“Choose, Mr. Kropp,” Mogart said softly.
I chose.
I tossed the Sword toward him. It clattered to the ground about halfway between us. I expected him to throw Natalia to the floor and dive on the Sword, but he didn’t move. He wasn’t even looking at the Sword; he was looking at me and I got that sinking feeling I had in Uncle Farrell’s apartment, right before Mogart rammed the Sword into his body.
“Don’t, Mr. Mogart,” I pleaded. “You don’t need to do that now. Don’t hurt her, please.”
“Oh, Mr. Kropp,” Mogart answered. “After all that has happened, have you learned so little?”
And with that he plunged the dagger into Natalia’s side.
49
She fell without a sound. I froze for a second, watching her fall, before lunging for the Sword, but I was too late. Mogart dived on it first, rolling out of the way as I launched myself at him.
I scrambled to my feet and pulled the black sword from my belt, meaning to switch it to my right hand, but Mogart was on me too fast, the Sword of Kings whistling toward my head.
I lifted my blade just in time and then cried out when Excalibur smashed against it with a ringing crash. The force of it almost snapped my wrist. I stepped back, flailing my sword in the air as Mogart, almost leisurely, took swings at me. He smiled, enjoying himself, and he was saying things like, “Good, Mr. Kropp! Excellent! Fine parry, sir! On the balls of your feet, step lightly and keep your sword up!”
He kept advancing and I kept backing up. He came from the right, then the left, then the right again, very fast, and finally the force of a blow slung my arm away so hard, I heard the joint in my shoulder pop.
His free hand caught the wrist of my blade hand, and his grip was cold and hard. I felt the tip of Excalibur pressing under my chin. Mogart brought his face very close to mine and he whispered, “There is one thing that has always troubled me about you, Alfred Kropp: Why do you persist? I kill your uncle, and you join Bennacio. I kill Bennacio, and you strike out on your own. I kill Natalia, and still you fight. So tell me, boy, tell me why you persist.”
“I . . . I made a vow . . .” I stammered.
He cocked his head to one side, and his eyes twinkled as he started to smile.
“A vow! Alfred Kropp has made a vow!” He laughed harshly. “To Lord Bennacio, no doubt.”
“No,” I answered. “To heaven.”
And I brought my knee up into his crotch as hard as I could. I ripped my blade arm free and stepped back as he went down to the stone floor. This was it! Go, Kropp, while he’s down—take him out with your sword! But something stopped me. Instead of killing him, I just stood there, gulping air, waiting for him to stand up.
“It isn’t yours, Mr. Mogart,” I said. “Don’t you see? It isn’t anybody’s.”
Mogart stood up, his face distorted by pain and something else, not anger exactly, but something like anger and sadness mixed together, like a pouty little boy who’s just learned he can’t have his favorite candy.
“Who are you?” he gasped. “Who are you, Alfred Kropp? How is it that I find you at every turn, like a fat stone in my path, blocking my way?” With each question, he took a step toward me. And with each step he took forward, I took one backward.
“Why did Bennacio come to you after Samson’s fall?” Step. “And bring you here?” Step. “Why did he demand the vow of you?” Step. “Who are you, Alfred Kropp?”
“I’m Bernard Samson’s son and the heir to Lancelot.”
He stopped. He looked as if I had slapped him. Then all the pain and sadness drained out of his face and left nothing but anger.
He launched himself at me with a terrible roar. I raised my black sword just in time to block the downward arc of Excalibur, and the impact made my ears ring with pain. Mogart’s eyes glittered with rage as he swung at me, so fast, Excalibur was just a silvery blur.
As Mogart swung furiously at me, I backed up until I ran out of room and smacked into the wall behind me. Now I was left with two choices: Stand up and fight, or give up and die.
I was moving on just instinct, holding the sword in both hands as Mogart’s shoulders dipped and hunched and swiveled, and the sound of our swords meeting was an awful screech of metal striking metal. I could feel the jagged teeth of the wall behind me cutting through the gray cloak, taking nibbles from my back.
