The Third Magic (22 page)

The only other person Arthur saw during those days was Guenevere. Neither Taliesin nor Ector approved, naturally.

This was not the time to be mooning over a woman: They both made this perfectly clear to him. And they both reiterated it to themselves every time he gave them the slip and rode to King Leodegranz's castle to pay his respects to the young woman whom he was determined to make his queen.

Leodegranz himself was growing used to the idea that Arthur really was going to be High King. Although he had not officially given his blessing to the couple, he had never much liked Melwas, with his soft, milk-fed piglet looks, and the more he saw of Arthur, the more he grew to believe that perhaps his headstrong daughter had been right to follow her heart. And so he permitted the two young people to see as much of one another as they wanted, providing they were properly chaperoned. Chaperones were quite the thing in those days, owing to the stylishness of the New Religion, Christianity, whose adherents believed that the lusty old ways were uncivilized and vulgar.

"He's being stuffy because he wants to be modern," Guenevere said as they trotted their horses across a meadow. "You know, in the old days, couples who wanted one another simply took their pleasure." She said it very matter-of-factly, although she could not disguise the deep blush that came to her cheeks. Guenevere, though devoted to the old ways and the Old Religion, had been raised a modest semi-Christian, steeped in guilt and shame. She had often listened to the servants, who had no such new ideas, talk in their unpretentious way about love and sex and death, and wished that her family were not so keen to take on the subtle foreign values which denounced nearly everything pleasurable as forbidden and intrinsically wrong. Yet those values still ran deep within her, despite her efforts to be a "natural" woman.

"I imagine that would stop Melwas," Arthur said, smiling.

"Well, why should women come to marriage as untouched virgins?" she demanded. "Men certainly don't."

"It's because men like to know who their children are."

"Uther didn't know who you were," she rejoined. "And look, you're going to be High King."

"I
am
High King," Arthur corrected, although his tone was as easy and natural as if he were saying that he was red haired.

"Then I'm right," Guenevere said.

Arthur smiled. "Just right," he said, watching her blush again.

Then, in the space of a heartbeat, the moment shattered. The blush on Guenevere's face whitened to a terrified pallor as her horse suddenly shied and threw her into the air. And Arthur could only look on helplessly as she fell, screaming, to the ground.

A VALIANT KNIGHT AND TRUE

S
ometimes the world shatters
all at once.

Within ten seconds, it seemed, the knights had dropped their motorcycles and swarmed over Arthur like a thick leather blanket, while a woman's voice screamed, "Someone's been shot!" over the din of the crowd.

Arthur could smell the blood. "No," he whispered, feeling cold.

Launcelot clapped his hands over Arthur's shoulders and moved with him as if they were two snakes winding toward the shelter of a tree where Hal lay, his legs twisted beneath the front wheel of his Harley. Around them, the crowd exploded into a scatter bomb of noise and movement as people ran in panic.

"Oh, no," Arthur moaned. He tried to get to his feet, but Launcelot held him down. "Hal!"

Hal gave no response. Blood trickled out the side of his mouth and dropped slowly onto the asphalt.

With a violent jerk, Arthur freed himself from Launcelot's grip. Bedwyr, who had lifted the motorcycle off Hal, moved aside in deference. There was nothing he could do, anyway. Their brother, whom they had all known as Galahad in another life, was clearly dying.

Arthur knelt beside him. Cradling his friend's head in his lap, Arthur looked around with helpless, terrified eyes.

"The water!" a woman exclaimed. It was Emily Blessing, pushing through the panicked mob to get to the creek. "I've got the water! Let me through!"

T
he only receptacle she
could find to carry the water was her shoe. As she held it to Hal's lips, Emily tried to block out the images of Hal that flashed through her mind like a moving montage. Hal, sitting behind them on a bus in England, his face so handsome that Emily had been afraid even to look at it; Hal looking at her across a table in a restaurant; Hal lying naked beside her while she thought she would burst with happiness...

"Hal," she whispered into his ear. "It's the cup, Hal. The water's from the cup."

He was not responding. "Hal!" she said louder, her voice beginning to strain.

"It doesn't always work," she heard someone say behind her.

"Don't believe it ever could bring back the dead," an old man said sonorously.

"Shut up!" Emily shouted. "He's not dead!"

The water pooled in Hal's mouth.

"Should have worked by now," someone whispered.

Emily's hands were shaking so badly that water spilled wildly out of the shoe. A hand reached out to steady her. She looked up to see Arthur's face.

"Oh, my God, what have I done?" she squeaked, tears streaking down her face.

"Don't cry, Aunt Emily," the boy said, taking the shoe from her and setting it on the ground. He took her hand. "It's going to be all right."

A whisper ran through the crowd, growing to a murmur that rippled through the gathering like shock waves. A woman standing behind Arthur pointed a trembling finger at Emily. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted.

