by Peter David
When it came she dialed a long-distance number quickly, efficiently. Her face was grim, but her spirits were soaring. She felt the blood pulsing in her veins for the first time in centuries. There was almost a sexual thrill, matching wits and powers with Merlin. She had been little better than dead all these decades.
The phone on the other end was picked up and a slightly whiny male voice said, “Yeah?”
Her eyes sparkled as she said, “He’s contacted me. They’re in New York.”
“They’re in New York?!” The voice was incredulous. “But I’m in New York! How could I not have known?”
“Because you’re a great bloody twit. I’m on my way up there now.” She paused, frowning. “We have only one thing going for us. Merlin is not as all-knowing as he believes himself to be. He thinks you do not exist, Mod-red. He thinks I am on my own. It may prove to be his fatal mistake.”
“Fatal?” There was an audible gulp. “You mean like dead?”
She sighed, and hung up without another word. Then she leaned back on the bed, brushed away pieces of glass, and closed her eyes.
“Great bloody twit,” she muttered. “This is going to be tougher than I thought.”
“YOU’RE LATE.”
Gwen stopped in the doorway, openly surprised. Lance was seated at the kitchen table, his chair tilted back against the wall. He looked impatient, even huffy. And she realized with a shock that it had been ages since she’d really taken a look at him, so rarely had he been both around and conscious these days.
He pushed his thick glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. The unhealthy pallor he’d acquired had not improved. In addition his lips were dry and cracked. The blue check shirt he’d worn for four days straight was taking on a life of its own. His jeans were threadbare at the knees, and his socks were standing over in the corner, retaining the shape of his feet as if from memory.
Not too long ago, such appearance on his part seemed almost romantic to her. Now it just seemed … creepy somehow. But then she promptly scolded herself. She was not about to lose faith in him. He was a creative type, and much smarter than she was, and besides, she had known going into the relationship that writers were creative types. That they had to be indulged, not pressured, their imaginations permitted to run wild without having to worry about trivial matters like hygiene and … and …
God, was that smell him?
“Lance,” she managed to get out. She glanced at her watch. “Am I really that late? It’s only a little after six.”
He tapped a bony forefinger on the tabletop. “I expect dinner by six P.M. sharp.”
She looked askance at him as she removed her coat and hung it on a hook near the door. “Since when, Lance?”
“Since when what?”
“Since when do you expect your dinner at six P.M. sharp,” she said patiently. “You’re usually not home then. And even if you are, you might be asleep, like as not.”
“Are you criticizing me?” He’d spoken in a tone that was guaranteed to make her back down, to force her into a sniveling apology. But as she crossed the room and sat down across from him, his face registered with a distant sort of surprise that such an apology was not to be forthcoming.
“I am not criticizing you,” she said slowly, thoughtfully. She took his hand and held it gently, affectionately, trying not to flinch from how clammy it felt. “If you have a regular schedule you’d like to maintain, I’ll be more than happy to aid in maintaining it. But don’t try to change things on me and then get mad because I can’t read your mind.”
His eyes narrowed. He had tilted the chair forward, and now tilted it back, interlacing his fingers in a gesture he imagined made him look very authoritative. “I think you should give up your job.”
Her eyes widened. “Stop working for Art? Are you nuts?” Her voice went up an octave. “He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me! The past weeks I’ve been working for him have been—”
His body stiffened, suddenly not listening to anything else she was saying. “Wait a minute. Best thing? What about me? I thought I was the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
Gwen huffed in irritation. It was so annoying. She’d come home in such a good mood, and suddenly she felt as if she was being sandbagged by Lance. When he’d acted this way in the past, she’d always chalked it up to his being in one of his moods. Suddenly, though, that explanation felt … inadequate. “Well, of course you are, Lance. I’m talking about two different things.”
“Two different best things.”
She shifted uncomfortably in the seat. “Kind of. Ow.” That last came from the fact that he was squeezing her hand more tightly than she liked.
“Best thing means best thing,” he informed her. “It doesn’t mean anything else.” Releasing her hand in what amounted to disgust, he stood up, swaying slightly, and it was only then that Gwen realized he had a few drinks in him. The alcohol was easily discernible in the air now. “I should know. I’m a writer.”
Her impatience with him flaring, she shot back, “So you say,” and immediately wished she could have bitten her tongue off. She stood quickly and started to head for the bedroom when Lance’s hand clamped on her shoulder. She turned and faced him, and his eyes were smoldering.
“What do you mean by that?” He spoke in a voice that was low and ugly. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing, Lance. I—”
“What do you mean?”
She pulled back ineffectually. With an angry snarl he shoved her away and drew himself up to his full height. “You seem to forget our college days, Gwen. You looked up to me then, remember?”
“I still look up to you, Lance.” Gwen backed up slowly until she bumped into a wall and could go no farther. The entire thing seemed surreal, like it was happening to someone else. She’d always known Lance had a temper, always. But it had never bubbled over into anger in this manner.
“Remember those days, huh?” he asked. “I was somebody then. All the English teachers knew me. They said they wished I’d never leave.”
