Dagger Magic

She reached across to lightly touch Adam's near hand with hers.

"Adam, dear, open your eyes. I hope you've brought your skean dubh, because I should like to introduce it to my Phurba."

Slowly Adam nodded, still deep in trance as he opened his eyes, though he made no move to bring out the skean dubh, for she had not asked him that.

"Nyima is still with you, isn't he?" she asked.

He nodded again, too deep to initiate more response than was required, and not at all concerned about that fact.

"That confirms my suspicions. Adam, take out your skean dubh," she said.

Without speaking, he reached into his coat pocket and produced the little Highland blade, half its length sheathed in a close-fitting scabbard mounted with silver interlace at throat and tip, the whole no longer than the span of outspread thumb and little finger. A clear blue stone almost the size of a pigeon's egg graced the end of the pommel, gleaming with a blue fire to match the sapphire in his ring.

"Unsheathe it now," Julian prompted.

As Adam complied, McLeod took the silver-mounted sheath from him and laid it aside, motioning Peregrine to sit well back. Christopher had already scooted his chair back a good six inches so that McLeod could also retreat.

"Now, pay close attention," Julian said, taking her Phurba in her right hand and turning her chair to face Adam squarely, knee to knee, as he did the same. "I ask you now to let your blade greet mine. Let Nyima be your guide, that the traditions vested in each of the blades may come together and comingle in the crucible of shared need and common purpose."

His movements measured and deliberate, Adam closed the hilt of the skean dubh in his right hand and presented it, point upward, as a fencer might salute an opponent. With a softly worded invocation to the Light, Julian raised her Phurba in like manner, then turned the blade sideways and laid it across that of the skean dubh to form a cross.

The moment of contact was accompanied by an invisible crackle of energy, like a discharge of static electricity. As Julian held the two blades together in contact, focusing her mind through the matrix of their joining, the energy began to build, intensifying until the air in the room was humming with the reciprocal buildup of unseen forces.

The feedback culminated in a soundless detonation that impacted on the eardrums like the shock waves from an underground explosion. Abruptly Julian broke contact, bringing the Phurba back to her breast in another salute, Adam only a touch behind her.

Reverting thereafter to slow motion, Julian then embarked on a series of feints and passes resembling t'ai chi katas, each movement studiously formal and exact. Raising his skean dubh like an extension of his hand and arm, Adam copied her every movement, the two blades moving like partners in a complicated dance.

The speed of the drill increased. Julian's hand was steady as a rock as she took Adam through an accelerated round of move and countermove - strike, parry, and riposte - though the blades never touched metal or flesh after that first crossed, meteoric kiss. The exchanges became gradually more complex, an elegant dialogue of demand and response, each engagement more intricate than the last, the blades' deadly interplay all but invisible to the following eye of the beholder.

The exercise climaxed in a sudden musical tone as the two blades finally came together again, with a ringing reverberation like the striking of a temple cymbal. The after-peals resonated within the physical confines of the room like a hail of crystal bullets.

As the echoes subsided, Julian slowly lowered her arm and bowed her head over the Phurba in an attitude of humble thanksgiving. Adam, too, had subsided, head bowed in his hands, the flat of his skean dubh 's blade pressed to his forehead. Julian was breathing hard, her thin, ivorine face showing every line and shadow of its age as she pulled herself together and straightened her spine; but when Peregrine would have leaned toward her in concern, Christopher laid a hand on his shoulder in warning.

"It is accomplished," she declared, in a voice ragged with exhaustion. Her arm was shaking as she extended it to lay the blade of the Phurba on Adam's left shoulder. "Let all the holy powers commanded by these blades henceforth recognize Adam Sinclair as their master. And let all who seek to oppose the Light beware the weapon in his hand, for it is consecrated to the Light, now and forever."