by Dan Wingreen
"No," he said flatly. "Not unless one of those Gaelic gods is gonna tell us where Excalibur is."
Lee's mouth dropped in utter disbelief. "None of these things are supposed to exist anymore! No one here even knows about this kind of history, so what's it all doing here? It's a great bloody mystery! How can you not wanna solve it?"
"Very easily, actually."
Lee stared at Aidan for long moment, then shook his head sadly. "Somethin' went seriously wrong in your upbringin’."
Aidan crossed his arms. "Why? Because I'm not distracted by the first room full of shiny objects we come across? Or did you forget that there's an entire DMS army upstairs that could find that glaringly obvious hole in the ground any minute?"
"But—" Lee whined, actually whined. He grimaced, then let out the most disappointed sigh Aidan had ever heard. "Aye…" He gave the room one last look of longing, then put the cauldron down with what looked like great difficulty away and stalked out.
"You comin'?" he threw over his shoulder.
Why do I like him again?
Aidan bit back several rude things he really wanted to say and followed him out.
What they found in the next few rooms didn't do anything to keep Lee focused. They all seemed to be some kind of dumping ground for objects from the past. One was filled with ancient weapons; everything from swords to bows and arrows to the remains of large wooden machines Lee called catapults. Another had half-rotted clothing from hundreds of years ago, and probably older if the piles of fabric-ridden dust were anything to go by. A third was filled with ancient torture devices.
They left that room quickly.
Each room was harder and harder to drag Lee away from and Aidan was getting sick of having to constantly remind him of why they were there. It was like looking after an annoying, bearded child.
They'd been searching for more than half an hour; way longer than Aidan was comfortable with. Even Lee was getting anxious, barely even glancing in the Rooms of History anymore, when they came across a stone door.
A very familiar stone.
"Is that…" Aidan frowned.
"Aye." Lee nodded. "Avalon stone."
They looked at each other.
"Gotta be somethin’ important behind there," Lee said.
"Yeah," Aidan agreed. If he was at all surprised at how focused Lee seemed, he was too grateful to notice. Maybe he could finally let his sorcerer take the lead again. "But how do we get in?"
Neither one of them had an answer. They both leaned in close—being very careful not to touch the stone—and began to study it. There was no way to use magic against anything from Avalon, since it would just absorb it, but there didn't seem to be a single part of the door that wasn't made of the stone. There were no hinges that Aidan could see. There wasn't even a doorknob, just some kind of odd, latch-like mechanism carved into the stone itself. He couldn't even figure out how it would open if it was unlocked.
Aidan chewed his lip as he turned over an idea in his head. It couldn't possibly work. It was stupid to even suggest it. But still…
It's not like we have anything else.
"Um," he said. "Probably a stupid question, but what are the walls made out of?"
Lee blinked. Then, slowly, his lips stretched into a grin. "Let's find out."
Thirty seconds later they were standing in front of a perfectly rectangular gap in the average, everyday wooden wall right next to the door.
"Wow," Aidan said, drawing the word out into several syllables.
"I know, right?" Lee said with a snort. "If you ain't gonna do the whole room, why do the doors?"
"Maybe they thought no one would bother to check?"
"Maybe." Lee shrugged, then grinned at Aidan. "Good thing I hitched myself to a genius before stormin' the gates then, yeah?"
Aidan shifted awkwardly under the praise, then scowled when Lee laughed and ruffled his hair again.
At least he seems normal.
He just hoped the room wasn't another historical dumping ground.
It wasn't.
Dull gray metal boxes of varying shapes and sizes filled the room from top to bottom. Although boxes might have been the wrong word. Boxes were usually made to be opened; these seemed to be made of smooth, solid metal. He couldn't see any seams, even in the ones closest to him. They were stacked carelessly, some top-heavy and leaning over too far, the stacks surrounding it the only things keeping them from toppling over.
Exactly like he'd seen in his vision.
