A Blade for Diomedes


"Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate, Traveled deep shadow to find sword to take On such a mission, he left Amber shore Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore"

Diomedes stood in front of the oddly shaped Dragon in front of him, blocking the bridge and the way ahead with its bulk. "You are a changed one, Dragon. A snail's shell on your back, no wings" A clear sign that your overlord has been playing with sorcery a little too much, to warp the mana and change you so. Why do you put up with it" If you left here, you might regain your usual form. Don't you want to soar the skies""

"Perhaps I might flee." the dragon rumbled, low, tilting its mailed head. For all of the curled shell on its back, the size of a bungalow, it still had a scaled and horned dragon's head and body, on the upper side anyway. The bottom half was snail like, brown and smooth.

"Perhaps I might try to escape. By the end of the week, with a good tailwind, I could be halfway to the forest. Perhaps my Master will fail to notice me in the tall grasses betwixt here and there."

Diomedes shrugged and rolled his shoulders, glancing briefly beyond the Dragon to the hill and the edifice where his foe, and presumably his prize, awaited him. It was best never to interrupt a Dragon, not even one such as this. He stood his ground and watched the mighty creature warily as it continued to speak.

"No, I will serve my master and deal with intruders upon his tower." The Snail Dragon gave off a deafening roar, and, before Brand's son could react, breathed a gout of fire directly at Diomedes.

Several Weeks Earlier...

"I need a sword." Diomedes said, looking out the window to the flagstones below. "A good sword." The two men clashing swords down there danced across the courtyard in a display that Diomedes could not help watch. Even as he could see things he would do differently, as the two men performed their dance of steel, his eyes also were drawn to techniques and reactions that he could learn from.

"A sword that won't break. Something that can stand up to my strength. Something that I can use with my sorcery." Diomedes recited the ideas in his head. After spending a couple of weeks in this shadow, performing and watching duels for practice, the concept of finding a personal, signature weapon like Aunt Deirdre's axe had become an all consuming thought. The thought banished all others out of his head like unwelcome bed partners evicted from sleeping quarters.

Diomedes left that very day, checking out of the inn, and after a wave to two more acquaintances preparing to set upon each other with swords, headed out onto the road. The dark blue pine trees started to give way as Diomedes focused his will upon what he wanted. Details of the sword were unclear, he wanted there to be surprises involved. Something far beyond the damascene make sword he currently wielded. He wanted something that might even, given the chance, grow with him. A blade whose legend could be and would be bound with his, like Corwin's very special blade. A blade for Diomedes.

Shadows melted, changed and shifted as Diomedes walked. He walked because there was a better chance of finding the blade than if he remained on the coast. The prospect of returning to Amber, victorious, on ship, though, was one that appealed to him. But for the moment, he would walk.

The crisp Spring of the dueling shadow warmed to a Summer of fully green leaves and a warm sun, and glided to an autumn of colored leaves and a sharp intake of chill in the air as Diomedes walked and travelled. Inns and other establishments waited for him everywhere on the road, many of them of decent quality and willing to take the money that Diomedes always seemed to find in his pocket for room and board.

Finally, after two weeks of traveling and shifting shadow, Diomedes found that he could not successfully shift shadow any further to reach his goal of a sword. What he sought, was within this world. And while Diomedes had heard of tricks in shifting that might bring him physically closer within the same shadow, he decided to make the best of what he had.

The sword was not likely going to be for sale in a local blacksmith shop, and a lay of the land was in order. Diomedes soon found himself walking into a small town. Everyone spoke a language that seemed like a cross between Greek and Thari, a pidgin that Diomedes himself created back in Epirus by virtue of the identity of his mother and his father.

"Welcome to Farnham, traveller." the innkeeper said as Diomedes entered the wooden building. Locals were sprinkled about the few tables, cups of beer, or wine, or in at least one case, a broth of some sort close by, the person with the last dunking a hunk of bread into it.

