Tylywoch ~ 23 Swordsmith
IV
By Len Morgan
"Obviously not!" Terrek grinned stupidly, "Thank goodness you're still with us, it has been so long I was about to call the mortician, you almost had me worried," he answered slapping Jax playfully on the cheeks.
"You stabbed me!" said Jax undeterred.
"Don't carry on so, I did what had to be done?" he countered defensively. "The fluid in the syringe was a viral blood plasma modifier. It will reprogram your genetic code, making it a hundred times more efficient. It's self-replicating, and will eventually reprogram your blood. In time all your other cells will be changed, improving your physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional state…"
"What is this gibberish you're spouting?"
Terrek continued undeterred. "For every fifty years you live, you will age but one, you'll become healthier stronger and faster. Your brain capacity will increase. Over time, you may eventually even become normal - but I don't want to raise your hopes on that…" he dodged a sluggish roundhouse punch. "Take it easy young fellow, you've just slept for three days non-stop. Your body is already changing." Taking a knife from the forge racks and before Jax could stop him he slit his own arm. Squeezing the cut flesh together he held it for twenty seconds, when he released his grip, it was already in advanced stages of healing. In minutes there was a thin scar, in half an hour it was totally gone.
“That’s Witchery!” Jax stood back…
"Wounds heal a hundred times faster, mortal wounds are as pinpricks, short of cutting you in two, separating the parts, and burying them on opposite sides of a hill, any damage to your body will repair within days. You could lose a limb and regenerate it in the same time. It will seem as though a mist has cleared from your mind, something that has hitherto prevented you from using it correctly, as if something was deliberately inhibiting your thought processes, preventing your mind from evolving. Whilst at Ordens forge, you will have experienced heightened perception, and an increased potential to learn. But, it will be as nothing to what is to still to come."
"So, what is the downside?" Jax asked.
"Downside? Did you not hear what I just told you? Do you think you have a choice? There is no going back…"
"It all seems just too good to be true. Often life has its own little checks and balances, tradeoffs…"
"Your hair will turn grey like mine, you can't have children, your eyes will turn blue like mine, you will become increasingly desirable to women and…"
"Wait! No children?" His face told a story.
"It is not impossible, just less likely. The genes are so radically altered that you would have to find a woman with similarly altered genes, a converted woman, it isn't impossible just unlikely."
"Don't you think you should have given me, a choice, a chance to say no?"
"No!" Terrek answered. "If you'd said no I would have had to kill you, we cannot afford to let outsiders know about us, that would be an unnecessary complication; you never showed any inclination to father children..."
"I need to be alone," said Jax I need to
think. He sat for an hour saying
nothing, Terrek moved away leaving him to his thoughts and waited
patiently. Finally, he stood up and
turned to face Terrek.
"I can't explain it," said Jax "but I have to leave, I have to get away from here for a while. I have to seek out Bianne wherever she may be regardless of cost."
"That is a perfectly normal healthy reaction but, I must impose one condition before you do so" Terrek answered quietly.
“What!” Jax shook his head.
"You must create a repository for your alter ego, an elemental to be your confidante and conscience, strong enough to contain and sustain you in the years to come. It should be any inanimate object we of the sword traditionally create a blade. Now you have been made, you must fuse all you have gained - the knowledge, know-how, experience, the power, and the magic - into a blade that will do your will…"
"I don't know if I could just now…" Jax began doubtfully.
"I am afraid I could not allow you to leave without doing so," Terrek replied gently but firmly, a hard edge creeping into his voice that would not brook refusal.
Jax stared at him surprise registering on his face. Several minutes passed.
Terrek stared back equally determined, placed a hand on the pommel of his sword, and said "This is not negotiable." His eyes had become bright with flecks of orange and yellow.
Just as it seemed they would come to blows, Jax said “I’ll do it.” He nodded and smiled conveying acceptance.
"You will need a familiar to protect you, guide you, and centre your life force. It will take you but three days to accomplish the task if you forego sleep. During that time the forge will be exclusively yours." Slapping Jax on the shoulder good-naturedly he left the premises without another word, locking the doors behind him.
.-…-.
Towards the close of the third day, Jax viewed the blank
steel blade critically, now sharpened and tempered. It still required final hardening, a hilt, a guard, decoration, and furniture. He cast his eyes up, outside the tall barn
like doors, routinely left opened when the forge was fired up, the sky was
cloudless. He raised the rough blade to
the sky chanting, a litany in a strange unworldly tongue, words of power, words
of magic, shards of something else, something nonhuman that would unleash the
fury of the elements. At his final
utterance, the world became quiet and still as if holding its breath. Lightning burst forth from the clear blue
firmament. Randomly striking and
enveloping the base sword and the man holding it, as if it were a life raft in
a raging sea. Living ribbons of
coloured flame lingered seductively fibrillating, caressing, the singularity
who is their familiar. Great gouts of
sinuous green blue and white fire burst into being, fed by bolt after bolt of
lightning, licking tongues of flame assail and bath the seemingly immutable
figure. Randomly lashing and binding
him to the rampant sword, blackened now from the continual assault, yet both
the sword and the man remain. Black,
like the depths of the darkest ocean; the blade absorbed instead of reflecting
light and, whilst in motion, become invisible to mortal eyes.
"AAAAAARRGGEEAWWMMMAAA" his yell a bestial defiance, in answer to the heavens grumbling moodily, as if resentful at being rudely awakened. An hour later the rumbling had subsided, Jax supine on the unyielding floor slept in a deep trance like state.
Terrek gazes upon the creation with silent respect, proud
of what his newly made journeyman had accomplished.
He'd witnessed the thunder and lightning and knew he
would have to contain his impatience for at least another few days.
Now, he would readily admit the wait had been worth it - three days in the forging, two for chasing and gilding, then the creation of furniture - hilt, hand guard, sheath, and belt. Jax would then have imbued the living blade with his physical personality - thrusting it through his own torso and withdrawing it, inflicting what to a normal human would have been a mortal wound - that must have been painful.
He'd seen the flashes of coloured lights, for several
minutes before darkness returned. For a
second time, Jax sank into a trance-like state lasting a further two days.
As he slept, Terrek returned to the forge and crafted a matching dagger from the remainder of the strange black metal. He ritually anointed the blade with his own blood by stabbing it into his chest. When it was completed, he crafted a sheath to hold it.
.-...-.
He awoke ravenous.
Terrek had prepared him a sumptuous meal, which he devoured without
uttering a sound. Then he gathered his
personal belongings, and took tearful leave of his mentor. No longer a boy, he was not yet a man,
whilst being far more than a man, he had things to do, big things, he did not
need to explain.
This, Terrek understood, "It is as it should be," he said nodding a reflective but warm farewell to the new Swordsmith.
(to be continued)
Copyright
Len Morgan
No comments:
Post a Comment