FUTURE AND ONCE
John Langan
(The setting: Paimpont Forest, outside Paimpont Village in the Department of Ille-et-Vilaine, in northwest France—or rather, the remains of the forest. Tree stumps cover the ground, none of them more than a couple of feet high, all of them carbonized. The couple of thin trees rising amidst them are similarly charred, their branches stripped; they look like warped flagpoles. The ground itself is scorched, the sky full of roiling gray clouds. Flurries of ash drift across the stage.
(Merlin enters from stage left. At least, he appears to. It may be that he was standing there all this time and we just noticed him. He is as old as you would expect Merlin to be, his beard long and white, though his eyes remain bright. He is perhaps thinner than you would have envisioned, even for a wizard whose concerns are for things other than food. His robes make it difficult to say for sure. They are a gray which retains traces of the deep blue from which they have faded. An assortment of symbols covers them. Whether they have been stitched or painted on is hard to tell. Many of the symbols are familiar, the usual astrological signs you see on a wizard’s robes; in addition, there are characters from numerous alphabets, as well as other designs somewhat in the manner of hieroglyphs. The colors of these decorations change with the movement of the robe, the way a fish’s scales appear to shift color as it glides through running water. You may see emerald, ruby, chartreuse, and violet, among others; although all of them have the same dimmed appearance as the garment on whose folds, you may have noticed, they seem almost to float, possibly to slide. Merlin’s hat is of the dunce-cap variety, conical, of the same gray as his robes, but devoid of their migrating symbols and dented in a couple of spots, as if it had been squeezed into a space slightly too small for it. It perches on the wizard’s shock of white hair like a rider clinging to a horse on the verge of throwing him. As Merlin walks to center stage, his eyes scanning the tree trunks as if searching for something, he clatters and jingles and clinks, as the assortment of necklaces, chains, and pendants hung around his neck, the bracelets circling his wrists, jangle and clash together.
(Ursula Opango follows Merlin a few paces behind. She is nineteen, her tall frame dressed in gray-and-black camouflage helmet, shirt, and pants. High on her right shoulder, a pair of red chevrons on a rectangular black background identify her as a caporal, or corporal, in the French Army. A flak jacket in the same gray-and-black pattern covers her back and chest, its ceramic plates, like those in the large pockets on her pants, making an almost musical clinking as she moves. The pockets on the flak jacket are stuffed. There’s a pistol holstered on her right hip and an assault rifle—an HK416, if precision about such things is important to you—slung around her right shoulder and carried muzzle down in both hands. Where Merlin’s creased and wrinkled skin is toadstool white, except for the red spots on his cheeks, her smooth skin is dark brown.
(Merlin wanders the center of the stage, slowing to peer at and in some cases into the various tree stumps with an almost detached air. He moves between two stumps in particular before finally settling on one at which he stops, beckoning Ursula to join him. It’s not much to look at, even as these tree stumps go, barely more than a disturbance in the ground. Nonetheless, he gestures at it with his left hand.)
Merlin: Here. This one.
(Ursula approaches the tree stump and leans over to look at it, an expression of polite skepticism on her face.)
Ursula: Inside this tree?
Merlin: A hawthorn, yes.
Ursula: For fourteen centuries.
Merlin: Approximately. Record keeping tended to be a rather slipshod affair in those days. Part of the reason I was always writing things down. But yes, close enough.
Ursula: And it was a woman who put you here?
Merlin: Mmm, Nimue, though sometimes she liked to be called Vivian, and one time tried to pass herself off as the Lady of the Lake. Completely ridiculous, of course. At the time, it struck me as part of her charm. I was . . . quite taken with her. Infatuated, you could say. In her presence, the sap of youth rose again in me hot and strong—
Ursula: I get it. You wanted to fuck her.
Merlin: Yes. I did. She had no interest in lying with an old man such as myself, but she was extremely interested in what she might learn of magic from me. I showed her all manner of things. My lust made me reckless. I taught her just enough for her to catch me in a trap I should have evaded with ease, had I not been so distracted. But I was, and Nimue (or Vivian) trapped me.
Ursula: In a tree.
Merlin: A hawthorn, yes. It was very uncomfortable.
Ursula: I imagine so.
Merlin: The most embarrassing part of the matter was, I saw it all coming. I mean to say, I literally knew exactly what was going to happen, down to the very tree she would use to imprison me.
