Morlock Night

10

The experience of crossing the future centuries to the Morlocks' native time was much different from that which the Time Machine's inventor had described to the guests in his parlour so long ago. Frequent use of the Machine had, as Ambrose had explained to us, created a channel between our time and that of the Morlocks. As the device could now only shuttle between those two points in the Earth's history, the speed of passage was greatly increased. The dizzying rotation of night and day, even if we had been on the Earth's surface, would not have been perceived by us. It was only a brief, nauseating sensation, as when a ship drops beneath your feet during a stormy Channel crossing, and we had arrived epochs away from our original time.

Furthermore, the channel effect the Time Machine now possessed had also increased the amount of mass shifted by the Machine. Instead of just transporting a single rider upon its saddle and the small personal effects he carried on him, the Machine now took with it everything within a range of several yards. This was how the Morlocks had been able to move the enormous amount of supplies and weapons that they were stockpiling beneath London. Accordingly, Col. Nalga at the Time Machine's controls, Tafe, myself and a dozen or so Morlock soldiers guarding us – all arrived in the far future simultaneously.

As soon as the disorienting jolt to my system had worn off, I looked about the area to which we had been transported. The same dim blue light prevailed as in the Morlock base underneath the London of my time. A marked difference existed beyond that, however. Now the area had the aspect of having been well-established and used for some time by the Morlocks. There was no building set up around the Time Machine, so that I could see the space beyond it was not a crudely hollowed out cavern such as we had left behind us, but was instead an arched vault constructed of gleaming metal panels. Like a limitless cathedral it seemed to extend in either direction. Along one side several carts full of supplies sat on a track of metal rails, waiting to be transported into the past from which we had just come.

A group of Morlocks in slightly different uniforms stepped forward and took charge of Tafe and myself. We each had our wrists bound together with bracelets connected by a short chain. Our ankles were left unshackled so that we could walk. We were pushed away from the Time Machine until we were out of range of its effect. I looked over my shoulder and saw it shimmer, then disappear with the group of Morlock soldiers who had guarded us.

Col. Nalga stepped in front of us. The blood from the wound Tafe had inflicted on him had dried into a crust on the side of his face. His pallid visage twisted into a sneer of contempt as he addressed us. "We shall all see each other again," he said. "I have business to take care of at the moment, and then there will be much travelling – in space, not time – before you reach your final destination. But I promise you I'll be there. Until then." He gave a mocking salute to us and turned on his heel.

"Go to hell," said Tafe after him. One of our new contingent of guards scowled and barked an incomprehensible command at her. "You too," she replied.

Before the interchange of words could go any further, a length of chain was fastened to our manacles and we, surrounded by our Morlock guards, were led away. The procession made its way down the arch-ceilinged corridor until we came to a smaller passage branching off from it. This in turn led to a small room, hastily converted from its storage function into a cell. The chain and manacles were removed from our wrists and then we were shoved inside the bleak chamber. The heavy door slammed shut behind us. It opened again long enough for one of the Morlock guards to throw a couple of threadbare blankets inside, then closed with a decisive clang. Tafe and I were alone.

She paced the few yards that defined the room's width, then sat down on one of the blankets. "Doesn't look too good, does it?" she said, her voice almost casual.

"You have a succinct way of assessing the situation," said I. "But I agree with you. This seems to be pretty much the end." After a few moments of reflection, my degree of self control no longer surprised me. In a way, it was a relief for the whole thing to be over. We had given it our best shot. There had been no action for which I now felt I could blame myself. Perhaps Ambrose had erred in not having picked someone of a more naturally heroic mode for his purposes. But I had done what I could, and felt guiltless. An infinite sadness and regret was in me for the bitter prospects that still lay ahead of the innocent world I had left so many centuries behind. I had no doubt, though, that that fate would be shared soon by Tafe and myself.

Tafe's voice broke in upon my dark meditations. "What do you suppose is going to happen now?" she said. Her voice sounded singularly unemotional. Perhaps she had arrived at the same inner judgments as I had.

"I have no idea." I gestured at the cubicle's bleak walls, illumined by a single blue sphere overhead. "Perhaps they have put us here and already forgotten us. This might very well be our tomb."

"Didn't that Nalga say something about doing some travelling, though? I wonder where to." She mused on the empty space in front of her.

