by Peter David
He senses his headlong whirl through the funnel of water slowly, just enough for him to get his bearings. He speaks but no words emerge, and yet he hears his own voice. Nimue!
Of course.
Where is Merlin?
He cannot help you, she says with both a touch of sorrow and a touch of triumph…emotions flowing in opposition to each other. He is mine, now, promised only to me.
I don’t believe you! What is he, besotted by some sort of love spell—?
Interestingly…yes…although it’s not what you think. In any event, it matters not. He is pledged to me in exchange for my helping you. She adds with a sense of amusement, Or did you think that I came to your aid because of the alluring way you demanded the presence of my aquatic ass?
I want Merlin! Now!
Since you are alive at this moment owing to my good graces, you’re not exactly in a position to be making demands, Highness. Listen carefully, before my good humor fades…along with the protection I’m providing you as I speed you through the Clear…
He wants to struggle fiercely, but he doesn’t know how to go about it. Excalibur remains clutched in his hand, but it is not as if he can start chopping at the water.
Paracelsus, she continues, is heading toward the henge of Wiltshire. It is a place of vast magic. It is, in fact, one of the origin points of magic. But it is destructive magic. Magical blood was spilled there. A great sin of magiks was committed there. Dark forces, dark memories, have lain dormant there for thousands of years, gaining strength. The Spear and the Grail were both present at the time…and so was what you hold in your hand. What the Spear and Grail can channel into destruction…that which you hold can reverse.
You mean Excalibur?
What else do you hold in your hand? Nimue asks matter-of-factly. You will arrive at the henge of Wiltshire at about the same time as Paracelsus. I have seen to that since, in the final analysis, I believe in fairness.
Please! Lady! Let me speak to Merlin! He hates the sound of his own voice. He hates the sound of begging. But he does it nonetheless, because he senses there is information Merlin has that could be of great help to him.
The Lady confirms that with her next words. He very likely could help you, Arthur. But he is mine now, and I am a very selfish lover. I know that because I’ve been told it repeatedly, by a variety of men whose opinions I respect. But I am what I am, and cannot change that. So instead I will simply embrace it. You cannot see Merlin, nor hear him in the way that you briefly were able to earlier. I’ve seen to that. He is mine, all mine, not yours. Understood?
All too well, Arthur says grimly. For I was once like you. A selfish, self-centered bastard, especially in matters of love. And I destroyed my great love with my selfishness. You will, too, milady. Mark me. Everything about Merlin that you may have loved, which makes him special to you and great and wonderful…your self-obsessed love will cause it to wither and die. It is a terrible and rapacious way to be, milady, and it is unworthy of you.
And what is unworthy of you? Nimue asks.
You don’t see poets celebrating that aspect of me in their epics or madrigals now, do you. I can believe that mankind came from the seas, Lady Nimue, because we aspire to the heights of great, crashing waves…but truly, we are all filled with darkest depths into which we frequently sink.
There is a pause, a long pause, during which time the only noise Arthur hears is the spinning of the great funnel of water around him. He sees a literal light at the end of the tunnel, and suspects the end is near…in more ways than one.
Merlin is mine, her voice finally says resolutely.
Then try not to drown in him, milady.
And suddenly, faster than Arthur thinks possible, he has reached the light and passes through it and Arthur came up coughing, splashing to the surface. He was soaked to the skin and through, and the sun was just coming up over the horizon.
He coughed once more, expelling water from his lungs, and realized that he was in a slow-moving river. All around him was flat, green countryside.
Arthur splashed about, then his feet suddenly and violently struck the riverbed beneath him. He landed ignominiously on his backside and realized that he was standing in a fairly shallow section of the river. He gathered his wits and stood. The water surged to just below his waist.
“Brilliant,” he muttered.
“Here now! What’s all this?”
Turning around carefully so that he didn’t lose his footing, Arthur saw an older man and a young boy seated on the shore. Probably grandfather and grandson. They had fishing lines dangling in the river. It had been the grandfather who had shouted out at him, and continued, “You’re scaring the fish!”
