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Breaking the Sword

Daniel J Roozen

    When he awoke there was something fluttering in front of him - back and forth, back and forth - moving to a semi-regular beat. He waited until his eyes focused. There was noise, too, but he didn’t identify it all at first. A swoosh. They were Maple leaves on the trees above him, swaying in the breeze. That was the feeling on his skin, then, that raised the hairs on his arms.
    The leaves gave him something to orient himself against. He was lying on his back in the woods. That realization brought other questions: How did he get into this forest? Why was he asleep? What did “deciduous” mean, really? He began searching his memory as he lay there, but no answers revealed themselves.
    That was scary, and it encouraged him to search further. Who was he? What was his name? John? No, that didn’t sound right. Patrick? Meh. Zachery? He liked that last one, so he chose to think of himself by that label. Zachery.
    Zach sniffed the air. It smelled moist, even a bit mildewy. And why did it make him hungry? He rolled his head over to look to the right. In the roots of a tree next to his head there were a bunch of little plants with white plumes on top. Wild mushroom. Yes, that’s what it was called. It made his stomach rumble; he must like to eat them. Something, just a feeling, warned him to stay safe and wait. He should cook them first.
    Well, he figured out about as much as he could lying here. Zach pulled himself up to a sitting position to take note of his surroundings. He sat in a small clearing in a forest. There were a few different kinds of trees, but most of them had the same shape of leaves. Maple. It must have been well into summer as the trees were full and green. The clearing was well shaded, but several small openings in the tree cover let the bright midday sun through; lush blades of grass grew tall in those areas.
    There were two breaks in the trees and brush that could be called paths. With one thought, Zach felt empty and lost, not knowing where he was or where he could go to get help. In the next thought, he wondered how he knew things, like that those wild mushrooms were unsafe until cooked, or these trees were deciduous, or the thick moss on one side of the trees meant that way was generally north... or was it south?
    A distant melody became louder, though he couldn’t pinpoint the source. It felt like it would be more normal and comfortable for him to stand, so he did so, as the song — a song of trumpets and flutes — came nearer. Zach wasn’t sure whether to feel frightened or eager. He decided on the latter and let a smile cross his face as the melody took a rest in the clearing. Well, it wasn’t in the clearing so much as it was there with him, all around him, but mostly in the tree branches above. There was one, or maybe two, sources to the song.
    Leaves rustled above one of the paths and a marionette dropped suddenly from the upper branches. The doll was simple, wooden, and without many markings, but half as tall as a man. The leaves blocked Zach’s sight so he couldn’t see the puppeteer in the trees. He couldn’t make out any strings on the marionette, either, but perhaps it was controlled by fish line that was just too thin to see this far away.
    “Why hello,” Zach said to the puppet with a smile. “And where did you come from? Is this some sort of dream?”
    The music drifted off down the path as the puppet turned its head to the side - even passed horizontal, since it didn’t have a neck — as if to consider Zach thoughtfully. The marionette sounded like twigs dropped in a pile as it moved all of its limbs to turn and point down the path in the direction of the music.
    “You want me to go that way?” Zach wondered. It made as much sense as anything else, though it seemed quite an odd way for anyone to help him. Why communicate through a puppet like this? “Can’t you just come down and talk with me?” Zach pleaded. Briefly, he contemplated how he knew words and speech and how to make his mouth move to produce them when a moment ago he thought the only purpose of that large opening in his face was for eating the thoroughly cooked but wildly delicious mushrooms.
    The puppeteer in the trees, if there was one after all, said nothing. The marionette just shifted, looked straight at Zachery, then turned again to point down the path. By this time the melody was so far away that Zach had a hard time making it out and he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to chase after it as his only connection to some sort of civilization. Why he wanted civilization, he didn’t yet know, but he ran down the path; maybe someone there would know him.
    Down the path he raced, following a curve here and a bend there, always chasing after that upbeat melody. When the path became unclear or there was more than one way to go, the marionette would drop down from the trees to confront him again. The first couple of times the puppet took a few moments to examine him first. Maybe Zach had it wrong, he thought. Maybe I’m the odd one out here. Maybe the world is populated by marionettes.
    As he considered that possibility, feeling even more alone, the marionette would turn again, lift up its legs, and point down another path. So Zach followed; he had nothing to do but follow. The forest grew ever larger as he continued wandering down path after path. Sometimes the marionette would send him in a circle, down paths he had already trodden, but Zachery paid it little heed. It must be part of some grand plot, he figured.
