The Eighth Excalibur

by Luke Mitchell

  Nate stared through the wall, too tired to take the bait, too afraid to turn back to the more pressing question of why Ex was suddenly throwing in the towel. Ex could hear the thought anyway, he knew, but neither of them spoke.

  They didn’t have more than a few minutes of awkward silence to share before the hull hissed open and the gorgon Knight returned, hovering through the hazy green energy barrier on invisible wings—

  Gravitonics, Ex provided.

  —her copper armor coated with a thick layer of fresh scuffs, scorch marks, and more than a little dark troglodan blood. A good sign?

  “Please,” he called, as she turned for the open hatchway on the far side of the bay. “Please tell me what’s going on out there.”

  She slowed, hesitating, then turned to approach the cell, helmet peeling away to reveal her phosphorescent stare. “I am honing in on the Beacon, that this mess might be brought to an end.”

  “Let me help!” Nate blurted, before he could rein himself in. “I… have to do something,” he added, his voice hollow in his ears as memories of terrified faces swam to the surface, the screams echoing in his head. “Let me help them,” he said softly. “Let me out of here, and I’ll—I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll give you the Excalibur, whatever that means. Just let me help my people. Please.”

  “Help,” she echoed, hair tendrils swirling as if they were buffering the meaning of the word. “What you should have done was quell the Beacon in a secure location before it could come to this.”

  “I tried. I was trying, dammit. I just… I need one more chance.”

  He hated how childish he sounded. But the gorgon Knight barely seemed to notice, lost as she was in thoughts of her own. Ignorant as he was of gorgon body language, he got the impression something was troubling her. Something amiss with this invasion, maybe. Or maybe it was just him, the faulty runt Knight, who had her confounded.

  “The Merlin,” he said, thinking of the first thing she’d asked him upon his capture. Thinking of the catastrophe below, and of the fear in Marty’s voice, and the terrible crunching sound that had severed their connection. Reaching for his last chance.

  “The Merlin wanted me to get the Beacon out of here. He wanted me to do this.”

  That earned him a flat stare, at least.

  “If you serve the Merlin,” Nate pressed on, not sure what else to do, “if you serve the Lady… Give me one more chance. Let me make this right. Help me make this right.”

  She held him on the end of that electric blue stare entirely too long, her expression inscrutable, cold and alien, until her swirling hair tendrils finally came to some decision of their own and cut through the air in a crisp, definitive gesture.

  “No,” she said. “You are not fit to enter the battlefield with such power when you lack the will and discipline to control it. Until the Beacon is secure—until your failure can be rectified, the Merlin located, and your worthiness properly assessed—you will stay here, where you can cause no more trouble.”

  He tried to think of something to say to that—something to show her that she was wrong about him. That he could help. That he’d been hand-chosen by the Lady, goddammit, and didn’t that mean something? But all he could do was stare back, too bone weary and defeated to find words, too desperately aching with fear for Gwen, and Marty, and the rest of the ten thousand souls burning in the streets of his mind’s eye.

  Maybe she was right.

  “I will secure the Beacon, human,” she said, turning to leave. “I will see to it the old treaties are honored. After that… the Merlin will decide what is to be done with you.”

  “And if he decides you’re right, and I’m not worthy after all?” Nate heard himself ask, somewhere far away.

  She glanced back at him, her serpentine hair sampled the air in calm, mesmerizing waves. “Then the Excalibur will be reclaimed, human, and your fight will truly be at an end.”

  33

  Finders Keepers

  It had been centuries since the Merlin had been well and truly angry about anything. Longer, probably. Truth be told, he wasn’t rightly sure he even remembered the meaning of the word. Not through the same contextual lens by which the average mortal experienced it, at least.

  If the Merlin had been angry about anything in the past thousand years, though, it was almost certainly the sight of the troglodan-occupied Earth that greeted him as the newly repaired Crimson Tide dropped out of crusher space.

