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Chapter 35 - A Change of Look.
The next day, there was a brief meeting of the council. There were no reports of any activity or even sightings of the Master, Muenda Mwita Osei, it would appear that he had gone to ground. No doubt he was planning something, but no one knew what or where. He had vacated the throne room of King Evon 1st - King of the Blue Dragons, but where he went, nobody knows. Jon quickly checked in with all the other dragons’ queens, but they had not seen him either; but having heard what had happened with the Blue Dragons, they all had contingencies in hand.
Jon and Tom were in the training room honing a few skills; they were in the flying hall so they could not come to any harm. Glynda had also gone into the training room but had gone off to the forest where Traveon and Lynessa Cadwalader lived, she wanted to be alone while she sorted a few things out in her head. She liked the peculiar old couple and valued their counsel, especially that of Lynessa.
“It’s not that I’m not happy,” Glynda said, “I’m probably happier now than I’ve ever been, it’s just this sword and my appearance. I know people say I look pretty…”
“Ooh, that you do my sweet, that you do,” Lynessa repeated herself to emphasise “you look as cute as a button with your long golden hair, beautiful white gown and that luminescent glow about you. Absolutely beautiful. I wouldn’t complain about it I looked like that, not that I ever did, not even when I were a youngen like you.”
“Yes, but my clothes, they never even get dirty. If I were to throw myself in the mud of your pigsty, when I stood up, all the mud would be gone. My hair never even gets messy, I used to have light brown dank and dirty hair most of the time, I know it sounds stupid, but I miss it.”
“Well, I don’t know, seems daft to me to want to be a plain Jane, not that you were plain,” Lynessa said quickly to correct herself, “you were already pretty, but now you’re beautiful.”
“Well, I don’t want to be!”
“I know what we’ll do, we’ll get Gwendoline here, and have a proper girl’s chat.”
She paused.
“Traveon,” Lynessa shouted, “can you call young Gwen, then make yourself scarce. Us girls want tah mardle.”
A few minutes later Gwen appeared. Lynessa and Gwen gave each other a big hug.
“It’s been a longen,” Lynessa said.
“Well, I’ve only been back a few weeks, and with that monster Muenda still at large, I’ve been rather preoccupied.”
“Ooh, I knows how busy you been. Been watching you from afar. It must be a weight off your mind, not having to hide your magic after all these years.”
“Yes, it is really, no one else knew except the other guardians.”
“And me,” said Lynessa.
“What do you mean? How did you know?”
I may be as blind as a bat, but nothing escapes me. No wizard can suppress their inner aura enough for me not to see it, except young Tom of course.”
“But you’re not blind, just short sighted.”
“I knows that, but I can still see better than most.”
“Well, thanks for not spilling the beans, Lynessa.”
“That be what friends are for, look out for each other, but still, let’s get down to business, that’s not why you're here.”
Lynessa brought Gwen up to speed on what Glynda had been saying. Gwen sat there and stared despairingly at Glynda, not knowing quite what to say.
“Well, I don’t understand it either, you look like an angel. But if you don’t like it, we’ll see what we can do.”
While she sat there thinking, Lynessa produced a brew and the obligatory cakes.
“Right, first off we need to do something about the Dragon Slayer,” Gwen started, “all the time it radiates its magic you will stay as you are. Any suggestions?”
After a few moments of thinking, Glynda spoke.
“We could take it back to the elves and ask them to tone down the magic a bit?” raising her voice at the end as if to ask a question.
“No, that can’t be done, it is what it is,” Gwen answered.
“What if I returned it to the cave where I found it and left it there? Then I’d return to normal and not have the responsibility of Dragon Slayer.”
“Not on your nelly!” Gwen exclaimed, “that lot from Kenefick might get their hands on it, and I don’t trust them as far as I could drag a dragon. Anyway, you are the rightful owner, even if you left it back in the cave it would probably return to you even if you just said or thought its name.”
Glynda thought some more and then tried again.
“Encase it in cold iron?” again as a question.
“Then it would weigh a tonne and would be a bit cumbersome when you needed to fight.”
“What about,” Lynessa said thoughtfully, “what about, a very, very thin cold iron lining in the scabbard?”
“Now that might work,” Gwen said, “when we get back, we’ll give it a go. Well done Lynessa, that’s why it’s always best if the girls do the thinking, then get the men to do the work. Come on girl, we’ve got important things to do, and men have jobs to do.”
Of course, they didn’t leave straight away so, after a long jaw about other things and catching up on a few snippets of gossip, they said their farewells to Lynessa, thanked her for the tea and cake and vanished back into the training room.
Before they exited back into their quarters, Gwen said, “Don’t tell the others, it’s our little secret.”
The next morning, they were up early, Gwen announced, “Glynda and I are off shopping. You lot will have to look after yourselves.”
And they vanished.
“Don’t forget, don’t tell the others, we don’t want them sniggering if it doesn’t work,” Gwen said, several times.
First, they went to the blacksmith and explained what they needed him to do.
“That’s a simple enough job,” he said, “but it won’t be until the end of the week before I can even start it.”
Gwen was just like Tom; she knew the value of money to tradesmen.
“Well, what if I pay you one gold coin to move it up the pecking order?”
The blacksmith didn’t want to appear too eager, “I’ll see what I can do, but can’t promise anything.”
“No worries,” said Gwen, “we’ll just move on to the next blacksmith and see how busy he is.”
“No, no, wait, let’s not be hasty, I said I’ll have a look and see what can be done, when do you want it to be ready exactly?”
