by K. W. Jeter
Her calm, unemotional analysis preoccupied my thoughts. I lapsed into silence, mulling over her words to the rhythm of the cabhorse's hooves, while she went back to watching the passing London scene.
Soon enough the hansom halted and we alighted. The driver, already paid his fare by Dr. Ambrose, rattled off. Looking about us, I recognised the building in front of us. I had observed it several times before on my various peregrinations about the city. Prompted by idle curiosity, I had even inquired in some nearby shops as to the building's nature, for it was a quite imposing modern edifice, set behind a high iron fence and well-groomed lawns. Yet seemingly it was inhabited only by an aged caretaker who saw that no street urchins or burglars penetrated its shuttered windows and thus gained access to its unlit interior. The local shopkeepers rumoured it to be a private clinic established by some wealthy foreign physician who had yet to make his appearance and begin his practice.
Things had apparently changed since last I had seen the building, for now the windows were all brightly lit up. As Tafe and watched from the street, the silhouetted figure of a nurse in her starched cap passed across one of the lower windows.
"I wonder what he sent us here for," said Tafe. "And where is he?"
Indeed, the mysterious Dr. Ambrose was nowhere to be seen. "Perhaps he has been delayed," I conjectured. "By whatever it was that necessitated his travelling separately."
"Well, we can't just stand around here." Tafe started walking along the high iron fence that surrounded the clinic's grounds. I followed her and within a few paces we found ourselves in darkness beyond the reach of the street lamps that graced the street in front of the building.
"Pssst! Hocker, Tafe – over here!" I turned and saw Ambrose's form separate from the deepest shadows along the fence. He beckoned us toward him. "Cheerful business, what?" he said when the three of us had formed a little conspiratorial knot against the iron railings.
"Why have you brought us here?" I asked, keeping my voice low. "What's our business got to do with some private clinic?"
"You'll see." Ambrose drew a cylindrical object from beneath his cloak.. It was a ship captain's brass-bound telescope which he quickly extended to its full length. "Take a sight on that large window there," he said, handing the telescope to me.
I obliged, and soon had focused the glass upon the window Ambrose had pointed out. The lenses were of excellent – or magical? – quality, revealing the room beyond the window pane in full detail.
"Well?" demanded Ambrose. "What do you see?"
"Hmm… I see a rather nicely appointed room, more like a drawing room of someone's home than a clinical facility. Books, fire on the grate, all that sort of thing. And an elderly man sitting in a wing chair, reading from a book." I passed the telescope to Tafe, who in turn focused it upon the window in question. "Is any of that important?" I asked.
"The man you see up there," said Ambrose coolly, "is none other than the reincarnated King Arthur, defender of Britain."
"But… but that's an old man in there!" I exclaimed. "Quite silver-haired!"
"Arthur has been born and grown old in many lives," said Ambrose. "Except those lives when he was cut down in the prime of his youth while performing his duty to England and all Christendom."
"But he's an old man now," I said. "What hope do we have of defeating the Morlocks with a champion like that?"
"Spoken like a snotty youngster," said Ambrose. "Old age is a great warrior's best time, when his military abilities are tempered with the truest wisdom. No, it's not Arthur's advanced years in this life that have weakened him and thus prevent him from leading the battle against the Morlocks. There are other factors at work here."
"Such as?"
"My dear Hocker, we are in the process of unravelling this mystery together. You and Tafe are my allies in piecing together a truth of which I possess only a few fragments. I know that Arthur is disastrously enfeebled at the present time, and I know who is responsible. But how it has been done and what we are to do about it are matters we are to discover jointly."
"I take it then," said I, "that Arthur is being held prisoner in this place? By whom?"
"Someone else just came into the room," said Tafe with her eye to the telescope. She peered intently at the lighted window for several more seconds, then murmured, "This is incredible. It looks like-"
"Let me see." I took the telescope from her willing hand and focused on the room's interior. "By God!" I exclaimed. "It- it is you!" I lowered the telescope and whirled upon Ambrose. "The man talking to Arthur is the exact twin of you! What's going on here?"
