Chapter One: Ill Met by Torchlight

Rodrick—pragmatist, opportunist, and occasional outright thief—groaned and tried to sit up, but only managed to half-lean against the wall of a lightless cavern. His head had felt like this many times before, but usually only after a night of drinking and wenching. His memories of the prior hours were fuzzy, but they didn't involve taverns and winsome (or buxom, or both; he wasn't picky) maids.

Images bobbed in his mind like rotting apples in a pond. A body, crushed in a trap. A man with a weaselly narrow face and a pack full of potions. A creature that looked like a beautiful woman from one side, and a gnarled, hollowed-out tree from the other. A room full of shattered treasure chests, and a suit of ancient black armor, and a distressingly large hole in the back wall—

Then he remembered. Sneaking into a barrow rumored to be full of treasure, accompanied by a fool named Simeon who'd gotten himself killed in a trap before they were even well begun. Disabling traps and killing a monster, assisted by a treacherous alchemist named Alaeron. They'd had a small disagreement about how to proceed, and so the alchemist had drugged Rodrick, knocking him unconscious and leaving him here to die.

Or, more accurately, to wake up with a headache.

Rodrick patted his pockets and discovered that all of his knives were gone, even the ones in his boots. No surprise, really, since his boots were also gone. The alchemist had stolen his shoes. That was nicer than stabbing Rodrick in the neck, admittedly, but still quite rude.

Now he sat slumped on a sloping hill, in a dark cavern that stank of something rank and reptilian, which Alaeron had claimed was a linnorm—a great slumbering beast that wasn't exactly the same as a dragon, but close enough. This barrow of treasures plundered from the North had included a linnorm egg, which had, at some point, hatched and grown to full size. The beast had smashed through the tomb wall into a system of caves and constructed a lair there, complete with a hoard made from the gold and gems and magical geegaws Rodrick had come to steal.

The linnorm had been the source of Rodrick's disagreement with the alchemist. Rodrick had advocated sneaking into the linnorm's cave and stealing everything, while Alaeron had favored running away and living to loot another day. Rodrick had insisted on his course of action, using a sword to advance his argument, and Alaeron had replied with a potion.

Rodrick began to crawl up the slope, quietly, toward the hole in the wall. There should have been torches lit in there. Either they'd burned out, or Alaeron had doused them when he left.

Having groped his way back into the mostly-empty treasure room, Rodrick crawled without success along the floor, looking for the lantern. No luck—the alchemist had taken it—but he did find an unlit torch, and he still had his flint and steel, at least. He got the torch lit and breathed a shaky sigh of relief as light blossomed in the dark.

After lighting the other torches on the walls, he sat in a carved wooden throne and considered his options. He was tempted to pursue Alaeron and exact revenge, but there was a more pressing concern: acquisition.

The most important thing was the sword. The alchemist had used a potion of darkvision to look over the sleeping linnorm and its hoard, and had claimed to see a sword, so that was promising. Rodrick had spun a tale for the alchemist about discovering the existence of this barrow and deciding to pillage it with his friend Simeon, but that was only partly true. Rodrick had actually been hired by a wealthy collector to break into this place and retrieve the sword, rumored to be an artifact of great power. Anything else he could steal was his to keep, in addition to a hefty payment in coinage.

Returning to Manius without the sword wasn't really an option if Rodrick wanted to keep his head. He could flee, with the collector's up-front payment in his pockets—but no, damn it, Alaeron had stolen his coin purse too—and probably escape any unpleasant consequences by changing his name again and heading south.

Escape was tempting. He was no dragon-slayer, even if linnorms weren't exactly dragons. But the treasure... the treasure was even more tempting.

He sighed, rose, lifted a torch from its sconce, and slowly approached the hole in the wall. He stepped through carefully, the torch held out in front of him.

The light immediately returned to him, shining from a shimmering lake of golden coins and glimmering jewels. As always, the sight of large quantities of wealth took his breath away. Alas, he could also see the pale scaled belly of something immense coiled atop the hoard. He'd hesitated to bring light into this chamber before, for fear of waking the beast, but then he'd had an alchemist on hand, with potions that would let them see in the dark. Circumstances had changed, and necessity demanded a certain amount of risk.

He crept down the slope, to the more-or-less level bottom of the chamber, just a few feet from the outlying spill of gold and gems. In this case, being barefoot was actually a boon—his footing was more sure, and he could move through the coins far less noisily. Rodrick mostly watched his feet, carefully sliding coins aside to find secure footing underneath, but occasionally he glanced up and saw more and more of the linnorm revealed. The thing was large enough that he couldn't apprehend it as a whole—it seemed serpentine, wrapped around and around itself. At least its head wasn't visible. Alaeron had said the creatures could hibernate for centuries, so Rodrick hoped a little torchlight wouldn't serve to wake it up.

His circle of light continued to advance. At last, it touched the hilt and first foot or so of a longsword's blade. Unfortunately, the remainder of the sword was firmly wedged beneath the linnorm itself, both resting atop a bed of coins. Perhaps if Rodrick undermined the coins—

"Do you mind?" The voice was deep, faintly annoyed, and slightly muffled, as if the speaker were wrapped in a blanket.

