by Ben Bova
“Focus,” a voice said urgently. “Focus before your information pattern thins so much that it is drowned in the meaningless noise of the stars.”
Anya’s voice! I was certain of it. Perhaps I was insane, grasping at the last shred of hope like a drowning man thrashing for a piece of flotsam to buoy him up. But I was certain that it was Anya speaking to me.
“As long as the energy is there, matter can be formed. The pattern exists, and the body can be shaped from it.”
“Anya!” I cried out into the lightless void.
“I am with you, my darling,” she answered. “Even from the other side of the universe, from so distant in space and time that numbers lose all meaning, I am with you.”
“I love you,” I said. With all my being, I meant it.
“There’s little I can do to help you, Orion,” she said, “except to tell you what must be done. You must save yourself, you must find the strength to overcome the doom that faces you.”
“Tell me,” I said. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”
“The pattern of your consciousness is fading, Orion, wafting into the cosmic void like smoke drifting from a snuffed candle. You must focus that pattern, focus your consciousness, your being. You must use your energy to spark the candle into new flame.”
I tried, but nothing happened. I concentrated, sought with every scrap of my remaining existence to focus the dying pattern of energy that was my being. But nothing happened. I could feel myself growing weaker.
“You’re fading!” Anya’s voice warned. “Dying.”
Her voice. Her being. She was reaching across a universe of spacetime to try to save me, to try to bring me back from final death. She loved me that much. Enough to defy Aten and the other Creators. Enough to risk her own existence in an effort to save me.
I would not let her strive in vain. “I love you, Anya,” I called across the light-years. “I will never stop loving you.”
The vision of her, her courage, her loveliness, her love for me, brought new strength to my resolve. I could feel energy sharpening my consciousness, as if the streams of spacetime were flowing into me. I became a nexus, a protostar, pulling in energy and matter, growing, gaining strength.
“You’re doing it!” Anya called from far away. “You’re succeeding!”
Orion the hunter, I thought. Orion the warrior. All those abilities that Aten had built into me, all those powers of stamina and tenacity I used now to bring myself back from the oblivion into which he had thrown me.
I am not a toy, not a puppet to be tossed aside when it no longer pleases its master. I am Orion, and I live to do as I will, as I must. I live to find Anya and be with her for eternity.
I blinked my eyes and found myself in the stable at castle Bernicia, alive and whole. I laughed aloud and actually savored the stinks and snores that surrounded me. I was alive, and it felt sweet to be so.
6
“Where have you been, Orion?” Arthur demanded.
He looked more worried than angry. I had risen with the dawn and washed in nearly frozen water at the horse trough in the castle courtyard. Arthur, Bors, and Gawain came out of the tower where they had slept as I finished donning my tunic.
Bors’ left arm was cradled in a rude sling. He limped noticeably. Gawain’s head was wrapped in a bloodstained bandage.
“Orion’s been wenching, I’ll wager,” Gawain said. His usual bright smile was gone. He seemed to wince at the sunlight, as if his head ached terribly.
“When you should be here, with your master,” snarled the wounded Bors.
Before I could reply, Arthur said tiredly, “Orion, as my squire you must be at my call always. If you want to go away for a day or two, you must ask me first.”
I had been missing for three days, they told me. That surprised me a little, but I was truly shocked to see how battered Bors and Gawain were.
Arthur seemed more relieved to see me again than angry that I had disappeared. He didn’t really want an explanation; he wanted to make certain that I wouldn’t disappear again unless I first asked his leave. Worse, though, he seemed tired, dispirited, exhausted as though he hadn’t slept for days.
I apologized profusely, then asked, “My lord, are you ill? You seem … not well.”
Arthur shook his head wearily. “How could I be, with all that’s happened these past three dismal days.”
“Witchcraft,” Bors muttered darkly. “There’s evil afoot in this castle.”
“Is that what happened to you, Sir Bors?” I asked. “And to you, Sir Gawain?”
“No,” said Arthur. “What you see is the devilish handiwork of King Ogier.”
I gaped at the two wounded knights. “The Dane did this to you?”
