The Indigo King - James A. Owen [73]
“He shall have one more battle to fight,” a harsh voice called out, “unless you are willing to admit me now as one who has the right to vie for the office.”
From the eastern side of the hill a black horse sauntered in, and its rider, dressed in equally ebony clothes, dismounted. There were murmurs and growls throughout the crowd, but from two, Taliesin and Merlin, gasps of recognition.
He removed a tall, bull-horned helmet and placed it on the ground, possessively near the crypt. His skin was dark, more from weathering than pigmentation, and his features were lean. He moved with grace and the coiled energy of a serpent, which, Hugo realized, was exactly what he was. A serpent had come into Taliesin’s well-ordered garden.
His clothes were unusual but seemed tailored for combat, wrapped tightly around his limbs and loosely around his torso. And as for weapons, he carried only a spear, which in contrast to his dress and manner appeared to be of Roman make.
“I declare my intention to compete. Are there any who would oppose me?” the man asked, looking directly at Merlin.
Taliesin’s eyes narrowed, and he looked from the new arrival to Merlin and back again. There seemed to be an unseen struggle taking place in the very air. Finally Merlin nodded to the Lawgiver, almost imperceptibly, and Taliesin turned to the stranger. “What is your name, and by what right have you come here to disrupt this tournament?”
The man smiled coldly, as if he had been waiting for, and hating, that very question.
“I come by right of blood,” he said quietly but firmly, in a tone that said he would brook no opposition, “honor-bound, after long exile. And I come because it is I, and I alone, who is worthy to draw Caliburn and become the Arthur—the High King.”
“What is your name?” the Lawgiver asked again.
“I’ve been called many names during a long life,” the man replied, “and none have served me well enough to keep. But the people who took me in, whom I have called my own for so many years, called me Mordraut. And that should suffice for this gathering.”
“What?” Hank said to Hugo, straining to hear. “What did he say?”
“Mordred,” Hugo said, shuddering. “He said his name is Mordred.”
For almost an hour, John, Jack, Chaz, and a slightly confused Thorn circled the hill around the oak tree looking for a window in the air that was no longer anywhere to be found. Jack was distraught, and John was concerned. Of the three of them, only Chaz seemed unworried.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, tucking the Little Whatsit under one arm, “but I’m not exac’ly all broken up at the thought of being stuck here. It in’t perfect, but it’s better than where I was at.”
“Nothing’s perfect,” said Thorn. “I don’t think anything is expected to be.”
“Then what is expected?” asked Chaz.
“To become better than you are, one day at a time,” replied Thorn. “Progression, not perfection, should be the goal.”
“That’s a very enlightened attitude,” John said, clearly impressed. “How did you come by it?”
“From my teacher,” said Thorn. “He ought to be coming back anytime now.”
“I thought you were here alone,” asked John
“I didn’t think to mention him,” Thorn explained, using his hand to shade his eyes from the sun. “He went off exploring after I used the horn.”
“Why am you looking up?” asked Chaz, his Gaelic still rough. “Are. Why are you looking up?”
As if in answer to the question, a bird—the one Jack had seen at a distance, he now realized—began to spiral downward towards the oak. Moments later the great bird, an owl, had lit on Thorn’s shoulder.
“You three,” the owl said scornfully in flawless Old English. “You can listen to the smart one, there,” he told Thorn, pointing a claw at Chaz, “but these other two are a bit slow.”
“Archimedes,” John greeted the owl he’d last seen in Alexandria.
“Of course,” the bird replied.