The Thirteenth Skull (26 page)

I reached the opening to the main chamber. A year ago I had died in there, the belly of the dragon. But, like a year ago, I didn't see what choice I had. None of it was going to stop unless I did something to stop it. I didn't ask for it, but I had it and, like Nueve said, what I had was a gift, not a treasure. Treasures you hoard away. Gifts you don't.

I had gifts to give. A gift for Mr. Needlemier and a gift for Sam and, in a really weird way, a gift for Jourdain Garmot.

I stepped into the chamber.

THE WIZARD'S CAVE

00:05:25:19

There were no points of reference inside the belly of the dragon. The walls and ceiling were wrapped in shadow, and once you walked a little ways into it, you couldn't tell if you were in the middle or more toward one edge or the other. Wherever you stood, that was the middle.

And that's where Jourdain was standing, holding a black sword identical to mine, ghostlike in the ambient light streaming through hidden fissures in the ceiling.

I walked toward him. When I got within ten feet of him, he said, “Stop.”

I stopped.

He said, “Do you know who I am?”

I didn't answer. Of course I knew who he was and of course he knew I knew who he was. I had the feeling he had been practicing for this moment, had rehearsed it over and over in his mind ever since our meeting in Knoxville. He was following a script he had written and rewritten until he knew every line by heart.

“I am the son of the man you murdered here.”

“And I'm the son of the man he murdered in Játiva,” I said.

“Yes, the last son of the house of Lancelot. Tell me something, Alfred Kropp, do you know from which house I descend?”

I didn't. No one had ever told me which knight Mogart had come from.

“From the house of Mordred,” Jourdain said. “Mordred, the only son of Arthur. I am the true heir to the king, the true heir to the throne of Camelot. Do you understand now why my father sought to claim the Sword? It was rightfully his.”

“Mordred killed Arthur,” I pointed out.

“He took his mortal life. It was your ancestor who betrayed him, killed his spirit and sent him into the arms of Mordred's mother. If not for Lancelot, Camelot would not have fallen.”

He raised his sword in both hands, bringing the blade against his chest.

“In a dream the Lady came to me,” he said. “Your blood will bring an end to the curse upon Arthur's house, Camelot will rise again, and the Archangel shall return the Sword—to me, the last son of Arthur.

“Let us end, Alfred Kropp, what a thousand years ago our forebears began.”

Jourdain Garmot rushed toward me. I brought my sword up just in time, as his came whistling down toward the top of my head. The black blades met with a ringing crash and my knees quivered with the impact. Little shards of glittering metal exploded from our blades, spinning away into the shadows.

He forced his sword downward. I reached between us with my left hand and grabbed the wrist of his blade hand. I yanked his arm across his body, freeing my sword, and then plunged it into his side. The blade hit something hard: his rib, which turned it away from his chest and sent it down, toward his stomach. His eyes went wide.

He stepped back. I stayed put. He stood panting in front of me, his white shirt glimmering with blood.

“That's it, okay?” I asked. “We don't owe our fathers anything, Jourdain. They're dead. All the knights are dead. The castle is just a bunch of rocks and in another thousand years even those rocks will be gone. The Sword isn't coming back. Let it go.”

He switched his sword to his left hand and came at me again. I slapped the blade away and slashed back to the right. The tip of my sword ripped through his shirt, opening up a two-inch-deep gash in his exposed stomach.

And I heard his father's voice echoing inside my head:

Did noble Bennacio tell you how your father met his
fate? . . . I tortured him. I cut him a thousand times, until
upon his knees he begged me to finish it, to end his miserable
life . . .

Jourdain's mouth came open, as if he had something to say. He staggered backward, but I didn't follow.

“I don't want to kill you,” I said. “I never wanted anyone to die—not even your dad, but I didn't have a choice. But I have one now and so do you, Jourdain. You can let it go. We can both let it go.”

He still didn't say anything. We were off script. This wasn't the way he imagined it, the way it was supposed to go.

“Let me save you,” I whispered to Jourdain Garmot.