Rodrick froze. "I... beg your pardon?" he whispered.

The voice didn't bother to whisper. "As well you should. Do I come creeping into your bedchamber at night and shine a light in your face? Well?"

"Uh, who is this speaking?"

"Me," the voice replied unhelpfully. "What are you doing in here? In case you haven't noticed, there's a linnorm sleeping a few feet from your face. You wouldn't enjoy waking it up. If it even rolls over in its sleep you'll be crushed by its coils. The thing must be sixty feet long."

"I'd love to discuss my motivations, but I'd like to know who I'm talking to—"

"I'm the sword, idiot," the sword said. "Call me Hrym, if you must call me something."

"Ah." Rodrick closed his eyes, but only briefly. "The sword. Of course. I'd heard rumors that you could speak, but I didn't entirely believe them."

"I'm a rare breed," Hrym said. His voice was muffled—presumably because he was jammed beneath several tons of sleeping monster. "Who're you?"

"Rodrick. An adventurer."

"Stay here too long and you're sure to have an adventure, though it's likely to be your last. Why don't you have any shoes on?"

"I had a disagreement with a, ah, fellow adventurer, and he stole them."

"Mmm. There's a pair of boots there, about a foot to your right."

Rodrick turned his head slightly and moved the torch. A pair of pale blue boots were indeed jumbled in with the gold and gems. "Are they magical?"

"No," Hrym said, the sarcasm unmistakable. "They're perfectly ordinary boots, sealed up in a warlord's barrow with all his other treasures."

"Ah. Do you know how they're magical?"

"They let you walk on water, if I recall," Hrym said.

Rodrick sighed. "Hardly helpful in my current circumstances."

"They are also quite functional as ordinary boots."

"A fair point." Rodrick slid over the gold, wincing as a small cascade of coins tinkled and chimed together. He stuck the torch down in the heap of gold—a bit like shoving a stick into sand—to free his hands, tied the laces of the boots together, and hung them around his neck like an unwieldy scarf.

"Most people wear those on their feet," Hrym said. "But I'm sure your bold new fashion will soon be all the rage. Away with you, adventurer! I doubt the linnorm will notice the absence of the boots—they were just sort of swept along with the rest of the treasure. As long as you don't try to remove anything shiny from the hoard, you can probably escape."

Rodrick thought of the gems and rings he'd already dropped into his pockets along the way and decided to pretend he hadn't heard that last part. "The boots are nice, but I'd rather hoped to leave with a bit more."

"Don't be greedy," Hrym said. "It's unseemly in a human. Why, think of the money you could make ferrying people across rivers. You've got nice broad shoulders and strong arms—you could probably carry two, maybe three people at a time. If they didn't have any luggage."

"Sword—Hrym—I'm here to rescue you."

"Rescue," the sword said. "Rescue? Would you ask me to rescue you from a brothel or a barroom?"

Rodrick frowned. "I suppose it depends on the circumstances—"

"I love it here, human. Do you know my fondest aspiration in this world? It's to sleep on a bed of gold. And do you know what I'm doing just this very moment? Sleeping on a bed of gold! Or I was sleeping, until you shone a light in my face."

"You don't have a face."

"And you don't have a very good grasp of metaphor. Fine, then, you shone a light on my hilt—"

"Which I assume would be less akin to your face and more akin to your—"

"My point," the sword said, loudly, "is that I don't need to be rescued. What you really mean is 'stolen.' Now go away before I wake the linnorm."

Rodrick considered. Stealing a sword should have been a lot simpler than this. But the sword had a mind—of sorts—which meant that it could be manipulated. And Rodrick was far better at manipulation than he was a burglary.

"Suit yourself," he said. "My client will be disappointed."

"Oh, to know I caused the disappointment of some human I've never met or heard of, how will I stand the pain? Now, go. This beast is hibernating, but I have ways of stirring it into consciousness very quickly."

"All right, fine. You're missing out, though. I mean, you call this a pile of gold? Pfft."

"Pfft?" Hrym said. "These are the all the riches acquired by the warrior Brant, slayer of beasts and men, despoiler of vaults—"

"Oh, I mean, it's alright," Rodrick said. "I wouldn't mind having this lot in my house, certainly. But my employer doesn't pillage. He invests. He owns half of Andoran, including the banks, and he believes in keeping a ready supply of coin on hand. There's a basement in his house that's so full of gold and gems that he has ten clerks working full-time just to inventory it all, and they can't keep up with the fresh cartloads of coins that arrive every day. He loves money, but more than that, he's a collector of rare and precious magical items and relics. You, of course, are one of the most rare and precious in the world—"

"This is true," Hrym said.

"—and he desires greatly to add you to his collection. Why, he's paying me more gold than I see here just to deliver you to him! Hrym, you could rest in a place of pride atop a mound of treasure that makes this look like the dregs of a drunkard's coinpurse after a holiday. Or you can stay wedged under the ass of a monster, if you prefer."

"Hmmm," Hrym said. "If this is a trick, you'll regret it. I have powers beyond mere speech."

