"Good to hear from you, sir," he said. Uther noted the hidden sarcasm. "I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to come back and forge your great kingdom you fought so valiantly for."
"Yes, but Merlin, can this process be reversed? It must be done the moment I land."
A small smile played the corners of Merlin's mouth. "Of course, sir. It will take time to heal though. But," he went on when Uther growled in frustration, "if you were willing to have more Avalonian grafted to you, then the healing process would speed up significantly."
"Aren't I already enough Avalonian?" he asked. "But I suppose you're right. Hurry with the preparations, I've taken a faster ship this time. Oh, and Merlin? Send a platoon out to find Lot and Morgause. I don't trust them."
Merlin nodded. "Sir, I trust no one right now."
***
Igrain gazed at her naked form in her wall of mirrors. She felt ill and didn't know why. For days, Galois had made her play the role of pretty house-wife. He had watched her brush her long hair, had caressed her skin more than he ever had before, and had demanded sex every night. She had the marks on her body to prove that. One arm had small bruises on it, tiny bite marks checkered her entire body, and she had been too sore to work in the obstacle courses all week. And now she felt ill.
She turned sideways and rubbed her bare stomach. Vomiting sounded greatly appealing at the moment.
She shoved her head in a flower pot, tossing the rare Moon Lilith from its home near her bed, the breakfast she hadn’t even eaten seemed to be pouring from her mouth. The petals were known for spinning like a wind mill on their stalks but were very delicate. Now they were peppering the floor like glittering snow. Moaning, she apologized to the beautiful plant and sat on the floor, hunched up against the illness.
Cold hands slowly grasped her shoulders and she shrieked. Spinning around, she grasped for a blanket to cover herself.
"Mab?" she gasped at her intruder. "What are you doing here? What do you want?" Her eyes searched in vane for her pistols.
"Be calm, Igrain," Mab cooed. "I am not here to harm you."
"Sure," Igrain hissed. She ran past Mab towards the door only to find it locked. She quickly began to dial her password.
"I have news of your husband," Mab said softly.
Igrain stopped and looked over her shoulder at Mab. "He's gone to Camelot to see Uther. He'll be back any moment and he will not welcome you kindly. We may not have agreed with Uther, but that does not make you our friend."
"I know." She hung her head. She wore a white suit that entirely encompassed her alien body and a purple robe over it, hanging limp on her frame. She had taken her hair down from its severe ponytail. She did look a little defeated. "I was more Vortigern's slave than anything else. I know you will not see us D.R.U.I.Ds that way."
Igrain put her back to her door. "I will not start a campaign on your behalf, if that is what you want. I will not be a freedom fighter for you. You D.R.U.I.Ds are treated as you should be."
Mab shook her head. "That is not why I am here." Suddenly, she seemed far less melancholy and something of a viper appeared in her presence. "I said I bring you news of your husband."
Igrain tensed her body to prepare for action should she need to defend herself from the alien android. "Go on, then. What can you tell me that I do not know?"
Mab's teeth were evil as she smiled. "I am sorry, Igrain, brave soldier. Woman warrior! Your husband is dead."
Her breath caught in her mouth and then heaved out as she tried to speak. "What? He was well just hours ago. How do you know this?"
She broke from the wall and dashed to her master control dock. Flicking the screens into a third dimensional display above, she tried to access Galois's data from some piece of technology that she should have had with him. His wrist navigator: disabled. His ear piece: disabled. His com-unit: disabled.
"What is this?" she screamed frantically. "He was well just moments ago!"
Mab sauntered up behind her, again putting her hand on her shoulder. "I am so sorry, Igrain. I wish I didn't have to tell you."
Igrain spun, slapping Mab's hand away. "How did you find out? What do you know? Was it Vortigern?"
Mab smirked and laughed at some secret Igrain knew she wouldn't divulge. "You forget, Vortigern died days ago. Must have been someone who hates Galois enough to kill him. Maybe someone who wants his lands? Or... his daughter?"
