“Here is my sword,” said Intra. “Your semiotics cannot contain it. Its blade is made of gloaming steel, look how it whispers!”
“But Lord Intra,” said the assembled, “You have no sword!”
“So it is,” said Intra.
-Psalms
Lord Intra gathered his retainers, who were hungry for tutelage. “Lord Intra!” said his sandal bearer, “What is the first step on the path to Royalty?”
“There are no steps,” replied Intra, “It is zero-sum with your reality. It is not measured in finger-lengths.”
“Lord Intra,” said his bodyguard, “Is the path to Royalty the path of struggle, then?”
“No,” said Intra, “One may attain it without any effort at all. It is, in fact, the antithesis of struggle.”
Intra’s steward was very discontent with his master’s evasiveness. “Lord,” he said, “Allow us lowly men some small measure of understanding. For sympathy’s sake, and the sake of we good and loyal servants, please tell us in plain language the nature of Royalty.”
“I will tell you precisely what Royalty is,” said Intra, “It is a continuous cutting motion.”
-The Song of Maybe
“Lord Intra,” said Intra’s sparring partner one day, “You are called Lord of Swords. Yet you are a man, and men make poor swordsmen.”
“It is true,” said Intra, for nearly all of the famous sword masters of the day were women and the ya-at, who were three sexed. This tradition was rather long in the bones, and rumored to have been started by a famous vagrant who rarely cut her hair and lived in a barrel. There was popular theater about it, in those days.
“Men are too preoccupied with their swords,” said Lord Intra, “They get distracted.”
“You mistake my meaning,” said Intra’s sparring partner, “What I mean is this: you are a mere man. What can you do to the new gods of the Red City, with their whips of fire and their heavy chariot wheels?”
“I am not concerned with enmity,” said Intra, “I am very skilled in Pankrash Circle Fighting”
“It is true you are very fierce,” conceded his partner, “But my son’s fighting beetle is also very fierce. Could his beetle fell a lion?”
“That depends,” said Intra, “How skilled is the beetle in Pankrash Circle Fighting?”
“Beetles cannot learn Pankrash Circle Fighting, Lord Intra,” said Intra’s attendant, and made a bitter motion.
“Don’t tell the beetle that,” said Intra, who was very skilled at smiling. “If you don’t tell him he will learn it anyway and cut the lion in half with a single blow.”
-The Song of Maybe
“A beggar I passed in the market once remarked to me that if the gods’ brows were wreathed in starfire, their heads must get awfully hot,” said Lord Intra to his sparring partner.
“What a strange remark,” said his partner, “How does one respond to that?”
“I told him he was right,” said Intra.
– The Song of Maybe
“A true king of swords knows not only how to cut, but the value of each cut. Without weighing his blade carefully, he will soon find it carving away his own flesh.”
-Intra, sword god
“Yemmod, storm-crowned, came to Lam, the Blue City His men were like flies upon the earth and over the earth. They set upon the land a terrible blaze. The heat of the flames consumed the land about and licked the tops of the great walls around the city, and there was much wailing.
Yemmod said, “For every man of age to fight, hack off his right hand,” and it was done. “And his sons too,” and it was done. Then the hands were set in a pile, like pale driftwood, and the people could see his cruelty. The shrine of the Goddess was burned and its idols defiled and smeared with filth and excrement. The angels of the shrine were driven back and abandoned their sanctuaries.
An angel came to Umman Ap, who was king of that place. “See the defiler Yemmod,” said the angel. “He stacks the bodies of the people of this city like the autumn harvest. He provokes your power. Ride forth and drive him from this holy place.”
“I cannot harm Yemmod,” said Umman, blue-eyed. “He has consumed the hearts of many of my kin and is swollen with their star magic.” This was true, but the angel was enraged nevertheless. His kind lashed together steeds of fire and clay and abandoned the city to its fate. Umman had expected this. He gathered the remaining people inside the walls of the Blue City, which had never been breached.
The others were on fire, for it was a time of war. The yellow city had recently been consumed by great gales and fell into the void. This was the way of things.
At last Yemmod rode to the gates of Lam. He had a spear three times the length of a man and its point could burst through shields like matchwood. It never missed its mark. It was called Amija, or heart-piercer.
