So, without further ado, let’s get started, shall we?
II
In the bottommost point of the lowest pit of Hell, I hit the water with a crack that felt like the breaking of every bone in my body. As I sank beneath the scalding waters, I saw that the pool itself was also breaking, water pouring out and flooding the cavern as the rocky bed beneath me split wide open. The water level subsided around me, and I had a brief moment in which to gasp for air. In that split second the entire cavern was filled with a mighty rumble, before the cracks in the bottom of the pool opened wide and I fell through them, swallowed up by the earth. I was surrounded by detritus, small rocks, big rocks, earth and rubble, worms and mulch, and me no more than a speck among all that thundering firmament, a single mote of dust in a vacuum cleaner bag.
Then came the settling. The swift accumulation of an incredible weight. Squeezing my lungs empty, pressing down on me with immense power, a pure push of pain on every inch of my body. And with the settling of the earth came the realisation of what was actually happening.
I was being buried alive.
This sent me into a flurry of panic, pushing against a load I could never hope to lift, hands flailing and fingers digging even as they became stuck fast. It did not last long; it could not. It was time to gasp my last. Time to give up the ghost in a Hell of my own making. My final thoughts were of Beaumains. Of how I would like to see her just one more time, back as she was, not the foul travesty I had just confronted.
My body shuddered with a final burst of life. The dying spasm reached my right hand. My index finger found a little pocket of space, a tiny recess in which to stretch itself out, as my mind narrowed to a single dark point, towards death, towards nothingness.
But not quite yet. For there was still something remaining. Something within me, but also without. My finger touched that something. It was cold and hard. It was not made of earth. In those last fleeting seconds of my life, the feel of it reminded me of the Grail, and I felt a rush of empathy for that magical artefact. A lifetime of unquestioning service. I wondered if it had ever felt tired. I wondered if anybody had ever thought to ask the Grail what it wanted out of all this. If it could choose, who did it really want to serve? I even tried to say it aloud, but my mouth filled with soil even as I spoke the words:
“Whom does the Grail serve?”
Well, Gwion my boy, as it turned out, that was quite the question.
†
I felt myself being pulled up towards a bright light. Not softly and in spirit as I have heard it said of the soul at the moment of death, but physically hoiked up, the weight of all that earth no greater than a clump of soil on a gardener’s trowel. The light was all around me, and next to me was the Grail. There it had been, awaiting my arrival at the lowest point of Hell, just as it had been awaiting my arrival back then, all those years ago in the Glass Fortress when I had failed to claim it. But the light was not coming from the Grail, as it had done when Arthur first instructed it with the terms and conditions of the Eternal Quest. The light was coming from me. Pouring off me like water, as I forged upstream on my unstoppable journey towards new life.
I held out both my hands, a sunrise in each palm. And as I raised my arms, all the earth of Lower Annwn rose up and separated, scattering around me. I ascended into the cavern and back up to the outcrop, stopping in mid-air so that I was facing the spot where the wizard Merlin still waited for me. Still with his hood down, and still with the same face that had so surprised me only moments ago, but now seemed as natural as my own reflection. For that is exactly what it was.
“Whom does the Grail serve, Sir Lucas?” said the Merlin me. “That is the question. The Grail serves a servant. A butler like you. A butler like me.”
“Hello, Sir Lucas,” I said.
“Hello, Sir Lucas,” he said. “I expect that there are some matters that need clarifying at this point.”
“There is nothing worse than a loose end,” I agreed.
“I would be happy to answer any questions you may have,” he said.
“Thank you, Sir Lucas. Firstly, you are not the previous Merlin, are you?”
“No, Sir Lucas. I am you. A foreshadow of you, sent by the old Merlin to help you achieve your somewhat delayed destiny.”
“So when the Master summoned Merlin back from the Otherworld, he was actually summoning forth you. That is to say, me.”
“That is correct. Your predecessor ‘Merlin’ is now in retirement and could not be recalled for love nor money. He keeps bees, I believe.”
“Was my predecessor also a butler, before he became Merlin?”
