Intangible

by C. A. Gray

  “The baby was Arthur, right?”

  “No, he was Arthur’s long lost brother Fred. Yes, it was Arthur,” said Peter impatiently.

  “I was just asking, don’t be so touchy, geez.”

  Peter plunged on, every now and then looking longingly over her shoulder at the door, which led to the corridor, which led to the unexplored castle. “Uther never knew Arthur existed. Merlyn found him instead, and left him with this widower named Sir Ector, who had a son already named Kay –”

  “Terrible name for a boy,” said Lily.

  “And Uther and Merlyn are so much better?”

  “At least they’re not girls’ names.”

  Peter rolled his eyes. “Anyway, Kay’s nurse raised Arthur to be a squire, since nobody knew who his father was and knighthood depended on having noble blood. Arthur became best friends with the daughter of the stable hand, who was named Cecily.”

  “Are all these characters really necessary?” Lily yawned.

  “Kay – sort of, not terribly. Cecily definitely is, though. Just wait,” said Peter. “Years passed. The Britons put down roots in Northumbria (Northumberland and some of Scotland nowadays), and called the city Camelot.”

  “Mmm, that one I know.”

  “When Arthur was eight, Sir Ector took him hunting near the Forest Sauvage, also known as the Enchanted Forest because the plants glowed, and because the landmarks changed places all the time. Arthur was chasing after a buck when he accidentally stumbled upon a sword in a stone – Excalibur. But Sir Ector dragged him away and made him promise never to go looking for Excalibur again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Arthur didn’t know either,” said Peter. “Later, Arthur told Cecily what he had seen, and they asked everybody they could find what they knew about the sword. They found out there was a legend that the one who could pull the sword out of the stone would become the rightful king of all of Britain.

  “One night Arthur convinced Cecily to go with him in search of it, which she agreed to, as long as they left a trail behind them so that they could find their way back again. But instead of finding Excalibur that night, they found Merlyn. They brought him back to Sir Ector’s house as their tutor.

  “Later Uther learned of the existence of Excalibur and went looking for it with twelve of his best knights.”

  “Why?” Lily interrupted, “wasn’t he already king?”

  “He was king of Northumbria, not of Britain,” Peter explained. “There were surrounding kings in the countryside at the time – King Leodegrance, King Ban, King…”

  “So wait, they were like provinces then?”

  “Pretty much,” said Peter. “All the kings wanted to rule the whole country, of course, including Uther. So, that was why he went looking for Excalibur. A fortnight later, though, Uther’s body turned up on the edge of the forest, mauled, along with those of two of the knights. The rest of the knights were never seen or heard from again.

  “The Britons panicked because they were afraid the Saxons would attack as soon as they found out the Britons no longer had a leader. Arthur knew that the people needed a new king, and since he thought he knew where Excalibur was, he decided to go looking for it.”

  “How did he know he could find it again?”

  “He didn’t, really, but he tried anyway. So Kay found Arthur sneaking off and decided to go along, and then Cecily overheard them talking about what they were planning to do, and threatened to tell the whole castle, since she didn’t want Arthur to turn up dead too. So, Kay kidnapped Cecily and all three of them went in search of the sword, and then Cecily’s father realized she was missing and sounded the alarm. So, the whole castle followed them, along with basically all of Uther’s remaining knights. The upshot was, when Arthur found the sword again, most all the eligible members of the kingdom were there to watch. Merlyn was there too, of course, and called out each knight’s name one by one to try and free the sword. He called Arthur’s name last, just to be dramatic. Everyone was stunned that he was even given a turn, since he was a servant.”

  “Did Arthur know he know he was going to be king?”

  “No,” said Peter. “But Cecily did. For some reason I always got chills when my dad told me the part when Cecily crept up beside him after almost all the knights had tried to pull Excalibur out of the stone and failed. Then she whispered, ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ Arthur was shocked, but then she fell to her knees and said, ‘Remember me when you are king, my lord,’ and kissed his knuckles. Then Merlyn called his full name, including his rightful surname: Arthur Pendragon. Of course Excalibur came out like a hot knife through butter.

