Fall of Knight

by Peter David

  He saw people feasting, and there was a fire, and there was some sort of white horse hanging upside down, and people were running and screaming and exploding and dying, and there was a young man whose back was to Arthur, and he appeared untouched by all the insanity unfolding around him…

  And slowly the reality dawned upon Arthur. This place…this place had not simply been selected at random, some rocks thrown up and that was that. This henge enclosed an area that had once been this grand throne room, this place of power for some ancient ruler whose name was long forgotten. The slaughter of the white horse was some sort of momentous event, and people had died for it, and…

  He spotted Paracelsus, and it took a moment to register that he was very real and very much there. Arthur started toward him, clutching Excalibur in a death grip, fighting his way toward the alchemist. He had to fight the impulse to dodge the figures that hurtled past him with increasing fury and speed, and there was the white horse again, except—

  Oh my God. Oh…my God…

  It was a unicorn. It had a horn of pink and purple protruding from its head, and for half a heartbeat, Arthur was able to make out its deep, limpid eyes.

  They killed a unicorn here…perhaps the last…perhaps the only one that ever was…oh my God, how could they? How dare they? How can anyone forgive such brutality? Sometimes their knowing not what they do is simply not an excuse.

  And the young man was there again, moving through the flames that were consuming the bodies of the others, and this time he turned toward Arthur. It seemed as if he were looking straight across a barrier of time, directly into Arthur’s eyes, and there was something about him…

  And suddenly Paracelsus was just a few feet away. Arthur had become so absorbed in watching the images around him that he’d been moving forward automatically, giving no thought to his struggle. He drew back his sword and charged the intervening distance.

  Paracelsus turned and saw him coming. The alchemist spat out a profanity and started to bring the Grail sword up to crisscross with the Spear of Destiny.

  “No you don’t!” shouted Arthur, and with a sweep of Excalibur, he slammed the Spear of Destiny aside. Excalibur, which could cut through anything, should have sliced through the Spear with ease. Instead all he managed to do was shove it to one side.

  It should have been enough as he stepped quickly forward, reversed the sword’s arc, and sliced it around with the full intention of knocking Paracelsus’s head clear of his body. But Paracelsus was faster than his unassuming appearance had led Arthur to believe. He brought the Grail sword up just in time, and the two blades slammed together. When last they had done so, the results had been seismic. But they were within an area that was containing the magiks being unleashed, and so the swords came together merely as two weapons of devastating power meeting in battle once more.

  Arthur shoved forward, the hilts of the swords engaging, and he snarled in Paracelsus’s face over the howling of the power around them, “You don’t win. Not this time. This time…you pay for your foolishness!”

  “Startling coincidence that I was about to say exactly that,” shot back Paracelsus. He tried to bring the Spear of Destiny around, to drive it through Arthur. But the king lashed out with one hand and miraculously caught the Spear just under the head.

  The two men struggled against each other, and slowly Arthur pushed Paracelsus back, back, until he had the upper hand as he started to push the point of the spearhead directly toward Paracelsus’s throat.

  “In the name of Percival…die,” he said through clenched teeth.

  And then, just before he drove the spear home, Arthur suddenly saw the young man again…the young man from a long-ago time, picking up the fallen horn of the unicorn from its incinerated body, looking once more directly at Arthur.

  He had seen those eyes…that face. He had seen them much older and much younger.

  “Merlin…” whispered Arthur in shock.

  It was exactly the wrong time to be distracted, even for a moment.

  Paracelsus seized that instant to twist suddenly and cross the Spear of Destiny with the fearsome power of the Grail sword.

  Instantly a fireball of monumental power erupted from the intersection point, a fireball in the unearthly colors of pink and purple. It lifted Arthur, knocking him back and sending him flying across the circle. Excalibur flew out of his hand as Arthur crashed into one of the megaliths. His teeth rattled, his bones were jarred, and he was reasonably sure that his brain was slammed around inside his cranium.

