The Secret of Excalibur (14 page)

Striding out the bathroom wearing only a towel, there's a discreet knock on the door, so I swerve back into the bathroom to pull on my pants. Excited about what I found in the lake, I'd forgotten the dinner Ruth ordered. I seldom get excited about anything. Over kidney pie and good chicken soup, we hear the whopping blades of a helicopter flying closer.

“Well, kid,” I say drily, “I guess we can tell how Dobie took the news.” I plop my napkin on top of the table. I'm starting to get irked with Dobie's constant interference.

A minute later, the door sounds, hard raps. Boom! Boom! Ruth shrugs and glides to the door. A puffing, red-faced Dobie stomps inside; followed by Dr. Tober and two men I've never met.

“Merlin, what you're going to do is insanity,” declares Dobie in his deep arrogant voice. “Are you trying to get yourselves killed?”

“Commander Dobie, Dr. Tober, what a surprise,” I say with a sarcastic smirk. “And gentlemen?” I turn towards the other two men with raised eyebrows.

“Uh, Merlin, these two are Mr. Williams and Mr. Halvorson,” Tober introduces them, nervously pushing his glasses up his nose.

As we shake hands, I can feel the PSI power flowing, so I glance over at Ruth with a quizzical look. She's plastered against the wall by the door, eyes wide, biting her lip and clutching her necklace. Two of the escorts are in the hallway, waiting.

Then, it dawns on me.
These men are two of Tober's best specimens.
They can do a fairly good job of mind control on a normal and unsuspecting person, neither of which describes me. I let them continue their puny attempts at trying to control me. They're straining, veins sticking out on their foreheads and necks, sweat starting to bead. I can't even feel what they're trying to do. I become engulfed in anger again.

“Dobie, Tober, you're a couple of fools for trying this stunt,” I snarl at them. As I'm speaking, I shut Williams and Halvorson down, hard. They fall like bricks, dead as doornails. They'll never use their mind control abilities on anyone again.

Dobie backs up a few steps with a pained expression, clutching his head. I forgot how susceptible he is to my mental pushes.
Tough shit.
Tober is frozen stiff, in the process of removing his handkerchief from his breast pocket.

“You people want to play a game, but you don't know the rules. These two morons weren't much better than you are Dobie, which is to say no good at all. And they're dead, Dr. Tober; your two super mind controllers are dead. They died because their brains exploded. If you want an autopsy, I'll rip open their heads for you right here, right now. Is that what you want, Dr. Tober?” I yell, out of control.

My heart's racing, and my hands are shaking so badly I cross my arms against my chest. I've never felt this type of rage before. I'm starting to scare myself, fearing I might lose control. All it would take is one effortless thought, then bam, everybody dead. The possibility of losing control of my powers is why I left my friends and loved ones. Gritting my teeth, I fight the consuming rage, trying to get back under control.

Taking several deep, slow breaths, I glance over at Ruth. She's still standing against the wall, looking like she's ready to faint. With a heartrendering, sinking feeling, I realize she's afraid, because of me. That thought slaps me up alongside the head and suddenly, my anger vanishes, leaving me feeling emotionally drained and spent.
What is happening to me?

“Oh my God … dead? But that can't be, it's not possible,” Dr. Tober stammers, kneeling and feeling for pulses. Dobie's wobbling back and forth, so one of the escorts steps to him and holds him steady.

“You got close there, Dobie, you're too susceptible,” I remind him. “I could fry you as easily as I did your two puppets, almost did, accidentally. Now, get the hell out of here,” I order with a weary wave of my hand, “and take these two corpses with you.”

The escort who's holding Dobie slowly steers him towards the door. Tober is trailing behind them like a lost puppy.

“Dobie, from now on you'd better start calling me Mr. Merlin,” I snap.

