The Third Magic (3 page)

According to the media, which went on an immediate feeding frenzy after the boy's appearance on television, no records existed for either of his parents. And, as anyone under the age of twenty well knew, Arthur vanished from the face of the earth immediately after his stunning speech. Gone without a trace in the midst of a gang of twelve motorcyclists. ("The knights," wrote one keen-eyed observer. "The apostles," wrote another.)

Although Arthur was not aware of the extent of this blossoming underground publicity, Hal was, and took on the preservation of the boy's anonymity as his mission. Arthur never left the farm. On the home-schooling documents, Hal had identified him as Arthur Woczniak, his son.

Still, people talked. In the past year, young people had begun to congregate at the driveway leading to the farmhouse. Occasionally a bold one even came to the door, requesting Arthur's autograph, which was always declined. Once a girl named Cecilia Marks, who was the daughter of the mayor of Seidersville, South Dakota, ten miles to the north of Munro, actually broke in through Arthur's bedroom window and kissed him full on the mouth.

After the girl was sent home, her father looked mightily for grounds upon which to sue Arthur and his uncles, but since his daughter had admitted freely to the break-in (and had rhapsodized to the entire student body at Jones County Senior High about her success in kissing the boy), the mayor was forced to drop whatever charges he had planned to press.

"King Arthur," he shouted to his wife as he threw down a double martini. "Cecilia thinks she kissed King fricking Arthur!"

The mayor had no idea that he was telling the truth, that the country's teenagers were right, or that his daughter had just become the most popular girl in the county.

"So where were you trying to materialize?" Hal asked.

"When? Oh, just now? I was hoping for your house. I got fairly close on one of my tries—made it to the field—Arthur was there, by the way. And just before I landed on your lorry, I'd almost made it into your kitchen. Unfortunate, that. I was hoping to join in the merrymaking."

"Instead, you got me," Hal said.

"Quite. Oh, well, we'll be there soon enough. I presume you are merrymaking? Er, not you, of course," he said offhandedly. "You never do. I meant the knights. Because of the boy's coming of age."

'They're always merrymaking," Hal said glumly, remembering an incident two weeks before when Dry Lips and MacDaire were arrested for engaging in swordplay on the loading dock at the local Wal-Mart. A month before that, a neighboring farmer nearly shot Lugh for swinging a fifty-pound mace at his prize Holstein. "They've been so merry, we're on the verge of getting evicted."

"Ah. High-spirited lads, eh?"

"They're idiots. Trying to pass them off as South Dakota farmers is like pretending that Attila the Hun is the Tooth Fairy. And don't call them knights. It took me three months to get them to refer to themselves as uncles."

"Oh, yes. Uncles. You see, you're training them marvelously."

Actually, the uncles were rather good farmers, not that it mattered. Taliesin had given Hal enough money for them all to live on for several more years, whether they worked the farm or not.

"But I hate it!" Hal cried. "Do you understand? I'm from New York City, for crying out loud! I don't know beans about farming. I trained to be an FBI agent—"

"And nearly committed suicide." The old man patted Hal's shoulder. "Believe me, Hal, this is a better life for you."

"Bullshit! I didn't sign on to baby-sit eleven ghosts—"

"Ah-ah," Taliesin said, wagging his linger. Uncles."

"Whatever," Hal roared.

"Yes." The old man met Hal's eyes. "Whatever they are, my friend, Arthur needs them." He put his hand on Hal's shoulder. "And you. You know that, don't you?"

Hal was silent. He still often woke in the night thinking that what he believed to be reality was in fact only a dream from which he was just then waking. For a few groggy, confused moments, he could believe that he was an automobile mechanic in the Inwood section of Manhattan or, better yet, still with the FBI in the days before his slow descent into ruin.

But then the confusion would clear, and the truth would fall on him like cold snow. He was not a mechanic; he was not a federal agent; he was no longer even a drunk. What he was, in fact, was the caretaker of eleven souls from the fifth century who had been brought into being to serve a young boy who once, lifetimes ago, had been their King.

"Yes, I know," Hal said finally.

"It won't be for much longer." Taliesin's voice was gentle. "It's almost time."

Hal turned sharply to face him. "Arthur just turned eighteen today."

"Yes, I know. That's old enough."

"For what? He doesn't know how to do anything yet."

"He'll remember."

"I meant in this world," Hal said roughly. "He needs to go to college, learn a trade, meet a girl, have some kind of a life—"

"No time for that, I'm afraid," Taliesin said crisply. "Too much work to be done."

"Such as what?"

"Well, I couldn't say, old chap. I'm not a fortune-teller, you know."

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

T
he old man entered
in spectacular fashion, beginning as a vapor curling languorously through the floorboards of the farmhouse and finishing by standing, fully formed, on top of the dining room table as the knights shouted their approval.

"I say!" Fairhands said, beaming. He poked Launcelot in the ribs. "You see? The greatest magician in the world."