    Before too long, though it seemed like an eternity to Zach’s limited experience, he came finally to an end in the paths at another clearing. There was no village; there was no civilization or other people. No one was there to tell him who he was or what he was doing in this large forest. However, there, at the far edge of the clearing, a break in the tree cover let a sharp beam of light down into the forest to strike a large but ordinary stone. In that large but ordinary stone rested a very unordinary sword, leather and studded hilt protruding about a foot above the stone.
    The marionette joined him again just to his left, this time close enough that Zach could reach out and shake its hand, if he had felt so inclined to do something as silly as moving someone else’s hand around. Four more marionettes dropped out of the trees near the sword, and another couple pairs appeared at the right edge of the clearing and started dancing together. So, either there was a village of people hiding in the trees, running from branch to branch, odd enough never to come down but only interact through puppets on strings or, the more likely explanation, marionettes were the people and Zachery was the weird creation.
    The sword spoke to him. It begged him to take it. He walked towards the sword and all the marionettes stopped and turned to watch him. He stepped right up to the sword and with two hands grasped the hilt. Bracing one foot against the stone he pulled back and, after some effort, the sword came out of the stone. What a thing of beauty it was, shiny and sharp and about three feet long.
    He practiced with the sword, feeling the weight of it as he swung it around with two hands, then with one hand. There was a perfect balance to it; what a fine cutting machine. Yes, cutting. He whipped the sword around to land against a tree. Thwack! The sword wedged itself into the side of the tree. Zach pulled the sword free and the fresh wound in the tree dried up and scabbed over with a dark brown substance.
    That had felt amazingly good to Zachery — to have the power, yes, power over life and death. He looked up at the marionettes, a thought suddenly coming to them. Maybe they were the rightful owners of this land, but it didn’t have to be that way. With this sword, there’s no way they could stand against him.
    So he did it, slowly at first to get the hang of it. The sword sliced through the air and with a thwack and a crack half of the first marionette fell to the ground. A back slice caught the next two at the same time, reducing them to a pile of twigs. The remaining puppets surrounded him, seeking to stop him before he could continue the damage, but it made little difference to Zachery and his newfound power. The sword struck out again, seeming eager now to taste the break of wood. Zach spun, sword outstretched, and four more puppets fell to the ground.
    Only one remained now, the one who had led him to this sword in the first place. What did it think he would do with this sword once he found it? Was this destruction not the purpose of a sword? The marionette turned away, disappointed, Zach was sure. Zach ground his teeth together and swept the sword above the puppet, cutting through the strings that held it up, and another wooden marionette fell to the ground, lifeless.
    Zachery was all alone then. That was the power of the sword, wasn’t it? Destruction, death, loneliness. It was an evil beast that held a wicked power over man, to kill without mercy. The purpose of bringing him here was not to lay waste to all these beautiful puppets, but to stop the hatred and killing.
    Zach held the sword up before him, hands outstretched, blade pointing to the sky. “We will end this,” he promised the sword. Zach vowed he would find a way to break the sword.

    Metellus examined the ground by the tall tree with mushrooms growing in its roots. He was trained as a tracker and hunter from infancy; he could tell that someone was here, and recently. But most disturbing of all was a mark in the ground by that tree.
    A man had been laying there for a time, not long. There was no blood around, no sign of struggle. The man had laid there for, surely, a very short and peaceful nap. A set of footprints led away, to a path in the forest, but no footprints led here, to this little spot in the clearing. There, engraved on the ground, was the white chalk mark of the outline of a tree with a half-moon above it.
    That a man left here without coming was curious enough, Metellus thought, but this strange mark disturbed him greatly. It meant nothing in his culture, but he had seen it before, perhaps at the village library.
    “Solo!” They called him Solo because he had lost an eye in battle when he was just a teen. Solo approached. He was bald and dressed like Metellus: light but durable brown corduroy pants, slim fit but loose tunic. Comfortable, yet ready for action. “I’ve found something I want to investigate,” Metellus said. “Come with me. The rest of you—” for they were in a hunting group of six “—continue on. We’ll meet you back in the village tonight.”
    The tracks were simple enough to follow, so they went quickly. There was only one man, alone, quite sure of where he was going. He had made a couple turns, went in circles once or twice, but always moved quickly. At each turn Metellus stopped and he and Solo examined the area carefully, just to make sure they weren’t going too fast to miss anything. They looked for snapped twigs, bent grass or bush branches, overturned rocks... There was nothing to indicate anything more; just a single man in the woods.
