The Blade

Chapter 23

"Hang on, hang on," said George, interrupting Grandpa's rhetorical flow. "Your Volandan name is Mavis?"

For the first time that George could remember in, well...ever, Grandpa looked a little uncomfortable. "I fail to see how that's relevant, Georgie. Besides, Mavis is a perfectly manly name, here in Volanda."

With limited success, George attempted to suppress his grin. "If you say so."

Grandpa scowled. "We've arrived, so how about you shut-up, so I can give you the rest of the story?"

Through the carriage window, George looked up at the dark and forbidding stone walls of Vardun Ri's stronghold. Any trace of a grin had disappeared. "So, my mother's in there?"

"I reckon so, boy."

George shook his head. "I don't understand any of this. If you were the Blade, and the Blade appoints the leader of Volanda, why does Vardun seem to be in charge? Why did he say the Blade was his property? For that matter, why did you leave? Why aren't you still the Blade?"

Grandpa sighed. "It's complicated, Georgie. But the simple answer is that all this is because I was an arrogant fool, who thought he knew best. You know how I told you that the Blade is handed down to the first-born in each generation of Olifat's and Kira's line?"

George nodded.

"Well, that's how it went, for centuries. There were great Blades and not-so-great Blades, and wise leaders and foolish leaders, and frankly, sometimes the occasional downright idiot, but for the most part it all just sort of bumped along, fairly well. Until the time, a few hundred years ago, when the first-born were twins."

"Right," said George. "So I guess that complicates things a bit. Who gets to be the Blade?"

"Oh, twins weren't a big deal, Georgie. They came along, every few generations. The first one that popped out got the gig—easy. No, the complication here is that these twins were...what's the word, when they're connected?"

George's eyes widened. "Conjoined twins."

"That's the one. These two were joined by a single band, hip-to-hip. Healthy boys, in all other respects."

"So, what happened?"

"Well, Georgie, there was some debate about that, let me tell you.  Their mother, she wanted to leave them be; she reckoned they could be the Blade together, when their time came.  But their father, he knew better.  He knew that even if the bearers of the Blade wielded great power, that they needed every last bit of that power, and then some.  Being the Blade was a life-or-death, narrowest-margin, hair-trigger battle, from beginning to end.  It was no place for handicaps.  And how could one Blade between two boys be anything but a handicap?"

"But what could he do?"

"He could make the hardest decision of his life, boy.  He took the Blade, and with one clean stroke, he separated them.  I'm sure there was some wailing, and no doubt a few tears, but the Blade is nothing if not sharp; the babies were fine.  The separation was the least of his problems."

"The least of his problems?  But couldn't he now just pick...oh."

"Oh, indeed, Georgie.  Certainly he could now pick one to be the Blade.  But how?  Neither had any greater claim than the other.  So he chose to let fate decide.  A coin-toss, boy.  That's what it came down to.  Heads or tails, the random chance on which the fate of a world hinged.  The winner to be the Blade, the loser to be sent away."

"Sent away?  How could they send one of them away?"

"How could they not, Georgie?  How could the loser live his life forever in the shadow of what he could have been?  That's no life for anybody.  So, as hard as it was, his parents adopted the boy out to a well-to-do family, here in Noho.  Meanwhile, they set about raising the next Blade.  And that's where the story might have ended."

"Except?" prompted George.

"Except, boy, the loser found out.  Nobody knows how, but I guess some secrets are just too big to be kept.  He was  a teenager at the time, and it's fair to say he was pretty pissed off, Georgie.  You might think you and your lot are pretty angsty, but let me tell you, you've got nothing on this lad.  It became the single overriding goal of his life to regain his birthright.  To regain the Blade.  But there was a key difference.  He wasn't about to use it to dispense the right to rule.  Oh, no.  He was going to use it to rule."

George sat back, and thought it all through.  "So, that was Vardun's ancestor.  And that's why he thinks the Blade is his."

"That's right, Georgie.  Ever since the time of those twins, there have been two lines of Olifat's descendants, two lines with very different agendas.  Over the years since then, the battle has raged between the two, and the Blade has switched back and forth, heralding either times of prosperity, or times of woe.  Right up until my time.  I took the Blade from Narvan Ri, and so I became the Blade, for a time.  But Narvan had a son.  A son named Vardun.  And right from the start, I could see that he was trouble.  Despite my best efforts to put a stop to him, he grew more and more powerful.  It got to the stage where I couldn't be sure that I could keep the Blade out of his hands.  And as bad as some of his forebears had been, I knew that Vardun would be a tyrant the likes of which Volanda had never seen before."

"So you left."

"That's right, Georgie.  I left.  The how and the why of it are a whole other story, but I decided to take the Blade, man and weapon, out of the equation.  It was the only way I could be sure that Volanda would be spared from a Blade-wielding Vardun.  Plus, and here's where the arrogance comes in, I thought Volanda would be better off without the whole Blade malarkey.  I figured that without some stupid, philandering god's progeny pulling the strings, maybe the place could settle down into normality.  Hah, what a moron."

"And now, the Blade is back in Volanda," said George, meaning the weapon.

Grandpa smiled at him, but it was a smile without any trace of humour.  "That's right.  And now, the Blade has to decide what exactly it is that he's going to do."