Back in the great hall of the castle, Arthur finished his tea, and Pierson returned. Arthur noticed that the strange man was smiling. Pierson even allowed himself a chuckle.
"What's so funny?" Arthur asked.
"What's so funny?" Pierson echoed, "You're Arthur, and your servant's name is Merlin." He giggled again.
Arthur frowned. "Yes? So?"
Pierson raised his eyebrows, "Arthur? Merlin? Really? I don't suppose this servant of yours is a wizard by any chance?"
"Oh no," Arthur shook his head, "At least, not any more than you are!"
Pierson tipped his head. "Arthur, where are you from?"
"The kingdom of Camelot, in the land of Albion," Arthur declared proudly.
Pierson's eyes opened wide, "Then you're the Arthur? The King Arthur, wi' the knights of the round table and all that?"
Arthur shrugged, "The Round Table is an old custom we do not use these days. But I am king."
Pierson immediately bowed, "Well, forgive me, yer Majesty, I had no idea I was entertaining royalty! Please, would you like a tour of my castle?"
Arthur stood and smiled. "I would dearly love a tour," he replied.
"Right this way, your highness."
Pierson led Arthur out into the hallway. The young king stopped and stared pensively at the walls with their tanks of listless merfolk. Pierson wondered if he was going to ask about them.
Arthur snapped out of his funk, tapping the wall as he did so.
"Pierson, what is this material? I've never seen its like."
"That?" Pierson bustled Arthur down the hall and into another room. "Oh, let me show you. It is a shellfish native to this world, called a meir."
Pierson led Arthur to a large bath in the center of the room, filled with rocks on which large bivalve mollusks crawled. Their shells had a coating of the same white, hard material.
"To harvest the meirshell without killing the animal, they are taken out and dried. The coating cracks off after about an hour, and the meir is returned to the pool with no harm done. The coating can be melted down and formed into any shape I wish. It cleans easily and looks very nice."
Arthur admired the creatures. "That is amazing!" he gushed.
"I'm glad you like it, highness. Now if you'll just follow me, I'll show you more of the grounds."
As they walked, Pierson also asked many questions of Arthur.
"So that sword you have, is it really Excalibur?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Where did you get it from? Did it rise out of a lake in the hand of a fairy, or did you pull it out of solid stone?"
"This? It's just a normal sword. I got it from the armory."
"Ah... And Queen Guenivere—"
"Hang on!" Arthur stopped his host with a very red face. "Queen? Gwen is a palace servant, nothing more."
"Is she, now?" Pierson challenged significantly.
Arthur frowned in suspicion. "Why do I get the feeling that you think you know more about me than I know about myself? Talking of Merlin as a wizard, and Gwen as a queen—that would, of course, mean that she's married to me, which can never happen."
"Of course not," Pierson smiled artfully, "Idle speculation, milord, excuse me." He led Arthur to a place he called the "mechanics room."
"This is where all the magic happens. See?" He turned a crank and a stone with a stool attached to it lowered from the ceiling. "We're right below the great hall here. I give a signal up there, and the signal goes down here, where my servants are waiting to obey my orders."
Arthur blinked, "I did not know you had any servants. According to what you told the trolls, and if everyone else in this world are to be believed, there are no other humans here besides Merlin, yourself, and I."
Pierson grinned condescendingly, "Did I say my servants were human?"
He pushed open a door, and Arthur entered a room where several ogres bustled about a large tank of water. He recognized it as the same sort of tank that surrounded the hallways and rooms in the castle. Only one thing was different: the merfolk were fighting. The Underworlders seemed strangely afraid of the tank. About the only thing they could do was add large amounts of a green potion to the water. This potion seemed to have no effect on the creatures. They gathered around the openings, reaching out to drag the ogres into the water.
Pierson strode forward urgently.
"What happened?" he asked an ogre.
"The merfolk are awake, sir," the ogre replied. "We cannot sedate them."
Pierson glanced over at Arthur, who waited patiently with no sign that he even cared about the current situation.
"Sedation can wait, as long as our prisoner has been... taken care of—" he raised his eyebrows significantly.
