Chapter 2

I can’t believe that Albie nearly got run over by that madman, Art thought, staring blankly ahead during World History the next day. Why didn’t she run? …Must be the deer-in-headlights effect... Gwynne mentioned something about the man being vaguely recognizable, and-what was the word? - haunting, that was it. Silly. Albie explained it away immediately, after her mini shock fit. Although itwas weird to see her so rattled, she’s normally totally un-phased by strange occurrences and what-not. He shook his head slightly and pondered for a moment. Why do I spend my time with those girls anyway? He brooded over his question, and a deep voice in the back of his mind suggested,

Maybe you spend your time with them because they care about you, and maybe because you’re in love with Lady Gwynne. Art looked up, puzzled at the origin of the voice, shook off the thought and argued back,

No, there’s no way, it’s probably just a high school fling. I’m leaving at the end of the school year anyway.

 The deep voice persisted, However, you like her, do you not?

He bristled with the mental interrogation. Of course, I like her. I just have the feeling that as good as it is right now, it isn’t going to get any better from here, and we will most likely fall apart in no time.

Ah, the voice argued back, Do not plant the seeds of doubt where none should be sown. You never used to be such a defeatist. But maybe you are in love with the Lady Albie?

 Art’s mind cried back, Gah! NO! Leave me alone! The voice in his head chuckled good-naturedly.

So sorry I can’t do that. You see, you really are thicker headed than poor, sweet Albie says you are.

Gee, thanks. Mentally, Arthur loaded the sarcasm. Wait…she says I’m thick-headed? That’s not nice! Art frowned, annoyed.

 Oh, worry not. You’re expected to be thickheaded at the moment; my advice to you is to not look where you aren’t wanted. Act normal. Of course, voices in your head aren’t necessarily normal, but do try anyway? My successor may be annoyed that I’ve chosen to contact you before her. Things are only beginning.

Great. The voices in my head have successors. Marvelous.

A pause.

Can you go away now?

The voice chuckled, good-naturedly.

Yes, my liege.

Arthur shook his head, as if doing so would rid him of the voice. It was gone, and the History teacher was looking at him strangely.

“Arthur…? Are you all right?” Mr. Quinlan raised an eyebrow at Arthur’s mumbling. Smiling, falsely, he answered.

“Oh, just fine. A little headache, that’s all.” Mr. Quinlan continued squinting at him.

Arthur leaned back into his chair and sighed. Voices in his head? He was either going insane, or something was going on- and he wanted to know what.

Things were nearly normal for the rest of the day. Gwen and Arthur appeared near to bound at the hip, per usual; everyone ate together at lunch, per usual; the three went through their classes, and Gwen protested about history class after school as all three were walking home; per usual.

All seemed well to Gwen until she dropped by Albie’s house unexpectedly later in the afternoon. She had only been in Alberta’s house once; in late August, and only then in the kitchen. The aunt that Alberta lived with had been off on business, which seemed to happen a lot- Gwen had only seen the pale, tall, blonde woman that looked slightly similar to Albie and was her aunt once, and the woman had been very brief with her. As Gwen walked up to the house that was Albie’s, she reflected that although Albie appeared to know everything about her and Art, they knew nearly nothing about her except her interests. Stepping up the two cement steps to the door, she rang the doorbell, still lightly in thought.

A shout of “coming!” came from the other side of the oak door, and sounds of feet pounding came to the stoop.

Albie flung open the door in a mad flurry, long hair in frazzled dissaray, no glasses on, and ink from old manuscripts all over her hands. “Lei’dwynnah?! We-” she paused abruptly. Gwen stood at the doorstep looking at her, confused. The short blonde blinked once, twice, squinted a little, then smiled. 

“Gwen! What a surprise! Come on in- Aunt Lei isn’t home yet, but she should be soon. I’ll get to introduce you properly instead of just having you pass by in the driveway like before. Do you want something to drink? What do you need?” As she was speaking, she let Gwen into the house, closing the door gently behind her, and leading her to the kitchen. She kept on rambling rather aimlessly about the weather after Gwen said yes to the tea, and only settled down after they were settled at the island in the kitchen. Gwen noticed a strange abundance of books everywhere- every solid surface seemed covered with old manuscripts and priceless ancient texts. A few new books were scattered amongst the rest, laid side by side to the old as in comparison, but the most amazing were the books that lay four feet wide when opened on the sofa, the chairs at tables turned facing out to provide surfaces for the texts’ bulk, and the fact that all of the bookshelves in the house seemed as if only two or three books had been removed, although every surface was obscured with them. The last time she had been in Albie’s house, there had been no old texts, nor even a speck of dust on anything. She nodded absently to all of Albie’s small talk, and then asked her question.

