The Sword Remembers

By Christopher Colton

The sword remembers.

It awoke in shadows and darkness, a consciousness birthed by magic steeped in hatred and despair and fueled by the dying gasp of a fallen city. Its first instant of sentience was flooded with the awareness of death on a grand scale, a once-thriving population snuffed out by a cruel enemy. Immersed in this cacophony of sensory input, it tried to make sense of the world it had emerged into and its role within it. Grasping at fragments of thoughts and emotions from the beings whose end had catalyzed its own beginning, it found a common thread of knowledge: the great war brought by the wicked nation of Shailiang. The city of Hashizawa was captured. Its ruler surrendered. And then the Shai murdered them all.

As it assimilated this, it realized there were only two things it truly knew. Two things that it felt within itself with such absolute certainty that they formed the core around which the entire rest of its personality would shape itself:

It knew that it had been given the name Muramasa.

And it knew that its purpose, the ideal that had brought it into being, had driven its creator to shape it upon the anvil, the very reason for its creation, was to avenge the bloody decimation that had given it a semblance of life. The Shai must pay for their crimes.

The omnipresent anguish of the forsaken ebbed, replaced with the crushing weight of absolute, utter silence. Muramasa lay within its scabbard upon the smith's workbench, aware and alone.

The sword remembers.

It did not know how long it waited for a hand to claim it; there was no frame of reference for it to form an understanding of the measurement of time. It knew only that its life was a brief chaotic whirlwind of death and knowledge and sensations, followed by a comparably interminable period of stillness. Though it had no eyes with which to see, it still had a sense of its surroundings. Eventually it came to realize that not all in the doomed city had perished: many others, including its creator, had their souls violently ripped from their bodies. These wayward spirits now roamed the empty streets and halls as shades, ghosts, wraiths, and other incorporeal beings. Though they never spoke, Muramasa could feel their hatred. Hatred for those who yet lived. Hatred for their own existence. Above all, hatred for the Shai.

Very rarely, an outsider would enter the workshop, only to be slain by the vengeful phantoms. On one such occasion, someone actually picked up the sword. Muramasa immediately touched his mind, and recoiled in disgust. Like the other outsiders, the man was Shai. It would not serve him. When the spirits came, it refused to be drawn from its scabbard, and the man died like all those before him.

And Muramasa lay on the floor, amidst the dust of ages, still gripped in the dead hand of its most hated enemy.

The sword remembers.

Another outsider came. The sword expected this one to die like all the others. Like the wicked man who dared to claim it, who had fallen and rotted away until only bones remained. But when the shadows closed in, she shone with a brilliant light that drove them away, that even Muramasa could sense without sight. This was new. For the first time, it experienced curiosity. When at long last she carefully lifted it from the floor, it touched her mind.

She was not Shai. Suddenly, the blade dared hope that it might serve its one and only purpose.

For the very first time, the blade spoke, its voice echoing within her head: "I am Muramasa."

"My name is Brecca," she replied.

"Together, we will destroy our enemies."

"I would like that very much."

It allowed her to unsheathe it. It felt good. It felt right.

It felt the ghosts returning, and reached out to them, persuaded them to let this one depart the necropolis. For she carried with her the instrument of their revenge.

The sword remembers.

Brecca carried it on her travels. When she unsheathed it in battle, it delighted in drawing blood, in feeling the life of her foes gutter out forever. Her enemies were not always Shai. It did not understand this at first, but it quickly concluded that there were other people, other beings, who were also enemies. It did not mind. It slew them all the same, and exulted in its purpose.

It did not often speak to Brecca, but when it did it praised her victories in battle and promised the glorious defeat of whatever other foes she faced. When Muramasa grew more confident in its wielder, it shared a portion of its power with her. Brecca was pleased, and unleashed this new power on ever greater and more numerous enemies.

The sword lost count of the lives it had ended, knowing only the elation of cutting down her – their – enemies. But it found it wanted more, and knew that there was so much else that it was capable of.

After one battle, it suggested she wield it in a new fashion: to bind the souls of her fallen enemies to its will, to return them to unlife as shadows and wraiths as the Shai had done to the citizens of Hashizawa. She was uncertain, and declined.

The sword was puzzled, and contemplated this. Did she not want to exact revenge on her foes? Was she afraid of its power? Perhaps she merely needed time to get used to new ideas, as it itself had.

After another battle, it put forth the suggestion once more, encouraging her with what it assumed were inspiring words. As before, she refused, and told it not to ask again.

The sword grew frustrated. It chafed at the idea that she could tell it what to do. It was in charge, not her, and it determined to remind her of that fact.

Once more, Brecca battled her enemies. Once more, Muramasa tasted their blood. Once more, it wanted her to call forth their spirits as instruments of vengeance. Only this time, it did not suggest. It did not encourage. It did not ask. It commanded. It assailed her mind with the full force of its will, seeking to overpower and dominate her.

It failed.

Brecca did not merely deny the sword, she rejected it: dropping it into a great body of water. It seethed with fury as it sank deeper and deeper, until it once again knew only cold, dark, silence.

The sword remembers.

It did not wait long for a new wielder to take hold of it. As before, the bearer was not Shai. As before, the bearer eagerly accepted the pact to destroy their foes together. But Muramasa had learned from its last bearer. It knew it must establish which of them was the servant, and which the master.

When they were once more on land, and Muramasa had tasted the blood of its new bearer's enemies, it suggested raising their spirits. It did not command, yet; it still wished to test the relationship before expending unnecessary energy to force its will.

The wielder readily complied, ripping the souls from the slain bodies as dark vestiges of their former lives.

And the blade had an idea. It would slay its new wielder's foes, and it would in time turn them to slaying more of the hated Shai, but it had its own enemy now. It would not allow Brecca's defiance to go unpunished.

It instructed its wielder to channel its power in a new way at one of the fallen. This time, a shadowy wraith did not rise from the corpse. Instead, the corpse itself animated, slowly rising to its feet and turning its empty eyes, now burning with black fire, upon the one that held the sword.

"Find Brecca," the wielder told the undead creature, as Muramasa had instructed. "Kill her, if you can. But whether she dies or not, you will deliver a message. Tell her this: the sword remembers."