Quickly bringing up a call line, Igrain rang to the hanger. "Yes, ma'am?" the engineer said.
"Where is Morgause? Where is my daughter?"
"She and Commander Lot left hours ago for Camelot. Said they were going to check on the military troops down there."
Panting, Igrain shut off the transmission. "Do you think it was Lot?" She had doubt written on her face, but a hint of wonder too. "I didn't agree with Lot's politics, but this can't be true."
"Lot?" Mab laughed suddenly. "No doubt, Igrain. It was him."
A sudden sob broke from Igrain. Mab watched as she shook, panted and then lost all composure and sank to the floor weeping.
"My husband," she cried. "Too many years we slept side-by-side."
Minutes passed and Mab realized that Igrain had not heard her. Perhaps who had killed Galois wasn't important any more. He was just dead.
"Might I suggest an alternative to this rapturous weeping?" she offered kindly. "Go to Camelot, see your daughter, and speak to her. Then," she smiled widely but kept it out of her voice. "Then go to your husband's friend and find comfort in him. Tell him that you forgive him."
"I cannot go to Camelot," Igrain whispered.
Mab squatted down next to Igrain. "I must convince you. We Avalonians have power in our DNA. I can help you ease the pain."
She shook her head. "I must weep. What will become of us on this planet if this civil war is our life now?”
"You are strong, Igrain!" Mab seized her shoulders again. "Look into my face. I will dull the pain."
Before Igrain could refuse, Mab lunged in like a striking snake and pressed a sharp vile to Igrain's neck, holding her head still so she could not pull away. Horror and fear gripped her as the D.R.U.I.Ds essence flowed deep into her veins. They were frozen thus for a few more paralyzing moments. When Mab pulled back, her smile became more lax.
"You will be relaxed," she cooed. "You will go to Camelot and see Uther and when he asks you a question, you will say yes." She kissed Igrain’s forehead and touched her belly lightly.
12
To Be King
The world outside the healing tube shimmered in color, but to Uther, from the inside, the whole world distorted into a stark, bubbly pink. This would no doubt stain his skin for days, but it was necessary. Merlin had done more than his word and had had Uther back into the D.R.U.I.D's hospital for the procedure immediately. He had once again been cut and grafted with grown skin and injected with Avalonian DNA to dull the pain and speed his healing. He didn't feel ill this time around, which he counted as improvement. Now he just had to wait.
He enjoyed the floating sensation and drifted into something more than relaxed when a duet of guards entered to announce that Igrain had arrived on planet, but that Merlin had detained her for a few hours. Uther felt horrified more than glad to hear it, but not total despair as he already changed his body back. She would never know what he had done. The Avalon medicine proved to be magic.
He allowed Merlin to fetch her even though he floated in this naked, healing state. When she came in, he smiled past his oxygen mask and saw that she had been weeping most piteously. She approached slowly, taking in his mangled features and seeing how he healed in the strange Avalonian substance. He waved his hand limply at her through the clear container.
“Do you know why I have come?” Igrain stood, her arms lax and her face nearly expressionless. “Not five hours ago, I was informed that my husband, your friend, is dead.”
A terrible liar, he thanked the cover of the instruments around him that hid any sign of his contriving an a
nswer. So, he simply said, “I heard the news. I am sorry, Igrain.”
Merlin appeared behind Igrain, a white, robed figure, hands clasped elegantly in front of him.
“You may exit the tube in a few more hours, Uther,” he said. “You are nearly healed.”
A moment of silence trickled between them as the machines hummed in the darkness and the pink cast by the healing tube tinted everything a healthy rose color. They all seemed to be waiting, but Uther didn’t know what for.
“Where are Lot and Morgause?” he asked in the silence. He didn’t have to make his voice weak, the exhaustion from the surgery could not be feigned.
“My family is sundering,” she replied. “My husband did not wish me to be a soldier in the end. He said I should be a wife. A woman of beauty.” She grimaced in confusion. “I don’t understand that. I am what I am and he loved me before. Did he die not loving me? Wishing I would change?”
