Chapter 2

The sword in my hand felt good, but it didn't feel good enough. I was growing tired of practice swords and borrowed daggers, and so had begun to haunt the shops in Trilin looking for the ones I could call my own. I had changed weapons often enough over the years as I grew into myself, so this shouldn't be such a difficult thing, but it was.

During our chat beside the fireplace one night, my master listened yet again to my complaint, then spoke. "What have I always told you when it comes to finding the tools you need?"

I thought about that for a moment, preparing to answer, but he didn't wait.

"If you cannot use the one you have, fix it. If you have no tool at all, build it."

"I cannot build a sword!" I exclaimed, thinking of all I didn't know about smithing — which is odd if you think about it — thinking about what you don't know.

"Perhaps you can find one that you can fix then," my master said with a laugh. "Add your own finish to what someone else has begun."

So I again stood in a shop, weighing a swordsmith's efforts. Now though, I was thinking of it not as an ending point, but a beginning. The sword in my hand felt good, though not good enough.

"Is there a matching dagger?"

"Yes sir," the shopkeeper said with some deference, bringing a blade up to set on the counter between us. As usual I found it odd that a man so much older than I would seem so deferential.

The dagger felt as good as the sword, and just as lacking. Now though, I was able to consider that the lack might just be something that I could remedy. Despite the fine workmanship both blades exhibited, I began to look on them as blank slates upon which I would work my will.

It was perhaps the first positive thought I'd had since the day of my fall.

If I were the type to see myself as some sort of forsaken, epic figure, I'd have taken the road to Silverlake alone and dug the silver ore from the mine myself. I am utterly un-epical however, so I chose to buy some raw ore from Myre Gudin, a local silversmith of some repute. He routinely bought ore from Silverlake and I picked mine from the cart before it was even unpacked. I was operating without a plan, going purely on instinct and feel. I had little in the way of metal working skills, the pinnacle of my experience being the work I'd done on the little cook pot that Ilesa and I had taken with us on the trail from Starhill.

The memories that thought brought out of me cost me a half day's work. It took me a good bit of the night and part of the next morning's breakfast to restore my temperament. When I returned to it, I considered the blade's temper along with my own. I had worked on heated metal, but here I was of a mind to work the metal cold. Both blades already had a fine temper and what I did should affect neither their tempers or mine.

Extracting and purifying the silver from the ore was similar to what I had done to grow my pot, save that I had the ore in front of me and was able to purify it almost absolutely. Airborne impurities kept the final product from absolute purity, but the difference was too slight to be of significance. My method of inlaying the silver into the blades of sword and dagger would render the impurities moot in any case.

I built the image in my mind of the runes as I would build them. To a great degree I was rebuilding the Ward at Hoartongue Keep; but at the same time I was also building an echo of the elder Vale, the old north wood as I'd glimpsed it within Ilesa. I used many of the runes from which the Hoartongue Keep Ward had been built, but reordered them, modified them doubled some here, transposed a pair there, and finally adding a few sketchy runes that I was beginning to think of as my magical 'signature' — a binding.

I deposited the silver particle for particle, replacing their steel counterparts within the blade. All this I did with my magic out fully for the first time since my fall, and within a series of the strongest wards I knew which I cast about me to keep even the slightest sound or stirring breeze from interfering or influencing my work. When I was done the two blades shared a single runic structure into which I poured my magic and myself. I sang a strengthening song called Rising Anchor that was something of an inverse variation of the Bells of Dinae, Letting each ringing note affix the magic deeper and more firmly.

While the greater portion of the runes I used were visible on the surface of the blades, many of the strongest were buried within the blades themselves. When the last note was ringing out, I swept each blade across my chest, a shallow cut on each breast one from the sword on my right and one from the dagger on my left. I let my blood seal the work and watched the runes flare like cold fire as the magic came to completion.

I ate a large meal immediately after, and then slept until time for dinner, where I again had a huge appetite. Most magic work draws on your physical reserves, but cold working metal was particularly draining. Silver and steel had an affinity for each other, as did gold and iron. Inlaying silver into the steel of my blades was a natural choice. I had plans to pair gold and iron before I was done with my weapons, but that work would come later. Later that night, by the fireplace in the library, I showed my master my handiwork.

"These are well done, Pacasin," He commented after letting his magic flow over them. I could feel the cool clarity of his magical touch as it impinged against the magic that now connected them to me. I always marveled at the taste of his magic, so different than my own.

"You've made some interesting choices in these runes and the manner with which you've laid them in. This signals a commitment to the Vale that you shouldn't be thinking of making while only an apprentice, but I can't fault you for it."

I nodded at that, but couldn't think of anything I might say in response. Ethric smiled and flipped both blades over, reversing his grip. "You've worked the blades well, but what of the hilt and pommel?"