I screamed Bennacio’s name as loud as I could. This only made Mogart angrier, and he slammed his left hand against my right shoulder. The force of the blow jarred the sword from my hand, and the blade clattered to the floor.
Mogart pressed his forearm against my neck, and as I struggled to breathe against the pressure, I knew the fight was over.
“The heir to Samson!” he hissed into my face. I felt the tip of Excalibur pressing into my stomach, penetrating the cloak and tearing slowly into the shirt under it. “The heir to Lancelot! The reason for my exile! How things have come full circle, Alfred Kropp!”
“Please,” I whispered. “Please, Mr. Mogart . . .” I wasn’t sure exactly what I was begging him to do. Or not do.
“Did noble Bennacio tell you how your father met his fate? Did anyone tell you, Alfred Kropp, how Daddy died?”
I felt the steel tip pierce my skin, and the sickening warmth of my own blood trickle down my stomach.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please.”
“I tortured him. I cut him a thousand times, until upon his knees he begged me to finish it, to end his miserable life. Just as you are begging now.”
His arm moved forward. The blade sank deeper into my body, maybe four or five inches, and I could taste blood in my mouth.
“And when he had no more breath for begging, I lopped off his miserable head.”
His right arm jerked forward, harder this time, and now my mouth was full of my own blood.
His face was fading and his voice was growing fainter.
“And then I took Bernard Samson’s head and mounted it on a steel pike. I placed his head at the entrance to my keep, where the carrion fed upon it, where the crows feasted on his eyes and tongue. And so you see we have indeed come full circle, Mr. Kropp. The time has come for our parting. The time has come for you to leave me and join your father.”
And with that he slammed the Sword all the way into my body, up to the hilt, and I heard the cloak rip as the tip passed out through my back and bit into the stone wall behind me as easily as if the rock were sand.
Mogart let go and backed away. His smile came back.
“Now,” he said. “Die, Alfred Kropp.”
I’ll never be sure, but I think when he said that, I did.
50
I saw some things after I died.
First, I was floating near the cave’s roof, looking down at myself impaled against the wall. Mogart had both hands wrapped around the hilt of the Sword, pulling with all his strength, his face contorted with the effort. His roars of rage and frustration echoed against the walls of the cavern.
He pulled and pulled, but he couldn’t pull the Sword from the stone.
He staggered backwards, then turned and found the two-foot dagger he had dropped when he dived for the Sword. I guess he was going to cut my body away from the Sword because you can’t get much leverage against a human body— it’s too soft—and then that faded.
There was silence, and then the sound the wind makes whispering through leaves.
Suddenly, I was sitting beside Mom’s bed in the hospital and she was saying, Take it away. Please take the pain away.
I couldn’t take that, so I turned away and Uncle Farrell was on the sofa and the Sword was in his gut, and I watched as he pulled it out and held it toward me. Take it, Al. Take it away.
I turned away from Uncle Farrell, and Bernard Samson, my father, was beside me, saying, They are part of an ancient and secret Order, bound by a sacred vow to keep safe the Sword until its Master comes to claim it.
I turned again, and saw Bennacio. I heard us speak, but it was more lik
e I was remembering hearing us speak.
Who is the master if Arthur’s dead?
The master is the one who claims it.
And who would that be?
The master of the Sword.
Then Bennacio turned away and I was sad to see him turn away, because I think I missed him most of all.
Then I saw the Lady in White sitting beneath the yew tree, and I felt no wind, but her dark hair was flowing behind her and the folds of her white robe were rippling like waves.
She didn’t look at me as I stopped under the tree beside her. Her cheeks were wet.
“Am I dead?” I asked.
Do you wish to be?
“I think so. I’m awfully tired.” More than anything, I wanted to lie down with my head in her lap and feel her stroke my brow.
