Fall of Knight (4 page)

“Bullshit, my love. You’re King Arthur, for God’s sake. If King Arthur doesn’t have a destiny steeped in greatness, what hope does
any
of us have?”

“I appreciate your vote of confidence. But honestly, Gwen, what would you have me do? I can’t return to being president, or politics. Frankly, I don’t know that I have the stomach for it anymore. Plus there’s the practical matter of, well…”

“Me?”

“You,” he agreed. “Do you have a solution to that?”

“No,” she admitted with a heavy sigh.

“No. Nor do I. So I don’t exactly see the options open to me other than this.”

“But don’t you see the problem then? Instead of this”—and she gestured around the ship—“being our…our well-deserved reward after more hardships than a reasonable God would have provided for one lifetime…this becomes our prison. Our Elba. Our place of exile, from which there’s no escape. You just said it yourself. Without free will, what else is there?”

He grunted in annoyance at the well-made point, but had no ready answer. Nor did she. So they agreed to table the matter for the time being and discuss it further when either or both of them had some sort of workable solution.

They relaxed on the deck of the yacht that evening, stared up at the stars for a good long time, and eventually went to bed.

It was about one in the morning when they awoke to sudden, churning waves so forceful that Arthur thought they must have sailed into the middle of a storm. But there was nothing else happening to indicate a storm…no fierce winds, no hammering of rain, certainly neither thunder nor lightning. Just the waves in the normally calm Pacific Ocean that were becoming more and more violent with each passing moment.

“What’s happening?” Gwen cried out, jostled violently awake by the ship’s shaking.

“I don’t know!” Arthur struggled into a pair of sweat shorts as he scrambled toward the stairs leading up to the deck. “I’ll find out!”

“Arthur, you can’t! There’s a—”

“We don’t
know
what there is! And I’m not about to cower down here.”

He threw open a long, narrow cabinet and pulled out Excalibur. The redoubtable blade gleamed in the darkness of the cabin.

“What do you think you’re going to do with that?!” Gwen cried out. “Stab the ocean to death?”

“If it annoys me, yes.” With that, he charged up onto the deck, keeping the sword gripped tightly. Gwen watched him go, hesitated, and then leaped out of bed and proceeded to pull on clothes herself. She wasn’t about to stay hidden below if her husband was risking his neck up above.

By the time she scrambled to the deck, she discovered water lapping over the edges of the yacht. Arthur had gunned the motor to life, and was now trying with all his might to steer the
Malory
away from…what?

She saw it clearly now, a huge bubbling of water, as if something gargantuan was surfacing from below. Gwen had no idea what it could be. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true. It was just that what she was coming up with sounded daunting, even for the wielder of Excalibur. A blue whale, perhaps, that had decided for some reason that the yacht presented a threat? Maybe a submarine, although she couldn’t begin to guess what a submarine would be doing cruising around there. Or a giant kraken, perhaps? Granted, the creatures bordered on legendary, but then again, her husband had crossed that border ages ago, so who was she to judge?

Arthur, bathed in the light of the full moon, wildly gesticulated toward the cabin, shouting, “Get below! I
order
you to get below!”

“You
order
me?” She staggered across the rocking deck and grabbed his arm. “Who do you think you are, ordering me!”

“The bloody king!”

“Yeah, well, I’m the bloody queen, so get
over
your bad self!”

“My self is
not
bad!” he shouted over the roaring of the waves. It was starting to look as if the vessel might be swamped.

“It’s an expression, you medieval doofus!”

“How about this expression: Get below! Now!”

“If we die, we die together!”

“How about you do what I say, and we don’t—oh,
bugger this
!”

He released the wheel, and it spun violently on its own as the waves pushed the yacht to the starboard side. What was truly insane was that, for all the violence erupting around them, the skies continued to remain cloudless and full of moonlight. He turned, grabbed Gwen, and tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“Let me go!”

Arthur started toward the entrance to the cabin, with the intention of tossing Gwen into it and bolting the door from the outside if necessary. Suddenly he stopped in midstep, his eyes going wide. He almost dropped Gwen as the deck rocked wildly beneath him, and he grabbed on to a trailing rope from the sail and held tight.

