The Serpent and the Grail (The Perilous Order of Camelot)

by Attanasio, A. A.

  Chapter 13:

  The Valor of the Worm

  In the main council chamber, Merlin paced before the long conference table under the Seven Eyes of God, where the king sat staring at his reflection in the highly polished ebony. On a faldstool to his right, Fra Athanasius slumped, avoiding looking across the table at the god Loki.

  The Aesir god leaned forward on his elbows, black-gloved hands clasped before his tattooed face. Nearby, Bedevere stood in a pool of sunlight let down from the crystal skydome.

  "Fra Athanasius, you have seen the devastation of our island kingdom during your journey here," spoke the wizard. "Will you help us? Will you inform Pope Gelasius that we are worthy of his Christian charity?"

  The legate cleared his throat, thumbed his spectacles higher on the bridge of his long nose, and passed a dark look from the boy-king to the wizard. "Sir, I have but one mind and heart here, to make firm the will of our Holy Father. The mandate given me remains the same as was laid upon my beloved master, Victricius. The original papal legate was a saint more than a churchman. He paid with his very life that I should come before you as emissary of the papal see. I durst not betray my love of him or his lifelong love of the Church by assessing your kingdom by any less brave measure than the truth."

  "And your assessment, Fra Athanasius?" Merlin pressed. "Let us hear it."

  Athanasius' jaw throbbed beneath his peppery beard, and the wings of his nostrils whitened before he spoke in an angry and frightened voice: "By my faith, you are all devils, every jack of you! The king's warlord Urien and his men who escorted me to Camelot are pagans all. The king himself is but an adolescent, a child who abides sodomites and wizards. And opposite me sits the very Devil himself, a supernatural creature in mortal disguise." His large eyes blazed behind his lenses at Loki's smiling face of tattoos.

  The legate turned to the king and did not flinch before Arthur's outraged scowl. "You dare ask the Holy Father for charity? You dare? The fire of God's wrath hath blown hard upon the land of the Britons to make desolate this cursed isle. This blight presents grim and terrible testament to the wickedness of your unholy ways."

  "In one syllable then: no?" Loki asked through a snide grin.

  "Be silent, Loki," the wizard snapped.

  Loki bowed his scribbled head in mock submission.

  "And you as well, Merlin—be silent," Arthur said in a soft voice. "The king will speak for himself."

  Merlin clasped his hands behind his back and directed his irate stare to the sunny skydome and rainbow cope.

  "Athanasius, I am a youth." Arthur's rose cheeks glowed with anger, yet his voice stayed mild. "And you, you must acknowledge, you are but a scribe."

  "Be not deceived, young king, I am full warranted by the Holy Father himself."

  "I do not question that. Yet, I say again—you are but a scribe. Do you dispute this?"

  "Take not too great scorn at my humble station. Yes, I am a scribe, a former notarius. I serve the highest offices of the Church and am sanctioned to act in full capacity as legate of Pope Gelasius."

  Arthur accepted this with a gracious nod, though he made no effort to disguise his indignation. "I am a youth who is a king, and you are a scribe who is a legate. My station is as properly sanctioned as yours and more so, for I was born to noble parents. Accident alone made you an emissary, whereas God Himself warrants my status by birthright. Nonetheless, I am a youth—as you are a scribe. Both of us must strive against our limits to fulfill—properly and rightly— the tasks that God has put before us."

  "Your boyhood is not constraint upon my judgment, sire. A sodomite at your right hand and a wizard at your left—that is the vile part of you. I dare not condone such evil for love of my own soul."

  "The man you brand a sodomite came into my service by recommendation of the very same Holy Father whom you now serve. Pope Gelasius was master to my Bedevere with full knowledge of his—predilections, and yet he relied on his skill for protection against assassins." From the sheaf of parchments before him, the king removed vellum trimmed in papal cochineal. "Here is the document of recommendation bearing our Holy Father's signature and seal. As a scribe you are qualified to affirm the authenticity of what I am showing you."

  Athanasius accepted the document with both hands and recognized at once an official papal commendation. "Verily, it is genuine."