The escort who's helping Dobie stumbles. I thought they were going to fall over, but he catches himself in time, and they proceed out the door. The remaining three escorts are standing in the hallway, looking confused and unsure of what to do. I can feel my anger rising again. I focus on the two dead heaps on the floor, and they fly out into the hallway, crashing into the opposite wall.

“Get them out of here, you dumbasses.”

Ruth shuts the door gently, eyes still wide and quivering like a jellyfish. “Oh God,” she whispers, falling into my arms. “When I saw Williams and Halvorson, I became so frightened. They were the best mind control people we've discovered. They've driven men to suicide for Dobie. I was afraid they'd be able to control you, and now, they're dead, and you're alive. I'm so glad.” She sobs softly into my shoulder.

Hugging her as tightly as I can without hurting her, I'm overcome with immense relief.
She hadn't been afraid of me. She'd been afraid of Williams and Halvorson.
Those pathetic excuses for human beings had driven men to suicide for Dobie. Well, whether I was going to have a guilty conscience over killing them, that sure took care of it right there.

I concentrate on the door, and the bar floats down, locking solidly into the brackets. I embrace Ruth tenderly, slowly rubbing her back as her sobbing subsides. With a shiver, I feel the mental probe again.

Alive. Metal. Not moving.

What the hell is that?

Gone.

The probe will come again. It knows I'm here.

I gently lay Ruth on the bed and cover her up, then watch over her until she falls asleep. That takes about two minutes.
Good girl.

I wander out to the balcony and sit, stretching my legs, trying to unwind from the adrenaline left from my fit of rage. The air is probably chilly, but I can't feel it, a by-product of my force-field. It acts as heater and air conditioner. I never get cold and never get hot and seldom sweat anymore.

The champagne is still on the table, so I fill my glass.
Damn that Dobie
, I fume as I take a sip.
Who does he think he is?
He wanted those bozos to control me for him. And the honorable Dr. Tober was right there, standing by his side. It seems the only people worth a damn from the Institute are Ruth, and probably Dr. Gordy, who's still in the burn ward.

I don't know how long I sat stewing away, but it was several hours. When I finally come out of my funk and look around, the sky is full of brilliant stars. It'd been daylight when I came out here. My watch reads 2:15 am.
Damn, I lost a few hours somewhere.
I do vaguely remember the sky growing darker, so I hadn't fallen asleep. I still feel tired, but also good, warm-like, either from the excitement or hot food.
Maybe I ate too many kidney pies this week.

Shit
, I think, lighting a smoke.
We'll be leaving in less than four hours, and I still need to scan for the damn fish. Or did I?
Yes … I know where they are, and mentally scan the West end of the lake.
Yep, there they are; big schools of Walleye
. And farther south, even bigger schools.
No. Not bigger schools, just a lot bigger fish.
Look at those Walleye; some have to be twenty-five or more pounds.
I'll be damned
, I think with amazement. The big buggers are feeding on the other schools of smaller Walleye that weigh five pounds. No wonder no one's caught any twenty-five pounders.
Who would use a five-pound Walleye as bait, for Christ sakes?

I monitor the schools for a while, following their movements. Some schools swim down to the bottom, lying in the undulating weeds and the seaweed covered shipwrecks, until their next feeding time. All but the one school of really big Walleye, which keep traveling south along the shoreline. They aren't feeding now, just swimming. Farther and farther away, and I'm starting to think they're going to swim into the sea river, when the school begins to disappear, one by one.

Now, wait just one little fucking minute here. I might be tired, but fish don't disappear.
I blink and rub my eyes, a stupid thing really, since I don't use my eyes when scanning. I see everything in my mind, not my eyes. I concentrate, and I mean with intensity. A few fish feel my probe and scatter in a swirl of bubbles.

But there … an opening. They aren't disappearing; they're swimming into that … whatever it is.
A hole. Or no, it's a tunnel of some sort. No, it's a damn cave or cavern.
Yes, a cavern, and it angles down deeper as it goes. I follow the fish about thirty feet in, then the image fades.