"Thank you. This place reminds me of home." Slipping into a mixture of Thari and Greek was easy. As his cousins had learned, Diomedes often sprinkled Greek words into his speech anyhow. "I'm from the coast." Diomedes added.

The Innkeeper nodded. "Here, one of those southern wines the coastal folk favor." He poured a dark liquid into a wooden cup and offered it to Diomedes. Diomedes took the cup and took a sip and nodded. It wasn't quite as sweet as Greek wine, but it would do well enough.

"So what are things like around..." Diomedes began but then stopped. The hairs on his arms raised. He knew something sorcerous was imminent, something unsubtle. He turned and got off the barstool, and looked in the direction of the door.

What came through the door literally did that, it passed through the door as if the door was not there. As Diomedes watched, the spectre or illusion continued to stride into the common room of the inn, and looked about before stopping and speaking. Diomedes studied the spectre carefully, which resembled a bearded man in his 50's, dressed in dark green robes with a high collar.

"The Lord Sorcerer Wavyhill demands his semiannual tribute from the town of Farnham. Deliver the tithe to the gate of his tower in three days time, at sunset, or the usual penalties will apply." The spectre then stopped, turned and looked straight at Diomedes.

"You. You are a stranger." it said, focusing its gaze squarely on Brand's son. "You are a Mage!" the spectre seemed to hiss its displeasure. "You will vacate the town by sunset, or you will be subject to summary capture and execution by the Lord Sorcerer..."

Diomedes felt his anger rise. Syllables of magic, lynchpins to a spell already hung, already began to run under his breath as the entity confronted him. Capture and Execution""

"...do you understand""

"As a matter of fact." Diomedes said. "I do." and finished the spell.

A spectral ice ball fired from his hand, enlarging from the size of a pea to the size of watermelon by the time it struck the entity. Exploding in a phantasm of white, but with enough chill to drop the temperature in the bar, the spectral messenger froze, crumpled to the ground and briefly turned an glacial blue before disappearing.

The bar exploded in pandemonium.

Diomedes pushed himself outside in the tumult, the night air nowhere near as cold as the chill he had caused in the Inn. He counted to thirty before one of the townsfolk came out, a middle aged man wearing a flannel shirt.

"You're a sorcerer." he said. It sounded like half an accusation to Diomedes, and half said in fear and respect.

Diomedes cocked his head. "My father is a true sorcerer. My Aunt is perhaps the best sorceress one could ever hope to meet, if you were foolish enough to want to do so. Me, I do all right, but I am better with a blade."

It's true, Diomedes thought. Fiona might not have let herself get pushed into the display. Rosalind, if she were a sorceress, certainly would have been more clever about dealing with the spectre. Dad...depended on Dad's mood, he thought. He turned to listen to the reply of the flannel clad man.

"Be that as it may, there are few people who dare challenge Mage Lords. Is that why you here, you get in trouble with them down South" I heard you telling Gylen that you're from the Coast. I'm Barthas, the local blacksmith hereabouts."

Diomedes was tempted to give a false name, of one of his Uncles, and see what happened if his foe learned of it and tried to conjure with it, but resisted the urge.

"Call me Aeneas." he said, remembering his Iliad.

"Aeneas" Barthas said uncertainly but he nodded. "Aeneas, I don't want to be telling you what to do, now, but we don't want any trouble with the Lord Sorcerer. Doubtless even in the south, you've heard stories of what happens when they don't get what they want."

Diomedes nodded. "Well, Wavyhill has declared himself MY enemy. My family takes it rather badly when people start dictating to us, especially threats of violence."

"Where can I find this Lord Sorcerer Wavyhill"" Diomedes asked.

Two days later, Diomedes found himself walking up the hill outside town. There had been no further spectres, visitations or major sorceries from his opponent. Diomedes himself changed the load of racked spells, since a wizard's duel seemed likely. A passive scan, detected because Diomedes had been watching for one, was the one sign that the Lord Sorcerer was checking up on the intruder that had strode into his domain.

