Chapter Text
Lucius never recalled a more somber time than his teens.
True that he also remembered, although very vaguely, been a child raised among a dying Order of the Round Table where both of his parents belonged as knights as far as his memory reached… and where they were, along with Sir Galahad, Sir Perceval and Sir Bors the Younger (most of all sons of elder knights of the Round Table as well) the only remaining younger ones… alive.
Many years the Order had sought to heal their ill King Arthur and, thus, healing their land as well with no avail.
For the legend of the Holy Grail, the goblet in which Christ drank wine in the Last Supper surrounded by his Twelve Apostles, had been, to this day, an impossible goal to reach.
What is the secret of the Grail? Who does it serve?
Many valiant men had perished seeking these answers, and Lucius dreaded the day when word will reach Camelot bringing news about the deaths of Galahad, Perceval and Bors the Younger.
For that would mean that his parents would be next in the chain to follow their steps in search of the elusive divine goblet.
"Ah, Lucius, there you are."
And if things weren't bad enough, with the moribund state in which Arthur was submerged, recently a greater illness had poisoned Britain eating the land from its very core like a vicious parasite: Mordred's army.
"Come here, son." – soon, his mother's hands reached his face and caressed his gaunt cheeks – "Let me see you."
Raising slowly his eyes, the same amberish brown eyes he shared with his mother and, as he had been told since he was a little boy, his grandfather as well, Lucius sight met his mother's visage.
With the passing years, much of the freshness of Lady Kayleigh's beauty had clearly diminished… but her impetuous spirit had prevailed despite the circumstances.
Not only Lucius loved his mother as a caring son would, but he admired her greatly.
Not for nothing she had been the first woman to sit at the Round Table as an equal to the rest of men who compounded the Order.
"You're so pale…" - Lady Kayleigh murmured absently, watching carefully her son's face: thinner and gaunter than a sixteen-year-old lad should look, with high cheekbones taken after his father's; severe dark eye bags and a long mane of straight hair so blonde that it almost looked white.
The young man was the perfect image of a ghost, like the same ill land he had been raised in.
"I'm fine, mother." – he answered softly, giving her a weak smile as if trying to soothe out her many worries – "It's just the winter. My skin hadn't seen the sun in a while, that's all."
"It has been winter in Camelot for too long, I'm afraid." – she said, mirroring the same weak smile plastered in her son's lips – "I wish news from the other knights would reach the Court… even bad ones." – she added thoughtfully – "For that would mean that, at least, they tried to make things better for all of us… But this… this nothingness…" - she sighed – "This uncertainty of not knowing if they died or they abandoned us to join forces with Mordred…"
Lucius repressed a loud sigh. What his mother said was a sad truth these days; because with Arthur in such a weakened state the wanna-be-usurper, Mordred, a lone swordsman who had come out of thin air demanding King Arthur's head, had lured many former loyal knights to his side.
And that was why he had won all the battles so far; because he was younger, stronger and, above all, bolder than the old King.
He posed a threat so great that many had joined him because they both needed and feared him.
Rumor said that, despite many arrows and blades had reached him, nothing could pierce his enchanted black armor, thus, making him invulnerable… unbeaten.
"Have faith, mother." – he said, putting his hands over her shoulders, a head taller than her, a thousand times more coward and undeserving than any of her comrades… because Lucius, having seen so much darkness and misery since his childhood, had no faith nor courage to hold on, but to feign it. If the great and brave Lady Kayleigh, his mother, lose faith, he would have nothing to stand for – "Have faith in the knights, for they will return one day bringing brighter news for all of us. They're still searching. Just… give them more time."
"More time than the two decades in whose they have been pursuing uncertain rumors about this Holy Grail?" – she asked skeptically – "Believe me, son, when I say that my mother, your grandmother Julianna, told me these same words years ago when Excalibur was stolen… and the knights did nothing to prevent Ruber's invasion." – then she clenched her teeth – "This Mordred is just another Ruber but, this time, without Excalibur and with an enchanted armor in exchange. Men of this kind of ilk are all the same, and they take advantage not only from the people's fear, but their inaction."
Ah, the same old Lady Kayleigh… never a moment of doubt, never showing a sign of defeat. Lucius admired and feared her for that.
Because if he hadn't known better… he would put a hand on the flame to bet that she wanted to take the reins of the situation and start to search this Holy Grail by herself. And his father, Sir Garrett, would undoubtedly follow her steps, even if these same steps ended up taking them directly to the very Gates of Hell.
