“Hello,” she said. “I’m Miss Basil.”
“Hello,” said the dark man uncertainly. Once more his nostrils flared, trying to pull in a whiff of her, endeavoring to seek her essence. Nothing. She might as well not have been there at all.
She smiled. “I know what you’re trying to do,” she told him, and she didn’t rise from behind the desk so much as she seemed to uncoil. “I know who you are. I know what you are. But you do not know me, and you find that disturbing.”
“Look, uhm ... I can come back some other time,” said the demon, chucking a thumb in the other direction. But the woman did not turn her gaze from him, and he was transfixed by it for reasons he couldn’t understand.
“That would certainly be your intention. Why? To set some sort of trap that would snap upon Arthur? Or just to kill him outright? Yes, yes ... that’s the more likely. I know your type, and I know your master. You serve Morgan. As for me, I serve Merlin ... for now. I am indentured to him for another decade or so. After that, I am free to kill him, or try to. Or perhaps I won’t. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Who ... are you?” The demon was beginning to be a bit disconcerted by the fact that he wasn’t moving, feeling as if it was coming from outside him rather than within.
“You know. Don’t you.”
She smiled at him, and it was a terrible thing to see, and then he did know. His legs trembled, but still didn’t move. “Ba ... basiliskos ... ,” he whispered.
“Ah. You know my name of old. ‘Little King,’ it means, did you know that? Yes, I perceive that you did. You are an ancient Greek demon. So you would appreciate that it only seems appropriate that one king serve the needs of another, does it not? Now ... I know what you’re thinking,” she said as she came around the desk. “You’re thinking that I’m supposed to be able to kill with my stare. I’ll tell you a secret: That’s exaggeration. What I do ... merely seems like killing you. You see, demon ... I perceive my victims for what they are. They have no secrets from me. I look into them, through them, and in an instant, know all their most private aspects. Things that they don’t want anyone to know. Things that they themselves do not know about themselves. But I see it all, and they know I do, and then they see it, too, and they’d rather die than live with that knowledge. At which point ... I attend to it. Would you like a demonstration?”
The demon tried to shake his head, but couldn’t. He tried to run, but couldn’t.
She looked at him, looked through him, and her eyes went from green to jade green and then green flecked with red. The dark creature sobbed deep in his throat, and his bowels released, but since he wasn’t human what dribbled down his pants legs was more like a thick black tar, smoking and burning a nasty little hole in the rug. The demon then knew himself more than any demon could or should, more than any living thing could or should.
“You want to die now, don’t you,” asked Miss Basil, but it wasn’t a question.
“Y-yes,” stammered the demon.
“All right.” And the Basilisk opened wide her elastic jaw, her great snake form elongating, and she swallowed him whole. After she had done so, she let out a long, satisfied sigh, because it had been quite some time since she’d had Greek food. She sat there all night, savoring the fullness in her belly, feeling relaxed and languid but nevertheless alert, and when one foolish rat, not heeding the warnings of others, strayed into the office, her tongue enfolded him in less than a moment, and then he was gone, providing a nice dessert.
Miss Basil decided she liked working in politics.
* * *
PERCIVAL BORE LITTLE superficial resemblance to the man Merlin had found behind the library a week ago. He was now dressed in a straight-arrow, three-piece, black pinstripe suit. There was no trace of liquor on his breath, although it had left a haunted look in his eyes. He was neatly groomed, his fingernails trimmed. His eyes were bloodshot, but Visine would take that away in time. A cup of black coffee sat in front of him, the remains of dinner strewn around the table.
“Why me?”
They were seated in a diner across the street from the Camelot Building. Merlin sat opposite him. The waitress kept giving him looks every time she walked by. He ignored them; he was used to it.
“Why you?”
Percival stared at him evenly. “You have to understand, Merlin: When it first started, when it all first started ... I would never have had the nerve to ask you. You were who you were, and I was ...”
“We’re still who we were, Percival.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “Oddly enough, I remember you as being a lot taller, Merlin.”
“Very funny.”
