Beneath A Thousand Skies

There was no magic in his making.

One moment he was a lifeless lump of ore, then, between one stroke of the hammer and the next, he existed.

Life delivered in a thunderous smite.

Still, he was a long time in the making. A drifting awareness as his body grew around him, caught between the fire and the anvil, between existing and living. At times he became aware of the world beyond himself. When the heat gave way to cooler air, he lay there, spared the hammer for a time. In those quiet moments, he took stock, trying to comprehend what he was and how he came to be. There was no answer to the first. He was a sword. He knew that as intrinsically as he knew he existed now. Lived. But who was he? Why did he exist? He had no voice with which to ask.

The world beyond him was narrow, a small room of sweat and heat-worn rock. At its heart was a sun. No, not a sun. A forge. He learned the word in the lull between hammer blows, but to him it remained the sun. Too bright, too warm, but essential to all that he was. It marked his path to existence, as he was slowly formed in the long hours of its light. As his creator guided him into being between anvil and hammer, under the sun’s scorching embrace. He remembered the way the bellows stoked the flames into a roaring fury that licked at his sides, invigorating as they danced over the rough surfaces of his skin, a counter to the bruising force of the hammer beating against his growing form. Skin folding over upon itself time and time again, as the small flecks of impurities were driven from his core.

Then came the long hours of coolness.

Those long hours brought with them his first experience of kindness. Calloused fingers ran across his surface, tracing rough edges and imperfections without hesitation or judgement. Tender. He memorised the sensation. Drank in the experience written in those life-marked fingers, attempting to make sense of something he could feel hidden in that lingering touch. Something he would need to remember. Then softness and warmth wrapped around him, muffling the world and dulling the sun.

He was alone.

No, not alone. Harsh voices, and the sound of metal against metal, then metal against something softer and a cry that cut deep. He remembered that last one, because it came with a scent in the air, and reached him even in his isolation. He couldn’t put a name to it, but it called to him and repulsed him in equal measure, a rising temptation trying to consume him.

The scent faded with time. and with it. the hunger for which he had no name. The world turned silent and still. It shook him, a fear that took root in his core. He didn’t want to be alone. He hadn’t been created to exist on his own. He needed a guiding hand. He needed that touch which had shown him such kindness, the voice that had reached him between the sound of the hammer and the flames.

And there he was.

The Bladesmith.

A title, more than a name, but it was all he had to identify the man that held him close, cradling him. It was what the other voices had called him, and yet in that moment it felt wrong. Distant. Perhaps it was the gentle touch, the feel of those familiar fingers running along his edges, grounding him after the long loneliness. Or maybe it was the regret in the wizened features, the apologetic eyes that studied  him closely, seeing his future within the rough form of his body.

“You are being made for the wrong purpose. I can’t change that, but when the time comes, you don’t have to follow that path.”

He drank the words in, letting them sink in deep and etch themselves on his soul.

The Bladesmith bore him away.

There was pain. He was soft yet, not fully formed, and the world spun around him as parts of his form were sheared away. If he’d had a voice then he would have screamed. It was there in the darkest moments, as he was broken down and reshaped into something new – something true – that he began to understand the apology he’d seen in the Bladesmith’s eyes. His maker knew this was coming. His existence was not yet complete, and it would hurt.

In those long hours, he learned of anger and agony. He hated the latter, wanting nothing more than for it to end, even as some distant, half-formed part of himself realised it was necessary. He would break before he could be complete.

Perhaps it was why he slipped. The Bladesmith cried out, his voice high with something that both excited and terrified him, and now he faltered. You are being made for the wrong purpose.  He had been warned, and now as something warm and wet decorated his newfound edge, he knew that he had found that wrongness.

That he had sought it.

“It’s all right.” The fingers were on him once more, gentle despite the pain he had inflicted. The touch grounded him, even as the words soothed him. No judgement. No disappointment. “I understand your anger, your blood lust.”

A sorrow ran as deep as his anger had moments before, a truth that couldn’t be denied. They were the same. Shared souls in different bodies. It helped, and he was still and silent as the dampness was wiped away, and he was laid out on something solid.

“There is more to the world.” The sword let the Bladesmith’s voice wrap around him, distracting him as something sharp was pressed against his surface. He was being marked. A story told in straight lines and swirling motifs being etched across his skin. The work was giving him form, but it was the words that were shaping him.

Hours passed, and soon he had forgotten the distant discomfort of the word, losing himself in the tales of the world the Bladesmith had seen. A world that existed beyond the walls of the small room he came to realise was a beginning and end for both of them. He lost himself in the telling, in the tales of a world of warriors, good and bad. In stories of knights and dragons, and bloody wars.

