by Ben Bova
“Modred would get a dozen witnesses to testify.”
“Your loving son.”
“I’m trying to save your life, Guinevere!”
“Why? Because you love me?” Before Arthur could reply she answered her own question. “No. It’s to save your throne, isn’t it? To save your precious kingdom. To save yourself from looking like a cuckolded fool! That’s why I’m locked away in this barren confinement.”
For long moments Arthur did not reply. Lancelot stood mute also. Guinevere glared at them both, a mere woman standing before the High King and his bravest warrior, contempt etching hard lines on her face.
At last Arthur said, “I’m taking my host north, to find Modred and do battle against him before he can organize a real army.”
Guinevere’s lips curled into a sneer. “He’s already organized an army. He’s waiting for you, up by the Wall, near his mother’s domain.”
“How do you know this?” Arthur demanded.
“Because Modred has been here to see me,” she said, with triumph in her voice. “Because he has told me that once you are dead, he will marry the Queen of the Britons and rule this land.”
Arthur looked stunned. Lancelot shook his head and I could fairly hear what he was telling himself: To think that I loved this woman, that I thought she was the most desirable woman in the realm. What a romantic young fool I was!
And then, as if from a vast distance, in my mind I heard the scornful laughter of Aten, the Golden One. “What do you think of your Arthur now, creature?” he jeered at me. “He is already destroyed. Everything he tried to achieve has been turned to dust and ashes. He will die an ignominious death, and soon, Orion, very soon. Nothing remains but to dispose of his body.”
5
We were three silent, saddened men as we left the convent. For hours neither Arthur nor Lancelot said a word. At last we descended from the jagged rocks and our horses trotted onto a broad, grassy meadow. A stream gurgled nearby, clear and inviting.
“Deer will come for their evening watering,” I said, trying to sound hopeful, hearty. “We can eat venison this night.”
Arthur said, “The deer will stay in the forest, Orion. You know that.”
“Rabbits, then,” I said.
“Squirrels, more likely,” said Lancelot.
We made camp within sight of the stream, and as the sun went down I bagged a brace of plump rabbits, hitting them with stones when they approached the water. If either Arthur or Lancelot noticed my prowess as a hunter, neither of them mentioned it as we gnawed at the half-raw meat by our meager campfire.
“Tomorrow we’ll rejoin my forces on their way north,” Arthur muttered, more as if he were talking to himself than us.
“I must return to Brittany, sire,” said Lancelot.
Even in the flickering shadows of evening I could see the disappointment on Arthur’s face. “You won’t come with me to face Modred?”
Lancelot shook his head sadly. In a tortured voice he replied, “I’ve had enough of killing, sire. Gawain … he was my friend! I never want to fight again.”
I knew how he felt. Even though my Creator had built me to be a warrior, a killer, the terrified look on the face of that young Saxon lad at Tintagel had sapped the bloodlust out of me.
“If what Guinevere told us is true,” Arthur said slowly, “then Modred already has an army waiting for us. He can choose the place of battle to suit himself.”
“I suppose so,” Lancelot agreed, in a voice so low I could barely hear him.
Arthur said, “I could use you, sir knight. Your presence at my side would be worth a hundred valiant warriors.”
Lancelot shook his head once again. “It cannot be, sire. I just don’t have it in me. All I want is to return to my castle in Brittany and try to build a new life with my bride.”
Arthur sighed, but said nothing.
The next morning I followed Arthur as he made his way back to his army. Lancelot said a brief farewell and turned his horse eastward, toward the sea.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Lady of the Lake
1
The days grew shorter, the nights colder, as we made our way northward. To the untrained eye we made a considerable sight, an army of knights and squires mounted on fine steeds, followed by wagon after wagon of provisions and arms, with workmen and camp followers trudging along after us. Our host stretched along the roads for miles, so huge that Arthur split us into three separate columns so that the horses and mules could find enough fodder to munch on.