Diomedes, however, had not been idle. Although the population of Farnham were somewhat reluctant to open up to "Aeneas", Diomedes was still able to piece together things about this shadow, as well as prepare some spells. From what he could determine, Sorcerers acted as the nobility here, carving out states and spheres of control from the non magical populace. Worse, they seemed to feud and clash with each other, rather than cooperate. Diomedes privately wondered how new initiates of the arcane arts got started. Was the magic here less book-learned and more of an intuitive nature"

Wavyhill, the local Lord Sorcerer, had a tower on a hill outside of the town, and it was reputedly guarded by strange creatures, according to those who brought the tribute to the Sorcerer. Tales were told that people and animals who lived near to where magic was worked over and over were changed by the experience. Sorcerers were no exception to this. "Sorcerers are competitors for mana." Diomedes said aloud to himself. "No wonder he wants me out of the way."

"Gylen." he said to the Innkeeper. Perhaps subconscious needs had allowed him to forge bonds here, in this town, where he would have expected them to evict, shun or remove him for fear of retribution.

"I'm going tomorrow morning to Wavyhill's Tower. Your tithe to him is due by the end of the day, I suggest you prepare to pay it, in case I am not successful in my task."

"Task, Aeneas"" The Innkeeper looked at him curiously.

"That Sorcerer owns something that belongs to me." Diomedes said. It wasn't quite an untruth. "And I intend to collect it, one way or another. And teach him the cost of threatening me."

The next morning, Diomedes strode out of Farnham, walking along the path that wound between two small pine covered hills. As he cleared the hills, he saw a taller hill, with a black, spiky tower atop it. A stone gate-bridge controlled the only access across the wide river that lay between Diomedes and that hill. And upon that bridge was a strange, large shape that refused to resolve recognizably to his eyes until he got closer. And he had to blink in surprise. The tales of warped creatures was certainly true.

"Wavyhill's certain to know I am coming. And Aunt Fiona always said that intelligent dragons prefer conversation to anything else." Diomedes mused aloud. Diomedes continued walking toward the strange guardian, but he prepared and cast a spell on himself, first. And then prepped a second as he strode down to meet the creature.

The Snail Dragon let out his gout of flame directly at Diomedes, but Diomedes stood stock still as the flames washed over him. Perhaps a few stray fibers of clothing and hair were singed, but nothing else was hurt by the dragon's fire.

The guardian stared at Diomedes in disbelief. Brand's son smiled. "My turn." He spoke the last magical syllables needed, and swept a hand toward the Snail Dragon. What came away from his hand, what was opened into this plane, was from a realm full of high pressure water laded with a high concentration of sodium chloride.

Salt.

The Snail Dragon roared in pain as the caustic jet sprayed across the bottom of his form. Wounds formed across its body and it lashed out with its head, trying to hit the creature injuring it so. Large and massive as the creature was, it was not the fastest dragon Diomedes had ever met. With the spell still active, spraying salt water, Diomedes danced in and out of range of the dragon, stepping backward as it began to move forward slowly in an effort to catch its opponent.

Its cries became less and less as the salt did its damage. Diomedes watched as the creature finally slumped over. He kept up the salt water for a few moments more before speaking the end words for the spell.

Diomedes watched impassively for a few moments as the salt water drained into the river, and the steaming mass of the Dragon smoldered from his sorcery.

Gingerly and carefully, Diomedes edged toward the Dragon, but the warped creature seemed to be dead. There also seemed to be no immediate response from Wavyhill in this Tower, either. It took some effort, and he nearly slipped twice, but Diomedes finally managed to get past the remains of the Dragon by climbing onto it, and climbing up and along its shell, nearly sliding down onto the ground at the end.