“Yes. You even worked under him, briefly, in the household of King Uther, Arthur’s father.”
“Master Blaise? But he went away.”
“On his own Grail Quest to the Otherworld, to the Glass Fortress. He came back as Merlin, just in time to arrange Arthur’s conception and help him with the early days of his reign.”
“His own Grail Quest?”
“Different to yours, but in essence the same. A magical object, a catalyst for a coming of age. For him it was a rather fine hamper. The Grail cauldron was yours. For your successor, the last of the butler-magicians, it will be something else.”
“So King Arthur was never meant to take the Grail?”
“Good gracious me, no! Treasures as powerful as that should never be removed from the Otherworld by the uninitiated. If anyone else takes a magical object away, it upsets the balance and seals off the Otherworld, allowing the likes of Le Fay to turn it into Hell. No, King Arthur’s destiny was at Camelot.”
“And at the Last Battle,” I said, shuddering at the memory of Camlann.
“Well, it’s difficult to say for sure. If you’d got the Grail when you were supposed to, and then returned as a wizard to advise Arthur, perhaps there never would have been a Last Battle. Then again, maybe it was for the best that there was. That’s the funny thing about Golden Ages: they only really work when they never last. No quest was ever meant to be eternal.”
“I must say, all this seems rather a lot of information for someone to figure out on their own.”
“You were never supposed to. Every magician has his other half. They become part of his transition, eventually passing on with him to live beyond the Otherworld, on a far flung shore.”
“Beaumains,” I said. “Am I too late to save her?” I gestured to her monstrous form, still standing on the outcrop with the other living dead, my loyal staff of Lower Camelot who fought and died so bravely.
“That I cannot say. Certainly, now that you are a butler-magician, nothing is ever too late. Or too early.”
“Well, as pleasant as this interval has been, I can’t stay here talking forever,” I said.
“No,” said Sir Lucas. “You certainly can’t.”
And with that, he passed into me. Or rather, I passed into me; my destined Merlin-self, followed by the ever-obedient Grail. And as I absorbed the Grail, it unlocked the full extent of its power, next to which the uses Arthur had put it to on the Eternal Quest were mere sundries.
And so Sir Lucas the Butler became Lucas the Magician, Lucas the Merlin. Transfigured and suspended in Lower Annwn, the manifestation of all the power at my disposal blazed with the light of a thousand stars. I knew that I had only to desire it, and all knowledge, all of space and time, was mine for the taking. And frankly, it was all a bit much. All that radiance and omnipotence is suitably impressive, no doubt, but something of a distraction when trying to focus one’s mind on the tasks in hand. No, what I really needed was to concentrate all that power, to pour it into a manageable mould. Something that I could work with.
With that thought, the light fractured into fragments, each the size of a small pane of glass. The pieces arranged themselves in a circle around me, then multiplied, spreading out into three dimensions like the seeds on a dandelion clock. Words appeared on each piece, written in my own hand. Lists and routines, items and itineraries; all the stuff of the f
irst working day of a butler-magician.
I gathered all the gleaming fragments together, piling them up in a stack in my palm until they condensed into a whole. The light faded, and in its place was a small leather-bound notebook edged with gold, which flipped open to the first page. I read it and nodded, satisfied. It told me everything I needed to do next, and exactly how to do it, and that was more than enough to be going on with.
And so I set to work.
III
“Master?”
“Good morning, staff,” I said to the living dead of Lower Annwn. At the sudden manifestation of my Merlin-self, their jaws dropped. Which, seeing as most of them were barely attached to their faces anyway, was quite a sight. “Item one on the agenda. Cancelling curses and de-damning the damned.” The creatures moaned and groaned, but from habit rather than complaint. Indeed, I detected a certain lightness to their tone, my magical ear picking up a faint anticipation of job satisfaction. As they gathered together in a group, they seemed to stand a little taller, their flesh slightly less decomposed. Restoration had begun.