"I'm sure you do," Rodrick said. "Shall we?"

"Very well. Draw me forth. But slowly, so I don't slice the beast."

Rodrick moved toward the sword, grasped the hilt, and gently drew out the blade. The linnorm didn't so much as shift—it might have been carved of stone.

Hrym's blade was dazzling. It was made not of steel, but rather of some bluish-white crystal, gleaming like a faceted diamond in the torchlight. The substance resembled nothing so much as—

"Ice," Rodrick whispered. "I'd heard you were a blade of living ice, but I didn't know what that meant."

"You still don't," Hrym said. "Now go, quickly."

Rodrick held Hrym aloft and carefully worked his way down the slope, moving in a low crouch, away from the light of the torch. He paused halfway down, spying what looked like a silver bell as big as a man's head, half-buried in coins. "Is that—is that the bell that summons blizzards?" he whispered. "I heard there was such a thing here."

"Oh, probably," Hrym said.

"I can carry that too," Rodrick said, and moved carefully sideways.

"I wouldn't do that." Hrym said.

"In that respect, we differ." Rodrick reached for the bell, brushing away coins with his free hand, and grasped the ring at the top. He lifted the bell up, carefully, slowly—

And as it came free from the heap of gold, the clapper struck a deep, low note so loud it brought back Rodrick's headache in full force. An icy wind suddenly blew through the cavern, and the great coils of the linnorm began to move.  

Chapter Two: Serpent and Bow

Rodrick dropped the bell and scrambled toward the slope that led back to the barrow. The linnorm uncoiled with impossible speed, and suddenly its head filled Rodrick's vision, blocking his route to the treasure room.

The miniature snowstorm Rodrick had accidentally spawned with the bell sent snowflakes spiraling all around, limiting visibility, but not enough to matter at this range. The coins and stones beneath the soles of his feet were icy, so cold Rodrick worried he'd lose his toes to frostbite—and then realized such a worry was the least of his problems, as he was standing nose-to-snout with a linnorm.

Rodrick had never seen a dragon or dragon-type creature in person, but this one looked more or less like the statues and drawings of such creatures: a huge reptilian head with twisted horns, immense black eyes, and a mouth full of teeth like broken daggers. It was unmistakably an apex predator of such power and size that Rodrick would barely count as a mouthful.

He froze, still holding Hrym aloft, as the creature gazed at him. It opened its jaws, and Rodrick prepared himself to be bitten in half. The preparation mostly involved whimpering and trembling.

Instead, the creature began to draw in a vast breath. Rodrick's relief lasted only for an instant. Could linnorms breathe fire, or ice, or poison, as their less snakelike cousins the dragons did?

At least it would be a quick death, Rodrick thought. Not as good as no death, but better than many of the other alternatives.

"Point me at the beast!" Hrym shouted.

Rodrick complied, though it was more of an involuntary muscle spasm than a conscious effort.

A cone of swirling, bluish-white crystals shot forth from the point of the sword, and the blade sent up great billows of freezing white mist. The linnorm disappeared in the torrent of ice, and when Hrym ceased his frigid attack, the beast's head was encased in an irregular ball of ice the size of a boulder. The linnorm's body began to whip around wildly, and Rodrick threw himself to one side—careful to keep his grip on the sword—to avoid being crushed by the creature's coils. The boots wrapped around his neck nearly strangled him in the process, but he managed to cram himself against the cavern wall.

The linnorm's ice-encrusted head slammed into the wall that led to the treasure room, smashing down enough rocks to block access to the barrow. Rodrick whimpered again—he was doing a lot of that lately. Trapped in a cavern, in a magical ice storm, barefoot, with a furious linnorm lashing around. The day just got better and better.

The torch he'd jammed into the coins was dislodged by the beast's lashings, and it came sliding down the mound of treasure toward Rodrick. He scooted away on his butt to avoid having his feet set on fire, then picked up the torch. It flickered weakly, its fuel nearly extinguished. The thought of being trapped here blind was too horrible to contemplate.

The linnorm continued to bash its head against the cavern wall, trying to break the armor of ice before it suffocated. Rodrick wondered if it would die or escape before causing the entire cavern to cave in.

"Good thing it's a mountain linnorm," Hrym said. "They breathe fire—or, actually, molten rock. Ice linnorms are immune to my powers."

"How fortunate," Rodrick rasped. He struggled to his feet, shivering in the cold. "We have to kill the beast before it collapses the whole cavern on top of us."

"I wouldn't recommend that," Hrym said. "When linnorms die, they curse their killers. Don't you think your luck is bad enough already?"

"I'd rather be cursed and alive than blessed and dead, sword."

"Hmm," Hrym said. "You make a point. Being an immortal magical sword, I don't usually see things in those terms. There is another option, though."

The ball of ice encrusting the linnorm's head began to glow deeply red, like an immense ruby. Rodrick realized the monster was trying to use its breath weapon—magical lava-breath versus magical ice. Which would prevail?

"Don't you want to hear about the other option—"

"Yes, yes, of course!" Rodrick shouted.

"We could just leave."

