Knight Life

by Peter David

  “Gwen! Behind me!” ordered Merlin. Gwen barely had time to comply before Morgan’s mystical attack was launched.

  And on the altar, the black and white candles that had been governing the outcome of the election, had fallen together and were now melting into each other.

  “IN A SUDDEN reversal,” the newscaster said, “returns from the upper Manhattan voting districts have tilted the balloting more toward Arthur Penn.”

  The roar that went up around Arthur was deafening. Over the shouting, Percival said in his ear, “Looks like we’re going to be putting in a long night.”

  “That’s certainly superior to the alternative,” said Arthur.

  MERLIN HAD ERECTED his mystical defenses barely in time. A sphere of pure energy surrounded him and Gwen, as Morgan’s powerful spells bounced off the shields. Pillows imploded into nothingness. Walls began to melt into puddles. And Morgan’s wrath grew.

  Merlin, his face frozen in concentration, worked on maintaining the shields that were preserving their lives. Gwen crawled to him and demanded, “Now what?”

  “You’re asking me?” said Merlin desperately. “You’re the one who came to the rescue. I assumed you’d figured a way out.”

  “I did,” said Gwen. “You’re it.”

  “Wonderful,” replied Merlin.

  Energy cascaded around them, dancing in little sparks. “I can’t hold her back much longer,” grated Merlin. “I’m too weak. I’ve been cooped up for too long.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  “Will you stop asking me that?”

  “All right,” said Gwen angrily. “All right!” She started to stand. “Cover me.”

  Merlin looked at her, aghast. “What? What do you think this is, a Western? What do you mean, cover you?”

  “I’m going to get her.”

  “You’re insane! There are forces being unleashed here you know nothing about.”

  “Good,” said Gwen. “If I knew about them, I’d probably be more terrified than I am right now. See you next lifetime, Merlin.”

  “Gwen—”

  Gwen leaped out from behind the protection of Merlin’s shields. She rolled across the smoldering carpet as Morgan, blind with fury, directed her attack at Gwen’s quick moving form. Gwen, heart pounding with excitement, mind racing thanks to the uppers, moved with a speed that defied description. And Morgan, caught up in her anger, used her power wildly, recklessly. She did not take time to aim, or plan, or think, letting her raw fury guide her. Gwen broke right, broke left, leaped forward, then pivoted and dodged again to the right. Explosions of primal force bracketed her. A chunk of floor tilted wildly under her and she jumped off it, rolling that much closer to Morgan. A sudden instinct warned her, and she ducked to one side as a huge piece of plaster from the ceiling fell and shattered right where she’d been.

  Morgan was grinning wildly. “You’re going to die, Guinevere, you slut!” she shrieked. “My brother’s whore! There’ll be less than nothing left of you when I’m through.”

  Still two yards away, Gwen shot back, “All talking, bitch queen, but no action. Hiding behind your spells and your pretty lights! When it comes down to the crunch, you just don’t have what it takes.”

  “You . . . you ...” Raw energy flew between Morgan’s palms and arced outward at Gwen. She leaped in the one direction Morgan had not anticipated—straight at her. Gwen came in low in a flying tackle, her arms wrapped around Morgan’s legs, and the two of them went down in a tumble of arms and legs.

  Merlin shouted from across the room, “Gwen! Don’t look in her eyes! Not at such close quarters!” And Gwen, hearing his words, shut her eyes tightly, even as she and Morgan rolled, struggling hand to hand.

  Then Gwen was on her back, Morgan straddling her. There was a triumphant gleam in Morgan’s eyes that Gwen didn’t see. “I don’t need my magic to finish you, little queen.” She brought her hand down, open, slapping it across Gwen’s cheek. “That’s just the beginning of paying you back for what you’ve done to me.”

  She snapped her fingers and suddenly the knife that Gwen had thrown at her earlier was in Morgan’s hand. She was poised to bring it down squarely into Gwen’s chest. The pain raced through Gwen’s face even as she brought her legs up from behind and wrapped her knees around Morgan’s neck. The sorceress gagged, gasping for air, as Gwen turned and slammed her down on the ground. The impact stunned Morgan momentarily, and caused her to drop the knife. Quick as lightning Gwen released her hold on Morgan and hurled herself at the knife. Her desperate fingers curled around the hilt, and before Morgan could regain her senses, Gwen had thrown herself across Morgan’s prostrate form.

