Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

King Jean III of Layyia has been remembered as both Jean the Good and Jean the Mad, for in truth he was both. A dashing warrior and ladies’ man in his youth, he suffered a psychotic break about ten years after he took personal power from his regency council and spent the remaining twenty years of his life gradually descending into alternating bouts of frenzy and catatonia.

One of his most famous delusions is called the Talking Sword.

As is true of most kings, Jean III was gifted with a fine and ornate sword when he came of age, in this case a gift from his grandfather Jean II, held in trust for many years. A fine blade in the old Crimson Empire style, it featured an affectation common in Late Imperial blades, namely a man’s face on the hilt by way of decoration.

His courtiers found Jean III engaged in deep, if one-sided, conversation with this face one day. He insisted that the blade had told him it was alive, that its name was Horace, and that Horace was filled with incredible wisdom.

That was all well enough, and might have been dismissed as a mere eccentricity, if not for one other thing. Horace was thirsty, and he bade Jean III slake that thirst. Four courtiers were slain before the blade could be wrested from the king’s hands.

Afterwards, Jean had screamed and wailed for hours, demanding to see Horace. Fitted with a wooden blade, the sword was dutifully supplied to the king, who promptly used it to beat several of his ministers black and blue.

For the remainder of his reign, when he was coherent, Jean blamed his worst excesses on Horace. When the king finally died, ten years after a new regency had removed him from power, he was found with his throat cut. But, strangely, neither Horace nor his removed blade was ever recovered afterwards.

Some say, having tired of King Jean, it travels the world to this day, still alive and still thirsting.

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Puck Evereyes was the name the gob took for himself, and it is worth looking at why. For many years he worked as a nameless bodyguard, appearing in sellsword alleys every morning looking for work as a bodyguard.

When he found it, he would often help his clients gird themselves before going out. Invariably, they would hide a dagger or smallsword in among their things as a weapon of last (or first) resort. Though they were not always drawn, they were always girded.

Evereyes developed a keen sense of where these weapons were kept, the subtle methods used to disguise them, and the telltale signs of their presence. Soon, he was disarming foes before it was even clear that they bore swords at all.

That explains the name Evereyes, then. But what of Puck?

Not long before he took his name, Evereyes was acting as a bodyguard for a mercenary in Toan, and the man sought to swindle the gob out of his fee by murdering him. When he tried to draw a boot knife to do the dirty deed, he found that Evereyes, suspicious, had removed the blade already.

“You puckish little thing!” the man had cried, before beating a retreat.

In his latter days, Puck Evereyes operated a school for sellswords in Toan, accepting only gobs and refusing payment until they had completed his third lesson, to give the young, the poor, and the nameless a chance at the same success he had enjoyed.

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One of the gobs approached Lord Muolih, the Spreading Darkness, and asked him to bless a smallsword.

“Why should I bless such a small sword, weilded by such a small gob, when I could instead place my blessing on the blade of my finest warrior?” asked Muolih.

“It is the way of elves and men, who strut around so tall, to ignore the smaller gobs and then, to not see us at all.”

Muolih, impressed by the small gob’s rhyming song, directed it to continue.

“A blade in cavalry leader’s hand when he is leading a charge? This is a blow they’ll see, for he is fast and large. My smallsword, though, is small and quick and the tall ones pay no heed; they will think themselves quite thick once I have done the deed.”

Muolih, amused, granted the gob’s request. And thus was born Doggerel, the Blessed Blade of the Spreading Darkness, which offered a boon to whomever could ask for one with a rhyme. But it was also fickle, and could be rhymed away from any owner by a sufficiently talented poet.

