Lawrence Watt-Evans: The Misenchanted Sword

“No,” Valder said. “Have you?”

“No, and I’m hungry. My stomach has been growling for hours. I missed my dinner, you know.”

“I know. I’m hungry, too, and thirsty.”

“Oh. Spell broke, did it? Can’t say I’m really sorry, after all the trouble you’ve brought me. There’s a clean stream back in the woods, over that way,” he said, pointing vaguely northeast. “If you can find something that will hold water, go fetch some. You can drink your fill while you’re there, I don’t care. I’m going to see about catching some breakfast, since I can’t find anything left of my pantry. You might bring back some firewood, too, so I can cook whatever I find; everything here is either soaked or already burnt.

Valder nodded. The old man’s tone was not very friendly, but at least he was willing to talk. “I’ll do my best,” he answered.

“Do that,” the hermit replied. “Oh, and give me your sword; I want to look it over.”

“You still intend to enchant it somehow?”

“Oh, yes; how else can I get rid of you quickly? I’ve found a few things here; I’ll manage. Now, give me that thing and see if you can find something that doesn’t leak.”

Valder shrugged; he made his way across the blasted remains of the hut to where the wizard prowled and handed over his sword and sheath. After all, he told himself, he wouldn’t need it while fetching water, and he would need both hands. The northerners were gone, and he could handle most other dangers either by running or with his dagger.

The old man accepted the weapon and looked it over casually, noting the ugly but serviceable workmanship—bow grip, straight blade, without any frills or ornamentation. He nodded. “It should do very well. Go get some water.”

Valder said nothing, but began looking for a container.

A quick circuit of the crater turned up nothing suitable for the job, but a second glance at one of the outer slopes turned up the top half of a very large glass jar, the lid still screwed tightly in place; Valder hoped that would serve. Careful of the jagged edge, he cradled it in one arm and headed off in the direction the old man had indicated.

Unlike the old man, however, he had not spent years living in the marsh and learning its every twist and turn; he found himself slogging across muddy ditches, climbing over crumbling sandpiles, wading through branches of the sea, and pushing through reeds and rough grasses. His unshod feet acquired a variety of cuts, scrapes, and bites; his socks were soaked through and rapidly falling to tatters.

Eventually he gave up following the direct route through the marsh, and instead turned his path toward the nearest dry land. Once firmly ashore on solid ground, under the familiar pines, he turned north and made his way along the edge of the marsh until he came to a stream he assumed to be the one the old man had pointed out.

The water was clear, but salty and brackish; he turned and walked upstream, cursing the wizard.

Roughly a hundred yards from where he had first tasted the water the stream poured down across a rocky outcropping, spilling exuberantly from one pool into another along a narrow stony path down the face of a rise in the ground. The water in the upper pool was fresh and sweet and cold; Valder lay on his belly and drank eagerly.

When he lifted his face, he was momentarily shocked to see blood swirling downstream; then he remembered the Deception and laughed.

He rinsed out his broken jar, then filled it, and was relieved to see that it could still hold a decent quantity of water. He left the jar on the bank of the stream while he looked for firewood.

Fresh pine, he knew, smoked and spat. Any wood was less than ideal when green, but pine was especially unsatisfactory. He looked about in hopes of finding something better.

The best he could do was a fallen limb, perhaps once the top of a tree but now a crooked, dried-out chunk of wood as long as he was tall and as thick as his forearm. Broken up, with kindling beneath, he judged it would serve well enough.

He gathered a pouchful of twigs and dry needles to start the fire with, then tucked the full jar in the bend of one arm, hefted the limb in his other hand, and headed back toward the marsh.

The journey back was even more difficult than the trip out. Although he knew better where he was going and what terrain he faced, he had the added problems of keeping the water in the inverted half-of-a-jar, and keeping the wood, already wet from the night’s rain, from becoming even wetter. This last proved virtually impossible in crossing the marsh, but he managed to reach the crater with only one end of the branch newly soaked, and with several inches of water still in his makeshift container.

The old man did not immediately acknowledge his return; he was bent over the sword, inscribing blue-glowing runes in the air an inch above the blade with the tip of his finger. His false wounds appeared to be healing, Valder noticed, and some color had returned to his face. Valder dropped the tree-limb on a convenient mound of earth, placed the water container nearby, and glanced around.

Some semblance of organization had been created, turning the crater from simple desolation to a camp among the ruins. A small pile of crabs lay to one side of the wizard; that, Valder guessed, would be breakfast, though he could not imagine how anyone could have found so many crabs so quickly in such northern waters as these. Arranged about the wizard were various elements of his arcane paraphernalia—a fragmentary skull, small glittering stones, shards of this and that, five broken candle-stubs. Valder marveled that any candles could have survived the preceding night’s inferno.

After a long moment, as he was beginning to wonder whether there was anything he should be doing, the wizard looked up at Valder and said, “Cook the crabs, why don’t you? Boil them, if you think that thing will hold water well enough.”

Valder looked at the crabs, then looked at the broken jar, and then looked back at the wizard. “I thought you were thirsty,” he said.

“No, I’m hungry; you were thirsty. Cook the crabs.”

Annoyed, Valder scooped four of the crabs into the broken jar and set about building a fire. He had no trouble in breaking the wood into suitable lengths and arranging it over the tinder, but found that the twigs and needles were still damp from the rain, though he had chosen the driest he could find, and would not light readily. He knelt, smothering curses lest he accidentally say something that might let demons interfere with the wizard’s spell-making, and struck spark after spark without success.

After several minutes he sat back on his haunches and found the old man standing beside him. Without a word, the wizard extended a forefinger that flamed at the tip like a candle, his nail serving as the wick, as he had the night before when lighting the lamp. He thrust it into the little heap of tinder, which flared up immediately.

That done, he snuffed his finger by curling it into his palm, then used his other hand to flick a yellowish powder on the young flames. He said one unfamiliar word. With a sudden roar, the fire leapt up and engulfed wood and jar alike; a second later the wood was burning steadily and naturally, the water beginning to steam slightly.

“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.