Swordplay

Part 22

"There's nothing else."

"Honey, I'm a good judge of sorrow. I've had years of practice, and I know what went wrong in my case. Maybe I can help?" His eyes pleaded with her, so she looked away again.

Fiddling with her fingers, she considered his offer. Maybe he was right and talking about the betrayal would sooth her feelings. But what if she bared her soul and there was no help? A part of her longed to tell him all her problems and another part fought against that feeling. After a long struggle, her feeling won out.

"The man I thought loved me kissed someone else."

"That's not the end of the world." Lavant put his hand on her arm. "Talk to him. There might be a good reason for the kiss. You won't find a perfect partner but you will not find the best there is if you jump to conclusions."

"You sound like Franka."

"Really? Maybe I should revive our contact." Lavant grinned.

Suddenly, the world didn't seem half as dark as before. It was possible that she misjudged the kiss. She tried to think whether it had been a passionate one or not, but she couldn’t tell. At the thought of talking to Druidus about the situation, her stomach plummeted. She smiled warily.

"Thank you," she said and kissed his cheek. "I will think about it."

She pondered the whole night whether to talk to Druidus or not. She even thought about it the next day at work. Sorting and filing the folders was so monotonous, she nearly felt asleep but at least it soothed her troubled mind a little. When the end of her shift drew near, there was a single folder left on her table. Relieved, she patted the cardboard cover. It was the file on the burglary of the NationalMuseum. Since Excelsior was nowhere in sight, she opened it. Beside the report she had written, there were several copies of drawings labeled by Tord and dated with day and time of the find. Interested, Moira examined the pictures. The box had only held weapons. There were knifes, lances, arrow- and spearheads, hunting knifes and swords, as well as a drawing of the dagger that had stuck in Bastide's wall. I knew it. Satisfied, she nodded and turned the page. The next drawing pictured the metal-bound stone urn. It was the only drawing with Lif's handwriting on it. Moira recognized his letters immediately. With a lot of love to detail, he described the seal. He had also added a drawing of it. In the middle, there was a stylized anvil with a hammer standing vertically over it. Seven parallel semicircular lines led around Hern's hammer. They reminded Moira of a rainbow without the color.

A shiver ran down her spine when she remembered the warning she got when she had touched the urn. According to Lif, a leather wrapped sword had been inside the stone's cavity. Before Moira could search for the drawing of the sword, footsteps approached from behind.

"You're supposed to put the files away not read them." Excelsior sounded annoyed.

Moira pushed the drawings back into the file and placed it in the appropriate shelf.

Excelsior was already on his way back to the front. "Bring the mace from shelf seven compartment one hundred and fifteen to the desk at the entrance. Under no circumstances, take it out of the safety bag. There is a homicide spell on it."

"What is a homicide spell?"

"Don't they teach you anything at the academy any more?" The archivist sighed. Moira opened her mouth to explain that the university had not employed an academic for Magical Theory in many years, but Excelsior didn't give her a chance to speak. "It is a spell forcing the user of the mace to kill someone with it. As long as the weapon is inside the protective cover, the spell is neutralized."

Moira tanked him for the explanation and left to fin the shelf. The vault got darker the further in she went. Despite trying hard, she didn't manage to create a sufficiently big Lumière Magique. The tiny ball of light over her head only illuminated a short stretch of the corridor in front of her. When she reached shelf seven, she walked more slowly. Weapons filled the whole construction. Where was compartment one hundred and fifteen? She squinted at the numbers on the uprights. Her light flickered and died. Annoyed, she created a new one. The constant concentration made her sweat. It took her a while to find the correct compartment. She took the mace including the cover and hurried back to the entrance desk. When she saw the light, she let her die with a sigh of relief. She was drained in sweat. The doctors and auralogists are right after all. I am magically handicapped. The few spells I do get right are hardly more than flukes. She placed the mace on the desk and looked around for Excelsior. He stood near the fireplace together with Sabio. They stood in front of a glass casket the length of an arm that stood on a platform of wood with wheels.