Hal squinted. The place looked oddly familiar. He walked over to the area and picked up one of the stone pieces. "It's got marks on it," he said, dropping it and collecting several more. "They all do. It's as if someone smashed up one of these boulders on purpose... Oh, no." All of the pieces but one fell to the ground.
From a place deep, deep inside him, a well of panic and despair began to rise. In his hand was a slab of rock bearing the imprint of a jeweled sword hilt.
"Excalibur," he whispered.
That night, when Hal could finally sleep, he dreamed about Taliesin.
The old man, dressed in a flowing blue robe embroidered with silver half-moons, sat on a wide stone bench against a background of a city skyline at night.
"And I thought the pith helmet was bad," Hal said.
Taliesin sniffed. "As if you knew anything about clothes. This garment is far more comfortable than those trouser things you're so fond of. Besides, it is a mark of my status."
"Your status as what, a trick-or-treater?"
"As the Merlin," he said with icy dignity. "How easy it is to forget one's betters."
"Oh, I didn't forget who you were. While I was freezing to death in the ocean, I cheered myself up by recalling that I knew a real live wizard who wasn't lifting a finger to help me. It was heartwarming."
"Testy, testy," the old man said. "You found a boat, didn't you?"
"After two days!"
"Well, then, I don't know what you're complaining about."
Hal emitted a squeak of exasperation.
"Be that as it may—"
"Hold on. I'm not done complaining yet. The sword in the stone is gone."
"Yes, yes," Taliesin said calmly. "It's why I came to fetch you in Marrakesh, before we got sidetracked. Ah, well. No matter. You're here now."
"Okay," Hal said slowly, trying to follow the old man's drift. "I'm here, and the sword isn't. Are you saying you want me to go look for it?"
"Oh, that wouldn't be of much use. The sword hasn't been taken, you see. It's been destroyed. Broken into fragments and swept away. You had to be here for the Companions."
"Whose companions?" Hal asked, confused.
"Good grief, Hal, but you're thick as a plank. The Companions of the Round Table, naturally."
"Them?" Hal asked, appalled. "I spent two days as fish food for a bunch of ghosts?"
The old man folded his arms across his chest. "Now, that's a fine way to talk about men who've fed you and welcomed you to their fire."
"But they're not real! That is..." He grimaced. "You're right. I've been with them all night." His face blanked. "Does that mean I'm not real, either?"
Taliesin glared at him. "Please try not to be such a dolt, Hal. In the first place, they've always been real, at least for the past sixteen hundred years. They've just been existing on a plane other than yours. Except, of course, for the summer solstice."
"Which is now?"
"Exactly," the old man answered. "Once a year, through the power of Excalibur, the Companions have been able to pierce the veil between the two planes in order to search for the sword's rightful owner."
"Arthur."
"Who is still a child, having returned to the world of men rather recently. You were to look after him until Arthur reaches an age when he is able to lead his knights again."
"Yeah, I've really been a swell guardian," Hal said wretchedly.
"Well, that couldn't be helped. You didn't know someone would toss you into the sea."
Hal stared at the old man accusingly. "And I didn't either," Taliesin added emphatically. "Even a wizard can't foretell the future, you know. Too many variables. Choice. Free will." He slapped the bench he was sitting on. "Confound it, the point is, with the sword missing, the doorway into your plane—what you arrogantly refer to as reality—was closed. Rather a letdown, I'd say, for soldiers who'd waited sixteen centuries to ride with their king again."
"What are you talking about?" Hal groused. "They're still ghosts, and they made their usual ride last night."
The old man laughed. "Because of you, Hal. You were carrying a piece of Excalibur when you walked into the meadow. It was in your pocket."
"My..." He remembered the lump of metal the beggar had given him. "That was just a little nugget."
"Unfortunately, yes. There was only enough magic in it to open the door once."
"Are you saying they can't get back?"
"Quite. I'm afraid that when the Knights of the Round Table rode out from Camelot this time, it was for good."
Hal stared at him for a long time. "You mean... They’re real?"
"Indeed, Hal, even from your narrow perspective."
“But the ride… the transparent town… They rode through a person. I saw it with my own eyes.”
