brother, mother of the bastard Modred, tilted her head back and laughed. At first it was hardly a laugh, but more like a high-pitched cackling imitation, similar to a parrot. With each passing moment, however, it grew. Fuller. Richer. Although the abused body of Morgan still showed its deficiencies, years were already dropping from the voice.
If anyone had once dared tell her that she would be happy over the escape of her deadliest enemy, she would have erased that unfortunate person from the face of the earth. The suggestion was postively ludicrous. But so had her life become as well.
For Morgan Le Fey had come to realize that she thrived on conflict and hatred. It was as mother's milk to her. And without that her spirit had shriveled away to a small, ugly thing lost somewhere in an unkempt form.
Now her spirit soared. She spread wide her arms and a wind arose around her, blowing wide the swinging windows of her apartment. It was the first time in several years fresh air had been allowed in, and it swept through as if entering a vacuum. Fresh air filling her nostrils, Morgan became aware of the filth in which she had resided for some time. Her nose wrinkled and she shook her head.
She went to the window and stepped up onto the sill, reveling in the force of the wind she had summoned. Above her, clouds congealed, tore apart, and reknit, blackness swarming over them. Below Morgan, pedestrians ran to and fro, pulling their coats tight around them against the unexpected turn of bad weather. A few glanced up at Morgan in the window but went on about their business, jamming their hands down atop their heads to prevent their hats or wigs from blowing away.
Morgan drank it in, thriving on the chaos of the storm. She screamed over the thunder,
'Merlin! Merlin, demon's son! The mighty had fallen, mage! You had fallen. I had fallen. All was gone, and you were in your hell and I was in mine.' She inhaled deeply, feeling the refreshing, chilled sting of cold air in her lungs. She reveled in the tactile sensation of her housecoat blowing all around her, the wind enveloping her flimsy garment.
'You're back now!' she crowed. 'But so am I! I have waited these long centuries for you, Merlin. Guarding against the day that you might return, and yet now I glory in it. For I am alive today, Merlin! Do you hear me, old man? Morgan Le Fey lives! And while I live, I hatel Sweet hate I have nutured all these long decades and centuries. And it's all for you, Merlin! All for you and your damned Arthur!
'Wherever you are, Merlin, quake in fear. I am coming for you. I thank you for saving my life, Merlin! And I shall return the favor a thousandfold. /, Morgan LeFey!'
'Harry, what's going on?'
Harry peered through the curtains at the window of the apartment across the way. 'It's that nut, the black- haired broad again. God, what a slob. I don't know how people let themselves go like that.'
His wife eyed his beer belly but wisely refrained from comment.
'She's shouting about some damned thing or other,' he muttered as he came to sit next to her on the couch. 'Usually she's just regular drunk. I don't know what she's on tonight, but it must be a wowser.'
'Bet she's from New York,' mumbled his wife.
'What?' he asked.
She repeated it, adding, 'It wouldn't surprise me in the least.'
'No?'
'No. Because New Yorkers are all crazy. They know it. The government knows it. The whole country knows it. In New York everyone acts like that,' and she chucked a thumb across the street in Morgan's direction. 'You never know what's going to happen.'
'Yeah,' said Harry. 'That's why I like it.'
'Well, I hate it,' his wife said firmly, as if she'd just turned down the option to buy Manhattan.
'All the crazy people there-they all deserve each other. Why, I hear tell it's not safe to walk the streets at night there. You never know what weird thing you'll run into next.'
Chaptre the Second
Each day in life begins with the same expectations. At least each day did for Sidney Krellman, the manager of Arthur's Court.
Arthur's Court was a fashionable men's clothing store situated near Central Park. And for Sidney each day was nice and simple. He woke up in the morning. Got dressed (nattily, of course). Went into work. Acted politely to most clientele, enthusiastically to a select handful, and brushed off whatever else might exist. At the end of the day he and an assistant-it was Quigley, this particular day-would check over the day's receipts, shutter and close up the store, and leave precisely at 7:45 sharp.
Sidney Krellman expected nothing different on this particular day. It did not occur to him that this brisk November day was exactly one year before the next mayoral elections in New York City. Sidney didn't care for politics. Or elections, or mayors. Or much else except his daily routine. And he disliked intensely anything that caused a deviation from that routine.
This being the case, Sidney was going to really dislike what was about to happen. It disrupted his store- closing routine, threw the end of his day into a turmoil, and generally wrinkled the fabric of his well-ordered life.
It might have been different had he had some warning. If he had known, for instance, that this evening the legends were to be fulfilled, and that Arthur, King, son of Uther Pendragon, was about to return, he would certainly have kept on extra help. Or perhaps left early. Or even gone on vacation.
As it was, he did none of these things.
At 7:30 precisely, Sidney was issuing^instructions to Quigley on opening the store tomorrow morning. Sidney anticipated being late, having a dental appointment scheduled. Sidney was a short, almost billiard ball of a man (but sartorially correct), and Quigley-his young, gawky assistant manager-was his physical opposite. Sidney was waving one finger in the air, as was his habit, when there was a rap at the glass front door.
The rap derailed Sidney's train of thought, and he turned with an annoyed glance to the door.
He froze in mid sentence, finger still pointed skyward, as if offering directions to a wayward duck. Quigley continued to stare at his superior, waiting for him to continue. When no continuation was forthcoming, it dawned on Quigley to follow his boss's gaze toward the front door.
The knight occupied the full space of the door. He was dressed in full armor from head to toe, the plates smooth and curving over his chest, arms, and legs. The armor was excellently made, for hardly a gap had been permitted, and even those were protected, either by small stretches of chain mail or by small upturns in the plates. A full helmet covered his head, a visor with a short blunt point in front of his face. A scabbard hung at his side-it was ornately decorated with dark stones and intercurling lines of design.
The knight stood there for a moment, as if contemplating the two men within the store. He raised his gauntleted hand and knocked again, this time a bit harder.
It was the wrong move. The metal-gloved hand went right through the glass. The glass hung there for a moment in midair, and then with a resounding crash gave up all molecular adhesion and shattered into thousands of pieces.
Sidney Krellman's jaw moved up and down and side to side slightly, but that was it. Quigley was not even able to handle quite that much.
The knight stood there for a moment, looking down at the destruction. Then the gauntleted hands reached up and lifted the visor of the helmet. A gentle, bearded face smiled regretfully at Sidney Krellman.
'I'm terribly sorry,' he said. 'I seem to have damaged your establishment.'
Sidney Krellman found it odd that despite the fact that this man was fully armored, the thing he found to be far more impressive was his voice. It was low and carefully modulated. It seemed to have an age and wisdom to it that contradicted the relative youthfulness of the face. It was a compelling voice, that of a great orator, or perhaps commander of men. The lines of the face that peered out from the helmet were clean and straight. The forehead sloped slightly, and eyebrows that were a bit thick projected over eyes, which were almost black. His lips were thin and what Sidney could see of his beard was very dark, but with a few strands of conspicuous gray.
Sidney Krellman shook off the daze that had come over him and gave a small bow. 'Quite all right,' he replied in a voice pitched two octaves above his usual tone. He quickly corrected his pitch and continued, 'It could happen to anyone.'
The front of the armor rose slightly. The knight had laughed. 'Anyone who was clad in such foolish armor. Do