"It's here," Aidan whispered. Part of him itched with the urge to run into the room and start tearing the cases apart until he found Excalibur, but he was frozen in place. He'd never actually been somewhere he'd seen in a vision. The air felt thick, weighty; like he’d pulled his vision straight out of his head and made it real just by walking into the room. The feeling of being in a place for the first time and yet knowing every inch of it like he'd lived there was terrifying.
He didn't like seeing his dreams come to life.
Aidan jumped as Lee gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You all right?" he asked.
"I—" Aidan tried to look away, but found he couldn't. He had the stupid thought in his head that if he looked away every horrible creature he'd ever dreamed about would come pouring out from behind the boxes and pull him into his worst nightmares. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard, and tore his eyes away from the room before looking up at Lee. His face, thick with stubble again even though he'd shaved the morning before, was pulled into a worried frown.
He's worried about me, I'm worried about him. Neither one of us seems to care that Ex-freaking-calibur is right behind the stack of boxes there.
Aidan felt like he was missing something glaringly obvious about that.
After a moment, he nodded to Lee. "Yeah," he said, somewhat steadily. "I've just…never seen a dream right in front of me, you know?"
"Aye," Lee said, even though he'd never had a vision so there was no way he could know. It made Aidan smile. It also made him realize they were wasting time they didn't have coddling Aidan, and he was turning into the exact thing he'd been worried about since Lee had rescued him: a liability.
He turned back to the room and stood up straighter, stiffening his shoulders before walking inside, Lee following close behind. It wasn't as bad as he thought it would be after he got in. Kind of like jumping into cold water, actually. There was still a strange sense he'd done this exact thing before even though he knew he hadn't—and Aidan really wished there was a word for that—but it was easy to ignore. There were paths through the tight stacks, small and not at all like the neat grids in the halls outside, but it took him less than a minute to slip through them so that he was behind the first stack he'd seen. The path ended in a small circular clearing about four feet around, with a single, rectangular case right in the middle of it, set up like some kind of reverent display.
"There," Aidan said, pointing. "It's in that one. How do we—"
But Lee was already crouched down next to it, running his hands over the smooth metal. After a moment, he held out a finger and a stream of white-hot fire began cutting through the case.
Aidan bit back a protest, trusting that Lee knew what he was doing. At least enough not to accidentally destroy the sword. As he watched Lee carefully cut open the box, several things began to bother Aidan. Why was the box here, specifically? Not in the room, but in this clearing? If the point was to hide it where no one would ever find it, why not bury it in the middle of one of the other stacks? It wasn't exactly easy to find, but if someone knew where it was, it wouldn't take long to find it and leave with it. He would have thought somebody had been coming down here to see it, but there was the same undisturbed, thin layer of dust in the clearing that there was over the rest of the room. Obviously, nobody had been there for a long time. Why put something that was supposed to be hidden in a place where it could be relatively easily accessed and then never go and see it?
The hissing sound
of fire burning through metal stopped, and everything else vanished from Aidan's mind. With hands Aidan was surprised to see were shaking, Lee pulled off the top of the case.
Inside was a sword.
It was the exact same sword Aidan had seen in the vision, but without the lights and ghostly hands twining around it, it just looked like a normal sword. Slightly old and in need of a polish, but still just a sword. Even so, Aidan could feel the weight of history surrounding it like the dense, oppressive humidity after a summer rain; real and important in a way that none of the dusty objects Lee had been drooling over could even come close to. This sword had been involved in almost every event that had shaped the world into what it was today. It was the sword that had turned a boy into a heroic king. It was the sword that had driven the Roman legions back across the Britannic Channel. It was the sword that had killed the Great Questing Beast and forced Herne the Hunter to submit to man's dominion over the Britannic forests. It was the sword that had slain Mordred just seconds after he'd plunged his own blade through the chest of his father, and it was the sword that was going to bring Arthur back after two thousand years of being hidden away.
It was Excalibur. The Excalibur. And it was beautiful.
Even if the blade was a bit rusty.
Wait…
"Is that blood?" Aidan whispered.
"Aye," Lee said solemnly. He still hadn't made a move to touch the sword.
