When my sight returns to normal and the burning sensation subsides, I turn to my friends, seeing them through a pair of fresh eyes for the first time, their auras as plain as the door in front of us.
Arthur’s aura is white as usual, pure and selfless, a proper color for a king. Mordy’s is different, a bright blue, fit for a faithful sidekick, a companion who will follow you and lead you toward the path of righteousness. Golden and tenacious, Morgana’s aura is perfectly aligned with her goal—our goal—the goal to end a cycle of suffering.
“What is it?” I ask. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“Because you’re covered in this silver stuff,” Arthur says. “What color am I?”
“White,” we all say at the same time.
“White?” Arthur shakes his head. “Well, hell, that’s boring, ain’t it? Vanilla in every sense of the term.”
“Be sure to keep the ash close to your heart. It won’t offer complete protection, but it will help some. Arthur, have you used a sword before?”
“I was on the fencing team for four years,” he replies. “And took us to nationals every year.”
Morgana bobs her head. “I’m not surprised. You are him. In every sense of the term. When we go through that door, you will likely see something very disturbing. You have a pure heart, and if you act on whatever it is you see in there, you will endanger us all. I need you to be logical. Do not think with your heart, but with your head. We cannot save Tammy if we all die, do you understand me?”
Arthur looks at me, then at Mordy. “I hear ya. One for all and all that stuff, right?”
“Right.” Mordy holds out his fist, and we all take turns bumping it. “All for one.”
The door flies open before Morgana has time to turn the doorknob, and a gust of wind tears through the basement, sucking our bodies into the room and slamming the door shut behind us.
After I get to my feet and help Arthur get to his, I spot a wooden structure in the middle of the room—a cage made of twigs and sticks in the shape of an X. As my eyes adjust to this room, which is completely and totally devoid of light, I can see now the contours of a body. Morgana’s suggestion that I use the belladonna eye drops was advantageous after all. My breath catches in my chest and I stumble forward in the darkness, until a strong hand prevents me from going any farther.
“No,” Mordy says. “You have one job. Until you see the Merlin, you stay with the rest of us. And even then, you don’t engage him alone. He could be lurking in any one of these shadows.”
“What the hell is that?” Arthur asks, using Excalibur to light the area in front of us.
Oh no. He must have spotted Tammy. “Wait, Arthur—don’t!”
The sentence leaves my lips a mere millisecond before the Merlin materializes beside the wooden X structure. An old man whose yellowed skin is covered in scabs and boils, and whose long, white hair is stringy like ramen that’s been cooked too long, the Merlin raises a staff and brings it down across Arthur’s neck as he approaches the caged girl who is hanging upside down.
Arthur’s blade obstructs the staff before it can land, but the force of the blow is so strong that it brings him to his knees. A low cackling escapes from the Merlin’s mouth as this happens, and Arthur lunges at him again, this time agitating the great sorcerer so much that the Merlin throws back his cloak, revealing a chest that’s missing half of its skin. The Merlin’s heart beats wildly within a partially exposed rib cage, and we take a moment to absorb this visual information.
What the fuck.
Then an invisible hand lifts Arthur into the air and drops him on the concrete floor, and the sound of bones popping and cracking fills the air. Before I can rush to his side, both Mordy and Morgana wag their heads at me. Now, I’m not one hundred percent certain what the appropriate course of action is here—given that my boyfriend might have just broken every bone in his fucking body—but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve sitting around doing nothing.
“No,” Morgana says. “We must pray.”
“Pray?” I ask. “Are you out of your mind? Arthur might be dying over there, and you want to meditate during the middle of a battle?”
“I was not addressing you, Lance.” Morgana’s voice is firm, domineering. “I was speaking to Lancelot.”
Chapter Seventeen
Camlann Revisited
My body is not my own.
Or at least I don’t think it is.
When I look down at my hands, they are much larger than normal—not swollen or inflamed, but my palms take up more space, and my fingers are longer.
