The Legendary Swordsman

This story is set on the world of Larvanin, the same as Maskmaker, Maskkeeper, Maskmatcher.

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Many detective stories have a singular moment of brilliance, a place where the clues all congeal in an instant, where the truth is revealed.

This is not how mysteries usually go in real life. Most detectives come to their conclusions slowly, through painstaking work and comparison of clues, motives, and witness accounts. Often, the culprit is obvious from the start, and they merely need to find proof.

Many detective stories have rapid intuitive jumps of logic, protagonists who see what others cannot.

This is not how it works in real life. Detectives are, by and large, well within the normal range of understanding and intelligence. They see what others cannot not because of some inherent trait beyond normal humanity, but because they have been trained to. They have learned to recognize patterns in crime scenes that others do not, simply because those others don’t see crime scenes so regularly.

Many detective stories feature a detective that knows the answer to a mystery within minutes or seconds of walking into a room.

This is, again, unrealistic. Detectives often take weeks, sometimes even months, to solve cases. They engage in mind-numbingly dull stakeouts, wear their patience thin analyzing paperwork, and interview witnesses again and again and again, looking for the smallest inconsistencies.

And yet… every so often, the unrealistic happens. Every so often, a detective solves a mystery in a single moment of brilliance. Every so often, a detective makes those rapid intuitive jumps of logic that should be merely the domain of stories. And every so often, a detective solves a mystery within minutes of walking into a room.

This is one of those stories.

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When the greatest swordsman alive died, his rivals descended like vultures, save one key difference.

Vultures were seldom invited.

Tzilov Xolavin had, in his life, fought and won forty-eight duels, five to to the death. He was far from the greatest trial duelist in history— that was unquestionably Yabrek Halivo the Jaguar, who had fought only high stakes legal duels to the death, slaughtering seventy-one foes over the course of his thirty year career, a century back. Eventually, no one would duel him any longer, and litigants who were faced with his blade simply settled their cases without protest rather than hire their own trial duelist.

Most of the greatest duelists of Zaposzecin had born Yabrek’s blade, both before and since. More than two centuries of duelists standing as their generation’s Jaguar had soul-woven their sword skills into the blade, their memories of great duels, and their built-in reflexes. Oh, they didn’t ever completely dominate the legal landscape like Yabrek Halivo, but if a merchant’s cheated customer or an unpaid builder managed to hire one of his heirs, odds were far better than even they would get satisfaction.

The few that could stand up to them, could sometimes take the place of Yabrek’s heirs? Universally followed great duelist lineages of their own, bore soul-woven blades that had been carried and enhanced by decades and decades of Zaposzecin trial duelists.

Until Tzilov Xolavin.

Tzilov Xolavin, an arrogant upstart with no lineage, no traditional master. No education with the sword beyond that expected of all citizens of Zaposzecin, paired with no more than the requisite practice.

And yet, he had always, and publicly, bragged about his skill as a swordsman. Had lengthily bragged how, when Zaposzecin’s foes came against it once more, when the feuding lowland Mortal and Immortal cities tried to seize Zaposzecin’s mountain pass for strategic advantage, he would make a great name for himself defending the City of Stairs and Ladders.

All his acquaintances— for few desire to be true friends with one so arrogant as young Tzilov— considered him a fool and braggart.

Tzilov had refused to follow his parents into the carpet merchant business, and instead plunged headfirst into the world of Zaposzecin pedigree counterfeits. Zaposzecin’s unique status as a neutral city between the Mortal and Immortal cities and their ever-seething war had led to the rise of countless phantom industries within its cities, for, while there was no direct trade between the two warring alliances of city-states, there was absolutely demand for the goods each produced.

So Zaposzecin had stepped into place. Despite Zaposzecin’s severe shortage of arable land, they began shipping crops down into the lowlands. Despite the shortage of forests and carpenters, vast quantities of lumber and carpentry began traveling down from the mountain city. Despite the preference for soulwoven incense over alcohol in Zaposzecin, wine enough to float a ship worked its way down the pass.

Soon, the smuggling dwarfed Zaposzecin’s own native industries— its excellent metalwork and its famed wool, for the only resources they had, besides stone, were the iron inside the mountains and the sheep on their slopes.

Of course, all sides were well aware of the smuggling, but none could acknowledge it officially. Hence the rise of pedigree counterfeiting, a business that mixed high-stakes accounting, careful soul-weaving, and convincing lies in equal proportion, all to create sufficiently plausible proof that the goods truly originated in Zaposzecin, or at least had no connection to the enemy side.

It was no coincidence that there had been no invasions of Zaposzecin’s territory for decades now, not since the rise of the smuggling business. For all their bravado, the wise of the city knew that their past victories had been before the rise of the new soul-woven weapons, of depression dust and suicide gas and auto-cannibalistic arrows.

Trade protected the city now, more than any sword.

Pedigree counterfeiting was unquestionably a dangerous business— counterfeiters who failed at their work faced, at best, lowland merchants using their deep pockets to hire the greatest of trial duelists to recognize them before the courts. At worst, well…

There were always swordsmen willing to take coin for unofficial justice, after all.