A tear rolled down her cheek and I said, “Please don’t. It’s not like I didn’t try. From the beginning I did what anybody asked. Uncle Farrell asked me to help him get the Sword, and I did. Bennacio asked me to help him get it back, and I did. Mogart asked me to bring it to him, and I did. But every time I did what they asked, somebody got killed. Uncle Farrell, Bennacio, and now Natalia. So, you see, Lady, there’s nobody left now. Nobody left for to me help and nobody left to die because I tried. There’s no reason for me to go back.”
I turned away because I couldn’t bear to see her cry. She was still there, only I couldn’t see her, but I could see the memory of her and the memory of the yew and the long grasses and the glittering shards like teeth in the slag heap below. And, over my head, the butterflies.
The hour has come. Do you remember, now, Alfred Kropp, what has been forgotten?
Then there was nothing. Even the blackness wasn’t black, because my memory of black was gone. No light, no sound, no sensation or memory—there wasn’t even any me anymore. Alfred Kropp was gone.
And when the last of me was gone, I remembered what I had forgotten.
I reached into the yew tree and pulled a silver pin from the body of a butterfly. Freed, it burst into flight, black and red and gold against the bright blue sky, soaring higher and higher, until it was gone.
Darkness came back, but this time only because my eyes were closed.
So I opened them.
I was back in Merlin’s cave, with the silver Sword of Kings jutting from my stomach.
And I knew, I finally knew, who the master of the Sword was.
51
Mogart came toward me, the black dagger in his hand, but he stopped when he heard the sound of my voice.
“The master . . .” I gasped. “The master of the Sword is . . . the one . . .” I coughed and blood filled my mouth and ran down my chin. “The one . . . who claims it.”
I brought my hands up and wrapped my fingers around the hilt. Behind me, metal screeched against the rock as I pulled the Sword from my body. Mogart was opening his mouth to either scream or say something, I’ll never know, because I was free of the Sword now—or it was free of me— and, free, I swung the Sword around in one gigantic arc, my own blood flying from the blade, and I cut off his goddamned head.
I dropped to the cold stone floor. I realized I might die again, but I had already died once and I wasn’t worried about it anymore, at least not once I finished what I had started.
I started to crawl toward Natalia, but my arms gave out and I flopped onto my belly on the cold stone. I let go of the Sword; I needed both my hands to push myself along the floor.
There was a soft white glow surrounding her and through my tears, in the trick of the light, I thought I saw a shadow hovering over her and the shape of wings.
My head felt hollow and black stars began to bloom before my eyes. I would never make it to her in time, but I told myself I could go one more inch. One more inch, Kropp, I told myself. One more inch. And after that inch, another inch.
My teeth chattered and I was very cold, colder than I ever remember being. The soft light around her burned my eyes to look at, so I closed my eyes and felt something warm around me, as if someone had wrapped me in a blanket.
There was a rushing sound and I thought of a great river running to the sea. Hundreds of years, thousands, whole centuries passed, and I still didn’t know how close I was or if I was even close at all.
Then I breathed in the scent of peaches.
I opened my eyes and saw the face of the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
I whispered in her ear, “By the power of the Sword, Natalia . . . in the name of the Archangel Michael . . .”
Dipping my fingers into the wound in my stomach, I brought the blood to her side where Mogart had stabbed her.
I bathed her wound in my blood, whispering in her ear, “See, I remembered. I remembered what I had forgotten. I was going to stay dead, mostly because I was just so darned tired, but then I remembered what I’d forgotten, which is the power to heal as well as to rend . . . so get up, Natalia, get up, because I am the master now and you have to do what I say.”
I smoothed her hair and stroked her forehead with my other hand. “Live,” I said. “Live.”
And after what seemed a very long time, her eyes opened, she took a deep breath, and I knew I had saved her.
