Zerail, City of Metals. That is what they call my hometown—or to be more accurate, I should call it my city. Zerail is large, the largest mechanized and modern inland city this era has known. The streets of my hometown are littered with Golemns, both undead of alchemical variety, and mechanical golemns as well. Here the battle between the machine and the alchemist ever rages, albeit in a tacit and rarely violent way. It has been fifty years—half an entire century—since the introduction of the first machine to this land, and yet still alchemists complain about the smell of petroleum, the whirring of gears that sound tirelessly in the background, no matter where you go in Zerail. Doubtless they are jealous of the mastery of creation that programmers have gained over them. Never has a mechanical golemn ever rebelled against it's master-they cannot rebel. And yet there have been countless cases of golemns that have been embued with a soul via some unnatural means—golemns that have risen up against their masters and become truly fearsome.
I...I love the whir of the machine. I have loved it ever since I was a little boy, playing with gears and windup toys. That said, I don't much care for golemns. Then again, perhaps that is because I don't care much for their creators. I don't like the human race, although I am a part of it. Perhaps deep down I want to be like one of those mechanized golemns, but without a master. My own master. Strange isn't it? But it's true. Ever since I was young, I have wanted to be soulless. Emotions such as guilt, or sadness, or even happiness seem trivial and unimportant to me. Indeed, the only emotions I have ever acknowledged within myself as being worthwhile are intrigue, respect, and the feeling of thrill. Intrigue at new weapons and machinery, new tools that I can learn to help me grow stronger. Respect given to the pursuits I follow. And of course, the thrill of battle.
The machine I love, the machine I listen to most, is the steady whirring of the whetter, a sharp object attached to a pivot and a spring. The spring is fueled by the potential energy coming from hot air coming at it in short, concentrated bursts, making it oscillate rapidly...no, that is an understatement. At ten cycles a second, to be precise. The spring pushes the pivot and the whetter falls, shearing whatever lies in it's path. This is the machine that I use to make blades. It is fast, efficient, and allows one to focus more on thinking about what kind of blade to make.
Traditional swordsmen hate the whetter. They think swords have souls of their own—what a joke. If a sword had a soul, then I would not use it. Souls are unreliable. Souls are weak, they can be won, they can be conditioned, they can be tamed. All my life, ever since I was born, I have been uncompromising. I do not know why. I do not know what made me apart from my brethren, but I am indeed apart. So I make blades, all day, and I sell them to make a living. Strange blades, outlandish blades, traditional blades, you name it. Soulless blades. Blades that are reliable, that bend when you want them to, and at no other time. My creations are flexible, and yet unshakable, a work of true beauty. That is what I consider the sword to be. People say that a sword should be an extension of your soul. But I say otherwise. Let the sword you wield be the idealization of a soul. Let it be a machine that stays true always to itself.
"Nice to see you today, Meene!"
"Looking good, Meene!"
"Oh, Meene, still up to your old tricks I see!"
A million familiar faces passed the pale skinned youth at the bazaar as he sat calmly, eyes half closed, chewing a twig and staring at the sky. An hour had already passed. In front of him lay a plethora of swords, knives, gauntlets, weapons of all varieties. A weapon seller, a blacksmith of the modern age. That is what he was. And usually, business was booming. But not today. Perhaps I should blame it on the day, Meene thought, the corner of his plain expression twitching. It was a grey day, overcast, the bazaar standing in the shadow of the sky. It is not a day when people leave their houses...on instinct, I guess. Meene shook his head.
"Meene!" And opened his eyes to see a short brunette human girl of about thirteen or fourteen standing in front of him, twirling her skirt. "I bought it just now! Well? What do you think, Meene!"
"Stop saying my name all the time." Meene scowled. "And wash clothes after you buy them. You never know where a seller procures his items from. That skirt could have been made by a mountain troll, for all you know."
"As if," laughed the girl. "You're just jealous of my beauty. Me-eene."
Her name was Aricine and she was perhaps the only person that ever talked to Meene without being on edge. Meene never had figured out why she was so comfortable around him. Everyone else liked him well enough, but were always on edge, always guarded, when it came to close one on one interactions with him. Even his stepfather and stepmother. Like Meene, Aricine was an orphan, but as she was an outsider, and never knew her mother and father, she was raised by foster parents—a kind enough troupe of actors that staged some of the best classy entertainment in the world. The Dancing Monkeys. This troupe of actors were so famous that they never needed to travel—people came from all over the world to see their plays, listen to their humor, and watch their dancing. And the patrons were always aristocrats with enough wealth to go around.
