She knelt down at the edge of the spring. It seemed like a good time for a prayer, but Glory wasn't sure who she ought to be praying to. She'd never been a very religious person back home—she'd always felt that if God tended to His business, she'd tend to hers. Prayers and bargains always seemed a little like cheating somehow, and besides, Erchane wasn't her god.
She dipped the bucket into the spring. The water was numbingly cold. Remembering how Belegir had filled the chalice the night before, Glory plunged the bucket in as deep as she could manage, and held it there for a minute.
"All right, you," she said aloud. "Belegir's always been straight with you. He stood by you even when it didn't look like you were paying much attention. Now it's your turn to do something for him. That's all."
She felt a little silly once she'd said it, but there was no way to take the words back. She lifted the bucket out of the water—it was much heavier now—and set it carefully by the side of the spring.
And just in case there was something in Belegir's belief that the spring could do something about the infection, she pulled off her sweatshirt, unsticking it gently from her shoulder, scooped up several handfuls of the water, and washed out her own gashes thoroughly, pinching and prodding until they bled freely again. The cold made her shoulder feel better, if nothing else. She also washed her face, and rinsed the blood-spot out of the shirt as best she could. Going to have a pretty bruise in the morning, if the heat on that cheek is anything to go by.
She got to her feet, pulled the damp sweatshirt back on, picked up the bucket, and left the grotto, collecting her sword on the way. She realized she was going to have to set something down to bar the door again—not that it was really necessary, but it was the way she'd found it, so it was the way she'd leave it—when she realized that something had changed.
The door to the armory was open again, the violet light flooding out of it as if it were a high-end designer boutique on the Bois de Expensive.
She knew they'd closed it the last time they'd been down here.
She was pretty sure it'd been closed when she'd gone in to the Wellspring just now.
She knew what was in there.
"God's Teeth," Glory groaned tiredly, setting the bucket down again. Cinnas' gods-be-damned Warmothering sword was in there, with all its freight of can-be-carried-by-the-One-True-Hero and all that happy hoo-hah.
She bet it was sharp, though.
Sharp enough that if she'd been carrying it this morning, Belegir need never have gotten hurt at all. She could have cut the monster up like a breakfast egg, made it bleed, ruined it with a blow or two, enough to take it out fast and sloppy. Nobody hurt. Nobody dying by inches, and her with no way to help.
That decided her.
She set down her sword, closed the door to the Oracle spring, and picked up her sword again, then walked into the armory, giving the floating glowing sword a wide berth.
She might as well look around here for something useful before getting herself into trouble meddling with magic. Fortunately, she found something, which improved her temper a bit. On a table in the back, there was what was obviously a maintenance kit of some sort, picks and rasps laid out on a chamois square, including several small hooked knives, sharpened on the inner side, for shortening the straps that held armor in place. The leather straps were nowhere in sight but the knives were still sharp, and there was a small stoppered pot of what was obviously leather cream—Belegir had said this stuff hadn't been used since the Time of Legend, but she bet someone had still got the job of cleaning it regularly, back when the Oracle Temple was full of Acolytes. She worried the cork out and stuck a finger in it, sniffing, smelling beeswax and lanolin. What would do for leather would likely do for skin as well. She added both knives and leather dressing to her bag, and the chamois square as well, then returned to the hovering wizard's blade.
Unless she dragged the table over, she couldn't climb up to it, and even if she did, there was no guarantee she could pry it loose from the air. Magic, Glory told herself sagely, on the basis of no information at all, was funny that way. And if the blade was as sharp as it looked, she didn't want to grab the end she could reach.
She reached up with her own sword and prodded at the other blade tentatively. It didn't even wobble, but the sound the two blades made when they connected was like hitting a tuning fork.
A very big tuning fork.
Hit really, really hard.
She winced, staggering back from the high sweet ringing. It faded quickly, and Glory had the odd feeling that Cinnas' sword was laughing at her. In a fond paternal way, but laughing at her nonetheless.
"I am not amused," she said aloud.
She couldn't knock it down, she couldn't yank it down, what did that leave?