“Er… Albie? Are you doing a research project or something?” Her friend smiled.

“Oh, yes, you know, extra credit in history- good practice for college. I want to get into the good ones, you know,” she nodded happily, sneaking a look out of the corner of her eye at the clock.

“Oh… well, I was just wondering if you wanted to see a movie with me and Art, and some of the boys from school…” Albie sighed, a pleasant, though regretful look still on her face.

“I’d love to! However, as you can see, I’ve got a little bit of work to do.” She waved a hand at the rest of the room.

Gwen nodded as she turned around to see the littering of scripts that seemed to encompass the whole of the house. “Yes, I’ve noticed slightly…I never knew you had so many old books.”

“Well…primary sources are best…and I just checked them out of the library, that’s all.” Albie seemed…different, for some reason. Gwen looked at her strangely, but decided not to press the subject further. An odd, nervous silence came over the room, broken by a fine voice. A tall, cool looking woman with long straight hair of fine flaxen hue, light blue eyes, and a thin figure walked into the kitchen from the middle of the living room. Gwen amended her previous thoughts that Albie and her aunt looked alike; they only shared similar hair and skin coloring, as Albie had brown eyes and was still slightly darker. The woman looked in amazement at the mess around her, and then focused in on Alberta.

“Albie l’gwyn! What is this mess? What news is this from the counc-?” Albie jumped up from her stool in the kitchen and cut her off.

“Auntie Lei!”

“For the 15th time, when we’re around mor-“

She interrupted, smiling, “This is my friend Gwynne! I think you’ve met her once before, but I just wanted to do it properly.” Lei blinked. Then a huge smile crossed her face, the clearest and brightest Gwen had ever seen.

“Hello, Gwen! How are you? I’m not sure if you remember me- I’m Lei’dwynnah, Albie’s aunt. Nice to meet you.”   In a moment the woman had gone from confused to in control of the situation, and Gwen marveled at it. Something seemed different about the woman, too- she looked no older than 30, but there was an aura of wise-ness about her that was unmistakable. Lei’dwynnah turned to Albie.  “Now, Albie, we have some business to attend to, don’t we?” She returned to Gwen’s gaze, “I’m sorry, Gwen, but you’ll have to leave. Come again sometime, will you?” The tone of voice left no room for argument; Gwen would leave, but she would not return. Gwen placed a short dark strand of hair that had fallen into her face back behind her ear again.

“Of course. I apologize for coming at such an inconvenient time.” She got up off her stool and made to head for the door. A hand on her elbow paused her journey of stepping over books and scripts to the exit.

“I’m sorry,” Albie smiled at her, and Gwen knew it was true, “Don’t mind my Aunt. It is a bad time, but you can come back. This was just- inconvenient. Say hi to Art for me?” Gwen smiled back, and went to open the door.

“Sure.”

She shut the door behind her, and Albie turned back to a brooding Lei’dwynnah.

“For the love of Dee, stop just-” the shorter girl waved her hands in a circular motion, searching for the words, “- just appearing in the middle of the house! I could have company, and normal mankind use the door. Doors! Have you heard of them?” She was rewarded for her outburst with a withering glare.

“Alberta ferch Afallach! What do you think you’re doing, calling me from…home? You’ve got these mortal men-kind in our affairs, and so far as I can tell,” Albie shifted agitatedly, “you’re more distracting than helpful where your ward is concerned. Sure, you protect him from minor scratches, etc- I noticed that you even saved a construction worker once- but what happens when you’re not there and he needs to be a hero on his own?” Blue met brown eyes in a fight of wills. “You’re almost worse than young Brandubh-- Joan “of Arc” heard voices through her childhood, but learned to fight and got her hero-duty done. How are you training your child, child yourself? Can he fight this supposed evil you encountered? I’m disappointed. You even had to be ‘saved’ by a mortal. You wouldn’t have been killed by that car.”

Albie, who had wandered off to one of the books and was flipping through it madly, whipped around suddenly, glaring.  “I suppose that can be hero deed number one for him, then, even though I didn’t need it. LOOK at this, Lei’dwynnah!” She held up one of the ancient heavy books as if it were nothing, and pointed to the script. “Evil. Back. Not just plain evil, but ‘I should be your nice relative but I hold a grudge because you tried to kill me when I was a baby because I’m your bastard son through your half sister in a past life’ evil. Soap opera evil. Do you know how annoying that is? Do you know how dangerous that is?” She stepped close and looked up to meet her tall elder’s eyes, still holding the book. “I’m trying. Hard. But Brandubh and Joan of Arc were dealing with mortals only. I’m dealing with magic.”

