TheFangirlThings

It takes me a few kicks to get the door to hall E open, and I definitely do some damage to my left ankle in the process. Hobbling, I force myself through the exhibition as fast as I can move. I have to grab a chair for support halfway through but I make it to the display in a few minutes. One of the guards, his badge says Kevin, catches up with me just as I get there.

"You doing what I think you're doing?"

The pain in my leg is making it surprisingly hard to breathe, and my reply comes out as a hiss more than anything coherent. He motions to me to sit and I just about manage to lower myself into the borrowed chair without screaming. Checks me over, gently.

"Your ankle is probably sprained, maybe broken. Wouldn't be surprised if you've damaged a couple of bones. I can do you a splint, but you're not going to be running anywhere for a while. You want to try the sword, right? I had the same idea, but I've tried it before and it didn't budge for me."

He trots over to a first aid kit on the wall and begins rummaging through the case. I don't tell him that I've tried it before as well. There really is nothing else anyone can do about the monstrosity outside, and hope that just this once things might go differently is all that's keeping me going. With my leg injured I am dead if the thing - and the word demon keeps running through my head unbidden - catches me. Kevin comes back with a few pieces of wood and a roll of bandages, and manages to give me just enough support that I can put my weight on my left leg without falling over immediately. I can stand up, at least, and it's enough to limp over to the sword's resting place. He follows me with the chair so I can take a seat next to it.

"You. Uh. You sure you want to try this? I mean, it's never worked before. Nobody's drawn it in centuries, allegedly. Even the last king couldn't... We could just go, get away from here."

I turn as much as I can in my seat and force myself to meet his gaze. I can see the pity in his eyes, but I also see him flinch from mine. I think he's surprised by the anger in them.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

I shift back to the sword. It doesn't look like much. Old, old bastard sword, tarnished gold-ish crossguard with some very aged leather wound around the hilt for grip. The scabbard is weirder. Pretty sure the base is leather, but woven around it is what I suspect is human hair. I don't know why, and I'm not sure I want to. What matters is that the sword is in it, and nobody has ever managed to get it out, and my life - and the lives of several others - rely on my finding a way to coax them apart. All I have is my own fear of death and the hope that this blade represents a future.

I set my left hand on the scabbard and my right on the hilt. Nothing happens, as far as I can tell. I grip both of them as best I can. No sparks, no choir of angels or heavenly light. I pull on the hilt.

It doesn't move.

A moment later there's a hand on my shoulder. I let myself slump forward against the table and break down sobbing. Can't hear the screaming outside any more, and the sounds of rending metal and gunfire seen to have faded away as well. I don't hold out much hope that this means the demon has left, more likely it's planning its next move.

"Well, this is interesting."

That is not Kevin's voice.

I flinch away from the hand and do my best to twist and look at the newcomer. He's a much older man - Kevin is maybe 50, but he seems to have gone, maybe taken the chance to flee when the sword refused to budge. This guy looks at least 80, maybe older, and is swathed in what I guess would be a cloak and robes. Moss green and English sea grey, and made of wool, by the looks of it. It must be stifling but he doesn't look uncomfortable. He's wearing what I suppose must be glasses, but they're much heavier looking than any pair I've seen, like they were hammered into shape from one piece of metal. Behind the pop-bottle lenses, though, his eyes are a weirdly intense blue.

"Who are...?"

"Most interesting, indeed. You understand me, yes? Speaking your language?"

"Uh. Yes?"

"Good. This will be much easier if we understand each other. I hate having to play charades." His lip movements don't match the words I'm hearing. "First time anyone has managed to get my attention in quite a while, which is a surprise considering how often someone pulls on the damn thing. My goodness, forty thousand this year alone. It's a wonder I get any sleep at all."

He strides around to the other side of the table, peering down at me over the sword. I must be a mess, my hair was all over the place from sprinting in here earlier and my face is probably all blotchy from the crying, but it feels like he's not seeing that.

"What's your name, young... Mm. No. Let me ask a different question. Who are you? Tell me of yourself."

I straighten up as much as I can.

"Morgan. My name's Morgan. I'm 25. Uh, I work in a hotel down the road from here. As a cleaner. And... I'm a woman, legally."

"A woman? Mm. You don't sound sure, but that's of no consequence. Morgan, though? Really? Of all the names... But no matter. You are not a warrior, you have no experience with weapons that I can tell, but you tried to draw the blade a second time knowing that it did not respond the first time. Occasionally, someone does that, but it doesn't help their case. The enchantment doesn't make mistakes. You, however, piqued my interest. First time in six hundred years that someone has tried to draw it in mortal fear for themself and others. You are, as you have probably guessed, not the rightful wielder."

