Book Excerpts

The Dreaming Pianist

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A Short Story written by Logan Peterson

Edited by A.B. Timothy

(For context: This was written by a man in the First Person Perspective of a young female character. This is about two characters from the Historical Fiction W.I.P., Cornelius: The Son of Peter.)

I sat at the piano, as I had every day for the last few months, typing the notes of this newly imported song. A boy I liked had come home from one of his adventures on the sea with his father singing it, and I begged my pastor, in secret, of course, if he would write to the composer and get a copy. Dueil Angoisseux, written by Christine de Pisan, was such a beautifully haunting song. Another plus to it was that Claes Cornelissen had seemed to memorize all of it during his recent time in France. That boy could make a sparrow faint with his tenor voice; no wonder Pastor was so anguished when he stepped down from the boy’s chorus to be his father’s first mate.

I wished I could go on these wonderful adventures and see the world… but my father was only a baker, and I, a poor baker’s daughter. Maybe he’ll take me on his ship and on an adventure, one day, after we are married and I’ve had our daughter, Elissa, and a son for his name’s sake. Then we’ll grow old together and… Then I heard him.

As I sat there, playing the beautiful notes and moving with the melody as it moved my mind from sorrow to love and back again, I heard him. A door shut at the end of a hall, and footsteps in time with the song. As if he’d been singing the entire song so far, Claes’s tenor voice rang down the hall, filling my ears with the hauntingly beautiful French lyrics: 

“Princes, priez à Dieu qui bien briefment,
Me doint la mort, s’autrement secourir…”

He continued the chorus even as I trailed off. My fingers were frozen from sheer enrapturement. My mother and everyone else I know would tell me I am too young to be in love, but how could I not be with a voice so sweet and inviting? How could I not fall for a man who so neatly embodied the knightly myth at such a young age? Fierce and adventurous but simultaneously gentlemanly and kind. I stood from the piano and turned to him. He’d just recently turned fourteen, and I had done the same. His beautiful tenor left the room with a resonance I felt down my spine.

I took a step towards him and he towards me as we sang the last line together.

“Et si ne puis ne garir ne morir.”

He pulled me into an embrace and bent his face down to mine. I closed my eyes and felt his lips on mine…

“Margaret!” I shot up in bed at the sound of my voice being called. “Margaret, are you napping again?” My mother opened the door to my room and caught me on my bed with bed hair. “Girl, get up, you can’t go and see that Cornelissen boy looking like a sleeping troll now, can ye? Besides, you need to help your father with the final loaves for the day before you can go anywhere.”

The Mad Man of the Tower

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Taken from The Shards of Arthur’s Shield

Written & Edited by A.B. Timothy

The room was filled with those same glass instruments Thomas had seen in his dream. They covered arched tables that lined either side of the circular room. Thomas looked around and saw a man in small clothes huddled against the wall near what appeared to be a chest that had been flung open. Thomas recognized the chest and then turned. Across from the chest, there was a table with a dozen books open and strewn about. There was a space in the middle of the books where the sword he had seen in that same dream must have been recently.

Thomas took note that the only sounds were his knightly armor creaking and shifting as he moved, and the sobs of a man in the corner. “You, man, you aren’t the one I saw in my vision. Who are you?” Thomas asked the man huddled in the corner. He was covering his face and weeping.

Thomas heard him say, “I betrayed my king and killed so many of my people. I am nothing, I am dirt, I am the worms beneath the dirt, I am the invisible creatures upon which the worms feast. Oh LORD, GOD, Forgive me.” His ramblings were those of a madman. Not another one. Thomas silently prayed.

“Come to man, the chest is open, you are free. If you wish to atone, start by helping the Lord’s servant in his quest.” Thomas took several steps closer to the man.

“NO!” The man cried. He flung out a hand, and Thomas felt a force of air crash into him. It almost threw him backwards, but he managed to recover his balance before falling. “Don’t come any closer! You are his spirit returned to kill me. Old Friend, I’m sorry, PLEASE HEAR ME, what I did to you, and the weakness of my flesh, they torment me.” He broke into sobs, “plea-e-e-ese.”