He came at me a final time, right arm dangling uselessly by his bloody side, his left swinging the sword crazily back and forth. I sidestepped to his right, pivoted, slung my left arm around his neck, pulled his head back against my chest, and rammed my sword into him, all the way to the hilt.

His body went stiff against me. His fingers loosened on the black blade and it fell to the ground. After that all I could hear was his breath and my breath and the distant wailing of the wind.

I pulled the sword from his body and tossed it away. Then I gently lowered him to the floor, going down with him and then resting his head on my thigh. His eyes were open and his mouth moved soundlessly as he looked up into my face.

“Forgive,” I told him.

“God's business!” he choked out.

I picked up his father's sword and sliced open the palm of my left hand.

“We'll see whose business it is, Jourdain,” I said. “I know this will heal your body. But the real wound is a lot deeper.”

I pressed my bleeding hand into his side. “In the name of the Archangel,” I said. “Prince of Light.”

His eyes rolled to the back of his head. I could feel my blood flowing into him.

“May he bring you peace.”

00:04:47:19

He was too weak to walk, so I carried him up the narrow slope of the dragon's throat, cradling him like a baby, past the glittering teeth of its mouth, into the upper chamber, the cave of skulls, where Vosch was waiting. When he saw us emerge from the cleft in the rock, he pulled his gun and pointed it at my face.

“No,” Jourdain gasped. “Put it away.”

Vosch lowered his gun.

“He's going to be all right,” I said. I didn't know if Vosch believed me: Jourdain was covered head to foot in blood. I lowered him to the floor and leaned him against the wall opposite the skulls. I sank to the floor on the other side of the chamber and rested against the rock shelf, the circle of grinning skulls over my head.

Vosch looked at me. He looked at Jourdain.

“Alfred has taught me mercy,” Jourdain said. “Does that not beg mercy?” He smiled. “He has offered me forgiveness. Does that not beg forgiveness?” The smile traveled from Vosch to me. Vosch smiled too. I was surrounded by grins.

Jourdain's. Vosch's. The skulls'.

Jourdain said, “Put away the gun, Vosch . . .”

Grinning.

“It should not be quick.”

Vosch got it right away. Too bad I didn't. He was on me in two long strides. I looked for the gun in his right hand. I should have looked at his left, because that's the hand that held the two-foot-long, dragon-headed black dagger.

He slammed it into the same spot I stabbed Jourdain, only my rib didn't deflect the blow. The blade slid straight into the center of my chest.

Vosch. Jourdain. The skulls.

Grinning.

00:04:34:19

Their faces swam in and out of focus in the torchlight, and their voices seemed far away beneath the wailing of the wind and the rattling of blood in my chest.

“He's dead already,” Weasel said. “Look at his eyes. They don't blink.”

“No, he's alive,” Vosch said. “I hear him breathing.”

“Hey, Kropp,” Flat-Face II said, poking me in the ribs. “You alive?”

Light and shadow dueled across their faces. They reminded me of fun house masks or those carnival sideshow creatures leering at you through yellowed glass.

“Call him, Alfred,” Vosch said. “Call down the Archangel! You are his beloved—surely he'll save you. He will bear you up in his hands lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

“He won't come,” Weasel predicted. “Kropp's pissed him off.”

“No,” Flat-Face II said. “He won't come because he don't care.”

Weasel touched my side and squinted at his bloody fingertips, turning them in the golden light.

“Gave him this, though,” he said, and he stuck his fingers into his mouth, tasting my blood. Vosch told him to cut it out. “Can't hurt,” Weasel said. “I got a bad ticker. You know, the kid's kinda like a vampire, only the opposite.”

“You're both wrong,” Vosch said. “He won't come because he doesn't exist.”

“Well, I'm not saying whether he does or doesn't,” Flat-Face II said. “But you can't just say there's nothing, Vosch.”

“Why not?” Vosch asked. “If there was something that loves us, how do you explain that?” He pointed over my head at the skulls on the ledge.

“Who said anything about love?” Flat-Face II answered with a rumbling laugh. “I'm just saying you can't say for absolutely one-hundred percent there ain't anything. It can't be all random.”

