Authority of the Sword, Part 2

"As my first act as king," Wyatt said, holding up the half-sword, "I declare that I win and get to leave the room, and everyone else loses."

Nothing happened. Wyatt tried the door, but it was locked. "I have your sword, open the door!" He waved it about and spoke to the ceiling.

Gilbert pushed up his glasses and sighed. "Now what? Our... benefactors probably didn't expect this brute to break their sword in half."

"We must have patience. All will be revealed with time. And love," Astrid said.

Minutes ticked away. There was no announcement, no man in a suit stepping in to correct the situation. Wyatt paced back and forth with his half-sword. It was his patience that ran out first.

"If they won't recognize my kingship, then I must need to do more kingly things," he said, pointing the broken blade at the other three. "Kneel."

"What?"

"Kneel."

"That's absurd. What right do you have to order me around like that?" Gilbert asked.

Wyatt closed the distance between them, and they locked eyes. "You ever been stabbed by a broken sword?"

Roman frowned.

Gilbert looked down at the weapon in Wyatt's hand. "No."

"Neither have I, but I bet it hurts like shit. Kneel."

Gilbert slowly bent his knee, and Astrid was quick to join him. Roman, with an unfamiliar heat beginning to form in his gut, knelt last. Wyatt looked down at them and waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

"Lower. Noses in the grass."

Again, Gilbert protested. "You're psychotic. What do you think this is going to accomplish?"

"You're right," Wyatt said. "It's not enough. Stand up, four-eyes."

Gilbert froze.

"Get up. Or would you rather die kneeling?"

Gilbert slowly got to his feet. "Let's not be hasty. I'm sure we can work this out if we put our heads together."

"You don't really believe that, do you? You think I'm an idiot." Wyatt leveled the half-sword at Gilbert's face. "You think you're better than me, and look how that turned out."

"I—"

Wyatt grabbed Gilbert by the shoulder and shoved the broken sword into his throat.

Astrid screamed and planted her head into the turf. Gilbert coughed, spraying Wyatt's face with blood. Wyatt pushed him back, freeing the blade from his neck, and Gilbert retreated to a wall and slid down it. Roman watched him choke and gasp with a stony expression.

"Open the door, you assholes!" Wyatt yelled, brandishing his bloodied weapon. "How many do I have to kill?"

The room fell silent again, other than Astrid's muted sobs. Gilbert had gone limp.

Roman stood. He wasn't particularly afraid of dying, although he would've preferred a less painful way out. Without waiting to see Wyatt's reaction, he strode over to the pedestal.

"What do you think, kid? What am I missing?"

Roman took a deep breath. He pushed down the heat and nausea and focused his thoughts. Wyatt would kill Astrid first—he knew that with confidence now. The question was what he could do about it. There were just over forty minutes left.

The sword and pedestal were both puzzle and solution; the room was too small and too empty for anything else. The meaning of the inscription on the pedestal seemed obvious enough. As Wyatt had concluded, whoever drew the sword would gain the right to rule and thus choose who exited the room victorious and who stayed behind. The only uncertainty was the ambiguity of the word "fate." Gilbert and Astrid had been convinced that all four of them had an equal claim to the sword, but what if, like in Arthurian legend, the blade's true owner had been predetermined?

Roman noticed that Astrid was standing, apparently gathering her courage to say something. Wyatt watched her with something approaching amusement.

"Love is about forgiveness," the woman said, her dreadlocks swaying with her unsteady stance. "With love, all of this can be forgotten."

Wyatt smirked. "Here's another idiot saying things she doesn't believe."

"Love is transcendent. Love is all-encompassing. Embrace it. Surrender yourself to it."

"Listen, hippie," Wyatt said, stepping toward her. "I know you're used to getting a free pass to spout nonsense because you're a woman, but you should really be quiet."

"I have no fear of death," Astrid declared, though her voice wavered. "You can't kill love."

Love. Fear. Death. Roman desperately fought to suppress the churning feeling that was boiling up within him. He glanced at the pedestal.

