The Eighth Excalibur

by Luke Mitchell

  Nate staggered back a step and caught her, both arms around her waist. She looked up into his eyes, clear surprise written across her face, lips trembling. Then, before he knew it, Emily Atherton was burying her face into his chest, shaking with sobs and holding onto him for dear life.

  “That was—That was…” she sobbed between wet, ragged breaths. “Oh my god. I could’ve—You could’ve… We almost…” She pulled back and looked up at him, gasping through the tears, silently begging him to make sense of it all for her. It was only then that he even registered how instantaneously the entire double tap near death experience had just unfolded for her, unbroken by any mid-game galaxy hopping timeout. Unadulterated by the crushing knowledge of the Lady, and of the existence of giant-ass space stations and all the sentient life in the known galaxy.

  “I’m sorry,” was all he could think to whisper back past his spinning head, holding but not quite hugging her, painfully aware of the Nosy Phone Brigade closing in, and of the thousand questions they’d have. Had they seen? Had they noticed his body or mind or soul or what-the-hell-ever blipping off across the galaxy for a split second?

  “I’m sorry, I have to—”

  He faltered at the hiss of excited whispers back by the bike, and glanced around with a sinking feeling. A few of his charitable cinematographers were bent over the mangled bike, getting close-ups of the inexplicable damage.

  “Hey, how’d you do this?” one of them demanded, pointing his phone from the bike back up to Nate. “Show us your hands!”

  Nate was already turning, already setting off across the grass, skirting past the rest of the oncoming “helpers,” cutting the corner to Hamilton Ave, not really sure where he was going, only that he needed to get away. Away from all these watching eyes and damned recording phones.

  “Hey!” someone called after him. “Hey, dude, what about this guy’s bike?!”

  Nate wanted to laugh at that. Or maybe cry, or scream. It was all too much, too fast. Too many impossibilities, churning up and roaring for tangible release. Too many prying eyes.

  It started with a slow jog, like his legs were trying to simply sneak him out of there of their own accord. He almost felt as if he were watching himself from the third person, just as surprised as everyone else to find himself running for it. He didn’t look back. Not when someone called something about the police. Not when Emily called his name.

  His legs moved faster, and faster, until he was all but sprinting down Hamilton. Barely registering the passing houses, or the jostle of his pounding steps, or even the burning aches in his palm and ankle. He ran. Copernicus appeared at his side, zipping along on stubby legs, eyes wide with doggy excitement, like out of everyone involved, the corgi was the only one who’d managed to glean how badly the entire goddamn world had just been turned upside down.

  Nate kept running. Toward home. Then past it. Running for he didn’t know what. Running right up until he saw the ragged wizard himself emerge from thin air farther down the block, shooting him a drunken grin and a sardonic thumbs-up.

  12

  All Hail

  “You!” Nate growled, stomping down the sidewalk toward the grinning wizard who’d just tricked him into doing the freaking intergalactic time warp. On his heels, Copernicus added an angry bark of his own.

  “I’ll be a witch’s teat,” the ragged wizard said, looking Nate up and down. “You went and did it, after all.”

  Whatever divine benzo aura had been holding Nate’s emotions in check began to crumble then. Before the old man could raise that damned clay cup to his lips, Nate had grabbed him by the ratty robes and yanked him close, too pissed to flinch at the reek of booze on his breath.

  “What did you do to me, you son of a bitch?”

  “Me?” He frowned back at the park. “I merely opened the door. She’s the one you should blame.”

  “The Lady?”

  “The Insufferable Lady,” the ragged man amended. Then, as if to the sky, he added, “Yes, I am aware that you can still hear me. Thank you, M’lady.”

  “You’re not…” Realizing he was still clenching the man’s dirty robes in his balled fists, and that the ragged man didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by it, Nate released him and took a step back, trying to catch his suddenly tight breath. “You’re not crazy, are you?”

  The ragged man thought about that. “Well, I’m not sure I’d say that. Not insane, though. Probably. Most days.” He grinned drunkenly. “Or so the voices tell me.”

  Nate just stared at the strange old man with his dirty robe and his wizard’s beard, thinking about the Lady, thinking about the sword, Excalibur.

  “Are you…”

  He felt too ridiculous to even say the name.

  The ragged man seemed to pick up on his discomfort. “Emrys?” he asked, looking down at his own wrinkled hands as if inspecting them for the first time. “No, maybe it’s Ambrosius? Aristotle, perhaps?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, don’t mind an old man’s ramblings,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “I am precisely who you think I am. I am also not he. Not in the least. Do you understand?”

  Nate frowned. “Not really.”

  The ragged wizard’s bushy eyebrows returned Nate’s frown a hundred-fold. “Hmm.”

  “Are you telling me you’re…”

  Those bushy eyebrows cocked in the stretching silence, waiting, but Nate had lost his focus at the sight of a pack of five students headed their way on the sidewalk. He glanced around, not really sure where or how to blend out of notice, but pretty sure he didn’t want to be standing here out in the open, talking about aliens with a mad wizard.

