by Peter David
Arthur looked him in the eye, and there was a glint of steel in his gaze. “Yes. I am.”
Cook nodded, and Arthur could see that there was something in his face that was unreadable. He shoved a small white card into Arthur’s hand, and said, “Don’t make us wait so damned long for your next return, all right?”
Arthur turned the card over. It was a business card, with Cook’s private number on it. “That’s a promise, Cook,” Arthur assured him.
With that, Cook released his grip on him, and Arthur stepped back into the entryway. The door swung closed once more, and when the crowd of Arthur worshippers finally arrived, the Secret Service men had melted into the shadows and there was no sign of the object of their adoration or hatred, depending upon each one’s particular point of view.
PARTE THE SECOND:
Idols of the King
CHAPTRE
THE ELEVENTH
EUGENE FRANCIS BRADY drove toward his home on a bright, warm Tuesday morning, and was working on fighting back tears. The tears, however, were tears of joy…something that he never would have thought likely that he’d be shedding. He had anticipated only tears of loss on behalf of his wife, Linda, over a slow, long, agonizing death that she had not remotely deserved. More than that: It was the sort of death that the most evil, wicked creatures on Earth really did deserve, but never seemed to receive. Instead they went on about their wicked, wicked ways, never being brought to task, while others suffered.
He drove past his local church and snorted derisively at the statue outside. He had been over and over it in his mind. It could be argued that his prayers had wound up bringing Arthur to him, or him to Arthur, and so therefore all of it was part of the Lord’s mysterious plan.
But…what if what Arthur had said was right? What if he’d spent his entire life worshipping, not the origin of miracles, but merely the lucky beneficiary? In which case…what?
Brady had no answers. He was not a man who was prone to deep, philosophical considerations. He was a simple, honest, hardworking man. He had his faith and his wife. With the loss of the latter such an imminent possibility, the former—which had served him through everything from his stint in Vietnam through to the loss of his only son to a hit-and-run driver—had taken a major hit.
He didn’t know what to do with the tattered remnants of his faith, but he did know what to do with his wife.
He was taking her home.
Brady kept looking at her, and the tears in his eyes mixed with laughter as he looked at her again and again, unable to believe that she was there with him, hale and healthy.
“You feeling okay, Linda?” he asked the slender black woman with the graying hair seated next to him.
She laughed and dropped her head back against the headrest. “I’m so glad you asked for the hundredth time, Gene. Because, you know, the first ninety-nine times you asked, I wasn’t absolutely for certain positive that you cared. But this last time, this was the one that sold it.”
“All right, all right. I’m sorry.”
His hands were on the steering wheel, and she reached over and placed one hand gently atop his. “Don’t apologize. I’m teasing. I think it’s sweet. And I’m just happy to be home.”
So was he. It was remarkably ironic. Here they’d saved up all this money to go on a world tour…and then her cancer had left him beating himself up because they’d never have the opportunity to embark upon it. When her miraculous cure had occurred, Brady didn’t even have to think about his next move: He booked the trip that they’d dreamt of for much of their lifetime. He had then informed the White House that he would be departing for three months and fully expected that he would be let go as a result. Instead no less a personage than the chief of staff had told him not to be ridiculous and to attend to his wife.
They had gone everywhere they had ever wanted to see. They’d also stopped at one particular place that Brady had become interested in during his reading, following the events in the White House. In the charming English countryside, Brady and Linda walked through the ancient construct known as Stonehenge. What had intrigued Brady was that, according to legend, Merlin himself had created this marvelous ring of stones for some unknowable reason. He regretted that he hadn’t had a chance to ask either Arthur or Merlin if it was true. He’d encountered the young man in the White House who was supposedly the ancient mage, albeit a child of around eight for some reason, but Merlin had said nothing to him beyond an occasional grunt. And the night that Arthur had departed the White House, the alleged Merlin had likewise vanished, apparently under his own power.
He wished he’d had more time to talk to him. To them. To all of them. But he hadn’t. And now they were gone, God knew where.
So Brady settled for standing in the middle of an alleged ancient source of power, the use for which had never been determined for certain by any archaeologists, and trying to commune with the spirits of those amazing and aged beings.
For the rest of the trip, his thoughts kept returning to Stonehenge, a place of hoary miracles…probably because the modern miracle of his wife’s recovery was right there by his side as a reminder that magic still lived in a world that seemed far too mundane for its own good.
Now they were returning home, having retrieved the car from the friend who was watching it for them and turning over the motor once a week. Linda was watching the familiar passing scenery with the air of someone who had gotten a second lease on life and had every intention of never forgetting that.
“It looks wonderful,” she whispered. That amused Brady a bit, since she had never been wild about the neighborhood, calling it dreary and unpleasant. Apparently nothing increased one’s appreciation of one’s surroundings quite like being under the threat of having to depart those surroundings for good.
“That it does,” he replied diplomatically, as he eased the car into the driveway.
They went into the house and settled in. Linda, understandably feeling jet lag, went up to her bed and lay down. Brady unpacked their suitcases, then sat down and started going through the mail. As he did so, he heard the front doorbell ring and headed over to answer it. He figured it was one of the neighbors stopping by to say hello and welcome them back.
