Assuming that particular supposition is correct, Jim has actually given us a lot more information about the past of the swords than we may have realized.

The nail in Amoracchius has been moved to a different sword almost a dozen times according to Jim, taking bits and pieces of the metal from the swords it was forged into each time, and the nail in Fidelacchius has been moved once; it was not originally in a katana, and Fidelacchius itself is not the original Kusanagi no Tsurugi.

Only Esperacchius is completely original. That is the original sword, and that nail has never been in another blade.

This would mean that Fidelacchius has, presumably, been broken at least once before, and that Amoracchius has been broken numerous times in the past. Perhaps with some higher significance, the Blade of Hope has never been broken, even though Faith and Love have been in the past.

As to the current form of Fidelacchius, I'd imagine the blade will either be fixed at some point, or, more likely considering you pretty much can't 'fix' a katana that's been shattered like that, the nail in the hilt will be removed and it will be placed in another sword.

Gee. I wonder who Dresden knows who could help him that's in the business of making magical swords.

 

Luccio is a Catholic too, though she's less skilled in sword making than she was before her bodyswap. Hence the reason there are no new Warden's Swords being made.

I like the symbolism behind the breaking of the swords though; love is easily broken, faith less so, but hope is always present. I expect Esperacchius to be broken shortly before or during the Big Apocalyptic Trilogy.

 

Pretty sure the three swords don't have actual wizard-style magical enhancements the way Luccio makes(though she lost that power after bodyswap).

Presumably when reforging a sword, you just put the nail into a new sword or somesuch, and thats enough so long as a proper knight "activates" or wields the blade. And if it were to come down to that, there are probably smiths better than Luccio if you go by just normal swordmaking skills.

And really, since the blade is a lightsaber now, and apparently continues to work that way, why would you turn it back into a metal sword? Its already proven to be far superiour this way.

 

She couldn't do it as of what? Five years ago? Six? And for the last almost two of those years, Harry hasn't really had any contact with anyone besides the people immediately in Chicago.

She's had time to get back into practice. And even if she still can't make Warden blades, I doubt it was the actual blacksmithing part that she was having trouble with, as much as it was the "ensorceled to unmake any enchantment" part.

She should be able to bang out a high quality nonmagical sword in around a week.

Because there's no such thing as a free lunch in magic or in faith. It's stronger, sure, but at what cost?

If the swords performed better when broken, why reforge them at all? There must be a reason.

I expect Harry to become the Knight that wields Esperacchius for approximately fifteen seconds before it's forced to be broken at the start of the Apocalypse Trilogy.

 

He could put his hand through Butter's chest and rip his heart out, for one.

Nicodemus didn't fall back because he couldn't win. He fell back because he was facing something he had little to no knowledge of. He's survived for too long to be dumb enough to stick around when the situation escalates beyond his realm of expertise.

There isn't any evidence that the sword is 'greater' than it was before. It is merely different. Different can be it's own kind of dangerous, especially to someone like Nicodemus who relies so much on knowledge to gain the upper hand, but it's still merely different.

 

In terms of normal swordmaking skills, it's entirely possible that Luccio is among the most skilled humans alive. She has more experience than any vanilla smith would be able to acquire due to her couple centuries of life. It's possible that there are wizards more skilled than her, but then you would think that they would have either made the Warden swords from the beginning or filled the void after she no longer could

 

If simply banging a sharp bit of metal out was the only requirement for making a Warden sword, Luccio being crippled in that capacity wouldn't have stopped them.

It's not the ability to make the sword that's the problem. Anyone can learn to make a sword. It's not really that hard. It's the part where the swords are enchanted during the process of their creation to contain a magic that can undo any other magic or enchantment they come into contact with.

Antimagic isn't a parlor trick. From what we know about the mechanics of magic through following Harry around, it shouldn't even really be possible. Which implies that it's using a complicated, extremely high level meta work-around, like what Listens To Wind does when he shapeshifts freely without destroying his mind, or like what Ebenezer is doing when he just straight rips the life out of a group of people by waving his hand at them.

