The Ram of Charliestead

Midday arrived quickly enough.

And Raphae dreaded it.

She let her upcoming decision fester in her thoughts all throughout the night. Her eyes were bloodshot-red, her posture slumped as she walked towards the clearing where the Sorcerer usually dwelled.

A part of her wanted to just let it all go and live a happy and peaceful life at the Inn with the girls, Elina, Sasha, Rela, Ana, and Joan. To have a big family, like she always wanted.

It was what her pa would’ve wanted.

Yet.

Raphae knew it would be no true peace, for her mind was not wont to let go so easily. If Raphae felt a certain way, she was shackled to unease with fetters of adamant unless she did as she truly felt.

Her heart burned with smoldering anger. It was a flame smothered with dirt that would not die, the embers stubborn in the face of the incoming cold.

A dark part of her relished in the thought of vengeance. To hack and rip apart the remaining bandits that murdered her father. To cut ribbons in their flesh and hear their screams.

She had heard the wailing of her father as she ran and he stood behind to save her. She felt herself a craven, a coward of the highest order.

The bandits had incapicated him quickly enough, she knew. A crippled, forty year-old with his dwindling constitution and lack of breath? They should’ve killed him in a blink, yet they did not.

The screams were to draw her back in, so they could have their way.

Why not make them suffer as her pa did? As she did, in hearing her last living loved one tortured because of her and then cast unto another turn of the Wheel.

Her steps, once leaden with the weight of the dead, were now a tiny degree lighter. Not enough to properly make haste, but enough so that it was noticeable.

Raphae would not run away from the danger and fear, but towards it.

My heart’s racing like a hound let loose from its chain. A strange brew of excitement and trepidation.

The fear still festered in her gut, a cold claw that made her knees weak and hands shaking. That made everything dizzy and her memories a blur. Fear was a heavily distilled spirit and indulgence in it left one hungover in shame, she knew so from visceral experience.

Her steps were heavy as lead and stone.

Her head was light and stumbling like leaves in the wind.

Still she plodded ahead with flame in her heart and ice in her belly. Until she reached her destination. The time it took was both an eternity and a single blink.

The Sorcerer sat beneath the shade of an ancient oak, his legs crossed and eyes closed.

They opened, viridian-green lights shining in the dark.

“What is your choice, Raphae?

“Peace or war?”

“There is no choice.” Raphae said, her voice having more courage than the language of her body. It was the surety of what would come. A stone firmly planted in the bottom of a lake.

“My heart is stuck in its own war. I cannot find peace without burying the dead of the past.”

“There are no dead to bury, Raphae.”

“Of course there is. Two dead men walking that have yet to learn that they have already died.”

A smile crept upon the Sorcerer’s face, practically shouting his amusement.

It only served to make her all the more irate and stoke the fire that smoldered within.

“Very well.” Said the Sorcerer before she could word her frustration. “Come with me. To forge your weapon, we shall need a design.”

Raphae followed after the Sorcerer, her steps somehow lighter than before. The dead seemed to grasp onto her frame less.

The Damned will soon break their fast with their own, Raphae thought darkly. That seemed a good enough reason to stop their influence. Like a pup that obediently waited with a wagging tail for their master to throw them a scrap of meat.

The Sorcerer brought her all throughout the inn until they reached a backroom with a door.

“It’s the cellar.” He said. “If you feel more comfortable, one of the women can come with us.”

He hadn’t said it explicitly, yet Raphae understood his meaning well enough.

“I’m fine, Barry. You’re no raping bandit, Sasha and Rel and Ana have echoed that you’re a good man so, so many times.

“A bit sickening, honestly. How many times do they need to tell me that you’re not a bad person? That you’re no wolf.

“And I’m no scared bairn. I know your intentions well enough.”

Barry nodded and conjured a wisp of heliotropic flame, its light like the color of a turnsol—known as a sunflower in more northron parts of Kedwen closer to the Middle Kingdoms.

Raphae’s travels with her pa were now bittersweet things in her memories. They had bounded from settlement to settlement as the times turned, and he had always found some coin to hire her a tutor of some sort. Be it scribe or merchant. Be it sagened elder woman or ealdorman.

The Sorcerer descended into the darkness with his will’o wisp, and Raphae went in twain.

Her steps seemed lighter and lighter for each step she took. The weights on her shoulders lifting in concert with her descent. An irony that found a special place in her heart.

Her lips parted ever so slightly in amusement. Yet it was no true thing.

She felt herself a puppet dancing to the strum of her own hands. Her slight grin was something of reflex and habit, not a true reaction of joy.

A heart burning with hatred and fear had no space for joy.

The Sorcerer

The Sorcerer sent strings of shadow from his spirit to each of the lanterns inside the cellar. They were not dense enough to manifest in the Prime-Material as a netheric substance, instead dwelling only in the Middle and High-Spirit Realms.

He was the center of the skorromantic weave, a spider beneath the web.

With a snap of his fingers, he surged fiery essence from his Inner Shadow into the bindings. The flame conducted through the threads, alighting the lanterns all at once and burning the bindings in twain.

It was a nifty sympathy that left behind no traces of its use other than the residual heat and subtly disturbed flow of ether.

“I collected a good amount of weaponry in my travels. From bandits, of course.

“You may choose any one of them… but, I think you may prefer one I have already picked out.”

Blades were placed on the floor and atop wooden crates, with the most badly damaged ones being left in a big pile fit for slag.

The Sorcerer walked to a seemingly common and mundane sword like all the others. It sat atop a crate with its brethren, not sticking out in the slightest to Raphae’s awareness.