Tzilov Xolavin had dived headfirst into pedigree counterfeiting business with characteristic arrogance, sure that he’d make a great fortune within months, if not weeks.

He’d failed on his very first commission, and been brought before the courts.

His parents had offered to pay for a skilled trial duelist to represent him— as in all things, they remained willing to save him from his own mistakes, which likely explained much, if not most, of Tzilov’s arrogance.

Tzilov, of course, refused, convinced he could win the duel himself.

And, to the shock of all involved, he did.

It wasn’t a particularly impressive victory— no, it was an unpredictable, absurd one. In the opening moves of the duel, Tzilov launched one of the classic forms, the Snowflower Feint. It was an outmoded training form, only taught as a foundation for more difficult forms. Its counters were straightforward and left the feinter in a poor position.

Tzilov’s use of the Snowflower Feint should have cost him the victory then and there, save for two facts.

First, that he didn’t actually feint. He carried through, attacking ridiculously with the Snowflower, despite its poor angle and lack of force.

And second, that his opponent tried to get fancy, unleashing a complex disarming move that only a skilled swordsman, wielding the memories of generations of teachers, could possibly pull off.

The combination of Tzilov’s foolish attack and his opponent’s complex form left the latter directly in the path of Tzilov’s blade, scoring a hit deep enough that the judges called the trial in Tzilov’s failure.

Tzilov, of course, attributed his victory to his own brilliance, not freakish chance, and promptly announced his retirement from pedigree counterfeiting to become a trial duelist instead.

In a just universe, he would have promptly lost his next case, and hopefully died.

Instead, in a freak act of foresight that was seldom replicated before or after in his life, Tzilov buckled down to train, and kicked off one of the most illustrious— and obnoxious— legal careers in Zaposzecin’s history.

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The detective woke up and decided to be a woman on the morning she was hired to investigate a murdered duelist; decided to be Necasia Ortegin instead of Nochail Ortegin or most commonly, just Ortegin. It was an unusual choice for them— when they bothered wearing a gender at all, they usually preferred being male in the summer, not least because their obsidian oak female mask was poorly ventilated compared to their other masks, and its black woodgrain absorbed the sun’s heat unpleasantly.

Her choice of mask and gender had little bearing on her capabilities as a detective— she was a rarity who preferred to keep their career skills out of their masks, instead splitting them between dozens of items of jewelry across her body. It was, under normal circumstances, a far less effective strategy— masks were the most common soul-woven artifacts for good reason, especially in complex, intellectually demanding careers.

Necasia, though, loved the dissonance, loved the way that her soul-woven jewelry argued amongst themselves, fought for her attention, pulled her mind in a dozen or more directions. Most people would be driven mad by the sensation, but Necasia found peace in the middle of the pulling soul-weavings, a balanced spot in their center that she could shift by moving her jewelry about her body. Doing so offered her no new skills or memories, but shifted her perspective and the degree to which she valued her different skills and memories.

She was sitting on her balcony when the messenger arrived to summon her to Tzilov Xolavin’s manor, to investigate the murder of one of his rivals following his will-reading.

Necasia, in a particularly mischievous mood, buckled on her worst sword, one so gummed up with rust that it couldn’t even be pulled from the scabbard— which itself was falling apart with rust.

All of her swords were in atrocious condition, of course— Necasia was nothing if not on the cutting edge of Zaposzecin culture, and there was a growing and well-deserved sense of disgust with the city’s blade culture, with its foolish, pointless insistence on its own martial glory.

War belonged to the cruelest products of soul-weaving now, not to skill with the blade. It was the economic utility of Zaposzecin that preserved it from the warring alliances of the lowlands now.

Thus the battered, rusted, chipped, even useless blades countless youths and adults now wore, in mockery of Zaposzecin’s delusions.

Besides, Necasia had never been any good with a blade in the first place, and she could easily afford skilled trial duelists to fight for her. Of course, her disdain for Zaposzecin’s martial delusions didn’t mean she had no affection for them— she was an avid attendee of court cases, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s duelists, and seldom missed a major legal duel unless work demanded it of her. Which, sadly, it often did.

There was plenty of call for detectives in the City of Stairs and Ladders, and Necasia was far and away the best of them.

At least, that’s what everyone said. There were plenty of detectives in the city, and a truly concrete measure of their skill seemed a fruitless endeavor. But if you were to ask, Necasia Ortegin— or Nochail Ortegin, or just Ortegin, depending on the day— was the name you’d hear most often.

She secured her useless sword on her belt, and followed the messenger to the Xolavin manor.

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Zaposzecin was rich in many things— martial traditions, metal, wool, mutton, water, and trade. One thing it was poor in, poorer than any other city Necasia knew?

Space.

Zaposzecin was crammed into a tiny flat space at the top of the mountain pass. It would have been more than enough space for a village and ample farmland, enough space for a cramped large town, but Zaposzecin was one of the most populous cities on the continent, with most of a million people. There wasn’t even the remotest chance to comfortably fit their homes and business atop the pass normally.