And where that would leave him? Alone. Alone beside a moribund King, waiting their impending doom.
And Lucius was truly afraid to be alone. Because he was such a coward…
"Lady Kayleigh!" – suddenly, a voice from one of the castle servants, reached the ears of both mother and son – "Lady Kayleigh!" – and then the said servant, a young boy of barely thirteen, burst into the room like a waterspout – "Milady!" – he exclaimed, agitated – "He's back! He's back!"
"Hold on, boy. And catch your breath." – she said, raising a hand – "What are you talking about? Who's back?"
But the boy could barely contain his emotion.
"Sir Perceval!" – he exclaimed – "Sir Perceval has returned! And he brought the Holy Grail with him, milady!"
Exchanging an astonished look with her son, Lady Kaileigh took a step forward.
"Is that true?!" – she herself barely contained her emotion upon hearing the news – "Take us to the King! Quickly!"
And so, the boy did. Then, when Lucius and his mother reached the Throne's Room where Arthur had been sitting, unable to lay down in his bed and, thus, unable to rest nor to die, irreparably languishing… they, along the few remain knights of their Order, too old to support their duty towards the kingdom, saw an aged, half naked and starved Sir Perceval walking barefoot towards the throne, kneeling before a half unconscious Arthur and offering the precious goblet to his lips.
"You and the land are one." – he said – "Drink."
"I am wasting away." – Arthur muttered, his voice cracked, his spirit darker than a starless night – "I cannot die… I cannot live…"
"Drink from the chalice." – said Perceval again, strangely lucid and firm for a man who clearly had suffered so much – "And you will reborn, and the land with you." – then he took gently his King's head to help him to drink, and so the old man complied.
After a moment when everybody was holding their breaths, Arthur's eyes opened and, for the first time in years, they were limpid, showing the bright blue they had when he was but a young man.
He looked directly at the waiting Perceval. The once peasant boy had grown into an honorable, very tired man.
"Perceval." – he spoke, his voice powerful and crystal clear once again – "I ignored the void in my spirit… until I have filled it." – so, he slowly but surely rose from his throne, leaving behind all the blankets and pelts that had been warming his cold carcass.
"My Lord!" – Lady Kayleigh exclaimed, being the first one to kneel before her King, followed promptly by any living soul inside that very chamber.
Arthur approached her and put a hand over her forehead.
"Many dark days I have passed sitting in this room, mourning in my self-pitying…" - and then, he smiled briefly – "But those days could have been darker… if not by thy constant loyal presence by my side, Lady Kayleigh."
The woman said nothing but she took her King's hand and kissed it.
Lucius could not believe there were actually tears in her eyes. It made her look like… a mere frail human being and not the brave mother he had been so used to through his entire life.
Arthur nodded wordlessly and then he addressed the rest of the knights.
"Prepare thyselves for battle." – he ordered – "The knights will ride with their King at the front. I have lived enough through others. Lancelot took my honor away… and Guinevere my guilt. Ruber took my pride with him… and then, this Mordred wants to take my kingdom from me!" – he exclaimed – "My knights fought by my cause and perished because of my indolence. Now, I will be the King ye all deserve."
And with those words, he along his remaining loyal knights, the brave Lady Kayleigh, the blind Sir Garrett, the haggard Perceval and even the coward Lucius, rode along the land to meet their fate.
And, as the King passed, the flowers bloomed and the fields regained their old greenery.
The time had come.
Guiding his small nomadic congregation of faithful Christian followers through the harsh forests that were still untouched by the blessing of the King reborn, an aged, thinner, disfigured and dirty Lancelot of the Lake made a quick halt to rest their worn, tired feet. He needed a moment to collect his thoughts.
Word had not reached yet his ears telling the miraculous recovery of Arthur, so he still flagellated himself from time to time in order to punish himself and to clean his soul.
After the incident who had led both him and Guinevere to disgrace, the former Queen had told him that she wished to mend her undoing by leading a life of chastity serving God.
With all his pitiful expectations about a future together shattered, the former knight had vowed to lead a life under the service of God as well to purge his sins.
So, at the very moment he raised the whip to mortify his already mortified flesh, a sudden noise followed by several cries, distracted him from his sacred punishment.
