CHAPTER 2

In hindsight, the headmaster was a sod, and getting myself a hangover just before a four hour bus ride through the countryside was a terrible idea. 

I’d taken a handful of Dramamine, and aspirin, and vitamin b with a big glass of water, and now the concoction meant to make me feel better was sloshing around in my stomach like a lurching reminder of my awful judgment.

And when you’re a teacher, you can’t really just sleep on the field trips. It’s quote-unquote frowned upon.

The still-making-poor-decisions part of my brain is shouting “let them frown!” which is making the headache worse, and none of it seems right.

Didn’t I take something last night to avoid this very scenario?

Vitamin B, it would seem, has its limits.

And, of course, Lana was sitting right across the aisle from me. When she’d boarded the bus we exchanged brief smiles, and I attempted to mumble “hello,” but it came out too quiet and mushmouthed besides, so she just sat down and popped a pearl into her ear.

The upside was that no one was going to think twice about me wearing sunglasses for the duration of the ride, which gave me a chance to at least close my eyes if my head was pounding too hard, and to – tastefully – shoot a surreptitious glance at Lana when she looked down at her phone.

There was absolutely some tension, but I didn’t know if it was because I’d made an ass of myself, or because there was tension.

I decided to compose a text note to Roger, only to find a notification from him:

[Hey mate, you get home alright? What happened with you and Lana?]

“Argh,” I grumbled quietly and opened the composer:

[I must’ve blacked out, because I don’t remember anything. Did you leave before I did?]

[Nah, bruhv. You & Lana were chatting each other up and some bloke tried to buy her a drink. Looked like a loan shark. Real fake posh. She just set the drink down and ignored him, went back to chatting with you…do you really not remember this?]

[Kinda ringing a bell, but not really.]

[Mate, you didn’t even drink that much. Did you stay at her flat?]

[Did we leave together? I woke up dressed and alone at home.]

[Yes, mate. You left together. You taking the piss?]

[I don’t know what happened, but I would tell you if we…Bollocks, Rog can you ask her what happened? I’m embarrassed now.]

[•••]

[You’re a git. Hold on.]

I pretend to be doomscrolling on my mobile, and catch Lana having a look at me when my phone buzzes again.

It’s Lana. And I definitely didn’t have her number yesterday. I’ll take this as a good sign.

[How are you feeling today?]

[Miserable. Wish I could wear these on the tour. HBU?]

[Knackered, but no worse for wear.]

I think for a moment, then:

[Look, I hope I didn’t do or say anything embarrassing, but if I did, I’m really sorry. I don’t know how I got so trollied, I only had two pints!]

[Lightweight.]

I pull a smile at that one, and glance at her to see that she’s smiling, too. Then Roger finally reports back:

[She invited you up for tea. You said “yes,” then you ran back toward the pub, yelling “no tea for me!”]

Oh god. Another buzz of my phone:

[Come sit with me.]

I make a production of getting up, and, luckily, the roil of my stomach is finally beginning to quell as I cross the aisle and take a seat on the bench next to her.

She smells like jasmine and vetiver, with citrusy, saffron wisps, and I feel instantly transported to the world of last night at the pub.

“Hey,” she says, popping the pearl from her left ear.

“Nothing.”

She smiles. 

Don’t say anything stupid, don’t say anything stupid.

“What are you listening to? Anything good?”

She hands me the pearl and I pop it into my ear, and quiet, strumming guitars and a lilting woman’s voice play at a volume that doesn’t make me want to die.

♪ ♫ …From now on we can’t be pen paals,

But you know it’s for the better.

From now oOOoOn, we can’t be frieEends,

But I’m writing yooou this one last letter. ♪ ♫ 

The song finishes its sad refrain, and gradually fades out until it’s just the strumming guitar, a harmonica, and the rhythmic splash of a tambourine.

Then the guitar is gone.

Then the harmonica is gone.

And now it’s just the tambourine for a last lonely shake.

And then nothing.