“This is an arming sword.” The Sorcerer said. “Do you have any knowledge on arms or combat?”

Raphae shook her head.

“I know how to hide a dagger well enough and how to unsheathe it quickly, but that’s it.”

“Aye.” Barry said. “This here is a type of shortsword, the same class as this one over here.” The man pointed to a single-edged blade that ended in a talon-shaped tip. “A falchion or hunting blade.

“The difference is that this is double-edged and a bit longer.”

“Why this one?” Raphae asked.

“Three reasons.

“First, you’re a registered commoner.” He answered. “I heard so from Randy. He saw you had papers. Only commoners, not serfs, can wield a double-edged blade longer than a standard sized dirk.

“Second, this is a weapon of finesse. One where skill is more important than strength. Women mercenaries though uncommon are not that unheard of. We had some in me Band o’ the Sparrows. Three actually.

“Usually, but not always, they prefered weapons and fighting styles of skill rather than brute strength. It takes longer for them to gain muscle and harden their bones, so skill is important for their survival.

“And thirdly, this is the sword from the murderer of your father.”

Raphae recoiled from the last statement, stepping back in a faltering and hesitant manner.

“Why? Why would I wield the same filthy blade that murdered my pa?”

The Sorcerer evoked a candle’s worth of void-flame in the palm of his hand.

“This is the very same magick that culled my band. My family. An undead, a walking corpse fabricated through foul and fell magicking was set upon us.

“And we were trampled like leaves in the mud.

“I had brothers and sisters in arms, people I trusted my life with. And I saw them die horrible deaths and meet carnage-filled dooms.

“I had fathers borne not out of shared blood but of struggle and spilt-blood. And I saw their skulls and ribs crushed like rotten grapes.

“I was a mere mortal back then. I had no recourse. No power to affect change.

“I was weak, dancing to the whims of stronger wind. I could only watch.

“And then. It all changed. Just some Nine-damned luck that helped to awaken me soul from its slumber.

“In my half-dead state, an arm ripped cleanly off by an explosion of magick and another dangling by a sinuous thread, I took upon the black flames of my foe.

“I barely escaped. Not even with magicking could I defeat the monster.

“But, now this weapon is mine and mine only. Not the beast’s, mine.”

The Sorcerer dispelled his black flames and flipped the blade in his right hand, handing it to Raphae hilt-first.

“This is the best sword I’ve collected. Proper steel and decent balance. I can bind your father’s cane to it, and with its dark history, the magicks will be all that much more potent.

“You can settle for a weaker design. But why do so? Magicking is like building a house. A foundation built upon shifting sand or bubbling swamp will not last.”

Raphae took the blade gingerly, like it would cut her with a single touch.

“Come and follow me back outside. You will sharpen the blade yourself while I prepare my enchanting materials.”

The Ram of Charliestead

He really is not treating me like some fragile piece of glasswork.

The Sorcerer did not mince his words nor soften their impact. He simply said as he meant, a refreshing sort of honesty that was a bit like a lemon. Refreshing yes, but infernally sour and tart. Enough to keep a mouth puckered up until the Deliverance of Oriath.

Barry brought Raphae to a spring stream a half-league away from the inn. The miniscule stream that sprung from the rock was barely wider than a handwidth yet flowed crystalline clear.

“I have a whetstone that I leave here. Along with the readily available water for honing, the noises of the flowing stream is calming to the mind.”

The Sorcerer sat down in front of a large and smoothly cut rock. Its upper portion had been cleanly sheared off, leaving behind a table-like structure. A basin had been carved into its center.

“Here, sit down at the opposite side.”

Raphae did and found the ground unnaturally soft. Looking down, she saw that cloudspun wool had been conjured, dark as a storm.

Magicking used for comfort, who'da thunk?

The Sorcerer picked up a cleanly polished and rounded stone from the ground. It was a slightly wine-dark color, the hue of the sky above in a cloudless afternoon.

He placed it atop the stone table.

“This is a whetstone. And though sharpening uses water to “wet” the stone being used, that is not the origin for the word “whetstone''.

“It comes from an older word. I think it might be Duistic or some such tongue from the Middle Kingdoms since you hear whetstone more often at the border near them. Whet means to sharpen, not anything to do with water.”

The Sorcerer placed the shortsword atop the surface of the large stone. He cupped his hands, scooping up water from the small stream and then using it to fill the basin at the center of the large stone. After the basin had been filled, the Sorcerer plunged his whetting stone into it and then dragged the oblong device across the shortsword at its edge.

“You have to have patience when sharpening a sword. Especially one you’ll keep for long. An old and trusty blade will become a familiar friend and it must be treated as such.

“Drag the stone across the edges at an angle. You don’t need to use much strength, just some middling pressure.”

Barry handed the whetstone to Raphae and she palmed it, weighing the stone with a few lifts and descents of the arm.

“Here give me your hand. I will guide you at the start.”

The Sorcerer placed his hand above hers and guided the stone across the blade at an angle. After a few cycles of this, he let go.

“Good. You may continue on your own.”

Raphae did so, periodically wetting the whetstone as it became dry and then dragging it along the shortsword’s edges. She had to do so twice for each side, back and front and then each of the two edges as well.

Barry offered his two hands, asking for the blade without voice.

Raphae handed the sword to him.

The Sorcerer inspected its edges while Raphae wrung her wrists in a self-comforting manner.

He dragged his forearm across the edge, slicing a large ravine-sized wound on his flesh.

“What the fuck.”