So the Zaposzecini built vertically. Homes began stacking atop homes, alleys and streets covered over with interlocking buildings until they became labyrinthine tunnel networks. Then alleys and streets started narrowing as foundations for the growing heights wormed downward, and enterprising citizens began building their homes amidst the burrowing girders. Soon street-tunnels in the depth began closing off entirely in places, so that navigation became a three-dimensional affair, where one had to ascend and descend ladders, stairs, and a few water-powered lifts multiple times just to move a few blocks horizontally in a tunnel-street.

There were tens of thousands of Zaposzecini who lived their lives almost entirely by the lights of soul-threads in the tunnels, wearing and consuming claustrophilic and agoraphobic soul-weavings to make the crowded warm depths bearable.

She wasn’t one of them. Oh, Necasia spent plenty of time in the depths— or, rather, Nochail spent more time in the depths, he was better in the heat than she was— but that was for work, for ongoing investigations.

Necasia lived on the slopes of Zaposzecin, climbed its switchbacking stairs and paths and ladders that overlooked the mountains and the war-torn plains below.

Those who had never seen Zaposzecin often imagined it as a mountain or ziggurat of ascending accretionary architecture, but that was a woefully incomplete understanding. Zaposzecin had many peaks and valleys, canyons and sinkholes, ridges and cliffs, all grown out of homes and shops and restaurants.

Maintenance of the city was a nightmare— there was no central planning body, nor could there be among such a proud and fractious people as the Zaposzecini. The closest to a true government that the city had, outside its bloody legal system, was the architectural council and its employees, who swarmed constantly through and about the city, monitoring and modifying foundations and walls and buildings to keep the impossible edifice intact.

The architectural council employed somewhere between a fifth and a third of all Zaposzecini, not that anyone kept a true count, and there was no greater crime in the city than interfering with their work.

Even the architectural council didn’t truly understand the full shape of the city. There was no such thing as a map of the City of Stairs and Ladders— it was an ever-growing, ever-receding, ever-shifting thing, an endlessly looped tide of masonry that would resolve itself into waves crashing against the mountains if one could slow breaths to years or decades and just watch.

Necasia was an early riser, but the messenger must have been sent in the night to reach her at dawn. Tzilov’s palace was close to the top of the city, where the stone walls were so thin to reduce weight that their neighbors below often called them the eggshell heights.

Despite the steep angle of the sun that left immense shadows covering much of the city’s surface, Necasia could see easily. In no other city that she knew of was there such a great number of soul-threads— there was no true darkness here. She had never set foot out of her city, but she had often heard Zaposzecini and lowland merchants say that the city resembled a many-colored moon resting in the mountains from below. Soul-threads raced through walls, were embroidered into curtains, were wastefully embedded into children’s toys and chamberpots.

It wasn’t that the Zaposzecini were more civic-minded than other cities, that they spent any more time than other people pulling soul-stuff from the astral to power the city’s threads. No, it was the sheer density of the population that allowed this density of soul-threads. Every time someone wove soul-threads, there was always a little leakage of soul-stuff into the world around them. Normally, this just harmlessly dissipated, absorbed back into the astral or converted into gentle light-shows.

But with Zaposzecin’s unparalleled crowding and population density, that wasted soul-stuff was quickly sucked up by soul-threads nearby— and, since everyone soul-wove, at least a little, the city blazed with soul-light, even in the depths.

Thick woolen blindfolds and eyeless masks were some of the most popular items of clothing in the city, just to allow sleep.

Necasia did not particularly enjoy exercise, but both Nochail and Ortegin did, and she gladly took advantage of their hard work in maintaining their shared body.

She clambered up narrow ladders, jogged along precarious staircases, leapt the narrow crevasses between rooftops, and balanced along narrow walltops as she worked her way up the city. She strolled comfortably along bridges that were nothing more than two ropes strung between buildings, one above the other, going above the slow traffic of heavily burdened porters below her. She skipped between the tiny cargo barges floating down the city’s many meltwater-filled aqueducts, to the occasional curses of stevedores and barge pilots.

Though she’d only traveled a few hundred lengths horizontally, it took her two hours to reach the eggshell heights, a time that only a messenger would look down upon.

She bought a steamed bun from a food tray, the salesman carrying a portable stove on his back as he clambered up and down ladders, hawking his wares. There were a handful of minor burn scars visible on his neck, but less than most such salespeople— he must have been particularly graceful, or newer to the career.

Of course, only the worst and unluckiest food hawkers had more than minor scarring— the Zaposzceni smiths had grown skilled over the years at fashioning backpack stoves that could be safely carried up and down ladders.

As she ate it, she let her eyes range over Tzilov Xolavin’s mansion. It was a gaudy vertical thing, a misshapen, tree-like tower that drooped and stretched over the homes of even wealthier folks, whose objections had been silenced by Xolavin’s bloody legal arguments. The man had gone out of his way to block their views below, leading to more than a few wealthy folks moving out of the neighborhood entirely to other parts of the eggshell heights. In turn, various merchant concerns had taken their place, transforming Xolavin’s neighborhood into the loftiest business district in the city.

Necasia finished the steam bun, stretched, and walked into the hideous home of Tzilov Xolavin.

