Three Kings

by George R. R. Martin

  ‘Where the hell are those shots coming from?’ Turing asked. His normal calm demeanour was gone, replaced by barely concealed panic.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bobbin said. ‘Constance, are you all right?’

  ‘I am,’ she replied. She got to her knees and peered through the car window. The vista was one of pandemonium. What had been a peaceful protest had turned into something bloody and violent.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Turing said.

  ‘We can’t,’ Bobbin said flatly. She’d never heard him speak quite that way before. ‘We can’t leave. It’s my fault they’re here in the first place.’

  ‘Arthur, don’t be a martyr. We need you alive.’

  ‘That’s enough, Turing!’ Constance snapped. ‘If Bobbin wants to stay, then stay we will.’

  There was a pop and Noel appeared. He was pale as milk and there was the coppery smell of blood on him.

  ‘Jesus Christ! We need to get pressure on that.’ Turing was staring at the sluggishly bleeding wound.

  Noel had landed and fallen over and Constance and Arthur had dragged him fully into cover behind the car.

  Constance pulled a pair of scissors from her purse and cut out a panel of her coat. Quickly folding it, she pressed it against the bullet wound. Noel groaned as Turing secured it with Noel’s belt.

  ‘We have to get you out of here,’ he mumbled and wondered why everything sounded so far away. A hot poker seemed to be driving through his thigh. ‘Can’t carry you all. Too weak. One at a time. Maybe.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Constance snapped. ‘Get yourself to hospital.’

  ‘The only person who matters is Arthur. Get him out of here,’ Turing ordered.

  ‘No,’ Arthur said. His eyes were on Constance. ‘I’m not leaving.’

  ‘Finder, Seizer, and Maven are still out there. You’re in danger,’ Turing argued. ‘You must go.’

  ‘Killed Maven. Just two to go. But yeah, got to go … before I faint,’ Noel muttered.

  Arthur leaned over him, his expression intense. He opened his hand to reveal a flattened .338 Magnum round, then gestured at the hole in his coat and shirt.

  ‘Shit. Connie made you bulletproof,’ Noel murmured as darkness closed in. He vaguely felt his bones beginning to shift as he slid towards unconsciousness.

  All about Roger was chaos. After the gunshots people had started to panic, and any slim control the police and the Silver Helix had was lost. The anti-joker mob surged forward, slamming into riot shields and a now giant-sized Jiniri, battling to get through to where Arthur was crouched next to a parked Mercedes.

  Constance was no longer keeping her distance, and stuck to Arthur’s side protectively, while Turing watched everything with the expression of a man horrified but unsurprised by what he saw.

  And then, to the left, Roger saw a familiar figure rushing towards them: Seizer.

  ‘I am the true king!’ he shouted, his booming voice just audible against the cacophony. His bulging eyes were fixed on Arthur, and full of hate. As the old knave pushed forward, he pressed a hand against the neck of a man in his path. The man screamed as his flesh split, blood spraying from the wound. The crowd parted a second later, scrambling back to avoid suffering the same fate.

  ‘Yes,’ said Seizer, stepping over the body, ‘prostrate yourself before your betters.’ His gaze quickly snapped back to Arthur as he took out a grenade from his pocket and pulled the pin. ‘Death to the imposter! Long live King Seizer!’

  The grenade flew from his hand and Roger watched it, frozen. At first it looked as if Seizer had misjudged the distance, the grenade dropping well short of its target. But then it bounced, and rolled, coming to a stop under the car about two feet from them.

  Arthur. Constance. Turing. My people!

  Roger didn’t think any more about his king or the many individuals that would be killed or injured. He didn’t think about his own life or wonder about his family. Before he had time to think anything, he had flipped the car out of the way and dived forward, smothering the grenade with his wooden body.

  This wasn’t how he’d planned to go, but then, when had life ever gone to plan?

  I suppose I should try and appreciate the iro—

  The grenade went off.

  How had Badb ended up back in her own body? There was nothing for her here but the distraction of pain, slapping against Seizer’s shoulder as he broke into a run. A fist of noise pummelled her senses. Screams. The cloying odour of terror on a mass scale as thousands of people clawed for a way out that didn’t exist.