Uther ordered Merlin to take Igrain to a quiet waiting room until he finished healing. Then he had a hover transport prepared to take them out once ready. To his pleasure, Igrain didn’t argue and let herself be led to the pod bay doors and boarded the craft without question. In a moment, Uther was there with her, white in medical garb with his hair clean and long down his back.
“I want to show you,” he said.
She almost gasped, but held her tongue when she saw Uther’s scars. He looked almost as though he had been cut and then pasted back together.
“Did the battle do this to you?” she whispered.
For a brief moment, he wanted to tell her that it had been Galois during their battle. That statement would either cause her despair or make her realize just how in the wrong her husband had been. She saw him hesitate. He didn’t how to play it.
“It was Vortigern,” he said quickly. “But that is what I want to show you. I want you to see what I was fighting for.”
He saw her tense up in her seat as they shot out from the bay and over the grassy lands of uncolonized Camelot. The sun began to set over the mountains, giving everything a surreal and glowing look.
“Our evenings on Camelot are nothing compared to your nights on Lothian, but the setting sun is a master painter until then.”
She looked out the window listlessly then shook her head. “You’re talking to me about sunsets. Uther, Galois is dead.”
Now he felt trapped. He wanted to show her his Camelot. His planet that his father had chosen for them all to live on, discovered by his ancestors before them. Perhaps showing concern would be a better action though? That seemed like the direction to go.
“I am sorry, Igrain, truly.” For a moment, he actually felt it. A tiny hand of sorrow gripped at his heart. Had he killed Galois? The frightened face of his comrade flashed in his mind. “I’m taking you to Vortigern’s keep to show you what he had done.”
She clearly had no interest, but Uther was convinced this would be the way to earn her favor for himself as himself. He couldn’t be Galois forever if he wanted Camelot. He remained silent until they sped past the stone circle of the D.R.U.I.Ds.
“That machine is divine,” he pointed to it and her eyes followed. “It is the only way the D.R.U.I.Ds can communicate with Avalon, their home planet. No one knows where it is in the universe because it is so well hidden.”
“So, the Avalonians we took and turned into androids cannot go home?” Her face showed no joy in the wonders he had delighted in.
“No, they’re not purely androids,” he defended. “They’re alive and breathing and they bleed. They just have enhancements. Made by their own people too.”
She kept her eyes forward. “I know of it. I was wounded once and the D.R.U.I.D medical bay was the only one available. I have some of Avalon in me. As does Morgause.”
This gave Uther pause. “Did you give birth to Morgause?”
A procedure had been adapted many years ago, before the setting sale of the Constantine that enabled women and men to create a child with very special specifications and to have it grown in an imitation womb while they traveled in space. The adding of Avalonian DNA to these embryos had been proposed to many war councils to create a special, genetic soldier. With the ability to heal and communicate with computers through their minds, the human coveted the Avalonian DNA. Naturally, this idea had been dismissed as unnatural by every war council.
“I did not carry her, but she is my child,” Igrain said. “I was a soldier; I didn’t have the time to carry a child. Galois was rather against it, but he soon saw sense. She was our opportunity to have children and have one that could quickly join us.”
“She is genetically altered?” He tried not to condemn her. After all, he had had the exact same thoughts. But the mixing of growing human eggs and Avalonian DNA had even been outside of his father’s dreams. Let the alien stay alien, he had said.
“We wanted a child with us during our battles. She is young still. The DNA allows her to be as strong as a grown woman.”
“Can she…” he felt strange asking this question, but the curiosity deadened his sense of decorum. “Can she communicate with them? Is she part of Avalon?”
“I don’t know the extent of her heritage.” She breathed in deeply to calm herself. “Sometimes I have dreams of Avalon when she does. It is her unconscious mind linking to my genes and sharing her dreams with me. Almost like Avalon calls to her. She is… sometimes very alien to me.”
They were stopped outside of Vortigern’s once tall, white walls now. Taking her hand, Uther led her up onto the small observation dock on top of the transport. She gazed analytically out at the rubble that she didn’t know had buried her husband.