  She held the knife over Morgan’s rapidly rising breasts.

  “Finish her!” shouted Merlin.

  Morgan, petrified, made no move. Her gaze shifted from the knife to Gwen, but Gwen was careful not to look at her directly. Her entire concentration was on the point of the knife, poised directly over her fallen foe’s heart. Gwen’s hand trembled. She bit her lip.

  “Damnit, woman! What are you waiting for? Kill her!” Merlin screamed.

  “I—” Gwen half sobbed, exhaustion overtaking her. “I can’t! I can’t just kill someone. We’ve beaten her. Isn’t that enough?”

  The air crackled around them. Gwen’s head flew back, her mouth open in a silent scream. And then, like a marionette, Gwen was hurled back, soaring through the air, her body twisted. She hit a wall with a sickening crunch and slid to the floor like a broken doll. A small trickle of blood ran down the side of her mouth. She did not move again.

  “No,” said Morgan, getting slowly to her feet. “It wasn’t enough, little queen. Not nearly enough.”

  ARTHUR WAS IN the men’s room. Percival watched dismally as the latest tallies were reported. He turned to Ronnie, Elvis, and Buddy and said simply, “The gap is widening. We may lose.”

  MORGAN TILTED HER head back, her mouth opened wide, and she started to laugh. Then a mystic bolt hit her with full impact. Her instincts warned her barely in time to raise a most minimal shield. She fell back, terror in her eyes.

  Merlin was standing there. His fists were glowing, smoke rising from them. His eyes were little more than white, pupil-less spots with energy crackling from them. Lance the Rat cowered in a corner.

  “All right, Morgan.” The voice of an old man rose from the throat of a young boy, and when he cracked his knuckles it sounded like thunder. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  The air exploded.

  YE OLDE SOUND BITE

  “And with new returns coming in, we see another swing in the direction of Arthur Penn. With ten percent of the votes tallied, it now appears that the Independent candidate and Bernard Keating, the Republican candidate, are dead even. I would have to say that, at this point, it is far too early to call Arthur Penn out of the race. And as a side note, precincts are reporting record turnout among voters eighteen to twenty-four . . .”

  CHAPTRE

  THE TWENTY-THIRD

  NEIGHBORS OF MORGAN’S in Verona looked out their windows, watching lights cascading from her windows. One man muttered to his wife, “I’ll tell ya . . . the old bat who lives there is having one serious party.”

  Suddenly unleashed elemental forces erupted from the old house. The ground started to rumble, narrow crevices opened in the weed-covered grounds. Windows glowed with wild, unearthly fires. Those who were of a more imaginative bent thought that bizarre black shapes, twisted and reeking of evil, emerged from the cracks and sideboards, from the chimney and the gutters, dissipating into the rainy night—dozens of them, creatures that had been Morgan’s slaves, on whose energy Morgan had fed. Poltergeists, near-formless creatures that on their own created minor mischief but that, under the control of a master necromancer, could alter probabilities on a wide scale—and even effect election returns—vanished into the night. Morgan’s control of them slipped through her fingers as she used every iota of mystical energy she possessed in her battle
against Merlin.

  Arcane shields hovered before her, cracking and splintering. She blocked Merlin’s thrusts the way a fencer would, but more and more began to slip through. She began to weaken mystically. Her energy slipped away from her.

  “You cannot dampen my hatred for you!” she howled. “It continues to grow!”

  “Hatred is destructive not constructive, Morgan,” Merlin retorted. “And I intend to create! Create a world that you’re not in!”

  Merlin advanced on her, his face set. Morgan battered at his defenses, but he had had time to recuperate. The edge was his, and he was not for one moment permitting Morgan to recapture it. His lips were constantly moving, chanting, invoking the power of the gods, drawing strength from bands of mystic energy that hovered before him.