  “They can’t see us, lad,” the ragged man said, following his gaze. He stepped off the sidewalk into the adjacent yard, gesturing for Nate to do the same. “None of them can.”

  Nate stepped into the grass, eyes flitting between his ragged companion and the oncoming students, wondering if they’d truly pass on by without a clue. Apparently sensing his claim was being put to the test, the wizard leaned out in front of the student flock as they neared and started waggling his fingers, shuffling from foot to foot in an ostentatious little dance.

  The five of them passed right by without so much as a sideways glance. Not ignoring. Simply not seeing.

  Turning back, the wizard took in Nate’s wide eyes and shrugged. “I had a feeling you might make a scene about all this. Precautions seemed prudent.”

  For a few seconds, Nate could only stare at the ragged man. The ragged wizard.

  “Merlin?” he finally managed to ask.

  “Ah!” The wizard pointed an emphatic finger at Nate. “There it is. The Merlin, if we’re to be exact.”

  “But that’s not… That’s impossible.”

  Nate felt the earth wavering beneath his feet, his head spinning as whatever psychic dam had been holding back the inevitable meltdown suddenly sprung a gaping leak. Because if this man in front of him truly was what he claimed to be…

  It had been real. All of it.

  His legs felt weak. Too weak. Chest tight. Vision blurring. He tried to lean against a tree for support, and felt his legs give out completely. He thudded to the grass with a rush of expelled air, some corner of his mind wondering if he’d been drugged, the rest too busy overloading with visions of space ogres, and gleaming alien cities, and the gods-blessed Lady. And then Merlin—the fucking Merlin—was standing there, frowning down at him from his tangled mane.

  “That’s more like it,” he said, thoughtfully stroking his filthy beard.

  Copernicus stepped between them, growling, but the Merlin only waved a hand, and the corgi wobbled and promptly tumbled to the ground, fully asleep. Nate tried to tell the wizard to leave his dog alone, but he couldn’t seem to form the words. Then, with a strength that defied all logic for a spindly alcoholic in an ancient bathrobe, the Merlin plucked Nate from the grass and sat him up against the tree.

  “Impossible feels a bit funny in the head, doesn’t it?
” the wizard asked, settling down to the grass with a huff and then rifling in a robe pocket until he produced his trusty clay cup. “Not so easy for a rational mind to reconcile once it’s set in its oh-so-wise ways.”

  Nate watched in mute disbelief as the empty clay cup began to fill itself in the wizard’s hand. The sight only added to the clammy nausea spreading through him. The Merlin, seeming to remember himself, looked down at the cup and then offered it out to Nate, arching a bushy eyebrow in question.

  Nate nearly retched at the thought of imbibing anything right then. His head was still spinning too hard for him to risk shaking it, but the Merlin accepted his silence for answer and contentedly raised the drink to his own lips.

  “You said I had to agree to… whatever the hell that was,” Nate said weakly.

  He wasn’t sure why that was the first protestation out of his trembling lips, but somehow it felt important.

  “Yes,” the Merlin agreed at the end of a long glug, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. “And so you did when you willingly stepped into service.”

  “You gave me no choice,” Nate growled. “You almost killed Emily. You… You knew I couldn’t just stand there. You played me.”

  “Yes,” the Merlin said, bobbing his head. For a second, his face drew as if he’d had an important thought, but then he let out a deep burp and continued on with a drunken thrust of his pointer finger. “And yet therein lies what I believe your professors would call a ‘teachable moment.’ You say I gave you no choice. I counter that you always have a choice, Nathaniel Arturi. Always. Lowering yourself to believe otherwise simply because you find yourself thrust into a situation you did not ask for…” He shook his head. “That way lies something far worse than madness. That way lies complacency and powerlessness.” He grimaced and tipped back the remainder of his cup. “And what a shame that would be.”

  He speaks wisdom.

  It said a thing or two about Nate’s current mental state that it actually took him a second to recognize the voice in his head had not been his own. Nor had it been the Merlin’s. Or the Lady’s. Which meant—

  Calm yourself, or I will be forced to intervene once more.

  Nate felt the panic returning—the ground wavering beneath him, his chest tightening. It was the same voice he’d heard just after he’d stopped the bike. He was sure of it. And once more? What did it mean, once more?

  He thought about the pharmaceutical-level calmness he’d experienced upon returning from the stars, straight into a near-death scrape. “The sword…”

  Nate felt the ring of truth even as he mumbled the words.

  The Merlin looked up from his cup. “What of the sword?”

  “It’s…”

  Go on now.

  “It’s…”

  Dare you say it?

  “It’s in my freaking head. It’s talking.”

  Bravo, Nathaniel Arturi. Bravo.

  “Interesting,” the Merlin said, stroking thoughtfully at his long beard. “Very interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?” Nate sat up from the tree, panic beginning to burn through the lightheaded nausea. “Is this supposed to happen?”

  But the Merlin only continued stroking his beard, staring thoughtfully off.

  “Hey,” Nate said, waving a hand for his attention. “Hey, Merlin.”

  Jesus, it felt weird saying that out loud. But at least the spacey old wizard roused at the sound of his name.