Bors gave me a look that would have curdled cream. Gawain looked downright embarrassed.
Arthur explained, “I’ve been trying to find a way to get Ogier to join us. I invited him to become an ally of the High King. I told him that Ambrosius would support him in battles against the Scots and Picts.”
Ogier had laughed in Arthur’s face, he told me, and declared that he had no need of help from Ambrosius or anyone else. He intended to bring his own Danes from across the sea and march south to take as much of Britain as he wished.
Arthur had patiently explained that such a move would make them enemies, forcing his knights to go to war against the invading Danish army.
“We have beaten every foe we have faced, from the Saxons in the south to the Picts and Scots here north of the Wall,” Arthur had told him. “We will defeat your Danes, as well.”
“Conquer my Danes!” Ogier roared with laughter and offered a challenge to Arthur.
“Pick three of your finest, strongest knights. Old man that I am, I will fight them, I myself. If any one of them bests me, I will leave this land and return to Denmark forever.”
Arthur immediately accepted the challenge himself, but Ogier declined to fight him.
“Nay, you are too young, little more than a callow youth. Pick three of your best knights. I will fight each of them. After I have defeated them, if you still dare to accept my challenge, then I will fight you—and your enchanted sword. It won’t protect you against me,” Ogier boasted.
So it was agreed: King Ogier the Dane would face three of Arthur’s finest knights, on foot in the castle courtyard. If he defeated all three of them, then Arthur would face the Dane.
Sir Bors had been the first, and tough old Ogier had drubbed him thoroughly. After he was helped off the field of contest, Bors complained of feeling slow, weary, as if sick.
“You certainly looked it,” Gawain had quipped as he helped carry the bleeding Bors.
It was Gawain’s turn next. The next morning they met in the courtyard again. Gawain looked pale, unsure of himself.
“In a lesser man I would have thought he was frightened,” Arthur said as we climbed the tower stairs to the room Morganna had given to young Lancelot.
“I wasn’t frightened,” Gawain maintained stoutly. “I felt sick. Weak. Feverish, almost.”
Still, Gawain had put on his helmet and gone out to meet Ogier, sword in hand. The Dane, swift and powerful as a man half his years, cracked Gawain’s head so hard that Arthur thought he would die.
“Not so,” said Gawain as we entered Lancelot’s room. “My skull’s too thick, even for Ogier’s great strength.”
Lancelot was Arthur’s last hope. If the challenge of facing Ogier worried the youngster, he didn’t show it as he dressed for the contest.
“I won’t fail you, Arthur,” Lancelot said, smiling eagerly. He actually seemed to be looking forward to the fight as he draped his chain mail over his tunic.
His shield with the golden eagle emblem rested by the table in the center of the room. Atop the table lay Lancelot’s sword and his helmet, a steel cylinder that covered the entire head, padded along its bottom rim where it rested on his shoulders.
“How do you feel?” Arthur asked.
Lancelot tried to smile, but
it was shaky. “Butterflies in my stomach,” he said lightly.
Arthur frowned worriedly. “Both Gawain and Bors felt sick when they faced Ogier.”
“Witchcraft,” Bors muttered again. “I tell you the witch has put a spell on us all.”
Arthur did not contradict him. “I haven’t felt all that well myself these past few days,” he admitted.
Lancelot took a deep breath. “I feel good enough to face the Dane,” he said. Yet I thought that some of his usual vigor and enthusiasm was lacking.
I went to the window and looked down at the courtyard. Ogier was already there, bareheaded, taking practice swings with a mighty broadsword.
Someone knocked at the door. I hurried to open it.
Morganna stood there, midnight-dark hair tumbling past her shoulders, a warm disarming smile on her lustrous lips. She bore a silver tray of apples and roasted chestnuts in her hands.
If she was surprised to see that I still lived, she gave no sign of it. Stepping past me as if I didn’t really exist, she carried the laden tray straight to Arthur.
“To show that I bear no ill will toward you, Arthur,” she said sweetly, handing him the tray.