Aidan swallowed. "Whose is it?"
Lee turned his head and looked at Aidan with an expression that was almost sad. "Exactly who you're thinking of."
Aidan shuddered, then stared worriedly at the sword. The dried blood of the most evil magic user in the history of the world couldn't possibly be a good thing. "Is it dangerous?"
Lee shook his head. "No. Even a necromancer can't do much with just a bit of blood and no body, and nothin’ with blood this old. It ain't dangerous, just…" He looked back towards the sword and muttered something that Aidan couldn't catch. He wasn't even sure if it was in Britannic.
"Take it," Lee said, suddenly standing up and backing away from the case.
Aidan paled. "You want me to carry Excalibur."
"Aye." Lee cocked his head to the side. "Ain't like it's heavy."
Aidan shook his head. "But what if I…drop it, or something?"
Lee's lips twitched. "It's a sword, not a baby. Be kinda useless if it cracked when it got dropped."
"Shut up." Aidan shot the sword a nervous glance. Just like with the room, he had that feeling of having been in front of the sword before. It was different, though. This time he wasn't just in a place he'd seen; he was standing right in front of the object his vision had been about. There was gravity to the sword that pulled him in and wouldn't let him look away. As he watched, the ghostly image of his vision superimposed itself over Excalibur. It was almost the exact same thing that had happened to him around the campfire back at the village. Present and future, existing at the same time. Except this had the maddening vagueness of prophecy added in.
Then, as abruptly as it started, the double vision snapped out of existence and he was left looking at a sword in a box. No insubstantial hands. No furiously battling lights. Just Excalibur.
There was a sharp pain in Aidan's palms, and it was only then that he realized he'd been clenching his hands so tightly he almost broke the skin with his fingernails. He forced his fingers to relax as he stared at the sword. Like his vision, the pull that was keeping his eyes glued to it was gone, but he still couldn't look away. It was only after another minute he realized neither one of them were making a move to pick the sword up.
"Um." Aidan chewed his lip. He still had no idea what that dream meant, but he wasn't eager to touch the same place those ghostly hands had been gripping. "Why can't you carry it?"
"It ain't mine to hold."
"It isn't mine either!"
Lee shook his head. "No, it ain't. But fine, if you want a practical reason, one of us needs free hands in case we run into any agents on the way out and no matter how much practice you got at usin’ magic, only one of us has trainin’ on how to fight with it."
Aidan blinked, slightly taken aback at the blunt assessment of his magic fighting skills, before he realized that Lee was right.
"Fine, right. Okay." He brushed hair out of his eyes as he crouched down next to the sword. It seemed to stare up at him with an unsettling eagerness, like it was licking its lips in anticipation of being touched.
Just like jumping into cold water, remember? His fingers twitched nervously. Cold water, cold water, cold water, cold water.
He grabbed Excalibur and then surged to his feet.
Nothing happened. Lightning didn't split the sky. Demons didn't jump out of the walls. There wasn't even an alarm that went off.
And yet he still wanted to put it down. He had no idea why. Just a sense that he wasn't supposed to be the one holding it. Almost like the sword itself wanted to be put down. It wasn't an overwhelming urge, more like a gentle nudging telling him he wasn't the one it had been waiting for. Even with that feeling though, it suddenly hit him that he was holding Excalibur. Arthur's sword was in his hand. They'd actually done it. They'd broken into the White House and stolen the most important sword in the world.
Aidan looked up at Lee with an awed smile.
"I know, right?" Lee said, grinning back.
Aidan's knees felt weak and he gripped the hilt tighter. "W-we need to get out of here. Before I pass out, or something."
Lee laughed. "Good thing that's the easy part then. Although…" He looked around at the maze of space between all the stacks. "Gonna need you to lead us out of this."
That, Aidan had no problem with.
