Sword Scroll Stone

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Book excerpt

Chapter 1

The sword came out of nowhere, and Columba Riverford twisted to evade it, whipping his own sword from its sheath with barely time to block its second blow.

But the sword was just a sword—no warrior or sage wielded it.

The blade thrust itself at his face; he ducked and thrust his blade where his opponent should be. And cut through empty air.

He twisted and danced away, the courtyard just the size for a sword duel, the arena round, devoid of obstruction, the dirt packed. Columba ducked, parried, and blocked, grinning ruefully at the greeting he was receiving, his unseen opponent highly skilled.

The Hall of Swords, where the finest fighters from the four corners gathered, the magic in their steel propelling them to feats of legendary proportion, possessed an entrance of simple construction, a circular courtyard built of fitted stone twenty feet high all around, crowned with crenellations. The courtyard having only two doors, only one led into the Hall of Swords.

Did I expect them to applaud my request for membership? he wondered. They must have hundreds of supplicants every year whose eagerness far exceeds their skill. I should have expected a challenge! he thought, where he'd come seeking entrance.

And if they would have him, membership.

He twisted, parrying a blow to his side. Without a visible opponent, how could he win?

As in many prior duels, his sword knew where the other would thrust, his magic picking out subtleties that others missed. Think! he told himself. Magic's at work here, so I fight a sage afraid to fight me face to face.

"Coward!" he said, fending off a blow. "Show yourself to me and stop hiding behind your magic!"

The sword redoubled its efforts to kill him.

Columba fought off the fusillade of blows, picking out a pattern in the attack. He'd dreamt too long of fighting at the side of the High Sage Arcturyx Longblade, and the sword he bore had been obtained at too high a cost, to let a simple magic spell dissuade him, his village in northwest Swordshire having provisioned and equipped him to have the honor of one of their own inducted into the Hall of Swords.

Preferring to disarm in duel, rather than to kill, Columba wondered how to disarm a sword. "The safest place around a sword that you can be," an early teacher had told him, "is with your hand on the haft."

Letting his opponent gain advantage, he retreated, nearing the stout oaken door that he'd come through, and baited the trap. "Scurrilous charlatan, where's your spine?!" he snarled.

The sword attacked and Columba slid past it, grasped the hilt, swung himself around against the wielder's control and thrust the opponent's sword deep into the foot-wide door post.

The blade buried in wood, Columba leaned against it. "Yield, unseen Sage, or I'll surely break your weapon!"

"Enough!" Behind him, from atop the arena wall, came a soft laugh, where there appeared three garishly-garbed Sages, looking down upon the courtyard from behind the crenellated battlement. "Well fought, apprentice Columba, well fought," the middle one said, his face full of gentle amusement. "I am Arcturyx, Lord High Sage." He turned to the burly, middle-aged man beside him. "Fairly and quickly done, wouldn't you say, Lord Betel?"

The black eyes smoldered at Columba.

I've made my first enemy, he thought, bowing to the High Sage and feeling the weight of the other man's gaze upon him.

"Stars above, desist and introduce yourself," Arcturyx bade his one companion.

"As you wish, Lord," the black-eyed man said, "though it's clear it was luck, nothing more." He waved his hand, and the sword extricated itself from wood and flew into his grasp. "My name is Betel, Apprentice Columba."

Nodding, Columba saw no relenting behind the eyes.

The third figure threw back a hood, and burnished auburn hair cascaded down the shoulders. "Forgive these rude curmudgeons," she said, "I am Pyxis, Sage of Auld." She floated down from the battlement to the arena floor. "They persist in depriving you of the pleasure of your victory. Congratulations, Lord Sage Columba, and welcome to the Hall of Swords. For the first two years as apprentice, of course."

Columba knelt at her feet, his heart aloft. "Praise the stars that guide me, Lady Sage Pyxis, I have dreamt of this day for years."

"Come, let not our standoffish greeting be a shadow upon your soul." She turned and gestured at the far door, which swung aside. "Many petitioners importune us with unworthy requests. Few demonstrate their worth as you have. Follow me, Apprentice, and see the domains where you shall stay."

 Columba sheathed his sword and bowed to the High Sage on the battlement, feeling still the burn of Betel's stare. It was clear he'd made no friends this day, for to them he was upstart, his family humble serfs who farmed the wheat that fed these fat-belly Lords.

He followed her into the castle beyond, traversing a long, ill-lighted corridor. Glints caught his eye, the walls difficult to see.

Ahead the corridor widened and grew lighter, and he realized the glints were metal—the hafts, blades, and sheathes of swords. From the foot of one wall up its side across the ceiling to the foot of the opposite wall were swords, each one carefully mounted to take advantage of every inch of space.

"Our legacy," Pyxis said, her hair the copper of many a haft.

Columba could not imagine how many swords he beheld. In the thousands, he thought, his eyes traveling the length and breadth. "Whose are they, Lady Pyxis?"