“And I’m not who I was. I’ve seen too much, done too much. And I want to know ... why me?”
“In what sense?”
“Why,” said Percival patiently, “was I the one chosen to find the Grail? Did you arrange it? Was it some ... some cosmic jest? Why was I blessed? Why was I cursed to end up feeling an emptiness in my gut that only alcohol could erase?”
“Don’t whine at me, Percival. You were a knight. It’s unseemly.” He looked down for a moment, composing his thoughts. “In the time of Camelot, there came a period of discontent. The knights became bored with the ideal of chivalry and civilization. Arthur had achieved a goal, namely, the use of the power of knighthood for something other than hacking enemies into small bits of meat. Men were treating men like human beings, and women like chattel that needed protection, which was a damned sight better than the way both genders were being treated earlier.”
Percival nodded. It wasn’t as if this was news to him, but obviously the mage felt it important to bask in nostalgia.
Merlin poured himself another cup of coffee. “But, as human beings are wont to do, the knights wound up needing a new goal to stave off the oppression of boredom. So I gave you all one. You were to search for, find, and recover the Holy Grail. The cup from which Jesus Christ drank at the Last Supper ... and which caught his blood at the crucifixion.”
“Why? Why the Grail, though?”
Merlin shrugged. “I don’t know. It was the first thing that popped into my mind. It was either that or the Holy Plate. It hardly mattered what I came up with, as long as it was something to keep what I laughingly refer to as the knights’ ‘minds’ occupied ... no offense.”
“None taken,” said Percival, although he was feeling pretty damned offended about then. “So you’re saying ... that the entire quest for the Grail was the equivalent of busywork?”
“In essence, yes. I knew the legends of the Grail, but I didn’t think it really existed. I thought it might, but there also might be flying saucers and the Loch Ness monster and honest used-car dealers and whatever other fantasies the human mind is capable of conjuring. What I’m saying is that I thought I was just exploiting a fantasy, a myth. I would have said anything to delay the splintering of the Round Table. I didn’t know you’d actually go and find the damned thing! When all the others gave up ... you found it.”
“At the tree at the end of the world,” whispered Percival, remembering it all. It was ten centuries agone, but he could still feel the chill wind in his lungs ... still hear the hiss of the great serpent wrapped around the tree, the sizzling sound of the dripping venom as it thrust at him. “And I brought it back to Arthur, and ...”
“And you saved his life,” Merlin said softly. “For all that has happened since, for all you feel that the poets and scribes didn’t give you your due ... you know what happened. You know that Modred mortally wounded Arthur. That if you had not returned when you did, and he had not drunk from the cup of Christ, he would have died.”
“Right ... right ... and look how I was repaid,” Percival said bitterly. “I did great deeds ... but one mistake ... one mistake ...”
Merlin leaned back in his seat, and there was impatience in his face. “You’re whining again. Percival, not only did no one tell you drink from the Grail, but the Lady of the Lake specifically told you not to. To simply put it
back where it was. But you could not resist, could you? Could you?”
He knew that Merlin was right, and couldn’t look him in the eyes. “No,” he said so softly that it was barely audible. “But I didn’t do it for personal gain. I wasn’t wounded. I just ... wanted to drink from the cup that the Christian Savior drank from. To see if I could connect with one who preached peace, but in whose name so many have died. How could I have known that—”
“You couldn’t have, which is why doing something when you don’t know the consequences is damned foolishness,” said Merlin. “The Grail cures injuries if one is injured. If one is not injured, then the Grail’s healing properties retard all of the body’s tendencies to break down. Retards it to such a slow pace that the one who drinks from it is functionally immortal.”
Percival shook his head. “I didn’t know ... I didn’t know,” he whispered. Then he looked to Merlin. “Can you help me? Die, I mean?”
“I can,” Merlin said calmly. “Do you wish to die now ... at the time when Arthur has his greatest need? After centuries of waiting, and not truly knowing what you were waiting for ... is this the outcome that you’ve been seeking? Or is the dedication of the Grail knight truly as mythic as the Grail itself was intended to be?”
