The Knight's Armor

by Paul Gamble

  “What on earth was that?” Jack asked.

  “That’s the problem with the Ministry cafeteria. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the food and the customers. That was Malcolm; he’s actually one of the best agents we have in the Ministry. Brings a lot of bad guys in.”

  Jack thought. “What? Because he can shape-shift and sneak into places through cracks and holes?”

  “Maybe,” said Grey with a sigh, “although I also suspect that it has a lot to do with the fact that no one ever expects to be brought to justice by a bowl of Jell-O.”

  “I can see how that would give you an edge,” agreed Jack.

  Jack decided that after the incident with Malcolm he wasn’t desperately hungry after all. Grey paid for his and Trudy’s food and they found a table to sit down at.

  Trudy and Jack brought Grey up-to-date with what they’d found. For once even Grey was impressed. “Excalibur. That’s … that’s pretty major.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Trudy, “that’s nothing to us; we’ve fought Blackbeard and the queen of Atlantis.”

  “Don’t underestimate this,” Grey said. “Excalibur is legendary. Look, you know that there’s truth in most legends and most of the time the people in the Ministry are actually behind the myths. But not this time. I know there really was a King Arthur and an Excalibur—but I don’t know how the sword worked and I certainly don’t know how to pull it from the stone.”

  “Well, we aren’t going back to get the sword anytime soon. At least not until we figure out how to defeat enemies that pull themselves back together after you break them apart.”

  Grey thought. “You’re up against someone trying to use King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur. What do you know about King Arthur?”

  “We know King Arthur pulled Excalibur out of a stone to become king,” Trudy suggested.

  “Yes,” agreed Jack. “And his castle was called Camelot. And he had a wizard named Merlin … and…”

  Trudy and Jack turned and looked at each other. “Merlin!”

  “Mr. M!”

  Jack gulped. “I think we’ve just put a very big piece of the puzzle in place.”

  Grey frowned. “Of course, Mr. M is Merlin! If you’re right and Merlin is who you’re up against then this is going to be trouble.”

  “But wait,” Jack said, “Mr. M claimed that he was a scientist, not a magician.”

  Grey slowly shook his head. “Jack, science and magic are almost the same thing.62 And Merlin was rumored to be the most powerful human scientist that ever existed.”

  Jack’s eyes widened. “THE most powerful? I don’t like the sound of that. How can we possibly defeat him then?”

  “We go and speak to someone with even more power than him,” Grey said.

  “But didn’t you just say he was the most powerful…”

  “The most powerful human, Jack. Not everyone in the Ministry is human.”

  “Yeah, stop being so human-centric.” Trudy laughed.

  * * *

  MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK

  ANTS

  RELATIVE STRENGTH

  Ants are amongst the most amazing creatures to exist on the Earth. Scientists have noted that an ant can lift up to fifty times its own body weight. So it’s vital not to pick a fight with the fat ones, as they’re clearly the strongest.

  It is interesting to note that ants are the reason that we know that Noah did not load the creatures onto his ark in alphabetical order. Because if that were the case, the ants would have gone on in front of the anteaters. Which, as you can imagine, would have been a disaster waiting to happen.

  * * *

  21

  NON-EUCLIDIAN FILING CABINETS

  “Welcome to the filing room of Cthulhu,”63 said Grey. “Now, a couple of safety tips: Don’t stray away from the yellow line on the floor; try not to fall into alternate dimensions; and above all, remember where you put your sanity, so you can take it with you when we leave.” Grey pushed open a rather ordinary door, to reveal a rather extraordinary room.

  It was quite unlike anything Jack had ever seen. Although much of it was colored in murky grays, greens, and blacks, there were also brighter colors—purples, yellows, reds. In fact, there were some colors that Jack had never even seen before—colors that would have made a rainbow seem drab. When Jack tried to describe the colors inside his head it was impossible. They weren’t similar to any other colors and so he had nothing to compare them to.64

  Jack screwed his eyes up as he looked around the room. Even looking at it started his temples throbbing, and it felt as if something was swelling up in the middle of his head. It wasn’t so much the contents of the room that made him feel like this. It was more the way those contents seemed to bend, wave, twist, and move. And how some of them were on the floor, others were in the air, and still others seemed to jut out of nothing and expand on into infinity.

