Rattling Sabres
Jun. 4th, 2021 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rix_scaedu“Sir, sir!” The agitated boy wasn’t even a member of the clergy, just an odd job boy who was swapped around between the stables and the internal buildings as the establishment’s needs required.
“What is it, Gefalom?” Temple Master Sareus Lacronyx liked to know the names of his subordinates. Besides, he served a god who advocated curating and caring for those you collected in life and not tossing them aside when they were of no current use to you. The boy was a foundling of obviously mixed ethnicity and there were few other places in this pocket of intense Ghessi purity that he would be able to grow to adulthood in safety. Sareus wasn’t Ghessi either and he found life here as an adult interesting enough at times.
“Undercutler Ferehenes says he can her voices from inside the armoury vault, and the Master Cutler wants to talk to you about opening the vault.” He added in a confidential tone, “Because it is Ferehenes and not Publius Laeres.”
“Publius and Ferehenes both have their individual strengths and weaknesses,” replied Sareus admonishingly. “Also, don’t go repeating what you just said simply because it’s true.”
Gefalom gave him a cheeky grin. “That’s a subset of not doing something simply because you can, is it sir?”
“Yes, exactly,” agreed Sareus. “I’m glad you’re retaining some of our teachings. You may yet gain adulthood with some wisdom.”
“If you say so, sir. The Master Cutler and the head groom both tell me I both to learn some common sense, and the altar priests tell me I should think before I charge into acting like an idiot.”
“None of them are wrong,” agreed Sareus. “Now, I take it that the Master Cutler is at the armoury vault door?”
“Yes, sir!” And after that Gefalom made sure to be quiet and unobtrusive, so that he could trail along behind to see what was going on instead of being sent off to attend to work tasks.
Sareus Lacronyx found the temple’s cutlers gathered outside the door of the armoury vault. Every temple of Thandaneth, the Black Scabbard and Thirteenth Swordlord, had one. In it were stored swords. Every year a portion of those swords was removed from the vault to be sharpened across the coming year, and the portion that had been sharpened across the pervious year was replaced within the vault. Unless the temple was very poor, a few new swords were placed into the vault at the same time. This temple had been in place for three centuries, and it had become the repository for swords from three other temples that had failed due to fire, flood, and disease. The holdings in its vault were…extensive.
As Sareus and Gefalom arrived, Ferehenes was saying, “Are you sure none of you can hear it? A rustling sound?”
“Sorry, no,” replied Publius while others shook their heads. “I mean, I can hear everyone here, of course, but nothing else. There are strong smells of active men, leather and clove oil, but again, nothing else.”
The Master Cutler looked startled, then he saw Sareus and made eye contact with him.
Sareus cleared his throat impressively and said, in his best sermon projecting voice, “So, Ferehenes is hearing something no-one else can hear, and Publius Laeres is smelling something no-one else can smell.”
Publius Laeres squawked a high pitched, “What?”
“Perhaps I should see what is going on,” continued Sareus smoothly as he pushed his way through the assembled cutlers to the door. He held his hand out towards it. “Interesting, does the air near it feel warm and tingly to anyone else?” Amidst shaking heads, a few pale faces, and some quiet swearing from the Master Cutler, Sareus found the vault key on the ring attached to his belt and unlocked the door.
He pulled the door open and thought he saw movement. As he turned his head to call for a lantern, Gefalom slipped around his arm and into the room on his blind side. As he stepped over the threshold a few lights began to glow in the sword racks. Gefalom turned in place, neither slowly nor at apace to be called a swirl. “It’s the swords,” he reported, his voice full of wonder. “They’re talking to each other. They’re flying. Some of them are glowing!”
“Gefalom, you need to come out of there now. Master Cutler, we need the Recovered Prophecies, Book Three.” Sareus watched as the glowing swords came out of the racks and began, points straight down, to spin around Gefalom. “No-one else follow me,” he said as he strode into the room to pull Gefalom out on the basis that independently animated swords were likely to be unpredictably dangerous.
More swords, many more swords, began to glow.
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