Fall of Knight Read online

  The pizza box being empty, Merlin bent it in half and shoved the container into the garbage can. Then he stared into the trash can and saw there a metaphor of himself.

  Shoved aside. Shoved away. Bastard.

  He knew that Arthur had not done it deliberately to hurt him. For that matter, what if Arthur had invited him to come along with them? What then? Arthur, Gwen, and Merlin, the fifth wheel, sailing around the Pacific on a yacht? The very notion was ludicrous. He had come to tolerate and even slightly respect Gwen after a fashion, although he still tended to blame her when it came to questions of Arthur’s not properly reaching his potential. Even so, the notion of being one-third of an uncomfortable threesome, always feeling that Arthur and Gwen were eyeing him and wondering what the hell he was doing there…repulsive. Repulsive and unworthy.

  Yet he felt abandoned.

  It angered him because it was such an irrational way to react. In the end, he knew, all of us are responsible for our own lives. We make our choices and we live with them. Arthur had chosen to walk away from his position as a potential world leader. He had chosen a life of quiet with Gwen over a life of activity with Merlin…

  Well, that was the rub of it, wasn’t it.

  It wasn’t just that Arthur had chosen Gwen. It was that he had left Merlin behind.

  “You’re acting like a child,” Merlin scolded himself in his childish voice.

  Suddenly there was a splashing in the direction of the bathroom. Perhaps a rat had fallen into the tub and was drowning; it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

  Merlin picked up a broom, prepared to bring it crashing down on the skull of the rodent; it wasn’t worth even the smallest expenditure of his magic. Striding into the bathroom, he started to bring the broom up over his head, then froze in position.

  Something was emerging from the water. There was a soft glowing dead center of the tub that was becoming brighter and brighter, then Merlin stepped back as slowly, majestically, the attractive blonde named Vivian who had come up to him at the Magic Shack rose up from the water like Venus on a clam shell, gloriously naked and covered only by strands of her long golden hair.

  She smiled at him teasingly. “Remember me?” she inquired.

  Merlin smacked her with the broom.

  Vivian jumped back, skidded, and landed heavily on the floor of the tub, sending water cascading everywhere. She sat up and sputtered, “What did you do that for?”

  “I thought you were a rat,” he replied sanguinely.

  “You did not!”

  “Well, you are. By the way, next time you’re going to emerge from a body of water, might I suggest the toilet. Since it’s full of shit, you’d be right at home.” He tossed the broom onto the bathroom floor, reached over, and turned the water off. “And for the sake of all that’s unholy, pull on some gossamer. If you think you’re going to be able to seduce me again, then clearly you’re not paying attention to matters at hand.”

  He strode into the living room and flopped onto a chair, listening for the sound of Vivian’s wet feet as they splashed onto the floor. Moments later she entered, wearing a veil of gossamer as he had suggested. “I cannot believe you’re still upset with me.”

  “Of course I’m still upset with you, and what were you playing at in the Magic Shack? Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you the instant I saw you?”

  “You didn’t recognize me.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Hardly. If I hadn’t given you that clue of my name…”

  He waved her off dismissively. “I had already figured it out. You changed your appearance, as is your habit. At this point I’m wondering if you even remember what you originally looked like. It doesn’t matter, Nimue.”

  “Merlin,” she said in that wistful tone that sounded like waves lapping gently against a shoreline. She sat at the foot of the chair, curling her legs up underneath herself. “I thought that we’d settled the score. After all, when you returned and summoned me, did I not immediately restore Excalibur to Arthur? Do you think that was fun for me?” She shuddered at the recollection. “Central Park Lake is not exactly the most attractive environment for one of my stature. Tossed cans, spare tires, muck everywhere…it was ghastly. But I did that for you, Merlin. I did that to make up for—”

  “For betraying my trust? For trapping me? For seducing me into a damned cave for a thousand years?”

  “Well…yes,” she said, sounding a bit petulant. “Are you saying it wasn’t enough?”