  “How does anyone ever find anything in here?” Jack asked.

  “Generally speaking, they don’t,” said Grey. “But then again, that is Cthulhu’s idea. He’s a creature of almost impossible interdimensional evil. He regards filing and bureaucracy as a way to drive people insane, remember?”

  Trudy looked around her, while being careful to make sure her feet stayed on the yellow guide line. “Why have you never brought us here before?”

  “Mainly because of the high risk of madness or dismemberment. Anyway, a filing system where you can never find anything is of limited use.”

  “How does this place even work?” asked Jack. He gazed up at a filing cabinet that was thousands of feet in the sky. “I mean, how could you get near that cabinet up there?”

  “Simple,” said Grey. “The laws of physics don’t exist in this room.”

  “Why?”

  Grey grimaced. “We rather suspect that the laws of physics are scared of Cthulhu.”

  Jack thought back to his own encounters with the squid-headed, evil, multidimensional Cthulhu. “Well, that makes sense, I suppose.”

  “So what if Cthulhu scared off the laws of physics? That still doesn’t explain how you could reach a filing cabinet miles in the sky,” Trudy said.

  “Ahh, well, without the laws of physics to take control, strange things can happen. For instance, would you agree that the quickest way between two points is a straight line?”

  Jack and Trudy agreed that this was something they had heard in their math classes.

  “Well, clearly that’s just nonsense.” Grey took a pen and a notepad from his pocket and drew a short, straight line on it. “Now use this to get to America.”

  “What?” Trudy wrinkled up her face. “We can’t use this to get to America.”

  “Exactly,” said Grey, “because the quickest way between two points isn’t a straight line. It’s an airplane. Now, watch this.…” Grey looked at the space around his head as if trying to pinpoint an exact location. Suddenly they saw a tiny shimmer in the air. Grey reached his hand toward the shimmer. When he touched it, his arm seemed to extend, impossibly stretching miles into the air. With his elongated arm he tapped the side of the filing cabinet that was hanging so far above them. “See?” he said, before retracting his arm, which shrank back to normal size. “When you suspend the laws of physics, it’s amazing what you can achieve.” Jack thought about trying it himself but was too scared that his arm wouldn’t shrink back to normal size. Long arms might be useful sometimes, but the downside would be that he would only be able to go out in the summer, as you’d never find a long-sleeved shirt that would fit.

  Grey led Jack and Trudy through the maze of cabinets and piles of paper. Occasionally they seemed to be walking up the walls, or on the ceiling, but it was hard to tell, because even when they took a step onto a different plane, it always felt as if they were the right way up.

  Eventually they saw Cthulhu sitting behind an enormous green desk, which seemed to be fashioned out of decaying skulls and bones. As usual he was wearing his dark-blue monk’s robe. The large
leather chair he was sitting on had been split in two to allow his enormous bat-like wings to stick through the back of it. His gray-colored head looked squid-like and unhealthy with green pustules bursting on its surface. Cthulhu appeared to be deep in conversation with the man sitting opposite him.

  Just looking at the man Cthulhu was talking to sent a chill down Jack’s spine, although he wasn’t sure why. He was a tall, bony angular figure, draped in a series of yellow rags and bandages that rustled back and forth despite the fact that there was no wind in the room. The rags were torn, and some had small spatters of blood on them. The man’s face was hooded, yet even when he leaned forward into the light, there was nothing but blackness visible.

  Jack felt his insides shrink. “They look busy; maybe we should come back later.”

  “Nonsense. Actually Cthulhu’s in remarkably good form these days.”

  “And who’s that he’s with?” asked Jack.

  “That’s the King in Yellow,” Grey said.