“Now, we will wait,” Gwen said sharply.
“Okay, I’ll do it, I’ll just get a couple of chairs for you to ….”
Gwen cut him short. “We’ll stand thank you, I’m sure it will not take that long, especially if we help a little.”
“How?” he said with a certain amount of indignation.
“Here,” Gwen replied handing him a small package, “there is a strip of cold iron ten foot long, half a foot wide, and as thin as a hanky.”
“Amazing, where did you get this? Is it the real McCoy?”
“Of course, it is, it was made by the elves of Mynydd and delivered to me by Govannon Staley himself.”
“Oh my, you must have some good contacts.”
“I do, I am the wife of Llewellyn the Brave, the Elder of Elders.”
“Oh!” the blacksmith exclaimed nervously, “you don’t get better contacts than that.”
The cold iron roll was so thin it weighed only a few ounces and it took little time for the blacksmith to cut, shape and stitch weld the scabbard together using Dragon Slayer as a template.
“That’s a very fancy sword you have young lady, would you like me to make you one which you could fight with? This one is too pretty looking for a battle,” he said with a smile.
“No thanks, this one is just fine, I haven’t yet found anything it won’t cut through.”
“Don’t be silly, it’s all decorative and fancy, it’s not something you could use in a fight.”
“Try me,” she said with a wicked grin on her face.
The blacksmith picked up a two-handed longsword.
“Well, it wouldn’t last long against this.”
He swung the heavy sword round in a mock attack on Glynda, she parried upwards cutting the sword in half and followed through with a down stroke taking off the remaining blade just above the rainguard. The blacksmith looked shocked and a little peeved.
“That was one of my best swords, how could you do that with such a fancy weapon?”
“Sorry about that,” Glynda replied, “I’ll pay you another gold coin for the broken sword, now watch.”
She then plunged her sword, almost to the hilt into the blacksmith’s anvil and left it there. She then beckoned for him to remove it.
“Whaaat!” he exclaimed, “that’s not possible!”
“If you pull it out, you can keep it.”
The blacksmith went to the sword and gripped it in his powerful hands, he flexed his massive muscles and pulled. He pulled and pulled with all his strength, at one point lifting the massive anvil an inch off the ground, an anvil which had taken four of the strongest men in the city to put in place, but the sword did not budge an inch. He rested and Glynda went and withdrew the sword straight out of the anvil with no effort whatsoever.
“How did you do that, I am the strongest man in Blaenoraid, if not the whole of Trymyll. That is ridiculous.”
Glynda just winked at him, Gwen tossed him another gold coin, and they turned and left.
“Mr Cuttlebuck the Cordwainer next,” Gwen said.
They arrived at the cordwainer a few minutes later to be greeted by carpenters blocking the entrance as they fitted a new and very substantial door. Eventually, they gained entrance and were greeted by the master craftsman himself.
“Mr Cuttlebuck,” said Gwen, “we were just wondering if you would be able to reupholster the wonderful scabbard you made for my friend here to fit around this metal sheath?”
The cordwainer looked at the cold iron sheath and at his earlier handiwork.
“Should not be a problem, I’ll do it while you wait, I don’t want to have yet another door fitted quite yet,” he said with a smile.
He was as good as his word, he loosened a few stitches, applied some wax to the metal sheath to make it slippery, slid it in, and redid the stitching as before.
“Was there a problem with the first attempt?”
“Oh no,” Gwen said, “it was almost perfect, just wanted a bit of extra security for it. It was my son who brought it in the first time, he didn’t really think it through, it’s a very sharp sword and we didn’t want it cutting your beautiful work as the sword was taken in and out.”
By the time they had returned home, it was late afternoon, the place was deserted, so Gwen talked to Glynda about another trick she had up her sleeve.
“How about we work out an incantation that will make old Dragon Slayer invisible to all as long as it remains in the scabbard?”
“That would be a great idea, I know I’ve only had it a couple of weeks, but I do get some very funny looks when I walk around town with a sword slung over my back, and I’ve heard people muttering, ‘what’s a girl doing walking around town with a sword?’ or ‘teenagers today, I wasn’t even allowed a knife at her age’,”
They both laughed.
“Let’s go back to see Lynessa, she’s excellent at incantations and dweomers.”
They walked into the training room and straight into the forest where they walked the short distance to the Cadwalader’s cottage. It was as if she knew they were coming. As they walked in Lynessa was taking a cake out of the range oven and the kettle was already boiling.
“My, my!” Lynessa exclaimed, “you’ve changed a bit since I last saw you.”
Glynda hadn’t seen herself and Gwen decided not to tell her, her hair was back to its unkempt and slightly grubby light brown, and she now wore her old and worse for wear clothes again. She looked in the mirror, she couldn’t have been happier.
Gwen explained, “Govannon Staley supplied me with the cold iron, we then hired a blacksmith to make the sheath and then had the scabbard modified slightly to have a cold iron sheath inside the leatherwork, as I said, we do the thinking and let the men do the work.”
“So, what’s next?” asked Lynessa.
“I want to make it invisible until I touch the sword on my back or call it out,” Glynda added, “and Gwen said you’re good at incantations and stuff like that.”
“That won’t be easy, give me ‘til the morning to think.”
Once home again, there was a note on the table.
“Don’t wait up, we’ve all gone hunting for the night, see you in the morning, but not too early.”
“Well, that’s excellent, we’ll be abed before they get home and away before they wake. Suits us fine,” Gwen said with a chortle.