“Why not?” Vosch asked. “Randomness explains it just as well. Better, in fact.”

“I told you,” Weasel said crossly. “The kid killed off all the knights, and that pissed God off. It's what God does to people who piss him off. Like how he smote the Egyptians, all those plagues and such.”

“What kind of God is that?” Vosch said.

“The kind you don't piss off,” Weasel said.

“I think we should let Alfred settle this,” Vosch said. “What do you think, Alfred? God is there, but you've upset him terribly and he's punishing you, letting you die a slow and painful death? Or God is there and he is as indifferent and bored as a teenager at a bad movie, texting his saints while he waits for the closing credits to roll? Or God is there not at all, and heaven is merely the empty space between the stars? What do you say? Do you say, ‘Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes'? Or do you say,
‘Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani'
? Or do you simply say, ‘Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink'? Speak up, Alfred. Settle our debate.”

“He'll be here soon,” I said. It hurt to talk.

“Right!” Vosch said sarcastically. He thought I was talking about the Archangel, but I wasn't. I pushed myself up, using the hard stone behind me for support, and stumbled toward the cave's mouth. They didn't come after me. They just kept arguing about God.

I fell to my knees on the shore of the little inlet. I coughed, and my mouth filled with blood. I began to crawl toward the steps. I could hear the rise and fall of their voices as they continued the argument. Was God there or not there? And if he was there, what was he doing there? Why wasn't he doing anything down here? Over my head, the stars seared through the blackness around them, and the stars were silent about it.

I began the slow climb up the stairs.

He would come. I
knew
he would come.

I wanted to be there when he did.

00:00:12:44

The helicopter that brought him came in from the east, silhouetted against a crimson sun.

I was waiting for him at the edge of the cliff. Three hundred feet below, the incoming tide smashed against the jagged stones that rose from the sea like the teeth of the dragon from my dreams.

The chopper landed. I stood. I wouldn't be able to stand for long: I had lost too much blood.

Out hopped a tall, thin man dressed in an expensive suit and carrying a gold-handled black cane. Next, a very tall, gray-looking guy with a hound-dog face and enormous hands, and finally a lithe blue-eyed blonde.

The three of them walked toward me, picking their way between the white stones of Arthur's castle.

I raised my hand. They stopped.

“Alfred,” Nueve said. “You are expecting us?”

“Nueve,” I said, and the word caused a fiery stab of pain deep within my chest. “You know you should avoid asking questions you already know the answers to. People will think you're stupid.”

I couldn't stay up any longer. I went down to my knees and Sam rushed forward. He caught me before I landed face-first on the rocky ground. He pulled my head into his lap. His hand touched my side. He felt the wetness there, and his long fingers explored my wound.

“Start the chopper!” he called to Nueve. “We've got to get him to a hospital immediately.”

“No,” I said.

He looked down into my face, puzzled. “We're taking you to headquarters, Alfred. Director Smith has arranged for you to plead your case personally before the board.”

“No, Sam,” I said. “I go to the board . . . beg them not to use me to create the perfect army . . . and maybe they say yes, but it can't change the fact that anytime they change their mind or some power-hungry jerk”—I looked at Nueve— “decides to change it for them, I can be snatched and lobotomized and drained to feed baby SOFIA. Or the day when they decide it's just too dangerous having me in the world and they hit the button . . .”

I choked up. I had had a lot of time by the ruins of Camelot, and sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes it isn't. I wasn't sure about this time, but I was pretty sure I knew the-thing-that-must-be-done.

“And if OIPEP doesn't decide to finish SOFIA, somebody else will.”

“You don't know that, Alfred,” Sam said.

“Sam, you gotta listen to me. Why do we have atomic bombs? Huh? Because it's possible. Because we can. Somewhere, sometime, sooner or later, someone will use me to make SOFIA. Because it's possible. Because they can.”

He started to cry. I'd never seen him cry before. Most people look uglier when they cry. Samuel was ugly to begin with, so now he looked
really
ugly.