A Hard Day's Knight

SIX The Land That Merlin Made

When you absolutely, definitely, have to be somewhere else in a hurry, there’s no substitute for the Doormouse and his excellent establishment, the House of Doors. He can open up a Door to anywhere and anywhen; though, of course, getting back again is strictly your problem. My Portable Timeslip took Suzie and me straight to his street, dropping us off, a little short because the Doormouse has very powerful protections. The old place looked pretty much as I remembered it. Still standing between a vampire theme pub, where the waiters snack on the customers, and a branch of the Bazaar of the Bizarre franchise, this week specialising in Necro-tattooing; where the tattooist uses blood instead of ink. Elf blood, werewolf blood, Frankenstein blood—producing images that don’t just sit there but get right under your skin ...

Suzie and I walked up to the Doormouse’s place, and the frosted-glass doors swung regally open before us, admitting us to an extensive lobby of really quite remarkable style and elegance. Thick carpeting, huge mirrors, antique furnishings, and all the very latest high tech lying casually scattered round the place. Some of it so determinedly futuristic I couldn’t even begin to name it, let alone guess what it was for. The Doormouse is always up to the mark; and, thanks to his Time-travelling capabilities, often more than a bit beyond.

The Doormouse himself came scurrying cheerfully forward to greet us; a six-foot-tall, vaguely humanoid mouse, with dark chocolate-coloured fur under a pristine white lab coat, complete with pocket protector for his colour-coded pens. He had a long muzzle, twitching whiskers, and shrewd, thoughtful eyes. He actually looked quite cute, in an entirely disturbing and unnatural way. He spoke in a high-pitched, cheery, and very human voice, like the born salesman he was.

“Hello, hello, hello there! Welcome to my emporium of Doors! Every destination you ever dreamed of, nowhere too remote or unlikely! Come on in and, oh my God, it’s you again.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, whiffling his whiskers and staring balefully at Suzie, who glared right back at him. The Doormouse folded his arms across his broad chest and tapped one sandaled foot very quickly.

“She’s not going to break anything, is she? Only I still remember the last time you two were here, during the Lilith War. I’d have been safer out on the street with the rioting mobs. It’s bad enough you marched in and used one of my best Doors without paying, but the whole shop’s ambience was fatally compromised, just by her being here. Took three exorcists and a feng shui specialist to restore the usual happy House of Doors atmosphere.”

“We only want to use a Door,” I said soothingly. “We might even pay for this one. Show us what we need, and we’ll be on our way and leave you alone. Won’t that be nice?”

“She’s growling at me,” said the Doormouse.

“Yes, well, that’s her being her. Suzie doesn’t do cute and fuzzy. I think it offends her view of the universe on some level. Don’t make any sudden moves, and you’ll be fine. Let’s see the Showroom.”

The Doormouse sniffed loudly, stuck a very pink tongue out in Suzie’s direction, then he turned sharply and stomped off, leading us deeper inside. The main Showroom was full of Doors, row upon row and rank upon rank, all of them standing alone and upright and apparently unsupported. Made from every kind of wood and metal, glass and crystal, they all bore individual handwritten labels, describing their destinations: Shadows Fall, Carcosa, Haceldama, and Scytha-Pannonia-Transbalkania.

“A very popular holiday resort, that one,” said the Doormouse, bustling busily along. “If you like it old-fashioned and a little odd.”

I wasn’t really listening. I’d spotted a familiar face—that general fixer and go-to man, Harry Fabulous, lurking further down the Showroom. He took one look at me and disappeared through a Door. I get that a lot. Still, the guilty flee where no man pursueth, and Harry did a lot of fleeing. Suzie elbowed me discreetly in the ribs, and I pretended I’d been paying attention all along.

“Lots of Doors in stock,” said the Doormouse, padding along before us. “Lots and lots ... I’m always expanding, always looking for something new and interesting. I still design all the Doors myself, but I do enjoy tracking down the odd rarity. I nearly got my hands on the legendary Apocalypse Door at an auction in Los Angeles; but someone else got their hands on it first. It can be a cut-throat business in the travel industry, sometimes ... Where do you want to go this time, Mr. Taylor; and why do I just know I’m not going to like the answer?”

“I don’t know,” I said innocently. “Maybe you’re psychic. I need to get to an alternative Earth called Sinister Albion.”

The Doormouse stopped so abruptly I nearly walked right over him. He turned and looked at me thoughtfully.

“Oh. There.... Nasty place, by all accounts. But no doubt you know your own interests best. Have you made a will? I have. Very comforting things, wills. So, you want the Alternate Earths Door. This way, this way ...”

He started off again in a completely different direction, down a long line of standing Doors, until he finally lurched to a halt before a large mahogany door with a complicated brass combination lock inserted right in its centre. The Doormouse patted the gleaming dark wood with one soft paw.

“Remarkable piece of work, this, Mr. Taylor. Remarkable. This Door can give you access to any alternate history track you can think of and a few most people would be better off not thinking of. All you need is the correct co-ordinates. I should point out that you have to be extremely exact when entering the co-ordinates if you want to get the world you want and not one just a bit like it. Now, Sinister Albion. Are you sure you’re sure about this, Mr. Taylor?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.

“Quite so, quite so ... I gather from your companion’s expression that she’s about to start growling again, so I’ll get to the point. I don’t know the exact co-ordinates for Sinister Albion. Don’t know anyone who does. I didn’t even know the awful place existed before its inhabitants started showing up in the Nightside: King Artur, Merlin Satanspawn, Prince Gaylord the Damned ... That last one actually turned up here a few days ago. I locked the doors, pulled down all the shutters, hid in the toilets, and pretended I was out until he gave up and went away. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere. No, if you want to go to Sinister Albion, Mr. Taylor ... you’re going to have to provide the co-ordinates. Of course, they say you can find anything ... Must be a wonderful gift. Very useful. I can never find anything. Can’t even find my spectacles most of the time.”

“They’re on top of your head,” I said absently, studying the Door before me. It looked like any other wooden door, but even without using my Sight I could tell it was much more than that. It had a sense of potential about it, a strong feeling of possibilities, as though it could take you anywhere at all. And might even snatch you away for standing too long in front of it. This was a Door that wanted to be used.

I raised my gift and let it glide forward and sink into the Door. Beyond it I could see endless scenes, flickering on and off, worlds without end, worlds come and gone in a moment—some familiar, some horrible, and some so utterly other I couldn’t even make sense of what I was Seeing. I concentrated, frowning, focusing on Sinister Albion. Worlds fanned out before me like a pack of cards; and one world snapped suddenly into focus. I pulled back immediately and concentrated on the brass combination lock on the Door. The mechanism whirled back and forth, spinning rapidly under the impetus of my gaze, then it snapped to a halt, and the Door swung open a little.

Blood-red light spilled out round its edges, bleeding into the cool antiseptic light of the Showroom. The Doormouse fell back a step, his whiskers twitching frantically. A terrible stench of blood and carrion filled the air, wafting out into the Showroom from the world beyond the Door. It was the smell of death and horror, like some gigantic slaughter-house. The world Merlin Satanspawn had made, to please his father ...

“You know,” Suzie said thoughtfully, “you can be really spooky sometimes, John.”

“You’re just saying that,” I said, shutting my gift down as thoroughly as I knew how.

“I feel it is my duty to remind you,” the Doormouse said diffidently, “that while my Doors can take you anywhere in the unknown universe, they are all strictly one-way operations. To be blunt: once you’re in Sinister Albion, you’re on your own. I cannot bring you back. And no, I don’t do travel insurance.”