Ursula: You’re serious.
Merlin: Yes. I told you, I may not always tell you the truth in full, but I will do my best not to lie to you.
Ursula: In that case, if you knew this Nimue had it in for you, then why didn’t you do something about it? At the very least, you might have stopped teaching her what she needed to trap you.
Merlin: Tell me, Ursula: Do you remember our encounter with the bandits two days ago?
Ursula (looks away): You know I do.
Merlin: Yes. Things didn’t go so well for the sergeant, did they?
Ursula (still looking away): At least it was quick.
Merlin: True: In circumstances such as these, a single bullet to the head might be considered its own kind of blessing. Based on your remark, I assume you could describe our location, the relative positions of your fellow soldiers, the course of the battle.
Ursula (looks at Merlin): Yes.
Merlin: Excellent. Now change them.
Ursula: What do you mean?
Merlin: Exactly what I said. Change what happened when the bandits ambushed us outside of Rennes. At the very least, advise Sergeant Falcone not to remove his helmet outside the pharmacy.
Ursula: Stop making fun of me.
Merlin: I assure you, I am not. My request is entirely serious.
Ursula: Your request is entirely ridiculous. How can I change what has happened already? We put Falcone in the ground, for fuck’s sake.
Merlin: Exactly. And if you cannot alter the past, how do you expect me to alter the future?
Ursula: Because the future hasn’t happened, yet.
Merlin: Hasn’t it?
Ursula: No.
Merlin: Then how could I know it?
(Ursula begins to reply, stops.)
Merlin: To be honest, I know the future in much the same way you know the past: incompletely. You recall the recent battle with great specificity. This makes sense. It was a memorable event. Undoubtedly, there are many such moments in your life—though how many, I cannot say. I am sure there are small things you recall with startling clarity; I am equally sure there are bigger things you have forgotten some or all of. This is how the future appears to me.
Ursula: So you didn’t know what this Nimue was planning for you?
Merlin: Oh, no. That I could see with perfect clarity. Had I not been able to foretell the future, still would it have been obvious. But Nimue was beautiful and I was overcome with desire. In the same way your past bad experiences with a lover may not be enough to keep you away from them a second or a third time, so my future bad fate at Nimue’s lovely hands was insufficient to keep me from participating in my doom enthusiastically.
Ursula (shaking her head): I’m sorry. It still makes no sense to me.
Merlin: No need to apologize. There are times it seems a little odd to me, too.
Ursula: So you were in the tree for fourteen centuries. What was that like?
Merlin: Cramped. Although the spell Nimue used to imprison me was constructed well—enough for me to be unable to break it, there was room at its edges for certain modifications. This I had planned, as I had no indication I would not do so. I was able to bind myself to the tree and thus draw sustenance from it. I tapped into the network whereby the trees in a forest communicate with one another—
Ursula: They do?
Merlin: What makes you think they would not?
Ursula: I don’t know. I never gave it much thought.
Merlin: Yes, well, trees speak to one another; though their language is one most humans would have difficulty recognizing as such. It is a slow tongue, suited for beings locked in place, their only motion upward and outward. (The grammar’s quite tricky, in fact.) Through patient effort, I succeeded in learning the wisdom of the trees, which is strange, unlike anything I had encountered before—or ahead. I had studied the ways and wisdom of animals—I was particularly adept at the hare and the duck—but this was entirely different. It’s one thing to try to make sense of a hare explaining the best way to escape a pack of dogs; it’s altogether another to parse a sentence which goes on for days describing the changing weather.
Ursula: You could talk to animals?
Merlin: Not only could I speak with them, I could put on their shapes and live among them. I had a brief but tender romance with an absolutely lovely hedgehog . . . Had we world enough and time, I would transform you and me into, oh, I suppose foxes might have a certain applicability to our present circumstances, and together we would take whatever instruction they had to offer us.
(Ursula looks startled by the suggestion.)
Merlin: For a wizard, the world is a university, ever ready to instruct those willing to heed its teachings.
Ursula: If you say so. But I do not think I would like being a fox.
Merlin: Oh? What would you prefer?
Ursula: A bird—a falcon.
Merlin: How interesting. Perhaps once this present business is over.
Ursula: Wait. Is this some kind of psychological test: “Tell me what animal you would choose to be, and I will tell you about yourself?”
