Arriving At Camelot
Arthur, Hector, Merlin
At the Gates of Camelot
The silhouettes arching over the unusual building were cast by the twinned streetlights about either side of its entrance. Compared to its adjacent partners, residential flats, it was inglorious and dilapidated. The cement of the walk and steps was cracked. The windows were boarded up by age and lack of function, underneath showing their battle scars — the shattered glass of lost damage, which were the gifts bestowed by neighborhood boys out past their proper bedtimes, wreaking trouble in a troubled dark, urchins lost among the London streets.
It was to this inauspicious building, on this night, upon those very streets, somnambulant and gravely quiet, that the squeaking of fate was first to be heard.
“Dammit all!” Merlin cried, “I think they broke my rickshaw!”
The squeaking grew in volume and diminished in frequency as what was left of Merlin’s rickshaw pulled up. It halted before the dilapidated house with a groan and a sigh. “We’ve arrived,” announced the wizard, dismounting from the cab.
His two companions came down as well. One, the boy, Arthur, watched stupefied as the wizard waddled around inspecting the damage to his rickshaw and complaining in sour tones. The other, Hector, the man who had come from nowhere, sheathed his weapons. One was a small handgun; so was the other.
They were all still unclear on his intentions, but he had assuaged their fears by informing them that he expected protection for his defection to what he called ‘the other side.’ His eyes darted snappily about, examining shadows as if he expected them to be guilty of examining him, but his quick glance never touched the boy’s, not even once. There was something very important about that kid, and an overwhelming sensation in the gunman’s gut promised that the boy, the one he was supposed to have put a bullet in, was his way out.
His way to survival and away — far away — from Morgosetec’s silicon grasp.
“Let’s get on with it,” said the wizard.
“Get on with what?” Hector asked.
“Not you, the boy.”
“Wuh?” Arthur muttered. Arthur didn’t know what the wizard wanted with him; he gave up on considering, tonight had been enough. “Oh, me.”
“Do you have the screwdriver?” Confusion flickered across Arthur’s face. “The object,” the wizard prodded, “in your pocket.”
“Ah,” Arthur announced, and out the screwdriver came in all its glory.
“Is that like some kind of USB device?” Hector said.
The wizard looked poignantly at interrupter. “Be seated, knight,” and to Hector’s utter amazement, his limbs complied. He slumped down to the dirty pavement.
“Do you accept your fate as Arthur Pendragon, high king over all England?” asked the wizard, redirecting his attention to the boy, who was still staring at Hector, wondering if perhaps this was all a hoax.
“Sure, why not?” He nearly dropped the screwdriver as it glowed to life with a sudden inner fire. To Hector, the entire boy was glowing. There was something so magisterial about it that, to his horror, he began to weep. It seemed so surreal.
“Do you swear to uphold the codes of chivalry.” Arthur’s eyes shone. He was beginning to believe. His life was changing forever.
“Yes.”
“To protect England and her constituents. Think now boy, think hard,” commanded Merlin. The screwdriver, Excalibur, became brighter than all the streetlights and cast its brightness out upon the shadows. The entire street lit up. People could be heard calling out from their windows, moaning about the time, and Arthur, well, he did not think.
“Yes!” he cried, and suddenly the light and screwdriver Excalibur were gone. The hand in which Arthur had held it glowed. Merlin beamed.
“What the fuck was that?” Hector asked, wiping his eyes and cheeks on his sleeve.
“That, sir Hector,” Merlin turned and looked at him, “is your sovereign king.” As Merlin finished, Arthur collapsed.
Arthur: On the Run
An educated individual, other than myself, will tell you that when you are high, you need to just go along with things. I have never been high before. At least not more than a contact high that I got a few years back from a girl I’d rather not think about. This seems to be becoming a bit of a pattern, but, anyway, I can tell you that there is no way that I was in my right mind at that moment.
If you put a gun to my head, as evidently some phantasms of my darker reaches were trying to, I’d have to guess that I was still cozy in my bed, that I had indeed pissed myself in my sleep, not a habit - not even remotely - and that whatever I had drank from that bottle was abjectly not, or at least not only, vodka. It was only pretending to be vodka. Vodka does not make one see wizards or give one dreams about people shooting you.
Anyway, there is no chance that guns actually sound in real life like they do in films. Bang Bang all you like, I know you aren’t real. And the bloody bike taxi - sorry, “rickshaw” - well, who the hell runs from gunmen, in car, on a sodding bike cab. A true Merlin would do better. He’d have a broomstick or something. Get in, he says? Fine. I’ll get in, and see where this takes me.