  “Damn you, Merlin Hellspawn!” Morgan cried. She raised her hands above her head and abruptly dropped her defenses, pulling all her mystic reserves together. A solid black bolt of power sizzled through the air like a thing alive. And Merlin brushed it aside as if she’d tossed a feather at him. It angled upward, blasting through the roof of the old house. Sparks flew from it as it passed, caught on the shingle roof. The roof began to blaze.

  Neighbors on the sidewalk pointed at the fire and hurried to call the fire department.

  Morgan fell back, back further. And she started to age, deteriorating with incredible speed. Within seconds her hair was gray, then white, then falling out, her face wrinkled, her teeth brittle and breaking. The only things glowing were her eyes, in desperation. “Merlin,” she croaked out, “We could rule together—”

  “Go to hell,” said Merlin. His hands formed the horns of Satan, and power flowed from them. Morgan hastily tried to create more shields, but Merlin’s spell passed through them as if they were not there. The power surrounded Morgan, bathing her in an unearthly light, and she clenched her fists, beating at the air as she screamed her fury. “You haven’t won yet! I still hate!”

  Her body turned black, then pale blue. And then, with a rush of air, it exploded outward.

  Merlin turned away as a wave of light and heat rushed at him carrying a foul stench that made him gag. When he looked back, in the space where Morgan had been, there was nothing.

  No, not quite nothing. A black cloud was there, hovering, fuming. Merlin rushed to create a spell of containment, but before it was fully formed, the black cloud slipped away and vanished through the walls.

  The ceiling overhead burst into flames. The fire had worked its way downward, and the house was going quickly. Merlin dashed over to the side of the fallen Gwen, fully expecting to find a corpse. He knelt beside her, lifted her wrist and checked her pulse. To his surprise he found one, strong and steady.

  He took her face in his hands even as the room began to fill with smoke. “Gwen!” he shouted. “Get up! I don’t know if I have enough power to get us both out of here! Gwen, speak to me!”

  Gwen snored.

  “Oh, bloody wonderful,” said Merlin. A sharp cracking overhead alerted him, and he saw a flaming timber break off and fall toward them. He spoke then, spellcasting faster than he ever had in his life. From the corner of his eye, he saw a petrified rodent dashing toward them, and then the timber crashed down.

  “REPEAT,” SAID EDWARD Shukin to his viewing audience, “we are projecting Arthur Penn as the winner of this year’s mayoral election—”

  The repeat was not heard, for the cheer that had gone up when the announcement was first made totally drowned it out. In the midst of the crowd Arthur was laughing, cheering, being pounded joyfully on the back. Nubile young women hugged and kissed him, and every man wanted to shake his hand. He was alternately pushed and pulled to the podium up front, and within moments he found himself facing a mob of cheering, enthusiastic fans and workers. He smiled and put up his hands to indicate that they should quiet down, which only provoked further cheering. Laughing, he just stood there and allowed the adulation of the crowd to wash over him, wave after wave of love. It filled his soul to bursting.

  Finally the crowd started to calm down enough for Arthur to begin to say, “My friends, my . . . dear friends—”

  At that moment Ronnie ran up onto the stage and shouted, “Keating just conceded!” And that set off another round of cheering and applause. By the time Arthur finally got to say anything, it was past midnight.

  “My friends,” he said. “My dear, dear friends. It’s been a long fight. It’s been a difficult fight. We’ve had small victories along the way. We’ve had . . . small losses.” He paused, searching for words. “The trust that this city— that you—have in me, a humble visitor from the past”— and this provoked some cheering—”has certainly been gratifying. I swear that I will uphold the trust that you have placed in me, and do the best job for New York City that any mayor has ever done.”

  Someone in the audience shouted, “When are you running for president?”

  Arthur grinned as people applauded. “Well, let’s give me a few years to get my feet wet. After all, it’s a lot easier being king than being mayor or president. I have a lot to learn first.” He waited for the laughter to subside. “When you’re a king,” he continued, “you tell people to do something, and by God they do it. When you’re a mayor, they ask you why. And when you’re a president they pass it over to some committee or other where a group of men who don’t give a damn what you say get together and decide that they’re not going to do it at all.”

  “Arthur for king!” someone shouted.