  He tried to stagger to his feet, and he saw Paracelsus coming toward him quickly. He had the two weapons crossed once more, and another ball of fiery energy was building up. Arthur looked around desperately, trying to spot Excalibur.

  It was lodged in one of the stones. When it had been sent flying, it had been driven into one of the megaliths and penetrated almost up to the crossguard of the hilt.

  Oh, now this is just too ironic for words, thought Arthur as he lunged for Excalibur. He grabbed the sword by the hilt and yanked.

  It didn’t come out.

  Arthur pulled a second time, and then a third, and fear started making his heart pound double time.

  “Don’t you get it, Arthur!” shouted Paracelsus as shades of time long gone continued to move around him. “You’re no longer rightwise king of all England! You’re nothing! You’re no one! Nothing except a pawn in my game! Hell, whose satellite was it do you think took the pictures of you and Gwen that set all this into motion, eh? Me, baby! All me!”

  He unleashed the ball of flame at Arthur, and it was nothing short of miraculous that Arthur dodged it. He flung himself desperately to one side, and the flame sizzled through the air just over him.

  The dirt churning under his feet, Arthur scrambled back for the embedded Excalibur as Paracelsus advanced upon him. He could sense the intensity of the mystic vortex building up, and as he lunged for the protruding hilt, he thought desperately, This is a test! A test of faith! If I believe I can pull it out—just as I did with the first sword in the stone—then I am worthy…

  He grabbed the sword once more and this time, with ferocious intensity, thought, I believe in my power…in my place in the world…I believe in the triumph of might for right…

  “I am Arthur Pendragon, lord of Camelot, and I shall be victorious!” he shouted as he yanked with all his strength. Paracelsus was coming right at him, and the mighty Excalibur slid gracefully out of the stone as Arthur brought it down and around and right at Paracelsus.

  Paracelsus sidestepped it.

  For half a second, Arthur was off-balance, the blade at full extension, and Paracelsus brought the head of the Spear of Destiny down from one direction and the Grail sword up from the other. They slammed into Excalibur at precisely the same second.

  Excalibur shattered.

  CHAPTRE

  THE TWENTY-SIXTH

  THE LADY OF the Lake screams.

  She had to know this outcome was possible. But she had forgotten it, because she is who she is. So now, when the reality presents itself, she is caught off guard and reacts with horror.

  And because she is of the Clear, she is connected through the delicate latticework of human consciousness to all human beings. Her horror, her scream, echoes through every living human mind in the world. Those who are sleeping wake up screaming; those who are awake instantly stop whatever they’re doing and gasp in horror without actually knowing what it is they’re reacting to. There have never been so many car accidents at one time in the history of the world, and it is nothing short of miraculous that airplanes don’t come tumbling out of the skies as pilots struggle to process what has just been seared into their minds.

  And in short order, everyone is going to come to several understandings without the slightest notion of how they know it. But know it they will, and what they will know is this: The end of the world is nigh; Arthur Pendragon is fighting for the life of the world; the mighty Excalibur has just been destroyed.


  The world will join the Lady of the Lake in mourning, and howls of prayer and begging from the world over will wash over the consciousness of humanity. They pray to God, to Buddha, to the Prophets, to Jesus, to Arthur, to Ra, to Thor, to Shiva, to everyone and everything that they can think of.

  And above all…they pray it will be enough.

  INSULATED FROM THE collective mourning of the world, Arthur stared in shock at the shattered pieces of Excalibur. The useless handle slipped from his numb fingers.

  “It’s time, Arthur!” Paracelsus called. “Time for you to die! Time”—he brought the two weapons up and over his head. Instead of crossing them in front of him, he held them high and brought the tips together, forming a triangle—“for everyone to die!”

  The unleashed magic of the two weapons stretched up, up and out of Earth’s atmosphere, creating a vortex of energy that Arthur realized was more powerful than anything he’d ever seen before. He shielded his eyes, trying to make out what in the world was happening.

