Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Thirty-First of Summer, 14th Year of the Wind

     Sinvida is now whispering to me, it is past time that she feeds. An assignment has not been given, but I have other channels with which to acquire a means to feed my blade. Some would think this is a conflict of interest with my brothers, but the payment goes to the brotherhood regardless.
     I do not know if there is an accurate history of Sinvida in a library somewhere, though if there was, I think she would ask me to destroy it. She is not fickle, no, she merely has a profound distaste for opinions interfering with truth. You may think me crazy for talking about a knife as though it were a person, but Sinvida has always been a tool for the use of men she found worthy... she has not always been a knife though.

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     I dreamed for the first time in my life, the night I found the green-bladed knife. I saw it, stabbed into the trunk of a tree as I was making my way home from a job in my early teens. When I wrapped my hand around the hilt, I knew immediately that it wasn't a tool like any other I'd ever had before. It hummed and warmed my hand, and when I slid the knife into my belt, I could swear I heard a sigh of content.
     That night I dreamed of strange things. A woman, a dancer, plying her trade upon a raised dais in the middle of a great room surrounded by hundreds of people. The clothing was exotic and the music was not familiar to me, but the smells of food and smoke were. All eyes were on the woman in a sheer green dress, swaying to the heart of the music. She moved in such a way that even I was captivated, her hips and shoulders always alternating, her body flawless to my eyes.
     A chorus of cheers rose when she bowed at the end of her dance and stepped down from the platform. A man in a coat studded with gems held his hand out to her and smiled a greasy smile. He said a few words in a language I couldn't understand and she blushed for him. Praise, I believe. She took his offered hand and he pulled her into him, smelling her hair and making more comments. Only royalty acted this way, and only for royalty would people allow this kind of lewd behavior.
     I watched as he offered her drink and drank himself, they ate and the comments and blushing continued for a while. They danced some, and I saw the look in his eyes change when he leaned in and whispered to her. The shock on her face was plain to me, but she schooled it quickly and nodded, bowing graciously. I knew what was to come.
      I was made to follow though the castle, I now knew it to be, as hundred of rooms were passed, flanked by guards holding spears and halberds. The weaponry, the clothing, and the decor reminded me of something far east of where I plied my trade, somewhere with much more sand than I will ever see.
      The bedroom is where I was stopped, to watch a brief scene of her dancing more for him to no music, him motioning her to the bed, and though I expected the obvious... that was not what happened. He hit her hard enough across the face to break her neck. He picked her up and threw her on the bed, beating her with his fists. Her face, her body. Sweat poured from him as he beat her. This was not sexual, this was feral. It continued until almost nothing was left that was recognizable, but bubbles of blood could be seen at her mouth, meaning she was still breathing. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and crossed the room to a small chest, where he retrieved a golden knife. I understood.
     This was a sacrifice to his Gods, not a sexual encounter. The look of shock on her face when he propositioned her meant that she understood that. He whispered something to her and she let out a wheeze. He plunged the knife into her heart and the room exploded into green light. When my eyes adjusted, she was gone and the blade of the knife had turned from gold, to the color of fresh grass. A deep green. The man plunged the knife into his own heart, and fell to the bed, dead.

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     I knew when I awoke that the dream was not a dream at all, but the story of the knife I had found. Why she chose me to wield her, I'm not yet aware, but I feel that something this powerful has a reason for all the things that it does, and I will some day have the honor of knowing.