"I do have something in mind, but I will have to find the right gemstones before I can do what I want."

"Opals?" my master asked. He raised an eyebrow when I shook my head.

"Cats eyes," I answered, which got a serious look in addition to the raised eyebrow.

"If your hoping to find matching cats eyes, let me check with someone in King Tynis' court. The best of those come from the southern kingdoms."

"Of course," I agreed. "I would appreciate it."

"Stones like that will cost you dearly, Pacasin. Are you prepared to pay what is asked?"

"I will pay what I must, and I'm hoping to be able to find what else I need on my own."

"Very well," my master agreed. "Again, this is fine work Pacasin. I am always surprised anew at your fine touch and sensitivity to the structures of magic. It allows you to truly excel at this sort of work. You could make a living making swords like this, I would suspect. A very comfortable living."

"And were I not apprentice to Ethric, Wizard of the Vale, I might be content to aim for such a life, but now..." I stopped in mid-sentence, as my life rushed past me for a moment.

" ... Now?" my master asked.

"Now I think I have set foot already on another path. One I cannot see the end of. I pray if you or King Tynis know where this road leads, you do not tell me."

"You are Pacasin, sole apprentice to Ethric, Wizard of the Vale. You are a sworn man in service to Tynis, King of Moncross. Your name is no longer a thing to be hidden, for those who might use it against you have learned it and done their worst and yet you remain. Regarding your fate, and what is known or unknown; King Tynis has told me more of it than I have let you know, and still less than all he knows. Your fate as he know it is not known to me, but I know some of the road ahead. Some of this road we share and some we do not. One thing is certain, and it is something you must keep about you from now on. It will not be an easy road"

"As I would expect," I nodded, smiling to let him know neither his admission nor prognosis for my future was upsetting to me. Another reversal of his grip and my master was presenting my swords to me. I took them and felt a small stirring within the magic that surrounded us, as if Gaen herself were acknowledging the passing of them back into my hands. I caught this thought stirring in myself and choked it back sheepishly. How foolish to be thinking like that at a time like this!

I had my weapons; sword and dagger. They had no names, but they were no man's weapons but mine, and would come to my call. It was time to make my foray back into the north wood.

≈

My horse's name was Deak. He was a solid, calm mount, much smaller than Tarn had been, but no less nimble in his way. We had taken a good number of days getting me used to him, though for his part I think he made his adjustments much more quickly than I. I had my horse, I had my sword and dagger, but there was still one other thing I'd had to sacrifice when I fell, and that definitely needed restoration. I knew how I wanted to do it, so it was time to take Deak into the forest.

I had a general idea of where Nacre Springs was, but what the forest was like between here and there was something of an unknown. I planned to live off the land, and was taking only the barest of trail essentials as well as my mostly rebuilt wizard's tool kit.

The Wizard Ethric, my master and Wizard of the Vale, as he had recently reminded me, stepped in at this point and told me I would under no circumstances be allowed to travel alone. Though I wanted to argue the point, his tone, and the manner with which he addressed me, told me this was not one of those times when I could disagree with him. I rode away from the tower with an escort of four seasoned rangers.

We rode due north from Ethric's Tower. The trip across the plains to the forest took a day less than it would have three months earlier, and the forest itself seemed different, wilder and whiter somehow, as if the greens and browns of summer had already been swept away by the snows of winter, though by the seasons, it was only mid-autumn.

Tomis and Erol were our outriders, spending their time most days riding ahead, behind and to the sides of our path in a crossing weave that covered all quarters of our position. Tomis was the first to spot one of the wolves, catching a glimpse of him one morning through the trees. That afternoon Erol spied one as well.

"A white coat with black paws and a streak of black across the eyes," Tomis had described. "Pure white except for the tail," Erol disagreed. "There was a ring of darker fur at the base of the tail, otherwise it was all white."

Further reports in following days made it clear we were dealing with two wolves, and the beasts appeared to be shadowing us as we rode through the forest. We increased our vigilance, and Sergeant Walis was particularly perturbed by their appearance.

For my part, I sensed no magic about, at least none beyond the high background level that it had become apparent to me was now to be expected in the north wood. However I never caught so much as a glimpse of them, with my eyes during the trip to the springs.

It seemed obvious to us almost immediately that what we were being followed by were what would be called Winter wolves; a larger, wilder, white-furred version of their more common gray cousins which men of the plains are accustomed to. The presumed pair who shadowed us seemed content with keeping pace with us as we went.

While the land we traveled through was more thickly forested than the sections I'd covered on the eastern side of the Cairnheart, or of the area surrounding the river itself, this part of it seemed flatter. We seldom encountered even a small rise or hill during the ride, until we came to the rim of a great depression.