One Knight Only

  “I’m sorry, Nellie,” Ron said as gently as he could. “But I’m afraid that—”

  “She can come,” said Arthur.

  Ron blanched, turned to Arthur with what was clearly every intention of arguing. Then he saw the amused but firm look in the face of the once and future king, and simply sighed and said, “But I’m afraid that I cannot guarantee you a window seat on the plane when we go to Pus Isl—I’m sorry, Grail Island.”

  Excitement bubbled within her, but she didn’t even try to say thank you, since she was concerned that, once she started saying it, she wouldn’t be able to stop. That she’d just be babbling like an idiot. That was hardly the way to underscore the notion that she would be of value to the expedition.

  So instead she confined her concerns to more immediate issues. “When do we leave?” she said. “From where do we leave?”

  “At dawn,” Arthur said. “That’s always a good time for such things. There’s a newness in the air that makes just about anything seem possible, no matter how ludicrous. A transport helicopter will arrive to bring us to a private airfield, and a small craft will be meeting us there to transport us to Grail Island.” He smiled. “I like the sound of that. ‘Grail Island.’ It sounds very . . .”

  “Arthurian?” offered Percival.

  “Yes. I was just going to say that. You know, I never thought it would happen, but I’m finding I rather like being an entire genre.”

  “PUS ISLAND?”

  Baumann’s voice sounded puzzled over the phone. Even though she was in her own home, Nellie realized that she was looking around as if convinced that someone was watching her, spying on her, preparing to rat her out for ratting Arthur out.

  “Yes. That’s right. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yeah, I think so. It’s part of the Skeleton Keys, a small group of islands off South America.” He paused and then laughed to himself. “Jeez, the crap you pick up from a lifetime of reporting.” She could hear scribbling over the phone; he was jotting it down, making notes to himself. All business, he continued, “So Arthur’s heading up a little excursion there? For some sort of faith healing thing for the former first lady?”

  “Something like that. Maybe even more than that. It could be huge, Baumann. It could be really huge.”

  “How huge?” He sounded skeptical, even pitying. “I’m telling you right now, Porter, I’ve seen people with terminal family members break themselves to bits trying to find cures, and it’s always a washout and it’s always pathetic. It’d be a pity to see a former president go down that same route.”

  “You’re saying you wouldn’t report the story?”

  He snorted over the phone and she made a face at the noise. It was like chatting with a hog. “Of course I would. Make a hell of a piece. I have a favor or two I can pull in and get myself over there. I’ll wait a day or so before I do, just to give you guys time to settle in and get involved with . . . with whatever you’re getting involved in.”

  “It’s big.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Okay, but . . .” She knew she was sounding increasingly desperate, but she didn’t care. “But if it is big . . . you have to promise me . . . we’re done. No more holding anything over me. This is the story, this squares us, okay?”

  “I dunno . . . it’d have to be pretty big . . .”

  “It is. I swear to God and on my mother’s life, it is.”

  “Just your mother?”

  Her mouth twitched in annoyance. “Well, I never liked my father much.”

  He uttered a short, seal-like laugh on the other end. “If it’s that big, fine, fine. But we’re talking pretty damned big. What’s on this island, anyway?”

  “As near as I can tell . . . God.”

  “Fine. Tell God to say ‘Cheese’ when I show up.”

  THE WATER SPEEDS past him below. The former king of the Britons watches it with a sort of distant appreciation, finding the entire thing something of a wonderment. He does not glance around the interior of the vehicle at his companions. If he did, he would shudder inwardly, for it is a very ragtag and disparate group he is bringing with him.

  Madness. It is madness. It should have just been him and Percival. The only two who truly know and appreciate what’s going on. What’s happened to him? Has he totally lost the ability to make an intelligent decision? No matter that the additional people in the group have a vested emotional interest in the endeavor. It means nothing in the situation that they’re going into. He should have left them behind.

  Madness.

  There is someone moving over toward him as the powerful rotors overhead drive the vehicle forward. He does not have to shift his gaze from the window. He knows who it is by his tread. Upon the distant horizon, he sees that the sun is beginning to creep upward. The first gentle rays are seeping over the ocean. The sky appears red. That is never a good sign. It’s even part of a saying. Something about a sailor taking warning of such a condition.

  Ron Cordoba eases himself into the chair next to the former king. He glances around at the passengers, and because he does so, Arthur does as well. There is Percival, strapped into a seat in the decidedly non-luxurious body of the vessel, but he does not look the least bit perturbed over what may be a coming battle. Despite the fact that he is being flown into the very island that he labored so long to escape from, there is not the slightest fragment of concern evident within him. He could not be more relaxed. His head leans back against the wall, and his breathing is regular. His eyes are closed. He is asleep . . . although Arthur suspects that if a danger suddenly presented itself, Percival would be the first one up and with a weapon in his hand.

  Nellie is no longer looking out a window. She had been earlier. Apparently it made her sick, since she is making such a pointed effort to avoid making the same mistake. She appears decidedly paler. If there had been any question in Arthur’s mind that bringing her was a bad idea, this simply confirms it. But hindsight, as always, remains twenty-twenty, and it is simply too late to do anything about it now. Nellie manages to pull herself out of her motion-sickness-induced discomfort long enough to check on Gwen’s vitals.