  "Pope Gelasius is not a sodomite." The king's voice fell into silence like a stone down a well. After a significant moment, he went on, "Nor am I, Athanasius. I am a devout Christian and accept Bedevere as my personal guard for his abilities as a warrior. Surely, you will not hold that against me any more than you would question the judgment of our Holy Father—will you?"

  The legate blinked and wiped sweat drops from his high brow, visibly flustered. "No, my lord." He noticed Merlin peering intently at him from under his bent hat with its esoteric stitchings, and he stabbed an accusatory finger at him. "But that wizard with the direful countenance, that creature who speaks freely of his former existence as a demon—an incubus! Carnal Merlin! Surely, he is neither right flesh nor blood."

  Arthur laughed good-naturedly, and his golden eyes glittered merrily in his boyish face. "Merlin is a marvel of God's love, Athanasius! That God could transform a hateful demon into a benign mortal devoted to the furtherance of all that is holy and good is a genuine marvel. A miracle! His mother was renowed and revered Saint Optima, daughter of the King of Cos. From her, he learned compassion, and now all his demon powers are directed by a will of love and truth. There is no wickedness in him. Do not judge him by his face, man. Look to his soul—and you will find his soul in his deeds. What evil has he done? This was an island of strife and warfare until God sent him to help us unite our land against the pagan invaders. Look no farther than your own nose if you would measure this wizard by his works. Did he not restore your sight?"

  "I am well pleased to see most clearly again," the scribe admitted, then confided in an anxious tone, "but I fear magic, my lord. It is unchristian. It draws a veil of illusion athwart our eyes."

  "I tell you this, Athanasius, I am a true Christian, and there is nothing unholy in my court. What we call magic here in Camelot is not supernatural at all. It is nature itself. And I will prove that to you—if you are sincere and will fulfill properly and rightly your role as legate."

  The emissary placed both palms flat on the table, and averred, "You will indeed resolve all my doubts if you can show me that what appears magic to my restored vision is not supernatural."

  "What is supernatural is beyond the knowing of this world." Arthur looked to the legate for acknowledgment. "Of that you will agree?"

  "Of a certainty." Athanasius bobbed his curly head briskly. "The supernatural is gnosis—understanding that descends to us from the ultramundane. The Church forbids such apprehensions, for they originate with Satan and come forth to take us unawares and confound us."

  "The natural world," Arthur continued, "the world of God's creation—that is within our knowing, within our capacity as mortal beings to grasp and understand with our minds."

  "Indeed." The legate regarded the boy-king curiously, wondering where his argument wended. "Such is scientia, and all the Church fathers concur that this knowledge is given us by God that our minds may better encompass His creation and we may know Him more truly."

  "Then, I tell you Athanasius, all the magic here in Camelot and all the magic practiced by my wizard Merlin is scientia and can be explained in a way that anyone of common intelligence will understand."

  The scribe thrust out his lower lip and nodded contemplatively. "You have spoken well, sire, and I am moved now to recant my uproar of words and my dark condemnation of you and your court. But I shall not depart one tittle from the article of my faith before the inexplicable. Thus said—" He slid his gaze toward Loki, who watched him with a bemused smile. "How do you adjudge by scientia this adversary of reason?"

  "Merlin, show Fra Athanasius the truth of our guest, the god Loki."
>
  The wizard nodded to Bedevere, who with a swift, lunging step came up behind Loki. As the Liar gripped the table edge to push away, the blur that was Bedevere's scimitar thwacked through his neck and sent his bald, tattooed head rolling across the table.

  The legate shrieked, and the head tumbled into his lap, black eyes agape, mouth moving and speaking. "You've gotten a head of me, Athanasius ..."

  Merlin plucked up the severed head by its ear, and it winced, and cried, "Ouch!" He exposed the tulip-bright underside to the scribe. "Behold—no blood. Only this longing to appear mortal." He reached his hand into the red frills and pulled the head inside out. Like a hand puppet, the fuchsia crisscrossing of muscles, the tangle of blood tubes, the hard-boiled eyes, and complete absence of brain bobbed before Athanasius' horrified face. "You see, it is an illusion." He slapped the flesh rag against the tabletop, and it splattered into green sparks and crawling blue volts. "It is a kind of ectoplasm—like Saint Elmo's fire, the colorful flames one sees on the masts of ships in storms. Like will-o'-the-wisps. Or ball lightning."

