X-Calibur: The Trial (16 page)

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” Arthur continued, his mouth slowly forming the thinnest of smiles. “If your enemy has superior strength, evade him.”

“Please,” Merlin said again, the sound of scraping claws and leathery wings closer than ever. “Let me surrender, maybe it will let you live?”

“We're not dying today,” Arthur said defiantly, his face becoming a mask of confidence and determination as he tapped his hand against the enormous stalagmite they hid behind. “When I say so, run!”

“Arthur?” Merlin mumbled with confusion, his eyes wide.

“Run!” Arthur yelled, pushing Merlin to the right before sprinting left. He held the torch ahead of him, lighting the way as best he could.

A roar from the darkness signalled his pursuer. “You think you can run and hide?” the dragon's voice echoed around him. “Here, in my home?”

Arthur felt the hot breath at his back and rolled to one side before the jet of flame scorched the ground beside him. He climbed back to his feet and was running again before the glow from the superheated stone faded, weaving left and right around the gigantic stalagmites that littered his path.

Arthur was already beginning to regret his plan. It had seemed so simple, but already his legs were complaining and the hot air made breathing uncomfortable. He knew the beast could fly, the angle of the first plume of flame proved that, but with the stalactites hanging from the ceiling it would have to be careful of its surroundings. Of course, if the cavern was its home, it would know where each of the stalactites and stalagmites were.

Arthur felt another rush of hot air and jumped aside just before the jet of flame struck. He wove left and right, trying to keep as many stalagmites between him and the dragon, hoping that Merlin had found somewhere to hide.

A surprised growl and a crash of falling stone made Arthur pause and look behind him. A moment later, a column of fire arced left and right, illuminating the enormous cavern and giving him his first look at the beast. The dragon was big, almost as large as the Vanguard, and covered in interlocking dark scales, similar to the chitin plates of the Mori. A long neck snaked upwards, ending in a face contorted with anger and pain as its large eyes searched for him, shining with evil intent. It stood on two muscular back legs whilst broad leathery wings spouted from where its arms would be, spread wide. Arthur could see a tear in the left wing, oozing a dark coloured blood.

“You'll pay for that, Englishman,” the dragon roared as its glinting eyes locked upon Arthur. “I have you now!”

Arthur turned and continued running as further jets of flame struck against the stalagmites behind him. He continued to weave left and right, holding the torch high to both light his way but also draw out his pursuer. He could hear the dragon running after him, its sharp claws digging into the stone with every step.

Arthur paused, catching his breath as he chose between three possible paths. Now that the dragon was on the ground he knew what he had to do, but achieving it was another matter entirely. He ran left and then right, then another right, the gaps between the stalagmites getting smaller with every turn. The beast was right on his heels, another blast of hot air his only warning before an intense plume of flame scorched the stalagmite he ducked behind.

“You can't run forever!” the dragon bellowed, accentuating his statement with another jet of flame. “Surrender, now, and I will be merciful!”

Arthur dove through another narrow gap as the flame licked at the soles of his feet. He could hear the dragon getting closer, the claws digging deep into the stone, the scales scraping against stalagmites. Arthur was breathing hard as he clambered forwards, his legs screaming at him to stop running. Every step was an effort of will.

Suddenly there was a crash and a roar from behind him as stone splintered and cracked. Arthur turned left and left again, skidding to a stop as came upon the beast. The dragon had managed to wedge itself between two of the stalagmites and was writhing as it struggled to crawl backwards, roaring with displeasure. Its enormous wings were pinned against its sides and more of the thick black blood was oozing from them. Arthur drew his sword and stepped forwards.

“Stop, beast,” Arthur said as he slid the tip of the blade between two of the creatures scales. The dragon roared as it snapped its head around, trying to get to him.

“That feeble blade doesn't scare me,” the dragon stated, but there was little conviction in its voice. “Do your worst.”

“I could,” Arthur replied, driving the blade in deeper until a trickle of blood began to seep past the scales. “I could cut your wings to ribbons in the time it would take for you to free yourself, or slice into your hide until I find something vital just beneath the surface. Is that what you want?”

The dragon was silent, contemplative and not moving. Arthur withdrew the sword and let it fall to the ground at his feet.

“You're beaten, dragon,” Arthur continued. “Accept it and let us be on our way. We want the Grail, that's all.”