The old man shrugged. “That was before the portal closed, I’m afraid. The knights are firmly on your plane of existence now.”
"But what's going to happen to them? They can't just go on living in the woods."
The Merlin scratched his nose. "Why, I've no idea. I suppose they'll stay with you."
"With me? What am I going to do with them?"
"Why, you'll find Arthur, of course. It's what all of you want."
"I can find him myself. Just tell me where he is."
"You know where he is. He's with me. You don't think I'd leave him on his own, do you? By the way, I wish you'd hurry. I think the fellow from the dock in Tangier knows where we're going."
"Well, I don't!" Hal shouted. "For God's sake, you crazy old coot! Where can I find you?"
"Quiet down before you wake everyone," the old man said. "I'm right here, you see? Hal, use your eyes. Right here..."
"Galahad."
The old man vanished.
"No! Taliesin, come back! You have to tell me..."
"Galahad." The voice was deep and resonant, tinged with a slight accent. Hal's eyes flew open so suddenly that he caught himself in the middle of a snore.
Launcelot was standing over him. "Up with you. It's full dawn."
Hal blinked, surveying the site. Around the charred remains of a fire, a dozen men in strange attire yawned as they washed their faces in the stream or gnawed on pieces of hard bread. Nearby, their horses whinnied and stamped in the woods.
"You're... you're all still here," he said, feeling slightly nauseated. "Where's the castle?"
"Gone," Launcelot said, looking into the distance. "The whole world, it seems, has disappeared."
Hal touched the ground, a tuft of grass, a cold piece of charcoal from the fire. The world around him was no longer a vaporous illusion. It was real, solid, present. And so were the knights.
I took them out of the only world they knew, Hal realized. And now they can't get back in.
He reached into the pocket of his trousers for the nugget the beggar had given him.
It was gone.
"Oh, Jesus," he said.
The big knight clasped his shoulder and held it, as if to impart his strength to Hal. "Ah, well," he said softly. "Perhaps it's time we rode together again."
Chapter Twelve
It was as if the new day had lifted a veil of mist from around the men in camp. Hal realized that the night before, he had been the only one to speak. But today the camp was bustling with sound as the strange horsemen prepared for the day, talking, shouting, joking, occasionally swatting each other in irritation.
"Have a biscuit?" offered the blond teenager who had given him a piece of dried meat the night before.
Hal blinked at him. Without his armor, the young man was dressed in the oddest garb he had ever seen: His legs were covered by ragged breeches that ended somewhere around his ankles, while over it he wore a shapeless tunic of coarsely woven yellow cloth. On his feet were shoes that resembled leather bags, tied with cords. He thrust the crust of bread at Hal again.
It was hard and dry as a rock, and one corner was covered with blue mold. "Pity we haven't got some ale to go with it," the boy said with a grin. "D
rank the last of it last night."
"No need to fret over that, Fairhands," called a stocky bantam of a man in a thick Irish brogue. "I spotted a pub in the village yonder." He swaggered over and clasped Hal's shoulder, which was at the level of his own black-curled head. "What say we ride over for a decent breakfast, eh, Galahad?"
"Galahad," Hal repeated. "That's the name you know me by."
The man burst into hearty laughter. "If you'd rather we called you something else, I'm sure we could come up with something, couldn't we, Agravaine?"
A young, lean man with a wicked-looking hook in place of his right hand cast them both a disdainful glance and went about saddling his horse.
"Agravaine..." Before, when he had first seen the spectral vision of the knights, Hal had thought of them only as spirits. But they were real now, truly real, men of flesh and blood and speech, with histories and personalities and names. "I know Launcelot," he said. "But you…" He looked at the young blond man. "He called you Fairhands..."
The handsome youth smiled. "Gareth Beaumains," he said. "I'm called 'Fairhands' because I bear the King's standard in battle. And because MacDaire won't speak a French name," he added with a wink.
"MacDaire? Is that who you are?" Hal asked the Irishman.
"Is that who I am?" the stocky man shouted feistily. "Who else would I be, you brainless pup? You act as if you'd never heard the name Curoi MacDaire!"
"Well..."
"Don't be hard on him, Irish," Fairhands said. "He's been gone from us a long time."