"Who knows?" I said. "Their motivations can hardly be credited as human. For all I know they may intend to ship us to some victory banquet they are planning, and to serve us on silver platters with apples in our mouths."

Our conversation ceased on that cheerful note. For a span of some hours we sat in gloomy silence, keeping our thoughts to ourselves. Starvation at least was not to be our lot, for one of the Morlock guards opened the door and deposited a tray bearing a carafe of water and a pair of flat, circular loaves of bread. After a moment's hesitation, wondering as to the origin of the food, we ate and drank. So passed an unknown amount of time, terminated when I at last fell asleep on one of the thin blankets.

The sound of the door being pulled open roused me from a dreamless sleep. Tafe was already sitting up with her back to one of the chamber's walls, regarding our visitor. I righted myself and saw that it was Col. Nalga standing in the doorway with his retinue of Morlock guards standing just behind him.

His repugnant sneer of victory was still congealed across his death-white face. "It seems," he said, "as if I'm not yet relieved of the responsibility for you. As I've brought you this far, it is now my duty to transport you somewhat farther."

"And where might that be?" I said with stiff formality. However many triumphs he might be anticipating for his noxious breed, the Morlock officer remained an insufferable upstart.

"You'll see soon enough," he said, the sneer turning into a wide and nasty grin. "If you two would care to step out into the corridor, our journey may commence."

As we exited the tiny room one of the Morlock guards stepped forward with the manacles and chain we had borne previously. Col. Nalga waved him away. "I think we can dispense with those," he said, turning toward us. "I'm sure you both recognise the futility of attempting anything rash."

Indeed, the close presence of the Morlock guards precluded any chances of escape. And beyond that, where was there to escape to? We were irrevocably stranded centuries away from any succour. Our captors' mercy – a laughable notion – was our only fate.

"Very good," continued Col. Nalga. "Come along this way, then." He led us to the lofty main corridor. There, on the metal tracks on which the carts of supplies ran to be loaded near the Time Machine, was a small passenger vehicle. Through its windows could be seen several upholstered seats arranged against its walls. An engine, not steam but some other type that emitted a low hum, was connected to the front of the little cab.

"Get in, please," said Col. Nalga as one of the guards ran ahead and opened the cab's door. Tafe and I mounted up a set of folding steps and took our seats on either side of the compartment. The elegant appearance of the vehicle was much diminished upon close inspection. The leather of the seats was racked and split open, and the dark wood panelling was warped where it was not actually peeling away. Apparently this, like the Atlantean submarine back in the Lost Coin World, was an item that the Morlocks had salvaged from the remains of some earlier people. Perhaps it was an artifact of the last true men before they had died out and left the world to the Morlocks and the effete surface people of which I remembered the Time Machine's inventor talking. No wonder that the Morlocks, incapable of creating anything themselves, wished to plunder an earlier world's creations and resources.

Col. Nalga and two of the guards climbed into the cab and took the remaining seats. The engine ahead whined and started to move. In a few moments we were rocketing, down the vaulted corridor at quite a heady rate of speed.

"I hope you're not alarmed," said Col. Nalga. "But we have a great distance to go, and patience is not the long suit of those who are waiting for us."

"You refused before to divulge our destination," I said. "Will you tell us then who it is we're going to see?"

"Forgive me for toying with you so cruelly. I don't wish to play cat-and-mouse with your questions and my answers, but I have my orders. Suffice it to say that you will soon be face to face with one who is not a Morlock such as I, but who nevertheless leads our plans to invade your time."

"Merdenne?" I said. "Is that whom you're speaking of?"

"Merdenne!" scoffed the Morlock officer. "That fumbler! Whatever happened to him he no doubt walked right into. No, he's not the one. But that's enough – I can say no more. Relax and enjoy this little excursion. It will soon emerge from this monotonous corridor and become more pleasant." He evidently relished the irony his politeness made in the face of our situation.

His words proved true in a short time. The little cab in which we rode reached a terminal point on the subterranean rail line, and we dismounted. An elevator, subject to stalls during its upward progress, took us to the surface.

It was late evening when we stepped out into the open air, but how good even the muted scarlet rays of the sunset felt upon my skin! My lungs drank in the air uncontaminated by the underground's clamminess and filth. The grim hope sprung up in me that, whatever the fate the Morlocks had in store for us, we would be allowed to meet it out in the open rather than in some fetid chamber in the Earth's dark bowels. A spasm of horror at the thought of an underground death coursed through me, then passed away as I forced myself to observe the landscape around us.

