Knight Life (17 page)

    
“No,” said Arthur. “No, I haven't.” And his voice took on an edge hard as steel as he said, “But before you start throwing all your titles, or nicknames, or sobriquets at me, I think it would be good if I reminded you just who is going to be the next mayor of this state.”

    
“City, you great barbarian oaf! Not state! You—”

    
Arthur slammed the phone down. He stared at the receiver for a long moment, snapped angrily, “You colossal
pointy-hatted complicator of issues! I need have no truck with you! I can function perfectly adequately on my own.”

    
Then he sat there in the dark of the castle, the main room illumined only by firelight, and stared at the phone. It didn't ring. He willed it to do so, commanded it to. It ignored him. Well, why not? Everything else did.

    
“I know,” he said to no one. “I'll get up and walk out, and that will make the bloody thing start ringing.” He got up and walked out of the throne room, and sure enough the phone started to ring again. The room remained empty, though, Arthur making no effort to hurry back. The phone rang a dozen times, and when Arthur finally came back in, the hem of his purple velvet dressing gown swished around on the floor, stirring up dust. He made a mental note to get the place swept, then stood there and let it ring another few times before he picked it up. But before he could get a word out Merlin said, sounding very small, “I'm sorry, Arthur.”

    
Arthur hesitated, his eyes wide. His grip on the phone relaxed marginally. “Merlin,” he said softly, “I think this is the first time you've ever apologized to me. About anything.”

    
Merlin coughed slightly, sounding a bit more comfortingly surly. “I don't intend to make it a habit. And the only thing I'm apologizing for is the barbarian remark. Everything else stands. You're supposed to follow the script I've laid out.”

    
“I'm not an actor, Merlin. I'm ... a politician.”

    
“Same difference. Listen, I'll be seeing you in a day or so. And I've got a new member for our group. He's going to be our accountant.”

    
“Good man?”

    
“One of the best. Utterly dedicated.”

    
Arthur felt a slight lurch inwardly, as if he should know what Merlin was talking about, and was frustrated that he didn't. “Where have you been for the past week or so?”

    
“Sobering him up and cleaning him off.”

    
Arthur laughed. “What a sense of humor you have, Merlin. What did you do, pick him up off the street?”

    
“More or less.”

    
Arthur nodded slowly. “Urn, Merlin—I'm going to assume you know what you're doing. What's the fellow's name anyway?”

    
“Ohhh ... I'd rather it be a surprise.”

    
“Merlin, I can't say I like surprises.”

    
At that, Merlin made a triumphant squawking noise. “Well, what do you know about that? His highness doesn't like surprises. Huzzah, huzzah. You know what, Arthur? Neither do I. Do you see now why I was less than ecstatic upon hearing about your little Times Square debut?”

    
Arthur's face flushed momentarily, although naturally Merlin couldn't see that. Or ... who knew ... maybe he could. He was still unclear on what Merlin's full abilities were, and that was enough to keep him in a perpetual feeling of unease. “It was Duffy Square, but all right, Merlin. Point taken. I shall endeavor not to allow myself to become swept up in the tide of events in the future.”

    
“Thank you. I would appreciate that.”

    
“So who is our accountant?”

    
Merlin paused a moment—for drama's sake, Arthur would later decide—and then said, “Percival.”

    
It took a moment for the name to register, and when it did, Arthur could scarcely believe it. “Percival ...
the
...”

    
“... the Grail knight, yes. Percival. Who were you expecting, Galahad? Great, whining, virgin twit. Never had any patience for him. But Percival, well ... he was cut from a very different bolt of cloth.”

    
“Percival,” Arthur said the name again in wonderment. “Still ... alive? How is that possible?”

    
“You're asking that of me? You, of all people, asking me, of all people?”

    
“But I don't see how—?”

    
“I'm sure he'll be more than happy to tell you when you see him. He'll help watch your back, Arthur. And he'll keep you honest.”

    
“What do you mean, honest?”

    
“I mean in the event you are tempted to do the wrong thing, for any reason, Percival will make certain you don't. He did the wrong thing exactly one time in his life, and has been paying for it ever since, so if anyone is sensitive to right and wrong, it is he.” He paused. “It is him. Or is it ... ?” Then he made an annoyed noise and muttered, “Damn language.”

    
“Merlin ... I have to ask ... with my return, and yours, and now Percival ... could Gwen Queen ...”

    
“That last is a coincidence, Arthur, nothing more. Gwynyfar is dead, and the sooner you come to accept that, the better off all of us will be. Don't allow whimsies of happenstance to be confused with patterns of fate. Understood?”

    
“I suppose I'm just being wistful.”

    
“Kings don't get wistful. ‘Wist' isn't even a word. You can be prideful, scornful, hateful. You can't be full of something that doesn't even exist. Wist. Stupid concept: He's full of wist. Cannot happen. Do not dwell on it any further.”

    
“Very well, Merlin,” Arthur said evenly. “I won't wist time on it.”

    
This time it was Merlin who hung up. Arthur grinned.

I
T WAS DEATHLY
quiet in Arthur's office at the Camelot Building that evening. Everyone, it seemed, had gone home, and the only noise to be heard was the squeaking of the wheels of the janitor's rolling trash can.

    
There was a rustling noise at the keyhole, although oddly enough no key was inserted. Then the door swung open and a figure stood in the doorway, glancing this way and that. It was a short but broadly built individual, and
strange, though it was, the flickering light from the outside hallway seemed to bend right around him. That had to be the case, because the janitor who was heading off down the hallway would certainly have made some sort of noise had he actually noticed the individual standing there. But he didn't notice or say anything, which was probably just as well since the janitor had a wife and three kids at home, and if he had spied the person in the doorway, he would have been very dead very quickly.

