Tales of the Once and Future King

by Anthony Marchetta

  Oh, what fools these stifflings be!

  The infernal earth beneath Sir Kay’s feet turned to ooze. He lost his balance, arms waving wildly. Unable to steady himself again, he hit the ground with an oomph. Pieces of rusty metal flew from his damaged armor.

  Face down in the dust, Kay murmured sadly, “I miss the days by the Endless Shore. Falling wasn’t so bad there.”

  Percival recalled those days. If one fell, the gold and silver sands were soft. But it was not the softness of the sand he missed, so much as their cheery companionship. If one fell, another of the company was always there to encourage him and help him up.

  The thought raised his spirits. For the first time since his death, he felt something that might have been a distant kin of cheer. Buoyed up by this, Percival stepped over the mud and offered his hand to the prone Sir Kay.

  “In the name of Camelot, do not lose heart!”

  Sir Kay accepted gratefully. Perhaps by habit, he responded as he rose, “By Zounds, I swear to do my best!”

  The battle against the forces of Ivan the Magnificent had been glorious… and short. The brave company charged the emperor’s men, cheering and performing the elegant maneuvers that they had so often practiced. These moves had astonished the denizens of the Uttermost Sea, but the seasoned warriors of the emperor’s troops just laughed and cut them down. So pathetic were their Sea-learned techniques against the real thing that, after killing the first few, the defenders merely beat the knights about the head and sent them on their way.

  That night, their spirits truly low, especially once they learned that a dip in the Sea would not revive their fallen comrades. These had not merely been ejected from the play-play of the hard bubs, they had-in some incomprehensible way-ceased to be.

  But the knights refused to lose heart. They would not forsake their holy quest to save the hard bub folk from the horrible oppression of the tyranny of gravity.

  No quest could be abandoned!

  Might for Right!

  So, when Mordred told them that he had found a way—a weapon so powerful that it could sever even gravity, and all they had to do with it was stab the World Tree that held the hard bubs in place—they had cheered and raised their flagons in a toast to this new and even more noble endeavor.

  With a rush of leathery bat-wings, the demons rose higher and flew around them, agitated, only now there were dozens, hundreds. They swarmed everywhere, dancing around the company to their strange raucous music. Some of these fiends were giants, two or three times the height of a man. Others were smaller, the size of children, or still tinier, like spiders. They circled the company, cackling and spitting, and committing acts that would have scandalized a real knight of King Arthur, though Percival, being from the Uttermost Sea, merely noted that they lacked imagination.

  “Next time?” the red demon leader let out a peel of raucous laughter. “There will be no ‘next time!’ for you! Don’t you know the meaning of forever?”

  On the death of the World Tree, Percival would not dwell.

  The great and noble tree had stood since the dawn of time, literally. It had been as wide around as some of the hard bub worlds. Seeing it, rising through the endless night, fruit-worlds shining in its branches like a galaxy of stars, Percival had been struck dumb with awe.

  Only then had he felt his first qualm about Mordred’s advice. The idea that a tiny spear, so small that they could carry in their hands, could so much as scratch this great, massive giant seemed laughable. He worried that the company would be humiliated, and their great quest come to naught.

  Yet, when they stabbed the leaf-shaped spearhead into the bark, the World Tree had snapped like a dry twig.

  “Did you hear the word the fool who just fell swore?” cried the skinny black one as he ran Sir Kay through with his trident. “By Zounds! He does not even know what it means!”

  Sir Kay grunted in pain and dropped his sword. The rest of the company ran to his aid, but the demons descended-hundreds of them-stabbing, bruising, and battering the knights until the entire company was driven to the ground.

  “But we know!” hissed the red one. He stabbed Percival in the thigh with his spiky tail, causing the knight to cry out. “We know about the Lamb of God. He would have saved you from us, but you wouldn’t heed. Aha! Aha!”

  “By Zounds! By His Wounds!” crowed a brown one with big tusks, stomping on Kay’s wound, which spurted a fountain of red blood. “Do you know what flows from His wounds? It would have washed you clean—even your great sin! But you rejected it!”