“I assure you, I have not come to kill you.” Thomas put his sword away as a sign of trust. “I’ve already killed one man, and watched a good friend die, I don’t intend to suffer the sight of another man’s death, at least not this month.”

“You, aren’t you him? I recognize his spirit in you.” The man uncovered his face and pointed a shaky finger at Thomas. “Arthur, please, return to your place in the West. I-I will join you there once Merline says I have atoned. Go, please.”

“I can’t do that, Lancelot.” Thomas realized who he was speaking with. Arthur’s best friend turned betrayer was the madman of the tower. “I have come for the shard of my shield that resides here.”

“Your shield?” Lancelot clawed at his head, like he was trying to physically pull a memory up from the depths of his mind. “No, no, you can’t have that!” The man was suddenly furious. “I won this piece from you in our battle at Alnwick. It’s my prize!” The man went from mournful sobs to screams of rage in a flash.

Thomas stepped back as the man stood from his cowering state against the wall. As Lancelot rose, he went from wearing rags to being covered in gleaming steel armor. He and Thomas were transported. The room around them fell away, and Lancelot grew distant. The place elongated as it filled with sand and dirt. Above them, the roof disintegrated to reveal a bright grey sky. In the middle of the room was a long railing. At either end of the railing were horses clad in haraldry, one the three bendlets of Lancelot’s own and the other had the mended shield on a field of blue, almost black, speckled with stars. Thomas also realized that his armor had gone from the shining grey of steel to a stained dark black. His Lady Alice’s favor was still on his arm, its decorated white stood out against the black.

Thomas looked to where Noah was standing off to his side and saw that the boy was holding a helmet and a lance. The helmet had a wreath around it that was black and white. He took the helmet and put it on. The first thing he noticed about the jousting helmet was how limiting the field of vision was. He worked through his instincts and mounted his horse before taking the lance from his squire. As he settled into the saddle, he felt a strange extra object hanging from his belt on his backside, a dagger? He did not have time to check.. Noah stepped back, the shock on his face slowly diminishing into acceptance. Thomas looked down the field and saw Lancelot take his helmet and lance from the air.

Thomas mounted his shield onto his shoulder and, when a horn blew, he kicked his horse’s side. The mare started on a trot. Lancelot had begun his own trot. Thomas had to calm his nerves and empty himself again, just as he had done with Sword Breathing. He let the horse, the lance, and the field take all the space in his mind. He called upon some deep instinct, the same that had given him words to say in times past, now guided him as his horse began to gallop.

Thomas lowered his lance and felt the tip strike true. In the same moment, he too was struck in the shoulder with a mighty blow. Both riders were thrown from their horses. The squires ran and found the reins of the horses before they could trample their riders and pulled them off the field.

Thomas was groaning on the ground where he had landed. His shoulder was blackened; he could just tell from the pain, and the air had fled his lungs at the impact. He steadied his breathing first, then began to rise. When he rose from the ground, he found that Lancelot was already on his feet and walking towards him. The knight of legend had lost his helmet, but Thomas’s had remained attached to his head. The difference in fields of vision would be apparent in the fight, so Thomas quickly threw his own away.

The next motion was to take his sword and shield from Noah, who had brought them to him. He flexed his grip on the sword and stood ready for Lancelot’s attack. Lancelot continued marching towards Thomas, now having collected his own sword and shield. Thomas had not realized before, as the mounting of the horses and the joust were so quick, but the stands around the arena were not empty. They were filled with people Thomas recognized: his family and friends from Alnwick and clergy who had ministered to him both in Alnwick and Camelot. Even Jonathan and, strangely enough, Darek. The Steward of Camelot presided over the duel, and his family was there too, including Princess Alice.

Thomas heard the creaking and groaning of Lancelot’s armor as he raised his blade to strike. That warning was enough to allow Thomas to raise his shield. The Mad Knight’s sword bounced off Thomas’s defense.

“Sir Lancelot, you would risk your life for a souvenir? A piece of a shield that does not even belong to you?” Thomas asked.