"The monster has sealed off the entry to the barrow—"

"Yes, I can see, you know, even if I don't have eyes. I don't mean we can leave that way. There's a tunnel toward the back of the chamber, probably too small for the linnorm to fit through. But a tiny little humanoid like you—"

Rodrick was moving before the sword even finished speaking. The cavern was brighter now, with the monster's fiery breath shining through the prism of ice around its head, casting rays of ruby light all around—and revealing a spot of deeper shadow in one wall, a tunnel big enough for Rodrick to fit through if he crouched.

Once outside the main cavern, the horrible biting cold diminished. Rodrick's spine protested as he shuffled along bent forward, torch in one hand, icy sword in the other, following the curving contours of the tunnel. Behind him there was a great thump, and the sound of cascading rock. He paused and looked back in time to see the mouth of the tunnel go totally black, sealed off by a cave collapse.

"Is it dead?" he asked.

"I don't know," Hrym said. "Do you feel cursed?"

"Now that you mention it... But wouldn't you be the one to get cursed?"

"I believe traditionally the wielder of a weapon is held to be the responsible party, not the weapon itself."

Rodrick grunted. He leaned Hrym against the tunnel wall, jammed the spluttering torch into a scree of small stones, and sat down on a flattish outcropping of rock. He crammed his feet—they felt like lumps of ice—into the magical boots, which shifted and squirmed to fit his feet perfectly. He leaned against the wall with his eyes closed and exhaled. "It's good to be alive."

"I wouldn't know."

The thief opened one eye. "You can shoot ice, then. That's handy."

"Oh, that's just a small part of what I can do. I hail from the north, and all things of frost, ice, and cold are within my power."

"I don't suppose you can withdraw cold? My ears are freezing."

"No, but I could make the rest of you even colder, to make the ears seem warm in comparison."

"I think I'll pass," Rodrick said. "Do you have any other tricks? Glowing in the presence of evil, flying around and fighting on your own, things like that?"

"Total elemental mastery of ice isn't enough for you?"

"Yes, well. Hmm. So you can't move on your own, then. You need a wielder. Someone to carry you around."

"Yes, humans are to me as horses are to humans."

"Ha. Horses aren't the ones who decide where to go, though."

The sword's voice grew harder. "A man who tries to take me somewhere I don't wish to go will find himself with his hand frozen off, adventurer. And now that we're on the subject, I don't want to be carried around—I want to rest on a heap of treasure. Specifically the untold riches I was promised. Shouldn't we be on our way?"

"Do you know a way out of this black cave, then?"

"I barely knew there was a tunnel. I just remembered glimpsing this one when the linnorm dragged me into his hoard. Aren't you living creatures attuned to subtle drafts and currents of air and so forth?"

"Not especially." Rodrick stood up, his head brushing the top of the tunnel. "But it's not as if we're faced with a wealth of choices. This tunnel only goes in one direction."

"If you die and leave me stuck in some dark hole with no gold I will be very annoyed."

"I'm sure knowledge of your unhappiness will make my afterlife miserable, sword."

Rodrick picked up the sword and the torch and made his way along the tunnel, trying in vain to feel a waft of air suggesting a route to the upper world. He also did his best to avoid facing the possibility that he might simply be sealed in the dark forever, plunging ever deeper, eventually starving to death. The torch's light grew ever more inconstant and flickering as he progressed, and he wondered how long he'd be able to force himself to keep going once the light was gone, and he was inching along by feel—

"Do you hear that?" Hrym said.

Rodrick cocked his head. He did hear something—a distant sort of knocking, seemingly coming from the rock wall before him. "It's not the linnorm," he said. "That's still behind us, unless I've become hopelessly turned around."

"Jam me in that crack in the rock," Hrym said. "As far in as you can."

"As you wish." Rodrick shoved the point of the sword into a fissure in the wall. "Now what—"

The exposed length of sword began to steam and billow mist, and ice crystals poured out of the hole. Cracks spread across the wall, like thin ice breaking over a pond, as magical frost filled every minute fissure and pushed it wider.

"If you bury me, you stupid sword—"

The wall collapsed inward in a cascade of frozen stone, and Hrym stopped steaming mist. A hole three feet across yawned open at chest height, light glowing on the other side. A man with a filthy face, holding a pickaxe, gaped in astonishment at Rodrick.

"Hi there," the thief said, clambering through the hole, leaving the torch behind. "A miner, are you? Good man. I have only the greatest admiration for those who wrestle wealth from the very bowels of the world—"

"Are you mining for gold?" Hrym said. "Answer me, man!"

The miner stared, wide-eyed, at the talking sword, then dropped his pickaxe and ran away, leaving a sack and a lantern behind with his tools.

"Hmm," Rodrick said. "We may as well follow him. I doubt he's running in terror deeper into the mine, so he's probably headed for the surface."

"I don't see anything shiny at all," Hrym said. "They must be mining something boring here."

Rodrick picked up the lantern and began to walk, whistling, through the tunnel. "Things are looking up, sword. You'll be resting on a bed of gold in no time, and more importantly, so will I—"

A dwarf stepped from a side tunnel and into Rodrick's path. He wore a miner's helmet set with a magical glowing gem, and held a battleaxe with a head approximately as large as his own chest.

