K Jeter: Morlock Night

"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.

And then there was much shedding of blood in the darkness below the surface. Only those who know not killing would sing of such. It is an old tale, that of metal against flesh, to such a one as I. The armies of the Morlocks were advancing upwards when I met them. The old man's prophecy was correct – most fled at the sight of my grim visage and ran shrieking back into the safety they thought they would find in the depths. They knew that to cross Excalibur meant their deaths.

A few, braver or more desperate, stood their ground. I fought past them, heedless of the shots they managed to aim in those close quarters, and at last stepped over their fallen bodies as I continued downward to the root of the evil cancer at the Earth's heart.

And finally came a time when none, of the Morlocks stood before me. I stood in the chamber of the Time Machine, having made my way through all the remembered passageways and across the bridge the Morlocks had erected over the underground sea. The gleaming apparatus stood in the dim light, a mute witness to Man's ingenuity in creating havoc with the Universe. I raised Excalibur and struck deep with it into the shining metal and crystal.

The one blow was enough. Silently the cosmos flowed back together, knitting up the wound the infernal device had created. The dim light vanished and I knew that all the scattered Morlocks, dead and alive, were gone, returned to their rightful place in Time. All was as it should be now. The just order of the Universe was restored. My task was finished.

Suddenly a wave of weakness engulfed me, and I tottered and nearly fell. I pressed my hand to my side and found a warm wetness pulsing out of my many wounds. On my will alone had I reached this place. My life's blood was even now ebbing from me. I sat down with my back to the chamber's wall. My arms and legs felt heavy and immobile.

Then Ambrose came to me in that place. The destruction of the Time Machine had liberated him from the trap where he had bound Merdenne. I knew it was him, the old friend and guide that in other times I had called Merlin, even though I could see nothing in the darkness.

"Well done, Arthur," he said, but why was he whispering?

My own voice sounded far away. "I don't feel very much like Arthur now," I said plaintively. "I feel more like Edwin Hocker again."

"He was a good man," said Ambrose. "A pity he has to die with you. Arthur will return, I and even Merdenne will return countless times, but Hocker's life is over."

"I don't feel bad about that," I said. Somehow the darkness about me was growing even darker. "But I do feel sorry for poor Tafe. I don't quite see why she had to die."

"You've forgotten. She came from a time that is yet in the future. She has yet to be born and has a whole life to live in a world free from the Morlocks."

"Yes. Of course. I'm not thinking too well now." Where were my hands? I couldn't feel Excalibur in them. "She… she'll be the same person, though, won't she?"

"She will," said Ambrose. "But in a brighter time."

"And a holy terror, I wager, to anyone who crosses her. I'm glad Hocker got to know her. He was really quite lonely a lot of the time." Something moved inside me that made me gasp, but the pain soon passed away. "I'm very tired now. Perhaps you'd better go."

"Yes. And I'll take the sword with me."

I could hardly hear him, or myself. "What will you do with it?"

"I will cast it into the underground sea here, so that it might return to you when you have need of it again. Farewell." Then he was gone away from me.

Only a little time had passed when the darkness folded about me like the softest and warmest of shrouds. And then, in that time and place – our Lord's year 1892 in Victoria's England – I saw no more.