“What’s going on? Is something behind us? Turn around, for crying out loud!”

Gwen twisted her neck to see where he was staring, and her jaw dropped.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

A massive vessel was rising from beneath the waters directly behind them. Gwen remembered the first time, as a youngster, when she had sat enraptured in a movie theater as
Star Wars
unspooled upon the vast screen. She would always remember that opening shot, where the gigantic space vessel appeared overhead and kept going and going for what seemed an endless amount of time.

That was how she felt now, staring in shock as the vessel continued to rise higher and higher. Long strands of seaweed and not a few dead fish fell to either side, and it was thirty feet high, and then forty, and it kept going. Gwen shook her head in disbelief.

The entire thing was made of wood…dark, gleaming wood, covered with what appeared to be pitch to reinforce the exterior. It was a gargantuan ship, fifty feet high, eighty feet wide, and almost two football fields in length. It almost seemed to leap out of the water before settling back down, and great gouts of water came blasting down the deck of the yacht. Arthur staggered but continued to clutch Gwen closely to him. Gwen, for her part, coughed up water, then reached down into her cleavage and pulled out a small, flapping striped fish that she quickly tossed overboard.

It took a while for the ship to settle down, then a small figure could be seen moving at the prow of the ship. Then a second figure joined it. Even with the full moon gleaming above, they couldn’t make out at first who it was. But that didn’t stop Arthur and Gwen from being able to take an educated guess, considering the circumstances.

“Ziusura!”
Arthur shouted. “Is that you?” And then, anticipating what Gwen might say before she said it, he warned her in a low voice, “Don’t call him the other name. He
hates
the other name.”

“Of
course
it’s me!” shouted the aged Sumerian. “Who the hell else would it be in a giant ark? Did we interrupt something?”

It was at that point that Gwen realized Arthur was still holding her slung over his shoulder. “Put me down, please,” she said in a low voice, then louder she called, “Nothing at all, Noah! We were just, you know, floating here and wondering if someone might show up and nearly capsize us because things were too quiet!”

“Gwen, please, don’t antagonize him,” the second dark figure spoke up.

As Arthur eased Gwen to her feet, he called, “Percival?”

“Yes, sire!”

“What are you doing on a giant submersible ark?”

“Yeah, and now that I think about it,” Gwen shouted, taking a step forward, “how the hell did you submerge it?”

“Would you like to see for yourself?” Ziusura asked, sounding like the picture of innocence. “We could go under again, then surface directly beneath you…”

“You wouldn’t dare, Noah,” growled Gwen.

“Arthur…” Ziusura said warningly.

“Gwen, please…”

“How did you submerge it?” Gwen repeated, apparently oblivious to any potential danger. “It’s made of wood!”

“So?” replied Ziusura.

“Wood!”

“Yes, we’ve established that.”

“Wood floats!”

“Obviously.”

“It doesn’t sink!”

“Right again.”

“So how do you go cruising around underwater?”

There was a long silence, then Ziusura said, “I don’t understand the question.”

Gwen threw up her arms in exasperation and turned to Arthur. “I give up.
You
talk to Captain Nemo.”

“More gladly than you can possibly believe.” He stepped around in front of her, and shouted, “Percival…Ziusura…it is, of course, wonderful to see you. It’s been ages. Would I be vaguely close to correct in hoping that this is merely a social call? A chance to catch up on old times?”

“Actually, Highness, not even close,” said Percival reluctantly. “World matters have taken an unexpected shift, and we’ve come to warn you.”

“Are we entering an ice age? Or a season of massive monsoons? Is the ocean draining, perhaps? I don’t see how any other change in world events could possibly be of any relevance to us…”

“Trust me, Highness,” Percival said grimly, “when you’ve heard what I have to tell you…you’re going to find yourself wishing the ocean
was
draining.”

Arthur sighed heavily, and said to Gwen, “Just so you know…you were correct. About everything. I was bored and desirous of something to do. Are you happy that you were right?”