  Gwen.

  It tears him up to see her like this. Strapped into a bed, monitors all attached, tubes sticking out of her every which way. Had there been any concern on Arthur’s part that he was doing the wrong thing, all such fears become allayed when he contemplates her current condition.

  Ron, however, does not appear to have lost his fears or allowed them to become allayed. No, they’re quite, quite unallayed. He strikes a delicate balance, trying to speak loudly enough to get above the vehicle’s rotors, but not so loudly that all concerned can hear every syllable of what should be, ideally, a private conversation.

  “So . . . who do you think he is, really?” he asks.

  Arthur stares at him blankly, not comprehending. “What ‘he’ would that be, Ron?”

  “This lunatic that Percival was talking about. This guy who says he’s Gilgamesh. Who do you think he really is?”

  “Ah. I’ve been giving that some long and hard thought,” Arthur says, stroking his beard in a manner that suggests serious pondering is going on. “I believe I have it solved.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I think he’s Gilgamesh.”

  Now it is Ron’s turn to stare. “How can you say that?”

  “It is not difficult. The words form rather easily between tongue and teeth . . .”

  “No! I mean . . .” Ron blinks furiously, obviously endeavoring to keep his temper in check since he believes that Arthur Penn is not taking the situation seriously. “How can you believe this lunatic is truly Gilgamesh.”

  “You would ask that?” Arthur tells him with a tone of gentle rebuke. “You, who know me for who and what I am?”

  “That’s different, though.”

  “How? Because I am only ten centuries old, while he is more than four times that? Are you saying, Ron, that your suspension of disbelief will stretch only
so far and no further? What is the maximum that you will allow for skepticism? Eleven centuries? Twelve?”

  Ron is unable to keep the annoyance from his voice. “All right, all right, I get it. But how did he survive all this time?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s going to be interesting finding out, isn’t it?” He sees Ron’s dour expression and chucks him on the upper arm. “Come now, young sir. You spoke so zealously of quests. Embrace that which you’ve wished for.”

  “Don’t they always say, ‘Be careful of what you wish for’?” Ron shakes his head. “At least we have some Secret Service men with us. They’ll provide some protection.” He glances around. “Where are they?”

  “Back at the airstrip,” Arthur says coolly.

  Ron obviously can’t quite believe what he is hearing. He shakes his head as if trying to remove water from between his ears. “What?”

  “They are back at the airstrip,” Arthur repeats very carefully, as if stepping over eggshells. “Percival made sure they were off the vehicle before we took off. Don’t worry, Ronald. I’m sure he was quite gentle about it.”

  “Gentle about it?” His voice is louder than he had anticipated, causing confused glances from the others in the cabin. He fights to lower it at Arthur’s cautioning gesture, and is only partly successful. “How can you be so . . . so . . .”

  “Calm?” Arthur shrugs. “Matters will play out as they will, Ron. I am not interested in going in as a military force. I’ve no desire to challenge this Gilgamesh in a show of prowess. And if I can take anything that Percival says as a guide, it would do us no good at all to try and muscle our way onto his island. Do you not understand, Ron? I may be legend . . . but Gilgamesh is the stuff of legend. It would be insulting to walk in with armed guards.”

  “Insulting to Gilgamesh?”

  “No. To me. It would seem to him as if I were afraid to fend for myself. Besides, the Secret Service has no idea of my true background. I would just as soon keep it that way. No, Ron . . . this is a situation that calls for subtlety and delicacy. Neither of those will be accommodated with gunmen at my side. I am entering Gilgamesh’s terrain and seeking his help. Threats and shows of force are not appropriate to the situation.”

  “Really?” says Ron, feeling as if his bowels have suddenly turned to cold cheese. “And what would you say is appropriate, then?”

  Arthur smiled. “Charm.”

  “HE COMES.”

  Miss Basil, lightly clad in a green robe that flutters in the steady breeze, looks to the evening sky. Gilgamesh walks up and drapes an arm lightly on her bare shoulder. The cold of it strikes him, not for the first time. When they make love, he feels the warmth in her then. But he suspects that, in point of fact, the warmth is drawn from he himself. That she is incapable of producing it without him. That would not surprise him, since he knows who and what she is. Still, it is a thought that fills him with unease.

  It is Miss Basil who has spoken now. She studies the skies, her eyes unblinking. She seems to be staring with very great intensity in a particular direction, but there is nothing there that Gilgamesh can discern. Yet with a certainty she repeats, “He comes.”

  “He. Pendragon, you mean?” She nods in response to his question, not shifting her gaze from the nothingness in the dark. “He is coming? How know you that he is coming?”

  Her nostrils flare slightly, savoring the air. Night is reaching its nadir, and within a couple of hours will cede its control of the sky to the sun, slinking off into nothingness until its time of dominion returns some hours hence. “I smell him. And it.”

  “It?”

  “Magic in the air. The wheels turning once more. You should be able to sense it as well, High King.”

