Chapter 401
I woke to sunlight streaming through the curtains of my bedroom, and for the better part of a minute, I simply lay there staring towards the ceiling.
Sleep was a strange thing. A person could spend nearly a third of each day—a third of an entire life—lying unconscious and helpless. Logically, it made little sense; it was an enormous expenditure of time, yet no human could truly escape it.
Despite that, sleep was... nice. There was comfort in willingly embracing unconsciousness, forgetting one's problems for a while, and entrusting oneself to the realm of sweet dreams. It was, without a doubt, something very human.
Perhaps sleep was not merely a biological limitation, but a daily act of trust: trust in the safety of one's home and in the people who stood watch while one rested.
That was precisely why I had no need of it. I was too far removed from humanity to require sleep, and yet here I was, lying in bed and allowing the day's first rays of sunshine to wake me.
I sometimes felt guilty about it. There was so much work to be done, and I was spending hours pretending to sleep, forcing myself to mimic something I had long since lost.
Yet if the King did not sleep, neither could his castle, and I had no desire to force my Knights or the rest of my staff to remain awake throughout the night for my sake. Heaven knew that if I did not insist upon resting, Agravain would work until dawn as well.
The bodies I had granted my Knights still required sleep, even if they needed far less of it than ordinary humans. I wanted them to live, and that meant allowing them to live like people rather than tireless weapons.
Immortality was no excuse to strip the ordinary rhythms from their lives, nor from the lives of those who served beside them.
I remained beneath the blankets for several minutes longer than necessary, enjoying the quiet, until someone gently knocked on my door.
"Your Majesty, it's time to get up." The soft voice of one of my maids came through the door. Anna was a kind young woman who had overcome the darkness that marked her early life in the Red Room.
She was living proof that my presence in this world had done at least some good—that I had saved at least a few people from a horrible fate.
I could not save everyone, but the life she had built reminded me that saving even one person still mattered.
"I'm awake," I said, pushing myself up against the headrest just in time for the door to be pushed open.
The maid, Anna, curtsied and gave me a soft smile before moving towards the large wardrobe. "Good morning, Your Majesty. Your bath has been prepared, if you would excuse me. I shall lay out your clothes."
"Thank you, Anna," I said as I slid my legs off the bed, my bare feet touching the warm rug laid out for me. "Anything I should know of?"
"A quiet morning, Your Majesty. Sir Agravain has prepared a number of reports for your review." She paused for a moment. "Quite a number of reports, I'm afraid. It appears you have a long day ahead of you."
I was not surprised. Agravain had never lacked diligence, and although the war was over, that only meant there was more work to be done—much more.
Our struggle had not ended with the final Sentinel falling. It would end only when we had repaired the destruction and done everything within our power to ease the pain and sorrow left behind.
"And my Knights?" I asked.
"Sir Bedivere left at dawn to oversee the final stages of the timber distribution in Bodmin, Sir Gareth is visiting the western territories to assess infrastructure needs, Sir Mordred has yet to return from the tavern where he spent half the night celebrating with Thor, and Sir Gawain is in the training yard, as he always is."
That earned a small smile from me. Some things never changed; even after a war, my Knights returned to their familiar habits, each in their own way.
They did not allow war, failure, or death to define them. They mourned, certainly, and some wounds lingered far longer than others, but they had survived more conflicts than most people of the modern age could imagine. In time, they always found a way to keep living.
"Mordred is still with Thor?" I asked, unable to hide my amusement. "Those two are growing closer by the day."
"They share an impressive ability to take nothing seriously, so it is hardly surprising," Anna replied with a smile.
"They share a great many qualities," I agreed. "More importantly, Thor can withstand an angry Mordred, which is fortunate given how tactlessly he insists upon calling him Lady Mordred."
Anna's professional expression cracked, amusement glinting in her eyes. "It certainly makes for interesting mornings, Your Majesty."
While I had no interest in hearing the full list of Mordred's drunken exploits, I was a bit curious as to what he and the Asgardian prince got up to, so I made a mental note to ask Thor about it later.
"Have the Asgardians left for the day?" I asked.
"Prince Thor and his friends remain within Camelot, though Regent King Loki is far harder to track; he might be here, or he might have left," she replied with a helpless shrug.
Keeping track of Loki was by no means easy. Even the nearly all-seeing Heimdall occasionally struggled, so it was hardly strange that others did as well.
"I am sure he will show himself eventually. Until then, there is no need to bother him or his brother. Let them enjoy Camelot for now," I said before walking into the bathing room, where a bath had already been prepared for me.
Steam curled across the room, carrying the scent of lavender and sea salt. I sank into the enormous tub, the hot water immediately relaxing muscles I had not realized were tense. For a few minutes, I simply leaned back and closed my eyes, allowing the warmth to seep into me.
