Tales of the Once and Future King Read online

  All the red drained out by the time the other knights arrived. “Tristan, what by the Last Star are you doing?” the Galahad bellowed.

  “He surrendered!” I bellowed back.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know either!”

  The Galahad’s Excalibur V-2 was silent for several seconds. “Bring it back to the castle. We’ll decide what to do there.”

  “If you’re going to accept his surrender, you’re the one opening the door.” So the Galahad’s words echoed in my mind and continually warned me against what I would attempt. Nonetheless, I found myself standing over the hatch, silver dagger in hand. Men-at-arms bearing cold iron pikes stood all around, but did not come closer. Over them, every other knight and the junkers were in their great armors, waiting. The mobile castle’s siege weapons were trained on the fallen black armor, at which point I thought this had become ridiculous.

  And yet, what if the vampire bit one of us? It was only the healers’ quick arrival that saved me, weeks ago. (Weeks? It felt like yesterwaking.)

  I grit my teeth. I knew I wanted to do this, only not why. Any reason I thought of—I would not kill a surrendered enemy, I would interrogate the pilot, it was God’s will—nothing I could say was truly why I wanted this.

  I took the hatch’s handle in his hand. The design was identical to that of a human great armor. Traitors, perhaps, had told the darkness how to manufacture them. Or had they reverse-engineered our own fallen armors? But enough thought. I took a breath, said a prayer, and pulled the hatch open.

  I did not believe what I saw. For a time, I did not breathe.

  “Tristan?” the pilot asked.

  “Isolde?” I asked.

  It was indeed her. Though her skin was pale as death, though she was wrapped in black leather, though she looked far worse than I had ever seen her in the sickness, I knew it was her, and not a simulacrum. Her blue eyes, terrified, but still the stern of will, were hers.

  An adventurous soldier could not resist any longer and climbed beside me. He took one look at the pilot—at Isolde—and said the curse that I had longed to but did not say. “I didn’t know they made vampires that young!”

  Of course. Because no matter what had happened, the darkness would not have left her unscathed. And who could pilot a black armor but a vampire?

  “What’s happening over there?” The bellowed question by my master snapped me to attention.

  “She’s—I know her. I know the pilot.”

  There wasn’t a response for a while, and then the sigh was magnified like the groan of some great beast. “I know it looks like her—

  “It is her!” I shouted back.

  “Maybe it is. But once someone’s been bitten, they aren’t the same. Ever again.”

  I tried not remember my last sight of her as we argued about her. Head downcast, locked behind the bars hastily adorned with garlic and silver. For propriety’s sake, only Dame Alice and Dame Opal would see her in the brig until we returned to Neo Logres.

  Or, alternately, slew her and threw her corpse outside.

  “Listen, I know you’re sure it’s her,” the Galahad said. “That doesn’t mean she is. I’ve lost friends to the vampires before. I know how it feels. And so I can’t allow feelings to make us lose our logic.”

  “I’ve been bitten,” I said, and looked around the table for allies. “I haven’t turned into a monster.”

  “That’s not the question here, Sir Tristan,” Sir Elm said. “You had treatment within minutes. She’s been a vampire long enough to control a black armor. Control one well.”

  “So?” I said, and laughed nervously. “The Silver Lady was a vampire for centuries before she surrendered. And Isolde surrendered, too.”

  “After killing two,” the Galahad said.

  “Point of order,” Sir Kelvin the Bulwark said. “The Silver Lady had killed thousands for all we know, before defecting. In fact, I’m certain, because how else did she survive?”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that that vampire in the hold killed two of us,” the Galahad said. “Again, I’m sorry, but I have to think of everyone here.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact that she surrendered. Does chivalry matter so little to us that we would kill a surrendered foe?” I asked.

  “I don’t think vampires count as people,” Sir Isaac said quietly. I gave him a hateful glare.

  “Point of order, is anyone going to deny the Silver Lady is a person?” Sir Kelvin asked. “Because she’s still a vampire.”