I hopped into the cab with the lunatic and, to my surprised, it started moving on its own. No driver, nothing. It literally started peddling itself. That’s when the something very horrifying happened. “This is not a dream, boy,” the old man said, looking back and forth over his shoulder as the sound of an engine got closer. Another couple of shots rang out, clanging and clattering into pavement and shattering some nearby windows. I let myself smile.
“Oh, and how are you supposed to prove that, Merlin?” I accused wickedly. The old man fumed. I would enjoy this more if my dream-wizard wasn’t in denial. It looked like I would have to convince myself…myself.
“Fine, but do you know what would happen if you were to die in a dream?” he asked. Actually, I did. That’s when the serious part began to come into perspective.
I said, “you have a heart attack and die in real life.” I wasn’t sure if that were actually true or just some kind of myth. Frankly, I didn’t put much in it, but one can’t gamble one’s life away on this sort of event.
In any case, my creepy subconscious wizard had a point. That’s when I realized the rickshaw-taxi-bike-cab thingy was going at thirty or forty miles an hour, and yet we were still hearing gunshots. I chose to ignore the impossibly fast bike-cab and focus on the more immediate danger. I said, “Right, listen, can we turn, because going straight doesn’t seem to be helping much,” I paused, “in whatever activity we’re actually trying to, er, help.”
Street lamps flicked by us at regular intervals, making everything seem like it was happening from second to second, like a strobe light at a party. One instant the old man was poker-faced, the next, dark, and the next, he was grinning. “Turn left at the intersection!” Merlin yelled out to the air, and the taxicab obeyed, and the force of the turn nearly hurled me out of the carriage.
For a moment, I was not sitting on anything, hovering inches above my seat, waiting for my head to smash against the pavement or my body to be hurled through a shop door. Air roaring, hands groping at the small metal roof above, I genuinely thought I was going to go over, but then the mad taxi-bike’s course reoriented, becoming once again straight, and I landed back in my seat with a thick impact and obligatory thump. More gunshots split the silence and I heard the screeching of tires from behind.
They were still following us. Then again, Merlin had nearly done half their work for them with that sharp turn.
“Lesson two, always buckle up, Arthur!” cried the old man. Then, to reassure me or whatever, he began laughing hysterically, as if he had made the world’s funniest joke. I, for one, was not amused.
My face felt flush, as if I had been hanging upside down for too long, and my eyes were watery. I rooted around for a seat belt, deciding to take the advice, but it turned out that Merlin had already clipped himself into the only one. Wonderful. Positively, wonderful.
Then came the sound of automatic weapons, and I began to realize how very serious my situation might be. I wondered if it was suicide if your subconscious is trying to kill you and save you at the same time. The old man answered, even as I was beginning to suspect he would, “that seems probable.” As if to chime in with his answer, a bullet clanged off the front supporting bridge of the taxi-shaw…rickshaw. That was it: rickshaw.
“Good lad, rickshaw,” said Merlin. “Now, your getting at it.”
I lost it and said, “Stop reading my mind, dammit!” Another gunshot brought me back to reality.
Merlin: On the Run
Merlin
The paltry trick with light did not so much involve insinuating new light into the ceiling as it did taking light that was already there and spreading out a bit, like buttering bread. The boy seemed impressed enough though, and I was certainly not going to explain my parlor tricks, lest I found myself in an outcome where he chose to run.
I couldn’t have that, now could I? I have to guide him, lead him. Train him.
Show him.
Unfortunately, I still had no idea what he looked like. First, I met him in the dark, then I turned my back on him and led him out. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this, and it would be terrible if I turned around to study his face in mid-stride. So there we were, him plodding along behind me like the pup he is, and me, well, shuffling. I would say I have a decent shuffle. I knew it was him though. I could smell excalibur’s power, a raw musk of Avalos’ gift stretching out and away from us in every direction, raising hairs on the back of my neck and skull. I could sense its destiny slowly take hold of its master, the boy, and shape his world forever into the night.
I led him out of the building where our means of conveyance awaited.
“What is that? Is that a…That,” noted the boy, “is a taxi-bike.”
I replied, “They are called rickshaws, Arthur.” I would have given him a pointed stare, but that is when one of my runes, placed several blocks out, tripped. It told me that someone was coming, someone with the intention of killing the once and future king.
This perturbed me. I had been making the part about assassin’s coming up to coax him into the bleeding rickshaw. I breathed out a sigh.
“Get in, boy.”
“Oh, now it’s boy again, is it?”
“Yes, now get in the cart or you will, in all likelihood, get shot while you tarry,” I remarked, climbing myself into the back. It only took one gunshot to convince him to get in. He put himself beside me, looking frightened. It was still too black for me to see him, which annoyed me. Then, the second shot blasted out and a moaning engine led by headlights came into view.
