“I hope you’re not expecting her to hold up her end of the conversation,” said Merlin.
His comment was lost in the collective screams of the people of the island, who had had more than enough. They were practically stampeding one another in their efforts to get as far away as possible from the monstrous insanity they were witnessing. It was a terrible distraction to Arthur, and he did everything he could to screen it out. He had other things to attend to. Quickly he shoved Gwen toward Ron and Nellie, taking up a station that placed himself between his wife and the undulating form of Sandoval. “Get Gwen out of here!” he bellowed.
“But Arthur—!”
He shoved her away, and he was not gentle about it, although he was careful enough to push her right toward Ron so that he caught her. He braced himself, readying himself for the onslaught that was to come.
Sandoval did not appear to notice or even care about the pandemonium unleashed around him. Instead his attention was entirely focused upon Arthur, and the king of Camelot brought Excalibur up as Sandoval the Basilisk leaped through the air, propelled by his small but effective wings.
But anticipating the sweep of the blade, the Basilisk slammed his coils down, skidded, and brought the lower half of his body up and around, knocking Arthur off his feet. The king went down, still holding Excalibur, but he landed hard on his right elbow and pain shot through his arm. Above him the creature was unleashing an ear-splitting screech, and he had the horrible feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to bring the sword around fast enough.
And suddenly the Basilisk was gone.
Well, not gone, but off to one side. For Enkidu had vaulted the distance and slammed into the Basilisk’s upper section. He roared defiance right in the Basilisk’s face, sounding for all the world like the angriest lion on the face of the earth, and his head speared forward and his jaws slammed together. The only thing that prevented him from biting the Basilisk’s head off was that the monster was a hair quicker, his head darting barely out of the way. The Basilisk screeched back at him, and then Percival was there behind him, swinging his sword around and trying to drive the blade through the creature’s lower half, hoping to bisect his body.
It didn’t work. The scales that covered him were far too strong. Excalibur would have been able to dispatch him, as could Gilgamesh’s blade, but there was nothing particularly magical about Percival’s weapon. The Basilisk registered that something was crashing up against his body, but not much beyond that.
As if thrilled to finally have a foe worthy of his capabilities, Enkidu hacked and slashed at the creature’s face with his claws and teeth while Percival continued to hammer at him. The Basilisk didn’t know which way to look first, moving first one way and then the other, hissing and spitting the entire time.
Arthur saw, from the corner of his eye, Gwen being hustled away by Ron and Nellie, and she was crying out Arthur’s name. His heart went out to her, but there was nothing she could do at this point except try and get as far away from the scene of the chaos as possible.
Then he heard Gilgamesh bellowing stridently above the screaming and pandemonium and battle. “I have given no one permission to leave! Stay where you are! You will listen to me! You will obey me!” But no one was listening or obeying. It was total insanity, and not even the High King could get anyone’s attention. He was becoming aware of his helplessness in the face of such discord, and it was clearly not sitting well with him. His eyes were wild with fury, the veins distending on his head. Arthur would not have been the least bit surprised at that point if Gilgamesh himself had transformed into a monster.
But Arthur could afford to give no more consideration to Gilgamesh’s particular situation. Instead he had one of his knights, an unexpected ally, and a monster to concern himself with.
“Don’t look the creature in the eyes!” Arthur shouted above the din. He wasn’t sure if the newly-created Basilisk fully comprehended how to use its devastating visual abilities, but there was no point in taking a chance. He glanced around desperately to try and see where Merlin was, on the chance that the sawed-off sorcerer would be able to contribute in some way to the melee despite his lack of power. But Merlin was nowhere to be seen.
Arthur scrambled to his feet, holding the mighty Excalibur firmly, and started toward the thrashing three-way battle before him, and suddenly Gilgamesh was blocking his path. “Help me or get out of my way,” said Arthur brusquely.
“There is a third option,” Gilgamesh informed him.
He was smiling.