52
I guess after all that, I would have bled to death beside her, but Mike came to and found us inside the cave. Soon we were loaded onto stretchers and men carried us up the path to the top of the cliff, where a helicopter was waiting. We were flown to a hospital in London.
After a couple of weeks I was able to sit up and eat some solid food, though hospital food in the best of circumstances isn’t that good, and this was England, after all, so the food was really lousy.
They did two operations on me to remove part of my lower intestines and fix up my left lung, which Mogart had torn with his final thrust. After another couple of weeks I could walk around, and sometimes Natalia would walk with me in the hallway. We didn’t talk much on these walks, though she did thank me for saving her life. Once I asked her if she believed in angels.
“As a little girl I thought I had a guardian angel.”
“That doesn’t count,” I told her. “Little kids believe in Santa Claus too. Your father said the angels live whether we believe in them or not.”
She looked away then. I could have kicked myself for mentioning her father. For once she was actually talking to me as if I were a halfway normal person.
“I guess it would be tough for you to forgive me,” I said. “I can’t seem to, no matter how hard I try.”
“You should have left me to die,” she said. “It would be better. Why didn’t you leave me to die?” She began to cry.
I had apologized, but that only made it worse for her. I was beginning to think that was my special gift: taking something bad and making it worse. I tried to hold her hand while she cried, but she turned away from me. I could save her life but not her broken heart.
After Natalia left, I felt really bad, the worst I’d felt since this whole thing with the Sword started. You would think the prospect of saving six billion lives might make me feel better, but it didn’t. I could save the world, but it wouldn’t bring Uncle Farrell back. It wouldn’t bring my father back.
Or Bennacio. I kept seeing him fall, the way he raised his arms and just let Mogart run him through. Why hadn’t Bennacio fought? He could have lunged forward and tackled Mogart by the knees. Why had he just given up like that? How was that keeping his precious vow? I was pretty sore at him for that. If he hadn’t quit, I wouldn’t have ended up with the Sword, he would be alive, and Natalia’s heart would not be broken.
A shadow fell into the room but I hardly noticed it. I just wanted it all to go away. The hospital, London, my memories, me.
The shadow came closer and I heard her ask softly, “Alfred, why are you crying?”
I said, “It works on everybody but me, Natalia. I can heal everybody but myself.”
She sat in the wooden chair beside the bed. She had changed into a long red cloak over a g
ray dress with one of those soft, high collars, and her earrings were fat diamonds about the size of green olives. Her reddish gold hair was loose and flowed over her shoulders. She looked like some medieval princess, beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Seeing her dressed like that, I realized Natalia was leaving.
“You are forgetting something,” she said.
“I can’t forget anything,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
“You are forgetting you saved the world.”
I didn’t say anything. I wondered why she had come back, but at the same time I knew why, though I couldn’t put it into words.
Then she did. “I’m leaving, Alfred.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Don’t.”
“I must.” She drew a deep breath. She was sitting very straight in the chair.
“But before I go,” she went on, “I wanted to pay homage to the master.”
She looked down at my snotty face.
“I’m not the master of anything,” I said.
“Alfred,” she answered softly. “Like my father, I have waited a very long time for your coming. My father would tell me stories of our ancestor Bedivere, how he betrayed the king by refusing his command to return the Sword to the waters from which it rose. I would spend hours imagining what the master would be like. Tall, handsome, brave, honest, chaste, modest, the knight of all knights—in short, everything that I believed my father to be.” She looked sideways at me, clearly not the guy she had pictured as the master of the Sword. “In fact, when I was still very young I told him that he might be the master, that perhaps it was his destiny to claim the Sword as his own, a fitting end to Bedivere’s shame.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me of the prophecy Merlin made before he departed the world of men, that the master would not come until the last male heir to the house of Bedivere had perished. My father believed that prophecy, Alfred. He believed it because he believed in the justice of it. It was the price we would pay for Bedivere’s failure, our atonement for his sin.”