I feel a strange sensation, reminiscent of a magnetic influx. There are ores in the cavern causing a powerful, magnetic influx, and at this range I can't override the magnetic field.
Well, what the hell, I'm more than twenty miles away. I can't be upset about that.

There.

No. Gone.

There.

Yes. Metal, not moving, but silver. Gone.

What in the hell is it? And where is it coming from?

I rub my forehead, perplexed. I've never encountered anything that can either scan or focus on me. This thing is doing both, then pulling away when I probe back. It leaves no psychic trail to follow, so I have to wait for the scan to return.

No. No,
I admonish myself.
Shit, I'm thinking of that damn sword again.

Wait. Let it be and try to relax, and only think of the sword. Remember what Ruth saw on the lake fifteen years ago? Picture it in my mind. Yes, that's it. See it, there? Pale arm uplifted into the sky, holding aloft a shiny sword. Now
. What I feel isn't quite pain, but it's not pleasure either. I found something when concentrating only on the sword. And it doesn't want me to find it. The sword, or the Lady, or both.

Okay, now I know. I'll find you. I promise.

I know finding it isn't going to be easy. For one, it doesn't want to be discovered. Also, this scanning business is like asking a computer for answers, if you don't know exactly what to ask, you're wasting time. If I don't know exactly where to search, I'll be wasting time. Oh, I'll still find it, eventually. But I might have to scan every inch of the damn lake, and I have no guarantee that it won't move off to a spot that I've already searched. That's happened to me before, I spent days looking in the wrong places. And that happened while I was trying to find an ordinary human being, not whatever this is. This thing has power.

I focus on the sword again.

Nothing.

The Lady?

Nothing.

So, I'm right. I surprised it once; it won't let that happen again. It knows I'm looking for it, it isn't about to help me.

A thought flashes across my mind.
What if it's more powerful than I am?
That's a scary thought.
Would it have pulled away from me? Or would it have killed me, right on the spot?
But it had pulled away, and is covering itself so I can't find it again.

What the hell is this thing?
All I've been able to see is alive, metal and not moving, with an image of a faded silvery color. Again, as much as I hate to, I think of the sword. I lean back in my chair, close my eyes and let it run. Everything Ruth had seen that night, then I focus fast and harder than I did before.

Yes, it's there, but it completely blocked me.

How the hell can anything block a powerful probe like that? No way can this be happening.
A mental blast like that, properly directed, could level off the top of any mountain in the world, or scorch miles of earth to ash. But my scan had been blocked, like child's play. As I did tonight, with Dobie's mind controllers.

That's not a comforting thought. That whatever it is, is playing with me. I shiver, but not from the chilly night air.

After that delightful insight, I decide to change my course of action. The warm, fuzzy feeling is gone now, replaced with a feeling that takes me back to long ago Viet Nam. It's not a good feeling, and it's the first time in years I've felt it.

Okay Lady or whatever you are, I'll find you, and whatever happens, happens.

Yeah, that warm, fuzzy feeling is gone, replaced by one of a mindless, heart-stopping, terrorizing nature. I recognize what it is. I'm afraid.

“Are you alright, Arthur?”

I almost jump out of my skin, or more accurately, over the balcony. I'm standing at the railing, staring out at the lake. Ruth awoke, then wandered out here to find me. My heart's racing several hundred miles an hour, and I'm gripping the railing with white knuckles.

“Uh yes, kid, I'm fine,” I stammer. Beat, beat. Kaboompa, boompa.
Settle down, damnit.

“Well, you've been standing out here a long time, and you didn't answer me,” she says, peering at me from the doorway with concern.

“I'm sorry, what?” I ask, glancing backward into the bedroom.

She already has her suitcase packed and closed.
How long have I been standing here?
I look at my watch.
Shit, its five after six, time to leave already.

“I asked you what you meant.” Ruth glides out hesitantly, standing by me at the railing.

“I'm not sure what you're talking about, Ruth,” I say, turning to face her.