And my eyes are now level with Arthur’s—who, thankfully, has managed to get to his feet after being slammed down like he’s in the WWE—which means I somehow grew over a foot and a half.
Arthur.
When I look at him, it feels like I haven’t seen him in a hundred years—maybe I haven’t—because I have to physically restrain myself from dashing to his side, stifling the mountainous desire to entangle him in a frenzy of limbs. Limbs that are now twice their usual size.
I stroke my chin and run my fingers across a bushy beard. What the hell?
“Lance,” a voice suddenly intrudes on my thoughts, and I have to do a double take, re-counting everyone in the room to make sure another person didn’t find their way into the basement, to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
“Yes,” I reply cautiously. “How did you get inside my brain?”
“First, allow me to begin by thanking you for making it this far, for keeping him alive.”
My eyes land on Arthur, and his brown eyes glimmer in the sword light as he tries to make sense of the chaos unfolding around us. I take a step forward, and resist the urge to join him, but it’s not my urge, it’s this body’s—this body that is somehow simultaneously foreign and familiar to me. A second skin.
“You’ve gotten farther than any of us could have imagined. I’m impressed.”
I flinch when the realization hits me. “Lancelot,” I say, aloud. “Morgana summoned you, didn’t she?”
“No,” the voice says, “I’ve been here all along. You and I, we are one and the same. But it will take the two of us to rescue Arthur. Are you willing to do what you must in order to save him?”
I laugh. “Do you really even have to ask? I think we both know the answer to that question.”
“Good. Then we are on the same page. Now about that compromise.”
“Go on,” I say, curiosity eating away at me.
“The first time Emrys betrayed all of us, I chose cowardice, turned my back on Morgana and her son, took Gwenhyvfar far away from Camelot and didn’t look back. Arthur was never crowned king because he was poisoned shortly after Morgana was burned at the stake, along with her son. The unspoken compromise was Gwenhwyvar’s life for Morgana’s.”
I look at Morgana and Mordred, who are now standing together, their hands interlocked, performing a spell of some sort. Everything seems to be moving at a slower pace, like we’re moving through water.
I don’t like this. I’m not in control of this body.
“No,” the voice replies. “You’re not.”
“What are you planning on doing?” I ask. “Tell me!”
“Whatever is necessary. You can either help or sit back and watch. The choice is yours.”
“But I made a promise to Arthur. To Mordred. To Gwen.”
“What’s more important, saving the man you love or keeping your word? You are a man. Act like one.”
I don’t want Lancelot hearing my thoughts—instead keeping them separate from his—and don’t respond to his question. I’m not sure what I’d expected Lancelot to be like, but I’d thought the knight from the songs would have had more integrity, that the bards would have gotten his story wrong, at least a little.
“Fine, be that way. But we will do what we must. Don’t get in my way.”
When our shared body begins to move, I notice that I can’t hear anything.
“Is
this your doing?” I ask, sharply. “I can’t do anything. What have you done?”
“I told you that I wouldn’t let you get in the way. Now be quiet, and let me save Arthur.”
“What about the others? I thought you cared about Morgana and Mordred.”
“I never said anything about caring for them, only that I betrayed them. This is about duty, not love.”
Lancelot walks toward Arthur, and for a brief moment we meet eyes, and I don’t recognize the man standing before me.
With pale green irises, shaggy brown hair and a full beard that puts mine to shame, Arthur looks much older and more hardened than the eighteen-year-old man I’ve spent most of my summer with. He’s wearing leather armor and wielding both Excalibur and Galantine, a sword in each hand. They look so natural in his grip, metallic extensions of his limbs.
No wonder my boyfriend became a top-ranking fencer in less than a year.
Lancelot wants to go to him—I can feel the tension between the two of them when Arthur pauses to regard us—but betrayal pollutes the air and hatred fills the room like smog. Whatever happened between them several hundred years ago is still a fresh wound in Arthur’s mind.