“Actually,” Gwen replied, sounding no happier about it than Arthur, “as it turns out, I’m almost never happy about being right. Doesn’t that stink?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Arthur. “If I should ever chance to be right about something, I’ll be sure to let you know how it feels.”

R
ON CORDOBA, CHIEF
of staff to the president of the United States, sat behind his desk and braced himself, knowing that he was going to be receiving a visit that he really wasn’t looking forward to.

Over the past year, his blond hair had started thinning out with exceptional speed that he could only credit to the nature of the job he was doing. He had to believe that he was the first person in history to go bald as the result of metaphor, since he made a point of only figuratively tearing his hair out on any given day rather than literally doing so. His slender body was still in whipcord shape, and for that he was grateful. After all, he reasoned, how else would he be able to bend over backwards to accommodate everyone if he didn’t possess that flexibility?

He had just endured a frustrating ten-minute meeting with the White House press secretary, venting over not being able to have anything remotely resembling a coherent answer for the questions that the press were throwing at him. There were only so many times in the course of one conversation that Ron felt comfortable with saying “I know” without having anything substantive he could offer.

Ron Cordoba had been part of Arthur Penn’s life—or Arthur a part of his—for about as far back as he could remember. He’d gone from being a public relations genius who had helped guide Arthur to a win as mayor of New York, to becoming his chief of staff during his presidency, to an insane adventure that had brought him to an island where resided a race of immortals ruled over by Gilgamesh, of all damned people, and finally back to the White House, resuming his position as chief of staff to Arthur’s successor, President Terrance Stockwell.

He’d led the sort of life he could only have dreamt of, back in the days when he was a bookish young man who read tales of King Arthur and his knights under the covers of his bed at night, squinting with the illumination of a flashlight. Ron had grown up and suddenly discovered himself battling side by side with—

Ron shook his head, leaning back in his chair and rubbing the bridge of his nose in exhaustion.

The door to the right of his desk opened. Only one person came through that door. It was the one that connected to the Oval Office, and Ron forced himself to stand and cast a weary but determined eye upon his boss. “Good evening, Mr. President,” he said.

“Evening, Ron,” said President Stockwell, gesturing for Ron to sit back down. Nevertheless, Ron remained standing and only sat once the president had taken a seat opposite him. Ron had always been struck by the toll that the office of the presidency took upon its occupant. He was watching for some signs of this rapid aging process on Stockwell’s face, but there was very little to see. Stockwell’s face was almost triangular, his dark eyes a bit too closely set together and a bit too recessed. His black hair was cropped closely, nearly to a buzz cut, and a sharp widow’s peak extended down past the edge of his otherwise receding hairline. Basically, he looked exactly the same as he had when he’d first taken on the position over a year ago. The last president that Ron could recall who displayed so little sign of aging was Richard Nixon, who seemed to thrive on power like a leech. Which admittedly made him slightly nervous about Stockwell, but he knew that the trust issues really didn’t have any actions by Stockwell himself as a source. It was just free-floating anxiety, really, and nothing that Stockwell could reasonably be blamed for.

Stockwell rocked back in the chair for a moment or two, then said briskly, “So, Ronald. We have a bit of a situation here.”

“Well, I’m juggling about six situations, Mr. President. Is there any one in particular that you wish to focus on—?”

“Here’s a wild thought, Ronald. How about we focus on”—and his voice suddenly dropped to a lower register as he leaned forward with fearsome intensity—“the one that CNN is focusing on. And MSNBC. And the
New York Times
, the
Wall Street Journal
, and—oh, this just in—the covers of
Newsweek
,
Time
, and
People.
I’m speaking of Penn…”

Ron, his voice measured but willed with warning, said “Former. President. Penn. Sir.” He added as an afterthought, “With all respect.”

Stockwell looked as if he was about to make an issue of it, but obviously decided that his energies would best be spent elsewhere. He tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment, and said, “I’m speaking of former President Penn…and the international sensation that the former first lady has caused.”

“Might I point out, sir—”

“What is he?”

