Kingdom Chronicles Collection - Books 1-3

Chapter 6

Pen took his blade and proceeded to walk back out of the room. He slipped through the double doors, found himself again, thankfully. He put the blade over his shoulder and started back towards the dish room.

Shane was doing his best to try and keep everything in order but being alone, the job was proving to be too tough.

“Shane, buddy. Look what I got,” Pen said as he opened the door. Shane turned and looked, dropped the glass he was holding as he saw the blade in his hand.

“Oh my God, how did you get that?” Shane asked, barely able to contain his shock. “Guess my name came up on the book in that silly ritual, now I"m stuck with this for a whole year. Since no one has ever refused a summoning in, well, since forever, I supposed I wouldn"t be the first to do it,” Pen said and set the blade behind the door as he closed it. Shane went into a panic.

“Hey don"t put it on the ground you"ll ruin the sheath, the chemicals will eat the leather, put it up here,” Shane pointed to a dry shelf.

“You do it,” Pen said, not caring too much about the state of an ancient and likely fake blade. Shane walked over, grabbed the handle to lift it, and it shocked him, he groaned in pain, drew his hand back at once.

“Damn it, this thing bit me,” Shane said as he tried to fight off the pain. Pen walked back to it, picked it up and put it on the dry shelf. “Sorry about that, does it hurt?” Pen was distressed about the turn of events.

“No, it"s not so bad. It was just a like an electric shock is all,” Shane said, as he made a fist with the shocked hand to make sure it still worked.

“Maybe it"s magic after all,” Pen said, wondering if it wasn"t all crap like he thought. Now he had to get to work so they could get out of here for the night. All of that could wait until later.

Hours past, it was just before midnight when they were finally finishing up.

“That sucked, let"s not do that again until next year,” Shane said as he dried his hands off. “Yeah, I hear that,” Pen said and started to walk towards his jacket.

“Don"t forget your new toy either,” Shane replied to him, but didn"t want to get close to it again. Pen didn"t really know anything about this ritual or the blades themselves, not the details really.

The story behind them didn"t make much sense to him and he"d long ignored it most of his life.

“Yeah, that"d be terrible if I left it here on my first day as its protector,” Pen said as he put on his jacket, moved to the shelf and picked up the sword. Picking it up didn"t even make him feel any different.

“Good luck, Pen and I"ll see you later,” Shane said and walked out the door. Pen put the blade over his shoulder again and started walking out of the room.

Sir Gaila was waiting for Pen as he left, leaning against the opposite wall. Shane was standing there in awe of the man, he"d never been this close to a knight before. Gaila looked at Shane. “Hey, mind if I talk to your friend?” he asked him.

“Uh, no,” Shane barely croaked out, turned around to quickly walk off.

Pen came out of the room. “So, how did you manage to get in the Loa book and get to be from an invisible dishwasher, to the guardian of the blade?” the knight asked and pushed himself off the wall. “I don"t know, man. It"s not like I asked for it, you know?” Pen replied and Galia sighed.

“Well, it"s not really a tough job, just make sure to take care of it. Don"t make our kingdom the laughing stock of the world next year,” he replied and Pen shifted weight of the blade a little. “Don"t worry about a thing, I got this,” Pen replied with too much confidence.

Galia stared at him. “Just because your dad was some kind of a hotshot in all of this, doesn"t mean you can talk to me like I"m another person that works in the kitchen. Don"t let this title go to your head,” he said to him and walked off.

“And you have a good night too,” Pen said mostly to himself before he went in the opposite direction.

Pen got to his car, the parking lot was empty. No one was waiting for him like he had feared. He opened his car door and put the blade in the passenger side. Then he got into the driver"s seat. The car started right up, soon he was on his way home. The trip home was uneventful and routine.

He pulled into his garage and this time was able to take his new thing with him. He walked into his house and to his room. He tossed the blade on his bed. He went back to his nightly rituals. Sometime in between taking a shower and sitting down he lost interest in moving any more than he had to.

It was a rough night and the only thing that was going through his mind was nothing but how much pain his feet were in right now and turned on the TV.

“We don"t know much about the new Guardian of the Blade, chosen by the ritual of Loa and—“ Pen shut the TV off.

“Oh come on, I"m famous now,” Pen said and didn"t remember seeing any cameras there but he didn"t look too closely either. His biggest worry was that he"d be swarmed with reporters and ruin his routine.

He grabbed his computer and logged back onto Snowcraft to get his mind off of everything, but just as he expected no one else in his group was on. Holidays made for a slow internet day. Spending a few minutes in a virtual world was annoying with no one else there so he logged right back out.

Pen was pretty bored, so then he figured he would learn more about his new item. He typed in "the mimic blade" into the Noogle search engine and had no idea what would come up.