  “After Arthur pulled it out, he saw that both sides of Excalibur were marked with characters from the Ancient Tongue…”

  “Sorry, the what?”

  “Remember? It’s the language of power I told you about.”

  “Oh yeah, the magic one.”

  Peter scowled and almost protested on reflex, but Lily saw his expression and raised her eyebrows as if to say, really, you’re still going to try and argue this? “Fine, call it what you want,” Peter muttered. “Anyway, Merlyn told him later that one side of the sword said ‘Take me up’ and the other side said ‘Cast me away.’ Arthur realized after the fact that as he had pulled, he’d been muttering ‘Take me up’ in the Ancient Tongue under his breath, but he didn’t know that at the time. He sort of knew he was saying something, but he didn’t know what he was saying.” Peter paused, lost in thought. That particular moment felt significant to him for some reason, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.

  “Anyway, after he was king, Arthur heard rumors about Lancelot and went to beg him to join the court. They became best mates. Meanwhile, Arthur married Cecily, and eventually she had a son named Mordred. Mordred grew up to be a right foul git. He thought his father was weak, because he used his authority for peace rather than for domination. He became Lancelot’s little shadow, though; he worshipped Lancelot’s ability on the battlefield and wanted Lancelot to teach him how to kill.

  “Wait. I thought Mordred was Morgan’s son?” asked Lily.

  “No. Morgan was still in Cornwall, and she hated Arthur because she thought what happened to her family was his fault. She was also obsessed with power, and eventually learned the Ancient Tongue herself. She was really good at manipulating water, but she wanted to have complete control over the other elements, like earth, wind, fire, air, space, and such. In her mind, if she had complete power, she’d be able to take her revenge on Arthur. She also wanted to become queen, but that was more of a side benefit. There were rumors that Morgan had discovered some object that would give her that power, but nobody knew for sure.

  “So then one day, this company arrived in Camelot, and Guinevere was one of them. She was ridiculously beautiful –”

  “Wait. I’m confused,” said Lily. “I thought Arthur was already married to Cecily.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But Guinevere was queen in all the old stories!” Lily protested. “I thought maybe Cecily and Guinevere were the same person…”

  “No, very different people,” said Peter darkly. “Lancelot fell in love with Guinevere first, but then Arthur met her and wanted her himself. Within the week, Arthur had written a new law of divorce so that he could send Cecily and Mordred away and marry Guinevere instead.”

  “Ugh!” Lily exclaimed, folding her arms over her chest in disgust. “Men!”

  “Don’t get all high and mighty until you hear the end,” said Peter, annoyed. “Cecily was devastated of course, but Merlyn told her he suspected both Arthur and Lancelot had been bewitched, since Guinevere was one of the penumbra –”

  “Oh!” Lily exclaimed.

  “Yeah. Merlyn had no idea how she’d taken a physical body or what she was up to, but he knew they had to go to the Continent in order to figure it out.

  “Meanwhile, Arthur sent Mordred to live with Morgan in Cornwall, which is probably why a lot of the stories say she’s his mother.
Mordred had always wanted a good reason to hate Arthur, and now he had it.

  “When Cecily and Merlyn got to France, they found out that there was a Shadow Lord who had been behind the Roman Empire for generations, and they heard rumors of a prophecy that a king would rise and destroy him. But Merlyn and Cecily couldn’t find anyone who knew the prophecy in full, because the Shadow Lord (in the body of the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus) had ordered a decree that all oracles and soothsayers be burned at the stake. Most of them had fled for their lives to the Byzantine Empire, or gone into hiding. It took Merlyn and Cecily five years to find one on her deathbed, who was willing to tell them what she knew.