  Paracelsus, in grand style, was feeling expansive. “It’s reaching up toward the sun, Arthur! Reaching toward it to generate a solar flare, such as humanity has never experienced,” Paracelsus shouted above the increasing power enveloping him. “It will leap from the surface of the sun and strike straight here. And I will harness it and spread it out all over the world. Here, from the heart of magical darkness of Stonehenge, the final, blinding light will blossom forth! It will be glorious!”

  Having no idea what else to do, Arthur came at Paracelsus with his bare hands. He didn’t even get close. A shield of intense heat had grown around him so vicious that it drove Arthur back. He fell to the ground a short distance right next to the shattered remains of Excalibur. Desperate beyond measure, he grabbed one of the broken pieces of Excalibur and flung it at Paracelsus. Paracelsus never saw it coming. It didn’t matter. It melted in midair before it got to him.

  “It’s on its way, Arthur!” shouted Paracelsus. “In fifteen minutes, the solar flare will be here!”

  He had no reason to doubt. Paracelsus had moved beyond any need to confront Arthur. He was reveling in his power. “Lucifer means ‘light bearer,’ did you know that, Arthur? I am like unto a god! An opponent of God! Am I not terrible in my wrath? Bow down and worship me! Every god should have his worshippers, after all!”

  Arthur felt like butter on a skillet. His skin was starting to redden. The air around him was becoming superheated. Fifteen minutes? Perhaps even sooner.

  He had nothing.

  He had no weapon.

  He had no hope.

  He saw the younger Merlin, shimmering as he moved through another time like a swimmer through water, holding the unicorn horn, tucking it in his belt.

  Merlin, why hast thou forsaken me, he thought miserably.

  And then he took a closer look at the horn.

  He saw that it was tucked in Merlin’s belt.

  He saw the length of the horn. The right length for two hands to grasp firmly.

  And the words of Nimue echoed in his mind:

  The Spear and the Grail were both present at the time…and so is what you hold in your hand.

  He didn’t hold the sword in his hand. He never had.

  He held the hilt.

  ALL OVER THE world, weather stations are going insane. They have detected the incoming solar flare. Word goes out far and wide, every television program is interrupted, people are told to seek shelter, to get to low ground, to bomb shelters if they have them, to tunnels if they can be near them, because when this thing hits, it’s going to be bad.

  They have only minutes left.

  The world panics.

  The world sobs in despair.

  And somewhere, amidst the hand-wringing and howling for divine intervention, is Merlin. He’s paying no attention to any of that. He’s watching Arthur.

  He’s got it, Merlin says softly.

  ARTHUR GRABBED UP the fallen hilt and swung the pommel toward one of the megaliths. The hilt was feeling brittle in his hand, a result of the steadily increasing heat. He slammed the pommel repeatedly, furiously, desperately, and suddenly it shattered.

  He turned it upside down, shook it as the solar flare cut through space.

  The horn of the King of the Unicorns slid out and dropped into his waiting hand.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  He had always simply taken for granted the magic of Excalibur. He had just assumed that the magic stemmed from the blade.

  It hadn’t. It had stemmed from the magic of the unicorn horn embedded within the hilt.

  A grim smile on his face, he turned and sprinted toward Paracelsus. Paracelsus, his weapons still held in a triangular position, grinned at Arthur’s approach.

  Arthur lowered his head, closed his eyes, held the horn straight out in front of him, and charged. His legs pumped furiously, and when he entered the heat barrier that was protecting Paracelsus, he felt it rippling around him, crisping him, but not killing him, as the unicorn horn protected him from the worst of it.

  Paracelsus saw it coming. His mouth a surprised “O,” he tried to bring the weapons down to defend himself. He couldn’t. His arms were locked into position; the forces holding the mystic energies in place were so powerful that Paracelsus was no longer in control of them but merely the means of completing a sorcerous energy circuit.

  Arthur was barely feet away, and Paracelsus, trying to gather his bravado, shouted, “You…you can’t hurt me with a unicorn horn! All the books say that they only possess healing power! The power to give life, not take it!”