  But then, there was a grenade tumbling so slowly through the air. A magical thing; an invitation; a holy seed, bouncing from the kerb to roll along the street.

  Badb’s sluggish pulse began to quicken. The land trembled, for it knew this moment. It called forth a hero and a hero had appeared. The Green Man. He threw his huge body on top of the grenade, cracking the tarmac with his elbows and knees.

  Why had she never seen it in him? So much glory! She had always thought him too old. Too practical. He shuddered. The wood of his back fractured and his massive body lifted a foot off the ground.

  Usually, a hero’s death transformed Badb immediately. She became young and beautiful, with strength the match of any ace and appetites far greater still. But this time was different. Never before had she waited so long to feast. The power had been building, each day’s delay winding the spring tighter and tighter.

  Nor had she ever absorbed the life of a hero like the Green Man: one of the great figures of this age, revered by millions, by the most desperate, the earnest, from every corner of the world …

  For three breaths, all was still. And then she felt … she felt everything.

  Bits of pavement and splinters of wood rained down on them.

  A piece landed at Noel’s side, a section of a face, the edges of the wood rimmed with viscous blood. Roger. Rage bubbled deep in Noel’s chest and it seemed to burn away the pain from his injuries. He laid a hand over the broken skull, a benediction from one ethically and morally broken man to another. They had each tried to serve in their own way and their ways had often brought death.

  ‘Well, no reason to repent now,’ Noel murmured.

  Using Turing’s shoulder, Noel began to lever himself to his feet.

  And then a scream ripped open the sky.

  A great man was gone and gone forever. A beautiful soul, whose like would never walk this earth again. The pain! Oh, it was too large for even a goddess to contain. Hers was the voice of the land, the voice of the people. Her tears were theirs and she was the embodiment of every broken heart and murdered hope.

  And so she screamed.

  Buildings shattered along the street, windows were pulverized. One massive castle tower at the bend on Thames Street slid down on top of a thousand helpless marchers below. Animals fled or burrowed desperately into the soil of the park, and every bird for miles around abandoned the skies.

  Except for the crows.

  They blotted out the sun with their numbers, wings buoyed by the screech of their mistress. And when it was over, down they came, like twenty thousand arrows shot from the heavens, lethal beaks aimed at the unworthy horde for whom the Green Man had given his life.

  Things felt as if they were moving very slowly. Noel was sprawled on the ground with Turing beside him. Green Man – Roger – so many new names now – was dead. Bits of him were strewn around. The hot, acrid smell of blood mingled with smoke, fear, and sweat.

  Floating above them, circled by a murder of crows, was what could only be described as a goddess. She was beautiful, with an incandescent light surrounding her.

  Constance got to her feet and glared at the creature. Bobbin wasn’t far behind.

  ‘Get down,’ Turing hissed.

  ‘Do piss off, Turing,’ Constance said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

  Constance glanced at Bobbin and saw him nod. It took only a moment, and then she released her shears. Her special
shears. She slipped them out of their sheath in her trouser pocket. The cold steel slid into her hand and she turned it so the handles were facing Arthur. He took them from her and put them into his jacket pocket. His hands were trembling.

  ‘Stay here,’ he whispered.

  ‘No!’ She couldn’t let him go alone.

  ‘Constance, please. I can’t do this if I’m frightened for you. I’ve only got one chance.’ He was shaking. ‘I’m scared and I can’t go if I’m worried about you, too.’

  She looked over and saw the woman throwing bodies through the air. Her laugh was sweet and terrible and Constance was terrified down to her core.

  ‘You did this,’ he said. ‘You saved me so I can do this thing. So I can stop this. Stop her.’

  ‘She could rip your head off!’

  ‘Maybe, but I must try. Don’t you see? These are my people. This is for all the people. Everyone. I’m no good if I can’t act to save them.’

  A moan of resignation and horror came from deep inside Constance. ‘Go!’ It made her sick to say it.