Merlin: Possibly. Mostly, I was asking what kind of animal you would like to be. (Begins to walk stage right.) I believe it is time for us to proceed in this direction.
Ursula: Where to?
Merlin: Come and find out.
(With a shrug, Ursula follows. As she does, the background starts to move, scrolling stage left to indicate their process. Even the tree stump the two of them have been considering slides stage left, a startling example of trompe l’oeil. At the same time, neither Merlin nor Ursula’s stride appears false, contrived, the way someone pretending to walk might look. It could be the two of them are moving on top of some type of track inserted into the floor. It could be they’re gifted physical actors.)
Ursula: This ability you have—your foresight. How did you gain it?
Merlin: There are two explanations for my knowledge of the future. The first is that I am living my life backward.
Ursula: How is that possible?
Merlin: I am not one hundred percent certain. I have a theory, which goes something along these lines: viewed from a perspective outside of time (as we understand it), our lives form a kind of grand design, a sculpture in four dimensions. Our consciousness moves in one direction along this sculpture, such that we perceive the past as the past and the future the future. For reasons obscure to me, something happened at what I can only presume is the end of my life to send me backward through it. Since even my mind cannot process the experience of a life lived in reverse, it accommodates the condition as a kind of foresight.
Ursula: You have no idea what the cause was, though.
Merlin: I presume an experiment gone awry, my magic turned against me.
Ursula: Another Nimue?
Merlin: I would not like to think so, but the possibility exists.
Ursula: You said there were two explanations.
Merlin: Yes. The other is that my father is a devil.
Ursula: A what?
Merlin: An incubus, to be precise, a resident of the first circle of Hell. Have you read your Dante?
Ursula: I don’t think so. I was never very good in school. Too many fights.
Merlin: Over what?
Ursula: My mother being Algerian and my father Congolese.
Merlin: Ah. Yes, in that regard, I fear the world has little changed since my time.
Ursula: It’s fine. I found the Army.
Merlin: You did and if I may say so, you are very good at being a soldier.
Ursula: Thank you. Tell me more about your devil father.
Merlin: Do you know, I never met him? In all my long life, not once have I sought him out, summoned him. Yet I owe so much to the portion of his blood coursing through my veins: my intelligence, my cunning, my skill at the magical arts, and (perhaps) my visions of the future. No doubt one of your psychiatrists would make much of such avoidance.
Ursula: I don’t know. It doesn’t seem too complicated to me.
Merlin: Doesn’t it?
Ursula: You think of yourself as good, as trying to do good things. You’re afraid to meet your father and discover you’re more like him than you thought.
Merlin (pauses): That may be.
Ursula: So the damned can see the future.
Merlin: According to Dante, yes. One of the torments of their condition, knowing what is to come in the place they have lost forever.
Ursula: Wait. Dante lived when?
Merlin: 1265 to 1321, I believe.
Ursula: How do you know about him? Weren’t you in your tree by then?
Merlin: I was, had been for hundreds of years at that point. During those centuries, I had arrived at a way to link my tree to the other trees in the forest. They’re quite sensitive to their environment, you know, especially in full bloom. Their leaves pick up all sorts of information from their surroundings, some of it very subtle. By connecting my tree to its fellows, I was able to amplify those abilities, making of the forest a great ear. Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t a great deal of interest to listen to. Over time, however, I learned to refine my ear, to enable it to hear farther and wider. It didn’t make too much difference. Most of what I listened to consisted of men killing men on an ever-larger scale. I had my fill of that during Arthur’s time—before Arthur’s time. Do you know, the earliest reports of me, or of the figures some scholars consider the earliest version of me, went mad upon the defeat and death of his beloved king and roamed the forests in his lunacy?
Ursula: Did you?
Merlin: I can’t recall. It sounds right. By the time I came to advise Arthur, I had counseled many kings and leaders. Some I had become very fond of. All perished, either due to war or treachery. It can be a bit much, after a time. I do have a memory of my beard becoming tangled in an especially stubborn tree bush, and also of eating acorns, which tends to support the madman-in-the-forest hypothesis.
Ursula: All these kings—what were you doing with them?
Merlin: I was trying to make things better. I could see enough of the future to know that it could be better, it would be better. With each local chief and king I advised, I sought to bring the future a little bit closer, to make daily life a little less bad. Arthur was my greatest success, in part for the way his story lived on after his death, for the inspiration it continued to provide.