He learned from those tales. He learned of life and death, of honour and duty. He learned to fear what he was, but also to dream to be used for the right reason. The purpose of the sword and the shield, but also the deeper possibilities. How he could be used to attack, but also to defend and protect. The power of the slash and the stab, but also the effectiveness of the parry and the riposte. He yearned to become one of the swords of legend that the blacksmith spoke of with reverence as he worked.. There was a pause then, and the Bladesmith rested and ate, but even then, he talked. No longer of great heroics and terrible deeds, but of smaller, simpler things. Of a tiny shop in the marketplace that sang with fire and metal. Of laughter in the shared rooms beyond, the patter of little feet on stone floors and the warmth of a wife waiting for him to come home. Longing filled those tales, and grief, and the dampness that fell on him towards the end was cold, and silence crept in.

The Bladesmith returned to the etching. Now, he spoke of injustices. Of laughter cut short, of lives lost without reason. The sword absorbed it all, transforming the grief and righteous anger to strength. He was being tempered with these tales, as much as he was by the Bladesmith’s hands, and even when they slowly faded, leaving their lasting message on his skin, he listened and learned. He learned of loss and grief, but also hope and possibility.

“You will make a difference.” It was a command, but also a plea, and he hummed in response, practically vibrating with the force of it as he made it a promise to the Bladesmith.

I will make a difference.

He clung to that promise, to that purpose as the heat returned. Only this time, he was thrust into the heart of the forge, until it felt as though it really was the sun and he would be consumed by it. In those unending moments, he told himself the stories over and over, no longer able to hear the Bladesmith’s voice as the flames roared around him. And just as he thought that he would be lost, he was removed, and cast into the endless depths of the ocean. The quenching was shockingly cold, but even as it soothed him, it changed him. His form took hold. Hardening. He knew that he would never again break easily.

For some time, he alternated between the fire and water, but now neither were so intense. And the Bladesmith’s voice was there once more.

There were no stories this time. His voice had taken on a different cant. “Duty,” he murmured, and the word echoed as the sword slipped beneath the surface of the water. “Honour” came as he was thrust back into the flames. “Justice” followed in the pause as he was spun through the air, and those fingers that had been so gentle before turned demanding, running along his edge and across the story etched into him, feeding him blood.

“Mercy.” There was a finality to that last word that threatened to undo him, and yet still he listened and absorbed the word into himself, letting it fill his core.

The Bladesmith’s voice wavered in a way that it hadn’t before, as he spoke once more of that tiny shop and the family that waited for him, and something deep inside the sword trembled. However, the hands had returned to gentleness, making him into something more than just metal as he was crowned with oak. It was a simple affair after the complexity of his making, but he understood. It was his blade that would let him keep his promise. The edge that would allow him to carve out his own legend.

He was complete.

A sword without a name. Honed with flame and water and brute force, and yet formed by love and shaped by words. Strong. Alive. The Bladesmith held him aloft, and then he was spinning, an elegant dance where they moved in tandem. He flowed through the air in a glorious song of life and joy.

A song cut short, as he found himself resting against the Bladesmith’s chest, the fingers on his hilt trembling slightly. “All swords must be blooded once. A life must be given for a life,” the Bladesmith said, and the  sword hummed, vibrating as he tried to wrench himself free of the hands holding him in place. Duty. Honour. Justice. Mercy. There were none of those at this moment, and he willed his edge to dull, his form to hold still, but the hand on his hilt was steady now.

“Mercy. Please, give me mercy and let me join them.” The sorrow was palpable now, the man who held him a broken, fractured echo of the Bladesmith. Tears landed on his surface and he understood. He remembered the tales of that tiny shop, and pattering feet and a loving wife, and he understood. He felt the weight of the blood he hadn’t shed, and lives that he hadn’t taken.

They moved then, the Bladesmith striking true, and the sword no longer fighting it. He bit deep, just as he had been forged to do, and blood washed over him. His world turned crimson. Then they were falling, the Bladesmith pulling him free and smiling as they hit the ground, flesh and metal in tandem one last time. The fingers around his hilt falling away, coming to rest on the story etched into his blade. The lines and swirls filled with blood, giving them bright, terrible life. The fingers against him held his attention with their final gentle touch.

“B-blooded…mercy…Elior.” The voice cracked and broke, giving him one last gift. A name. The beginning of his own tale, with a purpose formed by word and deed. The Bladesmith’s voice faded, and his breathing disappeared in the stillness.

I am called Elior.

I am mercy.

Copyright © 2023 by Rowena Andrews