The Sword in the Stone - 2.1

“This isn’t Pescia!” complained Astrid as they emerged from a tear from the Beneath. “For the fourth time! You said you could get me home!”

“Are you sure?” said Mishka, looking around at the large, grassy fairground they had arrived in. “It looks about the same level of civilisational development.”

Beyond the large verdant field lay a rather quaint looking city of thatched roofs, whitewashed walls, and, higher up on the hill, stately manors clustered around a large castle. The fortress had soaring buttress walls, white-stoned towers, and red tiled roofs that glittered in the sunlight.

The fairground was abuzz with activity. People of myriad species ran here and there, round eared ones and short ones and green ones and grey ones and lizardy ones, all moving between colourful pavilions. Flags and pennants fluttered in the noon-day breeze, and there was music and dancing and food and games and more.

A festival, beneath a charmingly blue-green sky strewn with glittering icy chunks which must have been planetary rings, and four moons visible in the sky: two blue, one green, and one pinkish-red.

“We are not the same level of development!” protested Astrid, shaking her head so hard that her shock of blonde hair briefly became a storm. “We have interstellar travel-”

Mishka snorted.

“We do!” snapped Astrid. “Whereas these people look like they haven’t even figured out airships!”

Mishka scratched a bear-like ear, she supposed that was true.

"Also, Pescia doesn’t have four moons!” said Astrid angrily. “And I can’t understand a damn thing people are saying.”

“Oh, right, got something for that,” said Mishka, patting her skirt’s pockets and then rummaging in her cloak’s for a few moments before withdrawing a small red tin with Ursulan runes on it. She popped it open, revealing dozens of small, mint-coloured tablets. “Take one.”

Astrid hesitantly picked one up and peered at it. “What is it?”

“It will automatically translate languages – Ursulan bio-alchemy,” said Mishka. “Perfectly safe. Unless… you’re not a plasma-based life-form, are you?”

Astrid gave Mishka a withering look.

“I’m just making sure,” said Mishka, holding up her hands. “It’s safe, honestly.”

Astrid shrugged and popped the tablet into her mouth. She grimaced, then yelped, her eyes widening as she looked around wildly at people. “I can- I can understand them!”

“Semiotic symbiote,” said Mishka, putting the tin away. “A bio-alchemically engineered psionic parasite-”

“Psionic what!?” said Astrid. “Did you just put a worm in my head!?”

“Oh, calm down,” said Mishka. “And no, it’s not a worm, more like… lots of worms, all woven together – settles between your brain’s wrinkles – assuming you have those. It taps into the latent psychic field of the universe to let you speak and read and write in other languages. Neat, huh?”

“No! Not neat! You just gave me brain worms!” said Astrid.

“Relax, they feed upon background psychic energy – they cause no damage,” said Mishka.

“You- you are impossible,” said Astrid, with a huff. “Fine, well, guess I have a brain parasite now! Great! Just great! Can we go?”

“Probably best to give your mind a rest,” said Mishka. “Irrational irritability is a common side effect of simple minds being overexposed to the Beneath.”

“I’ll give you an irrational irritability,” muttered Astrid darkly.

“A day or two here, then we’ll be able to keep on looking for your home.” Mishka looked around. “Although quite frankly, this seems fine – I don’t know why you’re being so fussy.”

“Being- being fussy!” said Astrid. “My friends, my family is on Pescia. Would you really just think ‘oh, this is close enough’ if it were you!?”

Mishka glanced away and smiled tightly. “Yeah, I… suppose not,” she said, before brightening and taking Astrid’s hand. “Come on, I bet they have cakes!”

They did indeed have cakes, and soon they were sat down at a rough wooden bench, Astrid with some kind of blue-ish berry pie, Mishka with the same, plus something fruity and some kind of very large bready thing filled with jam and cream and honey.

Mishka loved honey.

“How did… how did you pay for this?” said Astrid suspiciously as Mishka sheared off a piece of the fruity square and popped it into her mouth.

“I gave them a gold coin I had in my pocket – primitives go nuts for the stuff,” said Mishka.

“You do know it isn’t very nice to call people ‘primitives,’ right?” said Astrid.

“Oh, would you prefer I lied then?” said Mishka. “‘Oh, don’t worry, you’re not primitive. You’re actually very advanced with your dysentery and you sun gods!’ How is that going to help them?”

“I suppose those seven people? The dead ones?” said Astrid, angrily stabbing at the pie. “I guess they don’t matter at all to you. After all, they were just primitives, right?”

Mishka stiffened. “I didn’t say that-”

“But they were my friends, and now they’re gone,” said Astrid. “Worse than gone, forgotten-”

“You don’t know anything about me,” snapped Mishka.

Astrid glared; Mishka glared back.

They ate in silence for several long moments.

“Will your prison hold that thing?” said Astrid eventually. “The memory monster?”

“The cage worked until…” began Mishka, before trailing off. “Well, it worked. So yes, it should hold it. I’ll have to think of a more permanent solution, in case more primitives start nosing around. Maybe, throwing it into a black hole? I’ll get you home first, then go back for it.”

