Sleepless Knights (18 page)

When it comes to the whole matter of spring-cleaning, the first thing to be thrown out should be one's sentimentality. So-called keepsakes are, indeed, items kept merely for the sake of it, clung onto out of a misplaced affection for what is really only worthless junk. With this dictum as my guide, I had soon filled the lift with the miscellaneous clutter of yesteryear. Overalls that were several sizes too small. Aprons re-patched so many times that no scrap of the original garment remained. An old glass and sand egg timer, cracked and useless. All this I transferred by the armful via the lift to the Upper Courtyard, where I arranged it in orderly piles against the base of the Royal Tower.

After several hours' work I stood up and stretched. To the west, the sun was setting. I became suddenly aware of a tremendous weariness in my bones. It had been days now since I had experienced anything like a substantial sleep. Although the Grail's regeneration was most invigorating, it was no substitute for a good night's rest. And now that the Grail had gone, who could say what the effect on our physical
frame might be? I pushed the unsettling thought aside. I would be of little use to my fellow knights as an exhausted husk, whatever fate had befallen them. Moreover, a new day might also bring about a cooling of the Master's temper. And so I left the pile of rubbish neatly stacked against the tower, and returned to my quarters.

But rest proved to be elusive. I am not the sort of person who usually remembers their dreams. I certainly have them, for I often wake to find myself tangled up in my sheets as if I had been fighting off some phantom assailant. This time, however, my imaginings were as clear as day. Indeed, so vivid was the nightmare, that if I were a more fanciful man I would describe it more as a waking vision.

As soon as I got into bed I slipped into a delirium. I have occasionally experienced such a state after a particularly strenuous day, when my physically exhausted body craves sleep, but my overactive mind is having none of it. Usually, this involves the playing back of select events as if on a cinema screen, as a prelude to the blessed release of unconsciousness. But on this occasion my mind was positively teeming with sights and sounds. Flights and fist fights. Dragon flames and fireballs. Ships and castles, magic spells and peculiar wonders.

At the same time, a second film flickered beneath it all, like an old black-and-white movie struggling for my attention behind the Technicolor bombast of a modern blockbuster. Try as I might, I could make out nothing of the obscured classic, as every time I was on the verge of seeing something, the entire picture would freeze, before vanishing like a lost memory.

After several of these scenes had gone by, I realised with a jolt that the motion picture was not taking place in my mind at all. It was playing out around my bed, in three-dimensional life. The entire story was being manipulated by a cloaked
figure that stood in the corner of my room. At times this mysterious director would glide around, picking up images like picture frames and slotting them into place around me according to his secret artistic vision. Or he would pile up a series of scenes in his hands like a deck of cards, shuffle them in a blur of light, and spread them out in a fan before gleefully dealing them into the air. His face was hidden by a large hood, and it was some time before I realised that this was Merlin himself.

Despite my reservations concerning the wizard and his ways, I was overjoyed at the prospect of bringing him to the Master and restoring my standing in his eyes. I sat up in bed and attempted to ask him if he knew anything of the nature of our dire need and the circumstances of his summoning. But when I opened my mouth, the wizard simply plucked the questions out of me, inserting my words into the procession of pictures like the framed speech captions in a silent film. At last the intensity of the images subsided, and I seemed to wake up, though the hooded director was still with me, standing at the foot of my bed. Not daring to speak again, I leaned forwards and pulled back the hood. I caught only the briefest glimpse of the wizard's chin before the entire face turned into the spiteful snarling features of the cockatrice. I awoke with a startled yell, falling sideways out of bed.

By rights I should have been more exhausted than ever. But though I was far from fully refreshed, I did not feel significantly worse for my phantasmagorical fever. The question was, had a night's rest made any improvement to the Master's temperament? I decided it was a little too early to risk finding out, and that it was better for me to seek his forgiveness with something to show for myself. In all the activity of my first teleportation, I had been denied the opportunity to reunite the company, that we might stand as one body and repair the damage to the Eternal Quest. The
mere thought of success in this venture was enough to lift my spirits. I buffed my shoes to a serviceable shine. Then I took the amulet from the bedside picture hook on which I had hung it, and marshalled my mind towards Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain.