  “How could anything be enough, you neurotic naiad?” he demanded. “Yes, you performed me that one service. Did you seriously believe that somehow evened the score? That anything could even the score? You could perform services for me from now through the end of time, and it wouldn’t be enough.”

  She stared up at him sadly. “I’m sorry that you feel that way.”

  “Well, honestly, Nimue? How am I supposed to trust you? I mean,” he said in frustration, “you’re looking at me now with those same sad, wet eyes that you used on me a millennium ago to stick me in that damned cave. I trusted you then and wound up much the worse for it. So on what grounds could I possibly trust you again? For that matter, I don’t even know what it is you’re doing here. You play games with me at the Magic Shack, you pop out of my bath. What’s going on, anyway?”

  “What’s going on, Merlin, is that you forget who I am and what I am. I am one with the ebb and flow, not only of the world’s water, but the world’s fate. I know when things are happening and the currents of destiny are shifting.”

  “The Basilisk told me much the same. She was always boasting of being able to sense when ‘the wheel was turning.’ What is it, anyway, with females of myth and legend and knowing of what’s to come? What makes the lot of you so bloody ponderous?”

  “I know nothing of what the Basilisk might have been talking about,” said Vivian, “but I know what I’ve been sensing, and I came to warn you.”

  “Ohhhh, you came to warn me.” Merlin laughed. “Warn me, who lives his life backwards. Who has the most highly developed sense of that which is to come in the entire history of magic. You, of all people, have come to warn me, of all people.”

  “Save your boasting, Merlin,” Vivian said. “Claim to have the sight all you want, but let’s face it: You haven’t been exactly one hundred percent in foreseeing the challenges Arthur had thrown at him. For someone who purports to be omniscient, your record is less than impressive.”

  His lips thinned into two very narrow lines. “Fine,” he snapped. “Tell me what you’ve come here to say.”

  “I don’t truly know whether I should even bother now…”

  “Dammit, woman—!”

  “All right, all right,” she said with faux exasperation. “Something’s going to be happening with Arthur.”

  “Something’s always happening with Arthur.”

  “It’s more than that. Something big. Something global.”

  Curious in spite of himself, Merlin sat up a bit straighter and cocked an eyebrow. “Really,” he said, keeping his voice sounding bored.

  “Yes. And it’s going to involve the Holy Grail.”

  “I see. Are you sure that you’ve got your facts on a timely basis, because he’s already…”

  “And the Spear.”

  That brought Merlin bolt upright. His voice dropped low and sounded nothing like the voice of a young man. Instead, it rumbled with power and implicit threat. “You had best not be joking, milady, or—”

  “I would not joke about matters of such consequence, Merlin,” Vivian told him. “The Spear Luin is in the mix.”

  “The Spear cannot be in the mix,” Merlin said. “We both know the danger that it represents.”

  “Yes. You and I both do. But there are other forces involved that either don’t know…or else don’t care.”

  “What other forces?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know or won’t tell.”


  She smiled elusively at him. “Couldn’t say.”

  Quickly she began to backpedal for the bathroom. Now Merlin was up on his feet, clenching his fists. “Blood and thunder, Nimue! Stop playing games!”

  “You should have been nicer to me,” she said carelessly. “I am the Lady of the Lake. I go where I wish and help whom I choose. If you mind your manners better in the future, I might choose to help you.”

  “Nimue—!”

  He called out an incantation even as he heard splashing in the bathtub. He charged in just in time to see energies swirling around the bathtub and the waters therein surging about. Of the Lady of the Lake, there was no sign.

  “Damn you, Nimue! Get back here!” He shoved his hands into the water, splashing about furiously, soaking both his shirtfront and trousers, not to mention whatever sections of the bathroom floor hadn’t already been doused. But there was no sign of her. She had completely dissolved back into the water and from there could have gone just about anywhere in the water-based alternate plane of reality called the Clear.