“Sharp enough. Could do with a bit more uniformity next time, but it’ll do.”

As the Sorcerer spoke, blood poured from his wound, spraying arterial red on the basin.

“Oh gods above,” Raphae complained as she went to rip her sleeve right off her dress.

Raphae found the Sorcerer’s hand clamping down on her’s with tyrannical strength before she could rip the cloth.

How did it get ‘ere so fast?

“I am fine, Raphae.” The Sorcerer said with something bordering a smile, yet without its true warmth. His eyes were dull as his mind looked into the past, the sharpness gone under the strain of an unknowable past.

Raphae looked to his forearm for the wound and found there was none. The blood had disappeared from his skin and the ground as well. Though the smell of copper was still hung in the air.

“My wounds heal as fast or slow as I deem. A mortal wound to you is a trifle to me.”

“Really?” She asked, her eyes wide in befuddlement.

“Aye. But let’s not focus on me. Now is your time.

“Your sword has been sharpened and now we both will bind your father’s cane to it.”

“You’re gonna use the wood for the handle, right?”

Barry smiled, this time a true grin with fire behind his eyes.

He nodded.

“I will use the wood for the handle, yes. But the magicks will be spread out in the entirety of the sword, be it the steel or the scabbard.”

The Sorcerer produced a scabbard from between the shadowed creases of his tunic. Again, another apparent conjuring. And with it came a blood-red cane.

The scabbard was a dull-brown leather, hardened and with metal gildings near where the blade would be sheathed into.

The Sorcerer unsheathed a dagger from his navel with a flourish. The weapon was wrought of a shadowy substance, flowing like liquid with only colors of the night. The middle of its double-edged blade was etched with fourfold runes. One of them Raphae recognized as an upside down pentagram inside a circle. A symbol associated with magicking and witchcraft.

“I will cut this cane into three parts. One for the handle. Another for the steel. And lastly for the scabbard.”

The Sorcerer held the wooden stick with one hand and then sheared it with the dagger with the other. One of the runes—a circle with a line bisecting it and with a semi-circle above and a cross below—glowed vibrant red, the color of spilt blood.

Once the cane was three equal parts, the Sorcerer measured one part against the haft of the shortsword.

He cut it once more into shape as it had been too long to fit as the handle.

“What will you do with the rest of that?”

“I’ll use it for the blade instead.”

The Sorcerer unwound the pommel from the shortsword and then pulled it apart piece by piece. The guard, the handle, the pommel and the blade with its tang were now separate instead of one.

“Firstly, we’ll make the handle.”

The Sorcerer whittled down the cane into shape and then cut it in two halves.

“Will it need glue?” Raphae asked.

“No. Blood will bind it together. There is no bond stronger than the blood as it anchors the spirit and soul to the body.”

This was magicking proper. Raphae had thought the Sorcerer would say some folly about family or blood being thicker than water. But no, Barry spoke of some arcane principle.

No wonder cults and witches alike deal in blood.

It has power.

Barry took one part of the cane and the rest of the handle that was not used, then placed it to the side of the table, away from the last piece of blood-red wood.

“I will burn these to ash and then place them into carved runes on the blade.

“But first, I will need a drop of your blood.”

The Sorcerer handed her a needle wrought of sharp tenebraic metal. It’s surface had grooves and waves like a spilling tub filled to the brim.

“Prick your hand above the basin and let a droplet fall into its water.”

Raphae did so, the blood beading on her fingertip before it fell into the cauldron wrought of rock.

The Sorcerer nodded and then placed a hand above the blood-tinged basin.

“Do not place your hand near the basin or the magicks. You will lose it should you do so. Beware.”

His eyes left hers and then closed.

“Burn.” He commanded with a voice set in stone. It carried the weight befitting a king’s decree, a pressure like a boot upon one’s head pushing their face into the dirt.

The surface of the water caught fire, burning scarlet. Yet the water did not bubble, remaining unnaturally placid as it originally was.

The Sorcerer placed the two pieces of cane inside, and under the liquid, they burned. Slowly, the wood turned to ash at the bottom of the basin. A darken dust like shavings of pitch and coal mixed together with rusty shillings.

Ash of night and flesh.

He scooped up the ash from the basin and it came out unnaturally dry. The Sorcerer placed it in a wooden bowl he had prepared before. Runes set in black tar abounded its outside surface.

When did that get ‘ere?

“Now I will carve the blade.” Said the Sorcerer with a tone of finality. “I will add the runes and magicks I know and am most proficient with.

“These are not faire aspects, but instead fell as they come.

“Doom. Dark. Blood. And sin.

“Last chance should you choose not to proceed down this path.”

Raphae nodded, gulping down in nervousness and… a bit of excitement.

“I will continue.”

The Sorcerer accepted the response with a single nod before he took his conjured dagger and inscribed runes on the shortsword’s blade.

The darken dagger he held in his hand thinned to a point like a tool that jewelers used to set gems into metal. He tapped a finger to its flat base, hammering the sharp end into the blade.

What strength does he have to hammer metal with taps of his finger?

The scrollwork was rigid script not unlike the Kedweni alphabet when first taught. It was not a cursive and sprawling letterwork, instead carved like the channels of an irrigation system found mostly in the Kedweni southeast.

The runes he etched onto the blade were the same as the dagger’s.

An upside-down pentagram encircled by a continuous loop.

The feeling that it evoked was wrongness and unease like Raphae had been looking at something she shouldn’t have.

A circle bisected horizontally by a line with a semicircle above and a cross below.