My body no longer sweated as it once had, and dirt or grime could be removed with a thought. Even after crossing Hell itself, I could make myself perfectly clean with the smallest application of magic.
Yet magic could reproduce some comforts without ever truly replacing them. Hot water was one of those comforts.
There was still so much to do, but for this brief moment, there was only the water, the silence, and the knowledge that the sun was shining outside.
When I returned to the bedroom, Anna was waiting with the chosen outfit laid out across my bed. The dress was simple but elegant, a deep blue that brought out the color of my eyes, with silver embroidery along the collar and cuffs that shimmered like starlight when I moved. It was practical enough for a day spent reviewing reports and attending council meetings, yet formal enough that no one could mistake me for anything other than their ruler.
As Anna fastened the last of the silver buttons at my wrist, she hesitated for a moment. "Your Majesty, if I may be so bold..."
"You may."
"Is it possible for an Asgardian man to get a human... a human woman pregnant?" she asked, her cheeks flushing red.
The question caught me off guard, and I could not help looking at Anna in a different light. I doubted her interest was merely academic, though I had no intention of embarrassing her by saying so.
On reflection, perhaps it should not have surprised me. Many Asgardian men were physically impressive—large, powerful, brave, and often refreshingly straightforward. It was hardly strange that some women might be drawn to them, particularly after an evening filled with celebration and alcohol.
Unfortunately, I did not know the answer. Asgardians might look human, but appearance alone said little about whether their peoples were biologically compatible.
Asgardians could have children with at least some inhabitants of the other Nine Realms, most notably the Vanir of Vanaheim. I did not know whether that was an exception born from the closeness of their peoples or whether the same compatibility extended to humans.
Asgard was also advanced enough to alter its own people if it chose, and its ancient empire had encountered countless civilizations. It was possible that compatibility with similar species had been encouraged at some point in their history, though that was little more than speculation.
The more I considered it, the more possible it seemed. "That is a good question, though I am afraid I do not know the answer. If you wish, I can ask one of Asgard's healers discreetly," I offered.
Anna's blush deepened to an impressive shade of crimson. "There is... no need for that, Your Majesty. I was simply curious."
I almost laughed. Had I been an ordinary friend rather than her King, I might have pressed her about which Asgardian had caught her attention. As her ruler, however, I could not pry into something so personal.
I could still have the medical question answered without intruding upon her private life, and I intended to speak with Loki later regardless.
"Very well, but if you ever do need such a question answered, don't hesitate to ask. Now, let us have some breakfast before I am trapped at my desk for the rest of the day."
Food might not nourish me, but it was another of my guilty pleasures. This age offered such an extraordinary variety of dishes and spices that refusing to partake would have been a waste in its own right.
Still, as I looked over the breakfast spread before me, I could not help feeling slightly embarrassed. There was enough food to feed a family of four, and it had all been prepared for me.
Since it had already been made, however, I could hardly allow it to go to waste.
Wasting food was unacceptable.
"Oh, cupcakes!"
What a treat—a dozen of them, at that. I should not waste food, so... I had to eat them. It was not that I wanted to. It was simply the right thing to do.
By the time Anna returned with a fresh pot of tea, there were only four left.
She looked at the plate, then at me.
I calmly took another.
There were many burdens that came with being King. Endless responsibility, difficult decisions, the lives of millions resting upon my shoulders, and an entire kingdom that expected me to stand tall regardless of how tired I became.
Surely I was allowed a few cupcakes.
Besides, Agravain would no doubt ensure I had little time for lunch with the pile of work he would present to me, so I was really just being efficient by eating extra now.
Chapter 402
By the time breakfast was finished, I had eaten considerably more cupcakes than any dignified ruler should probably admit to, and Anna had wisely chosen not to comment on the steadily disappearing pile.
With that small indulgence behind me, it was time to work.
I made my way through the familiar halls of Camelot towards my office, passing servants, guards, and the occasional clerk along the way. The castle had settled back into its normal rhythm remarkably quickly after the war, and nowhere was that more obvious than when I pushed open the heavy wooden doors to my office.
It looked like mine again.
During the seven weeks of my absence, Agravain had been forced to transform the room into something resembling a modern military command center. Screens had covered the walls, communication equipment had occupied nearly every available surface, and cables had been run across floors that had gone centuries without seeing anything more technologically advanced than a particularly elaborate clock. Enough computers had been brought inside to make Tony Stark feel perfectly at home.
I had understood why. Agravain had been trying to coordinate a war across all of Albion while simultaneously governing the kingdom in my absence. He needed live reports, battlefield communications, satellite feeds, logistical information, and countless other things that could not reasonably be handled through parchment or messengers, even with the aid of magic.
Necessity had won during the war. Now the necessity was gone, and so was nearly everything it had brought into the room.
