And Gwen looked out at the field where the two men were battering at each other with swords as the full measure of what she was hearing dawned on her. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.
ARTHUR WAS FULLY on the offensive now. He drove down hard on Modred, Excalibur pounding on Modred’s shield again and again. Huge chunks of the shield flew as Modred was not even able to mount a defense to slow Arthur for a moment. Back, back down the field Arthur sent Modred. And then he drew back Excalibur for another blow, brought down the sword, and totally misjudged the distance. Modred dodged, and Arthur swung at empty air. The miss sent him off balance, and he stumbled and almost fell. Only his warrior’s reflexes saved him from tripping and hitting the ground, but by the time he recovered Modred was upon him. Modred swung hard, and Arthur took the brunt of the blow on his shield. He felt the impact far more than he should have, the blow sending vibrations of pain along his left arm. Surprised, he wheeled back, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He was sweating so heavily it was pouring into his eyes. His vision was starting to fuzz over and he felt a ringing in his ears. He couldn’t understand it. Lord knew the armor was heavy, but certainly he wasn’t this out of shape.
Modred attacked and they alternated now, Modred slamming at Arthur’s shield, Arthur hacking at Modred’s. And this time, step-by-step as they exchanged blow after blow, it was Arthur who was beginning to retreat. The crowd shouted encouragement, roared its approval for Arthur’s bravery and catcalled their disapproval for Modred. They were having the time of their lives, because after all, they knew the whole thing was rigged ahead of time and that Arthur would triumph.
Arthur’s right arm was starting to feel heavy. Lifting Excalibur became more and more of a burden. His legs were like two lead weights. Each blow from Modred’s sword felt stronger than the one before. And then Arthur stumbled, falling back on one knee. Modred came in fast, swinging hard, and his sword sheered Arthur’s shield in two. Quickly Arthur dropped the crumbling remains of his shield, gripped Excalibur with both hands, and using it as a crutch, drew himself to his feet. He swung Excalibur back and around with all the force he could muster. Modred parried the blow with his sword and it glanced off and struck Modred’s shield, which shattered. Modred tossed it aside, gripping his sword with two hands as well.
They stood there facing each other, a moment frozen in time.
* * *
MERLIN, DO SOMETHING!” Gwen cried out. “Merlin . . . Percival . . . !”
“I can’t interfere,” Merlin said firmly. “Nor any of you. Arthur would never forgive us.”
“It won’t matter if he’s dead!”
“Damn you woman, don’t rob him!” Merlin warned her. “If he lives, it’s his life, if he dies, it’s his death. His pride may be foolish, but it’s his.”
“It’s macho bullshit!” Gwen shot back. “When you needed help, I saved you!”
“Yes. But he’s a better man than I am,” Merlin told her. “But remember, I never said that.”
MODRED FEINTED TO the left, then brought his sword swinging in low to the right. Arthur tried to block the blow and failed. Modred’s sword bit deep into Arthur’s ribs. Arthur moaned and went down to one knee, and Modred stepped back, his blade tinted red. Gasping, Arthur clutched at the wound, his face deathly white beneath his helmet.
Instead of pressing the attack, Modred stood there, admiring the damage. “How does it feel, Arthur?” he crowed. “How does it feel to take the pain instead of inflicting it for once? Want to know why you’re feeling so tired? Because I poisoned you, dear brother. That’s why.”
Gasping for breath, Arthur looked up. His voice was a harsh whisper as he said, “Morgan?”
“My, we are the perceptive one. Modred had the spirit, but not the will. I’ve provided him both. Gaze on the face of the one who hates you beyond death itself.” Modred lifted his visor, and it was Modred’s face underneath, but the eyes, the expression, was that of Morgan Le Fey. “I’ve always loved you, Arthur. A sister loves her brother. And you always kill the one you love. You’re going to die, Arthur. The only question is whether it’s going to be from the blade or from the blood.”
Modred lowered his visor, gripped his sword firmly and swung at Arthur’s head.
Arthur blocked it. Hilt to hilt, Arthur retorted in Mod-red’s face, “You forgot to mention boredom. I might die of that, with you as an opponent.” And he shoved Modred back.
Modred was visibly surprised. “I didn’t think you had enough strength left in you for a last show of bravado.”
“You’ll find I’m full of surprises,” said Arthur, a grim smile on his lips. His mouth curled back in a sneer. “You’re pathetic. You couldn’t even beat me fairly, you had to try and poison me. Well, it didn’t work.”
“I—I saw you drink the poison,” stammered Modred.
“Perhaps you did,” Arthur said. “And perhaps I switched the mugs.” And without giving Modred a chance to think, Arthur attacked.
He did not allow himself to feel the pain. He refused to acknowledge that his arms were dead weight, that Excalibur had become unwieldy. He refused to acknowledge that he was dying. He drove Modred back, back across the vast lawn, toward an upward slope where there were rocks embedded in the side. The great sword Excalibur came faster instead of slower. The speed of Arthur’s blows increased. The crowd went wild as Modred retreated farther and farther before Arthur’s savage onslaught. Blood pumped furiously from Arthur’s wound. The left side of Arthur’s surcoat was stained red. The crowd saw it and applauded the impressive special effect.
