“But that’s impossible,” Pele said. “Bone metal is ancient. If it was actually bone, it would have rotted away ages ago. And why haven’t we found any two pieces together? Surely if it was bone we’d have found a skeleton or…”
She stopped. Slorn was shaking his head.
“You’re doing it again,” he said. “If you’re ever going to be more than a common wizard tinkerer, you need to stop trying to make the spirits fit into your expectations.” He returned the blade to the table. “This is the spirits’ world, Pele, not ours. We may command them, but they see the nature of things that we cannot. As Shapers, it is our job to fit into the spirits’ order, not the other way around. Fenzetti understood this, and that’s how he was able to shape what everyone else called unshapable.”
He reached out and took the sword, not by its handle but by its point. “A Shaper must remember,” he said, wrapping his fingers around the blade, “trust what you see, not what you know. Human knowledge is fragmented, but the spirit always knows its own nature.”
With that, he began to tilt his hand up. The table creaked as he pressed against it, the muscles in his arms straining from the pressure. The sword, however, remained unchanged, but then, slowly, subtly, it began to bend. The white point curled with his hand, bending over on itself with a creak unlike anything Pele had heard before. Sweat started to soak through Slorn’s shirt, but his face remained calm and determined. His hands were steady, bending the strange metal in a slow roll until, at last, he’d bent it over completely so that the tip of the sword brushed the blade.
He stopped, panting, and slumped over the bench, an enormous grin on his face. Despite the pressure of Slorn’s bending, the curve was smooth, like an ox’s curved horn. Pele touched it with murmured wonder and then snatched her hand back again. The sword was warm as a living thing.
“It is bone,” she whispered, eyes wide. “But bone from what?”
“That’s a mystery I cannot answer,” Slorn said, sitting down on the bench. “But I think it’s time we tested the rumor that drove me to send Monpress after it in the first place.” Still smiling at the curled tip, he picked up the sword. “Fenzetti wrote that bone metal is indestructible, even by demons. It’s the one spirit they can’t eat.” He paused. “Do you know why I make manacles for your mother?”
Pele shook her head, silent. Slorn never talked about her mother.
“They give the demon something to chew on other than the demonseed herself,” he said. “Before she had to be isolated, Nivel and I did many experiments on the subject. She was the one who came up with using restraints. A demon, you see, will always attack spirits outside the demonseed first, since the seed relies on the host’s strength until it is ready to awaken. This need to be constantly eating can be exploited by placing a strong-willed material along the host’s body. Even though the demon knows better, knows it’s a trick, it can’t help its nature. It will attack those spirits endlessly, focusing its attention on the manacles instead of the host. This division of attention slows its growth phenomenally. Of course, it’s not a perfect solution. Manacles are still spirits, and even the most stubborn awakened steel can only hold out for so long before it gets eaten down. But”—he tapped the bone metal against the table—“let’s see how the demon does with a manacle it can chew on forever. If this bone metal is truly inedible by demons, it may slow Nivel’s degradation to almost nothing, buying us a few more years to work on a cure.”
“But Father,” Pele said slowly. “You always say there is no cure.”
Slorn’s smile faded. “It is good to think that way,” he said, laying the bent sword down again. “We must be realists. Still”—he looked at her, and his dark eyes were almost like the human eyes of the father she remembered from her childhood—“your mother has not given up. Not yet. And I would be a poor husband indeed if I let her fight alone.”
Pele shook her head, blinking back tears. Slorn put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to lean against him. “None of that,” he whispered.
Pele sniffed and scrubbed her eyes, trying to compose herself. They had work to do. Now was not the time to go crying. But as she tried to pull away, she realized her father had gone stiff. She looked up at him, but he was staring out the window, his round bear ears swiveling.
“Father?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. Then she heard it too. Outside, something thumped in the dark. It was big, and loud, far too loud to be one of the mountain cats, and the bears never came near Slorn’s house.
“Pele,” Slorn said, “get your knife. We have company.”
She did as he told her, grabbing her knife from its hook. While she was belting it on, Slorn whispered something to the wall. She couldn’t hear what he said, but the wall’s answer was plain.
“I don’t know,” it said apologetically, timbers creaking. “He’s no wizard, and that makes him very hard to keep track of. This one’s especially bad. His soul is like a dull spot. He’d never have been able to slip by the Awakened Wood otherwise.”
“I am well aware of the wood’s weaknesses,” Slorn said, giving the wall a pat. “You’d better wake the house.”
“Yes, Slorn,” the wall whispered, but Slorn was already gone, marching down the narrow hall. He threw open the front door and stepped out onto the rickety stairs. Pele pushed right up behind him, gripping the hilt of her knife as she peeked over his shoulder. There, standing at the edge of the rectangle of yellow light cast from the doorway, clinging to the steep slope with one arm, was a man she never wanted to see again.
Slorn glared down from his steps, crossing his arms over his chest. “Berek Sted.”
The man sneered and moved into the light. He looked very different from when Pele had seen him last. His bald head was covered in several weeks’ growth of stubbly hair, all except the top, where true baldness had left him bare. His scarred face was overgrown as well and streaked with dirt. His black coat was gone, as was his sash with its grotesque collection of severed hands and broken swords. Instead, his bare chest was wrapped in bandages, most of which were dark with old, dried blood. But the greatest change of all was his left arm. His shoulder and the first half of bicep looked the same as ever, but then, his arm simply stopped. He had no elbow, no hand, just a badly bandaged lump that he kept pressed against his side.
“Found you at last,” Sted panted. “Swordsmith.”
“What do you want?” Slorn asked, his voice dry.
Sted shifted his weight, pushing off the steep hillside with his one good arm to hurl something straight at them. It landed with a clatter at Slorn’s feet, biting into the weather-stained wood. Slorn looked down, arching a furry eye ridge at what was left of Sted’s black-toothed awakened blade. The top half of the sword was gone, leaving a ragged, twisted edge, as though the metal had been ripped apart.
“You sold me a faulty sword,” Sted said. “I want another, a real one this time. One that won’t break when I need it.”
Slorn reached down and picked up the broken blade. He turned it over in his hands, and Pele winced. This close, she could hear the metal whimpering.
“Your sword was a quality piece of work,” Slorn said. “Even if there was a flaw, the League is the only body entitled to demand my services, and I doubt very much they sent you here looking like that.”
“Don’t talk to me about the League,” Sted growled.
“Ah,” Slorn said, his voice cold. “Now I see. You’ve been drummed out.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It is indeed my business,” Slorn said. “I made that sword for the League, not for you. What was it, Sted? Insubordination? Dereliction of duty?”
“Little of everything,” Sted said with a shrug. “To hear that bastard Alric talk, choosing a good fight over a quick demon kill was the end of the world. After all I gave up to join the League, he kicked me out, took away my gifts. But I wouldn’t be in this position if your sword had been up to the task, bear man.”
Slorn crossed his arms over his aproned chest. “And how did my sword fail you?”
“It was weak!” Sted shouted. “Too weak to take a blow from that blunt bat Liechten uses. I said as much in my defense, but Alric couldn’t stand to hear the truth about his precious swordsmith.”
Slorn bared his teeth just a fraction. “If that’s how you feel, why did you come here?”
“To get what I’m due,” Sted said. “After all, it’s only fair. You’re the one whose failure got me kicked out, so you’re the one who’s going to have to make it right.”
Slorn turned the broken sword over. “I can see from the dents that your sword took several blows from Josef Liechten’s ‘blunt bat.’ An impressive achievement, standing up to the greatest awakened sword in the world.
