Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

cultured, with an undertone of viciousness. “It’s for my own protection, after all. There’s always someone watching. Anyone tries to attack me, the whole Fortress will turn out to defend me. That is why I came here, after all.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” said Stark. He sounded surprisingly tired for someone so close to getting everything he wanted. “They won’t recognise me and probably wouldn’t care much if they did. I’ve committed no sins in the Nightside.”
    “I never got the chance, unfortunately,” said Artur. “I’d barely joined up with Queen Helena and her Exiles, when Walker sent his assassin to kill us all. A very scary young lady; I was lucky to avoid her. I’ve been hiding out here ever since. If Walker finds me ...”
    “Walker’s dead,” said Stark. “You’re safe from him and his people ...”
    “They say there’s a new Walker,” said Artur. “A certain John Taylor. Yes, I thought you’d know that name. And the assassin who wiped out all my fellow Exiles is his woman and partner. So pardon me if I feel a little ... unsafe, even here. Let us make our deal, so we can both get what we want.”
    “You want Excalibur,” said Stark. “I have it. And it’s yours, in return for Merlin’s raising my wife from the dead.”
    “I have to have the sword first,” Artur said patiently. “Merlin won’t do a damned thing for you of his own free will. But owning Excalibur will give me control over Merlin; then I will make him restore your dead wife to you.”
    “Is Excalibur really that powerful?” said Stark. “I mean, it’s just a magic sword.”
    Artur laughed softly, unpleasantly. “You know better than that, Stark. You’ve been carrying it long enough to know better. It’s made its mark on you. I can see it.”
    “I am my own man,” Stark said stubbornly. “No sword tells me what to do.”
    “Excalibur is far more than just a sword. You have no idea what it really is. To own the sword, to have control over Excalibur, is to have control over the natural world and everything that lives in it. Merlin may be the most powerful sorcerer my world has ever known, he may even be the anti-Christ he claims to be; but all of that is nothing in the face of Excalibur. Merlin is still a living man, and part of the natural order of things, and Excalibur rules the living.”
    “I wish I had your confidence,” said Stark.
    “I wish I had your sword,” said Artur.
    “You will,” said Stark.
    I shut down my gift and dropped back into my body, in the bar. I looked at Suzie.
    “The Fortress,” she said. “Could have been worse.”
    “We have to get there fast,” I said. “Stark’s ready to make the deal.”
    “The Fortress is where we first met, after you came back from London Proper,” said Suzie. “And I was so glad to see you again.”
    “You pick the strangest moments to get sentimental,” I said. “But it’s time we were moving. Allow me to show you my new toy.”
    I took out Walker’s old gold pocket-watch, opened it, and the Portable Timeslip within whisked us away.

    The Timeslip dropped us off right outside the Fortress. Suzie shook her head a little and gave me a hard look but said nothing. She’s never been big on surprises. I put the watch away and looked up and down the street; but there was no-one else about. Most people steer clear of the Fortress, to avoid being shot at. The Fortress is always on the lookout for Men in Black. Suzie and I strolled casually down the street as though we just happened to be out for a walk. The Fortress is a massive square building, with all its doors and windows protected by reinforced steel shutters. Heavy-duty gun emplacements all but crowded each other off the flat roof, pointing up as well as down, and the exterior of the building positively bristled with all the very latest surveillance gear. The word FORTRESS had been painted in large letters all across the front of the building, over and over, in every language known to man and a few only spoken in the Nightside. For all those who have good reason to feel threatened, the Fortress is the last safe place in the Nightside.
    These days it stands between two new franchises of utter respectability. On the one side stands The Devil Has Designs, where a satanic mechanic will implant black-magic circuitry into your brain, so you can make better contact with the infernal realms. Some people will believe anything ... And on the other side of the Fortress lies Bonsai