The Seven Swords

by Nils Johnson-Shelton

Artie fired up the sword app and touched the Orgulus icon. The screen went dark before fading in on a twirling animation of a long, thin rapier. Artie read the words that appeared below the picture:

  “‘The name Orgulus comes from an Old French word meaning “pride,” and this blade is certainly full of it. Of the Seven Swords, it is by far the youngest. Forged from a sangrealitic alloy by a heretic Christian monk and blacksmith on Mont-Saint-Michel in 1440, it was indisputably the first weapon of its kind. The monk, Emmanuel del Espada de Loja, was a direct forebear of its last rightful owner, Geoffrey Mallory. Orgulus has never lost a duel. It is blindingly quick, and can bend like a reed in the wind but never break. The ornate cage protecting the hand can punch through anything.’”

  “Cool,” Kay said. “Cooler than Cleomede’s bug-shooing power, anyway.”

  Artie gave his sister a small smile.

  “All right, let’s see. ‘Orgulus is hidden in the bowels of the Mont-Saint-Michel abbey in an ancient crypt. The crypt is guarded by strong magic, so you will have to gate to a cistern in the lower section and work your way up. When you are done, you must exit the castle through a large drainage tunnel, located in the same cistern. This leads to the woods on the northern side of the island. Make sure to open the crossover in these woods before returning to the court-in-exile.’”

  Artie held up the iPad so everyone could see as he flicked through the screens showing the floor plan of the abbey and a map of the oval-shaped island. It was almost completely covered with a huge castle/church, a dark patch of woods blanketing its northern section. Finally a picture popped up. The castle was massive. It had everything a castle ever wanted, from a snaking curtain wall to dozens of turrets to countless archways to a high, reach-for-the-heavens spire set right in the middle. Everything about it looked grand and foreboding. No wonder it was such a tourist trap.

  “Man,” Kay said. “Now, that is a castle.”

  The others agreed as Artie flipped back to the Orgulus entry. He finished, “‘Don’t forget to mind the giant. Avoid it if possible. It is a cunning and mischievous brute.’” Artie put the iPad on the table and leaned back in his chair.

  “Aw, it’ll be fine, dudes,” Lance added. “What’s one giant against the five of us?”

  “Five of you? Am I to stay here again, King Artie?” Bercilak asked.

  “Yeah, I think you should,” Artie said apologetically. “We have to know that we can come back here whenever we need to, and you’re so good at keeping it safe, Bercy.”

  Bercilak bowed and said, “Of course.”

  Kay pointed at the Mountain Dew and added, “Keep that safe too.”

  “Why, Sir Kay! I’ll guard the dew of the mountain with my life!”

  Artie stood and slapped both hands on the table. “Well, guys, let’s get out of here as soon as possible. We’ve got to keep going. Qwon is counting on us.”

  16 - IN WHICH ARTIE AND CREW VISIT A LOVELY OLD CRYPT

  “Lunae lumen!”

  The knights found themselves in a pitch-black room. The air was cool and damp.

  “Kay, can you get our headlamps?” Artie asked, his voice bouncing off the walls.

  “Sure.” Kay fumbled in the infinite backpack and pulled out the lights. She turned one on and passed out the others. They put them on, and beams of light shot from their heads like horns.

  They were in a windowless stone room. A small metal door was set high on one wall, and across from it was a round opening about five feet wide.

  Artie pointed at the door. “The map showed that leading to the hall that would go up to the crypt.” He swung around and indicated the opening. “And that’s the drain that lets out into the woods. So if we—”

  “Oh my god!” Kay interrupted, brandishing Cleomede in front of her.

  “What?” Erik asked, standing next to her.

  Kay repositioned her light and said breathlessly, “I swear that wall was just covered with, like, a million bloody handprints.”

  Artie stepped forward, but the wall was blank. “Looks fine to me,” he said.

  “You know I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

  “Yeah, I know, but . . .”

  A grating sound echoed through the room and silenced Artie.

  “Sire, I think we should get out of here,” Bedevere said as they became aware of a low, persistent hiss.

  “Totally,” Artie agreed. “Beddy, open that door. Lance, give him a hand.”

