Then, breaking the quiet, a sound; a single splash in the middle of the lake. Startled, he had seen an arm rise up out of the water, beckoning.
He thought, of course, that someone had fallen in, or been swimming and took a cramp. One of his mates, even, who’d come round to the other side and taken a fancy for a dip. It never occurred to him to go back to the others for help, just as it never occurred to him not to rush out there to save whoever it was.
He dropped his bottles into the boat at his feet, and followed them in. He looked about for the tether to cast off, but there wasn’t one—looked for the oars to row out to the swimmer, but there weren’t any of those, either. Nevertheless, the boat was moving, and heading straight for that beckoning arm as if he was willing it there. And it didn’t seem at all strange to him that it was doing so, at least, not at the time.
He remembered that he’d been thinking that whoever this was, she’d fallen in fully clothed, for the arm had a long sleeve of some heavy white stuff. And it had to be a she—the arm was too white and soft to be a man’s. It wasn’t until he got up close, though, that he realized there was nothing showing but the arm, that the woman had been under an awfully long time—and that the arm sticking up out of the water was holding something.
Still, daft as it was, it wasn’t important— He’d ignored everything but the arm, ignored things that didn’t make any sense. As the boat got within range of the woman, he’d leaned over the bow so far that he almost fell in, and made a grab for that upraised arm.
But the hand and wrist slid through his grasp somehow, although he was sure he’d taken a good, firm hold on them, and he fell back into the boat, knocking himself silly against the hard wooden bottom, his hands clasped tight around whatever it was she’d been holding. He saw stars, and more than stars, and when he came to again, the boat was back against the bank, and there was no sign of the woman.
But he had her sword.
Her sword? I had her sword?
Now he reached behind him to feel the long, hard length of it at his back.
By God—it is a sword!
He had no real recollection of what happened after that; he must have gotten back to the lads, and they all must have gotten back to town in Tommy’s car, because here he was.
In bed with a sword.
I’ve heard of being in bed with a battle-axe, but never a sword.
Slowly, carefully, he sat up. Slowly, carefully, he reached into the tumble of blankets and extracted the drowning woman’s sword.
It was real, it looked old, and it was damned heavy. He hefted it in both hands, and grunted with surprise. If this was the kind of weapon those old bastards used to hack at one another with in the long-ago days that they made films of, there must have been as much harm done by breaking bones as by whacking bits off.
It wasn’t anything fancy, though, not like you saw in the flicks or the comics; a plain, black, leather-wrapped hilt, with what looked like brass bits as the cross-piece and a plain, black leather-bound sheath. Probably weighed about as much as four pry-bars of the same length put together.
He put his hand to the hilt experimentally, and pulled a little, taking it out of the sheath with the vague notion of having a look at the blade itself. PENDRAGON!
The voice shouted in his head, an orchestra of nothing but trumpets, and all of them played at top volume.
He dropped the sword, which landed on his toes. He shouted with pain, and jerked his feet up reflexively, and the sword dropped to the floor, half out of its sheath. “What the hell was that?” he howled, grabbing his abused toes in both hands, and rocking back and forth a little. He was hardly expecting an answer, but he got one anyway.
It was I, Pendragon.
He felt his eyes bugging out, and he cast his gaze frantically around the room, looking for the joker who’d snuck inside while he was sleeping. But there wasn’t anyone, and there was nowhere to hide. The rented room contained four pieces of furniture—his iron-framed bed, a cheap deal bureau and nightstand, and a chair. He bent over and took a peek under the bed, feeling like a frightened old aunty, but there was nothing there, either.
You’re looking in the wrong place.
“I left the radio on,” he muttered, “that’s it. It’s some daft drama. Gawd, I hate those BBC buggers!” He reached over to the radio on the nightstand and felt for the knob. But the radio was already off, and cold, which meant it hadn’t been on with the knob broken.
Pendragon, I am on the floor, where you dropped me.
He looked down at the floor. The only things besides his boots were the whiskey bottles and the sword.
“I never heard of no Jameson bottles talking in a bloke’s head before,” he muttered to himself, as he massaged his toes, “and me boots never struck up no conversations before.”
Don’t be absurd, said the voice, tartly. You know what I am, as you know what you are.
The sword. It had to be the sword. “And just what am I, then?” he asked it, wondering when the boys from the Home were going to come romping through the door to take him off for a spot of rest. This is daft. I must have gone loopy. I’m talking to a piece of metal, and it’s talking back to me.
You are the Pendragon, the sword said patiently, and waited. When he failed to respond except with an uncomprehending shrug, it went on—but with far less patience. You are the Once and Future King. The Warrior Against the Darkness. It waited, and he still had no notion what it was talking about.
You are ARTHUR, it shouted, making him wince. You are King Arthur, Warleader and Hero!
“Now it’s you that’s loopy,” he told it sternly. “I don’t bloody well think! King Arthur indeed!”
The only recollection of King Arthur he had were things out of his childhood—stories in the schoolbooks, a Disney flick, Christmas pantomimes. Vague images of crowns and red-felt robes, of tin swords and papier-mache armor flitted through his mind—and talking owls and daft magicians. “King Arthur! Not likely!”
You are! the sword said, sounding desperate now. You are the Pendragon! You have been reborn into this world to be its Hero! Don’t you remember?
He only snorted. “I’m Michael O’Murphy, I work at the docks, I’ll be on the dole on Monday, and I don’t bloody think anybody needs any bloody more Kings these days! They’ve got enough troubles with the ones they’ve—Gawd!”
He fell back into the bed as the sword bombarded his mind with a barrage of images, more vivid than the flicks, for he was in them. Battles and feasts, triumph and tragedy, success and failure—a grim stand against the powers of darkness that held for the short space of one man’s lifetime.