The DeathKnight
In the dark of a damp, subterranean cavern, a metal-plated knight heaved a depressed sigh. His armor clinked and clanked as he sat down on the only rock without a profuse amount of mold growing on it. He slumped, resting his rusty gloves lazily on the hilt of his immaculate, bejeweled sword.
Dark. Black. Wet. Silent. All things in this cave were bleak and miserable, completely devoid of hope or any hint of escape. This musty underground chamber was the knight’s eternal tomb, yet he was cursed as an immortal, a decaying Deathknight, unable to live or die.
The knight chuckled at the irony of his predicament. The low rumble from his chest rebounded off the wet cave walls. Here he would remain, in this eternal dark, as punishment for betraying the King of Knights, Arthur Pendragon.
He could still hear that vile sorceress, Morgana, singing wicked words that spun like honey in his ears. Her promises of delicious power and revenge. How enticing they had been, those wicked, honeyed words. Like a flytrap for his soul, he nodded, obeyed, and betrayed his king. And then watched as the witch betrayed him in turn, cursing and trapping him within the confines of this ancient ruin for all time.
The knight sighed again. The sound rushed to every crevice and corner of the cave, bouncing off the weathered stones and statues of the long-forgotten druidic temple.
He flexed his bony, fleshless fingers in one of his rusted metal gloves and ran it up the length of his sacred sword. Though his armor and flesh had deteriorated over the ages, at least his blade remained as pristine and unblemished as ever. If there were light in this cave, it would probably shine with the radiance of a thousand silver coins. The knight could tell by the way his hand ran smoothly over its sharp edges, as there were no obstructions, grooves, chips or divets in the length of the blade. When he reached the pointed end, the metal hummed a silvery song, singing its sharp and deadly melody.
Smiling with pride, he spoke to the sword as if it were a sentient companion, “At least one of us still retains glory, old friend.”
The knight glanced into the dark around him. How long had he been trapped in the musty, wet dark of this dismal cave? Judging by the moist cobwebs in his ribcage he figured at least a few centuries, but there was no accurate method available to him for calculating certainty. Without the sun, his only means of tracking the passage of days and years were ever-growing stalagmites and stalactites. His best guess? A very, very, VERY long time.
The knight retreated deep within his own mind (as he was accustomed to doing these days) to distract himself. Vast was the library of his thoughts, and he imagined his various memories as neatly organized rows of books like those kept in Merlin’s library. He walked dutiously through the shelves, searching for a memory to entertain him and fill the void in his soul.
He passed a section titled “Past Lovers” and shook his head. No, definitely not one of those memories – there were far too many volumes on Guinevere, and all they made him feel was pain and guilt.
He paused at another section titled “Glorious Battles and Knighthood.” This section was a possibility. Reliving all those fights side-by-side with Arthur and his fellow knights would bring him joy, but it would likely leave him with heartache. He plucked a memory off the shelf and let it play out in front of him.
A warm sensation washed over him as he remembered the warmth of daylight in the land of his king, the land of Brittany. How he longed to return to the days of chivalry and knighthood with his brothers-in-arms, seated together in honor and fortitude at the Round Tabl–.
A pickaxe broke through a nearby cave wall, paving the way for the first vectors of light the knight, the cave, and the temple had seen since they were trapped beneath the earth.
“It’s over here!” An excited voice cried out. “I found it! I found it!”
Dozens of pickaxes began hammering away at the stone wall, opening a path for more light to pour into the chamber. If the knight still had his eyes, they would be wide with shock and amazement right about now. But the knight simply crouched behind a large boulder and watched the intruders with curiosity and caution.
A group of men wearing shiny lights on their heads broke through the opening and create a walkable path into the cave. The knight stared at their helmets with fascination, creeping closer to investigate. One of the men pressed a switch on his helmet and his light became even brighter.
“Oh my god.” One of the men said, shining his head light on the entrance to the druidic temple. The silent statues and carvings stared back at them like ghosts of a bygone age. Each told a deafening story with their etchings and markings, as if they were the last existing proof of an erased people from long, long ago.
“Andy, send word to the Tower of Merlin.” The man said. “Let ‘em know we found the temple.” The other men in his group started cheering, whistling, and slapping hands.
One of the men whistled back towards the opening in the cave. A few scribes and scholars rush into the chamber carrying parchment and what looked like strange boxes and mechanisms. They began furiously holding them out to each structure as the boxes let out flashes of light followed by loud “click” sounds.
“Photograph and document everything!” One of the men said. “Archaeologists and linguists, work together and get to translating those glyphs.”
