As the realization took hold that Carbennic Castle could no longer be seen, Gilead immediately ceased to take heed of Sara and Zahra’s lesser endurance compared to him. All that remained between him and the castle itself was a short expanse of open ground and a steep, thickly-wooded hillside. The former he crossed so quickly that he didn’t even remember it, the time replaced by old thoughts of Carbennic in its heyday. The latter he assault-climbed, moving sometimes on all fours like a horse racing itself to death, until he at last arrived at the foot of the stone wall.
When he was a boy training to become a man, he had done two dozen laps around the wall every morning to build stamina, giving a hearty greeting to the gate-guards every single time he passed them. The watchmen up on the battlements would sometimes call out to him, encouraging him to keep going or trying to make him laugh with ribald jokes. Crossing the one path into the castle was always a good excuse to catch his breath: many times when he reached it, he would have to stop to let a wagon pass in or out, carrying people or goods between the castle and the town.
No more gatehouse. No more jokes, no more comradery was shared within the walls of Carbennic Castle. It was a ruin, dead, and not only that but forgotten as well, consigned to be remembered by no more than a handful of shepherds.
Gilead had been hollowed out. The pain of sore muscles was the only salve for the revelation that the place of his birth was gone. He walked like someone caught in a sad nightmare, meandering through the huge gap where once had stood the great gatehouse and into the grassy outer ward beyond. There had used to be a chapel here, training fields for the knights, wandering traders setting up their tents to sell baubles to the aristocrats who visited Carbennic from as far afield as Ireland and Rome for a chance to merely be in the presence of its much-renowned relic.
There was nothing left. The only sign that the chapel had ever existed was a few stones butting up against the wall. Even the sheep had little love for the courtyard, neglecting its grass to grow knee-high and wild, taunting Gilead with their incessant wind-blown dancing. At several points during his crossing of the outer ward, Gilead’s knees went weak and he nearly lost the will to go forward. But there was another question he had come here to answer: and he knew where the truth would lie.
The inner ward had always been a more private space. Here was where much of Gilead’s training had taken place, until by the age of fifteen he needed to leave Carbennic behind if he wanted to face any challenge at all. It was in the adjoining keep where Gilead’s grandfather had wasted away, where the great crime of his conception had been committed, and where was kept the holiest room in all of Europe.
Now, that room was gone, its roof and most of its walls torn open by the ravages of time. But no span of centuries, no matter how harsh, could cause the Grail to lose fondness for its old home. And indeed, marked by her vermillion glow, Dindrane stood there, a silent silhouette, and watched Gilead’s progress. He nodded to her, and thought she might have made a gesture back to him. But there were more relevant matters to draw his focus.
Before Gilead, flanked by his followers, stood the Black Knight.
“You wist I was coming,” said Gilead. Hazarding a guess, he asked the question not in the Saxon tongue he had become accustomed to over the last few days, but in Brythonic.
“Aye. I am a ghost,” the knight answered in kind. “And this is the land of mine ancestors; thus do I wist of many things.”
“This is the land of mine ancestors as well,” said Gilead. “And yet it is strange to me.”
Just then, Sara arrived, with Zahra trailing behind her. The Black Knight responded instantly, pointing his sword at them and saying in Saxon, “Cease! Come no closer.”
“They are my friends,” Gilead said, also in Saxon for Sara’s benefit. “And I would pray of you that give them quarter. They are here only to protect me; but if you will fight with me fairly and keep your honor, then they shall stand by and let my honor be kept as well.”
“What? No! Gilead, he’s not vulnerable to normal weapons, you can’t fight him!”
Gilead raised an eyebrow at the Black Knight.
“My phantom flesh rejects these modern arms what render battle into mere bloodshed without honor. But I swear upon my worship that when you and I make ado, your blade shall have more effect than none.”
The legion of skeletons that accompanied the knight on his rounds took to their swords one by one, but watched in silent suspension, waiting for the sign to attack. There were a dozen of them for every living person in the castle that day; Gilead was unsure if he could win against them, even if they had been mere mortal warriors.
“Do you swear to stand apart from our duel?”