Ursula: He was supposed to return, wasn’t he? In the hour of England’s greatest need, or something like that. Not that it would do us much good here.
Merlin: The exact nature of Arthur’s return was never adequately explained or understood. It had less to do with Britain and more with the state of . . . (Merlin waves his hands at the backdrop, the ground, the ashy air.) . . . all of this. He wasn’t the only one, you know.
Ursula: The only one who what? Was supposed to come back?
Merlin: Mmm. The legend attaches to a number of similar figures, Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, Ogier the Dane.
Ursula: I don’t know the last one, but I’m pretty sure the others lived after you.
Merlin: Like Dante, yes. This returns us to my great ear. For many, many years it brought me only sporadic news of the world outside its rows. Then came radio. What an invention! At first, I was content to listen to whatever was playing from the nearest cottage. The music . . . it was like seeing a world of color, after having lived in shadows. I listened to reports of the world as it now was, these centuries after the hawthorn had embraced me. From what I had overheard during those long years, I had an idea of the changes the world had undergone, but in many ways, it was incomplete. Now I began to fill in its missing pieces, which helped me to make sense of some of my visions of the future. Just because you can perceive something doesn’t mean you understand it, you know. Through a great deal of experimentation, I discovered the leaves on the forest’s trees were sensitive to frequencies of light, of energy of which I had been unaware, and this sensitivity could be harnessed, hundreds of millions of leaves yoked together and made into a mighty antenna. Now I was able to sift among the assorted broadcasts with much more discrimination and so to further my education. As time passed, and television opened its glowing eye, and then the internet began to be knitted together, I found with further trial and error I would tap into them, too. So much to learn! In my time, I had been known as the subtlest of men, the wisest of wizards, yet I had comprehended only the smallest portion of the world’s knowledge. I drank it as a thirsting man does cold water, my education in the secret arts allowing me to draw connections others had not, to reach insights denied them.
Ursula: But you were still stuck in the tree.
Merlin: This is true. Nimue’s spell was fiendishly clever. She had designed it to draw its power from mine, which meant the more I struggled against it, the tighter its hold on me grew. The only solution I could see was to relax my efforts in hopes to starving the spell. This weakened it, but never enough for me to escape.
Ursula: Who let you out, then? Did Nimue finally change her mind?
Merlin: She did not. In fact, I have lost track of her. It is possible she perished sometime in the past fourteen centuries. She may have found her way to Avalon, I suppose, where poor Arthur was taken at the very end. No, what freed me was sorcery of an altogether more terrible kind.
Ursula: The bombs.
Merlin: The Third World War, I gather they’re calling it. We should be grateful the arsenals of the respective nuclear powers were only partially emptied before cooler heads prevailed, but what was spent was more than sufficient, I’m sure you agree. The bomb which detonated here was of a relatively low yield; even so, it was of sufficient power to disrupt Nimue’s enchantment and allow my escape.
Ursula: And look what you escaped into. You probably wish you were still in the tree.
Merlin: Granted, the world is not as I would have chosen it to be, had I the power to determine such matters. But I have known for a long time that this lay ahead of me. I did not always understand its exact nature: I thought some hapless wizard had brought Hell to Earth.
Ursula: I don’t know. Doesn’t sound too far off the mark.
Merlin: Ha. I suppose not.
(For a short time, they walk in silence.)
Ursula: This foresight of yours . . .
Merlin: Yes?
Ursula: Does it show you what happens to me?
Merlin: Yes.
Ursula: And . . . ?
Merlin: You are sure you want to hear?
Ursula: Why wouldn’t I?
Merlin: It could prove upsetting.
Ursula: More upsetting than surviving a nuclear war, all of your family and friends dead, your country in ruins, your planet poisoned?
Merlin: Very well. A hundred yards ahead, four men are going to shoot you with their machine guns.
(Ursula stops. As does Merlin. As does the backdrop.)
Ursula: Damn.
Merlin: The exact nature of the guns escapes me. I must confess, I find keeping track of all the different firearms humanity has invented (beyond such general categories as blunderbuss, musket, rifle, etc.) hopelessly difficult. It’s a blind spot on my part.
Ursula: Four men?
Merlin: Four men. There is a fifth standing nearby. If I am not mistaken, he gives them the order to shoot.
Ursula: What about you?
Merlin: I will not be shot.
