Ysan held Hazahnahkah tight. She did not allow Xiun to throw away the blade, or even hold it. They seemed distrustful of one another now. Ul's mother became quieter, watchful—letting Ysan and Ul take the lead.

  “If only that which was not feared was ever plucked, fire would have never been mastered,” Ysan said.

  “The weapons found here have laid waste to several kingdoms,” Xiun said back.

  “The kingdoms of our enemies. Would that not make this sword our ally?”

  Ul prodded Ysan humorously. “If swords could think, yes. And if swords could think, I think it would be untrustworthy.”

  The sword laughed at that. He took a liking to Ul’s compatriotship.

  “Since when does the saved question the savior?” Ysan continued her climb up the stone of the stonetree, her heel cracking at a mineral and scattering gold dust across the face of her friend. Ul was too busy grinning to mind.

  Xiun stared. “Are you even practiced with melee combat?”

  “I can see now. We can find out.”

  “Not everything seen needs to be tested,” Ul laughed. “I would rather find a proper washroom at home first.”

  Ysan smiled. Her eyes traced Hazahnahkah: from his point, across his grooves, to where his cord wrappings bound charms of enemies and wielders of times passed to his tsuka. Ysan’s palm lifted the timeless silk cord, knotted and sealed tight, binding a ring just behind the guard. The bejeweled band chimed as it dangled from its thread. “It’s so pretty, I would think it deserves to be washed.”

  This was startling. Nobody relished Hazahnahkah because of his beauty.

  “The blademasters will laugh at you,” Ul said.

  “Not the blade, the ring.”

  Oh, he couldn’t get any compliments at all, could he? Although this was hardly surprising. The ring had been made by Hazahnahkah’s maker. That much, the sword could remember.

  They traveled for three patterns in the night sky and did not eat. The forest was littered with others looking through the ruins of fallen kingdoms for things to sell, even those willing to kill. Xiun had found much gold and jewelry, forcing them to exhaust themselves by leaping tree to tree, scouting out trouble from vagabonds and criminals beneath the expanse of auburn and rust leaves. Ysan and Ul rotated between foraging, moving, and gazing at the nightglow. They always kept one set of eyes on Xiun, who seemed keen on leaving Ysan behind. Hazahnahkah was unsure why. Ysan was an incredible asset now. Her newfound sight made her an infallible archer, who had relied only on sound until recently. When rain masked their movements, entire bandit encampments vanished. Even the strongest thieves, robbers, and cutthroats were crippled by the soft penetration of iron through flesh. Ysan and Xiun’s arrows were quiet, and when their bows whispered, men fell into sleep forever.

  They continued like this until they reached an alcove where the forest should have ended. A tower stood above them. One that Hazahnahkah sensed to be quite dangerous.

  “This wasn’t here before,” Ul said.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Xiun agreed.

  Hazahnahkah also found it peculiar. Their goal was to escape the forest and cross The River of Serpent’s Ramble to get back home. They were heading towards no clearing and certainly no tower. Hazahnahkah was humored by the mystery.

  “We can just keep going,” Ysan said.

  “We can’t,” Ul said. “I’ve lost sight of the end. It’s like Asatr picked us up with his claws, spun the sky several suns back, and placed us right back where we began.”

  “Well, he can do it again.”

  “You’re being stubborn.”

  “You’re being blind. What else are we going to do?”

  “We can investigate,” Ul said. “I see no harm in perusing The Tower.”

  Ysan never entered through the front of anything. She crept up The Tower like an ant looking for its home, using the jumbled stone and windowsills as footholds, grappling onto old wood and banners unrecognizable. That was perhaps the most disturbing thing about The Tower. The banners were of no kingdom their party had knowledge of.

  Past a window, waiting under a doorway, was a man in a polished suit. He had a mask, and at his side a knife and a most alien weapon. It had no blade, only a hole where the point should have been.

  A strangely familiar vibration hung within the room, but Hazahnahkah recollected what the man held, and his mind snapped back to the immediate danger.

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  A gun.

  The man pointed it at Ysan, but Ysan clearly did not understand what it was.

  “Are you Orphanspawn?”

  “Excuse you, I may be an orphan but I am no one’s spawn. Are you?”

  The man ignored the question. “Bankanzaku, do you know of him?”

  “Never heard the name in my life. What is this place?”

  “Get out.”

  Ysan did not listen. She dashed across the room, deft enough to somehow avoid two shots but too ignorant to understand that there were four more. Each one met its mark.

  She died.