    
The dark figure stepped through the doorway, and the door closed noiselessly, which was also fairly impressive considering the hinges tended to squeak something fierce. The dark figure squinted in the dimness. He was more or less prepared to come back here every evening, for as long as it took, because it was what
she
wanted and he but lived to fulfill her desires. He was rather pleased to see, however, a light flickering toward the back, from the area that he would presume would be King Arthur's office.

    
His nostrils flared. Something felt ... off. Then he realized what it was.

    
When he had been approaching the front door to the offices, he had smelled rats along the way. Rats scuttling in the walls, rats scouting for food behind the closed doors of the other offices. But in this office, in the place that was inhabited by Arthur Pendragon, there were no rats. He couldn't understand why that might be. Not only did he not smell rats, he didn't smell anything living. Which made him wonder whether there really was anyone in the back office, or if someone had just carelessly left the lights on.

    
No ... no, he definitely heard something. Heard it, but didn't smell it. He pressed the bridge of his nose, blew out, and tried to figure whether or not his sinuses were congested. Then, very slowly, one foot gliding in front of the other and making no sound, he crept toward the back office. He found the door open, the light dim but more than sufficient.

    
A woman was seated behind the desk. She looked as if she was waiting for him, with her fingers interlaced and folded neatly on the desktop. She had green eyes that glinted in the dimness.

    
“Hello,” she said. “I'm Miss Basil.”

    
“Hello,” said the dark man uncertainly. Once more his nostrils flared, trying to pull in a whiff of her, endeavoring to seek her essence. Nothing. She might as well not have been there at all.

    
She smiled. “I know what you're trying to do,” she told him, and she didn't rise from behind the desk so much as she seemed to uncoil. “I know who you are. I know what you are. But you do not know me, and you find that disturbing.”

    
“Look, uhm ... I can come back some other time,” said the demon, chucking a thumb in the other direction. But the woman did not turn her gaze from him, and he was transfixed by it for reasons he couldn't understand.

    
“That would certainly be your intention. Why? To set some sort of trap that would snap upon Arthur? Or just to kill him outright? Yes, yes ... that's the more likely. I know your type, and I know your master. You serve Morgan. As for me, I serve Merlin ... for now. I am indentured to him for another decade or so. After that, I am free to kill him, or try to. Or perhaps I won't. I haven't decided yet.”

    
“Who ... are you?” The demon was beginning to be a bit disconcerted by the fact that he wasn't moving, feeling as if it was coming from outside him rather than within.

    
“You know. Don't you.”

    
She smiled at him, and it was a terrible thing to see, and then he did know. His legs trembled, but still didn't move. “Ba ... basiliskos ... ,” he whispered.

    
“Ah. You know my name of old. ‘Little King,' it means, did you know that? Yes, I perceive that you did. You are an ancient Greek demon. So you would appreciate that it only seems appropriate that one king serve the needs of
another, does it not? Now ... I know what you're thinking,” she said as she came around the desk. “You're thinking that I'm supposed to be able to kill with my stare. I'll tell you a secret: That's exaggeration. What I do ... merely seems like killing you. You see, demon ... I perceive my victims for what they are. They have no secrets from me. I look into them, through them, and in an instant, know all their most private aspects. Things that they don't want anyone to know. Things that they themselves do not know about themselves. But I see it all, and they know I do, and then they see it, too, and they'd rather die than live with that knowledge. At which point ... I attend to it. Would you like a demonstration?”

    
The demon tried to shake his head, but couldn't. He tried to run, but couldn't.

    
She looked at him, looked through him, and her eyes went from green to jade green and then green flecked with red. The dark creature sobbed deep in his throat, and his bowels released, but since he wasn't human what dribbled down his pants legs was more like a thick black tar, smoking and burning a nasty little hole in the rug. The demon then knew himself more than any demon could or should, more than any living thing could or should.

    
“You want to die now, don't you,” asked Miss Basil, but it wasn't a question.

    
“Y-yes,” stammered the demon.

    
“All right.” And the Basilisk opened wide her elastic jaw, her great snake form elongating, and she swallowed him whole. After she had done so, she let out a long, satisfied sigh, because it had been quite some time since she'd had Greek food. She sat there all night, savoring the fullness in her belly, feeling relaxed and languid but nevertheless alert, and when one foolish rat, not heeding the warnings of others, strayed into the office, her tongue enfolded him in less than a moment, and then he was gone, providing a nice dessert.

    
Miss Basil decided she liked working in politics.

* * *

P
ERCIVAL BORE LITTLE
superficial resemblance to the man Merlin had found behind the library a week ago. He was now dressed in a straight-arrow, three-piece, black pinstripe suit. There was no trace of liquor on his breath, although it had left a haunted look in his eyes. He was neatly groomed, his fingernails trimmed. His eyes were bloodshot, but Visine would take that away in time. A cup of black coffee sat in front of him, the remains of dinner strewn around the table.

    
“Why me?”

    
They were seated in a diner across the street from the Camelot Building. Merlin sat opposite him. The waitress kept giving him looks every time she walked by. He ignored them; he was used to it.

    
“Why you?”

    
Percival stared at him evenly. “You have to understand, Merlin: When it first started, when it all first started ... I would never have had the nerve to ask you. You were who you were, and I was ...”