"Hmmph. Long enough to have forgotten his sworn brothers, looks like."
Hal closed his eyes. This wasn't happening. These were not King Arthur's knights talking to him in broad daylight as if he were a compatriot of theirs.
"Ah, well, I expect you can make it up to me by buying a spot of breakfast. You'll do that much for an old friend, won't you, Galahad?"
Hal rubbed his eyes. MacDaire and the young knight exchanged a meaningful look.
"I'll warrant it has been a long time, son," the Irishman said, tousling Hal's hair. "We'll have a horn of ale and catch you up. Go fetch the others," he said to Fairhands, then turned back to Hal. "Mind you, you're still paying."
The pub, known as the Motte and Bailey, delighted the knights. They held their factory-made beer steins up to the light as if they were jewels, marveled at the brightly colored signs advertising liquor, and watched with fascination as the plastic clock with Guinness on its face slowly marked the passage of time.
"Like a church, it is," young Fairhands said with wonder as he surveyed the colored cellophane pasted to the window facing the street.
"Nectar." MacDaire quaffed a glass of ale, his eyes closed in rapture.
Even Launcelot, who had been so stern the night before, loosened up after three beers and a plate of bangers. Within an hour, the bar was heaped with dirty dishes and more glasses than the barman could keep up with. Three men at a table and two regulars at the bar gave up their own conversations to stare openly at Hal and the weirdly dressed, long-haired fellows who sat or stood around him, grabbing sausages by twos and threes with their bare hands and belching contentedly while they downed gallons of beer and ale.
The Irishman named MacDaire introduced Hal around. In addition to Fairhands, there were four other youths among the Companions: Bedwyr, a strapping twenty-two-year-old with a bush of blond hair and a mischievous grin, who proudly announced himself as Master of Horse; Tristan, who resembled a young Cary Grant and was apparently famous for his exploits with women; a spindly young fellow called Geraint Lightfoot; and Agravaine, the saturnine youth with the hook.
Among the older men, there was a soldier with a bald head the shape of a dum-dum bullet and a prodigious capacity for drink. Graced with the unpronounceable name of Gwenwynwyn ap Naw, he granted Hal the right to call him Dry Lips. "So long as the name's not used in jest," he warned, pulling out the heavy spear he kept strapped to his broad back. "I was the King's champion at the battle of Culhwch, and I'll not be spoken of in jest." He fixed Hal with a steely gaze above his glass.
"Wouldn't think of it," Hal said. "Sir."
MacDaire coughed delicately. "Since you've not quite come to yourself yet, I'd suggest you use the same restraint with Lugh there."
"Lugh?"
"Lugh Loinnbheimionach," MacDaire said, nodding toward a huge, wild-haired dirtball who occupied a corner table alone except for several empty platters of sausage. "Lugh's a good-hearted sort, really, but he likes a fight. Wouldn't you say, boys?"
"That he does," Fairhands agreed.
"Aye, he's a beast." Dry Lips quaffed another beer. "Never seen a man to live after a beating with that mace of his."
Hal looked over at the dirtball again. Propped against the chair where he sat was a wooden handle attached to a ten-inch-wide iron ball bristling with spikes. "He fights with that?" he asked.
The three knights nodded thoughtfully. "Doesn't need to, though," said a big bluff man whom Hal had not yet met. "His hands'll do the job just as well." He put his meaty arm around Hal. "Remember me, Galahad?"
"I don't think so," Hal said. "Even though you all seem somehow... familiar..."
"You'll be familiar with Kay soon enough," Mac-Daire said with a chuckle. "On a winter day at dawn, you'll be cursing the day he was born."
"Kay," Hal whispered. He remembered the name from a Walt Disney movie from his childhood.
"The drillmaster. It's me keeps you boys from turning into wild bandits," he said with a grin. "Got to keep up the practice, you know. That's what we'll be doing as soon as we get back to the..." He cocked his head at Launcelot. "Well, I suppose we won't be getting back to the castle, will we, seeing as how there is no castle." He burst into loud guffaws and pounded his fist on the bar for another drink.
"Weren't you Arthur's stepbrother?" Hal asked. "That is, the King was raised in your household, wasn't he?"
