Taking Turns
[ @inklings-challenge Thank you again for putting together this event! My completed story is below.]
“Okay, this is ridiculous.”
The words are followed by a horrible scraping sound. As I makes my way down the hall, I wish I had arrived just a few minutes later – I’m already late anyway, and then I might’ve missed whatever’s going on in the back room. Just before opening the door I hear a clanging sound and some laughter.
My coworkers are gathered in a small circle. Most are facing Gil, who’s rubbing his hands together. “Hurt yourself?” I ask, and they turn to notice my arrival.
Gil quickly shoves his hands into his pockets. “I’m fine,” he says. “Just, you know…taking my turn.” He nods toward the object lying in the center of the floor.
My jaw drops. “What is that?” I ask, though the basic answer to that question is perfectly clear.
The sword lies next to a rough groove freshly cut into the linoleum. Its hilt is yellow gold, with a dark brown leather grip and a ring-shaped pommel. The blade is about as long as my arm, maybe a little longer, and shines far too beautifully in the fluorescent light of the break room.
“It was in the Lost and Found this morning,” Gil says. “And Ronni swears nobody turned it in yesterday. It was just there.”
“It was!” Ronni insists. “I don’t know where it came from! We checked the tapes and no one came by all night…“ As she continues her protestations, I crouch down to pick up the sword for a better look. Upon doing so I very nearly smack myself in the face with it. From the look of it I expected it to be much heavier and had prepared a much greater effort than turned out to be necessary. The sword in my hand feels as light as a toothpick.
I only have a second or two to reflect on this curiosity before realizing the room has gone completely silent. Everyone is looking at me. “What?”
“How are you doing that?” Ronni asks, gaping.
“I…just –”
“That thing weighs a ton! We all tried it! I couldn’t even get it off the ground!” Maggie says, and the others all begin to chatter in agreement.
I look down at it, even toss it from hand to hand to the apparent amazement of all…I am distinctly reminded of the time they all collaborated to convince me a stray ferret was loose in the building.
So Excalibur shows up in a cardboard box in a locked room in the back of a mall 20 miles outside of Louisville, and I’m King Arthur. Right. “Okay…good one, guys.” I hand it to Ronni who to my alarm immediately cries out and falls to the floor as if pulled by an anchor. The sword clatters against the tiles and the others rush to help her back onto her feet. I start to stammer out an apology when the door swings open.
Jack zeroes in on me. “Felicia. You’re late,” he barks.
“I know, I –”
“Are you all still playing with that thing??” He’s moved on to the rest of the scene. Ronni’s pried her fingers out from under the sword just in time for Jack to heave it up with a grunt. He holds it only a couple of inches off the ground.
I stare. Ronni isn’t that good an actor – she was the first one to cave on the ferret ruse – and Jack isn’t one at all. “Here, I’ll take it.” I grab it before Jack can argue. Even his eyes widen as I swing it up effortlessly and rest it against my shoulder.
“What the…” He’s quick to collect himself, though. “You’ll take it back to the box. Whatever it is and however…We all still have jobs to do.” He claps his hands loud enough to echo through the small room. “Clear out!”
Everyone files out of the break room behind him, grumbling and turning on their walkie-talkies. I start to head to the Lost and Found box when I spot Ronni and pull her aside. “Listen, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Ronni says, staring down at the sword. “This is just so bizarre.”
“Yeah, I mean…” I turn it over and over in my hands. “It looked heavy, and, like, even Jack could barely hold it, so why –”
Ronni suddenly grips my arm with one hand and points to the flat of the blade with the other. “Was that always there?”
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. In these few minutes I truly haven’t had a chance to examine the thing very closely. Perhaps this side was facing the floor when I first saw it. Given what’s already happened, though, I wouldn’t put it past the sword to spontaneously engrave itself with the four lines in delicate script running the length of the blade, which Ronni and I stand frozen in place reading:
Belonging to none although carried by some
Take arms and know that your moment has come
Carried by some but belonging to none
Lay down your arms when your moment is done
“…All this is true, because it rhymes,” I say in my best wizened old mentor voice in an attempt to lighten the mood. It doesn’t work.
*
I sit at the information desk and look out absently at the fountain. At various corners of the mall the others are keeping an eye out for shoplifters and telling teenagers not to try to walk up the down escalator and reuniting lost children with their parents. Jack was right – there’s work to be done and no time to sit and ponder the magical mystery artifact sitting alongside abandoned sweatshirts and sunglasses. Not for anyone but me.
Between the inscription and my apparently unique ability to easily lift it, I hope it’s logic and not hubris that leads me to quickly conclude that the sword is meant for me. For me to do what with it, though? I don’t have any enemies in need of vanquishing, unless you count the occasional creep on public transportation. I can’t help but relish the thought of catcalls silenced by a warning flash of steel. It was even pretty fun to see Jack caught off guard, however briefly, by the sight of little ol’ me hoisting it up like nothing. But then again, isn’t the eye-for-an-eye era supposed to be over, anyway? But what else is a sword for?