“Your highness,” I hear Lancelot say, as we take to one knee. “You have not changed at all.”
Arthur’s mouth moves in response, anger painting his face a rosy color. I still can’t hear anything, but I get the vibe that he’s not pleased at seeing an old pal who skipped town with his girlfriend.
Mordy and Morgana are still duking it out with the Merlin, who is clearly agitated by whatever it is they’re doing.
“Wait,” I plead. “We still need to free Tammy, and help Viviane.”
“That witch? Absolutely not. If anyone should perish tonight, it should be the sea crone and her husband. As for your friend, I’m sorry, but that’s not why I’ve come.”
“You can’t be serious! She’s helpless. I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing to her, but she’ll die if she’s left like that.”
“A wicker man. Besides, I thought you hated that woman.”
“A what? What’s a wicker man? And I don’t hate anyone, except for maybe that asshole.”
“What I mean is that I assume she’s a sacrifice, and I assume he’s going to sacrifice her, then burn down the house. Do you really know so little about our history?”
“I’m Mexican American, remember? You and I don’t share a history. You’re a goddamn parasite that got inside my body somehow.”
“That’s certainly an interesting take on the situation. How do you think you’ve lived for so long? How do you think you made it through those nights when your parents were too intoxicated to take care of you? How do you think it is that we made it back to Avalon in one piece? Surely you don’t believe that all of this was left up to fate, now do you?”
I remain silent, choosing to ignore whatever bullshit he’s trying to manipulate me into believing.
“Oh, you do. That’s precious. Unfortunately, that’s not the way the Wheel spins, Lance. You and I share a body, because for whatever reason, a botched reincarnation allowed two souls to inhabit one vessel. This vessel.”
“I am not a vessel, and I am through talking to you. If you don’t want to help Tammy, then I’ll fucking do it myself.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I am in control of this body, not you. You will do nothing but sit and watch as I ensure the safety of Arthur Pendragon, Holy King of the Britons. I will not allow anything or anyone to get in my way.”
When Lancelot wheels himself around again—to face Arthur—the tall, bearded man takes two long strides toward us and peers down into our face.
“Lance,” he mouths. “I know you’re in there.”
A feeling eerily similar to the one I got when my shirt was yanked in Arthur’s trailer attacks my senses, and I can feel Lancelot struggling inside this body, swimming against the tide of rage now coursing through every vein.
“I don’t understand you. If I saw my boyfriend after a thousand years, I would rush into his arms without even thinking about it.”
“You are mistaken. Arthur was not my lover.”
“What? You’re a liar. I can tell by the way he looked at you, by the way you’ve restrained yourself this whole time, that you two love each other.”
“No, he was in love with me, but I did not acknowledge it at the time. I never gave him any more than a handshake. Marrying Gwenhyvfar meant leaving behind a life of suffering and poverty that was forced on me at birth. Besides, we were men, and if I couldn’t have him, no one could.”
“What? You took Gwen so that Arthur couldn’t marry her? Not because you loved her, but because you were jealous. If you couldn’t have him, no one else could. You’re so selfish. Do we really share the same soul?”
“No, we don’t. Thankfully.”
Arthur puts his hand on our shoulder, abruptly ending the shared telepathic squabble.
“Give me Galantine,” Lancelot demands. “Now, Arthur.”
I still can’t hear anything, but I can hear when he speaks, I guess because we share a body.
“Arthur, the sword, please,” Lancelot says, again. “Don’t make me take it from you.”
A few feet away, I see Mordy trying to break into the wooden cage, hacking at it with a small knife, carefully avoiding Tammy’s arms.
Morgana is still trying to weaken the Merlin with magick, her arms in the shape of a vee, pointing up toward the heavens. If anyone can do it through witchcraft, it’s Morgana.
Arthur and Lancelot continue to argue over the sword.
Their dynamic is weird.
