“Call me when they’re ready,” the old man said as he turned back toward Valder’s sword.
Valder watched him leave, trying to tell himself that the wizard was not accustomed to dealing with people and could not know how annoying his behavior was. When the old man had settled cross-legged beside the sword and begun making a new series of mystical gestures, Valder turned back to the improvised cooking pot and poked at the crabs with his dagger far more viciously than culinary concerns required.
He tried to force himself to relax. He had escaped the northern patrol — in fact, the old fool had saved his life with his spells. The wizard had told him where to find water, had provided food, and had lighted the fire when Valder could not. There was no cause for annoyance save for the old man’s utter disregard for the little diplomacies of everyday life. Valder had always had a healthy respect for such niceties and had used them to forestall a few barracks brawls; he wondered whether two months alone in the woods and four days of desperate flight might have impaired his own behavior sufficiently to justify the hermit’s rudeness.
By the time he judged the crabs to be fit to eat, he was calm again. The heat of the fire had dried most of the rain, mist, and marsh out of his hair and clothing, and the improvement in his comfort had contributed to his improvement in mood.
He called, “Wizard! Breakfast is ready!”
For several seconds the only reply Valder received was the bubbling of the water in the broken jar, and the crackle of the flames. Finally, the wizard paused in his mysterious gesturing and called, “Keep it warm, will you? I can’t stop here.”
Valder shrugged. “Please yourself,” he answered. He fished out a crab with his knife and sat down to eat.
When he had eaten three of the four — as might be expected so far north, none were very large — he threw three more in the pot and settled back against a hillock, feeling reasonably content. Settled comfortably, he watched the old man.
The candle-stubs were burning, and the smoke was weaving about unnaturally, forming something resembling blue tatted lace hanging in mid-air; his sword stood upright, unsupported, in the center of the tangle. Valder had no doubt that the wizard was doing something to the weapon, though he had no idea what.
The old man barked a single word that Valder didn’t quite catch, in a voice surprisingly powerful for so short and thin a body; the sword and smoke froze, hanging immobile in the air. The wizard rose to his feet, arms spread wide, walked sideways around the column of petrified smoke, then turned away from it and strolled over to the cookfire.
“Let me use your knife, soldier; all mine are either lost or in use.” He gestured, and Valder noticed for the first time that the wizard’s own dagger was balanced on its tip below the sword, spinning about and gleaming more brightly silver than the light of the sun could explain. He shrugged and handed the old man his knife.
The wizard ate all four of the cooked crabs in silence, wolfing down the flesh eagerly. When he had finished and tossed the shells in the marsh, he remarked, “Magic is hungry work, and that smoke is making my throat dry. Go for some more water, soldier, if you aren’t doing anything else.”
“Give me back my knife first,” Valder replied. He saw no point in wasting argument or courtesy on the old man.
The wizard handed back the dagger, and Valder reluctantly set out for the stream.
He spent the rest of the day alternately sitting doing nothing, and fetching wood or water — or, once, three black pine cones, an item the wizard needed for his spells. Valder discovered that black pine cones were a scarce item; most were brown or gray. Eventually he located an odd bluish tree that yielded the desired objects.
The sun crawled across the cloud-strewn heavens and sank toward the sea, and still the wizard continued with his spell-casting. Glowing runes and weaving smoke were just two of the myriad odd effects Valder observed, and he wondered more and more just what the old man was doing to the sword.
Well after the sun went down, Valder finally dozed off, not far from the fire, while the wizard was etching fiery red lines in the dirt with a golden something-or-other that was oddly unpleasant to look at.
He was awakened suddenly by a loud whooshing sound and a shout. He started up, reaching automatically for a sword that wasn’t there. He glanced about wildly.
The fire had almost died, and there was no longer any magical glow anywhere — no runes in the air nor lines on the earth nor glittering blades. It took him a few moments to interpret the dim shapes he could make out.
The wizard was walking toward him, the sword sheathed and cradled in his arms.
“Here, soldier,” he said, thrusting the weapon forward. “Take your damned sword and get out of here!”
“What?” Valder was not at his best when suddenly awakened. He looked blankly at the completely ordinary-looking scabbard and hilt in the wizard’s arms.
“I’m finished with your sword, I said. It’s carrying all the enchantments I could put on it under the circumstances. If it won’t get you home safely, then nothing I know will. Take it and go. And don’t draw it until you’re over the horizon.”
Still befuddled, Valder accepted the sword and looked at it stupidly for a moment before hanging it in its accustomed place on his belt. It looked no different, as far as he could see by the fire’s faint glow, from what it had been when he arrived. When it was securely in place, he reached for the hilt to check the draw; a soldier needed to be able to get his blade out quickly.
“No, I said!” the wizard barked at him; a bony hand clamped around his wrist. Irrelevantly, as he looked at the hand, Valder noticed that the last traces of the Sanguinary Deception had vanished. “You mustn’t draw it here! It’s dangerous! Don’t draw it until you need it, and you won’t need it until you’re well away from here.”
“Whatever you say,” Valder said, taking his hand off the sword.
The wizard calmed. “That’s better. Ah... I gave it a name.”
“What?” Valder was still too sleepy to keep up with this apparent change of subject.
“I gave the sword a name; it’s to be called Wirikidor.”
“Wirikidor? What kind of a name is Wirikidor?”
“An old one, soldier. It’s from a language so old that the name of the tongue is forgotten and no trace remains of the people who spoke it. It means ’slayer of warriors,’ and it was part of the spell I put on the thing, so now that’s its name.”
Valder glanced down and resisted the temptation to grip the hilt again. “I was never much for naming swords; some of the men do, but it never seemed to do them any good.”
“I didn’t say it will do you any good, but that sword’s name is Wirikidor now, and I thought you ought to know, since it will be yours. Ah... that is, it should be. It’s got an untriggered spell on it, a variant of the Spell of True Ownership; whoever draws it next will be its owner for as long as he lives. Make sure that’s you, soldier, and the blade will protect you.”
“Protect me how?”
“Ah... I’m not quite sure, actually.”
“It will protect me once I draw it, but I mustn’t draw it until I’m leagues from here?”
“That’s right.”
“What’s to protect me until then?”
The wizard glared at him. “Your native wits, of course — except that leaves you unarmed, doesn’t it? We’ll just have to hope you won’t need protection, I guess.”
Valder was becoming more awake and alert, awake enough to decide that arguing with the wizard might not be wise. Still, he asked, “That’s all you can tell me about it, that it will protect me?”