CONSULTING A WIZARD
The door to the wizard’s lair was small and unadorned. It was pressed into the side of a mountain that sat just outside the main city, roughly a quarter of a mile to the west. While Arthur had visited on numerous occasions, it was different each time. The outside remained similar, except that it rolled along with the changing of the seasons, but the inside was always a surprise.
Arthur took a deep breath and steadied himself. King or not, dealing with a wizard was never much fun. Not because he was more powerful than any man alive, and not because he dabbled in things that should not be dabbled in, but because he was often terse and opinionated. Plus, as Lance-A-Lot had put it, the man knew things that he shouldn’t know.
Forcing his resolve, Arthur started to knock on the door when he noticed a little sign that said, “press the button.” He followed the arrow and saw a little gold button to the left of the handle. Pressing it, he heard a little musical sequence of bells play.
The door opened.
Peeking out was a man who looked to be in his mid-fifties. He was short, thin, and had long, gray, straggly hair that his beard matched perfectly. He wore a shirt with an image of a man who appeared to be a bard. Above the bard were the words “Elvis lives!” Arthur’s first thought was to ask who this Elvis was, but when it came to asking Merlin things, one had to pick one’s battles.
“Arthur?” Merlin said in his deep-timbered voice as he looked at a silver bracelet that contained glowing blue numbers. “It’s ten o’clock at night. What are you doing here so late?”
“This is how you welcome your king?” Arthur said, trying to gain the upper hand.
“Bah,” Merlin said. “You know I don’t give a rat’s ass about political hooplah, so don’t even go there.”
Arthur looked around. “Go where?”
“It’s just a saying,” Merlin replied with a roll of his eyes. “Come on in. I’m assuming that you’ve got something wacky going on or you wouldn’t be here so late. So spill it.”
“Spill what?” Arthur said, confused. “I have nothing to spill. And, though it goes against my better judgment to ask this…what does ‘wacky’ mean?”
Merlin frowned. “It’s so trying to go back and forth between eras.” Merlin started walking toward the rear of the cave. “Give me a moment, Arthur. I need to get my head straight.”
Arthur felt nervous standing alone in the wizard’s main room. The items stacked around made little sense to him. There were flameless torches on the wall; mechanical items zipping along tracks, looking like horseless carriages; tons of oddly shaped glasses that contained all sorts of colored liquids, some bubbling and releasing smoke; stacks of books on various desks or just piled up on the floor; and a plethora of drawings of lines and numbers that lacked any artistic substance that Arthur had ever seen.
But in the center of it all sat something miraculous. There were two metal posts sitting on a platform. They were spaced about a hand’s width apart. Between them a blue light was moving back and forth, sliding up and down as it went. It was mesmerizing. Of all the things that Arthur had seen in the wizard’s den over the years, this one won the prize.
Incapable of holding his curiosity at bay, Arthur reached out to touch the light.
“No!” Merlin raced over to where Arthur was standing and pushed his hand away. “You don’t want to touch that, Arthur.”
Arthur continued staring at the bolts with a stupefied look. They were dazzling. They called to him. Then, in the recesses of his brain, he began to realize that he’d just been admonished by the wizard. That did not sit well with his subconscious and he soon regained his wits, feeling provoked.
“I daresay that I may touch whatever I wish,” he retaliated with a gasp. “I am your king, whether you like it or not, Merlin. That means that everything within this province is, in one way or another, mine should I so choose it to be.”
“Actually,” Merlin replied with a purse of his lips, “not really. But, hey, if you’re going to be all pissy about it, go ahead and touch it. Just don’t blame me when it kills you.”
“Kills me?” Arthur said hotly. “Are you threatening me?”
“Of course not, you dolt,” Merlin said with a laugh. Then he pointed at the device that Arthur had nearly touched. “What do you see when you look at that?”
“It looks like lightning.”
“Well done. Now, have you ever seen what lightning can do to a tree?”