Suzie looked at me. “What about your Portable Timeslip?”

“Only works in this world,” I said. “It operates in Space and Time, not dimensions. It’s a gold watch, not a TARDIS.”

“Wouldn’t work anyway,” said the Doormouse. “Not where you’re going.”

I looked Suzie in the eye. “You heard the mouse. This could be a one-way trip. You don’t have to come with me.”

“Don’t make me slap you in front of a mouse,” said Suzie. “You can’t do this without me, and you know it. Someone’s got to watch your back.”

I nodded. Suzie’s never been very good at the sentimental stuff, but I knew what she meant. There was no way she’d let me go into danger without her, not while she had a say in the matter. I pulled the Door all the way open, and the blood-red light flared up. Suzie and I walked forward into it, into Sinister Albion.

And behind us I could hear the Doormouse crying, “Come back! Come back! You haven’t paid yet ...”

It was dark, even though it was day. The sun burned a sullen crimson through heavy, lowering clouds, turning the sky blood-red. Ashes fell out of the sky as though the clouds were on fire. But it didn’t take me long to work out where the ashes were really coming from. In long rows, all along the distant horizon, stood rank upon rank of giant burning Wicker Men. Huge hollow forms, roughly man-shaped, full of men and women burning alive. I couldn’t really hear them screaming, from so far away; but it felt like I could. The Wicker Men burned like beacons, illuminating Sinister Albion.

The land round us was churned-up mud, for as far as the eye could see. No fields, no crops, no forests, and no rivers. Thick filthy mud, soaked with old and new blood, punctuated here and there with human body parts and all kinds of scattered offal. Some of the mud had been disturbed in more or less straight lines, tracks rather than roads. The air was hot and sweltering, difficult and unpleasant to breathe. Thick with the stench of burning meat, it coated the inside of my mouth with grease and ashes.

Dotted here and there across the rough landscape were huge concrete structures: featureless blocks with no windows and only the one door. Surrounded by long walks of barbed wire, interrupted here and there with signs warning of mine-fields. This was where the workers lived when they weren’t working. I knew that, somehow. This was England as a slaughter-house, as concentration camp. The land Merlin Satanspawn had made, in his father’s image. A place of torture and horror and death for the lucky ones. Sinister Albion. The murdered dream of Camelot.

I could see Camelot from where I was. It stood at the top of a hill, not far away, the only castle in this nightmare place. It was all steel walls and thrusting metal turrets, polished and gleaming, with no windows and only the one door. And I had to wonder if it was as much a prison for its inhabitants as any of the concrete workers’ blocks. There was no stone or marble to the castle, nothing so ... soft, or human. I pointed the castle out to Suzie, and she nodded quickly. Her face was as cold and collected as always, but her eyes were fierce and unforgiving.

“You bring me to the nicest places, John,” she said finally.

“I think that’s Camelot,” I said.

“That ugly thing? I’ve had better-looking bowel movements.”

“You see any other castles round here? I told the Door to bring us straight to Excalibur, and this is apparently as close as it could get. And where else would Stark take the sword?”

“I have been in some real shit holes,” said Suzie. “And this is definitely one of them. Let’s get this done, John. I don’t like it here. I think ... it could be bad for the soul. That something in the nature of this place could rub off on us.”

“Sooner we start, sooner we finish,” I said. “Cheer up. I’m sure you’ll get to kill someone worth killing before this is over.”

“Anywhere else, that would be a good thing,” said Suzie. “But here—I think if I start, I might not be able to stop ...” She met my gaze suddenly. “John, whatever happens here, don’t leave me here, not in this place. Dead or alive, promise me you’ll get me home.”

“Dead or alive,” I said. “Nothing is ever going to part us.”

She nodded once, and we set off through the thick mud, towards the castle on the hill.

We made our way slowly across the dark, uneven country-side, our boots sinking deep into the mud with every step. It took all my strength and determination to keep going, hauling one foot out of the clinging mud with brute strength, only to have it sink in deep again with the next step. On and on, ploughing through the mud with stubborn strength, feeling my stamina leached slowly away by the unending effort. Giant bubbles of carrion-thick gas welled up out of the mud, disturbed by our progress, popping fatly on the already foul air. I cursed the mud and the stench and our slow pace until I ran out of breath and needed all I had to keep going. Suzie struggled on beside me, grimly silent. The oppressive heat left me soaked in sweat, and I had to stop now and again to cough ashes out of my throat. And deep down I knew that none of this had happened by chance. This was a world made to make people miserable, just for the fun of it.

The mud was deeper in some places than others, with never any warning, dropping off suddenly under our feet like giant sucking pits, trying to drag us down. Suzie and I looked after each other and fought our way through. The bottom half of my trench coat was soaked in mud and blood and filth, and Suzie’s black leathers didn’t fare much better. I kept hoping I’d get used to the stench and stop smelling it. But somehow it was always there, clogging up my mouth and throat and lungs. My eyes ran constantly with tears, from something in the air; I could feel them cutting slow runnels through the encrusted mud and ashes on my cheeks and mouth.

We’d barely made it half-way to the castle on the hill when we slowly became aware that we weren’t alone. Suzie stopped and looked sharply round. We moved to stand back-to-back, both of us aware of a threat we could sense but not see. The mud stirred slowly, its surface disturbed by living creatures moving underneath it. The mud was deep here, up to my waist, and things circled slowly round us, leaving long, slow trails in their wakes. Human hands and heads bobbed slowly up through the mud’s surface, rotten and corrupt and partially devoured, brought to the surface by what moved below. I still couldn’t see anything, nothing had broken the surface yet, but I could follow their progress through the deep mud. Suzie followed the wakes with her shotgun and pumped shells into position, the sound loud and carrying on the quiet. She tracked one particularly heavy wake, took careful aim directly ahead, and gave the creature both barrels.

The blast was shockingly loud but almost immediately drowned out by a vicious, angry screaming, as something large and twisted thrashed back and forth just under the surface. Blood spurted up through the mud, which flew spattering in all directions. Something that might have been a clawed hand briefly showed itself, and a set of massive snapping jaws, then they were gone again. Suzie aimed and fired a second time, and the screams shut off abruptly. The thrashing grew still, and the mud settled down again. A great pool of blood spread across the surface of the mud, but there was no sign of the creature itself. Slowly, the other wakes moved away from us, heading off into the mud. Suzie sniffed loudly, and we set off towards the castle again. Suzie has always favoured the direct approach to dealing with problems.

We moved on, ploughing stubbornly through the rotten and corrupt land, heading for two ranks of trees that formed a corridor, leading out of the mud and towards the base of the hill. I was really tired now, fighting the growing ache in my legs and back with every movement, breathing through gritted teeth to try to keep the falling ashes out of my mouth. As we drew closer to the trees, I slowly realised none of them had any leaves. The branches were twisted and gnarled and completely bare. The bark was a dull matte black, split here and there by some internal pressure, with thick red blood leaking out—as though the tree roots had spent so long in this corrupt ground that the trees no longer had sap in them, only blood. And perhaps no longer had any use for leaves in this world that knew nothing of sunlight.