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Forsooth there was a jaunty gob
A master swordsman he
But murdering was not his job
He kept instead a beat

A set of musick blades he owned
Their steel was finely wrought
Carefully their blades he’d honed
For the music that he sought

When each blade did cut the air
Or strike against something
A musical note would linger there
As the steel did ring

And so the gob put on his show
To crowds both large and rapt
His music ringing with each blow
As melodies he tapped

Daredevilry it was as well
No simple parlor trick
For to ring out like a bell
The blades were sharp and thick

He made a name with breathless feats
Of notes both cut and struck
But there were some who held his deeds
Were nothing but pure luck

A jealous bard, an elfin mule
A challenge he laid down
The finer musician would keep his rule
While the other gave up sounds

They met one day in a public square
To finalize their duel
Harsh words were said, along with dares
Most unpleasant and cruel

The bardish mule did play his lute
And sang a comely tune
The crowd was left completely mute
And several ladies swooned

The gob went next, and with his swords
He slashed a symphony
Astounding all the gathered hordes
As people strained to see

No lucky fluke this goblin bard
No trick within his blades
The elvish mule was put down hard
And on the ground he stayed

For the last note of the goblin song
Was a blow both short and sharp
And though it went a little wrong
It wound up in the harp

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A wise man once did so decree
A grave and desperate prophecy
The man whose throne had just been made
Would fall upon a floral blade
The new king wasted a moment not
With the prophecy in his every thought
Every sword and blade he did collect
Which had any hinto of floral aspect
The smiths and smithies watched close
Against the prophet’s future boast
A kingdom was neglected thus
To parry this uncertain thrust
Until one day to the garden took
The king who his very lands forsook
He chanced to graze across his nose
The thorns from a humble royal rose
Gangrene soon reared its ugly head
And by week’s end the king lay dead
A lesson lies inside these deeds
One you would do well to heed
The road one takes to avoid one’s fate
Oft brings them to its very gate

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In the days of old, before the slow fading of magic, a knight visited a dragon high in the mountain. Before their extinction, the sorcerous wyrms were widely feared, for they had powerful magicks above and beyond their terrible fires. It was said they could read minds, change shape, create precious metals from base ones, or even raise the dead. They would entertain requests, perhaps out of boredom, but if the supplicant failed to make a positive impression they were eaten or incinerated.

“What would you ask of me?” the dragon said.

“I ask only for a weapon that I might defend my village with, as we are beset with ogres that steal our crops and slaughter our men.”

“Why should I?” the dragon replied.

“If the ogres destroy our village, they will rampage throughout the valley, despoiling it. I know you love the beauty of this place as much as we, and if you give me what I ask it will benefit us both.”

“Very well,” the dragon said. “I will give you a sword made of my tooth, which will pierce all before it. But I will extract from you a promise: this sword is not to be used upon me. I have ensorsclled it to strike any man dead if they dare do so.”

The man agreed, and the dragon gave him the sword. After a week’s preparation, he attacked the ogres in their cave and slaughtered them with the dragontooth sword. In doing so, he freed seven men, four women, and three children that the ogres had taken to eat. One of the women was a radient beauty, and she soon fell in love with the man and was married to him.

They built a home overlooking the valley and lived as its rangers, preserving it against all threats. But in time, the man’s wife grew bored with the vistas and the work, and sought comfort in the arms of a nearby miller while the man was away.

He returned early, however, and discovered the liason. In his rage, he drew his dragontooth sword and swung it…only to be laid stone dead before the blow could land.

For his wife had in fact been the valley’s dragon in disguise, intrigued with his quest and bored from guarding her hoard. The mercurial perniciousness of her kind had led her to stray, and led the man to slay himself.

The dragon was never seen again in that valley.

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A sellsword walked into a crowded inn, carrying a hilt with no blade.

“What’s with the broken sword?” the innkeep asked.

“It’s a long story,” the sellsword said. “Give me a drink.”

The barmaid arrived not long after with his drink. “What’s with the broken sword?” she said.

“It’s a long story,” the man said. “Give me something to eat.”

When the cook arrived with the sellsword’s meal, he saw the hilt on the table. “What’s with the broken sword?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” was the reply. “I need to stable my horse.”

While leading his horse in for the night, the stablehand saw the hilt. “What’s with the broken sword?” he said.

“It’s a long story,” the man said. “I need a room for the night.”