  “Point of order, you’re using ‘point of order’ incorrectly. It refers to bringing up a point of procedure,” said Sir Elm.

  “Point of order, we are getting completely off track,” the Galahad said. “Yes, she surrendered. No, I don’t think we should trust her.”

  “Who has the authority to make that decision?” I asked. “I’m not criticizing you, sir, but you surely can’t speak for everyone in this room.”

  “I can speak for the success of the quest,” the Galahad said. “That is why we came out here.”

  “Point of order—” Sir Kelvin began, but caught himself. “Well, a point. Didn’t we accomplish what we set out to do? I don’t think traipsing through the ruins into another ambush is going be worth any more.”

  “As I said,” I said, as calmly and respectfully as I could. “Do we really have the right to make this decision here? After all, it was the king who decided to accept the Silver Lady.” Nodding around the table followed. “Can’t we bring her to the king, and let him decide?

  “I’m not going to put this to a vote,” the Galahad said, and paused. “You do have a legitimate point. However, I remember—I was there—that the Silver Lady begged for us to accept her surrender. So if—if—she, too, sincerely says she desires to forsake the darkness, then I will agree to bring her back. Only then.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I could not help but notice the older knight had used the pronoun “she.”

  “Let’s bring her in, then.”

  Isolde looked a thousand times worse. After all, what could they feed her? Even I could not, would not, offer her my own blood. I was distressed to find that I was certain of this.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and bowed. “I—I did not wish to be a black knight in the first place.”

  I tried to catch her eyes, but she did not look at me.

  I did not see her again until her audience with the king. Even if the Galahad had not explicitly forbidden me, Dame Alice, let alone Dame Opal, would never have allowed it. I could only sit awake in bed, unable to rest, not from the motion, but from emotion. Would Isolde survive the trip back? Any questions I asked either of the logistics knights were deflected with ire or sweetness.

  So it was with great fear I saw her enter the throne room, but I felt immediate relief that I saw her confident, if hobbled and trembling, walk. Isolde had, even when so sick she could not have lifted her hand from her bed, possessed an inalienable dignity. Now, despite being in cold iron chains, which must have been the agony that made her shake, she managed to curtsy. She wore her white tunic, ragged though it was, as if it was a regalia worthy of a princess. “Your Majesty,” she said.

  The Arthur paused in thought before speaking. “The Galahad tells me that you wished to turn away from the darkness as the Silver Lady did. Is this true?”

  “It is, Your Majesty.”

  The Silver Lady stepped down from her chair and came to Isolde, and took her hand and bent to see in her eyes. “Do you desire this? Truly?”

  “Yes, my lady,” she said.

  “You realize that you will frequently wish you were dead. You realize even if one waking you become as respected as I, you will be mistrusted by some as a traitor, nonetheless.”

  “I... do not have a choice, my lady.”

  “You could stay in the dungeons. It will not be pleasant, but I assure you, it will be far, far more pleasant than living as I do.”

  “I desire this, nonetheless. If I were to stay
a prisoner, I would stay a vampire as well.”

  “Well spoken,” the Silver Lady said, and stood to her feet. “Sire, I believe she is truly willing. I would ask you treat her as you once did myself.”

  “With suspicion and frequent inflictions of suffering?” the Lancelot asked.

  “I agree,” the Arthur said. I loved him. “Less suffering, as we needn’t experiment, but neither shall we do anything less than what we did to save the Silver Lady from the darkness. Are you willing?”

  “I am, Your Majesty,” Isolde said.

  “Very well. I hereby decree that you shall be put in the care of the Silver Lady, to be treated as she sees fit, until the waking you are free from the darkness. Dismissed.”

  ***

  I cannot remember seeing her as exhausted than after the surgery. She smiled a weak, but full, smile at me as I entered. I never saw anything as beautiful as the new silver incisors in her mouth.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Pain. Lots of pain,” she said in a feeble voice. “This will take some time to... adapt to.”