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There are many known, accepted paths to mastery of the sword in Zaposzecin. Orthodox paths that produce few great swordsmen, but countless good ones. Heterodox paths that revolve around unusual tricks or soul-weavings, and pose a great threat to anyone who doesn’t understand their gimmicks. And, of course, the paths of the handed-down swords, the lineages of the great trial duelists of the past.

Yabrek Halivo’s Jaguar Lineage. Marinin Marikov’s Ram Lineage. Ocuivii Serratov’s Butterfly Lineage. At least two dozen others, depending on who you ask.

Tzilov Xolavin followed none of these paths. Not the Orthodox paths. Not the Heterodox paths. And most certainly none of the Lineage paths.

No, Tzilov bounced about at random between teachers, like a child’s rubber ball hurled down the slop of Zaposzecin. He would spend a few weeks mastering the basics of an Orthodox path; a single session learning counters to an obscure, almost extinct Heterodox path; a month mastering the footwork of an extinct Lineage. He learned basic foot soldier techniques from the Immortal Cities, meant for a battle line, not a duel. He learned the brutal, close quarters techniques of knife fighting used by the gangs in Zaposzecin’s depths. He dedicated more time to learning sword dancing than any particular technique, and sword dancing was an art meant for scantily clad employees of bawdy houses, deep in the city’s depths, not for any real fighting.

He was the subject of endless jokes among legal duelists, his arrogance and foolishness almost above belief. That was when he picked up the Title of Legendary Swordsman- an epithet of mockery, not respect. The silly hodgepodge of techniques he picked up should never have worked, should have gotten him killed in his first true legal duel.

Instead, he won his second duel, a low-stakes contract dispute between wool merchants.

Then a month later, he won his third duel, a divorce settlement case.

A month after that he won his fourth, a basic case over someone building their home in front of someone else’s window.

It was with his fifth case that the community of legal duelists truly took notice.

The poor frequently come begging to legal duelists, hoping one of them will take their case out of charity— or, more usually, for a cut of any winnings. Seldom do duelists take them up on it, for they prefer guaranteed payments to uncertain winnings. And, when the poor come accusing the mighty, only a fool would risk going against one of the lethal duelists that rich men and trade concerns could afford.

So of course Tzilov took the case immediately, carried a widowed mother of four’s complaint against the third largest pedigree counterfeiting firm in the city.

The complaint was laughable, but the pedigree counterfeiting firms take every complaint with the utmost seriousness— reputation is everything for them. They hired a lineage swordsman— not one of the greats, but far more lethal than should have been needed against a neophyte legal duelist like Xolavin.

Matlsym Blankhov, wielder of Eloxorys Estrarkin’s Mouse lineage. Far from the most prestigious lineage, but equally far from obscurity, Eloxory’s skills, and those of her five heirs before Matlsym, were carried in a shorter-than-normal rapier, and specialized in rapid footwork and getting in close with opponents.

Tzilov wiped the floor with the Mouse.

IT was a better-attended than usual trial duel, with a brisk business in side bets— not on who would win, but on how long it would take the Mouse to defeat Tzilov. Most bets were on three exchanges or less, and only one person bet on Tzilov.

His mother.

There were many in-depth analyses of the duel afterward. Some attributed Tzilov’s victory to sheer luck. Others, rightfully suspicious of that explanation after five victories— as many as some trial duelists won in a whole career. Instead, they attributed his victories to other things. To the knife fighting skills, which gave him the necessary infighting skills to handle the Mouse getting in close. Or to the sword dancing, for giving him unusual footwork.

He was, certainly, much faster than anyone could have expected— it was as though he’d grafted the reflexes of a much swifter man onto his own.

Most, however, attributed his victory to two things— sheer unpredictability and a complete lack of hesitation. Tzilov committed to moves at random, and once he did, he leaned into them entirely. The Mouse seemed utterly incapable of predicting what move Tzilov would choose next, and grew more and more hesitant even as Tzilov engaged more aggressively.

It never should have worked, yet it did.

Tzilov and his client made a fortune off their victory. His mother made, if not a fortune, a comfortable sum off her bet.

And from there, Tzilov’s career only grew and grew.

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Nine of Tzilov’s rivals had been invited to the reading of his will. Seven still survived.

There should have been eight still alive.

Tzilov Xolavin had written his will as a tontine, a competition to the death for his wealth, property, and most importantly of all, his blade. Tontines were perfectly legal in Zaposzecin, so no one blinked twice at that.

Many of his named heirs had turned away from the competition. The current Jaguar, and many of the other great duelists alive, had ignored the summons. They had wealth and power of their own, and little interest in the blade— certainly not enough to wager their lives.

It was the struggling lineages that had shown up— them, and two non-lineage duelists, one of the most prominent Heterodox duelists and one of the most prominent Orthodox duelists.

The wealth was a nice bonus, but it was the blade that everyone wanted. They could destructively harvest it for some of Tzilov’s tricks, or they could bequeath it to a child or apprentice of theirs who had no chance of inheriting their lineage, in order to start their own lineage. Or just sell it, likely for more than the worth of the rest of Tzilov’s estate.

Masks were better for most purposes, but the great sword lineages stored their memories and skills in a blade for good reason— a Zaposzecin duel was no time for thought, only for instinct and reflex.