  His hand brushed her cheek as he went past her and made his way around the car. Despite her care, he was still a little unsteady on his feet. She began to tremble as he made his way towards the woman. That bitch, Constance thought.

  How glorious, the chaos, the clash and the challenge. They were all coming for her, the Silver Helix and their tame police.

  She flashed into the eyes of one crow and then another. The dizzying fall from the sky. Terrified faces of adults and children looking up. The delirious impact of beak into flesh. There were gunshots. Shouts. Trampling feet and piteous cries; sirens; distant alarms; the crackle of flames and even bombs going off now as cowardly men pressed buttons from far away.

  And here came the first of the aces. The Stonemaiden slipping between panicked knots of people. ‘You’re so pretty!’ cried the goddess. ‘So, so pretty!’

  She picked up the nearest object – Seizer, as it happened.

  ‘I am your king,’ he screeched. ‘I am your true—’

  He weighed nothing to her, nothing at all, and flew through the air with barely an opportunity to scream. His body made mince of a joker family, bounced off the street and still had enough momentum to send the Maiden spinning back into the unyielding wall of a pub.

  The goddess laughed, she whirled. Oh, for a kiss! Billy Little, how she missed him! And now, she was sobbing.

  But her tears turned to fury.

  By the shattered castle walls, a giant woman roared in challenge. Jiniri, of course. She couldn’t move without stamping on the swarm of civilians around her legs, but her massive hands clawed great fistfuls of crows out of the sky.

  ‘Murderer!’ cried Badb. ‘Monster!’

  She ran.

  Never in her life had she been so fast. So powerful. The world was a blur around her. People shattered as she sprinted right through them. Now Jiniri, finally realizing her danger, tried to trample her.

  Badb leapt onto the leg, laughing for the joy of it. She used the giant’s silk skirt as a rope, swinging herself away from clumsy fists and around the back to where a luxuriant rope of hair led the way upwards.

  ‘No!’ cried the giant. Her head alone was three foot tall, her mouth large enough to snap the goddess in half, but nowhere near fast enough, and when Badb pulled free her left eyeball – as large as a fist, a whole fist! – her screams were magnificent too.

  ‘For you, my children!’ cried the goddess. ‘My loves!’ She cast the brown orb high, high into the heavens, where a curtain of ravenous crows closed around it, so that barely a scrap of jelly made it to the ground.

  Was it just yesterday that Alan had been desperately scrounging for every bit of data he could, sure he would understand everything if he just knew enough? He had forgotten what it was to be on a battlefield. There were too many distinct moments to track, each one of critical importance. A little girl wailing that her ice cream had been knocked out of her hand – get out of the damned street, child! Some thug fifty yards away dragging a tyre off a car, throwing it around a trapped joker’s neck, and setting it on fire. A horse – why were there always fucking horses in the middle of the worst nightmares? – stampeding its way down the street. No, not a horse, a joker of some kind, a centaur, though with his human body so diminished that it took a second to parse it all.

  Too much data coming in too quickly, and precious little Alan could do with it. Just stay out of the way, try not to make things harder for everyone else.

  They’d stopped the bleeding on Noel’s thigh, at least. Alan had been able to help with that, the swift action distracting from the pounding of his heart. Noel was a bastard these days, but Alan had made him one, hadn’t he? It hadn’t been a grown man under Alan’s panicked fingers, it was the child they’d taken and trained, and he would. Not. Lose. Him.

  Noel would survive, Alan was almost sure, but all around him people were dying. The city was falling apart, buildings collapsing. All of it exploding into light and glory when a gorgeous female figure lit up the sky – for a moment, you could hear the people holding their breath, hoping that this would be the end of it, that their salvation had come. But then the crows began their manic dives, and the woman – the ace – began to laugh, a high, mad sound that promised nothing but pain.

  Even Jiniri couldn’t stop the goddess. Jiniri strode so gloriously through the city, ready to do combat for the soul of her adopted England. For a moment, Alan dared to hope. And then the goddess reached out and almost delicately, but definitively, gouged out Jiniri’s eye. The giant woman screamed, falling to her knees, and the earth shook. Despair choked Alan, and he found himself beating his thighs with his balled fists. Helpless, helpless, helpless. Alan was no use to anyone, and should probably have died a long time ago. Maybe if he hadn’t interfered, none of this would have come to pass.

