The Soulsword

The Soulsword

A dim orange sun shone over the Pomena Valley, casting shadows over the bountiful river plains. A thin ribbon of blue wove through the valley, and green pine trees peppered the many cliffs and slopes. In the river, a heron waded, solemnly observing the tiny minnows swimming in the calm water. The bird’s head shot forward, breaking the glassy water. The heron came up with a fish speared on its beak, wriggling a few times before going still. It swung the dead fish into the air, and then swallowed it whole.

The heron flew away as a man on a horse galloped through the valley, destroying the peaceful air that had existed only a second before. His skin was tanned to a copper color, and he was wearing an emerald green tunic that complimented his hazel eyes. His face was stern and serious, but his eyes danced with excitement. He was Jax, son of Aiolos, and one who wandered about the land of Olus, without a care.

Jax dismounted from his horse, his muscular frame making it easy, and surveyed the land around him. Apart from the many trees and the river, there was nothing. He stepped forward, disturbing a pile of underbrush, and coughed. Where is Alcyone? Jax thought, she should be here by now.

“You do not belong here,” said a voice from behind him. It was dry, and sounded like two knives scraping each other, “You should have left when you had the chance.”

Jax spun around, drawing his weapon. It was a simple broadsword, with a few pearls in the hilt. A man dressed in rags stood there, with furious red eyes and wisps of gray hair. He had a sword in one hand and an obsidian staff in his left hand.

Jax rolled his eyes, then replied, “First off, you never gave me a chance. Second, that’s an awfully fancy sword for an old man like you to be carrying around.” It was a beautiful sword, its iron gleaming in the sunlight. It had an ivory hilt, carved intricately with characters foreign to Jax. He then recognized it as a Soulsword, a sword used to cut souls, the tool of a necromancer. Jax looked up, realizing he was in danger. He instantly regretted saying that too the man. Oh… Alcyone must hurry!

“It is not just any sword,” rasped the man, “It is a Soulsword.” He continued, confirming Jax’s fear. The man’s grip tightened on the sword, and he swung it up so it was level with Jax’s nose.

“You are a necromancer then,” said Jax cautiously, “Have I intruded in your…territory?”

The man nodded, and his red eyes blazed. He twirled around in a pirouette, performing elaborate sword moves. He brought it back behind his ear, in a position to thrust the sword, and sever Jax’s soul.

Jax looked frantically around for some sign of help. A kingfisher had landed in one of the pine trees, but there was no other sign of life. He backed away, towards his horse, but the man followed him, his red eyes never letting Jax out of sight. Jax kept his sword in front of him, although he knew that a single plunge of the Soulsword would kill him, even with the slight resistance of steel.

“My name is Klepio,” said the necromancer, “And you will be the last soul I will take before slipping into the Afterlife, Jax.”

"You know my name, but how?” asked Jax, who was attempting to discreetly mount his horse.

“Your father, Aiolos, was my first victim,” Klepio hissed in response. The man’s frail hands trembled slightly as he stepped, and shoved the sword at Jax. Jax, in a desperate move, swung his sword, cutting off Klepio’s sword-arm. He shrieked, but recovered, picking up the sword in the other hand.

“Souls of the fallen, come to me.” Klepio cried, “To me!” Thin vapory figures floated up from the ground, gathering in the area where his arm had once been. They twirled around the empty space, forming a silvery mass of energy: a new arm.

Klepio switched the sword from his left to his new, peach-colored right arm, and swung it around. Jax brought up the broadsword in hope of parrying the blow, but the Soulsword went straight through the blade, grazing Jax’s chest. A faint grey substance blew away from the wound, in a shape resembling a cloud. It was a part of his soul. He screeched in pain, and Klepio advanced, teeth bared in an inhuman smile.

Jax glanced at the river; he could try and swim away. He had come here to meet his childhood companion, Alcyone. Before he had left to roam the lands as his father had, they had become a little more than friends. Jax had left anyway. He had sent her a letter apologizing, and telling her to meet him at the river on the Feast Day. She had agreed to come. He gazed at the pine tree where the kingfisher sat. It was a brilliant cerulean color, with giant yellow eyes. One of the eyes closed, then opened. It just winked at me! Jax thought incredulously.

