Nearby was a little table covered with parchments weighted down by stones. When he saw Collum, he began busily turning the crank to bring up the bucket of the well. It came up full of a trembling glossy black liquid.

  “Ink.” The old man smiled, and his teeth were a glossy jet black, too, as if he’d been drinking the stuff. “Got your chit?”

  With waning patience Collum explained that he’d given the chit to the soldier outside, that’s how he got in here in the first place. The tiny old man seemed irritated by this and ordered him to go back and get it. A gust blew a few of the parchments off the table; the garden downwind was covered with them.

  But somehow Collum must’ve gotten turned around because he couldn’t find the door again—it was like the garden had grown even bigger while he’d talked to the old man—and when he finally did find it the guard wasn’t there anymore. By now it felt like hours since he’d left the others atop the headland. They had a knight to find! And a king to crown! He still had cow poo on his boot. He spotted a small porcelain pot with rosemary growing in it and in a frenzy of frustration he stamped on it—it was tougher than it looked—until it smashed into little chit-size pieces. Feeling both clever and ashamed he took one and went to find the well-dressed old man.

  But now Collum couldn’t find him either! He ran out of patience and stormed out of the stone barn. He got it now; it was all a Cornish practical joke. He was being made a fool of. Well, he always had been the last one to get a joke. In a black mood, he struggled back up through the fields and over the stiles and through the standing-stone paddock till finally, finally, after what felt like weeks, he crested the green dome of the hill again.

  But there was nobody there. They were all gone, knights and soldiers and horses alike.

  Well, damn it all to hell and back.

  They must’ve decided he wasn’t worth the wait. Sir Collum closed his eyes and let himself savor just a drop of the miserable balm of self-pity. One wrong step and out he stumbled, out of the golden circle. How slippery were the slopes of Mount Olympus.

  He blundered back down the hill, vaguely thinking that if he could somehow lay his hands on a horse he might still be able to catch them. Darkness was falling and a cold, briny Cornish drizzle closed in. He saw a lighted window in the distance, way up a hillside, and he clambered grimly toward it, up a gully with a stream running down it, icing his feet in the freezing water, trying not to turn an ankle on the stones rolling under his boots.

  The few patrons inside went quiet when Collum walked into the tavern. Probably they didn’t get a lot of northern knights staggering onto the premises dripping wet in full armor. Well, feast your eyes, ladies and gentlemen. A great feeling of heaviness descended on him.

  There was something sharp digging into his palm: after all that he realized he was still gripping the useless porcelain chit in his fist, the counterfeit one he’d made in the garden.

  He set it down on the dark oak tabletop in front of him. A barmaid passed by and swept up the chit and replaced it with a silver cup full of a trembling dark liquid.

  It wasn’t wine, it was ink. He looked up, and it was the strangest thing: the barmaid had short auburn hair. She looked just like that woman he’d met in the inn on the way to Camelot.

  “Welcome to the Otherworld,” she said.

  * * *

  • • •

  The inn’s roof split open overhead and its walls fell outward in all four directions like a box unfolding, revealing a vast blue sky striped like a trout with golden-pink sunset clouds. Collum threw his arms over his head.

  “God’s knees!” he shouted. “And toes and bollocks! What in God’s Hell is this?”

  “The Otherworld,” the barmaid said pleasantly. “As I think I said. God’s Hell is the next world over.”

  “Send me back! Now!”

  “No.”

  “Please! I can’t be here!”

  The woman wasn’t a barmaid anymore. She now wore a long emerald silk dress trimmed in gold, fit for a queen, and a gold circlet on her head.

  Collum looked around wildly for an exit, but what was left of the tavern was now floating on water. He was on a peaceful river. The collapsed walls were floating away on its glassy surface, and the floor had become a raft. Now that he looked at it the whole place had been as thin and unconvincing as a stage set. The other customers were just painted silhouettes. It was never real at all. How could he not have noticed?

  “Please!” He put his hands together imploringly. “It’s not too late!”

  “Oh, but it is. It has been for quite some time.”