“Obviously, I have.”
“Imagine yourself as a tree, Arthur,” Merlin said. “Imagine that”—he pointed to the device—“as lightning. Now, what do you suppose would happen if you put your finger in there?”
“Oh, I uh—”
“You would be shocked something fierce. Badly enough that your heart would likely stop.” Merlin stood there tapping his foot for a moment before he finally softened. “Now, I know there are a lot of things in here that look innocuous, and most probably are, but not all, and I would hate for you to become injured out of ignorance.”
“Are you calling me ignorant, Merlin?”
“Ignorance is not the same thing as stupidity, Arthur,” Merlin said with a groan. “What I said was not an insult.”
“Hmmm.”
“Look, why don’t you tell me the reason for your visit so we can move along with things?”
Arthur wanted to hang on to the argument. He despised being on the losing end of debates, even though it happened to him all the time. For now he needed the wizard to help him, so he decided to take the high road.
“Fine, fine,” he said, stepping back away from the miniature lightning bolt. He wanted to jump straight to the topic of the magical item that Guinevere had mentioned, but he felt concern over the prospect of letting the wizard know about his fetish. He tried to work his resolve up, but eventually he simply said, “It seems that the knights have been suffering from boredom as of late and I need to find a quest that is worthy of them.”
“Okay,” Merlin said suspiciously, “and you’re seeking my advice on this?”
“I just thought that maybe…” He trailed off.
“Something tells me that you didn’t come all the way out here just to ask me for ideas, Arthur, especially not this late at night.”
“Not exactly, no,” Arthur said as his blood pressure began to rise. He loathed the thought of saying anything, but if there was any one man in the world who could help him and his beloved, that man was Merlin. “You see,” he started slowly, “I was speaking with Guinevere earlier today and she mentioned that you might know something about a particular item that, well, uh—”
“Something magical, Arthur? A talisman, maybe?”
“I guess,” Arthur replied. “I don’t know. Maybe things like that don’t truly exist. It could be nothing.” Arthur shook his head and bolted for the door. “I’m probably just wasting your time, Merlin. I should go.”
“Magical talismans do exist, Arthur,” Merlin said. “Most are harmless, but some can be quite useful while others can be very dangerous.”
“I see,” Arthur said, only hearing every other word. “Okay, well, thanks for the information. I’ll see you some other time.”
“Arthur,” Merlin said with concern, “you’re acting stranger than usual. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”
“Stranger than usual?”
“Arthur, I’m probably the most progressive man in the world.” He motioned around his room to drive home the point. “You have no fear confiding in me.”
Arthur slowly let go of the handle and turned back toward the wizard. It was now or never. If the item spoken of during Guinevere’s childhood did exist, it would allow a freedom that he desperately needed; if not, then his secret would be in the mind of not only his beloved, but also that of the elderly wizard before him.
“Guinevere said that there might be an item that I could wear that would make people see me as they expect to see me and not as I really am.”
“
Ah, I see,” said Merlin with a slow nod. “So this is about the fact that you’re a cross-dresser?”
“Yes, correct, and…wait, what?”
“A cross-dresser, Arthur,” Merlin stated as if it were nothing to him. He then shrugged. “You like the feel of the frilly against your willy.”
“I…what?”
“You like wearing women’s clothing, Arthur.”
“I do no such thing!” Arthur yelped. “The nerve! I could have you flayed alive for talking to me as thus. You could be drawn and quartered. Why, I—”
“Arthur, please remember that I can see things that others cannot. The panties beneath your pants, for example.”
Arthur blanched. “You can see them?”
“No, but I had a feeling.” Merlin walked over and poured a couple of drinks. “I’m not judging you, Arthur,” he said as he handed a glass over. “It doesn’t bother me what people do as long as they’re not hurting anyone.”
“That’s basically the knights’ credo.”
“Indeed, and a good one at that. Your problem, though, is that the general populace doesn’t share in that sentiment. Your knights would find your desire odd, but they’d eventually accept it. The people, though? That’s a tougher sell.”
