Ben Bova - Orion and King Arthur

“Aten is furious that you are defying his command. He wants you to return Arthur to Amesbury. There is to be a Saxon attack upon Amesbury fort and he must be there to lead the garrison.”

“To be killed, you mean,” I replied.

Anya said nothing.

“Arthur needs a sword that will bring him victory,” I said.

She smiled, a little sadly. “Do you really believe that a sword could make any difference?”

“It will give him the confidence he needs to fight against hopeless odds. And win.”

“Aten does not want him to win,” she said.

“But I do. I want—”

She silenced me with a finger upon my lips. “It’s not that easy, my love. Aten controls this timeline. I can only interfere indirectly. You must do the hard work.”

“What does Aten want?”

“Rome has collapsed,” she answered. “He wants to build a new empire that stretches from the steppes beyond Muscovy to these British Isles.”

“An empire of the barbarians,” I growled.

“An empire that he can control and manipulate,” Anya said.

“But why? To what end?”

She shrugged. “Who knows what plans are in his mind? He looks centuries ahead, millennia.”

“He’s crazy. No one can control all the forces of spacetime.”

“He believes he can.” Then she smiled again. “But he can’t control you, can he?”

I felt an answering smile curve my lips. “He doesn’t control you, either, does he?”

“But I have the power to work against him when I must. I can even get some of the other Creators to help resist his demands. I’m Aten’s equal, not…” She stopped short.

“Not a mere creature,” I finished for her.

“He could kill you horribly,” Anya warned. “Final death, with no revival.”

I remembered the horror of drowning in the tentacled grip of a gigantic sea monster. I recalled being flayed alive by the fireball of an exploding starship.

“Death is nothing new to me. If we can’t be together, what is life except an endless wheel of pain?”

“I’m trying, Orion. I want to be with you, too, my dearest. But there are forces beyond your ken, forces that keep us apart.”

“Forces manipulated by Aten,” I said flatly.

She shook her head. “Forces that not even he can control, my darling.”

I glanced down at the sleeping young Arthur. “And that young warlord plays a role in these forces.”

“He might. I think there could be greatness in him. But Aten wants to remove him.”

“Kill him, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“Then I want to protect him.”

Anya said nothing. She merely regarded me with those somber gray eyes, eyes that held the depths of infinity in them.

“Will you help me?” I asked.

“Orion, you have no idea of the damage you do to the spacetime fabric whenever you defy Aten.”

“Will you help me?” I repeated.

She regarded me gravely. “I love you too much to allow Aten to destroy you.”

“Then you must help Arthur, too.”

She sighed. “Your young friend must help himself. Neither you nor I can put courage into his heart.”

“It’s not courage he needs, it’s…”

But she was gone, vanished as if she had never been there at all, leaving me standing on the shore of the lake as the sky darkened and the moon rose, silver and cool and too far away for me to dream of touching.

7

Arthur awoke, sat up, and rubbed his eyes. “I had a dream,” he said, his voice soft and puzzled. “About my sword.”

As he climbed to his feet I looked out across the lake, silvered now by the rising full moon. It was as calm and flat as a mirror of polished steel. In its middle was an island that hadn’t been there earlier. I realized that it was not an island at all, but an artifact, a structure of metal and glass still dripping because it had risen from the lake’s depths only moments earlier.

Arthur followed my gaze. “Look!” he whispered. “A boat approaches!”

“The Lady of the Lake,” I murmured. Anya was going to help us, after all.

Wordlessly we stepped down to the sandy edge of the shore, Arthur’s eyes fixed on the boat that glided noiselessly across the placid waters.

It was Anya, of course, alone in the self-propelled boat. But now she was dressed in a flowing slivery robe and garlanded with flowers. In the moonlight she seemed to glow with an inner radiance. Her hair flowed long and smooth as a river of onyx down her back. Her face was calm, serene, utterly beautiful.

In her arms she cradled a sword in a jeweled scabbard. I recognized that scabbard.

The boat nudged its prow onto the sand before us and stopped. Anya rose to her feet and held the sword out in her two hands.

Arthur seemed frozen, transfixed by her appearance. His eyes were so wide I could see the white all around them, his breathing so heavy he was almost gasping.

“Take the sword,” I coached him in a low whisper. “She’s offering it to you.”

Arthur swallowed hard, then summoned up his courage and stepped into the gently lapping wavelets to the side of the boat. His boots sank into the soft sand.

“Wield this sword for right and justice,” Anya intoned, handing it to Arthur’s trembling hands.

“I will, my lady,” he said breathlessly. “Just as you command.”

“Do so, and the others will follow you.”

“I will, my lady,” he repeated.

Without another word Anya sat on the boat’s only bench once more and the vessel backed off the sand, made a stately, silent turn, and glided back to the “island” in the middle of the lake. We watched, Arthur dumbfounded and trembling, as the boat disappeared into an opening in the structure and then the entire mass slowly sank beneath the surface of the water.

It was not until the “island” was completely gone that Arthur blinked and shook himself, like a man coming out of a trance.

Then he pulled the sword out of its jeweled scabbard. I recognized the word Excalibur incised on its fine steel blade. It was the sword I had taken from Grendel’s cave, the night Beowulf and I killed the monster’s mother. Anya had held it all these years, protected it from Aten’s knowledge, held it for the moment when Arthur needed it.

Arthur swished the blade through the night air, his grin bright enough to rival the full moon.

Then we heard the roar of the dragon.

8

It was a dinosaur, of course, a giant raptor fetched by Aten from its own time and translated across millions of years to kill Arthur.

It came crashing out of the woods, roaring like a steam locomotive, stepping nimbly on its two hind legs. Three times my own height, it had teeth lining its massive jaw that were the size of butcher’s knives, sharp and serrated. The claws on its hind feet were the length of my forearm, curved like scimitars. Its forelegs were smaller, almost weak looking compared to the hind, but they, too, bore slashing claws.

I pulled my sword out as the monster’s beady little eyes focused on us. Arthur turned and ran.

But only as far as our impromptu camp. The horses were bucking and neighing with terror. He slashed their tethers with one stroke of Excalibur, and they bolted away, galloping toward safety. Arthur picked up his shield and came back to stand at my side.

“We’ll have a better chance if we can approach it from two sides,” he said. His voice was calm and flat, as if he were discussing tactics over a map in the safety of his castle.

“We should do what the horses did,” I said.

“Run?”

“As fast as we can,” I replied fervently.

“No, Orion. If we don’t kill this dragon it will ravage the countryside. It will kill the villagers and their livestock. We must protect them.”