Teryn snorted.
That’s the spirit. He felt something pat him on the back, or at least thought he did.
“So, Sage Mind?” Teryn asked, biting his lip in hesitation.
Yes?
“If the blade belongs to me, why can’t I wield it?”
Don’t they teach anything in wizard school these days? The Sage Mind tsked again. No, I suppose they wouldn’t say anything about this. Still, I’d think you at least would have heard about it from your parents. Still no? Well, the Swords of Valor are very powerful weapons. Wielded together, the user has almost limitless magical power at their disposal. Enough to cast even the most complex Tytin magics, like the Fhyrrstorm.
Teryn whistled at that word. All wizards had heard the tales of the Fhyrrstorm, a spell of untold magical destruction that supposedly could rip the world asunder.
Of course, no one had ever actually used the spell. For one, no one really knew how. Also, it was said that the spell was so powerful it could kill the wielder. Not much point in using a spell to harm others if you end up dying, too.
Still, there was a good chance those tales were exaggerated to keep young wizards from pursuing the spell and hurting themselves. Certainly, someone of his caliber could live through it. He’d cast other Tytin magic and suffered no lasting effects, after all. Why, with magic like that at his disposal, he could . . . no, he mustn’t think like that.
But apart, the Sage Mind continued, wielding one of these blades will inflict a terrible curse upon its user. Each curse varies, but all are so awful that they can force the user to do unspeakable things against their will. And there is no cure for any of them.
Teryn gulped again. “Sounds . . . dangerous,” he let out at last. “Okay, I won’t try to wield it. I’ll just put it in my bag for now.”
Well, you could, but you’ll never leave the building alive like that.
“What do you mean?”
The sword is trapped, of course. You’ll have to deactivate the magical trap on it first. Otherwise, trying to leave this building will kill you outright.
Teryn had to admit that whoever had hid this sword had done a good job of it. Not only was it in a building that was near-impossible to access by its own right, it was then hidden under an elaborate illusion, placed in nondescript packaging to make it hard to spot, and then, even if the would-be thief bypassed all of those safeguards, it was still trapped even further. The forethought that went into that kind of planning was truly remarkable.
Such a shame it wouldn’t be effective. “I should have thought of that,” he admitted.
Well maybe, but we’ve already established that you’re not the smartest one on this team. If you were, you probably would have taken that scroll of bodilymaneuvers from two aisles back over that way.
“What?” Teryn exclaimed. “How did I miss that?”
He rushed back in the direction that the Sage Mind had pointed out to see if he truly had missed something that powerful. Sure enough, there it was, mixed in with other more mundane scrolls – a scroll of bodilymaneuvers. Hastily, he snatched it up and thrust it into his bag with his free hand. Then he took a glance around the area to see if there was anything else of similar use that he’d missed. He found a cloak of featherlight sitting on a coatrack an aisle over, but nothing else stood out. He donned the cloak anyway and returned to the vicinity of the altar. He still had to dismantle the traps on the sword, and of course find Valeria.
Teryn reached out with his right hand and felt along the hilt of the Sword of Wisdom for magical traps. As he fingered one of the gems, it shocked him initially. Then the shock faded and the gem remained quite cool to the touch.
He focused intently on that gem for several seconds, but he could detect nothing. He studied the hilt and scabbard again. The scabbard had a faint blue glow that reacted to his touch, but there was nothing innately dangerous about it.
“Alright fine, I give up,” he said then. “Sage Mind, please help me disarm this thing.” He had been hoping to disarm this trap himself to prove he was smarter than the Sage Mind thought, but was unsuccessful.
It’s okay, these things happen, the Sage Mind replied, snickering slightly. I’ll help you, but you have to do one thing for me.
“Yes?”
You have to stop calling me ‘Sage Mind.’ It’s so . . . formal.
He frowned. “What else should I call you, then?”
Call me by my original name, Terwain.
“Terwain?” Teryn asked, bewildered. “That sounds an awful lot like my own name.”
And why shouldn’t it?
Teryn had to admit he didn’t have a good counter-argument to that. “Okay, Terwain.”
A giant disembodied head nodded in his field of vision. With that settled, I’ll show you what to do. All you have to do is claim back ownership of the blade. It’s a rather simple ceremony. Just do as I tell you.
Teryn did as Terwain suggested. He held the sword in both hands and put it above his head. Then he shut his eyes and recited the words of the ownership ritual as Terwain listed them off.
“I hereby take this sword in my hand, and reclaim it in the name of my ancestors. Sword of Wisdom, obey me!” he shouted.
For the first few seconds, nothing happened, then all at once the blue glow on the blade started to grow in strength. Somehow, in the back of his mind, Teryn knew this ritual would spell trouble for him.
A blinding blue light shot forth from the hilt of the Sword of Wisdom, filling the warehouse. Which would have been fine had it not also blasted out part of the ceiling. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the light was followed by a shockwave that tore through the building, knocking over several shelves, breaking all nearby