  “The Shadow Lord had only managed to deduce bits and pieces of the prophecy, thwarted by his own proclamation. Yet he had learned enough to know that the king would come from Northumbria, and he had sent several of the penumbra ahead of him to weaken the kingdom so that it would be ripe for collapse. One of those penumbra was Guinevere.

  “From then on Cecily and Merlyn tried desperately to get back to Britain to tell Arthur what was really going on.

  “Meanwhile, Guinevere noticed that Lancelot was in love with her, and that half the neighboring kings had sworn allegiance to Lancelot, not Arthur. So she seduced Lancelot, hoping to incite a civil war. By then, though, Arthur started to become himself again. He wrote letters to both Cecily and Mordred, begging them both to come home. He tried to make amends with Lancelot, but Lancelot felt so guilty over the affair that he wanted nothing to do with him. So the kingdom split into two factions, because they all expected war to break out the minute Arthur found out about the affair.”

  “Didn’t he know already?”

  “Of course he knew. But if he had hard evidence of it, legally Arthur would have to charge them with treason and burn them at the stake. So he pretended he had no idea. Guinevere made sure they were caught, though, and Arthur had to condemn them publicly – he just made sure Lancelot got away before they actually killed him. Lancelot also came back to his right mind after that, though, and he refused to lead the rebellion against Arthur.

  “It might have all blown over then, except that Mordred came back to Camelot at exactly the critical moment. He showed up and took charge of Lancelot’s army.

  “The night before the battle, Arthur waited in his tent on Salisbury Plain when Merlyn and Cecily arrived.”

  “About time!” Lily exclaimed.

  “Cecily waited outside while Merlyn told Arthur what they had learned: that Arthur was the one who would banish the Shadow Lord from the world of men, and that the Shadow Lord had sent Guinevere to tear the kingdom apart. Merlyn also told Arthur that Mordred gave the Shadow Lord control of his body.”

  “Oh!” cried Lily. “So he needs permission?”

  “Yes,” said Peter. “When Merlyn finished, he said goodbye to Arthur, and Cecily went in. Then they, er, well, had a reunion.”

  Lily raised her eyebrows. “Reunion?”

  “Yeah, well, they… you know…” He felt the beginnings of a blush again and refused to meet her eyes.

  Lily smirked. “No, Peter, I have no idea. What did they do?”

  Peter said crossly, “Anyway. By the time Arthur woke up the next morning, Cecily was gone. Arthur assumed that Merlyn had whisked her off to safety someplace.

  “Mordred’s army was full of creatures like we saw tonight, but more of them –”

  “So they took physical bodies again?” Lily interrupted. “This has happened before?”

  “Yes, but Isdemus said it’s rare. You’re interrupting the climax,” said Peter, annoyed.

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “At the center, there was Mordred, riding a black dragon. Mordred and Arthur fought, and they both killed each other at the same time. And that’s it,” said Peter.

  “You’re kidding,” Lily said, incredulous. “That’s it?”

  “Well, I left a lot out,” Peter said defensively. “I was trying not to keep you here all night.”

  “What else did Merlyn and Cecily find out in those five years?”

  “I…” Peter stopped. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what happened to Morgan? She just dropped out of the story. You said she was obsessed with some object that would give her power over all the elements, and not just water. What was the object?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter said.

  “And who was this Shadow Lord and why was it such a big deal that they stop him?”

  “I told you, I don’t know,” Peter said heatedly. “I didn’t ask any of those questions when I was seven. I just thought it was a bedtime story!”

  “So what happened to Excalibur?” Lily demanded, as if she hadn’t heard him.

  Peter stopped and took a deep breath. That one he did know. “One of the knights that survived the battle took it, but we can only guess what happened to it after that. It disappeared.”

  She stared at him. “Didn’t you say the Shadow Lord couldn’t return as long as Excalibur remained intact?”

  “Yeah,” Peter said. “So?”

  “So what you’re saying is the only thing standing between us and the return of the Shadow Lord is a sword that nobody can find?”

