Warsong (Chronicles of the Warlands, #6)(85)

“Ismari, this is Amyu.” Atira said, still staring at the flames. “She has questions about re-forging a sword, so I brought her here.”

“A sword?” Ismari frowned. Amyu noticed that while she was Xyian she wasn’t wearing skirts. And her hands were calloused and rough, with a few old burns. Her eyes were bright and curious. “Well, Dunstan is the expert, but he will be at the fire for a while. Show it to me, and let me see what I can tell you.”

Amyu reached for the pack on her back, and pulled out the basket containing the shards.

Ismari took it, and her eyes went wide. “Is this the Crystal Sword of Xy? In a bread basket?” Her voice was hushed. She looked around, and pulled Amyu toward a nearby door, hustling her into another work area. “Let’s not give the apprentices more to gossip about than they already have,” she said.

Atira followed, but her steps dragged. Amyu gave the blonde warrior a questioning look. Atira shrugged sheepishly. “I don’t get down here as often as I wish.”

Ismari had pulled a thick black cloth out and spread it on the table. “Dunstan won’t be long,” she said. “Let’s see what we have here.”

Amyu dumped the basket on the cloth. Ismari winced. But she reached for the hilt and put it flat at one end of the cloth. “Let’s see if it’s all here.”

It was. All the shining blue shards made a pattern, and Ismari had a gift for sorting them out. Once they were done, the sword was recreated, except in parts.

“Odd,” Ismari stepped back. “I would expect some of the smaller slivers to be missing. But it all seems to be here, and would go back together if you had a way to bind them.”

The door opened behind them, and Dunstan stepped in, wiping his hands on a cloth. “Atira, Ismari,” Dunstan rumbled. “What—” he stopped dead. “Is that the Crystal Sword of Xy?”

Amyu sighed.

After explanations, Dunstan shook his head, his regret clear. “I know of no flame that would bind these parts together,” he said. “And that is a shame. It has always been part of the Monarch’s regalia.”

“I do not know that word,” Amyu said.

“Regalia?” Dunstan smiled. “It means the robes, the clothes, the jewelry, all symbols of the Crown.”

“What he or she carries at every ceremony,” Ismari said. “I’ve never seen this sword except in the hands of the King or Queen.” Her fingers touched the hilt lightly. “And it feels wrong to see it like this, even though it shattered for a purpose.”

“And no way to fix it,” Dunstan put his hand on his sister’s shoulder. “No fire, or any other element that I know of, could re-forge the blade. It’s not the kind of work for a smith, that’s for sure.” He turned away, looking pained. “Let’s find something better for you to carry it in than that basket.”




Archbishop Iian smiled at Amyu from across a table filled with sand. “This will not be as hard as you think,” he said. He picked up a jug of water and poured it over the sand.

“The Warprize wishes me to learn,” Amyu said glumly. This was not a task she would have chosen. But she’d come to the nursery as instructed.

“This is how we teach our children their letters,” Iian said, stirring the damp sand. He must have seen the doubt in her eyes because he continued, “I do not think of you as a child,” he said firmly as he smoothed the sand. “This is just the best way to teach you. Take this stylus,” he offered her a straight stick. “Now, this is how you make an ‘a’.”

Amyu watched, and copied him stroke by stroke as he went through all the letters.

“Now,” Iian put down his stylus, and leaned forward. “Let’s see what you remember. Write an “A”.

He recited the letters and Amyu drew them out as fast as he spoke, with Iian clearing the sand in between. At the end, Iian leaned back and shook his head.

“Flawless,” he said. “Your people’s memories are amazing.”

“So we are done?” Amyu asked.

“No,” Iian smiled. “You must still learn to form the letters into words and then there is the order words go in, and how to write them down so everyone can read.”

Amyu slumped in her chair. The shards of the sword clinked together in the leather bag tied to her belt. “Isn’t it easier to just remember it all?” she asked, trying not to whine.

“It is,” Iian said. “But we write things down to preserve our knowledge and information.” He frowned at the sand. “Although that didn’t work with the wyverns, did it?”

“Because there are no books?” Amyu asked.

Iian nodded, absently drawing a wyvern in the sand. “There should be records,” Iian said. “Something that preserved that knowledge. Yet we have nothing. If we of Xy had perfect memories—”

“Joden thinks it was deliberately forgotten,” Amyu said. She leaned her elbows on the sand table. “Long ago.”

Iian sighed. “If memory can be distorted or lost, and paper and ink lost and destroyed, how are we to preserve knowledge? There must be a way.”

“Even if it is remembered, the old can refuse to share their knowledge,” Amyu said glumly. “Kalisa refused to tell us anything about the past.”