Lancelot had no words, only striking at Thomas again. This time, the young knight caught his opponent’s blade with his own and carried it around so he could get close and shove the man. Thomas managed to put Lancelot on the back foot. As this old man stumbled back, Thomas saw a vision, no, a memory. He had shoved him like that before. A rage filled his muscles as he began an offensive. “You betray me, then raise an army against me?” Thomas yelled, indignant. “You would rebel against your king who so graciously let you walk, a free man, out of his castle. I could have hung you!” Thomas struck at the old man’s defense. This was not right, this was not him. Thomas was a spectator in his own body, but the pain and the rage felt so real.

He took in a deep breath, sucking in all of the pain, anger, and betrayal. He let them go and saw only a weak, frail old man whose defenses were dwindling. Lancelot had acted on lust, Thomas could recall the story now: Lancelot had bedded Queen Guinevere and emotionally crippled his king. The rage that filled him made sense with that revelation, but it was not made right by it. Forgiveness is The Way. Punishment, by God, inflicted by His church, on both the Queen and the knight, and perhaps a stripping of rank, were due, but death? That was for the Church to decide, not Arthur.

Something broke through his practiced breathing and screamed. “I showed you mercy before, I gave you grace after you sold me for less than even thirty pieces of silver. What did I get, poisoned? Cursed to die away from my beloved home, because of your lusts.”

“Perhaps you had first betrayed your wife, neglected her as her husband, always waging your constant campaigns in the north and against the Saracens. Your wife was cold. I just gave her warmth.” Lancelot pushed back, youth returning to the frail old man.

They went back and forth like that for several minutes. The duel became one of silent ice-cold hate. Thomas knew that this would not end peacefully. He also agreed with Arthur. Lancelot had been given grace twice, and both times he had gone behind Arthur’s back. First to raise an army against him, then, after that army had been crushed, he fled the field of battle, Arthur specifically commanding the archers not to kill him while he fled, and went straight to Merlin in this very tower, only to disappear and never be seen or heard of again. His cowardice and dishonor enraged Arthur. 

Thomas had resigned to the fact that this man must die. He has lived an unnaturally long life, and it must be ended. The pair were in each other’s faces and had been pressing into one another with their shields. Thomas broke away from the press only to grab Lancelot’s shield and twist it off his arm. Even after that, one-handed, the legendary knight kept up his defense. Thomas had his own shield ripped off his arm, the pain leaving him groaning as he fought on with just his sword.

Thomas knew that he alone was no match for Lancelot and was, at that moment, thankful for his spiritual heritage. Arthur’s spirit maintained the combat, Thomas reasoned, as nothing else would have explained it. In the last moments of the duel, Thomas had his sword stripped from him, and he rushed inside Lancelot’s defense to wrestle the older man to the ground. Thomas’s youthful strength and Arthur’s know-how managed to disarm Lancelot and tackle him to the earth. Thomas straddled the knight and began laying punches into the man’s face. His right would strike the hardest, and Thomas knew the heart of Arthur was in those strikes. His left hand would hit almost as hard; those coming from Thomas’s own convictions.

“You betrayed my love for you.” His right fist fell.

“You betrayed the land of my fathers.” His left fist fell.

“You poisoned me.” His right.

“You killed the best of them!” His left.

“You broke my shield.” Right.

“You nearly killed me in the joust.” Left.

With a scream that was produced from centuries of pain, rage, and betrayal, Thomas ripped the dagger from his back and raised it into the sky. Both of his hands held the hilt as the sun glinted off the blade. Together, Thomas and Arthur plunged the knife downward. Thomas fell forward as his dagger sank into the sand where Lancelot had been.

In a blink, the blade was gone, the sand was gone, the arena was gone, and the spectators were gone. The world dimmed as the only sources of light became the tinted glass window of the tower’s room and the torch Noah still held. Thomas was in the middle of the room, kneeling, his fists holding one another as the dagger had vanished from his grip. Thomas looked and found the old knight sitting by the chest again, bloodied and bruised but breathing. The young knight stood to find his sword still at his side. Had the entire duel been an illusion? Clearly not, the old man was full of bruises, and Thomas could feel his own shoulder again, hot with pain from the jousting bruise.

