Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

didn’t want it then, and I don’t want it now.”
    “Good,” said Gaea. “Because you’re not worthy.”
    “You want a slap?” said Suzie. “Or failing that, two barrels of blessed and cursed ammo right between the eyes?”
    “Please don’t upset the planetary personification,” I murmured. “Particularly one who’s about to provide us with a ride home.”
    “Don’t get sassy with me, little miss,” said Gaea. “Or I’ll give you a period you’ll never forget.” She gave me her full attention. “You were given your special dispensation to bear Excalibur, for a time, because it is your duty and destiny to deliver the sword to King Arthur. The once-and-future King of your world. You get to do this because you are one of the few people who wouldn’t be tempted to hang on to the sword for yourself. You have already faced greater temptations and did not yield. You have no idea how rare that is.”
    “All right,” I said. “Putting aside for the moment a whole bunch of questions and denials, why Arthur? And why now?”
    “King Arthur is the only one who can stop the coming elf civil war,” said Gaea. “Which will quite definitely devastate your world, and destroy all of Humanity, when the elves use the Earth as their battle-field. Both sides have had centuries to prepare for this war; and they have more powerful weapons, both magical and scientific, than all of the human nations put together. The elves will tear your world apart, fighting over it. Only King Arthur can prevent this.”
    I considered Gaea thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t the Gaea of my world prefer the elves in charge rather than Humanity? After all the ecological damage my people have done?”
    “The elves would be worse,” Gaea said flatly. “The elves don’t have Humanity’s conscience or restraint.”
    “We beat the elves before,” said Suzie.
    “No, you didn’t,” Gaea said crushingly. “You outbred and outnumbered them. And you had the Droods on your side. They found the Sundered Lands for the elves, when asked to by the elves. By that time, they wanted to leave the Earth. There are lots of theories as to why, but nobody really knows. Not even my other self. In fact, some of the elves were so ... concerned, they hid themselves away in Shadows Fall, because they thought that would be safer. But the elves did not prosper, in either of their new homes, and now they wish to return and claim the Earth for themselves again. Whoever or whatever they might once have been afraid of, apparently that isn’t so any more.”
    “I spy a small but subtle hole in the whole destiny thing,” I said. “How am I supposed to get Excalibur to King Arthur when nobody knows where he is? Even the London Knights don’t know, and if the London bloody Knights don’t know ...”
    “Use your gift,” said Gaea. “Find him.”
    “Ah,” I said. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”
    “Because it’s all a wild goose chase?” said Suzie.
    “There is still the problem of how we get home,” I said to Gaea, in my very best polite and respectful tone.
    “Walk into my fountain,” said Gaea. “I am still the Lady of the Lake, and all waters are mine.”
    She smiled at me, ignored Suzie, turned her back on us, and strode away to talk with Stark and Julianne. Suzie and I turned to look at the fountain through which Gaea arrived. It was still shooting a good twenty feet into the air, its cool clear waters bubbling noisily. There was an increasingly large area of clean marble floor round it. I hoped the Court had good drainage.
    “It’s a fountain,” said Suzie. “Great big bubbly water thing. It doesn’t even look like a Doorway.”
    “It’s not like we’re loaded down with options,” I said. “Maybe the Doorway’s behind the water.”
    Suzie walked round it twice. “Not a sign.”
    “You can be so literal, sometimes,” I said.
    I walked into the fountain, and Suzie strode quickly along beside me, her head held high. I grabbed her by the hand, so that whatever happened we wouldn’t be separated, and barely had time to take a really deep breath before the water closed over both of us. My first thought was of how cool and refreshing the water felt after so long in the filth and stench of Sinister Albion, then the floor dropped out from under my feet, and I was falling helplessly. I clamped down hard on Suzie’s hand, and she held on to me just as tightly, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. There was nothing but the water,