Catherine Fisher - Corbenic

It was the children he envied. Brushing himself down, gathering up the sword, he let himself think of his own past Christmases, saw himself small in bed, hoping each year things would be different, things would be like the families in books, on TV advertisements, that there would be presents and a good, hot dinner and that the house would be magically warm and comfortable and that his mother would be a different person. It made him sick now, and angry.

“It does not do,” Merlin said next to him, “to be too sorry for oneself.”

Cal turned, sword in hand.

“Stop creeping up on me! Where the hell did you come from?”

The Hermit’s patchwork coat was thick with mud. He reached out and touched the sword, deliberately stroking its sharp edge, his hand thin and filthy, with bitten nails. Cal jerked away. “Be careful!” Behind him, the dog whimpered.

“I brought you to the Company,” Merlin whispered. “The dark knights that once attacked you were conjured by me.”

“Conjured?”

“Spirits at my command. I guide the Company; I move its fortunes as I moved the great stones once.” He nodded, then put his lean hand on Cal’s shoulder. “Look for me when things are darkest. You and I, knight, will journey together. We will sleep alone in the woods of Celyddon, shield on shoulders, sword on thigh. When all but shame deserts you, look for me.”

Cal stared at him, sick, shaking. But the man was already walking away, and Cal saw how he turned and yelled in fury at the dog, and how it followed, patient, unmoved.

It was late now; nearly midnight. In the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, all around the high green banks, the Company waited, as if they had gathered from all over Britain for this night, this moment. As he walked with Shadow onto the dim, flame-lit circle of trodden arena, Cal picked out faces he knew: Hawk, Kai, Gwrhyr, Owein, and others that were strange to him, men and women of all ages and sizes, dressed in bizarre mixtures of clothes, half-glimpsed, beyond the ring of crackling, shockingly scarlet flames that flattened and leaped and roared in the wind.

Before him, seated on a simple bench, Arthur waited, though instead of his usual tweed he wore armor now, a strange, semi-Roman breastplate, dinted and battered from old blows, and a white cloak that seemed ghostly under the eerie light, because the moon had risen, a thin crescent over Wentwood, and it glimmered on the cold edge of the sword.

Arthur stood, and said quietly, “Welcome to the Round Table, Cal.”

Cal shook his head. “I thought . . .”

“Yes. Well, no piece of furniture would be big enough.” Arthur turned to Shadow. “And you. Are you ready to join us?”

“Yes.” Her voice was low; Cal saw her hands were clasped tight together, black fingers with small silver rings over the gloves, and a faint silver thread embroidered there. She glanced quickly at him; the cobweb a dark mask over one eye.

If he was lying, he thought, if he was betraying them, then so was she.

Arthur raised his voice. “Friends! Does the Company of the Island of the Mighty accept these two among us?”

There was a murmur of consent, and a yell from Hawk that made Shadow giggle.

Arthur held out his hands for the sword; Cal laid it across his palms. “Now, both of you, put your hands on it.”

Shadow’s fingers lay on the blade; Cal put his fingers beside hers, feeling ridiculous and grave and afraid all at once.

“You must swear loyalty to me,” Arthur said. “But first tell me that you have no dishonor in your hearts.”

That shook Cal. His fingers went icy on the pale steel. And how could Shadow say, “None,” like she did, so calm, so quiet?

Arthur looked at him. For an instant Cal thought of his mother, sitting on the sofa in the cold house. Of the new Christmas tree. It would be lopsided. She’d never have been able to make a good job of it on her own.

“None,” he whispered.

The flames crackled and spat. The wind roared.

Arthur said, “Then take your sword, Cal.” He stepped back, leaving them both holding it between them, heavy, wickedly sharp, gleaming.

And it snapped . With a crack that rang in the broken walls and tunnels and hollows of the amphitheater, the sword broke itself in two, vindictively, spitefully, and Cal staggered with the sudden shock of it, Shadow’s stifled scream, the words that hissed out of the dark. “ It will serve you as you have served me .”

For a moment of terror he knew these were the voices; then he turned, and saw her standing there, the girl who had carried the Grail. She was wearing the same long dress, her hair braided up, but her face had changed; it was old now, so ugly, wrinkled, and heavily lidded that he would hardly have known her.

Horrified, he staggered back; Arthur caught his arm and said, “Who are you?”

The old woman’s smile was sour. “Hear me, King.” She turned, raising her voice. “Hear me, you, Arthur’s men.”

Kai was shouting orders; Hawk leaped down into the arena.

“Don’t listen,” Cal hissed desperately. “I don’t know her.”

Her finger stabbed at him. “Here is one who has betrayed you! Here is one who saw the holy things, and could not ask about them, not what the cup contains or who drinks from it! Who didn’t care why the lance bleeds! Here is one who denied they ever existed!” She turned around and glared at him, and to his terror her face flickered in the flame light, young and old, ugly and beautiful, as if the red glimmer of the light and the wind redefined it, and he knew it, and then it was strange, it changed as his mother changed, minute by minute.

Arthur made a swift downward jab with his hand; the men running toward him slowed, wary. “We know about this. But the boy is young; he . . .”

“You do not know the reason for his failure.” She was speaking to Cal now. “He cannot make a new life on the ruins of the old. There is a thing he has left undone. Unsaid. A weight on his soul. A woman he has abandoned. Until he goes to her and heals himself he will never find the Grail. And the Waste Land will remain waste, and the Fisher King will suffer his endless pain.” She spat at him; he jumped back. “He is a fool,” she hissed. “He has failed.”

The wind roared; a police siren echoed far off in the village. From the church, suddenly, joyously, the bells began to ring, a clashing, jangling frostiness of sound. It was midnight. It was Christmas.

“Who does she mean? Who is this?” Arthur was asking.

Cal swallowed. It was impossible to say the words but in sheer despair he said them. “My mother,” he whispered.

Shadow said, “Thérèse?”

He turned to her. “Not Thérèse.” The siren was loud now, the car racing up to the amphitheater, stopping with a squeal of brakes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, to her, to all of them.

“What?” Wary, Shadow glanced around, backed off. “Have you told the police about me? What have you done, Cal? ”

The woman was going, turning and walking into the dark, and in her hands he saw she held a shape of darkness, veiled and hidden. From the entrance tunnel voices rang, angry, until Arthur roared, “Let them through!” his breath smoking in the frosty air.

Two figures. Running. A man and a woman.

“Don’t blame me,” Cal said miserably, clutching the sword. “I thought it was for the best. I did it for you. I’m sorry, Shadow.”

“You stupid, stupid fool!” she hissed.

The bells stopped instantly. And suddenly in the terrible silence, across the frosty field he saw that the man was Trevor, and the woman, breathless, one high-heeled shoe slipping off, was Thérèse.

Trevor grabbed him. “Cal! Thank God!”