The ogre dropped his gaze. "The, ah, the pris—"
Pierson lunged and grabbed the ring hanging from the ogre's snout. He pulled it, causing the creature to yelp in pain.
"What happened with the prisoner, Skoon?"
Skoon whimpered as his whole focus centered on the wave of intense pain radiating from his nose. "I don't know, master! Maybe the merfolk have already disposed of the body—"
"You idiot! You mean you can't find him?"
"Can't find whom?" Arthur asked, now approaching Pierson.
Pierson watched his guest carefully. He was no longer overwhelmed with honest-tea, that much was clear. There was still a chance that Pierson could maintain control of the situation.
"Ah, just a minor matter, sire. Yes, I have Underworlders in my employ, but sometimes they can't even manage the simplest instruction." He waved his hand dismissively, "Shall we continue the tour?"
"Right behind you, Pierson," Arthur consented heartily.
The pair continued through the towers. Pierson escorted Arthur through his greenhouse full of flourishing venim bushes. He explained in great detail the miraculous qualities of the plant, how it effectually preserved the current state of anything in prolonged contact. Pierson told of his great discovery, of how he had devised a method of distilling the flower into a sort of liquor, which he drank every day.
"Keeps me going, it does," Pierson chortled as he finished one flask and tucked another into his waistcoat. He winked at Arthur, "It's a wretched bad habit, that; I'd give ye a sample, but I wouldn'a wish ye to get bitten by the monster!" Pierson continued on into a smaller room behind the greenhouse. Arthur was a bit more tentative; what monster was Pierson referring to?
Following the man, Arthur could not miss the fact that there was something bothering him.
"What's wrong, Pierson?" he asked.
Pierson whirled around and jumped. "Nothing!" he snarled, then caught himself. "Ah, that is to say-"
"Does it have something to do with the prisoner you lost?" Arthur inquired.
Pierson lost all his "kindly host" demeanor. He glared, "Where did you hear that?"
Arthur stopped in the middle of the dim room full of torches and braziers and smithing tools. "I heard it from you," he could not help himself; the tea had obviously affected him, making him tell the truth whether he wanted to or not. He was no longer following blindly, but a direct question still elicited a direct answer. "You said something about another prisoner when you were speaking to that ogre." A suspicion formed in Arthur's mind, and he voiced it immediately. "I'll bet it was Merlin, wasn't it?"
Pierson turned away and seized something from a table hidden in the shadows in front of him.
"All right, your Majesty," he grunted, "You've caught me. Yes, I captured your friend because he had something I thought I needed. You see, I had already received half of it from your hand." He turned around and pulled the gyth out of his pocket. "You were foolish to give it to me so willingly. You see, this gem that you do not seem to prize so highly possesses a great power, the greatest power in all of Phantasm. When hung on a chain, it gives the wearer absolute power over all the beings in Phantasm."
Arthur put two and two together. "The Chain--Merlin has it!"
"Yes; I wanted to kill him, but apparently he's evaded capture. No matter," he held up the object he'd retrieved from the table. "It looks like the goblins have made me one of my own!" He cackled madly and took another swig of the venim-liquor. "Let's try it out, shall we?" He brought the two pieces together, the gem and the chain.
Arthur heard a slight "click", and the Phantasmagyth glowed with a white light brighter than any torch.
"YES!" Pierson crowed, "YES! THE POWER IS MINE!"
Arthur saw his chance to escape the madman. He seized a dented, rough-edged sword from the table beside him and swung it at Pierson.
Pierson merely dodged the blow and shook his head. "Ah-ah," he wagged his finger as if reprimanding a naughty young child. "Wee laddies shouldn'a play with the bonny broadsword!" A door opened in the wall next to Arthur, and a pair of ogres emerged. Arthur quickly slashed at them, causing both the ogres to shy away from the blade, dull as it was. Arthur quickly rolled between the legs of the nearest ogre and slipped out the door behind them.
Pierson watched him leave, and then went back to admiring the glistening gem.
"Get him," he whispered to all the Underworlders in his command.