Blow after blow rained relentlessly down upon me. There was no pattern. Nothing but a relentless beating. I parried one and then the other, moving faster than I thought I could ever move. I found myself in a rhythm, but I was weakening fast. I had to end this, and I had to end this now.
Without thinking or forethought, as neither was possible, I dropped to my back and rolled. A sword crashed behind me, reverberating through the stones. I kept rolling as another crashed next to me.
I hit the wall and sprang to my feet.
Like demon cats, the two knights pounced. I saw the smallest of an opening and lunged forward -
And drove my sword deep into the stomach of the knight to the left. He threw back his head and let out an agonized cry, then disappeared in a puff of curling black smoke.
The last knight stopped dead in its tracks, facing me.
Oh, crap.
I was drained. I had nothing left. I stood before the last knight, keenly aware that I might very well die in the next few moments. After all, I could only imagine the hellish fury that awaited me from this one remaining knight.
And then the glowing entity did something I would be eternally grateful for. It lowered its sword and kneeled to one knee.
I was too exhausted to breathe a sigh of relief.
From that position, it disappeared, leaving behind a black, churning mist...and a hole in the center of the floor. A hole that revealed a narrow staircase that led down to depths unknown.
Chapter Fifty
The rain had stopped, and in the far distance, through the missing roof, the sky was brightening.
Morning. It had been a long, long night.
Marion and I stood next to the hole in the floor, staring down, each holding a Godfire torch. Her hand was looped inside my arm, leaning on me physically and emotionally.
The faint moon shone down from above, through a break in the clouds. A small wind found its way into the open church, lifting Marion's long hair from her shoulders.
The stairs led down into impenetrable blackness. I could only imagine what awaited us below.
"Do we have to go?" I asked again.
"It's the only way to the Grail," said Marion.
"And what's so great about the Holy Grail?" I asked.
She didn't answer at first. I continued staring down into the pit. I thought I could just make out a very faint glow coming from its black depths, but that could have just been my imagination.
"They say the Cup of Christ gives eternal life," she said. "And eternal healing."
And I caught her meaning. Her sick lungs. I tore my gaze from the floor. "If there's one thing I've learned tonight," I said, "it's that the Holy Grail is not the only path to healing."
"It's the only way I believe," she said with such conviction that I let the conversation drop.
We were silent some more. I wondered how the town of Glastonbury was getting along the morning after an honest to God dragon attack. I wondered how the attack would be explained away, if at all. I also wondered what happened to Merlin, and if he would be back. Somehow, I knew we had not seen the last of him.
I was quiet. I thought back to the many battles tonight. The many battles I had no business winning. I should have been dead a hundred times over.
"I'm just a writer from Seattle," I said. "A writer who had some strange dreams, a writer who might now be in the middle of the strangest dream of all."
"You are many things, James. And you have been many people. But always, always you have remained one soul."
"Arthur kept calling me his old friend."
"Indeed," she said.
"Merlin asked Arthur if I remembered who I was."
"So he did," she said.
"I'm just a writer," I said.
"You are many things, James. Many, many things."
I lived in the real world. Real people with real problems. In my world, people didn't bury their friends with their own two hands. People didn't fly with dragons. And they certainly didn't fight magical knights.
"What's happening to me?" I said. "Am I going crazy?"
"No," she said. "You are simply remembering."
"Remembering what?" I asked.
"That remains to be seen, James."
I stared down into the dark hole, at stone steps that curved away into blackness. I could not imagine a more uninviting flight of stairs.
I sighed deeply. "I guess we should get on with it, then?"
"Yes," she said, looking at me with big, round eyes, and then adding, "My knight."
With Excalibur sheathed unceremoniously in my belt loop, I took her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back, and a thrill ran through me all over again.
I took a deep breath and stepped down into the pit, holding my torch out before me. I took another breath and took another step, and Marion followed right behind me. The steps seemed carved from solid rock. Who carved it and why, I did not know.
When we were a dozen or so steps down, I looked up and watched with some degree of panic as the opening in the floor above shimmered briefly and then solidified into solid rock.
Torches in hand, our footfalls echoing loudly, I led the way down into the darkness. To where, I did not know.
But I was about to find out.