  "My God—my God!" Athanasius blubbered.

  Out of Loki's severed neck, a sparkling blood mist rose and crystallized into a precise replica of the head that had vanished. "Would you like to see that again?"

  -)(-

  King Arthur doffed his gold chaplet and regal attire and rode out from Camelot dressed in the hempen tunic and frayed sandals of John Halt. Merlin made no attempt to stop him, for he understood how thoroughly the boy had taken upon himself the distress of Britain. Only outside of Camelot would he find the resolve necessary to overcome his bewilderment at his mother's desertion of their faith and his own anguish at the powerlessness of his prayers to overcome without magic the dangers that threatened his kingdom. Merlin only prayed that the boy would avoid dragons and encounters with wildwood gangs and roving Wolf Warriors.

  Meanwhile, Merlin occupied himself by taking Loki and Fra Athanasius into Camelot's grotto so that the legate might be educated in the scientia of magic. Athanasius gawked in dismay at the wizard's underworld basilica. Mineral steps curved downward into a cavern of amorphous coral shapes and shadowy alveolar depths lit by phosphorescent orbs.

  On rock shelves and ledges, bubbling glassware and steaming kettle pots filled with cuprous green fluids crowded against distilling coils and stacks of scrolls and moldy tomes. Among measureless rock ducts, drains, and gullets, echoes of dripping liquids clocked their dull chimes.

  Apprehensively, the legate stepped past chalk pillars and under wet stone fangs, frowning with obvious disfavor at the gravid icon of the Original Mother that seemed to preside solemnly over the entire infernal panoply.

  "Ah, this is the oldest God, Athanasius, the true Creator," the god Loki said, striding past the scribe and slapping the pregnant belly of the statue. "Her dugs have squirted the Milky Way, and from between Her legs came skidding forth the whole of Earth among the placental stars."

  Merlin lifted an amber wand from a flat rock cluttered with knobs of resin, opals, and drilling tools. He held up the wand for the emissary to behold, then rubbed it vigorously between the folds of his robe.

  "What are you up to, Merlin?" Loki backed up against the crude and featureless statue as the wizard approached.

  With a swipe of the wand, Merlin cut Loki in half. "You see, Athanasius, what the pagans call gods are in fact entities of astral fire, a cool, protoplasmic form of lightning."

  "Stop that, Merlin!" Loki shouted with annoyance as the wizard slashed the amber wand through the god's body, breaking him into hovering, disjointed pieces. "I'll not be your toy!"

  "On the contrary." Merlin whirled the wand vigorously, and Loki dissolved into a luminous frosty green haze. "You will prove a most entertaining subject for my first lesson in the scientia of cold fire." He gathered the radiant cloud above a ferrous rock stump of rusty hue, where it pooled to a vaporous swirl of spectral refulgence from which Loki's cries of protest squeaked like the rage of bats.

  The wizard smiled at the openmouthed legate. "We will begin with a demonstration of attraction and repulsion in the realm of atoms ... "

  -)(-

  Bedevere groaned when he realized that Arthur intended returning to The Blanket of Stars. "Our kingdom is plagued by dragons, King Wesc gathers a massive invasion force in Jutland to swarm upon our shores, the papal legate who decides whether we are to eat or starve is in the care of your wizard while the Aesir god Loki wanders freely about Camelot, and you visit again with an innkeeper's widow?"

  He drew his horse alongside the king. "Are you mad, sire? You realize, we are without protection. Bors Bona has withdrawn his forces to his fastness in Parisi to prepare for the coming assault. You and I alone are out here among wayfaring brigands and pagan raiders."

  "Look at the land, Bedevere." Arthur motioned to the broken road before them and the leafless trees. In the brittle fields beyond, a neatherd marched his spindle-shanked cows along the broad stony bed of an exhausted river. "The Furor has already defeated us with his magic. If we are to reclaim Britain, we must use magic ourselves." He turned a narrow look on his guard. "That makes me feel—unclean."