A big list of sites in red links came up on his screen, but in his experience the first link was often the best. He clicked on it and a screen came up.

“Infopedia, you have everything, don"t you?” Pen said to himself and began to read,

“Let"s see what the legend is,” he started to read it, but it was seven pages long so he skipped to the important parts.

“Eight blades, forged by the eight celestial beings, each blade containing an "element of darkness" Given to man as a covenant to seal the relationship between them and mortals at the beginning, each year a new guardian is chosen by the ritual in order to keep the seal intact,” Pen said out loud and knew that couldn"t be true because nothing magical or manmade would last that long.

He kept reading. “Tradition says that the blades should never be unsheathed, it"s the guardian"s duty to keep this from happening,” Pen said, but there was nothing saying anywhere about what would happen if the blade would be taken out. Pen wanted to know more about his blade so he scrolled down further and there it was.

“Tinea, the Mimic Blade. This blade was forged by the trickster god Taro. Its power was, as most of the blades are titled, to mimic other things,” he said to himself out loud and was not impressed.

Pen read that and was underwhelmed. That was all it said. The other entries were much more interesting, while his was the least described he thought it was typical that he, a dishwasher, one of the lowest status of people in the castle, would get the blade that seemed to only want to be anything else.

“I"m worn out, I"m going to bed,” Pen said, closed his laptop to make his way there. When he got there that sword was exactly where he left it.

“So, your name is Tinea, nice to meet you, I"m Pen Kenders. I"ll be taking care of you this year,” Pen said, picked up the blade and set it in the corner behind his door. Pen was going to shut his light off when suddenly a muffled voice came from his blade. “What the hell,” Pen said and looked at the blade, again, the muffled voice came from the sword.

Remembering what he just read on his computer, maybe there was something to it after all. He picked up the blade and sat on his bed. Upon closer inspection, he realized there was a golden lock on the underside of the blade and on the inside of the sheath a chain was stuffed into it.

Pen grabbed this chain and began to pull on it, despite appearing to be tightly packed inside, the chain came out easily. He kept pulling on it until finally a small golden key came out and was attached to the end of it. Pen stuck the key into the lock, turned it until a small click happened, the latch snapped open.

“Here goes nothing,” Pen said and pulled out the blade. Expecting some kind of blinding light he held his free hand in front of his face just in case something like that were to happen, but nothing did. Instead it was a shiny mirror more than a piece of metal.

Pen pulled the blade out the rest of the way.

“Did you say something?” Pen felt really silly talking to a blade.

“Yeah, thanks for being so nice to me, most people just put me up above a fireplace and use me as a conversation piece. It"s very uncomfortable,” the blade responded to him in a female voice and Pen dropped it on the bed in a hurry.

“You can talk,” Pen was amazed. “Yep, and you have a nice bed too. Can I lay here for a while?” she asked him. “Uh, sure I guess, you don"t seem so bad. I read that you were part of the source of some darkness,” Pen said to it.

“Well, I wouldn"t say bad as so much as we are upset,” she responded to him. “You"re not going to kill me in my sleep are you, I"d be unhappy if you did that,” Pen said to her. “No, of course not, you"re stuck with me for a whole year. Maybe I"ll kill you after that but not right now,” she responded and that didn"t make Pen feel any better.

“Relax, Pen, I"m kidding. I"m terrible at killing people,” she said after he didn"t respond to that. “Well, I need to sleep so I am going to put you back in your—“ she cut him off.

“Please don"t do that I"ll be good I promise, just don"t put me back in there, it"s horrible,” she cried out. Pen was already feeling like he was losing his mind, talking to a sword was bad enough, he quickly came up with a solution.

“Alright, I know what to do. I"ll turn the tv on and put you on the couch,” Pen said and reached out to pick the blade up, but now felt weird about doing it. “Sounds good, let"s go,” she replied to him in a much happier tone. “Alright,” Pen said and wrapped his hand around the hilt and picked her up, he moved her back to the main room. He laid her on the couch carefully and turned on the television again.

“You"re so gentle with me, that is so different than so many others. Thanks for that,” she said to him, sounding genuinely surprised. “No problem. I"ll be up later, you um, enjoy,” Pen was at a loss for words and an ordinary night took a left turn into the strange.

“No worries, I totally will. Thanks again,” Tinea replied to him as he turned around and left. “You"re welcome,” he said and it was odd but he felt like she"d been here for years. He had trust issues normally, but then again, she was just a blade.

Besides killing him in his sleep there wasn"t much else she could actually do he figured. It was easier to be relaxed when he looked at it that way.

Pen thought he"d have trouble falling asleep but instead he passed out. No weird dreams came this time.