“Go! Onward, you junk heap!” I shouted at the rickshaw. The rickshaw hurtled forward, my magic pounding away at its peddles faster than any pair of legs could hope to match.
Vivian
UNKNOWN
“After they’re done, you want me to kill him?” Rodimer asked.
“After you are done, there should not be a scrap of the hit-man, Boris Gant, left for anyone to find,” he replied.
#
Vivian Bracht (a.k.a. Waitress)
I dislike the english, but I loathe their countryside. Some random spot on one of their roads is not much better. I have no idea why I agreed to this, but at that salary - how could I say no? I will never have to work again if all goes well. For me, all always goes well.
I waded into the disgusting foliage of the roadside. My contact, who I was told would be here twenty minutes ago, had not even showed a glimmer of arriving. I doubt she was lost. If someone else showed up, there was no way I was going to be caught standing around.
Another twenty minutes passed, then a car pulled up.
I could tell it was not some passer-by needing to use the bushes; her headlights were off. If she had not been intercepted, this could only be her. The door opened and closed so fast that I only got a quick look at who it was, the vehicle’s lights flashing on and off. He killed the engine. Looked like a man.
It was too dark to see anything, and that’s what he must have been counting on. Sometimes, I am so foolish.
He must have left the window open, but I realized it too late. He managed blind me - presumably by reaching through aforementioned window - flaring on the brights and charging to where I was hiding. I lifted my arms to defend myself, but he darted to the side just before impact, grabbed me, and used his momentum to hurl me to the ground, pinning me under him.
“And who the bloody hell are you,” asked the man. From his voice, he sounded like an idiot, but he had spotted me and taken me down. This guy was a pro, or just lucky.
“A nice german lady with a knife to your neck.” I had managed to slip it out of my pocket when we went down and now I had the blade inches from his throat.
“I doubt it,” he replied, so I pricked him. He muffled a curse. “Are you the one they sent me here to meet?”
“That’s sharp you know!” I put the flat of the blade against his skin. “And cold. What’s that then, japanese make?” Actually, it was korean. I was frustrated that he hadn’t answered me, but impressed. It takes a lot to make a joke in this situation. I pricked him again. He just laughed. I wondered if he was demented after all. “Alright, I’ll let you up, just stop poking me with that little stinger of yours.” He got off of me, slowly, clearly trying not to startle me into doing something fatal. I nearly did anyway.
We both got up and brushed ourselves off. I had thought about wearing a skirt; I was glad I had picked the jeans instead. Back to business. “Where do they put the dossier?” He was walking over to the car.
“Usually under the brown rock, few feet from where your standing toward the road,” he shouted over his shoulder. My eyes had adjusted by then and I searched the rock out while he turned the car back on. I felt around under it until my fingers touched something plastic and I picked it up. I did not replace the rock. This was his drop off after all, and after what he had done to me he could fix it himself.
The man was a mountain, chubby. “What are you waiting for, get in!” he shouted. Quite the change of heart, from murdering to befriending me in under a minute, but if he had killed me his life was over anyway. Nobody would tolerate that…would they? I remembered the payoff on this job and it inspired me to feel safe enough. I hopped in the other side of car. He gave me a wide smile.
“Hi, the names B., but you can call me hubby.” I still might kill him, if the job offered me a chance.
“Why would I call you hubby?” I asked. I figured that it would not do to get off on the wrong foot so quickly, or had we already.
“You’re a woman, right? German girl isn’t some slang for transexual now, is it?” he asked. What the hell was he talking about. Could we not just read the dossier.
“No shit, I’m a girl. I am a girl from Germany. Waitress, hit-woman of more than three-hundred targets.” I was exaggerating. It was three, but he did not have to know that. B. looked at me, strangely.
“You don’t get it, do you.” Get what?
“Apparently, not.”
“Why do you think they would go to all the effort of bringing in a girl to work with me. From germany.” Because I am incredible.
“Because I am incredible,” I said. He nodded.
“Yes, that,” B. conceded, “and they needed someone to play the role of my wife to get close to the target, my love.” Okay, he is an idiot. A monstrously strong idiot, but still an idiot. He probably just forgot to turn his headlights on and close the window. He was still looking at me with this stupid grin, as if I had missed some great joke.
“I am ignoring you now, B.” I pulled the papers out of the plastic sheath. If he was going to act crazy, I would just read up on the dossier. I scanned the first two lines.
Operation: Lady of the Lake
Mission Parameters: Pose as married couple in order to…
I stopped reading. “Well, what does it say,” came B.’s nagging voice. I felt almost childish.
“Shut the hell up and drive, hubby.” And he did.
