The Proverbial Sword
by John Didday
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
Looking to check his phone, he stopped himself and stepped back out to the kitchen, where the cat jumped down from the table — just before the table was cleaved in half to a thunderous sound. Metal twisted and wood split, and half of the laminate-topped table flew across the apartment, flung by an invisible force.
“What the...” The last word left his body along with all of the air in his lungs: “fflllueerrf!” He was smashed sideways and knocked to the ground, face down on the cheap linoleum. His arm was hurting; he checked and saw it was bleeding. There was nothing he could see that had caused the damage. But he knew. From his vantage on the kitchen floor, he could see the edge of the Book peeking over the corner of his bed.
“Jesus!” he blurted, looking around, wondering if anyone might help him. There was nothing; no one. Just the couch he’d had since college; the cabinets covered in too many coats of paint; and that damn brown cat, who looked at him expectantly.
There came a rumbling sound, growing louder. He dove into his bedroom as an invisible force rolled through the kitchen, rattling the dishes and flatware. He snatched the Book off the bed and yanked the missing page out in one motion, bringing it up to his face.
After a blink, he was atop a wooden platform. It was the same size as his bed, and he was in the rocky, snow-covered foothills of a majestic mountain range. The centaur was near, just behind him, galloping away from a destroyed fortification that he imagined had once been his kitchen table. The rumbling sound arose again, and he looked up to see a large boulder tumbling his way — fast. He slid off the edge of the platform just before impact; the massive rock shaking the foundation of the platform and launching up into the air and then safely past.
“The plan,” the centaur called. “Now!”
He didn’t know the plan. Had Rickard and the centaur agreed on one while he’d been gone? The man waited for Rickard to act, but nothing happened. Rickard peered above the platform, and what he saw sent shivers rattling through the man watching this from the inside. A giant.
The ugly creature wasn’t elegant or sculpted in the way of the centaur; it was hideous, flabby, its knees red and swollen with the great weight that they carried. He watched its scarred nose and the mean look on its face, growing larger. He could tell by the delay it took for the sound of each footstep to reach him that it was still fairly far away. But absolutely huge.
The centaur shouted again. Rickard opened his mouth and nothing came out. The man inside of Rickard felt something prod at him. Speak, it said.
“I don’t...” Rickard’s voice said quietly. The centaur stared at him intently, turned its head to listen. The man didn’t know what to do. He heard the footsteps of the giant pounding closer. He looked to the centaur, nearby, then to the tribe of warriors, farther back. He could tell that he was letting them down. He was failing. He saw, for the first time, fear in the centaur’s resplendent golden eyes.
The centaur’s eyes. In a flash, they were his cat’s eyes again, and he was back in his bedroom. But now the entire apartment building was shaking on its foundation, and he needed to find a way to stop it. He grabbed for the Book and opened it, then flung himself toward the nightstand to fetch a pen. Into the margin of the Book, he scratched the word, “sword.” And then, thinking for a split second, scrawled another word, just before it: “flaming.”
He ripped out the page and blinked.
“My sword!” he shouted. “Give me my sword!” as he screamed it, he felt his voice twice as loud, twice as strong, because he felt Rickard shout it with him. Shivers ran down his neck and out his arms and his fear subsided, replaced by an immense need to act.
The centaur growled and dashed through the snow, laboring to bring with it a dull, heavy piece of iron. Rickard could smell the giant now — its stench made his eyes water — and he saw pebbles popping up off the ground from the force of its thunderous footsteps. It had to be just on the other side of the platform.
The centaur dropped the sword into Rickard’s hand, and somehow with one arm he lifted it. Its weight felt surprisingly inconsequential — light as a feather — and as he clasped it, it burst into red, yellow, and then blue flames. A surge of even more energy coursed through his veins.
But the giant didn’t seem to notice or care, as it stepped over the platform and reached down at Rickard with a gargantuan, swollen hand.
Rickard advanced forward onto the platform and leapt up toward the horrible creature and buried the sword as high as he could, into the monster’s thigh. The witness inside hoped that such things as femoral arteries existed in this land.
The world flooded with crimson as the giant’s blood sprayed like a showerhead, but the monster remained standing and grumbled in anger as the sword clattered to the ground.
Rickard leapt into motion to avoid the giant’s heavy foot that was readying to stomp down. He darted sideways and somersaulted toward the sword. He paused to gather it, risking a moment of time before the giant smashed down again. Luckily, a distraction came in the form of an arrow that streamed through the air and buried itself into the giant’s shoulder.
Annoyed, the giant stamped past Rickard and lurched at the group of warriors. The creature swiped ten of them down and sent the others tumbling backwards. It turned and glared at Rickard through bleary eyes; Rickard was now alone with the centaur, and they were fully isolated from the others. The enormous monster careened forward, appearing to take slow steps but hurtling toward them with incomprehensible speed.
Before they could react, the giant snatched them both up, one in each hand, and brought them toward its great, disgusting mouth. Rickard’s arms were trapped and his sword was flameless and dull, crammed next to him in an unforgiving fist the size of a bathtub. He couldn’t move to touch the sword’s iron hilt. Rickard began whispering a prayer; it seemed the warrior was readying himself to die. Yards away he could see the centaur’s eye, gleaming in valor, seemingly expecting the same.
Seeing the eye, the witness inside felt himself being pulled back to his world — but he resisted it. Rickard wouldn’t flee and neither should he. Instead, the man willed Rickard’s neck to crane forward, pushing his forehead toward the hilt of the sword; he stretched and arched to let his skin make contact. As he did, the sword exploded alight.
The giant screamed a deafening cry and released its grip, flattening its hand to look at it, allowing the man to stand on its great open palm. He gripped the sword and swung with the strength of two people, cleaving the beast’s head clean off.
The fall was horrifying. He tumbled freely through the air, then bounced off hard and soft parts of the giant’s body before thudding onto the ground, his head somehow, gracefully, thwumping into a pile of soft material.
Rickard opened his eyes and saw a woman — a girl, really — from among the tribe of rough humans was standing above him. She was holding a bow and quiver that was now empty of arrows; she had been the one to distract the giant before, and now, she’d placed the soft bundle in just the right place to save him. How she had been so quick, so sure and confident? he wondered. As soon as he thought to ask her name, she was gone, and he spent a moment testing each of his painful ribs with his thumbs before the centaur approached and pulled him up onto its back.
They’d done it. Rickard had lost some friends, but the journey back to the hall was cheerful and easy.
In the hall, the centaur lifted Rickard high among the roaring tribesmen and warriors. Rickard by now was well ready to celebrate — and to drink plenty of the sloshing mugs of ale — at the long wooden benches where a new feast was laid. It was only after a solemn goodbye to the centaur that Rickard sat down at the head of his table, surrounded by gleeful faces, and closed his eyes.
He was back at home, on his old couch. The drywall was an absolute wreck, there were burn marks on the ceiling in every room, the microwave had apparently exploded, and somehow, the cat had gotten into its carton of dry food.
He knelt down and patted the cat on the head, which it responded to with a listless yawn. Decidedly still a cat. But he felt a deeper connection and respect for the strange, little creature. He packed its food away, then passed into the bedroom and found the Book, replaced the missing page, and set it away. He felt a sense of accomplishment that he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.
Sitting on the corner of his bed, he ran through the names of who he could tell his story to, and how he could possibly get them to believe it. He reached for his phone on the nightstand.
Seven voicemails from his niece. He played the first and heard her voice, jittery with excitement, panting in elated exhaustion: “Uncle, you are never going to believe this, but the most amazing thing just happened to me...”
Copyright © 2021 by John Didday