"Sages of Swordshire who have long since passed, their swords now extinguished of their magic. Only one sword retains its power, the original sword, the One Sword. Genesyx, we call her, but none knows her real name, a thing long lost in the fog of time. Only our Lord High Sage Arcturyx may wield her, and only then in time of dire need."

The hall opened into a vestibule, its walls covered just as thick with blade after blade. On the other side, the hall continued. And the swords.

"The Hall of Swords," Columba said to himself.

"Just so, Apprentice." She led him across the vestibule. "Down this way of course is Genesyx herself, the one—"

Shouting ahead of them interrupted her. A guard rushed toward them. "It's gone! Sound the alarm! It's gone—Genesyx has been stolen! The One Sword has been stolen!"

Pyxis gasped, her hand going to the hilt of her waist.

More shouting, and the High Lord Arcturyx strode swiftly toward them, Lord Betel right behind him. "Did you sense anything, Lady Pyxis?"

"Nothing, High Lord! Who would dare?"

"Him!" Betel leveled a finger at Columba.

"What?" he said, taken aback.

"Evince your innocence all you want, upstart, but we know your scheme. Distract us at the arena whilst your accomplice absconds with the one sword Genesyx. Deny it!"

"I do, Lord Betel. You allege without evidence. What proof have you of your foul words?"

"There! I knew he would, High Lord. The criminal always denies, the alacrity of his denial proof of its preparation. Never fear, Lord High Sage, for this fiend shall plague us no more!" Betel drew his sword.

Arcturyx held up a hand. "Be not hasteful, Lord Betel." The High Sage turned to Columba. "The ease of your tongue dismays me, Apprentice Columba Riverford. Your proximity to the theft implicates you, and it was far too sly how swiftly you neutralized the challenge."

"I swear by the stars that guide me, Lord High Sage, that I wasn't involved in the theft of the one sword. I swear!" Columba knelt and bowed.

"Look at me, Boy!"

Columba snapped his head back, the compulsion irresistible.

The gray eyes bore into his, the gaze many times more wrathful than Betel's burning black eyes. "You desire membership in the Hall of Swords, eh? I sense in you that great ambition. Aye, but I sense a cloud as well, one which masks a foul intent. So be it! You are banished from the Hall of Swords on pain of death and your face is forbidden within these domains lest you have your redemption in hand, for only one thing can repair this rent in the heart of the Hall—the return of the One Sword, Genesyx." Arcturyx thrust an arm toward the door. "Go, and do not return without it!"

#

Aridisia Myric stood twelfth in a line that went out the door, a small scroll protruding from the pocket of her cape, silently wishing that the trollish Magus who was spell-scribe today would hurry. Even from this distance, she knew his thoughts jumbled and disorganized.

I could write them faster than that, Aridisia thought, begrudging her fellow supplicants ahead of her their every moment with the scrollscribe.

This her third day in line, her last day, she paid no mind to the flurry of activity behind the Magus, save to wish that she were there. Snatches of thought floated to her.

A low railing separated the supplicants from the Maguses in the Crypt of Scrolls, the oval floor cluttered with podiums covered with parchment where scribes dashed off runes, each couplet an invocation of magic.

Twenty scribes crowded a space fit for fifteen, shelves climbed to the ceiling, scrolls crammed in their cubbies, and in their midst, toward the rear, the High Magux, her beetle-brow furrowed in concentration, one finger phalangitating a quill to set forth on a scroll the spell she inscribed.

Not just any scroll.

The Ancient Scroll, Canodex, the oldest scroll known to the Crypt of Scrolls. The legend told that the Crypt had been built to enshrine the Ancient Scroll.

And there, the Ancient Scroll, Canodex, suspended above the chaos, a shimmer of gossamer holding aloft their prize possession, the High Magux sitting hunched over below it, directing the quill across the parchment with but the motion of a finger, there was where Aridisia longed to be.

Having practiced since she'd learned to write, she had no other ambition than to become a Magux, adept at conjuring through the written word the magic that had seemed from the moment of birth all around her. Her parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and fellow villagers all had encouraged her from the time she could toddle, the magic seeming to slough off her, leaving the word aglow wherever she went.

Their poor village sat at the edge of the Barony, abutting the forest preserve, the villagers forbidden to reap from the forest's bounty. There were no schools nearby, and in their poverty, they had not the wealth to send her. Further, they lacked a Baron nearby to importune to sponsor her, not a single local noble of even modest means.

Unbeknownst to Aridisia, they had begun a cache years before with the little wealth they earned, and upon her twentieth birthday, had given her this bounty and bade her to come to the Crypt of Scrolls to petition for membership.

Standing in line twice before with folk as poor as she, Aridisia had spent nearly all the village bounty, the fee to place a simple request more than the village earned in an entire year. On the first occasion, two days ago, the gnomish Magus had scrawled her request.

Then he'd looked up at her, had grinned, and had burst out laughing. He'd laughed so hard he'd fallen off his stool, spilling ink across the scroll, spilling tears down his cheeks, spilling hilarity across the floor, all the Maguses laughing at her.