 

I found myself looking down on a large field, surrounded on all sides by rows of tiered seating. The arrangement bore such a strong resemblance to the tournament grounds to the rear of the Royal Tower that I wondered if the amulet had merely transported me to a different part of Camelot. But as my eyes took in everything else around me, several details confirmed this to be a different place entirely. A broad canopy extended over the field, forming an unnatural metallic sky. Floodlights served as the sun, illuminating a turf that was not divided into standard jousting lanes, but set up to accommodate sport of a more modern variety.

The field itself was the site of frantic activity. Men and women carrying bags and clipboards scurried back and forth between a podium at the centre of the field and a tunnel leading directly beneath the tiered seating where I stood. This podium was occupied by several official-looking figures standing in clusters, as technicians weaved around them setting up microphones on a lectern and attaching cables to television cameras. In front of the podium, a hundred or so chairs had been set up in rows, rapidly filling as more and more people emerged from the tunnel below me. The chairs and the podium were hemmed in by lines of uniformed guards bearing weapons, surveying the scene with the watchful air of the soldier on stand-by.

I had just started to make my way down the steps towards the seating area when Sir Lancelot suddenly appeared from out of the tunnel. He was not accompanied by Sir Gawain, but rather by more armed guards, including one whose uniform denoted him as The Man in Charge. It was then that I realised this entire set-up was for Sir Lancelot's benefit. As he strode towards the podium the crowd got to their feet, shouting questions and thrusting their flashing cameras past the soldiers surrounding him. One of the guards made a threatening motion with his rifle and the audience reluctantly parted. This gesture, combined with the clamorous nature of the crowd, told me it would be wise to wait before drawing attention to myself. Fortunately, all eyes were now on the podium, so I walked down to the ground level unobserved and stood at the back of the gathering to observe what transpired.

After a hasty consultation with the podium's occupants, The Man in Charge stepped forward to the microphone. The amplified sound of his throat-clearing rang out like a call to order. A big screen behind him flickered into life, displaying an enlarged view of his head and torso. “Ladies and gentlemen of the media, my name is General Richard Barber,” he began. “Thank you for your patience. I'm sure you have many questions, but I'd ask that you hold back until I've finished. Although what I am about to say will raise more questions than it answers.

“First, the facts. I can officially confirm that Great Britain is under attack from forces beyond this world. Approximately five hundred of what I can only describe as… ‘dragons'…” The General paused, as if he was finding it difficult to acknowledge the reality of the name, “…have emerged from Ground Zero, on the West Wales coast.”

The General's face was replaced by a map showing Cardigan, then blurred footage, taken in the air from out to
sea, of the energy beam shooting up from the Otherworld portal on the cliff-side. The beam was now as wide as a house. Myriad monstrous forms swarmed up out of the earth, provoking gasps of amazement from the crowd. General Barber raised his voice. “Our helicopters could only get so far before they were overcome by the sheer number of hostiles.” He allowed himself a small appreciative nod at this more appetising term, as the screen depicted one of the ‘hostiles' engulfing the helicopter in a fireball before the image went fuzzy. Several people cried out in alarm. “Ground Zero has been evacuated within a fifty mile radius. The cause of the blast will shortly become clearer to you. I can also confirm the appearance of some kind of fortified town and castle, on the site formerly known as Cardigan.” More wobbly footage, this time taken from above the reconstructed Cardigan, showed Camelot at a distance.

Sir Lancelot watched this with interest. I realised that Camelot's return would be news to him, too, and this was undoubtedly the first information he had received concerning the events that followed the parting of our company on the cliff-side.

