The Paper Sword by Robert Priest Read Free Book Online

the crystal sat in. He quickly turned three of the seven crank handles, each of which adjusted the position of one of the tiny sun-steering mirror facets. Now it was Xemion who had to pause and think. “It’s true. I would have gone off with him right then if I’d been free to.”
    â€œSo you think …. you believe there really will be a rebellion in Ulde on the equinox?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t doubt it at all.”
    â€œAnd you would go if you could?”
    â€œOf course I would. We both would.”
    With that, he turned a final crank handle and the sunlight came through the crystal in the ceiling, compressing it into a tight white beam and steering it through the lens, thereby projecting the tiny text of the last tale onto the wall. Anya had always insisted that Xemion restrain his voice whenever he was anywhere outside the tower tree, but there was no need of that now. He began to recite loudly and eloquently, revelling in the new deeper qualities that had entered his voice in the last few months.
    It was the story of two warrior beloveds — Xemion’s hero Amphion and his beloved, Queen Roe. As in so many of these tales the two fated lovers have long been separated and are constantly frustrated by forces that wish to keep them apart. Queen Roe has tried six times to cross the Eastern Sea and reach the Phaer Isle, where she knows Amphion is imprisoned, but a sea serpent always prevents her. Finally she bargains with the serpent. She tells him that she knows of a special food that will end his hunger forever. If she brings him this food, and if he is indeed forever satisfied, he must agree to let her pass. And if he is not forever satisfied she will lay down her very life and allow him to eat her. When the serpent agrees the Queen goes to the Isle of Zize and retrieves a whole grapevine from the Valley of the Blessed. She sails back in her coracle to the middle of the ocean, but just before she gets to the leviathan she stops, anchors her boat, and dives deep into the sea to retrieve something. She brings it back along with the vine to the serpent, who awaits her, planning to first devour the food she has brought and then the Queen herself.
    Just as the sun began to sink, Xemion reached the part of the story where the Queen tells the serpent he must suck the vine in all at once in one quick gulp in order to be forever satisfied.
    â€œThe snake’s long tongue forked out and tasted the end of the vine and found it very sweet indeed. He exhaled all his breath in preparation to ingest the long vine. But just as he pursed his lips to begin sucking the vine in, Queen Roe substituted the thing she’d dived down to the bottom of the sea to find — the other end of the snake. She watched, hardly even smiling, as the snake unknowingly ingested more and more of itself quicker and quicker until with a last rending yawning pop not only its hunger but the snake itself disappeared forever. And so the mighty Queen Roe, after seven years of trying, finally made her way across the ocean toward the Phaer Isle where soon, surely, she would be united with her warrior beloved.”
    For a while, when the story was over, Xemion stood there staring at the place on the wall where the text had been. He was so agitated he didn’t notice that he too had begun to rub his hand down his leg. Nor was he much aware of the burning sensation in his palm and the urge to clutch at the hilt of the painted sword still hidden beneath his cloak.
    â€œWhat did you think?” he asked Saheli, not looking directly at her. He was a little embarrassed now that, for the first time, the idea of beloveds had come up in one of the stories. She showed no emotion. Her eyes were on Chiricoru.
    â€œWhat exactly are warrior beloveds?” she asked.
    Xemion gulped. “There is a tradition in the Phaer militia,” he told her, his voice breaking a little, “that two warriors can become joined in a