  And Arthur slammed the horn squarely into Paracelsus’s chest. Paracelsus screamed as Arthur drove it into his heart, and his snarling face inches away, Arthur said, “Don’t believe everything you read.”

  Paracelsus trembled violently, screaming, his life’s blood seeping out through the mortal wound. And the burning thread of eldritch flame that was leaping from the tip of the Grail sword to the head of the Spear of Destiny was drawn irresistibly down to the small portion of the unicorn horn that was still protruding. Instead of Paracelsus projecting the power heavenward, the horn caused the energy to be drawn directly into Paracelsus himself. Arthur stumbled back, trying to put as much distance between himself and Paracelsus as he could.

  Paracelsus barely had time to let out one final shriek as his entire body erupted into flame. He was no longer anything remotely human. Instead he was himself a gigantic fireball, with flames so intense that Arthur had to look away. He covered his head with both arms and curled his legs up protectively as he heard a thunderous explosion and release of energy. It washed over him in waves, blast after blast of heat, and Arthur let out a most unkingly scream, certain that this was it, and he was going to be with Percival in moments. And the scream was not random; instead it was the name of his wife, howled at the top of his lungs, because he wanted her name to be the last sound to escape from his lips.

  And then, slowly…slowly……everything subsided.

  Arthur lay there for a long moment, his clothes little more than tattered and charred rags, barely decent. There was smoke rising from the ground around him. He started to lean against one of the megaliths in order to stand and yanked his hand away because it was so hot. So he managed to stagger to his feet and slowly turn toward where Paracelsus had been standing.

  There was nothing left of the man himself.

  The Spear of Destiny had been incinerated. The head itself was melted.

  Lying next to the remains of the Spear of Destiny was the Holy Grail. It was no longer a sword. Unfortunately, it was no longer much of a cup, either. It had, likewise, been incinerated. The wooden cup was completely charred. Arthur tried to pick it up, and the vessel collapsed in his hands, falling apart into blackened shards.

  He thought of Nellie, lying in a coma.

  “Damn,” he murmured.

  CHAPTRE

  THE TWENTY-SEVENTH

  ARTHUR’S TRIP HOME took considerably more time than th
e one over to England. He had walked until he’d found a major road, and from there thumbed a ride to a local police station. The constabulary had recognized him instantly, of course. All Arthur had hoped for was some simple cooperation to get him back home. Instead representatives from Her Majesty were immediately dispatched. Given appropriate and less-tattered attire, Arthur was escorted to Heathrow while being questioned intensely by Her Majesty’s representatives. By the end of the conversation, Arthur was astounded and flattered to learn that the queen was prepared to offer permanent quarters to Arthur and Gwen in no less a residence than Buckingham Palace itself.

  “Her Majesty,” the envoy said politely, “felt it was the very least that she could do.”

  “Extend her my thanks,” replied Arthur, “and tell her that I shall very seriously consider it.”

  As the private plane winged its way over the Atlantic, Arthur pondered the notion. It did seem attractive, that much was true. Still, there was little chance that Britain was going to universally proclaim him their king. Which meant that he would be perpetually puttering around Buckingham Palace like an elderly uncle, observing his surroundings and yet knowing they would never be truly his.

  Of course, he could try and press the notion of being declared King of the Britons yet again. But he wasn’t sure that was what he wanted either.

  “What would you like?”

  The stewardess who was working on the private plane smiled at him graciously, having just spoken. “Have you given it any thought?” she inquired.

  “Yes, I have,” he told her. “I would like the Round Table back. More than anything, that’s what I miss the most. What most people don’t realize is that my knights were not merely among the bravest men to walk the Earth. They were also some of the greatest intellects, the most probing minds. We didn’t just spend day after day waging war. Many was the time we would just speak of our hopes, our dreams…our thoughts on how to improve the world, to better mankind in general. The most powerful men around, trying to determine how to improve the lot in life of the weak and downtrodden. Seeing images of bygone times parading right in front of me…it makes me think of how much I miss those days. That, good woman, is what I would like. Thank you for asking.”