  He thumped his fist on the edge of the tub, his mind racing. Something happening with Arthur? Something huge, global even? What was the best way to find out what that might be? What spell would be the most appropriate means of…

  “Oh, of course,” muttered Merlin, and he went to his television set. He turned it on and, plopping himself down in front of it, proceeded to channel surf to see if there was anything going on with Arthur in the world. It took him less than ten seconds to discover a news story that was being covered by every news program on every station. They went with different angles, different reporters, different interpretations of the day’s event, but essentially they all boiled down to the same thing:

  ARTHUR PENN, FORMER president, had returned to the White House, accompanied by his wife, who had previously been as good as dead, except now she was hale and hearty. The reason he was giving for her miraculous turnaround was—according to a press conference held right in the White House—that he was truly the Arthur of Camelot fame. This was not the first time he had made such a statement. He had once claimed to be the legendary king during his run for mayor of New York after accused by a political rival of harboring such beliefs. At the time, it had been seen purely as a political strategy and been embraced as such by New York voters.

  Now, though, he had taken it to new levels. Levels that were making it harder to overlook the claims or ascribe them to political gamesmanship. It was Arthur’s contention that Gwendolyne Penn had been cured through the magic of the Holy Grail…an assertion given stunning weight with not only the presence of Mrs. Penn, but also an impromptu demonstration of the alleged cup of Christ in resuscitating a stricken journalist.

  Merlin moaned loudly and sagged back in his chair. Reactions were flooding in from all over the world, but none of them mattered to him. All that mattered was that he had never so wanted to throttle King Arthur as he did at that moment.

  YE OLDE INTERLUDE

  April 30, 1945

  STURMHAUPTFUHRER (CAPTAIN) WILHELM Wagner sprinted through the underground bunker, doing the best he could to ignore the explosions coming from the Allies inevitable, and infuriating, march upon the Reich Chancellery above them. There, in the center of Berlin, the forces of the Fuhrer were making their last stand. Wagner’s troops had been damned near wiped out by the advancing Soviet troops, and the captain would have far preferred to die with his men.

  Instead fate had apparently spared him for something else entirely. He had pulled his men back to full retreat in the face of the Soviets, and Wagner himself had barely gotten out of there. His impulse was to go back and fight, but his orders had been very specific: Fall back to the Chancellery and report to the Fuhrerbunker where Field Marshal von Greim will meet you. The specifics of what he was supposed to do upon encountering von Greim had not been presented him. That was, of course, acceptable. His was not to question orders, but merely to follow them.

  His uniform was filthy with the blood of his men along with the dirt and grime of the battlefield. Buildings had collapsed into rubble around him, and dust was everywhere, including having coated his lungs. Every so often he had to stop, lean against whatever he could find, and cough heavily and repeatedly in a desperate attempt to clear his breathing passages. He wondered if that alone was going to kill him.

  Wagner had no idea how matters had come to such a pass. His belief in the Fuhrer’s vision for a Germany that could stand up tall and proud in the world, never to be pitied or conquered again, had never wavered. He had been absolutely certain that theirs was the Master Race. How in the world could it be that here, in the center of their own capital, they could be hunted, under attack, on their last legs.

  There had to be a plan. That’s all there was to it. The Fuhrer had to have some sort of plan. Perhaps what he was planning to do was lure the Allies to some prearranged point in Berlin, then spring a trap on them. That would certainly be the sort of devious, brilliant planning for which the Fuhrer was noted. And perhaps…perhaps Wagner was to be a part of it. What a notion. What an honor!

  Wagner had never met the Fuhrer; he’d merely seen him from a distance during occasional rallies. He wondered if the opportunity would be presented him now. He wondered what he would say.

  The walls of the underground passage suddenly rocked from another blast overhead. Wagner staggered, catching himself before he fell over, and he snarled a curse at the oncoming Russian army…not that they could hear him, of course.