  Peter stared for a moment. When he was little, he had always thought that Arthur had triumphed in the end. He’d never thought of it that way before, but it seemed obvious to him now. “Basically, yeah,” he said at last. Suddenly, he felt exhausted.

  They sat in silence for a very long time, looking out the semi-frosted windowpane at the myriad twinkling stars.

  Abruptly, Lily said, “Can I stay here tonight?”

  “What?” Peter said, taken aback. “You mean here, here?”

  “Just for tonight!” she said, and then amended, “Well, I guess we might only be here for tonight, but. …Please? I’ll sleep on the floor. I just… don’t want to be alone. Not here.”

  It wasn’t a half bad idea, Peter thought, and he wasn’t sure he much wanted to be alone either. “All right,” he said, and then added grudgingly, “You can take the bed. I’ll take the floor.”

  “Don’t be silly, it was my idea,” said Lily. She got up from the velvet chair and tried to get comfortable on the running carpet, curling up and trying to rest her head on the crook of her elbow.

  Peter tossed her a pillow and gave her one of the blankets too. “You really can take the bed, you know.”

  “Remember the last time you tried to be chivalrous? You ended up dropping a heavy book on my foot and nearly cracked my skull open.”

  Peter suppressed a smile. “Fine. Take the floor, then, see if I care.”

  They fell silent for another long moment, and Peter thought she had fallen asleep, until her voice broke the stillness once more.

  “Peter?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think we’re going to wake up tomorrow and find out that this was all just a dream?”

  Peter paused for a moment, nestling deeper into the covers and felt the waves of exhaustion begin to overtake him. “I sincerely hope so,” he said.

  Chapter 10

  When the sound of the birds chirping outside Peter’s window woke him along with the late morning sunshine, he vaguely recalled that his dreams had involved a pale, black-eyed boy riding on a dragon, a silver car suspended in mid-air, and seething creatures with blue-green scales pressing their attack despite the arrows embedded in their chests. Peter could still feel the weight of a sword in his hands when he woke with a start, as if he had been fighting with it all night long.

  He found himself in a four-poster bed with a canopy the color of blood. Sunlight streamed in through the frosted window.

  He was still in the castle. That much, at least, had not been a dream.

  Then, all at once, the memories of the night before came rushing back with a force that left him winded: the silver Land Rover hanging over the windshield like the blade of a guillotine…

  The meadow, with the hideous rainbow and the grisly images
of Thomas the driver, Lily, Cole, Brock, and himself, covered in blood…

  The centaurs charging towards them, their hooves pounding on the ground, close enough that he could see their bared yellow teeth…

  The shock of teleporting from a tree in the forest to a hallway lined with paintings, landing face down in a blood-red carpet…

  His own reflection staring at him from the canvas of a painting, clothed in a homely blue robe, with a scrubby beard and a crown on his head…

  The deep bone chill as Isdemus told him the Shadow Lord had been searching for him for 1500 years…

  And Isdemus’s voice saying, “Yes, Bruce is a Watcher.”

  Even as the scenes came at him, four words throbbed in the back of Peter’s mind: Child of the Prophecy.

  Peter lay back on the bed, staring at the canopy as he tried to stop himself from reeling.

  “You awake?”

  He jumped, and a hand flew to his chest as if to keep his heart where it was. “Blimey!”

  “Sorry,” said Lily, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her knees. “I heard you stir. I was just about to wake you.”

  “How long have you been up?”

  “I only just got out of the bath,” she said, gesturing at the adjacent washroom that Peter hadn’t noticed the night before. “I don’t understand how the water’s hot without technology, but it is.”

  “The fire specialist,” Peter murmured, remembering what Gerald had told him the night before, even though he had no idea what it meant.

  “Well, hurry up and get ready. I’m starved, and I want to go exploring!”

  Peter scowled at her and nearly retorted that he would have gone exploring the night before if it hadn’t been for her, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Pulling himself out of bed, he was suddenly self-conscious about how dreadful he probably looked first thing in the morning. He tried not to think about it and padded to the washroom.