Several riders were pursuing a lone horseman who Lancelot soon recognized to be the old Uryens, a still loyal knight of the Round Table despite how the Order had been diminished all these years.
But a single man among the riders quickly surpassed Uryens' frenetic cavalcade.
A man embedded in a frightening, although polished, set of armor black as the void itself.
That very man interjected his and his monstrous horse's bodies between Uryens and freedom, trapping the man between him and his men.
Lancelot hid behind a tree, knowing he had not the means nor the body prepared for a fight, and so he prayed for Uryens' soul. He couldn't do more for him given the circumstances.
"Deny your King, swore loyalty to me… and I shall be merciful." – the black knight said with a metallic hoarse voice which sounded like everything but human.
"Never!" – Uryens shouted, his brow soaked with blood from a previous blow – "I will not serve a false King like you!"
A sudden silence filled the air between them.
"As you wish." – the metallic voice said once more before landing a fatal blow to the wounded knight.
The man then fell to the mud and, in a pitiful display of bravery raised his head and spat in the ground before the black knight.
But the creature embedded in dark metal descended gracefully from his horse… if a monstrous black animal with red eyes and a snout full of sharp teeth can be called a "horse"… and knelt in front of the dying Uryens.
"You have fought valiantly today, old former King Uryens, the one shamed by the grace of Excalibur." – the metallic voice whispered – "And for that, I will grant you the gift of knowledge. For a dead man should know the face of his killer."
Sight had been failing Lancelot for the last years as he grew older so, at the distance, he could not distinguish the face of the black knight when he removed his closed helmet.
But what he saw clear as the water was an unruly mane of long curly bright hair, red as fresh blood.
"Y… you…" - Uryens choked – "Those… those eyes…"
And then, he finally collapsed.
When the black knight rose again, his eyes went through the hidden Lancelot as if he could see him before he took his helmet again, picked up his long hair and put the armor piece over his head again. Then he hopped over his monstrous mount and disappeared in the muddy wilderness followed by his men.
For a longer time to come until the very day of his death, Lancelot would never forget that encounter.
Long red banners with a serpentine Dragon interwoven in their fabric waved as the North wind blew out ferociously, bringing humidity and cold from the near lake whose waters were being, slowly but surely, tinted in crimson.
For the crimson of blood was wherever sight reached.
And the putrid smell of death served as accompaniment of the black banners which showed the ominous sign of the Wolf, waving with their torn edges synchronized with the red ones.
Red and black, blood and void, King and usurper. Everything clouded with a dense fog that had ultimately been an advantage that Arthur and his men had used in their benefit against Mordred's larger army.
But the fight, since its very beginning, was lost.
The ferocious battle in Camlann had been extenuating for both sides, lasting an entire journey since the first ray of sun. Arthur had fought valiantly along with his knights, making the best of their inferior numbers and the advantage the fog provided them… but many had fallen and he had found himself alone wandering aimlessly, as in a dream, fatigued, slightly crazed and calling his disappeared friend, Merlin, to aid him.
But Merlin had succumbed many years ago to the charms of a beautiful, devious Nimue, a young enchantress maiden who had achieved to lure the old wizard to his own perdition, now trapped in the entrails of the Forbidden Forest, the last haven for magic beings as himself. Truly, an ironic fate for the one who had felt himself entitled to judge Arthur and his infatuation over a woman younger than him who had proven to be his undoing in the end.
Zigzagging between more and more corpses of the fallen, the old King reached the lakeside and found himself looking pensive at the calm waters while Excalibur in his right hand vibrated slightly, the mystic emanations from the water attracting the magic residing in its blade.
He didn't know how much time had passed, unsure if it had been hours or mere minutes looking at the crystalline reflect in the lake… when a dark figure had emerged from the fog armed with a spear.
Its torn cape waved slightly as the sharp points of armored boots had stopped mere meters away from the King.
"Are you Arthur Pendragon?" – a metallic voice from the depths of the black helmet emerged in a whisper.
The King turned to face the obscure silhouette.
"Thou must be Mordred." – he said simply, observing his adversary's frame with critical eye – "Do thee know what is this?" – he said, rising his sword between them.
"Yes." – the black knight said – "That's Excalibur, the magic sword that granted you the rights of your kingdom and the victory in many battles."
"And do thee know what its blade is capable of?" – Arthur inquired again.
"I do." – the black knight answered – "I do and, for that sole reason, I think such a powerful artifact shouldn't be in yours or anybody's hands."
