Chapter 4 #3
“And you don’t need to eat or drink or sleep, unless you spend a certain amount of time out of the sword?”
“Also true. But I rather enjoy eating, you know.”
Edmund gave him an appraising look, from head to toe. Under other circumstances, the Dervish might have enjoyed it, but the clinical look in Edmund’s eyes was worrying. “And you don’t age and you recover from wounds if you go back into the sword?” the young scholar asked. “Am I getting this right?”
“More or less,” muttered the Dervish. Gods, was he going to be expected to prove it? “But if you think you’re going to chop off a couple of my fingers to see if it’s true, think again.”
Edmund’s eyes went so round that he briefly resembled an owl. “What? No! I would never—I swear—”
The Dervish felt a brief twinge. Given that he apparently went down like a felled tree when that bandit hit him, I should probably have guessed he isn’t terribly used to violence. Although there’s no telling if he’d consider chopping me up to be violence or just research.
Based on Edmund’s horrified expression, he probably didn’t have to worry about that too much, though. He held up a hand to forestall more stammered apologies. “Right, okay, I believe you. You don’t want to dismember me.”
“I don’t want to dismember anybody,” said Edmund fervently.
“What, nobody?”
Edmund shook his head, winced, and then tried again, more slowly. “No? I mean, there are bad people in the world that should probably die, but I’m certainly not going to do it.”
“Huh.” The Dervish could think of at least five people he’d happily dismember, without even trying hard. Granted, four of them were probably already dead of old age so it wasn’t likely to come up, but he felt it was important to have his priorities straight.
The silence threatened to become awkward. The Dervish poked at the fire with a stick, and Sweetness the mule snuffled at the snowy grass with her nose.
“So you’re a living sword,” said Edmund. “That’s amazing, truly. What’s it like?”
“I hate it,” said the Dervish flatly. “It is horrific. If I lived for a thousand years, nothing that happened to me would be as bad as this.”
“… Oh.”
He was congratulating himself on having finally stopped the scholar’s flow of words when Edmund asked, “But don’t sword … err … people like you usually have wielders? Do I remember that right? That you can’t go too far from them?”
The Dervish put down his stick and stared at Edmund. Edmund looked back guilelessly.
Ancestors help me, he doesn’t realize.
For a long moment, the Dervish thought about just not telling him. Would that make things easier, or harder? He’d certainly notice if I start vanishing whenever I get a quarter mile away, but maybe if I stay close … hmm. Could I just tell him that I want to travel with him for my own reasons?
What reasons would those be, though?
He eyed the young scholar’s hands, which had long, delicate fingers. Edmund was very much not his type, but he’d always been a sucker for good hands, even stained with ink. I can think of one reason, anyway …
Good sense prevailed. If I don’t tell him, there’s too much chance of him accidentally giving the sword away without knowing it. At least this fellow doesn’t seem terribly dangerous, and he’s bound to be grateful that I saved his life. Piling a lie on top of that could be awkward.
Also Angharad would have rolled her eyes at him.
“You’re the wielder,” he said bluntly. “You drew the sword, probably on accident, before you passed out.”
“I what?”
The Dervish shrugged. “It happens that way sometimes.”
“But…” Edmund trailed off, clearly overwhelmed. “But I shouldn’t be!”
“So far as I’m concerned, no one should be,” the Dervish said.
“But here we are.” A certain malicious pleasure crept over him.
“And as you are the wielder, I am required to protect you from harm, either by killing your attacker or interposing my body between you and the threat. Unfortunately, this has some knock-on consequences.”
“Consequences?” repeated Edmund, clearly dazed.
“If you need to have a tooth drawn, I will be forced to attack the dentist.”
“Oh dear…”
“Tattoos, as they involve needles penetrating the skin, are also a problem.”
“I wasn’t planning…”
“If you need stitches or other medical care, that seems to be fine. The tooth drawing is a weird exception.”
“That’s…”
“If you are uncircumcised and wish to have that done, I will be driven to intervene.”
“I … I don’t … I’m already…” The parts of Edmund that weren’t black-and-blue were turning bright pink.
“That’s good to know. It came up once and it was extremely awkward for everyone.” (The Dervish had actually known that from earlier, but couldn’t resist the urge to make Edmund squirm.) He grinned like a shark. “I believe those are the highlights.”
Edmund seemed to have lost all power of speech. The Dervish waited until it stopped being funny, then prodded gently. “So why were you on the road, carrying my sword around with you?”
“This is terrible.” Edmund put his head into his rather attractive hands and moaned.