Chapter Twenty-OneFor three days Garth had tried to burn out the sword’s power with storms and earthquakes, but had succeeded only in exhausting himself and disrupting the reconstruction of Skelleth. Finally, when the gem still glowed as brightly as ever at the end of the third day, he admitted defeat.
At least, he admitted temporary defeat; he had not yet abandoned hope, but only convinced himself that he could not exhaust the sword in such displays. He suspected that he might manage to free himself by allowing the sword a surfeit of killing, but that was not a method he cared to employ; it was to avoid unnecessary killing that he wanted to dispose of the thing.
He spent the following day sitting in the King’s Inn, drinking and talking with Scram. The reconstruction was continuing, but
