investigation of Wirikidor’s properties. Shortly after the noon meal, a messenger fetched Valder and brought him to the magicians’ circle.
Darrend was waiting for him in a blue-and-gold tent, where Wirikidor and its sheath lay on one of the two cots. Valder took the seat he was offered on the other cot and listened as Darrend spoke.
“We have finished our studies of the sword you call Wirikidor, despite its resistance to being handled by anyone but you and despite its constant attempts to get back to you. There are several details of its enchantment we can’t make out by any means currently at our disposal, but we have the basic characteristics figured out.”
Valder nodded, listening attentively.
“I’ve discussed it with the general. I don’t know if he has any use for it in mind yet, but he told me that, as the sword’s owner, you should be informed.”
“Very kind of him,” Valder remarked with mild sarcasm.
“Yes. Well, firstly, we were right about the Spell of True Ownership. The sword does have a variant of that spell on it, a deteriorating and unhealthy form. The Spell of True Ownership can be bad enough in any case, since nobody has yet established whether the person owns the enchanted object or the object owns the person, but in your case it seems to be especially bad, due to the spell’s decaying nature. The link between the sword and yourself is quite strong and will stay that way for... well, for a time. Before I can explain that, let me explain some of the other things.” He paused, as if uncertain what to say, and Valder prodded him, asking, “What other things?”
“Other spells — there are several other spells here, all woven together. I’ve never encountered anything like it. There’s Ellran’s Immortal Animation, for example — that’s a nasty, awkward spell, and your crazy hermit had no right to use it, if you ask me. It’s irreversible, completely irreversible — and what’s worse, it makes any spell linked to it irreversible, too. It’s the Animation that allows your sword to move of its own volition, as you’ve seen it do. Furthermore, the Animation makes the other spells on the sword permanent and unbreakable — unless one were to use really powerful counterspells, and, even then, it would be incredibly dangerous. The combination of the Animation and the True Ownership has the effect of linking you and your life to the sword — breaking the spells would kill you, at the very least, as well as destroying the sword.”
Valder stared at the sword on the cot opposite him. This was not anything he had expected. What it would mean to him was still unclear, but it appeared that Wirikidor’s existence was not going to be a mere passing episode in his career.
“This has its good side, of course,” Darrend went on. “The sword is virtually indestructible now, and there’s a curious benefit for you in that, as nearly as we can determine, you can no longer be killed by any ordinary means. Since your life is now bound up in the sword, you see, you can’t be destroyed by anything outside the sword.”
“If the sword is destroyed, you’ll die, very definitely — but it’s almost impossible for anyone, even a very high-powered wizard, to damage the sword, let alone destroy it. Ellran’s Immortal Animation is indeed very close to the immortality it claims. The sword itself can kill you, under certain circumstances — I’ll speak of that in a moment — but to the best of my knowledge, after intensive study by myself and my comrades, there is nothing else in the world that can.”
“What?” Valder blinked. He did not believe he had heard Darrend correctly. He was shocked out of the torpor that had beset him since Felder’s death.
“You can’t be killed, Valder; you can’t die by any means whatsoever, except to die on Wirikidor’s blade, or if someone should find a way to destroy the sword.”
“What?” Valder stared, still not comprehending.
“No one is going to destroy the sword; doing so would almost certainly cause a catastrophe. Valder, you are going to live until you die on Wirikidor’s blade. There is no other way you can die, not since you first drew the sword.”
Valder stared in mute astonishment.
“This doesn’t mean you’re invulnerable. You can still be injured — you just can’t die. You can be maimed, tortured, blinded, deafened, driven mad, crippled, dismembered, even cut into pieces — but you won’t actually die until Wirikidor kills you. That’s part of what’s so nasty about the Immortal Animation.”
Valder struggled to assimilate this information. “I can’t die?”
“Not from any ordinary means. However, there is a catch, and this is where that deteriorating spell comes into it. Your hermit substituted something else for the ring of drawn gold that’s supposed to be a part of the Spell of True Ownership, and the resulting enchantment is corrupt. You became the true owner of the sword when you first drew it; whoever drew it would have owned it. However, because of the flaw, you won’t stay the true owner forever — only gold never tarnishes, not whatever substitute was used here. You’ll be able to draw the sword and use it one hundred times, give or take one or two — and that’s all. After that, the sword will renounce you. The next time the sword is drawn after that — and you, Valder of Kardoret, will be the only man in all Ethshar not able to draw the sword then — whoever draws the sword will be its new owner, and you will be the first man to die on Wirikidor’s blade when that happens. The new owner will be able to draw and wield it ninety-nine times, give or take — one fewer than you, at any rate — and then it will turn on him. After that the third owner will be allowed ninety-eight, and so on, until some poor fool, centuries from now, will draw it and have it turn on him immediately. That will use up the spell completely, and there will be no true owner thereafter.”
“Wait a minute — nothing else can kill me, but Wirikidor is going to turn on me and kill me?”
“That’s more or less correct.”
Valder was outraged. “That’s insane! What sort of an enchantment is that?”
Darrend shrugged. “Hermits often are insane. I suspect this one didn’t like you.”
“How long will this take, then? How long do I have to live?”
“Who knows? That doesn’t seem to be built in anywhere. There isn’t any compulsion to draw the sword; leave it undrawn and in theory you could live forever.”
Valder stared first at the wizard and then at the sword. He was still having trouble taking this in. As a soldier, he had long lived, albeit reluctantly, with the idea that he might be killed at any moment. Now that was no longer true. How could the hermit have wreaked such havoc on his life?
He could still be harmed, though. “I’m not sure I want that,” he said slowly. “Can the spell be removed?”
Darrend sighed. “Not by me. I don’t think anyone could do it. Your hermit was either very lucky or an incredibly talented wizard. It would take a spell more powerful than all the ones he used put together to remove the enchantment, the way he has everything linked up, and I doubt that any wizard alive could handle such a spell. I certainly can’t. Ellran’s Immortal Animation is usually rated as an eighth-order spell, and that’s just one of the charms he used. Only one wizard in a hundred or so makes it past fourth-order enchantments alive. On a good day, I can handle one eighth-order spell, but not a tangle like that; nobody I ever heard of short of Fendel the Great could undo that mess.” He paused, a startled look on his face. “I just thought of something,” he said. “Nobody really knows what happened to Fendel; do you think he might be your hermit?”
Valder shrugged. “I suppose he could be.”
“Oh, probably not.” Darrend waved the possibility away.
“Isn’t there any other way of getting the enchantment off, other than this impossible counterspell?”
“Not that I know of. There are legends about ways of canceling out wizardry entirely, like snuffing a candle, but I’ve never believed in them. If they existed, the northerners would have found them by now and used them against us.”
Valder knew enough to dismiss such scare stories.
“Why worry about it, though?” Darrend said. “You don’t need to remove the spell; it won’t be that hard to live with, if you’re careful about drawing and not drawing the sword. You’ll have to keep Wirikidor with you, of course — leaving a Truly Owned object around can be dangerous. If it takes a tidal wave or an earthquake to bring it to you when the spell has built up enough potential, you’ll get a tidal wave or an earthquake and all the damage that would cause. It’s a ruthless sort of spell.”
“Oh,” Valder said. He had been thinking of quietly burying Wirikidor somewhere to keep it from being drawn that hundred-and-first time — or ninety-ninth or one-hundred-and-third or whatever.
“I think that covers the ownership angle,” Darrend said. “Now, about the sword’s name and what it does. The hermit told you that ’Wirikidor’ means ’slayer of warriors,’ but that’s a bad translation. ’Mankiller’ is closer. It
