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Lord Alan of Trebond did not use his Gift anymore, and he said his children weren’t to use theirs. Maude taught them anyways: Thom wanted to learn all he could. Alanna just wanted to know enough to make the lightsaber any knight with magic should, properly, have. When Alanna asked, Maude said it required discipline (true), and that she’d learn when she was ready (also true), never speaking the implication that Maude would teach her when she was ready (not true. Maude was a healer, and therefore never learned to make one. She also resolutely did not tell Alanna that healers traditionally didn’t make or use lightsabers – the girl would take it as a reason to ignore her abilities as a healer, rather than reconsidering her likely doomed ambitions towards knighthood. And heal Alanna must – the gods mean for their gifts to be used.)
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By the time the Sweating Fever struck in March, Alanna had figured out that healers didn’t use lightsabers. Of course, pages didn’t either, but for pages it was a matter of not using them yet. They had to learn to use a sword, first. Healers didn’t at all. And just as Maude had worried, Alanna was reluctant to show her abilities as a healer, not just because of her very real fears about losing control and destroying herself and others, but also because a knight errant with the Gift should have a lightsaber and a healer should not.
Her guilt about Francis had two layers, then: shame at her fear, and concern that her friend had died because she was selfish, hiding a gift because of the stories she told herself about what she’d do once she had her shield. She couldn’t make that mistake again with Jonathan.
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King Roald and Queen Lianne came to visit, while Alanna tended Jonathan.
“Have you ever been trained?” King Roald asked.
“I learned all our village healing woman had to teach me, sire. I can heal, and – I can conjure. My brother’s the same, only he can see people’s minds and sometimes the future. I can’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell Duke Gareth this when you first arrived?” the King demanded. Why didn’t your father tell us?”
She scuffed her foot along the floor. “My mother died having Thom and me. She had the Gift, too. Father was angry – he thought their magics should have saved her. So he said he wouldn't ever use his Gift again, and we weren't to use ours. We weren't even to be taught how to use it; but Maude, the village healer, taught us in secret." She hung her head. "As to the other, I want to be a knight." Roald nodded, understanding. “Maude said I should use my Gift for healing, or I’d never make up for the killing I did as a knight. She never told me healers didn’t use lightsabers, probably because I’d never have learned to heal if I knew, no matter what else she told me. But I still didn’t listen when she told me to heal, and one of my friends died.”
The King put his hand on her shoulder, and he reassured her. He said a knight must develop all his abilities to the fullest. Alanna wondered, briefly, if that meant being a warrior who could also heal her comrades was different from just being a healer, then turned her attention back to the matter at hand.
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Under the armory in the ruins of Barony Olau, Alanna found two weapons: a sword and a lightsaber, with matching hilts, a crystal set in each.
At Myles insistence, she drew the sword and activated the saber. The sword was thinner than a broadsword, but had two edges like one. It was lightweight, with a silver sheen. The lightsaber had a purple blade, clearly modeled on the sword.
“What will you call them?” Myles asked.
“Seeing’s how it brought such a reaction from – from – “
“From whatever guards the ruins?” the knight suggested.
“I guess that was it. Anyway, seeing’s how it brought on a storm and all so fast – how about ‘Lightning’ and ‘Thunder’? Not sure which should be which, though. Do you know why they’re in a pair?”
“Hmm,” Myles said. “The lightsaber’s the one that makes a sound, quiet as it is, and the steel of a sword is closer to the color of a lightning bolt. And as for coming in a pair, well, a lightsaber could cut right through most sword blades … but the blade, separated from its hilt, could still be coming at you. Better to match steel with steel, and lightsaber with lightsaber.”
Alanna nodded. “That makes sense. Lightning for the sword, then, and Thunder for the lightsaber.”
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Alanna expected people to notice Lightning and Thunder. Even Duke Gareth asked about it, as did Captain Sklaw. “It’ll do,” he eventually said about the sword, though both Duke and Captain told Alanna in no uncertain terms that she should not be using the lightsaber yet.
To most people, Lightning was a gift from Sir Myles, and Thunder with it, if they knew about it the lightsaber at all. It wasn’t exactly a lie, though she told Jonathan the full truth, privately. He couldn’t make either crystal glow, though they both had underground. She told Coram, too, who said nothing but wouldn’t touch the sword. George asked to see the blades, and she handed him the sword first, willingly. When he yelped and dropped the weapon, sensing the magic, she asked if he still wanted to try the lightsaber (no, he did not.)
As Alanna wasn’t meant to be using the saber yet (and as a page, properly shouldn’t even have one yet), she wasn’t required to wear it at all times like she was a sword. She still wore it sometimes, sword on one hip and saber hilt (not activated) on the other, but she left it in her rooms for her sorcery class. Duke Roger, of course, still noticed the sword and asked to see it. Alanna claimed it had been a gift from Sir Myles, from his armory – again, not technically a lie, but the detail of which armory was rather important, and intentionally left unsaid. She pretended not to have any idea about the magic, too.
"There's magic in your sword, Alan," the Duke interrupted patiently. Alanna hid a satisfied smile. Roger believed her! "It is old magic—far older than anything you've encountered, probably. That would explain why you didn't realize immediately that the sword is unusual. Can you make the crystal glow? No, don't look at me as if I were raving. Try to make the crystal glow."
She didn’t try, not for Duke Roger, but she made it look like she was trying. Eventually, he gave up.
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After Duke Roger seemed to practically dare Prince Jonathan to the Black City, Alanna slipped her lightsaber into her packing for Persepolis. Properly, she shouldn’t be using it yet, but if there was an unknown (to them) evil in the Black City, it’d be better to have a weapon she didn’t need than to need it and not have it.
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When Alanna wakened suddenly, to find Jonathan about to go to the Black City, she strapped Lightning and her dagger to one side, and her lightsaber to the other – the nice thing about having learned to fight with either hand was that in a pinch, she could fight with both.
Lightning and Thunder both hummed in the city, when they reached the building in the center of the city’s central square. Faced with the Ysandir, she drew both: Lightning in her right hand, Thunder in the left. The Ysandir shrank from the two blazing crystals.
When she held hands with Jonathan, she passed him Lightning – he flinched for a moment from the magic in the blade, but understood – with their hands joined, they could each only hold one blade. Best make them both blades the Ysandir feared, just in case.
He didn’t need to use Lightning. Only Ylon summoned a lightsaber, so Jonathan focused on the sorcery while Alanna managed the lightsaber duel with the immortal who was not a swordsman.
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Whether or not squires were permitted lightsabers was up to the judgement of their knight-masters. Jonathan, having seen Alanna duel Ylon, the Ysandir, to death with her lightsaber as a page, predictably granted her permission to train with and use her lightsaber immediately.
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Working in the healers’ tents, Alanna eventually asked Duke Baird about healers and lightsabers.
“It’s about the Healer’s Oath,” he explained. “It doesn’t explicitly forbid lightsabers – I’m not sure the group who wrote the original oath knew about them – but the spirit of the Oath can be summarized that first, we do no harm.”
Alanna nodded. “So being a healer and a knight …”
“The Gift doesn’t discriminate, and sometimes warriors have healing Gifts. Heal all you want, but I would not suggest you take the Healer’s Oath.”
“And the Oath?”
“Human tradition, to remind healers of our duty of care.”