Yemmod said “Open the gates, and grant me passage.” But the gates did not open.
“Open the gates, lest I make the dead to outnumber the living.” But the gates did not grant him passage.
Yemmod called for star fire and smote the gates with one blow into ten thousand pieces. This was the way of things.
There was one way the city could be saved, so Umman sent for him. The sword-saint Intra was there. But when the men of the Blue City found him, he was very drunk.”
– The Song of Maybe
Once, the great king Aurochs was gifted a prize gladiator. This warrior was a three-sexed Ya-at slave monk. It was mute, and the impurities of its flesh had been seared away as part of its training. The Ya-at were incredible fighters, and this one was no exception. Over the next few turns it won nearly every bout and won the king an enormous amount of fame and glory. The king ordered a private garden built for his prize fighter, and attendants to oil its sore flesh, and it was given every luxury afforded to it, most of which it refused, for it craved only challenge.
Word got out that the king had an invincible fighter, and soon three infamous wandering mercenaries arrived at his door to test their mettle. The first was Five Mountains Gale, who wore a beautifully embroidered jera, a fine silk vela, and a legendary sword at her waist. Her face had been burned hideously by a duel with a sorcerer. It appeared puckered and shiny under the best light, though she was said to be quite beautiful before, and nobody dared comment on her disfigured visage. The second was Yerrid, who was a western dragon. His mouthblades were pitted with the scars of battle, and his hide was thicker than any armor forged by man. He was a member of the Red Dogs Legion, who were infamous rogues and despoilers. They mummified the hands of their enemies and took them as tokens.
The third and last was an unusual fellow, a minor nobleman from the countryside said to have taken up the sword after starving himself and meditating under a plum tree for a week and a day. His finery was disheveled, his sword was rather poorly made, and his long dark hair was held up in crooked and bent pins. He had no reputation, nobody thought very much of him, and it was obvious that he would quickly lose.
Gale squared off against the slave monk first. Her beautiful robe accentuated her lithe form and powerful step. Her sword was called Circle the Moon Thrice. When drawn, it gave off a sound like shivering glass. It had hacked five hundred bandits into pieces just the week before and was thirsty for blood. Gale’s technique was called Flying Snow. She could step on air as well as land, and cut a fly in twain with a flick of her wrist.
For all her arts, however, she could not break the defense of the slave monk. For every movement she made, the monk was faster to react. For every shivering blow she laid upon the monk, it could take it and deal more. She threw her blade aside and submitted before thirty blows had been struck.
Next, Yerrid strode into the arena. It was clear to observers that he would not submit as easily. His scarred, bestial form was corded with thick muscle, and his mandibles were shaved down in the manner of vagabonds and mercenaries of terrible repute. He tore into the monk with incredible violence. His technique was Red Dog Boxing. Every blow he took upon his stony hide, he turned into a counterattack, redoubling his attacker’s strength. He fought like a wild animal, throwing caution to the wind, and absorbing tremendous amounts of violence.
Where Gale had folded after thirty blows, he took a hundred. But it still was not enough. The defense of the Ya-at was too strong, and it tired too slowly. Eventually, Yerrid collapsed of exhaustion, and was dragged out of the fighting pit stone cold unconscious.
Finally, the last man strode into the arena. The crowd leaned in, eager to see him dismembered or worse by the Ya-at warrior, who scarcely had suffered a scratch and was oiled and offered refreshments by its house slaves.
The two warriors squared off, the young nobleman dwarfed by his opponent, and the bell was rung. The nobleman then did a very strange thing. He threw out a single sword stroke that was so artless, so completely lacking in skill, that a child might have made it. It was like a village idiot absentmindedly hurling a stick into a muddy pond. The Ya-at warrior was so shocked and offended by the young nobleman’s complete and utter lack of skill and technique that the hulking warrior was caught by surprise and decapitated in one blow.
The crowd was taken aback and instantly sprung up in confusion, disarray, and rage, for surely the young man must have cheated. The king descended from his gilded palanquin and quieted the crowd, addressing the young man directly.
“What trickery did you use to defeat my warrior?” demanded the king, at this point sputtering with disbelief himself. “No trickery,” said the young man, who was absentmindedly toeing the ya-at’s corpse.
“Then what technique? What sword art did you learn to make such a blow?” said the king.