“Well, you were talking, I thought you were talking to me, but now I'm not so sure. You said, 'Okay Lady, only one of us is going to leave here.”'

I give her a dumb look. I don't remember talking aloud.

“Were you referring to the fishing trip, because of the storm? If you were, please don't go by yourself, leaving me behind, alone. I want to go too, with you,” she begs softly, looking down. One of the few times she's begged in her life, except the time when she was almost fifteen.

I gently raise her chin, and when her uncertain, gorgeous jade eyes are on mine, say tenderly, “You win, Lady. You go too.” And to myself, I think,
but go to what?

Then a bright smile, all hustle and bustle, bags packed and ready. With a sly grin she asks, if maybe, I should put on my shirt and boots.

On our way to the dock, Colly and his wife Molly, with a few bystanders, are milling around. I planned on teleporting to the boat, then telekinetically, raise the anchor and start the engine, but with our audience, we have to resort to rowing out in a small skiff. Mr. Grimes already lent me a video camera and tripod I'm supposed to use after catching the record-breaking fish. Colly's way of making sure it's not a trick or netted.
If he only knew,
I think with a smirk.

And, of course, Molly and Mrs. Grimes tried to talk Ruth into staying behind. But here we are, ready to go.
Why do I keep wishing they'd talked us into not going? All I need do is give Colly a mental nudge, and he'd cancel the bet.
Instead, I turn the key on the two-hundred-horse Mercury, listening to the motor idle. The Gray Ghost is loud and powerful.

“Ready, Doctor?” I ask, as I wait for the skiff to row out of range. I don't pat, but lay my hand over hers.

“Ready, Captain, sir.” She salutes with a weak smile and pale face, making herself comfortable in the seat next to mine. Tough girl, she's frightened to death. Lot of that going on around here lately.

The anchor is electric, retracting fast, thunk. The Ghost is also equipped with a CB-SSB radio, and I added a brand-new satellite receiver dish along with a cellular phone which works off the small dish. I doubt anyone has this setup around here.
Well, maybe Dobie.

I throttle to one-quarter, turning towards Ruth with a boyish smile. “Hold on, kid.” I hit the throttle full out. In less than fifty feet we're planed out and flying, the wind whipping around us, leaving a large wake behind us.

The power surge almost threw Ruth out of her seat, and now, she's holding on with eyes wide, yelling something I can't hear over the sound of that awesome motor. She finally stops yelling, just hanging on. After the initial surge, the boat settles down, zipping across the rolling water at ninety-four miles per hour. I feel a grin on my face from ear to ear. Traveling across the water at a high rate of speed is exhilarating.

Ruth grabs my arm, leaning closer. “It's beautiful out here, Arthur, but I was almost thrown overboard back there.”

The scenery is beautiful, with an orange, reddish sky and waves rolling slowly, as if the waters thicker than it should be, or lazy from the night. Way over to the northwest, the sky isn't red; it's between, green, gray and black, the storm along the coast, miles away yet.

“Bad sign that red sky,” she remarks nervously, pointing with her chin towards the red skyline.

Yeah, how does that saying go? Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning?
We're not sailors, we're fishermen.
Or fools
, I think grimly.

Ruth takes out the lake maps, but I don't need them, I know exactly where we're heading. Her recount of the fatal expedition made it clear this lake had been mapped above and below the surface hundreds of times over the years. By men searching for everything from gold, and oil, to Arthur's sword, but I doubt any of them would admit they were also searching for the sword. Never in all the years of mapping, did anyone chart a cavern. Except the old, bloodstained map Tober acquired at the University, supposedly from St. George. No one else seemed to know about the map but Tober, Ruth, and probably Gordy.

For years, Tober has been coming to this lake with students, searching for a cave the map showed was here, and they remapped every inch of the lake. Nothing. But I know approximately where the cavern is located, and as we draw nearer, I'll know exactly where it's located. With a rough estimate, I figure we need to travel about thirty miles to get near the cliffs, and to the cove that I found last night. At ninety miles an hour, that's not a long trip.