Emily closed her eyes. It was her face, she knew. Even now, all they saw was her face.

"I'll call an ambulance," she said dispiritedly, starting to rise. "The water..."

"No." Arthur held her hand more tightly. "Stay here." Then together, they held their hands over Hal's bloody chest.

H
al was spinning, weightless
, tumbling through a tunnel, faster, faster in the darkness, feeling very light and not at all frightened. He couldn't quite remember what had happened—it all seemed so trivial and so long ago.

"Someone's been shot!" he'd heard a voice call.

"Hal!" Arthur's voice. Had Arthur been shot? No, no, it couldn't be, that would just be too much of a failure. But of course it wouldn't be Arthur. Arthur had come back to be King. It was he himself, Hal, who was no longer needed.

He felt better at that. Yes. He had brought the boy through the first dangers in those early days when Arthur had just been a child. He had collected the knights to protect him. He had fought in single combat as Arthur's champion.

Yes, his time was done. And he had done well.

You were valiant, knight, and true
, Arthur had told him during one of those surreal moments when the kid knew exactly who he was and what he was doing here.

That had always been the tough part. Every time Hal would convince himself that it was all bull, that either the kid was demented or he was, there would come a moment of clarity in which Arthur revealed the strange and wonderful creature that he was: a being half from another time, who had come back to finish out his life.

It had been hard sometimes when Arthur would speak, and what came out of his little kid's mouth were things that only a king would think about. And harder still during the times when Arthur realized that his life was not his to live.

Could they have changed that? Could Hal have helped the boy to grow into himself, or King Arthur, or something between the two?

Oh, how he wished he could watch Arthur grow up!

But he must be out of danger now, or Hal wouldn't be dying. That was good.

Very good… He sighed and gave himself over to the tunnel that was enveloping him.

But then two very warm hands were on his chest, hands that seemed to vibrate with something like light. The vibration was so strong, so ferociously bright, that Hal would have shaken them off if he could.

"The water…" Emily's voice.

Emily. He didn't think she was beautiful when he'd first met her. She'd been so schoolmarmish. And she hadn't liked him much, either, which came as no surprise. It was astonishing, actually, that anything had come of that at all. She had been so... well, not disdainful so much as afraid. Yes, that was it. She never seemed to notice that she was too good for him. It was almost as if she thought he was too good for
her.
Crazy lady. She had been afraid to open up, and he had been so filled with self-hatred that he barely spoke to anyone.

And yet they had found one another.

For a time. He had screwed that up, naturally. The only woman he ever loved, and he had left her with the impression that he wanted nothing to do with her. Good work, Hal.

But that was all behind him now. All of it. Emily, the kid... all of it receding into the distance, behind him now in the tunnel.

Except that those hands were vibrating like a jackhammer, and it seemed he was drowning. Water everywhere, in his mouth, up his nose . . .

Just travel in here
, in this tunnel, toward the light. Beautiful light. Living light, like what came out of those hands. Living.

And now here was a meadow, oh, yes, just like the place he used to dream about when he was a kid growing up in a tenement in Inwood, in the part of Manhattan past Harlem where nobody went who didn't live there. A meadow in Technicolor green, with sheep. And there was his old dog, Pinky, God, she was an ugly thing but he loved her, and people were here too, waving to him, his mother with her head still all right, as if it hadn't been smashed under the wheels of that car, and others, but he was moving by so fast he could hardly make out who they were....

And then the light seemed to press into him as if it were feeding him or something, feeding him with nourishment that came from the light itself. It was the first time Hal could recall in his entire life when everything felt perfect.

Are you ready?
It was a voice but not a voice, perhaps his own voice, but probably no voice at all, unless it was God's voice, but then he couldn't even tell if it was male or female, that voice. What did it want to know? Was he ready? Ready for what? Oh, it was all so annoying with those hands practically spinning his head off with their vibrations, pulling on his chest, pulling, pulling him back, no, no, don't go...

And before he knew it, it was too late. The voice was gone. The light was gone. There was a deep pain in his chest, but that was going, too, going into those comforting hands. ... And then a single tear, like a kiss, touching him. Hal opened his eyes. Arthur's face. But of course, they were Arthur's hands.

And Emily's tears, drowning him in love.

"You're beautiful," he said. Inexplicably, she picked a shoe up off the ground. It was an old lady shoe, her shoe, probably. Emily never had any taste in clothes. "Are you going to hit me with that?" he asked.

Two more tears fell silently from her wonderful, welcome face, and then she was gone, lost in a sea of faces that seemed to swallow her up like mist.

In her place were all the knights: Lugh and Fairhands, and Curoi MacDaire giving him a wink. "Aye, you'll be doing fine now, lad," he said. "Soon as we can find a tavern.”