This rune did not conjure much in the way of emotion, instead being more arcane in nature like some hidden principle hoarded by scholars. It had been the one that glowed bright red when the dagger had cut the handle from the piece of her father’s cane.

A hollow circle more smudged than carved perfectly as the rest. Like a painted thumb dragged in a circular fashion.

It was a primal sort of glyph, the kind found on an ancient standing stone.

And finally a circle made of two interlocking lines that wound together like two serpents. A round glyph was at its center with a viperic line making twists and turns from its topside, ending at the bottom right.

This one evoked the same arcane and hidden feeling as the second glyph.

When the Sorcerer finished inscribing the symbols, he dismissed his dagger into smoke from a freshly smothered flame.

He took from the rusty-red ash inside the bowl and placed it inside the grooves of the sword. Any leftover dust he dropped back into the bowl.

His left hand became a talon-tipped claw, skin leathery and grey like a bat’s. The fingers elongated into inhuman things unfit for tools but made for slaughter.

The Sorcerer clawed his right forearm, rending it with three savage lines.

Yet blood did not fall, instead beading unnaturally to his arm like dew upon leaf. It was black as night and dark as sin, oily and shining with the sheen of ink.

A single drop fell from the mass of darkest dark, seeping into the primal glyph of hollowness. It shone with the blinding darkness of a voidmoon.

Then came another which fell and seeped upon the arcane and viperic rune. It shone the same negative light as the hollow circlet.

The Sorcerer’s flesh healed and returned to the aspect of man once more, shedding its hide of beast and monstrosity. Or more aptly and horrifically, devouring it.

He cupped his hands, scooping a small amount of bloody water. He spilled it atop the serpentine rune and the arcane glyph with the split circle. The serpentine rune shone now a metallic grey light like the flashing of steel. The arcane glyph smoldered vibrant red, arcs of scarlet lightning caressing its boundary.

He turned the blade, letting all the fell waters and liquids he had imbued drip down unto the last rune nearest the hilt.

The upside-down pentagram festered with profane hellsflame, a noxious sort of fire the color of an emerald viper, the most venomous creature this side of the Ydden River. The shimmering caustic green gave way to red, darkening until it became the hue of rusty crust, of scabbed wound. The crimson glowed in disparate places like embers amidst ash.

From the ashen flesh came a new light, the scabbing and rust falling away. Grey and metallic, flashing like steel being unsheathed. Roots of ruby and emerald shone in between the steelen light, ordered lines and channels like Dyeus canals.

He took more and more ash from the bowl until a quarter was left, dusting it atop the runes. The ash took to carvings like salt dissolved in water.

The Sorcerer wiped the blade with his palm, leftover fell water disappearing in the wake of his hand.

As his hand passed over the scrollwork, the glyphs stopped their shinning of lights, dulling into mundane metal like steel of a different shade had been poured into the carvings.

“The blade is done, the runes inscribed. I will now add in the channels necessary for energy distribution and circulation. Think of this artifact as a water wheel—it needs to be in constant motion to grind down wheat or whatever other grain.”

The Sorcerer conjured his dagger once more, plunging it into the steel of the blade, crossguard and pommel. He etched tangible scrollwork in some places and in others the darken dagger slipped into the metal like it was water, the tip disappearing into the sword’s various parts.

He was carving the sword inside out, Raphae realized, eyes widening as she nodded her head.

Barry’s lips parted in grin, yet his eyes did not once leave the shortsword.

“I see you realized what I am doing. Like some magicking termite to a rotten tree trunk, I’m hollowing the blade out in spirit.”

An hour’s time passed, the sun dipping a few degrees. In that period, Barry had even etched scrollwork into the scabbard, imbuing the last of the crimson ash into it. Its leather darkened into red as the sigils bled their fell water into it.

All that was left now was a single piece of cane, a single span of wood.

Barry took it and whittled it down into oblong beads. The leftover shavings he threw into the basin, and commanded it to burn once more. He took the ash and placed it into the bowl, a middling amount.

He then took a leather string and soaked in the blood-tinged basin, flames no longer burning. Then, he rubbed it into the bowl with its smattering of ash.

With the gaze of his eyes, the string was sent aflame in ruby-red. The flames ceased in a blink, leaving behind a black thread of midnight leather.

He corded the beads through the thread, making a longish sort of knick-knack. He wound it around the scabbard in a fancy fashion, decorating it.

“I am not yet done. A final step needs to be taken. But first, here, take it and inspect my work.”

Raphae accepted the blade with reverence, her disgust long gone. The sword was now a work of art, decorated with sigils and scrollwork fitting for a king. Its scabbard was richly ensorcelled with runes of all sorts and a beaded cord.

“It’s beautiful.” Raphae said in hushed breath. “How? I know ye have magicking, but this is just…

“You’re no jeweler nor blacksmith. How’d you know how to make this?”

The Sorcerer gave her a bittersweet smile, his brows knitting in pity.

“Your father’s remnant will guided me, his hand charted the course unseen to you. His years of carpentry endowed him with skill in inscription and decoration.

“He loved his work and he loved you. That residual emotion transcends his death.

“The sword practically made itself.”

Raphae’s brow constricted into a scowl, her lips pulling back in disgust.

“Bullshit.”

Barry breathed out a long and suffering sigh.

“I don’t lie, Raphae.” He said, his voice honest. “This blade is your father’s parting gift. I have no stake in this other than my want to give you choice.

“Nothing more and nothing less.”

The statement mollified her like a drop of water upon a blazing pyre. It only served to sizzle and make the flames soar higher.

