Morlock Night

11

I travelled by train all the way from Berlin to the Franco-German border in a state of high anxiety, unable to sleep or rest for fear of further Morlock attempts on my life. As well, the question of whether, after all my efforts so far, I would be in time to do any good preyed on my mind. Perhaps the Morlocks would have already launched their invasion from below London by the time I arrived… perhaps Tafe's sacrifice had been in vain and I was already hopelessly late, unable to forestall the horror… Thus my thoughts churned ceaselessly behind my brow, working through my brain like a fever.

An old school friend serving in the British Consulate was able, with a little cash to the right hands, to smooth over my lack of a passport. I explained Excalibur to the authorities as the result of an expedition financed by the British Museum to a distant Asian archaeological site. While the customs officials were debating whether I was a jewel smuggler, due to the ornamentation on the sword's hilt. I simply did smuggle it past with the assistance of an elderly Anglican clergyman returning from sabbatical. The old cleric carried it across the border under his cassock for me. Other desperately improvised subterfuges got me across France without arousing any more suspicions, and at last I was crossing the Channel to home. My dear England, unaware of the enemy laying their plans beneath the streets of its capital… The Dover cliffs were tinted red as blood with the waning light reflected from low clouds when we came into view of the coast.

My friendly Anglican got the sword past British customs for me – I had convinced him it was a sacred relic needing protection, which was not far from the truth. When we were safely past the officials I took the bundle from him and ran to catch the train for London without even a word of thanks for the old gentleman's help.

The last stage of my return journey was an agony of fretting and fuming at the train's slowness. Every second seemed like a drop of some precious fluid – life itself – that was spilling out onto the ground to be lost forever. When the train at last pulled into the station I pushed roughly past a pair of old ladies and knocked over a pram complete with squalling infant in my haste to dismount.

Outside the station I hailed the first hansom, gave the driver the address of Thomas Clagger's residence, pushed a sovereign into his hand with an injunction to hurry, and climbed in, bearing my precious parcel under my arm. I leaned back into the cab's upholstered seat, but was unable to catch my breath. Listening to the rapid clip of the cabhorse's hooves on the paving stones, I half dreaded to see an army of Morlocks come boiling up out of every sewer grate.

I took my gaze from the cab's window and saw for the first time that there was another person in the cab sitting opposite me. This was too much – the cabbie was apparently trying to increase his profit by carrying two fares at once. I could brook no delay caused by such an arrangement.

"See here, fellow," I exploded angrily to the other passenger. "I've given the driver express orders to take me directly to my destination. You'll have to get out and find another hansom."

"I think not, Mr. Hocker," said the other with a grim trace of amusement. At that moment we passed a street lamp and its flaring gas flame cast its light upon Col. Nalga's pallid face. A small pistol glinted in his hand, poised straight at my heart.

"You've given us quite a chase," said my enemy, relishing the expression of shock that crossed over my face. "I caught up with you in Berlin but couldn't get a chance at you by yourself. The first wave of our invasion is scheduled to be launched in barely a couple of hours, so naturally we didn't want any messy little incidents that could possibly arouse suspicion about our plans. Given the element of surprise, plus our superior numbers, there really isn't much of a chance for your kind – not without Arthur and the sword Excalibur to rescue them. So I'll just relieve you of that burden right now, if you please." He extended his free hand toward me. "Hand over the sword."

My mind raced feverishly as I slowly brought the bundle between us. The hansom driver, I realised now, was obviously a confederate of Col. Nalga, and would take no notice of gunshot from inside the hansom. The Morlock officer would have the sword from me whether I was alive or dead. And how much longer would I be allowed to breathe after I gave it to him? A few minutes for him to savour my defeat, and that was all.

Col. Nalga's hand reached for the bundle, then drew back. "Unwrap it, please," he said. "After the way you managed to restore it and then cross all the centuries back to this time with it, I really should put no limit to your cleverness."

I undid the leather straps and pulled the cloths from the sword. The naked blade lay across my hands. Col. Nalga leaned forward to verify it being the true Excalibur. As soon as his eyes shifted from me to the sword, my hand tightened on the hilt and I lunged forward with it into his gut.

The report from his pistol echoed deafeningly inside the little space, but the shot went wild and over my shoulder. As the Morlock's blood pulsed out along the metal, his pale fingers loosened their grip upon the gun. His breath rattled in his throat but I covered his mouth with my hand before it could break into a cry for help. The large eyes gazed at me for a few seconds, then filmed over. The corpse slumped sideways on the hansom's seat.

There were no street lamps in the section through which we were passing, so in darkness I pulled the blade free of its victim, wiped it clean on the dead Morlock's coat, then quickly re-wrapped it.

Watching from the side window of the hansom, I waited until the driver slowed for a corner, then slipped open the door and leapt for it, clutching Excalibur to my chest. I hit the paving stones with my shoulder, rolling until I fetched up against the curbstone. Bruised and shaken, I raised myself with a bloodied hand and watched the hansom careen out of sight, the driver apparently unaware of my exit. When he arrived at his destination with only Co. Nalga's corpse inside, the other Morlocks would soon guess what happened.