Bedwyr looked immensely relieved. "Are the bikes ready?" Hal asked. Bedwyr nodded gravely. So did Agravaine. Gawain and Kay, looking like Laurel and Hardy, both tried to smile, each appearing sillier than the other. Tristan showed his perfect teeth in a dazzling smile, while Geraint Lightfoot shrank into the muscular shadow of Dry Lips who was, in fact, smacking his lips right at this moment.

Launcelot, silent, somber, his eyes filled, as they always were, with the questions that only his soul could answer, completed the circle around him.

Except for Arthur, who had not raised his hands from Hal's chest.

"Your hands," Hal said. "That's what—"

'The water healed you, Hal," the boy said. Then he fainted.

Immediately a buzz began and spread out in all directions. "His hands! It was the boy's hands!"

"A miracle!"

"Arthur," whispered Hal, getting up onto one elbow. The knights were picking the boy up. Hal looked to Launcelot. "He's not—"

The knight shook his head. The boy was all right. It had just been the excitement, Hal told himself, the close quarters…

"A miracle!" Others took up the chant.

"The second miracle!"

Hal stood up.

'Touch me!" a woman shrieked. "Please, I'm sick, I need it…"

"The Messiah..."

"Lay your hands on us, we beg you!"

"Touch me!"

The crowd started to draw in toward Arthur.

"Get the kid away," Hal ordered.

A police officer moved into the circle. "Ms. Blessing told me to tell you she's got a house for you," he said. His eyes widened as he saw the bloodstain on the front of Hal's shirt.

"Where is it?" Hal asked. "The house."

The officer stammered out the address. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." As an afterthought, Hal checked the wound on his side that he had received earlier. It was nonexistent.

The policeman was still looking at him. "I said I was fine," Hal repeated. "Where's Emily Blessing?"

"I don't know, sir. If you could come with me—"

"Give me a minute," Hal said. He moved swiftly toward Launcelot, who was carrying Arthur. "Keep him covered," Hal said to Launcelot. "Don't let anyone touch him. We're getting out of here."

The knights moved quickly through the crowd. As Hal followed them, a loud murmur rose up around him.

"Look at that!" someone whispered. "His shirt's still bloody."

"Was it the water?"

"No, it was..."

A man reached out to touch the blood on Hal's clothing. Hal swatted the hand away as if it were a crawling insect.

"... the Messiah..."

"Messiah…"

"Messiah…"

WHAT CHILD IS THIS?

"H
e's not the Messiah,
for Christ's sake!" Hal stormed as the knights entered the house.

The old man was sitting on the sofa in the living room. His head was in his hands.

Hal sat down beside him with a sigh. "All right, get it over with," he said. "I shouldn't have brought him here. It's been a disaster."

Taliesin was silent.

"It just seemed that after what happened in Rapid City, we wouldn't be able to keep Arthur hidden," Hal said.

"You were right," Taliesin said wearily. "Unfortunately, your journey here was one of the most publicized progressions in history."

"Yeah." Hal rubbed his neck. "Guess so."

The old man sniffed. "Do you suppose you could change your clothes? You smell like an abattoir."

"Oh, excuse me," Hal said. "Blood sometimes is the result of getting shot in the chest. A minor consideration, though, in light of the larger problem of hygiene. Hardly worth a mention."

"Now, now, let's not be childish. You knew the cup was in the well. There was never any real danger."

'The cup didn't work."

Taliesin frowned. "What did you say?"

"I said the cup didn't work. Or the water, anyway. They say sometimes it has no effect. Maybe since I've used it before..."

"If it didn't work, how are you alive?" the old man asked.

He was not being sarcastic. It was a serious question, and Hal knew it. The air between them crackled with tension.

"It was Arthur," Hal said. "His hands. I felt his hands pulling me back."

For a moment, neither of them breathed. When Taliesin finally spoke, it was as if he were talking to himself. "What is he becoming?" he whispered.

Hal's face went blank with the realization. Then he stood up, furious. "Don't you know?" he shouted. "You're the one who arranged all this!"

Taliesin closed his eyes briefly, trying to compose himself. "I hadn't expected Arthur to... to change so much. That is, the incident on the road with the, er, food ..." He put a trembling hand to his brow. "And now this..."

"Did you really think he'd be the same person he was sixteen hundred years ago?" Hal spat. "He's already lived that life. He needs another. His own life, not this perversion you've dreamed up."

"It's the only one there is!" the Merlin rasped. "That was the magic, to bring about this life, in this way. I paid for that magic with my life. I have nothing more to give."

Hal stood motionless, looking as if he were going to punch the old man. Then he turned away. "Jesus," he said, raking his fingers through his hair. "Jesus," he said again. A long moment passed between them. "How much time has he got?"

"What?"

"He's living out King Arthur's unspent life, isn't he? How much more of that life has he got? He's already eighteen years old."

