Dragon magazine	-	Magic Items	-	Dragon #74
Adjatha	Albruin	Ilbratha	Namara	Shazzellim
Susk	-	-	-	Taragarth

?No spells tonight,? Elminster said
with a smile. ?It is of swords I would
speak.?

?Swords? Magic swords, I take it?? I
asked, settling myself in the chair across
from him.

Elminster grinned through his curling
beard. ?As ever, your mind runs swiftly
on a narrow track. Yes, magic blades ?
but only after you tell of the famed
swords of this world, for I am most inter-
ested in the to-ing and fro-ing betwixt
both our worlds . . . mayhap some blades
have made the journey.?

?No problem,? I replied, reaching for
this, that, and other books from the
shelves surrounding us both. Thus
armed, I told the old sage of King
Arthur?s  Excalibur,  and  Arondight,  blade
of Sir Lancelot of the Lake.

I spoke of Charlemagne?s  Joyeuse  and
Flamberge (=  ?the flame-cutter?), and the
swords of his stalwart paladins Roland
(Durandal),  Oliver  (Glorious  and Haute-
claire =  ?very bright?), Rogero  (Bali-
sarda),  and Rinaldo  (Frusberta).

I turned to Siegfried, and told the sage
of that hero?s swords Gram (= ?grief?),
Mimung,  and  Balmung.

I read aloud from Spenser of the blades
Chrysaor  and  Sanglamore,  and then
passed on what I could find of the Cid?s
blade  Tizona; Ogier the Dane?s Courtain
(= ?the short sword?) and Sauvagine; Sir
Bevis?s Morglay (= ?big glaive?); and
almost a hundred more. I read from old
books, modern fantasy stories, and guide-
books to royal regalia until the night had
quite gone, and Elminster had filled his
pipe almost forty times.

When I ran down, he nodded approv-
ingly at me in the grey half-dawn. ?Your
tongue proved even longer than I had
hoped,? he said. ?I recognized no blade of
the Realms with certainty in all your
gabble, but no matter. In return, I will
tell you of seven blades of power ? oh,
yes, there are countless others, but only
seven this time, mind; blades that I have
seen with my own eyes, in the Realms.?

What he said thereafter I have set down
below.