Lana looks up at me, and I pop the pearl out handing it back to her. I’m trying to look melancholy, but I probably look like an arse.

“That was the saddest song I’ve ever heard.”

“I know,” Lana says.

A beat, then:

“I love it,” the excitement on her face is so authentic, and it’s odd, because I always thought of Lana as a bit of a try-hard. A really cool try-hard, but still a try-hard. 

The song is good though.

“Who’s the band?”

“They’re called ‘Discount November,’ they’re kind of indie, but they’re on all the streams.”

“Can you send that to me?”

She nods, then touches her phone to mine, and the song immediately adds itself to my media library.

“Thanks. Um,” Don’t be awkward. Don’t be awkward. Don’t be awkward. “Sorry again about last night. I don’t really know what uh- can you tell me what happened?”

“Well at first I was a bit gobsmacked, yeah?” she says, somehow looking through the lenses of my sunglasses and directly into my soul. “But then I thought you might just not be interested, but that couldn’t be right, because you were smiling like a git when I asked you to leave with me. That’s when I realized you may have been drugged.”

Hold up, what?

“Hold up, what?”

“The bloke who tried to chat me up,” she continues. “You drank the drink he bought for me.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah, you have to be careful or you’re liable to wake up missing a kidney.”

Lana and I both chuckle at that, and one of the girls in her class  must’ve been watching us, because she and her seatmate start snickering like hyenas, causing Lana to whip her head around and make an annoyed face at the girls.

“Ms. has a boooyfriend,” teases one of the girls. She’s not in any of my classes, and I’d only ever seen her in passing. But she’s sitting with Bridget, a student of mine.

“Can it, Tabitha!” Lana shouted playfully, then she chucks a mini Snap bar at the girl’s head, and turns back toward me, laughing conspiratorially.

“You’re supposed to thank me for defending your honor, sir.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you, noble Lana, for felling the insolent ghouls who sought to besmirch my good name with their allegations of our scandalous dalliances!”

Lana just stared at me.

“Too much?”

“Too much,” she replies with a smile after an anxious pause.

The remaining ride is quite a bit more pleasant than the first part, and by the time we arrive at Myrddin’s Sword Circle headquarters, I have a proper date set up for the weekend.

“Welcome to Myrddin, students and staff,” the man is dressed like  an actor playing a first year professor, in a tweed coat with patched elbows, khaki trousers, and an aged oxford that looked as if he and his clothes iron got into a row this morning. “I’m called Dr. Charlemagne, but just ‘doctor’ or ‘professor’ will do quite well, thank you.” He is almost young, maybe in his later forties, but somehow weathered and world-weary.

This man having the nerve to be a doctor makes my mother’s voice appear in my mind to bother me about finishing my Ph.D, not that I’m not working on it, I’m just taking a third gap year.

Also, “Charlemagne” is an absolutely mad surname!

“‘Charlemagne’ is a bonkers surname, yeah?” Lana leans in and whispers.

“Mental,” I agree.

The good doctor first leads the students around the exterior “front yard” of the campus. There are overgrown, mossy paver stones, and a semicircle of large menhirs stand guard around the path to the public entrance (though whether those are just for atmosphere or if they were unearthed with the rest of the site is an answer I don’t have).

When one of my students asks about the stones, Charlemagne doesn’t answer the question either, sort of making a non sequitur bounce from her question to some facts about the original dig.

It was the kind of jarring transition you would expect from your gran; like she’s forgotten the question entirely and wants to tell you what your mum did at school today instead.

Except the doctor isn’t old enough to be anyone’s gran.

Martha, the girl who asked the question, turns back toward me with a look of utter confusion, and I just shrug in answer, equally puzzled.

“Let’s head inside now, shall we?” Dr. Charlemagne gestures toward the large double doors that no doubt require the scan of a security card in hours when there isn’t a tour scheduled.

I watch as the students file into the lobby, followed by Lana, whose hair streak elicits a shudder from our guide.

“Hey Dr. Charlemagne,” I begin (I remembered that he had said “just doctor would do” too late) and then wondering what kind of person would not say “Charlemagne” when addressing the bloke? It’s fun to say!