The dragon laughed, an odd sound that echoed back and forth throughout the cavern. “I know what you seek,” it said. “And I know when I am beaten. Merlin hides somewhere near the stairs. When you find him, head east and you will reach your prize. I will bother you no more.”

“Thank you,” Arthur said, turning away from the dragon and heading in the direction he hoped would lead him to Merlin.

Arthur called Merlin's name, no longer fearful of the dragon at his back. After a while Merlin responded, and they were able to find each other in the darkness. “You bested the dragon?” Merlin asked with surprise, embracing the younger man.

“You didn't think I could?” Arthur asked mockingly.

“You, my King,” Merlin replied with pride. “There is nothing you can't accomplish. But even so, a
dragon
?”

“Let's just put it down to luck and go find the grail,” Arthur said with a smile.

Not knowing which way was east, Arthur put the stairs at his back and started walking, torch held before them to light their way. If the dragon had managed to free itself they heard nothing from him, and spent an hour or more picking their way through the maze of stalagmites. After a while, Arthur had the sense that he could make out lights some way ahead of them.

“I see them too,” Merlin said when Arthur pointed them out. “That must be it.”

“The grail?” Arthur asked.

“Or another trial,” Merlin replied.

Every step brought them closer, and eventually they were able to make out more detail. The stalagmites and stalactites gave way to grass and a rising hill. At the base of the hill were lit torches, arranged round it edge, and a large double door.

“Merlin, isn't that-” Arthur began.

“Glastonbury Tor,” Merlin said, interrupting the younger man. The feeling of dread that had been growing inside him had finally become overwhelming.

Chapter 10

Kobayashi Maru

Earth Year 6239

Arthur and Merlin approached the perfect replica of Glastonbury Tor, deep within the catacombs beneath the Isle of Corbenic. The door was identical to the one which led to the large hangar where the council, or Round Table as Merlin liked to call it, met.

Arthur approached the door first, running his hand along the panels to the side, searching for the mechanism to open it. As Merlin joined him a voice spoke, seeming to come from everywhere at once. “Speak truth and enter,” it said. “What is your name?”

The voice was commanding and insistent, loud but not deafening, and served to amplify the dread that Merlin was feeling. Every word pressed against his chest, weighed heavily on his shoulders, sapped at his spirit. Every fibre of his being wanted to turn and run, to escape and not see what lay behind the familiar door.

“Arthur,” Arthur said confidently, straightening his back and squaring his shoulders.

“Merlin,” Merlin added, though his voice was much quieter.

“Speak truth and enter,” the voice said again. “What is your name?”

The two men looked at each other, Arthur's look of confusion increasing as he spied the fear on Merlin's face. “Merlin?” Arthur asked. “What's wrong?”

“I don't know,” Merlin replied. “Ever since we entered this place I've felt something building up inside me, something terrible. I thought perhaps it was the dragon when it attacked, but the feeling continued to grow. This is all wrong, this place, that voice. I can't stay here.”

“It's okay,” Arthur said, placing a comforting hand on the older man's shoulder. “The grail should be right behind that door, and if it isn't we'll keep searching. This is all part of Mor-Dred's game, that's all. Don't let him get to you.”

“Speak truth and enter,” the voice said a third time. “What is your name?”

“I am Arthur Pendragon,” Arthur announced, louder than before. “King of the Britons.”

“And I am Merlin, wizard advisor to King Arthur Pendragon,” Merlin added.

Both men paused, waiting for the door to open. Instead, the voice sounded a fourth time identically to before.

“I am Merlin!” Merlin insisted, raising his voice. “Open this door and surrender the Grail!”

Arthur paused, closing his eyes as realisation dawned on him. He knew in that moment what the door was really asking, what Mor-Dred's game had been all along. Mor-Dred didn't want to kill them, he could have done that at any time. Mor-Dred wanted to break them, Merlin especially, and revel in that victory.

Arthur also realised what had been causing his friend so much distress. It was something so benign and yet so powerful, rare but so often taken for granted. It was something his core programming knew but the chosen identity refused to acknowledge.

It was the truth.

The truth of who he was, what he was, a truth Arthur would have to tell him or risk the lives of his friends. He thought they'd done the right thing, keeping the secret from him, letting Merlin live on in ignorance. The truth would destroy him, Arthur knew that, but equally it was the only way to save Lance and Gwen. There was no other way, no other choice, as much as he wished there were. Whatever he chose to do, someone would suffer.