“Yes,” Arthur said, defeated.
“So what you’re looking for are the Nipple Rings of Veiling.”
“Rings, as in more than one?”
“Correct.”
“But, wait…rings for your nipples? Wouldn’t they fall off?”
“Why would they fall off?” Merlin said and then he gave a small laugh. “Oh, I see what you’re thinking. They’re not rings like you put on your fingers, Arthur. They pierce through your nipples, like an earring pierces through the earlobe.”
“That sounds terrible,” said Arthur, unconsciously moving both hands to cover his breasts.
“Some talismans are made to be more permanent.”
“So, then Guinevere was right? It does exist?”
“They do,” Merlin emphasized. “There are two of them, Arthur, which is perfect since the other one can be worn by your lovely wife.”
“You know about her, too?”
Merlin shrugged and took a seat on one of the rickety stools by the lightning-bolt table.
“Remember when you thought there was an assassin out to get you and you’d asked me to cast a spell on your dwellings to protect things?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what I did was install motion sensitive cameras in the top corners of your room, and some motion detectors outside of your room as well. Those cameras caught a lot on tape that I would rather not have seen, but fortunately for you I’m a professional.”
“I see,” Arthur said, though he didn’t. Again, his curiosity got the better of him. “Merlin, what are cameras and motion detectors? And, also, what is tape?”
“You’re missing the important part, Arthur. I know why you want the talisman and I know where it is.”
Arthur paused to consider things. He was both excited and disturbed.
“I have to admit that I’m not comfortable with you knowing what you know about me and my beloved, Merlin,” Arthur said heavily, “but seeing that you know what will happen to you if you betray my trust—”
“Patently nothing,” Merlin stated.
“—I shall choose to overlook it,” Arthur finished. “Now, you said that you know where this talisman is, yes?”
“Scotland.”
“Damn,” Arthur said with a frown. “I hate Scotland.”
“I know.”
A QUEST PRESENTED
Silence, lads,” Sir Lance-A-Lot yelled above the din. “Your king wishes to address you.”
“He wants to un…un…undress us?” Sir Bedivere said, sounding more plastered than he looked.
“He said ‘address,’ you imbecile,” Sir Gawain said in his trademarked snooty tone.
“Oh,” Bedivere said with a hurt look. “Not worth…worthy of calling me names.”
Sir Gawain drooped his head for a moment. “You are most correct, Sir Bedivere. I offer my heartfelt apologies. May I be caught standing behind an angry steed at the edge of a cliff only to be kicked to my plummeting death.”
“Consider it…hic…accepted,” Bedivere said with a glassy smile.
As this exchange finished up, Arthur patiently waited for Sir Bors de Ganis to finish his scene. The man was lost in another world. He pointed this way and that, clutched his chest dramatically more than once, and even whipped off his hat, all while reciting phrases in his operatic voice. After a good thirty seconds, Arthur nodded at Lance-A-Lot.
“Sir Bors,” Lance-A-Lot called out, “would you join us, please?”
There was no response. The play continued.
“Sir Galahad,” Lance-A-Lot said to the one knight among the crew who somehow managed to look sour even in the best of times, “would you please—”
“Borsy,” Galahad hollered, stopping the actor mid-sentence, “the king wants to yap at us about something or other. Sit yer ass down, yeah?”
Sir Bors moved with haste toward the nearest chair. “My apologies,” he said between breaths. “I was just going through the lines of the Glass Moon play that that’s coming up. It’s about a knight who fights a werewolf who turns out to be the king’s son.” He looked up. Everyone was grimacing. “You all may actually enjoy this one. There’s bloodshed.”
“Hear, hear!” the knights cried in unison, clanking their mugs.
“Are the men still play…playing the lady’s roles?” asked Bedivere.
Sir Kay seemed confused. “Why would there be actual ladies in plays?”
