Lost Years: The Quest for Avalon

by Richard Monaco

  This may wake me up, he thought. In the middle distance was a placidly grazing moose as far as Lego and the other observers could discern. Gralgrim licked his chapped lips, contemplating fresh meat. He knew these animals wouldn’t flee one hunter.

  The Black Knight had a spear-tipped lance couched. The Red had shield and sword but no mount. The rider waited as Parsival came closer. Now, in the mists behind, more warriors were visible, waiting.

  If this is real it will be worth a tale, he thought.

  Suddenly the near one charged. Parsival relaxed, waiting to respond. His opponent thundered at him, lance tip flashing the weak light. “Here we are,” he murmured. Like the first time when he won this armor.

  A yard away he ducked across the enemy’s path and suddenly the lance was on the wrong side of the horse. No time to recover. The Red Knight tossed aside his shield and dove, point-first, at a space in the part-plate armor exposed under the armpit.

  The mute emitted an agonized grunting bellow and went over and down with the impact of Parsival’s weight.

  The other two watched the famous knight criss-cross and stab the huge animal under the right shoulder after the beast had flipped a furious antler at him. Gralgrim was delighted and moved forward to help in the kill.

  Parsival was rolled aside by the impact, leaving the blade jammed in the creature’s ribs.

  “Good strike,” Mimujin muttered.

  Parsival stood up, stunned, and gestured to the onlooking herd while his victim thrashed around, dying, pinkish foam at his lips. Some of the moose were moving off into the receding mist.

  “Your champion has fallen!” he called to them.

  Lego raised a warning fist. “Speak no word,” he warned. “Not one.”

  Except Gralgrim was looking elsewhere. “What’s this?” he exclaimed.

  Because Mimujin, moustaches flopping, oiled hair shining, bow in hand, pony loping, had just come around the bend where the wall of rock ended not far ahead. He was close to Parsival who was still watching the herd withdraw as Lego yelled a warning. Mimujin yelled an ululating warcry which was also a signal in case any of his people really were near.

  They are on foot, he thought, and soon die!

  The knight turned in time to take an arrow through his lifted faceplate. Even his amazing reflexes failed to do better than take the missile on an angle so it creased across his eyebrows and wedged in the helmet, blinding him with blood and the shaft, too, before he snapped it away so the next one (shot at closer range) hit and just pierced his backplate, stopped by the chainmail layer. It hurt.

  He couldn’t wipe the blood from his eyes through the visor with his steel-gloved fingers and assumed the companions of the Black Knight were upon him.

  I die here, mind words flashed.

  Except the Berserker, brandishing his tree limb club in instant frenzy, bull-charged, roaring with happy anger, amazing Lego with his stocky speed. He went straight at the mounted man who’d halted his pony with his knees, taking dead aim, point-blank, at the blinded knight.

  MORGANA

  She halted just outside the entrance to the tunnel they could see almost a quarter of a mile, now, across the slightly brightening plain. She almost made out the shape of the wall-like rock mass.

  They heard Mimujin’s cry and then an answering bellow. “That’s not Parsival,” she observed. “Or his man either.”

  She didn’t like that. Frowned and tapped one finger on her half-mask.

  PARSIVAL

  “Yaaaaarrr!” cried Gralgrim, flinging his oversized club straight at the undersized rider.

  Mimujin ducked backwards, spinning his mount – except the blow hit the animal’s head so hard blood flew and one eye popped free. The wiry rider somersaulted and landed on his feet (arrow still nocked) as the pony went down.

  The killer fired straight into Gralgrim’s throat, the point standing out six inches behind his neck so that the Berserker’s fighting shout became a bubbling blood-spew into Mimujin’s split-nosed, scarred, contorted face as the dying Viking crashed into his little body and knocked him flat and winded and the big hands clawed into his lean throat in berserk pain and fury.

  As Parsival finally got his helm and gauntlets off and cleared his eyes, pressing his forehead to divert the bleeding. Lego came up to him, sword in hand.

