"Shut up!" I roared back at the sword, not that it listened.

I heard a crash from the other side of the desk, through a lull in the sword's yelling, probably the surprised badger falling backwards off his chair. I moved my arm and squinted at the table, trying to see the sword. It was bouncing around on the table, like we were having an earthquake or something, which I was fairly sure we weren't. The sword was still flashing erratically, as well as continuing to curse whatever came to mind. The scholar was still lying where he'd fallen; I couldn't tell what he was trying to do, from where I sat. I yelled "Shut up!" again at the sword, hopped onto the desk, and grabbed the handle of the sword.

Which turned out to be a mistake.

The instant I grabbed the sword, it lunged toward the scholar, dragging me after it. "Hey, wait a second!" I yelled, tripping over an extremely solid paperweight on the table, much to the detriment of my toe.

Was lucky for the scholar, at any rate, because the sword missed, cutting a groove in the floor and me ending up lying sprawling. The scholar rolled aside, under the table with all the specimens on it. The sword tried to swing upward as he rolled, but missed. I used that to roll over the opposite way, yanking the sword over above my head so I wouldn't "accidentally" get impaled on it or anything. Then I tried to get up, while the sword kept trying to impale someone, probably the scholar, but could easily have ended up being me. Since the damn thing was as big as me, although it weighed less, we kept spinning around like some demented court dance.

The scholar was taking meager cover under the table of specimens, which acquired a number of cuts. Say what you want, but magic swords are sharp. "Hey, look out!" I yelled, as the sword lopped a corner of the desk off and banged my side painfully into the desk. I managed to grab the scabbard with my free hand, though.

The scholar squeaked as the sword, which was still cursing us and denying what the scholar had said, slashed into the end of the table he was hiding under. One of the legs gave way, and the table flipped one end up, launching some kind of tablet through the window with a crash. The rest of the tablets and things landed rather heavily, and dustily, on the scholar. The sword bounced up from the floor to try and finish him. For once, I assisted it, swinging it up and across as hard as I could, then I finally managed to force my fingers to let go.

The sword twisted as I let it go, and even actually curved a bit toward the scholar, but missed by a long way and clanged off the far wall. I'd ended up banging against the scholar's fallen chair and pulled myself up. Only a few minutes had passed, but somebody had to have heard the noise. I disentangled myself from the chair and darted over to the still ranting sword. It got noisier as I approached. "Shut up," I told it, yet again, then stomped on the handle and jammed the scabbard over the blade before it could do anything.

Instantly, the volume of its litany of complaints cut to a normal level of voice. I wrapped it back up in the cloth, careful not to directly touch the handle, this time. Evidently, one of the falling tablets had hit the scholar on the head, because he was unconscious, as well as dusty and bruised. Come to think of it, I wasn't in that great shape myself. One of my wrists felt sprained, from the sword lurching every which way and dragging me after it. The rest of my injuries could wait, as very shortly, somebody was going to show up and want to know what had happened here. Telling them I'd like to know myself wouldn't help. Especially when I was carrying a muttering sword.

What I needed, was a plan. Luckily, I was good at coming up with those. Not, perhaps, in about thirty seconds, before a number of museum guards show up, bored because nobody's given them an excuse to rough them up by touching the displays. Right. When in doubt, blame somebody else. Be nice to have somebody else to blame, though. Inspiration hit me. It didn't hurt, a pleasant change after all the things that had hit me (or had me hit them) in the past few minutes. I saw the broken window. If there wasn't anybody else to blame, make somebody up.

First, I gave the unconscious scholar one of the handy concoctions I keep around to get guards out of the way, quietly, one that would make sure he was babbling incoherently when he woke up, so nobody'd believe him about the sword. Damn inconvenient magic sword, but other things to deal with first. I stuck the sword, still engaged in its quiet curses, behind the door, then staggered out into the hallway where the heavy booted feet were approaching. Considering what'd happened, it wasn't very hard to stagger convincingly.

"Quick!" I gasped, "He's getting away! Some wacko burst in and attacked the scholar! He went out the window!"

I did my best to look injured, and pointed shakily through the smashed window. One went and peered out the window, while the other ran back down the hallway, corralling another pair to go outside and look. As for me, I grabbed the sword and followed them back to the entrance. The clerk at the desk was looking very confused and upset. "I hardly expect I shall be returning, when this city has failed so much in the rule of law that ruffians can burst in and attack a harmless scholar with impudence! Why, had I not been refastening my boots outside the door, and returned to confront him, your scholar could have died! What HAD he been doing, anyway, that someone would sneak in through a rope from the roof, and try and kill him, then escape the same way when confronted? I'd best call a reputable surgeon, or one of the healing priests, if I were you."

I continued my monologue as I went to the door, keeping him off balance and distracting him hopefully long enough to leave. It would have worked, too, if not for the unfortunate circumstance of a pair of the guards returning, blocking the doorway, looking unfriendly. "We want to talk to you."

"Move aside! Is this any way to treat a reputable businessman? Especially one who has recently helped save the life of one of your own scholars, at grievous risk to life and limb, with no thought of reward! There isn't a reward, is there? Didn't think so. Now, I say, get out of my way, before I call my counsel and demand to speak to the Administrator, about your dreadful lies and hateful slander!"

The guards looked askance at the clerk, who nodded, but first asked me where they could reach me. I gave the name of an inn by one of the main city gates, where a prosperous merchant would likely stay at. Any messages sent would get to me fairly quickly, although I would almost certainly ignore them. The guards stood aside and I left, acting the snooty merchant whose pride had been insulted the whole way.

One of the guards, of course, tried to follow me, so I had to lug the damn sword all the way across the city to the inn I had named, then I sat and bought a drink. The guard came inside, looked around, spotted me, drank a water, then left. I watched out the window, to make sure he'd left. After he had, I paid up and left that inn, then returned to where I'd stashed my normal clothes, bundling the merchant ones around the elevated shoes, and wrapping the whole bundle around the still muttering sword.

Curiosity is all well and good, but the sword was just too much trouble, time to get rid of it, and make SOME profit off the whole expedition. Less because I didn't know what the sword could do, but something. The main thing was to get rid of it. Luckily for it, I didn't pass a well on the way back, or I might have carried through with my original threat.