Reel Two

Daniel stared at Mordred in shock. “What?!”

“Please, Mordred,” Bedivere begged, “Stop!”

“Stop? You could have stopped all of this.” Mordred raised his ornate and blackened sword. “This is your fault. Clarent is like this because of you.”

Clarent? Daniel was shocked to hear that sword’s name. It was a blade that the King never took into combat, one reserved for stately duties like knighting.

Bedivere shook his head. “You chose to commit regicide. You chose to forsake what your father stood for. You brought this curse down upon yourself.”

Mordred flexed his hand holding Clarent. The undead stirred at its movement. “Is it any different than the command my father gave you?”

Daniel noticed that reaction. He knew where this was going and decided to shoot first.

Literally.

The boom of Daniel’s revolver echoed out over the foggy island. Mordred clutched his chest and immediately felt onto his back. Daniel relaxed when he saw the undead army remain still. His relief vanished when he saw Clarent glow a bloodcurdling red. Tendrils were slithering off of the sword and climbing up Mordred’s arm and towards where Daniel’s round had pierced Mordred’s armor.

Bedivere grabbed Daniel’s arm and pulled him towards the castle looming in the distance. “Run.”

----

Daniel tried not to look behind him as he kept running.

But when he did, he saw the hordes of fallen knights and men-at-arms chasing him. All he could do was keep pace with Bedivere.

His legs burned with each step up the path leading to Camelot. The gates had already opened. All Daniel needed to do was to get a bit further.

He threw himself across the threshold of the castle and rolled on the stony floor. He saw Bedivere point his sword at the opened gates. Moments later, he heard them swing shut.

Daniel finally got a chance to catch his breath. “Not a lick of this makes sense. Clarent has no special power or curse in any telling of the myth I’m familiar with. I don’t know where Camelot is supposed to be, but it was never in Avalon itself. And Arthur –” He caught himself before he spoke too much on Mordred’s accusation.

Mordred couldn’t bear to look at Daniel. “I’ll not deny it. I loved the King more than a knight should. And the King loved me in a way others would assume he did the Queen. The Round Table was generally accepting of such things. They were even preparing a mock trial for Guenevere for Lancelot to kidnap her from to let us stop pretending. But Mordred… and the people Arthur ruled…”

Daniel held up his hand. He didn’t need Bedivere to finish the story. “…Are different now. Not a hundred percent enlightened, but more accepting.” He stood up and put his hand on Bedivere’s shoulder. “Excalibur’s here, isn’t it.”

“I can feel it,” nodded Bedivere.

“Then lead the way. And tell me all about how things got like this.”

---

Mordred saw Logres as his birthright. Camelot was his legacy to inherit, Excalibur his sword to cut a path through the future with. If he could not have it, no one would. It was only after Bedivere saw Arthur off to Avalon that he understood how deeply Mordred felt this.

Clarent, the sword that Mordred committed the crimes of regicide and patricide. The King’s blood stained the sword and Mordred’s armor with that crime. In his rage, he brought down Clarent a second time – this time, on the very earth itself. No. Upon history.

In his rage, Mordred cursed his father’s work to fade into legend. Every shred of proof Logres had ever been was erased from this world and sent to Avalon. Clarent gave him that power. Clarent let his rage tether him to life.

If Mordred could not have Camelot, then neither could humanity.

---

Daniel and Bedivere wandered further into the depths of Camelot. With each new detail Bedivere recalled, Daniel flipped through different colored lenses on his goggles. He didn’t anticipate seeing laser tripwires or anything of that nature here. But he supposed that one of those lenses might be a boon at catching magic.

“That explains how this got here.” His lenses were blue now. “But not how we’re dealing with it.”

“The King clings to Excalibur’s scabbard – and to life – in the church at the highest point of the island. The church itself is protected by a powerful spell that only Excalibur itself can cut through,” Bedivere told Daniel. “We find Excalibur, enter the church, and feed him your potion. That will suffice to bring the King back fully.”

“And Mordred? He’s not going to take Arthur’s return lying down.” Daniel pulled out his revolver. “This thing doesn’t have enough stopping power to put down whatever he is now.”

Bedivere pushed open a set of large wooden doors to what looked to be an old throne room. Suits of armor stood against each of the walls, clutching a well-kept poleaxe in their gauntlets. At the far end and sitting across the arms of a long-abandoned throne was a sword.

The sword had no decoration on its blade. The handle and the guard were well-crafted to be sure, but by looking at a picture one would never pick it out as being unique. It was its immediate presence that caught Daniel’s attention. Its aura, its visage in in person. The subtle glow running along its edge. As surely as Daniel knew from looking upon the castle they were in that it was Camelot, he knew he saw Excalibur the moment he laid eyes upon it.

“That was easy.” Bedivere smiled. But he was stopped from advancing when Daniel’s arm reached out to block his way. “What are you doing?”

“It’s too easy.” Daniel kept flipping through the colored lenses, through every color of the rainbow. “Mordred should’ve claimed it ages ago.”