  “Get me a cloth, Lego.”

  He could now see Gralgrim’s massive body pinning down the dead fighter, arrow shaft (hammered through by his falling forward) sticking up nearly two feet from the back of the thick neck.

  “My Lord,” wondered Lego, “why did you attack that beast?”

  “What?” Parse was distracted. Turned to look for the Black Knight’s body and saw his blade protruding from the body of the dying moose. “Well… yes …”

  Lego was wrapping a strip of cloth, crusted with salt, around his master’s head. Knotted it behind.

  The knight winced as the salt bit into the wound, still staring at the animal. He went and pulled his weapon free, with a real effort.

  Am I awake? Well, my wound stings and that blocky fellow is dead…

  “We bury him under those rocks,” he said, indicating the dark, broken stones. There was little mist now. “He saved my life.”

  “He did. It was his nature. That killer had you to rights. I was too far away. I think he saved mine too, if it comes to that. Him mounted with that bow.” Looked around at the pale, brightening landscape. “You seem yourself now, lord.”

  “For what that’s worth, captain.” He looked at the blank, bark “map.”

  “What I saw showed an entrance to an underground way across the field. We have nothing better.” Tossed the piece aside. “I think he were here just to save me.” He indicated Gralgrim.

  “He would have as soon slain you, lord.”

  “He wasn’t here for that.” Went over and pulled the bodies apart, tugging the shaft through then breaking off a short piece including the tip which he tucked into his belt pouch. “I thank thee, fellow.”

  On his back, his wide, reddened face looked fierce. Lego had stripped off the little man’s shirt.

  “He’s their leader,” he pointed out. “With the map and pictures on his body. The one who ate hearts.”

  “I’ll not eat his,” said the knight. “We leave him as he lies.”

  He stared back at the trail that led out of the ravine. Felt as if he were being watched. No more strange shapes though.

  MORGANA

  They waited on horseback, her two handmaidens, Modred and herself, at the entrance. She shook her head with disgust.

  “He’s failed,” she said. “Now we trap them.”

  Turned her mount just as Parsival and Lego were in sight across the field and led them back into the tunnel.

  PARSIVAL

  The slain killer’s horse had run off. Parsival and Lego headed across the field. The image from the map lingered, fading, and he followed the last hints.

  They came to the tunnel and saw the hoofprints on the faded, grayish-green turf. Easy to read; five riders came out, one went on (the late Mimujin) and the rest went back.

  One pony, the knight thought, the rest horse… the witch and her crones…

  The tunnel-cave was quickly pitch-black but this had been in the map too, and went on straight and they went on straight…

  LAYLA, LOHENGRIN, AND HAL

  By dawn they’d dug the grave and buried Jane. The light was dull metal though the wet fog had thinned and rain stopped. Layla was still, resting on the rude bed. The bleeding had stopped.

  She watched the fire die away into vaguely glowing ash…

  She wasn’t thinking. Didn’t want to. Another sleepless dawn. She was just starting to believe she might go home, again… across the grayness…

  Lohengrin left Hal standing at the muddy grave they’d scraped out with bent and rusted spades they’d found leaning behind a hut.

  He went to the well and stared down as if there was some answer there in the impen
etrable blackness. Just a hole into the earth. He spat into it.

  It will always be like this, he thought.

  His throat felt swollen as he choked on abstract grief. “Feelings are shit,” he said.

  Spat again. His eyes burned.

  GAWAIN

  Desperate, now, they both finished unloosing his armor, she already stripped and he kept saying no without meaning anything so in the din of night-bugs and the subtle, soft dawn-gleaming he lay athwart her, left side aside, locked into the sweet suction, shuddering with agony and relief, good hand under her, intact cheek pressed to hers, lips at her ear adrift in night and sighs and wordless words… she melted fiercely in the sweet air, closed so close that two was one from mouth to loins as if forever…

  Because, finally, for them, there was no future and no past or pain… finally under the horned moon and still mists time held in perfect stillness as sometimes it will for lovers, for all the enraptured… crying out like drowning swimmers… rolling over on the crushed grasses they pressed a memory on the earth itself, a momentary shape of love…

  PARSIVAL

  The map had faded away about where he was sure they were, now. He passed through the dim arch into a faint, greenish, spectral gleaming that showed the still forms of the knights lying in an open circle. Around the curved walls of the huge, vaulted chamber the horses slept.