    They continued on and before too long came to another clearing. Whereas the canopy kept the forest mostly dim, at the far end of this clearing there was a break in the trees. A beam of light cast into the clearing on a large gray boulder. At the side of the clearing stood a man holding a long sword in front of him, pointed at the sky, with a beaming smile on his face. This was the man that had appeared out of nowhere.

    As he lowered the sword, Zachery found two men standing in the clearing. So there were other men in this land! They were dressed somewhat strangely. He glanced down at himself; Zachery wore a flat black shirt and pants, but they wore different colors and different types of clothing. The shirt that went over the shirt... Zach searched his thoughts for that one. Tunic.
    “Who are you?” The first one spoke, the one with two eyes. The other stood a step behind. “Are you from around here?”
    His words sounded friendly and his mouth was upturned in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. And yet they both had a hand on the hilt of the sword they wore at their waists. It wasn’t so much threatening — they tried to be casual — but they were ever at the ready. Zach could tell they were ready for danger if danger were to arise, and surely it did often.
    “Come with us,” they implored him, and why should he not? These men would help him bring peace; they needed it more than anyone.
    They gave Zach a piece of cloth and had him tie it around his waist so he could hang his sword in the belt. These men knew when to use a sword; thankfully they also knew how to put it away. Did they want the sword? Was it a friend for them? Or a necessary evil?
    They showed him the way out of the forest, down a hill, and along a path until they came to a place with even more people. The people had built buildings all close together near a river and it appeared they spent their time moving from one building to another. A few didn’t even do anything. They sat at the entrances to the buildings and watched people go by. They had surrounded the gathering of buildings — a village; yes, that’s the name — with tall pointed sticks.
    “What’s your name?” the man asked him again as they approached the village.
    “My name?” Zachery wondered what it was they were asking him.
    “What do they call you? You must have a name.”
    Ah. That was the label he had come up with for himself. “Zachery,” he said. “I call myself Zachery.”
    “Where are you from?” Metellus asked.
    Zach shook his head. “I have no memory before the clearing.”
    Metellus turned to his companion. “Solo, go. Ask the old man at the library about the symbol we found.” Solo didn’t hesitate to follow the command. “Zachery,” he said, putting his hand on Zach’s shoulder, “my name is Metellus. You will come with me to the Training Ground.”

    The “Library” was really the home of an older man in their village. Some called him the Wisdom, though usually it was just “the old man at the library.” Whereas most of the buildings in this small hunting and fishing village were really tents that became permanent structures over the years, or at best a one-story cottage, the Library was the only two story building. Very little space was reserved for cooking, eating, or sleeping for the Wisdom, mostly just a small corner on the second floor. The rest of the area was filled to the brim with books on shelf after shelf.
    Solo came in quickly but consciously. The Wisdom himself was not exactly above the command structure, but outside it, so Solo had learned to tread carefully. The Wisdom was once a traveling salesman with a secret obsession for books. After having collected piles of books from all over the world this village offered to store them for him if he shared his knowledge and a discount on prices. Eventually he grew tired of wandering and settled down in the village, always with them but never quite one of them.
    “Wisdom? Are you there?” Solo called out. He contemplated for a moment whether the Wisdom was out and he would have to search all of these books himself. He shuddered. Surely that would take a lifetime.
    It didn’t take long for the old man to peak his head through the hole in the ceiling where the stairs descended from. “Hello? Oh! A visitor!” The head disappeared and Solo heard some scrambling across the ceiling. Before long the old man scurried down the stairs, this time feet first, and rushed up to Solo, peering at him through a monocle in his left eye. The Wisdom’s thinning white hair draped over his shoulders and he wore a light brown cloak down to the floor. “So,” the old man said in his high scratchy voice. “What do you have for me today?”
    “Metellus and I found a man in the forest today—” Solo started, to be immediately cut off by the Wisdom.
    “A man? A man, you say. Alone in the forest?” Always one to scurry, the old man scurried to the east wall, across from the door, and ran his finger across several books, until finally stopping on a thick, leather-bound volume. “Here’s one about strange appearances from across the ages. Have you heard the one about the mermaid found in the desert? Yes, very strange.”
    “I don’t have time for this,” Solo said, already exasperated.
