Seven Swords

Chapter 4

Pretty, she thought bitterly of this new dispersement by the snake ornament. Fear became anger at the fate that gave her no more than a bauble as armor against a dangerous world. Then - strength flowed into her arm and solidified, like blood made metal, like flesh made iron.

Her hands tightened on the hilt as she had always imagined them doing, her arms and shoulders went rigid, she lifted... lifted... lifted.

The sword raised before her - a glorious shining length of edged steel, a thing that conferred a sweep of command several feet around herself.

Amazed, Javelle swung the sword like a gentle scythe from side to side. It was only incidental that the gesture truncated the hairy creature crawling from the shattered floor. Steel cleaved hair and skin and bones. . . and then a briny disintegrating smoke. Beneath the passage of the sword's pendulum of moving shadow, the floor healed itself of the illusion of fracture. Everything was gone except her father, herself, the sword.

She stared again into her father's eyes, for the first time in her life not sure what she would see there.

Kendric recognized her new skepticism and said silent farewell to something he had hoped never to lose but knew he must someday. Then he smiled.

His hand waved modestly at the floor. 'A mere illusion. Not my kind of magic, if any is, but I would not send blood and bone against you, daughter, to teach you respect for your own blood and bone. Someday you may have to rend something in your own or another's defense. You must know your own capacity."

Shaking, she let the sword lower to the floor. 'It is enough?'

He nodded. 'For now.'

'But it wasn't me. Somehow this birth-trinket-'

"Ah, that." Kendric's amber-brown eyes lighted to gold as he stepped near to appraise it. His thumb touched the frozen serpent head, but it didn't move. "A puzzling thing, borne with you by your mother only without herself, not within. It was born with you, too leaving the Overstone egg that shielded it at the moment you left the shelter of your mother's body. But you know the story.

'In your eagerness for magic, don't claim such for it, Javelle. His hand massaged her shoulder, where the sword-pang had settled. It was reputed to bear great power, but had somehow endured beyond the exercise of it. It is your external birthmark. It has always played hopstone over your person at some internal whim.

This day your own efforts raised the invisible magic of your will. That is the lesson I wanted you to learn. You, not a sword or a perambulating metal serpent; you, Javelle, are your own best shield and your own best magic. Your will.'

'Take it away,' she said quietly in answer.

He did, lifting the sword from her numb hands and laying it again on the table.

Everything in Javelle ached, the least of which was not her heart. Her wrist throbbed as if the serpent - for the first time in the seventeen years that they had been entwined had twisted around her far too hard, as had her father's expectation.

He was right, though, she thought, there are lessons I must learn.

Something told her that Kendric might not know the name of every one. It shocked her, this notion that he might unknowingly be wanting, despite the best inten tions. If she could not remain as she had been, then neither could he.

She looked up at him, her awe and love intertwined and rebraiding into something else. He was large and the sword was heavy. But she was something else, and only the world would tell her what.

He was smiling at her, looking a little chagrined - what if she told Mother what ugly creatures he had pulled out of stones to frighten his only daughter with? She wouldn't tell, of course. She was no Thane to go spreading news into every idle ear, especially when it might not reflect well on the bearer.

'Believe in yourself, Javelle,' her father urged, em phasizing every word with a desperate clarity foreign to him. 'Not magic,' he coaxed as he was wont when she was younger and set on a thing bad for her. "That is the best birth inheritance I can give you - not magic, though I'd give you mine if I could. Never magic, for it is never enough.'

Scyvilla the Rengarthian was waiting dinner in the hex agonal meal chamber when Kendric and Javelle joined the others.

Odd, Kendric thought, how he continued to regard Scyvilla as 'the Rengarthian' when Kendric himself lived in Rengarth now, and ruled it. Still, neither he nor Irissa had come to think of Rengarth as home over eighteen relatively peaceful years.

And the children . . . Kendric eyed his son, a lad of normal height for his fifteen years, with none of the elongation of bone his father had shown at that age. Kendric succumbed to parental prerogative and admitted to himself that he knew next to nothing about how either of his children felt.

'I hope you weren't too hard on Javelle,' Thane impishly greeted his father. 'She means well.'

'Speak for yourself, Javelle retorted, 'and let me rep resent mine."

Their squabbling caused a ripple across Irissa's seamless brow, but she refused to add parental reproval to the always inflammable relationship between the two. It was hard to imagine a faceless dark hole like the interior of Scyvilla's hood conveying relief, but somehow it did as the squat figure skimmed over to Javelle.

'Safe?' he intoned anxiously.

'And sorry,' Thane put in.

This time Irissa murmured 'Thane' in rebuke.

"And the sword?' Scyvilla prodded.

Kendric nodded slowly. 'Returned safely, as well.'