With one final, backward glance at the Snail Dragon, Diomedes walked forward toward the Tower. As he approached the menacing, black, spiky structure. Ready with a number of possible defensive spells, Diomedes edged closer and closer, waiting for an attack that resolutely refused to materialize. When Diomedes reached the base of the Tower and looked up, he was positively puzzled at the lack of response from Wavyhill. Surely his destruction of the sorcerer's eidolon was not that unprecedented"

Diomedes cautiously walked around the base of the Tower, still waiting for an attack or bolt from the blue, and getting none. However, he made two circuits of the base, and did not find a door or portal into the tower. There seemed to be no windows, and there was a false, painted door at one point in the circumference of the structure.

"When is a door not a door"" Diomedes mused aloud, as he returned to the painted door on the Tower. He looked up toward the top of the Tower.

"Mighty and strong your Tower walls do reach But they will conjoin Trojan Walls' own breach."

Diomedes looked up again, and getting no reaction from Wavyhill, placed a hand on the painted door.

He spoke again in rhyme, but this time he laced it with the use of another spell.

"You may be the false, but I find you true. Reveal your secrets clear as ocean blue."

He then unleashed the spell. Gratifyingly, the sight spell shimmered the illusion of the false door, and as Diomedes guessed, the false painted door did reveal a true one behind it, a wooden door flush against the stone of the tower.

Diomedes was a little surprised that the door gave in to a kick from his foot, but it made a certain amount of sense as he stepped across the threshold. Any foe who could dispel the illusion could likely open the door. He could have wizard locked it, though, Diomedes thought as he looked around the first floor circular chamber that the door revealed.

Relatively empty of recent activity, as witnessed by the layer of dust on the floor and furnishings, there was still no sign of a response from Wavyhill.

Diomedes drew his sword and tapped the railing of a spiral staircase that lead up into the heights of the tower. It wasn't iron of course, it was made of some other metal. After a moment's thought, Diomedes stepped back from the staircase. Instead of mounting it, he spoke a few magical syllables, ending with the word "Izyuk", and soon was levitating upward along its length, slowly ascending through the Tower.

The son of Brand turned slowly as he ascended, looking for doors, openings, landings and other clues. The Tower itself seemed relatively featureless, the staircase his flight followed just seemed to ascend infinitely upward.

Infinitely...

Diomedes stopped his upward ascent with a command word.

"Clever. Now I am a little more impressed." Diomedes said aloud, to no one at all.

He spoke a few linchpins to another dispel sorcery he had armed in his rack. The words came out in Ancient Greek, and the shimmering morph of the Infinite Staircase around him gratified Diomedes immensely. The roof appeared, hanging right above him. And in front of him, was a landing and an opening into a room beyond.

Cautiously, Diomedes floated forward, not willing to make contact with the landing itself as he left the staircase's well.

Standing in the room before him was, in the flesh, the man whose eidolon he dissolved a few days ago. A black-bearded man in his fifties, wearing dark green robes. Without words of preamble, he simply stared at Diomedes and spoke a few magical syllables.

Diomedes was fast but not fast enough to dodge something he could not see. He felt the levitation spell disperse and give way and he dropped to the floor, landing on his two feet by dint of his skill derived by rigorous training. Wavyhill walked forward slowly.

"I have struck you with my version of a drain mana spell. All of the sorceries that you hold, as well as any you are using to stay young and alive are now banished. I believe that gives me the win."

Diomedes shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and pointed at Wavyhill with the sword. Step by step, he advanced toward Wavyhill, increasing his speed with each pace. Wavyhill seemed amazed and entranced by Diomedes' reaction and only with reluctance began another spell.

Before Wavyhill could finish the spell, Diomedes sword changed Wavyhill's magical syllables into an outburst of a scream as he swung the sword at the sorcerer's shoulder. It did not connect, some sort of magical ward prevented contact. But the sheer, unexpected aggression on Diomedes' part disrupted Wavyhill's concentration on his spellcraft.