The mud grew steadily more shallow as Suzie and I approached the corridor of trees, and we finally hauled ourselves out onto something very like proper ground. It was hard and flat and deeply cracked, almost volcanic. It felt good to have solid ground under my feet again, and I walked up and down a while for the pleasure of it. Then I spent some time slapping the hell out of my trench coat, trying to dislodge the caked-on filth; but it clung like tar, and I really didn’t want to try to prise it away with my bare hands. I finally gave it up as a job for later, and, hopefully, somebody else. Suzie, typically, hadn’t even bothered. She was looking thoughtfully about her, shotgun held at the ready. I followed her gaze, and quickly made out a whole bunch of creatures lurking in the shadows of the trees. Whatever they were, none of them wanted to get too close to us. They watched silently as Suzie and I moved cautiously through the corridor of trees. A few emerged from the shadows long enough to snarl briefly at us and retreat. They were cowed and broken things, with no spirit. What little I could make out of their forms looked rotten, decaying, malformed. Carrion feeders, not predators.

“First trees we’ve seen,” I said, just to be saying something. “Wonder what happened to the great forests here?”

“Cut down, set fire to,” said Suzie, sweeping her gun slowly back and forth before her. “Probably for the fun of it.”

“You know, you can be really depressing sometimes, Suzie.”

“Just trying to fit in.”

We came at last to the foot of the hill and stopped to lean on each other for a moment, to get our breath back before we tackled the hill. The dusty grey surface had given way to the first real road we’d seen, a dull yellow clay, winding round the hill on its way up to the castle. It wasn’t a yellow brick road, and that that certainly wasn’t an Emerald City, but it would do.

A bare wooden door-frame stood at the side of the road, containing no door, merely thick swirling mists that only existed inside the door-frame. Strange lights came and went in the depths of that thick, churning fog. Flames flickered sullenly all round the wooden door-frame, burning and blackening the wood without consuming it. The fires could have been burning for hours or days or even years. The longer I looked into the churning mists, the more convinced I became there was someone or something in there, looking back at me. And then I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs, drawing steadily nearer, and I backed quickly away from the door-frame. Suzie moved in beside me, covering the mists with her shotgun. The sound of hoofs grew louder, and a whole company of knights in dark armour came thundering out of the mists, right at us. Suzie threw herself one way, and I went the other, as horse after horse emerged from the mists to form a barricade blocking the road up the hill.

The horses were huge: great black beasts snorting and stamping in the ash-filled air. And on their backs, knights in the same black armour that Artur had worn. Armour made of black scales that hissed and seethed and slid slowly over each other. The dark knights carried huge oversized swords and battle-axes, some so large they had to be strapped to the sides of their horses. Their breast-plates bore ancient satanic symbols, burned right into the armour, and they all carried heavy oblong shields, each marked with the sign of the inverted cross.

And at their head, on the biggest, blackest horse of all, a knight in blood-red armour. His crimson helmet bore a pair of stylised horns but no slit for eyes and mouth—just a blank expanse of gleaming metal. The whole of the knight’s armour seemed fused together, made and forged all of one piece, so that even when the great joints moved, there was never any trace of an opening. The armour was a single sealed unit, with no way in or out. Designed, perhaps, to keep something inside from getting out.

I knew who this was, who it had to be. Prince Gaylord the Damned, Nuncio to the Court of Camelot. I wondered if he knew his King was dead. Or, indeed, who had killed him.

Prince Gaylord urged his huge black horse forward until it stopped right in front of me. Suzie was quickly there at my side again, shotgun at the ready. The Prince in scarlet ignored her, the featureless helmet fixed on me. I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to say or do, so I made a point of ignoring him and being only interested in his horse. There was something definitely wrong about it.

The horse’s body was strangely asymmetrical, everything out of shape and out of balance, and its long head was almost a caricature of what a horse’s head should be. Its eyes bulged like a frog’s, and its wide, grinning mouth showed pointed teeth. Thin wisps of smoke curled up from its flared nostrils. And when I looked down, I saw the horse had cloven hoofs, with smoke rising from the ground they trod. A very disturbing horse—if it was a horse.

“I am Prince Gaylord,” the blood-red knight said finally, his voice echoing inside his crimson helmet. It was a smug and very self-satisfied voice, with a hint of mocking evil. As though he had done terrible things and enjoyed every minute of it but didn’t like to boast about it. Effortlessly scary, because it came so naturally. “Welcome ... to Sinister Albion.”

“Ask him if he’s got a small companion called Tattoo,” said Suzie. She sniggered loudly as I shook my head. Her sense of humour emerges at the strangest times.

“You’ll have to excuse Suzie,” I explained, “because she’ll shoot you if you don’t. I am ...”

“Oh, I know who you are, Lilith’s son,” said Prince Gaylord. “I’ve been looking forward to this little chat. We have so much in common.”

“We do?” I said politely.

“We both know what it is to have an overbearing parent whose very existence overshadows everything we do. You destroyed yours; and I really would like to learn how you did that.”

“How did you know we were coming here?” I said. “Given that even I didn’t know half an hour ago.”

“I know everything I need to know,” said the Prince. “Except for when I don’t. I saw you admiring my horses. Aren’t they wonderful? So much more interesting than the mere beasts of burden they started out as. Now they all contain followers of mine, brought up out of Hell with me, to serve me in this world. I’m pretty sure that possessing horses wasn’t what they had in mind; but I’m not ready to share my glory with anyone. Do you like the black armour my knights wear? My idea, again. Every separate scale contains the imprisoned soul of some innocent slain by the knight. Bound to serve him, forever. Souls are such a marvellous source of power. And so it is my knights are strong and invincible, in such a delightfully ironic way.”

“Does like to talk, doesn’t he?” said Suzie.

“Living armour?” I said, concentrating on the Prince. “Like the Droods?”

“Copy-cats,” the Prince said dismissively.

“Look, what do you want, tomato face?” said Suzie. Her long struggle through the mud and filth had not improved her temper. The company of dark knights stirred dangerously at the open insult.

“Nothing happens here that I don’t know about,” said Prince Gaylord. “Or in the Nightside, for that matter. Hell is as close to the Nightside as it is to Sinister Albion. You should know that, John. The Griffin says ‘hello’ ... And yes, I know the two of you killed my King. Dear little Artur. The King is dead, long live the ... Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? You must accompany me to Camelot, John Taylor and Suzie Shooter. You must come with me to the Court of Camelot, then ... Oh, the things we’ll do ...”

“That’s where we were going anyway,” I said. “But you’re welcome to tag along.”

The dark knights laughed—a jeering, cruel, unpleasant sound.

“No-one ever wants to go to Camelot,” said Prince Gaylord. “Not given what lies in wait there. Not given what happens there. Many go in, but few come out because Camelot is the worst place there is, on this worst of all worlds. But things can change, even here. You shall be my weapons, dear John and Suzie, with which I shall bring down Merlin and take his place. And when I am King, I shall truly make this land Hell on Earth.”

“Who are you?” I said. “What are you, Prince Gaylord the Damned?”

“I am the Devil’s other son, begotten in Hell as my brother Merlin was begotten on Earth. And I am much more my father’s son than he ever was or could be.”

“Then why did he let you come here?” said Suzie.

“He didn’t,” said Prince Gaylord. “He couldn’t keep me out any longer.”

“If your father is the Devil,” said Suzie, “what do you need us for?”

“I don’t,” said Prince Gaylord. “I can take care of my brother. But I want you to remove a certain object, a certain sword that might ... complicate things. I can’t touch it, but you can. You can take it away from my brother and give it to me, to destroy it. Excalibur has no place in this world.”

“And if we choose not to get involved in your family squabble?” I said. “If we take the sword anyway and go home?”

