“Well, if you don’t draw the bloody thing from its scabbard so we can get a look at it, I’m going to,” said Suzie. “That is one of the great legendary swords! How can you not want to try it out for size?”

“Because I don’t want it to bite my hand off! I’m working up to it, okay? This isn’t something you draw and wave round for the fun of it! This is Excalibur we’re taking about. It makes history and gives birth to legends. Everything it does, matters.”

“Are you afraid there might be a geas attached to it?” said Suzie, looking at the sword with a new wariness. “Like the Old Man of the Sea—easy to pick up but a damned sight harder to put down?”

“I think I would have Seen anything like that,” I said carefully. “I think ... we’re back to destiny again. And I have had enough of that in my life. I have been there, done that, and seen my mother banished from reality rather than embrace the destiny she intended for me. I’m my own man; and I won’t give that up, even for Excalibur.”

“We can’t leave it lying there. I was going to start making dinner soon ...”

“I know! I’m thinking ... I’m trying to think of anyone else I could safely hand it over to ... Oh hell. Why is it always me?”

I took a firm hold of the polished-bone hilt, set my other hand on the scabbard, and slowly eased the sword out of its sheath. It came easily, almost eagerly: five, maybe six feet of blade that glowed supernaturally bright in the gloomy kitchen. Suzie made a shocked, almost awed sound, and fell back a step. I held the sword out before me, the hilt fitting perfectly into my hand, and the long, golden blade shone brighter and brighter, free at last after centuries of waiting. I swept the blade slowly back and forth, supporting the whole length of it easily with only one hand, and it all felt so natural, as though I’d been doing it my whole life. The long, golden blade seemed impossibly light, almost weightless, moving easily with my hand as though it belonged there.