The screens had been removed from the walls, the cables no longer covered the floor, and the strange electronic hum that had filled the office had been replaced by the far more pleasant crackling of the fireplace.
My desk once again stood beneath the windows, surrounded by shelves filled with books, maps, and old records. Against one wall, the long table held neatly arranged stacks of paper rather than computers.
It was exactly how I preferred it.
I had nothing against technology itself. That would have been absurd in an age when I regularly traveled in aircraft, spoke through telephones, and relied upon machines designed by people such as Stark and Richards whenever circumstances demanded them.
I simply did not want Camelot to become dependent upon it.
The city was not connected to Albion's national electrical grid, nor would it be for as long as I ruled it. Electricity existed here, certainly. Asking several million modern people to abandon refrigeration, computers, televisions, and every other convenience to which they had grown accustomed would have been unreasonable. Power simply came from independent sources rather than great cables running beneath my city.
Camelot relied instead upon compact, high-capacity cells refined by geniuses such as Tony, Reed, and many others. A unit small enough to transport without specialized machinery could power an ordinary household and be exchanged for a charged one outside the city when necessary.
Even facilities belonging to the Veiled Hand followed the same rule. There were no exceptions.
The system was less efficient by modern standards, but I did not care. Camelot was Camelot, and within its walls, my rules prevailed.
I had already compromised enough by allowing people to put televisions inside houses designed when stained glass was considered advanced technology. There had to be limits.
More importantly, independence mattered. If the national grid failed, Camelot remained lit. If an enemy attacked Albion's communications infrastructure, my capital did not suddenly become blind. If some particularly clever machine decided one day that controlling every connected device in the kingdom sounded entertaining, it would discover that much of Camelot had never been connected in the first place.
That caution had proved wise during the Sentinel War, when the machines did everything they could to deprive humanity of the means to fight back.
I crossed the room and settled behind my desk, enjoying the familiar creak of the chair beneath me. The surface had been restored as well, with nothing upon it except several inkpots, a few pens, a stack of correspondence, and the small silver bell used to summon an attendant.
There were no screens, holograms, or blinking lights demanding my attention—only the quiet I needed to focus upon the work ahead. Some forms of efficiency required nothing more sophisticated than good furniture and an orderly desk.
Agravain arrived not long afterward, carrying several thick folders beneath one arm and another stack of papers against his side. He entered with no ceremony beyond the expected bow, his familiar black clothing making him look far more at home amid parchment than he ever had among the machinery that had filled this room during the war.
"Good morning, Your Majesty."
"Good morning, Sir Agravain."
He approached my desk and laid out the reports, separating them into neat piles according to whatever organizational system existed within his head. I had learned long ago not to interfere unless I wanted a lecture explaining exactly why every document belonged precisely where he had placed it.
"There is less than yesterday," I observed.
"As there should be. Reconstruction is proceeding according to schedule, and most emergency measures have been transferred back to the ministries responsible for them."
"Good. Not every minor decision should require my personal approval."
"It would still be wiser for us to handle everything ourselves. Then there could be no deceit or betrayal," he said, returning once again to an argument he had never truly abandoned.
"Sir Agravain, I appreciate the suggestion, but I have ministries and officials for a reason: they help carry a workload no two people could manage alone. Times are different now."
His expression made it clear that he remained unconvinced, as he had been every other time we argued over this subject. In Agravain's ideal government, every important matter would pass through either his hands or mine, every official would be watched, every transaction checked, and no decision would ever be made beyond the reach of someone whose loyalty he trusted absolutely.
It was a comforting idea in theory. In practice, there were simply too many people.
Albion was no longer a collection of scattered villages, castles, and small towns. Millions lived beneath my banner, producing an endless stream of disputes, applications, taxes, permits, complaints, and problems that required someone to make a decision. Even if I abandoned sleep entirely and spent every moment behind this desk, I could never personally approve everything.
Besides, there was a deeper flaw in Agravain's philosophy.
"If I cannot trust anyone to govern unless I personally watch them, then I have failed to build a government," I told him as I pulled the first report closer. "People will betray me eventually. They already have. Others will steal, abuse their positions, or simply prove incompetent. When they do, we remove them and find someone better. I will not cripple the entire kingdom because some people might disappoint me."
"Trust is an unnecessary vulnerability."
"So is paranoia."
"It is only paranoia when the threat is imagined."
Neither of us was going to convince the other that morning, so I allowed the matter to rest and focused upon the work before me.
The largest immediate problem was housing.
"Temporary accommodation remains sufficient for everyone still displaced," Agravain explained as he passed several pages across the desk, "but it was built with the expectation that most families would remain there for weeks, not months. Reconstruction in several regions is falling behind schedule, primarily because of shortages of skilled workers rather than materials."
I skimmed the figures. We had timber, stone, steel, and everything else required to rebuild. The problem was finding enough people who knew what to do with it.