“Sorry. Where am I?” asked Arthur, splashing toward the shore.
“You’ve got a bloody great sword in your hand!” said the old man. “I’m not telling you a bleeding thing until you put that away!”
“Right. Fine,” said Arthur, sheathing Excalibur. “Now would you please tell me where I am…”
“Don’t you know?”
Arthur closed his eyes, having trouble believing he was dealing with such idiocy. Perhaps the world really did deserve to end after all. “Of course I don’t know. Why would I ask if I already knew?”
The old man considered it. “Perhaps you were just making conversation.”
“Oh, for the love of God…”
“Grampa,” the boy spoke up. “I’ve seen him on the telly. I think he’s the king.”
“The what?”
“The king,” the boy repeated.
“Yes, he’s right,” Arthur said, hoping against hope that it would speed things along. “I am the king.”
“Well, I didn’t vote for you.”
“You don’t vote for—!” Then Arthur caught himself. This was beginning to sound eerily familiar, and he knew he didn’t want to let himself get pulled any further into this ridiculous conversation. “You know what. Never mind. I’ll figure out where the henge is myself.”
“Henge?” said the boy.
“Yes. It’s a large circular area with a ditch around it, usually, used for rituals in ancient times. It usually is surrounded by wood posts or—”
“Stone.”
“Yes, they can be—” Then Arthur’s eyes widened and he realized. “Wiltshire! She said it was in…bloody hell! Stonehenge, Pendragon, you great bleeding idiot! This is, what, the Wylye River? The Avon…?”
The boy nodded, looking pleased. “Yes, the River Avon.”
“Which way is—?”
The youngster pointed off to the right. Arthur had no idea how far Stonehenge was, but it didn’t matter. He had to get there as fast as he could and couldn’t risk any more time chatting. He sprinted off in the direction the child indicated, and it was five minutes later when it occurred to him that he was staking the fate of the world on the directional instincts of a boy who appeared to be no more than eight or nine years old.
And a little child shall lead them.
The words from the book of Isaiah came to him unbidden. And what else did it say? A child shall lead them, and some things about snakes—well, certainly he’d encountered enough snakes in the grass in his recent encounters. And…
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea…
Arthur didn’t know if he was going through the motions of actions dictated in scripture, but he did know one thing for sure: He knew nothing for sure.
I suppose, he said as he ran up the small mountain leading toward the holy area of Stonehenge, I’ll just have to have some faith.
CHAPTRE
THE TWENTY-FIFTH
PARACELSUS HAD LOST count of how many times he had circled the interior ring of Stonehenge. He kept running his fingers over the surface of the megaliths, studying them with awe and fascination. Even Paracelsus, for all his endless studying and all the sources that he had investigated over the years, had not
been able to determine to an absolute certainty the stone ring’s origins. There were theories: Celts, Druidic cults, an assortment of ancient sorcerers. But nothing definitive.
He knew, though, that it was a focal point of dark and forbidding magic. Magic that was somehow tied in to both the Grail and the Spear of Destiny. Even if he’d had any doubt of the veracity of his investigations, he was certain of it the moment he stepped inside the ring of stone with the two weapons in his hand. The Grail sword, black and eerie, did not glitter in the filtering rays of the sun. Instead it was as if the weapon was absorbing the light. If it had been nighttime, the sword would have been invisible. And the Spear…Paracelsus might have been imagining it, but he was quite certain that he was getting a sense of building heat from within the Spear’s shaft. The head of the Spear was likewise beginning to glow. Not a lot, but enough to get Paracelsus’s notice.
Sal was situated in the middle of the circle. Having tossed aside his human disguise, he was curled in his flaming-lizard form, idly drumming his fiery claws on the ground. “What the hell are we waiting for?” Sal demanded.