  “Hmm? Oh, the Excalibur.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, yes. All very standard. Your new companion will need some time to learn your ins and outs, as they were.”

  As they were?

  It is, as you might say, like a jungle in here, the gruff inner voice agreed. Except far more full of whining. And pointless cat videos.

  Nate felt the thing’s growing disdain, right beneath his own growing panic.

  Please. Spare me the indignant ‘what has happened to my life’ doom spiral. You have been bestowed the highest honor available to your species. Though Smithy’s blackened hands if I can see why.

  “How do I—”

  Make me stop? That IS a good question, coming from such a spineless specimen. Nine hells, she really has gone too far this time. I am an Excalibur, gods damn it, not a fountain of miracles.

  “Shut up!” Nate cried, clamping his hands to his ears.

  “Well, that won’t work, will it?” the Merlin said, frowning at Nate like he was a simpleton. “He’s in your head, lad.”

  And no small wonder I despair.

  “I need to speak with the Lady.”

  That makes two of us.

  Nate did his best to ignore the Excalibur’s grating voice. The Lady, at least, had seemed reasonable. Benevolent, even. If he could just speak with her, if he could just explain…

  “She doesn’t exactly do house calls, lad,” the Merlin said, looking less than benevolent himself. Looking drunk and amused and completely unhelpful as he filled his clay cup from thin air once more. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for the time being.”

  Stuck with him? Stuck with a drunk wizard and a sassy magic sword in his head and—

  Sassy? You wish to speak about sass?

  It was too much.

  Nate was lurching to his feet and scooping up Copernicus before he even knew what he was doing.

  Come now.

  “Talk later, then?” the Merlin asked, squinting up at him.

  Do not be unreasonable.

  But Nate was already tucking the sleeping corgi in his arms and running for it, no idea at hand but to somehow escape the madness.

  “All hail Nathaniel Arturi!” the Merlin called after them from the yard, not bothering to rise or follow. “All hail the Knight of the Leaky Pockets!”

  Nate kept running, not looking back.

  “All hail the Eighth Excalibur!”

  13

  We Are Not Alone

  Humans, the Excalibur reflected, tasting the word as if preparing for its latest diatribe.

  “Shut up,” Nate wheezed, running on.

  Nowhere else in the galaxy could one hope to find a mind so steeped in self-denial as to actually attempt physical flight from the voice inside its own skull.

  “Shut up,” Nate repeated.

  Make me.

  Great. And now the voice in his head turned out to be that of a five year old.

  You have no idea how amusing that condescension is coming from you. I might take it more seriously if your furry friend there were to tell me to mind my personal hygiene whilst he consumed his own excrement.

  “Screw you,” Nate growled, clutching Copernicus tighter to his chest. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

  Nor do any who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is—

  “Are you…” Nate huffed out between heaving breaths, burning legs beginning to slow despite his best efforts, “… quoting Gandalf… at me… right now?”

  Paraphrasing, the Excalibur corrected. Forgive me, I am still parsing the records of all that I have missed during my hibernation. I merely hoped you might relate to a story about tiny weaklings bumbling their way through a conflict that lay entirely beyond the scope of their meager powers.

  “I think you… might’ve missed… Gandalf’s point, there,” Nate said, shuffling on at a pace that was quickly becoming more limp than run, but refusing to stop out of principle. Even just slowing a little, though, his breath began returning unusually quickly. “But then again,” he added, “you are a goddamn sword, so I’m not sure why that would surprise me.”

  I am not a sword, you imbecile.

  “I saw you. I pulled you from that stone.”

  Did you? And have you not stopped to wonder, in your infinite wisdom, where in nine hells that blade went when you jaunted back to Earth? Have you not stopped to wonder where I reside even now?

  Nate stopped running. He hadn’t had a chance to piece that one out amidst the rest of the thunderous shit-st
orm falling on his head.

  Yes, I hadn’t noticed.

  And to make things better, this Excalibur thing could apparently read his thoughts.

  “Maybe I just assumed the Lady sent you back by means beyond my petty little human comprehension, and that you were floating around in the ether or something.”

  Your wisest assumption all day, to be sure. But only marginally accurate.

  Nate scowled at empty State College air and only then noticed he was drawing strange looks from some fellow students across the street on their way toward campus. In his arms, Copernicus arched around and looked at him, tail cautiously wagging against Nate’s chest. He hadn’t even noticed the dog was awake, as mentally disheveled as he’d been.

  “Fine,” he muttered quietly, setting Copernicus down. His ankle was seriously starting to hurt, and he already looked bad enough talking to himself in public without clutching a terrified corgi to his chest.

  “What did I pull from that stone then, Mr. Excalibur?” he added, much more quietly, as he continued slowly on.

  In simpleton speak, you acquired the blessing of the Lady.

  “And what does that make you?”

  One unsatisfied Excalibur, amongst other things.

  Nate opened his mouth to fire back that the Excalibur and all the rest of them could be his guest and bugger off, but the sword that was apparently not a sword pressed on.

  You needn’t take my derision personally, Nathaniel. I would be equally inflamed had I been gifted to a snargladorf.