Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  Hal laughed, thin and hysterically. "Disbelief? I guess you could call it that. I just happen to walk in on the Knights of the Round Table shooting the breeze on a summer day. No big deal. Happens all the time."

  "Now, Hal—"

  "And you're just a regular guy, I suppose. You get killed, you vanish in a puff of smoke, you pop up again . . ."

  The old man looked down his long nose at Hal. "In case you hadn't noticed, I am nothing resembling a regular guy. I am a wizard. Or I was. I seemed to have used up all my juice out on the field. Dying is a difficult feat for anyone." He shuddered. "The ways we go! Being exploded into bits inside an automobile. Getting shot while falling from a thirty-story building . . ." He shook his head. "A ghastly business, believe me."

  "But you said you weren't dead, remember?" Hal reminded him acidly. "Here you are, in the flesh and twice as pretty."

  "Oh, why did you have to be the one?" the old man muttered. "I don't die permanently. Still, it's no picnic to have one's brains cleaved in." He touched his head. "Goldberg had a considerably easier death."

  Hal stared. "Goldberg? The kid thought you were someone named Goldberg."

  "The disguise was one of my best," He smiled. "But then, Arthur was always able to see through me. But I'll get to that soon enough." He walked around to the far side of the Round Table, between two empty chairs. He touched one of them.

  "This is the Great King's seat," he said. "It has been kept for sixteen hundred years, until his return. And the other—"

  "The Siege Perilous, I suppose," Hal said mockingly. "For none but the pure of heart."

  "Galahad's seat," Merlin said with tenderness.

  "So why isn't he here?"

  The old man's eyes sparkled. "Now you're starting to be intelligent about things. The Siege Perilous is empty because Galahad's place is with the king. He was a knight in the most real sense. Valiant and loyal and clean in his soul. He could not rest until he found the king again."

  The old man looked up to the narrow windows letting in arrows of light. "I felt his presence in generation after generation as I slept through the long ages in my crystal cave. He was the soul of Richard Coeur de Lion, of Charlemagne, of Thomas a Becket, St. Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, John Locke, Benjamin Disraeli . . . and more others than I could recount to you. Often he was someone ordinary, not famous, a soldier, a shoemaker. He never knew that he was searching for the Great King, but something drew him toward greatness—and disappointment, ultimately, because the king did not come in any of those lifetimes.

  "I felt these stirrings in those men, that one soul. I felt it calling to the king. But the king did not come. And so I slept."

  He looked gravely at Hal. "And then, after sixteen centuries, I awoke. Because the king at last was born again."

  Hal felt his breath coming shallowly. "He's alive? King Arthur is alive now?"

  Merlin nodded slowly. "I've been with him since he was a year old."

  Hal couldn't help smiling. "Just like the old days, huh?"

  "Almost. The boy didn't need to be educated this time around. He had that from another source. But he needed a friend." He smiled. "I became Milton Goldberg."

  "Oh my God," Hal said. "Arthur. That Arthur."

  "He is the one."

  Hal sat down, oblivious that he had superimposed himself on one of the insubstantial knights. "Wait a minute. Arthur's not even British, let alone a king."

  "His nationality is of no importance."

  Hal stared at him a moment, then pinched his eyes closed with his fingers. He had almost begun to believe that he was awake. "Okay, what's he going to be king of? The fifth grade?"

  Merlin shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t know,” he said. “I did not create the prophecy. I only implement it.”

  "The . . ."

  "Prophecy. Arthur—our Arthur—carries the soul, if not the passport, of Arthur of England, the Once and Future King.”

  Despite himself, Hal was beginning to take the conversation seriously. "Is that why those men took him?"

  Merlin shook his head. "I don't think so. They only wanted the Grail."

  "The what?"

  "The cup. Arthur isn't aware of its full power, but Saladin is."

  "Saladin," Hal repeated. "He was the leader of the Halloween Brigade."

  "Don't joke about him, Hal. Saladin is a dangerous man, more dangerous than you know. He has possessed the Grail, and he will not give it up lightly."