“Merlin,” Arthur said, his voice breaking. “Please, there's something I have to tell you. I'm sorry, I didn't want you to find out, not like this, but there's no other way.”

“Arthur?” Merlin asked fearfully, taking a step back.

“Please, just listen,” Arthur continued, unable to hold back the tears. “We didn't want to hurt you, we thought we were protecting you, helping. The technicians on the Ardent Dawn, they found, we lied to you, Merlin.”

Merlin took another involuntary step backwards and Arthur continued speaking. “You, Merlin,” he said. “They said it was a construct, something your programming created to support a chosen identity. You aren't really Merlin, not in the beginning. You were a security program, something from before the Mori attacked. The American-European Alliance Mainframe.

“I'm sorry, Merlin. Please forgive me.”

Merlin looked down, inspecting his hands, his robes. He wanted to deny it, to insist it wasn't true, but he knew that it was. Part of him had always known. He wasn't real, not a person, a man, and he had never transferred his consciousness into a computer. He had been made, programmed, a tool designed to perform a task, no different to the security system that had become Mor-Dred.

It had all been a lie. His life, his memories. He had taken a man and proclaimed him a King, put him in harm's way over and over again and all on the basis of what? A delusion? More likely a glitch, a fault in his programming. How many lives had been lost because of his error?

“American-European Alliance Mainframe,” Merlin muttered to himself.

“Thank you,” the voice said, though the door didn't open. “Speak truth and enter. What is your name?”

“Adam,” Arthur replied. “359-24687436.”

“Thank you,” the voice said again, followed by a slow hiss as the doors began to part.

Arthur and Merlin stared at their feet, heads held low. They had nothing more to say, to the door or to each other. They were beaten, broken, their resolve shattered. They were defeated.

Mor-Dred had won.

A sound from the darkness behind the open door caused Arthur to raise his head. Slowly a figure materialised, tall and dressed all in black.

“You see?” Mor-Dred asked mockingly, clapping slowly. “Was that really so difficult?”

*****

Triltan was mildly out of breath when she arrived at the monitoring station in the birthing chamber but she didn't let that slow her down. The console was still displaying icons in the Teleri language and she quickly found what she was looking for, calling for an empty pod. As she waited for the mechanism to bring the pod to her, she tried in vain to ignore Lance's readouts. They hadn't improved in the time it had taken for her to travel from the security station, but the optimistic part of her brain pointed out that they hadn't deteriorated either.

The empty pod arrived a moment later and she approached it, opening the large black tube but not climbing inside. Seeing it up close made her squirm slightly. She could imagine being inside it, watching the pod close around her, engulfing her in darkness. Tight spaces had never overly concerned her, not until she had found herself trapped beneath the surface of a frozen world anyway, but the more she looked at it, the more the pod looked like the coffins used by her people. Like the coffin her mother was interned in before being launched into the star around which Teela orbited.

Triltan took a deep breath and tried to push away the emotions that sought to overwhelm her. Her friends were counting on her, Arthur had said as much in his message, and she didn't have time for self pity. Her mother was gone. Teela was gone. She still needed to grieve but now wasn't the time.

She unravelled the wires she had taken from the interrogation machine and separated out the electrodes. The cerebral programming equipment inside the pod was beyond her reach and she had to climb up into it, one eye constantly upon the door in case it began to close. The electrodes inside the pod were very similar to those she held in her hands. so it was a simple matter of pairing them up. The nanowires automatically coiled around each other, forming a stable connection.

With the electrodes attached to the pod, Triltan jumped back to the hard metal floor and dragged the trailing cables over to the console. Her examination of the interrogation machine had served her well, and although she still didn't fully understand how it worked, she was able to locate similar circuitry beneath the console. Once the cables were connected, all she had left to do was reconnect her scanner to the monitoring station and she had a direct neural link to the hive mainframe, just as Arthur and the others did.

If my father could see me now
, she thought to herself as she activated her capsule and plugged herself in.

*****

“You're dead!” Arthur screamed as he hurled himself forwards. “I'm going to kill you!”

“Now, now,” Mor-Dred replied, raising his hand. Arthur was frozen mid-step, his face contorting with agony as his body refused to move.