Necasia noted down the names of all the rivals, but didn’t bother keeping their names in her flesh memory. She merely thought of them by their titles.

The Heterodox.

The Orthodox.

The Mouse— the heir of the Mouse Tzilov had first defeated.

The Stone Viper.

The Six-Eyed Owl.

The Lowland Boar.

The Blue-Eyed Owl.

The Day Owl.

The Bear.

Necasia had to struggle not to giggle over the fact that no less than three Owl lineages had shown up— though obviously the prime Owl lineage wasn’t there. The Owl itself wasn’t a top sword lineage, but it wasn’t far short.

The Blue-Eyed Owl and the Day Owl were close to the bottom of the barrel, and the Six-Eyed Owl barely even deserved to be included as a lineage. Their fortunes had seemingly collapsed as actual six-eyed owls— named for the eye-like wing spots on the backs of their wings to confuse larger night hunters— had died off in the nearby mountains. They had been extraordinarily sensitive to some of the soul-thread fragments and dust put out by the pedigree counterfeiting factories, ignoring hunting and nests to try and get the floating, glowing fragments of soul-threads.

The decline of the Six-Eyed Owl lineage was really more of an issue with evolving techniques making their feint heavy style obsolete, but it felt like a fitting metaphor.

The other two Owls were just ambitious idiots.

The Mouse and the Bear were the only high lineages that had attended, and neither were particularly well-regarded these days. The fortunes of The Mouse had fallen as the fortunes of Tzilov Xolavin had risen— their attendance was a clear indication that the current Mouse intended to do something to make up for his predecessor’s repeated losses at Tzilov’s hand.

The Bear was just a sloppy, stupid drunk. She had once been one of the most promising duelists in the city, had been handed the Bear’s sword with pride by her predecessor, and thrown it all away for alcohol. There wasn’t any trauma or great loss driving her to drink— she’d just partied more and more over the years, until she was a stumbling wreck of who she’d been. Necasia was genuinely shocked that one of the lesser Bear lineages hadn’t taken the prime title from her.

The Orthodox and the Heterodox were both serious, consumate professionals. They were there in an attempt to gain a lineage blade and jumpstart their careers. In any generation, only a handful of non-Lineage duelists started lineages, and offered little benefit to the founder in their lifetime. Most non-Lineage duelists would prefer to join a true lineage, and gain the fame and fortune that came with it.

The Stone Viper was a nasty, cruel woman, who delighted in maiming and crippling her opponents. The Stone Viper name had once been an honorable one, with a reputation for only signing up for cases they genuinely believed just. Their name came from their style, which fixated on defensive fighting until they could finish things with a single decisive thrust— not their temperament. Necasia was profoundly curious how such an awful human had taken over for such a storied line. Of course, so was half the rest of the city.

The Lowland Boar was an up and coming aspiring Lineage, founded by the current Lowland Boar’s teacher. They were skilled, fast, and aggressive, and had won a number of upsets in duels. Outside it, they were the most stereotypical hotheaded young duelist Necasia had ever met.

The first duel had gone predictably enough. The Stone Viper had slowly and cruelly cut the Day Owl to death, one shallow strike at a time, finally letting them bleed out on the floor.

Necasia was genuinely shocked none of the other competitors had fled rather than face the Stone Viper.

On the second day, when they convened in Tzilov’s main hall for The Bear’s duel with the Orthodox, they ran into an immediate and obvious problem.

The Lowland Boar’s corpse, crumpled on the ground in front of Tzilov’s blade, their throat slit with their own dagger.

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Tzilov Xolavin’s career was as seemingly idiotic as his fighting style. He took cases that no one else would, from plaintiffs and defendants who obviously had no case. Anyone other duelist would have been shunned, blacklisted, or even assassinated for taking such obviously spurious cases, but two things kept any of those from happening to Tzilov— first, the fact that he seemed to genuinely believe the ridiculous stories his clients told him, no matter how flimsy. Being a fool was not a crime, not even in Zaposzecin. And second, the fact that he simply just kept winning duels. Victory was its own reward, and there were strong rules and customs protecting recent victors, after several highly publicized cases two centuries before where weaker duelists collaborated to bring down greater duelists extra-legally.

Tzilov should have been far wealthier than he became, but he kept investing his money in idiotic schemes, poorly thought out business plans, and ordinary scams to cheat him out of his money. If there was a single personality trait that defined Xolavin, it was his sheer unearned confidence that he knew better than anyone else.

After his tenth duel, only lineage duelists dared to go against him. After his twenty-third duel, only the great lineages went up against him. After his forty-first duel, challenges became vanishingly rare, and on those occasions he agreed to represent a party at trial, the other party would settle on the vast majority of occasions.

Ultimately, no one could breach his style. No one could predict his next move, or what absurd risks he would take to win. Many of them were risks that should have lost him fights, even ended his career, but Tzilov was simply so good that he could take those impossible risks and win.

And, during his entire career, only a single duelist went up against him multiple times.

The Mouse.

