"Hey, babe! Whaddaya got on tap?"

A moment passed while I persuaded the girl that the egg-cups that Ittschalkians drank out of wasn't enough to keep a Pervect alive over lunchtime. By the time she reappeared with a hastily scrubbed bucket filled with beer, the sword could no longer restrain itself.

"By the Smith, it is good to be away from those pathetic artifacts and their master! Unsheath me, friend. I sense that we are in a reasonably defensive location with few potential foes nearby."

It was exactly the same assessment that I might have made of the situation. The main room of the inn was empty except for a few locals chatting earnestly over the long table right in front of the bar, and a couple of oldsters with thinning, gray locks playing a board game under the window on the opposite side of the room. I felt mellowed enough by the first mug of beer to indulge the sword's whim. I pulled it free of its case.

"What hight you, friend?" it inquired, giving me another one of those summing, X-ray looks.

"You mean you can't read it off my underwear band?" I countered. "Aahz is the name."

"Oz?"

"No relation."

"Ah. It was the green color that put me wrong. I hight Ersatz."

"Yeah, sure," I chuckled, taking a pull at the second bucket of beer. "So is every other talking sword in the dimensions, and most of the ones who can't talk."

"But I am THE Ersatz."

"That, my shiny friend, is what they all say." I looked down at the eyes. They were angry. "Okay, maybe the guy who forged you and set the intelligence spell in your metal told you your name was Ersatz, but I gotta tell you, you couldn't be the real one. That sword was made about ten thousand years ago. It fought in about a million battles..."

"One million, four hundred thousand, eight hundred and two—no, three. I have never been defeated."