"Breaking into my mine?" he rumbled. "Trying to steal from me? Nobody steals from me! This mine is mine!"

"You don't—" Rodrick began, but then the dwarf was coming at him, axe held high.

Chapter Three: Rich Man's Crusade

Rodrick threw the lantern at the dwarf's head. It bounced off the miner's helmet, but didn't deter the attack.

"Use me!" Hrym shouted.

Rodrick lifted the sword defensively. As he swung the blade, an arc of whiteness flew from its tip and struck the dwarf just below the knees. The miner's forward movement instantly halted, and he swayed like a young sapling, his boots and calves frozen to the tunnel floor—which didn't stop him from swinging his axe wildly, to the limit of his reach.

"I'll just, ah, be going." Rodrick moved carefully around the dwarf, then followed the slanting tunnel upward at a brisk jog.

What other miners they encountered were quick to drop their swords and flee, and a short while later Rodrick and Hrym emerged into a bustling mining camp. They sidled toward the edge of the settlement and then hared off into the trees, following a ridgeline up and away. Once they'd reached high-ish ground, Rodrick looked around in hopes of finding his bearings. The barrow was in the hills of northern Andoran, east of Darkmoon Vale, but he wasn't sure how far he'd gone underground. But if the gloomy spire of Droskar's Crag was over there, then that was west, and so...

"Are you lost?" Hrym said.

"Only until I find a road," Rodrick replied, and set off downhill in what he suspected to be the direction most likely to lead to civilization. After a while they hooked up with a dirt track—probably the one that led to the mining camp—and Rodrick proceeded with more confidence. They were sure to encounter a village soon, or someone they could beg a ride from.

"So what are you really?" Hrym said as they—or, rather, Rodrick—trudged along.

"I can't imagine what you mean."

"You say you're an adventurer. You're certainly no fighter, though—when holding a sword in one hand and a lantern in the other, your first instinct is to defend yourself with the lantern? I would therefore assume you're a thief, but I saw you skulking in the cavern, and you're equally awful at stealth—"

"Please, your flattery will overwhelm me. I do wish I had a scabbard to shove you into." He switched Hrym to his left hand and stretched out the cramped fingers of his right. Carrying a sword for this long was grueling, even if Hrym was lighter than most blades his size. "As you can see, I look like a fighter—"

"Humans look mostly like fuzzy blobs of varying hues to me, I'm afraid."

Rodrick sighed. "Take me at my word, then—I am long of limb, broad of shoulder, wide of chest, mighty of thew, and so on. Reasonably mighty, anyway. I am blessed with a certain natural athleticism, though admittedly devoid of skill or training in battle, because people get hurt in battles, and I have no interest in getting hurt. But looking as I do makes it easy for me to be hired as a caravan guard, or personal bodyguard, or member of an adventuring party—"

"And once there, in the midst of your trusted allies, you wait for the opportune moment to steal whatever you can and escape in the night?"

"Do I detect a note of judgment in your voice, sword?"

"Not at all. I'm interested in ends, not means. And I'm only interested in ends when those ends are gold."

Rodrick laughed. "You and I could get along, sword. A shame I've promised you to someone else."

"You could just steal me, though," Hrym said reasonably. "In fact, by not stealing me, you're violating your own habits. You might even be accused of doing an honest day's labor."

"Oh, I had to cheat a few people to get into the barrow, don't worry—I kept in practice. And what are you saying, anyway? You'd give up your spot in a rich man's treasure-heap?"

"I'm not volunteering to join you, no, though this has been entertaining—at least compared to being jammed beneath a linnorm's belly. I'm just wondering why you don't seize an object of my obvious value. An intelligent sword of living ice, capable of speech and great feats of magic—whatever this rich man's paying you, I'm worth more in your hand."

"Ah, and if I were truly a fighter and adventurer, I'm sure I'd never dream of giving you up. But to succeed in my chosen venture, I benefit from a certain amount of anonymity. I can easily disappear into a crowd after committing a morally questionable act—assuming it's a sufficiently handsome crowd—and alter my speech, mannerisms, and mode of dress well enough to elude detection. But if I started carrying around a loud-mouthed sword with a blade of shimmering blue-white crystal, word would get around. I might even, allow me to shudder at the thought, become famous."

"You might have to change your ways a bit, I suppose," Hrym said.

"You wouldn't suggest I try actually being a fighter."

"No, no. You'd just have to get better at cheating people and stealing from them—ideally leaving them unaware they'd been cheated at all, at least until you'd said your farewells and ridden into the next country. I'd be good for you. I'd force you to become more cunning, and elevate your practice."

"Alas, we'll never know." Rodrick shaded his eyes and looked down the ridge. "Aha! I know that village. I can get a sheath for you there, and a horse, and room for the night." He yawned. "And then take advantage of a bed. Being drugged in a barrow doesn't count as a good night's sleep."

"I don't like sheathes," Hrym said. "And you'd better not spend all the gold you stole on horses and beds and things—you'll need to scatter a nice layer of coins for me to rest upon while you sleep."

"You are a very odd weapon, Hrym."