  “He would have taken you to…” the black one pointed up, cringed, and hissed, “Up there! You would have basked in His Love. Instead, you are lost forever, in the land of eternal night, where there is no forgiveness and no goodness, no matter what that psalm says!”

  Somehow, in the excitement, as they rushed down the road that Mordred had pointed out to strike the cliffside of bark, they had not noticed that Mordred was no longer with them. So when the World Tree fell, and millions of worlds were lost—some flying upward, others falling down towards the flames below its roots—Mordred was not among those who were dragged down to the fires of Hell.

  “Psalm?” Percival raised his head from where he lay on his back, wracked with pain. “What psalm?”

  “Never you mind that,” the fat red demon licked its lips nervously. “You naïve, putrefying, fools! You listened to our lies up above. We’ve got you now! You can never escape us!”

  “The Prince of Darkness assigned us to whisper lies to you, and you listened!” lisped a stinky yellow one. “Aha! Aha!”

  “You are ours forever,” cackled the skinny black one, “To do as we please. Forever.”

  “Aha! Aha!” sang out the infernal flock.

  Several imps chanted together, producing a mockery of the voices of Arthur’s company, “‘Never shall I commit outrage nor murder, this I vow! Nor shall I ever do battle in wrongful quarrel!’ No oath has ever been broken more outrageously than yours. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Aha! Aha!”

  Again, the imps and fiends descended, stabbing and biting. In vain did the company try to defend themselves, but they were too wounded to rise.

  Death was not a concept the Sea folk had understood. Only now, after an eternity of mockery at the hand of their demon captors, did they understand that the two comrades whom they had thrown back into the Sea when their organs failed had died. That throwing them back had not revived them again.

  Only now did they understand that everyone, all millions and billions and trillions and quadrillions of beings—men, women, children, animals, and plants—on all of the worlds that had been lost, had also died.

  And that any who were not shriven and right with the Lord had been dragged down here, to this fiery pit of flame and destruction, where every day new methods of torture and discomfort were devised. The physical torments, however, were nothing compared to the mental ones. For the demons of Hell left no naiveté unpunished.

  “You are so pathetic. Losers!” cried the yellow demon. “You are not even really from the Round Table. But Mordred was! That was the real Mordred, son of the exiled witch, Morgana La Fay, servant of Beelzebub. He used you as his patsies. You loathsome worms.”

  “He tricked you into wielding it,” cried the black one, “The Spear of Longinus! It was the self-same weapon as struck the final blow to slay the Lamb of God! With it, you severed the life of the Tree of Worlds. In all of existing time, no other has ever been so pathetically naïve! Nor done so much harm.”

  Percival struggled to sit up.

  “No matter how much torment we demons dish out, you deserve more,” rasped the red one, slapping Percival across the face hard enough to break the knight’s jaw. “Think helping your fallen comrade stand up again will redeem you? You are beyond all redemption! You are the worst murderers in the history of all worlds!”

  Stung more by the truth than by the blow, Percival hung his head, ashamed.

  Hours later, Percival had managed to sit
up. He sat beside his rusted helmet. Around him, all was gloom and dreary. His old life, his former concerns and hopes, seemed so distant. He could hardly recall those days. In his current shape, he could not even pronounce his old name.

  Life in the Sea had been easy and pleasant, yet he had felt so empty inside. Nor had questing against gravity filled that emptiness within. Though during that brief happy time upon the island, beneath the Ever-Storm, when they had formed their company and prepared for their journey into the hard bubs, that time alone had not seemed so empty.

  And, strangely, he did not feel empty at the moment.

  Why was that?

  Percival thought back, recalling the moment when he had grasped the hand of the prone Sir Kay. Words reverberated through his thoughts: By Zounds, I swear to do my best. I swear to do my best! I will do better! I will do better!

  Could it be that helping another was a reflection of goodness—the goodness that the demons swore could not exist here, in the pits of Hell?