What Brady saw upon opening the door was not remotely what he was anticipating.
A man was standing there in a gray suit that was on the verge of becoming a bit too tight for him thanks to an expanding waist. He had round cheeks, thinning hair, and a stubbly beard that was desperately in need of a trim. Standing at medium height, he had a voice that was inversely proportional in size, for when he opened his mouth, he spoke in a deep, booming voice that suggested he was speaking to someone in an unseen balcony.
There was another fellow next to him who came up to about his shoulder. He was thinner and a bit sallow, with short-cropped red hair and a slightly pinched look as if he were perpetually sucking on a lemon.
“Mr. Brady,” he said, reaching out a hand to shake Brady’s.
“Yesss,” said Brady, taking the hand and wincing slightly at the power in the grip.
“Barry Seltzer at your service. This is my assistant, Sal. Do you think maybe we could come in?”
“What are you selling?” Brady said warily.
In response, Barry boomed a loud laugh. “I like you,” he said, waggling a finger at Brady. “You’re a funny guy and, more important, you get straight to the point.”
“And the point will be that I’m closing the door in your face unless you—”
“Your wife drank water from the Holy Grail. Am I right, or am I right?”
He still had the jovial expression on his face, but there was a trace of savvy and cunning as well. Brady was taken aback, and the shocked expression on his face told the story even though he had not yet said anything.
“I’m right. I’m always right.” He shook a fist mockingly at the heavens. “Curse me and this infuriating thing about my always being right! What kind of curse is that to live under, I ask you.”
He paused, then said in amusement, “You don’t know what to ask first, do you. How do I know? Did someone tell me? Did I figure it out on my own? Am I going to be blackmailing you now, or perhaps get you arrested for…I don’t know…drinking water without a license. Something like that, right?”
“Something like that,” echoed Brady.
“Again, do you mind if we—”
“Come in,” Brady said, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the teeth.
Barry and Sal entered, Sal keeping his expression fixed and forward while Barry looked around the house with so much enthusiasm that one would have thought he’d entered the Taj Mahal. “Very nice. Very nice. How long you folks lived here?”
“Long time,” said Brady as he closed the door behind them. “What do you want?”
“Not going to offer us any tasty beverages or…?”
“What do you want?”
Barry smiled sadly as he eased himself into a rocking chair. It made him look like all he needed was a shawl and some knitting. “Mr. Brady…may I call you Eugene…?”
“No.”
Without missing a beat, Barry said, “Okay. Mr. Brady, then: There’s something you need to know straight up. I’m not here to blackmail you. I’m not here to do anything to you. I want to do something for you. For everybody. And, hey, let me make it clear straight up: I’m not a philanthropist. I’m not a do-gooder. I’m just a small-time businessman who wants to make himself an insanely rich businessman and needs your help to do it.”
“In exchange for which…?”
“You’ll become insanely rich too.”
“Soooo…you don’t want to take money away from me. You want to give it to me.”
“Exactly.”
“Uhhh…huh,” said Brady, making no attempt to hide his skepticism. He remained guarded, although he did take the time to sit down opposite Barry and wait to hear what he had to say. “So before we go any further…tell me how you knew about my wife.”
“Yes, well…that’s thanks to diligence and resourcefulness on the part of Sal here.” And he gestured toward his assistant. The aide took a step forward and inclined his head. “Sal? Care to run it past Mr. Brady…?”
“It was a long shot,” said Sal, who spoke with a soft, almost whispery voice. “But not too long a shot, obviously. When King Arthur made the presence and nature of the Holy Grail known—”
“Wait. You believe that he’s…”
“Oh, Sal and I are firm Arthurians,” Barry Seltzer said eagerly.
“Arthurians? You mean like…worshippers?”
Barry laughed aloud at that. “I think ‘worshipper’ might be too strong a word. I mean, hell, even in my days in Hebrew school, I wasn’t what you would call a worshipper of God so much as I would just sit there during services and pray, ‘Please don’t find some exciting way to hurt me.’ And now along comes Arthur, and I have to admit, I love watching the gentiles running around screaming at each other because he’s challenged their notions about their Jesus. You remember Jesus. Nice Jewish boy, went into his father’s business.” Barry laughed again at his own joke, then settled back down. “Point is, I was never comfortable with the whole God thing. Not ever. Felt like there were too many things unanswered, too many things we’re supposed to take on faith.”
“Well, it’s hard to argue that, since faith is a major component of religion.”
“Maybe. But Arthur, though…he’s the real deal. Everyone knows it. To my mind, there are two kinds of people: people who have admitted that to themselves and people who are in denial. Hopefully they’ll come around. In any event, we’ve kind of wandered away from the path…”
“What sort of business do you do again?” Brady asked.
“We’ll get to that. Sal…?” And he gestured to his assistant.
