Chapter 1

One would think that waking up to a glowing weapon floating above you would be a bit disconcerting. What one tends to leave out is that it’s actually terrifying. There is nothing normal about floating weapons, let alone ones that glow. Since I woke up to that vision, I quite naturally tried to bat the weapon aside, thinking it was going to fall on me. Considering it looked like a fairly large hammer, I couldn’t imagine that ending well. Trying to bat it aside might have been a mistake, however, as the instant my hand connected with the hammer I was hit with pain pretty much all over my body. The largest amount was coming from the ankle I broke as a teenager, but there was still a pretty fair amount spread over the rest of my body. The hammer had, oddly enough, disappeared completely as soon as I touched it as well, though it admittedly took me a few minutes to get past the pain and realize that it had done so.

If it weren’t for the slowly fading pain, I would have sworn I was either still asleep or possibly hung over. Sure I didn’t remember drinking the night before, but I also didn’t think there was any way I was remembering this morning correctly. The pain slowly settled down to just a dull ache over most of my body, though my ankle still hurt quite a bit. It had never really healed properly after I broke it, but it got to the point where I rarely noticed it. Now it was throbbing; I was just happy it no longer felt like someone was stabbing it from the inside, cause that shit HURT!

Deciding there was no way any of this shit had actually happened and that I had to be hallucinating, I limped my way into the bathroom for my morning routine. After a pretty minimal breakfast just because I was moving slowly and was now pressed for time, I drove over to the shop to start my day. My ankle was going to cause problems, I was pretty sure. Because I ran my own bladesmithy, I spent a lot of time on my feet, and with my ankle still occasionally throbbing I had a feeling this was going to be a low productivity day. I did have a few pieces that I could do some finish work on though, so at least the day wouldn’t be a complete loss.

Settling in after getting everything unlocked and opened up, I went over to one of my workbenches and started working on a handle for a commissioned knife. I’d never been a big fan of some of the artificial materials like micarta, having always preferred the feel of a traditional wood, but it was a commission so my opinion didn’t really matter a whole lot. I’d gone over all of the pros and cons with the gentleman during the design process, and this was ultimately what he had decided on, so it was what I would work with.

Not long after I started on the handle, our employees started arriving in their usual order. Our hired master smith Fred Rollins was always the second person to arrive, and then only because I had the keys to the shop and he did not. Fred was probably a bit better at the forge than I was, but hated the business aspect of things and was more than happy to work for us instead of striking out on his own. Fred could be a little temperamental since he absolutely refused to use modern conveniences like presses or power hammers, preferring instead to do everything completely by hand. We were at least able to convince him to use a gas forge instead of his preferred coal, but that had taken some doing. Still, despite the lower productivity that results from doing everything by hand, his work is truly art and his commissions go for the highest prices in the shop by quite a bit.

Our other employees trickled in shortly afterwards, thankfully right on time; two other smiths and an apprentice that we were training. It was almost 30 minutes after our starting time that my best friend and business partner George Raymond limped his way into the shop on crutches, which hurt my soul to see. George joined the Reserves right out of high school, his unit had been almost immediately deployed overseas, and he’d been shot in the leg by an insurgent. He ended up losing a large chunk of the meat from his leg because of it, and was medically discharged at the ripe old age of 20, after an entire year of rehab to get him back on his feet. George had always been pretty active when we were growing up, playing a couple of sports even if he wasn’t good enough for a scholarship, so being physically limited like that took a long period of adjustment for him.

It had been several years since George had used his crutches though, which was the concerning part. It made me wonder, so I intercepted him on his way to the back.

“Crutches? What happened George, did you piss off Melissa or something?” Melissa was George’s high school sweetheart. They married even before graduation, and I couldn’t imagine anyone more supportive of George and his interests ... but Melissa definitely had a temper.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” was his reply.

I couldn’t help but chuckle, thinking of my own strange and unbelievable morning, and couldn’t help but retort with a quick “Try me.”

“I dreamed of an absolutely beautiful sword, but when I reached out to grab it everything started hurting. Sean? Are you okay? You went a little pale there...”