Page 84 of Swordheart
Sarkis dissolved into blue fire. At nearly the same time, so did the contents of the jar.
Zale laughed delightedly. “Look!” They flipped the jar over and nothing came out.
Halla let out a cheer. “It worked!”
“It did!”
“That’s amazing!”
“I know!”
“Now what does that mean?”
“I have absolutely no idea!”
They looked at each other for a long, long minute, then both dissolved into laughter.
“Did you see… the look on his face…”
“And when he tried to explain how he…!”
Zale couldn’t finish. The ox flicked back an ear at the strange howling noises coming from the wagon seat, but didn’t turn. Brindle looked at both of them and shook his striped head. “Humans,” he muttered under his breath. “A gnole does not understand humans.” This only made Zale laugh harder.
It took nearly five minutes for the two to get their hilarity under control. When Sarkis rematerialized, he couldn’t figure out why Zale and Halla were carefully avoiding looking at each other.
“Well?” he said.
Halla burst out laughing again. Sarkis stared at her, swung around to Zale, and saw that the priest had put their hands over their face, and was making truly bizarre noises.
“Are you bothwell?”
“Fine,” gasped Halla. “Wonderful.”
“Never better,” croaked Zale through their fingers.
“What the hell did you two do with my jar of piss?”
Halla fell off the wagon seat. Sarkis had to go pick her up. She appeared unhurt, but was sitting in the dust, giggling uncontrollably, unable to stand up under her own power.
“I’m fine,” she croaked, when he set her on her feet. “Fine. Perfectly… heh… fine…”
He slapped dust off the back of her skirt. “Are you drunk?”
“No!” She leaned on him as he helped steer her back to the wagon. “Just… ah… heh… look, you had to be there.”
“Iwasthere!”
“You had to be there and not be you?”
He handed her up into the wagon and looked over at Zale. “Areyougoing to fall off now?”
“I think I’m okay,” said the priest, lips twitching. “Mostly. But oh, Sarkis! This is fascinating! The jar empties itself when you go back in the sword!”
Sarkis narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me that anything I… err… leave out here goes back in the sword with me?”
“Makes sense,” said Halla. “I bet it normally dematerializes when it gets far enough away from the sword. It’s just nobody noticed. And of course you wouldn’t notice.”
“I don’t often stay out of the sword long enough to have to eat,” he admitted. “But are you telling me that my sword is full of shit?”
