"Fallen so far?" Merle began. "An exercise to experience what we experience."
"We now, is it? You consider yourselves one of the mortals, do you?" Green said, his voice the sound of rotted bark giving way. "This, at least, was my choice."
"You were always about choices. How is dear old Morgana?"
Green said nothing.
"What's the matter? Winter got your tongue?" Merle pressed. "I heard a story once. Of a man transformed to exist only as the adversary to the court of chosen knights. Some people knew him as Bercilak de Hautdesert, some as the Green Knight. Part man, part vegetation elemental, he challenged any man to strike him with his ax if he would be allowed to return the blow a year and a day later. One knight took the challenge. But when the appointed time came, the Green Knight barely nicked the chosen one, as said knight had passed all of the tests, made the right choices, set before him. What say you?"
Wayne's keloid on the back of his neck flared with the blazing intensity of a sunburn. He rubbed it but found no solace. The hot pain ran to his core and unsettled him with its sudden familiarity.
"There were many knights. As the age changes, so do its players," Green said.
"So we begin anew. The eternal cycle."
"I got this," Wayne said.
"No." King grabbed him by the arm. "It's my responsibility."
Merle put his hand on King's arm. "No, the first assault belongs to the good Sir."
Without another word, Wayne strode into a sprint, taking the stair steps two at a time. Green remained rooted to his spot. Wrapping his arms around him, Wayne ran through the room and slammed him against the wall. A window shattered behind some cheap venetian blinds. Wayne held him aloft with both arms, attempting to squeeze the life out of Green's trunk-like neck. With a baleful glare of calculating malevolence, Green clapped Wayne's ears, breaking his grip and sending the two of them tumbling to the ground. When they got up, the span of two bodies separated them.
"My turn," Green said simply. His first blow knocked Wayne from his feet. His neck jerked forward and suddenly his mouth filled with the taste of his own blood. The keloid on Wayne's neck burned. Green cried out as vegetal shoots sprouted from his mouth. Leaves blossomed from his nostrils and ears. With a huge sweep of his arm, his fingers became branches, bare limbs of hate scourging King and Merle. Weeds erupted through the floorboards, the mildew spoors given new life: first trapping their feet then, kudzu-winding up their bodies, the roots squeezed them. Turning his attention to Wayne, a jutting spear of a branch impaled him in the shoulder.
"Winter is finally upon you," Merle choked out.
"Senile old fool. Age has addled your magics as well as your mind."
"You see how well you handle it if your mind ages one way while your body ages the other." Merle said. "Still, I have enough left for the occasional spark."
Merle raised his hand, his gaze fixed on his palm. At first, a single ember, little more than a gnat of light, circled in a tight orbit. Soon, a swarm gathered, each light following its own path until they coalesced into a comet of flame. Merle blew on the ball and it leapt from his path landing on the trail of growth leading to Green. Unfortunately, the flames also crawled back toward King and Merle. "Hmm, that might not have been in my best interest."
Green reared back in a frozen rictus of terror, his mouth a blackening maw. His form morphed behind the curtain of flames, until the knots and whorls became the screaming mouth of a scorched tree. Once the flames subsided, the grip of the vines slackened to where King could escape and rush to his friend.
"You all right?" King cradled Wayne.
"Hanging in there. I got me a splinter to end all motherfuckin' splinters, though." Wayne's bravado didn't match his concern at the pooling blood.
"Can you do anything, Merle?"
"A little. But time runs short." Merle plucked an unscorched bud from one of the remaining branches. "For all of us. I fear the bloodwyrm will not take well to us daring so deep into his lair."
"Bloodwyrm?" King asked.
Lott banged on the door, constantly scanning each end of the hall, his imagination afire with all manner of possible attacks. As long as no rats came charging down the hall – because it'd be just his luck for there to be rats – he thought they'd be OK. A lone eyeball flitted across the peephole before the door opened a fraction to double-check what it had just seen. Rhianna opened it fully to Lady G rushing her with a hug.
"What the hell?" Rhianna exclaimed.
"Girl, folks done lost their minds out here, for real," Lady G said.
Their voices faded to white noise as the two caught each other up. Lott again checked the hallway before he made his way in and bolted the door behind them. The dull, shit-colored room reeked of benign neglect. Bullet holes circled the window. Ill-fitting Plexiglas lodged in the frame. A mattress was propped up against the sill. Percy sitting on the couch having paused his Nintendo game at the banging.
"How you holding up?" Lott asked.
"I'm her knight in shining armor," Percy said, lowering his head as if embarrassed at the admission. "That's what she said."
"Yes you are," Rhianna reassured him, not with the voice of someone with romantic intent. The tone, however its raspy delivery, was unpracticed and didn't carry easily from her lips. It was gentle, serious, and true. A rare attempt at vulnerability.
"Are you one, too?" Percy asked.
"I'm hers." Lott pointed to Lady G.
She turned with a smile. A pang lodged in his heart at the sight, though he didn't want to admit to such feelings. Regret, jealousy… longing. King would be a lucky man if he was to get with her.