  “Enchantment?” wondered Lego. “Or be they dead?”

  “I think not, captain.”

  Inside, faint slits daylight fanned down from embrasures high up producing a cathedral-like effect. The armored men formed a great wheel, legs all facing out from the center except for one who lay reversed.

  They went around and stopped at the one who faced the open center. All but he had their helmets shut, faces pale blots in those (Parsival vaguely thought) private head-caves.

  Where they hide from more than blows, he thought. Knew him at once. Sighed. White-bearded, now, face tense even in death-like slumber.

  “This must entertain angels and gods,” he said. But does little for me…

  “My Lord?” asked Lego. “Who is this man?”

  “Your king. And I suppose I’m to wake him.” Sighed again. “Expect no peace and ease to follow.”

  “How to wake him?” Parsival shrugged.

  “Awaken, Your Majesty!” he said sternly. Tried it a few times more. Nothing.

  “He stirs not,” observed Lego. “Maybe shake him.” Cocked his head. “He seems not at rest.”

  “That’s his royal nature, captain.” Then he got it: “It’s still the same day and the same problem.”

  “Which day, my Lord?”

  “Twenty years back.” He knelt by Arthur. He knew what to ask this time. “What is the matter, Sire?” Drew the broken sword.

  The king’s eyes popped open. Worked his jaw side-to-side. Grunted. Lego had a strange impression, for a moment, that a cloudiness suffused the face with other, older features; then the blurring drained back into the head as the King sat up, then stood up very straight.

  Lego went to one knee beside Parsival. Looking up, the Captain-at-Arms had an impression that the smoky blurring showed only in the eyes, now, where the King stood staring straight ahead as if into lingering dream-sights.

  “Better wake him some more,” suggested Lego in a whisper. The cloudy eyes sharpened and rested on the Red knight. “On your feet,” he automatically commanded.

  As Parsival and his man stood all the rest began to stir with a gathering clash and scrape. Horses snorted and softly whinnied. Men began standing. Lego was counting them in groups of ten.

  “I count 44 knights,” he said, half-unconsciously.

  “We lost 100,” the king said, rubbing his face and shaking his head. “Somewhere… my memories are shredded …”

  This is all how I should have been… mayhap long, long shadows are cast into another world of each petty cause and nasty business done by all of us… there our murders may seem necessary glories and rape and theft the high unfolding of history…

  “We all become stories,” he said, thoughtfully, in the unfocused moment, “made from shredded memories.”

  “This is a tale you could well leave me out of, my Lord. And yourself too, methinks.”

  Silver-armored Arthur came alert as his troops gathered around, still silent as shadows, as if, Lego fancied, they were stuck in the same blur the king had seemed to somehow inhale.

  Tense as ever, observed Parsival. He thought of the king as a tensed, no, stretched bowstring

  “My Liege,” said Parsival, stepping forward and holding out the broken sword. He wondered if maybe he was finished; doubted it. “Is my service over, now?”

  “Half-done,” he said. “A little further, Sir Parsival.”

  Still not quite taking it all in, Lego automatically dropped again to one knee, inclining his head.

  “Who is this knight?” asked the King.

  “No knight, Majesty,” answered Lego.

  “Yet with more heart and chivalry, Mesire, than a dozen who stand dubbed,” declared Parsival.

  “Well,” said the king, “only knights should follow us here.” Smiled, sardonic even in magic and mystery, Parsival noted. The king hefted broken Excalibur. “Pray thou for God’s Grace,” he instructed Lego. “I dub Thee …”

  “Majesty,” protested the commoner, “I neither wish nor am fitted for such elevation, if such it be. I am a fighting man, simple and unembarrassed.”