  Collum turned around and kept turning, trying and failing to get his bearings. When had he stumbled, all unknowing, across the invisible border? Beyond the banks of the river, smooth plains stretched out in all directions. A distant tower loomed. The rust-colored light of a setting fairy sun was smeared out across more rivers, striping the land as far as the horizon.

  He’d always pictured the Otherworld as something more in the way of a misty forest, or for that matter a glass castle. It was the flattest place he’d ever seen.

  You’re a knight of Britain, he thought, show some spine.

  “I don’t think we were ever properly introduced,” he said. “I’m Sir Collum of the Out Isles.”

  “Sir Collum is it now? Well, congratulations. My name is Morgan. People call me le Fay.”

  He hung on to his composure, but inside him the world fell apart all over again. He’d gone through the ice and sunk deep in the cold, cold water, and now the sea monsters had arrived to devour him.

  “I am honored to meet you,” he said weakly. He sketched an unsteady bow. “My lady.”

  “I’m not your lady, I’m a queen. You may call me ‘Your Majesty.’ ”

  “Beg pardon,” he said meekly. “Your Majesty. Why am I here?”

  “As I understand it, you’re looking for a knight of the Round Table.”

  “I—you mean the knight we’re looking for is here? In the Otherworld?”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  A swarm of bees came humming down out of the sky and circled the raft. I’ve fallen into the Otherworld, Collum thought, but I’m still on the quest. All is not lost, or not yet. I just have to keep going.

  “Where is he?”

  “Well, I’m not just going to tell you, you have to look for him. Isn’t that how you knights play your game?”

  “It’s not a game!”

  “People always say that, right up until they lose.” Morgan le Fay sounded even less charmed by him than she had been at the inn. “As much as I revel in your wit and wisdom, Sir Collum, I’m wanted elsewhere. Just stay on the raft, if you know what’s good for you.”

  The bees circled Morgan three times, and on the third circuit she vanished.

  He wasn’t sure if he was better off with or without her, but at least now he didn’t have to make conversation. He could concentrate on finding the knight—Bors, Aglovale, Tor, whoever it turned out to be—and bringing him back home. If Morgan expected Collum to scamper around the Otherworld looking for him like a prize in a scavenger hunt, well, he wasn’t too proud to do it.

  A mild current took hold of the raft, swirling and spinning it downstream. Collum caught snatches of music in the far distance, discordant chromatic scribblings. What he had thought was a distant tower suddenly moved and scratched itself thoughtfully, and he realized it was actually an enormous man, fifty feet tall at least. A giant. He wasn’t stomping around smashing things like giants were supposed to do. Collum wondered if it was true what Father Conall said, that the race of giants had been fathered long ago by angels who lay with human women. He didn’t look especially angelic.

  The river gathered strength and purpose, pushing him along at a steady clip. Good. The faster the better. Carefully he lowered himself onto the bench, the last remnant of the inn, staying well away from the edges. Deep rivers were the implacable enemy of armored knights.

  A road ran along beside it, and soon Collum was overtaking a file of soldiers in dusty mail marching in two clanking, jingling columns. Their sandals slapped the ground loosely, and their long pikes pointed every which way. One soldier bore a battered battle standard with a weary eagle on top.

  “Good evening!” Collum called.

  “Is it?” The man at the head of the file looked round at him from under a studded silver helmet with a nose guard. He squinted—he had a twitchy eye. “Can’t tell if it’s morning or evening in this damned place. Servius Oppius, Optio, First Cohort, Twentieth Valeria Victrix legion.”

  “You’re—are you soldiers of Rome?”

  “Where else?”

  Collum couldn’t believe he was seeing them with his own eyes. These were the great ones, the vanished fathers, who’d brought the fire of civilization to Britain and then left it to gutter out again. But civilization hadn’t saved them from the Otherworld. They must’ve wandered into it like him and been lost ever since.

  “The Picts are on the move,” the officer said. “They’ll be over the Wall by now. We have to get word to Eboracum. We started out from Aesica this morning and we’ve been marching in circles ever since, years it feels like! Can you point me the way to Epiacum?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know where that is.”