“How do I know you do not lie? How am I to know you’re no charlatan? You speak of “remnant will”, whatever that means, yet told me you put his spirit to rest.

“Tell me, which is it?”

“Let me answer your second question first.” Said the Sorcerer. “A remnant will is not a spirit proper. It is like an echo, a sound rebounding through cavernous interior.

“Your father’s spirit, has been fully put to rest. He is not stuck onto the Veil. Yet his emotions, his strongest ones, specifically his desire to protect you, have lived on. The cane acted as an anchor for mana—the stuff spirit. Though most of the mana was negative, was hostile and warthful, some amoount of warmth remained.

“Hence, remnant will.

“Now as to your second question. How are you too trust me?”

Barry let the question simmer in the air.

“You can’t.” The Sorcerer said simply, breaking the silence. “You can only trust me as I’ve trusted you with my magicking. You could tell the Inquisition of my presence and the red-coats would burn the inn down and slaughter my found family.”

His voice was casual like he had told her of some gossip and not of death by hanging and then quartering.

Then, like the first pail of thunder his tone turned to the glint of steel.

Like a blade poised at her neck, like a rapid wolf at her heels, his words raised the hairs on her neck.

“Do not mistake my trust for future forgiveness and mercy.

“If you ever cause grievous harm to my kin, I will send you into the lowest rung of the Nine Hells. I care not if you hurt me, but if you raise steel by word or hand to those that dwell in the inn, you will face damnation the likes of which is reserved for the depraved that rape and murder.

“I will flay the skin from your muscles and the muscles from your bones. And once there is nothing left to flay and no tissue to pull back, I will use your remains for my magicking so that your spirit may know no peace, no rest.

“I will wear you around my neck no different than gold around a lady’s collarbones.

“I will say this once more: do not mistake my trust for future forgiveness and mercy. To my friends and family I am kind.

“But to my enemies, I am the Father of the Wolf Himself.”

And then like the pattering rain at the end of a storm, the calm of sunshine piercing through the gloom, his voice turned placid once more.

“Now, give me the blade, I must bind the discordant magicks as one.”

Raphae’s heart hammered with terror and shook with dread. In between the anvil of trepidation and the mallet of icy claw, the metal of her mind was bent into scared and scarred shape.

The bandits could’ve done the same bodily to her, but they could not take her spirit or soul.

And what was scarier and more despair-inducing than one’s own soul being made into a knick knack? To suffer for all eternity as simple decoration, mind and spirit twisted into shape.

Raphae handed the Sorcerer the blade with shaky hands, her eyes avoiding his own.

He took the sword in hand and placed it atop the stone table.

In the voice of cold cruelty, he chanted a sonnet of night and flesh.

“In the Black, shapes and figures blend into the darkness.

“Take upon another’s Shadow in the dead of night.

“The black shrouds their contours as a spider hides beneath the web.

“Take upon another’s flesh in the dead of night.

“The red reveals the truth hidden as flaying pulls back the skin.

“Intertwine their spirit in the strands of the hunter.

“Mark them with the blood of thy veins.

“Binding of Blood and Darkness.”

As the words came from his lips, the chanting increased in intensity and volume. The basin’s water caught fire, burning red and smoking black.

The Sorcerer placed his hands atop the blade, the flesh of his digits burning with viper-flame, noxious and caustic. It burned hair, hide, muscle and tendon until there was but the white of bone.

And then there wasn’t.

White gave way to black.

From his elbows and below, the Sorcerer was a wraith of blacken bone and viper’s fire. The wraithing flame coated the sword atop the basin, cowling it in burning emerald luster.

The unnatural fires died all at once, be they ruby, obsidian, or emerald.

The Sorcerer’s flesh writhed, slithering forward to coat his bones until he wore his stolen coat of human hide.

He stood up and cracked the joints of his arms, knuckles and fingers and elbows.

“Now comes your second choice.” He said casually. “Should you truly be certain you want to walk down my Path, you must touch the blade.

“It will bind to you and you alone. You shall become one in spirit and flesh.

“But beware. Should the sword be broken, you will suffer the same fate.

“That is the price you shall pay.”

The Sorcerer left her alone in her choice.

The comfortable seat Raphae possessed had disappeared, abandoning her on cold and hard and bumpy earth.

She was thankful for that. If the seat had been comfortable, she’d grapple with her indecision through the whole night.

Now, she would only struggle with it until dusk when Twins hung low on the firmament as did the dying sun fall to the bowels of the earth.

Now that she had to stand, Raphae found her steps easily enough.

She walked to the blade atop the stone basin, and brushed its scabbard-covered form with her fingers.

Her flesh did not part, bound to the blade as were two pieces of wood bound by glue.

Her hands wrapped around the sword in earnest.

Where flesh and sword met, the maw of leeches were borne, causing rending pain to Raphae. In both body and spirit, the influence of the artifact burrowed, grappling onto her with claw and fetter and hollowing her out.

And then, as quickly as the pain came, it disappeared.

Raphae let go of the sword, leaving it atop the stone.

And yet she felt it. Like closing her eyes and knowing where a limb of her body lay, she knew where the sword dwelled instinctively.

It was part and parcel of her being as intrinsic as the blood of her veins and the nails on her fingers.

Raphae took the sword and unsheathed it. The steel sung in her ears, happy for the company of its sister.

The blade, wrought from the ash of flesh and night, was alive.

And it whispered its name in a strange tongue.

Sakiym-Dahm.

The Sorcerer

Barry did not regret treating Raphae caustically or callously. At least not truly nor entirely. She needed to be turned from the porous iron she was into steel proper.

