a good point, though," said Balin. They loaded Rience up on a litter.
Meanwhile Merlin had teleport without errored over to Arthur, waking him and his mistress up.
"Good evening Arthur, and good evening miss," said Merlin.
"Do you never knock?" asked Arthur.
"I thought you'd want to know about how Rience has been captured," said Merlin.
"Yeah, okay, that's good to know," said Arthur. He rubbed his eyes. "Who did it? Was it Ulfius and Brastias?"
"No, sire, it was two other knights who seek to get into your good graces," said Merlin. "You'll meet them tomorrow."
"Great," said Arthur.
"I'll just show myself out," said Merlin, and leaves.
"Does he do that often?" asked Arthur's mistress.
Anyway the next morning Balin and Balan and Rience arrived at Camelot. At Merlin's urging, Balin wore a face-concealing helmet and told everyone he was Mister Two-Swords, the Knight With Two Swords. Kay or Ulfius or someone took Rience away in chains. Arthur went to see Rience first, to gloat, before meeting the knights who captured him.
"Welcome to Camelot," Arthur said to the captive Rience. "How have you enjoyed your stay so far?"
"It's been a trip," said Rience.
"Who was it that took you in, anyway? Merlin was being cagey last night," said Arthur.
"Mister Two-Swords is what he calls himself," said Rience. "Him and his brother. He's dumb as a post."
"Dumb he may be," said Arthur, "but I owe him one, definitely."
Merlin appeared at Arthur's elbow. "Would you forgive him any single crime, sire?"
"That's an odd question, Merlin, but yes. I suppose I would," said Arthur. "This Rience situation has been troubling me for thousands of words now."
"Then I'll tell you!" Merlin cackled. "It was Sir Balin all along! He and his brother captured Rience! You don't know Balin's brother Sir Balan, but he's a B+ knight, maybe A-. Nowhere near as powerful in combat as Balin, but then, Balin's got a doom-curse working on his side, and won't live much longer."
"Oh, he's dying? That's, I guess that's too bad," said Arthur. "I feel very ambivalent towards Balin right now. Given that he's dying I suppose I'll swallow it and just forgive him, I suppose he deserves that."
"Well, he's not dying yet," said Merlin. "But by all means, be nice to him; before he dies he's going to do you another good turn or several. Also, tomorrow morning Rience's brother Nero is going to show up and bring along an army, so, get ready for that."
Arthur assembled all his knights together, forewarned as he was about Nero's attack, and he sallied forth in hopes of getting the drop on Nero. But Nero was ready and champing at the bit and he had more men than Arthur: outside Castle Terrabil they fought a long series of battles that even Malory isn't interested in describing in any great detail. Sir Kay did really well, as did Balin and Balan and of course Arthur himself maimed like forty guys, and there was a knight name of Sir Hervis who did well also...
But who cares? Meanwhile Merlin teleported without error up to the Orkneys, where he met up with King Lot. Lot was at the head of a column of soldiers, armed and ready.
"Merle!" King Lot waved; he hadn't seen Merlin in ages. "How you doing? I'm just about to ride down and do battle with Arthur again, on the side of Rience's brother Nero. I hate Rience, like all right-thinking people, but his brother's okay. Pull up a horse, ride alongside me. We could use a good crazy dreamspeaking soothsayer."
"Hold that thought," said Merlin. "I need to relate to you a prophecy."
"Everybody, hold up!" Lot shouted, and the soldiers stopped. "Okay, Merle, what's the deal?"
Merlin then began telling Lot a story that went on forever and has no point (make your own joke here). At times Lot nodded sagely, or smiled at an implied witticism, or otherwise signaled that he was paying attention, because he didn't want to look foolish in front of Merlin, and Merlin was all the time saying things like "of course you understand the significance of this," and "hold onto your hat, Lot, because it gets better!"
Around three days later, a messenger from Nero showed up, with a message along the lines of what the hell is keeping you we are getting creamed here.
"Whoa, sorry Merle," said Lot. "I got to get going."
"Hold on," said Merlin. "I haven't gotten to the end of the story!"
"It'll have to wait," said Lot.
Then another messenger appeared. "I bear news from Terrabil!" he cried. "I traveled much faster than the first messenger! Nero and all his host have been slain and dispersed by Arthur! Nero's last words were 'where were you, Lot?'"
"Shoot," said Lot.
"'And then they all lived happily ever after, the end,'" said Merlin. "Go on, do whatever now."