That struck Arthur as dangerous, and suddenly Gilgamesh’s sword was flashing toward him with the same speed that had so effortlessly dispatched Miss Basil.
Madness! Utter madness! Arthur thought, because what sort of mind would actually seek to challenge him, battle him when other, greater foes obviously loomed. But Gilgamesh didn’t seem to give a damn about the Basilisk. All his attention was upon Arthur, and Arthur barely brought Excalibur up to deflect the scimitar as it lashed toward him.
When the two blades connected, it was as if thunder and lightning had struck in opposition to each other instead of operating in uniformity. The impact ran the length of Arthur’s arms and into his shoulders, and his teeth rattled and his vision blurred. Everything was happening so quickly that he did not have time to consider who his opponent was or what he was being faced with. All he was trying to do at that moment was survive.
Anger began to sweep through him. Anger that he was being subjected to this, anger that someone with such phenomenal power at his disposal, such a capacity for accomplishing great things, was throwing it away in such pointless, selfish endeavors. And then he realized that, in his own way, he had been just as selfish, and the anger was directed as much at himself as it was at Gilgamesh. He saw the capacity for greatness in himself that he had shunted aside, and saw the dark distortion of that capacity in Gilgamesh, who had gone in the totally opposite direction.
He saw it all clearly. And the fact was that Gilgamesh did not see it . . . that Gilgamesh, so much older than he ...was not the least bit wiser.
THE HIGH KING is confident in his victory. This will all still be salvageable.
Then he looks into the eyes of Pendragon, eyes seething with controlled fury, and for just a moment, his confidence wavers.
It is a moment . . . but it is enough.
EXCALIBUR SWUNG DOWN, around, and up and caught the scimitar just at the base of the blade, near the hilt.
And the blade that had—according to Gilgamesh—been the personal possession of the lord of the underworld, the blade that had laid low demons and enabled him to rescue his greatest companion from oblivion . . .
The blade shattered.
As Excalibur let out a sound that could have been a howl of triumph, the blade of the scimitar broke into a dozen pieces, flying every which way. Arthur ducked back, shielding his face and narrowly avoiding getting a shard in the eye. The Basilisk was not quite as lucky, as several of the larger pieces embedded themselves in him. Sandoval screamed from the unexpected pain, his body snapping around, shaking off both Enkidu and Percival in his paroxysms.
NOT POSSIBLE ... NOT possible ...
The High King stares at the shattered weapon in his hands. His mind is overloading, unable to cope. This cannot be happening. The blade cannot be destroyed. It is a blade of the gods. The possessions of gods are as inviolable, as unkillable, as gods themselves.
Gods are all powerful. The only thing that can thwart the will or efforts of gods are beings who are similarly gifted and divine.
Gods cannot be defeated by humans. And Pendragon, for all his skills, for all his long life, is still human.
His blade cannot be greater.
He cannot be greater.
Because the High King is the standard against which all greatness is measured.
He charges the Pendragon, but the whirling, glowing blade Arthur wields is too quick. He lunges to the left, and there is a cut on the High King’s arm, and to the right
, and now a slice across his chest. Pendragon barely seems to move, and yet the damnable blade is right there, blocking the path, creating an impenetrable shield of biting, vicious magical steel.
Again and again he moves toward Arthur, and Gilgamesh is the High King, a tower of muscle and strength such as never has walked the earth before or since. If he were able to get his hands upon Arthur, he has no doubt that he could snap the Pendragon like a twig. But Arthur might as well be a hundred miles away for all the success that Gilgamesh has at getting to him. And now the High King is bleeding from a dozen wounds, and each one individually is nothing major, but together they are starting to drain him of his vitality. And Arthur does not seem the least bit tired or perturbed or even challenged. He is looking at the High King with pity. Pity.
If Arthur is greater than he . . . then he is nothing.
He cannot be nothing.
He is two-thirds god . . . one-third man . . .
This cannot be happening . . .
Nothing . . .
He is nothing . . .
