The sword was naked in The River. No one remembers where the sword came from, least of all the sword. It was a limitation he tried constantly to overcome.

  He couldn’t remember why he was made.

  He couldn’t remember who made him.

  He did not even know from what his body was forged.

  Hazahnahkah had many powers, powers people sought. Even though he was a blade, he had a mind sharp enough to think for itself. And not just that. Hazahnahkah had no eyes, yet he could see. No ears, yet he could listen. No skin, yet he could feel. Taste and smell were senses he had long since pushed away.

  A sword is seldom used to enjoy life. It is used to take it.

  He had been carried downstream after a battle by the Wish River of Serpent’s Ramble, his consciousness flickering in and out until a girl grabbed him.

  She hadn’t done it on purpose. She was drowning, clinging onto bladed gravel and frothing currents as she was knocked from rock to rock. Hazahnahkah did not understand why she did not use him to impale the shore and stabilize herself—at least until he realized she was blind. The girl was also without clothes. She had been trying to look for something that was not there, so a petty thief must have stolen them while she had been trying to cross. She was also crying for someone who was not there, so someone must have abandoned her. In some curious way, this girl reminded Hazahnahkah of all the weaknesses he saw within himself.

  So he remedied them.

  The River, thrashing like a beast without a leash, was brought to heel. Hazahnahkah had slowed and thickened The River. The currents softened, shuddering into slow spirals. The weight of the water settled, like breath returning to a weary chest. Stones below smoothed. Currents around the girl’s legs gentled like guiding hands. She stopped sinking, climbed onto a rock, and sobbed painfully. She nearly let him go.

  Hazahnahkah could not let this happen. If his wielder let him go, Hazahnahkah would quickly find his own consciousness unreliable, and he would not be able to help her. To prevent this, he gave the girl that which was next most important to life, sight.

  The girl’s eyes were clouded by cataracts. This was very unusual for someone of her age, but regardless, Hazahnahkah restored her vision. Of course he could not do this directly either. He instead altered the frequency and structure of ambient light so that the world could administer photonic therapy in a perfectly tuned way. This disassembled the misfolded proteins in her eyes and stimulated regenerative cellular activity. It took seconds for her vision to come—she cried out in terror when it did—and Hazahnahkah felt suddenly guilty. Perhaps he should have introduced sight more gradually to her.

  So the sword took his final step with great care. He gave her skin a temporary magnetic pattern, and gave an opposing pattern to the immediate world around her. It wouldn’t be glamorous, but soft, warm, and modest—enough to slay humiliation.

  Bark, moss, and silk from insects unspooled around the girl and retailored to her form. A gown of greyish weave folded across her frame, water-warmed and weighted just enough to let her remember the world was here in many forms. She stared only at the sword in her hand, however, mute for many minutes. For a moment, Hazahnahkah wondered if she had no ability to speak as well.

  But she did speak.

  “Thank you.” She nodded to the sky. “Your gifts will not be wasted.”

  What the heck? Why was she thanking the sky? If Hazahnahkah had breath, he would have sighed. Although really he should have been able to predict this by now. People often thanked their gods, their ghosts, and the little gnomes beyond the clouds before they ever paid attention to the sword within their hands. Hazahnahkah had long grown used to this and did not bother saying anything for humans could not hear him. A blade’s voice was much too subtle. Blades spoke in vibrations, glimmers, and swings. That was their way. Their language. A language only they could feel. A language all organisms and objects diffused unknowingly through their radiations. Many named it nada. Some called it qi. Others mana. Maybe these were all mistaken. Or maybe they were all right in some small way. Hazahnahkah believed there were many paths to paradise, and there was never only one right way to walk, but he knew these vibrations as one single ensemble: electromagnetic signals.

  It was easy for Hazahnahkah to examine every aspect of nearly anything this way. Especially the brainwaves of an organism. The girl’s sensory organs and general health were permanently and immensely improved from his work. Most creatures of Serpent’s Ramble also evolved directly through their nervous system, and so the more experiences they gained the more powerful they became. It was not difficult to estimate that just from gaining sight, being healed, and holding Hazahnahkah, Ysan’s various qualities and quanta had also improved immensely.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Hazahnahkah estimated the following about her. He could even hear what she thought regarding her own name:

  Health (source of vitality and abilities): 280

  Energy (source of stamina and abilities): 140

  Agility (speed of actions): 100

  Regeneration (rate of recovery per hour for Health and Energy): 5

  Tenacity (resistance to unwanted effects): 10

  Strength (physical or mental reality manipulation potency): 10

  [Ysan’s Abilities]

  None.

