Chapter 18: Earning His Rosettes

Awondo looked long at the greatsword and the shadowy aura swirling about its blade.

"Try it again," Kari commanded.

He turned to bronze and gripped the handle, held it as long as he could, then released. This time the pain was slightly less.

"You're doing better," she said, pacing about him and looking him up and down. "You still revert back to your Mortal shape sometimes. Why?"

Again she questioned him. But did she expect to understand him? He shrunk down to his normal height, the bronze skin melting away, and put his hands on his heart.

She nodded. "You will only gain power if you embrace my father's gift more fully. Besides, when I bring you before him, do you wish to present yourself as any less than he wants you to be?"

His eyes widened. I am to be brought before my king?

"Yes," she said, as if in answer to his thoughts. "Your journey with me will end in Avon Lasair. And this weapon will be yours. You will break it, tame it, and brand it anew it in the image of the Sun, retempering it first in the dark heart of its maker."

This made Awondo sad. This sword was a living being, strong and proud, and loyal to its maker as a hound is to a huntsman. Besides, he did not think he could win it over by force, especially seeing as he meant to turn it on its master. He pictured himself in battle with the being Othomo, seeing the darkbringer as Kari described him. The sword did a thing then that surprised them both. The shadowy aura receded and embers glowed beneath the steel. Kari's eyes opened with such hunger that he could see her face in his mind, though she stood behind him.

"That was quick," she said.

It was. Awondo reached slowly to the hilt, waiting for his skin to turn to bronze before running a finger along a section of the crossguard. It stung, and he hissed as he recoiled. The aura had somewhat returned. He let the bronze fade away and dared to press his Mortal palm to the grip, and to his surprise and relief, it felt cool to the touch, though it was all cold steel with no leather to cushion his hand. His hands were much too small to wield this thing in his Mortal form. Kari had stabbed it deep into the ground (with much pain over its handling), so that his head was level with the hilt. He lowered his arm and with both hands held the parrying hooks at the end of the ricassa. The steel was hard, harder than anything he'd ever felt. The impervious sandstone of his pyramid was soft as tilled soil compared to the hide of this living blade.

"It's a cruel thing," she said, "as hard and cold as the heart that conceived it."

The more she spoke ill of Othomo, the more Awondo wondered about him, and how he would be able to contend with such a one, even with the gift from Arun his king. He peered into the surface of the steel, taking careful note of the scratches and notches along its edge; even they were sharp. He did not trust this thing suddenly availing itself to him, so soon after he thought of coming into close quarters with its master, and only to the touch of his small and vulnerable Mortality. He could not hope to carry it without being in his true form... his new form. That errant slip of the mindward tongue disturbed him.

"Enough for now," she said. "I don't expect this animal to tame easily. In fact, I like not it's current temper. Leave it there. It's time for you to rest, and for me to think."
They made their beds in the soft ivy hedges within a grotto carved into a sinking hill. There the forces that bound foot to earth shifted, so that they stood upright looking through cracks in the grotto at the ground some hundred cubits below, where the hill sloped into a narrow dell. There was a hot spring gurgling from under the ground, it too ensorcelled by the same nexus of change. When Kari cooled herself in the hot spring, she would flick the water upwards with her toes and laugh as it caught the more natural winds and fell downward onto her face, dripping from there like rain into the dell. She bathed naked, though she covered herself with her arms until submersed. At first Awondo would look away. Now he paid her no mind. He'd seen many of his own tribeswomen naked, besides just his wife. While the flesh of the Mighty was a thing foreign and full of mystery to him, he never forgot how thoroughly beyond him this princess of storms was, by virtue of her nature and his marriage. He even joined her a time or three, wincing at the heat of the water, and marveling at the steam that hissed where the water touched Kari's incendiary form. This evenday, he lay silent and still, thinking of the tall, powerful figure of bronze he could will himself to be, so that he stood on a par with the Mighty, and the small Mortal wife who waited frozen in time.

"You worry over your wife," Kari said from the hot spring. "You do so needlessly. She is as you left her, along with all of Windaji. You will learn in time that all my father's gifts are perfect, matched to the receiver as cleverly as could be."

There was a wide crack in the grotto wall directly above Awondo, and he could see a single white star peeping through the rose pink sky. Sleep took him by inches, and waking struck him at once. Kari's scream pulled him from the ether. He ran from the grotto to the sound of her voice, and saw her again trying to hold the sword. Awondo would never have thought that fire could be burned, but her hands were scorched black where she gripped the handle.

Why does she punish herself?

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"Every time I touch it," she said, as if in response, "it taunts me, and I learn something of it's master's whereabouts. He's passing east through the dustlands, north of Noctis's prison."

Awondo did not know this Noctis.

"A treacherous scamp," Kari explained. "She was once enamored with the dark bringer, being a shadowy one herself. But she's a fleeting creature of shifting purpose. The creature Yannis set a ward about her and she betrays no more."

All these fabled names, she spoke of them as Awondo did the attendants at his court. It was strange for him to hear. Yannis, so far as he knew, was an evil name, of a usurper who tried to steal the Sun from Arun, and was banished deep in the cold hills of the north to wait out eternity in solitude. He'd never heard of him being a gaoler.

"Do you hear me, Mortal?" Kari was angry. "I say he moves east, to the kingdom of the Moon. He goes to Selenne."

Why would he do such a thing, if he too, like Yannis, has come for the crown of my king?

Kari stormed over to him, towering and enraged. "Speak," she said, calmer than he would have expected.

He sighed, then asked why Othomo was heading to the land of the Pale Queen.

Kari rolled her eyes and sucked in breath. "Speak."

He asked his question again. This time she caught him mid word by the throat and held him off the ground. He was choking in her fiery grip, so he turned to bronze, becoming suddenly too heavy and large for her to hold. She set him down and seemed for a moment slightly calmed.

"Speak."

He opened his mouth, but the growling of a jaguar came from his lips and she slapped him.

"Speak!". She kicked him to the ground and hurled a scythe of yellow flame from her brow.

He rolled away and vaulted feet overhead into a fighting stance. She came at him and he stepped back, then, perceiving this to be an exercise, launched forward and tried to tackle her. She raised her hands and a blast of heat sent him sprawling. Upward from the ground he looked, seeing above him eyes ablaze, heart shaped face enraged. Her hair flowed upward like a torch. The pressure of her unshod foot bore down on his bronze throat, crushing the soft flesh within.

"You will speak," she whispered venomously. She leaned forward, pressing on his throat. He felt blood in his mouth and he coughed, splashing crimson into the air. She pressed downward suddenly, threatening to break his soft, Mortal bones, despite the hardness of his bronze skin. Somehow it was not enough to have a hide of bronze. The last time she lashed out at him so, she stopped before harming him. As his breath found his throat too cramped to pass through, he began to wonder if she were merely testing him this time. But his wondering was cut short, and so very nearly was his life, for she pressed down with enough fury to split the land beneath him. He felt his throat collapsing and the bones within beginning to snap, and he could not breath. He thought he had offended her in some unforgivable way, and as his eyes went dark he thought of his wife.

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