We all stayed, of course.
He folded the metal bar in his hands, flattening it, stretching it into the shape of a blade. Then he folded it over, time and time again, in a process I assumed was some sort of analogue to folding steel for a sword blade. I was no expert blacksmith, but I’d heard of the concept. I didn’t think it applied to silver, but he’d mentioned that the metal would no longer be silver when he was done.
Normally, when faced with new magic, I’d have a million questions.
And I did here, too. In my mind. But I couldn’t bring myself to utter them. Keras didn’t seem to have any difficulty concentrating, but it seemed inappropriate to interrupt. Like stopping a brilliant singer to ask about the meaning of a particular line.
So, I waited, and I watched.
I didn’t forget my questions, of course. I was still me. There would be time for magic theory later.
True to his word, Keras worked for hours on forging the blade. Like with the hilt, he wove gold into the blade, tracing a gleaming wave straight through the center, stopping a few inches from the tip. He mirrored it perfectly on the opposite side.
It had a small protrusion in the bottom that he inserted into the hilt, and when the metal met, it rippled and merged. When he was finished, the weapon looked to be forged of a single piece of metal. There were no cracks, no seams.
When the weapon looked finished, Keras closed his eyes, placing two fingers against the sword’s blade just above the hilt. A single rune burned into the surface, glowing gold.
When his eyes opened, the blade was glowing a faint golden hue.
He turned the weapon over, holding it by the blade, and offered it toward me. “Your turn.”
I accepted the sword by the hilt, staring blankly. I’d been so stunned by the whole process that I’d almost forgotten that we were going to try to combine our sorcery. “…right. Can you tell me what your enchantment does?”
“Nothing other than make it glow, so far. I’ve just opened a connection with it. I also changed the way the metal itself works, but I wouldn’t call that an enchantment. It’s not using mana anymore; I altered the properties of the silver and gold. It’ll be stronger than steel and lighter than silver. I need you to put some mana in there so I can actually have something to work with, and you can also add any additional functions you want.”
I nodded. “I can do that. Let me get my tools.”
I sat the sword down reverently, heading upstairs and retrieving my etching rod.
When I got back, people were having food. I didn’t blame them. Keras had been at it for something like six hours now.
After a few moments of deliberation, I joined everyone else in a dinner break. That gave me some time to think about what I wanted, and to talk to Patrick.
“What do you want this sword to do, Patrick?”
He blinked. “I, uh, don’t know. This is just so…it’s amazing. I never thought I’d actually get a sword like this. I mean, I thought you might enchant something for me, and that’s great and all, but…”
I laughed. “Don’t worry. I get it. I’m no Keras — at least not yet. It’s not every day you get a sword forged with ancient magic by…” I glanced at Keras, who was biting into a sandwich. “I still have no idea what you are, Keras.”
“Just me. I hope.” His words could have easily been a joke, but it didn’t sound that way. He sounded…introspective, maybe.
I let the subject drop. He’d tell us more about himself when he was ready.
Besides, he looked ravenous. He was on his third sandwich and showed no sign of slowing down.
I turned back to Patrick. “You said you recognized this as being similar to an existing weapon. Do you want it to be like that?”
“Wow. Uh, yeah, that’d be amazing. If you could do that?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know what it does. I’ve heard of Dawnbringer, but legends often get exaggerated. I sincerely doubt it can burn entire cities with the Dawnfire’s light.”
Keras very nearly choked on his food. “…They say that about Dawn?”
Patrick beamed. “Oh, yeah! Like, there’s this story about how Ishyeal Dawnsglow used it to wipe out an entire legion of monsters that came out of the Tortoise Spire.”
Keras frowned, set his food down, took a drink, and then just stared silently at his plate for a moment.
That was odd.
I tried to pick the conversation back up. “Okay, light powers. I don’t think I can do that. Light mana isn’t something I can use. Keras?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah, light. Sure. I can do light mana, but I can’t actually charge a weapon with mana the way you can. I can’t enchant weapons the way you can in general.”
“What’s that rune on the hilt, then?”
“Something different. It lets me sense the blade and channel mana into it — but not in the way an Enchanter would. I can use it to alter the structure of the mana for the weapon, but if there’s no mana inside, I can’t do anything with it. And I can’t make runes that generate mana like you can.”
Patrick looked thoughtful. “So, it’s like what Derek does with his weapons?”
Derek must have heard his own name and taken it as a signal to jump in. “Not really. I contract with creatures then bind them to weapons, magical weapons or otherwise. It sounds like Keras is more or less binding himself to the weapon?”
Keras nodded. “That’s a good way of putting it. Temporarily, in this case, so I can make modifications after Corin does his part.”
“And you needed to make the bond before I did my part?” I asked.
“I didn’t strictly need to, it’s just that my magic has a tendency to be…damaging. If I have a connection in place before you make the enchantments, it should lower the risk of something going wrong.”
I didn’t quite understand what he meant by his magic being damaging, but he sounded like he was being deliberately vague, so I didn’t press the issue. When I’d seen him fight, his magic was clearly specialized for offense, so maybe it had something to do with that.
I finished eating and brought down my books of runes, thinking it over.
I set the first book down and flipped it open. “Okay, I think I know what we need to do. I’ve never actually done this before, but there are instructions in here for ‘priming’ a rune so that someone else can contribute mana to it. That’s how an enchanter normally makes something like, say, a fire sword, even though he doesn’t have fire mana.”
I traced a rune on the page. “Basically, I draw a rune, then I fill it with a ‘container’ of gray mana. Then the other person channels mana into the rune, and when it hits the capacity of the container, theoretically the rune should activate. The important part is to stop channeling more mana into it when the container is full, otherwise you break the container and bad things happen.”
Derek walked over. “It’s not hard, actually. I’ve helped Enchanters on several occasions. Whoever is contributing the mana to the runes should be able to feel the gray mana straining when you’re reaching the capacity. Just don’t push too much mana in there too fast. When the rune starts to glow, you’re done.”
I was sincerely grateful for that knowledge. This whole thing was sounding a little intimidating. I’d hoped to enchant cooperatively at some point, but this scale was a little bigger than I’d imagined for my first project. “Okay, thank you, Derek. I think what I’m going to do is draw runes for holding light mana, recharging light mana over time, and a maximum capacity for absorbing light mana. That combination of runes is fairly standard.”
“Light and fire,” Keras interjected.