Percival slammed his open hands on the table, rattling the plates and startling other customers, who looked at him nervously. He drew in a breath, steadying his nerves. “You are a true bastard, magician.”
“You couldn’t even begin to grasp my parentage, Percival. And you haven’t answered my question.”
He looked down, frustrated. “I will serve ... in whatever capacity I am needed.”
“Good.”
There was silence between them for a time, and then Merlin said, sounding casual, “Tell me ... after you drank from the Grail ... what happened to the cup itself?”
“I don’t know,” said Percival. “For centuries I’ve wondered that very thing. I will tell you this, though ... it was ... so strange. I drank from the cup in a place that was barren, parched. Only a tiny brook ran through it, providing me the liquid with which to fill the holy cup. I drank ... and there was an explosion of light behind my eyes such as I have never seen before or since. When I awoke, the land around me was lush and plentiful ... but the Grail was gone. Unfortunately, its effect on the land was not to be as long-lasting as its effect on me, for when I came through those same parts a year or so later, the land was once again barren.” Then he noticed grim amusement in Merlin’s eyes. “What?”
“Percival, you idiot,” sighed Merlin. “The land was the Grail. It changed shape.”
“What?” he said again.
“You were standing on the Grail. After it had its effect on you, it transformed itself into the land. The Grail can do that. It has four shapes,” and he ticked them off on his fingers, “the cup ... the land ... the sword ... and the belt. Each form has different abilities and different blessings. If you had simply remained where you were, sooner or later the Grail would have shifted back into a more recognizable shape, and would have been in your possession. As it is ...” And he shook his head.
“As it is, what?”
“As it is, after you departed, sooner or later someone came along and took the Grail. Either it had shifted back into something more recognizable, or the person who took it was so powerful that they were able to perceive it for what it was, even as the land.”
“Who? Who did it?” asked Percival anxiously.
“I don’t know,” Merlin told him regretfully. “As much as I am loath to admit it, Percival, there are some things even my power does not allow. Probably because I had dealings with the dark arts. That was a double-edged sword. It enabled me to withstand the doings of Morgan, to fight fire with fire ... but employing such arcanna as Satan would find delightful forever binds me from having dealings with the purely divine. I cannot detect the Grail or its whereabouts now, Percival ... nor am I about to send you out on a quest to find it. We have other, more pressing problems.”
“Such as?” Percival said with a growing sense of urgency, feeling the old need to accomplish greatness surging within him. “For what do you require my services?”
“For starters, you have to balance our books. They’re a mess.”
Percival stared blankly at him. “You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. You have considerable accounting skills, do you not?”
“Merlin, I’ve lived a thousand years. I have skills in many things. Granted, number crunching was my most recent vocation before I got bored with it ... as I get bored with everything sooner or later. Immortality will do that to you. But why—?”
“Because it wasn’t simply a matter of your getting bored with it, was it? You were a good accountant. One of the best,” said Merlin evenly. “Worked for a big firm and discovered irregularities—funds disappearing for which you could not account. You discovered a higher-up, a man you respected tremendously, had been jerking the company around. He fed you a sob story that wrenched your heart. Ever sympathetic to the human condition, you agreed to cover for him. And you did, until the auditors found it. But the higher-up managed to pin the whole thing on you. Fired. Disgraced. No one would hire you. Your world in the toilet, you had no goal to achieve. So you sought escape in a bottle—”
“That’s enough,” Percival warned him.
Merlin bobbed his head in acknowledgment, but then said softly, “We have odd sources of income, Percival. Converting gold and jewelry to money and such. I need someone that I can work with who will make it seem less odd. Someone I can trust. That’s you. Are you with me or not?”
Percival let out a long, incredulous sigh, and then shook his head.
“Why couldn’t the Christian Savior have drank from a paper cup and crumbled the thing?” he muttered.
“Cheer up, Percival,” Merlin said. “I have a new goal for you. The election of Arthur, your former king, to a position that will be his stepping stone to creating a new order of peace and greatness for mankind. And you will serve as something very important, Percival.” He stabbed a finger at him. “You’re going to set an example for Arthur. So he won’t get distracted.”