"How far behind?"
"Four to six weeks in the worst-affected areas. Possibly longer if we prioritize public infrastructure."
"We should."
"That will delay private housing further."
"I know."
There was no perfect answer. Repairing roads, power systems, schools, and hospitals benefited entire communities, but prioritizing them meant telling thousands of families that their homes would remain unfinished while the Crown rebuilt a bridge or railway first.
"Increase the rebuilding grants for anyone willing to relocate temporarily," I decided after considering the problem. "And open the southern apprenticeship programs to workers from the damaged regions. If we lack builders today, we should ensure that we do not still lack them six months from now."
"That will help eventually, but not immediately."
"Then approach the construction guilds and offer temporary Crown contracts at wartime rates."
Agravain frowned slightly. "Expensive."
"So is leaving people homeless."
He nodded and made a note.
The next matter was more familiar. A group of merchants had requested compensation for vehicles and equipment commandeered by resistance forces during the war.
The claim itself was entirely legitimate. When Sentinels were descending from the sky, nobody had stopped to negotiate rental agreements before taking trucks, generators, or heavy machinery needed to keep people alive.
The difficulty was that the resistance fighters had not belonged to any official organization. They had simply been people willing to fight, leaving the losses in a substantial legal grey area. That was why an otherwise minor matter had reached my desk instead of being settled by an ordinary official.
If the law were followed without interpretation, the people who had fought would be personally liable for the losses. That was plainly unjust. Yet the Crown had never formally requisitioned the property, so no official currently possessed the authority to grant the merchants' request.
I read through the petition once more before setting it down.
"Pay them."
Agravain looked towards me. "The Crown never requisitioned the property."
"No. My people did."
"Legally, that is not the same thing."
"Which is why the decision reached my desk."
I tapped one finger against the report. The law was perfectly clear, and for once, that clarity was the problem. Those who had taken the vehicles possessed no authority to do so, which meant the owners could seek compensation from them personally. Enforcing the law that way would punish men and women whose crime had been taking whatever they could find and using it to keep others alive.
I would not allow that.
"The resistance existed because the Crown could not protect every street," I said. "They fought in my kingdom, for my people, against an enemy of Albion. If they took property reasonably necessary to that defense, I will consider the action to have been carried out on behalf of the Crown."
Agravain understood immediately. "Retroactive authority."
"For actions directly connected to the defense of civilians and the kingdom during the Sentinel emergency, yes. This is not a blanket pardon for theft."
That distinction mattered. War had created enough opportunists without me providing them a convenient excuse after the fact.
"Have the ministry establish a claims process. If someone can demonstrate that their property was taken, damaged, or lost through legitimate resistance activity, the Crown will compensate them according to its fair value immediately before requisition."
"That will be expensive."
"Then perhaps next time we should ensure our people do not have to build an army out of whatever they find lying around."
Chapter 403
There were few things Agravain disliked more than a problem he could not neatly categorize.
He could tolerate bad news, incompetence, betrayal, and even outright disaster with an impressive amount of calm. But give him a report that fit into no proper department, legal framework, or chain of command, and one could almost watch the irritation build behind his eyes.
That was why, when he entered my office the following morning carrying one folder separately from the rest of his work, I immediately knew something unusual had happened.
The office remained blissfully free of the machinery that had filled it during the war, and I had spent the better part of the morning enjoying the ordinary rhythm of pen against paper and the fire crackling in the hearth.
Yesterday had been consumed by reconstruction claims, legal questions surrounding the spontaneous resistance, and enough minor administrative disputes to remind me that peace did not mean a lack of problems. It merely meant those problems could usually be solved without anyone dying.
Today had begun much the same, at least until Agravain walked in.
He bowed as expected and placed several routine reports upon the corner of my desk, but kept the separate folder in his hand rather than adding it to any of the piles already awaiting my attention.
Agravain did very little without purpose, including the placement of paperwork. Routine matters went into their proper piles; urgent matters were placed directly before me. A folder that remained in his hand belonged nowhere, and that alone told me why it irritated him.
I glanced towards it. "What happened?"
"Nothing dangerous, Your Majesty."
"That was not what I asked."
Agravain's mouth tightened ever so slightly. "Several of your subjects have submitted a request that passed through enough departments that someone eventually decided it should be sent directly to me."
"And that annoys you."
"It should have been resolved long before reaching my desk."
"Yet it was not."
"Precisely."
I set my pen aside and gestured for him to continue.
Agravain stepped closer and placed the folder before me. "Several families from a village outside Coventry wish to meet one of your knights. Apparently, he protected them during the Sentinel attacks, and they have organized a memorial for those who died in the area. They want to invite him and thank him personally."
That sounded simple enough, which naturally meant it was not. Problems that should have been easy irritated Agravain most.