A new idea occurs. What if the sword is a trap, sent by some malevolent force with little to no interest in moral responsibility? Well, even if it is, it can’t make me do anything…can it? Hmm. I haven’t noticed any symptoms of hypnosis or internal corruption, no eerie voice coaxing me to take what’s mine and lay waste to those who would stand in my way or anything. But I only had it for a few minutes and now it’s back in the box – what if it’s a matter of time or proximity? Or something so subtle and gradual I wouldn’t notice at all?
A not-eerie-whatsoever voice breaks me out of this unpleasant line of thinking. “So – is it done?” I turn to see Evie leaning on the desk, grinning eagerly, her walkie-talkie set aside.
“Oh – yeah, here.” I take out my phone and open up my photos. “It” – the reason I was late today – is a paper mache replica of Greedo’s head, as of this morning in the mail en route to Bakersfield, ready for noahsmalarkey97 to wear to their next convention. “Thanks for reminding me, I need to post that it’s shipped.” Evie always asks to see pictures. I hand her my phone.
She laughs and applauds. “That’s great! You have a gift, my friend.”
I snort. “Oh yeah. The Rembrandt of Styrofoam and acrylic.” But we chat awhile longer about a couple other commissions I’ve gotten and upcoming movie releases and her weekend plans until a woman approaches the desk asking where the Eddie Bauer is.
The afternoon is dotted with similar interruptions – Eddie Bauer must be having the sale of the century – but again and again my thoughts return to the sword. For now, at least, I decide to put aside suspicion and trust that I can and am meant to do something good with it. Again, though, what? And how? I don’t know the first thing about handling a sword. Why would it present itself to someone who doesn’t know how to use it?
A line from the inscription rings in my head – your moment has come, your moment has come…Maybe I don’t need to know anything about it beforehand? Maybe at “the moment”, whatever it is, the sword grants its wielder the necessary skill? That would certainly be a help. After all, I didn’t ask for any grandiose destiny. If I’m given great responsibility, it’s only fair I also receive great power, right?
Your moment has come, your moment has come…Maybe the moment isn’t here yet, won’t be here for weeks, months, but I’m meant to start preparing now so that when it arrives, I’ll be ready. Fit daily training into my schedule, ignore questions and discouragement from skeptics, stay alert for signs of the kind of trouble only a magic sword can address. I imagine myself filled with an inexplicable certainty, taking a firm hold on the leather grip and racing forward in defense of the community…maybe even on a grand, even global scale?
I scan the atrium. The light from the skylight is turning orange and pink. Few shoppers wander the aisles. The after-work crowd is nearly gone and the after-dinner crowd isn’t here yet. Jack doesn’t like us to be on our phones at the desk, but what can it hurt? And anyway, the fate of something or other may be hanging in the balance. Who can be bothered with professional procedure? I open up my browser and am just about to search “swordfighting basics tutorial” when a new group approaches the desk from around the corner. And I’m guessing they’re not looking for Eddie Bauer.
On the left is a slim man about seven feet tall, with lavender skin, long white hair, and pointed features – ears, nose, chin. His eyes dart around as if trying to take everything in at once. Next to him is a woman with the head of an eagle. She towers over everyone else – maybe nine, ten feet tall – and has sky-blue feathers. She’s wearing weathered bronze armor and carrying a helmet under her arm and glaring down at me. On the right is a very short, wrinkled man with a bushy black beard. A bag is slung over his shoulder out of which stick various rolled-up papers. But perhaps most surprising of all is who is standing in front, who led the pack here.
I used to babysit Kerry when she was little. Easiest work of my life – she was quiet and well-behaved, usually sitting by the window with a book all evening. Since then I’ve always seen her around town occasionally, at the grocery store or walking to or from the library or even here at the mall. Come to think of it, it has been a few months since I’ve seen her around anywhere. Even accounting for the passage of time, though, I almost didn’t recognize her standing in front of me. Her hair is pulled back, for one thing, and she’s traded her usual t-shirts and cardigans for some sort of sleeveless pale gray tunic with colorful embroidery along the neckline. She seems more muscular, but it’s possible I’ve just never seen her bare arms before. She stands up straighter, too – usually, half the time I see her she’s slouched over, lost in thought. But now she looks me in the eye, lifts one hand, and gives me a little wave and a nervous smile. “Hi.”
The bearded man steps forward, bows slightly, and says in a gravelly voice, “Lady Felicia of the Great Indoor Marketplace…a word?”