  “You speak well, fellow.”

  Which, Lego realized, was true. He hardly sounded like himself as if he spoke in some minstrel’s tale. Well, he considered, he’d heard noble talk constantly and was ever adaptable. Still, it was to trouble him later, thinking how these events had seemed to bend and twist the rules of his world. Things were still going too fast to contemplate much.

  “If such it be,” quoted Parsival, liking that.

  “Thou speaks nobly,” said Arturus, staying in a formal mode. “yet forms do matter here, good man. If only for my sake and those who come after.” Stepped closer to the kneeling man-at-arms. “Thy master here was less fit than thee ere I raised him up.” Touched the broken blade to Lego’s shoulder. “I make Thee half a knight with half a sword, so all are satisfied.” He smiled. The others stood silent, still seeming half in sleep, Parsival thought, seeming to wait like spellbound automations.

  I resist nothing, he said to himself. Doubt little since here we came… the world has no fixed nature save as we see it…

  “And thus the curse is halved,” he said, meaning the knight’s creation.

  “Yes, Sir Parsival,” agreed the king. “But for times and worlds where forms matter, how do I name Thee?”

  “Sir Nobody,” said Lego, not knowing why.

  “So dubbed Sir Nobody-Who-Shall-Be-Known,” concluded Arturus, turning away to his men: “Are we ready?” Seeing they were he called his steed to him.

  “Sire,” asked Parsival. “How and why was this sleeping done?”

  “How? Deep draughts of poppy-wine… a spell?” the king replied. “Why? For the sake of consequences. No more reasoning. My memory, as I say, is shredded. Accept this as this until we come again into the light.” He mounted. Brandished the half-sword. “Our enemies are within reach,” he cried. “Forward!”

  And in an unbearable clashing of metal and hooves loud as a battle, they crashed through the narrow tunnel, in a darkness that Lego wouldn’t let himself directly think about, riding just behind his lord and Arthur, waiting for the next disaster…

  “Am I mad or in slumber, my Lord?” he yelled.

  “Lego,” the Red Knight yelled back, “ask not and it matters not.”

  MORGANA

  “Go on!” she commanded Modred and the others.

  Her greenly gleaming wand-tip revealed a fork in the tunnel that had been unnoticed coming the other way.

  She searched the tunnel sides and found what she expected: an iron lever. She yanked it, strained violently (she was stronge
r than any normal man) and a massive, rounded block rolled to fill the passageway.

  And then out the far end at a fast canter into fogless dawn. The east was dark blood. The world seemed wet and fresh. As the sky brightened the gently dipping fields were a misty, grayish green.

  “I’ve trapped them,” the witch said.

  “When do I do battle with him?” her son asked.

  “He is under us now,” she said, amused. “We will descend to his level and destroy him.”

  “What, Aunt?”

  “All trapped.”

  “Trapped?”

  “All roads end here,” she said. “All our fates go no further.”

  “But when,” her son asked, “will I join battle with Arthur?” He now wore the scabbard that held the other half of Excalibur.

  Arthur must come for the blade else all his works will be washed away, she thought. He could not bear that…

  “Soon,” she answered, “or in ages to come.”

  PARSIVAL

  The tunnel was wider and steadily descended. Neither of them liked that.

  “This wasn’t on the map,” Parsival said.

  “What matter?” asked Arthur, riding abreast of him.

  They were moving at a walk, now. The ringing hooves and clashing of armor diminished.

  “This may be a trap,” suggested Lego. “It has to be,” Parsival said.

  They probed on through the dimness, down and down…

  “I don’t understand what’s happened to us,” Lego murmured.

  “Maybe this tale will be told ages hence,” his master returned, obliquely.

  “What care I for that?” responded Lego. “I think of home and no more sinking boats and mad killers, plague, witchcraft and poisoning of wells.”

  “I warned you, at the first, to go straight back and follow me not.”