Not a moment to spare. I got to my feet with Excalibur clasped tight in my hands and ran, more by instinct than reason, through the dark London alleys.

My breath came in ragged gasps and a bloody salt foam was on my lips as I pounded on the door of old Clagger. I pounded again after only a few seconds, stopping only when I heard hurrying footsteps on the other side of the door.

Astonishment spread across Clagger's wrinkled face when he pulled open the door and saw me, an apparition of wild-eyed anxiety and shivering fatigue. "Mr. Hocker" he cried. "You've come at last."

"Yes," I said, shoving my way past him into his well-lit parlour. "And I've got the sword." I raised the now dirty and blood-stained bundle before his eyes. "Where's Arthur? Take me to him at once!"

Clagger drew away from me and his face mottled with Fear. "Hehe's much worse," he said slowly. "I'm afraid- "

"Never mind that." I raised the bundle and brandished it. "This is the power to restore him – the true Excalibur!" The old man gestured toward a door and I turned away, opened it and stepped through with the hard-won prize.

The room on the other side was lit by a single candle at the side of a bed. "Arthur?" I said, stepping forward in the faint circle of light. "I have it. I've brought the sword to you-" Suddenly I fell silent as I perceived the occupant of the bed, his shoulders and head raised slightly on a bank of pillows. A grey, necrotic pallor had crept across the old king's sunken cheeks. Shallow, pain-filled breathing lifted the thin chest below the blankets. Two filmy eyes moved slowly upward to my own face.

"Arthur," I said mournfully. The truth was obvious. I had come too late. The old king was dying, beyond the help of Excalibur or any other power.

"Your king is checked," said Merdenne, lifting his hand from the piece he had just moved. "And mate? Yes, I believe so."

"Are you sure of that?" said Ambrose. He made no move toward the chessboard. "Are you sure there's nothing about which you may have been deceived?"

Something in the other's confident tone caused Merdenne's brow to crease in puzzlement. His eyes returned to the board, studying it…

"Hocker," said the figure in the bed in an achingly frail voice. "Come closer."

I stepped up to his shoulder, and stood gazing into his ravished visage.

"You have the sword? The sword Excalibur?"

"Yes," I said, lifting the bundle and showing it to him: "I'm sorry- "

"No, no," His voice cracked with impatience. "Unwrap it – quickly."

I did as he asked. The blade glinted in the candlelight as it lay across my palms.

"Read the inscription," he commanded.

Sick at heart, I turned the blade to my eyes. For a moment I didn't see it, as my mind was filled with a vision of the Morlocks, unchecked, ravaging the green English countryside. All was lost, down to the last little spark of hope that had remained alight in my heart.

"Read it," came the quavering voice again.

I shook off the doleful vision and focused upon the blade in my hands. The ancient runic letters danced in the dim light, then froze as my eye caught hold of them. They seemed to leap from the blade, and the world swam dizzily about me.

Take the sword…

Some time later – years, centuries, compressed into seconds – I looked from the blade into the old man's eyes. "Yes," he said solemnly. "Now you know the truth. It is in fact only General Morsmere you see dying here. You are Arthur. Excalibur is your sword to use."

I knew he spoke the truth. The runic inscription on the blade of Excalibur was the key that unlocked my true identity. For one lifetime I had been Edwin Hocker; for many lifetimes before I had been Arthur. King of Britain, Saviour of Christendom. My sword lay in my hand. The deed to which I had been called from the world beyond this one lay far below my feet.

"Why did you and Ambrose deceive me, old man?" I said, my voice now great and terrible.

General Morsmere's withered face looked up at me without fear. "The sword was stolen by Merdenne and diminished in its power before you ever had a chance to see it. Yet you were the only one who could be called upon to find all the swords and merge them back together into one. Ambrose enlisted me in his plot to masquerade as King Arthur, and thus throw Merdenne off your trail. As I was already dying of consumption, Merdenne was easily persuaded that his reduplication of the sword by using the Time Machine had a weakening effect on Arthur himself. But as you see, you have succeeded in your quest; Excalibur is a key to power, not the power itself."

"But couldn't Ambrose have simply told me I was Arthur? Why deceive me as well?"

"Would you have believed him?" said the old man, smiling faintly. "No, for Edwin Hocker was a rationalist and a sceptic. It took a great deal to convince him that there was a King Arthur reborn, let alone, that he himself was England's resurrected hero."

"Yes," I said, gripping the sword tight in my hand. "But now I know."

"Yes," breathed the old man. The effort of explanation had exhausted him. Only a little time was left before his death. "Go now and vanquish the invader, as in the past you have done. You are one, and they are many. But most will flee before your coming, as your power is great. Go." He collapsed back against the pillows.

I left that place, leaving behind one old man dying and another bewildered, and retraced my way to the sewers' entrance. There I descended, sword in hand, into the most secret bowels of the Earth.