The worship placed upon him, bestowed upon him. . . . if he is nothing . . . it is all meaningless. His life is meaningless. He is meaningless.
The useless weapon slips from his hand, clatters to the floor.
He knows what he must do now.
ARTHUR WAS DIVIDING his attention between Gilgamesh in front of him, and the struggle between the Basilisk, Percival, and Enkidu behind him. They were holding their own, that much was certain, but he longed to get over there and aid them, for he was certain that Excalibur could settle this business once and for all.
“Gilgamesh!” he cried out. “End this conflict! Restore yourself to the heroism I know is yours to achieve!”
THE PENDRAGON IS speaking to him. The words are little more than faint buzzing. He goes to one knee, places his hand flat upon the floor. His body trembles. For an instant he is utterly empty, a vacuum for power to rush into, and then it comes.
He will be great again. He will destroy the Pendragon, he will still have the weapon, he will have it all, it cannot and will not end in this manner.
“SIT DOWN!” SHOUTED Ron Cordoba, who had just about had it.
They were at least five hundred feet away from Gilgamesh’s residence. All around them, island people were either running to distance themselves further, or milling about in confusion, bereft of a clue as to how they should proceed. They were so accustomed to Gilgamesh doing their thinking for them that they were clueless how to proceed without him. It was a gorgeous day, the sun shining, birds singing. It would have been positively idyllic if it weren’t for all the screaming and roaring and sounds like gigantic monsters and warriors from a bygone age trying to kill one another.
Gwen had been struggling against Ron, trying to run back into the palace, but Ron swung her around and sent her sitting down, hard, on the ground. Nellie dropped down beside her, looking up at Ron angrily. “You didn’t have to do that!”
“Tell me,” Ron said.
“Tell you what?”
“What Baumann had on you.”
Nellie paled slightly, and Gwen said defensively, “Why in hell should that matter now?”
“Because,” Ron told her, “I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not going to make it through this, and I don’t want to die in ignorance!” He turned to Nellie. “Maybe you feel you don’t owe me anything, but I kind of think you owe me that much at least! Now spill it!”
Nellie looked to Gwen for help and support, but found none there. “I have to admit, I’m curious myself,” said Gwen. “I trusted you implicitly, Nellie. You betrayed me. If you have the slightest fragment of hope that we’ll remain on speaking terms after all this is done—since I, unlike Ron, believe we’re going to survive—you’ll tell me.”
She looked from Gwen’s face to Ron’s and back again, and then let out a tremulous sigh.
“We were lovers,” she said.
Gwen made a face. “You and Baumann?”
“No.” She squared her shoulders and said, “You and me.”
She stared at Nellie for a moment, and then let out a confused laugh. “What the hell are you talking about? I never . . .” She looked to Ron. “We never . . . that’s . . . it’s ridiculous . . .”
“Do you remember college? Lance’s twenty-first birthday?” In an FYI manner she said to Ron, “Lance was her old boyfriend. Abusive little shit. But when he turned twenty-one, Gwen asked what he wanted for his birthday, and all he wanted was a three-way with another woman.” Without looking at Gwen, she said, “Is it coming back to you?”
Ron cast his eye over to Gwen. There was no blood in her face, only her red lips providing any sort of color compared to the whiteness that remained. “Oh . . . my God . . . but . . . but her name was . . . I . . .”
“You can’t remember.” When Gwen shook her head, Nellie just nodded. “Yeah, well . . . you were pretty stoned that night, so I’m not all that surprised. Then again, I was going through some bullshit phase at the time and just kept calling myself ‘Sunrider,’ so even if you’d remembered, it wouldn’t have meant anything. But Lance remembered. And Lance took pictures. And saved them. And early on in the mayoral race, Lance went to Baumann with a couple of them. Because he hated you so much that he wanted to do whatever he could to torpedo your romance and Arthur’s chances as mayor. And then Lance disappeared. Which weakened the story somewhat, but not completely. Baumann still had the photographs. But you know what?” She laughed bitterly at the recollection. “He liked you guys. He really did. He felt you’d be good for New York. So he kept his mouth shut. And then, when you became First Lady and he saw pictures of me with you, he contacted me. And I figured, if it had been bad with those pictures seeing print back in the mayoral days, how much worse would it have been with you as First Lady. Think how it would have looked, how it would have been portrayed . . .”