Percy sang softly to himself. "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
"The bloodwyrm formed from a primordial void, the embodiment of all things uncertain," Merle intoned. "In its veins runs the fury of both chaos and creation. They have always been with man, haunting them. This is your journey."
"I know. I've always known, I guess. Part of me anyway. Not the specifics, but a sense of things and how they ought to be." King squatted on his haunches and drew absently on the ground, tracing idle patterns with his fingers. "Take Wayne and get him treated."
King turned his back to Merle and continued into the antechamber to which Green had stood guard. He waited for Merle to get clear then passed through the chamber opening. The grand penthouse he expected dissolved behind the mists swirling about creating a dreamy haze. Journeying inward, King had the sensation of leaving the physical plane of the apartment complex. Feeling his way downward, he descended into himself, the ancient memory of mankind. Through seeming endless darkness, only the occasional soft crunch under heel broke the silence. Sweat buck-shotted his chest through his shirt. The living mist recoiled at King's presence; however, his Caliburn warmed in his waistband.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
"I… no…" he said to no one in particular.
The sky bled and spun gray clouds against a matte the color of a clotted wound. His face flashed with heat, but not the kind usually brought on in temper. Scorched with the nearness of the sun, longing for the cool of an errant stream. His Caliburn. The weight of it so pure and right, yet it was incomplete. Pallid, bloodless faces, the faces of his people hung from poles. Wayne. Lott. Merle. Lady G. Baylon. A few faces he didn't recognize. Flies crawled in and out of their mouths and gave their lips the semblance of movement. Holes replaced their eyes, holes that bore into his soul with the knowing of failure. Phantoms. His Caliburn. The desire to plunge his hands into the fetid earth and make a grave to crawl into. To heap the dirt onto himself. To leave no mark of his passage.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
The room took on the aspect of a cave, the gentle plinks of dripping water not too far away. Scattered gold coins along the dirt-floored pit, the remains of a once-hoarded treasure. A spire of rocks, a cage of stalagmites, ran the length of the rear of the prison. The temperature spiked and sweat dotted his forehead. Only then did he realize
he could see, the room lit by the glow from eyes and the gentle phosphorescence of the creature's body.
"Here, there be dragon-slayers. Is that what you are, Pendragon stripling?" Its open maw revealed the constant flames that warmed it. Large unblinking yellow eyes, wholly other, tracked his movements. A spectacular ruin, its scaly body bisected by a row of dorsal spines, the bloated beast was soft-bellied, not sleek and armored as he had imagined. It sank its talons into the earth, shifting its posture as if leaning up in bed after a disturbed nap. Its leathery wings folded underneath it. "You come at last, O Prince of the City."
"Who is the Pendragon?"
"You are, Little Dream."
"Then who are you?"
"Be careful with your name, Pendragon. Knowing a person's true name can give one power over them. The Tempter in the Garden. Níðhöggr, the serpent that gnaws at the World Tree. Such is my line and I am weary. Long had I slept, my home built around until I found myself caged. Once feared by man, I have become its vassal, to power petty dreams. So I awaited your arrival."
"You're the genie in the bottle. What do you expect me to do?"
"Kill me, of course." Immense boredom settled in its slitted eye pupils. If it were ever young, it dreamt of massive hoards, gold coins, and gems falling from the folds of its wings and skin whenever it stirred. Its mighty wings cramped in its lair, longing for the freedom of the skies to stretch out and soar. It dreamt of swooping down upon an unsuspecting farmer's livestock – nothing but swords and spears, maybe the occasional bow to deter him – gobbling down a juicy cow or succulent sheep within its snapping jaws. A carefree youth. While the elder beast enjoyed the security of an enclosed lair – a fortress in which to sleep, to protect the various things he treasured – somehow security exchanged itself for imprisonment as the years went on. But the creature was only ready to die if the death was worthy. "Or I'll pick your bones clean."
The elder beast shifted its weight, not used to such movement any longer. Its wings, cramped for so long, unfurled with the slow creak of an arthritic spasm. Once proud and mighty, its long neck reared up and revealed several piles of the skulls of innocents. Too many skulls were entirely too small. As the creature stirred, King's footfalls crunched underneath him. A bolt of flame spewed from its vile mouth. King scrambled out of the way of the initial blast; the heat of it scorched his backside. Steeling himself against his fear, King withdrew his Caliburn though he felt awfully small before the immensity of the dragon.
The dragon's head blurred past him. King leapt to the side, the creature's neck bashed him in mid-air, sending him into the wall. The wind knocked out of him, King closed his eyes to focus past the jarring ache in his bones and move before the dragon could take aim for its next strike. The dark passage was more deep dungeon than cavern. King wedged into the passage of stalagmites and ran. The beast coiled for another blow, its slitted eyes tired, and snapped its jaw shut, gnashing its sword-like teeth. The great horned head turned then smashed the columns in its swipe.
The oozy smell of a rotting hole assaulted King. The scales of the creature had been ground to sores. If the dragon hoped to feign even the shadow of its former glory, its body betrayed it. Talons that once ground stone to dust barely held it upright. The Caliburn warmed in King's hands, ready for use. King took aim at its thick hide and fired into what he guessed to be the heart of the creature. The bullets glowed, tracing a path straight inside. The dragon howled, the tenor of its screech changing from one of pained surprise to melancholy relief.