  I looked at the silver bangles on her arms and legs. One was tied to the bed.

  She followed his glance. “I don’t mind. Can’t trust me yet, right?”

  “I trust you,” I said.

  “Honestly, I don’t know if you should.” She licked her lips, but the tongue darted back quickly from the silver. “I am so hungry right now, I’m afraid I might...”

  “Can I get you anything?” I quickly asked.

  Isolde shook her head. “I’m on a diet. Can’t drink anything but alchemical blood for the next few wakings, and I’m on a ration. Don’t listen to me if I ask for any.”

  “Of course not. Um, can’t I do anything?”

  “Sit by me and just listen, all right? Don’t need to do anything else.”

  Isolde rapidly improved. Quicker than anyone thought, she was drinking a full amount of alchemical blood, and could even stomach normal food. Someone spilled some water in front of her and she didn’t notice as she walked across. Her reflection in a mirror was still blurry, but so was the Silver Lady’s. I considered her fully healed when she surprised me by showing up in the barracks, having never asked permission to enter.

  She attended Mass with Silver Lady eventually, but did not receive with her. She had not gone to confession yet. “Listen, I know,” she told me. “I can’t... I just can’t talk about it yet.”

  “Not even to God?” I asked.

  “I’m just not ready,” she said again.

  The king assigned a young maid to attend her. She had been noble once, after all, so she could hardly object to someone who could not possibly be anyone but a spy. But Isolde and Mary quickly became friends. And it was not as if Isolde went that many places, limping as Mary bounced behind. “It hurts to walk,” Isolde confided. “It’ll get better, I’m sure.”

  But one of the places she did walk was the Merlin’s workshop. First, to try a number of new alchemical bloods, which the Silver Lady had long since refused to even consider. Second, to tell in detail of the nature of the black armors, sessions which attracted about the entire knightly population of Camelot. Even junkers would submit to the noises and odors, possibly only to look at her. I felt unreasonably jealous, but I could hardly say I acted any different at their ages.

  Third, to discuss an idea spawned during a discussion of the black armor’s motive force. There were no control tethers in a black armor, only a strap to hold the vampiric pilot in place. The pilot controlled the limbs of the armor rather by willing the mixture of blood and other substances that suffused the armor to move. A complicated system of hydraulics let the pilot use a minimum of mental effort to move with force. The system also allowed the infamous agility, for the pilot’s control was far finer than even my Durendal VI.

  “If only we had a black armor for you to pilot,” the Merlin said, shaking his head in denied curiosity.

  “Even if we did, I don’t think I could control the blood any more,” Isolde said. “Since I have only alchemical blood now.” I couldn’t help but look at her veins at those words, which were now black as night. Even the capillaries in her eyes were dark.

  “Well,” the Merlin said. “Can you control alchemical blood?”

  “I... don’t suppose I’ve ever tried it,” she said. Without another word her maid ran down the corridors, and bounced back, somehow not spilling a single drop of the cup. Isolde took it in her hands, and closed her eyes. “Please be quiet. I have to concentrate.”

  We were all silent in expectation. For a few seconds the cup did nothing, but then it bubbled, and finally spilled over the rim. We cheered.

  “This was a lot less than I used to do,” Isolde said, looking at the stains on her hands. “Not that I should be proud of before.”

  “Oh, no, it doesn’t matter!” the Merlin said. “Do you have enough power to use the hydraulics?”

  “Perhaps, if I practiced,” she said. “Excuse me, but I do not particularly wish to be in a black armor again.”

  “It wouldn’t be a black armor,” I said. “It’d be... a white armor?”

  “Nonetheless, it would bring back... unpleasant memories.” Her head was downcast.

  We did not ask her of it again, that waking. But it was a series of small steps. First simple experiments with controlling alchemical blood—had she not done that already? And then, why not replicating the power of hydraulics? And how did those complex control hydraulics work anyway? And since we just spent two weeks replicating them, it would be a shame if we didn’t try them out. After all, we have a wooden prototype frame laying unused back there...

