The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [39]
Once Krystal and I went together, on a sunny and cloudless afternoon. A brisk wind was blowing in from the west, so stiff it tugged at our tunics and hair. Krystal had bound her hair up, with the silver cords this time.
Crackkk…thrappp…crackk…The canvas on the outside trading tables cracked almost like trees breaking in a storm as we walked through the center of the market square. Less than half the booths on the Recluce side of the square were occupied, and but a handful on the outland side. A man in pale green browsed at the woodworker’s stall, and the same youngster sat on the stool. I grinned, but he continued to watch the customer.
Just a handful of people, mostly dangergelders or members of the Brotherhood, wandered around the square.
“There’s a weapons table.”
“You want to see what’s there?” I asked. “It won’t be as good as what you have.”
Without stopping, Krystal looked sideways at me, raising a dark eyebrow on a face more tanned than when she had arrived in Nylan. Her natural pace nearly matched mine, despite the difference in our height. “What I have? I have nothing except a belt knife and a small cutting knife. You expect me to step out in Hamor or Candar with those alone?”
“Sorry.”
Krystal stopped in front of the table.
On light-blue felt were laid out a number of blades. A thin man with a waxed mustache, ropy arms, and a gray leather vest sat on a stool opposite us. His expressionless black eyes met mine.
I looked through him. After all, I wasn’t shopping for blades.
Crackkk…The canvas of an empty table snapped in the wind, and the sting of salt air brushed my face.
The proprietor transferred his unspoken demand to Krystal, who had lifted one of the thinner blades, the plainest one on the table. Even to me, it was the best. Not that I really wanted to even touch it.
“You like that one?” His deep voice was flat, almost expressionless, like his eyes.
She set the blade back on the felt. “I prefer this style…to…” she gestured at a scimitar with a swirled and gilded hilt and guard. “Do you have any others like it?”
In the hands of the dark-skinned trader appeared two other blades. Around one glimmered scabrous blood-red force-swirls. Just looking at that unpatterned display turned my guts.
Krystal reached for it.
“No! Not that one.” I spoke before realizing it. But I didn’t want her even to touch the blade, not with the real hint of evil embodied in the chaos. For the first time I saw, really saw, a clear distinction between honest chaos and true evil.
Crackkk…The flapping canvas punctuated the moment.
Krystal frowned, but her hand stopped short of the hilt.
“It is said to be cursed,” admitted the trader. His voice was still flat.
My eyes focused on him, as they had on the blade, but discerned nothing, not that I would have known what to look for.
“Try the other one…” I suggested.
“You’re telling me about swords?” Krystal’s voice was anything but musical, almost waspish.
I shrugged. “The pattern’s…” How could I tell her what I saw? How can you say that a pattern of force-swirls that no one else sees says that the sword will lead its wielder from chaos into depravity…or worse? How can you describe a set of unseen forces that are so chaotic that their only coherence is opposition to order? I had to shrug again. “Please…Krystal…just trust me.”
An odd look, one I couldn’t identify, passed across her face and was gone.
The trader looked at me. “You are an apprentice master, then?”
His flat voice bothered me. Something was missing, although I couldn’t say what. “I am what I am,” was my answer—conceding nothing, admitting nothing.
He inclined his head slightly, but waited for Krystal.
“Lerris…what about the other blade?” This time she made no movement toward the sword.
The second blade, slightly smaller, showed no force-swirls, only the honesty of forged metal.
“It’s an honest blade, not turned to any use.”
Krystal took it gingerly, then examined it in more detail,