Arthur grew stronger.
“It’s impossible!” screamed Modred.
“This is all impossible!” said Arthur. “We all are! And you’ll never defeat me, Morgan. Even if you kill me, you’ll never defeat me.”
They spun in a semicircle, and Modred squinted.
“Now what did I tell you about the sun?” said Arthur, and brought Excalibur down with every bit of strength he had left.
He lost his grip on Excalibur. The mighty sword flew from his hands and landed on the rocky incline. Arthur stumbled, hit the ground, gasping, clutching at his wound. Under his helmet his features were twisted in pain. The poison running through his system, weighted down by his armor, his wound an agonizing pain in his side, Arthur could not rise. Instead he half staggered, half crawled toward Excalibur.
Modred stood there for a moment, unable to believe his good fortune. “You did drink the poison. You are dying!” He laughed Morgan’s laugh and stalked the fallen king. “This is turning into a good day after all. So which kills you first, Arthur? The blade or the blood? Your choice?”
And Arthur suddenly hurled himself backward, slamming into Modred. He yanked off Modred’s helmet, tossed it aside, and slammed a fist into Modred’s sneering face. Then, with all his strength, he shoved Modred back. Turning, with a last, desperate effort, he lunged toward Excalibur. As he did so, he yanked off his own helmet.
Modred was coming right after him, whirling his blade so fast that it could barely be seen. It sounded like a swarm of hornets cutting through the air. Arthur barely had the strength to raise Excalibur, turned, saw Modred advancing, and as an act of desperate calculation, threw his helmet.
It bounced, rolled, and skidded right under Modred’s feet. Modred tripped over it, stumbled forward . . .
. . . and fell onto Excalibur’s upraised blade.
And the crowd knew. There was a moment of stunned silence as people tried to tell themselves that it was some sort of amazing special effect. That what they were seeing was all part of the show. Some actually even applauded, thinking they were witnessing a truly impressive stunt and then, with slow horror it began to sink in on them. Then there was confused babbling, and screams, and shouts that someone should do something, do anything.
Excalibur glowed ever so briefly, as if a long hunger had been sated, and Modred and Arthur were practically nose-to-nose as Modred’s body slid down the length of the mighty sword. Modre
d began to tremble violently, blood pouring from his mouth, and the face was Modred’s but the cold, dark fury was Morgan’s in his eyes as Modred whispered, “I . . . still . . . hate ...”
As Modred died, the black and foul thing that passed for his mother’s soul leapt from his body. It arced across the sky, a black cloud of malevolence, trying to get away, and suddenly two well-placed bolts of mystic energy nailed it. It trembled for a moment, tried to hold itself together, and then blew apart in a spectacular twinkling of light.
In the reviewing box, Merlin puffed across the top of his finger like a gunslinger blowing away the smoke from a just-fired revolver. Gwen and Percival were already out and halfway across the field. Gwen came to Arthur’s side and dropped down next to him. She ripped off a piece from his surcoat and held it against the wound, and she looked up at the people standing around. “For God’s sake, call an ambulance! An ambulance!”
“I already told a cop to do it the second I saw Arthur wounded!” Percival told her.
Gwen gasped at the whiteness of Arthur’s skin. “Oh, God, Arthur.”
He lifted a mailed hand to her cheek and stroked it, smiling sickly. “Gwen. Don’t cry, my lovely Gwen. We gave them a real run for their money this time.”
“Them? Who’s them?”
“The fates. They have it out for me. They hate happy endings, you know.” He winced. “Now don’t go crying for me, Gwen. It’s unseemly.”
Tears streamed down her face. “I don’t want to lose you, Arthur,” she sobbed. “I don’t think I could go through waiting for you again for another ten centuries.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” said Arthur. ‘TU always be with you.”
“I don’t want poetic bullshit! I want you!”
He laughed. “That’s my Gwen. Never could pull anything on her.”
Merlin knelt down next to them. Gwen turned and said, “Merlin! Do something!”
“I am,” he said tersely, and he shoved a mushroom down Arthur’s mouth.
“What the hell is that?” she demanded.
“Morgan was my pupil once; I taught her everything she knows of poisons. I ensorcelled this mushroom to handle the poison. At least, I think it will.”
“You think it will?”
“She might have learned more about poisons in the meantime,” was his testy response.
“What about the wound?”
But Merlin shook his head. “A curse on him, I can handle. Poison, maybe. Wounds are out of my reach. Give me Excalibur; I’ll cut the armor off. Save them time in the ambulance,” for in the distance they could hear the sirens fast approaching. Everyone was talking at once, shouting over one another, and yet to Arthur it seemed as if everything was slowing down to a sort of curious crawl.