“My technique is no technique,” said the young man. “My art is no art. It was an idiot’s blow.”
“Ten thousand warriors have failed to defeat my gladiator,” said the king, gaping. “Trained in ten thousand fighting arts from across the Wheel. How could an artless fool have defeated my prize slave?” The young man scratched his chin. “Well, not anyone can use my lack of technique. No ordinary fool could make that blow,” he replied “only one extremely dedicated to foolishness.”
It was immediately apparent to the king that this young man was extraordinarily powerful.
He mentioned as much.
“Powerful men, my lord, must by nature be exceptionally good fools,” said the young man.
“What do you want?” said the king, breaking out in a sweat.
“A drink will suffice,” said the young man.
“What is your name?” said the High King Aurochs, of the Southern Realms.
“My name is Intra,” said Intra, “I am the king of swords.”
“Once, Lord Intra came to the Vale of Stalks. It was a broad land with a hardy and beautiful people that wove stems of grass into elaborate mats. There were frequent harvest songs and offerings to the God of Pigs.
Unfortunately, at the time, the people were starving. The land was ruled by Yem Yeddo and his family, who had sucked the life out of it for some time. That was the way of things in those days. Though the soil was quite fertile, Yem Yeddo had surrounded himself with thickset and well-fed men, who lacked in brains but made up for it in muscle and the same kind of canniness found in very smart dogs. These men he used as tax collectors, and he drained the land of every third, fourth, and fifth bale of crop, and sold it for crude coin, feeding the scraps to his thugs.
Lord Intra arrived at the local way house and was served black bread, as was the custom, but skesh was strangely absent, and the bread was thin and mealy. When Intra asked why, he quickly learned of the lands’ plight.
“What of the peregrine lords that tend this place?” He asked.
“They were killed by thirty men, and hung from a tree for seven days,” said the inn proprietor, with a look like a beaten animal.
Intra could not abide this. He called out to Yem Yeddo in the spare and decaying market square, who brought his thirty men.
“Preem Yeddo,” bellowed Intra, “You are a cruel and petty man. How can you scour this land so and not feel for the people that call it their abode?”
Yem Yeddo laughed. “Let them eat the stones, for all I care,” said he.
Intra, who was not one to balk at such matters, picked up a particularly large rock and said, “So it shall be. I shall feed the people with this stone.”
– The Song of Maybe
The lord of the vale and his thugs laughed at Intra and his preposterous proclamation. But their mirth was cruel, so they stayed to watch his futile labor.
“I will turn this rock into fire,” said Intra. The men roared with laughter.
“Fool!” they cackled. “The rock shall not become fire, no matter your wish.”
Intra ignored them, turned the rock in his well worn hand, and dug a shallow pit with it, piling the earth carefully at the sides. Then he gathered dry brush and reeds and piled them high in the pit. The sun was hot and bright overhead as he worked, and his traveling clothes were soiled with sweat as he worked. The men bade the villagers of that place gather water for them to drink as they watched Intra’s labors.
From his traveling cloth, Intra produced a sword. The thugs watching him leaned forward at this, but then quickly relaxed. It was a decrepit and battered thing, well used and pitted and chipped.
“I no longer use this to kill men,” said Intra. “But it’s very good for cooking dinner.”
Intra struck the rock against his sword, and a spark flew into the dry brush. Intra fanned it with great care, and soon a roaring fire blazed in the village square.
– The Song of Maybe
“Now I will make of this stone Earth and Water both,” said Intra, standing in front of the blaze.
“And air too, I suppose,” jested Yem Yeddo, the richest man in the vale, and all his men laughed.
But Intra did not. He took his proclamation very seriously. At this point, he had been sober for months and had a headache.
– The Song of Maybe
Intra took the stone, and his terribly damaged sword, and began to set to work by the side of the fire. Using the edge of the sword, he slowly chipped at the rock, flattening its shape. As the rock was of a reasonably large size, this took quite some time.
Once he was satisfied with his tool, he took off his kafeyen and traveling cape, so he was clad only in his underclothes, then found a good spot in the barren and muddy town square and began to dig.