"Which knight?"
"We do not know."
I looked up from the folder. There were not so many of my knights that identifying one of them should have been difficult.
Agravain met my stare without amusement.
"You do not know which of my knights fought there?"
"He is not one of yours."
That earned my full attention.
A minor request delayed by bureaucratic foolishness was one thing. An unknown warrior powerful enough to be mistaken for one of the Round Table was something else entirely.
I opened the folder while Agravain explained how the matter had reached us. The request had begun innocently enough with the local council. The families involved knew only that an armored swordsman had appeared during one of the Sentinel attacks, fought several machines, and protected the civilians until they could escape. Considering where they lived, the obvious assumption was that he belonged to Camelot.
There were, after all, not many places in the modern world where an unidentified man in armor could run around swinging a sword without attracting immediate suspicion, and Albion had rather cornered the market on knights capable of cutting armored war machines apart.
The council had forwarded the request to the regional authorities, who checked their records and found no matching knight assigned to the area.
The dates placed his first appearance before my return from Hell, when only four members of the Round Table were present in Albion. Sir Agravain had never left Camelot, while Gareth, Lancelot, and Sir Dagonet were all accounted for.
The Enforcement Knights could also be ruled out. Their identical armor made them impossible to mistake for any other knight.
Without a clear answer in the records, the normally reasonable request to learn the name of their saviour had become quite a puzzle.
"Eventually," Agravain continued, "one of the clerks reached the apparently radical conclusion that if nobody beneath the Crown knew which of His Majesty's knights this man was, perhaps His Majesty might."
"I admire the reasoning."
"I do not."
"Because it ended with more work for you."
"Because five offices passed the same request between themselves for nearly two weeks rather than simply asking whether anyone recognized the man."
That was also fair.
I opened the first collection of photographs. Most were terrible, which was hardly surprising. They had been taken by civilians in the middle of a Sentinel attack, often while running, hiding, or trying not to die. Smoke obscured entire sections of several images, bright energy weapons ruined the exposure in others, and one photograph consisted mostly of someone's finger covering the lens.
Yet the same figure appeared often enough that I could make out his general shape.
Black armor covered most of his body, though it was not the heavy plate worn by many of my knights. It looked more like a combination of old armor and modern protection. A dark cloak hung behind him, although in several photographs it might simply have been part of his coat, and a helmet concealed enough of his face to make identifying him from the images alone nearly impossible.
Most importantly, he carried a sword.
In nearly every usable image, he had positioned himself between the Sentinels and the retreating civilians. Whether by training or instinct, he had always kept the machines' attention upon himself.
I picked up one of the clearer pictures. "Not one of ours," I agreed.
Agravain gave me a look suggesting that this conclusion had already been thoroughly established.
"What happened?"
He opened the witness reports while I continued studying the photographs. "The village was caught in the path of a smaller Sentinel detachment while most organized defenders in the region were occupied with a larger attack several miles east. Evacuation was already underway, but several families remained trapped when the machines arrived."
"And our mysterious knight?"
"Appeared shortly afterward."
"Appeared from where?"
"That is one of many details upon which the witnesses disagree."
Of course. Nothing was ever simple.
As I read through the statements, I found that they offered little help. According to one witness, the knight had emerged from the smoke as if summoned by God. Another claimed he came down a side road at considerable speed. A child insisted he had descended from the sky upon the back of a black dragon, which immediately made the affair considerably more interesting until Agravain informed me that every adult witness described the supposed dragon as a motorcycle.
"Children have impressive imaginations," I decided.
"That does not make their reports more accurate."
"One should not expect a child caught in something as terrifying as a Sentinel attack to be an entirely accurate witness," I reminded him.
Agravain ignored my admonishment and continued. Whatever his means of arrival, the unknown knight had entered the fight alone. At least three Sentinels were later found destroyed in the immediate area, while several witnesses claimed there had originally been as many as seven. Whether he had personally destroyed all of them was less certain, particularly once other resistance fighters reached the area, but everyone agreed that he had held the machines back long enough for the trapped civilians to escape.
"Any casualties among the people he protected?"
"Two injured. None killed."
That mattered more to me than the number of machines.
"And him?"
"Unknown. Several witnesses claim he was injured."
"How badly?"
Agravain turned another page. "One woman says she saw blood running down his arm before he left. Another insists the armor repaired itself."
I raised an eyebrow.
"The photographs confirm neither claim."
I went through them again more carefully, and the sword drew my attention. Even in the poor images, something about it felt strangely out of place. It was not the sort of oversized decorative weapon modern people sometimes imagined medieval knights carrying, nor did it resemble anything currently circulating on the market.
It looked old. Not fashioned to appear old, but truly ancient.
"Has anyone examined the blade?"
"No one has been able to locate either it or its owner."
"Magic?"