Again and again, she took cases, often at a steep discount, or even for free, solely for another chance at Xolavin. She lost every time, but by their seventh and final confrontation, she seemed to have figured out the key to Xolavin’s supremely unpredictable fighting style. She actually took the upper hand for much of the duel, left more cuts and wounds on Xolavin than anyone before or since.

In his visible desperation, Xolavin lunged deliberately into one of her feints, impaling his thigh on her blade to pin it, while he ran his own blade through her chest.

This wasn’t the only kill in Xolavin’s career, but it was the only one that felt intentional. Xolavin had many flaws— indeed, a great many more than most people— but blood-thirst was not one of them.

It was his last kill, though.

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Necasia shuffled the work of handling introductions to her various soulwoven jewelry, fixing her primary attention instead on the Lowland Boar’s corpse.

Most people couldn’t split their attention like Necasia could— even most of her fellow oddballs who leaned more heavily on trinkets and accessories over masks for mental enhancements. She didn’t know how she did it, but that didn’t stop her from leaning on it.

She noted three things immediately.

First, that the blood stains of the Lowland Boar were only a few hours younger than the still-uncleaned bloodstains of the Orthodox duelist from the night before. His death had come deep in the coldest hours of the night.

Second, that the sword of Tzilov Xolavin had been moved, that tiny dust tracks had been left when it was roughly shoved back onto its rack.

And third, that the sword had been shoved back onto its rack before the Lowland Boar’s throat had been cut with his own dagger. There were several blood droplets that intersected the dust tracks, which would have been smeared if they were there before the sword was returned into place.

Necasia strongly suspected that it was the Lowland Boar who had returned the sword to the rack, instants before his throat was cut.

She was already working through a scenario in her mind— the Lowland Boar comes to toy with their prize, only to hear someone coming and try to quickly replace it. The young man had clearly been expecting to be chastised for handling the dead man’s sword, though. After all, Xolavin had specifically stated in his will that none should handle the blade until someone won the tontine and proven themselves worthy. The Lowland Boar obviously hadn’t expected whoever was coming to murder him.

Judging by the position of his corpse, he probably never even saw who had walked up behind him.

Necasia pulled a pair of clean leather gloves out of one pocket, then interrupted the Blue-Eyed Owl and the Bear, who were arguing about something silly. Accusing one another of the murder, perhaps? She’d have to review her memories later.

“Has anyone touched or moved the bodies?”

The duelists, already having half-forgotten she was there in favor of their argument, all turned to her in surprise.

It was Tzilov Xolavin’s seneshal who answered, not any of the duelists.

“No, detective. I was the first one in the chamber this morning, and I haven’t left the room once.”

Necasia nodded at the man, then drummed her freshly-gloved fingers on her obsidian oak mask.

She walked around the fallen dagger and the crumpled corpse, carefully fixing every single detail in the memory storage of one of her necklaces.

Then, ignoring the gasps of the people around her, she levered up the Lowland Boar’s corpse with one foot and kicked him onto his back. He still had plenty of corpse stiffness to him, which helped pin down his time of death— corpses generally took at least four hours to grow stiff, and corpse stiffness seldom lasted longer than eight hours.

She looked down at the corpse for a few seconds, and then her eyes widened.

This was that moment of brilliance so common in detective stories. This was the rapid intuitive jump of logic so rare in real life. This was the single moment where she cracked the case.

She didn’t say anything just yet, though. She still had to confirm her hypothesis.

So she reached out and gently touched Tzilov Xolavin’s sword, and smiled behind her obsidian oak mask.

-----------------------------------------

There were, over the course of his life, at least a dozen biographies written about Tzilov Xolavin’s life.

Of them all, Xolavin’s autobiography was universally considered the worst.

It was a useless jumble of self-serving drivel, endless braggadocio, and bottomless self-delusion. He gave his individual moves and strikes grandiose, meaningless names, like ‘Xolavin’s Three-Fanged Lion Ascending Strikes by the Light of the Half-Moon’— then got the name wrong half the time while writing about them. He offered anecdotes in no logical order, dismissed the value of any and all of his opponents, and ignored any contributions or aid others made to his life, especially the endless support of his parents.

Most tellingly, there was not a single mention of the Mouse.

It was garbage, frankly. Many still bought and read it— Necasia Ortegin included, much to the irritation of Nochail Ortegin and plain Ortegin— but it offered nothing useful.

All of the other biographies were far superior works. Oh, they were varying levels of kind and admiring— some glossed over Xolavin’s worse qualities, others were perhaps too cruel even for a fool like Xolavin— but it wasn’t actually the contents of his life that people bought them for.

No, they bought them for their analysis of Xolavin’s sword style.

Writers would dedicate half their books towards picking apart Xolavin’s fights and training, trying to replicate or counter the man. None of them came to any coherent answers, and more than a few of them came to a single conclusion:

Tzilov Xolavin’s style shouldn’t work at all.

And yet, it did. It brought him one of the most illustrious careers in Zapszecin’s history. At least, until he decided he was better capable of treating his own illnesses than any herbalist, and accidentally poisoned himself fatally while trying to treat a hangover.

His parents had, thankfully for them, passed before their son. They had miserably failed at raising a decent human being, but they’d died peacefully within months of one another a few years before their son, immensely proud of his career.

