Page 65 of Swordheart
“Maybe, but we’re going to be polite.” She nudged him in the ribs. “Anyway, only one of us is getting any older and I don’t mind waiting.”
He stifled a sigh. “I might age outside the sword.”
“Oh! Really?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t spent that long outside it, all told.”
Halla looked suddenly worried. “Should I keep it sheathed more? I don’t want you to be aging for nothing.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s been… well, a long time since I ate and slept and walked about. It’s been good to remember what it’s like to be human.”
The woman in front of them looked over her shoulder and said, “You can go ahead of me.”
Halla blinked. “Really?”
“Sir… ma’am… I’m here because my youngest needs to get out of the house and learn a trade. You two appear to be either enchanted or desperately insane. And in either case, I’d rather you weren’t standingbehindme.”
“You’re very kind,” said Halla.
“And obviously very wise,” added Sarkis, bowing.
They ultimately stood in line for about twenty minutes. Three more people looked at the sword, or perhaps Sarkis’s expression, and suddenly decided that they’d rather have him dealt with sooner rather than later. They might have gotten past even sooner, but one of the men in line made the mistake of mentioning that he trained guard geese, and Halla peppered him with questions about guard geese until the acolytes came for him.
Eventually an acolyte ushered them through the stone arch and down a corridor.
The priest of the White Rat was a slender person with a pointed chin and long gray hair braided back from their face. Their vestments bore the slender silver stripe indicating the polite form of address. They beckoned, gestured to chairs, and said, “How may the Temple help you, friends?”
Halla sat down and said, “I’ve inherited a lot of money and a magic sword, and now my relatives want to force me to marrymy cousin, so I ran away, but now I don’t know how to get back to get the money, or even if I can, and they’ve told everyone that I was kidnapped.”
“I… see.” The priest looked over at Sarkis. “And you are…?”
“The magic sword.”
The priest had a calm, reserved face but one eyebrow began to climb, very slowly, towards their hair.
“Uh, yes, this is Sarkis. He’s been trapped in a magic sword. He serves the wielder, which is me. I was trying to kill myself to get away from my relatives but I used his sword to do it and summoned him. This sword here.” She slung it off her back.
The other eyebrow joined its mate in the slow march toward the priest’s hairline. They steepled their fingers. “This is… quite a story. Could you start again from the beginning?”
She did. Sarkis watched the priest very obviously not asking questions until the end, when they asked only one.
“May I see the sword?”
“Oh, yes.” Halla laid it across the priest’s desk. “If you sheathe it, he goes back in the sword. Here, I’ll show you. Sarkis?”
He nodded.
Halla untied the cords holding it open and pushed the blade into the scabbard. Blue flame jittered around Sarkis as he vanished.
The priest fell back in their chair with their mouth open. Then they started to laugh. “Oh my! Oh, by the tail of God. Well done. If that’s an illusion, I’ve no idea how you did it.”
“It’s not,” said Halla. “Here, you draw it and…”
“May I? In case you are giving some signal that I cannot see…”
“Sure, go ahead.”
The priest drew the sword. Sarkis flickered into existence behind Halla’s shoulder.