“You have no choice,” said Prince Gaylord. “Excalibur is too powerful a thing to be allowed to run free. You shall go to Camelot on your knees, and in chains, as my slaves. You will do my bidding, John Taylor, or I will make your woman scream in front of you as I take her apart, piece by piece, until you beg to serve me, to save what’s left of her.” He gestured, and one of the dark knights urged his horse forward, a set of spiked chains dangling from one black mailed glove.

“Typical bloody stuck-up aristocrat,” said Suzie.

She opened fire on the approaching knight, giving him both barrels full in the helmet. The blast smashed the helmet and the head inside it right off, and the headless body slowly toppled backwards off his horse, his arms still failing as blood jetted from the ragged neck aperture. The horse reared up, menacing Suzie with its great cloven hoofs, and Suzie gave it both barrels in its exposed belly. The horse screamed shrilly, in an almost human voice, and crashed to the ground, blood and entrails spilling out of the massive hole in its guts. Suzie turned on the other knights, and picked them off one by one, shooting them right out of their saddles and bringing down their demon horses. Some tried to get to me, and Suzie shot them methodically in the back. I don’t know whether it was the blessed or the cursed armour that did the trick; but their armour was no protection against a Nightside shotgun. Soon the ground was covered in headless knights and thrashing horses as fresh blood soaked into the dusty earth. Suzie moved unhurriedly amongst the bodies, finishing off anything that didn’t look dead enough. Stopping now and again to reload the shotgun from the bandoliers that crossed her chest.

I had my own problems. Prince Gaylord screamed with fury inside his seamless crimson helmet as the first knight died and urged his demon horse forward to ride me down. I backed quickly away, thinking hard. None of my usual bag of tricks would work against the Devil’s other son. Given time, I might have been able to put something together, but he was right on top of me. I couldn’t throw pepper in his face, or take bullets out of his sword, or play games with his head. The only actual weapon I had on me was a small ceremonial silver dagger that someone had given me in part payment for an old fee. I only used it for carving magical graffiti into the walls of places I didn’t approve of. But after that business with the werewolves the other day, I did find the time to have the silver dagger officially blessed: by the Rogue Vicar Tamsin MacReady, and the Lord of Thorns himself ... and those were pretty heavy-duty blessings.

So when Prince Gaylord’s demon horse reared up over me, cloven hoofs pounding on the air over my head, instead of continuing to back away, as expected, I stepped forward, darted to one side, and sliced the demon horse along its ribs with the point of my silver dagger to see what would happen. The horse screamed like a fire siren, and sulphur-yellow flames burst out, all down the long cut. The horse’s hoofs slammed to the ground again, its legs almost buckling from the shock of actually being hurt, so I moved quickly in and jammed the dagger into the horse’s bulging eye. I forced it in, all the way to the hilt, ignoring the acidic jelly that splashed over my hand. The horse howled and shook its head savagely at the new pain. I jerked the dagger out and fell back, so that the stream of yellow flames bursting out of the eye socket missed me by inches.

Prince Gaylord was thrown from his saddle, as his horse crashed to the ground and lay still. He landed on his feet, almost elegantly, and laughed unpleasantly inside his sealed helmet. The Prince advanced on me, long butcher’s blade of a sword in hand, clearly expecting me to give ground. But I’d had enough for one day. I stood there, silver dagger in hand, and waited for him to come to me.

Prince Gaylord slowed his advance at the last moment, mistaking my bad temper for confidence. If there’d been anywhere to run, I’d have been half-way there already; but as it was ... Besides, I couldn’t leave Suzie. So I stood my ground, waited until Prince Gaylord was towering over me, then feinted one way and dived to the other. I knew his heavy armour couldn’t match me for speed and manoeuvrability; thus while he was still reacting to my first move, I was inside his guard, and slamming the silver dagger into his side. Doubly blessed, the leaf-shaped silver blade punched right through his blood-red armour, and Prince Gaylord screamed inside his helmet. He tried to strike at me with his sword, but I ducked the blow easily and yanked the dagger out of his ribs. He screamed again, as crimson fire shot out of his side, like a gas jet under pressure. He clapped one red metal hand over the wound to try to smother the flame, but it shot past his fingers. And while the Prince was busy doing that, I got behind him, jumped on his back, and stabbed the silver dagger right through his featureless metal face, right where the eyes should have been. His scream became a series of horrible noises, and he staggered back and forth. I jerked the dagger free and jumped down again. More flames blasted out of the hole in the front of his helmet.

But while I was preoccupied, his demon horse had been hauling itself along the bloody ground, leaving a long trail of guts behind it. It rose up suddenly, bared its huge pointed teeth, and lunged forward. I spun round and slammed the silver dagger into its one remaining eye. I jammed it in with both hands this time, hot viscous fluids spilling over my bare fingers, but the horse went down and stayed down.

Prince Gaylord staggered this way and that, flames shooting from two great holes in his armour. I circled him silently, looking for another opening. He was howling constantly inside his sealed helmet, words and sounds that made no sense at all. He’d thrown aside his sword and acquired from somewhere a massive double-headed battle-axe. Blood dripped steadily from both blades, and hissed and spat when it hit the ground. Prince Gaylord surged forward inhumanly quickly and swung the axe round in a vicious arc that would have cut me in two if I’d still been standing in the same place ... But armour exaggerates every move, making it easy to anticipate, and I started moving almost the moment he did. The axe hissed through the air where I’d been standing, and buried itself deep in the ground. And while the Prince stooped over it, trying to pull it back out again through brute force, I stepped in and slammed the silver dagger into his blood-red neck and jerked it all the way across the metal throat, opening up a long, jagged rent, and flames roared out.

I quickly retreated as Prince Gaylord flailed wildly about with his arms. He screamed again, the volume rising and rising, the sound of it increasingly inhuman. And while he was doing that, Suzie stepped up behind him and let him have both barrels in the back of his head at point-blank range. The whole helmet exploded, and I ducked out of the way as fragments of crimson metal flew on the air. I stood ready to go again, the silver dagger in my hand; but the whole front of the helmet was gone, a great jet of crimson flames shooting out of it. Prince Gaylord was still screaming, but the sound seemed to come from further and further away, until suddenly it was gone. The flames snapped off from all the openings we’d made, and the armour fell forward, hit the ground, and shattered into a thousand pieces.

It was all very quiet. I nodded my thanks to Suzie and put the dagger away. Suzie put her gun away and looked round at all the death and destruction she’d wrought with a quiet air of satisfaction. Dead horses, looking much more like horses now that their possessors were gone; and dead knights in armour, many of them headless. When Suzie finds something that works, she tends to stick with it. I breathed deeply, trying to get my heart rate back to something like normal. I’m really not one for the old hand-to-hand combat thing, especially against heavily armed and armoured demon knights out of Hell. Suzie came over and looked down at the scattered pieces of Prince Gaylord’s armour.

“Sent him home with his tail between his legs,” she said. “Probably to tell his daddy we were mean to him.”

“I think the armour was the only thing that could keep him here,” I said. I looked at Suzie. “I could have taken him. I had a plan.”

“What were you going to do, whittle him to death? I keep telling you, John, you need to invest in some serious weaponry.”

“Don’t need them,” I said. “I have you.”

“Of course you do,” said Suzie. “Always and forever.”

