"Why me?" he said to no one in particular. "Why can't I have a normal life? Why must I always be a tool of some 'greater destiny1 ?"
"Because that's the way it is."
Arthur looked down. Merlin was standing at his side, looking straight ahead. No matter how many times Arthur saw him, he didn't think he would ever get used to seeing his mentor clad like a street urchin.
"You've been dressing down lately, Merlin," he observed.
The young wizard shrugged. "I've always worn what's most comfortable. In this age it's jeans, sneakers, and T-shirt. Where the devil have you been the past week?"
Arthur smiled. "What's wrong, Merlin? I always thought that you believed what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander."
"What, you mean because I spent a week out of sight trying to help a man put together the pieces of his life, you took that as an excuse to vanish for a week as well, to pursue God knows what?"
Arthur turned and looked down. "Did it ever occur to you that I might be pulling a life together too?"
"Really?" said Merlin with a raised eyebrow. "Whose?"
"Gwen's. And, to a large extent, mine."
Merlin winced. "I don't want to hear it."
"I wouldn't tell you. After all," and he smirked, "you're underage."
He turned away and opened the door, feeling for some reason that he had achieved a minor victory. What that victory was, he wasn't quite sure. But it was something.
He swung open the door and was slammed with a blast of noise that was like a living thing.
Phones were ringing, people shouting to each other, typewriters clacking furiously. And as he stepped into the waiting area, he saw to his shock that the entire interior of the office had been redone. The partitions between the small offices had been torn down, and now all the square footage stretched out like a small football field. Desks were sticking out in every possible direction; there were about a dozen in all. Each one had a phone, and there was a young man or woman on each phone. Arthur's eyes widened as he recognized the girl from the crowd who had been wearing the NYU sweatshirt... his first speaking engagement, of sorts. She was the first to glance up and see him, and she immediately put her phone down, leaped to her feet, and started applauding. Others looked around to see the source of her enthusiasm, and when Arthur was spotted, everyone else in the crammed offices immediately followed suit.
Arthur was dumbfounded, astounded, and flattered by the abrupt and spontaneous show of affection. He nodded in acknowledgment, put up his hands and said, * Thank you! Thank you all. You're too kind, really." He leaned down to Merlin and whispered, "Merlin, who are all these people?"
"Volunteers, mostly," said Merlin pleasantly. "Some paid office workers. Word of you is getting around, Arthur. We're going to have to start putting together a solid itinerary for you.
Perhaps even explore a series of commercials."
"The packaging of the candidate, Merlin?"
Merlin sighed. "Arthur, the sooner you manage to come to terms with the way things are, the happier a man you will be. Understand?"
"I suppose."
Arthur glanced toward the receptionist. To his surprise, a striking young woman was seated there. Her hair was long and black, her eyes almond-shaped and green. "Uh ... hello."
"Hello, Mr. Penn," she purred. "I'm your new receptionist, Selina."
"Hello, Selina. Might I ask where your predecessor went to?"
Merlin whistled an aimless tune, and Selina merely smiled. Arthur looked from one to the other suspiciously. "Merlin," he said suspiciously. "All these people here ... did you-"
"Create them all from animals? Of course not. That would be a bit of a strain even for me. Only Selina is . . . she was once," he said with pride, "the most stunning black cat you've ever seen.''
"Oh, really?" He looked at Selina, who smiled and gave a little wave. "But Merlin, that still doesn't answer the question of what happened to ... to ..."
Selina ran her tongue across her lips and made a little smacking sound.
"Let's just say," deadpanned Merlin, "that Gladys won't be filing for unemployment anytime soon."
Arthur was in his office until eight o'clock that evening, going over plans and itineraries for the next several months. He noticed and appreciated the fact that Merlin was deliberately hanging in the background, letting him run the show without unasked-for advice. And he found his blood really pumping for the first time. The excitement was beginning to build as a plan was formulated. Arthur was fond of strategies, of form and substance. There was no time for the earlier, self-centered fears and frustrations of someone wishing that they were something they could never be.
Nevertheless he was glad when the day was over.
The cab dropped him off in Central Park and he made his way across, lost in thought. This night there were no interruptions from would-be muggers or helpful policemen. In the distance on one of the streets that cut through the park, Arthur heard the nostalgic sound of horse's hooves clip-clopping on the road. By the rattle of metal he could tell that it was a horse-drawn carriage. He drew a mental picture for himself, however, seated proudly on a great mount, his sword flashing, the sunlight glinting off the shield he held and the armor he wore.
It was an image to do him proud.
But it was just that-an image. A part of himself he could never recapture.
The castle loomed before him, and yet so lost in thought was he that he almost walked right into it.
Everyone knew the castle in the middle of Central Park. A complex weather station was situated inside. Whenever early-rising New Yorker's ears were tuned to their radios, the statement that it was such-and-such degrees in Central Park came from the readings taken here, at Belvedere Castle.
Yet a weather station was no longer the only thing occupying the castle.
Arthur walked slowly around the other side, looking for a certain portion of the wall that he knew he would find. And sure enough there it was, as it had been the other nights-a small cylindrical hole in the wall toward one stone corner.
Arthur drew Excalibur, reveling as always in the heady sound of steel being drawn from its sheath. Then he took Excalibur, and holding the hilt in one hand and letting the blade rest gently in the other, he slid the point into the hole.
With a low moan and the protest of creaking, the section of the wall swiveled back on invisible hinges. Before him was a stairway, the top of which was level with the ground in front of him, the bottom of which disappeared down into the blackness that was the castle-or at least an aspect of the castle.
Arthur was never thrilled about the prospect of going somewhere he could not see, but he knew he was going to have to live with it. He entered the doorway, and the moment he set foot on the second step, the door swung noiselessly shut behind him. He was surrounded by blackness, illuminated only by the glow from Excalibur, which accompanied him like a friendly sprite. "My old friend,'' he whispered.
He walked for a time, impressed as always by the total silence of the supernatural darkness.
Then, several steps before the bottom, Excalibur cast its glow upon a heavy oaken door. He walked the remaining steps down to it and pushed. It yielded without protest, and he stepped into his castle.
He passed through the main entrance hall, with its suits of armor standing at attention like legions waiting for his orders. He entered his throne room and looked around in satisfaction.
Everything was exactly as he'd left it, and yet he could sense, somehow hanging in the air beyond his eye but not beyond his heart, the presence of the Woman. He smiled, the mere image of Gwen in his mind's eye enough to bring an adrenaline rush that made him feel centuries younger.