Ursula: Good for you. Shit. Shot by four men? With machine guns?
Merlin: As I have said, I don’t know the names of the guns.
Ursula: Doesn’t matter. Four? There’s no chance I survive that. No chance at all. Shit.
Merlin: Are you all right?
Ursula: What does it look like? Machine-gunned, damn. To come through the bombs, all this shit, and this is how I go out?
Merlin: This was why I cautioned you.
Ursula: When I said I would go with you, I didn’t think—wait. You knew what was ahead when you asked me to accompany you.
Merlin: I did.
Ursula: And you didn’t—why didn’t you tell me?
Merlin: There was no point.
Ursula: No—what if I leave? What if, right this moment, I decide I’m through with you and your weird tricks and head back to the rest of the unit as fast as my legs will carry me?
Merlin: You will be shot by four men with machine guns.
Ursula: Shit! Fuck! Seriously?
Merlin: Yes.
Ursula: You aren’t lying to me.
Merlin: I am not.
Ursula (exhales, releases her assault rifle, which drops to dangle on its strap, and uses her hands to push back her helmet. Her expression is a mix of exasperation and fear): Were you planning on telling me this?
Merlin: If you had not asked, I would not have volunteered the information. Since I knew you would ask, I was prepared to tell you.
Ursula: Will I at least get to shoot back?
Merlin: You will not.
Ursula: Then what am I doing with you? Does my dying allow you to win whatever battle we’re in? Or to escape?
Merlin: It does not.
Ursula: So why bring me with you?
Merlin: Perhaps because I required a companion on this little voyage, and during the last few weeks I have spent with your unit, I have enjoyed your company the most.
Ursula: How lucky for me.
(Ursula takes her assault rifle in her hands, studies it.)
Ursula: What if I shot you, right here and now?
Merlin: You would not do such a thing.
(Ursula raises the gun to aim it at Merlin, who stands placidly. For a long moment, she sights on the wizard. Finally, with a heavy sigh, she lowers the weapon.)
Ursula: No, I would not.
Merlin: Shall we continue?
Ursula: Might as well.
(The two resume their trek stage right. The backdrop resumes its motion.)
Merlin: It may interest you to know, I was not certain you would not shoot me.
Ursula: Yeah? What happened to your foresight?
Merlin: Your decision was one of those details I could not discern.
Ursula: Which means what?
Merlin (shrugs): You may make of it what you will.
(The scene on the backdrop changes, the charred forest giving way to a large, shallow depression in the earth, its surface spiderwebbed with cracks large and small. Perhaps the possible treadmill upon which Merlin and Ursula have been walking tilts, or perhaps it is an effect of the cunningly rendered backdrop, but the two appear to be descending into the depression.)
Ursula (looking around her): This was a lake.
Merlin: Yes.
(The dried lake bed levels out. Merlin stops and turns to face Ursula.)
Merlin: Do you still have the little shovel you used to bury Sergeant Falcone?
(Ursula allows her gun to swing loose and reaches behind her. From a pouch on her belt, she removes a short-bladed shovel whose folding handle she extends and locks into place.)
Ursula: Here.
Merlin: Marvelous. The inventions of this world never cease to amaze me.
Ursula: Like the bombs?
Merlin: Hmm, yes. Point taken. (He gestures to a spot between them.) Would you dig there?
Ursula: What for?
Merlin: You will know when you find it.
(Ursula slides her assault rifle around to her back and kneels on the dried lake bed. She looks up at Merlin.)
Ursula: Here?
Merlin: Yes.
(Ursula digs with short, effective strokes, piling the chalky earth to her left. After half a dozen strokes, she stops.)
Ursula: Holy shit. There’s someone buried here.
Merlin: Oh?
Ursula: Right below the surface. At least, there’s an arm. I found the elbow. Whoever it is, they’re wearing some kind of green stuff. I think it’s silk.
Merlin: Dig toward the hand.
(Ursula does, working more quickly. She stops.)
Ursula: I found—it’s holding something. The hand: It’s holding the handle to something. (Without any prompting from Merlin, Ursula continues digging, moving in a straight line as she uncovers more of her discovery. Once she has reached the end of it, she sits back on her knees.) Will you look at that. (She looks up at Merlin.) What now?
Merlin: I have no use for such a thing.