Still, in desperation, Wavyhill lashed out with his foot, striking Diomedes in the upper thigh with a kick. Diomedes grunted but was not unduly hurt by the blow. With a brightness in his eyes of recognition, he let the sword drop from his fingers, and instead punched Wavyhill, squarely in the nose.

The blow, with a bare hand, penetrated the defense, and knocked the sorcerer backward against the far wall of the room. This gave Wavyhill a few extra moments, long enough to cast a very quick spell, a tiny bolt of electrical energy launched toward Diomedes.

A sizzle of slightly burned hair filled the air and Diomedes was stunned, for a moment. Wavyhill began speaking another, more complex spell, but was unable to dodge as Diomedes lunged forward and grasped Wavyhill by the throat with both hands, and squeezed.

Diomedes did not know his own strength, and the gurgle in Wavyhill's throat turned into a death rattle before Diomedes knew it. He let go of the enemy sorcerer, blinked, and stepped back.

"I killed you." Diomedes murmured, surprised, looking at the corpse of Wavyhill. He looked somber, and then waited a moment and then spoke again.

"Tyranny over Farnham now at an end Sorcerer's commands no longer to send I do not regret your death, it is fair Across Lethe's shore now you will dare."

It was only then that Diomedes noticed that, with the lingering remnants of his spells gone, the seemingly middle aged man had turned ancient, frail and easy to lift. Deciding not to wait, he carried him down and down the staircase, until he was once again outside. Bringing the body close to by where the body of the snail dragon was still decomposing, he laid the corpse of the enemy sorcerer on the ground.

Diomedes spent a half hour in quiet spellwork, finally releasing the spell almost as the completion of a prayer. The volatile, flaming liquid poured forth from his finger and covered the area around, as well as the corpse of Wavyhill itself. Smoke rose into the air as Diomedes watched the corpse, and a sward of the grass around him, burn and burn to ashes.

Several hours later, Diomedes had catalogued most of the major items in Wavyhill's rooms and the tower in general. While some of the spellbooks looked intriguing, it was the glass case that attracted him. Beneath the glass and wood case was a sword, but a sword like none other that Diomedes had ever seen.

In appearance, it was a thin, long sword. With a silver filagreed hilt set with sapphires, the blade itself was made of a clear crystal that looks nothing so much as ice.

"Unicorn, you're beautiful, too. I didn't even care about that." Diomedes said aloud, and then set to undoing the wizard lock on the case. An hour later, he had it, and the case sprang open. Delicately, gently, probing for any more warding spells, Diomedes took the sword into his hand and felt its weight and did not find it wanting. He experimentally made a few motions with the sword and set it down. There was a slight but palpable aura of cold to the transparent blade sword. A sword of ice.

"This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship." Diomedes said, looking down at the sword with a smile. "Pagono."

A week later...

The image of Diomedes walked into the bar. It had taken some work to duplicate Wavyhill's spell, but reading his notes, and practicing, had given Brand's son a new spell for his oeuvre.

"People of Farnham." Diomedes' image spoke in a loud voice. "I have defeated Wavyhill, and now have taken suzerainty over the area. What Wavyhill held, I now hold." The image scanned the bar of the scared and nervous patrons and then smiled.

"But I say this unto you. In recognition of your hospitality when I came to your town, I shall not ask for any tithe for five years. Until then, you may go about your business, unmolested, as I shall go about mine own in the Tower. Do not seek audience or entry. Fare thee well." With those last words, the image disappeared.

Diomedes stood in what had been Wavyhill's laboratory. The townspeople would eventually be molested by another, nearby, sorcerer's machinations, but for a few years at least, they would find peace. Repayment enough and maybe more than some of his uncles or aunts would bother to do. It would do, and now it was time to explore shadow some more, and learn what his blade could and would do.

As Diomedes, now bearing his Sword, walked away from the Tower, heading north, he didn't notice the two figures standing on a hillock, watching his progress as headed away.

"I've spoken with his father, and his aunt about him." the first said to the second. "You've been given leave to proceed with our plan."

~End~