“Right…” said Astrid, fiddling with her fork. “Right.”

They finished their treats in not particularly companionable silence. It wasn’t true that Mishka didn’t feel sad about the deaths of those seven people she couldn’t remember. She did, and she’d wished she could have figured out what was happening earlier and saved them. But she hadn’t figured it out. She’d failed. What was done, was done, not even she could change the past. It was better to just move on. Sometimes, that was all you could do. Move on. Don’t look back. Run.

After they finished, they wandered on through the fair. Astrid stopped every now and again to look at some of the handicrafts, and even spoke to Mishka long enough to ask for some money to buy some curio or the other. Mishka quite liked the bespectacled human, even though it was clear to her that the feeling was not mutual.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Eventually, they reached the centre of the fair, where several hundred locals were gathering on rows and rows of wooden benches surrounding a large, strangely angular and spiky rock that had a sword stuck in it. The air was tense, the excitement almost palpable – this was clearly a much-anticipated event.

There were several people, all masculine, clustered around the rock and wearing deep crimson robes covered in harsh looking sigils that either didn’t mean anything, or her translation symbiote couldn’t make sense of. Scattered around the edge of the audience were more of the robed figures, although these ones also wore breastplates beneath their robes, and had swords at their hips.

The sword in the stone felt magical to Mishka’s mystic senses, although at a distance it was difficult to tell exactly what it did, even with her enchanted magnifying glass.

“What’s this?” asked Astrid, breaking twenty minutes of silence.

“Looks like some kind of play, maybe?” said Mishka, putting away her tool and taking a seat. “Let’s see!”

“Don’t we need to buy tickets or something?” said Astrid.

Mishka chortled with laughter. “You capitalists. It’s almost like you want to have to pay for everything.”

“Yes, yes, you’re infinitely more advanced, Ms. Communist,” said Astrid. “I’m sure Ursulon Three-”

“Prime,” corrected Mishka. “And I’m not from the home-world, I was born on the Bloodmoon Orbital.”

Astrid’s eyes rolled behind her round glasses. “Right, fine, whatever that means-”

“It’s a ring of material in space with roughly one a half thousand times the surface area of a regular planet – two systems away from Ursulon Prime,” said Mishka. “Hardly anyone actually lives on the home world anymore. It’s all museums and nature reserves.”

“That… what!?” said Astrid. “But that- that- that is insane!”

“What’s wrong with museums and nature reserves?” said Mishka.

“Not that! The- the size of it,” said Astrid. She frowned. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

“No, but you don’t normally believe me,” said Mishka.

“Well… OK,” said Astrid a bit thrown. “I mean, yes, I’m sure… ‘Bloodmoon Orbital’ a utopia full of sunshine and rainbows and whatnot. But us ‘Primitives,’ we have to live in the real world, where things are scarce and we can’t just snap our fingers and create a city and infinite food or… mind-bogglingly large space megastructures.”

“These people seem to be getting by without needing to charge for their play, or whatever,” countered Mishka. “And they’re around the same level of development. Also, I never said it was a utopia-”

“We are centuries ahead of these people!” protested Astrid.

Mishka shrugged. “I said ‘around.’”

“Shh!” said someone nearby. “The Choosing is about to start!”

Mishka and Astrid fell silent along with the rest of the crowd as one of the red-robed priests stepped forward and raised their hands.

“Brothers and Sisters!” said the priest. “Good and loyal subjects of Strevenix, one score winters have passed since last we gathered on this sacred site. Once again, our land is threatened by the darkness, and one again we require a king to deliver us! To cast back the great and terrible demon Baelgoroth, and grant us reprieve from his terror!”

“Oh, how dramatic!” whispered Mishka. “I love dramatic plays!”

“Shh!” said someone else.

“Are there any amongst you who would face this darkness on our behalf?” asked the priest.

“Audience participation!” said Mishka, raising her hand. “Me! Me!”

She, however, wasn’t the only one to raise their hand. All around about a dozen masculine looking figures extended their arms, some more reluctantly than others. As they did so, Mishka felt a pulse of magic from the sword – what might have been some kind of surprisingly complex scanning charm. Her bracelet’s reactive, four dimensional shielding, however, kicked in, parting the energy before it reached her. The wave washed over the rest of the crowd, however, scanning them on a rather deep and what Mishka would consider invasive level before racing back to the sword. The blade’s pommel, which looked to be jewelled, began to glow a brilliant gold.

No one else seemed to have noticed the wave of energy, however, and Astrid looked at her funnily as Mishka pulled out her magnifying glass and started scanning her human companion.

“What are you doing?” said Astrid. “Quit it.”

“Weird…” said Mishka. It was hard to tell, but the wave seemed to have been scanning the human woman’s soul. It had made some kind of slight bond, even, barely detectable even with Ursulan magi-tech, but definitely there. Very odd.