Ursula: Neither do I, not really. (All the same, Ursula sets down the shovel to her left and leans forward. With her right hand, she fiddles with the hand she unearthed; with her left, she slides her fingers under something. She lifts her arms and raises from the earth a scabbarded sword, its hilt, sheath, and the belt wrapped around it gray-white with dust. She stands, still regarding the sword in her hands. It’s hilt is simple, made to be gripped single-handed, but long enough to accommodate two. The pommel is a flat circle like a large, thick coin, the guard a straight line. The scabbard is leather or a similar material, its length engraved with narrow characters; the belt is made of the same substance.) I thought I would have to pry the handle from the fingers—maybe break them—but they released the sword on their own.
Merlin: Did they? How interesting. Why don’t you try the belt on?
Ursula: I’m not . . . (Ursula wraps the belt around her waist, tying it in a loose knot in front, leaving the sword in its scabbard hanging at her left hip.) . . . Like this?
Merlin: Very nice. Don’t you want to have a look at the sword?
(Ursula unsheathes the sword in a single, sweeping motion. Despite the chalky earth covering the hilt, the blade is mirror bright. She gives it a few, experimental slashes.)
Merlin: You handle it quite well.
Ursula: Fencing lessons. Saber, mostly. This is incredibly light.
Merlin: Watch the edge. There is little it will not cut.
(Ursula regards the warning with scorn, continuing to sweep the weapon around her in figure eights.)
Ursula: What is this?
(Before Merlin can respond, a voice from stage right calls the answer.)
Maugris: The weapon in your hand, dear lady, is called Excalibur.
(Accompanied by four men dressed in approximately the same fashion as Ursula, except with their rifles up and at the ready, Maugris enters stage right. He is a very short man, wearing a dark red robe with a white fur collar. His fingers are crowded with rings of various metals and designs, some studded with bright jewels—emeralds, rubies, sapphires—others plain bands of iron. The top of his uncovered head is bald, but the white hair surrounding it is shoulder long. A pair of muttonchop sideburns frame a face whose features seem crowded together. The soldiers fan out from him and position themselves in a half circle in front of Ursula. Perhaps realizing there is no point in reaching for her own rifle, Ursula has gripped Excalibur’s hilt and assumed a defensive posture, her expression fierce. Merlin watches all of this, nonplussed. Maintaining his distance from Merlin, Maugris halts and stands twisting his rings.)
Maugris: And since the sword is Excalibur, the magician must be Merlin.
Merlin: Some men have used that name for me.
Maugris: Very careful of you, good. (He gestures at Ursula.) She is the Arthur?
(Merlin does not answer.)
Maugris: Never mind. You, dear lady! How are you called?
Merlin (raises a warning hand to Ursula): Her name means “little bear.”
Maugris: Little bear, eh? Oh, very clever. Arthur, artus, bear, so now you choose a little bear. What? Did you hope the difference would be enough to affect this turn of the great cycle?
Ursula: Who the fuck are you?
Merlin: If I am not mistaken, he is known as Maugris. He was . . . associated with Charlemagne.
(Maugris bows.)
(Without shifting his position, the soldier closest to the edge of the stage calls to Maugris.)
Soldier #1: Sir! Please confirm, this is the objective.
Maugris: It is, my friend, it is indeed. This good sir here and I are this very moment conversing about it. Allow us a minute or two to determine whether or not an arrangement can be reached.
Soldier #1: Yes, sir!
Ursula: Charlemagne? Wasn’t he supposed to return, as well?
Maugris: He was, dear lady, he was. And he did in his . . . avatar, with me waiting to advise him. Together, we assembled a modest but loyal group of followers to begin the process of bringing light and restoring order to the ravaged world. Sadly, our rather compact army encountered that of Frederick of the red beard, whose avatar had returned to lend his aid to the wounded land. His forces were equal to ours, possibly superior, but I counseled attack.
Ursula: Why? You wanted the same thing, didn’t you?
Maugris: Dear lady, two kings cannot rule the same kingdom.
Ursula: You could have worked something out. You could have compromised. Now is not the time for more dick measuring.
Maugris: Have you not witnessed the state of the globe? Now is not the time for weak-kneed half measures. This is the time for decisiveness, for the firm hand of a strong leader.
Merlin: Unless your strong ruler perishes at the hand of the rival he is killing, if I am not mistaken.