    The old man smiled for a moment, and Solo immediately wished he hadn’t said it. He needed the Wisdom’s help, however he would give it. Then the old man let out an old cacophonous laugh. “Time? Well that certainly is an interesting concept.” The Wisdom put the book away and scurried to another place on the bookshelf. “Yes, what is life without time? Time is meaningless; we made it up. And yet, it keeps everything from happening at once.” He slipped another book down, this one clearly older, its pages made of parchment and its cover a thin pressed wood. “Time, as they say, is relative. Ha! And yet, unlike my relatives, I want more of it!”
    “Wisdom, we found a symbol in the forest, as well,” Solo said, hoping to distract the old man from yet another tangent. “It seems the man we found arrived on earth at the place we found the symbol.”
    “A symbol. A symbol, you say.” The old man scratched his dirty white beard. “A symbol in white chalk scratched in the ground?”
    “Yes. Yes! How did you know?” Solo caught himself, not wanting another tangent, and quickly went on. “The symbol was of a tree, and above the tree a crescent moon.”
    The old man stopped in thought, then disappeared up the stairs even quicker than he came. Solo stared at the opening in the ceiling for a minute, then two minutes, thinking the old man had just gone up to retrieve another book. When he didn’t return for five minutes Solo, a man of action, had assumed the Wisdom wanted to be alone and wasn’t going to help him.
    Solo walked to the door when the head popped out of the opening in the ceiling again. “You’re not going anywhere, are you?”
    “No,” Solo said, relieved that the Wisdom was still aware of him. “No, I will wait for your response right here.”
    “Great. Would you like some tea?”
    “The symbol, Wisdom.”
    “Ah, yes, your symbol of chalk. A tree and a crescent moon. One moment.” The head disappeared again and Solo waited anxiously by the door. It wasn’t for a long while, an hour maybe, before the Wisdom returned, walking somberly down the stairs this time, book open before him.
    “What is it, Wisdom?” Solo pressed. “What have you found?”
    “Not much,” he said slowly. “I had to go back very far. Even the old writings say very little. But the symbol transcends the Ages; it was meant to be remembered. There is an old set of prophecies that mention the coming of a man, the Sent One, destined to break a sword and bring peace on earth and heralded forth,” the Wisdom placed the book open in front of Solo, “by your chalk symbol of a tree watched over by a crescent moon.”
    In the book there was a clear drawing of the symbol, the same he and Metellus had seen in the woods. “That’s it. That’s what I’ve been looking for. Thank you, Wisdom!”
    “Be careful, Solo,” the Wisdom warned. “The prophecies are very clear that he was sent for peace, but unclear as to whether it was predetermined that he would achieve it. One thing, however, is very clear. He gives each one of us a choice. What will you choose, my friend? What world do you want to live in?”

    The Training Ground, it turned out, was a large open space surrounded by a few small buildings that Metellus called armories. In this place many men carried swords. Some enjoyed it. Others practiced the sword with form and seriousness. Some were skilled and sliced through the air easily. Other men were clumsy and unused to the sword.
    Zach pulled out his own sword. The moves the others were using didn’t look difficult. He moved the sword to and fro, up and down, until he looked just like the other men in the Training Ground, flying through the air with ease.
    Metellus roared with laughter. “Ho, ho! So, you know nothing about yourself, but you certainly know how to use that sword. We will be able to use you in the war.”
    “No,” Zach exclaimed. “I cannot!”
    “You have a sword and know how to use it,” Metellus said, trying to reason with him. “Whysoever would you not help a friend? Are we not friends, Zachery? Did I not find you in the forest and show you the way to civilization? Would you want me to die on the battlefield?”
    “Of course not, my friend Metellus,” Zachery said, at once concerned that he had hurt this nice man’s feelings. “But war is not the way, cannot be the way, for me. My purpose is to break this sword.”
    “Break that sword?” Metellus laughed loud enough for the other men in the Training Ground to hear him and turn to see the two. “What good would that do? Break a sword? We have many swords, and bows and arrows, as well. Will you destroy all of our weapons?”
    Zach furled his brow. Did he make a joke for this man to laugh at him so? Or did he threaten the man somehow so that he worries about defense? “No, of course not, my friend. Just this sword. I do not know what it means or what it will accomplish, but it was made for me and I for it. This sword was built to be broken and I was built to break it.”
    The mouth of this man changed from a smile to a frown. He now looked angry with Zach, and his other friends were crowding around him.
    “Am I such a threat to you?” Zach wondered.
    “What do you think?” Metellus said. He gestured to indicate the land outside the village. “The world is at war. People are fighting for their crops, their property, their families. We fight for our very lives. What if everyone were like you?”