He had been totally infatuated with her, a year earlier. It was clear to see that she still held a powerful attraction for him.
Arthur had to swallow before he could find his voice. “Thank you, Morganna.”
She looked up at him. “I’m sorry that it’s come to this, Arthur. Once my husband bests your boy, there, you’ll have to face him yourself. He might kill you, Arthur.”
“That’s in God’s hands, Morganna,” said Arthur quietly.
“Is it?” she replied.
Gawain chuckled. “Suppose Ogier gets himself killed, my lady? Then you’d be a widow.”
She looked at Gawain the way a snake looks at a baby rabbit. “Would you come to console me, then?”
“Aye, that I would,” said Gawain, reaching for one of the shining apples on the tray. He crunched into it with his strong white teeth. “I would indeed.”
Morganna smiled at him. “Very well then. Should I be forced to put on a widow’s black weeds, you may come to beguile me of my grief.”
With that she turned and swept out of the room, leaving Arthur holding the tray of fruit and Gawain munching thoughtfully on the apple.
Lancelot picked up one of the apples. “A bite or two might help calm my stomach,” he said.
Bors stared hard at the closed door. “Witch,” he growled. “She put a spell on me. On us all.”
“No,” said Arthur, putting the fruit tray on the table. “But she might win Gawain’s heart.”
Gawain said, “It’s not my heart that—”
He stopped, his face going pale. His legs buckled. I raced to him and caught him before he collapsed to the floor.
“I’m … sick…,” Gawain moaned.
Lancelot suddenly clutched at his stomach and lurched toward the window. He made it only as far as the corner of the bed, then collapsed and puked up his guts onto the floor.
“The apples!” said Arthur. “They’re poisoned.”
Without an instant’s hesitation I pried Gawain’s mouth open and stuck two fingers down his throat. He gagged, then retched. It was a mess, but it probably saved his life. The remains of the apple came up, together with the breakfast Gawain had gobbled earlier.
We laid the two of them side by side on Lancelot’s bed while his squire ran for a maid or two to clean up the vomit.
Gawain groaned, but the color came back to his face. “The witch … poisoned me.”
“It was meant for me,” Arthur said. “She still hates me, despite her smiles.”
Lancelot was unconscious, pale as death.
“Lancelot’s in no shape to fight Ogier,” Bors said. “And if he doesn’t show up, the Dane will claim a forfeit.”
“Then he’ll demand to face me,” Arthur said. He, too, looked pale, unwell.
I knew what was racing through Arthur’s mind: If Ogier wins his challenge he will bring his army of Danes to Bernicia. From there they will invade southward, bringing a whole new flood of enemies to spread fire and death across Britain.
But I saw a different scene. Morganna had been subtly poisoning the knights’ food for days now. Bors and Gawain had both been too ill to fight well. Morganna’s poisoned apples were meant to make certain that Lancelot could not even make it to the field of contest. Arthur would be forced to fight Ogier and the Dane was going to kill him. Morganna/Aphrodite had hatched this scheme to assassinate Arthur.
I looked into Arthur’s eyes. “I’ll go in Lancelot’s place, my lord.”
“You?” Bors snapped. “You’re only a squire. That Dane out there will cleave you in half.”
“I can fight him,” I insisted. “In Lancelot’s armor, so no one will know that Lancelot didn’t show up.”
“It would never work,” Bors grumbled.
But Arthur said, “Can you best Ogier, do you think?”
I realized that Morganna had given the old Dane more than an extended life span. Aphrodite and Aten must have enhanced his body, augmented his muscular strength, amplified his reflexes. I recalled fighting for Odysseos before the walls of Epeiros, a thousand years before Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire. I faced Aten himself, in mortal guise, swifter and stronger than any mere human could be. The best I could do was a draw: we killed each other.
“I will beat him, my lord,” I said firmly. Then I had to add, “Or die trying.”
Arthur nodded, his mouth a grim tight line. “No one could ask you to do more.”
So I put on Lancelot’s coat of chain mail. It was a bit short for me, but we hoped no one would notice. I hefted his heavy shield with the golden eagle painted on it.