  In retrospect, I do not know at what point we went from convincing ourselves we were not doing it until we actually were doing it, and then it was done. And once we had the functioning prototype, we could hardly justify leaving a complete great armor in some armory, unused.

  “They still don’t trust me,” Isolde said to me, six months later. Her room was an old supply room, converted to a room like that of the Silver Lady’s. There was far less silver, even as Isolde had bought it nearly by the wheelbarrow from her scrip. Mary had a room adjacent, little more than a closet. At the moment I could hear the maid groaning with her recent illness.

  “I don’t think they really know you, though,” I said.

  “I think they do. And they don’t care.” She sighed. “And they don’t trust you either, anymore.”

  We had become a party of two. No other knight would trust Isolde, no matter how many battles she fought against her former master. No junker would join me as long as I was with her. I eventually sold the other armors I had, for I had little use for them. I had trouble enough with finding pages. Mary had essentially become Isolde’s page.

  “But they learned to trust the Silver Lady,” I said. “The Arthur does.”

  “And he is rare enough that it matters little,” Isolde said. “The Silver Lady has told me countless tales of her life here. Endless, petty little cruelties. Carelessnesses. Outright attacks. And... And will I be any better? Perhaps I ought not to have done this. Perhaps it would have been better to stay in the dungeon.” She started weeping. Her tears were always tainted with a faint bit of alchemical blood.

  I could constrain myself no longer, and told her, “Isolde? Isolde? I was going to ask you this soon, but... will you marry me?”

  “Of course I will,” she said, and held her black-stained face against my chest. “Thank you.” After a pause. “Where’s the ring?”

  “Well, this was, um, spontaneous,” I said. My face was starting to redden. “I didn’t know if you wanted a gold ring or a silver one.” In truth, I had bought both, and had yet to think of an excuse to ask her.

  “Silver,” she said distantly, and I heard her distinct mumble. “So there’s something of silver I care for.” She suddenly stood up. “I am sorry, this is improper.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You are alone with me. Mary would
have a fit. Shoo!”

  I could barely sleep. I could not stop thanking God. I had always dreamed of this happening, but I knew it could not. Had she stayed a vampire, had I slain her, had I not gone on the quest, had I died in my first battle... Had Fort Northern never fallen, she would have been married to some noble, not myself.

  Yet, was it right to thank God for that part? After all, so many had died in the fort’s fall. Perhaps it was better not to reverse-engineer Providence.

  It was in so thinking and thanking that I was completely awake when the alarm rang. Multiple siege cannons fired back and forth, and then a too-close explosion that shook the entire Wall. I only stopped to put on the control gear.

  My pages were inexperienced, but not a single one was missing as they helped me into the armor. “It’s a full attack, sir!” A messenger screamed at me. “Get to the one-hundred-ninety-first gate!”

  “Understood!” I shouted back. Pages ran every which way as I stood and ran. I cut through a giant on the way to the breach, and a breach it was. That explosion had demolished a section of the Wall large enough to fit a siege engine through. I jumped, screaming a war cry, and terrified as ever, off the wall and into battle.

  Isolde in her white armor was already standing by the black massive machine, doubtlessly the one responsible for the breach. Yet she stood there, immobile, and the giants around her did nothing.

  “Tristan?” she shouted. “What are you doing here? Get back!”

  “What are you doing?” I shouted back. As we shouted two giants left her and charged me, but I struck with practiced aim and slew them both. The other giants fled as I ran to the darkness’s engine, but Isolde blocked me way.

  She shouted something, perhaps the word “sickness.”

  “What? Isolde?” I shouted, but had I not parried her sword I would have been sliced in two. My body took over, as if the great armor piloted me in its own defense. We traded blows several times, too quick to even think. Pure reflexes were the only reason I survived.