We started up the path to the castle, leaving all the mess behind. My heartbeat was almost back to normal, and my hands had very nearly stopped shaking. Suzie pretended not to notice. She seemed perfectly fine and was actually whistling something she clearly thought was a tune. The path made its way round and round the hill, rising slowly upwards. I kept a careful eye on the castle above us. It felt like it was looking back at me, daring me to approach any closer. After a while, I gave in to temptation and raised my Sight, just enough to give me a clear view of what lay ahead, in case there were any hidden defences or booby-traps I ought to know about. I had to limit my Sight; I didn’t think I could bear to See this land too closely, for too long.

I checked the path ahead but couldn’t See any traps or protections, as though the castle believed no-one in this land could present any threat, any more. All I could See were ghosts, armies of them, filling up the country-side for as far as I could See. All round the hill, angry and desolate faces stared up at Camelot, howling silently. I saw ghostly elves, proud and disdainful even in death, and hundreds of other magical creatures, standing still and silent in ghostly ranks—all wiped out by Merlin. Because he wanted to be the only magical thing in the land. I could See dead dragons, deep in the ground, and the ragged remains of slaughtered elementals, drifting on the sky above. So much death and suffering, so much sorrow, all because of one man.

One anti-Christ down, one to go.

I concentrated on the castle, so I wouldn’t have to See any more death, and my Sight stirred my gift, enough to give me a Vision of what was happening, deep inside Castle Camelot. Stark was there, in his armour, talking with Merlin, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying. They seemed to be arguing, which was good news. It implied that Stark had yet to make a deal over Excalibur. I couldn’t See the sword anywhere in the Vision. It might have been that Stark had enough sense not to bring the sword into Merlin’s presence; or it could have been that the sword was still invisible to anyone except its bearer. I felt distinctly jealous. It was my sword, dammit. And then Merlin turned his head abruptly and looked out of the Vision right at me, his blazing eyes widening in recognition. I shut the Vision down immediately, along with my Sight. I’d Seen enough.

I told Suzie about the Vision, and she nodded thoughtfully as we continued up the hill towards Camelot.

“No protections?” she said finally. “No defences at all?”

“Nothing magical,” I said. “But who knows how many more dark knights Merlin has at his command, now that he’s made himself King.”

“And he definitely Saw you, through the Vision? He knows we’re coming?”

“Yes. Which could be a good thing ...”

“Oh, do go on. I can’t wait to hear this one.”

“If he knows we’re coming, it could distract him from making a deal with Stark.”

“That’s what I love about you, John. Always the optimist.”

We laughed briefly together and continued on up the hill. The higher we rose, the further I could see out across the land. The rows of Wicker Men were still burning fiercely, pumping black smoke and ashes up into the sky. Huge bat-winged shapes flapped slowly through the clouds, lean and vicious things. They weren’t dragons. Something else Merlin had summoned up from Hell? I pointed them out to Suzie, and she smiled and said something about target practice.

When we finally got to the castle, we found ourselves facing two huge steel doors, great featureless slabs of gleaming metal, thirty feet tall and twenty wide, that were the only way in. I looked the doors over, but there was no knocker or bell-pull anywhere. The blank metal walls on both sides seemed to stretch away forever, towering high above us, without so much as a single arrow slit to relieve the monotony. Suzie did offer to try her shotgun on the door, and I said some very loud things about ricochets. While we were still arguing, the great metal doors swung slowly back, opening wide enough to allow a single knight in dark armour to march out to join us. Suzie and I immediately stopped arguing and glared at him, and he stopped dead in his tracks. Behind the narrow slit in the front of his helmet, his gaze was suddenly uncertain.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m John Taylor, and this is Suzie Shooter. Be impressed, or we’ll take you apart with a can-opener.”

“Doesn’t it get hot inside all that armour?” said Suzie. “You can take it off if you want. It wouldn’t protect you from us anyway.”

“Please don’t kill him yet, Suzie,” I said. “He’s the only guide we’ve got. I don’t want to end up wandering through this bloody place with a map in my hand. You are here to guide us, aren’t you? Speak up!”

“Yes,” said the knight. “I’m ... uh ...”

“Get on with it,” I said ruthlessly. “And get a move on. We’re expected.”

“Merlin Satanspawn demands you attend him in the Great Hall,” said the knight, getting the words out in a rush so as to be rid of them as quickly as possible.

“Good,” said Suzie. “We want to see him. We have a lot to talk about. Don’t stand too close, and you won’t get blood and innards all over your armour.”

“He’s going to kill both of you,” said the knight. “And I’ll get to watch.”

“And you were doing so well,” I said.

“How do you take a piss in that outfit anyway?” said Suzie, looking the armour over critically. “Have you got a trap-door, or something? Doesn’t it get rusty?”

The knight turned his back on us and stomped off through the doors. Suzie and I wandered after him, taking our time. The courtyard beyond the gates was full of men, women, and children, all of them impaled on long metal spikes. Hundreds of them, filling the courtyard from wall to wall. All of them still alive, kept alive and suffering. Suzie and I stopped short, and the great metal doors slammed shut behind us. The knight looked back at us, smirking behind his helmet.

“See? Not so funny now, are you?”

Suzie and I surged forward and hit him together, bowling him off his feet and slamming him onto the courtyard floor. Suzie knelt on his chest and stuck the barrel of her shotgun right into the slit opening of his helmet. I put a hand on her arm.

“Don’t kill him, Suzie. Not yet.” I looked at the knight. “You—arsehole. Tell me what’s happening here.”

“You wouldn’t dare shoot me,” said the knight.

“You really don’t know her,” I said. “Trust me. I am the only thing keeping you alive at the moment. Talk.”

“They spoke out, everyone here. Against the way things are. Someone overheard them and turned them in. Now they’ll squirm and rot on those spikes forever, kept alive by Merlin’s magic. Or at least, until the next batch of traitors get hauled in.”

I stood up and looked round me. Sharp metal points protruded from mouths and eyes, and blood and other fluids ran down the poles to pool on the courtyard floor; but all of them were still alive. Dying by inches, over and over, but never getting there. Agony beyond belief ...

“I can’t help them,” said Suzie. “I don’t have enough ammunition. Please, John. Do something.”

I raised my gift, and, powered by my rage and disgust, it only took me a moment to find the magic that made all this possible. I could See it, hanging across the courtyard like a spider’s web, every strand an artery, pulsing as it fed on the pain it made possible. I grabbed the whole web in my mental hand and crushed it. Something far away cried out, in pain and fury, and I smiled. All round me, men, women, and children slumped forward on their spikes, dead at last. I looked at Suzie, still with one knee pressing down on the knight’s breast-plate.

“Get his helmet off.”

Suzie wrenched the steel helm off and threw it to one side. It didn’t travel far in the shit and gore crusted on the floor. The knight’s face was pale and sweaty, and very young. Barely out of his teens by the look of him. He tried to glare defiantly up at Suzie, but he wasn’t used to being on the receiving end. He couldn’t meet the cold fury in her eyes. He was close to death, and he knew it.

“What’s your name?” I said.

“Sir Blaise.” He licked his dry lips. “I am a knight of the land, and it is death to threaten me.”

“Never stopped me before,” said Suzie.

“Get him on his feet,” I said.

Suzie hauled him back onto his feet again through a combination of brute strength and intimidation. I walked up to Blaise, kicking his helm out of the way. I smiled at him, and he flinched at what he saw in my smile, in my eyes.

“Blaise,” I said, “you only think you know scary. Look at me, and look at Suzie. See that gun she’s holding? She just killed Prince Gaylord with it. If you say one more word to piss either of us off, she will blow your head right off your shoulders. Won’t you, Suzie?”