While it wasn’t impossible that some particularly clever wizard might have figured out how to craft a spell that complex on a primitive world like this, it struck Mishka as a rather expensive prop for a play. But, then again, perhaps the denizens of this world simply treated the performing arts with more respect than Astrid’s money-obsessed world.

Mishka put away her magnifying glass and raised her hand again, jumping up and down to make herself seen over the taller members of the audience who had their hands raised, and trying to catch the eye of the priest at the front who seemed to be consulting some kind of device.

Then priest gestured to a well dressed human in the front row, and the hands fell.

“Aww,” said Mishka, sitting back down. “I guess it’s staged? The sucks.”

“Will you be quiet you insipid woman!?” said the irritable neighbour.

Mishka turned at frowned at the masculine person who had spoken. Well, that was uncalled for. She was just trying to get into the spirit of things.

The chosen member of the audience was wearing a rich blue tunic and cloak (although not nearly as fine as Mishka’s), and seemed to be sweating. They glanced back at an older, also masculine looking person who shared a passing similarity, before taking a deep breath and grasping the blade by the handle and pulling.

And pulling.

And pulling, to no avail. Their face turned redder and redder as they heaved until, with a gasp, they let go.

“A valiant attempt, young master,” said the head priest, patting them on the back as the unsuccessful person slunk back to their seat – an almost relieved look of their face. “But the Sword of Kings has not chosen you. Are there any others who would take up this heavy burden?”

“Ooh, me, me!” said Mishka, jumping up again.

Once again, Mishka was not picked, and an audience member from closer to the front rose and attempted to take the sword from the stone. They huffed and puffed, and seemed to really be putting their back into it, but the sword remained stuck fast, and they too eventually gave up.

The process repeated itself again and again, and Mishka got increasingly more annoyed.

“Can’t they see me?” complained Mishka. “We should have gotten better seats!”

“Mishka, they’re clearly only picking men,” said Astrid.

“What? How can you tell?” said Mishka, peering at the person currently unsuccessfully attempting to wrench the sword from the stone.

“Tell what?” said Astrid.

“That they’re men,” said Mishka. “Are they wearing name-tags or something?”

“No… hold on, you can’t tell gender?” said Astrid.

“Not reliably, no,” said Mishka. “It differs so wildly between species and worlds that I don’t want to assume what I think is masculine or feminine presenting is what they do. I usually just wait until they tell me, I don’t want to be rude. And why wouldn’t they pick me because I’m a woman?”

Astrid frowned at her. “This is clearly a patriarchal society,” said Astrid. “Notice how they say ‘King’ and not ‘Queen?’”

Mishka scratched one of her furry ears. “That’s stupid,” she said.

“I’m not arguing with you,” said Astrid.

“I mean, I could be a man if I wanted to be,” said Mishka. “I was for a while – I didn’t care for it.”

“Wait, what-”

“Is there no one else?” said the priest at the front of makeshift theatre. Their voice was rather desperate, and the audience was clearly agitated.

“Oh, me! Me!” said Mishka, waving her hands. “Me! At the back! The woman with the bear-ears! I’ll have a go!”

The priest looked their fellows, and there were a few hushed whispers. One of them shrugged.

“The… foreign woman at the back,” said the priest reluctantly.

Mishka grinned widely and moved into the makeshift aisle. She loved theatre, especially when she got to take part-

“No, not you, the other foreigner,” called the priest.

Mishka’s heart fell.

“Me?” said Astrid.

“Yes,” nodded the priest. “Come, make your attempt.”

Astrid glanced at Mishka, who slouched back to her seat. “I wanted to go up,” grumbled Mishka.

“Well, um, OK,” said Astrid uneasily, standing up and moving to the front. “So I just have to pull it out?”

“Yes,” said the priest. “That is all.”

“Oh, um, OK then,” said Astrid, reaching out and grasping the hilt of the sword. As soon as the human’s hands touched the blade, Mishka felt another scanning spell wash over Astrid, and a moment later there was a click blade release itself. Astrid pulled it free and turned back to the stunned crowd.

“Oh, um, yay?” said Astrid. “It…. it wasn’t really stuck.”

“All- all hail Queen-” began the priest, before whispering to her. “What is your name?”

“My name?” said Astrid. “Um, Astrid – Astrid Baxter-Griffiths.”

“All hail Queen Baxter-Griffiths, first of the her name!” said the priest, spreading their arms to the crowd. “Savour of Strevenix! Chosen of the Sword of Kings!”

Strevenix? That seemed vaguely familiar to Mishka. Had she visited this place before? No, no, definitely not – not unless it had changed massively in the past fifty five years – she would have remembered the delicious cakes, if nothing else. She shrugged. It was probably a coincidence. Lots of places had similar names – there were only so many syllables producible by most ursulanoid’s vocal chords.

“Hail Queen Baxter-Griffiths!” chanted the crowd, somewhat reluctantly at first, before getting into the spirit of things. “Hail Queen Baxter-Griffiths!”

From the stage, Astrid glared at Mishka, who grinned widely.

“Well, this is fun!” called Mishka.