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This isn’t all.
I cling to that thought, and in place of the horror is Duncan’s face. His smile. The way he rushes to help anyone. I remember, mostly, the hurt on his face when he thought I’d abandoned him after his first proposal.
Because that is real. That is human. Hurt, pain, loss, it’s all part of the package. How we deal with it can bring us closer or tear us apart. Some lash out and do terrible things, but in the modern world I come from there are billions of people. Billions of the silent majority living their lives in peace. Working, loving, and creating beauty each in their own way.
Billions compared to how many that are behind these atrocities. It’s not a comparison. The world is not bad, it simply is. Humans aren’t all evil or bad. They’re living, breathing, and doing the best they can with what they have before them.
The world can be better. We can be better.
“You’re forgetting something,” I say, squaring my shoulders and facing him head-on.
I’m not going to retreat. The fear is gone. The screens that had gone dark flicker to life, but now the scenes they show are completely different.
The British commander and Chief Johnne agreeing to work side by side. An old woman carrying a bag and a young teenager helping her home with it. Scene after scene of kindness. Two men walking down the steps of their church dressed in tuxedos as their friends cheer their union. Old men playing chess in a city park.
Scene after scene of people living. Loving. And finding comfort in each other. Humans, being human.
“What, Quinn? A few moments of kindness are going to push back against all the evil in this world?”
“Yes,” I say.
He waits for more but that’s it. It’s simple. It’s true. He scoffs, waves his arm, and the screens shift again. Atrocities replace the scenes of hope and love.
“No. This. This is the world your race has created. Fear and hate. Destruction is the only answer.”
My hand brushes the satchel and my fingers warm and tingle. Then it hits me.
“Knowledge,” I mutter.
“What?” he asks, and for the first time I hear something less than absolute certainty in his voice.
“Knowledge,” I say, a smile spreading over my face. I reach into the satchel and take out the book. It’s still warm, uncomfortably so, but it’s not burning now. “Of course. The first sword.”
“My dear Quinn,” he says, walking forward and reaching a hand towards me. “The stress has been too much. It’s okay; lend me your power and I will do what must be done.”
I step back, raising the book between us.
“The first sword,” I say, holding the book in both hands like a shield between us. “I thought it would be sharp steel, but I was wrong. The first sword isn’t that kind of weapon.”
His smile is fixed, but in his eyes I see fear.
“You don’t have the sword, Quinn. You have a book; one you don’t even know how to use. And why would you? Why save them after all they’ve done. Look at what’s happened to your precious MacGregors.”
“When humanity began, the thing that set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom wasn’t only thumbs, or even weapons.”
“They used them for sport, Quinn. Even now they’re killing your friends.”
“Because while someone, at some time, did forge a sword out of metal, that’s not the first weapon, was it?”
“Duncan will die, the Fae will die, the Tree is fading out,” he says, but there is an edge to his voice.
“What comes before the forging of the sword?” I ask, smiling. He drops his hand to his side, no longer reaching towards me, but I keep the book between us. “Knowledge ofhowto forge the sword.”
He screams and it sounds like a million voices at once. A strong wind blasts into me and I’m sliding back, turning my head, and hiding behind the book. The wind splits around it but still it continues.
“Give up, damn you,” he curses.
The spell is there, ready to cast. I chant the words in an ancient tongue. I don’t know the words, but holding the book allows me to say them, and while I don’t know each one, I know their meaning.
