I stamped back and forth round the kitchen table, thrusting and cutting, the golden blade leaping this way and that. The longer I held Excalibur, the more I knew how to use it, how to handle it. Without quite meaning to, I ran through an increasingly complex series of attacks and manoeuvres, jumping and pirouetting as I slammed the blade back and forth. Suzie fell back to the kitchen doorway, to give me plenty of room.

“All right, cut it out, I’m impressed!” she said. “Where did you learn to use a sword like that?”

“I didn’t,” I said, forcing myself to stop. I was hardly even breathing hard. “I’ve never handled a sword in my life. Excalibur is making all the moves; I’m just along for the ride.”

“Okay,” said Suzie. “Getting a bit spooky now ...”

“Trust me, you have no idea. Wait a minute ...”

Suzie’s head came up sharply, as she sensed it, too. Without moving or changing in any way, Excalibur was suddenly so much more than it had been. There was a new presence in the room with us, like a third person, uncanny and overwhelming; and it was the sword. Excalibur’s presence beat on the air like a breaking storm, like a great bugle sounding a charge that would never end, a cry to battle, for the soul of Humanity. It dominated my small kitchen—a cry from the past, the deep past, wild and glorious and very dangerous.

Suzie had backed half-way out of the kitchen doorway. I would have liked to join her, but I was still holding the sword. I could feel it coming awake, yearning to be used, demanding to be put to the purpose for which it was intended. And I couldn’t help remembering that terrible old weapon, the Speaking Gun. That evil device had wanted to kill and kill until nothing was left, and hated the fact that it couldn’t do that without its owner’s cooperation. Excalibur didn’t feel anything like the Speaking Gun, but it still needed me to wield it. To help it fulfil its destiny.