The Time Machine's inventor had described it accurately. This far-advanced age had transformed England into a sylvan park, the beauty of which belied the hideous activities of the Morlocks below the surface. Trees and lush-grown, rolling hills, and not one stone upon another to show that the great city of London had once stood here. All that was past.

"Where are… the other people?" I said. "I can't remember what the fellow said they were called."

"The Eloi?" said Col. Nalga. He and the group of Morlock guards had put on dark blue spectacles to shield their eyes from even the sunset's dim light.

"Yes, that's right. That's the name."

"I'm afraid that the fellow who told you of them actually observed our culture at a slightly earlier period than this. At this time we do not allow our valuable food source to wander freely around in herds. We use pens."

For a moment I was stricken with revulsion at this bold-faced statement of cannibalism. But then I reasoned that it would make as much sense to accuse a lion or other wild man-eater of the same crime. An animal such as that seemed as related to us as the Morlocks were – that is to say, not much. No, the process of evolution had made them into a separate species. No matter what our common origins might be, they were a breed apart. And as such, if I could have raised my hand to strike down the whole lot of them I would have done so with no more remorse than that felt by some rural vermin-hunter of my time toward his prey.

As the skies darkened we proceeded a short distance to the bank of the Thames, now a clear, sweet-smelling flow of water rather than the refusechoked lane of commerce it had been in my day. At a small dock a boat was waiting for us. We boarded and headed out to the channel. As the craft cut through the water I looked away from the gloating faces of our captors and up into the night sky. Over the centuries the stars had slowly shifted their positions. None of the constellations I knew from my time were still recognisable in the heavens. Those too were past, lost in the ocean of Time. Beside me, Tafe leaned over the rail and spat into the water.

I fell asleep with my back against the rail, and woke only when we reached the shore of the European continent. Another transfer was made, this time to a train much like the ones I had known. At its head, however, was the same oddly humming type of engine. Tafe and I were placed in a compartment with two narrow bunks in it. "Relax and rest yourself, dear friends," said Col. Nalga as he closed the compartment's door. "You have yet a long journey ahead of you."

The door proved locked from the outside when I tried it. The windows as well had been sealed over with a heavy metal plate, except for a small ventilation space at the bottom.

"Paranoid bastards," said Tafe. "What's so important that they don't want us to see?"

"Like most evildoers," I noted, "they have a penchant for needless secrecy. Fleeing when no one's pursuing, as it were." I laid down on one of the bunks and closed my eyes. The train's motion as it picked up speed lulled my thoughts. In a few moments I was back in the sleep I had started while crossing the Channel.

Dr. Ambrose was speaking to me, but I couldn't see him. All I could make out around me was a vast pattern of alternating black and white squares like a chessboard. I stood on one of the squares and in the distance other figures loomed, dark and mysterious. Fear will lose the game, said Ambrose's voice. Take courage… take the sword…

"Take it easy, Hocker! Just hold still and lay back. Jeez, are you awake?"

My eyelids fluttered, opened and I looked up into Tafe's worried face. Her hands were on my shoulders, pressing me back into the bunk. "What- what's the matter?" I said hoarsely.

"Where were you?" she said. "You were thrashing around and yelling 'What sword? What sword?' Like to scare me to death. What was all that about?"

"I- I don't know." The chessboard landscape was fading from my mind. "I thought I heard… No. Nothing. He must be long past, too, by now."

Tafe stared at me for a moment, then went back to her own bunk. I lay awake, listening to the train's passage through the night.

We had two meals brought to us, of the same flat bread and water, before the journey was done. A full day – or two? – had gone by outside our sealed compartment, for it was night again when Col. Nalga and the Morlock guards took us off the train. Before leaving the little compartment they had given us heavy coats and fur-trimmed hats such as they themselves were now wearing. The reason for such apparel was clear as soon as we stepped into the open.

A freezing blast of wind struck us, flinging sharp, stinging crystals of ice into our faces. We braced ourselves against the arctic gale while our Morlock escort grouped around us. "What is this place?" I shouted to Col. Nalga through the roaring wind. All I could see was snow and darkness.

"We've travelled a long ways, Mr. Hocker," Col. Nalga shouted back. "Farther than you probably think. This area is in what was known in your time as Germany, near the mountain mass that was then called the Zillertal. The climate is considerably changed due to the advance of the Schleigeiss glacier."