"He's standing in the cake," Launcelot said dryly.

The old man looked down. Beneath his wizard s robe adorned with stars and crescent moons, his mud-caked work boots grew out of what had once been a whipped cream cake inscribed with a birthday greeting in red gel.

"Dash it all," Taliesin mumbled.

Hal sighed. The ice cream was leaking through the paper bag onto his arms.

"Did you get it?" Bedwyr asked, tossing his bowl-cut blond hair. He was the only one in the room who had noticed Hal.

"Yeah. Relax." Hal took a magazine out of the bag and tossed it to him.

Bedwyr retired with it immediately to an armchair in the far corner of the living room and opened it to the stapled section in the middle. On its glossy cover was the title
Vintage Motorcycle
superimposed over the image of a 1971 Hurley FX Superglide Night Train.

Although the young man's official capacity was that of Master of Horse, Hal had persuaded Bedwyr to change his allegiance to motorcycles upon the knights' arrival in the New World. Given the young man's natural understanding of things mechanical, he had fallen utterly in love with the first Harley whose engine he exposed, and had carried on an
affaire du coeur
with the species ever since.

"Hi, Hal." Arthur walked over to him as the others helped Taliesin down off the table. "Are you all right?"

He tried to sound casual, but Hal knew that the boy was worried.

In the years since he and Hal had gone into hiding, Arthur had begun to exhibit a sixth sense about danger. Perhaps it was because they had encountered it so often; or maybe it was only the natural development of a talent the boy had been born with. Either way, the sense, Arthur's "knowing," as he called it, had been growing more acute.

"One of the old man's stunts, that's all," Hal said reassuringly. "I thought I'd hit him with the truck, but… well, there he is, stepping out of your cake." He inclined his head toward Taliesin, ringed by men who had once been the Knights of the Round Table.

Arthur laughed. "It looked like a pretty disgusting cake, anyway."

While he was helping Hal dish out the ice cream (the knights, who had never tasted such a thing during their previous incarnation, could not get enough of it), he watched the old man in the next room. It was a great relief that Taliesin had actually come, and had not been, after all, a figment of Arthur's imagination.

"This is all hard for you, isn't it," Hal said quietly.

Arthur looked up. "What? What do you mean?"

"This." Hal gestured with the ice cream scoop. "The guys, the old man... The cup."

"We got rid of the cup."

"That doesn't mean it never existed."

Arthur bent over his ice cream again. "I kind of wish none of it had ever existed," he said.

"You and me both."

"I mean, it's not that I'm not grateful to you…"

"Cut the crap, Arthur. Most of your life has been spent trying not to get killed. It's been lousy, and we both know it."

"It would have been lousy if you hadn't been there," Arthur said, acknowledging Hal's sacrifice in staying with him as his guardian and protector for the better part of a decade.

Hal waved him away. Sentiment made him uncomfortable. "I just wish there'd been another way," he said lamely. "I've tried to write to your aunt Emily, but all the letters came back. I just don't know where she is."

"She may not be alive." Arthur did not look up from his task. The last time they had seen Emily Blessing was in the dining room of a hotel in Tangier, Morocco nearly four years before. He had seen only the barest glimpse of his aunt—his only living relative—before a fire and its aftermath of pandemonium broke out. The three of them had become separated then, and by the time Hal and Arthur found one another, Emily had disappeared. "It was a pretty bad fire."

Hal didn't answer. He had loved Emily Blessing. It was for her—and Arthur, and himself—that he had stopped drinking, brought a halt to the self-destructive lifestyle of a man who'd had nothing left to live for. He had saved their lives, and they, in turn, had saved his.

Had Emily ever known that?
he wondered. Had she ever believed that their one night of love had changed Hal forever, that he hadn't intended to leave her, that he had taken her nephew away because the boy was in danger, that he hadn't told her about it so that the danger would not spread to her?

No. No, of course she wouldn't believe that. All Emily would know was that she had given herself to a man who had left her without a word, and in the process abducted the child she had raised from infancy.

"What do you think will happen to us, Hal?" Arthur asked so quietly that he was barely audible.

After a long pause, Hal answered, "I don't know."

"Taliesin wants to take me on a vision quest."

"What for?"

Arthur shrugged. "I suppose he wants me to see for myself."

"See what?"

"Who I was. Or will be. He says I need to know about my future." The ice cream in the dishes arrayed before them was melting rapidly in the August heat. "Hal?"

Hal looked up.

"If I... left…" Shyly he looked over to Hal to see his reaction, but the older man's face was carefully blank. "Not that I would, but if I did..."

"Go on."

"Could I change the way things are supposed to turn out?"

Hal looked away. "Maybe," he said.

"Is there such a thing as destiny?"

"I'm not the guy to ask things like that."

"Other people ... other people's lives turn out the way they do because of their own decisions."

Hal nodded slightly. "I guess."

"Then why don't I have any say about my own life?"