“I have decided you are to die, Lancelot. I will not change my mind now that the dream is over. You are still at my mercy.” Thomas pulled his sword from his scabbard and readied himself to run the old knight through when someone tapped his shoulder.

“Sir Thomas,” It was his squire, Noah, tapping him, “open your eyes, look.”

Thomas blinked hard and saw that the old man had propped himself up against the wall and was holding something out in his hand. “You’re right, of course.” Lancelot coughed up blood. “You were always right, Arthur. All those years ago, your wars were just and true, your bed was cold because your people needed you elsewhere. I conspired against you and betrayed your love and trust. You trusted me with Camelot itself, and I… I failed you. My lusts overwhelmed me, and your wife did not resist me. I do not pretend to know her motives, but you were so benevolent. You let me leave with my head.” He shook that same head and bowed it.

“You are dying, are you not?” Thomas asked softly as he began putting away his sword.

“I am. When I fled the battle of Alnwick and watched my castle burn, Merlin offered me penance after I confessed to him. He told me my penance was to stay in that chest,” He gestured at the chest that was still open near which he had been huddled when Thomas first entered the room, “until the time was right. I offered him the piece of the shield I had taken from you, but he told me to keep it and to only give it to you.” 

“He knew me?” Thomas asked.

“Not by name,” Lancelot explained. “Well, at least he knew you not then. He said that there would come another soul who, like the Baptizer and Elijah, would embody the spirit of Arthur, noble and true. He also said that it would be someone willing to kill me for what I did.”

“That doesn’t sound like Arthur,” Thomas admitted.

“No, it does not.” Lancelot agreed. “But have no shame in that, Thomas, I knew Arthur when he was a lad, he was not always so noble and pious. He killed Sarcens for less than what I did.” Lancelot began spitting up blood. When the fit passed, he spoke again, “Take the shard, boy, and remember the story of Lancelot the Betrayer.”

Thomas reached out and took the shard.

“Become the Arthur Britain needs you to be.” With these words, Lancelot, the four hundred and seventy-three-year-old knight, passed away.

Thomas said a prayer for the man’s soul, hoping that his penance had truly been paid and that his soul could rest with God. “Go with God.” He said. The young knight watched as Lancelot’s body fell to dust in a blink, armor, skin, bones, and blood all just faded into a cloud of dust. At that, he stood with the shard, a much larger wooden piece lined with silver and covered in Celtic decorations, and turned to thank his squire.

“Thank you, Noah. You opened my eyes and saved me from the rage that threatened to consume me. You may yet sit at the round table.” Thomas approached the boy and showed him the shard.

Noah did not even look at the shard as his eyes grew wide, “Really?”

Thomas scruffed the boy’s hair and laughed, “One day, when you’re taller. For now, say a prayer for the dead and let us be off. The Shield of Britain must be mended.”

A Brother’s Death

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A Short Story from the “Gifted Cycle” by A.B. Timothy

Richmond, Bodhi, brothers until the very end. One, a stalwart protector of the old crown, a five-century-old monarch, and the traditions she represented; the other, a newly enthroned king of a rebellious union of principalities. There, on the fields of their childhood, nestled between the hills of the Queen’s Spine Mountains of Terra Prima, they stood some hundred feet apart from one another. There along those same hills they had played, they had laughed, they had discussed the mysteries of their reality, and so much more. Now they would have one final discussion, one final battle, though this time, their swords would be very real.

The wind rushed through the grass blades, the sun illumined the field of battle without any needless heat, and the birds had taken up their song, far off, once again. The wind stopped, the sun froze, and the birds went silent as Richmond drew his sword. A heartbeat later, Bodhi had his own blade in his hand. Perfectly matched in their speed, they meet at the heart of the battlefield.

They danced… like the days when the children would dance together to the sound of the birds in the trees, but there was no music to this dance, other than the music of steel meeting steel.

“She loves you… You know.” Richmond’s voice was calm and empathetic to his brother. A frozen stream of white puffed off his tear duct. Richmond watched at least three of the same form around his brother as they danced.

“I know,” Bodhi said, his voice equally calm and empathetic.

“Then why do you not go to her? Be with her? End this war?” Richmond asked.