  “Got it,” Lance said. He moved into position so Bedevere could climb onto his shoulders. While they worked on the door, Artie noticed a line of small holes surrounding the top of the cistern; the hissing sound seemed to be coming from these, but what was making it?

  And that was when the sound became extremely loud and morphed from a hiss into a thousand little squeals.

  All of their headlamps flickered briefly as Kay said frantically, “Artie, look!”

  “Rats!” Erik cried.

  Artie joined his light with Kay’s, and sure enough, dozens of gray rats were falling from the holes into the room. Artie gagged and closed his eyes.

  He hated rats.

  “Oh god, Beddy, hurry up!” Kay implored. Her light now lit the floor, which was quickly coming to life with furry gray rodents.

  Kay hated rats too.

  But not Erik. Using the flat side of Gram, he hit any rat that came near him like a golf ball. Some exploded on impact; others sailed to the wall and smacked into it with a sickening splat!

  Artie and Kay moved next to Lance and Bedevere as Erik went to town on the rodents. “Beddy, please open that thing!” Kay begged again.

  The rats started crawling over their feet, and Lance began stomping, trying to shake them off.

  “Hey, stay still,” Bedevere ordered.

  “You want to switch?” Lance shot back.

  Just then, four plump, musky rodents plopped directly onto Kay’s head, getting immediately tangled in her long red hair. She screeched as their claws dug into her scalp.

  “Oh, forget this,” Bedevere said, abandoning his effort to open the door’s lock. He reared back and said, “Phantoma!” The magical arm shot to life, and he grabbed the iron ring in the middle of the door and simply pulled it off its hinges.

  He threw the door to the floor and offered Kay his real arm. “Grab ahold, Sir Kay!” he said. Kay spastically batted the rats from her head and grabbed Bedevere’s hand, and he hoisted her through the doorway. Bedevere vaulted forward, following her.

  “You’re next, kid,” Lance said. Artie climbed onto his archer’s shoulders and jumped through to safety. Erik followed.

  Lance was the only one left.

  Rats poured from every hole. As Artie scanned the room, he realized that most of the little creatures had red eyes, and that their teeth were stained with blood. He also noticed that the walls were indeed covered with hundreds and hundreds of bloody handprints, just like Kay had said.

  Now he understood. For a few minutes they had been in the French Mont-Saint-Michel, but now they were in the Otherworld version.

  Bedevere was about to reach down and grab Lance when all their headlamps flickered again, and suddenly Lance was alone in the stone cistern. No rats. Not a single one. And no bloody handprints all over the walls.

  “You all right?” Artie asked.

  Lance huffed and said, “Shoot, I’m not afraid of a few rodents. Beddy, get me out of here.”

  Bedevere helped Lance with his superstrong arm and then deactivated it.

  “I guess that was that switching thing Merlin warned us about, huh?” Kay asked as they regrouped.

  “Yup,” Artie said. “The rats and the bloody handprints were part of the Otherworld castle, but now—”

  “We’re in the nice French version,” Erik finished for him.

  Artie nodded as Kay said, “Let’s hope it stays this way. I do not like rats!”

  Artie noticed Lance standing silently, holding his hand over his chest, where the tooth of Geoffrey Ma
llory hung on its necklace. “What’s up, Lance?” Artie asked.

  Lance peered toward the stairs at the end of the hall. “I think this dead guy’s tooth is giving me a bead on Orgulus. The crypt’s up there.”

  “Great,” Artie said. “Lead the way.”

  They went up the stairs and were surprised when they ran into a lean Frenchman in crisp slacks and a button-down shirt at the top of the first flight. Judging by his expression, he was pretty surprised too.

  His eyes widened as he exclaimed, “Eh! Qu’est-ce que vous faites?”

  Artie stepped around Lance and held out his hands, which probably wasn’t the smartest idea since one hand contained Flixith.

  “Attendez!” the Frenchman said, backpedaling

  “English? Do. You. Speak. English?” Kay said slowly.

  “Anglais?” the man said before adding nervously, “Non. Je ne parle que français.”

  What Kay didn’t know was that Artie could speak French. He’d taken a year of it at Shadyside Middle School, but really he had Excalibur to thank for his fluency. He cleared his throat and said, “Nous sommes désolés, monsieur. Mes amis et moi, nous recherchons pour une crypte. Savez-vous s’il y a une crypte près d’ici?”