I can feel my remaining courage starting to fade out. "I know, but isn't -"

"I'm not finished." His eyes are absolutely piercing, making eye contact is almost painful, and I'm forced to look away. "You are not the rightful wielder because nobody is. The bloodline died out before history passed into myth, I'm conscious enough to hear this place's keepers telling the story but the story is all that's left and it is twisted in the telling. This is why I'm still hanging around the blasted thing. Someone has to keep an eye on it. Just in case I need to make an exception."

I tentatively raise my head to try to meet his eye again. Somehow it feels less uncomfortable now.

"An exception?" I squeak.

"An exception. It's within my power to do so. I didn't create the sword, but I'm bound to it because this land may still have need of it. So I need to ask you some questions. You don't have to speak. I'll take the answers regardless. Why did you try to draw the blade?"

The image of the thing outside assaults me. Thirty feet tall at least, its skin bright as molten iron, claws like scythes tearing through stonework and asphalt. The terrified faces of the police and a few soldiers as it carved one of their com-

"Enough of that." Reality comes crashing back and silence falls again. It's only now that I realise I can't even hear the hum of the lights or the air conditioning in the building. "Well, that explains a lot. I thought those were barred entirely from the realm, so someone must have summoned it, by design or by accident. I sensed a major magical working recently which I presume is connected to it. You want to use the blade to fight the monster. That makes sense. My second question: Why you? Why not find someone more suited to battle?"

My mind flashes to the others who ran in here with me. A group of children with their grandparents. A young tourist couple terrified for their lives. A news reporter and his camera crew, driven back from the battle they were filming when the thing showed up. A coach party of teenagers, probably on a school trip, their teachers desperately trying to keep everyone calm. The few guards left in the building, not trained for fighting.

"The sword was the last thing on anyone else's mind," I mutter. "I didn't think anyone would miss me if I tried it and failed."

"You would sacrifice yourself if you had to?"

"I've got less to lose than most of them."

"That wasn't what I asked. Would you sacrifice yourself to protect them if you had to?"

An image flickers through my mind. The claws slicing through masonry outside. And through the soldier.

"I don't want to, but I think I could if it was them or me."

"My third question, then, Morgan. Take hold of the sword again."

I think I'm holding my breath as I lay my hands back on the weapon. Something feels different this time. I'm not sure if that's my own heartbeat jolting my fingers or if the pulse is coming from the sword. I wouldn't put it past this one.

"What would you do with the weapon when those people were safe?"

The question catches me entirely off-guard, and I find myself losing balance as my head spins - but the tiled museum floor is gone, and I land on paving slabs. Someone I can't see shouts a warning, and almost on instinct I roll sideways as a massive shadow slams down where I was lying. The ground cracks from the force of the blow and whatever the vast limb is swipes sideways at me.

I bring my arm up on reflex as though it would help, expecting to get it broken in response, and to my surprise there is a sword in my hand - and the thing attacking me explodes on contact with it. The blast sends other creatures I hadn't noticed around me flying, but I'm completely unscathed. One of them crashes into me but fails to move me, and taking advantage of its dazed state, I bring the sword down and cut clean through it. I can't make out any details of its form but it quickly loses shape as the blade passes through, turning to something like ash which scatters on a phantom wind. Fire and lightning whip past me, and raising my head, I see the mage who called that thing up in the first place. I start to charge forward, but there is a lance of white-hot agony up my left leg as my ankle injury reasserts itself and the image shatters into a kaleidoscope of pain and flashing lights, which eventually settle back into the exhibition hall's ceiling.

The old man is standing over me now, smiling and peering over his glasses. He's got a stick from somewhere too - no, not a stick. Staff, that was the word. Big carved one with some sort of ornament on the end of it which I can't get a good look at from the floor.

"Well, that was rather better than I was expecting. I thought you might discard it immediately, to be honest, but clearly treating the symptom outside does not cure the disease that manifested it. I would have accepted your surrendering it afterwards, but what you've just shown me is more than satisfactory, Morgan. And you've shown me more than you think you have, even if you weren't focusing on it. All else aside, I think you're far more a man than you let yourself believe - maybe more than you dare hope, in fact. Maybe we can do something about that in time, if you want, but for now we focus on the present."

He bends down slightly and offers me a hand to help me up. His grip belies his age, it feels more like an oak branch as I rise unsteadily to my feet. It's not until I'm standing that I realise I'm still holding the sheathed sword in my right hand, I thought I would have dropped it when I fell.

"One final question, though this one is rather more personal."

He sets his hand back on my shoulder again, and as he does so, I suddenly become aware of the air conditioning humming again - followed by the rest of the sound rushing back as the screaming and the squeal of twisting metal resumes. People are still out there. They still need help. My left hand moves instinctively back to the scabbard and drags at it. I hear Kevin behind me, starting to shout at the old man. Somehow my ankle doesn’t seem to hurt any more.

There's a click as the sword the museum had labelled Excalibur begins to slide free of its sheath.