A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Twenty-Fifth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

It was an undeniable relief to be away from the palace and the eyes of the court even for a short while, the sheer weight of age old ceremony that filled those halls was enough to leave Garin gasping for a breath of fresh air. As they passed through Coryn's by now familiar door with a smile and a nod for his youngest son peeking around a corner he wondered if there was time to go out today, perhaps hear the first rumors regarding their audience before the emperor, or mayhap Nuri needed some help with her ruse.

As he restlessly drew back the bamboo shutters of the room their host had thoughtfully set aside for the envoy's tea and talk, Garin remembered the odd dagger they had been given in return for the Dragonsteel, and perhaps for helping to save Bu Gai's life as well. Asking Tyene for the weapon he added: "Shadows have always been friendly around me, a little too friendly for the liking of the palace wards."

Fen, whose curiosity about the audience had narrowly outstripped her desire to appear poised and collected, looked up in askance. "You received a gift for yourselves from the Son of Heaven?"

"Not really, but I doubt Viserys would mind if any of us was minded to keep it," Waymar shrugged, eliciting a somewhat scandalized look in return.

"We knew him before he was King, fought and killed besides him," Garin interjected, trying to explain lest Waymar's words dent her growing belief that 'the Sunset King' was worth the title and respect. "Think of it not only as a privilege we share, but a gift we all share in each other's company."

"A gift?" Fen asked dubiously, sipping the blended tea Tyene had just poured her.

"Have you never woken up in the morning wishing you could be just yourself, with your wants and desires, your passions and antipathies without the weight of titles and expectations?"

The young woman is silent for so long that one could easily think she would not answer at all. When she does it is barely above a whisper. "Yes, I do, but that is a joy known only to the holy ones alone in the wilds with the gods, drinking rainwater and sleeping beneath the lip of the earth. I much prefer tea, I imagine so do you and your King."

"So we do and he does, yes," Garin agreed, weighing the weapon Tyene had handed him. "But just because you cannot enjoy the whole of a thing does not mean should not seek it out in small measure. So it is with having friends before which we do not need to wear our titles and honors. Kings and princes no less than others would find relief in such companionship." Emperors too, Garin did not add lest he be too shocking. He suspected Bu Gai need a chance to lay down his celestial panoply.

"So it has ever been..." a soft voice heavy with the dust of ages echoed through his mind. Garin glanced down at the weapon to see his hand wrapped in shadow not of his own conjuring. "The court consumes what is best in us and leaves behind husks encased in glittering honors."

Startled only for a moment, for he had already known three weapons with a soul, the Grand Inquisitor replied carefully. "Hail and well met. I would know your name and something of your tale if you would share it." The emperor would not have intentionally given them a cursed blade he was certain, but that did not preclude not knowing the whole of the weapon's nature. Garin was ready to release it at a moment's notice just in case.

"My name is not important, too long has passed. The ink that once marked my lineage has worn away, the scrolls rotted to dust. As to my tale, yes, perhaps that can do some good to you or your fledgling king..."

The world did not fade away before Garin's eyes to reveal some other place and time. Rather it was as though he had grown another pair of eyes that saw the tale of another life, in some ways akin yet infinitely different from his own. An assassin walked through the shadows, a hunter of beasts and hollow men, a servant of some emperor lost to time, perhaps even a friend. When others called the hunter without honor for the means by which he killed the Son of Heaven spoke in his defense, and when the emperor needed a death in the night hidden from the eyes of others then so it was as though by chance. Men died more easily than fiends.

But then he met her, Ju Lei, a face as beautiful as a the flower whose name she bore, a soul as true as tempered steel and mind just as sharp. She was not to walk in shadow, however much she might have wished, for she was a bloom in the emperor's gardens and what the Son of Heaven holds he keeps. How easy it would have been to slip the dagger through his heart, to slay the man who refused to grant the lovers peace, how much the Fiends taunted him with it. Yet in this the hunter could not break his vows in the end, it was his own heart he pierced at sunset where the waters played beneath the shadows of cherry trees. From that day to her own passing Ju Lei bore a blade of Adamantine and jade.


Garin blinked away the ancient memories with a shudder. He could respect the ancient assassin he supposed, though he knew that faced with such an unworthy lord he would have stolen himself away into the night to live a better life. "Can you teach the skills you knew in life, or only grant them to a bearer?" he asked after a moment

"Teach..." the voice in the steel trailed off as though it was a thought wholly foreign to it. "I suppose I could."

OOC: The dagger grants roughly the abilities of a level 5 Shadow Blade. The spirit from which was level 10 in the class, but becoming a weapon has somewhat limited him.