So when Xolavin passed, he had no mourners. He’d had no true friends, only sycophants, and those all vanished when his will was read and they were absent. Many in the city celebrated, whether due to losing cases to him or just out of sheer dislike.

His tontine will was really the only practical way for him to have a legacy. He’d never taken on students, never had any successful emulators. If Tzilov Xolavin wanted a legacy, well… he likely didn’t have many alternatives to looking to his rivals.

There were a few unusual aspects to his will, but the most telling clause?

He demanded the naming rights to any lineage founded off his skill. Not an unreasonable demand— there were, after all, countless animal names unused by the sword lineages of Zaposzecin.

The name he chose, though, wasn’t an animal name.

It was his own.

Even in death, Tzilov Xolavin’s vanity and arrogance had no rivals.

----------------------------------

Necasia Ortegin glanced down at the corpse of the Lowland Boar one last time, then whirled to face the assembled duelists and servants and clapped for silence.

“I know who killed him,” Necasia told them.

“That quickly?” someone muttered behind their mask.

Necasia ignored the muffled comment. “It was, of course, Tzilov Xolavin himself who committed the deed.”

The detective reveled in the shouting and confusion that followed, but refused to answer any questions until the room quieted.

“Oh, Xolavin is still very much dead,” she offered. “It wasn’t his literal hand that guided the knife— no, it was the Lowland Boar’s own hand the wielded it. The cut is obviously self-inflicted, to the trained eye.”

More confusion, more uproar for Necasia to enjoy.

“Let me state it more clearly,” she finally said. “Xolavin’s sword killed the Lowland Boar.”

“How is that even possible?” the Blue-Eyed Owl demanded.

Necasia smiled wider behind her mask.

“Because there aren’t any sword skills stored in the blade.”

She hadn’t even tried to keep speaking, rightfully expecting the biggest uproar yet— and she took great satisfaction from it.

She lightly set one hand upon the blade, and felt the emotion running through its soulthreads.

“The only thing in this blade? Is the absolute and certain conviction that Tzilov Xolavin is the best swordsman alive. The only thing he ever wove into this blade is his own arrogance, his own vanity. When someone as arrogant as the Lowland Boar touched the sword, well— something had to break. And as powerful as the Lowland Boar’s ego was, it was a brittle thing compared to Tzilov Xolavin’s.”

Then she gestured at her own useless sword. “Whereas I, with no pride or ego around my swordsmanship, can easily acknowledge my inferiority with a blade.”

“So where did Xolavin keep his sword skills?” the Bear demanded. “Because they weren’t in his mask, or any of his accessories.”

“In his flesh, I imagine,” Necasia said. “But his skills were never valuable. It should have been obvious to all of us years ago— Xolavin may have been a great duelist, but his swordsmanship was as garbage as anything the city dumps into old iron mines. His unpredictability? Plain, ordinary incompetence.”

“How could he have defeated so many foes if he were incompetent?” the Stone Viper demanded irritably, fondling the hilt of her own blade.

Necasia smiled. “I’ll show you.”

She picked up the sword, unsheathed it, and every swordsman in the room staggered back.

Each and every one of them was suddenly hit with the unshakable certainty that they faced a swordsman far superior to them.

Necasia held the sword out for a few seconds to drive her point home, then sheathed it once more, and the assembled swordsmen remembered that she was utterly useless with a blade, realized how incompetently she had drawn and held Xolavin’s sword.

“He figured out some way to project the certainty from his sword into those that viewed it,” Necasia said. “His own incompetence, plus the certainty that he was a superior swordsman inflicted upon his opponents? Rendered them confused and lost. That’s how the Mouse almost beat him, in their last duel— she’d realized his trick. His killing of her was a move of desperation, idiocy that no properly trained swordsman would have attempted. Or, perhaps, the one and only skilled bit of swordplay in his life. And that’s why he never discussed her afterward— his pride was too wounded by almost losing.”

There was one last babble of arguments and confusion for Necasia to revel in, and she took full advantage of it.

“So our mystery is solved, but there’s one question remaining,” she said.

She gestured at the sword with her free hand. “Who still wants the blade of an incompetent buffoon?”

The answer, of course, was all of them.

----------------------------------------

The Fool’s Tournament would, afterward, be the stuff of legend. It had all the makings of a truly great story, after all. A tournament with lethal stakes, the legacy of a great duelist tarnished and in tatters, a mysterious murder, a brilliant detective, and, of course, a prize of immeasurable worth.

Because the revelation of Tzilov Xolavin’s secret hadn’t ruined the worth of his sword— it had enhanced it.

Soulwoven artifacts that could actively project their contained emotions were rare beyond rare, valuable beyond measure. However Xolavin had pulled it off— certainly not via competence— he’d created an unstoppable artifact.

The sword of Tzilov Xolavin would reshape the balance of power in the city, and his assembled rivals slaughtered one another for it.

The Six-Eyed Owl handily defeated the Blue-Eyed Owl, in a surprise upset. The Mouse handily crushed the Orthodox duelist in their match. In a shocking upset, the Heterodox duelist slew the Bear in a single thrust. Or, perhaps not that shocking, considering how drunk the Bear had been.