Without a word of explanation, Ambrose took the telescope from me and gazed at the two figures revealed through the window, the grey but still noble-looking old man and the unnervingly exact double of Ambrose himself. "Yes," he murmured, taking the telescope from his eye and collapsing it to its smallest form. "You've seen him. An old nemesis of mine, of all humanity to be exact; roused to activity again by this fiendish Time-juggling of the Morlocks."
"But who – or what – is he?"
"He is now going under the name of Dr. Merdenne, of Paris, the founder and head surgeon of his private clinic here in London. But I have known him in other times and places far removed from this. Perhaps the high point of his many previous careers was when he was known as Ibrahim, high counsellor to the Great Suleiman, back in the days when the Ottoman Empire was at its zenith and a constant menace to Christian Europe. Arthur and I both struggled with him then, and narrowly averted the defeat and extinction of all Christendom."
"This Merdenne is immortal, then – like you."
Ambrose's eyes narrowed to slits as he continued his gaze at the distant window. "Immortal, yes," he said. "But not like me. Merdenne – for so shall we call him now, as his true name should never be pronounced – is a caricature of myself and my powers, dedicated to a lust for evil dominion over men. But not as their ruler. Rather he lies dormant in the bowels of the Earth until an opportunity arises to manipulate in secret those of brutal and domineering ambitions. Thus he was Suleiman's counsellor, and now has thrown his wiles behind the Morlocks, with the dark hope of making himself the secret power behind their rule of all Time. He, even more than the Morlocks themselves, is our cruellest and most implacable enemy – subtle and with powers great as my own." Ambrose fell silent, gazing with unreadable emotions at the lighted window and the two small figures beyond the glass.
A cold wind swirled around us, and I shivered. Ambrose glanced at me sharply. "Yes," he said. "You're right. Here in the darkness is no place to speak of things like this. Let us find a little warmth and human noise in which to shelter ourselves. Dark secrets and plans will lead to dark actions soon enough."
He led us to a small pub a few streets away, where the stout proprietor in his stained apron nodded to Ambrose as if he were a long-familiar customer. Soon three of Ambrose's excellent cigars were turning the air blue in a booth at the rear of the pub, as we worked our way down through a pitcher of dark beer.
"It's like this," said Ambrose. The glowing tip of his cigar danced in the smoky haze. "King Arthur is reborn every generation in time to intercede against the direst threat facing the cherished Christian and human ideals that are embodied in England more than any other place. It's a commentary on humanity's penchant for mischief, inasmuch as there's always a threat to Christendom. Evil exists on its own but the best and brightest must be guarded as though they were but flickering candle flames; Hence Arthur and his cycle of lives and deaths.
"But-" His cigar jabbed at us. "It's more complicated than just that. The Fates have their little jokes and trials for us all. Arthur lives again and again, but each time he is born he has no memory of being Arthur. He grows into manhood – coward, fool, or even a hero – unaware that he is England's greatest defender called forth in her time of need."
"Then of what use is his being Arthur?" I said. "If he lives as no more than any other man, good or bad – of what good is his other true self that is l
ocked away?"
"Quite right, Hocker. Very perceptive." Ambrose drew long and meditatively upon his cigar. "Locked away indeed – but there is a key."
I glanced over at Tafe but her expression remained unchanged behind her own veil of exhaled smoke.
"The key is Excalibur," said Ambrose quietly. "Arthur's sword, though it is much older than even he. Its power has diminished since the long distant age when Arthur's ancestor Fergus chopped mountains in two with it. But it is still a weapon of great strength, and more than that. Every time Arthur dies, Excalibur returns into the earth and is lost – until it finds its way into the hands of one who can read the inscription on its blade and doing so, knows that he is not the person he thought he was, that the name he bore is not his true one, that he is in fact Arthur Pendragon, the defender of England. Sword and key – Excalibur is both."
"That is all very well, I'm sure," said I, "but where is this magical weapon at the present moment? I trust you know of its whereabouts."