∗ ∗ ∗

The sword drew quite a few glances before Rodrick bought a sheathe and convinced Hrym it was better to be temporarily hidden than to become a target for ambitious bandits. They settled in an inn Rodrick had visited before and bedded down for the night. Normally when so flush with coin Rodrick would not have been alone in that bed, but the thought of inviting one of the village's more adventurous ladies up to his room while Hrym rested in a drawer on a thin scattering of coins was too embarrassing to contemplate. Yet another good reason he and the sword shouldn't travel together.

And yet, they stayed up into the night, talking. In the dark, it wasn't so strange to chat with an intelligent sword; they were just a couple of rogues swapping stories of past exploits. Rodrick's tales were mostly wildly exaggerated, and he assumed Hrym's were, too. Even so, the sword's laziness and avarice—and the heroic efforts he was willing to expend in hopes of future laziness, while wielded by men far more ambitious than Hrym himself—were truly inspiring.

The last thing Hrym said before Rodrick fell asleep was, "My great tragedy is that I'm so attractive to conquerors, crusaders, and heroes, when by temperament I'd be a better companion for a treacherous, self-interested hedonist like you."

"You say the nicest things, sword," Rodrick said, and closed his eyes.

∗ ∗ ∗

The next day Rodrick bought a sweet-tempered horse and they rode down out of the hills east of Darkmoon Vale, toward the fertile valleys south of the Andoshen River, where Rodrick's employer Manius lived. The rich man's family had been nobility back in the days when Andoran had such things, and in the years since had managed to recreate the conditions of nobility by buying up farm- and timberland, amassing quite a fortune. He lived in a grand house surrounded by green fields, with a stand of personal forest spreading green and wild beyond—

Or at least he had last time Rodrick was here. Rodrick reined in his horse and stood staring across the fields.

"What?" Hrym said, voice muffled inside the scabbard. "Are we there yet?"

"Ah, nearly," Rodrick said.

The fields were trampled and full of tents, with armored men milling among them. The miniature forest was greatly reduced, and the sounds of hammering and sawing and cart-building suggested what had become of those noble old trees. Smoke rose from the house's four chimneys, and from at least two makeshift forges. Rodrick, never comfortable entering camps of armed men without a good reason, eased his horse forward. None of the soldiers challenged him, even as he passed among the tents and proceeded to the house. A harried-looking man stood near the front door, directing various servants, and Rodrick recognized him as Manius's head of household.

"Hail," Rodrick said. "I've returned from my mission—"

The chamberlain—or whatever his title was—squinted at Rodrick, then brightened. "Ah! The master was just wondering if you ever intended to return. We'll see to your horse—you go on inside. The butler will arrange an audience."

"If you don't mind me asking," Rodrick began, "why is there an army on the—" But the man had already hurried away.

The butler didn't open the door at Rodrick's knock, so the thief just let himself in. The interior of the place had changed greatly, too—the beautiful rugs were gone, leaving bare wood behind, and the artwork was gone from the walls. He wandered on the first floor until he found the butler, who stuck him in a drawing room that still possessed a couple of chairs and told him to wait. Hrym complained of being in the sheath, so Rodrick drew him forth and leaned him against the other chair.

"This doesn't look like the opulent palace you led me to expect," Hrym said suspiciously.

Rodrick spread his hands. "It was a rich man's mansion last time I was here, I assure you. I can't speak for what's going on now—"

"What's going on," said Manius, stepping in and shutting the door after him, "is preparation for a crusade." Manius was in his early fifties, with graying hair, a lined and serious face; and the bearing of a warrior ascetic. He wore the sort of clothes that seemed ordinary unless you noticed how perfectly they were cut and tailored to his form. His eyes fell upon Hrym, and widened. "Rodrick. You succeeded. You brought me the blade of ice!"

"I did," Rodrick said. "With great effort and considerable peril, and even loss of life among the hirelings who assisted me, and—"

"You will be duly compensated." Manius stepped forward, then paused. "Does, ah—does it truly speak?"

"I do," Hrym said. "You may address me directly."

"Remarkable!" Manius said, still talking to Rodrick. "One of my ancestors saw this blade in battle, wielded by Brant Selmy—"

"Oh, I hated him," Hrym said. "Never knew how to relax. Until he died. Buried me in his tomb with him. But I suppose you know that."

Manius knelt, took Hrym by the hilt, and raised him up, staring at the shimmering blade. Rodrick felt an unexpected twinge at seeing the sword in another man's hand.

"Beautiful," Manius murmured. "You will be the death of many a demon."

"Demons?" Hrym and Rodrick said at the same time.

"Oh, yes," Manius said. "It's the reason I wanted this sword. My life has been one of idleness and pointless pleasure for far too long. I decided that I need to make my mark on the world before I die. And so I've spent every penny I've inherited and earned to gather and provision an army of crusaders to go north, where we will face the demon-infested nightmare land men call the Worldwound." He held up Hrym. "We leave in one week. And with this sword, I hope to slay a demon lord with my own hand."

Chapter Four: Illusions of Ice

"Have you ever slain a demon, sword?" Manius addressed Hrym directly for the first time.