“I’ll give you Excalibur…” Arthur began.
“No need, my lord,” I said as Lancelot’s squire buckled his sword around my waist. “Excalibur is meant for you alone.”
We left Lancelot and Gawain in the tower room with their squires. Arthur commanded the youngsters to open the door to no one except himself. Down the long spiral of stone stairs we went, until we reached the ground level. Then I pulled Lancelot’s helmet over my head. It covered my face completely. The world shrank to what I could see through the narrow eye slit in the steel helm.
Ogier stood waiting at the far end of the courtyard, tall, his shoulders as wide as two axe handles, twirling a two-handed broadsword in his right hand as if it were a toy. The courtyard was thronged with people who had come to watch the match, buzzing and chattering with excitement. Only the center of the packed-earth courtyard was open for our contest. Almost everyone in the castle must have been there—except, I noticed, for the men-at-arms stationed on the rooftops, armed with stout bows.
Morganna stood beside her husband. Even through the narrow eye slits of the helmet I could see that she was surprised that Lancelot had made it down to the courtyard. She stared hard at me, her incredibly beautiful face twisted into a puzzled frown.
Ogier wore a long coat of chain mail over his tunic, as did I. A squire stood beside him holding his long shield; it bore the emblem of a stag, in black. Its tapered bottom end rested on the dirt, its square top reached to the lad’s eyes. Ogier handed his sword to another squire, and took his helmet from a third. The helmet bore steel prongs, like a stag’s antlers, and a gold circlet of a crown affixed to it. Ogier would do battle with a king’s crown on his head—or at least, on his helmet.
“He is very fast and very strong,” Arthur warned me. “Be on your guard.”
I nodded inside my helmet. “Wish me luck, my lord.”
“May the gods be with you,” Arthur said, lapsing back to his Roman heritage. Probably he unconsciously thought that the Christian God was too meek to be of help in battle.
I stepped out into the open space as the crowd hushed expectantly. Ogier’s helmet covered his cheeks and had a flat piece between the eyes to protect his nose. The bottom half of his face wa
s uncovered; his snow-white beard fell halfway down his chest.
“So, lad, you, too, have come to feel the bite of my blade,” he said in a loud, strong voice.
I said nothing as I advanced slowly, warily toward him.
“Come then,” Ogier said cheerfully. “Let us see who is the better man.”
My senses went into overdrive again. Everything around me slowed down, as if time itself was stretching out into a languid, sluggish flow. A good thing, too, for Ogier was every bit as swift as a lightning bolt.
He swung a mighty overhand blow, meant to cleave my skull, helmet and all. I jumped backward and his swing cut empty air, instead. Without an instant’s pause he swung backhand at me, advancing swiftly as I backed away.
“Stand and fight,” he growled. “This isn’t a dancing contest.”
I was content to dance, at least until I could gauge the speed of his reflexes. I circled around the courtyard, Ogier pursuing me, as the crowd shifted and melted away from us. For several minutes the only sounds were the hissing swishes of his blade cutting through the air and the crowd’s gasps as I backpedaled lithely. Not once did our swords clash.
He showed no signs of slowing, only a growing impatience with my retreating tactic.
“Coward!” he snapped. “Face me like a man, you spineless cur.”
I had no intention of walking into that buzz saw he was wielding. Not until I was ready.
Around the courtyard we went, Ogier charging and me retreating. I nearly stumbled once, when I got close to where Morganna was standing. Did she somehow trip me? I couldn’t tell. But I could see Arthur’s face as he watched the match. He looked aghast, ashamed of what I was doing. Better to wade in manfully and be chopped to bloody bits, in his eyes, than to appear to be afraid of your enemy.
Ogier showed no sign of slowing down or becoming winded. If anything, he pursued me harder, swinging his blade so fast it was a blur against the clear blue sky even to my hypersensitized eyes.
After three times around the courtyard I thought I had his swing timed well enough. I suddenly stopped my retreat, and lunged toward Ogier, raising my shield to take his thrust while I swung at his midsection.