Then, for some reason, I think about Dobie. He wasn't at the dock when we left, but he's still here, because his chopper was on the pad. Not even one of our former escorts were at the dock.
Strange, since he tried stopping us last night.
With a thump of my forehead, I mentally probe the boat. Amid the jumble of Ron's gear, and the camping equipment I zapped aboard, are three small items that don't belong. Homers, like the one placed on Ruth's car, two of them, with one tiny mike.

Don't you ever give up, Dobie?
I think with irritation, as I throttle down to a slow troll. As we bobble around in the backwash from our wake, Ruth looks at me with an arched brow, ready to ask a question, so I hold my finger to my lips.

Opening Ron's gear box, I remove two of his markers. They're small, hollow plastic buoys, with line attached to them. Whenever he sees fish on his fish finder, he drops the markers in the water to keep track of the schools. On the first buoy I attach one homer, tossing it out into the water, line not weighted so it'll float wherever. On the second buoy I attach a homer and microphone unit. I remove the weight, throwing the buoy overboard.

There, you bastard, monitor the damn fish and waves
, I think with a smug grin. Staying at a slow idle for about one-hundred yards, so the mic won't hear us pick up speed, I then slowly do just that, pick up speed. Soon, we're flying again.

Ruth touches my arm. “I liked the second takeoff better.”

“Maybe not, if we don't get ashore before the storm hits,” I say with a mischievous grin.

“Uh, can this boat go any faster?” Then, she realizes I'm teasing, hits me in the arm saying, “Oh, you.”

I start scanning far ahead. There, the opening to the cavern. But it looks different, with weeds growing over and around the entrance. I don't remember seeing weeds, but the cavern's there all right. Plus the sandy beach, tall majestic pine trees, and farther back, the dark, forbidding, tall cliffs.

Far ahead, the dark cliffs come into view, looking like a smudge on the horizon. Ruth grabs my arm, pointing. I nod, yes. She's looking the area up on the maps with a puzzled look.

“Why there? The map shows more than forty feet of water. I thought you said Whites feed shallow and slow?”

“They do, but there are several schools of fish that swim through there at night.” She seems satisfied, at least enough not to ask me questions.

Soon, the trees and shoreline come into view, about three miles off. There.

Metal. Alive. Not moving. Gone.

Damnit.
And the feeling isn't any stronger or clearer than before. The probe was definitely stronger last night, at the Lodge.
I'm heading away from her … it … whatever.
He, She, It focused just enough to see where I'm going, just as I would've done, if I could find the damn thing.

I reduce the speed of the boat, the waves finally catching up with us, so we bob around. The cave is fifty feet from where I aim the boat, throttling her open so she'll slide partway up on the beach in the sand. ZH ZH ZH ZH! Skchn! And we stop.

Directly ahead of us lies fifteen feet of pristine sand, then a dense tree line of pines, and way up over the trees, we see the ominous cliffs. The sky's gray, but farther north, the sky's green and blackish, looks really weird; tornado skies. Ruth's eyes are glued to the sky, her mouth and forehead creased with worry.

“Hey, kid, while I unload, why don't you find some rocks and firewood, and we'll make a small fire-pit over there,” I suggest.

Nodding, she climbs out of the boat, then waddles off in the sand, heading for the trees. Well, maybe the exercise will help burn off some of her nervous energy from worrying about the storm. Tying the anchor rope to the nearest tree, twenty feet away, I pull the tent out of the boat. There's a suitable flat spot under two big pines, so I begin to unpack the tent. I'm manually setting-up the tent, partly to help me burn off some of my own nervous energy. By the time the tent is set up, sleeping bags spread out inside, Ruth has already built a fire-pit plus stacked next to it, a four-foot pile of wood.