Sara gritted her teeth, blinking heavily. “If I see you cheating, I will not hesitate to blow you all to shrapnel. One wrong move and you will see what a Pretender is really capable of. But I swear to hold myself back until then.”
“Then, let us unto the outer ward,” the Black Knight replied. “This shall be a duel for the ages.”
The skeletons made a ring, setting the outer limits of the duel. Sara and Zahra took up position just inside that ring, on Gilead’s end, while two other skeletons took up positions at the exact opposite side. Not that they would be needed; Gilead would not cheat, and if he did cheat, then the Black Knight would be able to defeat him more easily than any of his minions.
“Will you remove your harness?” Gilead asked in Brythonic.
The Black Knight… hesitated. “Why?”
“It is not very chivalrous for a man in harness to fight a man without. Your harness would win the fight in your stead!”
Again, the Black Knight hesitated. What had been an invulnerable wall of confidence seemed shaken, and for a moment Gilead thought he would rather default than remove the black plate that obscured his body. Then, all at once, like the snuffing of a candle-flame, it flickered and vanished.
Gilead had encountered ghosts before, but none who looked like this. His body was translucent and colorless, but he did not look like a dead man. No wound marred his shirt, no rot had stolen his lips. The Black Knight’s true face—sandy-haired, strong-boned, scruffy-chinned—was merely dirty, and more tired than Gilead had ever seen a man, black circles under his eyes and sallowness infesting his cheeks. More strangely, though, was what could be seen through the transparency of his chest: a steel orb, about twice as large in diameter as a heart, floated at the exact center of his being.
“My name is Duranore, son of Dornar, son of Pellinore,” said the ghost, hefting his shield onto his shoulder and falling into a martial crouch. “Last King of Listenois. In the name of all Britons vanquished before my time, I fight.”
A chill pierced Gilead’s heart. “Duranore…”
But he had to harden himself. This was his chance. He raised his sword skyward, falling into his own stance even as a single tear trickled down his cheek. “Gilead, son of Elaine, daughter of Pellam. Knight of the Grail.” He looked up at the castle tower, and at the vermillion phantom who stood there. “Dindrane, I fight for thee.”
Duranore’s eyes said that he, too, recognized the name of his opponent, but his mouth remained set in martial rage. There was no need to announce that a fight had begun; both men were set to kill or be killed. An invisible thread connected them, not one of blood, but of sharpened steel. Both stalked closer to the other, turning and turning as they went and as each tried to sneak into the less-defended right side of the other, but forever closing the distance.
All was quiet: Sara and Zahra could barely breathe for the tension, and the wildlife of the moorland went quiet out of respect for the duel. The only sounds were the soft scraping of the two fighters’ swords against the wood of their shields… and a distant buzz that grew closer with each second.
Gilead was the first to lunge, the very instant he thought he was within range to cut Duranore with the tip of his blade. The strike was expertly executed, Gilead’s footwork flawlessly carrying him into range. In a single flowing maneuver Gilead made a feint to Duranore’s face that turned into a slash at the lower part of his gut, expertly avoiding the protection of his shield. Skill against skill, conditioning against conditioning, the fight would have been won there and then: but there was another factor at play.
Gilead was injured and exhausted, the bruises from his encounter with Qi Zhen three days before having faded but not quite extinguished, and the same for the wounds he’d taken against Northbury’s kin. Halfway through his expert strike, a twinge of pain in Gilead’s side forced him to abort, giving Duranore enough time to bash his own shield directly at Gilead’s face. The two men spiraled back apart, and the long battle began in earnest.
Carbennic castle had, in all of its many centuries before falling to ruin, never produced a fencer as adept as Sir Gilead, son of Elaine. He knew every move his opponent would make before he made it, for he had fought with the man who had trained his opponent. But Duranore, his body made of ethereal silver-stuff, did not and could not feel fatigue. With every sweep of Gilead’s blade, with every frantic last-second deflection, the gap between their capabilities grew broader.
Worse still, Duranore did not bleed and weaken as did a mortal man. When he was hit, he flickered and wavered, shuddering for a moment like a flame being blown upon. But the flickering lasted only an instant, and before long he was back to full fighting form.