“The sun to come fully up.” He watched with fascination as the orb slowly ascended upon the horizon. “I wonder,” he said softly, “how many people are watching the sun come up right now…while at the same time, others are watching it set. And in both cases, they’re watching it for the last time. I wonder what’s going through their minds? What are they thinking about? Their little lives…the things that they need to accomplish in this day to come, or what they didn’t accomplish in the day just past.”
“I don’t understand. You’re planning to wipe them out. Why do you care?”
Paracelsus shook his head in a pitying manner. “I’m wiping them out…because I do care.”
“Oh, well, that makes sense.”
He ignored the sarcasm. “Yes. It does make sense.” He turned his attention back to the rising sun, and his voice quavered with pent-up emotion. “We reached for the stars, Sal…We reached for the stars, and instead we continue to eat dirt. Whatever grand hope or scheme or design there was for humanity…it’s gone off the rails. It’s not working. We’re killing each other, starving each other, annihilating each other. And there’s still such…such continued hope for a paradise that will never, ever come. They know it, deep down. They lead lives of quiet and not-so-quiet despair, and cloak themselves in tattered cloaks of belief in higher powers and a greater destiny, and it’s all nonsense. It’s fairy tales. They deserve better, and they’re never going to get it.
“The Norse had their legends, you know. Tales of Ragnarok, and the end of the world. And you know what happened? The last, cleansing act after the final battle of the gods? Surtur, the fire demon, with his great flaming sword, reduced the earth to a great floating cinder.
“Eventually, though, there will be a rebirth. Life does have a way of reinventing itself.”
“Yeah, well,” said Sal, “one can only hope that whatever the next species is that rises to dominance, they do a better job than this lot.”
“Indeed.” Paracelsus yawned and stretched. It seemed an age since he’d slept. “The thing is, Sal…in the end, I’m simply a scientist. I understand the concept of experiments. More…I understand the concept of failed experiments. That’s what humanity clearly is. When you’re faced with a failed experiment, you don’t linger over it. You don’t stand around wishing that it had turned out better. You simply dump it and move on. That’s what I’m doing. It was not an easy decision to make…but, in the end, I was the only one who could make it.”
Sal nodded, then he stood. “Sun’s up,” he said. “So…what happens now?”
“Well,” said Paracelsus, “there are specific steps that must be followed. What we’re standing in…it’s more than just a center of mystic power. It’s a gateway.”
“Through where?”
“Through time and space, actually. Through to the actual point when the great sin against magic and humanity first occurred. I use the power of the Grail sword and the Spear of Destiny to traverse that gateway…not go back in time myself, actually, but simply open the path that will summon the energies. Energies that will create a giant vortex, if you will. And that vortex”—he smiled—“will then draw the power of the sun to me.”
“And that will actually work? You can tap into that?” Even Sal, who always appeared blasé about everything, looked impressed.
“It’s not as if it doesn’t happen all the time. Lesser mystics—with similar aspirations but without the tools, resources, and research—make such endeavors all the time. Why do you think that, every so often, great tongues of flame lash out from the sun into space? The sun’s power heeds the summons of the lesser mystics. One fellow in the mid-1800s almost got one all the way out here, but it fell somewhat short. For me, though…it will be different.”
“It sounds amazing.”
“It will be. I will require, however, a means of ‘jump-starting’ the process, if you will. A way of channeling into the primal forces of power that will open the gateway for me.”
“Don’t you have enough power when you cross those two weapons of yours?”
“Power, yes. The right kind, sadly, no.”
“So how are you going to ‘jump-start’ it.”
“Funny you should ask,” said Paracelsus.
He pivoted on the ball of his foot and brought his arm through with perfect precision. The Spear of Destiny sailed through the air and lanced directly through Sal’s body, pinning him to the ground. Sal let out a horrific scream and clawed at the Spear, trying to pull it loose. He did not succeed.
Paracelsus walked toward him slowly, a look of sad amusement on his face. “I truly regret you won’t be along for the ride, Sal. It’s going to be…magnificent.”
