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What can I say about the Well of Shadow not already known to every sorcerer across the Empires? Yes, it was a source of power, and yes, it was a source of something more. I cannot say what its purpose is, or how it came to be, save that I am sure, in my heart, its being is linked at its very core to the Emerald Sorcerer. Perhaps one is a manifestation of the other. Perhaps they are the same. I do not know.

Two things I do know. It is the source of everything within the Infinite Citadel. Without it, the Citadel would not exist. Nor, perhaps, any item of sorcery at all.

And second, that the Shadowblade is the Well, and the Well is the Shadowblade, and both are far more than they seem. But I was not to know that for many years to come.

Standing atop the Well, I felt more power within me than I had ever felt before. More powerful than standing before the crushed walls of Icantoka. More powerful even than I would feel, when the time came, standing over the broken corpse of the sorcerer who had cursed me. Standing there, there seemed no limit to what I could do. And yet, before I could lift a finger, flex my new strength...

"I knew you would survive," said Alexiun, or his voice at least, directly behind me. I whipped around, startled, old instincts driving my hand to wield the strange hilt I held in my hand. And watched, as his face went ashen, the twinkle in his eye drained away, replaced by a rictus of dread.

"It has returned!" He began to back away.

"What are you?"

"For the love the Emperor, friend Skyrie, cast it away. Back into the Well where you found it. Or into the lake, where it might sink and never be found."

I eyed him cautiously. He seemed the Alexiun I knew, yet the Alexiun I knew had told me he could not travel here.

"Where is Lostra?"

"I could not bring him."

"So you have left him to die? There were soldiers, not an hour behind us!"

"He is safe. Friend Skyrie, please, do not hold the Shadowblade."

I looked at the hilt in my hand. "This? This holds no power. It is spent."

"But you will reforge it."

"I do not know how."

"You will find away. Oh, cast it aside, or you will find away, the blade will return, and the end will come for all of us."

I stared him down. I had no use for this hilt. No use for its useless weight. Had Alexiun not spoken, I thought, I would do just that. Cast it away. But the fear he showed drove me to other ideas.

"You said you could not bring me here, yet here you are yourself."

"I may always bring myself here. It is a sanctuary. A priest of the Well may always travel to the Well, whenever they wish. It is a meeting place, a guarantee of safety, for no one but a priest of the Well may come here, and the law is such that in this one place, we may not harm each other."

Power surged through me. "Not my law."

"That is what I fear. Please, Skyrie, cast it away."

"No. I will not. Not, at least, until you tell me why I should."

He sighed. Sat down. And spoke at length. Under the now balmy sky, he told me of the Shadowblade, the first of its kind:

"Many who seek attunement to the Well of Shadow secretly seek the shadowblade. None will admit it openly, but in their hearts, they know of the blade, and they know what it means for it to reveal itself. We are told it was forged by Arandal, the first mage, the first Bone Emperor, the greatest power ever to breath this air. Forged from the shadows of the new moon, and quenched in the fires of the eclipsed sun. It's blade is the essence of shadow and the body of the Well, and cleaves souls as easily as flesh and steel. Arandal was the first to master the Well, and he sought to bind it to him through the sword, carrying the essence of it with him wherever he went, so that no other may use its powers against him. Arandal the mighty, Arandal the great, Arandal the bloody, Arandal the cruel, Arandal the terrible, all these names came to him, one by one with the sword at his side. It cuts through men as a scythe through a field of corn, its slightest touch a mortal wound. Arandal the mighty fought alone and the sword slew a hundred men. Arandal the great forged an empire and destroyed all who opposed him. Arandal the bloody slew his brothers in battle, as they fought by his side. Arandal the cruel touched the souls of innocents with the taint of the blade. Arandal the terrible decimated his entire court with every rage he flew into. It is a beautiful weapon, a master of its craft, the shadow stuff that is its blade will stab and slash with a will of its own. In the hands of a novice, the blade will fight like a master. In the hands of a master, the blade will fight like a god! Yet it is not and never will be your servant. Always the blade will draw if you call upon it, yet sometime it will draw of its own desire, likely as not to kill where no killing is meant. It will slay your foes readily enough, yet the blade will turn, or lengthen, or curve, and somehow slay friend and foe alike, whatever you will of it. They say that those slain by blade are slain never to return. They are gone forever from the great cycle, consumed by the stuff of the Well of Shadows, and when finally the blade turns on you, so too will you be destroyed forever. Three times assassins sunk poisoned blades into Arandal's back, and three times he lived on. Yet when he finally died. He died alone, in a locked room, withered to dust. It is said the blade had finished with him and returned by its own means to the Well to await another hand, taking Arandal's spirit forever with it."

"And it has not been seen again?"

"Two other hands have held it since Arandal. The Destroyer, who would have ground the Bone Empire into dust, and his son, who murdered his father for the blade, slaughtered his own people, and wore the Bone Mask for a terrible decade before the ravages of madness drove him to throw himself from these very cliffs. There have been other stories, vague and distant, from lands so far indistinct as to be make-believe. But the shadowblade has not been seen in the Empire of Bone for five hundred years until now. Beware, friend Skyrie. It binds the Well to you, and you to it. It is the greater part of the Well, and it will become the greater part of you. No man may best you in combat, yet the blade has a life of its own. Your friends will fall around you, caught in stray, inexplicable blow, the slightest tear in their flesh enough to suck their life force slowly away. And when all around you are gone, and the blade is your only companion, when there is no one else to feed its hunger, it will turn on you as it turned on Arandal and all those who followed him. I urge you again, friend Skyrie. Throw it away. It is a curse to all who bear it."

My hand reached briefly to touch the mark on my brow. "I am already cursed," I replied.

Alexiun's prediction was true. I found a way and made the sword whole again. I have never felt something become a part of me so easily as that sword. I sense it has a presence, an alien awareness, yet it seems content. It does not struggle against me, or seek to corrupt or plot its own course. I can barely begin to describe the exhilaration as I cut down my enemies, the joy as the shadowblade flows in perfect harmony with my every stroke, splitting men and steel apart as though they were nothing but smoke. We are as one.

The content of this page is © copyright Stephen Deas 2003 and is used here with permission.
It may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the permission of the author.