Page 6 of Truth's Blade

Her gaze passed with interest over carved wooden bowls, mosaic lamps and hand-dyed swatches of fabric, but nothing stood out to her.

When she turned down a new row of carts, though, she stopped dead, causing the person behind her to bump into herand swear softly. The jostling caused her to drop her cake, but she didn’t even look down to where it fell.

She mumbled an apology without looking around, and the man swung past her, sending her an irritated look, but she could not take her eyes from the glow.

Good or bad, she wondered as she slowly walked toward it. Sometimes it wasn’t possible to tell, and she’d worked out over the years that most often the ones she couldn’t read well were will-based spells, capable of being molded by the user.

She had seen plenty of magical items in her life. They winked and glimmered at her. Called to her.

Sometimes with a gentle gleam, occasionally with a more obvious glow. This one was as bright as she had ever seen.

The spell light came off the object in a wafting mist; golden and wispy. It swirled and eddied in the air, like the condensation off a massive block of ice set out on a sunny day.

She found it difficult to know where to direct her gaze when she reached the scruffy caravan halfway down the row, only tangentially taking note of its peeling paint and the chips gouged out of the intricate wooden carvings framing the window.

A table was set in front of the caravan’s window and there was an awning, stretching from the edge of the roof, over the table, and held up by two poles which had been set inside two large pots filled with soil.

“Greetings.” A small man with deep bags under his eyes and bushy gray eyebrows turned to her. He was busy packing some of his wares into a box on the ground. His gaze flicked from her to other passers-by, and she wondered why he seemed so nervous.

“May I have a quick look before you pack up?” Melodie tried to keep her voice even and her attention on the stallholder, instead of on the item on the table which was throwing off so much light.

“Most certainly.” He straightened up and stepped back behind the table, waving a hand in invitation, and yet, she had a feeling he was anxious at her attention.

She squinted a bit as she leaned in.

The aura was coming from a slim, rectangular wooden box.

She wasn’t surprised by the type of object. She had seen it all over the years. Boxes, scarves, mugs. She loved finding things she could work into her jewelry, like gems and beads, but those were rare.

“You’re interested in the paints?” he asked.

“The paints?” She glanced at him, then back at the box. “What type of paints?”

“I’m not an artist,” he said. “But I think you add water to them to use them. This isn’t a new set and they are dried up to look at them now, but that is how they’re supposed to be.” He flipped the lid, and she saw the inside had eight small sections on the top and another eight on the bottom, with an open section running between them.

Each section contained a dried up cake of color and it looked as if someone had mixed some of the colors together in the middle, and hadn’t washed it clean.

The glow didn’t diminish when he opened the box, but it wasn’t brighter, either.

“I make jewelry. This might be useful to me when I draw my designs.” She said it as if to herself, thoughtfully. “What is the price?”

He gave her an amount and she stood, finger tapping her lips, considering it.

It was steep for a small wooden box of used watercolors. Absolutely a bargain for a spell-worked item of such strength.

She wondered if he knew what he had. She was so used to being the only one who could see spell work, she rarely considered it.

But the price tag . . .

And I still don’t know what it does, she reminded herself.Whether this is malicious magic or benign. Or if the magic will leave the good or the bad of it up to me.

It didn’t matter. She needed to have it. Needed to prevent someone who didn’t know what it was harming themselves or others by using it.

“You drive a hard bargain,” the old man said into the silence, the hint of worry she thought she’d detected in his eyes turning to quiet fear. He sent her a fake smile that showed a few gaps in his teeth. “How about a discount?”

She was surprised when he halved the amount. He must want to get rid of it, or he had been outrageously bold with the first offer.

His behavior made her wonder if he knew what he had, or whether he had come to own it through less than honest means and now wanted to get rid of it.

---