“Love to,” said Suzie.

“Lead the way, Blaise, and don’t waste our time with the scenic route.”

He led us on, through the courtyard and out the far door. Suzie paused there for one last look at the bodies on their spikes.

“That is it,” she said. “Merlin is dead.”

“You get a decent chance,” I said, “go for it.”

Blaise led us into the dark interior of Camelot, and we went with him. Guards in dark armour lined the corridors all along the way, but none of them spoke to us, only sometimes standing aside to let us pass. They looked at Suzie and me as though they were seeing something utterly alien. I don’t think they were used to seeing people who still had their pride. Who weren’t afraid of them. I felt like killing them all, on general principles, and given the fury that was still burning so very coldly within me, I think I might have used my gift to find a way to do it ... But I kept reminding myself, that wasn’t what I was here for. I had to concentrate on keeping Excalibur away from Merlin, or everything was lost.

“How much further?” I said to Blaise.

“It’s a big place, Camelot,” said the knight, looking straight ahead. “Don’t talk to me. You’re nothing but dead men walking. Merlin will make you suffer and die, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Because that’s what happens here.”

“Someone’s getting snotty again,” said Suzie. “Let me shoot him somewhere painful, John, for the good of his soul.”

“And death won’t be the end of it,” said the knight. “No-one stays dead here. No-one escapes Merlin that easily.”

Suzie looked hopefully at me, but I shook my head. We still needed a guide.

The interior of the castle grew steadily more awful the further in we went. Camelot was a place of fear and horror and endless suffering. The floors were covered with flayed human faces, there to be stepped on and crushed under metal boots. The faces still had eyes in them, alive and aware, and the mouths moved constantly in whispering pleas for death and an end to pain. More faces had been stapled to the walls, the eyes following us as they passed. The mouths moved, but their tongues had been torn out. Further in, people had been buried alive in stone walls, with their hands left to protrude, still feebly moving. Bloody organs and human viscera hung from the ceilings in intricate displays, dripping blood and other fluids—still alive, pulsing, twitching. I asked Blaise about them.

“Works of art,” he said.

I couldn’t stop to set them free. There were too many. I had to save my strength for the fight ahead and hope there’d be time later.

Finally, after so many horrors and brutal indignities that I’d actually started to become numb to atrocity, we came at last to the Court of Camelot. And, of course, Merlin had kept the worst till last. Two huge doors of beaten brass stood before us, covered in deeply etched satanic workings and blasphemous designs. Severed hands and feet had been nailed to the doors, in patterns that made no sense. The doors opened slowly before us, and Blaise crashed to a halt. Suzie and I stopped and looked back at him.

“Aren’t you coming?” I said. “I thought you were going to watch, while Merlin did nasty things to us.”

“I know better than to enter unless invited,” said Blaise. “He’ll send for me when he wants me.”

I looked thoughtfully at the slowly widening gap between the two doors. “What’s in there, Blaise?”

“The dead and the damned.”

“Ah,” said Suzie. “Knew I should have dressed up formal. And brought more grenades with me.”

“We’ll have to improvise,” I said. “Shall we go?”

“Let’s,” said Suzie.

“But first things first,” I said, and punched Blaise right in the face. He reeled backwards, blood spurting from his ruined mouth. Suzie stepped in behind him and cracked him round the back of his head with the butt of her gun. He bent forward, as though he were bowing to me, and I rabbit-punched him. Blaise hit the floor hard and didn’t move again.

“Shouldn’t have been a mouthy little shit, Blaise,” I said.

“Got that right,” said Suzie.

We marched into the Court together, smiling cheerfully, our heads held high. It was a huge open space, full of a dull, murky, blood-red light. The smell hit me first; bad as the outside land had been, this was worse. Blood and offal and filth, but concentrated, as though someone had chosen to make perfume out of it. The massive walls were covered with the flayed bodies of all those who had defied or spoken out against Merlin or sought to change the world he’d made. Thousands of them, with their skins sheared away to show glistening red muscle and splintered bone. Pinned to the wall like so many trophies, so many mounted butterflies. Still alive, enduring agonies that should have killed them, maintained on the very edge of death by Merlin’s magic. He fed on their pain and was content.

The marble floor was stained with blood and filth and scattered human offal. Some old, some new, piled up here and there, or kicked aside to make rough passageways. From the high beamed ceiling hung massive chandeliers, made from human bone and gristle, with candles fashioned from human fat. They gave off a thick greasy smoke that hung heavily on the air. There were braziers with irons heating in them, and iron maidens with fresh blood round their bases, and all kinds of instruments of torture, ready for us. One man had been recently dissected, all of his parts cut out and separated, pinned to a large display board. His heart still beat, his lungs still moved, and—like all the others—he was still somehow alive.

I knew what all these things were, without having to be told; there was a low-level information spell operating in the Court. Merlin wanted his visitors to know what happened here. So he could stamp out the last little bit of hope they brought in with them.

Merlin Satanspawn sat on his great iron throne at the very end of the Court. Hugely fat and naked, and happy in his evil. He beckoned for Suzie and me to approach, with one plump, blood-stained hand. I headed straight for him, as though that was what I’d intended all along. I didn’t look down at what I was striding through. Suzie stuck close beside me. I made a point of not hurrying. In a place like this, small victories were sometimes all you’ve got. I took the time to study the woman sitting on the iron throne next to Merlin’s. Incredibly tall and inhumanly slender, she was also naked; but her ivory pale skin was marked with intricate tattoos, from her bald head to her clawed feet. Celtic and Druidic designs, mostly. Her ears had points, and her eyes were golden. Elven blood. A halo of flies buzzed round her head.

There were no more knights in dark armour, no guards, not even any courtiers. Merlin wanted no witnesses to see him forced to bargain with Stark for the sword Excalibur.

I came to a halt a wary distance short of the two thrones and nodded casually to Merlin. Suzie sniffed loudly. Merlin smiled happily on both of us.

“Allow me to introduce Morgan Le Fae,” he said. “Now I am King, she shall be Queen. Because it pleases me.”

“She reminds me of my mother, Lilith,” I said. “And not in a good way.”

“My mentor,” said Morgan, in a harsh, rasping voice. “Long ago, now. And my ancestor, of course. So welcome, cousin. The family can always use an infusion of fresh blood.”

“Okay,” I said. “That was creepy, on a whole bunch of different levels.”

“Are you an elf?” said Suzie, with her usual bluntness. “I thought Merlin killed all the elves here.”

“All but this one,” said Merlin. “I thought she had ... potential.”

“I never liked the others anyway,” said Morgan.

“I’m not here to talk to you,” I said. “Stark! Stark, where are you? Come on, I know you’re here; I Saw you.”

He stepped out from behind Merlin’s throne and met my angry gaze impassively. He still wore his fine armour, the helmet tucked under one arm, but the gleaming steel had been fouled with blood and filth and gore. His face was empty, blank of any emotion. There was no sign of Excalibur anywhere about him, and a chill touched my heart as I wondered whether I was too late after all. If he’d already given Merlin the sword ... But no; Stark wouldn’t give up Excalibur without getting what he wanted first. And there was no sign in the Court of his wife Julianne, living or dead.

“You took your time getting here,” Merlin said to me. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“You know how it is,” I said. “Taking in the scenery ... things to do, people to kill. You do know we killed King Artur? Suzie blew his head right off, so I wouldn’t recommend trying to bring him back.”