It should clearly tell you how difficult a trick this actually is, that there's only ONE person in the entire White Council that can manage it.

Luccio being in a different body with different magic inherent to it is what stopped her from making the swords, not the actual process of making the swords themselves. She would have to re-train and re-learn the magical process involved in their creation, and that is going to take a lot of time.

 

Plus, it may just be too much for her new body to handle. While her ability to use magic carried from one body to another, she wasn't Corpsetaker and so lost a good chunk of raw ability when she jumped from a Wizard body to what was effectively a vanilla mortal one.

 

I'm sure at least some of it is a subconscious belief that her magic SHOULDN'T work the same or as well after switching bodies, and so it doesn't. Her belief is probably working against her at least a little bit on this one.

Not to mention I'm sure whatever Peabody did didn't help the situation.

 

That too. Body-swapping seems to be a pretty complex process, even without factoring in the insanity inducing magic it requires.

 

About Nicodemus and the next book. We had plenty of signs in Skin Game that Nicodemus was making a gamble, which is very unlike him. He seemed rushed, when before, he's been calm and all about the long-term.

Nicodemus is well aware of the Black Council and we know now that Peace Talks are coming up, and that it is likely to be the most supernaturally violent book thus far.

Seems to me Nicodemus knows the Black Council is on the move, probably targetting a meeting where so many players are going to be involved, and trying to sabotage it.

Could that be what drove Nicodemus towards such a risky plan, to sacrifice his most loyal soldier and only daughter? And in a place that he at least claimed was "safe from the enemy"?

What the fuck is the dude up to?

Corpsetakers magic works, at least partially, because she utterly refuses to die. Just look at Ghost Story. Even killed, she refuses to die and clings on in an attempt to return. She's utterly insane and I think that if she wasn't, her brand of magic wouldn't be possible.

 

She didn't take her magic with her, though. That's the problem. Jim has said that every human in the world can use magic. It's just most of them never do. It's not even a matter of having and not having talent or power, as one would suspect. It's a combination of introspection, a certain way of looking at the world, and environmental factors. There are people who have been born with tremendous magical talent and enormous potential and power who never knew it existed, lived mundane lives, and died unremarked upon by history.

She didn't carry her 'ability to use magic' with her. That's literally the problem she has. Her problem is that she has the knowledge, skills, and expertise of a centuries old wizard in the body of someone that's never used magic before in their lives, except for whatever Corpsetaker was doing with it. And that most of the knowledge and expertise she has is for using magic that this new body probably isn't well suited for doing, with skill and expertise not matching up with her new areas of talent and weakness.

Luccio rolled the dice getting shoved into a random body, and she lost. She could have come out of this stronger and better than she had been before if she'd been lucky, but she wasn't.

Actually, I suspect it's probably quite simple, once you know the trick. Most of the truly dangerous and powerful magic seems to be that way. Grevane instantly understood the final lesson Kimmler had to teach his disciples just by glancing at the book. He even remarked out loud how incredibly simple it was, and that he can't believe he never realized it on his own.

Corpsetaker's trick is little more than an extension of what Harry himself was in Ghost Stories. Obviously we never got into the whys and hows, but one would imagine that once you know how, it's probably quite simple. All Harry needed to do to get to where he was is be 'almost dead but not quite,' and necromancers are all about degrees and shades of death. "Almost dead" should be right up their alley. The only real difference between the two of them in Ghost Stories is that Corpsetaker does this all the time, and inflicts it on herself willingly, while Harry was more of a 'whoops.'

I doubt the actual process is all that difficult or involved at all. You just have to be crazy enough or depraved enough to delve into the art of ripping your own soul out of your body and smothering other people's with it.