Maugris: Ah, here are the powers for which you are famed! True, the leaders fell in valiant combat with one another. It was a setback. While the survivors bound up their injuries, I performed certain acts of divination which allowed me to perceive all was not lost. Although my great rival had been set loose to challenge me once again, he also had found both a warrior fit to stand at my side and the famed weapon with which she would inspire my army.
Merlin: I’m sorry: Are you speaking of me? Your “great rival”? My poor fellow, this is the first time we’ve met.
Maugris: Ever has it been with our kind: The mere hint of another of equal power is an affront, a challenge waiting to be fulfilled.
Merlin (laughing): Oh, Maugris, whatever gave you the idea we were equals?
Maugris (scowls): Who has out maneuvered whom, eh?
Merlin: Is that what you have done?
Soldier #1: Sir . . .
Maugris: Patience, my friend. I have the feeling our negotiations are almost at an end.
Soldier #1: Yes, sir.
Maugris: Here is our situation, dear lady. I am in possession of an army comprised of the finest soldiers of two great forces—
Merlin: He means the survivors of his colossal blunder.
Maugris: Do you mind?
Merlin: Not at all.
Maugris: This mighty force—
Merlin: Of wounded men and women.
Maugris: —is in need of a leader. Or, not a leader, because in me they already have one. Rather, they require a . . .
Merlin: Figurehead?
Maugris: Figurehead? Yes, why not? Someone to rally behind.
Merlin: Not to mention, to die behind.
Maugris: If necessary.
Merlin: And really, what are the odds? (Overwhelmingly bad, I should say.)
Ursula: You would want someone like me at the front of your forces?
Merlin: Only because he expects you to die right away. Gloriously, I am sure.
Maugris (glares at Merlin): To be frank, dear lady, I should prefer to see the sword you are holding in the possession of . . .
Ursula: Someone more male? More white?
(Maugris shrugs.)
Merlin: Have you encountered Ogier the Dane, or have you killed him, too?
Maugris: I am not sure, but yesterday my snipers shot a man they judged a threat . . .
Ursula: Snipers? How far away was this man?
Maugris: One kilometer? Two? I forget. It was excellent marksmanship. When the scouts brought back a description of his remains, it appeared a distinct possibility he was the Dane.
Merlin: Ogier was one of Charlemagne’s paladins, was he not?
Maugris: I would not have expected you to know this.
Merlin: I have had a great deal of time to educate myself. You must have been acquainted with him.
Maugris: Somewhat.
Merlin: And he with you.
Maugris: I am not sure I care for the direction your words are leading.
Merlin: Are they leading somewhere?
Soldier #1: Sir, I thought you said the negotiations were concluding.
Maugris: They are, my patient friend. Here is my offer to you, Little Bear: Come with me and ride at the front of my army. Use your wonderful sword to help me return order to the broken Earth.
Merlin: But if he can have only the sword, he will be satisfied.
Ursula: I believe he would.
Maugris: Well? Will you join my crusade?
Ursula: No.
Maugris: Very well. (Maugris nods to the soldiers, who squeeze the triggers of their weapons. Instantly, the air is full of the deafening stutter of assault rifles set on automatic. Fire flashes from the muzzles; the strong smell of gunpowder wafts from the stage. Ursula, who might have been moving to strike the soldier nearest the audience with the sword, convulses as if caught in a seizure. The soldiers continue to shoot her as she drops first to her knees and then onto her right side. She does not move; nor does she relinquish her grip on Excalibur. Their magazines empty, the soldiers raise their rifles in unison.)
Merlin: That was . . . excessive.
Maugris: You may retrieve the sword, my friend!
(Soldier #1 allows his rifle to swing down on its strap as he crosses from the firing line he and his companions made. The remaining soldiers lower their weapons and remove the magazines from them. Soldier #1 crouches next to Ursula, his back to the audience. He reaches for the sword.)
Merlin: Tell me, Maugris, are you a reader?
(What happens next does so with lightning speed. Soldier #1 jerks, stiffens, and falls on his left side, motionless. Ursula springs to her feet, Excalibur in hand, its end scarlet with Soldier #1’s heart’s blood. She sprints at the remaining soldiers, who pause in wonderment at the sight of her uninjured—her uniform in ruins, gripping the bloodied sword two-handed—before fumbling to lock the fresh magazines into place. Ursula moves through them relentlessly, felling each man with a single, ferocious stroke that sprays blood across the chalky ground and onto her tattered uniform. For no more than five seconds, the zipper sound of Excalibur slicing through the soldiers’ armor, uniforms, and flesh blends with the hiss of venting blood and the grunts and cries of the men. When the last soldier has dropped, she stands, panting, her eyes on Maugris.)