  “Cocksucking Hades. They must think we’re a lost legion by now.”

  For them it’s still the old days, Collum thought. They must still think the empire will go on forever. Just like he’d thought Arthur’s would, till a few days ago.

  “That medal round your neck.” The officer fixed his twitchy eye on it. “Where’d you get it?”

  “What, this?” Collum put a hand on it protectively. “Why? What is it?”

  “You can’t wear that. Against regulations. Give it here.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The raft was moving faster than the soldiers could march. He was already leaving them behind.

  “Look, just get word to the Dux!” The Roman had to shout to be heard across the widening gap. “First Cohort, Twentieth Valeria Victrix! Tell him we’re not lost!”

  Collum watched the soldiers till they disappeared. There was nothing he could do, and he had his own quest to finish. They would have to make their own way. See how they liked being abandoned for a change.

  The sun still hovered at the horizon like it was nailed to the sky, a perfect semicircle, either half set or half risen. No wonder the Roman couldn’t tell what time it was, it must be always in between here, neither day nor night. Collum knelt on the raft and prayed, though it was hard to believe God could hear him all the way from the Otherworld. His prayers were greeted with an even more resounding silence than usual.

  A soft wind blew, feathering the surface of the water and bringing with it a flight of dead leaves. The river wound into a deep forest of oaks, black branches that were so low in places he had to duck.

  A big knight on a black horse hove into view, trotting smartly along the bank on a narrow path, his shield showing a turning mill and two scarlet bands. Searching brown eyes set in pale crow’s-feet peered out through his open visor. The knight rode with his bare sword in his hand, and his helmet had the stub of what must once have been a purple plume on it, ripped off near the base.

  “Ho there!” he shouted heartily. “What news, Sir-on-the-Raft?”

  “Ho there! My name is Sir Collum! I seek a knight of the Round Table!”

  “You have found one, Sir Collum! But I mean what news of the Grail, sir? I am Sir Ganadal of the Cold Hills, and I have sought it these many months now.”

  Collum knew the name. From Bryneich, respectable knight. Couple of tournament wins, and he’d killed a griffin once. But Collum didn’t think this could be the knight they were looking for. He’d disappeared years ago, on the Grail Quest.

  “I have good news, Sir Ganadal!” Collum called. “The Grail has been found!”

  Like the centurion, the knight seemed not to really hear him.

  “I have seen strange things. Silver dragons that scored white lines across the sky. Steel cages with men inside, that moved of themselves. In Gorre I saw a man kill a damsel, swapped her head right off and threw it in a fountain. I slew him in turn, but then my sword froze to my palm, and now I cannot put it down! I sleep with it in my hand! Do you know the meaning?”

  Collum shook his head.

  “But listen to me, the Grail was found! The quest is done!”

  “What?”

  “They found the Grail! Bors and Galahad and Percival!”

  “Where?!”

  “Corbenic.”

  “Well, where the hell is that?!” Sir Ganadal said indignantly. He urged his mount to a trot to keep up with Collum.

  “It’s an island off Listenois. I think. But the quest is over!”

  “But I’ve searched for years! Buried my squire by the roadside!” Sir Ganadal kept his eyes carefully on the path, which was narrow and ran perilously close to the river’s edge. “Was it all for nothing?”

  “I’m sure not, Sir Ganadal! It’s all part of God’s plan!”

  He didn’t know what else to say. He was overtaking him, too, like the Roman soldiers.

  “Hast seen the knight of Three Scepters?” Sir Ganadal called. “Hold a little, I would speak with you!”

  “I can’t, I’m sorry! But who is the knight of Three Scepters?”

  “Please, you must lead me out of this place! Help me find Camelot again!” Despair cracked Sir Ganadal’s voice, and he let out a sob. “It’s not a quest, it’s a massacre! God is tearing us to pieces! Tell the king! God in Heaven, I never should have come!”

  But the water was quickening, rustling and muttering and growing little standing waves, stealing Collum away faster and faster.

  “I’m sorry! I wish you well! God will provide!”