  The sea of chaos parted for Bobbin and left open a straight path to the murderous figure. As he reached the halfway point, the psychotic ace focused on him.

  Oh God, Bobbin, Constance thought. I’ve done the best I could to keep you safe. What if it’s not enough?

  Sometimes the universe slowed down. That was how it felt, when the calculations came together, tumblers clicking in a lock, water falling down a cascade, information finding its perfect path through the Minotaur’s maze – a thread, a rope to drag you out. The lift of an arm, the light glinting off the barrel of a gun, and Turing threw himself to the side, an awkward, graceless motion, but just enough to put himself in the path of the bullet. It slammed into his shoulder and oh, gods, that hurt! But his body took the impact, hardening as it had before, stopping the bullet before it pierced silver-metal skin.

  Alan was never quite sure that it would continue to work; each time he walked into battle, he did so hoping only that his card might continue to protect him. And with his brain failing lately, he’d been even less sure, but it turned out that he didn’t really need to think about this, didn’t need to decide anything. He just needed one small good thing to come out of this day, something he had done, one tiny step towards redemption; and here it was, the gods answering his call. Where, in a rational universe, was there space for gods? Alan didn’t know, but they surely walked among them today.

  The Seamstress didn’t even know he’d saved her life: she had turned the other way, reaching for her Bobbin. It was better that way. One small good thing.

  Badb had never been stronger or faster. Never more beautiful or terrible.

  She picked up a car, sent it hurtling into a crowd of advancing policemen. Oh! In their crushed flesh she spied the shape of a red stallion. How lovely! Another car, another splash of gore, the colours glistening and magical and sweet. The first line of a poem occurred to her right then, every word falling perfectly into place. Ó Rathaillaigh could not have bettered it had he risen then and there from the grave … She looked around, but he didn’t dare confront her and she laughed and laughed.

  Then, for several minutes, the go
ddess lost herself in the simple pleasures of emotion, killing all around her from anger or joy or even a love so pure it could not bear to share these people with the world. Everywhere crows ripped at the crowd. Bodies were stampeded. Britain First sympathizers fought with jokers and police. Bombs turned shops full of royal tat into rosettes of pure fire. She had arranged it all, masterminded it even. And the only thing she had to do to finish it off was to …

  And there he was! Somehow untouched by it all. Arthur. King Arthur. His fall would end the game, end this entire country. The old man walked unharmed, as though he were immune to beak and bullet and bomb. He shuffled towards her, all trepidation. He had a sweet old face. It reminded her of her dear father before she’d had him killed. She felt tears at the corners of her eyes. Oh, she missed her dadaí! Oh, she did!

  Arthur grimaced, paused like a gentleman to allow a crow-covered joker to run past. He looked up, met her holy gaze, lowered his, and came on. Did he believe his death would end all of this? Perhaps. He had such a gentleness about him. Such dignity. A beautiful, beautiful man. And finally, he stood before the goddess and opened his trembling arms.

  ‘I have to do this,’ he said, giving himself over completely. He was empty-handed. Weaponless.

  She wrapped her arms around him as carefully as she could. She would snap him in half so quickly he wouldn’t suffer. But first, for the briefest of moments, she wanted to feel his grizzled face against hers. Oh, the scent! Old man’s clothing. Old man’s soap. Her heart flew all the way back to Donegal where Majestic Errigal stood proud over the glittering bog and the wind set a thousand cotton plants to nodding and the taste of the sea infused every breath with—

  Pain! How could there be pain and she so young?

  She dropped him, staggering back, clawing at her own neck. What was wrong? Whose was this gushing blood? Not hers! How could it be hers? And yet, it flowed out of her own throat.

  She was on her knees in a gore-spattered street as crows turned from the crowd to tear at each other. Her eyes were blinking up at the heavens. Where? How? Who am I now? What am …