  Even hearing the name spoken out loud made Jack shudder. “And what’s a King in Yellow?”

  “No one’s really sure, but we suspect that he’s created through all the fear and despair in the world coagulating into a single physical entity.”

  “Maybe Jack’s right,” Trudy said nervously, shifting her feet.

  As they were talking, the King in Yellow stood up, bowed elegantly to Cthulhu, and then seemed to dissolve into the air.

  “See, now there’s nothing to be scared of.” Grey smiled and strode over to Cthulhu’s desk.

  “I can’t believe he said that,” Jack grumbled as they followed Grey. “There’s clearly a lot to be scared of. It’s just that one of the things to be scared of has vanished. Which, if anything, makes it more terrifying because we don’t know where it’s going to pop up next.”

  Cthulhu stood up and three tentacles shot out from under his cloak. They ratcheted into the air, twisted, turned, and then shot directly at the three friends. Jack looked stunned; Trudy stumbled backward. Grey, however, merely stuck out an arm and shook “hands” with the tentacle. Jack and Trudy nervously imitated him.

  After shaking “hands,” two of the tentacles shot into the corners of the room and pulled two chairs out of the darkness for Jack and Trudy to sit on.

  Jack nervously lowered himself into his chair, slightly perturbed that it was covered in leather buckles and straps clearly used to restrain people. He would probably have been more worried, but too much of his mind was taken up with wondering why Cthulhu had offered them a seat. The monster he remembered had been much too interested in banishing people to alternate dimensions to be bothered politely receiving guests.

  “Good to see you, Cthulhu,” Grey said.

  Cthulhu made a strange retching noise that sounded like two splintered pieces of metal being dragged against each other. “I see you were being visited by the King in Yellow?” Grey added.

  Cthulhu looked serious and nodded. He proceeded to make a series of noises and gesticulated wildly with dozens of tentacles. Grey nodded thoughtfully.

  Jack knew it would have been better not to interrupt, but his natural curiosity got the better of him. “What’s he saying?” Jack whispered to Grey from the side of his mouth.

  Grey translated. “Apparently, Cthulhu’s trying to get the filing into order so that it’s actually useful. But to do that he’s going to need to persuade the laws of physics to come back into the room. That’s why the King in Yellow was here. Cthulhu is trying to persuade the king to use his powers and influence to dispel some of the misery and fear from this area.”

  Jack was puzzled. “Cthulhu, I thought you were generally in favor of increasing despair and torment.”

  Cthulhu shook his head and the tentacles around his mouth writhed as he spoke. Grey translated. “Cthulhu says that he’s struck a deal with the Minister. Apparently since Cthulhu’s daughter helped us defeat the queen of Atlantis, the Minister has agreed she can leave Lough Neagh65 on weekends and go for trips in the sea with her father. They just have to promise to try and avoid disrupting weather patterns and destroying shipping. In return, Cthulhu has agreed to try to make the filing system easier to understand.”

  Trudy nudged Grey in the ribs. “While it’s lovely to hear about interdimensional beings having family picnics, that isn’t going to rescue my mother. We’re here to ask for help in defeating Merlin. So—ask.”

  Grey was suitably chastised and asked Cthulhu what he knew of Merlin.

  Cthulhu went deadly silent and sat staring at them blankly. His green eyes sparked slightly and caused a halo to glow around his head. Everyone was silent as Cthulhu told them what he knew of Merlin.

  Merlin had been considered one of the most powerful people of the ancient world; however, he wasn’t generally a very nice individual. And considering that Cthulhu was the one saying this, Jack suspected that Merlin was a very horrible person indeed.

  Cthulhu admitted that he did not know the full story of Merlin. He did, however, confirm that for many years Merlin and King Arthur had worked together to bring stability to a kingdom that included most of Wales and England. Apparently, Merlin had a strange power that allowed him to control knights and make them do whatever he wanted. It was this power that made Merlin and King Arthur almost invincible.