“Merlin,” said Arthur, and his voice sounded ghastly. “Promise you’ll look after her.”
“It’s not fair!” shouted Gwen.
“Life isn’t fair. Merlin taught me that.”
Merlin was slicing the armor apart carefully. “I know. Just once I’d like to be wrong. Hold on . . . the armor’s coming clear . . . he’s bleeding! Damnit, someone stop the bleeding!”
Gwen was tearing apart her long gown, shoving in strips of cloth which were becoming soaked with seconds. The ambulance was hurtling straight across the green, the crowd melting from its path.
Arthur didn’t see it. The world was fading to black around him. “I love you, Gwen . . . you’ve got to remember that.”
“Stop bleeding, Arthur!” Gwen’s voice floated from very far away. “Oh, God, stop bleeding! Arthur, say something! Speak to me!” And as everything became an impenetrable haze, as the last thought of So this is what I’ve been hiding from all these centuries . . . it’s not so terrible . . . fluttered across his mind, he heard Gwen shouting, ‘‘Arthur, don’t go! I love you! Arthur! Arthur . . . don’t . . .”
YE OLDE SOUND BITE
“Death came today outside the emergency ward of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for Arthur Yendragon, Son of Uther, King of the Britons, and mayor-elect of New York City . . .”
CHAPTRE
THE TWENTY-FIFTH
GWEN QUEEN SAT out on the stretch of private beach outside the rented cottage. Getting a beach-side cottage at this time of year in Avalon had been a snap. Avalon, a small resort community near Atlantic City, didn’t get all that many people looking for that sort of accommodation in the dead of winter.
Gwen pulled her heavy sweater around her and looked out at the crashing waves. She exhaled her breath and watched the little puff of white hover in the air in front of her.
There was a crunch of a footfall on the sand behind her. She turned, looked up, and smiled. “Hello, love,” she said. “Enjoy your nap?”
Arthur sat down next to her and draped an arm around her shoulder. “Feeling quite refreshed, thank you.”
They sat next to each other, basking in the warmth of each other’s presence. Finally Arthur said, “I’m glad I came back.”
“What, from your nap?”
“No, from the dead. I’d have hated to miss this sunset.”
“Arthur, I wish you’d stop putting it that way” She sighed. “I keep telling you, you were only dead for under a minute.”
“Is that all?” He laughed.
“Look, they bring people back from the dead all the time. Your heart stopped and they got it started again. Like they said on the news, death came for you . . . and you laughed at it and beat it back.”
“Brought back from the dead. Heart restarted. Simple as that.” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand how so many people consider magic too unbelievable, but they accept as commonplace things that I would have once considered inconceivable.”
They stared out at the ocean for a while longer. Then Gwen rested her head on his shoulder. “I like being married to you,” she said.
“I’m sure we looked delightful. You in your wedding gown, I in my hospital gown with those ghastly strings down the back. Can I outlaw that as mayor?”
“I’ll have it looked into. And seriously, I let you get away once. I’ll be damned if I let you get away again.”
She kissed him lightly. He smiled. “Let’s run away,” he said conspiratorially. “Right after I’m sworn in, I’ll make Percival deputy mayor, and then we’ll run off.”
“You make it sound so tempting.”
“It’s meant to be.”
“You can’t. You know we can’t. You have a destiny to fulfill.”
“Oh, bugger destiny. You’re starting to sound like Merlin.”
“Destiny almost buggered you. Maybe you and destiny should declare a truce for a while.”
“There’s wisdom in what you say.” He lay back on the sand. “I did so many things wrong the first time around, Gwen,” said Arthur after a time. “I had so many expectations to which no one could live up. I’ve been given a second chance—hell, a third chance. I desperately don’t want to make a muddle of it.”
“You won’t,” she said confidently. “You’re Arthur. You’re my husband, and you’re a good man, and you’ll always do what’s right. Even if it’s wrong.”
“Thank you.” He shivered slightly. “Getting chilly. Want to go in?”
“We could. There’s an old movie on TV I always wanted to see. A Bing Crosby film.”
“I don’t know the fellow, but I’m game.”
“Good. It’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court!”
He stared at her. “Let’s stay out here a while longer.”
“But you said you were getting chilly.”
“Then,” he pulled her close to him, “we’ll just have to find some way to keep warm.”
IN THE HEART of Belvedere Castle, away from prying eyes, Merlin watched Arthur and Gwen together on the sand in New Jersey and smiled in spite of himself. Then he turned to a small, forlorn rat scuttling about on the floor, a rat that he had rescued at the last moment as Morgan’s house crumbled. “I suppose I was wrong about he
r, wasn’t I, Lance. It is nice to be wrong every once in a while. But not too often.”
Lance squeaked sadly.
Merlin ignored him and, using the magic of a remote control, turned the channels. The image of Arthur and Gwen on the beach vanished, to be replaced by another. Merlin settled back with a bag of microwave popcorn to watch Bing Crosby.
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Peter David, Knight Life
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