Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

blood-red armour he never takes off. It is whispered, in certain quarters, that he can’t take it off. That Merlin summoned something up from Hell, then lost control over it. The two of them have spent the last three hundred years in subtle conflict, struggling for control of Camelot. Merlin sent him here to look for me as a means of getting rid of him for a while; and Prince Gaylord agreed, to suit his own purposes. Perhaps he wants Excalibur, too ... And if he were to use the sword to control or even kill Merlin, I think what he would do with Camelot would make it Hell on Earth indeed. He would soak the land in blood, laughing all the while. Merlin likes to boast about being his father’s son. But he’s still a man, with a man’s limitations. There’s nothing in the least human about Prince Gaylord the Damned.”
    “Wonderful,” said Suzie. “More complications.”
    “After you wiped out all the Exiles—and once again thank you for that, my dear; they really were frightfully boring types—I had to find a better place to hide while I sought out someone who could deliver me Excalibur. The Fortress has served me very well, but I shall be glad to see the back of it. I really am used to better things. Now, let us talk of all the many rewards that can be yours, if you look away long enough for me to make my deal with Sir Jerusalem.”
    I turned to look at Stark and gave him my best decent and honourable look. “You can’t really be thinking of giving Excalibur to a man like this.”
    “I don’t care,” said Stark.
    “He’s lying to you! Merlin can’t bring your dead wife back to life again! Only one man could do that, and He’s long gone.”
    “You’re wrong,” said Stark. “Merlin can do it. I’ve seen him do it.”
    “Sorcerers deal in illusion,” I said steadily. “It’s what they do. Think about it, Stark; all Merlin could do for you is what any necromancer could—raise up a zombie. A dead body that moves. And maybe, just maybe, he could trap your wife’s soul inside it. Is that what you want for her? Her soul, suffering inside a rotting corpse?”
    “I have seen Merlin kill a man, then raise him up again, for the pleasure of it,” said Artur. “Sometimes he kills the man over and over again, so he can keep bringing him back. To prove that no-one can escape from him and to see the suffering in the man’s eyes as he is snatched back out of Heaven’s grasp. Merlin is the anti-Christ, and he can do whatever he wants. Give me the wonderful sword, Stark, and you shall have your wife again.”
    “And damn your soul in the process?” I said to Stark.
    He surprised me then by thinking about it for a moment. “I already damned my soul when I allied myself with Queen Mab and her elves,” he said finally. “I let them into Castle Inconnu, so they could attack the London Knights and catch them unawares. I let the elves loose upon those who had been my brothers. But the elves died, and the castle still stands, so it was all for nothing. Unless I give Excalibur to this man. I can’t damn my soul any more than it already is. I don’t care, Taylor. I don’t care about anything, any more, except my Julianne. I want her back, and I will ally myself with anyone, do anything, to bring her back. Excalibur is but the latest in a very long line of bargaining tools.”
    “Is this what Julianne would want?” I said. “Have you ever asked her if she wants to come back, at such a price? Go on, call her up, right now. Tell her what you’re planning to do, and all the evil that will make possible. Or are you afraid to hear what she’d say?”
    “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for her,” said Stark. “She understands.”
    “Prove it,” said Suzie.
    Jerusalem Stark looked at her, then at me, and his hand fell to the preserved heart in the spun-silver cage at his belt. He caressed the dark purple heart with his fingertips, and his lips moved in Words best not spoken aloud, and suddenly his dead wife was standing there beside him. The hotel room had gone bitterly cold, all the warmth driven out of it by her presence. Julianne looked almost human, almost alive, for as long as Stark’s fingers made contact with her heart. But you only had to look at her to know she was dead. Her features were clear and distinct, pretty and delicate; but there was a terrible distance in her gaze, and her face held no human expression. Her long white gown was soaked in blood all down the front, with great tears