"That he was," Kay pronounced somberly. "Brought to my da by the wizard, he was. Said we was to foster the babe as if he was a proper nobleman's son. Hah!" He slammed the stein on the bar. "Turned out 'twas the son of Uther Pendragon himself, but the old devil wouldn't tell us that."
"You mean Merlin," Hal said.
"See, he's getting back his memory already," MacDaire said. "Have another ale, son."
"Aye, the Merlin." Kay wiped a foamy moustache off his lip with his forearm. "When me da told him to be off with the child, the sorcerer took the very moon out of the sky. Said he wouldn't give it back until Da accepted the fostering."
Hal smiled. No doubt Taliesin had timed his visit to coincide with a lunar eclipse. "He's a sly one, all right."
"Oh, those druids are not to be crossed," Kay went on, shaking his head. "They'll turn you into frogs soon as look at you. Me, I'm a Christian, myself." He set down his glass momentarily to make the sign of the cross. "Still, the wizard never struck me down for it. Decent sort, at the bottom of it all."
Hal ventured a question. "Do you know where he is now?"
MacDaire laughed. "Know where the Merlin is! Why, you might as well try to find the wind." He threw down the dregs of his ale. "Had a dream about the old dear last night, so I did."
"You did?" Hal asked. "Where was he?"
Kay scratched his beard. "Odd. I dreamed about him, too, come to think of it. He was in a strange place, like a city, but in the sky."
"The sky, that was it!" MacDaire exclaimed. "I swear, there was windows lit clear up to the moon and beyond."
Hal frowned. "That's right," he said. "It was a city of some kind. But there wasn't any noise."
"And it was in the sky," MacDaire added.
"All cities are like that now," Hal said, disappointed. "The buildings are called skyscrapers."
"Skyscrapers," Fairhands said, savoring the word. "I wish I could remember my dreams. Maybe I saw it, too."
"Wait a minute. All of us couldn't have had the same dream," Hal said. "What'd he say to the rest of you?"
"Nothing," sa
id a sad-faced man in a green tunic who had stood drinking in stoic silence since they had entered. "He was talking to you, Galahad. Telling you to take us along to find the King, he was." He finished his glass. "From a city in the sky."
"It was the same dream," Hal said. "But that's impossible." The knight in green gave him a doleful look.
"Mayhap," Kay said stolidly. "But if Gawain says it's so, then it's so. He wouldn't take the trouble to speak a fancy."
Finished with the conversation, Gawain held out his glass to the barman. But as it was being refilled, he set it on the bar and cocked his head toward the door.
"What is it?" Kay asked.
"The horses," Gawain said. "They're skittish."
The two of them were drawing their swords when the door opened and two portly, pink-faced men in their sixties walked in, fairly steaming with irritation. "What are all those scrofulous horses doing in your car park?" one of them demanded of the barkeep. "We had to park nearly two blocks away." The other scowled sympathetically. Side by side, wearing the same expression on their faces, Hal saw that they were twins.
"The horses are ours," young Bedwyr said, springing up from his place at the bar.
"Well, get them out," one of the twins insisted. "They're a nuisance, and quite illegal, I'm sure… I say, that's a smashing looking broadsword!" He took a step toward Gawain and his unsheathed weapon. Instantly the two newcomers had clearly forgotten all about the horses in the parking lot.
"Tenth century?" the second twin hazarded.
"Oh, earlier that that, I'd venture. Look at the scrollwork on the hilt." He reached out to touch it, but Kay stepped forward to bar the way with his own sword. "Oh, my," the man went on, switching his attention to Kay's sword. "Look at this one. Now this is definitely early medieval. Fifth century, I'd wager."
"Saxon, perhaps," his brother agreed eagerly.
"Saxon?" Kay roared. "Are you calling me a Saxon then, you wrinkle-nutted arse licker?"
Hal choked on his beer. From his corner table, Lugh Loinnbheimionach looked up, grinning.
"Hey, guys..." Hal began, but he was pushed out of the way.
"I'll not be having talk of Saxons in my presence," Dry Lips said as he rose majestically from the bar stool, spear in hand.
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