"Almost certainly."
"Why only almost?"
"Several witnesses describe a red glow along the edge. One says the weapon seemed to become darker during the battle, though I am not entirely certain what that means. Another claims the knight spoke to it."
"People speak to swords all the time."
Agravain stared at me.
"My knights speak to their swords." I tried and failed to make a joke.
"To invoke their Noble Phantasms, something I truly doubt was the case here."
"You make a fair argument," I conceded.
"Indeed. Either the sword possesses some degree of awareness, or its wielder is mad. Both remain equally possible."
Fair enough.
I moved on to the written accounts. As usual, the eyewitnesses contradicted one another on almost everything except the parts that truly mattered. The knight was exceptionally tall according to one person and barely above average according to another. His helmet possessed horns, no horns, wings, or some sort of silver crest depending upon who was asked.
One man swore he had watched the stranger throw a Sentinel through the wall of a house, while a woman standing twenty feet away insisted the machine had simply crashed after the knight cut through one of its legs.
It reminded me why Bedivere had always preferred collecting several testimonies before deciding what had actually happened.
Yet beneath all the confusion, a clear picture still emerged.
Whoever this man was, he had seen civilians in danger and gone towards them.
He had fought without being ordered.
He had stayed when retreat would have been easier.
And once everyone was safe, he had left without waiting for praise, payment, or recognition.
A title did not make someone a knight. Neither did armor, a sword, noble blood, or a place at a famous table. Those things merely gave a person the appearance of one. The choice to stand between danger and those unable to defend themselves mattered far more.
I found myself smiling faintly.
"What?" Agravain asked.
"Nothing. I simply find it amusing that nobody can prove he is a knight, yet he seems to have understood the role well enough."
"That is presumably why everyone assumed he belonged to you."
Indeed. Had I not known otherwise, I might have assumed the same. Few warriors outside my Round Table could confront even one Sentinel, yet this man had faced several and survived.
I turned to the final page, which contained a copy of the original request. It was remarkably simple. The survivors wanted the Crown to forward an invitation if we knew the knight's identity. They were holding a memorial for several local defenders who had died elsewhere in the fighting and believed the unknown man deserved to be present if he wished.
"Did he ever give them a name?"
"No."
"No insignia, crest, or anything else?"
"Nothing identifiable."
"Then what have they been calling him?" I asked.
Agravain hesitated.
It was not much of a hesitation. With anyone else, I might have missed it entirely, but Agravain was not a man given to uncertainty.
"The Black Knight."
My fingers stopped upon the edge of the page.
For several moments, an older memory intruded upon the quiet office.
Another man. Another suit of dark armor.
He had been one of the first enemies I encountered after awakening in this strange new world, back when Albion did not exist and the return of King Arthur was little more than a rumor spreading through frightened governments.
He had called himself the Black Knight as well.
The title had not impressed me then.
"The Black Knight," I repeated.
"Yes."
"That is unfortunate."
"My thoughts exactly."
I leaned back and looked once more at the blurred figure standing between a Sentinel and the civilians behind him.
The previous Black Knight had not made the best impression. He had claimed descent from one of my knights and flown upon a winged horse while wielding a lance filled with rather impressive technology, if I remembered correctly.
I did. He was difficult to forget.
I would certainly have remembered a magical sword, however. Unless he had acquired one since our meeting, the figure in the photographs was not the same man.
That did not rule out some connection between them, although the shared name proved very little. Black Knight was hardly the most imaginative title a mysterious warrior in dark armor might choose. Even I might have settled upon it.
Still, coincidence should not be assumed when one of the men involved possessed an ancient magical blade and enough power to fight Sentinels alone.
I closed the folder. "Send copies of the photographs to the Veiled Hand and the Round Table. Nothing public. If he wishes to remain unknown, we need not drag him into the light, but see that the invitation reaches him if possible."
Agravain inclined his head. "And if he refuses it?"
"Then we leave him in peace."
"And if he accepts?"
I looked once more at the dark figure standing between the machines and those they would have killed.
"Then I would like to meet the Black Knight."
Chapter 404
There were some matters that became easier with time.
Others merely became easier to ignore.
For the first several days after the Sentinel War, I allowed myself to focus entirely upon Albion. There was more than enough to justify doing so: reconstruction, the dead, the wounded, laws that required changing, people who needed reassurance, and countless little problems that only began appearing once the truly enormous ones stopped demanding everyone's attention.
Those days became weeks. I returned to my office, to ordinary government, and, for the first time in what felt like far longer than seven weeks, began settling back into the life of a King rather than that of a warrior.
Yet there was one conversation I continued to postpone.
Not because I had forgotten it. Quite the opposite. I remembered it whenever I thought about the weeks I had lost, whenever I looked upon a grave dug while I was away, and whenever someone told me what Albion had endured while I fought in Hell.