  Kay shot her brother a look, and he waved her off as the man said, “O-oui. I-il y a une crypte juste en haut,” he said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

  “He says there’s a crypt right up there,” Artie translated. “Bien, très bien. Maintenant, monsieur,” he said, but then, right before their eyes, the man shimmered and disappeared!

  And the stairway they were in got a lot spookier.

  They were back in the Otherworld Mont-Saint-Michel.

  “Well, this is going to be quite interesting, isn’t it?” Bedevere said from the rear.

  Artie frowned and said, “Let’s move. Lead the way again, Lance. We need to find this thing and get out of here ASAP.”

  “Hoo-ah,” Lance seconded, moving back to the front.

  They ascended two more flights and found a heavy wooden door flanked by a pair of twinkling fluorescent lightbulbs. On the door was a worn brass plaque with some writing in French. Artie read, “‘Sire chevalier, parlez doux, pour là-bas est un diable, et s’il vous entend, il viendra vous détruire.’ It means we have to keep it down because there’s a devil in there that wants to tear us to pieces!”

  “Great,” Kay said.

  Artie put his ear on the door. “I don’t hear anything,” he said quietly. He carefully lifted the latch and pushed the door slightly ajar. He turned to his friends and gave them a look that asked whether he should open it.

  They nodded and he did.

  And the darned thing squeaked the whole way.

  Artie winced. Lance quickly nocked three arrows and hoisted his bow, waiting for the devil to pounce.

  But nothing happened.

  Artie stepped into the crypt and checked the corners. It appeared to be all clear.

  The crypt was a large chamber with a vaulted Gothic ceiling supported by dozens of stone pillars. A cool, putrid draft wafted through the air. The ground was wet with a thin sheen of water. Weak lights were placed in the arches of the ceiling here and there.

  Lance stepped next to Artie. “No giant?”

  “Not yet,” Artie whispered, peering deeper into the cavernous room.

  They stepped all the way in and took a closer look. The door they’d just come through was set in a long semicircle of columns. About a dozen feet farther in was another semicircle of columns. This served to divide the crypt into an outer section, in which they stood, and an inner section. All of the columns were extremely thick; two very tall men couldn’t have joined hands around one. From where the knights stood, they couldn’t see into the inner chamber.

  “Crypts are for dead people, right?” Erik asked.

  “Last I checked,” Lance whispered, poking his nose into the air like a dog following a scent. “Orgulus is in there somewhere,” he said, pointing his chin toward the inner chamber. “You guys ready?”

  “You bet,” Artie said. “Beddy, you and Erik watch the door. If we flicker back to the French version of this place, close it. I don’t want to deal with any P-Oed guards or confused tourists.”

  “Got it,” Erik said as Bedevere nodded.

  Artie, Kay, and Lance walked toward the middle of the crypt as quietly as they could, which because of all their stuff and the acoustics in the place was hardly quiet at all.

  But still, no sign of the giant.

  “Maybe this whole monster thing is bunk, right, Art?” Kay whispered hopefully as they entered the central chamber of the crypt.

  “Uh, I don’t think so,” was all Artie said as he came to a stop.

  The crypt’s inner chamber opened up before them. A large archway on their right led into a darkened hallway. Immediately in front of them a hot cauldron hung from a tripod of iron rods over an extinguished gas burner. It seemed as though someone—or something—had just been there.

  Three piles of white bones were arranged in the room. Two of the piles were small and looked to be made up of foot or hand bones.

  But the third was very large. It rose to the ceiling and dominated the room.

  “Oh, shitake mushrooms,” Kay said.

  “Are those leg bones?” Lance asked.

  “Yeah,” Artie said in a sinking tone.

  Kay flipped her headlamp on. “Call me crazy, but are the pillars covered in blood?”

  “Yeah,” Artie said again.

  “And . . . are those beards?” Kay asked, pointing at the far wall.

  It was hard to tell, but it certainly looked like five different-colored beards—very much separated from their owners’ faces—were pegged to the wall.

  “Looks like it,” Artie said gravely. “Remember what Merlin said about how the old giant used beards to make his clothing? I guess this one does too.”