"Probably," Hrym said. "I can't be expected to remember every kind of thing I've slain. Listen, Manius, before we begin our crusade, do you mind giving me a few moments alone with Rodrick here?"

Manius narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

"We faced horrors together in that tomb," Hrym said. "Monstrous serpentine creatures of darkness—"

"And an angry dwarf," Rodrick chimed in.>

"Yes, that too," Hrym said. "We became blooded comrades in arms together, and while I'm eager to join you in your battle, Manius, I wish to give my fellow warrior Rodrick my blessing before he goes on his way."

"Ah, certainly, the camaraderie of battle, I understand." Manius nodded sagely, with the full understanding of someone who'd never been anywhere near a real battle. "I shall return shortly. I have men waiting in the hallway, Rodrick, if you need anything in the meantime."

Rodrick nodded, smiling, absorbing the not-so-subtle reminder that Manius knew he was a thief, and would be watchful. Manius handed the sword off to Rodrick and strode out of the room, a busy man with big plans.

"I was promised a bed of gold," Hrym said. "Not a one-way trip into the heart of demon country! This fool will get himself killed, and I'll rot in some fecal swamp!"

"That does seem a likely outcome," Rodrick admitted. "I'm sorry—Manius didn't share his ambitions with me when he hired me to break into the barrow and bring you back. I assumed you were just going to be another collector's item. But don't despair. You're immortal. Someone will come along and pick you up from the battlefield eventually, and—"

"Piss on that," Hrym said. "Get me out of here."

Rodrick shook his head. "I don't see how I can. Manius doesn't trust me—he hired me to steal you, so he's prepared for me to try to steal you again. Short of using you to kill everyone between me and the outskirts of his property, I don't see how—"

"Then start thinking," Hrym said. "Remember what I said about how you'd need to become more cunning? Now's your chance."

"I appreciate the difficulty of your situation, but I'm afraid—"

"I have no intention of going to the Worldwound, Rodrick. If you don't save me, then I'll wait until Marius assembles his crusaders to start marching, and I will freeze every single one of them in place. They will be a forest of dead statues. And when that grim site is discovered, I'll start screaming 'Rodrick made me do it'!"

They sat together in silence for a moment. Then Rodrick said, not without admiration: "That's blackmail, Hrym."

"I prefer to think of it as forceful persuasion."

"Perhaps..." Rodrick murmured. "Listen, Hrym, this might take me a few days. But tell Manius you're going to stop talking until you reach the Worldwound—a vow of silence, or a period of meditation to help you prepare for the rigors of the struggle to come—whatever. The point is that you have to shut up. Can you do that?"

"I didn't say a word for years in that barrow. Silence is within my considerable capabilities. But I don't see why—"

"I know this is a laughable statement on the face of it, but: just trust me."

"And you trust me," Hrym said. "If you don't come back for me, remember: a field of frozen crusaders."

"Consider me motivated."

∗ ∗ ∗

Rodrick took his money—beautiful money, of which he suspected he'd have to spend nearly all of it—and then took his leave of Manius. He headed to Carpenden, the nearest town of size, and began making some inquiries.

Carpenden was prosperous, home to wealthy landowners and the merchants who catered to them, but it was also a military town, housing a large portion of Andoran's army. The real military types Rodrick encountered didn't give Manius's planned expedition great odds of success. They allowed that even a well-prepared force of hardened paladins led by a veteran warrior couldn't expect to win any decisive battles in the Worldwound. As for a mixture of unaffiliated crusaders and mercenaries led by a gentleman farmer who'd read a few textbooks on military tactics? A noble undertaking, in a way, yes—but hopeless.

Like anyone in his line of work, Rodrick knew people, and the people he knew knew other people, and so two days after leaving Manius's house he sat down in the back room of small gambling house with an illusionist named Horwick. The illusionist was fat, and wore a threadbare red velvet robe, and picked at his teeth endlessly with his over-long pinky fingernail.

"Do you know the goldbrick trick?" Rodrick said.

The illusionist considered the smear of old food stuck on his fingernail and grunted. "You offer to sell someone a gold brick, and at the last minute, you switch it with a lead brick covered in a thin coating of gold leaf. But you don't need an illusionist for that. You barely need a paintbrush."

"I'm working a sort of... variation," Rodrick said. He explained the two things he needed.

Horwick allowed that he could provide those items, if the price was right.

The right price, as Rodrick had expected, was ruinously expensive.

∗ ∗ ∗

Rodrick returned to Manius's house with an old sword strapped to his back and a pair of wands tucked away in his shirt. The crusaders were more organized now, clearly preparing for departure, but they still paid no attention to him as he rode up to the front steps. He wandered into the house again—depressed at the lack of small, valuable objects to steal—found the chamberlain, and requested an audience with Manius.

After a while, Manius appeared in the sitting room, which now contained only a single chair, the other having presumably been sold for sword polish or something. Rodrick rose to greet him, noting Hrym's hilt sticking up from scabbard at Manius's belt. "Your talk of crusade moved me," Rodrick said. "I'd like to join your party."