Germany! Even in the numbing onslaught of cold, a shock ran through me on hearing this revelation. For what purpose could the Morlocks have brought us here? This seemed to surpass all the mysteries that had been generated so far.

"For God's sake," I asked, "what could possibly be here?"

"In your time there was only a small village nearby. That's all gone now, of course. If you hadn't had the misfortune to arrive in this storm you would have been able to see that to which we have come. But there!" He extended his arm, made thick with his heavy coat. "You can just make it out where it stands."

My eyes followed the direction the Morlock officer indicated, but at first I could see nothing. Then an outline took form, looming through the obscuring storm. Dark against the surrounding darkness, it seemed like some massive medieval fortification standing alone on the bleak crag above us. In all my studies I had never read of such a thing being erected in this remote area. Who could have built it in the centuries since my time, and for what reason?

The Morlock guards were at last assembled about us, and Col. Nalga led the way toward the towering dark shape. As we struggled toward it, staggering in the face of the wind and the snow, I could make out the sputtering glow of torches at a point near the castle's base. A few yards closer and I could see that they flanked a high-arched entranceway. Another group of Morlocks was there, awaiting our arrival.

We gained the shelter of the arch and could stand upright again. The storm beyond the stone walls continued to rage, blotting out any sight of the train that had brought us to this desolate landscape.

Salutes were exchanged between Col. Nalga and the Morlock officer in charge of the group that had been waiting for us. After a brief exchange in their own language, Col. Nalga turned to Tafe and myself. "You're in luck," he said, grinning malevolently. His pallid face beneath the fur-trimmed hat was as cold and heartless as the snow beyond. "You won't have to spend any time waiting. The one who ordered you to be brought here is ready to see you now."

"This seems as good a time as any," I said, then defiantly: "Lead the way."

With our previous guards behind and the ones from the castle before us, Tafe and I were escorted into the dark structure. By the light of the smouldering torches set at intervals in the walls I noted the castle's apparent great age. The stones that formed the walls were much battered and covered with time-worn inscriptions, and the stones of the floor were worn in channels from centuries of feet treading upon them. In all, everything about the castle gave an atmosphere of great antiquity and the solemn mystery that often accompanies old relics.

The corridor led to a wide stairway, the stone steps of which were similarly eroded by wear. The Morlocks halted and the group in front of us parted to form a passage between them. Col. Nalga came and bowed with mocking courtesy to us. "This way," he said, sweeping a hand toward the steps. We followed, I at least motivated by a desire to face the one who had so cruelly dashed our hopes.

The rest of the Morlocks were left behind as Col. Nalga, Tafe and I mounted the steps. We felt our way cautiously as the light from the torches in the corridor below was soon lost to us, and none were mounted on the walls of the stairway. Upward in darkness we proceeded, steadying ourselves on the uneven steps with our hands against the cold, damp walls.

At last Col. Nalga halted and raised a barely discernible hand. "The one beyond this door," he whispered, "is a person of great power and quick wrath. Guard your tongue, then, as it may mean a good deal of difference as regards the ease of your deaths." He pushed open the door he had indicated and motioned for us to go through. When we had stepped past him he did not follow but pulled the door shut behind us.

Not torches but a pair of candles partly illumined the chamber in which we now found ourselves. The wax tapers stood on a table close to the wall farthest from us. A figure sat at the table. In the dim light I at first thought it was some kind of a joke created by the Morlocks – a parody of an Egyptian mummy with a silk dressing gown wrapped about it. The figure's head was completely swathed in white bandages as were the hands resting on the table like ill-shaped parcels on a butcher's rack.

We stood motionless for several moments as we studied this gauze-wrapped apparition. Then it spoke. "Come closer. Where I can see you."

A shiver crawled over my flesh at the sound of the words. The voice, though somewhat muffled by the bandages, was oddly familiar to me. A woman's voice – where had I heard it before? I puzzled over this new mystery as Tafe and I crossed the room.

"So." The bandaged head looked up and studied us when we stood beside the table. "It's my pleasure to entertain the two of you again. Though I certainly hope you repay my hospitality better than the last time we met."

I could contain my curiosity no longer. "Who are you?" I asked, peering at the lines of the face concealed beneath the wrappings. "Why are you disguised in such a fashion?"