  “Wait, damn your eyes! Wait! Whoa!”

  Ganadal’s mount missed its footing on the path and stumbled. Its balance lost, it made a furious leap out over the water in a hopeless attempt to reach the far side, then splashed down thunderously into the river.

  “Sir Ganadal! Ganadal!”

  The horse slewed over on its side, legs working furiously, churning up foam, dumping Sir Ganadal into the water in his armor, heavy and ungainly as a statue. He made no sound as the black water swallowed him. The last Collum saw of him was his cursed sword, still stuck in his hand, till even that disappeared.

  The current bore Collum around a bend, drawing a veil over whatever happened next. He sat down on the raft again and shivered and hugged his knees, blinking away tears.

  “Damn it,” he said. “God damn this place.”

  He was cold. His mouth felt gummy and dry, and the dark water looked inviting, but he didn’t drink it. Where did your soul go if you died here? He hoped Ganadal would have some reward for his years of wandering. Something must’ve gone wrong on the Grail Quest. There must have been a price to pay, a high one, something that wasn’t part of the stories the smith told him. But what?

  Not that this current quest was going very well either. A deep clinging mist closed in, hiding the overripe, low-hanging sun and beading on his cold armor. He heard the baying of hounds, and the winding of a distant horn:

  Roooooooooo! Barooo barooooooooooo!

  He wondered if the others were here too, somewhere, or if he was the only one stupid enough to get trapped in the Otherworld. Maybe the Otherworld had stalked them like a lion and picked off the weakest of the herd. The river flowed through an orchard, trees with huge, grotesquely swollen buds the size of ducks, and into a fairy city.

  The buildings were packed in tight and stretched to enormous heights, story after story, impossible steeples, crazily precarious, a city reflected in a convex mirror. The river was running along an aqueduct now, raised high above the streets. Gray ocean filled them, swirling around the bases of the towers, so far below it looked like it was moving in slow motion, and Collum could look down and see drowned squares and avenues and houses. He smelled the tang of ocean fog. Something told him he would have to find a way off this raft soon.

  The distant sound of men’s shouts and the unmistakable off-key clanking of steel on steel were so familiar in this strange place that Collum’s head whipped around like a dog hearing its master’s voice. There—on a terrace not a quarter mile away three knights were fighting, orange sun touching dull steel plates and bright blades.

  Bedivere, Scipio, and Dinadan. No sign of Palomides.

  They faced three fairy knights. They were the first fairies Collum had ever seen, assuming Morgan le Fay still counted as fully human, and they were stranger than he expected. Bedivere’s opponent looked like a small, wiry woman, but in place of her hair a cloud of dense black smoke hung around her head. Scipio’s had a frog’s head, goat’s legs, and a fluffy bunny tail. Dinadan’s seemed to be made out of sheaves of wheat. All three wore deep-green armor. Their weapons were curious, oddly curved and too thin. The frogman’s was red and translucent, as if it were made from cut ruby, and the wheat fairy’s flickered in and out of visibility when struck.

  Alarums and Excursions, Volume Seventy-Seven, Appendix Ex Ex Eye, in which odds are evened and quarter is given, but no halves or thirds.

  It was Morgan le Fay’s voice, calm and neutral. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, but she herself was nowhere to be seen. The words flirted with sense but didn’t quite make it, and Collum ignored them, staring longingly at the mêlée. A fight, that’s what he needed. Enough of this damned drifting.

  There was something utterly honest about a person in a fight. You could lie with words, but swords, like angels, could only speak the truth. In the face of death you could only be who you were. Bedivere was a dancer. Big as he was, he was light on his feet, quick and deft. He fought not with a sword but with a massive war hammer with a spike on the back that looked too heavy to lift, let alone swing and twirl the way he was doing. Whereas Dinadan was water, a breaking wave, bending and curving, always moving and somehow never where his opponent’s blade was. There was nothing funny about him now. His style was like nothing Collum had ever seen—no discrete moves or stances at all, it all flowed together. Now that he’d seen fairy weapons, Collum realized that Dinadan’s must be one too.