Even the people in the square who had filtered in to see the Sword Saint and had some hope he might yet prove their savior felt their resolve sag at the sight of his starved body, laboring and sweating as he toiled in the muck and filth. The cruel master of the vale laughed and had a tent set up to shade him as he watched Intra’s struggles. “If you are done with your farce, I will happily geld you and make you my jester, lord Intra,” said he. Intra said nothing, but kept digging, only emerging to feed his fire. As the day dragged on and his fire burned to coals, he had quite a sizable amount of clay, which piece by piece he molded into bricks and let dry by the light of the sun and the heat of the fire.”Behold the earth,” said Intra.
As the sun began to creep lower towards the horizon, his craft quickly became apparent. Exhausted, and muscles quivering, he emerged from his hole and began to stack his bricks into a sturdily made bread oven. Then he asked for a vessel, and went down into his pit, emerging with it filled to the brim with muddy water, as he had dug deep enough to coax it from the dry earth.
“Behold the water,” said Intra, and set it to boil clean over the fire. He began to shovel coals into the oven, to prepare it and set it.
At this sight, more people began to gather at the square. They could sense that something was afoot. Yem Yeddo would have beaten them back into their homes, but he too was transfixed by the strange spectacle that was unfolding.
“Clever,” said Yem Yeddo, with the slightest tinge of anxiety in his voice, as all tyrants are wont to have when confronted with an honest man. “Do you mean to bake bread for the people? That will not work despite your powers of transfiguration, as I have all the grain.” His thugs, like the loyal dogs they were, sensed their master’s discomfort, and gripped the hilts of their weapons.
“I tire of this,” said Yem Yeddo, without realizing the gravity of his own situation. “Break his limbs.”
“Next,” said Intra, “I will turn this rock into air.”
The thirty strong men of Yem Yeddo drew their beating staves and started to approach Intra, slavering and yelping at the thought of snapping his legs like dry twigs and the food they would get as a reward after. Intra was a handsome man who did not have the look of a warrior about him, and the men were very stupid. His eyebrows were thin and delicate, like a woman, and he had lashes like a spider lilly. This made the men laugh uproariously at his effeminate appearance.
Intra, for his part, merely took the rock and raised it high. After all the work he had done with it, it had become quite small, dense, and sharp. Then with a flick of his wrist, he skipped the rock off the air so fast that it cracked like a whip. A sound like thunder rippled across the valley.
Intra was extremely good at skipping rocks, as it had become his famous pastime in his sobriety. He could skip rocks off anything, be it god or man. In this particular case, he skipped the rock off the ribcages of all thirty men in half a second. They blew open like an old basket and the wind whistled merrily through the empty and sputtering spaces where their chests had once been.
‘Behold the air,” said Intra.
Yem Yeddo was astonished, and a great terror overwhelmed him. He was a quick and cowardly man, and fled. The people rejoiced and the granaries were broken open. The bodies of the tyrannical lord’s men were burned without rites and stomped upon. Flour was dragged forth by the sackful, the well Intra dug was quickly filled with fresh water and reinforced with stone, and soon many loaves of bread were emerging, steaming, from his oven. A goat was slaughtered and a great feast was had.
“Thankyou for the hospitality,” said Intra, when the night had grown long. “I will not impose upon you any longer.”
The populace were desperate for him to stay. “Lord Intra,” said they, “Yem Yeddo may yet return, with more men!”
“That is true,” said Intra, “And that I cannot help with you. But remember, men like him have forgotten their mothers. Their feet do not touch the earth, and they grasp at feeble things. They are like a mangy dog fighting over a fetid corpse. They have forgotten that with their brothers, working together, they could bring down a magnificent ox.”
He reached down and picked a goodly sized rock from the floor of the valley.
“This valley is broad and beautiful. It may have one Yem Yeddo, but it contains many more stones.”
– The Song of Maybe
“Sirs, and if you will hear me, I have a certain ken,
a way of moving, and if a man intend do violence to me, I shall simply lay my hand upon his shoulder
gentle as all, sir, and though the touch is light he will feel
that terrible weight
and in that moment I have killed him without killing him, and all the knowing of that will drag him down, meek as a lamb,
attest I, sirs, and witness you I have never had to kill a man yet this way, nor do I fetter them,
aye, tis’ merely in my interest to go on my way, as all men should – a merry way of living,
wouldn’t you say?”
– Intra, God of Swords