First Knight

by Ines Johnson

  Lance looked up, setting his phone aside to give Arthur his full attention. “Which is it?”

  Arthur sidestepped that question and asked a more pressing one. “What were you two talking about with Morgan?”

  Percy let out a growled string of curses as his avatar died in the game. “How the hell do you get past this level?”

  Arthur ignored the knight’s question as well as his foul language. Percy was raised in the wild. Literally. But his birthright allowed him into the castle walls. Once inside, the sword of his forefathers chose him.

  Arthur glanced up at the magical swords. They had a prominent display on the wall. His own sword, Excalibur, glowed at him in the room’s light. He itched to bring it into his palms. But he had no reason to in this time of peace.

  Arthur turned from Percy and focused on Lance and the image on his tablet. It was a drawing of a dragon flying beneath a rooster and a fox fighting. “What’s that?”

  “A piece of artwork that came up in connection with the Templars.”

  Arthur felt a sense of relief at the mention of the ancient foes. Maybe there was a pocket that they’d missed. His fists clenched as though he could feel his sword back in his hand.

  “But it’s nothing,” said Lance.

  “It has something to do with alchemy and the Philosopher’s Stone,” said Percy as he began another round of his game. But he immediately made a poor maneuver and lost his virtual life yet again.

  Arthur knew enough about alchemy to know that the practitioners aimed to turn lead into gold. The Philosopher’s Stone was a fabled artifact that could turn one thing into another. Humans had been after such a power since they decided that gold held value and they aimed to get more of it.

  But it was a crock. Only magic pulled from the ley lines could cause such a change. The Philosopher’s Stone was humanity’s attempt at such magic, and they never succeeded.

  “The painting was done by an alchemist,” Lance said. “I figured Morgan might know what it meant.”

  “And did she?”

  “Yeah,” said Lance. “It was some kind of process to make fool’s gold. So, nothing to see.”

  “Oh.” Arthur’s grip loosed.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the ball tonight,” said Lance, turning to Arthur. “Should we expect an announcement?”

  8

  Morgan didn’t get out much. She’d been born after the witch trials of the seventeenth century. The scab of anxiety and distrust was still festering in her community.

  The residents of Camelot had hunkered down in their city as religious zealots burned innocent human women at the stake or anchored them down in deep pools of water. In some cases, they’d treated them leniently with shaming in the town square. In other instances, they simply mutilated the wayward females.

  The Knights of Camelot had formed a manly shield around the witches under their care. For a long time, no one got in and no one got out of Camelot. In some ways, the zealotry of the knights had oppressed the witches in their care.

  In any case, Morgan hadn’t seen much of the world before she was a century old. And it didn’t look like it had changed much since the time of the witch trials. The only difference was that the aggressors wielded two-ton vehicles instead of pitchforks. So now, a lot of the aggression was aimed at females behind the wheel.

  The women might’ve driven too slow. Her car might’ve been too flashy or more expensive than his. There may have been more than one female in the car. Or she could’ve been too old for their liking.

  Honks ripped through the air. Windows rolled down and offensive digits were raised. Exhaust fumes growled as men sped too close to, or around and past, the feminine offenders who dared brave the asphalt.

  No cars collided. No engines got torched. But it looked to Morgan as though not much had changed in the last two centuries.

  She navigated the hectic highways with ease. Seventy miles per hour was nothing to someone who rode enchanted horses across the moors. The Arabians of Camelot reached such high speeds that it felt like the rider flew on their backs. The honks of angry drivers were nothing to a woman who awoke to the sounds of jousts and swordplay in her backyard.

  Morgan made it to the campus of Cardiff University without incident. She was glad to be free of the honking and angry drivers. Still, next time she might ride a horse to Cardiff. Or take her sister up on her offer to open a ley line.

  No. Strike that. This was her next phase of life. If she got accepted to the university, she would do this all the human way; rush hour, congestion, and road rage included.

  Stepping out of her car, Morgan headed toward the brick and mortar of the old educational institution and marveled. She'd grown up with spires and stained glass windows. But there was something about a college campus that dimmed the architectural wonders of the witching world. Standing in this place of knowledge where learning was everyone's pursuit, she never wanted to leave.

  Morgan breathed in the scent of fresh cut grass along with the rolled up and smoking variety. A line snaked out from a mobile coffee truck. The smell of caffeine overpowered the fumes from the truck’s exhaust.

  She dodged to the side of students hurrying to class. She sidestepped those lounging on walkways. Her boots crunched over a heap of snow shoved off to the side. Beside her, a guy in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms gave her a wink before ducking into the Liberal Arts building.

  Finally, she found the Science Building. It was tucked at the far corner of the campus and surrounded by trees and a small manmade pond. It was the picture of man and nature living in harmony. Morgan had a very good feeling as she walked through the doors.

  "Ms. Galahan?"

  Morgan turned, expecting a hulking mass of a man with such a husky sounding voice. But the man before her was slight. Tall, but reedy. Sturdy, but thin. There was still the lanky awkwardness about him in person, but he looked smart. It wasn’t just the glasses, or the tweed blazer, or the pressed slacks and worn loafers. There was an air of intelligence about him, and intelligence had always attracted Morgan.