"Oh?" – Arthur asked, his curiosity picked – "And whose hands do thee think this sword should be? Thine?"
"No." – the black knight deadpanned before attacking him.
The fight lasted very little when Arthur lashed out against Mordred and tried to pierce the dark armor with Excalibur.
For a moment, the magic energies woven in the two artifacts had sizzled one against the other, no clear winner in their clash, until Mordred's spear had found a gap between the junctures of Arthur's armor pieces and its pointed end had impaled the tender flesh behind the chainmail.
Astonished, denial clearly painted in the blue of his eyes, Arthur fell on his knees gripping the spear's handle, feeling his warm blood soak every inch within his armor. Excalibur loose from his grip.
Eyeing the fallen sword, then the impassible polished surface of his enemy's helmet, Arthur felt all strength abandoning him as he fell in the wet, cool sands on the lakeside.
Releasing the grip in the spear's handle, the black knight observed from above how the King slowly perished by blood loss.
Then, with astonishing cold blood, gathered Excalibur from the ground.
"Thou said nobody… should have… Excalibur." – Arthur accused, trembling as his body went colder and colder – "Not even… thou."
"And I meant it." – the other said coldly – "But before we dwell in such a fussy and unimportant detail… I feel I owe you an explanation, Pendragon."
"An… explanation?" – Arthur repeated incredulously.
"An explanation for all this." – the black knight continued – "For all this death and misery."
"Thou wanted… my kingdom." – the King said – "What other reason… would thou have to… start a war like this…?"
"Revenge." – the other said before raising the dark armored hands to grip the closed helmet and taking it out with deliberate slowness.
At first, Arthur didn't understand, but as the face behind the metallic mask came out at sight, his memories woven a known visage.
"Thou…" - he stammered – "But that is impossible… he is dead."
However, as his eyes stopped in to be guided themselves by memories and the reality slowly settled in his brain, tracing the features before him more carefully, he understood.
"No… no, my eyes deceive me…" - he shook his head, blinking several times – "Thou art not him… thou art not even a man thyself…"
For the face before him, crowned by a voluminous mass of long curly red hair, was the face of a woman.
Not even a woman yet, but a girl.
And she had his eyes. His same venomous, reptilian green eyes.
"I am Medraut, daughter of Black Lyonesse or, as I'm sure you've known her lately as Morgan Le Fay, and the Red Knight Ruber of the High Lands." – the said girl spoke, her voice more clear and feminine as the barrier of the helmet had gone out – "The father whose love you deprived me of even before I was born."
Speechless for a moment, Arthur coughed and a thin trail of blood pearled his lips and chin.
"Thy father… wanted to take my crown for himself." – he finally said.
"I am well aware of this." – she answered coldly – "As I am well aware that, after his betrayal, you and your men, in your zeal to make him pay for his undoings, slaughtered in cold blood two defenseless women: his mother and sister. His family." – she emphasized – "My family."
"Defenseless?" – Arthur repeated – "Morgause, thy grandmother… was anything but defenseless."
"But you killed my father's sister." – Medraut stated – "An ill woman who only wanted to defend her home from invaders."
"Ruber killed one of my most… trusted knights and tried to kill me!" – Arthur argued, suddenly needing to explain himself before this girl, this angry child who wanted justice in the name of a family she never had known.
"Because you disposed of him after using him as your war tool." – she replied nonchalantly, colder than before – "My mother told me everything: you isolated him and his people, my people, in the North; waiting patiently as time and the cold killed their souls along with the Old Ways and the old gods."
"I gave him… a place among us!" – the King exclaimed, coughing more blood as he spoke – "I even helped him… to retake his lands!"
"You put sweet honey in a starved man's lips and then, you retired that same honey to give him stale bread instead." – she said – "You calmed his hunger, yes, but you also showed him better and deprived him of that. There's no mercy in letting a man live by half means." – she added, raising slightly Excalibur in her hand – "Now, I'm taking this instrument of sorcery and putting it in good hands."
"Thine… highlander?" – the dying King spat venomously.
A sudden silence followed those same words.
"No." – was the simple answer he received before she turned and walked away with the weapon in her hand glimmering in the red twilight – "Farewell… Arthur Pendragon. I'm glad you lasted this long… so I was able to dispose of you as you, in a way, did with my father."