Her cheeks a flame with humiliation, Aridisia had fled.

The next day, her caped hood pulled far forward to cowl her features, she'd returned.

This Magus tall and dignified, he'd etched her request in the words she'd uttered, and then had frowned, his brows drawing together. "Oh, it's you." He swung his nose in her direction.

She could just see his eyes beyond the cannons of his nostrils.

"Ludicrous request. No wonder Shorty laughed so hard." The tall Magus giggled. "Become one of us? Request denied."

Today, the money in her hand too little to cover the fee, her determination as strong as ever, and a well of anger percolating inside her from two days of humiliation, Aridisia saw she was but one petitioner away from placing her own request. Whatever will I do if I get turned away? she wondered with burgeoning despair. How will I face my family and village, all those good loving people who bade me well and gave freely from their hearts and pockets? Oh Almighty Scribe, help me!

She brought out the humble scroll in her pocket, its parchment stained with use and travel, its pins crudely carved and dingy from frequent handling, and she pulled the quill from her hair, her golden locks cascading down her shoulders, for it was all she might afford to keep her hair pinned up, and found the last little patch of parchment yet blank of scrawl.

As the trollish scribe turned to look at her, he who had wept with laughter at her request two days ago, she penned a phrase: "Ye who laughs to denigrate shall succumb to suasion insensate and do my bidding hastilate."

His gaze became unfocused. "What is thy request, child Aridisia?"

She picked his name from his mind. "Magus Quercus, do hear me, invite me to take your seat, and avert the attention of your brethren Mage. Give me scroll and quill, and weave for me the illusion that you sit there still."

"Tis a modest request, my child, and one easily granted." Magus Quercus dashed out a quartet of lines with a flourish.

From her perch on his stool, Aridisia accepted the next petitioner's fee and adjusted the position of the quill in her hand, a basket of blank scrolls beside the lectern, what seemed acres of blank parchment within reach, the world looking bright as though a glow surrounded her.

"Magux Aridisia," a frail old woman said, "my son is ill with a wasting disease, and the butcher is wont to let more blood. Can you help?"

Aridisia picked a fresh scroll from the basket and plucked her son's name and face from the old woman's mind. "Cedric Ironsmith," she scrawled, "be not afraid, for this illness shall dissipate soon. Be the iron that you smith so well, and find your temper in the forge of ill."

The words glowed as they settled upon the paper, the circles perfect, the lines true.

"Here, take this to him, Dam Ironsmith, and go with light of heart." Aridisia rolled up the scroll and handed it to her.

The old woman clutched the scroll to her breast and scampered to the door, eyes glistening.

The next supplicant handed her the fee.

Aridisia saw instantly it was not enough. She probed the man's face.

Middle-aged, his gaze sharp above proud cheeks, his hands gnarled and cross-hatched with scars, in them a large double-bladed axe, he met her gaze with a challenge: You can't help me, his face told her.

"I can and will," and she handed him back his coin. "What is your request, Samshad Woodwright?"

"Magux Aridisia, I would no more give you parchment without payment than you should give me a spell for the same. I would not have it."

"You fear your wife of many years seeks attention elsewhere. Your fear keeps you from your work, and you sit in your mill, day in day out, your wright machines idle, fretting what to do. Your fear softens your desire at night and leaves you both unsated, where before you were always a virile man. Your fear puts hesitation to your word and touch and keeps from her the attention she has heretofore enjoyed." She smiled and patted his hand. "I won't be giving you a spell, so no payment is needed. Go to her and say your love in fulsome praise, beg her to stay with you all the day even at your mill, tell her all the years with her have brought you closer, that she brings you deep fulfillment and happiness beyond belief. Tell her you have struggled to find the words to tell her, that your desire to tell her so has pressed upon you so much that the tongue has lain thick and still in your mouth at this weight upon your soul. You are blessed to have each other."

And Samshad Woodwright blessed her and set off.

Her spirit brightening at the bounce that had now returned to his step, Aridisia turned to the person next in line.

A young girl stood before her, just a year or two shy of her own age. "My father lies captured yon west of Scrollhaven, kidnapped by outland raiders yesterday, probably to be sold into slavery today. Please I beg you, Magux Aridisia, please help bring him back." She handed over a stack of coin.

Her heart went out to the girl—Chiona Anthus—and she laid out a scroll, the vellum soft and smelling fresh. Upon it she wrote: "For she who bears this spell of mine, give to her a gift divine, shield her from these eyes of mine and any other who might stop her."

The ink moved into place, and Aridisia rolled the scroll and gave it over. "I wish you well, Chiona, in bringing your father back safely."

"You cannot bring him back?"

"The magic wouldn't work at this distance, child, and alas, I can only wish I might go there. You would be prudent when you do to—"

"What gimmickry is this?" a raspy old voice interrupted.

Aridisia whirled.