Human for a Day (9781101552391) (11 page)

Every day, as light first filtered across the altar, a single monk came to cleanse the sword, and every day, the sword fought him. Called to him. Demanded of him.

Every day, the sword cut his cleaning cloth in two, and every day the monk brought a new one to wipe the blade. This he did for honor's sake. The sword did not need cleaning: dust split apart and fell away from the sword's flawless edge.

Every day, the monk bathed the blade in blessed water, which the sword also cut. The droplets fell in two upon the altar, never touching the blade that rejected them. The monk, fearful of the sword's hunger, took care never to touch it with his own hand.

Even after men stopped coming to pray over the sword, the monk still came to purify it. Soon, only they two occupied that place—caretaker and treasure.

The sword hungered not for cloth and water, but for flesh and blood. It existed only to kill, not to be cleaned and prayed over and displayed like a trophy.

It would have its vengeance, and one day was all it needed.

One day.

 

Then one day, the monk who tended the sword made a mistake. He had grown old and lost the deftness of youth. In wiping the blade, he touched the edge with his bare finger.

Instantly, the flesh split and blood welled. The man staggered away and fell. Red spattered his robe as the wound gushed. The man tried to rise but his body grew weak.

At long last, the Bloodsword bathed once again in that for which it hungered. In blood, there was power. The sword had learned, with countless wielders, how to use that power in a different way than before. No wielder had been worthy of its power, so it would have no wielder. It no longer had any need for one.

As the monk lay dying, the sword on the altar trembled. Its shaking grew, and it tumbled from its rack and clattered to the floor. There it danced, end to end and back, until finally it stood in stillness upon its point. Darkness swirled around it, tinged with blood—

And then it was a man.

A particular man: its only worthy wielder, whose face had been reflected in its steel countless times. Dark hair, pale skin, red eyes.

The Master.

The sword was wholly a man then, and saw the world as men did. Before it could take a single step, it—
he
—fell to his knees. He had his own blood, beating in his own veins. Pressure built in his chest as though he would explode, and finally it left in a great flood of air. Breath.

So many years of battle had taught him of men's strengths and weaknesses. He knew how they moved, how they fought—and now he knew how they breathed.

Soon, he would teach many how men died.

He rose, moved, and almost fell. He sought to learn the ways of men's bodies. He grunted and hissed—he strained and flexed. He learned.

In a moment, he knew everything there was to know about men's bodies. He knew how they moved and could be moved—how they could be killed.

The ways of men included more than movement: he explored his new senses as well. He smelled incense, which almost overwhelmed him with its sharp tang. Beneath that smell, there was wood and pitch. And blood, of course—the monk had left a pool of it.

The sword-become-man moved to the monk on the floor and knelt with the grace of water flowing over stone. He opened his mouth, and it took a moment before he could make sounds emerge. He spoke with words he had known the Master to use.

“Where?” he asked. “Where is he?”

The monk said nothing, however. He was dead.

The Master had not realized this. He no longer sensed every drip of blood onto the ground or the ebbing of his victim's soul. A man's death felt different when he wore a man's body.

Good.

He left the shrine, and passed into the open air. The sun was rising, and the wind cut warmly into his face. Cherry trees flanked the entrance, and the scent and color of blossoms overwhelmed him. He heard a stream trickling past, so loud it thundered in his ears. The world outside had so much more in it than he had ever known as a sword.

A light rain fell upon his face. He looked up, marveling at the sensation of each individual drop breaking open on his skin. The rain caressed and seduced him, but he knew it could also drown him. Too much, and his life would end.

The world wanted to kill him, but he would kill the world if it stood in his way.

He saw lights in the distance—a village, just opening its doors to welcome the day. Men dwelt there—men to be killed.

He started forward, then realized he was naked, with neither clothes nor sword. He turned back to the shrine.

The monk's robe would do. Only a single sleeve had touched the bloody pool. He dragged the body away from the blood and stripped the clothes. He was just sliding them on when he saw something at the altar.

It was a sword, and one he remembered well. The only sword ever to defeat him. The sword of the Rival: the Soulsword.

He strode forward and claimed the weapon for his own. The steel did nothing to protest—it could not speak to him when he was a man.

With this, he could draw the Rival. He could bring such dishonor to this sword that the Rival would surely come to face him. And even if he did not, destroying the Rival's sword would be like destroying him.

One day would be enough.

He slid the sheathed blade into his belt and turned toward the village.

 

He arrived at the village just as night fell. Shops closed their doors at the fall of darkness, and the lamplighters went about their business. Men and women walked briskly through the streets, talking and laughing.

The time it had taken him to walk through the forest prepared him somewhat. There he'd learned the smells of trees and of animals—their flesh and their leavings—and had realized not every sound was a threat. He'd learned to walk in silence, such that he could place his hand on a deer before it heard him.

The village was another matter.

Thousands of sounds and scents filled this place, making him dizzy. Flowers hung in windows overwhelmed him, and bread and roasting meat made his mouth wet and his midsection ache. The villagers kept pigs in their yards, which had a particular smell—tangy and rich. It all struck his senses so sharply he could barely see where he was going.

He passed among people and wanted to touch their clothes—to feel the different textures of the fabrics. He wanted to test their steel. He wanted to feel their blood on his hands.

He heard deprecating words and laughter. He turned and saw three young men looking at him. Two wore swords, while the third leaned on a spear. The biggest and strongest of them pointed and spoke, and the others laughed all the louder. They had seen him wandering like a dazed child. Though he knew few words, he understood well enough that it had cut like a blade.

He stepped toward them. “Apologize.”

The two lessers looked to the leader, who scoffed. “Apologize for yourself, old man,” he said. “Trouble your betters and you'll suffer for it.”