"Disguise?" A bitter laugh emerged from the gauze. I wish it were so." The white mass turned slowly from side to side as if the neck were capable of only limited and painful motion. "No," the woman went on, "the bandages are to keep my charred skin from sloughing off my flesh like leaves. Come, come, my dear Mr. Hocker. Was my fate so unimportant to you that you can't even recall a certain conflagration for which you were responsible? Such callousness from one who no doubt styles himself virtuous!"

"The clinic," I said, slowly realizing the truth. "Where Merdenne was keeping Arthur prisoner."

"That's right," affirmed the muffled voice. "Quite the little heroes then, weren't you? Rescue your precious doddering king, but leave a woman behind to die in the flames!" The bandaged hands flexed as if trying to curl into angry fists. "Are you saddened to discover that I survived?" A drop of spittle soaked through the gauze over her mouth with her bitter words.

"The nurse," I said. "At the clinic…"

"Ah, yes, the nurse, as you say. That was Merdenne's little masquerade for me. All the time I had served as his right hand, he wished to humiliate me that way. He knew my ambitions. were as great as his, and might someday cut the ground from beneath his feet. The wretch! Leaving me to die and rot in a hospital charity ward as soon as I had answered all his questions about your rescue of Arthur. I vowed then, in the heart of my scabbed and twisted body that I would live and take his place somehow. And so I have. Merdenne is gone and I am now the Morlocks' collaborator. The sweet triumph for which Merdenne craved will be mine."

The intensity of the woman's greed and egotism repulsed me. So Evil always had an understudy such as this to take its place when needed! "Do you know where Merdenne is?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter," said the woman. "From the fact of his sudden disappearance it's easy to surmise that your friend Dr. Ambrose has somehow managed to remove him from the scene. And since you two have been pursuing your quest without Ambrose's help, it's equally obvious that your powerful ally is also no longer a force that needs to be considered. No, the contest is between you and myself – and I have won."

"You knew then what we were trying to do? What the purpose of our quest was?"

The bandaged head nodded slowly. "After your raid on the clinic you had Arthur the King. What else would you need other than the sword Excalibur restored to its true strength?"

"So that's why you had the sword that had drifted to the Lost Coin World brought to you."

"Of course. But not just that sword. All of them I had located and retrieved, except for the one that was already in your possession." The woman's gauze-wrapped hands left the table and lifted up something that had been propped next to her chair. It was the sword I had carried, still bound in its cloths and leather straps.

The woman clumsily laid the bundle on the table. "All along," she said, "I believed Merdenne to be a fool for merely dividing up Excalibur's power and scattering the swords to their hiding places. A weapon such as this! A thing of power! A waste for it not to be employed to further our own ends. So after I had taken Merdenne's place in the confidences of the Morlocks the first thing I ordered was that the swords be found and brought to this particular place."

"Why this place?" said I. "Of what significance is this castle?"

"I'm glad you show a curiosity about these things, Hocker. I would think it a pity for anyone to die ignorant of the truth. As for this place, it is a site of great power – the same power that the sword Excalibur is said to possess. The castle itself used to stand at a similar site of power in the Languedoc section of France and was called Montsegur, and before that Montsalvat. It was rumoured to have once been the repository of that stone known as the Holy Grail. Whether that is true or not I cannot say. Be that as it may, a mysterious order that called themselves the Last Cathars moved the castle of Montsegur to this spot stone by stone sometime in the last part of the Twentieth Century – this I know from the records they left behind. Their occult attempts must not have been successful, for the order died out and vanished shortly after. When I learned of the existence of this place I resolved to bring the Excalibur swords here for my own purpose – melding the swords into one again."

Her last statement puzzled me. "Couldn't that have been done anywhere? I thought it was sufficient merely to bring the swords together and they would combine by themselves into one."

A nod from the bandaged head. "So I had thought as well. But I had three of the four swords in my possession and nothing resulted from their juxtaposition. They remained three separate swords, worthless in themselves. That is why I brought them to this desolate spot, hoping that the power inherent in the location and the very stones of the castle would serve to unite them."

"And you succeeded?"

"No." The word was hard and flat as iron. "Even in this place where more than anywhere else it should have been possible, nothing happened. I tried every conceivable positioning of the swords to each other, yet still they remained separate. At last I came to the only possible conclusion." She paused, then went on, her voice even more steely. "The swords are fraudulent. There is no Excalibur, and perhaps never was. It was all concocted by Dr. Ambrose for reasons of his own, most likely as a diversion to draw Merdenne's attention away from his real plotting."