'It would be catastrophic if the sword fell into the wrong hands.' The crystal caster nervously tugged the cincture that celebrated rather than delineated his swelling middle.

How? Thane asked quickly.

'Never mind,' Irissa said. 'You two think too much about the sword already - and see to what mischance it has led you! Scyvilla has prepared a welcome-home feast with all your favorite dishes."

'Rulian red-pepper bread?' Thane demanded, proceed ing to list his awesome array of favorites. 'And sweet saffron savory, and minced ebonberry tart and suckling swanfish?"

'Ah-' Scyvilla began in denial.

'Who'd want suckling swanfish besides you?' Javelle pooh-poohed. 'I'm sure it's tawny longcakes and ginger scones with rainbow melon."

Scyvilla's hood twitched from one young person to the other. 'Not all your favorites, I fear. But... melon, surely, to begin.'

Thane's face fell. Chilled fruit, no matter how extrava gantly colored, struck him as cold comfort and no way to begin a proper meal.

Kendric, who privately agreed, drew up the mother-of pearl inlaid chair that was his not because it was richly made but because it was the strongest chair to be found in the palace at Solanandor Tierze.

'As for the rest-Scyvilla began with trepidation.

'Surprise us,' Kendric instructed. 'I'm sure our delin quent lambs will appreciate anything you've made.'

Two dark heads nodded in tandem - one curly, one smooth as an Iridesium helmet.

Irissa sighed softly as her family settled down to dinner. Though the years never touched her outer semblance, her inner self craved peace to the exact degree her growing children sowed dissension between each other.

Kendric constantly assured her that such raillery was normal, but they both had been solitary born, lacking one parent, and were unused to the vigorous banter of brother and sister.

Kendric's eyes met hers across the shank of table be tween them. Irritation shattered like an invisible glass as the day's worry dissipated. They smiled tolerantly gauze of at each other as Thane began kicking Javelle under the table, simultaneously denying her accusations to that effect.

He's so... backward... for fifteen," Javelle com plained in a tone of adult exasperation. 'I fear he'll never grow up."

Why, Thane returned, 'if you're any advertisement for it?'

"Quiet down and at least eat in peace." Kendric sounded optimistic.

You've done quite enough for the day.' Irissa, firm. Scyvilla settled matters by bobbling through the prep aration chamber door, a parade of casting crystals poised in midair behind him.

'Ah, Javelle murmured, impressed by the rainbow high lights that quivered in the globes' glassy curvatures. What was within each globe impressed her mother even more - a toothsome dish wafted invisibly toward each of them.

The rainbow melon lay within its many-colored rind, its juicy meat ranging from pink to lavender to orange and emerald and blue in inch-thick strips. Each glassy bubble descended in front of a diner, then the casting crystal burst. The brittle 'pop' made them draw back in startled unison before this novel serving system, their eyes squinched shut.

A ludborg's laughter was a bizarre sound - half wheeze and three-quarters giggle - and Scyvilla indulged in it.

The expected shower of shattered glass was not forth coming. Only dust motes bright as sugar crystals sparkled in the air - a token of the globes' spectacular passing.

Scyvilla clapped his oliphant-eared sleeves together, keeping his hands concealed despite his delight. 'Eat hearty," he suggested.

Kendric's curved dining knife was already peeling particolored strips of melon from rind.

'Do mine, too, please!' Javelle prettily passed her plate over.

His mealtime carving tricks had entertained the children since infancy - in a minute Javelle's plate was heaped with rainbow curlicues of melon.

Thane struggled to duplicate the feat on his own melon - to no avail - while Irissa watched with secret amusement. Thane's knife slipped one time too many for his impatience. He laid it down and regarded his plate with an intensity that made Irissa's mouth open in protest.

Before she could speak, Thane's melon sliced itself into a heap of curls, which then erected themselves into the likeness of a color-dappled miniature steed.

'I suppose you're so hungry you could eat a bearing beast,' Javelle taunted sourly. Thane just shrugged and began consuming his melon curl steed.

Kendric rapped his knife handle on the table, unaware of the gesture, as no one else was. He could hardly accuse Thane of childishly playing with his food when he had been entertaining Javelle with as simple a trick.

Still, to be outsorcelled by one's own offspring at one's own dinnertable... Kendric mused gloomily. The boy relied too much on his magic when there were carving skills to learn. Why hadn't he run off with the sword?

'Ahem,' Scyvilla grated amiably.

Kendric looked up to find another quartet of globes sailing past his shoulder. These were empty. When he opened his mouth to comment, one crystal settled between his fork and knife hands, directly over the empty plate.

With an upward waft, the plate was spirited away. Kendric twisted his head to follow it, only to find another hovering crystal at his shoulder.

Javelle giggled.