned to look at me, then to Patrick, taking in Patrick’s wide-eyed look of hope. “Sure, sure. I can see this means a lot to you.”

  I considered options. “I have a saber I enchanted with some basic transference sorcery that we could work on improving?”

  “I have a tougher time working with things that are already enchanted. Too much of a risk that I’d damage them. But I’ve got another idea. Sera, pass me the silver bar next to you.”

  Sera found a silvery-looking bar in the stack of metal bars and passed it over. I’d just...assumed that it was made out of something more mundane, like a type of steel. A silver bar was worth a relative fortune.

  Another glance told me that there weren’t any bars of gold, sadly.

  Keras turned the bar over in his hands, feeling the weight. “This should do.” He glanced over at me. “Corin, you wanted to see some of my type of sorcery. Watch and learn.”

  As I watched, I realized he wasn’t just flipping the bar over.

  He was rolling it between his hands. Reshaping it, like flour dough.

  The metal rippled in his hands, never fully turning to liquid, but shimmering enough that it looked almost gelatinous.

  Marissa’s jaw dropped wide open as she processed the same thing that I was.

  He moved his hands again, laying the bar on the floor, and took two fingers to draw a portion of it downward.

  He plunged his fingers into the metal, piercing it without resistance, and pulled sections to the side.

  He was making a hilt.

  Derek leaned closer. “Silver? Pretty, but isn’t that a bit impractical for a weapon? It’ll break almost as easily as you’re molding it.”

  “This is only the first part.” Keras continued to weave the metal between his fingers, beginning to roll the bottom section of the bar into a cylindrical shape between his hands. “When I’m finished, it won’t be silver. It won’t be steel, either. It will be something greater.”

  His hands moved the material easily, but the work continued for minutes. It was probably close to an hour before he finished. Not one of us looked away.

  I knew of metal magic. The God Beast of Dalenos was associated with the metal element, and I’d heard of a Forgemaster attunement that could use metal magic.

  I’d never heard of anything like this. I’d never dreamed of anyone working metal with such ease.

  Keras had the basic shape of a hilt in minutes, but he worked with diligence, hardening some sections while he made others pliable. When the pommel was complete, he traced runes in the air, which burned into the metal. Each letter was only the thickness of a fingernail, and he fit dozens upon the surface.

  It was when Keras was sculpting the crossguard that a look of recognition crossed Patrick’s face and he uttered a word in wonder. “Dawnbringer.”

  Keras turned to Patrick with an expression of surprise. “You recognize her?”

  Patrick nodded reverently. “I’ve read about the Six Sacred Swords since I was a child. I know this isn’t the real thing, but even seeing something that looks like one of them...it’s beautiful.”

  Keras grinned. “I’m not done yet. Pass me three of Wrynn’s gold regals — those are the coins with the holes in the center.”

  Sera passed the coins over, and Keras turned them over in his hand. “Make that five total. Pass me two more.”

  As Sera moved to comply, Keras began to roll the gold coins in his hands. He was making them into round sections like he’d done with the handle, but he made them much thinner.

  He’s making wire, I realized. He didn’t wrap the wire around the grip like I’d expected, though. He started pressing it against the silver of the crossguard, then weaving it through the silvery metal like thread.

  Keras was drawing letters in a golden script, stretching the writing across the full surface. I couldn’t read a word of it, but it looked like yet another language. Maybe it was another form of runes, but I’d never seen runes interconnected in a cursive format like this writing was.

  Either way, the result was beautiful. I’d never been one for the aesthetics of a weapon, but the gold-on-silver was a good look, and there was something ephemerally pleasing about how Keras was weaving it.

  It was beautiful, like the echo of something transcendent. Something lost.

  Keras turned his head toward the metal pile. “I’ll need another of the silver bars. It’s time to forge the blade. This will take some time, so feel free to rest or eat if you need to. It’s not going to be that interesting.”

  We all stayed, of course.

  He folded the metal bar in his hands, flattening it, stretching it into the shape of a blade. Then he folded it over, time and time again, in a process I assumed was some sort of analogue to folding steel for a sword blade. I was no expert blacksmith, but I’d heard of the concept. I didn’t think it applied to silver, but he’d mentioned that the metal would no longer be silver when he was done.

  Normally, when faced with new magic, I’d have a million questions.

  And I did here, too. In my mind. But I couldn’t bring myself to utter them. Keras didn’t seem to have any difficulty concentrating, but it seemed inappropriate to interrupt. Like stopping a brilliant singer to ask about the meaning of a particular line.

  So, I waited, and I watched.

  I didn’t forget my questions, of course. I was still me. There would be time for magic theory later.

  True to his word, Keras worked for hours on forging the blade. Like with the hilt, he wove gold into the blade, tracing a gleaming wave straight through the center, stopping a few inches from the tip. He mirrored it perfectly on the opposite side.

  It had a small protrusion in the bottom that he inserted into the hilt, and when the metal met, it rippled and merged. When he was finished, the weapon looked to be forged of a single piece of metal. There were no cracks, no seams.