“My people need me more than I need to be romantically fulfilled by a Terran queen.” Bodhi’s sword sounded on Richmond’s.

“They need you to kill her?” Richmond’s voice rose in offense, the first sign of any emotion in this dance.

“Or her champion… they need me to be the king they crowned, they need a ruler who will put everything he holds dear on the line for his people.”

“Even your own blood?” The double meaning of Richmond’s word caused the first slip in his brother’s guard in the dance that persisted for three minutes. Bodhi caught the slip, and Richmond was only able to scar his cheek with a glancing blow. Taking advantage of this action, which seemed a mistake, would prove fatal for the twenty-year-old swordsman, however, as he felt, between the fourth and fifth ribs, a cold edge of steel enter his chest.

“For my children, I would do anything.” They both sped up to twice as fast as either of them ever had, when Richmond fell to the floor. Blood did not flow; they were in the space between heartbeats, even a beat of their own hearts.

“You have slain me… my brother, but stay with me a while in this place between and hear my heart, hear your brother,” Richmond’s voice was openly sorrowful now, “please.”

“I will stay with you here, for as long as you desire it of me, Richmond.” Bodhi’s voice was stronger than his brother’s, only bolstered, however, by victory.

“Then help me stand and let us dance on the lake of our youth, once again.” Richmond reached up his arm to his brother, who stepped back and hoisted him from the ground. The pair walked south now, away from the heart of death. This was the ultimate fate of their kind: to live the moment of death for all eternity, until they accepted their death.

The pair found their way to the small lake, which had now been converted into a field hospital for the battle, but with the gifts of their time, there was very little blood seeping into the water. Bodhi and Richmond took to stepping across the lake, like they had done in their youth after discovering what they really were. There, they relived memories and danced across the motionless waves of the lake to a music of their own creation, laughing at jokes heard only by themselves and the creator.

Then they rested with their backs propped up by a tree, both picking at the grass beneath them with their eyes afar off. 

“What about that tree?” Richmond asked.

“Oh, the tree where Shona and I kissed… that must have been a lifetime ago,” Bodhi remembered.

“It only feels like a lifetime to us, Bodhi, remember.”

“Ha, yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Whatever happened to you two?” Richmond asked.

“I went off to the army, and she didn’t like that much. She knew about our powers, but she thought she’d never see me again once the government could do its tests. ‘I’d be too important,’ she’d say, ironic. She was right, for all the wrong reasons. I never went back to her, not due to import, but because I was smitten with the empress… then you joined up with me because of your own… gifts. The rest is history.”

“So what happened to us?”

“I’ll chalk the memory loss up to your condition.”

“Humor a dying man, will you?”

“They killed your wife and children… Richy, they killed ‘em dead, ordered you to do it with your own ship.”

“I remember, but duty comes first…”

“Yeah, that’s what you said four years ago.”

“They ordered you to kill your brother… kill ‘em dead, ordered you to do it with your own sword.”

“Oh, come on, Richy, that’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” There was a silence that stretched several moments; Richmond broke the silence with a confession. “I love you, Bodhi. You held my heart in your hand our whole childhood, you were my inspiration, my role model, after our father died.”

“I can’t even cry in your death moment,” Bodhi’s voice choked with sobs, “so what are you trying to prove, Richy?”

“I forgive you, Bodhi. I can’t blame you for coming to a conclusion I came to years before. I’m only sorry it took you this long to come to it. How about a pact with your dying brother, hmm? Like a dying wish?”

“What is it, Richy?” He instinctively shoved away the absent tears from his eyes. “In the name of the empress, if it is in my power, I will grant it.”

“End this war… stop the bloodshed, make peace with our queen.” Richmond’s own words were full of sobs now.

“Richy, I can’t—”

“I don’t mean submit to her authority, I only mean make peace.”

“I promise…” He leaned over and hugged his brother on the other side of the tree they had been resting against. “I swear I will see this bloodshed brought to an end, so no brother will ever again have to kill their kin… not while I live.”

“Good… now, I’m ready to go now…” Richmond’s voice was weak and close to giving up, “pull this sword out and… hold me, bubba, please?”