But to me, our host looked like an army trudging unwillingly toward defeat. From Arthur, riding beneath his red dragon pennants, on down to the lowliest churl, the morale of the army was dwindling. Men disappeared every night, deserters slinking away from the coming battle. Reports came from the north that Modred’s host was huge, and growing stronger every day. Arthur’s army was melting away. Youngsters no longer sought to join us. Instead, the army was shrinking: slowly at first, but each morning there were fewer of us.
It was as if the entire army was gripped with despair, and already knew that fighting against Modred and his forces would be futile—and fatal.
One night, as we huddled by our campfires, I heard a couple of knights whispering, “If Sir Lancelot has abandoned the High King, why should we stay with him? Better to go back home while we still have our whole skins.”
Gawain’s death and Lancelot’s departure had been bitter blows to Arthur, who now seemed to be going through the motions of preparing for combat without hope of victory. It was as if his will to win—his will to live—had been sapped out of his soul.
I stayed at Arthur’s side as we traveled along the straight old Roman road heading north, toward Hadrian’s Wall. Guinevere had said that Modred was waiting for Arthur there, close by the land of Bernicia, which his mother, Morganna, still ruled. Morganna, who I knew was the Creator who styled herself Aphrodite. How many of the Creators would engage in the coming battle? I wondered.
I decided to try to find out.
That night, as a cold rain turned our camp into a miserable muddy swamp, I left my sleeping blankets on a stretch of slimy wet rocks and walked off beyond the edges of our picket fires, into the dark and rain-soaked forest.
Anya, I called mentally with all the strength in me, Anya, help me. Show me what Arthur is facing. Let me see the reality of the coming battle.
For long hours I tried to make contact with the goddess who I loved. The pelting rain slackened and finally stopped. The clouds broke apart, and through the black limbs of the trees I could see a crescent moon gazing lopsidedly down on the soaked forest. Humans would walk on that dusty, barren world, I knew. They would build cities beneath its battered surface and go outward, across the solar system and to the stars.
But would that timeline actually come to pass? Or was it foredoomed by my failure to save Arthur?
Of all the Creators, only Anya would deem to help me, I knew. The others played their mad power games, driving the human race to blood and war to satisfy their own overweening egos.
“How little you understand, creature.”
I whirled and beheld Aten, the Golden One, standing before me, resplendent in a skintight uniform of glittering metallic fabric, glowing like the sun in the darkness of the dripping, chill forest.
He was smirking at me. “My mad power game, as you put it, will determine the fate of the human race. I am working to save them, pitiful half apes though they are.”
“They are your ancestors,” I countered. “If they die off, you will be snuffed out of existence.”
His sneer diminished, replaced by a more sober expression. “Which is why I won’t allow them to be driven into extinction, Orion.”
“And Arthur’s coming battle? That is part of your plan?”
Now his face became stern, severe. “Arthur would have died long ago if it hadn’t been for you and your silly notion of defying me. As it is, all you’ve done is made his death more bitter. His own son
will slay him, at Camlann.”
“Not while I live,” I said.
“You’re a fool, Orion. The next time I make a creature to serve me, I’ll have to build more intelligence into his feeble brain.”
And with that, Aten disappeared, like a light winking out. I was alone once more in the dank, dark, cold forest.
But not entirely alone. I felt a presence, a pale tendril of another person, glinting weakly, just on the edge of my perception.
“Anya!” I called.
A pale silvery glow appeared before me, like a patch of moonlight in the darkness. It shimmered and took on a faint, flickering shape.
Anya.
She was as insubstantial as a phantom, as fragile as a snowflake, but it was her. My love. She wore a graceful robe of pure white with a garland of flowers crowning her flowing, onyx-black hair. The Lady of the Lake.
“Orion,” she whispered, in a voice so weak I could barely hear her. “Orion, I thought I would never see you again. Aten has decided—”
“I know what Aten wants,” I said. “Where are you? I can barely see you, hardly hear your voice.”