Sal nodded and picked up where he’d left off as if there’d been no interruption. “When King Arthur made the presence and nature of the Holy Grail known, it was not only predictable that a member of the White House staff would seek his aid to save the life of a loved one, but it was practically inevitable. And it was equally inevitable, knowing Arthur’s loyalty to those who surround him that he would be unable to resist aiding them, even if it was against his better judgment. The names of White House staff are hardly secret. So we simply began by making a list of those staffers whose jobs made them the most likely to come into direct contact with King Arthur while he was at the White House, and started investigating which of them had a close relative who was dying some sort of slow, lingering death…the exact type of situation for which the Grail would be the most useful.”
“Your wife’s name came up, as you can imagine,” said Barry.
“You invaded my privacy,” Brady said angrily. “You had no business—”
Barry put up his hands in surrender. “I know we did. I’d love to apologize, I really would. But it got us the results we wanted and needed. I feel bad that you’re upset, but honest to God, I’m not at all sorry I did it.”
“Then,” continued Sal, “we simply kept monitoring those patients to see if anyone had a miraculous recovery.”
“Which your wife did,” said Barry. “And I couldn’t be happier for you. Really. Except her recovery occurred a few days after Arthur had already departed Washington.”
“And the hospital records indicate that you were the sole visitor. Which means that either King Arthur or Percival, the Grail Knight, managed to sneak in unobserved, have her drink from the chalice, and then get out, again without being noticed…or…”
“Or something else happened.” Barry leaned forward, and there was sincerity on his face. “Mr. Brady…I’m going to ask you a question. I would very much like you to give me an honest answer. If you do so, I’ll tell you my vision. At which point if you want me to leave, Sal and I will pick up, head out that door, and I swear to you that not only will your secret be safe with us, but you will never see or hear from us again.” He paused, then added, “Unless of course we, you know, run into each other in the supermarket or something. I mean, I can’t control the laws of chance…”
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Brady found himself chuckling at this odd fellow. “Fine, fine. Ask your question.”
“All right.” He took a deep breath as if about to vault off a precipice. “Did Arthur pour water into the Grail…and then pour the contents from the Grail into another perfectly normal container…and the water from the second container is what your wife drank, healing her?”
“That’s more like three questions than one…” He saw that Barry was sitting there expectantly, waiting, looking hopeful, then he sighed and said, “Yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
“Yes!” Barry was on his feet, pumping the air with such triumph that one would have thought he’d just scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. “Yes! It’ll work! I knew it! I knew it would work!”
“Congratulations, sir,” Sal told him, never losing his cool.
“This is incredible news. Incredible!” Barry was walking back and forth, as if his mind was racing, and his body was sprinting to keep pace with it. “If we can pull this off…if we can find him, get him to agree…the benefit for humanity, the profits for us…it’s…”
“Will you slow down! And keep quiet!” Brady was standing now, hands on his hips. “My wife is sleeping!”
“My apologies. Sorry. Sorry again.” Barry Seltzer dropped his voice so that he was nearly whispering as much as Sal had been. “Mr. Brady…I’m going to tell you what business I’m in and what I’ve got in mind. It’s something that’s going to benefit the whole of humanity and make us stinking rich besides.”
And he proceeded to do so. Brady listened, and his eyes slowly widened as Barry outlined his plans. When he was done, Barry waited expectantly for Brady to say something. “Well, Mr. Brady?” he finally prompted.
A slow smile spread across Brady’s face. “Call me Gene,” he said.
CHAPTRE
THE TWELFTH
EVERYTHING IS SWIRLING around Merlin. He has no idea where he is, or how long things have been spinning around him like this, or how he has gotten here in the first place. His past, present, and future…all matters which he usually has a fairly good bead on…are a jumble. It even takes him long moments to remember his own name or his status in the world…wherever the world has gone. He feels a dull aching in his chest, and isn’t sure where the ache has come from or why he is being subjected to this apparently endless torment.
He cannot tell if he is breathing, or if his heart is even beating. His ears are filled with the howling sound of the ocean, a massive roaring of waves crashing like a violent storm happening, all in his head. His limbs wave about helplessly as he tries to get some sense of up and down, and fails utterly. He is as helpless as a leaf in a hurricane, with no more command over his destiny than that. He tries to shout for help, and that is not something that comes easily to him, for his pride is a vast and daunting thing. But cry out he does, to no avail. Not only isn’t he certain whether he could make his voice heard over the beating of the waves, but he can’t hear his own voice at all. For all he knows, water has filled his throat and lungs and he isn’t able to make a sound.
He spirals down, down, or perhaps up, up, and suddenly he has a sense of the vortex beginning to let up. The thundering of the storm is receding. The water no longer seems to be pitching him around but instead easing him toward something, some ultimate destination. He calls out again, shouting for Arthur, cursing Nimue, and still neither is heard even by him.
And then, just like that, he is no longer moving.
The world of water has ceased moving crazily around him. He is not, however, remotely certain of where he is. He looks around what at first seems like nothing but water, then slowly starts to perceive details. There are columns surrounding him, tall columns towering high as far as the eye can see. No light is filtering through from on high, but the environment is benefiting from bioluminescence, casting the world around him in eerie blues and greens.