“Distracted? By what?”
“There are,” Merlin said with a sigh, “certain aspects of the human condition which are eternally recreated. One such is evil, although if its personification exists reincarnated in this time, I have yet to find it. That worries me. But another aspect has already manifested itself. And poses a threat.”
“What would that be?”
With barely a trace of bitterness, Merlin said, “The eternal ability of the human race to make a muddle of the best laid plans. A shapely monkey wrench has entered the works, and Arthur has cheerfully put it into the toolbox.” He shook his head in wonderment. “Sometimes I think there’s just no understanding that man, no matter how many centuries I know him.”
CHAPTRE
THE TENTH
ARTHUR WAS IN tremendous spirits when he came into the office the next morning. “Good morning, Miss Basil!” he said cheerfully to the receptionist. “You’re looking like the cat who swallowed the canary this morning!”
She looked up at him with less than a kindly expression. “Guess again. By the way ... I can’t stand it.”
“Miss Basil, my sweet, nothing is going to dampen my mood. Not even you.” He leaned over her desk and whispered conspiratorially, “But exactly what is it that you can’t stand, hmmm?”
“First you have those two drug-addicted freaks out beating the drums for you—”
“Are you referring to Elvis and Buddy, two of my most dedicated helpmates?” he asked archly.
“Right, the freaks. Then you hire that shrinking violet to be your personal assistant, and already she’s calling in sick—”
Arthur frowned at that. “Sick, you say? She seemed quite healthy just the other day.”
“Well, she called, and she’s not coming in.” Basil shoved the piece of paper on which she had taken the
message over to Arthur. He picked it up, glanced at it, and his frown deepened. “Get Gwen—Miss Queen—on the phone for me, if you please.” But then he saw that she seemed distracted. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone is heading this way.”
“Well, this is a place of business,” Arthur said reasonably. “Perhaps it’s someone who wants to conduct business with us.”
But Basil shook her head. “It’s someone who wishes to prevent you from obtaining your goals. I can smell it from here. Someone who inhales lies and exhales insincerity with stunning ease.”
The door was thrust open. A ruggedly handsome man stood in the doorway. He was tilting his chin slightly in one direction, presenting his good side. His graying hair was meticulously coifed, his chin had a perfectly positioned cleft, and in Arthur’s opinion the man looked better in a suit than just about any other man on the planet. Several print and TV reporters were right behind him as if they’d been born there.
He looked Arthur up and down and then held out a hand. As he did so, still cameras flashed and TV cameras recorded. “Kent Taylor!” he said with impressive exuberance, “actor and politician!”
“Well, that explains the lying and insincerity,” muttered Basil. “Damn this eternal accuracy of mine.”
For a moment Arthur had thought that the newcomer thought that he, Arthur, was named Kent Taylor, but quickly realized that he was introducing himself. “Arthur Penn,” he said, gripping the hand firmly.
Taylor looked a bit surprised. “Solid grip you have there, Art.”
“Arthur,” Arthur corrected him gently.
“Not going to go all formal on me, I hope,” Taylor said. He sounded to Arthur like someone who was constantly addressing a back row in a theater that wasn’t there. “Maybe you’d prefer, ‘Your highness.’”
“It’s not necessary,” Arthur assured him, and then added softly after a moment, “anymore.”
But Taylor didn’t hear him, or if he did, he wasn’t paying attention. He turned to the cameras and said, “Gentlemen, ladies, I’d like to confer with Mr. Penn alone, if that’s all right. So take five, everyone, okay?” There were a few half-hearted attempts at shouted questions, but a fearsome look from Miss Basil silenced them, and they allowed themselves to be herded out the door. “Sorry about the press boys,” he said when the door to the hall was closed. “They follow me wherever I go. Wish I could do something about it, but ... I’m me,” he shrugged, as if caught up in something that was far greater than he could hope to control. Then he added, “I hope I haven’t been overly presumptuous.”