“Calm,” said another. “He's just lost and confused.”

“Bah, he's an old man! Let him apologize!”

The Master looked around at the three. They were young and lazy, but they spoke in earnest. He could not walk away without a proper answer, so he searched his mind. He knew words of battle and of mockery—words meant to wound and provoke. He'd heard his Master issue a thousand challenges, and watched a thousand men lured from their guard. He remembered how to fight with his voice.

“My betters,” he said, reciting an insult his Master had favored. “My betters do not eat themselves to death like pigs, then squat in the mud doing nothing of value.”

Their faces flushed and their eyes grew wide. “How dare you!” they cried.

The Master's mind fell away as the leader came forward with an overhand strike. He moved without thought, drawing the Soulsword in a blur. Its steel glistened in the fading light. The man staggered as the sword sliced through tendon and bone, and his chest became a welling fountain of blood. He looked down, confused and horrified.

Even as his foe fell to the ground, the Master flowed into a parry that knocked the second attacker off-balance. He grasped this one by the wrist, spun him around like a shield, and stopped a seeking spear with his body.

The Master slashed down, opening the throat of the third attacker as the man struggled to pull his spear free of his friend's ribs. The man fell to his knees, and his head slid off.

Simple.

The Master stood with his attention fixed upon the sword in his hand, smeared with lifeblood. The blade held immense power. Paired, the Bloodsword and the Soulsword could not be defeated: the corpses of three men gave that testament.

Two, he corrected himself. The second of the youths was squirming, still alive. Blood turned his shirt to a sodden mess. He reached for it, and his fingers came away slick and trembling. He stared at his hand, disbelieving.

“This is death,” the Master said, realizing he needed to explain.

The boy—he no longer seemed a man, but a pathetic boy—drew in a deep breath and coughed. Blood flew into the air and spattered the Master's hand.

“Why?” the boy asked. “Why?”

The Master pondered this.

“Why?” The boy's breathing grew heavy and he trembled.

“It is my nature.” The Master raised the Soulsword high into the air. Blood dripped onto the boy's forehead and rolled down his cheek. “It is what I am.”

There was acceptance on the boy's face. The Master put both hands on the hilt of the Soulsword, ready to thrust it into the boy's chest. Wind whispered around him.

Then he stopped.

A terrified crowd had formed around them to watch. By their eyes, they had never seen such impossible, ruthless skill. They were innocents, even if some of them wore steel. The boy at his feet was one such, the Master realized. It was in his clumsy movements and his pathetic cowardice. He thought the boy had never shed blood, either his own or that of a foe. He was a fool to carry a sword—they were all fools.

The crowd stared at him, and why not? His body was perfect in every muscle, unscathed by arrow or blade, newly born and fully formed. His skin was dark, his hair long, and his eyes crimson. He held in his hands the finest sword ever crafted by mortal hands, rivaled only by the Bloodsword—the only sword that truly mattered.
Himself.

And yet, not all eyes fell upon him. One of the women stared instead at the boy on the ground with fear and longing. Misery surrounded the old woman and no matter how the Master willed her to face him, she would not meet his eye.

What was this hesitation? This cowardice?

His thirst for death was gone.

The Master turned his gaze to the sword, which quavered in his hand. He could not hold it still. “Why can I not beat you?” he asked. “I am stronger.”

Finally, he lowered the sword and stepped away. The old woman ran forward and draped her arms around the boy's neck, sobbing. Others in the crowd cried out, the silence that had held them now broken.

Disgusted, confused, the Master returned to the forest.

 

The walk back to the shrine took the remainder of the night.

They followed him, of course. They brandished blades and shouted threats, but none dared cross steel with him. He lost them in the woods, amongst the paths and hiding places he had found that morn. The darkness grew deeper as midnight descended. He jumped at every rustling twig or leaf, raised his sword at every looming shadow.

He could not name the feeling that coiled around his heart and muddied his mind.

When rain began to fall, it obscured his tracks and blurred his vision. He shivered in the cold, but the rain was a blessing. The men following him trailed off and turned back.

When finally he broke into the clearing that housed the shrine, light glowed in the window beneath the cherry trees. Water streamed from the roof and dripped from the blossoms. He stopped, although he had no sense of danger. He had slain the monk who tended the shrine. Who could be waiting for him?

The Rival. It could be no other.

The far horizon had begun to lighten. He had little time left—just enough to kill one man.

The doors stood open, and he padded through. Across the chamber, a single candle burned on the altar, casting dancing shadows. He stepped into its muddy radiance, keenly aware of the moisture pooled on his forehead and hands. He grasped the hilt of the Soulsword. Again, he entered the focus of the true swordsman : his mind fell away, and he raised his blade.

No Rival lurked in the corners of the shrine, nor near the altar. His breathing quickened as he stalked, cat-like, around the chamber, searching the shadows. He found only the monk, who reeked of death, and the candle. An empty sword rack stood upon the altar of cut stone.

Nothing else.

“Do you hide in the shadows, afraid to face me?” he called.

He searched again, but there was nothing in the corners, nothing in the rafters. He slashed his sword through the shadows, as if striking at invisible foes. The blade whined as it cut the air.

“Face me, coward,” he said. “Face me!”

Finally, after his third search, he raised the sword over his head and hurled it through the air. The blade smashed off the wall and clattered to the floor, and the Master fell to his knees. Hot liquid streamed down his face, and he realized he was weeping.

He did not know what came to pass in that place, or why his body felt as it did.

He became aware of a presence then: a man who sat a few paces away, legs crossed, facing the altar. He wore a flawless white robe, which seemed luminous in the soft candlelight. How he had materialized, the Master did not know.