  He knew it was no accident he could conveniently see the full scope of the ongoing invasion from within his isolated prison in the belly of the Crimson Tide. He saw because Groshna wanted him to see. The big brute was no doubt watching too, most likely thinking fondly of the Merlin’s strife whilst he fondled the trophy skull of some fallen foe or copulated with his shipboard harem in anticipation of the bloody delights to come.

  There’d be no shortage of such delights planetside, by the look of things.

  The boy had failed. That much was obvious by the smoky semaphores the beset Earth cast to the heavens, where, if anyone ever had been listening, they’d long since abandoned their post.

  The boy had failed, and no surprises there. Not even a little bit. The boy had been a piss poor choice from the start, after all, and the Merlin’s effervescently fickle goddess of a companion had damn well known it. He would never understand what it was she was trying to accomplish with these seemingly random acts of willful irresponsibility. But then, it wasn’t his place to understand. The Lady did work in mysterious ways.

  So too had the Lord, apparently, ever since the Merlin had started murmuring the phrase in taverns a blurry handful of centuries ago, and the sentiment had caught on.

  Whatever her Radiant Grace was getting at this time, though, he sure hoped she was happy as the Dread Knight came over the ship speakers to order the charge, sounding thoroughly satisfied by whatever pre-slaughter recreation he’d indulged in, and the Crimson Tide surged forward, bound straight for hell on Earth.

  Bound for the one who’d crafted this impossible cell?

  A rare shudder passed through his insides at the thought of coming face to face with Groshna’s new master. Perhaps even a trickle of fear, if it could be called that. It was only when the troglodan Knight stomped into the brig a few minutes later, subtle and subdued as an igniting star forge, that the Merlin was able to set aside the image of the awful black helm that’d haunted his nightmares for millennia.

  “Your runt Knight is dead, wizard,” Groshna spat before the Merlin had even bothered to open his eyes. “My warriors were waiting groundside with the news the moment we arrived.”

  The Merlin peeled open his tired eyelids and considered the crimson-armored barbarian, and the holo image he was holding out for the Merlin to see. A young man, lanky and dark haired, and definitely dead. Beyond that, it was hard to say much, given how badly the face had been damaged, but the Merlin was certain, albeit on an instinctive level, that it couldn’t be Nathaniel Arturi.

  He didn’t bother pointing out that the groundside troglodans had almost certainly slain the wrong human—or thousands of them, rather, by the look of it—or that, even if they had found the right one, a brute like Groshna never could’ve dreamed of repurposing a stolen Excalibur anyway. Not without the willing aid of the Lady. Even Ser Zedavian—First Knight and relatively ancient fountain of power and ass-kissing prowess—would’ve struggled to manifest such control.

  Groshna’s new master, on the other hand…

  “Iveera Katanaga will join him in death presently,” the troglodan rumbled, apparently impatient with the lack of response. “Provided she does not wish to rethink her position and join me.”

  The Merlin focused back on Groshna and saw that the holo had changed to a close-up image of what appeared to be a smashed earpiece. A miniaturized quantcomm node, perhaps? Impossible to tell from an image, but it seemed a fair guess, given the hungry expression in Groshna’s beady eyes.

  The Merlin smiled a bitter smile at the troglo
dan’s boundless arrogance. “Join him, you mean?”

  Groshna bristled, drawing up to his full impressive height. “I will crush her into submission myself if she does not see reason. One way or another, the gorgon will be mine.”

  “Hmm,” the Merlin said, resting his head back against the cell wall and closing his weary eyes. “I wonder how she’ll feel about that.”

  He heard Groshna’s snarl. Felt the gravitation of the massive troglodan cocking a longing fist back to strike. Sadly, though, the brute managed to rein in his primal rage before he could lash out and accidentally crack the Merlin’s infernal cage. Even starved and exhausted as he was from weeks of imprisonment, once freed, the Merlin could’ve broken the Dread Knight like a cartoonishly oversized pimple. And Groshna knew it, somewhere beneath his bloodlust and delusional arrogance.