  When the weapon looked finished, Keras closed his eyes, placing two fingers against the sword’s blade just above the hilt. A single rune burned into the surface, glowing gold.

  When his eyes opened, the blade was glowing a faint golden hue.

  He turned the weapon over, holding it by the blade, and offered it toward me. “Your turn.”

  I accepted the sword by the hilt, staring blankly. I’d been so stunned by the whole process that I’d almost forgotten that we were going to try to combine our sorcery. “...right. Can you tell me what your enchantment does?”

  “Nothing other than make it glow, so far. I’ve just opened a connection with it. I also changed the way the metal itself works, but I wouldn’t call that an enchantment. It’s not using mana anymore; I altered the properties of the silver and gold. It’ll be stronger than steel and lighter than silver. I need you to put some mana in there so I can actually have something to work with, and you can also add any additional functions you want.”

  I nodded. “I can do that. Let me get my tools.”

  I sat the sword down reverently, heading upstairs and retrieving my etching rod.

  When I got back, people were having food. I didn’t blame them. Keras had been at it for something like six hours now.

  After a few moments of deliberation, I joined everyone else in a dinner break. That gave me some time to think about what I wanted, and to talk to Patrick.

  “What do you want this sword to do, Patrick?”

  He blinked. “I, uh, don’t know. This is just so...it’s amazing. I never thought I’d actually get a sword like this. I mean, I thought
you might enchant something for me, and that’s great and all, but...”

  I laughed. “Don’t worry. I get it. I’m no Keras — at least not yet. It’s not every day you get a sword forged with ancient magic by...” I glanced at Keras, who was biting into a sandwich. “I still have no idea what you are, Keras.”

  “Just me. I hope.” His words could have easily been a joke, but it didn’t sound that way. He sounded...introspective, maybe.

  I let the subject drop. He’d tell us more about himself when he was ready.

  Besides, he looked ravenous. He was on his third sandwich and showed no sign of slowing down.

  I turned back to Patrick. “You said you recognized this as being similar to an existing weapon. Do you want it to be like that?”

  “Wow. Uh, yeah, that’d be amazing. If you could do that?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know what it does. I’ve heard of Dawnbringer, but legends often get exaggerated. I sincerely doubt it can burn entire cities with the Dawnfire’s light.”

  Keras very nearly choked on his food. “...They say that about Dawn?”

  Patrick beamed. “Oh, yeah! Like, there’s this story about how Ishyeal Dawnsglow used it to wipe out an entire legion of monsters that came out of the Tortoise Spire.”

  Keras frowned, set his food down, took a drink, and then just stared silently at his plate for a moment.

  That was odd.

  I tried to pick the conversation back up. “Okay, light powers. I don’t think I can do that. Light mana isn’t something I can use. Keras?”

  “Hm? Oh, yeah, light. Sure. I can do light mana, but I can’t actually charge a weapon with mana the way you can. I can’t enchant weapons the way you can in general.”

  “What’s that rune on the hilt, then?”

  “Something different. It lets me sense the blade and channel mana into it — but not in the way an Enchanter would. I can use it to alter the structure of the mana for the weapon, but if there’s no mana inside, I can’t do anything with it. And I can’t make runes that generate mana like you can.”

  Patrick looked thoughtful. “So, it’s like what Derek does with his weapons?”

  Derek must have heard his own name and taken it as a signal to jump in. “Not really. I contract with creatures then bind them to weapons, magical weapons or otherwise. It sounds like Keras is more or less binding himself to the weapon?”

  Keras nodded. “That’s a good way of putting it. Temporarily, in this case, so I can make modifications after Corin does his part.”

  “And you needed to make the bond before I did my part?” I asked.

  “I didn’t strictly need to, it’s just that my magic has a tendency to be...damaging. If I have a connection in place before you make the enchantments, it should lower the risk of something going wrong.”

  I didn’t quite understand what he meant by his magic being damaging, but he sounded like he was being deliberately vague, so I didn’t press the issue. When I’d seen him fight, his magic was clearly specialized for offense, so maybe it had something to do with that.

  I finished eating and brought down my books of runes, thinking it over.

  I set the first book down and flipped it open. “Okay, I think I know what we need to do. I’ve never actually done this before, but there are instructions in here for ‘priming’ a rune so that someone else can contribute mana to it. That’s how an enchanter normally makes something like, say, a fire sword, even though he doesn’t have fire mana.”

  I traced a rune on the page. “Basically, I draw a rune, then I fill it with a ‘container’ of gray mana. Then the other person channels mana into the rune, and when it hits the capacity of the container, theoretically the rune should activate. The important part is to stop channeling more mana into it when the container is full, otherwise you break the container and bad things happen.”

  Derek walked over. “It’s not hard, actually. I’ve helped Enchanters on several occasions. Whoever is contributing the mana to the runes should be able to feel the gray mana straining when you’re reaching the capacity. Just don’t push too much mana in there too fast. When the rune starts to glow, you’re done.”