She was to become a warrior, his equal in sword.

The Sorcerer walked back to the inn, his steps heavy as lead.

Maybe I am wrong. Someone so recently hurt and grieving. I threatened her with a fate worse than death.

And I have no one to blame but myself. So what if I do this for “good”? So what if my intentions are noble when my acts are as despicable as they come.

Guilt poured down his shoulders like a flash flood. A single casting of Heart of Stone or even use of the Stillwater Mind would absolve him of such mental weight.

Yet Barry did not do so. He knew what he did was wrong, he felt himself deserving of such uncomfortable thoughts.

But what choice do I have when the Inquisition resorts to torture? What am I to do if I don’t fall to their abyssal lows? If they find out about Raphae’s magicking, and capture her…

Powerful I may be, but I am no uncaring god.

I cannot wage war against a whole mage-hunting organization.

Not yet.

The Sorcerer danced amidst the grey of his Palace Beneath the Waves. From under the boughs of leafless trees to a windless forest clearing, he fought agaisnt his own soul. Shadowy wraiths took form with weapons wrought of darkness, clashing with the Blacken Blade of the Eternal Night.

Barry flowed from stance to stance, his footwork accompanying him. From oxguard to wrathguard. He struck from the right with a bull’s scornful twist of the horns, stepping forward with his right foot in twain. From wrathguard to highguard. He cut from the left in a savage slice, plotting forth with his left foot. And so on.

The whole body had to be used in a strike, leveraging all of its weight and momentum to bisect not just flesh, but also bone. The hips turned as did the midsection and shoulders, muscles flexing and relaxing in unity to achieve greater strength and power.

Barry had no illusions as to what he would face when the Inquisition took full note of his existence. Until he could rend through plate and brigandine, he would not be content.

Sword Forms, or guards as they were more comonly known, were not unlike unarmed Forms. Both were systematic poses or stances with movements associated therein, specially made for war and combat. A single Form was made up of a prime stance and a corresponding set of techniques that could be launched from it.

Barry held Moonsblood, in the shape of the Obsidian Ripper, in twain hands, his right over his left in the Oxguard. The Blacken Blade was a large two-handed sword, a zweihander from the Middle Kingdoms.

Why Barry chose that specific shape for Moonsblood, he did not know. He himself was most fond with an axe, with savage hacking and slashing. Perhaps it was the need for something new or just a flight of fancy.

The blade was poised like an ox’s horns, ready to thrust ahead or to be twisted into a vicious upward slash. A cut that could gnash a body from groin to navel, disemboweling a man in the process. Or a piercing stab that could skewer one down to the hilt, if need be.

Each and every sword Form had their own strengths and weaknesses. A swordsman conditioned their bodies and minds to best combat a foe’s Form with another that was either its equal or bane and to use a strike or some similar technique to disrupt it.

A blade held up high and poised for strike to the shoulders could be countered with the same Form, the highguard itself, or it could be defended with a longpoint or even a lowguard. The lower the height of the defending guard, the more dangerous for the defender as their blade had to come up to meet their foes. Yet it gave them double the advantage in the right circumstances.

Each and every intracy there was to be had, Barry practiced. His conjured enemies fought with skill and precision greater than his own. They would be the fell waters to whet the blade of his spirit.

This effect was paradoxical in nature, an existence of conflicting telothi and theses. And such was only possible in the sorcerous realm.

Inside the world of his soul, he was king. He was god.

A single working of will or utterance of breath could make any and all beneath the Firmament of Black and White dance to his tune.

The Sorcerer trained so that he may not simply hold dominion over his inner realm, but that which dwelt in the Prime. The taste of godhood was an addicting thing, leaving behind a vacuum in its wake. The waking world beckoned for him to master his sorcery so that he may not just be god inside his soul.

So that he could become a god proper. And then, maybe, when he acquired enough power, could Barry make everlasting change to the world. So that evil would be culled and the darkness banished.

One thing at a time.

Fighting against a concert of foes was no easy feat. Any more than a singular opponent meant spacing and cajoling was a necessity. Barry corralled his wraiths against each other, making it so that they stayed in front of him all the while.

From the Oxguard, Barry executed Bull Rushes the Wolves, piercing through the assembled line of shades in a bound of a single charge. The Blacken Blade was a long thing, its reach being the whole haft of a Kedweni conscript’s spear.

Yet there was no reprieve, wraiths coming in to take the places of their fallen shadows.

Falx Reaps the Field.

Barry broke through the guard of one and slashed diagonally from the wrathguard, using the momentum of the swing to reverse cut a second foe.

Every movement had a second purpose, multiplying the totality of his Forms. This was no additive dance of swords, but instead one where he divided the enemy in manageable sums with carefully considered executions of Forms and their respective technica.

First Form, Mode Two: Leechmaw Ripper.

The Blacken Blade’s jagged obsidian edges burned with internal scarlata incarnata. The edge cracked under the strain of the volcanic power dwelling within, transforming from crystal blade to a maw filled with large and crooked teeth.

The maw of a leech.

Barry could not just use a singular shape of Moonsblood. He had to practice each and every one of them. For a finishing blow, the Leechmaw Ripper was best as it drew from a fallen foe’s vitality. A dead man did not grasp their lifesblood as tightly as a healthy and able one.

The Sorcerer plunged Moonsblood through the heart of a living shade.

The blood rune—a circle with a horizontal line bisecting it with a semi-circle above and a cross below—shone vibrant red, burning with profane scarlet.

Like candy from babes.

