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  Copyright © 2015 Candice R. Lee

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  The Sword Trick

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  The Sword Trick

  ow many stinking rainstorms? How many gray clouds had passed by, bloated with empty promises? Evangeline glared at the low-hanging belly of the sky. She gritted her teeth when the first cold spatters hit her skin. She let them race down her cheeks like the tears she could not cry. When it started to come down in earnest, she straightened her back, focused on the distant razor line between heaven and earth. She raised her sword. It flashed like lightning as she swung the blade over her head, her wrist and arm gyrating, smooth like wool on a spindle.

  It rained on all sides, but not one drop could reach her through the spinning circle of steel. She swung hard and long, listening to the clean song of steel against air. She kept the storm at bay as long as her arm held, but finally she faltered. The sword flew away, cutting into the dead mud of some stranger’s plot a few feet away. She collapsed over her father’s grave.

  “I did it,” she cried. “I can do it! After sixteen years! I wanted you to see, so you would be proud of me!”

  Evangeline dug her fingers into the pebbly soil, as if she could reach him, touch him, and make him acknowledge her. Her hands came up empty and filthy, but the rain washed every trace of dirt from her skin. She covered her face.

  “You’ll catch your death.”

  An old monk had slipped up beside her. She blinked at his huge frame and hunched shoulders that fairly burst from his tattered robes.

  “You should never mourn in the rain,” he said and spat. “Too sad. You’ll get sick. Next thing you know you’ll be buried right next to him. Come into my house. I’ve soup and a fire.”

  “I didn’t come all this way to have soup,” Evangeline mumbled, getting up and fetching her sword. She would need it soon.

  “Where you from?” the old man asked.

  “Eldrica.”

  “Really?” he asked, looking intently at her.

  She could not see his face. Only the wire scruff on his chin was visible from under his cowl. His robes clung to him like a shroud and the stink carried past where she was standing. The rain shower was probably the first washing he or his clothing had had in a long time. She turned to go.

  “Did you know him?” the old man asked, poking a boot toe into the soil of grave.

  Evangeline sheathed her blade. “No...not really. He was my father.”

  “I thought so,” he smirked. “You got his eyes...emerald green like the jeweled hilt of his sword. There was never another like it. A lady gifted him with the emerald, and he forged the blade himself, perfect of balance, smooth and slender, yet sharp like a woman. It was a real beauty, just like you.”

  “You knew him well, did you?” she asked, folding her arms.

  “I knew him as well as you can know any man. He was a great swordsman once. I saw the trick you did with your weapon. Not bad. He could do it with either hand. I saw it with my own eyes once.”

  “The men in town said he was bum, a low-life drifter who got into a drunken brawl with some guy and got killed,” Evangeline confessed, wiping the rain from her cheeks.

  “Well, he wasn’t born a drifter. Nobody is....You know they shattered his wrists for rescuing a woman from a mob. They were going to burn her as a witch. He could barely lift a spoon after that. It broke his spirit, tainted his life till he became that man in the grave. Some people are like that--they let things hurt them so bad they never recover.”

  She stared at the mound, at the rain digging holes into it.

  “Do you know anything about the son of a dog who murdered him?” Evangeline asked, “They said he bragged that he was from Sobraleen.”

  “Yep, to the East. His name was...Roderick.”

  “You know what he looks like? Nobody could give me a description. Most of them were too drunk to talk. You could save me the trouble of killing every Roderick from here to Eternity if you do.”

  “You gonna avenge your father’s death?” he laughed, his scraggly jaws cracking as his lips parted to reveal a yellow smile. “Good for you.”

  “Yeah,” she snapped, wringing out her long, dark hair and twirling it into a bun. She tucked it under her coif, then pulled chain mail over it. Her face contorted suddenly, jaw bulging under her delicate skin. “Yeah, I’m going kill him, get the sword back. It’s my father’s only legacy.”

  “In that case, you’ll be needing this.” The old man fished a long time under his robe, then pulled out a small pencil portrait on an ancient piece of parchment. He shielded it from the rain with his hand. “He looked a lot like this. His eyes were blue, and he had a cleft in his chin.”

  Evangeline snatched the paper, looked it over. A young, very handsome man posed. She eyed the portrait a long while, then slowly handed it back.

  “No, keep it. It might come in handy,” the monk said.

  “Thanks. . .” she said blinking at him. “Hey, where did you get this anyway?”

  “Oh, you know, I’m a hermit. I find a lot of stuff. So, you wouldn’t have any time for some soup, would you?”

  “No,” she said, frowning.

  “Maybe later then.” He walked off leaving her alone with her dead.