“His conversation never was that thrilling,” said Merlin. “But I take your point. Yes, I knew he was dead the moment it happened. Pity ... After all the trouble he caused me, I would have enjoyed killing him myself. And the example I would have made of him would have traumatised generations. Still, I would have killed him anyway even if he hadn’t run away. I don’t need him any more. I’ve finally grown tired of the old stories. No more Arthurs; none of them were ever as much fun as corrupting the original. Fallen saints always make the best sinners ... Now I am King, and I have taken Arthur’s sister as my Queen. Ah, the progeny we’ll have.”

“Oh puke,” said Suzie.

“Speaking of family,” I said quickly, “we met your brother on the way here. Prince Gaylord the Damned. We sent him back to Hell with his tail between his legs.”

“Made him cry like a baby,” said Suzie. She let her shotgun drift from Merlin to Morgan Le Fae and back again.

Merlin laughed abruptly and clapped his hands together in glee. “Happy news! You have done me a service, John Taylor; I owe you! And since I can’t stand to owe anyone anything, your suffering shall be legendary, even in Camelot.”

“Big talk,” said Suzie, “for a fat man with no clothes on.”

“Don’t taunt the fat psychopath sorcerer,” said Stark, unexpectedly. We all looked at him, but he had nothing else to say.

“Stark will be leaving us soon,” said Merlin. “Once we’ve closed our little deal. And then, through him I shall make contact with Queen Mab and her army of elves and use them to conquer your world. Ah me, a whole new world to play with ... I can hardly contain myself.”

“Try,” said Suzie. “It’s messy enough in here as it is.”

Merlin looked at her. “One more interruption, and I’ll turn you into something amusing. Where was I ... ? Ah yes; the elves. I’ve often wondered whether I was right to let them stay dead ... I think they would have appreciated what I’ve done with the place.”

“No,” I said. “The elves, for all their differences, have always understood honour.”

“And taste,” said Suzie. She grinned nastily at Merlin. “Go on. Try something. I’ve always wanted to be amusing.”

I looked directly at Stark, who was staring out across the bloody Court, ignoring us all. “Do you still think you can make a deal with Merlin? After everything you’ve seen here? This was Camelot, the birth of a wonderful dream. And look what he’s done to it.”

Stark turned his empty gaze on me. “I’m only waiting because Merlin said he wouldn’t close the deal until you two were here to witness it. You fascinate Merlin. He lusts to see you broken.”

“Nasty man,” said Suzie. It wasn’t immediately obvious whom she meant.

“Enough,” said Morgan Le Fae. She leaned forward on her throne, her face ugly with anticipation. “Break them, my King, with pain and horror and despair. Tear away their insulting pride and make them grovel before us. Make them love us and plead to serve us.”

Suzie laughed in Morgan’s face. “Not a hope in hell, bitch. We don’t do that.”

“But you will,” said Merlin. “Anyone can be broken. And the more defiant you are, the sweeter my triumph will be.”

“Don’t shoot him, Suzie,” I said quietly. “Not yet.”

“Why not?” said Suzie, in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice.

“Because that’s Merlin Satanspawn, the anti-Christ, and the most powerful sorcerer, ever. And I don’t have nearly as much faith in your cursed and blessed ammo as you do. And because I haven’t finished with Stark yet. He has to have his chance, to do the right thing.” I turned back to Stark. “You were a London Knight. You led their armies into war against the powers of evil. Did you ever think you’d end up in a place like this, begging to make a deal with the anti-Christ? You swore an oath, upon your life and upon your honour, to fight things like him. How can you see what’s happened here and turn your head away?”

“I am sickened by what I have seen,” said Stark. “I never knew such corruption, such evil, was possible. But I swore an oath to myself that I would do whatever I have to to get my love back.” He turned away from me, to address Merlin. “Your witnesses are here. You can have Excalibur—after you’ve given me what I want. My wife, alive again, for the sword. So do it. Do it now.”

“You have hidden the sword well, Sir Jerusalem,” said Merlin. “All my power, and I can’t see it anywhere. And that’s one of the reasons why I want it. I don’t like the idea of anything existing that can defy my power. Let us make our deal. Because nothing can stop us now.”

Suzie lifted her shotgun, and I was readying myself to do something. Then we all stopped dead and looked about us because something had changed in the Court. Something was coming. We could all feel it; something coming to Court from a direction I could sense but not name. Merlin sat up straight on his throne, looking round him with a look that was part apprehension and part anticipation. I gathered it wasn’t often anything happened in his Court that he didn’t expect. Morgan Le Fae had sunk back on her throne, a pale hand pressed to her pale mouth. She was an elf, and Saw more clearly than any of us. And then, Julianne Stark was standing in the bloody Court of Camelot, a ghost come to stand before the throne of Merlin, unsummoned and unafraid. She had fought her way here from the land of the dead because the man she loved was in danger. Because he needed her.

“You can’t be here,” said Merlin. “I didn’t call you. Be gone, little ghost, or I’ll show you even the dead can be made to suffer.”

“Hello, Jerry,” said Julianne, ignoring Merlin with magnificent disdain. “Glad to see me?”

“Always,” said Stark. “But the sorcerer is right. You shouldn’t be here. I didn’t want you to know there could be a place like this. How can you be here when I didn’t summon you?” He looked down at the preserved heart in its spun-silver cage at his belt. His hand was nowhere near it, but Julianne looked solid and very real. He smiled at her, and she smiled at him, and the whole atmosphere in the Court changed, as though the sun had finally risen after a long night.

“How could I stay away,” said Julianne, “when your very soul is in peril? It was easy to come here, Jerry. This is a world of ghosts.”

“Julie, you have to let me do this. I’m doing it for you, for us ... because I can’t bear to go on living like this. Without you.”

“I don’t want to live again,” said Julianne, holding his gaze with hers. “Not at such a cost. To you, and to this world. Listen to me, Jerry. This world can still be saved, the people set free to live their own lives again ... but not if you give Excalibur to Merlin Satanspawn. With its power he could raise all the dead of this world and torment them forever. And then come to our world to do it all again. I couldn’t bear to have that on my conscience; and neither could you. I swear to you, Jerry. If you make me live again, at such a cost, I will kill myself.”

“Julie, don’t ... I can’t lose you again.”

“‘I could not love thee, dear, half so much, Loved I not honour more,’” said Julianne.

She reached out with her ghostly hands and took his living ones in hers; and Stark didn’t flinch a bit. “I said that to you once,” he said finally.

“I know. That was when I first knew I loved you.”

Stark smiled at her, a real smile, the first I’d ever seen from him. “I’ve missed you so much, Julie. So much, I couldn’t see anything else. You always were the sensible one in this relationship.”

“How sickeningly sentimental,” said Merlin. “I sense your resolve is weakening, Sir Jerusalem, and I can’t have that. So give me Excalibur or I’ll destroy the heart that hangs at your belt and take control of this whining little spirit for myself. Just because she’s dead, don’t think I can’t hurt her. Don’t think I can’t make her scream and suffer while you watch helplessly. Haven’t you seen enough here to know that even the dead aren’t safe from me?”

He gestured sharply, and every broken, mutilated, and skinned corpse nailed to the walls and ceiling came suddenly alive. They raised their flayed faces, strained their wet-muscled arms against the pins that held them, and screamed in agony. The horrid sound was deafening. Bodily fluids rained down from still-working organs exposed to the air, and a thousand raw and desperate voices called out for rest and mercy and death. And Merlin Satanspawn and Morgan Le Fae sat on their iron thrones and laughed.