  “Wow,” was all Lance could manage. He had a nice little five-o’clock shadow going and did not want to lose it—or his face—to some beard-clad monster.

  Kay turned off her headlamp. “All right, Lance, let’s get this Orgulus and skedat. Like, now.”

  “Roger that,” Lance whispered, and moved toward the far wall. He sidled along it, moving his hands up and down, pausing a couple of times before shaking his head and continuing on. “It’s behind here somewhere. I can feel it.” He lowered his hands to the base of the wall. “Here.”

  “Kay,” Artie said, “can you cut us a hole, please?”

  “On it.” Kay knelt and began carving away the stone with Cleomede. It was easy enough but, unfortunately, it was also pretty loud. Finally she exclaimed, “There!” and pried a chunk of granite away from the wall.

  The threesome leaned forward, and sure enough, in a little recess in the rock was the ornate handguard of a sword!

  “Nice work! Now grab it, Lance, and let’s get out of here,” Artie ordered.

  Lance got down on his knees and asked, “Where’s the rest of it?”

  “You know how it goes, Lance,” Kay said easily. “All of these things are stuck in something or being watched over by some chick in a lake or whatever. You’ve got that guy’s tooth, so I’m sure you can just yank it out.”

  “Yeah, give it a shot,” Artie said.

  But before Lance could do anything, a loud clang reverberated through the room, followed by a faint, far-off huffing, like a thing out of breath.

  “Come on, Lance, you’ve got this,” Artie said encouragingly, trying to ignore the noise.

  Lance slid his hand into the hole and grabbed the hilt, giving it a hard pull. Nothing happened. He leaned back with all his weight, but still nothing.

  A sound that was half roar and half wail echoed through the room. Artie looked at the big archway and said, “You’re going to have to cut it out, Kay. Quick!”

  Kay pushed her sword farther into the rock and jiggled it. Half the stone encasing the rapier turned to gravel and sand. She pulled Cleomede ou
t and said, “Try again.”

  Lance tried. “Still stuck!”

  They began to hear the slap of bare feet smacking on stone. The giant was moving fast.

  Kay hastily cut away more rock as a loud “Arrgh!” echoed outside the archway to their right.

  This time when Kay yanked Cleomede free, she pulled Orgulus with it a little. Lance knelt and was finally able to pull it out the rest of the way. He expected some kind of revelation like Artie had gotten from Excalibur and Erik from Gram, but there was nothing. It was just a sword, caked here and there with some calcified granite.

  Sure, it looked pretty cool, but still, it was kind of a bummer.

  Lance didn’t have time to be too disappointed, though, because just then the giant crashed through the archway.

  And he looked none too happy.

  17 - HOW ARTIE AND COMPANY ARE TREATED TO A LITTLE FEE-FI-FO-FUM

  Kay made a shocked sound halfway between “Oh” and “Ugh” as the giant came to a stop in the archway.

  He was around twelve feet tall and nearly as wide, with green, oily skin that was covered in boils and pockmarks. His flat, four-toed feet were bare, but his torso was covered with a furry smock embellished with hundreds of sparkling jewels. His head was squat and brick-shaped, his eyes milky and saucer-sized; a few strands of wiry black hair stuck out of his otherwise bald pate like pins in a pincushion. In his gargantuan hand the giant held a wooden club with a spiked metal ball lashed to its end.

  He took a loping step into the room, picked up one of the leg bones from the pile, and hurled it at Lance, who dodged it expertly.

  Artie threw his spear at the giant’s neck, and it was on target to strike, but at the last moment the creature swiped the air with his club, knocking Rhongomyniad to the floor with a clatter.

  Since Orgulus hadn’t taught Lance any cool tricks, he wasn’t going to fight with it. As Artie called back his spear, Lance stuck the sword through his belt, unslung his American-themed bow from his shoulder, nocked a trio of arrows, and fired. One glanced off the giant’s temple, one struck his cheek, and the other embedded in the thick skin above one of his eyes.

  The giant flicked away the arrow in its forehead and tore the other one from its cheek. He spit a wad of black blood on the ground, then threw the arrow back at Lance like a dart. Lance dodged again and the arrowhead struck the granite of the closest pillar.