Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘No,’ said the robot. ‘Here I must stay, until all I am called to do is done.’

‘Would you not see the light of day once more? Touch mighty oaks that were not yet acorns in our days?’

‘No!’ And the robot shook its head most fiercely. ‘Here must I stay until all is done. I will burn those who fail me with this.’ And electrical sparks grew brightly at its fingertips and arced up into the floorboards forming the ceiling above. ‘Those who will not obey will be subdued or destroyed. Already have I slain several who I discerned to be spies. But it is here I must remain, beneath the earth, until I have triumphed. And then I shall rise again and take my rightful place upon the throne of England.’

‘Then here I stay also,’ declared Hugo Rune, placing his hand on his heart. ‘Together we will sing the songs of old and recount the valorous tales. Squire, bring ale for the King and I.’

And I almost said, ‘The King and I?’ But I thought better of it.

‘Ale,’ I said. And I bowed my head and backed from the sinister cellar.

It took me a considerable time to find any ale. But at last I managed to locate two bottles of Fuller’s ESB. And these in the jacket pockets of the still-unconscious Squadron Leader Lancaster.

I returned to the cellar with much trepidation.

And two bottles of beer.

But I had only reached the foot of the stairs when it hit me that something had changed. Something was altogether different. The humming sound had ceased to be, as too had the curious smells.

Hugo Rune sat at the foot of the throne. His head was in his hands.

The robot sat on the throne itself. But its head lolled to one side. In the manner of a man who had been hangèd.

‘What has happened?’ I asked Mr Rune. ‘Did you kill it? Are you all right?’

The Magus turned his face up to me and I saw tears in his eyes.

‘He is gone now,’ whispered Hugo Rune. ‘I have sent him on his way.’

I looked towards the robot and noticed a dent of considerable size on the crown of its head. And I looked down towards the floor, where lay Mr Rune’s stout stick.

And Mr Rune’s stout stick was broken, all but snapped in half.

‘You did kill it,’ I said to Mr Rune. ‘And you sent me away so that I would not see you do it.’

‘Now is not his time,’ said the Magus. ‘I have returned him to his slumbers.’

I shook my head. And I said, ‘No, you are not telling me-’

‘That it was the spirit of King Arthur, lodged within the framework of a machine?’ Hugo Rune did wipings of a tear. ‘That is what I am telling you, Rizla. Because that is what it was. What he was.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But then, if it was King Arthur, why did you strike him with your stick? Surely, as you said, his battle plans will win the war. Surely that is what we want.’

‘The plans will remain in place,’ said Hugo Rune, hauling himself to his feet. ‘And Mr Turing will restore this machine and this machine will help us to win the war.’

‘Oh, hold on,’ I said. ‘I see this. The robot was not really possessed by the spirit of King Arthur at all. That was some kind of glitch. You have disabled the robot so that Mr Turing can sort out the glitch and use the machine to help win the war.’

And I once more did those buffings of my fingernails upon my tweedy lapels.

But Hugo Rune had no comment to make and we left the cellar in silence.

THE CHARIOT

What happened at Bletchley Park deeply affected Hugo Rune. He was silent for days and when finally he spoke again his words were gruff and unfriendly.

I really did not know what to say, but I felt that the Bletchley Park case had not really been brought to anything even vaguely resembling a satisfactory conclusion. I had never got to chat with Alan Turing and the entire case seemed to simply terminate in nothing more than a cop-out ending. And so, when a week had passed, and a most uncomfortable week at that, I felt up to tackling Mr Rune on the subject.

‘I really must know,’ I told him over breakfast. Mine was a big one and his merely toast. ‘I really must know what all that business was about back there at Station X. Was it really the spirit of King Arthur? And were you really Merlin?’

Hugo Rune looked up from his toast, a faraway look in his eye. ‘I might tell you much, young Rizla,’ he said, ‘but whether you would believe any of it, that is quite another matter entirely.’

‘I have learned that although it can be uncomfortable, it is always better to believe you rather than to doubt your words,’ I said, ‘so please tell me what it was that affected you so deeply.’

‘The re-meeting of an old friend under quite the wrong circumstances. ’ Hugo Rune munched toast, but with little joy or gusto.

‘Then it was King Arthur, and you-’

‘Let me tell you a story,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘You can believe it, or believe it not, the choice is entirely yours.’

I nodded with the head of me and tucked into my breakfast.

‘There is an Eastern Esoteric tradition,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘that at the beginning of time, the angels of God penned the pages of a great book. Within this book were listed the names of every person who would ever be born, live and die upon the Earth.

‘As each person dies, his or her name is crossed out in the great book. When every name is finally crossed out and there are no more men upon the Earth, so then will this great book be closed for the last time and placed in a great bookcase, beside many other such books that listed the names of many others of many another world.’

I raise my eyebrows to this, but kept on eating my breakfast.

‘Now,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘knowledge of the existence of this great book, and knowledge of its whereabouts, reached the ears of a certain evil man. Exactly how this evil man bribed the angels that guard the great book I do not know, but bribe them he did, to this end: that his name be cut from the book. And once cut from the book his name could never be crossed out. And so he would live for ever.’

‘That is very ingenious,’ I said. ‘If somewhat far-fetched.’

‘Do you wish me to continue or not?’

‘I do,’ I said. And I did.

‘This evil man is Count Otto Black,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I have killed him at least three times by my reckoning, but back he comes, as chipper as ever.’

‘So what is this?’ I asked. ‘Some personal quest of yours, to track down this particular man and seek to destroy him?’

‘It is for me to deal with Black because I am forever linked to him. Allow me to explain, Rizla. A page of a book has two sides and when a name on a page was cut from that great book it had another name upon its other side. When Count Otto Black had his name cut from the great book, my name was on the other side of this cutting.’

And I then choked on my breakfast.

And Mr Rune had to pat me on the back and fetch me a glass of water.

‘Are you telling me that you are some kind of immortal?’ I asked Hugo Rune.

The Magus nodded his head. ‘My name was Merlin. Count Otto’s name was Mordred, an evil knight at the Court of King Arthur.’

I did whistlings and shakings of the head. ‘That is pretty far out,’ I said. ‘To use the patois of the sixties, that really freaks me and I cannot get my head around it.’

‘Perhaps it would be better not to believe it – after all, I might just be winding you up.’ And Hugo Rune winked and I saw his face lighten.

And then he stole my sausage.

We had come to the month of May and I was not altogether sure that we were furthering the War Effort and helping to free Europe from the impress of the Nazi jackboot. There was an unremitting sameness about the days. The wail of the sirens, the horror of the bombings. Although, to my wonder, I almost seemed to be growing used to the bombings. Was I developing the Blitz Spirit? Surely not. I was perhaps merely growing numb.