  It was generally accepted that King Arthur was a remarkably nice man and would forgive his enemies, whereas Merlin always insisted on destroying them absolutely. Eventually King Arthur and Merlin could stand each other’s ways no longer. King Arthur had known all along what Merlin’s secret method of controlling people was and used this knowledge to banish Merlin.

  “That’s great!” said Jack. “All we need to know now is what was Merlin’s secret for mind control? And how did King Arthur manage to banish him?”

  Cthulhu looked straight ahead. Then a tentacle sneaked out from the bottom of his cloak and scratched the center of his squid-shaped head. Cthulhu made a few brief yipping noises of the sort you hear if you accidentally sit on a hamster.

  Grey turned to Jack. “Cthulhu says that he can’t remember those details, but they should be in the filing system somewhere.” Grey indicated the vast room around them that twisted and bent both space and time. “Where exactly is anyone’s guess.”

  Cthulhu made some more small noises.

  “He says he’ll let us know if the King in Yellow’s negotiations go well and the laws of physics return to the room. In the meantime, that’s as much as he can tell us.”

  “Are you sure there aren’t any other details he knows about Merlin?” Trudy asked.

  Cthulhu thought hard before speaking.

  Grey translated. “Just three facts: Apparently Merlin was responsible for building Stonehenge. Secondly, he definitely wasn’t a magician—he was just a very clever scientist who figured out not to tell people how he achieved his results. His father was an herbalist and taught Merlin many secrets about plants and crops. He also knew much about advanced science—but no one knows where he got the knowledge from. And finally, Merlin was a fiercely passionate carpenter.”

  “Carpenter?” asked Jack.

  “Well, yes—surely you know the legends about Merlin? He was most famous for building the round table.”

  * * *

  MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK

  FEAR

  WHY IT CAN BE A POSITIVE EMOTION

  Fear is one of the most interesting emotions that human beings display. People talk about it as if it is a negative thing, but it is, in fact, a very positive emotion. It was developed as a survival mechanism for letting us know when we should run away. Most people are scared of something. Occasionally you will come across a completely fearless person, but generally they don’t tend to live very long and rarely if ever find themselves drawing a pension.66

  For example, if you find someone shouting “Oh, no—there’s a lion loose in the city center!” the sensible person will become afraid and run away immediately. However, the fearless person instead s
ays “I’m not afraid. I’ll go and catch the lion.”

  And inevitably the fearless person is eaten.

  Some fearless people in history include:

  Joan of Arc with “I needed a tan anyway.”

  The captain of the Titanic with “It’s only a bit of ice.”

  And not forgetting …

  Captain Scott with “A bit of cold never hurt anyone.”

  The only type of fear that isn’t good is irrational fear. Such as fear of small, nonpoisonous spiders. Small spiders can’t hurt you at all and therefore there is no point in being frightened of them. This is irrational fear.

  Unless of course the spider has a bad attitude and is wielding a switchblade, in which case the fear becomes entirely rational again.

  * * *

  22

  HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

  Jack, Trudy, and Grey walked along the corridors of the Ministry. “This is all beginning to make sense,” Trudy said.

  “Is it really? Because if so, I certainly hadn’t noticed,” Jack muttered.

  “Think about it. Merlin controlled people’s minds somehow to make the knights follow King Arthur. And that’s what he’s doing now. There’s probably some mind-altering ingredient in those health-food bars.”

  “Okay,” Jack agreed. “That makes sense—especially if his father was an herbalist. That’s how he gets his expertise with man-eating plants. But what else?”

  “That fantasy film they’re making—The Once-Forgotten King—is giving out his health-food bars, and we know he’s behind that as well. But why?”

  Jack snapped his fingers. “It makes perfect sense! Think about it. Merlin’s from a time of knights, swords, and wizards. He pretends to be making a film about those things and then if anyone sees suits of armor or swords being used they just assume it’s part of the film. Also, it means he can use huge animatronic machines as henchmen. Like the giant.”

  “Exactly,” Trudy agreed. “So he’s trying to take people’s minds over again and create a new army.”