Rashid and the Black Sword

Rashid Fen Rey sighed and sat back in the chair. He’s been at this for two hours now with no sign of any sort of progress. He was used to this sort of thing, studying for hour upon hour without seeming to find anything, yet he felt exasperated. He had things to do, places to go, and so much to see in this city of wonders. But here he was, sitting in this, admittedly comfortable, chair, in an, admittedly fabulously well-appointed room, doing nothing more than staring at this cursed… thing.   He took a moment to look out the window. The city of Sigil. Its enormity took Rashid’s breath away. He had seen more miracles in this single day than he had seen in most of his life. The frozen city of Frostgrave where he had grown up was huge and magical, but it was a dead place, and he had only seen a tiny fraction of it. Sigil was a place that was alive, overflowing with magic and strange people, and all of the things they had to sell or barter. And it was a dangerous place. He and his friends had already been attacked twice, and they had discovered that someone had put a bounty on the group. Which is why Rashid found himself studying this damned sword when he should have been out enjoying himself in the city. But if he could unlock some of the secrets this sword held, it might give his friends some small advantage.   The black sword lay on the table. It had once belonged to one of the most deadly villains Rashid and his friends had fought. The sword had almost been a living thing itself. It had wounded the Dwarf warrior Thoradin so badly he might not have ever recovered. Grasti the witch (or whatever she had been) had dropped the sword, and as an instinct, Rashid had cast a spell on it. It wasn’t a particularly powerful spell, just a simple cantrip of a symbol. He had thought that if he could cast the symbol of Arabeth (the god of their cleric, Cernan Aelar), it might at least keep the sword from doing any mischief on its own. It was a terrifying weapon in the hands of the witch, maybe a holy symbol could at least keep the thing nailed in place until after the battle and they could figure out what to do with the thing.   The result of the simple spell had been more dramatic, if not outright spectacular. Its weird other-worldly glow had stuffed out instantly, and later on Cernan told the group that the sword screamed in his head. And the minor bit of illusion that should have faded after an hour or so was permanently etched into the blade itself: The tree of Arabeth inside a triangle.   Which was in itself a puzzle. The symbol that all of the friends knew was a sapling in a circle. What had been branded into the metal of the blade just above the cross-guard showed a tree in the fullness of its strength, and inside a triangle. What did THAT mean? Rashid knew that the number three was significant to him, but it was uncanny that a triangle showed up instead of a circle. Had he done that subconsciously? Did that add to the effect of the spell. And what about the tree? Was that also something he had done without realizing it? The symbol had been completely changed, and yet… it WAS still the symbol of Arabeth. Cernan had confirmed it.   Staring at it for two hours had revealed nothing to him so far. It almost seemed to mock him. “Oh the great Rashid, so clever, so smart. Makes his own spells, yet he doesn’t know how this happened. Poor boy, he calls himself a Runemaster, yet can’t even solve this simple riddle. You’re letting your friends down.”   With a growl of anger, he grabbed the hilt and flipped the sword over, so that he wouldn’t have to look at the symbol anymore. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as his old master had taught him to clear his mind, “A deep intake of air, through your nose, deep down into the bottoms of your lungs. Then, hold for a long count of three, then slowly blow the air out of your pursed lips.” The breathing exercise had always helped him before, and it did so again now. He could feel the lines on his forehead ease, the muscles in his back relax, and even his toes uncurl, which he hadn’t even realized he’d been doing. He stayed that way for a moment with his eyes closed.   Looking down at the other side of the sword, he looked at the metal of the blade. It had certainly been well crafted, wherever it had come from. The cross-guard had been formed in the shape of two large wicked looking thorns. The grip was simple, not fancy. It bespoke of a tool that was meant to be used, and used often by someone familiar with wielding a sword. It had a purpose, and that purpose was to simply allow the warrior to inflict as much pain and death as possible. The blade itself was likewise a piece of craftsmanship intended for a single brutal purpose. The blade tapered subtly from the hilt to the point, which was slightly rounded before coming to a point. And the entire thing was made of an evil looking black metal.   