He backed away, onto the pebbled bank of the stream. Water washed over his leather boots, spilling in, and cooling his feet. Various plans formed in his mind as Klepio continued his advance. He cackled in that rasping tone of his, still grinning. Klepio’s Soulsword glimmered as he thrust it at Jax, still unsuccessful. Klepio half-frowned and Jax realized that frustration was slowly setting in on Klepio.

Remembering that the kingfisher had “winked” at him, he looked at it. No longer was a bird perched on the branch; instead a woman sat there, with startling blue eyes and fair skin. Her corn-yellow hair poured onto her skin tight black blouse like a waterfall. She winked at him in a manner so reminiscent of the kingfisher; Jax knew at once that Alcyone Verner had a few more tricks up her sleeve.

Alcyone sprang down from the tree, taking twin daggers out of a scabbard on her thigh. While she spun them around in a fancy demonstration, Jax noticed that their handles were ivory, just like the Soulsword. Alcyone is a necromancer as well!

She brushed past him, twirling the knives around her fingers still. Klepio was taken aback by the sudden appearance of Alcyone, and turned the Soulsword onto her. She blocked all the blows with her knives, and Klepio growled.

“Necromancy is not for women!” he shouted, “Souls of the fallen, strengthen me to kill this…disgrace to our great practice!”

Once more shadowy figures floated up from the ground, surrounding Alcyone. She muttered a few things, in a language foreign to Jax, and they disappeared. “You foolish old man,” she said, with a chuckle. Her tone switched to a more drastic one. “I would never practice necromancy! It is a foul thing!”

Klepio smirked. “Why are you carrying around those nice daggers, then?”

Alcyone did not reply, instead, she threw both daggers at him. They hit him in the chest, and he collapsed, twitching violently. First, his right arm disintegrated, then, both of his legs. After this, his torso vanished, and naught was left but his neck and head. Alcyone smiled a toothy smile.

“An odd paradox, do you not think?” she asked the dying Klepio, “The necromancer now becomes a spirit.”

Klepio coughed, then, finally, his head disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a single ring. Alcyone bent down and picked it up, studying it. She stuck it onto her ring finger, but then, she was surrounded by six clouds of vapor.

Jax could not hold in his questions any longer. “You, a necromancer?” he spluttered, “But you say you aren’t, my dear Alcyone. Surely, this is a mistake?”

She hushed him with a single finger to her lips, and then turned to the spirits. “Rest peacefully, my family,” she said. All of them vanished but one, which drifted over to Jax. “Your father.”

"Dad…?” The spirit seemed to give a nod, and then it too vanished. A single tear trickled down Jax’s cheek. “You have a lot to explain, Alcyone.”

They sat down on the river bank, and threw a few stones into the river as she explained. “When I was seventeen, I got a coughing disease, the horrific one that swept through Olus. My mom, my dad, my twin brothers, and my old grandmother went on a trip, to see if they could get a cure for me. They left me with a family friend, a blacksmith, who watched me for two months. I got better, eventually, but news of their deaths reached me. They were killed by Klepio, passing through this very valley.” She paused for a second.

Jax opened his mouth and closed it, in a manner similar to a goldfish. Alcyone continued, “I wanted revenge, and I soon found out that the only way to kill a necromancer was with a Soulsword. I had never been one for swords, so I bought two daggers off a traveling peddler. I developed them into miniature Soulswords. As it turns out, the man I had been staying with was a man with many talents in making weapons, one of them being the development of magical weaponry. The first necromancer I killed was in Yura, just a few miles north of here.” She stopped again, and tossed another rock into the river. Jax was still in awe of her tale.

She concluded, “Now, in the towns surrounding the Pomena Valley, I am referred to as Alycone Spiritfreer, for when I kill the necromancers I release them from being slaves. Now, I shall journey to Periano, in the west, and free them of the terrible tyranny that is necromancy. I am sorry to leave you so soon, Jax, but I have to stop all necromancy. Only then can I rest. Only then will my revenge be complete.”

Jax was astounded by Alcyone’s story, and especially by her hungry quest for revenge. He attempted to wipe his face of all emotion. Alcyone was strong, and he should be too. He trembled slightly as he said, “Well then, goodbye, my dear Alcyone.”

She pecked him on the cheek, and regained her cheerful smile. "When I return, I will find you. Stay in Yura, my dear, stay in Yura." With those final words she transformed into a kingfisher, and flew into the setting sun, her sapphire feathers glittering, a beacon of hope for the land.


Fin.