Ex Calibre

Arthur stared down at the sword grasped in his shaking hands. He felt sick and weak inside, having become a man not worthy of the throne of England. Gritting his teeth, he drove the sword into the stone before him, still wet with the blood of his nephew.

35 years later

“You’re such a coward.”

“Yeah, you’re so pathetic, I think it's contagious.”

These mocking words rung in Lorelei’s head as she was shoved from child to child. She had no idea why she was so fun to push around, but by now it was just as mundane as cooking and cleaning.

Lorelei suddenly became aware of the sharp face of Adria shoved close to her own. Adria hated Lorelei vehemently - actually, her whole family did - for a reason that even Lorelei herself couldn’t understand.

“Did you hear me, Lore?” she snarled, her features twisting into something altogether abominable. Lorelei didn’t say anything, for she knew that Adria would just turn her words against her.

Adria shoved her to the ground. “I said did you hear me?”

Lorelei gulped and shook her head ever so slightly. Adria’s two henchmen, Alwin and Albus, appeared on either side of her as the rest of the group looked on in excited silence. “She said that you had better take Old Moira’s coins today –” Alwin began.

“Or she’d break you daddy’s precious rock,” Albus finished.

Lorelei’s heart sank right down into her stomach, where it began to sizzle away in her stomach acid.

Adria smiled smugly.

“Consider it mercy Lore. I’m giving you a choice.” And with that she spun around, her long golden tresses flicking behind her, and flounced off with her henchmen in tow, leaving Lorelei alone on the dirt path, as the rest of the crowd dispersed.

Hot tears slid down the young girl’s cheeks, as she pulled herself off the ground. She winced at the pain shooting up her calf. There would be another bruise there tomorrow, to add to her black and blue collection.

She hobbled down the street towards the house where she worked for Old Moira. The old woman was more than a bit eccentric, but after three years of working for her, Lorelei and Moira had grown quite fond of each other. And to think now she had to steal from her. Lorelei sobbed. Adria always made the most impossible situations.

Lorelei was sure that she would never have the courage to take her mistress’ most prized possession, her enormous coin collection that had been accumulated over seventy years of travelling. Lorelei wasn’t even allowed to dust the glass case lest something should happen to it. Even if she wanted to steal it, it would be nigh on impossible with Moira’s sharp eyes inspecting everything her young charge did.

But then, if she didn’t…. Adria had made her ‘daddy’s rock’ sound so unimportant, but it definitely wasn’t. Lorelei had no concept of what made it so important, but she knew that it was her father’s pride and joy, though it more often made him cry. To her it looked like nothing more than an ancient stone brick that was crumbling in places. It was locked up in a glass cabinet in her father’s library, secured under the strongest locks that the blacksmith could provide, and the man often spent hours staring at it. Lorelei had once asked him what it was, but he had only whispered ‘Camelot’ softly, with a faraway look in his eyes. What that meant was a mystery to her.

Lorelei knew she could never bare it if the thing broke.

But how could she steal?

***

Lorelei bolted from Moira's home, struggling to swallow her guilt. The coin she was grasping seemed to be burning a hole in her hand. Just by stealing one coin, she felt like she had killed a hundred people.

She had only just managed to take the coin because Old Moira had fallen asleep in the parlour.

As Lorelei rounded the corner that led to Adria’s house, she began to wonder if one coin was enough. After all, Adria had told her to take the collection, but surely even she could understand that lugging around a huge glass case was far from inconspicuous. Then again, it was likely that that was the reason such a task was chosen.

She unlatched the gate with shaking hands, and started up the path to Adria’s front door, hoping she was still there, and hadn’t left to fulfil her threat.

Gripping the coin tight, she rapped on the door and waited a few moments, it opened, and Adria’s father appeared in the doorway. The man’s face twisted into a look of disgust. He too, like his daughter had an inexplicable hate for Lorelei and all her family. Without even asking why she was there, the man spat at her feet and slammed the door. Startled, and disappointed, she sighed, turned around and headed back down the path. But thankfully, before she could make it to the gate, a friendlier face appeared in the doorway, and Adria’s mother called her back up the path.

“Apologies for my husband’s behaviour. He…” she shook her head. “Well, anyway, what can I help you with?”

“Um, I…, Adria wants to, uh, see me. I think.” Lorelei cringed inwardly. That was pathetic, she thought to herself. Adria’s mother looked at her queerly.

“Well, she’s not here. She left a few minutes ago.”

She pointed down the street that led to Lorelei’s home. “I believe she went that way.”

Lorelei’s heart sank at that. Hot tears spilt down her cheeks, and she hastily brushed them away, turning around and stumbling down the path, barely able to mutter a thank-you to the woman at the door.