Bodhi could deny his brother nothing now. He stood and walked to his brother’s side of the tree and pulled the sword out, shrinking it once again and putting it on his belt. He fell to his knees and took his brother into his arms and began to sob, kissing his brother’s forehead again and again. “I love you, Richy… I’m so sorry.”

“Know this as I fade now, Bubba… you are forgiven… may you find shelter in her light.” Richmond’s eyes filled first with little white stems of steam, then tears as his heart began to beat again. Bodhi sat there, rocking his brother back and forth, sobbing as he felt the lifeblood pour out of him and stain the grass.

Near a different tree, a line of black was cut in the grass as a split in reality solidified above it. Out from it stepped Her Majesty, Lady Sal of Terra. Her white gloved hand stretched out to Bodhi… “Let us fulfill your brother’s final wish, my lord, let us end this shedding of blood.”

Richmond’s Bubba did not respond; instead, he sat cradling his brother and sobbing into his corpse for an eternity. It took Bodhi much longer to accept his brother’s death.

The Man at Craginth

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A Short Story by: A.B. Timothy

And behold, Elyon spoke, saying, “Thus, when you ask for my mercy, leave none of your disgrace hidden. I am perfect in mercy, but only to those who are true in repentance.” Publo Magister looked from his copy of the holy text to the children who sat in a semicircle around him, listening intently to the story of the repentant killer. Ocis felt his heart swell. Publo continued to read the scripture. He fell to the ground, lying flat upon his stomach, and cried for forgiveness. Lying before Elyon all that he had ever done from childhood. “Please, Lord, I am unworthy to be seen by you, for now you know all my heart.” “Child,” Elyon said, “I have always known your heart, from the beginning. Now you know all your heart and the true, profound wickedness thereof. Arise, go and confess all this that you have to me, to the man of the Temple at Craginth, he has heard from me and will instruct you further.” Ocis arose and did as he was told, pursuing the Lord even until his last days.

One of the children threw up his hand as Publo finished reading. “Yes, James?”

“Bard Magister, is that something everyone must do? Sister Elvera said that we must be ready, and to be ready, we must do what the scripture says. Do we all need to go to Craginth and find the man whom Elyon has spoken to?” James asked.

“Well, James, Craginth was lost many years ago, during the last Burning War,” Publo said.

“Well, maybe I can find it again, so everyone can do what Elyon said to do, again,” James said.

“Perhaps you can,” Publo said.

The man’s back was weighed down with cuts and bruises from a hail of arrows. He and his two brothers had been the only ones to wade through the hail alive. The man still saw, before his eyes, the fading light of his lover’s eyes. Her mouth was frozen agape, eyes wide, and blood trickling from both eyes and mouth. He shook his head to throw away the image. He turned to his shrinking brother on his right and asked, “Brother Burn, how much further?”

“Brother Man,” the shrinking Burron turned to his smaller brother whilst ripping his ax free from the neck of a Burron who had stood in their way, “the star-line says we are only a few hours away.” The Burron aged backward, beginning as a giant and shrinking as they aged.

“Shouldn’t…” The two brothers turned to their lanky third, an elf, and saw the tears running down his face. He pulled his spear from the ineffective shield of a Burron. His tears nearly broke his otherwise stoic speech pattern. “Shouldn’t we rest for the evening? Finish our trek in the morning?”

The man slowly shook his head and looked up at dark clouds that shadowed the valley of the great twin rivers that flowed down toward the faraway ocean. The castle of men that once stood perched next to the rivers along an ocean-side cliff was now half crumbled and smoke, from feed-fires, billowed up, feeding the clouds, along its once great wall. The man looked back to the field of battle and saw again his lover’s eyes now dim. Hadn’t he given enough? Had he not suffered enough for a lifetime, let alone his short twenty years? Apparently, he had not, because the Guide of Elyon knocked on his heart’s door even now; he knew what needed to be done.