They said they thought you’d never leave, Gwen wanted to scream at him. You flunked bonehead English, twice. Creative writing teachers said you were incomprehensible. I was the only one who believed in you. I still do. It’s … it’s become so ingrained a habit that I can’t stop believing in you, even though every ounce of my common sense tells me I should. She thought all of this, but didn’t say it. Instead she told him, “I remember, Lance. I remember. But I can’t quit my job. We need the money. And Arthur’s going to be the next mayor. You’ll see.”
Lance guffawed and waved his hands about as he spoke. He bumped the single bulb that hung overhead in the kitchen, and it sent wildly distorted shadows twisting on the wall. “Mayor, is he? Has he been out canvassing for votes? Has he even got the signatures of people who say they want him to run for mayor? Gwen, the man is a loser. You always hook yourself up with losers. You have a streak of self-abuse that ...”
His voice trailed off as he realized the double-edged sword of the words he had just spoken. She was looking at him in an assessing manner. With a snarl he stormed over to the front door of the apartment, yanked it open, and barreled out into the hallway, down the stairs to the next landing, and eventually out the door of the building.
In the past Gwen would have chased him down the stairs, begged him to come back, apologized for not having faith. She sensed greatness in him, she was sure of it, and was positive that she was destined to bring it out in him. But this time she went to the window and simply watched him go. He stopped at street level and looked up at the window. She looked down at him, her face carefully neutral, although from that distance he couldn’t see the single tear trickling down her cheek. And Gwen, for the life of her, couldn’t decide whether she was crying for him, or for herself, especially because she knew to some degree that Lance had been right in his assessment of her judgment of men. She didn’t know what was worse, though: the thought of how it applied to her and
Lance, or the thought of how it might apply to her and Arthur.
With a roar Lance pushed his way into the crowd that had just come out of the subway and vanished from Gwen’s sight … had she been looking, of course. Instead she was looking elsewhere, looking inward—at the shape and course of her own life.
She thought of her parents, strict and demanding, for whom nothing she had done was ever good enough. She remembered how she had come home one day all excited from school, at the cusp of adolescence, waving the scores she had received in a series of evaluation tests. It indicated that she was quite bright, good enough to go to advanced schools.
But her parents had looked down their noses at such endeavors, not wanting their daughter to mix with “those smart-ass know-it-alls.”
On some level, Gwen had spent the rest of her life trying to please somebody … although the last person who factored into that equation was she herself. She knew that … and she also knew that over the past several years she’d been living in limbo. Waiting for Lance to complete his book and sell it (he’d made it sound so easy!) Waiting for her life to take some direction. A lady in waiting.
She pulled herself up with a smile. That’s what she liked about Arthur Penn, she decided. He didn’t make her feel like a lady in waiting. He made her feel like her surname. Like a queen.
CHAPTRE
THE SEVENTH
IN HIS OFFICE at the Camelot Building, Arthur gaped at Merlin, utterly thunderstruck. Had Merlin not been so troubled by Arthur’s displaying a naïveté that was astounding in a man nearly a millennium old, he would have found it amusing.
“Is it possible,” Arthur inquired, his face a mask of perplexity, “that there might be some people who won’t vote for me?”
Merlin stared at him. The legendary king looked so modern in the dress pants and shirt, and yet he was so innocent of the world around him. What in the name of all the gods have I thrust the king into, he wondered. Maybe I should let him go back to the cave at that. Maybe he really has no place here at all, and I’m subjecting him to the worst sort of cruelty by putting him through this. But then the boy wizard put the thought from his mind and concentrated on the issue at hand. Second-guessing would only lead to disaster. His direction had been chosen, and he had to have the resolve to stick to it. “Yes.” He laughed tersely. “There is an outside chance.”
“But … who would not vote for me?” asked Arthur, clearly still unable to wrap himself around the concept.
“Well,” Merlin said reasonably, sitting by the window and glancing out at the crummy view, “People who would want to examine your record of past achievements, for one.”
“But my achievements are legend—oh, I see.” He slumped against his desk, his hands in his pockets. “I see the problem.”
“Yes.” Merlin looked away from the window, trying to figure out the best way to put the difficulty across to his liege. “Understand, Arthur, in this form my power is a force to be reckoned with. I can conjure up credit cards. I can create things like Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses—although for pity’s sake take a few lessons first— and I can put records of your birth in Bethlehem ...”
“How very messianic.”
“... Pennsylvania,” Merlin continued. “I can conjure up a history of military service for you. I can, essentially, create an identity for you, Arthur Penn. And these days, such stunts are easier than they ever could have been.”
“How so?”
“Computers, Arthur,” said Merlin with a smile. “Everything’s on computers now. Everything.”
“Yes. Computers. That would be … one of those things,” Arthur said uncertainly, indicating the PC situated in the corner of his office. “They’re rather complicated. Are you quite positive they’re not simply a passing fad?”
“No, from everything I’ve heard, they’re definitely here to stay,” Merlin told him wryly. “I should know. I had a hand in them.”
“You did?”
“Even from my cave, even in my exile, I was able to keep my hand in. See this?” and he pointed to the letters on the front of the computer. “IBM: Invented By Merlin.”
