It was, without a doubt, the ugliest blade that Steve Decker had ever seen.

It was a fencing sword, but not quite a rapier. The blade was almost three feet long, and the whole thing weighed a bit more than one and half pounds. Despite this, the blade itself was somewhat stiffer than a rapier and protected by a large bell guard. Steve identified it immediately as an epee blade, a more modern variant of traditional fencing blades that had begun to be seen in the late 17th century. He was familiar with this type of weapon from years ago when he had taken a fencing class in college.

It wasn't that it was an epee that struck him as particularly ugly. It was the material that it was forged with. At first, Decker had thought the blade had accumulated an enormous amount of sediment, but upon closer inspection, it appeared that the weapon was actually comprised of the stuff. It resembled nothing less than bone and metal fused together. The color of the material ranged in various hues of red and brown, simulating the look of petrified flesh that had refused to decay.

This was definitely not a traditionally made blade, and certainly not one that was designed for formal bouts. Its design and material indicated this was a weapon that was meant to be used, and not a decorative ceremonial blade.

While it was rough in texture, the prick on his finger he got when running it down the length of the sword warned him that even the "fleshy" parts were quite sharp. Getting stabbed by this (and the design of the epee made it a piercing weapon as opposed to a slashing weapon) would be like getting stabbed with a corkscrew.

He pulled the blade out of the box, causing small bits of packing material to settle by his feet, and struck a pose. He was a big man, built along the lines of a football player, which made the thin sword seem less intimidating in size. He cut through the open air a few times, testing it.

Darren Reynolds watched all this in a bemused silence. He had placed an ad for an estate sale, and Decker was the first one who had looked beyond the first few boxes. He wasn't exactly happy having strangers traipse around his grandfather's house, and had set everything up in the large foyer to take advantage of the higher ceilings and good lighting that streamed in from above, as well as to keep people from seeing the really nice stuff he planned on keeping.

The estate, if you could call it that, was not a very extensive one. His grandfather had passed away, leaving him as the sole heir to a modestly sized fortune. The trouble was that his grandfather had been somewhat eccentric, and had been fond of collecting bits and items of junk; souvenirs from his travels over the world.

The only thing really worth much had been the house and his bank account. The furnishings were gaudy and the decorations were a hodgepodge collection of wood carvings, ceremonial weapons, plaster replicas of the Eifel Tower, Big Ben and other landmarks, and more curious things such as oddly colored rocks and seashells or strange handcrafted items that he had never been able to determine their origin.

Reynolds had wanted none of it. His grandfather had not only been a junk aficionado, but a pack rat as well. There were scores of boxes of useless knickknacks and dust collectors along with furniture that was incredibly ugly, and none of the pieces had been real antiques anyway.

So while he had placed an ad for an estate sale, he had the goods of a tawdry garage sale. The people coming by had known it. After half a dozen people had come by to see what he had to offer and left in disgust, Darren had been considering changing his ad in hopes that he'd find people with tastes similar to his grandfather.

Then his next visitor had been Steve Decker. It was hard to believe that this large man that towered over him would be so soft-spoken and intelligently earnest. You can't always judge a book by its cover, I suppose, Darren had thought to himself.

Now he watched the big man playing with the blade, striking at pretend opponents. It was like watching a grown-up kid having the time of his life. While he didn't know much about fighting, it seemed that Mr. Decker had done some training, so he asked him about it.

"Hm? Oh yeah, I had taken a fencing class back in college. I took the class because there was a girl I wanted to meet who was taking it," Steve replied as he continued with the blade.

"Whatever happened?"

"Oh, I just barely passed with a C. I think it was only because I showed up. Still, I'm surprised that I remember anything from back then. I didn't really enjoy it at the time, but I don't seem to be doing too bad now", he said, as he whirled the blade in an elaborate pattern briefly, stomped his foot on the floor, and thrust the blade through the air in front of him with surprising authority.

"Heh. I think I'm even better now than I was then. Maybe I should take that class again," Decker continued wryly.

"What about the girl? Did that work out for you?"

"Yes and no. I ended up marrying her roommate."

Steve swirled the sword one more time, listening to the almost hypnotic sound of the blade cutting through the air as he closed the maneuver with a flourish and ended with a sharp salute. Reynolds half expected Decker to finish with a bow, but he didn't.

"Interesting blade. What do you know about it?" Decker asked.

"Only that my grandfather picked it up in Europe some time back. Nothing else, really."

He paused. "I know it's ugly enough that it used to scare his dog."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, he used to have this small dog and whenever it walked by the sword display, it would bark wildly at it. I don't know what that stuff all over it is, but maybe the dog smelled something it didn't like."

Decker put the blade close to his nose and inhaled.

"Hrmph. Well, I can't tell anything from here. Not that it matters, since I don't have any dogs. That IS weird, though."

"You're telling me", Reynolds replied. "My granddad was obsessed with that damn thing. Always checking on it, never letting anyone touch it. He wouldn't even let me get too close to it when I visited as a kid. This is the first time I've really seen it up close. I don't know what he paid, but it may actually be valuable."

"It's got a nice balance, but I've never seen a material like this." Steve commented. "The style is an epee, which means it could only date as far back as the eighteenth century. Still, I think a sword this distinctive would have some kind of history."

"Like I said, I don't know much about it. Maybe you can find a historian to research it for you."

And that was exactly what Decker planned to do. Decker was fond of telling his wife that only fools would go to garage sales in the vain hope of finding that hidden Picasso. A smart man, he often said, could find a way to make anything in a garage sale become a "Picasso".

And Steve Decker was exactly the kind of man who could do that. He was an art trader and he dealt with a very high end private clientele. While he had sold some pieces to museums, he more often sold to private collectors. What he would do is go around and look for things that might have historical significance, research it to see if it did, embellish its history if it did not, and then pay associates to write articles on them in archeological journals.

He also was a regular contributor to digs and museums, and was well liked among academic circles. As such, they were always willing to accommodate such a proactive colleague by writing up things he acquired. Decker would then cite those articles as evidence of the items historical value to a prospective buyer.

When Steve Decker took his kids to the museum, he always felt a perverse pride in knowing that the histories he created were being told to everyone. When a private buyer purchased a piece from him, he felt an enormous satisfaction in lending someone the belief that they were getting an important piece of history. His wife was fond of saying that he had the scruples of a pirate, but she always smiled when she said it.

It was certainly a more satisfying way of making a living than the machinist job his father had tried to get him to take. He worked his ass off to get his archeological degree, and he always swore he would never end up like his own dad. He had made good on that promise to himself.

So when he saw an estate sale being advertised, naturally he had to go check it out for himself. Nothing in these boxes had been worth looking at until he saw this sword. Much of the items were things of recent manufacture that he would simply not be able to pass off as anything better. He could probably do something with some of the shells, rocks and carvings, but the sword just screamed history at him.

And if it didn't have a history, it certainly would by the time he was ready to sell it.