  “Together, we will crush all that you have built,” the Dread Knight rumbled, backing away from the cell as his crimson helm unfolded into place from e-dim. “And you, wizard… You will sit here and watch it burn, beginning with this pathetic world of yours.” He paused at the brig threshold, his bulk filling the entire open hatchway as he glanced back. “I will bring you your precious gorgon’s head, should she refuse.”

  The Merlin watched the troglodan go, cursing his own lazy hubris in having ever wandered into this trap, and indulging in a brief silent prayer that, wherever they were, Nathaniel Arturi and Iveera Katanaga were ready to have the forsaken heavens invert upon them in a rain of crimson hellfire.

  34

  Cracked

  Of all the ways Nate might’ve been unfit to wear the mantle of Excalibur Knight, he wasn’t sure he needed to look any further than his increasingly desperate thirst. It was a shameful thing, that he could actually worry about anything so selfish when the world was quite literally burning somewhere below, and when his friends were gods knew where, going through any number of hells on Earth. Still going, he told himself. Still going, Lady have mercy. And here he was, wishing to hell and back he could just have a glass of water.

  Shameful wasn’t a strong enough word.

  As the hours stretched, though, the thirst became all-consuming. Twice more, the gorgon Knight came into the bay to drop groundside. Twice more, she ignored Nate’s insistent cries to let him help, to let him know what was going on down there, to at least let him have a goddamn drink, he croaked, as she returned from her latest drop, covered in dark blood and even darker scorch marks.

  “Humans die without food and water, you know,” he called after her through the cracked sand desert of his throat. “Just in case you didn’t read that in the pet manual!”

  But she was already gone, serpentine hair swirling in erratic farewell.

  Jin.

  What?

  A gorgon’s cranial appendages. They’re referred to as jin.

  Nate frowned, entirely too thirsty for this bullshit. And you’re telling me this now because…?

  Because it is not hair, Nathaniel, as you might’ve recalled had you been paying any attention to my lessons these past weeks, and because you have been too emotionally combustible at every other possible instance in which I might’ve reminded you—which, as you might ALSO recall, is a highly embarrassing character flaw in gorgon culture.

  Nate stared blankly.

  That said, I do believe it’s possible our colleague has overlooked the fact that this cell prevents me from nourishing you.

  Nourishing me? Nate wondered, too tired and taken aback to be properly angry, and mostly glad he didn’t actually have to form the words on his parched tongue.

  I currently possess enough nutrients in my e-dim stores to keep your body well-maintained for at least seven days, given your average expenditure. Under normal dimensional conditions, I could administer them as needed.

  Good bits, Nate thought, not really sure he wanted to know how such a thing was actually possible in practice.

  Boring, insufferable bits, the Excalibur countered, as if Nate should’ve long ago recognized the primitive barbarism of requiring food and instead adapted to function on solar power, or something equally elegant.

  Solar power? Elegant? That is an exceedingly four-dimensional way of thinking, Nathaniel.

  Well then I guess you should leave the four-dimensional thinking to me while we’re stuck in this cell, if I’m so good at it.

  If he hadn’t known better, Nate might’ve thought he’d actually stumped the Excalibur with that one. He almost felt a tad victorious, right up until the deck beneath his left hand collapsed so abruptly that his fingers fell through… and dipped into cool water.

  Thirst clawed at his brain like a desperate animal. He’d snatched the oblong crystalline cup up from the shallow compartment and glugged down half of its crisp, cool contents before it even occurred to him to wonder where it had come from, and whether it could be dangerous, accepting a drink from the alien spaceship. He eyed the clear liquid and decided he was already screwed at that point anyway. A few hungry glugs later, he settled back against the wall with a satisfied sigh, mental faculties slowly returning.

  He wasn’t dead yet. That was something.

  He eyed the crystalline cup. It wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d had a minute ago. The material felt stronger than normal glass, but he doubted he’d have trouble shattering it with six hard surfaces and nothing but time at his disposal. Shatter the cup, and then what? Whittle through the dimension-shifting wall with the pieces? Threaten to cause bodily harm to himself, the prisoner who was already a strong candidate for imminent reclaiming?