The shadowy essence conducted through the blade and into his spirit, renewing his energies, be they of low, middle, or high-spirit.

He would need it too as he burned the wick at both ends.

The wraiths, echoes of himself, surrounded Barry. Their number abounded as he increased the challenge tenfold. He had started small at the start of the night. One foe, then two, then four. Now, twenty circled him, preparing to burst in at once.

If he were a mere mortal, that would’ve been the Sorcerer’s end.

Second Form, Mode Two: Reaper’s Sickle.

Moonsblood split in two, a midnight falchion with a dark and glossy edge and a curved and wicked dagger. The smaller arm was bent like a sickle with a small catch coming vertically from the hilt to bind blades.

A greatsword against multiple opponents would only work if they came from a singular direction and if the defender was well-armored with plate. When surrounded, Barry would not have the room to maneuver a blade so long.

The tide of wraiths came forward, eager to take their pound of flesh. A horde of shadowy demons wrought from the stuff of nightmares. Their faces were smooth like egg shells without a feature atop them, yet were the deepest of black.

Shadows were not still like the darkness they were wrought from. They were children of black and white, inheriting the motion of light. Their dual nature echoed into the Prime as the mind’s ability to conjure specters from the black of night where none existed.

In the ebbing of liquid black, Barry saw glimpses of all persons he had killed. Their faces contorted in pain, in misery, in despair. Yet this was a deliberate choice, letting his soul conjure these apparitions.

He would see so many like that come far too soon. Better that he not hesitate when the time came to kill. Even with a heart of stone, one could only take so much.

Rock eventually crumbles under the gaze of Aetheon. Hard, but brittle.

There was no time to execute Forms proper, only to prepare for the incoming flood with his midnight falchion in the longpoint stance and his Reaper’s Sickle reverse-gripped in front of himself.

Barry steeled his heart, coating his Eye of the Mind in igneous rock wrought of living dark and aetherfire. Obsidian crept on the edges of his psyche, the Heart of Stone taking hold.

Blacken metal met solid shadow in a storm of swords.

He rushed into the midst in front of himself lest his vulnerable back become a training dummy for those that rushed from behind.

The Reaper’s Sickle caught a blade to his left whilst his Cleaver’s Falx cut through the neck of a wraith to his right.

Black blood sprouted in a spray of arterial shadow, blinding his eyes.

Yet he needed no corporeal sight. The perception of the spirit was more than enough.

Like a fox amidst hens, he ripped apart his foes in a flurry of blows, his energy never dwindling as more and more came fro in the spray of tenebraic ichor. The stolen lifesblood no longer infested his body like parasites, the corrosive fire of his very soul purging any and all remnant will.

When his foes attacked together, he flared his aether, expending his high-spirit to augment his body’s attributes.

Time slowed, blades coming to a crawl. All were under water and moving through molasses whilst the Sorcerer threaded unfettered like the avatar of the soulborne wind.

His breath sucked at the blood of the world itself, a beast's vacuumous maw that drew upon both mundane air and mystical adra.

His body was shrouded in aetherfire as were his armaments. Adra not only augment physical strength, but also the existing properties of anything, be it sharpness or speed. The Cleaver’s Falx cut through wraiths with ease like a freshly honed letter-opener through parchment.

Alone amidst a hillock of blacken bone stood the Sorcerer, darken ash evaporating from the inanimate shades at his feet. Aetherfire burned around his form, cowling him in living flame.

His lungs heaved with exhaustion, his shoulders slumped from fatigue.

His eyes burned viridian green, their acquired inferno flickering like a candle at the end of its wick.

For each successive use of aetheric-empowerment, his mana channels and spirit as a whole was structurally strained. Their membranes and tissues were slowly being burned to nothingness from the onslaught of higher-form essence.

A body may lose its flesh, yet the Shadow does not.

The Light may banish the Dark, yet it shall return when the White doth flicker and die.

No whispers came from the depths of his soul, instead the thoughts were his and his alone. Wisdom integrated through the pondering and rumination and meditation done inside the sorcerous realm.

The blacken bones below his feet melted into fell water, seeping into the greyen earth of his soul and disappearing from his sight. Barry sat down, breathing heavily.

Be rested, He willed through thought alone.

And so it was done in between the blinks of an eye.

In both body and spirit, it was like nothing had transpired. His muscles were no longer heavy and useless upon his frame and his breath was no longer taxed.

Barry rested his head on the trunk of a grey oak, the bark smooth as a cloud and as soft as a feather pillow. A reflexive working of will.

He looked up into the Firmament of Black and White. Citrine pinpricks clung to the tapestry as did black stars, abyssian suns that warped the celestial fabric in circumform waves. Nebulae of all colors weaved in between the Aspects of Astra and Voxices, the Lux binding all. Nix was the base from which all came and sprung up, the foundation for the pillars of eternity.

In the middle of it all stood an eye wrought of all Elden Aspects. Its skin was amaranth flame in the form of starlight cloth. Its sclera was the night sky itself, a plotting of myriad stars of all colors and luminosities upon the black of nixian canvas. Eldricht constellations unknown to Terra were etched upon the orbuculum of Black and White. Its iris was glass wrought of living viridian, veins of aetherfire coursing in pulses of an alien heart.

The glass cracked as it reached the pupil, the viridian iris now a precipice from which a man could jump all the way down to the bottom of the abyss.

And the pupil was deepest abyssian, a navel into the Void Beyond, the infinite space in between planes. It was a depth unfathomable to the mortal mind, the cascading nothingness so potent it could rend away the sanity of a mortal with a single sighting.