"How's the Count?" Meene asked uninterestedly. The truth was that he had always found a strange interest, almost an obsession, with the leader of the Dancing Monkeys, the Count. Man or woman, human or not, no one knew anything about the Count, except for perhaps his or her height. They assumed he was male, but his voice was transgender at best, and he hid his face behind a grinning white mask. He always appeared before performances in his characteristic red and white striped tophat and striped matching tuxedo. Rumor had it that the Count was a vampire, and that every night after a performance, he would choose the poorest patron and have him or her for dinner.
Meene doubted this story very much. The few times he had been over at the Dancing Monkey's headquarters to hand deliver custom blades they ordered, he had never sensed a dangerous vibe from their leader. An eerie, uncomfortable feeling perhaps, but not dangerous. The Count was no predator—he couldn't be. No, Meene was interested in the Count because of another reason. He had a memory of when he was young—very young. Back when his parents were still alive. A memory of his father, a blacksmith, sitting and chatting with a tall, eerie looking man with short spiky white hair and luminescent pale skin, wearing a red tophat. Meene didn't know who the man was. He didn't remember the specific time of the memory—only that he must have been barely a toddler, peeking out from behind a half shut door at the two men talking in the night. Was it the Count? Meene was not one to jump to conclusions, so he simply watched, and waited.
"You always ask about him," Aricine pouted. "It is never about me, is it Mee-eene." The white haired youth shook his head uninterestedly. "Well then!" Aricine straightened up, smiling at him. "I need a dagger."
"A dagger? Why?"
"Colman's dagger broke yesterday. You know, the act of the play where he throws the knife?"
"Oh. Will any ordinary dagger do? Does he want a homing dagger? He might need it—he didn't ever seem all that good to me."
"Hmph!" Aricine turned away, pouting. "Colman is a master thrower, I will have you know!"
"I-is he now..." Meene put a hand behind his head, laughing weakly. A memory of the barrel chested, bald, brown skinned man flashed before him. What a clown. He belonged in a circus moreso then in a troupe of actors. He reached into a red bin and took out a dagger and a leather sheath, handing it to Aricine. "For free," he told her. "As compensation for my harsh words."
"S-say, Meene..." Aricine fidgeted, blushing a little. "D-do you want to go on a date..."
"Grow a foot taller." Meene smiled up at the girl. "Maybe in a couple years, okay?"
"Hmph. Meene only likes girls with large chests."
"W-what makes you say that, Aricine?"
The day ended. Sunset. Aricine had long since departed, and apart from a few ragtag travelers that had stopped to buy standard gear for the rain, no one had come to buy his wares. I'm going to train now, he decided. I think I've stared at the sky for long enough. Most fighters trained at the temple. Some trained in fields, some at home. But Meene preferred his underground smithy over any other place. It was cramped, but there the smell of metal reigned supreme. There the hammer fell mechanically, over and over, pounding away, the drum of determination, nonstop, the ideal beating of a heart. There the heat was so intense that every action was a thousand times harder then normal. So that was where he trained.
Every day, like today, as dusk turned to night, the lanky youth went to the smithy and took up one of the hundreds of swords laying scattered about in their scabbards, and started to dance the sword dance. One sword, and then another, and then another, sword after sword pulled used, tossed and picked up again, over and over, in cyclic pattern. Thrust, horizontal slash, dodge, parry and discard, and step two steps right, unsheathe the closest sword, and twirl and slash, and dodge, and discard. Sword after sword used, different sizes, different lengths, shapes, nothing was the same, except the hot metal in his hands. But he had mastered them all.
Meene leapt into the air, breathing hard, and twirling a twilight gladius in the firelight. He slashed at a hanging shortsword, cutting thrice as metal clanged against metal, and then he let the gladius fly, gliding with its motion to his right, unsheathing the katana beside him. One, two, one two, vertical strikes to the head, crying 'men', the japanese word for 'head', and then he struck horizontally, sprinting forward. Perfect motion. With axe kick, he ended his attack, tossing his sword and jumping back a couple steps.
No more swords left unsheathed. The dance was over, Meene realized. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes. That was how long it had taken him this time to complete the infinite sword dance, a technique he had invented, wild and extraordinary, utilizing every one of at least a hundred weapons in perfect timing and synchronization. He slumped against one of the wooden pillars holding up his smithy. Not good enough, he thought. Twenty minutes, and the pivot when I picked up the eighty third sword was broke my tempo completely. I had to stop my motion for a whole second and scan my surroundings before continuing. A failure in every way. He crawled over to his water bottle and poured some water over his face. I thought I would have mastered this by now. I thought I would be able to dance with a hundred swords in ten minutes, with no break in rhythm. But everything is so far from complete!