  He arrived at a checkpoint in the tunnels and was amused to see a lieutenant sitting at a desk. He had papers neatly arrayed in front of him; amazingly they had not been tossed around by the shaking from overhead. Either that or he had managed to sort them back into order very quickly. He looked as if his presence there in the tunnels, illumination provided by a series of lanterns, was the most natural thing in the world. He looked up quizzically, and said, “Yes?”

  “Heil Hitler,” said Wagner immediately, thrusting out his hand.

  “Heil Hitler,” echoed the desk lieutenant, responding to the salute in a casual fashion. “How can I help you?”

  “Sturmhauptfuhrer Wagner, reporting as ordered.”

  “Ah. Yes.” He glanced at a particular paper on his desk, then reached down and picked up a field phone. He cranked it up for a moment, then lifted the receiver and announced that Captain Wagner had arrived. He nodded in response to whatever was being said on the other end, then replaced the phone and looked up impassively. “Walk down that way, turn right. You will be met.”

  “By Field Marshal von Greim?”

  “You will be met,” was all he said in response.

  Wagner nodded, tossed off yet another salute, got the required response, then headed down the corridor as instructed. Once having turned the corner, he felt another coughing fit coming on. He leaned with his back against the corridor and proceeded to cough so violently that small spots of blood and—he thought—a piece of one of his lungs emerged from his mouth.

  “Are you ill?” a rough voice asked from nearby.

  Wagner began to respond, then he saw who was asking him. It was not von Greim. The man who approached him was cloaked in an aura of death, and wore that cloak proudly. His head was square, his forehead high, and his eyes narrowed into a perpetual squint of suspicion.

  Captain Wagner immediately slammed the backs of his heels together and saluted. “Herr Bormann! They had…told me to expect Field Marshal von Greim…”

  “He is indisposed,” said Martin Bormann, the right-hand man to the Fuhrer himself. “This particular duty has been given me by the Fuhrer himself. Do you understand?”

  “Of course, Herr Bormann.”

  “Follow me, then.”

  As they headed down the corridor, Bormann spoke in a low, gravelly tone. “The Fuhrer selected me for this assignment as a little joke, you see. He knows the one point of opinion from which I diverge with him is on matters of Christianity. So, naturally, he puts me in charge
of attending to this…”

  “This what, Herr Bormann, if I may ask. And why me?”

  “The Fuhrer likes your name.”

  Wagner wasn’t quite certain he’d heard him correctly. “My name, Herr Bormann?”

  Bormann nodded. “The Fuhrer was particularly influenced by the Wagner opera Parsifal. When a list of available officers for this particular duty was presented him, your name leapt out at him. It is a method of choice steeped more in superstition than logic, but our Fuhrer has his superstitions, and none can gainsay him on them,” he noted with a shrug.

  “But…Wagner’s first name was Richard.”

  “Actually, Wagner’s middle name was Richard. His first name was Wilhelm.”

  “Oh,” said Captain Wilhelm Wagner, now understanding. Except…he didn’t quite. “With respect,” he said as they continued down a gradually darkening corridor, “I am still a bit confused. I mean…Parsifal? The opera about the legendary Grail Knight? Am I being put in charge of the Holy Grail?” He was unable to keep the amusement at the very notion out of his voice.

  To his amazement, Bormann stopped, turned, looked him straight in the eye, and said, “Something like that.”

  Directly in front of them was a huge vault door. Nothing short of a Howitzer could have penetrated, and perhaps not even that. Bormann stepped in front of it and worked the series of combination locks upon it. There were three, and despite the continued sounds of explosions overhead, Bormann never once appeared hurried or concerned.

  The last tumbler clicking into place, Bormann stepped back and pulled the door wide open. There was nothing but darkness within, at least insofar as Wagner could see. But Bormann reached in with confidence and withdrew a large black canister. It was buckled in several places along the side.

  “You should at least see what it is you are being entrusted with,” said Bormann.

  He knelt next to the canister and undid the fastenings. Then he carefully opened it, and Wagner found himself staring down at what appeared to be some sort of spear.