  [Ysan’s Equipment]

  Hazahnahkah: Imbues wearer with the title [Wielder of Seven Seasons] bestowing attributes equal to or less than Hazahnahkah’s. May or may not trigger the following skills at any time for any reason: [First Terror], [Second Terror] and [Third Terror]. Hazahnahkah may also choose to [Reraise], [Attune], or [Cherish] them.

  Hazahnahkah’s Coverings: Grants [Reraise], [Attuned], and [Cherished]. These are refreshed so long as [Wielder of Seven Seasons] is active.

  [Ysan’s Conditions]

  Wielder of Seven Seasons: +100,000,000,000 Tenacity.

  Reraise: Automatically revived upon death. Health regained depends on [Reraise] source.

  Attuned: Has a reciprocal relationship with Hazahnahkah where one may be particularly sensitive to the other’s feelings and thoughts.

  Cherished: Both Hazahnahkah and his wielder have improved capacity to improve attributes, develop powers, and ideate new abilities via symbiosis.

  ???: A mysterious ability based on Hazahnahkah is developing through [Cherished]. Fully developed when the relationship reaches 100.

  [Ysan’s Relationships]

  Hazahnahkah: Neutral 0/100

  It was also easy to sense a physical organism unskilled at masking the electromagnetic emissions of her nervous system. Hazahnahkah had already taken notice of a woman who was doing a rather good job at nestling herself into the crag of the riverbank. She shouted only when the girl was safe. “Ysan! Never ever cross The River by yourself again! Do you understand me?” The woman’s pecan hair and clothes were soft. Her eyes were of someone who had seen too much and spoke too little. “Who gave you these clothes?”

  “The sky.”

  “The sky…? Where did your old clothes go?”

  “The River took them.”

  “That’s not… possible. It has not rained in rings.” The woman looked up at a great celestial sphere hanging in the topaz sky. Its body blotted out most of the sun, and the stardust which encircled it was now slowly dispersing like doves before the cold.

  Hazahnahkah had learned to measure time here. Every ring that formed was equal to a day, and upon each ten day week they dispersed. Months were double this time, with the first half always being a formative week and the second, scattering. The woman was right. It had been awhile since rain had come, but that had no correlation to the raging of the rapids, which, by Hazahnahkah’s hunch, was actually glacial runoff.

  The woman watched Ysan staring up at the rings. It was the girl’s first time seeing them, or anything really. “Those are the rings? Clest’s?”

  Xiun froze at her. “Wait, you can see?”

  “Yes, I think it was the sky. The rings. It was them.”

  “No, it is The Tower. Many tell strange things; good and evil cross here.” Xiun looked up into the clouds. A silver speck hovered silently above, a round glint in the clouds, as if the sky had misplaced a shield and couldn’t remember where it belonged. It vanished as quick as it had come. “Strange creatures exist beyond The Great River.”

  Ysan did not seem to trust this, but fell quiet. She was now very transfixed on anything but the sky—looking at the amber canopies and broken mountains—the tails of hiding woodland creatures and dew upon the leaves.

  A girl quietly appeared. She had been hiding and watching for quite some time. “Is it true, Ysan? Can you really see?”

  Xiun twisted back at the girl’s voice. Her motherly composure seemed shattered at this. “Ul! I told you to stay near The Tower! Serpent’s song! What am I going to do with you two? You ask for advice and then always do the opposite!”

  Ul’s mouth fell at the sight of Hazahnahkah. “Is that the key? From the legends?”

  “Who knows,” Xiun said. “Everything here is better lost.”

  “Like Ysan?” Ul asked. “You said the hinterlands would flood.”

  “You are my daughter. I need you safe.”

  “Ysan’s your daughter as well… even if only in name.”

  “I came back for her, did I not?”

  Ul snarled, looking at Hazahnahkah. “I wonder about that.” She hiked the steep slope out of The River and into the woods before her mother could muster a reaction.

  Ysan pressed her fingers gently into Ul’s shoulder. “I’m sure Xiun made an honest mistake. Let’s keep going.”

  “And the sword?” Xiun held her hand out, one leg in The River, one leg out. It appeared as if she wanted to take it, not for herself, but for The River. She was going to cast Hazahnahkah back into it.

  This wasn’t good. Hazahnahkah had many abilities, but staying conscious for a prolonged amount of time without a wielder was not one of them.