AN:The swords i dont think have been introduced yet so let me do so, theyre based off of a book called,well, the swords, and it was writted by Fred Saberhagen. its a three part series and then it goes into a series called the lost swords which really aint that great but i start off at about the end of the Farslayer book. basically its about a kid named Mark whos son of the emperor and in my story is about 25 and he gets married to a girl named kristen, who made a deal with the god of love to force mark to fall in love wth her,they have two kids, adrian and stephen. then hes got his best friend Ben who married some other chick named barbara, and then there is the royal wizard Karel. Mark is the son of the Emporer, this really illustrious fellow, but not really in control of the world or anything.
what the story is really about however is 12 magical swords, created by the gods as a bit of a game. they gave them to 12 random people and let the battles begin because as everyone learned of these swords everyone wanted them.
for more info on these swords here is link to the "song of swords" basically explaining each sword and what they do in a sing songy way.
http/www(dot)berserker(dot)com/infoswdsong(dot)htm

I have also found the best swords reference ever known as the swords Bible written by fred saberhagen himself,(author of the series) a link to it here http/www(dot)berserker(dot)com/infoswdbible(dot)htm almost everything u could ever want to know about the swords world. sadly ff doesnt let me put in normal links so ur gonna have to copy and paste and all that and change the dots into '.'s.

if the song of swords isnt enough for ya heres another link to better explain the exact defintion of the swords http/www(dot)berserker(dot)com/infoswdprop(dot)htm

this basically takes place at the end of farslayer's story, near the start of coinspinner's.
i believe thats it on with the story:

THE BOOK OF SWORDS

Prince Mark of Tasavalta arrived safely at his hometown, dearly longing to see his princess once more.
The gate gaurd approached him, overjoyed by his safe return. "Sir, You've returned!" the guard welcomed him warmly. After saluting and such normal respects, he said "Should I alert the princess my Lord?"

"No... I'll greet her myself.. " Mark said more to himself then the gaurd.

"As you wish sire. " the guard's voice faded in the background.

Hoping he wouldn't get scolded for his long outing, he entered his bed chambers searching for his wife. "Mark!" Kristin yelled as she flung her arms around him. She kissed him on the cheek and then held him at arms length.
"Something important's happened, Burslem is in the garden and he's dead with Farslayer in his chest!" she blurted out.

"What!" Mark yelled. "Who's gaurding Farslayer!"

"General Rostov and nine of his best men are guarding the room." Kristin responded, calming Mark considerably.
"..Or at least they were.." Kristin added somewhat gloomily.

"..Were? what do you mean?" Mark asked getting slightly ansy.

"There was this..thing..that happened..The guards reported some kind of portal appearing in the room." Kristin explained.

"What about Adrian and Stephen? Are they safe?"

"Yes, sleeping like babys..." Kristen said.

"Great, alright then... Let's go check out that portal!" Mark said triumphantly.

"Umm but.." Kristin protested.

"Let's go." Mark said ignoring her comment.

"Let's? but I-" Kristin stammered.

"Yes, let's, c'mon." Mark trodded off through the castle with Kristin close in tow.
They didn't make it very far however before they mistakenly almost collided with Karel, the Royal Wizard.

"Karel?" both Kristin and Mark asked.

"Ah!" Karel stated. "I've been looking for you princess, Mark..." He nodded to each of them.

"What are you doing out here at this time of night Karel?" Mark asked.

"I was about to report something.." Karel states somewhat irritatedly

"At 4 O'clock in the morning!" Kristin yelled.

"What was so urgent Karel?" Mark asked.

"Its about...the Great one." Karel shuddered.

"Well?" Mark ordered impatiantly.

"He's here. In Tasavalta. Right now." Karel stated, conveying a sense of importantce.

"So?" Mark said.

"In the castle." Karel said somewhat dismayed.

"What!" Kristin nearly fell over in shock.

"Wait, who's this great guy? " Mark asked feeling somewhat out of the loop.

Kristen huffed in denial and said "Mark, must you always forget the important stuff!"

"He is known by many names.. 'The Master' is also one of them... He is the second most powerfull wizard that we know of.. And is rarely seen around here.." Karel anwsered. "Where were you two going?" Karel asked quizzically.

"We were headed to retrieve Farslayer and investigate the reported 'portal'." Mark anwsered quickly.

"What portal?" Karel said raising an eyebrow.

"The one in the garden..." He said pointing off in the direction of the garden, somewhat confused that Karel did not understand.

"ah." Karel said renewing some pride. "I thought as much. My magical-"

"Wait.. Nobody told you? " Mark said confused.

"um Mark? It was a secret?" Kristin sighed.

Karel cleared his throat over the rude interuption and continued, "I said some of my spells had been telling me there was something quite largely powerfull and disturbing in the garden... From the sheer power of it I thought it was The Master."

"It's power is that strong?" Mark asked.

"Yes..." Karel pondered it all for a moment. "By the way... How are you sure it is a portal?" Karel asked Kristin.

"Well.." she started. "I'm not exactly.. General Rostov and another guard told me that as they were standing watch at the body of Burslem when they say they saw the other eight gaurds get sucked into a 'blue swirly thing'. They left the room quick as a wink and claim to have barely escaped being sucked in themselves... I'm not really conviced though..I mean I know its Rostov and all but.." Kristen sighed. "Of course what I do know is first there were ten guards, and now there is only two." Kristen explained.

"Well I'm not conviced either.. I still say there's a good chance it's the Great One..We shouldn't take any chances. " Karel advised.

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AN: I would've used the Line thingy to separate stuff but it doesnt work for some reason right now. The Swords wont be showing up really for a while, just screwing around at their palace. lets just say in my book were on about pg20 and the next section aint until about pg.40

I will likely update more soon.

R&R i suppose.