“I can see the headlines,” murmured Ron. “ ‘First Lady Hires Lesbian Lover.’ ”
“But I didn’t know!” Gwen cried out. “My God, in college I experimented with all kinds of . . . and Lance, he . . . I mean . . . I was a different person back then . . .”
“Which isn’t to be confused with a thousand years ago, when you were a different person entirely,” said Nellie with bitter humor. “So you see, Gwen . . . I was protecting you as much as anyone.”
“And now he’s dead. And the story died with him. And Arthur’s out of the White House, so there’s nothing at stake . . .” Gwen looked stunned at it all. “Nellie . . . I . . .”
“Yeah?”
She stared at her. “Was I good?”
Nellie held out her hand, palm flat, and wavered it from side to side. “Eh.”
“Bitch,” said Gwen, ten seconds before she keeled over.
THE POWER COMES rushing into the High King, and it seems to call to him, to ask him why he has waited for so long, why he has ignored it all this time.
He has no words of apology, but then he owes it nothing. He is the power unto himself. He is the High King, he is Gilgamesh, two-thirds god and one-third man, he is the legend incarnate, and his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven ...
ARTHUR FELT A strange, almost elastic feeling, as if the world around him were being stretched out of its normal shape and configuration. Trying to distance himself from Gilgamesh, lest he be helpless while in a confused state, he stumbled backward, unsure of where he was or what was happening. He saw Percival and even Enkidu lurching about as well. Enkidu looked the most disoriented, and Arthur wasn’t surprised. Enkidu was a being utterly in tune with nature. If nature itself was out of whack, Enkidu would be at a loss.
Something warned him at the last instant, and he threw himself frantically to one side. The Basilisk sailed right over him, arms outstretched, hissing and spitting, and landing on the far side of the room.
And suddenly the ground seemed to go right out from under him. There was a low, distant rumbling, as if the island itself were being torn asunder, and then pi
eces of marble began to fall from overhead. Loud cracks reported from overhead, and there was even more rumbling as the ground bucked under his feet like an angry bronco.
Gilgamesh was still crouched upon the floor, suffused with an incandescent glow running up his arms, permeating his entire form. He wasn’t looking at Arthur or Percival or even the Basilisk. All his attention was focused inward, and he was smiling with the demented contentment that only a true madman could display.
Arthur reached out almost blindly, grabbed an arm, and was relieved to discover it was Percival’s. He shouted, “Go! Let’s go!” and didn’t wait for Percival to respond. Instead he ran toward the closest exit, which, as it happened, was a large hole in the wall that had not been there moments earlier. More debris was crumbling from above, and Arthur desperately swung Excalibur over his head in broad strokes, hoping to knock away whatever pieces of rubble might be falling down upon them. And then they were through and in the open air, except he could see that the forest and the trees were disintegrating, the green and lush vegetation all over the island beginning to wilt and blacken. Birds were tumbling headlong out of the trees and making odd little popping noises, as if they were lightbulbs that were shattering upon striking the ground, and their tiny bodies would break apart and scatter away as bits of dust.
In the distance he saw the people of the island screaming, shaking their heads desperately, clutching at the ground as it was drawn away from beneath their feet. As the verdant terrain disappeared, it left behind it lifeless and unfriendly sheets of rock with tiny little tufts of grass sticking out here and there.
And the animals, the animals in the forest, gods, they were keeling over as well. Arthur heard rabbits scream, and he had never known they were capable of doing such a thing, but obviously they were, as the little furballs let out shrieks of such utter terror that they sounded like so many human children being menaced.