“Damn, kid, you're full of energy today,” I remark sardonically, laying my hand on her shoulder as she stares up over the cliffs at the sky. “Okay, help me move our stuff inside, then I'll zap us a fire and we'll have something to eat,” I instruct, steering her towards the boat.

Toting our belongings to the tent doesn't take long, and shortly we're sitting in two red, folding chairs by the fire. Starting the fire had taken a lot more concentration than normal. Usually making fire is like snapping my fingers. I rub my forehead, thinking,
I must be more tired than I realize. Not much sleep lately.

There's one big aluminum pot of water on the grate to be used for her tea and my instant coffee, next to the pot is a very empty frying pan.

“What do we eat?” Ruth inquires, licking her lips, staring hungrily at the empty pan.

I brought some canned foods and fresh fruit, but say, “Well, we have to catch dinner.”

It's just past noon and we haven't eaten all day. Rooting through the fishing equipment, I find four rods, and some bait, then throw the lines out off the sides of the boat. Because I want to be sure we actually catch some fish, I start scanning for schools of fish, and as I set the last rod down, the second rod takes off. I snatch up the pole and soon we have a three-pound Walleye. Before long, we're busy and catch eight more fish. Some fish are pretty small, and some aren't even Walleye, but we surely have enough for dinner and bait.

“Uh, you clean them, I'll cook them. Is that fair?” Ruth asks with a wrinkled nose, looking with revulsion at the flapping fish. She doesn't like touching live fish, but was forced to when I was too busy with my poles. Fishing isn't going to be one of her favorite pastimes.

“You got it, kid,” I agree with a grin, remembering the first fish Ruth took off the hook by herself. As I carry the fish for dinner to the fire, I chuckle. That little episode should've been on film, the fish flopping around, throwing sand everywhere, Ruth standing there, frozen, staring openmouthed at the fish, until I yelled that the fish was flopping towards the water. She did a belly-flop dive on the fish, which took the fight right out of him. When she dug the fish out of the sand, he wasn't flopping any longer. With the tips of her fingers, she gingerly removed the hook, then daintily tossed the fish up by the fire-pit. Next thing I knew, she's down at the water scrubbing her hands and washing the front of her shirt.

“What's the matter?” I yelled at her.

“Oh, my God, you never said they were slimy,” she complained.

Well, I guess that about covers that.
Hey kid, they smell too.

She watches with wide eyes, biting her lip as I fillet two fish. “Is that how you clean them all?”

“No, some fish you gut, then cut the heads off and skin.” She'd probably freak if she knew the fish were alive while being skinned.

“Look, Arthur,” Ruth says defensively. “Every fish I've seen was wrapped in a bag and either fresh or frozen, but ready to cook. I think I'm handling this pretty well, if you consider I've never fished before, or seen fish cleaned the way you just did those two poor fish. It's okay, because now they look as they do from the grocery.”

I think,
oh, you poor, little, spoiled rich girl.
I catch myself.
Did I accidentally say that aloud?
Stealing a look at Ruth, with relief I see I didn't.

I'm having trouble telling whether I'm talking or thinking. I also feel drunk, which hasn't happened since my powers kicked in. But I haven't had anything to drink but one cup of straight coffee all day. I wearily run my hand through my hair.
God, I'm tired. I'll need to be extra careful about what I'm thinking.

“Do we have anything to bread the fish with?” She's eyeballing the four fillets.

I wonder, very carefully,
has she ever coo
ked?
What with Gladys and her upbringing
?

“No, kid, we either cook them like this, or we eat them raw. But for me, a little butter or oil will do just fine.”

No problem it seems, she gets up, finds the oil, and soon, I smell fish frying. My mouth starts drooling and my stomach rumbles in response.

“You must think I'm pretty spoiled and ignorant. I mean, never having seen anyone clean fish before,” Ruth says, laying another fillet in the hot oil. “But, believe me, so much has happened to me in the past three days, I'm ready for anything.”

Oh really, kid?