Manius grunted. "We're not on a quest for gold, Rodrick. Only glory."

Rodrick pressed a hand to his chest and put on his most sincere face, one that had charmed the coinpurses off men and the underclothes off women many times. "I've spent the past three days thinking about the empty hollowness of my life, and my need for a greater purpose. Please. Allow me to join you."

"It does my heart good to see you make that choice. My hope for humanity has never been stronger." Manius stroked his chin. "I could send you to report to one of the crusader leaders... but I think I'd like to keep you closer, as part of my personal retinue."

Rodrick beamed. "That would be an honor." He knew it was more likely because Manius didn't trust him and wanted to make sure he didn't steal the horses and provisions, but that was fine. If Rodrick was sleeping in the house, it would spare him having to sneak in later. "How are you, Hrym?"

"The sword is spending the foreseeable future in silent contemplation, marshaling its powers for the great battles ahead," Manius said. "It's just as well—it strikes me as a bit unseemly, having a sword speak."

He can still hear you, Rodrick thought, amazed at the man's arrogance. He seemed to think Hrym was just a curiosity, when the sword was really—

Well, not a person in the normal sense, obviously. But he was still a person.

"We could all probably do with a little less talking," Rodrick said.

∗ ∗ ∗

Late that night, Rodrick slipped from his bedroll in the corner of an empty storage closet and crept through the house to Manius's chamber. The door was unguarded, and why not? There was literally an army on the grounds. Rodrick opened the door and slipped in, then waited for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, listening to the rich man's snores from the overstuffed bed in the center of the room. The only light came from the fires outside shining faintly in the windows.

Rodrick was making a terrible habit of sneaking into places where dangerous creatures were sleeping in order to retrieve a magical sword. At least this time he was armed, though he desperately hoped he wouldn't have to stab anyone with the sword on his back.

"Psst," Hrym said. "Rodrick? Is that you? I'm over here."

Rodrick crouch-walked over to a large wooden wardrobe. Hrym was still in his scabbard, slung over the back of a chair. Not even a bed of coins. Rodrick eased the blade out of the scabbard.

"Let me out of this thing, I can't see—" Hrym began, and Rodrick shushed him, listening to Manius mutter in his bed for a moment before deciding he wasn't waking up.

Rodrick drew the old, battered longsword from the sheath on his back and laid it on the ground before him. He felt in his shirt for the right wand—it had a golden band around one end, while the other was plain wood—and withdrew the slim and expensive bit of magic. He touched the wand to the sword, and watched the illusion take hold.

The beaten sword shimmered and turned bluish-white. In a moment, it was a perfect copy of Hrym, sparkling like ice. He then took Hrym out of the scabbard.

"You sly bastard," Hrym said. "It's my spitting image—"

"Your turn," Rodrick whispered, and touched Hrym with the other wand. The sword was transformed into a battered, notched longsword, decidedly unmagical. He shoved the disguised Hrym into his scabbard, ignoring the sword's outraged squawk. Then he placed the false Hrym in Manius's scabbard and hung it back over the chair. Horwick had assured Rodrick that the illusions were long-lasting enough to let Rodrick escape undiscovered with time to spare, but he didn't want to test that.

Rodrick was nearly to the door when he heard the mattress creak. "Who's there?" Manius demanded.

The thief stopped breathing, and tried to think like a shadow. Manius padded over to the chair, drew the false Hrym halfway from the sheath, and grunted. "Still not talking?" He rattled the sword and then shoved it back in the scabbard, sighed, and returned to bed.

Rodrick counted to a hundred fifteen times before he was convinced Manius was asleep again, then slipped into the hallway and away.

∗ ∗ ∗

"Do you think he'll realize the sword is fake before or after he tries to charge directly at a demon lord?" Hrym asked as they dawdled along a road many miles south the next day. He'd instructed Rodrick to stick him on the outside of the scabbard on Rodrick's back, and Hrym had frozen himself in place there—that way Hrym could see. Drawing Hrym was a lot easier when he wasn't actually in the scabbard, too. Wearing a longsword strapped on your back made you look impressively dangerous, but it was practically difficult to draw four feet of icy blade from a sheath on your back in a hurry, unless you had freakishly long arms.

"Before, if he's lucky." Rodrick jingled his coinpurse, or tried to; it contained three pieces of copper and one of silver, which didn't make for much of a jingle. He'd had to sell his lovely blue boots, too, and he'd never even walked on water with them. "Wands are damnably expensive, Hrym. I wish I was sure you're worth it."

"The wands still work, don't they? Can't they cast the same spell dozens of time?"

"Well, I suppose, but—" He paused. "You're a genius, sword. I could sell you. Over and over again."

"You could use me to put on a dazzling demonstration, then sell worthless hunks of metal that looked like me," Hrym said.

"Oh, this could work out," Rodrick said.

"We just have to settle how to divvy up the profits," Hrym said. "Since without me there would be no profits, I suggest a ninety-ten split, in my favor."

"Ha! More like ninety-ten in my favor. I'd like to see how much gold you'd make on your own if I stuck you in the bottom of a bog, sword."

They rode on, bickering amicably, into their golden future.