“Have you both heard the story of Ocis?” The man asked. He looked from brother to brother, and they both nodded in understanding. “If we truly are approaching the city of darkness… our fathers prepared us well, I think.” The man looked back towards this half-crumbled tower of darkness and felt the weight of the metal plates that hung on his back and chest. Loosening the straps, the plates fell away. The gauntlets soon followed. His hair, matted and muddy with dirt and blood not his own, stuck to his helmet as it was lifted from his ears. He set all these things aside and lowered his head as deeply as he could manage. He still felt the Guide’s knock. He stood and removed his sword, his leg guards, and sabatons, laying them all aside with the rest of his armor. He heard his brothers doing the same. As his, now cloth-covered, legs touched the ground, he felt the knocking stop, and the guide approached him. He felt an overwhelming presence before him just beyond his eyelids. “Open your eyes, child, as you have opened your heart.”

The man opened his eyes and everything was gone, the mountains to either side of the battlefield, the bodies, and the dark castle, were all erased in favor of a void. Not black, no, the presence before the man was too great to call the emptiness black. Speech did not avail our hero, as the presence spoke again, “You come before me, child, seeking what?”

“Mercy, Your Grace, I seek only mercy for me and my brothers as we accomplish your will in this next day of battle.” The man said.

“Henry, my child, have you forgotten your own name?” The presence pulsated and moved with the voice.

“My name, Lord?” Henry said.

“Yes, for when you think of yourself, you have become merely ‘the man.’”

“That is the name the prophets gave, ‘the man.’” Henry said.

“My prophets were not told the name of my chosen, because it was not theirs to give. But they gave you other names, did they not?”

“Yes, L’ordi, Jerki, and Ot’undi,” Henry said.

“But I have called you Henry, since the day you first saw me, have I not?”

“You have.”

“So what is your name?”

“My name is Henry, my lord.”

“Thus, when you ask for my mercy, leave none of your disgrace hidden. I am perfect in mercy, but only to those who are true in repentance…” The whole scene, as if his father was reading it to him out of the holy text. He felt his heart swell, he fell to his stomach, he cried, he confessed, and he was commanded. Henry arose and did as he was told, pursuing the Lord even until his last days.

The Cursed Sword

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An Excerpt From: The Shards of Arthur’s Shield

By: A.B. Timothy

Thomas’s boots ran over cold, slick, and muddy turf as it changed from urban foot paths to the more wild floor of the woods. The sky disappeared overhead as he raced into the trees. Just before he crossed the treeline, he spotted the pale woman again. It was certainly dark enough for her to be out, but it still seemed early. The timeliness of her appearance did not faze Thomas; however, instead, he called out to her, “Run, Miss! Get out of here!” He only spared her a glance and a swiping hand of warning. He hoped she would get out of there, but she just stood her ground and watched him approach the treeline. Thomas gave up on her and turned his focus back on the path before him. She began to sing: “Arthurus, rex occidentis.” Thomas gave her another glance, and her mouth was still not moving, even this close, but that was the same voice he heard every night.

The way wound before him as he jumped over branches, slid under foliage, and pushed through weeds. After a minute of brushing, Thomas was shocked to hear his foe still pursuing him. Thomas questioned how that man had even managed to slip through some of the spots he had. It did not matter; what mattered was escape. “Arthurus, rex sepultus,” the siren kept singing.

Thomas slipped and fell face-first into the brush and only managed to turn over in time to see his foe breach the bush with a swipe of a sword. “There you are, you little rat, no one likes a rat in their backyard!” He brought his sword down, but it sank into the mud as Thomas had rolled away. The young man stood quickly, gathering a fistful of mud as he did.

“Can a rat do this?” Thomas threw the mud in the man’s face and took off into the brush again. He heard the man curse and roar in rage, and he knew his mud had made its target.

Thomas hopped over another fallen tree and pushed deeper into the woods. He could not remember ever being this deep before. He did not recognize the trees and only knew what general direction he was heading. He had passed his last established landmark a few strides ago. “Surge, Domine Matutinae,” the voice sang.

How had she been keeping up with him, and if she could keep up with him with enough breath to sing so sweetly, why hadn’t she come to his aid yet? Would she? Thomas decided he would not count on this clearly ethereal being. The thought crossed his mind to circle back, maybe try to get the jump on the bandit, but something called him deeper into the woods.