The Ancient One had known.
Perhaps not exactly what would happen, and perhaps not with perfect certainty, but she had known there was a possibility that time would move differently while we were trapped beyond the boundaries of the mortal world.
And she had said nothing.
I understood that someone such as her did not make such a decision without reason. Sometimes the more one knew, the less certain it became that acting would improve anything. I was no stranger to that burden. I knew much about both the present and the future, yet knowledge alone did not always tell me when interference would save lives and when it would merely create a different disaster.
Understanding her burden did not mean I had to like what she had done.
I did not.
Nevertheless, nearly a month passed before the conversation finally came to me. I spent that time working through seven weeks of accumulated reports and dealing with the crises that had begun while I was in Hell, worsened during the Sentinel attacks, or emerged only after the fighting ended.
Through it all, I never forgot the explanation I was owed.
When the Ancient One finally appeared in my office, she was uninvited but not unexpected.
She made no attempt to hide herself, knowing full well that my eyes would see through any such effort. She simply appeared before my desk, openly and without trickery.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. I remained seated while she stood before me, and we studied one another across the quiet room.
She looked exhausted.
Some of the sharpness left my anger. Not all of it, and certainly not my need for an explanation, but enough that beginning with an accusation no longer seemed necessary.
I released a quiet sigh and gestured towards one of the spare chairs. "Take a seat. You look like you need it."
The Ancient One settled into the chair with considerably less grace than usual, and that alone told me more about her condition than any admission would have. I reached for the pot of tea beside my paperwork, poured a second cup, and pushed it across the desk.
"Thank you."
"You look terrible."
A faint smile touched her lips. "You always did know how to make a guest feel welcome."
"You arrived without being invited."
"Would you have refused me?"
I considered the question before shaking my head. "No."
"Then I merely saved us both some paperwork."
I nodded towards the piles still stacked across my desk. "Indeed. I have enough of that as it is."
That earned a quiet laugh from her. "The burden of a hands-on ruler."
"You have the advantage of protecting the world without governing it," I observed before taking a sip of my tea. "Though I could hardly accuse you of having less work. Few people have carried more for longer."
The Ancient One said nothing, nor did she need to. The exhaustion upon her face told me everything. She was the sort of person who handled matters herself, often because there was simply no one else capable of doing so.
After allowing her a few more sips of tea, I decided we had delayed long enough. Neither of us was the sort of person who possessed time to waste, and meaningless accusations were beneath me.
"I imagine the situation is under control now?" I asked.
For the past month, I had dealt with the aftermath of one war while doing nothing about the wreckage left by the other. That work had never been mine. There had been a clear division of responsibility between the Ancient One and me: I would break the unity of the Hell Lords and end the threat of their combined invasion, while she dealt with Dormammu, restored Earth's defenses, and contained everything that attempted to exploit the damage.
Judging by her appearance, she had been occupied with that task until now.
The Ancient One warmed both hands around her cup before answering. "Under control is perhaps a generous description, but yes. The immediate danger has passed."
"Did Dormammu cause you any problems?"
"It is impossible for a being such as him not to cause trouble, but I know how to handle him. He was always intended as a diversion, something to occupy me while the Hell Lords attacked elsewhere. The Dark Dimension's connection to Earth is far weaker than theirs, and while the Sanctums remained standing, he had little chance of entering this reality in force."
I did not doubt her. Dormammu had been among the most individually dangerous members of the alliance, yet the nature of his realm also limited him. The others could pour armies through a sufficient breach; he could not fully enter Earth while the Sanctums and their barrier endured.
That did not make ignoring him an option. Had the Ancient One failed, the damage would have dwarfed anything the Sentinels had inflicted.
"But he is contained once again?"
She gave a tired nod. "Yes, though it is only a matter of time before he tries again. Time holds little meaning for him. He can make as many attempts as he wishes and needs to succeed only once."
That was the burden of defenders. We had to win every time. A single decisive defeat could cost everything.
"And the planar barrier?" I asked, finally reaching the heart of the strategic discussion.
A small smile touched her lips. "Restored."
I released a breath I had not realized I was holding, and some of the tension finally left my shoulders.
"Then all is well," I said, though my tone made it clear that the statement was not the end of our conversation.
The Ancient One leaned forward slightly. "It is restored, but not easily. Dormammu was only one problem. Countless lesser entities sensed the weakness and attempted to exploit it before the barrier could be repaired."
"I can imagine."
"Fortunately, many of the powers that might have joined them found a far more tempting target. That made my task considerably easier than it otherwise would have been."
"Mephisto."
She nodded. "When I asked for your help, I knew your power allowed you to wound their realms. I intended for you to exploit that vulnerability. It was both the reason the Hell Lords feared you and the surest way to break their alliance. Even so, you exceeded my expectations."