"Not so simple as that, Hocker." Ambrose's lean face darkened with his inner thoughts. "Arthur was reincarnated in this life as one Henry Morsmere – now Brigadier-General Morsmere – after a long and minorly distinguished military career – and found the sword Excalibur somewhere in the smoking aftermath of one of the Crimean battlefields. I was watching him from behind the blackened remnant of a tree and saw him stoop down at the sight of his seemingly accidental discovery. When he stood back up with the blade in his hands I could see that he had read the inscription and that he knew who he truly was. No longer General Morsmere, but Arthur. His eyes were as dark as wells with the memories of the many lives and accumulated centuries through which he's been."
"Just like that, eh?" said I. "He remembers everything?"
Ambrose nodded. "In an instant it happens and he is transformed. The inscription on Excalibur's blade is formed in an ancient runic script. The reading of these words summons up Arthur's real identity to his mind. I saw it happen on that Crimean battlefield as I had seen it happen many times before, but I did not reveal myself to him then, though he would certainly have recognised me as his trusted adviser and friend. Things were not yet at a stage where his intervention was needed. Soon enough that messy, blundering business in the Crimea was ended, and Arthur – still posing for convenience's sake as General Morsmere – returned to England, retired from his military status and took a suite at the Savoy to await the coming of the task for which he had been summoned to life again. He kept Excalibur hidden under a false bottom of his old military campaign chest"
"I see." The image occupied me of Gen. Morsmere/Arthur sitting alone in his hotel suite, patiently waiting for the danger to England to appear for which he had been summoned to life again. Sometimes, no doubt, he must have taken Excalibur from his chest's secret compartment and lightly ran a whetstone down its gleaming length. And other times he very likely looked out the window upon our bustling, modern and prosperous world, and thought – ah, what would he have thought? For some reason I couldn't imagine this proud old warrior-king looking upon the scene with much satisfaction. I cut short my melancholy musing and returned my attention to Ambrose's exposition.
"So," he continued, with another wave of his cigar, "when I became at last aware of the grim situation with the Morlocks – for with my old adversary's guidance they had managed to conceal themselves from my notice until their invasion plans were well underway – I then hied myself to Arthur's pied-aterre in order that we could formulate together a strategy to roust the Morlocks from their toehold in the London sewers of this time. But when I arrived at his Savoy suite I discovered not Arthur, but-" He broke off to take a quick pull at his beer.
"Who was it?" I interjected.
"No one." Grey flakes of ash floated down to the table. "No one at all. Arthur was gone. None of the hotel staff had seen General Morsmere, as they knew him, for several days. Inveigling myself into his suite, I found that Excalibur was missing as well from the secret compartment in Morsmere's chest."
"Abducted!" I cried. "Abducted by this opponent of yours who now calls himself Merdenne."
"Quite right, Hocker, as I soon found out through my own sources. I have a large network of people who, through friendship, fear or finance, manage to keep an eye on most things that happen in London for me. One such informant quickly discovered Arthur's whereabouts – Merdenne's clinic." Which was also the first revelation to me that my old adversary was involved in all this."
"But I don't understand," said I. "If, as you say, Arthur's fighting prowess is undiminished by age and he was in possession of his miraculous Excalibur as well, how were his abductors able to overpower him and bear him off to Merdenne's clinic? Surely he would at least have put up enough of a struggle to alarm the management of the Savoy. And by what deviltry is he kept a hapless prisoner in the clinic?"
"Those are mysteries, Hocker, that are quite deeper than my present knowledge." Ambrose's eyes darkened with brooding. "Many answers will depend upon your getting Arthur out of Merdenne's grasp."
I glanced across at Tafe and saw that even her eyes had widened a bit in surprise. "What was that," said I to Ambrose, "about getting Arthur out of the clinic?"
"Yes, well, quite frankly, it's going to be up to you and Tafe. That's the whole point of my enlisting you as my allies. It would be disastrous for me even to attempt to enter the clinic. The automatic result would be my death and an enormous increase in Merdenne's own power. The very building itself is a trap designed to leech off my spiritual power and transfer it to Merdenne. No, as I said, the task falls to you and Tafe – to enter the clinic, find both Arthur and Excalibur, and bring them both out again."