Wyatt raised the broken edge of the sword to Astrid's chin. The moment hung in the air. Roman felt his fingernails dig into his palms. Looking at Wyatt's dark eyes and blood-splattered face, he already knew what was about to happen. He shouldn't have let Gilbert stop him from taking the sword. But this was no time for introspection. Exhaling, he let the fire in his gut—the hate, the rage, the indignation, whatever it was—boil over and spread to his chest and his arms and legs.

Astrid made a break for the exit.

"Let me out! He's going to kill me!" She slammed her fists into the door.

Wyatt approached her at a casual pace, turning his back on Roman. It was now or never. Roman reached down, pinched what remained of the sword between his thumb and index finger, and pulled.

When the door did not open, Astrid turned to face Wyatt. The crazed look in her eye betrayed the fear she claimed not to have. She was trying to speak, to plead for her life, but all that came out of her mouth were fragments of words and incoherent phrases. Wyatt pinned her against the door and aimed the half-sword at her neck.

Roman, his mind strangely quiet, drove the sword's tip into Wyatt's right arm, just above the elbow.

Wyatt yelped. The half-sword fell from his hand.

"What—?"

Roman dove, grabbed the hilt, and pointed the broken blade at Wyatt.

"You chose a bad day to play the hero, kid." The momentary surprise had already passed. Without flinching, Wyatt lifted his elbow and freed the bloody steel from it.

They had traded weapons. Roman had two advantages: he was now wielding the broken weapon with a proper hilt rather than a naked blade, and Wyatt's sword arm was wounded. The dark-eyed man seemed unconcerned by his disadvantages, however. He gripped the steel with his left hand, the edges cutting into his skin.

Then there was a sound—a jingle, not especially loud and from an unclear source. Roman and Wyatt didn't take their eyes off each other, and so they were completely unprepared for the blinding flash of light that followed.

Roman shielded his eyes and retreated, never lowering the sword. He squinted and blinked, desperately trying to regain his vision. Slowly, the world returned to him, but it was not quite the same.

It was almost like looking through a kaleidoscope. Everything was continuously shifting and splashed with color. The false grass beneath his feet bent and waved as if affected by some wind. The painted sky on the walls and ceiling was alive with moving clouds and dancing particles of light. The sword in his hand was glowing white, and, most surprisingly, a whole blade once again, as if it had never broken. He looked at Wyatt and felt his body tense. Coiled around Wyatt's neck was a large white snake. Its red eyes were locked onto Roman.

"What is this? What did you do?" Wyatt seemed most confused about his now-empty hand.

"It's love! Love wins! Love—"

"Astrid," Roman said.

The woman tensed up and looked at him.

"Check the door."

"But it's locked." Even as she protested, she moved to obey, and the door opened. "Never mind."

"Go."

She left without another word, and the door swung shut behind her.

Wyatt laughed. "Not even a 'thank you.'"

Roman pointed the tip of the white-hot sword at him. "This isn't about her." Fire surged through his veins.

"Back," he said.

Wyatt took two hasty steps backward and flattened himself against the wall. He frowned and flexed his muscles.

"Don't move from that spot."

"What is this?"

The white snake seemed to phase in and out of existence. It reared up its head and hissed, a sound that wormed its way into Roman's brain and made him shiver.

Without turning away from his enemy, Roman stepped toward the exit and found the handle with his free hand.

"Damn you, Roman!" Wyatt said as he strained against the invisible chains binding him. "We're not done! Get back here!"

The door closed.

Roman let the sword clatter to the floor. As soon as it left his hand, the glow faded, and a spell of nausea overcame him. He staggered down the hallway, his hands shaking.

***

About a year later, when he started his journal, Roman wrote this about the experience: "I'm still not sure I fully understand what I saw and felt in that room, but when the second invitation arrived, I knew I had to do it again. There's a kind of solace in finally realizing your purpose, in knowing the direction your path will take you, even if your destination remains unseen.

"In a sense, Wyatt was right. I wasn't done. In fact, I was only just starting."