*
The purple guy stands staring at the fountain in wonder. The bird lady preens herself in the reflection of her helmet. Maggie and Evie do their best to break up the clumps of people staring at and filming them. Jirt – that’s the bearded man’s name – and Kerry have spent the last forty minutes explaining the situation to me. I understand maybe half of it.
The sword is called the Blade of Bestowment. While it is possible to train oneself to become physically strong enough to wield it, it’s meant for only one specific individual to have at a time, and for this individual it’s virtually weightless. Its ultimate origins are unknown, but it’s appeared to various people since the beginning of time for various tasks – guard duty, battles, the slaying of beasts…and hiding it until the people who do those other tasks come to pick it up. It’s indestructible and widely regarded as one of the most powerful objects in the worlds. Which apparently there are multiple of, so, you know, that’s fun.
Jirt and company come from a different one, one that’s been thrown into chaos in the wake of a power vacuum that several factions are scrambling to fill with their preferred candidates. Kerry’s been over there with them for a while, and Jirt is convinced that she is the next rightful “Bearer of the Blade”. He belongs to an order dedicated to tracking the movement and history of it and other items like it. He unrolls various maps and lists and stuff from his bag to illustrate, but the gist is that her circumstances and skills align with the sword’s properties to uniquely serve the greater good.
Someone else is looking for the sword, too, though. A shapeshifting rogue assassin known as Actaea, who is at this moment gathering an army of supporters. The sword would basically turn her into an army of one, though, and guarantee her victory in a struggle for the throne by force. Jirt goes into far more detail than necessary about Actaea’s past crimes, the lives destroyed, to assure me that this would be a very bad thing.
“Actaea will not rest until she has gained possession of the Blade,” Jirt says gravely. “As we speak she is surely seeking a means of entry to this world to claim it.”
“So, what we were hoping,” Kerry says, “is to get it now before…you know…she can.”
“Um…yeah, sure. Hold on.” I rise to go fetch the sword. As I turn the corner I hear Kerry telling Jirt that hold on means wait.
I try to get a grip and think rationally. This is exactly the sort of adventure I had been imagining, assuming would ensue since first seeing the sword. Why should it be so earth-shaking that it’s actually come to pass? That other worlds, other creatures exist? And most of all, that I should be just a middleman and not the one to charge to their rescue? On the other hand, do I even want to? Sure, playing warrior princess in my head has been fun, but if everything I’ve been told is true, it frankly sounds downright scary. I don’t even take the bus after sunset. I sit at a desk all day and spend my evenings with nothing deadlier than a glue gun. Who do I think I am, anyway?
I pluck the sword out of Lost and Found and return to the desk. Kerry and Jirt are holding a whispered conversation, but they immediately snap to attention when the sword comes into view. Jirt smiles at it fondly, but Kerry’s eyes boggle as mine must have when I first saw it. I’m a little ashamed of my own mixed feelings at having to part with it. I’m snapped out of it, though, when I slide the sword out of my hands and into Kerry’s and it pulls her to the ground. Not all the way, like it did Ronni, but still – it’s as if she was handed a bowling ball when she was expecting a marble. She and I share a panicked look and turn to Jirt, who is surprised but significantly calmer than us.
“Well,” he says with some caution, “Of course Lady Felicia is the current Bearer of the Blade and will be until the time is right for her to pass it on to you. I merely thought she would safeguard it until our arrival, but it appears something more is required.”
“Like what?!” Kerry bursts out. “It’s been weeks, and after everything, this was supposed to be the easy part! Jirt, what if you’re wrong, what if this means I’m not the Bearer at all?? I kept telling you, I’m – “
An ear-splitting burst of feedback, and then Jack’s voice rumbles over the loudspeaker, announcing that the mall will be closing in five minutes. This gives Maggie and Evie the final support they need to shoo away the last of the looky-loos. Purple Guy whips his head around in search of the source of the mysterious voice and Bird Lady looks in our direction expectantly.
“Lady Kerry,” Jirt says, placing a hand on her elbow, “Of course the Blade is still a greater mystery than any one of us can master, but remember what Lady Stratia said. I have known it and its ways much longer than you have. If you still cannot trust in it, please trust in me.” He gives her a smile that she bravely tries to return, still concerned but mollified. “Mayhap all that is required is another night’s rest.” She nods and he turns to round up the rest of the group.
“Well,” Kerry looks down at the sword in disappointment, “I guess this is still yours…for now.” She tries to hoist it up onto the desk. I reach over for it and realize a second too late that the ease with which I help her probably just makes her feel worse.
“Listen…” I hesitate to reassure her when I know even less about this business than she does. “Jirt seems to know what he’s talking about. Come back tomorrow morning and we’ll see if anything’s changed. I wouldn’t worry about it in the meantime.”