  "Surely, your faith is unbesmirched by these forces that are dark only because the light of reason has yet to illuminate them." The swordsman tugged uncomfortably at the sheepskin collar of his threadbare mantle. "You yourself convinced Athanasius that magic is but scientia."

  The king nodded gravely. "I should be as attentive a student as our Latin brother and sit at Merlin's knee. In truth, Bedevere, I fear for my soul."

  "And the innkeeper's widow offers salvation, my lord?"

  "Perhaps you are right to chide me." Perspiration mottled his hempen tunic and had wrung his hair to spikes. He spoke hesitantly, unable to look Bedevere in the eyes and pretending to adjust the linen bands that dressed his swollen leg. "I am the king and should have loftier affections, I know. And yet, somehow I sense that Julia can be my anchor in this world. She is a good British woman, a caring daughter, a hard and proud worker, who has paid in blood with her husband's life to put me on the throne. I would—" He paused awkwardly. "I would see her face again before I give myself to the netherworld and Merlin's magic." His yellow eyes glittered. "She has a face I find agreeable, that is all. And if I hold close the memory of her, it is only to guide me back to this world."

  -)(-

  Skidblade swept Morgeu the Fey across the face of the Earth toward Avalon. In its billows of dry steam that smelled purple as a storm, she felt no motion, though she knew she soared, because the Furor himself had so commanded the clever vehicle. To the nacreous interior she spoke: "Set me down in Britain, in the forests of Crowland."

  She did not know if Skidblade would obey her, so when the calm flamecored lights dazzled around her and the door widened, she peered out anxiously.

  The black night baffled her, and she had to exit before she recognized the tattered pines of Crowland. Skidblade had alighted upon a bluff. She overlooked the willow spills of a lone island in a turgid stream where starlight reflected like broken lightning. The moon, a bird of wish, a wing of bright stone, stood high above the ragged treetops.

  Skidblade waited while Morgeu made her way down the rocky slope, over fallen trees and desiccated bales of weeds. She lifted her crimson robes to her thighs and waded through the muddy shallows and razory grasses to the slender island. There, with nothing more than moonlight and marsh vapors, she wove a chapel.

  Of moonfire and stardust, Morgeu raised a small, holy house on the willow isle. Its blackstone lintel bore the cross in the circle of the Celts, and under the sonorous trees the little building appeared entirely real. Dark as the peacefulness of death, its spired doorway rang with deeper darkness. Inside, in a silence serene and overwhelming, she raised a bituminous altar, black as oblivion. Upon it, she set the Grail.

  It was just a wood cup. It was not a real wood cup, any more than the feldspar blocks of the walls were real or the jet tiles of the roof, or the votive
flames flickering upon the tall, pale candles in the windy chancel. All existed insubstantial as tomorrow and borrowed solidity from the ache for mystery in the human breast.

  Satisfied with her illusion, Morgeu walked three times around the dark chapel, singing to the demons who served the Furor. Her voice floated ghostly over the treetops. The demons heard her, and their hardy musk thickened in the willow air.

  "Send a dragon," she instructed. "Send a dragon to lie in the swale. Soon, my brother's warriors will come ... "

  Smiles of raw meat widened under the willow manes.

  Morgeu splashed across the shallows laughing bleakly. Ahead, shining atop the pine crest in emerald hues of the night's breath, Skidblade waited to carry her to Avalon.

  -)(-

  Fra Athanasius sat alone in a shadowed alcove of the main hall. Out of the vestry, he had selected a white alb and a blue dalmatic to replace the cassock that had become tainted with the fumes of Merlin's grotto.

  The hellish stink had troubled him. It had smelled like a medicinal church, full of the unholy incense of distillates and mentholated vapors. He could not think with that dire stench in his nostrils, and he had doffed the offensive cassock and rummaged through the liturgical wardrobe for something appropriate to wear.

  In his current station as papal legate, he felt entitled to don ecclesiastic garments, though as scribe and notarius he had only ever worn a simple smock and, for formal occasions, a tabard embroidered with clerical emblems.

  The priestly garb, for all its starched crispness and fresh scent, did not assuage the uneasiness that accompanied all he had learned from the wizard. A whole other order of beings existed, he discovered—entities who dwelled far up in the sky and deep within the Earth, creatures fashioned by God out of electricity.