Her fathomless eyes were wide with wonder. “You’ve broken through the stasis that Aten has placed around your locus! You’ve reached across millions of light-years to contact me.”
“With your help, goddess.”
“No, Orion! I did nothing! You summoned me to you. By yourself, without help from me or any of the Creators. Despite Aten’s barrier, you broke through.”
“But only just barely. You seem as insubstantial as a specter.”
“So do you, my darling. But we’re in contact, in spite of Aten. And you did it by yourself. Your powers are growing!”
With all my soul I wanted to take her and myself away, back to the Paradise we had known long ages ago, when the paltry few humans on Earth lived in tribal hunting bands and the world was open and free of villages and farms and wars.
But that could not be, I knew. Not yet.
To Anya, I said, “Aten has schemed to destroy Arthur and all he stands for. Even now, Arthur is heading toward a battle against his own son, a battle he fears he cannot win.”
She nodded faintly. “Aphrodite has insinuated her poisonous thoughts into Arthur’s mind. Aten is using her powers to drain Arthur of his vigor, to bring him to defeat even before the battle begins.”
“How can I stop her?”
Anya’s image began to waver even more. Her voice became fainter still. “Aten has discovered your link with me!” she said, in a weak, fading sigh.
With all my strength I tried to hold on to Anya’s presence, but I could feel her slipping away.
“How can I stop Aphrodite?” I demanded.
“Accept what cannot be changed, Orion. Accept the inevitable.” She was fading away, dissolving before my despairing eyes.
“Anya, don’t leave me,” I pleaded.
“I will return to you, my love,” she called, her voice as faint as the distant whisper of a hunting owl’s wing.
And I was alone again in the night, surrounded by the dark boles of the trees, glistening wetly in the fading moonlight.
2
Aphrodite was helping Aten, sucking the fighting spirit out of Arthur’s mind like some psychic vampire. What could I do about it? How could I free Arthur of her mental thrall? Anya told me I must accept Arthur’s fate, but how could I? How could I allow Aten to snuff out this flickering candle of civilization and allow barbarian darkness to engulf Britain—and the whole world?
The morning rose bright and clear, but so cold that the grass was stiff with frost. The men creaked and groaned as they awoke and went through their morning pissing and complaining.
Once we were mounted and clopping along the paving stones of the old Roman road once again, I rode alongside Arthur.
Trying to sound cheerful, I asked him, “How do you feel this bright morning, sire?”
“Old, Orion,” he replied, downcast. “I feel old and weary.”
I forced a smile. “Let the sun soak into you. That will warm your bones.”
But Arthur shook his head. “Gawain, Bors, my foster father Ector, his son Kay … all gone. Dead. That’s what makes calamity of long life, Orion: all those you hold dear depart from you.”
“There are new friends,” I rejoined. “Young knights like Sir Percival, Lamorak—”
“Even Lancelot has left me,” Arthur muttered.
He was not going to allow himself to be consoled. Morganna/Aphrodite had somehow taken all the fighting spirit from his soul.
“I have dreams,” Arthur said, in a low, troubled voice. “Every night I dream of Morganna and the wicked lovemaking we indulged in. The sins of our youth, Orion. The sins of our youth.”
So that was how Aphrodite was destroying his courage. Using his feelings of guilt, amplifying his remorse about the past.
“She is truly a witch, sire. You were young and she took advantage of you, tempted you.”
“Aye, that she did. And I gave in willingly enough. If it hadn’t been for the Lady of the Lake I’d have been killed all those years ago.” He sighed heavily. “Maybe it would have been better that way.”
“No,” I snapped. “You’ve given Britain more than twenty years of peace.” Sweeping the colorful autumnal landscape with my extended arm, I urged him, “Look at the land around you, sire! The farmsteads are safe from barbarian raiders. The harvest has been rich and full. The people are happy, prosperous—”
“And we march to face my son in battle,” Arthur countered. “One of us will die on the day we meet.”
He seemed inconsolable, staring at a past he regretted, looking forward to a future he dreaded.