  I was sincerely grateful for that knowledge. This whole thing was sounding a little intimidating. I’d hoped to enchant cooperatively at some point, but this scale was a little bigger than I’d imagined for my first project. “Okay, thank you, Derek. I think what I’m going to do is draw runes for holding light mana, recharging light mana over time, and a maximum capacity for absorbing light mana. That combination of runes is fairly standard.”

  “Light and fire,” Keras interjected.

  I turned to him. “Light and fire?”

  He nodded. “If we’re making this similar to Dawnbringer, her rays use both light and fire. And you’re going to want some enhancement and transference, too.”

  “I can do the same thing for those, but just to be clear, these won’t actually do anything other than put mana in the weapon and store it. I’m not sure how to let it do Dawnbringer’s fire attack.”

  Keras shook his head. “You won’t have to. Once it has all the right types of mana in it, I should be able to give the weapon the functions it needs.”

  I frowned. “I thought you couldn’t make runes on your own, though.”

  “That’s what the bond is for. Well, one element of it, anyway. Once there’s mana in there, I can work with it. And, to be clear, I can make runes. They just work somewhat differently.”

  Okay, fair enough.

  I started flipping through my books, finding all the relevant runes and thinking. “How high of a capacity do you want on these?”

  Keras shrugged. “As high as you can go?”

  I’d expected that. “Best I can handle is Sunstone, even if I’m just doing the containers. And the containers are only a tiny fraction of the total mana necessary for the enchantment.”

  “Can you put multiple containment runes on it for a higher capacity?”

  I raised a hand to my lips, considering how best to explain. “Yes, but any individual spell effect can only draw from one capacity rune at a time. That means the strongest spells an item can cast can’t take up more mana than what a single capacity rune would hold. Also, you need a separate recharging rune for each capacity rune, and that gets expensive and time consuming.”

  “Okay, that’s good to know. I won’t put any spells on it that take up more than the mana capacity of one container, then. If you can handle the containers, I can handle the rest. We can upgrade the rune to a higher level when you get powerful enough to do that. At that point, I can enhance the sword’s other capabilities.”

  “Where should I put the runes?”

  Keras pointed at an empty section on the crossguard, just above the grip. “Here. You’re going to use that tool?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll make it easier.”

  He touched the crossguard. The metal softened.

  “That’s a pretty amazing trick.”

  With the softened metal, it was easy to etch the runes into the surface. When I was done, Keras waved his hand again, cleaning up any imperfections in my cuts and hardening the metal again.

  I was a little jealous. Enchanting would be much easier if I could do that.

  But etching was always the easy part, anyway. Now came the hard part.

  I checked the exact amount of gray mana necessary to make a container for each rune, then got to work.

  And for once, my work was easier than I expected.

  Making the containers in the runes was very nearly identical to making a mana crystal, just in a rune shape instead of a prism shape. It was even easier in some respects, since the containers were designed to be hollow and extremely thin.

  The total mana requirement for a Sunstone-level container was 7.2 mana, or one fiftieth of a Class 3 mana crystal. I’d only managed to make crystals that held three mana before, but I’d made them in droves without much effort once I’d gotten the hang of it.
/>   This was harder, but within my capabilities. A Citrine-level shell would have been six times more, though, and I didn’t think I had a chance of handling that.

  And certainly not twelve of them in a day.

  I made six shells, took a break for an hour, and then made six more.

  When I was done, Keras tried to charge one.

  It shattered instantly.

  There was a flicker of light in the rune, but fortunately, no explosion.

  Keras muttered a curse I didn’t recognize, and I rebuilt it. Then he tried again. This time, a bit more slowly.

  After a minute, his jaw had tensed, and he was breathing heavily...but the rune began to glow.

  Keras pulled his hand away, taking a deep breath. “One down.”

  Eleven to go.

  I let Keras charge the other two light runes before I got an idea. “Hey, Patrick.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why don’t you try charging one of the fire runes? I mean, at least part way. It’s going to be your sword.”

  “C...can I?” He looked positively gleeful at the idea.

  “Yeah, but to be clear, you’re not going to be able to fill it all the way up. These are Sunstone-level runes. I’m doing the easy part, which is only seven mana each. Keras has been putting three hundred and sixty mana into them.”

  I didn’t say it, but Keras didn’t look any more tired than when he’d started. The only stress for him seemed to come from channeling the mana slowly enough to avoid breaking the runes or the weapon itself.

  I handed Patrick the mana watch. “Check your total.”

  “Uh, it says 49?”

  “Okay, good. Just about the same as my attunement. We’ll get you stronger, but for now, let’s be safe. You’re going to channel 30 mana in there, then stop. Then Keras will handle the remaining 330.”

  Patrick grinned. “Got it.”

  Derek sat down across from us. “You know what? I can help, too. I’ll finish the fire runes so Keras can rest. Assuming you all want me to.”

  Patrick clapped his hands together. “More the merrier!”

  Keras gave Derek a nod. “I’d be grateful for your help. The fewer runes I have to handle myself, the fewer chances I have to break it.”