“Thou hast taken to the sword well, nephew,” Gilead panted.
“I had little choice, uncle. The moment I became a man, Britain was engulfed in war, and I fought that selfsame war until the blood rose high enough to drown me.”
Gilead’s legs nearly gave out from under him, and he started to cry once more in earnest. “Thou wert a mere babe when last I saw thee. Dost thou even remember me? Smiling down onto thee as thou toddled this way and that with a wooden sword in thy hand?”
For a second, Duranore went slack, his blade unready and his expression soft. “No, I don’t think I do. But I know thy story. I was told it every year, at Easter, and parts of it a thousand times throughout the rest of the year. Thou wert the man I was meant to be.”
“And I am sure that thou wert.”
Duranore shook his head. “I could not seek the Grail. I could hardly even hear its song over the screams of dying Saxons.”
At that, Duranore charged, his illusory feet kicking up dirt from the grassy floor as he rushed headlong into melee. It was a vicious, brutal exchange that followed, neither combatant caring much at all for his own preservation. Gilead gained a dozen new cuts, wounds from his shoulder down to his knees that oozed fresh blood, while Duranore allowed himself to be struck so many times that even when he finally retreated his image continued to waver and sway unnaturally.
Gilead had, with the mightiest of his blows, made a dent in the steel sphere in the middle of Duranore’s chest. His body was wracked with that strange wavering (analog distortion), but he still stood proud.
Only a few times had Gilead been driven to this level of desperation in battle, but those few times had lodged in his memory so firmly that this blade’s edge dance felt achingly familiar. Beyond fatigue, beyond skill, it was sheer determination that Gilead was forced to dig into, a will to conquer so fierce that as he drew upon it his heartbeat turned into a series of hammer-blows. Gilead looked up, past his opponent, and locked eyes with the glowering figure of Dindrane on the tower-top.
“For the Grail!”
His body had gone numb to fatigue and pain and blood loss, and even though his muscles screamed with pain, they nonetheless obeyed him as Gilead launched into a viciously aggressive combination. There was no time for Duranore to counterattack, for every single second Gilead threw himself feverishly into the offense, cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting, propelling himself forward with blows that could have hewn a lesser man in half. Duranore defended himself deftly, blocking and parrying the hail of strikes, but could not defend against them all. Gilead’s sword cut deep into his imaginary flesh, impacting again and again against the steel orb at his core.
“Gilead! Gilead, stop, something is coming!” Sara said, and was promptly ignored.
But Gilead was still mortal. After one final downward slash, cutting directly through the roof of Duranore’s skull, he had reached his limit, and collapsed onto one knee, heaving with breath. Duranore’s skull was still intact, despite the sword that had just gone through it, and though the distortion had grown worse and his core more dented, he was still standing.
“I am sorry,” he said. “Remove my harness I may, but I cannot return myself to flesh.”
Gilead let his sword and shield fall to the ground.
“Would only that my honor would allow me to spare thee. But I know that if thou were to overcome me, I could not ask for thy mercy. Thou wouldst slay me where I fell. Thus, I must return the favor.”
Duranore circled around to stand at the headsman’s place. Sara drew her pistol, ready to intervene, but the halo of skeletons surrounding the dueling pair shifted, closing in around their commander.
On the ground, Gilead breathed deeply, passing life-giving air into his starved muscles, and thought. Not about his impending death, though. This was a deeper sort of thinking, more venal and cunning. The part of Gilead’s mind that thought on matters of honor had been driven unconscious by sheer exhaustion and desperation; all that remained was the part of him that wanted to live.
“Thy last words, uncle?”
“I never yielded,” Gilead replied.
Gilead donkey-kicked back and out at Duranore’s leg, sending him toppling forward, then expertly grabbed hold and threw him square over his back. After all, it was not merely the sword with which Gilead was expert: he was a wrestler too. And he had identified Duranore’s weakness.
He yanked Duranore upright, such that both men could at least fight kneeling, though a punch to the face made sure that Gilead kept hold of the advantage. Duranore clearly knew little of wrestling, though, and in spite of all of Gilead’s wounds and fatigue, he was able to do with his opponent as he wished. After a few seconds of grappling, Gilead had Duranore off-balance, his ephemeral form far lighter than Gilead’s mortal one, long enough to go in for the killing blow.