"I feel terrible about this," said Lot. "Nero had a lot of good men fighting alongside him. You know me, Merle, I'm not a lunatic, I don't love war. But still I wish I had been there."
"There was nothing to be done, Lot," said Merlin. To himself Merlin was thinking if Lot had been there then Arthur would have died, can't have that and I would rather neither Lot nor Arthur die in battle but if I have to choose one to die it'll be Lot no question.
"Well, what now? Any advice, Merle?" asked Lot. "It's not too late, we could ride down there and our men will be fresh while Arthur's are exhausted. On the other hand, they'll outnumber us considerably, and I haven't got Mister 100 here with me."
Merlin shrugged.
"Let me at them, boss!" One of Lot's knights was full of vim. "I could take on all the Round Table (which hasn't been established yet) myself!"
"Heh, well, hopefully it won't come to that," said Lot. "But yes! Onward, men! We'll take Arthur down a notch yet!"
Then another fight, blah blah blah, Lot and the remnants of Team Lot & Mister 100 Featuring Nero on one side, Arthur on the other, and since Book II is all about Balin, I can assure you that Balin on Arthur's side kicked enormous amounts of ass. But Lot, let's give him his due and remember that he wasn't not such a bad guy. He could have been Arthur's wise and kindly elder brother-in-law, if they had gotten along better, but no. Maybe part of Lot's antipathy towards Arthur stemmed from Arthur sleeping with Lot's wife and fathering Mordred, plus the incest thing on top of that. Just saying. Arthur isn't 100% the victim here.
Anyway, Lot was in the thick of it, holding his troops together, when at the height of the battle a mystery knight appeared from behind! The mystery knight ran straight for Lot and took him out! It was -- you were not expecting this -- King Pellinore, the Questing Beast Guy! Yeah, that jackass! I know, right?
Pellinore disappeared as soon as he'd taken out Lot, which was pretty well the end of the battle; Lot had been single-handedly holding his side together. Malory reminds us that in a decade or so, Lot's son Sir Gawaine would avenge his father's death, but that didn't matter in the here and now. I don't know why Malory is even bringing it up. It's as if he's a terrible writer with no sense of pacing, even by the lax standards of the fifteenth century.
What matters is that the remnants of Team Lot & Mister 100 were crushed, the various kings on Lot's side were slain (though, again, Mister 100 and some of the other heavy-hitters weren't present), and they were tossed in a big mass grave in Camelot.
The mass grave thing sounds better once you hear about the absolutely fabulous funeral Arthur threw together for Lot and the eleven kings on his side in this last battle, which group of kings overlapped with but was not identical to the kings in Team Lot & Mister 100 from back in Book I. Arthur asked Merlin to put together something special, and Merlin used magic to erect a huge crypt with gold-leaf pressed into everything and statues of everybody looking sad (and one of Arthur in the middle looking triumphant), plus lots of eternal flames. I don't think there's a spell in the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons list of magic-user spells that does this, but I could be wrong.
Everybody thought it very nice, including Arthur's special funerary guests: Margawse, Lot's widow; Uriens, king of Gore and longtime comrade of Lot;
and Uriens's wife Morgan le Fay, sister to both Margawse and Arthur. Afterwards at a private reception Uriens and Margawse started drinking and didn't stop. Let's join the scene, already in progress!
"They are really packing it away," said Morgan le Fay to her half-brother and his weird elfin magical advisor.
"Well, it's been an eventful day," said Arthur. "The eternal flames were nice, I thought."
Merlin explained to Arthur that the eternal flames aren't really eternal. They would go out when Merlin died, which would be just before the whole Quest for the Holy Grail happened.
"Hold on," said Arthur. "Malory doesn't mention me saying this but I think it's worth objecting here. Didn't you tell me before that you were going to outlive me, but I would get a nice tomb while you were tossed in a ditch?"
"Possibly," said Merlin. "I utter a lot of prophecy. I can't be expected to keep track of it all."
Arthur muttered something under his breath.
"Speaking of," said Merlin. "Here's some additional prophecy. I already mentioned this to him, but not you: Sir Balin is going to be the one who strikes the dolorous stroke."
"What?" asked Arthur.
"You'll know it when you see it," said Merlin. He winces. "Right in the jimmies."
"Hey now," said Morgan le Fay. "There are ladies present."
"Uh, Balin," said Arthur, changing the subject. "Where did he get off to, him and his brother? And were late-battle reports of Pellinore (that jackass!) appearing, were those correct?"
"Oh, Pellinore will show up