He's rushed because his own side has been compromised. He's been betrayed and sold out by an unknown number of Denarian Knights, and can't trust anyone he might have on his side or any powers he might have consulted before this, because he doesn't know who else is in on it. And he can't trust any of the other Denarians at all, except, presumably given the events of this book, Deidere, whom he presumably only trusts because they're always together and he would know if she had been compromised.

Nicodemus was backed into a corner long before this book ever came out. He was already cut off and outmaneuvered before the events of this book took place.

If anything, Harry may yet regret helping Mab and Marcone get their revenge. As untrustworthy and evil as Nicodemus is, he could have made a potent, if dangerous, ally against the Outsiders. The odds of any sort of cooperation happening now between the two of them is almost literally nil.

There may come a time when Nicodemus could have been useful, and that opportunity may have died a harsh death in Skin Game.

Harry will just have to hope that a fairy's revenge won't end up costing the world dearly.

 

I'm sort of scared that we're agreeing on shit here, Raine. But yeah, it seems like Nicodemus and Dresden are probably on the same side when dealing with the Black Council.

As for their future cooperation... Yeah, it seems like a thing that's unlikely to happen. I assume that Nicodemus is as pissed at Harry now as Harry was at him before. In my opinion, that seems like the very best place for them to have to get over their differences and work together. xD

I know I'm gonna keep hoping for that, anyways.

As for Mab's revenge. I think that if her revenge was likely to risk her very purpose, she would not have done it. Her pride is secondary to her purpose, in the end.

 

I'm about halfway through Ghost Stories, and I haven't seen anything that could be Lash yet.

As it stands right now, assuming Jim didn't do a thing where "she was a random person on the sidewalk that Harry glanced at," then Lash must be one of the other beings we saw and assumed we knew the identity of.

I get the feeling it's important that when somebody asked Jim if the shadow and the girl at the graveyard scene were Mab and Demonreach, it was really important that he phrased it as being "I don't think either of them would have been unrepresented there."

It's also possible that the initial assumption was still correct: Lash is the parasite, and she merely has amnesia. This would make a certain amount of sense: Lash was made from emotions and memories, just like Bob was, and her being was blown to shreds by the psychic bomb. If she did reform from her own bits and pieces, it stands to reason that she wouldn't be 'all there.'

Regardless of speculation, I'm not seeing anything that could be her. If she wasn't allowing herself to be used as a proxy for Mab or Demonreach, her being the parasite and having amnesia is still, I think, the best bet.

I want to double check on something, though, because I'm POSITIVE I remember a line at the end of Ghost Stories where it was mentioned that the trough Harry was kept alive in used to house the Parasite, and that it bargained it's way to freedom by holding Harry hostage. That would imply that it's not Lash, but something that was originally imprisoned in Demonreach. There's something really fucky going on with that, and I don't trust it. I'm not going to skip ahead, but I'm certain that was in there.


Also, just to address something Aekiel said in the spoilers thread, there is no pattern to what enemies or factions appear in what numbered book. Jim's confirmed twice that I know of that any pattern that exists is nothing more than coincidence.

 

*Ghost Story.

Got your back, bro. Wouldn't do for you to keep calling it Ghost Stories instead of Ghost Story in future posts. You'd just look foolish.

 

Lash is hiding as the silent 's.' She was right in front of us this whole time, and we never realized it.

 

The bargain is talked about in Cold Days. I couldn't find mention of the Parasite being housed anywhere except his mind though.

 

I'm on my phone so can't check, but when he becomes winter knight and lands in goblin territory and has to fight that red court beast. Was it not mentioned that he was moving just as fast as it was, when the monster usually takes out other supernatural beings.

I've probably got all this wrong....

Either way I've enjoyed reading this thread.

 

Not to mention that he takes all those steps up in demonreach and still has no problems running all the way down to the boat. Butters is probably right about some of the things, but I really doubt that Dresden hasn't been given a bit more physical capability.