"I had noticed," I said dryly.
Her smile widened by the smallest amount. "I imagine you did. Mephisto's domain suffered far more damage than I believed you capable of inflicting, and more importantly, that damage did not simply vanish when you left."
"I would have been alarmed if it had. I poured all my might into that strike. If Mephisto could recover from it so easily, I would be considerably more afraid for Earth's future."
"Even a Hell Dimension does not easily recover from being split nearly in half, especially when every neighboring power moves in to seize whatever fragments it can before the ruler puts them back into place."
"Then I doubt Mephisto will make peace with them anytime soon. The others will hardly allow him a moment to recover while such a feast remains before them."
"Correct. They were all still fighting over the fragments when I left. They may spend the next century, if not longer, consolidating and digesting what they have taken. Until then, they have little reason to turn towards Earth, particularly when doing so might draw your attention."
"And that is why you asked for my help."
The Ancient One did not bother denying it. "Precisely. I am not a fool, Your Majesty. You were the primary reason they withdrew. My Sanctums are powerful, but they are not indestructible. Against the combined pressure of a united Hell, they might have held for several weeks. Eventually, Earth would have been invaded."
That was the truth. Her defenses could be overloaded, and forces already present upon Earth could strike at the Sanctums from within, just as Dormammu's servants would eventually attempt to do.
I leaned back and considered what I had learned. For the immediate future, the outcome was as favorable as we could reasonably have expected. The Hell Lords were distracted, divided, and wary of provoking me, with the possible exception of Dormammu.
In the longer term, those same beings would finish absorbing the pieces of Mephisto's shattered realm. They would emerge stronger, perhaps strong enough to believe they no longer needed to fear me.
Even a victory such as this could become the foundation of a future disaster.
I did not envy the Ancient One, who had managed variations of this problem for centuries. Every victory created new dangers; every peace had to be used to prepare for the next war.
A thankless task indeed.
"Then Mephisto is the only one likely to act again soon?" I asked.
It was almost paradoxical that the one who had suffered most remained the greatest immediate concern, but Mephisto also had the least left to lose. While his rivals could sit back and grow stronger by absorbing pieces of his domain, he needed another way to recover what had been taken from him.
The Ancient One nodded slowly. "That is my concern as well. Mephisto has always been dangerous because he is patient, but desperation can make even the patient act rashly. For now, however, I do not believe he will move directly against Earth."
"Because of me?"
"Partly." She took another drink before continuing. "He remembers what happened the last time he drew your attention. Unlike Dormammu, he cannot retreat into a realm beyond your reach and simply wait for another opportunity. You have demonstrated that even his own domain is not safe from you."
That was useful.
Fear was rarely a foundation upon which I wished to build anything lasting, but when dealing with creatures such as Mephisto, I was perfectly willing to make an exception.
"So he will look elsewhere."
"Almost certainly. Deals, souls, lesser realms, vulnerable dimensions: anything capable of helping him rebuild what he lost. He may attempt to reclaim some of the fragments taken from him as well, although doing so risks further conflict with their new owners."
"Which keeps everyone occupied."
"For a time."
There it was again.
For a time.
That seemed to be the natural state of defending a world. Nothing remained solved forever. One defeated an enemy, repaired the damage, and bought enough peace to prepare for whatever came next.
Perhaps that was why people such as the Ancient One became so tired. There was never truly an end.
I looked down into my tea for a moment before nodding. "Then I suppose we achieved what we set out to do."
"More than that."
I raised an eyebrow.
"The alliance is gone. Mephisto has been weakened for what may amount to centuries. Several of the other Hell Lords are stronger, but too distracted by one another to use that strength against us. And Earth's enemies have been reminded of something they would have preferred to forget."
"And what is that?"
"That it has teeth."
I smiled faintly. That was one way of putting it.
For most of history, Earth had survived because people such as the Ancient One stood quietly at its borders and prevented the things outside from entering. Those things had therefore come to see humanity as prey protected by unusually troublesome walls.
Now at least some of them knew that the prey could climb over the wall and bite back.
"I can live with that."
"I thought you might."
Silence settled between us again, and this time it lasted longer.
The immediate subject was finished. Hell was secure enough for the moment, the barrier restored, and the enemies we had fought scattered back into their own domains. There was nothing more I needed to ask about the battle or its aftermath.
And yet the Ancient One did not rise.
She remained seated across from me, both hands wrapped loosely around her cup as she stared at the steam curling from it.
I watched her for several moments. She had not come merely to give me a report, and we both knew it.
Eventually, she released a quiet breath.
"You have been remarkably patient."
"I have been busy."
"That is not what I meant."
"No," I agreed. "It is not."
Her eyes lifted to meet mine. For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then she placed her cup upon the desk.
"You want to know why I did not warn you."
Straight to the point.
"Yes."