Lei’dwynnah looked disdainfully down her nose at the budding hero-guardian below her. “You are but a child, and all these things seem big to you. You make much of nothing, Alberta,” she said, sneering at the daughter of Afallach’s mortal name, “and when real trouble comes, you will not know what to do.”

The 4500 year old faerie, who only looked like 30 because she chose to, scoffed and stepped back in her icy cold glory to a small clearing without books near the front hall. “Evil or ally will find you soon. I’ll discuss this with the Council, though this matter is trivial.” She gathered in her white aura around her, moving to the other plain, and threw one last comment at the infant-ling of a faerie.

“And Albie? I hate being called ‘Auntie.’”

In a whirlwind of light, Lei’dwynnah was gone, and the younger faerie that was too young to be a guardian and didn’t look much like a faerie at all stepped back and sat down on the floor, dropping the old manuscript down beside her.

She wished Merlin was there.

Art zipped out of history thinking so hard about the voice in his head that wasn’t his that he bumped into a few lockers on his way out of school, just like Albie did sometimes. He disregarded the place where he normally met the girls to walk home, and just walked straight there.

Art shuffled slowly along the sidewalk, while still keeping up a pace that ensured that the girls would not catch up with him. He wanted some time to himself. He stared at nature as he ambled down the road, running a branch along the chain link fence lining part of the sidewalk. Willows and birches spread their branches out with droopy green leaves, their seeds covering the sidewalk and whirling in the air. A fat robin trotted along the road, bouncing merrily before taking off to peck at a piece of someone’s left over sandwich. Art had always enjoyed being around nature, it soothed him in some strange sort of way, and he felt that he could almost relate to some of the animals.

When he arrived at his temporary home, he went straight to his room, worried that he’d lost it completely. What is going on with me? he asked himself. I’m so confused, and I know that teen hormones aren’t causing it.

Art had long since given up on starting his Second Year Algebra homework, and lay on the green comforter on his bed, staring at the white ceiling with a furrow on his brow. He was determined to understand the voice, even though he got the feeling that he was going insane. It disturbed him that the voice kept saying things he couldn’t remember, but that he felt were true, which resonated in him some how.

The voice chuckled in his head again,

You’ve got that right. Art sat up straight in his bed, startled, looked around, and commanded,

"Who are you?! Reveal yourself!"

Come, now, Arthur, you must remember me! Alas, I can’t reveal myself to you yet, as my body is STILL trapped by Nimue, that lovely, albeit evil, nymph. However, I am getting one of my apprentices to work on that, considering that evil is still out there, and I may also…

"That’s all very fine, but who ARE you?" Art demanded.

Why, I’m your fairy godmother, the voice said sarcastically. Come, now, my liege, who do you think I am? Is it really that hard to remember me? Tenderly, the voice continued, Wart, is it so difficult to recall those good old days in the Castle of the Forest Sauvage where you and I had our lessons?

Art looked confused. "Castle what?"

Castle of the Forest Sauvage. Sir Ector’s castle. In Welsh, Caer Cynyr. Don’t you recall the lessons you had in the mews there? Wart, don’t you recall King Pellinore and how he chased the Questing Beast? Good old Wart, don’t say you can’t remember me.

"I CAN’T remember you!" Art insisted. "And why on earth are you calling me Wart?"

Oh, dear! You really can’t remember, the voice remarked sorrowfully. Why Wart, it’s me, your old tutor Merlin.

"You’re MERLIN? Gosh, this is- wait, why are you still calling me Wart?" The voice, now called Merlin, sighed.

I guess I’m going to have to tell you from the beginning, then, hey? Well, it all started one day back in the Forest Sauvage-wait, no, I’m going to have to start sooner than that. I am going to start with the story of your father. This is your heritage, Wart, learn it well so you do not make the same mistake as your ancestor two times in a row. We’ll start out with the edited version, starting in the year 520. Art sighed. The way this Merlin person was rambling started to sound more and more like Mr. Quinlan. Here is your story…

"Don’t worry, I’ll get the phone!" Gwynne yelled from the top of the stairs to her mother. Running down the stairs through a hall, and over to the kitchen, she picked up the telephone just in time to avoid having the answering machine pick up the call.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it’s me, Albie," the voice on the other end greeted.