He shot low, underneath Duranore’s guard, and reached into his chest with both hands. The resistance was substantial, and Gilead’s fingers ached, but the matter of Duranore’s form gave far more easily than would any mortal matter. Thus, with main strength alone could Gilead reach into the center of Duranore’s chest and grab hold of the orb that sat there, wrenching it back with all of his might.
For a single, critical second, Duranore vanished altogether, and the sphere could swing through the air unimpeded. With what little strength Gilead still had, he spun about and smashed that sphere on the ground. There was a horrible crunch, and several panels were rattled open by the force of the impact, the sphere suddenly rendered asymmetrical by the sheer force of the blow. Gilead then pitched forward and vomited onto the ground, his body so totally overwhelmed that even drawing breath felt like a difficult act.
For a moment, he thought that that was that, and Duranore was slain. Before the guilt of that action could rise up and overwhelm him, though, the black knight flickered back into being.
“I yield.”
“Good,” Gilead croaked. “Good.”
Gilead tried to embrace Duranore, the son of his beloved first cousin Dornar, but failed. Though he still appeared intact, the substance of his form was akin to a great mass of slugs and worms, always writhing. The rest was illusion.
“No, no, no, no…”
Duranore nodded. “Weep not, uncle. This was a battle of true knights. This is the death I have sought for so very long.”
Gilead wept. “Stop that. Thou wert meant to live. Thou wert meant to be the ones who inherited the peace that Arthur had built.”
“Not even Arthur lived to inherit that peace. He died at Camlann, and took all of Britain’s honor with him. All that remained was bloodshed.”
Gilead tried to scream, but he could not. There was no more breath in him with which to scream, or even to sob as his tears mingled with his blood. He had suspected that Arthur would not survive Camlann, for when last he had seen his king, he and Mordred had seemed evenly matched. He had died on that field, and to learn that he had died without averting the fate of his kingdom repeated that death.
“Mordred was king, then?”
Duranore shook his head weakly. He was beginning to dissolve, fading away into light and absence. “Constantine. At least, until the Saxons slew him. Then it was Aurelius… Aurelius Conan.”
Gilead barely even remembered Constantine. An unassuming Cornish fellow, competent with numbers and good at ensuring he had no enemies at court. But he was no Arthur.
“Everyone here speaks Saxon,” he said. “Not a Briton word from here to Carlisle.”
Duranore nodded. “I hear tell that, in the world this piece of scrap left behind, there are still Britons, toiling away under Saxon rule. But when Arthur was gone… uncle, they came in a tide. Not one army, or two, but countless hosts, a great wave of Saxon blades and Saxon blood. We fought them at every turn, but there were no true warriors, not like Arthur, not like thee, not like thy father, we could not stanch the flow. I must have slain a hundred Saxons the day I died, but they did not stop!”
Duranore was almost gone, by then, one arm having fallen limp, his body vanished below the waist. Gilead’s tears passed through his body on their way to the grass.
“I will remember thee. I will remember thee evermore. Beloved nephew, I will remember thee as I burn in hell just as I will upon mortal soil.”
With a trembling, weak hand, Duranore reached across himself, delving into the bent and burst sphere that held his very being. “Then take a token of me. Lo: my armor.”
From a hidden compartment somewhere in that metal sphere, Duranore produced a strange object: a flat plate of white plastic, slightly smaller than a man’s palm, with three holes drilled into one edge. Gilead thought it looked like bone.
“Thy armor?”
“A work of incredible artifice, it is. Thou shalt come to understand its functioning. In time. Ahh, if only there were a priest… Too many sins and so little time…”
Duranore’s body flickered out one final time as the sphere fell, inert, to the ground. Gilead clutched the mysterious plate to his chest as though it were Dindrane’s very heart, weeping inconsolably. The last member—the last true, honorable member—of the house of Pellam had finally died. Only the wretched remained.
From the edge of the courtyard came a loud, steady, polite clapping.
“Good show,” said Lord Ruthven. “Good show, indeed!”