  “Doctor Accolon?”

  It took him a second, but he nodded. His gaze had been fastened to her. A hint of surprise on his brow as he took her in.

  Morgan ran a self-conscious hand over her skirt. Was it not collegiate enough? Did she look entirely out of place, out of this century, out of her depth?

  “I’m so sorry for staring,” said Accolon. “The camera didn’t do you justice.”

  Morgan started. While she knew she was attractive, she did have the Galahad genes, after all, she’d rarely—no, never—been told as much to her face by a member of the opposite sex. The men of Camelot only made overtures to girls they planned to marry, and everyone knew Morgan had no interest in that particular institution. So, no man, squire, or knight had ever bothered to compliment her.

  “Oh no,” groaned Accolon. “I’ve gone and insulted you again.”

  “No. Not an insult at all. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Accolon.”

  “Please, call me Simon.”

  “Then you must call me Morgan.”

  “It’s nice to finally meet you face to face, Morgan.”

  Morgan held out her hand for him to kiss. Simon grasped it and gave it a firm shake. Then they both let go and fidgeted.

  Morgan tugged at the strap of her purse. Simon ran his hand over the locket on a chain around his neck. The locket was the dull shade of gray with bits of sparkling specks that told Morgan it was lead.

  It was an interesting locket. She wondered if he wore it for symbology? The metal was related to both death and transformations in the field of alchemy. But Morgan didn’t have a chance to ask.

  “My office is just in here,” he said at last.

  She followed him into a small hole in the wall. A large metallic desk took up most of the space. There were posters of the Periodic Table, a few white-haired scientists, a candid shot of Stephen Hawking, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson posed as though they were
a rap group. But it was the painting on the wall that caught Morgan’s attention. It was the second time she’d seen it today.

  The image was of a fox eating a rooster. There was a mountain in the distance and a dragon flying in the foreground.

  “You have an interest in alchemy?” she asked.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Your print of the Flying Red Dragon. It’s one of Valentine’s Ciphers.”

  Basil Valentine, not his real name, believed he’d uncovered the formula to the Philosopher’s Stone. But of course, he hadn’t spelled out his formula. He’d put the process into puzzles; twelve puzzle pieces which described the steps to creating the stone. The painting was one of the pieces.

  Simon smiled, tilting his head. His glasses slipped to the edge of his nose as he did so. “Alchemy is a bad word in the scientific community.”

  “Yet you have the painting of a key to the Philosopher’s Stone on your wall.”

  “Most people don’t know what it is,” he said, looking at her with renewed interest.

  Lance and Percy hadn’t known either. They just knew it had something to do with alchemy, and Morgan was the town resident who knew most about the ancient practice. Most wizards and witches skipped over the human practice in favor of the magic that ran through their veins.

  “It’s really an easy puzzle,” said Morgan. “You have the rooster, which represents gold because it rises at dawn. The fox represents acid. If you add acid to the gold, the gold dissolves. Hence the fox eating the rooster.”

  “But the rooster also eats the fox,” said Accolon as he picked up the mantle. “Meaning you could distill the liquid and the gold would reappear.”

  It was basic transmutation; changing the composition of one thing to make it into another. Much like adding ingredients together to make a soup. Or distilling a compound to get to its original components.

  “We’re basically doing the same thing with crafting a new element,” said Morgan.

  He nodded, excitement now shining past his glasses. “Did you know that in Arabic, alchemy means the secret within you.”

  She did know that. There were many in Camelot who were from the Holy Lands. You could still hear ancient Arabic spoken in the Great Hall during meal times.

  “Do you think it's possible?” asked Accolon.

  “What?”

  “Transmutation?”

  Morgan knew that transmutation was possible. It was called magic in her world. It was practiced out in nature with ley energy beneath her feet. Physical objects could contain ley energy. Morgan knew that as evidenced by the scar on her belly. A simple object had collected ley energy and ripped the magic from her.

  “Do you mean turning lead into gold?” She answered his question with one of her own. “The ability to rearrange elements at the molecular structure? If it’s not, then you and your colleagues are wasting a lot of time and money.”

  A laugh burst from Simon, as though he was the last person to expect the sound to come out of him. He looked at her with curiosity and wonder. Then he held out his arm in front of her.

  Morgan made to take it, to place her hand in the crook of his elbow as was the custom in her town. But Simon’s hand continued in an arc. He wasn’t offering his arm. He was showing her the way he wanted her to walk. It was through another door in the corner of his office.

  "We're just in here," he said.

  "We?"

  "Yes, of course. The Department Chair and the professors on the Admissions Board wanted to hear your presentation as well."

  Presentation? Wasn't this just a chat between the two of them? Maybe a tour of the labs? Perhaps a cup of tea as they talked about enrollment?

  A fine sheen of sweat broke out at the base of Morgan’s neck. She was still close to the doorway. But it was too late to turn back now.

  Dr. Accolon opened another door. Inside, the quiet hum of conversation ceased as the occupants realized they were not alone. As a unit, the group, all men, all white-haired Europeans, turned to look at her.