He gripped the staff of the Spear, and he felt energy beginning to churn around him. The stones of Stonehenge trembled slightly but remained in their places, serving their ancient role as containers of unleashed magic.
Sal continued to struggle, but the Spear could not be resisted. It steadily drained away the elemental forces that were part of the creature’s physical essence. Overhead the clouds began to churn, turning dark and threatening. The sun was blocked out, but it didn’t matter; Paracelsus knew it was there, and knew that he would be able to tap into it as needed.
The salamander faded more and more, then with a final, agonized shriek, the fire demon flared out of existence. Eldritch power began swirling furiously within the enclosure of Stonehenge. Paracelsus watched, fascinated, captivated. He was clutching the Spear, taking care not to cross it with the Grail sword. He wanted to wait until the right moment. Everything had to be perfectly in place.
“Explain it to me,” he whispered. “Make me understand.”
The arcane winds whipped around, faster and faster, and Paracelsus stood there in the middle of it, unscathed, the eye of the hurricane. He watched, fascinated, and images began to play out before him. Ghost images, moving slowly through their paces and beginning to accelerate, like a movie getting up to speed.
And one of the images…one of them was drawing closer toward him, heading right for him. Paracelsus spread wide his arms, and cried out, “Give me knowledge, being from a time long past! Shade and shadow, reveal your secrets to me now! Show me the first sin against—”
The figure drew closer still, and that was when Paracelsus realized it wasn’t one of the flickering, phantasmic images of a bygone age advancing on him. It was real, it was solid, it was from modern day, it was armed, and it looked extremely pissed off.
“Oh, shit,” muttered Paracelsus as Arthur Pendragon came straight at him.
ARTHUR SPRINTED ACROSS the greenery, watching the sun come up and knowing—without knowing how he knew—that the sunrise itself was some sort of deadline.
Excalibur’s invisible scabbard kept slapping against his leg. Let me be in time, please let me be in time, he kept thinking.
As he came up over a rise, he suddenl
y felt the ground beneath him begin to shake. It was at that moment he realized that he wasn’t going to be in time.
The clouds began to blacken, and the power of ancient magiks sizzled through the air. He knew the scent all too well, like the ionization following a lightning strike, except that it stirred ancient and unknowable feelings and gave you nightmares for three days.
Stonehenge was now in sight, except Arthur couldn’t say for certain exactly what it was that he was seeing. A virtual cyclone of eldritch energy was swirling within the confines of Stonehenge, heading straight up into the sky, where the black clouds were churning around it. It looked like a great gaping hole had been torn straight into heaven.
The hairs on the back of Arthur’s neck were standing up, and his greatcoat was flapping furiously in the wind that was building up. He shucked the coat since it was weighing him down, leaving him only in black pants and a white shirt. He would have killed to have had some armor at that moment.
He staggered forward, pushing against the fierce resistance, until he was almost to the edge of Stonehenge. But when he tried to cross the divide, he found it an impenetrable barrier. He slammed against it with his shoulder, but it was as if the wind was solid brick.
“All right, then,” growled Arthur, and he drew Excalibur. The sword seemed to hum with eagerness to join battle, as if it were attracted to this time and this place. He shoved the great sword forward, and Excalibur cleaved through the whirlwind as he had hoped it would.
Gaining strength and speed with every step, Arthur managed to penetrate the vast gyrating obstruction that was the wind funnel created by the arcane forces Paracelsus had unleashed. He gripped his sword tighter than ever; for the instant he was within the sphere of influence, all reality around him seemed to go completely mad.
He was seeing a place from long, long ago. A castle, and people within, but their clothes were like nothing worn during Arthur’s time. They predated Camelot by who-knew-how-long, and it was difficult for Arthur to understand what he was seeing because the images were overlaying each other. There was no sequence, no progression of this happened, then this happened, then this happened. Instead everything seemed to be transpiring at once.