"Like the knights of old. It has been so long. So very… very…" The dragon began to hum, a melodic sigh, serenading itself. Perhaps the last of its kind, the dirge continued for nearly half an hour – heard like the rumbling of a fierce storm for hundreds of miles around – a great song wasted on deaf ears that didn't understand what they had lost. King stood watch until the last note echoed in the chamber and the beast collapsed into the waiting pool.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
With its passing, the chamber resolved itself into the penthouse proper. Suspended on a web of smoke on the far side of the room was Night. His emaciated form held aloft on tendrils of mist. Reed-thin arms raised in objection. Open sores oozed, bloodshot eyes of turgid flesh, he stank of putrefaction. His ashy skin parched with a filigree of veiny cracks and pockmarked by abscesses.
"It is finished." Night's eyebrows whitened. Wrinkles etched his face.
"Was it worth it?" King asked.
"I took what I had to. In this world, you only have yourself to depend on. You can't wait around for folks to give you what you want." A side of Night's face drooped, a palsy of withdrawal, his face appeared to melt. Perhaps the dragon's death severed some connection, the echo of an empowering presence. The vile odor of spoiled offal scourged King's eyes and nose and brought to mind images of maggot infested beef. Fungus crept along Night's skin, a slow parasitic digestion no longer kept in check, devoured the way rust consumes steel.
"Dress it up any way you want. You were a bully and a punk who fed on your own."
"We all live in service to something. Turn on the television and see all those commercials promising what should be ours. Taught to want and get from the time we learned to flip the remote." Night coughed. His wizened arm lifted in protest, but then lowered. Reflective eyes focused on King. "I started at the bottom of a crew, worked my way up, eventually set up my own stand and franchises. I am the American Dream. You can turn your back on me and forget I exist, but I'll feed in the shadows. I'll always get mine."
The battered body gasped for breath, the coils of smoke slackening their grip on him. King finally answered him. "At what cost?"
"My coach once talked about how he couldn't retire from coaching. About how it was all he knew what to do and couldn't leave it behind. Athletes. Coaches. Us. Anyone who is about the game. Once we're done, we die. Or we die and we're done."
With a last gasp, Night's emaciated husk, fully desiccated, toppled from its fading perch and smashed into bits when he hit the ground.
"Yeah," King said. "It's finished for now."
EPILOGUE
Despite the cold evening, the neighborhood was jumping. Police lights bathed the rows of condos, red light reflecting from all the windows. The police loaded some fool into the back of their squad car. Not just some fool, he was a frequent flyer of foolishness. The family was obviously new to the neighborhood and hadn't quite divined that this neighborhood wasn't quite the same and didn't play by the exact kind of ghetto nonsense that they were used to. The whole mess started a week earlier when the matriarch of the family, all of twenty-five, needed new plates for her car. Indiana license plates were more inexpensive thanks to the tax on the poor that the state called Hoosier Lotto, but they still cost more than the nothing she wanted to pay. So she removed the plates from Big Momma's car, taking the time to crawl into the car and help herself to any spare items, which amounted to spare change, a few CDs, a Bible, and a child car seat. She then proceeded to place the license plate in the back window of her own car. The main flaw in her plan was that her car was two parking spaces down from Big Momma. Big Momma, who also knew the price of a license plate, immediately recognized her plates and raised a ruckus. The lady denied it, of course, but King had Wayne back the Outreach Inc. van up to block the lady from simply taking off. They all stood guard until the police came to settle things.
"Let this be a warning to all the drunk uncles trying to pop, lock it, and drop it at the next family reunion," Merle said.
"Big Momma scraps like she has cerebral palsy," Wayne laughed to himself then winced as the movement tugged at the stitches in his shoulder. "I'm scared of her."
"I'm done with women." Merle plopped on the sidewalk. "I'm not saying I'm ready to suck a dick or anything, I just don't want to be in a relationship."
"You know what that heifer had the nerve to ask me?" Big Momma asked, more rhetorical than anything else, on the verge of a full-on rant.
"What?" Lady G played
straight-woman.
"Would I take care of her kids while she was gone."
"No, she didn't," she said with mock shock.
"I hate her monkey ass."
"I ain't mad at you." Lady G high-fived her then collapsed in a squeal of laughter.
"No. I mean hate." Big Momma played to her audience. "Oh, Lord, I want to paint her picture on my windshield so it looks like I'm running her over all the time."
"That's some hate," King interrupted. His T-shirt had the portrait of Malcolm X painted within the shape of the letter X.
"I'll see you, girl." Big Momma stood up, preparing to head inside. Some unspoken message passed between her and Lady G, but King was not a member of the estrogen club, and thus couldn't divine its meaning.
"You looking good." Lady G planted her comb in the half of his hair that remained unbraided. King plopped between her open legs. He brought his idletoo-long hands up on both of her calves, running them up and down. She tensed, a panicked freeze, then relaxed, radiant and poised.
King Maker: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 1 Page 29