  Morgan gulped. Then she chided herself for gulping. She’d faced down a brood of Banduri huntresses. She’d gone toe to toe with a psychopathic wizard. She stood up to Arthur on a daily basis. A group of mortal men, she could handle.

  She took one step and then another into the room. She looked beyond the men, and what she saw had her feet eager to run. Just beyond the table where the men sat was a glass window looking into a lab. Just beyond the glass was what Morgan wanted most in the world.

  A cyclotron.

  It was like walking in a dream. In fact, she walked past the assembled men and pressed her nose to the glass to look at the device. As she did so, the rare and precious flower in her lapel was crushed against the glass surface.

  The cyclotron was a large circle of metal and wires. Electricity flashed at intervals from within. It took up the space of a small gymnasium, about the size of the dining hall back at Camelot.

  The cyclotron was a particle accelerator. It was used to separate elements. Scientists would bombard known elements, throwing them at one another at high speeds in the hopes that two elements collided. If two elements stuck together, they would form a new element by force.

  It was how they planned to find the newest element on the Periodic Table, Element 119. That element would begin a whole new row on the table.

  Beside the room that housed the accelerator, was what Morgan could only describe as a control room. A beep sounded from the console of buttons and sliders and controls. A series of red and yellow LED lights flashed.

  “What is that?” asked one of the white-haired men. “Has a collision occurred? Have we achieved fusion?”

  Simon rushed to the control panel. He tore off his glasses, like Clark Kent turning into a nerdy Superman. He bent over and stared at the readings.

  Morgan’s heart pounded in her chest as she waited. Her breath baited along with the other scientists in the room. She stepped away from the window and toward Simon aiming to see over his shoulder. But the moment she did, the alarm stopped and the lights went dark. Whatever had happened, she’d missed it.

  “False alarm,” sighed Simon. His sigh settled like a heavy fog around the room. “It happens from time to time. We’ve been at this for two months now and nothing. Which is why we are excited about your theory, Ms. Galahan.”

  Right. Her theory. These men had the idea to fire a beam to force two elements together to forge something new and wait to watch for a connection. Morgan had a different idea.

  “Instead of watching for the collision and waiting to take a picture of the union which would happen in a fraction of a second, I believe the best course of action would be to read the debris left behind. A clear radioactive signature will be emitted that would prove the existence.”

  Kinda like a blue light to a hotel top sheet.

  When she was a girl and she’d looked into a microscope, she’d seen atoms. She’d seen the arrangement of what would come to be called protons and electrons. The bright particles of light had danced in circles. They were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and she couldn’t understand why no one else saw them.

  Finally, in 1869 a Russian chemist, Dimitri Mendeleev, began arranging the known elements by their atomic mass. The structure that he proposed Morgan knew to be true because she’d seen the arrangement of particles with her own eyes. Mendeleev by no means listed all of the elements and had left many gaps in his table, postulating that more would be found in the future.

  By the 1940’s they were up to 92 elements having found what they thought were all the natural elements. Then they looked closer and saw the heavier elements.

  In the 50’s, the scientists had come inside from the natural world and elements were now found in sterile laboratories. They were up to 118 as of now. She’d watched for decades as human scientists fumbled about a world they needed glasses to see where she could see clearly. She ached to nudge them into the right direction, but she had to remain mute to protect
her kind.

  And then she’d lost her sight.

  The atom became invisible to her when she lost her magic. She was now just like any other human. The only thing that would allow her access to that magical world now was the cyclotron.

  Morgan turned back to the men she had to impress to gain access to her new future. Why did her life always hang in the hands of men?

  “Gentlemen, now that the excitement is over, and I’ve explained my theory, I’m hoping we can get along with my entrance interview?”

  The gray-haired men looked at one another. Then collectively, they all turned to look at Simon. He’d returned his glasses to his face, Superman once again the mild-mannered Clark Kent.

  “Ms. Galahan,” said Dr. Accolon, “I fear there's been a misunderstanding. We're not interested in you attending as a student. I’m interested in bringing you on my team, in search of Element 119. The decision has been made. This is all a formality. We want you to conduct your research here.”

  9

  “How will you do it? Will you get down on one knee? Did you hide something in her food? That’s always risky.”

  Arthur turned his head away from Percy, the pervasive knight. Once his face was hidden he twisted his lip. Because he’d forgotten to bring the ring for the proposal.

  “If it were me, I’d do it on a jumbotron television screen like they do in stadiums,” Percy continued.

  Arthur wasn’t one to make a spectacle of himself. He had a plan. He would go in and ask her father first. And once he was assured of the male’s agreement, he’d pull Lady Constance aside and do the asking in private. It was the promise that was important, not the ring.

  “Regardless of how you do it, things change when men get married,” said Percy. “Mark my words, as soon as your legs are shackled, she won’t let you go on quests. There will now be an official Guy’s Night Out instead of hanging out any day of the week. And, worst of all, the meat to vegetable ratio will change on your plate, and not in favor of the meat.”

  “None of that will happen,” insisted Arthur.