As they navigated the short path back to the hallway Aidan hugged the sword to his chest. Probably not the smartest way to carry a sword, but he didn't want to risk bumping it against something and breaking whatever it was that was going to wake Arthur up, no matter what Lee said. He was right about one thing though; it was going to be a lot easier to get out than it was to get in. All they needed to do was go far enough away from where they'd come in, find something to climb on, cut through the ceiling and walk out under the cover of another sudden outbreak of unexplained smoke.
Easiest thing in the world.
He wasn't looking forward to apologizing to Lee about all the things he'd said about his plan, though. And Lee would gloat, Aidan didn't doubt that for a second. He was oddly silent about it now, but Aidan would have been surprised if he wasn't already thinking about what he was going to say to needle him about being right.
At least we're both alive for—
He froze as he walked through the hole Lee had cut in the wall. The hallway that had been so completely empty before was now filled with dozens of dark suited DMS agents, spread out in a semi-circle in front of the hole. Every single one with their hands raised and pointing directly at Aidan, ready to fire.
No!
"Down!" Before Aidan was even done shouting, Lee had tackled him to the ground. He let out a pained yelp as Excalibur's cross guard dug into his chest. As they fell, Lee threw up a shield and covered Aidan with his body. They only had brief seconds before the onslaught started, just enough time to wish they had more time, to wish that he got to hear Lee gloat about his plan working perfectly, to see him smirk one last time before they died because not even one of Lee's shields could last for long against all the…
Absolutely nothing that was happening.
Aidan blinked, wondering if they'd already been killed and this was some kind of weird afterlife. Probably not, he thought, not unless the afterlife consisted of huddling under a shield while DMS agents stood around looking at them and not firing spells. A moment later, he felt Lee lift his head from where it had been buried in the back of Aidan's neck.
Before either one of them could say anything, a familiar voice spoke up from outside the shield.
"That's right, doggies." Aidan’s heart stopped. He would never forget
that voice, not if he lived to be a hundred years old. It was the cop from the night he'd first met Lee. Barnes, his mind supplied, even though he would have been perfectly happy never remembering that name. Or that face. Although, for all it was burned onto his brain—all of that night was actually, as clear as if it was just another capital D Dream—he almost didn't recognize Barnes at first when he finally spotted him standing at the front of the mass of agents. Instead of the gray and white uniform of a police officer, he was wearing a dark green t-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. But even out of uniform certain features were utterly unmistakable. The cruel tilt to his lips; the flat, crooked nose and the rough face that exuded danger; the way his eyes seemed to glow with inner malice as he stared at his victim; eyes that, this time, locked on Lee instead of Aidan. "Stay."
Aidan was rooted to the spot; he couldn't have moved even if Lee wasn't on top of him. What in all the ancient hells was Barnes of all people doing here? A thought struck him like a deathbolt to the chest. Was Barnes the hunter Lee had been worried about?
"Now, now, Officer Barnes, we should have more manners than that. These gentlemen traveled such a very long way to be here with us today, the least we can do is extend our invitation to stay with a little more politeness, don't you think?"
The new voice was soft and flat, with some kind of southern accent Aidan couldn’t place. Aidan looked to the right of the group of agents where the voice had come from, his eyes widening as he saw Beer Gut standing off to the side with his arms crossed above his stomach, his uniform perfectly pressed and immaculately clean. For a moment, Aidan thought he was the one who had spoken, even though the voice had sounded nothing like the cool, arrogant drawl he remembered. It took him a moment to realize there was another man standing next to Beer Gut.
He was an easy man to overlook, even if he should have stood out in a sea of DMS agents all wearing the same ubiquitous dark suit. Next to the barely concealed sadism of Barnes or the immaculate, handsome disdain of Beer Gut, he was practically invisible. He looked like he was only a few inches taller than Aidan, with dark hair that was slowly losing the war against baldness and a tanned face with lines around the eyes and mouth that looked deeper than they probably were in the shadows of the light he was standing under. Aidan couldn't tell what kind of build he had under the thick, dark, slightly loose, nondescript long sleeve shirt he was wearing, but there was something about the way he held himself that made Aidan doubt he was soft or lazy. Something familiar…