Arthur looked at him askance. “You’re joking.”
“I’m a wizard, Arthur. Allow me my mysterious ambiguities.” Merlin walked over to the machine and touched it, smiling in satisfaction as the screen flared to life. “Cyberspace isn’t really all that different from magic, when you get down to it. A mysterious realm where things unseen dwell, where people can send and receive information, and even cast destructive spells upon one another—they call them ‘viruses.’ You are speaking, Arthur, to the foremost master of computer stunts in the world. I can use these devices—aided by a few sorcerous tricks I know—to shape the reality of information. However, I cannot alter by sheer force of will the entire public consciousness. I can’t make people like you. That will be your task.”
“And if I’m not up to it?” inquired Arthur, looking uncertain.
“Then,” Merlin informed him archly, “you are not the young man I trained, and will be a disappointment to me. Oh … and the world will likely be doomed by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century.”
“Ah.” Clearly not knowing what to say to that, Arthur replied, “Well ... I’d best get to it, then.”
“I could not have given more sound advice myself,” Merlin said.
HAROLD AND ALICE, a young, well-dressed couple, were walking briskly down Fifth Avenue near the park, Alice’s heels clacking merrily on the cobblestones, when the mugger leaped from behind a tree.
Instinctively Harold pushed Alice behind him. His desperate gaze revealed, naturally, that there was not a policeman in sight, so he pulled together the shards of his shattered nerve and held up his fists. At that instant the young man, a longtime advocate of gun control, suddenly changed his opinion on the subject and wished that he had a firearm in his hand, the bigger, the better.
The mugger stared at them for a moment, puzzled, and then slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand in self-reproachment. “Right! Money! You think I want money! Buddy!”
“I’m … I’m not your buddy,” said Harold, peering over the tops of his fists and wishing his voice hadn’t cracked when he said it.
“No, my name’s Buddy,” said the mugger.
Alice, sounding almost afraid of the answer she’d receive, said, “You … you don’t want our money?”
“Nah! I mean, in the vast, general socioeconomic strata of the world, yeah, sure I want money. I mean, it makes the world go around.” He paused. “Or maybe that’s gravity or something.”
There was dead silence. And then Harold said slowly, “Yes. Well. We have to be going.”
“Fine. Well, you have a nice day,” said Buddy.
“You bet. Same to you.”
“Real soon.”
The couple was slowly backing down the street. Buddy stood there, waving the filthy fingers of a filthy hand, his beat-up army poncho blowing in the breeze. They turned quickly then, but had only taken several steps when a voice screamed out from behind them, “Hey!”
“This is it, Harold,” muttered Alice. “We’re going to die now.”
Buddy came barreling around them and faced them for a moment, his shaggy head shifting its gaze from one of them to the other. Then he thrust a clipboard forward. “I’m getting signatures for an election.”
Harold looked at him incredulously. “What ...” He cleared his throat, “What are you running for?”
“Who, me? Oh, geez, no. It’s for mayor. I’m helping the guy with the Day-Glo sword and the submersible girl-friend become mayor of the city.”
“Which … which city?”
Buddy paused a moment and frowned. “Holy geez, I never asked. You think it’s this one?”
“With my luck,” muttered Alice.
“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Harold began again. He noted the fact that people were walking right past without offering any aid to them, even though Ha
rold and Alice were obviously in distress. Indeed, they seemed to pick up their pace. Harold suddenly hated New York even more than he usually did. “If all you want is for me to sign this, I’ll be happy to—”
“Harold!”
He fired her a look that told her, without a word being spoken, to shut her mouth.
“Hey, man, you’re great.” Buddy thrust the clipboard forward once again, and this time Harold took it, holding it gingerly between his fingers.
“Um,” Harold said, and patted down his pockets. “I, uh, I don’t seem to have a pen.”
“Not to worry,” said Buddy. He patted all the pockets in his limply hanging poncho and then in his tattered pants. With a frown he checked the hair behind his ears and then his beard. It was from that unchecked growth of facial hair that he finally extracted a Bic pen and extended it to the couple.
“I’m going to be sick,” said Alice between clenched teeth. “I swear, God as my witness, I’m going to be sick.”
Not settling for looks this time, Harold muttered, “Shut up, Alice,” as he took the pen and signed the petition. “Maybe you would have preferred it if he had assaulted your virtue.”
Buddy and Alice exchanged glances. Neither seemed particularly enthused with the idea.
“Harold!” she said after a moment. “You’re putting our address!”
“Yeah. So?”
“So ...” Her eyes narrowed as she inclined her head toward Buddy and, speaking in an urgently low voice in hopes that Buddy couldn’t hear her, she said, “What if he tries to—you know—come to the house?”
And then she jumped slightly as the obviously sharp-eared Buddy said, “Oh, I’d never do that.” Then he gave the matter some thought. “Unless you invited me.”
Harold tried to smile pleasantly. What he achieved was the look of a man passing a kidney stone, but he continued valiantly, “What a … what a marvelous idea. We have to do that, real soon.”
“When?”
“What?” Harold felt as if the ground was shifting beneath his feet.
“When do you want me to come over?” Buddy looked eagerly from one of them to the other.