While they were assembling (for down here they shuffled somewhat slowly) I closed my eyes and sent my mind off deep into the Otherworld for a good rummage around. I was looking for the place where lost legends go, waiting to be claimed by their rightful owners. When I found what I was looking for, I gathered together all the broken pieces and pulled them up out of the depths. I opened my eyes. In the air before me were many shards of metal. “Owen,” I said to the creature who had once been the finest armourer in the land. At the sound of his old name, he cocked his head like a near-deaf dog. “Take these shards to your smithy. Re-forge me a sword fit for a King.
“As for the rest of you,” I continued, “item two.”
I drew an arc in the air and peeled back the earth above our heads like the skin of a satsuma. The gloom of Annwn seeped down from above. Tools and implements flew out from the store room in which I had first arrived, distributing themselves among the creatures so that no-one was without a mop, bucket, brush or broom. “Time to give Hell a thorough spring clean,” I said. They murmured in the affirmative, and off they all went, crawling up the rock face. The one who had been Beaumains I kept by my side. “For my next task, a mode of transportation is in order,” I said.
“Stables,” she said, a brightness returning to her eyes. It was joyous to see, but I restrained myself from celebrating prematurely. She pointed down the precipice, past the now-dry pool and the pit into which I had passed, over to where Sir Gareth’s skeleton had marched. At her signal, a stone rolled away to reveal a hidden cave. With one step I passed over the edge and floated down to the lower level, taking her with me.
The stables were full of skeleton horses, stamping and whinnying as the once-Beaumains and I walked among them. I soon found the one I was looking for. To my eyes he stood out from all the others, for although most of his flesh had fallen away, he was not a knight’s horse, and had not died at Camlann. Plum recognised me too, staring back at me from empty eye sockets, pushing at my arm with his long white skull.
I felt like I should give him something, and accordingly a lump of sugar appeared in my hand. Yellow teeth took it from my palm. As he crunched it in his jaws, the sinews quickly knitted back into place around his mouth. Flesh reformed on his flanks. Bright eyes and a glossy coat glowed with healthy radiance. The other horses stamped their skeletal feet in jealousy. “Hush. Your time will come. Take these horses up for your fellow creatures,” I said to Beaumains. “When they have finished their work, have them ready to ride at my command.” I mounted Plum and looked up at the rocky ceiling. “Let’s raise the roof, Plum old thing,” I said. “Full gallop.”
Up we flew, Plum’s hooves pounding at the earth, out from the depths of Hell, smashing up through Morgan’s castle, then higher still, into the dark skies of Annwn. Here one could see the full extent to which her realm had extended. But my staff were already hard at work, pushing the power of Annwn back to where it belonged, restoring the Otherworld that still lay beneath, like the dormant ground of winter awaiting the first touch of spring.
Plum galloped on through the sky. Down below us I saw Perceval, stumbling through a forest that was blooming into life all around him. Yet wherever he stepped, the wasteland still held sway, as if he were enclosed in his own black bubble of desolation. I set Plum down on the path amid a blossoming patch of bluebells. Ahead of Perceval, there moved an object not unlike the Grail. But from this angle I could see it was just a model, a wooden replica carried by two living dead creatures, gleefully leading Sir Perceval on a wild goose chase. I stood in their path and they stopped in their tracks, caught in the act.
“Well?” I said. “What have you got to say for yourselves?”
“Master,” said one, looking at his feet.
“Master,” said the other, shrugging rotting shoulders. Aspects of their appearance were familiar, and I knew that these culprits had once been Geraint the Gatekeeper, and you, Gwion, although you will thankfully have no memory of it.
“Get yourselves to Lower Annwn, and we’ll say no more about it,” I said.
The two of them sank apologetically down through the forest floor, just as Perceval, worn and weary, fell upon the false Grail like a pauper on a crust. At his embrace the dead wood broke apart, and the look in his eyes spoke of a heart about to do likewise.
“Please, Merlin,” he said. “If you have the real Grail, take me to it.”
“Why?”
“It’s my quest. It always has been, yet I’m cursed to be its keeper, or its seeker, never its achiever.”
“The Grail is not the quest of a knight, Perceval. The Grail serves a servant.”
Perceval squinted at me. “Lucas? Is that you?”