As each competitor fell, their apprentices and heirs stepped forward to claim their swords. For some of them, like the Blue-Eyed Owl or the Orthodox, it was with grief and promises to carry on their lines. The Orthodox’s heir proclaimed her master’s line the lineage of the Crested Sparrow, which all involved agreed was an excellent name for his style.

The Bear’s apprentice seemed relieved more than anything, and swore to restore their lineage’s honor— as well as to never let alcohol touch his lips.

The Stone Viper started off the second round as she had the first, this time facing the Heterodox swordsman. It wasn’t even a slaughter, so much as a torture session. The Stone Viper sliced the Heterodox swordsman apart, cut by tiny cut, in a duel that lasted more than an hour before the Heterodox finally, mercifully bled out.

The Six-Eyed Owl and the Mouse had a magnificent duel, and the Mouse only won it after taking a severe wound to his sword arm. As the Six-Eyed Owl bled out, the Mouse cradled their head and promised that, should he win, he would share part of Xolavin’s estate with the Six-Eyed Owl’s heir, ensure their lineage rose once more.

With no heir, no apprentice, the blade of the Heterodox swordsman went to his killer. All involved, the Stone Viper included, agreed that it was a great shame,

She carefully inspected the blade before the crowd, quietly repeated that it was ‘a great shame’, and then snapped it in two in the crack of a sturdy door.

And she laughed as fragments of the Heterodox swordsman’s skills and memories washed through the astral around them, as the assembled cursed her, and as her sole remaining opponent, the Mouse, swore that he would defeat her and end her own lineage for good.

Seldom was there a greater duel in Zaposzecin’s history. It seemed inevitable that the badly wounded Mouse would fall to the completely untouched Stone Viper. Even if he had been unwounded, the Stone Viper’s style was as advantageous against the Mouse’s as a true stone viper was against a true mouse.

And yet the Mouse somehow managed to hold on, to fight through the ever-increasing number of cuts inflicted upon him. And, just when it seemed he would surely fall, he proved that the neighborhood truly deserved to be called the eggshell heights.

He through himself bodily through a wall onto an adjoining rooftop.

The assembled apprentices, servants, judges, and lone detective poured out onto the roof after the swordsmen, as the duel began rushing along rooftops, working its way up and down ladders, even balancing atop a rope between two balconies. It drew an audience by the hundreds, cheering and following the duel up and down the rooftops of the city.

Until, finally, the Stone Viper wounded the Mouse’s sword arm once more, and the duel seemed over.

Only for the Mouse to grab his sword out of mid-air, and resume fighting with his off-hand using a wholly new style of swordplay.

When the Mouse finally cut down the Stone Viper, it was to an audience of thousands who had gathered to follow the battle across the rooftops.

The stories universally agree that it was one of the greatest duels in the city’s history, and it grew even more celebrated when it was revealed that the Stone Viper wasn’t the Stone Viper at all, but a lowland impostor carrying the blade of a lowland swordmaster who had taken her place years ago, to unknown purpose. To this day, no one’s quite certain if the False Viper belonged to the Mortal or Immortal Cities, nor what happened to the true Stone Viper Blade, but that just adds to the day’s mystique.

But the events of that day secured the city’s future. Because the Mouse didn’t use Tzilov Xolavin’s sword to boost his own fame or his own sword lineage, but to enhance the city itself. He studied Xolavin’s blade, with the aid of Zaposzecin’s greatest soul-weavers, and learned to replicate its effects.

And now, whether it is earned or not, any who come bearing arms against Zaposzecin know that they bear arms against those who are far their superiors in combat skill, even if they face the skinniest, most callow Zaposzecini youth.

Among all that, the detective and the mystery she solved seems only a small part of the story. Just a few minutes to the whole grand narrative. Still, it boosted Ortegin’s career higher than any detective in the City of Stairs and Ladders had gone before, up until she dwelled in the eggshell heights herself.

All because of a moment of brilliance, a rapid intuitive jump, a single moment where she cracked the case.

Except all of those things were lies.

--------------------------------

Necasia Ortegin hadn’t started investigating the death of the Lowland Boar and the mystery of Tzilov Xolavin’s sword the morning she was summoned. She had started investigating it years and years before, as she, and the rest of the city, puzzled over Xolavin’s impossible swordsmanship.

It wasn’t a single moment of brilliance. It was the final clue slotting into years of wondering and theorizing.

It wasn’t a rapid intuitive jump. It was the product of years of pattern recognition from prior cases, of an immediate recognition of a self-inflicted wound.

It wasn’t the work of a single moment, but the sum of a career investigating, of skills developed across a lifetime.

But then, isn’t that true of all great performances? A great performance by a great fiddler does not merely span the hour on stage, but years, even decades, of training, practice, and lesser performances.

Necasia, of course, never bothered correcting anyone on those points.

The truth was far more complex than the myth, but good advertising is always simple, after all. And you didn’t get to be the best anything in Zaposzecin without advertisement. It wasn’t pedigree counterfeiting, but there was good reason pedigree counterfeiting had found such an easy home here.

The truth doesn’t help you climb, in the City of Stairs and Ladders.