Prelogue

There was a time when men were greater than they are today. Not better - but greater at both good and evil. And among these great men, there were great smiths, and the greatest among them was Kappel.

But although Kappel was a master among masters, he was a bitter, old man. The greatest smith among men he might be, but Kappel knew well that all his works, no matter how precise and skillfully made, would always be second best to the artifacts of the great smiths among elves and dwarves.

How could a mere human compete with swords that could cut a ray of light in two, or maces that made the ground shake and tremble?

He created masterpieces - works of art, that nevertheless were as brutal and deadly as a rabid lion. But he thought any of them good enough, or he found a flaw - if only to his own eye. He might once have seen a dwarven axe with a keener edge, or an elven sword with a more harmonic and pleasing damascing.

So Kappel was bitter - bitter because birth denied him to create the true masterpieces helonged for. And yet he kept working - for is it the nature of great masters that they create because they must - not because they merely can.

Then, one day, a man of the name Fillipo Vadi came to see Kappel. A young nobleman, Fillipo was as passionate as Kappel was bitter - and as masterful with his passions as the smith was with his rods of metal, hammers and fire.

"Master of great smiths," Fillipo said, "I am a great swords-man, and I know the eight greater and twenty-seven lesser offensive positions, the greater and lesser defensive positions, the eleven ways to grip the hilt, the seven deadly strikes of Erland, the arming sword, the long sword, the great sword, the quarterstaff and how to fight sword-less against those who have a blade.

I know the 118 vulgar names for a blade, and the seven sacred ones. I know the names of all master swords-men among men since Greitur the Great, and few of them could stand against me.

And yet I am unfulfilled. The short sword feels crude and awkward in my hands, the long sword appears to me as the uncaring quill of a city clerk, and the great-sword as a dull and morose ox behind the plow.

I went to the dwarves, and for gold and gems they made me a sword of unsurpassed balance and strength - it cleaved the anvil it had been wrought on, and yet the edge was so sharp that I could split a single strand of silk lengthwise.

But it lay in my hand as a lump of iron - as cold and dour as the race that had made it.

Then I went to the elves. For songs and tales they crafted me another blade of such splendor and magnificence it could blind a man by its beauty. The blade hummed with the magics woven into it and when it was drawn from tis sheath it shone with the cool splendor of the Northern lights.

To wield it was as to walk in a dream - my foes were as pawns on a game board. I could merely tap them oh so lightly with the edge and like soap-bubble burst by a child's finger - they would be no more.

It was not dead like the sword from the dwarves, but it was soul-less. Cold and uncaring - merely a mercenary, a servant. It was a passionless tool.

Make me a sword better than those. Make me a sword that rests in the hand like castanets in the hands of a musician. A sword that makes me want to laugh with life whenever I draw it - a sword that brings out the best of swordsmanship in all who fights against it.

To fight with this sword should be like dancing the chico Flamenco with a passionate woman - it should be as a heated argument, a quarrel between lovers.

No soldier's gladius, or executioner's axe this. Give me a sword for passionate men - men who love, and hate, and scorn, and laugh, and drink their fill of living."

The old smith snorted in derision. "You ask not for a sword - you ask for an art of fighting that do not exist." But in his heart a spark had been ignited - truly, this was a weapon he could make, and that no elf or dwarf could make better.

He was old, but he had been young, and he too had been passionate. He remembered the wild joy in the dance, and the maddening pain from a lady's rejection. What dwarf had ever pawned his tools to buy revenge upon a hated rival, and what elf had ever forgotten himself in the throes of passion and left bruises on his lover's skin?

The young man was not daunted. "You make the sword," Fillipo told him, "and I will wield it as a passionate man, and from that the new art will spring forth, like dew springs forth of the ground on a cold morning in spring."

"Come back in a year." the smith answered.

Summer came, and autumn. The winter was long that year, but finally yielded to spring once more, and Fillipo returned to Kappel's smithy. He was met in the door by an apprentice. "The master is still working. He said you were to come back in another year."

The same answer he received the next year, and the year after that. But when he returned for the fourth year, he was met by a strange silence, and no smoke rose from the chimney.

The apprentice came out to greet him, he was somber, and dressed in black. "The master did not survive the winter."

"And the Sword?" Fillipo exclaimed, horror in his eyes.

"It is finished." the apprentice said, and motioned for the nobleman to follow.

The sword lay on a counter inside the gloomy smithy. It was a rapier - but to Fillipo it was like no sword he had ever seen. It was the first rapier.

The nobleman cried out, and rushed forth to grab the sword. He sank to his knees, crying as he raised it up and kissed it. "I came for a sword, but I found a lost brother I did not know I had." he told the apprentice, or perhaps the sword itself "Did the Master name it?"

"He called it Korde." the apprentice answered, and he took his bags that stood packed by the entrance and walked away.

And in the dark room, the noble-man cried and laughed, and Korde laughed and cried with him.

Intermezzo

The centaur chieftain glared at his daughter in outrage. "You gave your bracelet to whom?!"

The daughter stood her ground, and looked back in his eyes, although scraping the ground gingerly with one front hoof. "To Hingstr Akneg." she said with the untroubled voice only youth brings.

"He's already betrothed to Grou Merra! She will demand tvistemoul over it. I can't keep my hand over you in matters of pride!"

"I will fight her." the young female said. There was calmness in her voice, but she felt nervous. Grou was older than herself and already a blooded warrior.

"You have to, now!" her father exclaimed, "What in heavens drove you to do such a silly thing?"

"I want him." she answered, and this time the firmness in his voice had nothing to do with youth.

The father relented then. Had perhaps not he himself been the reason for tvistemoul? And could he blame the daughter for growing up in the image of her mother? Yet he was the father, and the chieftain, and he could not say that.

"You need a new weapon. That toothpick will do you no good in tvistemoul." he said instead.

His daughter, knowing her father, and loving him, heard also what was not said and pulled her upper body up straighter. "It is a rapier, father." she reminded him with a smile, for the hundredth time.

Her father snorted, "It would be a toothpick if you try to meet Grou Merra's charge with it. Go to Doula, and have him make it into something useful - an axe or something."

"There's not enough metal for an axe, father." she said, but didn't smile now - because she knew he was right, and the thought of the fight sobered her.

"He can use it for the edge, at least. It's good steel. Now go."

"Yes, father." she said, looked meekly to the ground and obeyd