Barconius lost the fine balance of power, speed, and strength he was dancing with on the edge of the sword. Clauis heard the mistep and shouted in terror, but the cracking of the steel cut him off. It was over, the sword’s spine was broken.

Barconius looked to the adept, “Master Elbeer?”

Wiping his brow from the sweat which he now noticed was in his eyes, and shaking off the shudders of enthrallment, Clauis said, “Don’t be hard on yourself. It was an inspired moment, but its over. Chuck the blade on the scrap and we’ll start you again in the morning.”

“What?” Barconius said, the smile coming off his face, crashing into near furry, “By the fallen flange what are you talking about!”

Looking at the blade, and seeing only perfection on its new temper blue.

“It’s flawed now, broken. You’ve broken its spine lad. It is scrap. Put it in the pile and start again.” Clauis’s voice still calm, and understanding. It wasn’t the first time a knight apparent had flawed a near perfect blade. It was hard on them.

“By the forge I will not!” and turning he saw the Forge Master come into the smithy. “Master! Can you believe this madness?” Barconius shouted, holding up, what the young knight still believed was a perfect blade.

Clauis sighed, still too shaken from the experience he had witnessed, to really be able to pay much attention to the young knight and his unlearned explanations and curses.

It wasn’t until many moments later that Clauis realized, that Barconius had no idea what it was he had almost accomplished — that he wasn’t doing that mad dance with the edge of the blade on purpose — that it truely was the inspired serendipity of the wild-child. It was as if the monkey had gotten hold of the lyre, and in the chaos of tormented sounds, produced the five chords of a master piece only a true master could understand. The monkey just kept banging away, pulling at random, unaware of its brush with perfection, and equally unaware that it was doing any worse now.

There were at the time, three masters at the Bardic College of Mithril, who would have understood exactly what Clauis was feeling at that moment, from the antics of their own students on the lyre, but that is another story.

Clauis was expecting the Forge Master to see the flaw in the blade. It was obvious to Clauis, a rending in the spine so terrible, no forge master could have missed it, the blade was scrap, and he was about to return to his own work, still pondering the nearness of miracle which almost occurred, when the Forge Master shook him from his thoughts. “Broken? I see no break, no flaw. Clauis? Where is this flaw?”

He couldn’t believe it, he was stunned. He turned to trying to reconcile what he just heard with who he just heard it from, “Excuse me master?” he said.