  "You keep calling it the Grail," Hal said. "You don't mean . . . the Holy Grail?"

  "Christians have ascribed its power to their God. I do not know its true source, although I suspect that it existed long before the coming of Christ."

  Hal remembered the peculiar warmth of the cup in his hands, the strange images it evoked. "It couldn't be the Grail."

  "Why not?" Merlin asked, arching his eyebrows.

  "Because the Grail that King Arthur's knights went looking for was this gorgeous thing, wasn't it? A silver chalice."

  "Now, now, Hal. Jesus of Nazareth was by all accounts a poor man. Do you really think the fellow would have been drinking out of a silver chalice?"

  "No, but it wouldn't have been a high-tech teacup, either. It was probably some nondescript clay bowl. And four hundred years later, when the knights from Camelot went looking for it . . ."

  "It would have vanished into obscurity."

  "Right. Or been ground into dust somewhere along the way."

  "So it was most peculiar that the knights insisted upon finding it," Merlin said.

  "They didn't insist. Merlin—you, I guess—insisted. Arthur didn't even like the idea. But you kept hammering away at them, hinting, nagging . . ."

  Merlin laughed. "You're a fine student, Hal. You've learned your history well."

  "It's something I used to think about. If the knights hadn't left on the Quest, King Arthur would have had more men around him when the crunch came."

  The smile left the old man's face. "The battle of Barrendown," he said thickly.

  "Whatever. When Mordred brained him."

  Merlin was silent for a moment.

  "Hey," Hal said awkwardly. "Don't think I'm blaming you or anything. It was a long time ago."

  "Yes. A long time," Merlin said. "He needed the Grail. I thought that if I could only get it to him in time . . ."

  "Why? Why the Grail? You just said it was probably just a plain clay bowl."

  "There was something within the bowl," Merlin said. "Something containing such magic that, with it, a great ruler might live not only through one battle, but for all the ages of the world."

  Hal could not speak. He was remembering how the bruises on his hand had healed at the touch of the cup.

  "It bestows the gift of immortality, Hal," Merlin said softly.

  He opened his hands. In them, or rather, above them, hovered the small metal cup Arthur had thrown to the old man before the horsemen swept him away.

  "By touching this, I banished it to the spirit realm where we are now."

  Hal tried to touch it. His hand passed through. The cup faded from his sight.

  "Since I made it disappear, only I can bring it back into the real world. But here, in Camelot, I may not leave without permission." He looked around the room, at the immobile forms of the spirit knights. "Like them, I cannot live again in the world of men until summoned by the Great King."

  "You mean Arthur? Arthur has to call you?"

  Merlin nodded. "Yes. But if he doesn’t, I cannot protect him from here. Only you can do that."

  "Me?" Hal asked. Then he saw the cup again, almost transparent, covered with a film of billowing white Samite.

  "Do you remember it, Hal?" the old man asked, his voice no more than a breath. "It wasn't covered with clay then, when you found it."

  The Chalice shone with jewels. Its silver was white as sunlight. I reached out my hand . . .

  "For you, my king," he whispered. He closed his eyes as the memory came crashing in
on him again.

  Merlin touched him gently. "Rise," he said.

  Hal obeyed. The tears in his eyes half-blinded him.

  The old man raised himself up to his full height and gestured slowly to the empty seat beside the king's. "Take your place, Galahad," he intoned. Then his expression softened. He looked on Hal with a gaze of profound love. "For your time, too, has come at last."

  Hal closed his eyes.

  The waiting is over, a voice inside him spoke. And now, for the first time, he knew that this was no dream. Some part of him had been longing for this moment for a thousand years and more. In this place, this netherworld of spirits and illusions, he had found the truth.

  His head lowered humbly, Hal sat down in the Siege Perilous.

  Suddenly the dark room was infused with iridescent light. Trumpets sounded. The very air was charged with a crackling, vibrant power. A swirl of moondust rose out of the chair and enveloped Hal. When it cleared, the ghost knights were standing, saluting him, proclaiming his name.