Her accusation stunned me. "But- but that can't be- He told us. He sent us after them."

"So?" A shrug. "He used you then, a pawn on his board while his more valuable pieces awaited their turn. Did you really expect a master strategist such as Ambrose to move so simply toward his goal?"

For a moment I felt dizzy with shock, and Tafe put her hand on my shoulder to steady me. "I thought," I said weakly, "that he had told the truth to us. That he owed at least that much to us."

"You meant nothing to him," said the woman. "Such as you are less than dirt to him. But now I've grown tired of our little conversation. As I had expected, it was a rare treat to see your faces when I told you these things. Now you're so pitiful when deprived of your illusions that you make me sick." She raised her hand and the door behind us opened, admitting Col. Nalga and several of the guards. "Take them away," she ordered, then picked up the sword I had carried all through the regions below the Earth's surface, and tossed it into my hands. "Here – take your worthless scrap of metal. I hope you find it a fitting object of contemplation."

The Morlock guards led us out of the room just as peal after peal of muffled laughter sounded from the bandaged figure's hidden mouth.

Flight after flight of time-worn steps led down to the bowels of the castle. At last our guards had brought us to a heavy iron door with a small opening hatched over with bars. The flickering light of a torch was visible through the aperture.

"Consider this your last residence," said Col. Nalga, drawing open the door. The Morlock guards shoved us in, then the officer slammed the door shut once more. "I'm afraid," he said to us through the barred opening, "that whatever vermin you find in there will have to do for your supper. We hate to abandon our guests like this, but we must return to the invasion force that's massing beneath the England of 1892. Our plans will be ripe in a few days of that long ago time. So now we must leave you. Sleep well."

He and the guards departed, boots tramping upon the ancient stairs. That noise died in the distance above us. Tafe and I turned away from the door. There was no point in even trying it, as we had heard the bolt fall into place on the other side. We surveyed the chamber where we had been left to die.

From all appearances the room had once served as one of the dungeon cells for the castle. Below the sputtering torch on the wall dangled several pairs of rusting manacles and leg shackles. Most of the space, though, was taken up by the mounds of nondescript trash that had accumulated in this low point over the centuries. Old clothing and fetid garbage lay mixed in with battered pieces of armour. Idly, I poked about in the nearest heap with the clothwrapped tip of the useless sword they had allowed me to keep.

A trio of objects slid from the top of the heap and clattered on the stone floor. In the dim light I at first could not make them out, but then saw that they were three swords, all alike and identical to the one inside the bundle in my hands. The Morlocks, having found the sword useless, had simply thrown them away down here. No doubt it fitted their cruel mockery to shut us in with them as well.

I disconsolately studied the swords as they lay with their blades crossed upon each other. So this was the end of our quest! That which we had sought was now in our possession at last – a bitter treasure of lies and useless forgeries.

Tafe came to my side and looked down at the swords. "Kind of a disappointment," she said, moving one with the toe of her boot.

"You might say that." The flat understatement amused some morbid humorist in my soul. "I'm not quite sure I would have come this far if I'd known it was going to be like this."

"Me either." For a moment I thought she hadn't caught my sarcasm, then I turned and saw her smiling sadly at me. "We gave it our best shot, though, didn't we?"

"Pity it has to end this way." I watched her foot move the swords about something about the torchlight glinting on the metal dropped into my mind like a stone into clear water. "Unless- "

"Unless what?" She looked at me, puzzled.

I turned and grabbed her by the arm. "See here, Tafe," I said excitedly. "That bloodthirsty woman upstairs couldn't get these swords she had to combine into one, eh? And so we all assume that Ambrose lied about them, and that they're incapable of merging back into one sword. But couldn't it be that these swords here, as they are only fraudulent copies of the true Excalibur that has always been in our possession, seek not to combine with each other but only with the master from whose mould they were taken?" I lifted the bundle up before us. "Think of the true Excalibur as a glass filled with essence. These other swords need to be poured, so to speak, back into this one. Eh? What do you think of that?"

Tafe rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Well," she said. "I suppose it's worth a try. We've got nothing to lose at any rate."