  Heart sinking, he placed the cup back in the square space beneath the deck panel and watched with dim curiosity as the deck panel shifted itself closed once again.

  “Cute,” he muttered to no one in particular, as if the snippet of casual nonchalance could somehow make up for his continued uselessness, or the mouth-frothing loss of control he’d just displayed at the mercy of his thirst.

  Whatever. So maybe he was a weak thirsty human—the kind who had reasonable doubts when a drunk old wizard told him it was all on him to go and save the world. The kind who felt fear when a giant alien monster shoved a pulse cannon in his face. They could’ve taken everything Nate ever was, had been, or could be—given him years of training, and every fancy alien weapon in the galaxy—and maybe none of it would’ve mattered. Because maybe he would’ve come up horribly short anyway.

  Maybe he simply wasn’t the man they needed, and that was just the way it was. Maybe the Lady and the Merlin, in their infinite wisdom, should’ve done their freaking homework and just picked someone else.

  That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? he wondered. He could feel Ex hovering there at the edge of his thoughts, just waiting for the hammer to fall. That I’ve never been worthy? That she’s right to keep me trapped in here like a carpet-shitting snargladorf while she cleans up my mess?

  Ex didn’t verbalize his agreement. He didn’t need to. There was simply no escaping it anymore. Nate had failed, and people were dying down there.

  You tried your best, Nathaniel.

  Nate stirred, scowling at the opposite wall. His best? He’d tried his best?

  It was simply too much to ask of you.

  Enough with this bullshit! Nate snapped, suddenly more angry than he knew what to do with. Where are the insults? He clawed his way to his feet. Where’s all the puny hobbit bullshit?

  “Why are you acting like this?!” he shouted out loud, without meaning to.

  The empty loading bay didn’t answer. Nor, for a time, did the Excalibur.

  You really have given up on me, haven’t you?

  The situation appears to be under control, Ex finally said, as if that was supposed to somehow answer the question. No thanks to us, I might add.

  And so you’re just gonna let them take you back? Let them kill me?

  I do not possess the power to stop them, Nathaniel. Not on my own.

  “Then help me!” he cried, slamming a fist to the cell wall. �
�Tell me how to do this! Tell me how to—”

  He faltered, fist flattening against the wall, shoulders sagging, utterly defeated by whatever he was trying to demand.

  Tell him how to what? How to fix this? How to bring back a small city’s worth of innocent lives?

  How to bring back his friends?

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Ex?” His voice was a broken whisper, his eyes wet with gathering tears. He didn’t bother hiding them. Didn’t care who might be watching him from afar. He couldn’t unsee that burning New York street. “Why didn’t you tell me it was going to be like this?”

  I tried, little hobbit.

  “You told me to be worthy. You stood by and let me waste my time with”—he gestured disgustedly at one useless biceps—“With this! You let me binge on stupid fucking action movies. You told me to pick up the goddamn hammer, like this was one of them.”

  I told you what I thought you needed to h—

  “YOU DIDN’T TELL ME!” The force of the scream left his throat raw, and his head ringing with the sound of Marty’s last words and the image of Gwen’s wide eyes, flickering in flames. He waited, tense, ready for those flames to spill over with Ex’s retaliation, ready to scream right back—to scream until he couldn’t. But Ex only hovered at the edge of his mind, not attacking, not even retreating. Silence stretched, bleak and empty. So goddamn empty.

  “Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this, Ex?”

  His voice was small. The Excalibur’s was startlingly similar when he finally spoke.

  I didn’t know how, Nathaniel. Some revelations must be experienced. Sometimes words alone cannot suffice.

  Nate stared at the greenery outside the cell with unseeing eyes, only half-processing Ex’s words, waiting to see if his companion would say whatever else was clearly on his mechanical mind. His own immutable question surfaced first.