"But surely," I protested, "if Merdenne can devise a trap such as that for you, no doubt even worse pitfalls await lesser figures such as we two. What better chance would Tafe and I have in such a place."
"No chance at all," said Ambrose placidly. "The only exit you would make would be as cinders and ashes rising out of one of the clinic's chimneys, and the Morlock's invasion plans would continue apace. True enough are your forebodings – if Merdenne were to be aware of your having entered the clinic."
"And what's to prevent that? Surely the place is rigged with alarms enough to warn him of any surreptitious visitors."
"Indeed so, Hocker. You anticipate my every precaution. But alarms, effective as they might ordinarily be, are of little avail to someone who is, shall we say, too distracted to hear them."
"You propose, then, to divert Merdenne's attention while Tafe and I invade his stronghold and liberate Arthur? How, pray, do you intend to do that?" A touch of sarcasm entered my voice, increased by my anxiety over the whole project.
"That," said Ambrose, "is my concern. You needn't worry over it."
"And what should happen if your ploy fails and Merdenne discovers the invasion before we are quit of the premises? What then?"
"Then, Hocker, he will hideously murder you and Tafe, hide Arthur in some new place beyond my powers of discovery, and all will be lost. It is as simple as that."
"Oh." My cigar had gone out, and I pulled disconsolately at the dead stub.
"Well, Hocker?" said Ambrose after a moment's silence on all our parts. "I can't very well force you to help in a matter like this."
"I suppose not. Still – one never really plans on encountering this sort of thing."
"Show a little backbone," said Tafe. They were the first words she had spoken since we had entered the pub. "Things will get pretty rotten soon enough if you don't do anything at all. You saw what it'll be like. At least this way we've got a chance of preventing all that."
Shamed at this rebuke from a woman, I nodded. "When do we start?" I dropped the cigar stub to the littered floor and ground it beneath my boot heel.
"Capital," said Ambrose. "We haven't a moment to lose. Listen…"
Tafe and I leaned our heads closer toward him. I followed the outlines of his plan, while the cowardly portion of my heart turned away and fled.
4
In the Clinic
"Ah, my dear… Merdenne. Mind if I join you?" His pale hand was already drawing back the chair on the other side of the table.
"Why, Ambrose – it's still Ambrose, isn't it? – of course not. Here, do try some of the Latour." The one called Mer denne took one of the unused wine glasses above his plate, poured the lustrous red vintage into it, and extended it across the restaurant's snowy-white damask.
"Thank you." Ambrose held the glass to the light, then brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply, then at last drank of it, rolling the wine on his tongue to savour it fully. "Quite pleasant," he said after a moment's reflection. "But the vintners really should, have asked for a priest's blessing on that old graveyard before they planted their vines in it. The unconsecrated bones in the soil leave, I fear, a bitter aftertaste in the mouth."
"Actually," said Merdenne with a thin smile, "that's the thing I like most about this wine."
Ambrose half-smiled back. " De gustibus non disputandum. Not your usual sort of refreshment anyway, is it? You were fond of a rather different intoxicant, I be lieve, when you were a counsellor to the great Suleiman."
Across the width of the restaurant, one waiter nudged another in the ribs and pointed at the two men. "Look at em," he whispered to his colleague. "Just as like as two eggs in the same nest!" The other nodded in sage acknowl edgment. "Those are what are called identicable twins," he pronounced with grave authority.
Merdenne took a swallow from his own glass. "One must conform," he said, "to the vices of the time and place one finds one's self in. I'm afraid this England of which you're so fond isn't quite civilised enough yet to view the open smoking of opium without at least a small measure of scandal. Though I imagine the scandal lies more in the lower class associations of the habit, rather than in any perceived peril in the drug itself. How tiresome these little minds are, with their endless preoccupations about classes, places and positions! Won't you be glad to see them all wiped away at last?"