Maugris: How . . . ? No matter.
(Maugris begins to lift his left hand. Merlin, however, has slid off one of the many bracelets on his left wrist, a green glass circle, which he tosses at Maugris. There is a flash of green light. Heavy gray smoke billows around Maugris, obscuring him. From within its roiling depths, he screams.
(Ursula lowers the sword, wipes the blood from it on one of the fallen soldiers’ uniforms, and walks over to stand beside Merlin.)
Ursula: Are you sending him to Hell?
Merlin: Heavens, no. There would be too much mischief for him to get into there. (He walks across the stage, waving away the smoke, which is already dissipating. Where Maugris stood, Merlin’s green glass bracelet lies flat on the ground. Inside it is a tiny glass figure, a smoky brown, no more than two inches tall. Anyone close enough may see the figure’s resemblance to Maugris. Merlin retrieves the bracelet and returns it to his wrist. He removes his hat with his left hand and picks up the glass figure with his right. He straightens, places the figure on top of his head, and puts the hat over it.) Perhaps you are familiar with the adage about keeping your friends close—
Ursula: And your enemies closer, yes.
Merlin: If you can trap those enemies in a special prison, first, better still.
Ursula: What just happened here?
Merlin: Too mighty forces met on the waste land. They held parley and when no agreement was forthcoming, the larger force attacked the smaller. At first, it went poorly for the smaller force, but they lured their treacherous foes into a trap and defeated them thoroughly. I imagine there will be something about a duel between the armies’ wizards, too. In less time than you might suppose, today’s events will be referred to as the Fourth World War, when the forces of justice and compassion overcame those of tyranny and cruelty.
Ursula: What the hell are you talking about? I was asking why I’m not dead.
Merlin: Ah. Right. It is because of the scabbard.
Ursula (looks down at the scabbard, touching it with her left hand): This?
Merlin: That. It was made from the skin of a dragon by—never mind all of that. The point is, there is an enchantment on the scabbard which protects its wearer from harm. Mallory wrote about it in his story of Arthur; though how he learned of it I have not been able to find out. This was why I asked Maugris if he was a reader.
Ursula: No shit?
Merlin: None. The sword is an impressive weapon, as you have seen firsthand, but the scabbard is no less powerful. But neither is as important as the one who wields them.
Ursula: You want me to be a king.
Merlin: No.
Ursula: Sorry: queen?
Merlin: No.
Ursula: What word did Maugris use? A figurehead?
Merlin: The word was mine. Also, no.
Ursula: Then what?
Merlin: What you are, already.
Ursula: What I am is a corporal. It’s not very much.
Merlin: With Sergeant Falcone’s death, you hold the senior rank. You are in charge of your men and women, now, together with those others, those many others, traveling under your protection. The world does not need a king or queen at this time. It needs you.
Ursula: I am some kind of . . . reincarnation of King Arthur?
Merlin: That was how Maugris thought. It is part of the reason he is a little glass figure currently residing under my hat. Arthur was a man, yes, but Arthur is also a role, a part to be played by anyone worthy. I suspected you to be; the sword confirmed it.
Ursula: When the hand released it to me.
Merlin: Yes. Even in her current . . . condition, the Lady of the Lake retains excellent powers of perception.
Ursula (sheaths the sword): What now?
Merlin: Whatever you choose.
Ursula: We have to return to the others. We’ve been away far longer than I told them we would be. The army Maugris spoke of: Is it close? Can you tell?
Merlin: Approximately eight kilometers northeast of us.
Ursula: We will have to decide the best way to approach them. Maugris mentioned snipers, which will complicate this. All the same, if it is possible, I would rather not fight them. If we must fight, though, I want to have every advantage we can.
Merlin: Very well. As you say, we had best make our way back to the others.
(The two of them begin to walk stage left.)
Ursula: You might have told me about the scabbard.
Merlin: Would you have believed me?
Ursula (pauses): No. Even after everything you had done before, I would not have.
Merlin: So you understand.
Ursula: I do. However, I am becoming more open-minded.
(Exit stage left.)
For Fiona