All that long, golden autumn day I pondered over how I might break Morganna/Aphrodite’s spell over Arthur. By the time we stopped for the night and made camp, I had decided what I must do. The question was, could I do it?
3
That evening, as we made camp at the side of the Roman road, I walked off and left the men unfurling their sleeping rolls on the cold grass. Churls and esnes were putting up the tents for the knights. Arthur’s was flanked by his red dragon pennants, but in the deathly calm night they hung limp and spiritless.
A noisy brawl suddenly erupted among the tents. I saw two of the squires tussling with each other in the flickering light of the campfires. Over a woman, I supposed. A trio of knights, swords drawn, quieted them down. I shook my head; discipline was falling apart, and Arthur was doing nothing to reinforce it.
More men would sneak off this night, I knew, deserting Arthur and the coming battle. I was leaving, too, but I intended to return.
Once far enough from the camp I looked up at the harvest moon, grinning lopsidedly at me as it rose full and bright above the wooded hills. I saw my namesake constellation of Orion climbing sideways over the horizon and thought of Anya, somewhere out there among the stars, kept from me by Aten’s barrier.
Very well, I thought. If she can’t come to me, I will go to her.
I willed myself to the timeless city of the Creators. The moon-bright night of Britain vanished and for a moment I was in total darkness and cryogenic cold. I could sense the geodesics of spacetime shifting, bending. To my will.
Abruptly, I was in the city of the Creators. Not on the flower-dotted hillside above the city, but inside the city itself, standing in its central square, surrounded by the immense monuments the Creators had built for themselves over the ages: the Parthenon stood before me, a giant golden recumbent Buddha smiled beneficently at me on my right, a steep Aztec pyramid rose on my left. Turning, I saw a massive granite sphinx staring sightlessly at me, with columns and temples stretching into the distance behind it.
I turned back to the Parthenon, and its matchless statue of Athena, armed with shield and spear.
“Anya,” I breathed. “Please come to me.”
“I am here, my love.” She appeared before me, again wearing the robe and flower garland of the Lady of the Lake. Her
fathomless gray eyes were solemn, her matchlessly beautiful face grave.
“We are all here, Orion,” came the haughty voice of the Golden One.
And indeed they were. All the Creators: cruelly beautiful Aphrodite, dark-bearded Zeus, Hades, looking almost amused, Ares with his shock of rust-red hair, his beefy arms folded belligerently across his chest, Hermes, Hera, all of them in flowing robes or skintight uniforms or even sculpted armor.
In his usual sneering manner, Aten said to me, “You grow tiresome, Orion, summoning us here. We do not cross the light-years of spacetime to please your whims, creature.”
“Yet you are here,” I said.
“For this one time,” said Aten. “For this one final time.”
Anya stepped to his side. “You mustn’t destroy him! After all the services he’s done for you—”
“He’s always been a nuisance. Now he’s becoming—”
“A threat?” I interrupted.
Aten glowered at me. “You’re going to die, Orion. And this time there will be no revival.”
“You’ve never revived me after death,” I said. “You build clone copies of me, fill their brains with the knowledge you want me to have, and send me out to die for you again.”
Zeus smiled tightly. “He’s learned quite a bit, Aten.”
“This time you die for good,” Aten said. Then, his voice rising to an enraged howl, “And I’ll destroy the clones, I’ll destroy all the cloning equipment, I’ll destroy the entire cloning facility!”
I made myself smile at him. “You can’t destroy me.” Hoping it was true, I added, “You can’t control me anymore, my Creator. I’ve grown too powerful for that.”
Aten’s face went white. I saw his eyes flick from me to Anya’s face, then back again.
But before he could say anything, Zeus asked me coldly, “What is it that you want, creature? Why have you summoned us away from our tasks across the multiverse?”
Sharp-eyed Hermes spoke up. “Every time you bend the spacetime geodesics you make the cosmos unravel more and we have to toil to repair the damage you’ve caused.”