  Arthur raised a clenched fist in appreciation. “Now that’s the kind of forward looking backward thinking that I intend to make the hallmark of my career!” The applause was thunderous.

  MODRED WATCHED AS much of Arthur’s speech as he could stomach, then switched channels and saw Keating. He was standing behind a podium, looking ashen—looking drunk, actually—and he was saying, “I have already contacted Mr. Penn . . . make that Mayor-Elect Penn, I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry. No . . . no, I shouldn’t say that. He won fair and square . . . and I would like to be among the first to congratulate the new mayor, and pledge my support in all his future endeavors.”

  Taking some pleasure in a moment of destruction, Modred kicked the TV over. The cord ripped out of the wall, and the set made a satisfying crash as it fell to the ground. “Arthur,” Modred said tightly, “somewhere, somehow . . . I’ll find a way to kill you. And as soon as I find a way, you’ll be the first to know. Until then, rot in hell.”

  He picked up his bags and started for the door, and suddenly dropped the bags and screamed. He pitched over, clutching at his head as if his brain were threatening to explode out the top. He smashed into walls, at war with his own body. And finally he collapsed out of sight behind the bed.

  He lay on the ground, gasping, thumping at his head and then slowly, very slowly, he stopped. He waited until his rapid breathing slowed to normal and then he got to his feet. He felt light headed for a moment, but that quickly cleared. He looked around the room as if seeing it with new eyes, and then he caught his reflection in the mirror.

  Morgan Le Fey smiled back at him.

  And he laughed loud and long.

  IT WAS THE early hours of the morning when Arthur finally arrived home at his modest apartment. He looked around and sighed. Merlin had advised that he keep the place, even after he moved into Gracie Mansion. He sighed again. No matter where he lived, it would seem pale in comparison to Belvedere Castle. And yet, the castle itself would seem empty now that Gwen wasn’t there.

  “Congratulations, Mayor Wart.”

  Arthur spun. There, at his bedroom door, was Merlin. His hair and eyebrows were singed. He had removed his jacket and tie, but his shirt and slacks were blackened from smoke. To Arthur he had never looked so good.

  “Merlin?” He walked slowly toward him, not daring to believe it. “Merlin—is it really you?”

  “Yes, Wart,” he said tiredly. “It’s me.”

  Arthur touched his shoulder gently, tentatively, and th
en a grin split his face. “You got away, didn’t you? You little fox. I should have known.” Then his voice hardened. “Where’s Morgan, Merlin? Where is she hiding? Tell me, because by Excalibur there’ll be a reckoning—”

  Merlin raised a hand. “No need, Arthur. There’s already been a reckoning. Morgan is dead.”

  Arthur paused in disbelief. “Dead?”

  “Yes. Her body, at any rate. It’s hard to destroy her utterly. At the moment all that remains of her is a little discorporated cloud of hate. And I’ll get that eventually too. I’d like to put it in a bottle on my mantel. Make a nice conversation piece.”

  Merlin sauntered across the room and threw himself full length on Arthur’s sofa. Arthur followed him, shaking his head wonderingly. “You did it. You really did it. Morgan is gone.”

  “Well, I had some help ...”

  “Help? How do you mean?”

  Merlin told him. He told him everything—everything Gwen had said, everything that he’d done. Arthur stood there trying to take it all in. “You’re saying . . . you’re saying that she really saved your life.”

  “No,” said Merlin, positioning the throw pillow under his head. “I’m not saying that. I’ll be double damned if I’d ever admit that I needed anyone’s help to fight my battles. However, if you say it, I won’t contradict it.” He stared up at the ceiling. “I was wrong about her, Arthur.”

  “No, Merlin.” Arthur sat across from him. “You were right. You said she wasn’t trustworthy, and you were right.”

  Merlin shook his head. “She made mistakes, true. And you have not? Everything that your precious Gwen Queen did, she did out of a sense of duty—remember she had once sworn loyalty to Lance. She was certain no lasting harm would come to you. She was betrayed by Morgan in that respect. As I recall, Morgan pulled the wool over your eyes more than one time. As a matter of fact, Modred would never have existed if—”