The innkeeper’s wife was leading the sellsword up to his room when she noticed the hilt. “What’s with the broken sword?” she said. “You’ve avoided telling my whole staff the story, but you’re not going to evade me so easily.”

“It’s a dagger,” the man said.

“A dagger?” said the inkeeper’s wife. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“I said it was a long story. I didn’t say it was a longsword.”

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Swordtember 15: Forest

The fairest folk of Layyia wood
A predicament they did face
Against attacks by kingsman none could
Stand resolute in one place

The king said they, his subjects, owed
Him a reverently bended knee
The woodfolk, with their answer, showed
They gave him no fealty

But against the armored shining knights
Their wooden spears did break
To close within an arrow’d flight
Would be a grave mistake

Steel they needed in shining blades
To fight their armored foes
But with no smithies in their glades
They knew not where to go

It happened then that an ancient blade
Was unearthed in the wood
The folk restored its tempered shade
The best that any could

But with that steel they slew a man
And took his sword and shield
So it was then that they began
To make the kingsmen yield

With each Layyian man that fell
A sword he gifted them
And soon the ring of battle gave tell
From each and every glen

The king was forced to slink away
Defeat his men had known
A hundred years later, to the day
A woodman was upon his throne

You may think your fight may fail
As enemy forces swell
But a single sword can yet prevail
If it is wielded well

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The King of Layyia once commissioned a sword from the famed artisans of Naïx. He sent payment in gold, raw materials, and a request for a weapon that “none could equal or surpass” besides himself.

Accompanied by the smith and a retinue of Layyian sailors, a dhow from Naïx departed to bear the completed sword north. But along the way, a terrible storm arose and the dhow was sunk, with the loss of all but one man who was found clinging to wreckage the next morning. Hauled before the king, the man, a Layyian, was accused of sabotaging the sword’s journey and threatened with death over its destruction.

“Let me ask you, your majesty, is the sword truly destroyed when it lies on the bottom of the sea?” the man asked.

“What good does a sword do me on the seafloor?” the king replied.

“Ensuring that none can equal or surpass it,” the sailor said. “The smith is lost, and no matter how fine a new blade may be, it cannot be compared to yours. Thus it is impossible to surpass.”

The king thought on this. “But what if I choose to sell it, or bestow it as a gift to my heirs?”

“Then your majesty may do so! You have but to say the word and the sword will belong to someone else. Who is there to dispute you?”

After another moment’s thought, the king nodded. “Yes, I could not have thought of a neater arrangement myself.” The sailor escaped execution, and to this day the Aquatic Blade remains a treasured heirloom of the Layyian kingdom, wherever it lies.

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Launna Lightblade was a mule who lived in the hills near Aiov. Her mother was a sickly humand and her father a sickly elf, and so Launna was delicate, easily exhausted, and oft frail. But she was also very fair, and attracted many suitors who either did not know or did not care that she was a mule and could never bear them children.

Though delicate, Launna learned to use what energy she had in effective ways, spending hours each day carefully honing her skills with a blade. In that way, she would make her few blows count.

A suitor arrived from Simnel one day bearing an ornate sword. He had seen a painting of the hill beauty of Aiov and desired for his gift to win her as his wife. It was a long, thin epee, in a startlingly modern style, with a basket hilt made of fine filligreed wires.

Upon presenting it to her, the suitor-one Reih Lüm-said “A delicate blade for a delicate flower, and one that I have picked especial.”

Launna took the sword, made a few practice swings, and threw it roughly to the ground, bending it. Angered at this, Reih advanced on Launna, who danced out of the way and kicked the back of his knee. Dropped on his back, he found himself struck in the throat shortly and sharply, causing him to gasp in pain. Launna picked up the sword, which was still usable, and held it to his throat.

“If a man attacks an unarmed person in a rage at the first setback, is it not he who is delicate?” she asked. “Begone from my sight, and leave this blade as recompense for the trouble you’ve caused.”

Launna never married, and despite her weak constitution, she rose to become constable with that selfsame blade, repaired and reinforced, by her side.

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