“It’s actually pronounced ‘Carolingian,’ my boy!” The older-but-absolutely-not-old-enough-to-refer-to-me-as-“my-boy” man patted my shoulder with his dark, calloused hand, shooing me into the entrance.

“Wait, you definitely said ‘Charlemagne’ before.”

“I’d like to think I know my own name. You see, Charlemagne was the emperor, but Carolingian was the empire. It’s a common mistake.”

No, it isn’t.

“No, it isn’t. How do you spell ‘Carolingian?'” Maybe this was some sort of crazy transliteration error, or…mass (for me nd Lana, at least) hysteria?

“Why just how it sounds, lad,” the non-answer was accompanied by a push into Myrddin’s main complex; the power supplier for almost all of Europe.

Doctor Lying-Bloody-Liar shuffled off without another word, down a corridor to some unknowable annal of the building, probably to do trials with one of the many druidic Cults of Merlin that sprang up in the wake of the discovery of The Sword in the twenties.

A woman in a black lab coat, wearing black latex gloves and carrying a black clipboard appears. Her salt and pepper hair sits in a messy bun, skewered by a thin stylus atop her head. She wears stylish glasses, and spoke with a distinctly scottish accent:

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, we’re so glad you were able to join us today. I’m called Dr. Beth, and I’ll be your tour guide through our fascinating and magical world of scientific discovery. Now, if you’ll all follow me, we’ll get everyone outfitted with safety gloves and goggles.”

I’d heard rumors, but I guess the gloves, which were form fitting like latex, but were supposed to be cut-proof, were real. 

Excalibur is easily one of the sharpest cutting surfaces in the world. The forums always use the word “monomolecular,” but the science types are quick to correct them. Nano-molecular, folded metal. It has the look of Damascus steel, but it’s much sharper, and it keeps its edge. I don’t know anything about sword-making, so I’m pretty comfortable telling you that it’s as sharp as you would expect a mythical, magical, Sword of the Chosen One to be.

The rumor is that upon its discovery, one of the original archaeologists leaned in to investigate the inscription, and didn’t know she’d sliced her ear off until one of her co-workers shouted “JESUS CHRIST, YOUR EAR!” and promptly fainted.

I don’t know how dangerous the experimentation to learn the “event horizon” of the Blade was, but I suspect it ended with multiple severed extremities. Or at least, that’s the rumor.

These days, the sword is surrounded by a thick glass tube with a single, secured access door. The tube itself is open at both ends and sunken deep into the ground; and people don’t actually interact with The Sword anymore, except for Pullings, and even with those, you’re quite a way above The Sword, on a catwalk.

A slightly deep feminine voice has been speaking to me for some amount of time, and I realize that I am following the group of students and Dr. Beth, lost in the throes of adult ADHD.

“I’m sorry, I was distracted. What were you saying?” I ask Lana, who giggles quietly and repeats:

“I was asking if you’re an Arthurian or a Non-Arthurian?”

“Oh, I mean I guess I never really dove in with either camp. I suppose I believe whatever is the prevailing science.”

“That’s not really belief. That’s more like being lazy.”

“Wait, are you saying you’re an Arthurian?”

Lana’s deep brown eyes get huge and round, and she inhales.

“Come on! Obviously Arthur was real! They found the literal Sword In The literal Stone and it’s literally magic! How much do you have to hate fun to not believe in King Arthur?”

“Well first of all, the Sword being in the Stone makes a pretty bad case for Arthur – how was he ordained king if he didn’t ‘pulleth this Sword?’ But I do want him to have been a real bloke, I just don’t know if that qualifies as ‘belief.'”

“Bo-ring,” Lana sings in mockery. “Believe in something!”

“I believe in plenty,” I shoot back. “For example, the magical sword we are about to see with our very own eyes.” 

Lana rolls her very own eyes at me as we pass a wall of power cells, glowing with a rainbow of LEDs.