Hastily, I fumbled off the straps and cloths wrapped about the sword. When it was free of them I gripped its hilt with both hands, inhaled deeply, and pressed the point of its blade against the sword nearest to me on the ground. For a moment, metal touched metal with no result, then The torch on the wall flickered and nearly went out as a gust of wind pulsed through the chamber. In my hands Excalibur, now twice as heavy as before, suddenly pulled downward to rest its point on the dirty stone floor. Only two of the false swords remained beneath our eyes.

Tafe and I exchanged glances. "Go on," she whispered, her voice filled with awe at what we had seen. "Touch the others with it."

As I moved the true Excalibur toward the next sword I saw that the inscription on the blade had grown clearer, though it was still blurred beyond reading. Metal touched metal and another violent gust of wind chilled our faces and hands. The sword whose hilt I gripped was again heavier, having reabsorbed some of the power that had been stolen from it.

One sword remained on the stone floor. Slowly I brought the now weighty Excalibur against it. The torch on the wall guttered and went out in the sudden gust of wind that filled the chamber. We were left in darkness with the object which we had undertaken our quest to find: the one true Excalibur restored to its full power. It lay heavy in my hand as I lifted it and ran trembling fingers along the length of the blade. The runic letters of the inscription were now clearly incised.

I reached down to my feet and found the wrappings in which I had carried it. I felt now the sacredness of the object and the respect the ancient artefact deserved. When it was bundled once more I turned toward Tafe in the darkness and whispered, "We have found it."

"Yes," came her reply. "But what good does it do? We're thousands of miles and God knows how many centuries away from the one who can use the sword. Arthur's back in the England of your time and we're in the middle of this Godforsaken frozen waste. Even if we could get out of this dungeon, how do you propose to get back?"

My joy at the restoration of Excalibur to its true state disappeared with Tafe's reminder of our condition. Our victory had again receded into shallow defeat. "Well," I said, my voice coming from some hollow centre of pain in my chest, "then there's nothing but- Wait! Did you hear something then?"

In the darkness it was easy to concentrate upon our sense of hearing. For a moment I thought it was perhaps nothing but the blood rushing in my veins, then Tafe spoke. "There," she said. "Something rumbling in the ground below us."

The sound grew louder, evolving into a churning, roaring noise. Soon the floor beneath our feet began to vibrate, and the ancient stones of the castle grated against one another. Dust from the long undisturbed roof sifted down upon us from above.

"What is it?" cried Tafe. "What's going on? An earthquake?"

The words of a half-forgotten dream came back to me, and suddenly I understood them. "No," I said, "it's the sword! It seeks to return to its proper time – and didn't the woman say that this was a place of power? Excalibur is turning the centuries back to the time where it rightfully belongs!"

With fearsome rumbling and groaning noises the walls of the castle began to crumble into their component atoms. The stones of the dungeon toppled in on us, but dissolved into nothingness before they hit us. Through the sudden yawning spaces above us I could see the moon and stars whirl about as they wrenched themselves back into the constellations of the year 1892.

"Hold on to the sword!" I cried to Tafe, thrusting the bundle between us. "It will take us with it. The power is great enough!"

Her hands grasped the cloth-wrapped sword. The floor heaved and creaked beneath our feet but we managed to stay upright. The stones of the castle lay all around in ruins, then flicked one by one out of existence as Time coursed backward.

The Earth's motion grew less, then finally was stilled. An eerie calm settled over the snow-covered crag on which we found ourselves. Moonlight bathed the drifts, silvered the trees of a forest below. Some small mechanism of my heart felt at rest. This I knew was the year 1892. Only distance separated us from England, Arthur, and the end of our quest.

"There's still a chance," I said to Tafe. "We may have arrived at a time early enough to forestall the Morlocks' invasion plans – if we can get Excalibur into the hands of Arthur."

"Yes, but how?" she said. "That's hundreds of miles away!"

"Col. Nalga said there was a village near this spot. If we can get to it we can hire some means of transportation to a larger town, and then travel by rail back to England."

"Is there enough time for that?"

"What other choice do we have? Either we go that route and pray we have enough time, or we simply give up where we stand."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "We've come too far for that. We'd better hurry if we're going to find that village before we freeze to death out here."

We commenced walking and were lucky enough to stumble upon a well-marked trail leading down out of the hills. After following its winding length for only a half-mile or so we were able to spy a cluster of lights below us. We quickened our paces, longing for the sight of plain human faces.