“In a manner of speaking,” I said. And in that moment my true self was revealed to him, and the black bubble surrounding him burst, flowers flourishing at his feet.
“Come along,” I said. “There is work to be done.”
“The Eternal Quest?” he said.
“The end of it,” I said. “You might call it the Quest to end all Quests.”
“Count me in,” said Perceval, and he got up onto Plum behind me. “Where are the others?”
“One thing at a time, Perceval,” I said.
†
Spring had not yet reached the desert where the Questing Beast chivvied Sir Pellinore up and down the endless sands. I set Plum down at the foot of a dune and alighted. Pellinore skidded down from the top and came to a stop. Behind him, the Beast and its rider did likewise. “Herne the Hunter,” said Pellinore, his voice parched and panting. “You summoned this Questing Beast of burden. End it now. Destroy it, before it destroys me.”
“The man is master of the quest; the quest is not master of the man,” I said.
“Sounds very quotable. Who said that?”
“You did.”
“All the same, a vow is a vow. And I swore to master this Beast.”
“Then master it. Look behind you.” Pellinore turned. “The Beast stopped running when you did.”
Pellinore walked towards the Questing Beast. It squared up to him, hissing through its snake jaws, poised pounce-ready on lion haunches. But Pellinore hissed right back at it, holding its serpentine stare. The Beast retreated, cowed and submissive. The creature riding it dismounted and scurried to my side. In one bound Pellinore was up on the Beast’s back.
“Ha! You’re right, Herne!” he said. “You haven’t seen a butler round about these parts, have you? Goes by the name of Lucas. Seem to remember seeing him just before I came to this place. What is this place, by the way?”
“Hell. Though not for much longer, I am pleased to say. But as for Sir Lucas the butler, I regret to inform you that he is no longer with us.”
“Pity,” said Pellinore. “Splendid fellow. You two would’ve got on.”
“I’m sure we would, Pellinore.”
“So what now?” said Perceval. “Plum here is cham
ping at the bit.”
“We’re almost ready,” I said.
Spreading over the horizon, shimmering like an oasis, the regeneration of the Otherworld swept across the desert, returning it to the fertile land of legend. Almost. But not quite. The restoration would not be complete until everything that had passed through the portal between worlds had been returned, and the door sealed up once more. Or, as I preferred to call it, item three on the agenda.
I stretched out with my mind for the breach between the Otherworld and the real world beyond, pulling it towards me until the vortex spun before us like a horizontal funnel. “Staff!” I said. The creatures rose up out of the earth at my command, mounted on the skeleton horses of the army of the dead. Since I had left them, my staff’s appearance had improved even more, the balance of their condition tipping away from the dead and towards the living. Someone who now looked a lot more like Owen rode up to my side and presented me with a sword, shining and new, sheathed in a temporary scabbard. I hid it inside my cloak, and inspected my strange companions. What a sight we made. A newly minted magician and a knight sharing a steed, leading an army of fifty of the living-dead on skeleton horses, accompanied by a knight riding a Beast that could not decide if it were snake, leopard, lion or stag. Such a rag-tag band of the broken and the mended were entirely appropriate for the work ahead.
“Follow me,” I said, and led them out of the Otherworld.
IV
We emerged from the breach between worlds on the West Wales coast, precisely one second after I had stepped into it with the body of Sir Pellinore. I consulted my notebook. The next page informed me that Morgan was still savouring her triumph over King Arthur back at the stadium. Well, let her enjoy it while she may. It would give me just enough time to make my preparations.
I divided my domestic army into two equal units. The first, under the leadership of Pellinore, were tasked with rounding up all the dragons, demons, and chaotic creatures of the Otherworld and herding them back into the portal. “Consider it done, Herne,” said Pellinore, sending the Questing Beast springing up over the headland. “Now, the first rule of beast herding is, always work as a team. Remember, there’s no ‘I’ in dragon.” The rest of his words were lost in the yelping and baying coming from the belly of his steed as Pellinore led his crew of skeletal horses and living-dead horsemen in a wild hunt across the sky.
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