“Surge, Mundus Vocat.” The words swam through Thomas’s mind, confusing him and dragging him further into the forest. The young man feared for his life. The armed bandit behind him, an unknown world in front of him.

Thomas stopped only long enough to catch his breath in a clearing. The moonlight shone down from above and painted the scene in a silver glow. The young man’s breath caught in his lungs. The grass, only moments ago green, was now coated in the moon’s silver; the trees, which had been changing color, now shone; and the little stream that ran nearby had pricks of light jumping into Thomas’s eyes. This place was strange, almost holy. It was as if God cut a hole in the trees just for this small meadow. To emphasize the thought, a head appeared to rise from the water, and if Thomas had not recognized it, he may have screamed and run for his life towards the bandit. The head in the water rose further, just enough to imply an entire woman underneath the surface; it was the pale woman, the siren. She opened her mouth and raised a hand from the water. The hand pointed at a small hill in the center of the clearing. She sang the words, but he knew them. Not what they meant in whatever language she was singing, but the words fell into the depths of his soul, and he knew them, “Tua ferrum manet.” That’s what she said, but in his heart, Thomas heard her sing, “Your sword awaits.”

Cold, muddy, bruised from his fall, and bleeding from a few different places, Thomas limped forward. A breeze rushed through the clearing, and from the hill several dozen leaves were blown. This revealed a rod of iron, clad in leather. The rod had a puck of wood on the bottom, and a first-quarter moon’s shape of wood on the top. He recognized the grip; this was the same grip he had been training with for the last half-month. Ideas of what this sword meant or why it was there came only much later, when Thomas was back at home, dry and safe. In the moment, however, all he knew was he had access to a weapon and his assailant drew closer. He wrapped his fingers around the blackened-with-age leather and gave it a tug, but it did not move.

The hilt was as rigid as a dead man, and the ground did not even shift. Thomas could hear the man who wanted to kill him draw closer, so he tried again. This time, he gripped the hilt with two hands and pulled with all of his strength, but nothing happened. The sword remained buried and unwilling to move. Thomas looked at the woman in the stream with panic in his eyes. The woman sang again, but this was a new line he had not heard before. The tempo was wrong, the notes were different, a new song? Why would she start singing something unfamiliar now? Then he noticed that her arm was still raised. She was pointing at him, but when he stepped to the side, her finger did not move; she was pointing at the sword, singing a new song.

“I don’t know those words,” Thomas pleaded. “I only knew that other line because you’ve been singing it to me since I was a child. Can you,” he struggled with the sword again, “can you even understand me?”

She sang the words again, and Thomas remembered his training. Before even lifting his sword, he needed to empty himself. He breathed in deep and as he exhaled, fear, doubt, pain, cold, sound, sight, language, and self left. He worried for a brief moment that he had gone too deep; what if he couldn’t recover himself this time? But then that worry was gone in the next breath.

The next time the lady in the stream sang her song, Thomas listened, free of even his own language. These words, this language, felt ancient, like something he should know as easily as he knew how to breathe. “Memento palmae meae, gladii potestatis, et esto liber.” The words meant nothing to Thomas, but being so empty, they filled his whole being. He tried once more to pull the sword free in his own strength, but still, nothing happened.

The words came to him once again, and Thomas breathed them out, allowing the memory of the pronunciation to vibrate through his vocal cords. He was never a singer, but if he could do that again, he might have become a bard later in life. The words sung from his lungs into the air and vibrated the sword. “Memento palmae meae, gladii potestatis, et esto liber.”

The ground shook and almost threw Thomas to the ground, but his grip on the hilt steadied him. He pulled again. This time, at the end of his effort, when he gave all of his strength, the sword was released, and it slid free of the earth below. Lightning cracked across the otherwise clear night sky, blinding Thomas for a moment. The man raised the sword high into the sky and smiled. As the blindness cleared, he saw the sharp blade shining. The sight filled him with a warmth he had never felt before. Like someone was holding a torch to his stomach. His face was split by a smile that would not end. The silence of the moment was broken by Thomas’s hearty laugh. This was the best thing that could have happened to him. A sword given to him when he needed it most.