“They say someone supporting Vortigern had killed my husband. I cannot know.”
Below, D.R.U.I.Ds were salvaging in the rubble for anything that could be fixed or sold to another settlement.
Uther scanned the rubble and tried his best to sound brave and sorrowful at the same time. “Vortigern tried to kill Galois here. Vortigiern attacked me and we were engaged in combat when Galois appeared.” He had to think how to spin the story. Galois had come home to Igrain. Perhaps he had dug himself too deep into a trench.
Igrain only partly listened. She relived the last days she had had with a man she thought was her husband. All the memories were false. She could never know.
“Galois was a hero, Igrain,” Uther said. Somewhere inside, he actually believed that. “He was brave here, spoke his truth. Of course, someone wanted him gone.”
She still said nothing. She blinked and some kind of light turned on behind her eyes. Finally, Uther spoke his thoughts. “I’m going to proclaim myself king of Camelot,” he said bluntly. “We’ve hardly settled here and government is needed.”
“So, make a government, not a monarchy,” Igrain said. She masked her anger at his idea.
“Just to get us started,” he corrected quickly. “However long it takes.”
“And how long do you want to be king?” Her voice rose as she spoke. “Will you distill the Avalon substance and live for a thousand years?”
“If I must. Igrain, this planet must survive.”
“We’ve already lived longer than any human ever has. Can’t we just die in peace and leave this to someone else?”
“I want to see this through. For my father. For Constans. Galois wanted it too.” He prayed he had not overstepped his bounds. She didn’t react though.
Below, a sleek green space craft had landed and strange beings were disembarking. At first, they looked totally foreign, but then Uther recognized them as the race of Listenoise. They were tall and moved like swaying trees with smooth green skin and their long vine-like hair blew in the light breeze. The one in front wore an elaborate head dress and dark glass over his large eyes to protect from the sun. It was King Pellinore.
“Well met, Uther,” he said in his deep, sighing voice. “You have come out to see the damage. Thrown out my offer of aid, have you?”
“No, good king,” Uther said quickly.
“Forgotten perhaps.” His face blushed with stupid embarrassment.
“As is the human way,” Pellinore said. “This man directed me to you, he has.” He waved a long-nailed hand to a human soldier behind him. A grunt in a white uni-suit with a couple of pistols strapped to his thighs. “Ector he spoke his name to be. A very good man, I think. With child is his wife. A good father he shall be. Generous his farm.” The king stopped, losing his English words and frowned, shaking his head.
Pellinore waved Uther and Igrain down and they complied quickly with the alien’s order. “I desire to council you, young Pendragon,” he said. “Though we are not of the same kind, I see that you are weak and unwise in many things. Would you accept my council?”
Uther chanced a glance at Igrain before he spoke. Her eyes were still glazed over as she watched the work on the crumbled city. He knew that if he wanted her by his side as he took a throne that still needed constructing, then he should at least accept help when offered. It seemed like the kind of thing Galois would have done.
“Of course! I’ll inform my admin, my head D.R.U.I.D, of your presence on Camelot. Ector,” he addressed the young soldier at Pellinore’s side. “On what ship did you come to Camelot on?”
Without hesitation, brave Ector said, “On Vortigern’s, sir, but I can only hope you understand that not all of us who were here when you attacked were in his favor or among his troops. Some of us were forced.”
“No need for an apology, Ector. But I would be glad to have someone like you—someone who has seen the work here—be by my side as I try to…” he fought for less aggressive words. “As I try to bring government and order to Camelot.”
Ector nodded humbly and returned to giving orders to what was left of Vortigern’s army.
“And your D.R.U.I.D is where?” Pellinore asked as they slowly made their way through the wreckage. “I admire the fealty he bears to you, Uther. Mysterious it is and intriguing.”
“They are designed that way,” he replied. “I must admit though, for now, I’m not sure where to begin.”
A New Home: A Sci-Fi Arthurian Retelling (The Camelot Project Book 1) Page 10