Daniel looked to the ceiling. It was high, but in one of the far corners he saw a ray of light shining on a flat surface. He fingered his revolver and balanced it on his other arm.

With a bang, Daniel fired a round. Eleven.

The flat surface spun around over and over before finally settling to reflect the light down upon the throne room. Or what had appeared to be the throne room. The true dimensions of the room were five times longer than what had appeared before. A flat stone floor and red carpet gave way to a spiked pit with failing stone platforms perched precariously above. Impossibly large axes swung from the ceiling from side to side, where lines of armor rested against the wall with crossbows aimed and polearms hefted to toss. And at the were end was that throne with Excalibur still lying in wait.

“Whose bright idea,” shouted Daniel, “was this bullshit?”

Bedivere stared out at the obstacles. “My best guess is Merlin.”

“Merlin is supposed to be one of the greatest magicians of all time!” Daniel pointed to the deadly obstacle course. “Why couldn’t he put Excalibur behind a shield?”

“That would be a defense expected by a Knight of the Round Table,” Bedivere guessed. “Merlin always spoke in nonsense that I only understood after the fact.”

There was at least one adaptation of the Arthurian legend that had Merlin claiming he was ‘born at the wrong end of time’ and was travelling backwards instead of forwards. Even if that was wrong, the idea that Merlin got this idea from a gameshow from television was infuriating.

Daniel put down his backpack and transferred two of the bottles of healing potion inside to his pockets. As he started stretching his legs, Bedivere grew nervous. “Are you sure I should not do this? I have armor.”

“It’ll weigh you down. And it’s the sheathe of Excalibur that lets you cling to life, not the blade.” Daniel would’ve killed for the opposite to be true. “I’m expendable as long as we get Excalibur. We need you upright in case we run into Mordred again.”

As Daniel leapt onto the first platform with a running start, as he heard mechanical whirring and crossbolt bolts being fired, he decided this was the single worst plan he had ever put into action.

It was a simple one. Don’t stop running. Keep jumping. Don’t give any of this enough time to hit him. Keep moving. Don’t look behind you to see how close of a call you just had or if the platforms would be there on the way back.

One final leap sent him crashing into the throne headfirst. Excalibur slid under his chest towards the back of the throne and Daniel screamed. A polearm had sliced open his back. He remained there and guzzled down one of the two potions he’d brought with him. A fizzing sound and a numbing sensation ran along where he’d been struck. In moments the wound was gone.

Daniel picked up Excalibur and looked back across the way. The platforms he’d used to get this far were still there. All of the crossbow bolts that he knew had been fired and poleaxes thrown had vanished back into the arms of those who had lobbed them at him.

It shouldn’t have been any more difficult to make his way back. And after the fact, Daniel admitted it shouldn’t have been. But Excalibur weighed on his mind if not his arms. On the last platform before returning to Bedivere, Daniel felt one of his feet slip.

There was no recovery. Only his momentum carrying him forward stopped him from being skewered on the spot. But he crashed into the edge of the pit, Excalibur flying out of his hands and skipping across the floor past Bedivere.

The knight immediately went to help Daniel and pulled him back up. “Are you alright?”

“My pride took a hit.” Daniel pat himself down. One of his legs was soaked in green fluid. “And I think I broke the second healing potion.”

----

Daniel plucked the shards of glass out of his pocket before gingerly going with Bedivere back to the gates of Camelot. The undead horde that had stood before them had appeared to vanish in the fog. It would be a steep but short climb to the church Bedivere had told him about.

Bedivere kept Excalibur in his hand as Daniel warned that two bottles consumed (or smashed), that they only had one healing potion left before they’d have to go back to the seaplane. And Daniel was unsure that he had enough ingredients to make any spares.

“That means the last potion,” emphasized Daniel, “must be for Arthur. No matter what.”

Daniel’s legs screamed on the last part of their ascent. They had to climb sheer rockface without any equipment. It was not easy for either of them. Not for Daniel, who had to go first and throw down a rope. Not for Bedivere, who with one hand would have found this last part impossible without help.

With one final heave, Daniel helped Bedivere to the top of the island. Not a hint of Avalon could be seen below the sheet of fog covering it. Both men looked upon a modest church. It was very small, enough room to house only a dozen or so worshippers. The outside was covered in moss and vines and rotted wood. But it stood all the same.

So too did the door. It shone with a subtle rainbow sheen to hint at its enchantment.

“Go on.” Daniel smiled. “He’s waiting for you.”

The two men approached the door. Bedivere hefted Excalibur up over his head with his hand and brought it down in a vertical slice before the door. The sheen dissolved under the presence of the sword for the once and future king.

Daniel laughed as Bedivere looked around in awe. “I can’t believe it. I’m actually going to see King Arthur. Bedivere, I –”

“Get down!”

Daniel felt himself be thrown to the ground. He looked up in horror as Mordred drove Clarent through Bedivere’s back.