"I... I can't say." Taliesin licked his dry lips. "I never thought..."

"Well, we'd better start thinking. Because sooner or later, somebody's going to try to kill him."

The old man blanched.

"That bullet I took could just as easily have hit Arthur."

"Hal, don't talk this way. Please."

"Will my shutting up keep it from happening?" He turned away in disgust. "You selfish old goat," he said.

"Selfish!" Taliesin shook with anger. "I gave my life for this magic! Don't you understand?"

Hal whirled back to face him. "What I understand is that you stuck a wonderful kid with the butt-end of someone else's life, and it's turning bad."

"It's not turning bad. He's working miracles."

Hal's eyes were cold. "And guess what happens to miracle workers?" he asked softly. "What do you think we do with our Messiahs?"

He walked out.

Taliesin leaned his head back on the sofa, feeling sick. Hal was right. Horribly, startlingly right. Arthur's time on earth would only be as long as his namesake had left in that other life.

And the blood was already starting to flow.

E
mily ran inside her
house and leaned against the locked door, weeping.

It was the shock of the situation, she told herself. First, seeing Hal lying in a pool of his blood, then having him come to life again in front of her.

But it was neither of those remarkable occurrences that caused her to run away from Miller's Creek. It was the woman who had pointed at her with a look of horror in her eyes, and then fainted.

Fainted. Emily's face had apparently been so hideous that the woman had fainted at the sight of her.

And then Hal, critically injured, trying to make her feel better by calling her beautiful.

She thought she could bear anything, Emily thought, feeling herself shaking. She had steeled herself for any reaction from Hal. She had anticipated shock, revulsion, pity... She could have handled any of those. But not what happened. When he had called her beautiful, his words had been like a knife in her heart.

He had been grateful, of course. The water had saved his life, and she had brought the water. Perhaps, in his half-conscious state, he had even believed her to be beautiful for a moment, before he saw her as the grotesquerie she truly was.

She covered her face with her hands. How her heart had shattered with that single gunshot! When Hal had fallen to the ground, she would have given her life to make him whole again. And she had, she had brought the water, though it had taken a while for it to work…

Something was odd, she noticed. Something ... She looked at her hands.

The scars on them were gone.

And on her arms. She touched her face again. It was smooth, the heavy ropes of her scars undetectable. With a cry, she leaped up and ran to the bathroom, which contained the only mirror in the building.

"Oh, my God," she whispered as she stood before the dirty glass. Her face was completely unmarked. She touched her smooth cheeks, unable to believe the sight.

"Oh, my God," she said again. She took her hands away from her face and looked at them.

It had not been the water that had healed her. Of that she was absolutely certain.

It had been Arthur's hands.

G
wen walked back slowly
to her house, where her mother was nearly beside herself with excitement.

"Honey, I've been watching you on TV!" she exclaimed. "Why, that boy—the one they're calling the Messiah—he acted like he knew you! I mean, he held your hand and everything!" Her eyes were sparkling. "Oh, tell me what it was like!"

Gwen stopped in the middle of the room. "That's what you noticed?" she asked incredulously. "A man was shot, and then was healed without a mark, Mom. Did you miss that part?"

"Well, of course not," Ginger said. "But that's what Miller's Creek does. That was no big surprise to those of us that live here."

"Oh," Gwen said. "The surprise was that a boy held my hand."

Ginger sighed. "Here we go again. All I'm saying is that you might be more excited. Out of all those girls he could have, he picked you!"

"He didn't pick me," Gwen explained irritably. "I was sent out to give him a message. He doesn't even know me."

"But he must have liked how you looked, or something." Ginger eyed her daughter dubiously. "Didn't you wear any makeup at all, honey?"

Gwen closed her eyes in exasperation. "No, I didn't. You didn't used to like my makeup, remember?"

"No, but..." She smiled gaily. "Well, maybe he likes the natural look."

"Jesus," Gwen muttered.

"What have I said now?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." She walked to her room and closed the door. "As usual," she muttered.

She stood in front of her dresser and examined the face she saw in the mirror. What a dishrag, she thought. She must have been insane to go out looking like this, naked, exposed, her face showing her every emotion.

Still, as much as she hated to admit it, her mother had made a point. Arthur Blessing had seemed to choose her. He had looked into her eyes and then held out his hand to her with an urgency and truth that Gwen could not help but feel. And her response to him had been just as genuine. For the moment when their hands touched, she had felt something unlike any other experience in her life.

She had felt safe. She had felt as if she belonged.

What bullshit, she thought. She probably just looked easy, like her mom. The guy probably planted the photographer in the first place. Give the little hick girl a break. Make all the old folks think what a nice boy he was.

"Bullshit!" she said out loud, sweeping all the items off her dresser. "Bullshit!" Then she laid her head on her arms and cried.