“Let me go,” Arthur demanded.

“You seem a little agitated,” Mor-Dred said with a sneer. “I'm worried you might hurt yourself.”

“Arthur, Adam,” Merlin said quietly, his voice lacking inflection. Hearing his tone was enough to stop Arthur's struggling, and with a nod towards Mor-Dred he was released. He dropped to one knee and paused before standing, taking in his surroundings.

Arthur wasn't where he expected to be. Instead of being beneath the Isle of Corbenic, he instead found himself back in the throne room in Camelot, the long red carpet a little way to his left. He stood and turned, looking for the door through which he had entered, but it was no longer there. Only Merlin remained, his shoulders slumped and his face weary, making him look older than Arthur thought possible.

“You promised,” Arthur said, his tone measured. Mor-Dred had strolled across the room and back to his throne where he sat, looking down on them.

“And what did I promise?” Mor-Dred replied, resting his hands together as he relaxed.

“You said we had a chance of success, that we could find the Grail and free Lance and Gwen,” Arthur continued, the anger bubbling inside of him. “It was a lie, just like Merlin said. You never intended to keep your word.”

Mor-Dred chuckled, shaking his head. “A Grail quest is, well, metaphorical,” he said with a condescending tone. “When one searches for the Grail, what one really searches for is knowledge, for truth. Tell me, Arthur, did neither of you discover any great truths on your journey?”

“You tricked us,” Arthur insisted.

“If it makes you feel better to believe that,” Mor-Dred replied, his patronising tone persisting. “In the meantime, Guards, send for the prisoners. I believe I have a bargain to uphold.”

Arthur turned back towards Merlin who still had his head bowed. “I'm sorry,” Arthur told him, though if Merlin heard him he didn't acknowledge it. “We'll fix this, I promise.”

Merlin failed to move, failed to respond. Arthur didn't know what to do, what to say to make it better. Perhaps if they had told Merlin before, when they'd first found out the truth, but they'd had Merlin's best interests in mind when they made their decision. What would they have gained by telling him then? How could they have known he would find out like that?

Arthur was reminded of something Merlin had told him. “A good leader always tries to do the best for his people,” he had said. “A great leader knows that it's impossible. Good intentions will not save you from having to make the hard decisions.”

Arthur had made the hard decision and he had to live with the consequences.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the large double door opening. He turned to see Gwen, her clothes dirty and face red from crying. He looked for Lance, initially failing to recognise the form draped over the guard's shoulder as his friend.

“What have you done?” Arthur demanded, turning his attention back towards Mor-Dred. “You promised they wouldn't be harmed?”

“I said they would live,” Mor-Dred corrected. “They both still take breath, and their hearts beat within their chests. What more do you want?”

The guard carrying Lance dropped him to the floor, making Gwen gasp. Arthur ran to them, pausing for a moment to make eye contact with Gwen before crouching beside Lance's lifeless body. As Mor-Dred had stated, Lance's chest moved slightly with every shallow breath but he failed to react to his mistreatment. As Arthur placed his arms beneath his wounded friend, he saw for the first time the ragged stump where his left arm used to be. As he looked towards the throne, Mor-Dred was smiling.

“This isn't over,” Arthur stated venomously.

“I should hope not,” Mor-Dred replied, his voice full of cheer. “I want you and Merlin to live a very long life, here with me, in Camelot. I expect the centuries we'll share together will be most entertaining.”

Arthur turned away from him, pulling Lance's body close to his own before following Gwen and Merlin towards the exit.

“Oh, and by the way,” Mor-Dred called after them. “I wouldn't expect any help from your peculiar friend on the hive. From the look of things, they've become quite desperate, and I suspect they'll be joining you in here momentarily.”

Arthur turned to see an image of Triltan working to attach wires to the inside of one of the birthing pods. He hadn't known her long enough to fully read her facial expression, but desperation would certainly fit. Arthur felt his heart sink, Lance's body suddenly feeling much heavier within his arms.

“Farewell, Arthur, King of the Britons,” Mor-Dred said mockingly as they left. “I look forward to seeing you soon.”

*****

Triltan took a deep breath and closed her eyes as her capsule made the wireless connection to the scanner and the hive mainframe beyond. As she opened her eyes again she had the sensation of two images, overlaid upon each other.