  "Galahad!" they chanted, soft as summer air, then growing louder, louder, until the sound seemed to shake the walls.

  "Galahad!"

  Gawain. Bohort. Gaheris. Launcelot. All of them, all of them back again, my brothers . . .

  "He has come," the Merlin proclaimed.

  Hal rose and knelt before the old man. "Tell me what I must do," he said, his voice choking.

  "Saladin has our king. Find him," Merlin commanded. "Find Arthur and return him to his rightful place with us."

  Hal looked up. "I will," he whispered hoarsely. "I swear it."

  A light fog snaked inside through the narrow windows. The walls grew misty.

  The old man looked around sadly. "The magic is leaving," he said.

  The knights, still standing in their salute, softened to dim silhouettes. Merlin himself was disappearing.

  "We are returning to the plane of Avalon to await the call of the Great King. Until then, it will be only you, Galahad."

  Hal reached out to him in a panic, but there was no substance to the vision. The old man was no more real than anything else around him.

  "But how . . ." Hal struggled to his feet. "How will I find the boy?"

  The mist was thick now, obscuring everything. Hal felt as if he were in the middle of a heavy cloud. "Tell me!" he shouted.

  Faintly, the voice came. "Saladin has taken the boy to a place of darkness," it said. "A place fearful for you. A place you will remember."

  Hal could barely hear the last words.

  "A place I'll remember? New York? Is he taking him to New York?"

  There was no answer. "Wait a minute!" Hal yelled. "What's that supposed to mean, a place I'll remember? I've never even been in this country before!" He stumbled around in the thick fog. "Don't go, damn it! Tell me what I'm supposed to do! Don't go! Don't go!"

  But it did go, the castle, the banners and trumpets, the knights, the old man himself, vanished into the mists. Hal blinked and found himself standing in the middle of a pile of ancient rubble on top of a grassy hill.

  He looked around for a trace of the castle, but there was nothing left of it but moss-covered ruins.

  The meadow was the same. The rubble was the same. But nothing else would ever be the same, he knew, not for Hal Woczniak, reborn in this single moment of time as Galahad, champion to an ancient king.

  "Hal!" It was Emily Blessing's voice, shrill and frightened. "I've been looking for you for hours. Where's Arthur?"

  "He's been . . ." He rubbed his forehead. "He's been . . ."

  "Did you see it, too, mister?" piped a high voice nearby. Hal turned to see a little dirty-faced urchin dressed in a ragged shirt and a pair of cotton pants too short for his gangly legs, standing barefoot on the hillside.

  "What?" Hal said groggily.

  "The castle. I seen it," he said proudly. "I come here every day to see it, but most of the time it ain't here. But sometimes it is. I ain't told anybody about it." He looked up apprehensively. "You did see it, though, didn't you?"

  His eyes met the boy's. "You saw it?"

  The boy nodded.

  "Hal, you're bleeding!" Emily cried hysterically.

  Hal touched the place on his shoulder where the horsemen's blade had sliced into the flesh. It was the first he had noticed the wound since he'd watched Saladin ride into the woods with the boy.

  "Arthur's been taken," he said.

  Her hands flew to her mouth. Hal's legs buckled.

  "Get a doctor!" she commanded the boy. "Get the police, as fast as you can!"

  "Yes, Ma'am," the boy said, white-faced, and took off at a run.

  Emily knelt beside Hal. "How did it happen?" she shrilled.

  "Saladin," Hal said. "His name is Saladin . . ."

  "What? I can't hear you."

  Hal turned to her. "I'll find him," he said. "I promise you I'll find Arthur."

  Emily stifled a sob and sat a little straighter. "What about Mr. Taliesin?" she asked quietly.

  Hal looked over to the spot where the old man had died, disappeared, and then reappeared again in a world that had vanished before his eyes, in a dream that was not a dream.

  "We'll see him again too," he said. "I'm sure of it."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The red-haired boy lay asleep on a brocaded divan in a country house near the English Channel, some twenty miles away from Maplebrook Sanitarium.