  Reviving someone from death was easy. Hazahnahkah brought Ysan back to life, teleported her to the base of The Tower, and then folded space upon itself—making it so that the land beyond The Tower was now out of sight, neatly hidden beneath the mountains of another realm—the realm Ysan, Xiun, and Ul had made their home. The village was called Ipsire, constructed over several lakes, and was made rich by trade with the sovereign Suzerainty of Solipsay. Not a human noticed the changes until they happened. For them the changes simply were. Their brains had not evolved to sense this level of speed or subtlety, although a cat had begun to stare unblinkingly at the blade, and Ysan, breathless and gasping, had only regained her wits when Ul and Xiun came running to her. The three travelers stood bewildered, they took a step across the folded earth to check if what they saw was real. At this, Hazahnahkah unfolded the earth behind them, seamlessly and smoothly. They did not notice this either, of course.

  Hazahnahkah was just glad to see his wielder and himself developing from the experience:

  [Ysan’s Attributes]

  Health: 280 → 290

  Energy (source of stamina and abilities): 140

  Agility (speed of actions): 100

  Regeneration: 5 → 10

  Tenacity (resistance to unwanted effects): 10

  Strength (physical or mental reality manipulation potency): 10

  [Ysan’s Relationships]

  Hazahnahkah: Neutral 0/100 → Attached 10/100

  [Hazahnahkah’s Relationships]

  Ysan: Empathetic 20/100 → Protective 70/100

  “I should have died in that tower,” Ysan was still hovering her hand over where bullet holes should have been. She was too afraid to check. Too afraid to confront what may have been a hallucination. “The sky…. The sky must have saved me again.”

  Oh come on. Hazahnahkah couldn’t believe this.

  “What?” Xiun scowled with disbelief. “Did you fall out of The Tower?”

  “No… I was… I was hit by something invisible.”

  “I told you that everything across that River is better lost.”

  “I think it was The Tower,” Ul said. “Some say it makes you see things.”

  “And so how did we arrive here?”

  “As I said, it makes you see things. Perhaps even The Tower itself is not there.”

  Well, Hazahnahkah supposed there was something off with that tower, so it wasn’t totally unfair to lend it credit for any bizarre phenomena.

  However, reality manipulation like that was very simple for Hazahnahkah to do—just a tad draining when he tried to isolate the area of effect. He could wield energy, matter, and structure as if they were tools that he had made. Hazahnahkah’s power was one which bent the world to his will, and it was common sense that “she who wields Hazahnahkah” was “she who wields the world”.

  Ul waited until Xiun left to haggle what treasures they had found. One of those treasures was Ysan’s clothes. Hazahnahkah was very surprised with this exchange. He had earnestly believed that a thief had stolen Ysan’s clothes, but he had not expected that thief to be Xiun. To think that the woman had abandoned Ysan to the waters of Serpent’s Ramble was doubly malefic. Never had he encountered such mercilessness.

  Ul did not hesitate to point this out to Ysan. “I’ll never trust her again. She told me you went ahead of us. It didn’t smell right to me so I turned back... Silk has been on the rise. She has a debt to the Patriarch. I’m sorry. I didn’t think she’d… she’d…”

  Ysan placed a hand on her back. She tried to speak, but could not. A sob escaped her, then, suddenly, she was herself again. All stoic glances and rigid nods. “Tower or sword, I have my sight again. This, money cannot pay for. We should be celebrating.”

  “Nor a decent mother,” Ul growled, enraged as she stared at the ground. “I won’t leave you when Xiun returns to Solipsay. I’ll stay. That woman is not my mother.”

  “Don’t say that. She gave me you.”

  Ul smiled, and Ysan smiled back. It was very heartening to see such a loyal friendship, one that would stay the merciless tests of time. Wielders to Hazahnahkah were like the weather—snow lapped up in sea waves or sunlight on curtains of the rain. They came and they went. They lived as often as they died. People did not want to believe what they were—perishable, temporary, easily lost. Hazahnahkah would know much about these things, after all—he could control it. If he fell, he could slow the fall, making it easier for someone to catch him. If he was swallowed by the earth or sea, he could pull himself back up with quake and tide. Even if he was somehow trapped, it would never be for long. Physical matter was energy, and energy was physical matter.

  Many think the path of his kind has been paved in bloody ventures and legendary duels, but they were more than that.

  He is more than that.

  Although it is true. Wars were waged over him. Epics traveled for a chance at his use. He does not care for those stories. Why would he? He was used in praying, politics, and galas of high regard, handed forward from the past and to future generations that would seek to carve out hope. Now he was in Ysan’s hands, and for her this is what he could do. Her hands reminded him of the quality of those who had forged him—their kindness and grip, their reservation and practicality.

  And like Ysan, he didn’t know why he was given away… Or thrown away.

  He did care, but he couldn't grieve. He was too curious about the whys and the hows of things. He wanted to realize his own shortcomings. He was happy and honored to have been made by them at all.

  Someday, if he was not destroyed—and many had tried to destroy him—he hoped to see them again.

  Someday, he hoped to find a scholar capable of keeping him.

  Someday, he hoped to mirror a laughing world.