Slowly, the men moved further inward into the cave, towards the center of the temple. The downward stairs of the structure brought them lower into the cave’s depths with every step.
“How far down do you think we are, Martin?” A short man asked the leader of the group. “Any lower and we could be at the gates of Hell for all we know.”
“Don’t be goin’ soft on me now. The sword should be here.” The lead man said to the group behind him. “Let's get it and get the hell out. Spread out and start setting up lights. I want this site up and ready for excavation within the hour.”
They know about the sword? The knight thought, glancing down at his blade. He would have liked to talk with these strange men a bit, but if he revealed himself and they caught sight of his blade…
A piece of the knight’s crumbling armor broke off and fell down into the middle of the group of men.
They all jumped and turned to face the sudden sound. One of them raised his headlamp, but what stared back at the men was a ghastly, rusting skeleton knight with glowing, blue flames where its eyes should be. The men all screamed in terror.
“It–it has the sword!” One of the men yelled, pointing. Back at the entrance where the men first entered, the knight heard the scrambling and shouting of dozens of others heading his way.
Damn. The knight sprung into action, throwing his sword like a spear, impaling the screaming man through the chest. Blood sprayed from the open wound, staining to the cavern floor in a deep crimson. The other men shrieked in horror and fear.
One of them grabbed the hilt of the blade, completely ignoring his dying companion attached to it, "I've got it! I've got the sword!"
With a beckon of his hand, the sacred sword pulled itself free of the man’s fingers and flew back into the knight’s grip. The men gathered and circled him like a pack of ravenous wolves.
“Indeed. This is Arondight, the sacred sword gifted to me by the Lady of the Lake.” The knight said as he flicked the dead man’s blood from the blade. He gripped the large sword hilt tightly with both hands, preparing to fight. “Rest assured, I will bring swift death to any who try to take it from me."
--
“What are these strange contraptions?” The knight said, holding up a thin, pointed object. His thumb grazed the soft end, letting out a “click” sound. Out of the pointed end of the device, a tiny gray cylinder sprouted.
“Fascinating!” The knight exclaimed, clicking the object more and more until a long string of the gray cylinder protruded from the point.
He dove back into one of the supply bags of a dead scholar, surrounded by the cold corpses of the explorer men. Oddly-shaped writing utensils, tools, and implements fell out of its sides and onto the cave floor.
A small pebble rolled out of the clenched fist of a dead explorer. It clattered on the ground, catching the knight’s attention. It glowed a faint, deep blue. The colour of magic. He picked up the pebble and examined it. It resembled a portal stone that Merlin once used to transport Arthur’s armies into battle, only much smaller.
If this truly was a portal stone, it could take him anywhere in the world. In an instant, he knew his destination.
"Take me to the witch that cursed me." The knight snarled.
Suddenly, a portal opened in the space in front of him. Its silhouetted blue ripples tore at the fabric of time and space like a window suspended in the air. He stepped through the portal into a small, fenced-in garden behind what looked like a large, square cottage made of coloured wood. There were dozens of these cottages all in a row next to each other all around him, each with their own fence barriers around the perimeter and furnishings inside. A cold wind passed through his armor, letting out a hollow sound as it echoed through his bones. Overhead, seagulls cawed and drifted up and down on the wind’s current. The salty scent of the sea hung thick in the air. On the back of the cottage just above the door sat a sign with the letters “I <3 Red Cove.”
“Red...Cove?” The knight thought out loud. What a strange phrase. The portal behind him quietly closed without making a sound.
A hound from the next cottage over barked at the knight, wagging its tail erratically as it jumped up on the fence. The knight jumped and fell back on his ass, startled by the sound and the sights around him. Light of the morning sun bounced off the windows of the cottages and blinded the knight’s vision.
“By the sacred grove! What sorcery is this?!” The knight exclaimed, shielding his eyes from the wicked light magic.
“Oh my!” The knight heard a familiar voice gasp. The words sang to him like honey...
He looked up into the face of an elderly woman wearing a large straw hat, long blouse, gloves, and an apron. Dirt covered her gloves and apron, but the text written across her front was clearly legible. It read, “Witch, please.”
The woman’s piercing blue eyes registered the knight’s form as if she immediately recognized him. A coy eyebrow raised on her wrinkled face as she placed both hands on her hips. He no longer had a face of flesh, so by all accounts the knight appeared as no more than a walking, talking skeleton in a rusted suit of armor. And yet, the woman smiled at him sadly as if she were finally reunited with a long lost friend.
“Hello, Lancelot.”
Copyright © James Schleisman 2019 All Rights Reserved.
