Chapter 19

The sword woke to the irregular electronic beep of a machine, somewhere nearby. He was not in his room. There were no lights on, but sunlight was starting to illuminate the thin blanket covering him. It must be morning.

He sat up.

Tan tile floors, his vision curtailed by the powder grey curtains that surrounded him on three sides, sectioning him off into his own little room. He was on a narrow bed, thin mattress. He recognized the curtains, this was the school’s clinic.

He reached up to pick out the annoying substance which seemed to acrete at the corners of his eyes when he was asleep for too long. Arthur said it was called grit. His eyes watered as he pulled the little pieces free.

The motion made the thin sleeve of the gown he’d been put into fall down his sleeve, revealing white scars that seemed to be what was left after he’d been healed.

He pulled down his other sleeve, more scars. Then he pulled the collar of his gown open so that he could see his front. Much of his chest was a pale pink, though the edges were starting to turn the same white as the lines on his arms. The lines would eventually fade, the healers had told him the last time he’d come here, though he seemed to arrive so often that they were always replaced by new ones.

As he looked at his chest, the pale pink skin began to itch.

Skin.

The curtain was pulled back with a metallic rattle, Cadmarius and a short girl with purple headphones over her ears stepped to the side of his bed.

Cadmarius stayed back as the girl approached, examining the sword’s arms, and then his chest, with businesslike speed. She was playing music the whole time, the sword could hear the sound leaking from her headphones as she worked.

When she was done, she stepped back, spoke a few words in Cadmarius’ ear, then turned to the sword. She flashed a smile. “You ok?”

The sword nodded.

“It always hurts the most the first time. Don’t worry, it’ll be better the second time.”

The sword stared at her blankly. What first time? He’d been injured plenty of times.

The girl walked out, closing the curtain behind her as she left.

Time passed.

Around them he could hear the sounds of other patients, snorting awake, or being examined or treated. Occasionally he heard the muttered invocation of a skill. Always, the irregular beeps of machines.

“How did you sleep?” Cadmarius asked.

The sword pondered the question. He had not been conscious of the experience, how was he supposed to evaluate the quality of his sleep?

“Did you wake up many times in the night? You were given something to help you sleep, but many people find it difficult to rest in the clinic. It is very noisy.”

“I did not wake up,” the sword answered. “I feel…rested.”

“Good,” Cadmarius said. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“Is Arthur alright?”

A small smile appeared on Cadmarius’ face. “Arthur is in trouble with authority, as is his wont. But he is alright, under any reasonable definition of the word. Thanks, in large part, to you. Well done.”

The sword nodded.

After another moment, Cadmarius exhaled, then said. “There are some other things you should know.

“Your fellow party goers are also all, miraculously, alive. Night Patrol suffered many severe injuries in the rescue operation, but the clinic now believes everyone is going to live. Another mercy.

“Are you familiar with adventuring parties?”

The sword nodded. Who wasn’t? Many of his wielders had found him as part of some quest or contracted adventure. Cadmarius seemed to recognize his surprise.

“Not everyone has,” Cadmarius said with a small smile, “perhaps forty percent of the students come from worlds formal adventurers guilds. Even some of the warrior classes, the [Paladins] and [Rangers] are from worlds where the idea of bespoke armed intervention never quite takes off. We think it has to do with the development of strong central authorities which tend to get nervous about all those armed and powerful strangers wreaking havoc.”

The sword was finding it hard to follow both Cadmarius’ words and also ignore the various machine beeps at the same time. Cadmarius noticed this too, and paused.

“Anyway, we believe our lizard friends are some equivalent of an adventuring company. And a powerful one. There are a number of scouting units in the surrounding area, though there is no sign as of yet that a main force has been deployed. Removing those units is a priority, but it is the administration’s position that the number one priority is safeguarding the school. That is to say, safeguarding all of you.

“Security at the school has been increased signficantly. You will see armed guards everywhere you go. Curfews are going to be very strictly enforced.”

“What is their…quest?” The sword asked.

“We aren’t sure,” Cadmarius said. “That was one of the things we wanted to ask you. Do you know what they want?”

“They wanted Arthur,” the sword observed. “And they were at least interested in me, and possibly in Mei Huang.”

“Mmm,” Cadmarius said. “I’m not sure that narrows things down. Most adventurers are opportunists, all they would need is one member with a decent version of appraisal to know capturing you and Arthur would only help their cause.”

“Arthur has many enemies,” the sword said, not that he’d confirmed this, it just seemed obvious.

“We thought of this too,” Cadmarius agreed, “but he swears he doesn’t know these people or the world they come from.”

“Is he lying?” The sword asked, for he knew that Arthur lied often.

“He is not,” Cadmarius said with heavy certainty.

“I have no other ideas,” the sword said. “Do you store a great deal of gold on campus?” His wielders had all generally been quite interested in gold, especially those with backgrounds as adventurers.

“Not enough to warrant a cross world invasion,” Cadmarius said heavily. “Well, thank you. Now, this is important so I’m going to make you repeat this back to me. There is a new alarm system. One bell means something is happening, continue as normal but don’t do anything that will stop you from moving for a while. Two bells, and you need to be ready to run. Three bells, and you need to head to an evacuation zone. Those are going to be different depending on where you are, there will always be a map on the wall telling you where to go. Do you understand?”

The sword said that he did, and dutifully repeated the meaning of the three bells when Cadmarius asked him to.

Cadmarius, looking uncharacteristically serious, made him repeat it twice more.

Neither spoke for a while. The noises of the clinic grew louder as more visitors started to appear.

The sword, strangely, had another question. “What is my post?”

“Your post?” Cadmarius asked.

“You are engaged in conflict,” the sword said. “Not precisely a war, but not peace time either. What is my post?” It seemed such an obvious question, but Cadmarius hadn’t answered it yet.

Yet Cadmarius seemed surprised. “With me, Nick. In the kitchens.”

The sword pondered this response. A sword did not question, a sword obeyed.

But Cadmarius wasn’t his wielder. He couldn’t be.

A sword did not have to want things.

But the sword…no, he was still a sword. But he was not a sword in the same way that Ms. Lopez’s [Thorn Liege] was a sword.

So he spoke, and said something that was very unswordlike.

“I want to fight.”

Cadmarius blinked. Turned his head to one side. “Can you elaborate please?”

The sword picked at his itching skin, pinching a tender piece between two fingernails. He remembered the flash of Thorn Liege, the singing sound as Ms. Lopez had swung it forward. He couldn’t make that singing sound in this body. It bothered him enormously. “I want to be useful again.”

More time passed.

Cadmarius nodded. “I can understand that,” he said. “But I don’t know what you can do right now. You have very few skills, I believe, and you’re still getting used to your new body, like many of your classmates.”

The sword stared blankly forward.

“Would you like to train? You could join the [Knights] and [Paladins]. They level up faster with different opponents, and we really do need to work on your parry.”

The sword nearly said no.

He despised the physical exercise classes already. Of course he didn’t want to train more.

But would he rather stay behind, and cut more onions in the kitchen?

“I’ll…try,” he said.

Cadmarius raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

The sword sighed. He could already imagine the sweat dripping down his back. The bruises he was going to acquire.

But he didn’t want to die.

He still had to find a wielder, now that Mei Huang was completely out of the question.

He couldn’t just wait around to be pulled from a convenient stone.

“Yeah,” the sword said. “I’ll try.”