“Sir?” Ron raised an eyebrow. “I don’t…”

“What is he? Who is he?”

“Sir, I don’t understand the question.”

The president considered the response, then leaned back and drummed his fingers on the chair’s armrest. “Ron,” he said slowly, “when you said you needed to take a brief leave of absence in order to aid former President Penn on some sort of initiative, I didn’t ask you a lot of questions. And I would certainly have been entitled to, what with my being commander-in-chief and all…”

“Yes, sir, you did not, and I appreciate that.”

“And do you know why I didn’t, Ron?”

“Well, I—”

“I’m going to provide the answer for you, Ronald. You don’t have to strain yourself.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I did it because I trust you. The fact that you asked was good enough for me. The fact that you came back not too long after was also good enough for me. And when you told me that the first lady was ‘doing better,’ and were vague about the details, I didn’t ask for specifics because I assumed that if there was a seriously significant change in her condition—something that I really needed to know about—you would tell me. You wouldn’t leave me with my ass hanging out in the wind. Well, guess what, Ron. I’ve suddenly come down with a severe case of drafty ass.”

“I didn’t think—”

“No! You didn’t!”
thundered Stockwell, dropping any attempt to rein in his temper. “You didn’t think! The last anyone knew of Gwendolyne Penn, she was in an irreversible coma! And now that appears not to be the case, and everyone wants to know why, including me! Except I should have been the
first
person to know, not the one who’s playing catch-up to twenty-four-hour news channels and celebrity magazines! Or do you think I’m wrong?”

“You’re not wrong, sir, no,” said Cordoba. “But it’s…complicated. You see, I made promises to former President Penn, and—”

“You also made promises to
me,
Ronald. You serve at the pleasure of the president. Not the former president. Me. This president. And you don’t get to have divided loyalties in that capacity. Not at this level. Not at any level, really, but certainly not at yours. You tell me right now what the hell is going on, or—”

“The Holy Grail.”

Stockwell stared at him.

“I’m sorry I interrupted,” said Ron. “You go ahead, sir. Finish your—”

“The Holy Grail,” Stockwell repeated slowly. “The cup of Christ. The one that he drank from at the Last Supper…”

“Or that caught his blood when he was crucified, yes, depending upon which version you believe in. Although I suppose it could have been both.”

“All right, but…I’m asking you about the former first lady…and you’re talking to me about objects out of myth and legend? You understand that I’m not seeing the connection…”

Ron took a deep breath and plunged into it. “Gwen is alive and well and hearty because we—Arthur, I, and some others—went to a remote island that was the hiding place of the Holy Grail. In fact, the island actually turned out to be the Grail. The Grail has four forms—the cup, the sword, the belt, and the land. And the land was being ruled over by Gilgamesh, the ancient Sumerian hero. He and Arthur had a throw down and, long story short, Arthur won, acquired the Holy Grail, which transformed back into a cup, helped Gwen drink from it, and she completely recovered. And that’s what happened.”

Stockwell didn’t move from the chair. Ron waited a while for his boss to make some sort of response, or ask a question, or something. Instead, Stockwell merely stared at him. “I know,” Ron said tentatively, “that none of that sounds like it makes any sense…”

“Actually,” said Stockwell, “considering that all the explanations I came up with made little to no sense…that one actually comes closest to holding together. The Holy Grail…”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ronald…I don’t know if you remember, but a year or so ago, I looked you in the eyes and I asked you about the whole business with Arthur Penn identifying himself with the Arthur of legend.”

“I remember it well, sir.”

Stockwell shifted in the chair. “I looked you in the eyes, and asked you if it was all part of some massive campaign stunt…grandstanding in order to entertain potential voters…and I asked you if he was King Arthur…”

“No, sir.”

“Ronald…”

“No, sir, you did
not
ask me that,” Ron said firmly, slapping his palm on the desk. “You asked me if he was suffering from some sort of psychosis. You asked me if he really, truly thought that he was King Arthur. And I said to you, ‘I’ve known Arthur for a long time, and I can assure you: He is not suffering from a delusion about being King Arthur.’”