Stark strode forward to stand before the two thrones, Julianne drifting along beside him; and something in Stark’s face stopped the laughter.

“You really shouldn’t have threatened my wife,” he said.

He reached over his shoulder and drew Excalibur from the invisible scabbard on his back. The sword flashed suddenly into existence, the long, golden blade shining supernaturally bright, its golden glow forcing back the murky light of the Court. Merlin and Morgan both flinched away from the sudden new light and raised their hands to protect their eyes.

“You had the sword all the time!” said Merlin. “How could you keep it from me, here in my place of power?”

“It’s Excalibur,” said Stark. “What else do you need to know?”

Merlin jerked his fat hand down and made himself glare into the golden light. “Artur might have had power over me with that sword, but he was the rightful born King of this land. That gave him authority. You’re only a thief with a magic sword. And I have killed so many of those in my time.”

“You might be right,” said Stark. “I’m Knight Apostate. Not worthy to bear Excalibur. But luckily, I know a man who is.”

And he turned and threw Excalibur to me. The sword seemed to hang on the air, turning end over golden end, and I had all the time in the world to reach out and grasp the hilt as it came to me. I snatched the blade out of mid air, and the blade blazed up even more brightly, a terrible, piercing light that filled the whole Court from end to end. I swept the sword back and forth before me, then looked Merlin full in the eye. He stood up abruptly from his iron throne and shoved one hand out at me. Magic blazed and crackled on the air, rewriting reality itself as it forced its way towards me ... and the sword absorbed every single bit of it. Sucked it right out of the air. I grinned at Merlin and cut suddenly at his extended hand. The golden blade flashed through the air, and Merlin snatched his hand back barely in time to avoid losing it. I stepped forward and thrust Excalibur straight at his heart; but the blade couldn’t reach him. It slammed to a halt a few inches short. I cut at him again and again, grunting with the effort I put into every blow, but brightly as the sword blazed, it still couldn’t pierce his protections.

Stark and Julianne stood to one side, hand in hand, watching patiently.

Morgan Le Fae raised a hand to fire magic at Suzie, who gave the elf both barrels of cursed and blessed ammo at point-blank range. The bullets slammed to a halt against an invisible shield, and fell harmlessly to the floor. Suzie took a step forward and fired again and again, working the pump action with smooth precision, and every time the bullets got that little bit closer.

Eventually, Morgan ran out of defences, and the blessed and cursed ammunition smashed right through her pale chest and out the back of her throne. Blood flew on the air, and Morgan’s face held a long expression of shock and surprise before she slumped forward over the wreckage of her chest, golden blood spilling from her mouth. She twitched a few times and was still. Suzie turned to help me, but I’d already had another idea.

Maybe Excalibur on its own wasn’t enough to kill Merlin Satanspawn. But I still had my ace up the sleeve. I raised my gift and sent it out to find the spirits of all those people who should have died here in Camelot’s Court. And I took the magic that bound their souls to their dead bodies and broke it in my hands. Thousands of men and women cried out in one great exultant voice, and their souls rose out of their broken bodies, shining bright as the sun, free at last, leaving only mutilated corpses hanging from the walls and ceiling. And all those thousands of spirits, with a single will, gave themselves freely to Excalibur, filling up the ancient blade, until it blazed so brilliantly even I had to turn my face aside. Merlin cried out, afraid at last, and rose from his throne as if to run; but I stepped forward and blocked his way, and ran him through. Burning bright, Excalibur thrust aside all his protections and shattered the inverted brand on his chest, slamming his body back and pinning him to his throne. He cried out at the last like an angry child who’s had his toys taken away from him. I twisted the blade in his chest, destroying his heart, and he slumped in his throne, dead at last.

Just another bloody sorcerer, in the end.

I jerked the sword free and held myself ready for any last surprises; but there was nothing. The Court was still and silent. Merlin and Morgan lay dead on their thrones. Merlin’s blood dripped quickly off Excalibur, leaving the golden blade clean again.

“Not the first Merlin I’ve killed,” I said. “But definitely the most satisfying.”

Suzie moved quickly forward and looked me over, checking me for damage. It was her way of showing concern. And then I looked round sharply, because the Court was full of ghosts. Thousands of men and women, standing in long, shimmering rows, looking at me and smiling. Freed at last from their torment. I saluted them with Excalibur. Because it was more their fight than mine and because I couldn’t have done it without them. One by one, the ghosts disappeared, leaving this world behind, and I put Excalibur away. Every now and again, I feel like I’ve actually done some good, something that matters. It’s a good feeling.

Even though I’m not worthy and never want to be.

“I tried so hard to be a villain,” said Stark. “But in the end, I didn’t have it in me. Once a London Knight, always a London Knight. So, Julianne, Mr. Taylor; what do I do now?”

“You could go back,” I said. “I’m pretty sure they’d take you back.”

“No,” he said immediately. “Not after all the things I’ve done. Not after letting the elves into Castle Inconnu. My brother knights might forgive me, but I never could. I need ... to redeem myself. To atone for all the wrongs I’ve done.”

“ ‘I could not love thee, dear, half so much ...’” said Julianne.

“Loved I not honour more,” said Stark.

“Then stay here,” I said. “This world needs a King to lead it out of darkness. Who better than a man who knows the darkness in himself? It won’t be easy; not after centuries of ingrained corruption and evil. But the sheer number of bodies nailed up here shows that Merlin didn’t have it all his own way. You could spend a lifetime in this land, trying to put things right. Surely that’s enough atonement for anyone.”

“You could be right,” said Stark. He looked at the two iron thrones. “But I’m damned if I’m sitting on one of those ugly things.”

We all looked round sharply at an unexpected noise; and there, in the middle of the Court, a fountain sprang up. Clear, bubbling freshwater, rising a good twenty feet into the air, falling down to wash away all the years of accumulated blood and filth on the floor. And out of that clear water stepped a tall young woman in a long blue gown, with dark hair and a face I immediately recognised. Gaea, mother of the world. It only took me a moment to realise this wasn’t the same woman I’d met in Castle Inconnu; this Gaea was gaunt and harried and had nothing of Gayle’s easy humanity. This was the Queen of all the Earth, free at last of Merlin’s domination, come walking amongst us.

She smiled on us all and nodded easily to me. “You’re still not worthy, but my sister chose well when she granted you dispensation to bear Excalibur. Be grateful. It’s not every man who gets to be the world’s champion.” She turned to look at Stark. “The land needs a King,” she said bluntly. “You have my blessing. You do know who I am, don’t you, Jerusalem Stark?”

“I know who you must be, Lady,” he said. “But ... I must be honest with you. I don’t know anything about being a King.”

“Best kind,” Gaea said briskly. “It’s always the ones from long lines of succession who cause no end of problems. They have so much to unlearn. You can do this, Jerusalem. But you won’t have to do it alone.”

She turned her gaze upon the ghost Julianne. “You’re not nearly as dead as you think, my dear. You soul was bound to your heart; you are dead but not departed. And so I call you back, to the man and the world that needs you.”

Julianne cried out as she suddenly snapped into focus; real and solid, flesh and blood, and very much alive. She breathed deeply and clapped her hands to her chest, to feel her heart beat and her lungs move; then she laughed aloud and threw her arms round an unbelieving Stark, and the two of them hugged each other like they’d never let go. Gaea looked on them fondly.

“Don’t you love a happy ending?” said Suzie.

“It’s not over yet,” I said.

Suzie looked at me. “What?”