Week 4: The Crafting of a Magical Blade
389 Words
He should never have opened the door. The shop was closed, any sane person would have turned the strange man away before letting him speak. He should never have let him speak.
One last request, he had said. It won’t take long. Now he was working the bellows as though trying to summon hell itself. The man stood over him, watching the process closely. He needed a blade capable of killing an immortal. The look on his face made the smith’s laugh die in his throat. He coughed as he had told him such a thing was impossible.
The strange man strode past him into the room, placing a large bag on the table. There is a way, he said. You craft the blade, I will perform the spells. He looked the smith in the eyes, his hands resting on his daggers. No stopping, no matter what.
In the hours since the smith had watched his shop turn into a catastrophe. Each spell the man performed made the metal change and shook the walls until every fixture rattled. He did not stop, though the liquid metal was like nothing he had seen. He waited in silence as the blade cooled, the muttering of incantations causing the shutters to clatter.
The look on the man became evil as the smith removed the blade from the mold. Each strike at the anvil made another part of his shop break. Still he dare not stop. The chanting grew louder and quickened. It grew so loud he couldn’t hear his own hammer. His head felt like it would split in two.
It took him a moment to realize the chanting had stopped. The smith looked up into the strange man’s eyes. He looked even worse when he smiled. The man shoved something off the anvil and reached for his new blade. Buttercream yellow, the blade was only as long as a hand from wrist to fingertip. He laughed, pocketed the blade and turned to leave.
The smith began to follow and protest until he nearly tripped. He looked down at the floor to see a body. In his shock he missed the man’s departure. The body had a hole where there should have been a heart. Gingerly and with dread he turned the body over, screaming at the sight of his own face.
C.M. Wellsmore 