Well, it wasn’t completely black. If the light shown on it in the right way, one could see subtle lines like waves along the blade. Rashid has seen other swords like this, although not made of this dark metal. He had been told that blades like this were made by master smiths, who would take several pieces of metal, sometimes even different kinds of metal, and forge them together, folding the material in on itself many times to make a blade that was not only strong and sharp, but also flexible. The wavy pattern in the blade was formed by…   Rashid looked closer at the edge of one wave. Here, it was hard to make out, and it was distorted by the blows of the hammers that brought this sword to life, were small imperfections in the pattern, moving in orderly lines like…   RUNES!   In a flash of inspiration he saw the scene. A wizard and a smith working together. The wizard would engrave the runes on the metal imbuing them with power, then the smith would heat the block of metal, and hammer the shape. Over and over, folding magical runes into the very steel of the sword itself. How long it must have taken, Rashid couldn’t even hazard a guess. Weeks, even months perhaps, with the wizard and the smith working together patiently, until the sword wasn’t just enchanted: magic was part of the very fiber of its… makeup? Being?   Soul?   As a Runemaster, Rashid could read nearly any kind of writing, and was drawn to letters and symbols as a lodestone draws steel. These runes were not ones he was familiar with. But it wasn’t so much the runes themselves. His one true talent was to see beyond what the runes were, to what they actually meant. Now that he was looking for them, he could see runes all up and down the blade. Most had been hammered so deep into the metal that they had become part of the matrix of the blade, and thus unreadable. He could sense them there, holding on to the magic. Yet the sword did not radiate magic as other magical weapons did. Sometimes he could simply look at an item, and the magic would fairly glow from it like a lit lamp. Not this sword. The magic was deep inside it, part of it, almost made of magic. Yet it slept. Like a warrior after a hard battle. Unmoving and still, yet full of power and ready for battle upon waking.   Rashid shivered. He was at the same time attracted to and repelled by this sword. The techniques used to make it fascinated him. The power it represented made him quail. And what had been done with this sword, and the pain it had caused almost made him sick.   He couldn’t help looking more and more at the half-obscured runes. Sometimes he could get a flash of something, a feel of the dark intent behind what he was looking at. For instance, here was a section where the runes were almost readable. A standard rune for power, another one for, maybe enemy? The next one was almost impossible to make out. After that, one for force…   Rashid found himself on the floor. He couldn’t breathe. The chair he’d been sitting in was utterly smashed. He rolled onto his side, trying to calm his mind, trying desperately to get back the soothing breath he’d had only a few short minutes ago. After almost half a minute of trying to get his lungs to draw air again, he was able to take one beautiful shaking breath. After that, it became easy again, and for a few minutes he simply lay on the floor reveling the pure joy of being able to have air in his lungs.   He sat up, wondering what had just happened. The sword lay on the table where he had been examining it. Nothing else had been disturbed. Rashid could feel the after-effects of casting a spell he always experienced. A scent filled his nose (this time the sharp tang of pure alcohol, not the citrus-like scents he associated with his own spells) and a slight numbness in his fingertips. Had he cast a spell? If so, it wasn’t one he was conscious of. And then a darker thought occurred to him.   Had the sword woken up, figured out what he was doing, and cast the spell through him? It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, given the runes that were a part of the sword. Yet he could sense nothing from the sword. It was not alive. It was not sentient. It was just a lump of forged metal. Yet something happened when he read those runes.   Another thought occurred to him. He rummaged in his own mind for the familiar spells there. And there was a new one. It had an oily feel to it, again, not like any of the spells he considered to be his own. This one was from somewhere else. And yet, he knew, it was his now. It could deal a blow of force to an enemy. More than one opponent, if needed. It was powerful enough to do harm, yet Rashid knew it would be simple to cast, requiring almost no effort on his part. Again he regarded the sword with suspicion. He would need to find out more about this thing that had come to him. And, he feared that the only way to do so would be to use the sword for its intended purpose.   He wondered how heavy the price would be for using it.