  The house had lain vacant for almost fifty years before Saladin issued instructions from his cell for his men to buy it. For the duration of his incarceration, it had served as headquarters in the operation to free him.

  It was a rambling stone manor, one of many homes Saladin owned all over the world. Like the others, it was kept immaculately clean inside. Saladin could not abide filth. But the exterior of the place was decrepit and forbidding, poking out of the overgrown lawn like an immense tombstone. It was a place for hiding.

  He sat in a straight-backed chair opposite the boy and gazed with patient wonder at the sleeping child.

  "So the king has returned, after all," he said.

  He did not lower his voice; the boy had been drugged to keep him quiet after the horses were taken away to the stables behind the house, which also sheltered a sedate Mercedes-Benz sedan. But there were no neighbors to see any of those things. That was one of the reasons the house had been chosen in the first place.

  "This place suits you." Saladin stood up and walked to a window and looked out toward the dark woods. "It resembles Tintagel, where you were born. I made a pilgrimage there after your death, Arthur." He laughed softly. "I wanted to see the land you came from. I wanted to know what rough winds had produced a man who could come so far in such a short life."

  The breeze from the sea ruffled his dark hair. "I was young myself then, even though you'd caused me to lose twelve years."

  Twelve years. Most of the legends had put the Quest at much longer, decades upon decades, but that had not been the case. The cup had been lost to all of them—Arthur, Merlin, the foolish questing knights—but none had felt its loss as acutely as Saladin, for only he had truly understood its power.

  He had been fifteen years old when he’d stolen the cup from Kanna, and twenty-five when he’d arrived, centuries later, in Britain. The ten intervening years of his life had been lost all at once, during a sojourn in Rome. Some thieves had stolen the cup while he slept in a doorway on a darkened street. He had chased after them, but he was not familiar with the meandering streets of the city and soon lost them.

  The thieves were apprehended by Roman soldiers that very night, and the odd metal ornament confiscated. The foot soldier who took the cup had considered turning it over to his superior officer, but decided that it was not of sufficient value.

  Or that was what he told his comrades. It would have embarrassed the soldier to say that he kept it simply because he liked the feel of the thing, that its pleasant warmth filled him with an inexplicable sensation of well-being.

  He kept it
as a charm. When he was sent to Jerusalem with half his garrison, he wore it on his belt, attached by a leather thong, much as Arthur Blessing would nearly two thousand years later.

  The soldier never had the opportunity to ascertain just how lucky the cup was, since occasions for battle in Jerusalem were few. The Romans had little trouble quelling the occasional unarmed uprisings of the Jews. More often, the soldiers were called upon to police violence between one sect of the contentious locals and another. It was during one of these, a brawl in a tavern, that the Roman lost his talisman.

  He had not noticed that it was missing until he was walking back to his barracks; then he turned around immediately and went back to search the place, but it was nowhere in sight. Even beating the tavern owner did not yield any results. Finally, with a sense of immense irritation, the soldier gave up the metal hemisphere as lost and in time forgot about it completely.

  During the scuffle in the tavern, a panicked man had yanked it off the soldier's belt. The cup, wrapped in a leather pouch and secured with a thong, had rolled out the open door, where a dog picked it up and carried it back to his master, a young potter's apprentice.

  "What's this?" the boy asked, grabbing the metal oddity from the dog.

  Aaron was fifteen and quite bored with the endless stream of plain clay bowls he had to turn out each day for the master potter. What was worse, he knew that his task would continue for several more years before he might be permitted to work on more interesting projects, since the plain glazed bowls were the staple of the potter's business. All of the inns and households bought them in quantity. It did not matter if they were imperfectly formed; so long as they were not cracked, they would sell.

  The boy had a gift. As a child, he had sculpted animals from stone with a piece of flint. His father, who was a laborer, had beaten him for his lazy time-wasting ways, but nothing seemed to stop the boy from his carvings. Then once, when the father found a secret cache of stone figures hidden inside a hole in the wall of their house, the idea had come: He would sell the child. He was of little use in a household with four other sons and not enough food to feed them all, and the right buyer might even have use for Aaron-Good-For-Nothing.