"Arthur had several children," Holland said solemnly. "But most of them died in their childhood, and with the few who made it into adulthood died during the fall of Camelot or in the battle of Camlann. All except one."
Hector was now concerned with where the conversation was going. "Who exactly is that?" he asked hesitantly.
Holland took a moment to gather the courage to answer. "It’s you Hector. Or really it's Ector, but never mind the semantics. You are the son of King Arthur. His first born, his heir."
Hector was silent for a tense moment. "You're shitting me."
Holland acted as if Hector said nothing. "Now I know this must be a bit much."
"A bit much. A bit much!" Hector's last straw was finally broken, as everything that had happened finally hit him. "No no no no, that thing killing Cecilia, that was a bit much. You having those people murdered, that was way much. Telling me that I’m the son of a guy who’s been dead for what, a millennium at least, if he even existed at all? That is on a level of ‘much’ that I cannot even imagine.”
“Ector my lad, you shouldn’t be like this, it’s so unbecoming of you.”
Hector was hysterical. “What is wrong with you? After everything that’s happened, and this harebrained story who’ve come up with, and you’re saying I’m the one being ‘unbecoming’? You’re a looney! Why not ask me to cut down a tree with a herring while we’re at it?”
“Please, that is ridiculous. Though we all had a good laugh when Tristan tried that one night after he went mad.”
“Will you stop doing that! Cecilia is dead, she is dead. And she was my friend. What was her fault in all this? What’s more, she was hinting on finally getting together on a date, too. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to get together with her?"
"Approximately five years, six months, two days, seven hours, three minutes, and 49 seconds…. Give or take a minute or two."
Hector was shaking his head in disbelief. "Who are you? And what have you done with Holland?"
"No one has done anything to me, but my full is name Lucius Quintus Myrlin Ambrosius of what is now London. Though most people just call me Merlin now, or really they refer to me as that since the rest is merely sugar coating and such."
"This has to be a dream. This has to be a dream." Hector then suddenly pulled down his pants and looked at Holland for a moment, hoping to wake up. But nothing happened.
“Um, why did you pull your pants down, in a burial chamber, and in the vicinity of several dead bodies?”
“Son of a bitch! Wake up you bastard, wake up! Why won’t I wake up?” Hector then grabbed a piece of wood, “I’m going to hit myself and then I’ll wake up.” He smacked his head and immediately cried out in pain.
Merlin chuckled to himself. "I see this is not a dream as you insist it is. Now please pull your pants up, you’re embarrassing me now and I doubt your father would appreciate you acting like a lunatic."
Hector groaned, "I think I gave myself a headache. I don’t suppose Arthur was like this when he learned he was king."
Merlin was silent for a moment as he remembered Arthur running around screaming and babbling around the sword. “Let’s just say we’ll stone unturned, permanently. But I do have something for that headache, but it'd probably kill you in the process."
"Okay, that is not helping the situation."
"What's not helping?"
"That! You acting so damn calm and collected. People are getting killed and you're acting like it's just another sunny shiny day."
"Actually it was raining before I came in."
"Stop doing that!"
"My boy you need to calm down. Not let things get the better of you like that. It's not the end of the world."
Hector was stunned. "Are you insane?"
"Well some think so, but others feel that I'm just a bit odd."
"You can say that again." The gravelly voice came from the entry way of the tomb. Hector and Merlin turned to find two men standing there with ancient weapons in hand.
"Kay, Bedivere! It's been too long." Merlin approached the two men with delight. The two men sheathed their weapons and embraced the mage. They began conversing deeply about one another as Hector stood by watching the scene unfold. The young man sat down again as he tried to understand what was happening before him. There was a pit growing rapidly in his stomach. The woman he had loved for years was dead and now her body was inside a medieval sword. His father, whom he had never known, was the most famous king in the world. The man who raised him is an archmage, his old gym coach was Sir Kay and his karate instructor was Sir Bedivere?
"Mr. Tanner? Sensei Ross? What are you guys doing here?" Hector began to feel as if he was going to be sick.
"So the little one does remember me. That's nice." Kay stood with arm akimbo as he brimmed with pride. Hector swooned before falling to his knees, heaving onto the floor. Bedivere rushed to him, "My liege, are you all right?"
Hector made a sound that no one understood. Merlin reached into a bag at his side, mixing several ingredients into a flask. As the mage made his potion, the other two men helped Hector back up. Merlin gave Hector the brew. "How...where did you get the drink?" the young man asked.
"Don't ask, just drink the thing," Kay said, the years of experience with the mage were well written in the old knight's demeanor.
Hector took the brew and soon began to regain his composure. "I...I don't know how to take all of this." Merlin patted the boy's shoulder, "There really isn't any good way to take it in. Of course this was far from how I wanted to tell you this, and I never thought Cecilia would be in the position she's in."
Hector was unsure if he wanted to ask, "What do you mean?"
Kay crossed his arms. "Take out the sword."