Because we're special, Hal wanted to say. Because we came from another time, cryogenic masterpieces, except that it was our souls that got preserved, not our bodies. You were born to be King, and I was born to protect you, and that's all been decided by forces way beyond anything we can control. "Eat your ice cream," Hal said.

Arthur ignored him, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. "I don't even know if it's real anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"All of it. This." He opened his hands. "I mean, sometimes I just don't know. It's all so weird that I wonder if the uncles even exist. If Taliesin exists. Even you. Maybe this is just some delusion of mine, and I've made you all up."

"You wish," Hal said.

Arthur tried to smile. "Yeah."

He looked so fragile, Hal thought, as if he could fly apart into pieces like confetti. "Oh, Christ," he said, throwing down the ice cream scoop. He hugged the boy fiercely. "Nobody should have to live like this."

"Just tell me it's real, and I'll believe you."

"No," Hal said. "Because that won't mean anything." He held him at arm's length. "And don't ever believe anything just because someone tells you." He handed Arthur a spoon and a dish of ice cream and propelled him out of the kitchen. "Do what you've got to do, and don't tell me or anyone else," he said.

"Sturgis!" Bedwyr exclaimed, leaping out of his chair, waving the magazine in his hand.

He was so large and so loud that the other knights ceased their noisy guzzling of the half-melted ice cream and turned toward him in annoyance. A lone twang from Fairhands's autoharp disturbed the sudden silence.

"Well, what is it?" Kay snapped. "Some sort of stinging bee?"

"S
turgis," Bedwyr repeated,
grinning. "This!" He laid the magazine flat on the table and pointed to a two-page spread of a small-town street packed solid with bikers and their motorcycles. "The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. A great tournament," he said solemnly. "It takes place over a week, and that week has begun."

"A tourney," Launcelot said in wonder. "Is it a far journey?"

"'Tis not even a day's ride," Bedwyr answered, his face flushed with excitement.

Dry lips picked up the magazine and brought it close to his face. "The steeds appear to be most excellent," he said. All of the knights rode motorcycles now, thanks to Bedwyr's tutelage, and took as much pride in the appearance of their machines as they had in their mounts.

"Steeds!" MacDaire exclaimed, laughing. "Are ye blind, man? Look at the women! I swear, this one's bare-breasted!"

Lugh crowded next to Dry Lips to leer from behind black beetle brows, grunting in agreement.

"And that!"

Kay snatched the magazine out of Dry Lips's hands. "By Saint Patrick's smelly balls, she's a beauty."

A dribble of saliva dropped onto the page. There was a moment of silence as Lugh covered his mouth sheepishly.

"Fiend!" Bedwyr screamed, lunging for Lugh. "Your drool has befouled my picture!" Lugh leaped out of the way with surprising agility, backing into the table, from which he grabbed a candlestick and held it in front of him in preparation for combat. Bedwyr unsheathed his dirk.

Hal threw up his arms. "What'd I tell you?" he shouted to Taliesin. "They're morons."

"Stop, stop, stop!" the old man spat, coming between the two combatants. "Good heavens, no wonder Hal's disgusted with the lot of you. You've the manners of goats!" He cast a hard eye on Lugh, who was still gripping the candlestick.

"Would it please you to be a goat, Lugh?" Taliesin asked softly.

Lugh set the object down at once. Most of the knights still believed that the old man, like all the Merlins trained by the magical druids, had the power to turn ordinary men into whatever beasts caught their fancy. "No, sir, I would not like that," Lugh said, patting the candlestick for good measure. It was perhaps the longest sentence ever uttered by the man. Lugh did not like to waste his limited mental resources on talk, but apparently felt that the situation called for extraordinary measures.

"Very good," Taliesin said. Lugh retreated to a corner. "Go on, Bedwyr."

The Master of Horse straightened, shooting a disdainful glance at Lugh. "I was considering, sir, that it might be a pleasant diversion for us to attend."

"Indeed. Well, that would be your decision. And Hal's, of course. He's in charge."

Hal's eyes were closed in dread.

Fairhands strummed his autoharp in delight. "Come joust, fine knights, and taste the wine…"

"These be not knights," Launcelot said, sneering at the photograph, "but evildoers of the worst sort."

"So much the better!" Kay shouted, raising his glass.

MacDaire clapped Arthur on the back. "Come, Arthur, 'Twill be the first tourney for you in sixteen hundred years!"

"He won't be going along," Taliesin said. "We've plans, the boy and I," He gave Arthur a wink.

"You mean, we're going to the mountain
now
?"

"No better time," the old man said. "Go fetch a blanket. The rest of you, go on about your business."

Arthur stood up. Across the room, his eyes met Hal's. He wanted to go to him, to say good-bye.

But he did not have to say anything. Hal knew perfectly well that, despite whatever plans Taliesin had made, the boy would not be coming back to the farmhouse in Jones County.

It was time.