  Impossible.

  Unless…

  Percival struggled to his feet, holding his bleeding thigh.

  He spoke, despite the pain in his jaw. “Friends! I say the demons lie! I say goodness can come here. Even if all the world is drab, treacherous, and dreadful, we ourselves can be good.”

  The demon flock howled with laughter.

  Pain racked Percival, terrible pain. So terrible was it that he went blind and thought he could not endure.

  “Pain,” he gritted through his broken jaw, when he could speak again, “cannot make me wish to do ill.”

  The demons cackled again. Immediately, Percival’s limbs took on a life of their own. His body stumbled over and, lifting his rusty sword, inflicted three terrible wounds upon his companions.

  When his limbs were his own again, Percival grunted. “You can move my body to do ill, but you cannot cause me to think ill.”

  Percival’s mouth opened, causing searing agony, and he spewed forth the foulest obscenities known to demon kind. The effect upon him might have been worse if the Sea-born knight had known the meaning of all the curses.

  “Again,” Percival risked the tiniest smile. “You but use my mouth. You cannot steer my heart.”

  Cursing, the demons departed, the noise of their leathery wings growing to a roar and then dying slowly away.

  Smiling, Percival limped over to Sir Kay and held out his hand.

  “I have found the way to beat them,” Percival said softly.

  Sir Kay accepted and rose painfully to his feet, but his face was creased with concern. “Be cautious. What if it’s a trick?”

  Percival shrugged and offered his hand to Lancelot. “So what?”

  “I… don’t understand,” Kay frowned.

  “If we ourselves choose to be good, what can they do?” Percival drew Lancelot to his feet and moved to help Gwaine. “If we insist on being good to each other, what threats can they use against us? What can they try that we have not already endured?”

  “And if there is no goodness, no God?” asked Gwaine.

  “We can still choose to live as if there were,” Percival countered. “We can choose to live like… King Arthur’s knights!”

  “But we are not King Arthur’s knights! You aren’t even Percival.” Sir Kay groaned, doubling over in pain from his wounds. “You’re just… his understudy!”

  Percival considered this. “So what if I am? What do understudies do?”

  The others stared at him.

  King Arthur was still seated upon the ground. He looked up curiously. “What do understudies do, Sir Percival?”

  “We study our roles.” Percival spread his arms. “We practice how to be the thing we wish to portray. I may not be the real Sir Percival. But I… Sir…” He paused. Unable to pronounce his Sea name with human lips, he shortened it to something that sounded appealing. “I, Sir Arvorn, do vow and declare that I shall take up the code of the Table Round and endeavor to be the best Percival I am capable of being.”

  “Even here?” asked Lancelot. “Even in the pits of Hell?”

  Percival replied as clearly as he was able with his swollen jaw. “Before we fell into the darkness, our idea of King Arthur and his knights was like that of a child’s. We did not understand his cause, his faith in God’s word, or his desire to protect the weak. We were bullies, fighting for our own delusional cause. After we fell into this present darkness, and the demons got their infernal claws on us, they showed us our mistakes.”

  He stood straighter and continued with renewed resolve in his voice, “They mocked us with our ignorance. That proved their undoing. For when they showed me my mistakes, what I wanted was… to do better.”

  “By Zounds, I swear I shall do my best,” whispered Sir Kay, suddenly understanding. He gave Percival the faintest of smiles.

  King Arthur wiped the blood from his face and rose unsteadily to his feet. “By King Arthur and the god of King Arthur, these sins of ours weigh heavily upon my heart. And when I contemplate them, I, too, wish to repent. Mayhaps we will have no future life in which to try again, but Percival… Arvorn is right. Why should we not do better, right now? Right here?”

  He placed his rusty sword tip down into the dust and grasped its hilt. “I swear to follow God Almighty and honor Arthur’s dream.”

  Percival stepped forward and placed his hand atop the king’s. “By Zounds, I swear to do my best!”

  “Never shall I commit outrage nor murder, this I vow!” Gwaine lay his hand atop Percival’s.

