The Azoth Rapier
Updated: 23 hours ago
This alchemical cup-hilted rapier is designed by the client for their interpretation of Destreza-style fencing, with a long blade and a close point of balance that lends itself to spiralling actions. It boasts a low overall weight, able to move around the opponent's blade without becoming cumbersome.
The cup and pommel are likewise designed to suit the client's fencing style, with a short grip allowing the slim barrel pommel to press lightly against the wrist, offering control but not interfering with the wielder's range of motion. The small cup and long, slender quillons offer substantial protection, without adding too much extra weight.
Aesthetically, the design binds together the fundamentals of its wielder's fencing study with alchemical motifs, hand-engraved against a blackened cup. The symbols represent five elements and their corresponding virtues, encoding concepts from our client's martial arts practice.
The sword's name reflects these symbols and concepts, referring to the Renaissance idea of the Azoth as a universal principle or essence, and a synthesis of opposing principles.
Please see our pricing structure for an idea of what a similar sword would cost.
∴ Specs ∴
Total length: 120cm
Blade length: 105cm from cross
Blade width at widest: 1.6cm
Quillon span: 30cm
Grip length: 5.5cm
Grip and pommel: 11.5cm
Cup to guard: 4.5cm
Cup depth: 6cm
Weight: 936g
Point of Balance: 6cm from cross
Ambidextrous
Blunt edges, rounded tip
Fencing-safe flex
∴ Notes ∴
The hand-forged and heat-treated basket and pommel are blackened to a matte finish. The cup features alchemical symbols and Latin inscriptions, hand-carved with chisel and burin. The quillons are long, slender, and round-sectioned, with buttons to the terminals.
The pommel is barrel-shaped, and finished with a faceted nut. The oak grip is wrapped in linen thread and rich brown kidskin.
∴ Gallery ∴
∴ AN Opposing Principle ∴
Impatiently you scrape the tip of your rapier against the cobbled floor. Moonlight falls through empty tracery, illuminating the design beneath you: hundreds of tiny white tiles, some loose and others gone entirely, intersected with lines of dark, sprawling across the nave to form a five-pointed star.
You do not know how long this church has stood here, nor how long it has stood in ruin. All you know is that it is a perfect setting for a duel.
A duel in Mercury’s name, no less! Not just the warlike god - though something of his ire runs hot in your veins - but the glorious metal that has been the focus of your study all these years.
Of your study, and the fierce feud that brought you here, to a moonlit and ruinous chapel, awaiting the cad who has insulted your study by positing that sulphur and not quicksilver is the fundament of the Great Work.
For years you corresponded through letters, first a meeting of minds, then a fierce quarrel. But tonight you have come to settle once and for all the argument that years of scholarly debate failed to resolve.
The soft step of kidskin boots alerts you to your opponent’s arrival, and you snarl a terse acknowledgement before taking up position in the centre of the cobbled star. The time for talk is over.
He attacks with a straight thrust, testing the waters. You slip to the side, changeable as mercury, voiding the blade and bringing your own up into a riposte. But your opponent is fast and fiery, beating your blade to the side with a spiralling flick of the wrist.
As you fight, you slip into a strange and distant state, as if you are watching the fight from above. As the two figures fly across the spokes of the star, you note how each of its points is joined to those that oppose it. And indeed, how each of your attacks produces the defence that answers it.
From your strange vantage, you muse on the nature of opposition: how every attack creates an opening. How every opening demands an attack. Neither you nor your opponent can move without creating the conditions for the opposing action.
Then it strikes you: opposition is not an obstacle to transformation. It is necessary to it.
Back in your body you laugh, and you see that it unnerves your opponent. For a moment his eyes flicker - and that uncertainty is all you need. You drive forward, pushing him back into the centre of the star, and make your final lunge.
You pull the strike an instant from his heart, just brushing the silk of his doublet. He blanches, staring up at you in disbelief.
You lower your blade, and hold out your hand.
He gapes at it.
“I’ve just had the most marvellous idea,” you tell him.