  “I regret to inform you that I do not.”

  She seems most puzzled to hear that, and she tears her gaze away from the nothing-particularly-substantial and instead focuses her gaze upon her lover. Her long, tapering right hand rests upon his muscled forearm. “I do not understand that,” she says flatly. “You have lived as long as I. Beings such as we . . . we become attuned to our surroundings as no mortal can. When one resides upon the earth for such a length of time, we become as one with the rhythms of the life upon it. Certainly you must have felt it. You can feel it in you now, can you not?”

  The High King closes his eyes, reaches deep within himself. He searches for the connection that the monster tells him must be there. She watches him with an unblinking, hypnotic stare. The silence seems interminable. When he opens his eyes once more, there is no sadness or confusion or anything within.

  “Nothing,” he says.

  “That cannot be.”

  “A man who has lived for millennia and a Basilisk cannot be, either,” he replies reasonably, “and yet we are. I tell you, woman, that I feel nothing. Occasionally dreams are visited upon me, visions of the future, but they never make sense to me. I depend upon another to interpret them for me. The connection you speak of . . .” He shakes his head. “I am alone. It has always been this way, and it always shall be. I surround myself with worshipers. Enkidu, my brother in battle, would do whatever I requested of him. But ultimately, I am alone. The world may be calling to me, but I do not hear it, and would not know it if I did.”

  “You sound self-pitying.”

  He gives a slight shrug. “It is not my intent. I am who I am. I do not, cannot, regret that. I am two-thirds god, one-third man, and that is far more than any man that you ever can hope to meet.”

  “But if you—”

  “I do not wish to discuss this matter any further.”

  That does not sit well with the woman, but when she opens her mouth to speak, he places a single finger on her lips, shushing her before she can utter another syllable. “The High King has expressed his desires on this matter,” he informs her, “and I will have no one gainsay me. Not even you. Is that clear?”

  She obviously wishes to respond, to say more, to pick a fight, to refuse to back down. But it seems hardly worth the effort, and in the final analysis, he really is a rather pretty thing. She shrugs as he did earlier, but the gesture by her shapely shoulders looks far more attractive on her than it did on him.

  Once more the High King looks to the sky. “He comes, you say?”

  She nods.

  “Why then,” the High King says, “we must make ready.”

  PARTE THE THIRD

  We Three Kings

  CHAPTRE THE EIGHTEENTH

  THE AGED ONE had a regular routine down. When one has been around for about as long as humanity was actually capable of stringing together complete sentences and expressing opinions in a manner other than simian in nature, one tends to fall into ruts. That did not bother the Aged One, though. What advantage was there to being the oldest man on earth if one could not indulge one’s little rituals?

  Every morning he would awaken, sit up in bed, and sniff the air to see if the End Times were coming. Once he was satisfied that such was not the case, he would rise from his place of slumber. Then would come a series of morning ablutions, followed by reading, meditation, lunch, a nap, a stroll around the island, and free time that could be used for a variety of purposes. Then would come the evening, prayers, and to bed. For someone who was essentially spending his days waiting to see if anything was going to change, it was a fairly pleasant way in which to occupy one’s time.

  He had become so accustomed to the routine that, this particular morning, he almost missed it. He did not, at first, recognize the scent for what it was. Indeed, he had begun to swing his scrawny legs off the side of the bed when he froze in mid-motion, his brain only just then processing what his olfactory senses had tried to tell him. He blinked several times, and then—just to make sure—he hauled himself back onto his bed, lay down, stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, and then proceeded to sit up all over again and inhale deeply. The thought was that he might encounter a different sensation this time.

  He was wrong.

  The thing was, in al
l the time that he’d been scenting the air for it, he had never actually known what it would smell like. He had just been aware that—like art one knows when one sees it—he would recognize the smell when he encountered it. And sure enough, there it was, the indefinable essence that spoke of only one thing.

  “The End Times,” he whispered.

  He was not afraid. He had lived too long to fear anything. There was no threat to his life; no such threat existed. That was both his blessing and his curse. Nevertheless, just speaking the words, even in the soft, tentative manner that he just had, jolted him to the bottom of the soul that he had forgotten he had in the first place.

  Afterward, the Aged One would not even recall throwing on his robes and dressing. His morning ablutions were forgotten for the first time in . . . well, for as long as he could remember, and that was a fairly far piece. All he knew was that he was outside, and looking to the sky, and was so fixed on doing so that he nearly bumped into the High King before he caught himself at the last moment.

  Gilgamesh gazed down at him in amused confusion. The High King looked quite at ease, so much so that it made the Aged One aware of just how disconcerted he had allowed himself to become. It took him more effort than he would have thought possible to reclaim his customary look of dispassion and vague contempt.

  Still, nothing slipped past Gilgamesh. His gaze never wavering, he said slowly, “You seem rather . . . anxious, Ziusura.”

  The Aged One’s face darkened. He did not like the casual use of his name, and the High King knew it perfectly well. The fact that he was doing so regardless of the Aged One’s preferences spoke volumes to Ziusura. “Do not presume to judge my frame of mind, Gilgamesh.”