“And you left out the part about his actually
being
King Arthur.”

“You wouldn’t have believed it.”

“I don’t believe it
now
!” Stockwell stood up, and Ron automatically began to do likewise. Noticing it, Stockwell gestured in irritation for Ron to take his seat again, which he promptly did. Stockwell shoved his hands into his suit jacket pockets and walked back and forth, shaking his head as he did so. “I mean…it’s just impossible, what you’re saying.”

“Well, sir, obviously it’s not impossible, because it’s the case. Either that, or you’re going to have to factor in that the top medical experts in the world told you of a certainty that Gwendolyne Penn would never recover from her wounds. Ever. Faced with that impossibility, I think you’ll have to agree that we’d better begin downgrading from impossible to highly improbable.”

“You’re asking me to believe that Arthur Penn is a five-hundred-year-old king?”

“No, sir. First of all, from my understanding, it’s closer to a thousand years, and second, I’m not asking you to believe anything. I’m just telling you what I know to be fact. What I’ve seen with my own eyes. Whether you believe it or not is up to you.”

“I suppose that’s true enough.” He considered a moment. “This is why Arthur declined any and all continued protection by the Secret Service, isn’t it. He didn’t want anyone else seeing that Gwen was alive.”

“I tried to convince him that he was being overcautious.”

“It took a damned act of Congress to have his guards removed, Ron. I remember him addressing all those congressmen. ‘Where I will go will be far from the eyes of man. I ask you, as a token of respect, to honor my wishes for privacy.’ I thought he was going to commit suicide or something.”

“He wasn’t being insincere. In some respects, Arthur Penn is the most solitary individual I’ve ever known.”

Placing his hands on the chair back, Stockwell looked as if he was physically bracing himself. “Tell me what you’ve seen. All of it.”

Ron proceeded to do so, describing the entire sojourn to Pus Island, renamed Grail Island for obvious reasons. He described the confrontation with Gilgamesh, and Arthur’s wielding of Excalibur in the final confrontation with the king even more ancient than he. He told of their last-minute escape from the island through the intervention of Ziusura, another ancient being from Gilgamesh’s time who had been rewarded with immortality by his gods (at least, so he said) and was very likely the prototype for Noah. For good measure, he threw in the entire business with the Basilisk and the final, awful fate of terrorist leader Arnim Sandoval.

Throughout all of it, except for the occasional interruption seeking clarification, Stockwell remained silent. He didn’t move from the spot, staying behind the chair and gripping it firmly. When Ron finally finished his narrative, Stockwell let the silence continue for a time, then said, “And if I asked your wife…she would tell me much the same story?”

“You mean Nellie?”

“Unless you have another wife I should know about.”

“No, that’s the one I’ve got, sir,” said Ron with an amused smile. “And yes, she would. As Gwen’s personal aide, she was there for the whole thing. That was the series of escapades that really brought us close together. We wound up getting married a few months after returning.”

“All right,” Stockwell said. “Here’s what we’re going to do, Ron. You’re going to pick up the phone, call Nellie, and simply tell her to come here. When she arrives, I am going to ask her to describe the same incidents you described to me…after you assure her that you’ve already told me. If her narrative doesn’t match up with yours, then I’ll know that you’re lying to me, and we’re through. Does that seem reasonable to you?”

“Not especially, sir, no. But if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do. It begs the question, though, of what exactly will happen if what she says does match up with what I’ve told you. If so, what then?”

“I swear to God, Ron, I haven’t the faintest idea. I do know this, though: Arthur and Gwen have to be told about this. They have to know what’s happened.”

“Yes, sir.” Ron nodded. “I’m on it.”

Stockwell looked at him suspiciously. “How, exactly, are you ‘on it’?”

“I sent Percival and Ziusura to find them. I’ve no doubt they can track them down.”

“I see. You dispatched Noah and the Grail Knight to find King Arthur.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, well…keep me apprised of how that goes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now pick up the phone and call Nellie.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Ron did so, Stockwell thought about it, then said, “You know what, Ronald? I think I liked it better when you lied to me.”

“Most people do, sir.”