Something about that dagger spoke to him. The shine of its blade and those dark letters embedded in the light. “Meine Ehre heißt Treue” it said, but when he held it in his hands and stroked it gently like a small animal, it seemed like the lines fell apart, scuttled like ants and rearranged in front of his eyes into letters he did not recognize. Sometimes it did not speak, but whispered. When he held his ear to the blade it hummed a constant rhythm. Not Morse code, more like a beat or chant. The longer he listened, the more it started to sound like a song he might recognize and if he listened just a little longer, he thought, he might remember the lyrics too, but the closer he came, words almost forming in his mouth, so dry on the tip of his tongue, the quieter it sung. Eventually he gave up on understanding it altogether and treated it instead like the relic of a nameless god. He made the rules of his church up himself, but the dagger never did object to his worship and on a pious day he thought it felt a little warmer and hummed a little faster.