The Eye of Eternity Closed, and Barry’s corporeal eyes opened.

Darkness pressed upon his sight and touch like soft cloudspun cloth wrought from a night’s storm.

The Sorcerer clawed his way from the inside of an egg wrought of living shadow. It was a layered cocoon with tissues more like twitching planes of fabric and abyssian gossamer than proper corpusculae.

He floated from the ceiling of the cellar, alighting down to the floor on etheric wind. Darken mist enshrouded his form like locusts to crop, buzzing around his limbs and body in the spinning patterns of flying insects.

The Sorcerer’s feet bounded upon the ground, and the cowling of black mist dissipated in a single breath like dust in the wind. Or more aptly, like a locust being devoured whole by a toad or similar predator.

His Inner Shadow was voracity incarnate with the will to devour the shinning light. And it would plunge any wayward will’o wisp into the blacken pit that was his Center.

Configurations of the Moonsblood.

First Form: Obsidian Ripper.

First Form, Second Mode: Leechmaw Ripper.

First Form, Third Mode: Toothless Maw.

Second Form: Cleaver’s Falx.

Second Form, Second Mode: Reaper’s Sickle.

Fourth Form: Ritualist’s Blade.

Fifth Form: Void Harbinger.

Sixth Form: Tidal Slicer.

Barry made his way through the Inn at the Crossroads, stopping by the taproom to say his greetings to Joan and Gendry, Randy’s and Elina’s parents.

“Mornin’ Bare.” Greeted Joan with a smile. “How’s yer study?”

“Good, quite good, actually.” Responded Barry politely with a smile of his own. “I’ve been training mostly on weaving sword and sorcery together.

“Swordcery, if you will.”

“By the gods above,” Gendry swore. “I’ve heard worse jests from beggaring bards.”

“Ouch.” Said Barry in mock hurt, cupping his hands to his chest as if he had been struck a mortal blow.

“Raphae’s outside, training with her new sword.” Joan said unprompted.

Barry nodded and thanked her. Though he already knew where Raphae was. She was a beacon to the sight of his spirit. No, more aptly, she was a void.

The Tide was being drained of its vital liquid in gulps.

The Sorcerer made his way outside the inn. The morning light warmed his skin uncomfortably, the fiery essence burrowing into his spirit.

Raphae held her blade in one hand and cut the air in long and drawn out strokes. As she dragged the sword along, the Tide and Deep Ethereal wrapped around the edge.

And with each strike, a small current of air blew a leaf into the sky.

“Why is this cursed thing so damned heavy!”

With a grunt Raphae sheathed her blade and collapsed onto the dusty ground.

“I know yer there.” She said, blow wayward hair out of her face.

Barry approached her, an eyebrow lifted in intrigue.

“How?” He asked.

“I can feel blood. The pumping of your heart and the trilling of… the mist that hangs around your body. I can feel it all.

“How many?”

“Two and a troll.”

“You drank troll blood? Must’ve been vile stuff.”

Barry erupted in laughter with Raphae trailing after with a few short chuckles.

“For your information, and for you not to start blabberin’ about me suckling on a troll’s teat, I did not drink it.

“I ate its spirit instead.”

“What did it taste like?”

“Don’t remember too well. Like raw and bloody meat. Warm, heavy with the taste of iron, and really chewy.”

Raphae shivered in disgust.

“That’s worse than suckling on a troll’s teat.”

“Mayhaps.”

A bit of silence passed, and Raphae filled it in quickly enough.

“Why can’t I wield my own sword? It’s so heavy. I even practiced a bit with Randy’s blade and it wasn’t nearly as clumsy.”

Barry sat down in front of her, his legs crossed.

“Your sword is like a spoon of sorts. Its surface pulls at the Realm of Spirit, dragging it with each stroke.”

“Great. A spoon-blade. Can’t say I don’t see the irony. Run from the life of a wife to that of a mercenary and the damned thing runs after me.”

Barry shook his head, a grin pulling at the edges of his mouth.

“It’s not an entirely bad thing. The spoon-blade, I mean. Don’t know much about the life of housebound women.”

“How so? What can this spoon-sword do that others can’t? Please tell me I didn’t damn my soul to the Hells for just a really heavy piece of metal.”

“No you did not. At least, I hope not. I have yet to pass through the Pale, so I don’t got a clue as to what actually happens.

“But, moving on, your sword can stir the Spirit Realm. Specifically, the Tide. Think of it where the spirits of air and water dwell, a sea of wind.

“And remember this: as above, so below. The First Law of Sympathy states that interacting with mana from one plane will affect its entangled twin in another plane.”

Raphae’s face knit in confusion.

“What’s a plane?”

“It's a realm, a smaller piece of the larger world. The Earth is layered like a blanket rolled into itself or… an onion. It has layers upon layers, but not all are visible to mundane sight. They occupy different spaces, different stratuses, but are still bound together.

“And if you can warp the spirit, the body is sure to follow. Without even directly touching skin, you’ll be able to cut a man. Maybe even through a suit of armor.”

“I like the sound of that.” Raphae said, looking to the sheathed blade at her right in a new light.

“You said something ‘bout “mortal wounds being a trifle” or some such.” Raphae said as she twirled a strand of errant hairs. “Can I practice my swordmanship on you then?”

Fuck.

“Uhhh. Sure?”

“Great!” She said, jumping up from the ground. “Let me go grab Randy’s falchion for you.”

“I’m fine.” Grinned the Sorcerer, unsheathing Moonsblood from the shadow of his spirit. “I have my own.”