    Zach tilted his head. That was certainly a good question. One man’s actions may not matter to the world in the great scheme of things, but what if others copied that man? What if the strange actions of one man became commonplace? For surely that is how we should act. If we want the world to be one way, then we should act that way, he thought.
    Perhaps people do not usually act like that, though. As the men here at the Training Ground crowded around him, Zachery could feel it himself. Peer pressure; the tendency to want to do what the people around him were doing, to war like they warred. How many of these man fought because they wanted to fight and how many fought because that was the world they lived in? What world do I want to live in? Zachery wondered to himself for the first time.
    “If everyone in the world stopped fighting, there would be no war,” Zach said out loud before he realized it. “If everyone broke their swords, there would be peace.”
    It was a proper answer — that is what the man asked, after all — but he did not seem to appreciate the answer to his question. Metellus gripped the hilt of his sheathed sword rather tightly, and others around him did as well, or went off as if to find a nearby weapon they could use.
    Metellus put his arm around Zach and turned him not-so-gently to face the river in the distance. “Do you see the gallows over there by the river?” Metallus asked. There was an open wooden structure, about twice the height of a man, with a blade hanging, like a thick razor, ready to fall. “That is what happens to young men in this village, and many others across the land, who are like you and choose not to help defend their fellow man against danger.”
    “What does it do?” Though he had a sword, the concept of death, like war, meant little to Zachery.
    “It cuts off their head,” Metellus said sharply, slicing at the air across his neck quickly to illustrate the point. “They cease to be. Is that the end you want for yourself, o Zachery?”
    “Of course no man would choose death, but neither do I want to kill.” Zachery looked to the others, now crowding around him and pressing in. “I implore all of you, not to make this mistake. You could kill me now, and that may satisfy your bloodlust for a time, or you may let me go. Perhaps, through peace, we will all find what we are really looking for.”
    The reply did not take long to come. “Kill him,” came the cry. Zach did not know who made it, perhaps someone in the back, but there seemed to be no disagreement as all in the crowd raised their right hand and cheered.
    The corner of Metellus’s lip furled up as he declared, “Take him to the gallows.”

    Metellus, Zachery, and the two men holding him led the mob. The other warriors, a few dozen of them altogether, followed. With swords drawn and at the ready, the warriors were practically begging Zachery to try to run. Run, and taste their steal.
    Solo ran to the head of the crowd in a hurry, having just visited the old man at the library for several hours. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon now and the twilight hour cast an orange and red glow across the land. “Metellus,” Solo called out. “Sir, I have news.”
    Metellus’ face was grim. “Can’t it wait? We want to get this over with before dark.” There was no need to explain what it was they were looking to do.
    “Sir, it is about the man and the symbol.” Metellus let Solo pull him aside. They still walked with the crowd, in front but beside it. “I talked with the old man and asked him about the symbol we saw, the one with the outline of a tree and a half-moon.”
    “And?” Metellus pressed.
    “It’s not seen often. Only in the most ancient of literature, and only hints about it, really. The old man had to scour through a dozen different volumes while I was there.”
    “What does it mean?” Metellus urged him. “Out with it man! What do you have to say?”
    “It is the symbol of the Sent One. The one meant to bring peace and prosperity.” Metellus growled and turn away, and now it was Solo’s turn to beg. “What? What is the problem?”
    “He did preach peace, but you know our laws,” Metellus explained. “It is too late now. We lead him to his death.”
    Solo looked to the river. They were taking him to the gallows. Metellus... he knew. He knew of the choice for peace; Zachery must have spoken to him. Yet still he chose war and death. But Metellus wasn’t the only one with the choice. What will I choose? he wondered.
    “May I see his sword?” Solo asked. Metellus grabbed it from one of the men holding Zach and tossed it casually to Solo. It didn’t matter to him anymore. Metellus had made his choice.
    Solo looked up, holding the sword firmly in his left hand now, took a breath, and then knocked out one of the men holding Zach with a right hook. He went down like a bag of rocks. Solo didn’t stop to think about what was happening and grabbed Zach by the arm. The others were so stunned, for a moment, that they didn’t stop him.
    “Follow me!” Solo commanded Zach as he pulled him away and began running to the river, to the gallows. In two quick steps he bounded up onto the gallows platform and stood on the edge, gazing over the raging river below.
    “What are you doing?” Zach wondered.
    Solo thrust the sword to Zach. “I’m choosing. You will break that sword. You will bring peace. I will help you. But first we must get away from here. Now, jump!”



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