Tafe suddenly spoke. "Don't turn your head yet," she whispered. "But when I say to, look about twenty yards up the face of the cliff just to your right, and be quick about it. All right, now."

I did as she directed and was rewarded with the sight of something being jerked back behind a little outcropping of rock. A death-pale face with white hair and dark blue spectacles! Perhaps.

"You saw it?" said Tafe.

"Yes," I said, nodding. "They're waiting for us here. When we disappeared from the castle in the future they must have reasoned that we had found a way to unite the swords and return with it to this time. Obviously they mean to stop us before we can reach Arthur with Excalibur."

"Let em try," said Tafe with fierce determination. "I haven't gone this far just to be stopped an inch from the finish line."

We made our way without incident to the little village at the foot of the hills. There I convinced one of the local burghers that Tafe and I were English tourists who had gotten separated from our hiking party. For a nominal amount of pound notes – my wallet had stayed in my inside coat pocket through all our trials so far – I hired a small cart and a pair of horses to draw it I promised to have them sent back by someone at our destination, which was the nearest town situated on a railway line. Another wad of notes secured the possession of two ancient, rust-specked rifles and a handful of rounds. "For the trolls?" said the seller, laughing as he handed the guns to me.

"Trolls?" I said. "What trolls?"

"Ach, some of the little children here claim to have seen trolls in the hills nearby. Pale white ones with blue glass spectacles. Such imagination they have!"

"Indeed," I murmured, and hurried outside to where Tafe was waiting with the cart.

"I'll take the reins," I said and handed her the rifles. "Load these and be quick about it. We'll need them before very long, I'm afraid."

The sun had not yet risen when we left the village. To reach our planned destination we would have to pass directly beneath a row of weathered cliffs that terminated one section of the hills from which we had descended earlier. This was the point at which I anticipated the Morlocks attempt upon us. I coaxed as much speed from the two venerable plow-horses drawing us as was possible, while the cart jarred in and out of the rural lane's ruts, shaking as if it were ready to fall apart.

For a moment, as we passed the last of the small cliffs that bordered the road, I dared to hope that the attack I had expected was somehow not to be realised. My small spark of hope was dashed when a pair of rifle shots sounded above us. The two startled horses bucked and reared at the noise, tearing the reins loose from my hands. One of the cart's wheels caught in a rut and twisted, snapping the worm-eaten axle. The cart crashed onto its side, throwing us clear and interposing itself as a temporary barrier between ourselves and any more shots from the cliff.

The bundle containing the sword Excalibur lay within reach of my hands. I drew it to my side, then gestured to Tafe a few feet away. "Give me one of the rifles," I said urgently. "They'll rush us soon – perhaps we can pick off enough of them to give us a chance to break for it."

"No," she said, holding the rifles close to herself. "Take the sword and one of the horses. I can hold them back while you head for the town."

"Give me the rifle. We're going on together or not at all."

"I can't go with you," she said, her voice straining. "Can't you see? I'm hit." She moved her arm away from her side and in the dim moonlight I could see the blood pulsing through her torn clothing and onto the ground. The two shots from the Morlocks had found their mark.

My mind swam dizzily for a moment at the sight, then held with decision. "I'll carry you," I said. "On the back of one of the horses. We'll be able to get away from them, and we can find a doctor in the town ahead."

She shook her head. "That's useless. I've bought it. I've seen enough of my buddies get shot in my own time, and I can tell how bad this is. I'd be dead from loss of blood in a mile and the Morlocks would catch up with you and kill you and take the sword and what good would it all be. Come on, get out of here. Take the goddamn sword and go."

I hesitated, then bowed to her wishes. "I'll send someone back for you," I said.

"Don't bother. I'll be dead by then." She winced from a sudden pain deep in her vitals. "That'll just cause trouble for you, and you've got to make time back to England."

Bending low to stay behind the cover of the overturned cart, I loosed the faster looking of the two horses from his harness. Under one arm I carried the bundle with Excalibur inside. "Good-bye, Tafe," I called back to her. "I- "

"Hey, are you going or not?" she said in exasperation.

I swung myself onto the horse's back, clutched my free hand into its mane, then dug my heels into its ribs. A hasty shot from one of the Morlocks kicked up dust at its hooves, but I was soon out of their range. I looked over my shoulder and saw Tafe lining up a shot over the side of the cart, then she was lost in the darkness behind me. As I rode I leaned into the horse's mane, trying to press everything but my flight, from my breast.