She smirks. “Yeah. Right now I should worry about convincing my parents to take on a few houseguests.” She rejoins them just as Jirt is bowing to Maggie and Evie, “Securers of the Great Indoor Marketplace”, and thanking them for their attentions. As they head for the exit, I turn the sword over in my hands. The inscription is gone.
It makes no sense for me to have to simply hold it for another twelve hours. It could lie idle just as easily in Kerry’s house as in mine while we’re both asleep. If she’s really meant to have it, why not as soon as possible, especially with a desperate Actaea on the way? Maybe Jirt is wrong. But that just brings me back to where I was this afternoon, because I certainly can’t learn anything new of substance in the unclear-but-probably-short time we have, and what else can I –
“G’night!” Evie breaks my concentration again as she pulls on her jacket and strides out. I stare after her, though, long after she’s disappeared through the door. I look down at the sword again, then slowly rise to go, taking it with me.
I head home, plotting out the hours ahead. A quick dinner – I think there’s still tuna salad in the fridge – and then the rest of the night studying the sword, preparing.
*
“You’re late, Felicia,” Jack barks for the second day in a row.
“I know. Sorry.” I stifle a yawn – I ended up getting no sleep at all last night. I’m just happy he doesn’t seem to have noticed a certain something I brought in with me and quickly stashed under the desk instead of in Lost and Found. He doesn’t know it’s – for now – technically mine, and if he did he would say I have no business bringing it back here. But I’d just as soon keep the sword near me to be ready at a moment’s notice for any new developments.
Meditation on my own attentiveness apparently lulled me into a catnap, however, because the next thing I know I’m opening my eyes to my folded arms and hearing Kerry’s voice bidding me good morning.
I look up to a bright, eager smile. My moment has come. “Hi…Where are the others?”
“Uh…preparing for the trip back. They told me I could go on ahead for the Blade.” She’s lying. Even if she’s somehow one-hundred-percent sure she can carry it now, no way Jirt would miss the chance to oversee the transference from one Bearer to another. From all those records he showed us yesterday he probably wants to mark the position of the sun in the sky and whether a pack of wolves starts howling or something as it happens.
“Huh. Really thought they would’ve wanted to be here for the pass-off…But I guess all that matters is that you get it, right?”
“Right,” she answers, and about this she is totally sincere.
“Ready to try again, then?”
“Yes!” She nods, her ponytail bobbing, never taking her eyes off me.
I obligingly reach under the desk, far more nervous than I hope she notices. I don’t want her to believe I have anything other than total confidence in her. My confidence in my own plan steadily waned over the course of the night, but I could’ve wasted another week trying to decide on a course of action and instead just pressed on. I deliver the sword into her waiting hands.
She had clearly been bracing for a greater weight but now looks down at it in surprise. She bounces it up and down, giving a little chuckle at the ease with which she can. Soon she’s swinging and thrusting at imaginary opponents with abandon, then waving it high above her head as if trying to catch the attention of a passing jet. “I knew it!!” she crows, laughing in triumph loud enough to attract the attention of several passersby. She reigns herself in, thanks me briefly but profusely, and races to the exit.
Not long after, Gil approaches the desk looking like he’s seen the ghost of a flying pig. “Did a girl just run out of here with the sword from yesterday?”
I reach under the desk again and pull out the actual Blade of Bestowment. “Nope, that’s still here. I talked with the owner and she’s coming by today to get it.”
“…Okay, this I’ve gotta see.”
I can’t help but enjoy Gil’s gobsmacked expression as the actual Kerry arrives with the others in tow. Jirt reports that they’ve observed no activity from Actaea and I explain that she’s already been here – disguised, of course. Even the distant relationship I’ve had with Kerry up to this point is enough to distinguish her from a power-hungry impostor. All clamor to know how I “dispatched” her.
“She wanted a sword, I gave her a sword.” Half a second of shock, dismay, and outrage from the assembly before I clarify, “Don’t worry, not the sword.”
Kerry takes a deep breath as I reveal the sword one last time. Our main danger having been, if not destroyed, significantly distracted and delayed, most of my nerves have calmed. The greatest relief, though, is when, in the very last instant before it moves from my hands to hers, the sword feels unbearably heavy against my fingertips. I watch with delight as the words appear in the steel once again, this time for Kerry to read.
Thanks and goodbyes are quickly exchanged. A promise is extracted from Kerry to return with the full story as soon as her part in it is completed. I explain as much as I can to Gil about shapeshifters and special skills before Jack screams at him to get back to his post. Later in the day Evie stops by and, as a favor, brings me a supposedly all-natural energy drink from the kiosk outside the Von Maur – I figure a placebo’s better than nothing to keep me from nodding off again.
And in another world, probably sooner rather than later, what Actaea believes to be the Blade of Bestowment will snap like a twig in her hands, littering the battleground with crumbs of Styrofoam and Windon’s #3 Silver Extra Glossy acrylic.