Hector drew the blade and soon a faint image of Cecilia presented herself in the middle of the room. Hector's heart began to race as Cecilia's eyes began to open again. But instead of normal eyes, hers’ now emitted a bluish hue. She turned to Merlin, to the others and back to Merlin.
"Professor Holland, what's going on?" Her voiced revealed a great fear.
"My dear child, you were slain by what we call a wovern, it's a form of lycan that remains in a wolflike state permanently. Your blood reforged the blade Caliburn and Hector used it to slay the creature. I used the blade to keep your body for safe keeping until we can heal the wounds and bring you back in to the world of the living," said Merlin.
Merlin's voice was calm and soothing, even Hector felt himself calming down as he heard the wizard's voice. This must be an effect the Professor had perfected, Hector thought to himself. Cecilia was having a problem taking in all of this information. "Wait, so am I dead, Professor Holland?"
Merlin shook his head. "Not exactly, you're in a state of suspended animation, the sword allows you to stay in contact with us and more importantly with the wielder of the blade, who in this case is Hector."
Hector then entered the conversation. "So wait, how exactly do you know that this sword is in fact Caliburn and what does it have to do with me and Cecilia?"
"Caliburn was made out of a steel from the Fae people in Britannia, though today they're better know as "Faeries". The blade itself was very strong after its original forging, and like with any metal weapons from the Fae, when it is broken, it can be reforged but only when it is exposed to enough blood complete the job properly. But the major problem with it is having a person to die from the amount of blood needed to reforge the blade." Merlin turned to back Cecilia.
"The sword was given to Uther by the Fae king, Oberon, as a gift for their alliance and to commemorate Uther's ascension to the throne of Britannia and Britain then linked by a bridge, per se, which a few could traverse. This is the blade that was in the stone when Uther died. And thus, is the blade Arthur pulled when he was looking for our beloved Kay a new sword." Kay chuckled at the memory of his little Wart pulling the sword from the ancient rock. How wide the boy's eyes were when the sword was in his hands. Kay wished those days would've lasted forever. "And as our young hero is the sole heir of the King himself, he is the only one to physically wield the sword."
“So what can we do about Cecilia?”
“The only thing we can do is to wait until we can find a viable vessel to help rebuild her body and house her spirit.”
Kay bluntly said to Hector, "In other words, we need to find your girlfriend a new body."
"Elegantly put my good man."
Hector was still leery about Merlin’s plan. “But what about the student’s…”
"Ector, please believe me, it was not with a light heart that I made that decision, but you would've never made it yourself, not even in a million years and a thrice that number of crimes that each one would’ve done to you. You have your father's moral compass, which was both his greatest asset, and sadly his greatest weakness. And I tried to change their paths, I really did, but these were decisions they made on their own. Even choosing to travel here was something that they decided on their own accord. Even the junkie idiot."
"Allowing people to exercise their free will I see." There was disgust in Hector's voice.
"The one lesson I learned from the latter years of Camelot was never to manipulate all the fates. An odd thing to say in a place like this, and given the circumstances, but they themselves chose the lives they led, and their fates. I simply gave them the option on how to end it." Merlin stood up and went to the pathway leading out of the tomb. "I did hope to have had a more suitable setting for telling you all of this. Someplace that would’ve celebrate a new life, a new destiny, a return to a golden age that is now forgotten and buried. But fate seems to a have a rather sick sense of humor sometimes."
"And on that note of good cheer, you think there are anymore bastards out there?" asked Kay.
"No my good knight, I think there all dead or gone. I think it's safe to move out." Merlin grabbed a flashlight and led the group out of the ancient tomb. The dead silence in the tunnel terrified Hector. Bedivere patted the boy on the shoulder to help the lad feel better. As they exited the tunnel they were greeted by a scene filled with dead bodies, all torn apart from the attack. Several wovern bodies were scattered among the students and others within the camp, intermixed with small fires were scattered within the site, and the sky was a blood red. The sound of thunder could be in the distance, mixed with the whooshing sound of the wind blowing across the landscape. It was a sickening sight for Hector.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, he turned to see Kay. "Welcome to your first taste of war and death, little one. Get used to sights like this, because it never gets easier."
Bedivere agreed. “Aye, I remember the war we had with Emperor Lucius. That little get together left five whole fields covered with bodies of men and creatures. Made Gettysburg look like an ice cream social.”
Hector was confused again, “Wait, you were at the Battle of Gettysburg?”
“That I was, so was Kay and even Bleobris joined in for that one.”
“But that would make you over a hundred years old? How is that even…you know what, I think I’ll let that go.”
“For the best lad, some things are best left unanswered.”
Kay walked past Hector as the boy noticed a golden flicker on the ground. Hector bent over to pick it up. It was a golden piece in the shape of a dragon's head, the scales in a dark green, and the beast's eyes were a piercing red glow. The piece was a heraldic token, its golden chain was wavering back and forth in the breeze. A flash of illumination sprang from somewhere deep within his subconscious, Hector growled the owner of the heraldic sign.
“Mordred.”