  Lancelot joined in. “Nor shall I by any means be cruel nor refuse mercy where requested!”

  “Nor shall I ever do battle in wrongful quarrel!” cried Kay.

  “This do I swear,” shouted the whole company together, as the rest joined them, “by King Arthur, and by the god of King Arthur!

  “Might for right!”

  “Look!” Percival pointed. “Look!”

  Slowly, a silvery light spread down the sword of King Arthur, until the whole blade shone new and bright.

  After that, the torments of Hell were as nothing to the understudies of the Table Round. They were trapped, but faith sustained them. Torments awaited; pain endured; hopes were dashed, but the sword of King Arthur never grew dull, nor did the company ever again truly lose heart.

  They treated one another, and all whom they met, with the courtesy expected of a knight of the Table Round, enduring their torture with grave dignity.

  Then, one day, there came a brilliant, holy light in the east that did not fade or fail.

  “Behold!” cried Percival with awe. “The dawn!”

  Together, the brave company marched toward the light and the glorious figure that stood therein.

  CHAPTER 38

  Halfway through the story Maddie had resumed crying again. “Fox, I don’t understand. What do you mean, Fox? What does that—“

  But Fox had already passed out, just as Isabella finished stitching his wound. She looked at Maddie.

  “He’s far from out of danger, but if we make it back soon, they’ll hopefully have better medical care for him.”

  At the word ‘back’ Isabella smiled softly to herself. Maddie stayed by Fox’s side, gently stroking his hand with her thumb.

  “Maddie, that can’t be comfortable,” Lance said gently. “Come sit up here. You can’t do anything for him.”

  She didn’t want to leave him. But Lance was right; it was uncomfortable. Maddie got up and, begrudgingly, sat next to Lance.

  “He was aiming for me,” Maddie said softly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Maddie. You don’t get all the credit here. He hated me too.”

  Maddie giggled for a moment. “Okay, you’re right. But I still don’t feel good about it.”

  Lance sighed. “That stuff he was mumbling about. Do you think it was—”

  “I don’t know WHAT it was. He was obviously delirious.”

  “Still.”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

 
Lance quieted, and Maddie said, “Look, I’m sorry, I’m not much for talking right now. It’s been a pretty long day.”

  “You earned some rest,” Lance answered, “Try and get some. I’ll wake you up when we get back.”

  “What about you?”

  Lance flashed a smile. “After all that adrenaline? No, I don’t think sleeping is something I’m going to be able to do.”

  Lance was right about Maddie needing to sleep. The exhaustion of the entire day hit her all at once, and Maddie closed her eyes. Her head might have ended up on Lance’s shoulder when she started to slump over, but she was too tired to care.

  It was utter pandemonium when the wagon reached Brand’s forest village. A crowd had gathered and begun cheering when Isabella stepped out; they quieted quickly when Lance ran out with Fox in his arms, shouting for a medic. Lance set Fox down in one of the small grass huts hidden by the trees. Maddie, Bennett, and Lance hovered outside with the rest of the theater troupe. None of them were able to speak.

  Then, in the background, Maddie heard a faint stamping. She turned around, puzzled, as the sound got louder. It was only a few more seconds before she gasped in shock.

  Gavin had ridden onto the scene.

  He was riding bareback on a horse Maddie didn’t recognize, and was completely covered in dirt. Part of the bottom of his shirt had been ripped off and wrapped around his chest, and the wrapping was the dark brown of dried blood. Tied to his pants by a loose length of rope was, to Maddie’s astonishment, a long, gleaming sword. His satchel hung low on his back.

  Despite looking as if he had just gotten trampled on by horses, Maddie had never seen Gavin look happier. He looked in their direction and gave a huge grin, jumped off of his horse, and ran forward. When he saw the looks on their faces, his smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

  Maddie looked at the hut again. “Fox,” she said simply. “He was shot.”

  Gavin didn’t respond; he appeared to be deep in thought. He looked around at them. “Do any of you know what Sacred Cargo is?”