Lancelot is nothing like I thought he would be. None of the legends align with anything I’ve read or heard. Or maybe my expectations of people are set too high. He’s a goddamn paladin, for Christ’s sake, a holy knight, someone who is sworn to protect their king in the darkest of hours. Not a petulant teenager who throws in the towel before the round even begins.
Morgana had said something about the three of us loving one another—Arthur, Gwen and me. That our love is pure and free from malice. Watching the two of them bicker like this over a sword—when they haven’t seen each other in hundreds of years—grinds my wheat like nothing else. Arthur’s eyes still maintain their light down here in the darkness, and every so often I catch him staring straight at me. Not Lancelot, but Lance. This isn’t going to work for me. Waiting for Arthur to kiss me was torture, but four years doesn’t seem all that bad when I compare it to how long Arthur’s been waiting to reunite with his love, a love that is conditional and toxic.
The strange clamor inside my head is much louder than the commotion surrounding Arthur and me—a terrible combination of the Merlin’s threats, the argument that Arthur and Lancelot are having, and Morgana’s counter spells—and I know that Lancelot will not give me control over my body without a fight.
Meditation isn’t really my bag, it’s more of a Gwen thing, but I have a bad feeling that without deep contemplation of who I am and how I came to be standing in this very spot, Lance Lotte might be lost forever.
I close my eyes and reflect on my first interactions with Gwen, Arthur and the twins. The love I feel toward them swells in my chest, and I notice the first crack. At first, I assume it’s going to be a war of wills, mine against Lancelot’s, hundreds of years of angst against my twenty years of anxiety, but he gives in fairly easily.
“Oh, go ahead. He prefers you anyway.”
“I do not have time to deal with you, Eeyore, and you don’t deserve Arthur if you’re not going to fight for him. You’re supposed to be a Knight of the Round Table, the greatest warrior of all time, the greatest swordsman of all time, but I see now that most of that was fabricated.”
“You have no idea what I’ve been through! How long I’ve waited for this moment, how long I’ve waited to apologize to him—for everything. But all he can see is you.”
“Are you joking right now? Are you actually jealous of a soul? My soul? I’m s
orry that in the end you got what you deserved for betraying everyone that I love, that you fucked things up the last time, that you weren’t able to set the record straight, but we don’t have time for a pity party. We don’t have time for this. Whatever this is.”
After I regain control of my senses and limbs, I assess the mayhem one last time before making the decision that what I must do can’t involve Arthur or the holy swords, because when combined they make a fatal amalgamation, and I want everyone in this room to live.
Once I get acclimated to operating this enormous body, I reach into my side bag and withdraw the dagger that’s been pulsating the whole time.
The Merlin is ensnared in some kind of psychic hold, and Mordy has managed to penetrate through Tammy’s wicker fortress, her limp body now sagging lifelessly in his arms. The blood pooling around the two of them briefly punctures my confidence, and I consider the gravity of our situation, the unlikelihood that we’ll all walk away from this venture unscathed.
“No,” Lancelot shouts. “We’re going to save Arthur. Whatever you do after you’ve secured his safety is up to you, but right now I will not allow you to mess things up. Not when we’ve come this far. Take that dagger and stake him through the heart. Morgana has weakened most of his defenses, but she grows tired, and will not be able to do this much longer. You have to act now. Now!”
“You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met. Why are you so hell-bent on saving Arthur, and only Arthur?”
“What are you saying? Don’t you care about him at all? I’ve watched you pine over him for years, while he made the most obvious, disgusting puppy dog eyes at you. But you were always making excuses, never accepting the truth. Now he’s yours, and you want to save that woman, that woman who can’t even get your name right?”
“Are you really lecturing me on this issue right now? You chose a life of luxury over the man of your dreams, and you have the audacity to tell me how to live my life? You’re right. I was a coward, a wimp for many years, never believing that I was worthy or deserving of anyone’s love, not just Arthur’s. Everyone’s. But my friends mean the world to me.”
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