Staggering blindly in the direction of her house she didn’t notice the horses and carts swerving to miss her or the distant shouting until she made it home and realised that the yelling was coming from inside her own stone bungalow. Resisting the urge to vomit, she hurried inside, only to find her father in a state which she had never seen a human possess before. He was raging, and wounded, and melancholy all at the same time, his face red and wet with tears.

And then Lorelei realised what she’d already known.

Adria had kept her promise.

Not wanting to face her father like that Lorelei hesitated for a second before turning and bolting into the nearby woods.

***

Night approached, as Lorelei wandered further into the depths of the woods. Exhausted after her long hike, she flopped onto a bed of moss to rest. While spending the night in a dark and creepy forest didn’t exactly appeal to Lorelei’s mild sense of adventure, going home and facing the bailiff and her father was not an option.

But as darkness set in and the shadows grew long and daunting, Lorelei began to long for her bed at home. She stood up, spurred on by a sudden urge to find her way back home, when she realised that in the darkness of night, nothing was recognisable. In a panic she began to run in the direction she thought to be right…and hit straight into a thick net of vines.

Struggling through the tangled net, she found herself in a glade. Exhausted, she searched around for some long grass to sleep on. Locating a suitable patch, she surveyed her surroundings. From the few things she could make out in the dark (for the sun had completely set now), she found that she was in a secluded wing of the forest with few signs of animal life, and a small pond nearby. Accepting that it was the best she could do for the time she settled into the grassy patch and fell into a deep sleep.

***

Lorelei woke in the morning with a start, forgetting momentarily where she was. In the better light she could more clearly see her surroundings, and the first thing she noticed was an odd-shaped rock. It was oblong at the base like a regular stone, but growing up from the base was a sword-shaped limb. Under closer inspection she found something strange about the irregular segment. When she touched it, a layer of dust collected on her finger, revealing a metallic surface. Curious, ran to a pond she had noticed the previous night and, collecting up a handful of the cool liquid, she hurled it onto the rock. Slowly the dust dissolved, and the object’s true nature became clear. It was an enormous, majestic sword, with an intricate filigree hilt, and ancient lettering running down the double-edged blade. Miserably embedded into hard rock, and faded with age, it was as if nature itself was mocking the thing’s state.

Lorelei could just make out the message inscribed on the metal. It read.

This is Ex Calibre, Sword of Kings and Champions. There was never a man touched by it that didn’t die.

Something about the name 'Ex calibre' rang a bell in Lorelei’s mind, and she decided to try to remove it from its unworthy resting place. After many long hours, and far more trouble than the thing deserved, she managed to pry it from the stone clutches, and, grasping the handle, she heaved the hulking thing up into a pathetic victory stance.

Suddenly a jolt shot up Lorelei’s arm, and she dropped the weapon in shock and pain. The instant the sword was gone from her hands the electricity died, and her heart began to burn for the feeling once more.

Clasping her shaking hands around the cold metal, she let the power engulf her, and stood, despite the pain, drinking it in like an addict.

When finally the flurry ended, Lorelei stumbled over, broken from a trance. She held the blade in front of her and stared at it. She looked around at the clearing surrounding her, but it all seemed more withered than before, and she felt a little deader inside. She felt a seed of evil growing in her soul, and all she longed for was the electrifying experience the sword brought her.

She read the inscription on the blade once more.

There was never a man touched by it that didn’t die...

Lorelei ran her hand along the cold metal. The things she could do with this weapon. She could make people die. She could make one person in particular die. Make them pay.

Lorelei strode out of the glade; Ex calibre gripped tightly in her hand. She longed more and more for the sword’s power, and she wouldn’t put it down for second.

She was slowly evolving into something terrible. Someone who would kill for revenge, who was addicted to power.

And worst of all…

She was enjoying it.

***

It was fairly late into the evening when Lorelei arrived at her home, but, exhausted, she dropped into the woodshed to sleep instead of going through the drama that would ensue when her parents saw her. She nestled herself amongst the wood piles and slept - Ex Calibre wrapped in her arms like a demented doll.

***

Lorelei lay on her bed, a hand rested on Ex calibre’s hilt.

When she had arrived on her doorstep, her distraught mother had smothered her in hugs and kisses, and then straight after scolded her for running away.

She had smoothly lied about her whereabouts, saying that she had been staying with her grandfather until things calmed down, which was something she never would have done before, to save herself worrying about being found out. She had snuck Ex Calibre in using a hessian bag, though it was agonising.

Fortunately, it seemed Moira barely noticed the missing coin.

Hearing someone twisting the doorknob, she threw the sword beneath her covers, and, dragged herself away to sit on a chair in the corner, and try and appear casual, despite the aching within. Her mother came into the room, a basket of wet clothing, under her arm.

“Darling, Grandfather’s just arrived for dinner, come and say hello.”

The woman noticed the pained expression on her daughter’s face and her face clouded with concern. “Are you alright? You don’t look well.”