“Cardigan itself has been moved aside by unidentified forces, to make way for this fortress. At the moment, we're proceeding on the assumption that Ground Zero and this unexplained phenomenon are linked. Our soldiers came up against an invisible force field surrounding the fortress, causing them to instantly lose consciousness. Miraculously, that same force field also brought five fighter jets and three helicopter gunships to the ground, without so much as a scratch on anyone or anything.

“As you can see, this force field affects anyone approaching the fortification at ground level.” The screen cut to a camera-man approaching the outer walls of Camelot on foot, several sleeping bodies piled up on the ground ahead of him.
As soon as he drew level with them, he too slumped to the floor, the camera arching backwards to give a sudden brief shot of the sky.

“Finally, as you will be aware, yesterday Cardiff suffered a heavy attack from a number of airborne hostiles, resulting in high civilian casualties and wide-spread damage to property. Soldiers apprehended two men in the city centre. A third man was picked up by the police while attempting to hitchhike his way from Cardigan to Cardiff, and is currently being held in connection with a body found at his residence in Hay-on-Wye. These three men are also wanted in connection with several other recent incidents, but as far as we're concerned today, all of that is frankly irrelevant. Because when it comes to these men,” the General straightened his cap, as if to reassert the authority of all he once held dear, “we step into the unknown. We're still awaiting the final results, but every test, reference, and cross-check over the past few hours, has drawn a blank. We therefore have no choice but to accept that these men are who they claim to be. I have authorisation from the highest level to facilitate their full co-operation in this national crisis, in what will henceforth be known as ‘Operation: Hostile Takedown.' ”

The General took a deep breath and braced himself. “Ladies and gentlemen, I now hand you over to…” He groped for the remainder of the introduction, but seemed to feel, in light of his recent dragon difficulties, that it was beyond his grasp. “Perhaps it's better if he introduces himself.” The General stepped down and the man in question stepped up. He raised his hand and every last drop of audience murmur evaporated as a legend addressed them with quiet authority.

“Good morning,” he said. “I am Sir Lancelot.”

 

From my position at the side of the pitch, I had a most unsatisfactory view. I would have preferred to be closer, but for the time being there was not much I could do about that. From the remainder of the press conference, I learned that Sir Lancelot (and presumably also Sir Gawain) had taken up residence in the stadium, requisitioned as the headquarters of ‘Operation: Hostile Takedown.' The venue's retractable roof provided temporary protection from the dragon hordes. This was reinforced by heavy artillery, stationed immediately outside. However, the frequent ricochet of gunfire from the stadium walls highlighted the first problem to address — namely, the unsuitability of modern weapons in dealing with dragons. Put simply, the solution was in danger of creating far more destruction than the problem. Sadly, this lesson was not learnt quickly enough to prevent Cardiff suffering a level of bombardment it had not seen since the Second World War.

One over-enthusiastic platoon had destroyed the front of the museum. In Cardiff Bay, the drawback of deploying heat-seeking missiles was brought vividly to life with the levelling of several blocks of flats and a world class opera house. And all this was accompanied by a dragon casualty rate that stubbornly refused to rise from zero. Fortunately, this sobering statistic strengthened the case of the two men
arrested at a scene of similar destruction earlier in the day, who insisted that far from being responsible for such carnage, they were actually attempting to put a stop to it.
Why should we believe you?
was the gist of the official response.
Because you have nothing to lose
, was the unanswerable reply.

And so it was that several hours and one press conference later, Sir Lancelot was engaged in the task of instructing the modern military in the lost art of dragon slaying. From the central podium he issued instructions through a loud-hailer, while all around him, troops wielded swords of every description. These appeared to have been scavenged in great haste, and I sympathised with the hapless lackey given the task of assembling an arsenal from such odds and ends. Tourist replicas, much like the one I had utilised for my own recent dragon bout, were swung alongside flimsy foils never used outside a fencing class. Some soldiers considered themselves lucky to get their hands on antique broadswords, until they tried unsuccessfully to lift them up, while others brandished blades that were little more than crowbars crudely sharpened to a point and wrapped in a hilt of cloth.