"Oh, hey Albie. What can I do for you?"

"Meet me in the library before school tomorrow. I’ve done a bit of research on the Arthurian legend, and I think there’s something that we should discuss."

. You were, are, and always will be King Arthur. Now remember, think deeply about these things. The more you think, the better you understand any of the knowledge of the world around you. It’s the main thing I taught you.

" …Taught me?" Art questioned softly.

…and on that field, you and Medrod both took swings at each other, you both hit the mark, and you both died. The last of the Pendragon line died that day. Guenever felt responsible for all the ill that had happened. The girl was heartbroken. I did warn you about her, though, before the battle of Bedegraine. You didn’t believe me!

Another thing I told you that day before the battle- that the both of us were to come back. It was written on your currently missing tombstone- Hic jacet Arthurus Rex quondam Rexque futurus. It means, “Here lies King Arthur the once and future king.” I’d ask if you remember your Latin, to translate, but I really don’t think you do, considering all else I’ve told you before you can’t remember. In addition to that, however, I think I should tell you that every member of your court, excepting, perhaps, the Questing Beast, has been reborn here, not just you and I. That includes that scandalous Guenever, your foster father Sir Ector, even King Pellinore. Not all of them are here, however- quite a few of them are back in your native England. Columbus really messed things up when he found the Americas. The current ancestors of a lot of the old members of the court- reborn, that is- a lot of them immigrated with their parents to the Americas before the Civil War of 1776. And a few of the old courtiers- reborn, that is- and their parents- this generation- emigrated more recently as well. I’m not sure if there is a particular reason why, but-

"Mr. Merlin?" Art interrupted. "Would you mind not speaking in so much detail? I can barely remember my, or King Arthur’s, family tree, much less all this."

Please, Wart, don’t interrupt, don’t call me "Mr. Merlin," and if you want your family tree, you are going to have to write it down. I currently don’t have any hands. Art sighed, agitated. If all the strange things this Merlin person was telling him were true- well, if all these things were true, he didn’t know what would happen. What was the purpose of telling him all this now, anyway? He grumbled to himself. Better to ask that question later.

"You can tell it to me, and I’ll write it for you,” he responded. “Can you see what I’m doing?"

I have a mirror, yes, thank you. Actually, if you step in front of a certain mirror you can see what I’m doing, but I’m not sure where that mirror is, and in order to get that mirror, you have to be magical, and you’re not, so no use whining about spilt milk. Now where were we?

"You ramble worse than Mr. Quinlan does," Art said, "We were speaking of my family tree."

Yes, Wart, I’m afraid I do ramble; now here is your child’s pied-de-grue- that’s Medrod’s family tree- before I forget…

This is what Art wrote:

Gorlois of Cornwall = Igraine = Uther Pendragon

   _____________|        |____

| |               |

Morgan le Fay Lot = Morguase = Arthur = Guenever

__________________|   |________

l        | |          |

Gwalchmai Gaheris Gareth Medrod

I suppose the genealogy is rather simple if you discount the fact that everyone’s committing adultery, the voice called Merlin commented.

This may sound childish, but, EEEEWW, he replied. What are you talking about? I’m not related to any of these people! That can’t really be true, can it? And what are you saying again? I’m rather confused as to where all this is coming from.

Oh, woe the day you learned to doubt me! Yes, Medrod is indeed the bastard son of King Arthur and his half- sister Queen Morguase of Lot, the deep voice replied, and you ARE King Arthur of Britannia- mind I didn’t say England- in the future- or present. It says so on your gravestone in the future (or is it the past?). Oh, living backwards always takes a bit out of a man, he sighed

I suppose so. Art commented, distaste apparent in his voice. People making children with their half-siblings was not the most enjoyable thing to talk about, in his opinion. Well, Mr. Voice-inside-head, this has all been rather fun, and it’s been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but if you don’t mind, I would like to learn real history now.

Wart, I- Arthur had had quite enough for one day. He concentrated fiercely as he could, and the voice was gone. Now if only he could make his History homework disappear so easily.

The phone rang. He remembered suddenly that Gwynne, he, and some of his guy friends had planned to go to a movie with Albie, but Gwynne informed him it was cancelled, which was good, because he would have been horribly late anyway. She also informed him that Albie wanted a meeting the next morning. Early, too. Such a pity to lose good sleep, he thought.

But things were definitely moving- towards schizophrenia or just plain insanity he did not know, but unquestionably towards change.