“These power cells,” Dr. Beth begins, “are like transformers and fixed batteries. They convert the C-Waves into electricity, and store it, which ensures that unless the grid is disconnected from Myrddin directly, that blackouts are a thing of the past. And while countries like Russia, Italy, and Greece continue to overpay for harmful, high carbon fossil fuels, almost all of the other countries in Europe rely on Myrddin for their electricity. Other countries benefit, too! We have much more energy than we can actually use, so  in 2028, we created portable batteries. Now they’re not that portable – the size of a caravan,” she pauses for laughter, which the children generously give, “but they allow Myrddin to indirectly power more than sixty percent of the world.”

“Yes, children, trust the friendly corporation and their worldwide energy monopoly,” Lana whispers.

“Holy shit, I just told my flatmate the same thing last night!” I am swooning internally.

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: welcome to The Armory.”

“Did you know the sword room was called ‘The Armory?'” I ask Lana, who shakes her head in reply.

Dr. Beth dramatically sweeps the door to The Armory open, and a flood of warm light floods into the corridor, looking for all the world like there’s a sunset happening within.

“Safety glasses and gauntlets on, please. Right in, and stand just there.” Dr. Beth corrals the children into a huddle inside of The Armory, checking their gloves as they pass.

I don’t know what it  is about the room, but it looks so bland in pictures and videos. Even viewing it through the camera on my mobile, all of the intense, burning majesty of it is completely lost. But here, in person, we are awash in the physical warmth of Excalibur, and three dozen little hands hold up their mobiles to take shots for posterity. Even Arnold, the boy who cannot be bothered with such trifles as enthusiasm, is smiling with childlike wonderment.

“Behold: The Sword in the Stone,” Dr. Beth sweeps her arm out theatrically, diving into a monologue about C-waves and the “arm,” a crane attached to the Sword’s pommel which provides the consistent, upward force needed to keep the Sword active. 

“We have a bit of good fortune for you today, ladies and gentlemen: twice a month, the Arm needs to be manually tightened in a process called a Pulling. If you’ll follow me, two at a time up the stairs, everyone can give the handwheel a yank to get it tightened up for the fortnight. Line up two by two, please.”

Lana and I both stare in awe. Never in history has either of us seen our kids fall into line in such a quick, quiet, and orderly manner.

Each pair ascended the stairs to the scaffolding, then marched to the arm, and pulled on the handwheel. Dr. Beth said they were “tightening” the device, but in truth, they were turning the wheel  to loosen the arm. 

The Sword, left to its own devices, eventually pulls the arm downward, and without enough constant, upward force, the C-waves would stop pouring forth from it.

After a time, the last pair of students had tugged on the screw, and returned to the group. 

“Come on,” Lana beams. “It’s our turn!” 

I can’t say I planned to ascend the stairs to turn a big metal wheel to ensure that the single most significant corporation in human history could continue to exploit people, but when Lana invited me (and Dr. Beth’s nod of confirmation) it just felt like the right thing to do.

Lana goes up first, her turns of the wheel are labored – the work was mostly done now, after thirty six children had each taken a go.

“It’s not gonna turn again,” Lana says, matter-of-factly.

“Bet you a pint I can turn it more than you have,” I challenge.

“Go on then,” she snaps.

Both hands on the wheel, I took a deep breath, and then lean with all of my strength to turn the wheel easily in a full rotation. And another twist for good measure. 

“Is this supposed to be this easy?” I look at Dr. Beth, but I’m actually needling Lana. I make faux bodybuilding poses, and in the midst of the mischief, I don’t notice Dr. Beth’s urgent strides to pull at the wheel.

“This is perfectly tightened now, see for yourself,” the doctor motioned at the handwheel – an invitation to try again.

I put one hand on the wheel, and made eye contact with Lana.

“Dinner!” she huffs, increasing the stakes on our wager.

I smile, and nod, leaning into the widdershins turn with a heave and… 

The wheel spins again.

And this time, Excalibur moves.

Bollocks.

“Bollocks.”

🜲