“Makes little sense to me,” agreed Bors with a shrug as he dabbed his brow.
Bedivere rolled his eyes and belched.
Arthur nodded toward Lance-A-Lot, indicating that he should take a seat as well. Then Arthur stepped to the head of the main table and looked over the lot. They were a strong bunch. Some educated, most not, but they were good, sturdy men who had a strong desire to do what was right, no matter the cost. These were his knights, and they were the best in the land.
“It has come to my attention that you men have become bored.”
“I’m not bored,” said Sir Kay.
“Sorry?”
“Sire,” Sir Kay said, “you know how it is when you’re deep in your work. You have no time to think and reflect. Even when you get a couple of days off, you’re so busy recovering and preparing for work to resume that the mind has no time to wander.”
Arthur noted that everyone was nodding.
“Go on.”
“Well, we’ve had quite some time during this dry spell, and that’s given me time to dream again.”
“Is that so?”
“It is, sire,” Sir Kay confirmed. “Just the other day, as Sir Bors de Ganis and I were working on a new play—A Knight to Remember—we were thinking how wonderful it would be to tour all of Europe, bringing culture to the remotest of regions.”
“Culture?”
“The arts,” Sir Kay amended. “You see, our feeling is that if we improve the minds of the people, their status would improve along as well.”
“Are you saying that you no longer wish to be a knight, Sir Kay?”
Sir Kay had the look of a man who was suddenly in the spotlight. “No, sire, not at all. If anything I would argue that the spread of culture is a very knightly thing indeed.”
“I see,” Arthur replied understandingly. “Not a bad idea, actually.”
“Thank you, sire,” Sir Kay said while raising his wine glass.
“And what of you, Sir Bors?”
“Sire?”
“Do you wish to the leave the knighthood?”
Sir Bors appeared taken aback. “I wouldn’t hear of it, sire. Nearly all of my plays are based upon incidences that occur herewith.”
“Good to hear, Sir Bors,” Arthur said. “Anyone else have something to say?” Nobody did. “Well, I have just come f
rom speaking with Merlin—”
“The wizard?”
“Unless you know of another Merlin, Sir Galahad?”
“Well, no.”
“Is it a problem that I spoke with him?”
“Besides him being a wizard, you mean?” said Galahad after a moment. “There’s just something that rings wrong about that man, is all.”
Arthur sighed and leaned forward, placing both hands on the strong wooden table.
“I think you gentlemen need to remember that Merlin helped us through many a pickle over the years.” He paused for dramatic effect. “He’s on our side, gentlemen.”
“Until he’s not,” Galahad said.
“Why would he not be on our side?”
“Might get a better offer, I suppose.” Galahad began scratching on the table. “Could happen to any of us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sir Galahad raised his head. “Just that, as far as kingdoms go, we’re all paid under the going rate. So I’m assuming the wizard is, too.”
Arthur pushed back off of the table and crossed his arms.
“Is that so?”
Sir Galahad reached down into his pack and pulled out a number of papers. He shuffled through them for a few moments, finally pulling forth the one he was looking for.
“That’s the latest edition of Knights Journal,” he said, sliding it across the table. “It shows the standard pay scale for all knights throughout Europe. We’re the lowest paid of the bunch. Even the Scots make twenty-five shillings more a month than we do.”
“I see,” Arthur said at length while looking down at the paper.
“But don’t the Scots have to pay for their own insurance, Sir Galahad?”
“That they do, Sir Lance-A-Lot,” Galahad replied as a man who was clearly an expert on the subject, “but they also get their own choice of doctors, and the lines are much shorter.”
“Only because there are fewer people who can afford doctoring, I would imagine.”
“Survival of the fittest, sire.”
“Well,” Arthur said, pushing the paper back across the table, “I’m sure that we can discuss an equitable pay increase during the annual meeting next month.”
Comedic Arthurian Bundle: The Adventures of Queen Arthur Page 2