“I’m fine mother,” Lorelei replied in a disingenuous tone. “Just a little under the weather.”

Too busy to think much on the response, her mother continued down the hall.

Distressed at the thought of leaving Ex calibre, Lorelei rushed over and gripped the handle, letting its power fill her, longer than was healthy, before she left the room, feeling electrified - and empty.

***

After a long, painful, exhausting hours, Lorelei made it back to her room, in desperate need of a jolt of power. But when she pulled the cover off her bed, Ex calibre was nowhere to be found. Panicking, she rushed around the room fruitlessly until she began to feel dizzy, and faint. As the world spun out of focus, something shot through the air and pierced her neck, and then it all went black.

***

When Lorelei came to, she was tied to a wooden post in a cold, damp cave, suffering from a splitting headache and shivers. A fire crackled in the middle of the cave and dark figures stood hunched over it, talking in hushed voices. Three of them turned and shuffled towards Lorelei, their black cloaks dragging along the dank floor. The first spoke in a voice alike to fingernails on ice, and equally as chilling.

“Where is it?”

Lorelei was in too much pain to say anything, so she simply shook her head, sending an unbearable pain down her spine.

The first black figure turned to the others and spoke to them.

“It is not with her. She has been touched.” Here she turned and lifted Lorelei’s chin, pushing her in and out of consciousness. “But she is dying, so she has not touched it for a long time.”

She is dying…. The words rang in Lorelei’s mind as loud and painful as that of an approaching army. She has been touched…

There was never a man touched by it that didn’t die...

Lorelei groaned. That warning wasn’t just for the wounded, but also for the wielder.

Another witch spoke in a lower voice.

“Do you know of King Arthur, child?”

Lorelei nodded ever-so-slightly. She had read about him.

“Ex calibre was his. He was supposed to use it to kill us. He failed. And hid his sword from the world. We need it to kill him.”

The third continued, “When we found out that you had the sword, we wondered if you may be related to Arthur. Have you heard of Camelot?”

Her father had called his rock Camelot. She nodded.

“Then he must be…” the first one began.

“Her grandfather,” the second one finished.

“And he must have the sword.”

Lorelei took a gasp of air, feeling lightheaded from a lack of oxygen.

“Ahh…You’re wishing none of this ever happened aren’t you?” cackled the third. “Well you can thank Sir Lancelot for most of it.”

Lancelot…Adria Lancelot. What did she have to do with this? Lorelei wondered.

“Did no one ever tell you why your little friend Adria hates you so?” another witch joined in the derision. “Her grandfather had a little tiff with Arthur over a girl. Guenevere. Sound familiar?"

Yes. My grandmother.

"He ordered us to kill your father and Grandfather.”

Lorelei’s migraine was getting worse. Just as she was drifting into unconsciousness, a shadow appeared at the entrance to the cave. It stood too tall to be a witch, and in its hand, something long and sharp glinted in the moonlight.

***

When Lorelei woke next, it was to her mother’s frightened face, and her grandfather’s neutral expression. She noticed that the pain was less than before, and there was a strange taste in the back of her throat.

“Oh Darling, you had me worried stiff when you disappeared…” her mother sobbed as tears sprang into her eyes, and she trailed off.

“What happened?” Lorelei whispered, still muddled from the past happenings.

“Grandfather, are you King Arthur?”

The old man began to chuckle. “Yes. I was, my child. But I bow now only to Constantine.”

“And Father's rock…” she said, sitting up as her father entered the room.

“A brick from Camelot, grandfathers castle. One of the few left when it was destroyed,” her father finished.

“But I still don’t understand, how am I here?”

"The other night, I noticed a change in you like the one that took place in me, when I was cursed by Ex calibre,” her grandfather explained. “And when I discovered that you had lied about staying with me, of course I wondered where you really were. Fearing the worst, I took it to keep you safe, but I didn’t realise how much damage was already done, and I only made it worse, as the coven still found you.” He shook his head. “I had failed to kill them once before... I finished what should have been done years ago.”

“That taste in your throat is an elixir made to assist the withdrawals,” her mother added, still teary-eyed.

“And Grandfather, the witches said you hid the sword, but why…why not keep it and kill them?”

The old man sighed. “I was touched - cursed. I grew ambitious and slayed my nephew Gawain. I was scared then for my wife Guenevere, whom I had almost lost before, and our children, your father included. So, I hid it to keep everyone safe…”

“But that didn’t work.” Lorelei whispered. “Now that the witches are dead, what will happen to Ex calibre?”

“I will destroy it, so that it can never possess anyone again.”

“But don’t you love the power Grandfather?”

“I do, but no power is greater than the power to choose.”

“That’s a very kingly gesture Grandfather,” Lorelei said looking up at her grandfather’s wizened face. “Long live King Arthur!”