Hi Nechesh,
You could be right about the ceremonial magic part. As for whether the knife represents air or fire, I think that varies by tradition. I seem to recall that Gardnerian wicca uses air=knife, and Alexandrian wicca uses fire=knife (though I might have that reversed). Other groups follow one, the other, or both. It gets to be an interesting argument if you're in to such things, mostly because it starts with statements like "OF COURSE the knife represents...." "You idiot, who taught you?..." and ends up with "You know, this is confusing. Do what feels comfortable to you."
Hi Efithis,
Interesting that the Lyrari use a black-handled knife, because that's exactly what Wicca uses, a black-handled knife (athame). One of the major uses of the athame is to cast a circle, and your sword could basically be a big athame for public events (or whatever) if it's not a ceremonial magician's tool.
It's curious since as I posted about a month ago, no one knows where the term athame came from, although the black-handled knife is an old magician's tool.
Fearn