Arthur 2
Arthur
I was dreaming about the girl when I woke up. It was a pleasant, drift-like waking, one of the ones where your eyes open up and you’re good for anything; in my case, it was almost anything. I noticed first thing that it was still dark outside. My eye, where her father had hit me, pounded the rat-tat-tat of a sharp pain into my skin. That brought things back rather snappily.
“Dammit, what were you thinking, Arthur,” I murmured. I had slept facing the the hallway and didn’t feel like being woken up when Alphonse got back in the morning. Being the future-thinking man that I am, I flopped round on my bed and faced the wall several centimeters from my nose. My mind chose the moment when I was ready to shut my eyes and have another try at sleeping to mark out an oddity: the hallway. Why could I see the hallway? Alphonse is visiting his parents this weekend. Last night, I came in the door. I closed the door. Why is the door now open? I probably just didn’t shut it right. No, wait.
That made no sense.
At least, that’s what I thought was the case when the hall lights, which are on a timer and weren’t due until six, popped on. I could suddenly see the shadow of my head distinctly plastered in front of me. Something was majorly off, so I turned round again to face…an empty hallway with the lights gone out and my door shut. I wondered what the hell was going on - exactly those words. I know that’s what I was thinking because then a voice from behind my head, where my desk is, answered. “What on earth would be a tad more appropriate. Things don’t progress in hell as they do here, after all.” I admit it, I pissed myself. The voice was clear but in an odd sort of way, like an elderly narrator of a documentary - artificially clear.
I jumped to a conclusion. It was the wrong one. This would not be my first time.
“I didn’t know how old your daughter was, I’m sorry. Listen can’t we just-“ The voice started chuckling.
“I don’t have a daughter. My, you do wake rather strangely for one with such a great future,” came the voice from the dark. “As my first bit of advise, never make a decision before breakfast, unless there is a very good reason.” The way he had said reason made me pause for a moment. It’s not that I remembered it; it was so distinct and clear. However, the fact that this man had no reason to be here was slightly worse than having one.
“So, what do you want with me? Can I turn round?” I asked. I stumbled over the words a tad because my urine started making me feel cold. For the record, you would probably have pissed yourself too, so don’t judge. I heard a muffled cough and then he - I think it was a he - answered.
“I truly do hate to give you knowledge and then immediately demonstrate the exception, but this is a waking upon which you shall have to make a very significant decision.” He coughed again. If he was old, as old as he sounded anyway, I might be able to overpower him.
“And what decision is that then?”
“Ah, well, you see, it’s more of a matter of life and death.” I knew it. I knew it. He was going to kill me.
“Life and death?”
“You have to decide whether you are going to come with me or stay here. I’m Merlin by the way.” Okay, Merlin. This was a joke. Another stupid joke to play on Arthur Pendragon. I calmed down a bit. He wasn’t here to kill me, just to mess with my head. I decided to play along and tear the shit out of whoever planned this. Merlin. I bet it was Markus, the sod.
“Well then, Merlin,” I asked as bitterly as I could, “are you going to kill me if I stay here?” He took in a sharp breath. It surprised me; it sounded almost sincere. Maybe it wasn’t Markus. Maybe this guy was just a looney who heard my name at a pub or something. Maybe he could still be dangerous.
“Perish the thought, boy.” He sounded legitimately angry. Scenarios of running from an insane man through the dorms began running through my head. “I would never kill you. Perish the bloody thought.”
“Oh, so what happens if I stay?” I asked. I needed time to plan how the hell I’m getting out of this situation. That’s what I started thinking about.
“Fleeing from me won’t help me. I instructed you to perish the thought.” Unfortunately, I kept thinking. I told myself that the old man had just made a lucky guess. Then he said, “I can read your thoughts, boy.” Then I thought, oh shit, maybe he can. This girl from school, Alison, came to mind. We’d always made fun of her for believing in psychics and mysticism until she was seventeen. That’s when the old man clinched it for me. “No, that girl is completely daft, but it is unbefitting that one of your station should mock a daft girl in any case.” I decided he was legitimate. I shut up and listened, trying to keep my mind completely clear of any thoughts. He continued. “I desire earnestly to save you. The people that mean to kill you shall arrive a few moments from now. Either come with me, or don’t. As I said,” he paused, “it’s your decision.”
I heard him storm off toward the door and open it- the dark didn’t seem to trouble him much. He muttered something and the entire ceiling in the hallway lit up - as in the entire ceiling, not just the lights- which was all the evidence I needed to decide that going with this man, ‘Merlin,’ probably would have more pros than cons. That and I also decided I was either dreaming or high. In those situations I tend to go with my gut.
So, covered in piss, I got out of bed and followed the little man, whose features remained hidden from me as my eyes took in the light.
Next Part in 36 Hours