"I permitted… thou… and thy mother… to… live…"
"And that was just one of the many mistakes you have made throughout your reign, King Arthur: to show pity after indolence. May your spirit rest peacefully in death, for it never rested in life."
Then, with those words, she disappeared in the distance like an apparition.
And so, Arthur Pendragon, last of his bloodline, died quietly as the cold silvery waters of the lake mixed their splendor with his dark blood, dreaming his last dream beyond reality's waters, in a land surrounded by fog and arcane energies. The very land he, in his illness, had kept dreaming with all those years between life and death. And so, his spirit traveled its last journey towards the hidden, mystical Avalon.
With him, an Era died to make space for a brand new one.
And his name became legend.
Having witnessed mutely the strange exchange, as he approached his dead King and reverently closed his eyes, Lucius followed the fluttering mass of bright red hair cascading over the black armor pauldrons like a mantle.
He had found none of his parents, dead or alive, at the end of the battle and he had been searching the corpses for hours with no avail.
He was now alone, just as he had feared.
And why? Because someone decided they had to kill another someone.
Why he and his parents had been involved in all of this? Why…?
The black figure had stopped somewhere in the diameter of the lakeside, quietly observing the sun submerging in the far horizon.
"You!" – Lucius exclaimed, pointing a finger towards the red-haired girl with the sword in her hand – "What are you planning to do with that?!"
He was now emboldened, empowered. Because he had nothing to lose.
Clearly taken off guard by the young man, the girl inhaled once, not even looking at him.
"Returning it where it belongs." – she said, raising the sword for a moment and, taking impulse, suddenly throwing it far away to the lake.
But before Lucius could scream or stop her, the blade traced a perfect arc in midair before falling straight by the hilt at the waters.
Then he couldn't believe his eyes when a dainty hand covered in silver silk grabbed the sword by the hilt and, after a few seconds, submerged it, locking away from the prying eyes of the world the power of a great sword from another time, pertaining to a dead Era.
"Why did you do that?" – asked Lucius, disconcerted.
"Because it was the right thing to do." – Medraut answered, facing him briefly, her long mane around her features giving her a siren-like quality – "Before Uther Pendragon, that sword belonged to the Lady of the Lake and so, it is for the best that it rests in her hands than in any greedy mortal ones."
And then, Lucius had found himself thinking for the first time that he couldn't help but noticing that she was beautiful in her own way.
Beautiful and strangely sad, so sad.
"Why renounce to Excalibur?" – he inquired once more after a while in silence – "With the sword and that armor, you could have had the world at your feet."
"I don't want the world at my feet, nor I want the throne."
"But you killed Arthur…"
"I wanted his head, not the crown over it."
"But people followed you in the belief of…"
"People get bored easily of peace, so they make excuses for themselves to spill some blood. That's the human nature, independently of the gods they worship. Sad but true."
So much bitter wisdom for such a young lady. Lucius didn't know what to make of her now.
Another silence followed.
"Then, now what?" – the young man dared to speak after a while.
"Now, I am returning this armor to its legitimate owners." – Medraut explained – "The Wayward Sisters bestowed its blessing upon me, but only if I returned it to them as soon as I had my revenge complete. And I wouldn't dare for my life to defy their wishes."
Lucius looked at her suddenly… scared. His cowardice slowly returning to him.
"The Three Witches of the legends?" – he asked, afraid to even invoke their names – "You made a pact with those… those…"
"The means are unimportant, but the result." – Medraut said coldly, turning and starting to walk away, tired of the present conversation.
Startled, Lucius ran after her, not even knowing why. He had lost everything because of her after all...
"Hey!" – he cried – "Where are you going?!"
Medraut stopped briefly.
"Follow me, if you so desperately want to know." – she said, her helmet under her left arm, a tiny smile upon her lips – "And who knows what fate will decree for you and me?"
Because she knew that, perhaps, the young man would likely attempt to end her life as soon as she got rid of the armor… or maybe, and only maybe, both of them could finally find peace and redemption as regular people and not as tools in a war generations above them had started in their hatred for each other, and their descendants had but simply followed. Because nothing was viler and more resilient than old grudges.
One way or the other, her father's memory now rested in peace and, if she really ended one day at the point of the young man's sword, her ancestors still smiled upon her. She wasn't afraid.
And so, the coward followed the fearless into a new journey of discovering. Because they were still very young, because they were both alone.
But that… is a different story.
The End