The Bright Sword

by Lev Grossman

So he’d buried the Old World along with the child he’d been and built King Arthur on the gravesite. But what is buried is not gone.

“We took him fair and square!” “Two knights against one,” Palomides said, “is neither fair nor square. It is at best triangular.”

There was something utterly honest about a person in a fight. You could lie with words, but swords, like angels, could only speak the truth. In the face of death you could only be who you were.

A lot of heroes hate themselves, it’s why they work so hard to make everybody love them.”

I’m the greatest enchantress of this age. I have a thousand fairy knights at my command and the blood of High Queen Igraine in my veins. You came here looking for someone to fill the throne of Britain, and keep it filled, and you’ve found her. I’m your sword, and I’m your stone.”

He would have lovers, and a hundred brothers, and he would be happy, because at long last he’d done what he always dreamed of doing. He’d turned into what he already was.

There was a way forward now, and it was the way back, the old way: grails, spirits, quests, angels. The Old World was shattered but all the pieces had been saved, and it was only a matter of gathering them back up and sticking them back together.

The worst disasters come dressed as miracles.

Because he was starved for love Arthur thought Mordred should be glutted with it, stuffed like a goose, but there’s such a thing as overcorrection.

What a thing it was to be married to a king, to be the only other person who knew his secret, though it lay right out in the open, every day, for all to see, which was that he was just a man and nothing more.

She loved him more than he loved himself. And was that not the point of a marriage, to love a person more than they can love themselves?

A quest is hero’s work, hero’s business, and that’s just not quite you lot, is it? You’re the other ones, the sidekicks, the spear carriers.

He had no more blame for himself. He forgave himself for not forgiving.

Scipio was a pure creature of empire, the quintessence of the Roman military machine. He ate barbarians, with pepper and fish sauce, and shat law and order.

“Our love was not simple, but it was real. That’s what no one understands. Our story was not a romance, it was a marriage.” “Why does it matter what the stories say?” Nimue asked. “Because it is galling!” Guinevere snapped. “That’s why!”

Maybe terrible things would happen in the future, maybe it was empty, a waste land. But there could be seeds buried there, too, deep down below the dry dust, where hidden springs still flowed. It was deep winter, but there was still hope for renewal. The grail could be found. A new king could rise. The land could live again.