with their own swords before, I’d never seen it actually happen. The man’s killer, dressed in the equivalent of rags, used the katana to slice through his victim’s throat, a rather unnecessary gesture in my opinion. Did he not realize he stabbed a corpse?
Once certain of his kill, he went to work stripping the body of anything of use, including the sheath, which he secured around his hips and belted into place. Using a dagger with a chipped edge, the killer cut the string of a small, jingling bag, tucking it into his clothes. I’d have to ask Batbayar what he wore; it reminded me of a mix between our dojo attire and something more like a kimono, made of rough linen stained from heavy use.
Using the fallen man’s clothes, the killer cleaned off the blade.
The katana mourned, and my magic told me a sad truth of its name: Peace.
Friday, October 12, 1501.
Kyoto, Japan.
* * *
A spark of magic lurked within the forge, and I recognized the face of the man hammering and folding the unfinished steel of the katana he’d one day name Peace. In its cruel way, my magic forced me to observe and nothing more. Had I been given the chance, I would have warned him about his fate so he could change it.
Then, as always, I wondered how the present would change if I could alter the past.
Would the sword have found its way into my cellar had it not been stolen and used to kill the man who’d forged it?
I expected my magic to leave me waiting, observing the world go by at its pace rather than mine, but the blacksmith finished his work, quenched the blade a final time, installed the hilt, which he’d wrapped with dark blue leather, and went to work sharpening its lethal edge.
I wondered at the choice of blue; Batbayar had taught a few lessons about the importance of colors in varying Asian cultures, with his beloved Japanese borrowing elements from the Chinese to create a system of values assigned colors. Dark blue meant something, and I concentrated, struggling to summon the memories of his lessons.
My magic focused on the hilt more than the blade itself, taking on a life of its own as it struggled to communicate something to me, something important. As touching the katana had brought my magic to life, I could only assume the spark of magic lurking within the forge had given the katana some form of life, despite being cold steel a warm hand lovingly crafted.
The magic, which I sensed as an electric undercurrent to the crackling flames, bothered me.
Everybody claimed magic had exploded into the world on July 14, 1853.
My magic told me a different story.
Magic had been around all along, waiting for its chance to burst forth and forever change the world.
The blacksmith finished his work, and he polished the steel, holding the blade so it caught the light. The magic in the forge jumped from the flames to the katana’s rippling pattern, adding an unnatural gleam to the edge, one its maker failed to notice.
He stroked his fingers along the bo-hi, and something about the groove drew my attention. When caught in the light, patterns appeared, etched into the metal.
My magic accommodated my curiosity and offered me a closer look.
Tiny kitsune lurked in the bo-hi’s shadow, running and leaping, their tails streaming behind them.
The blacksmith left the forge, strolled through an immaculate garden with a koi pond in its heart, and entered a wooden building, and its elaborate eaves and the pair of guardian dogs guarding the doorway supported my belief the man held some wealth. Within, a woman in a dark blue kimono worked, and she stitched the final touches on the katana’s sheath.
They spoke, and while I recognized their language as Japanese, I understood nothing they said, but he showed off the finished blade, and he smiled.
She presented the sheath, and he eased the blade into its embrace, buckled it into place around his waist, and patted the hilt.
Rather than dump me out of the past as it often did, my magic eased me away from Peace’s gentle beginning.
Thursday, July 14, 1853.
The New-York Historical Society.
New York City, New York.
* * *
The spark of magic within Peace awoke and danced over the sheathed blade, and the katana roused. It remembered its beginning, it remembered the death of the man who’d forged it—no, her—with love, and her grief outlasted even centuries.
In her forger’s hands, she had been a piece of art,