The Thirteenth Skull

“Maybe it’s simpler than that,” I said.

The sun was setting over the Atlantic and the chalkboard-gray had changed to burnished gold. The shining patina hid a world teaming with life, fantastic creatures for whom our world above was deadly. Predators and prey, from the microscopic to the huge—the sea was empty and chokingly full. In my dreams lately, it was full of dragons.

“Like Lancelot upon the Plain,” Vosch said, “he marches to the drumbeat of his sin, toward his certain doom.”

“Who said that?” I asked.

He smiled. “I did.”

TINTAGEL, CORNWALL, U.K.

THE CASTLE CAMELOT

00:06:35:10

The ruins clustered near the cliff’s edge gleamed in the moonlight. You could hear the surf crashing into the rocks three hundred feet below. There was a storm far out at sea; you could see the dark line of clouds on the western horizon and the flicker of lightning, though it was so far away you couldn’t hear the thunder.

The stones were white, worn down from a thousand years of sun and wind and rain. They stuck out from the ground like the huge, discarded teeth of a giant. Here great halls once stood, courtyards and chambers with vast, cathedral ceilings and, somewhere in the rubble, a great hall with a round table in the middle of it, and around that table sat a king and his knights, including the bravest in the kingdom, his best friend and my ancestor, whose disloyalty would lead to the crumbling of the white stones and the death of the king he loved.

It was midnight and Camelot was deserted.

“Where’s Jourdain?” I asked.

“You know where he is,” Vosch answered.

Of course I knew. Flat-Face II and Weasel stayed in the Land Rover while Vosch and I descended the steps cut into the cliff side. On the eastern shore of the inlet the mouth of a cave yawned toward the open ocean and the silent, raging storm.

We entered Merlin’s Cave. Torches burned along one wall, throwing our shadows across the floor and against the opposite wall of the chamber, where a collection of human skulls sat grinning, grouped in a circle on a natural ledge about chest high.

“What are those?” I asked, horrified.

“Can you not guess by now?” Vosch asked.

Shadows danced in the empty eye sockets, creating the illusion that the skulls still had life—that they were looking back at me as I stood still, shivering, looking at them, while the wind whistled and howled through unseen cracks and fissures in the stone.

“They are the Knights of the Sacred Order, Alfred. There is Windimar of Suedberg. There is Bellot of St. Etienne. And that one is Cambon of Sicily. The ones closest to you are the remains of Lord Bennacio and of course, your father, the great Bernard Samson, heir to Lancelot.”

So that’s what Jourdain was doing in Pennsylvania: the same thing he did in Knoxville. Digging up the knights and taking their heads.

I counted the skulls. Twelve. I remember my father’s words, spoken so long ago in Uncle Farrell’s apartment. Only twelve of us are left now . . .

Behind me, Vosch said, “You’ll note there is room for one more in the center, in the place of honor.”

The last knightly quest . . . for the Thirteenth Skull.

“That would be my spot,” I said. “I’m the Thirteenth Skull.”

No wonder Vosch had laughed at me on the plane. I was a lot of things, but one thing I wasn’t was a myth. Jourdain wasn’t searching for a magical crystal skull carved by Merlin. That had nothing to do with this. Just like SOFIA was no goddess at the left hand of God, Alfred Kropp was no Skull of Doom.

Vosch put his arm around my shoulders, as if he wanted to comfort me. The gesture was so over the top and obscene that I felt my stomach do a slow roll.

I shrugged his arm away and said, “I wasn’t part of the Order. I didn’t even know he was my father until after he was dead. I don’t belong with them.”

Plus I was responsible: I took the Sword and gave it to Jourdain’s father and that’s why they died. Putting my skull inside the circle of skulls belonging to the last twelve knights on earth, knights who died trying to right my wrong—talk about obscene gestures!

Vosch faded into the shadows. After a minute he came back holding a long, thin object wrapped in white satin. He tugged on one corner and the fabric fell away.

“A parting gift,” he said, offering me the black sword I had left in Knoxville. “From the faithful Alphonso Needlemier.”

I took the sword. The torchlight skittered along the blade. The sword of the last knight, whose skull stared at me now from its stone perch.

“You know,” I said. “It would have been a lot simpler to chop off my head in Montana.”

“Simpler . . . but not nearly as poetic!”

He took me by the elbow and led me toward the back of the cave. Our shadows stretched out in front of us and twisted up the back wall.

He didn’t have to lead me; I knew the way. I had gone down this path before. We reached the fissure in the stone, the opening to the passageway that descended to the hidden chamber where I had first used Bennacio’s sword in defense of the world.

Vosch stopped at the opening. “And now I must say goodbye, Alfred. You won’t be seeing me again.”

I looked over his shoulder at the skulls on the wall. I wouldn’t be seeing him, but he would be seeing me.

He followed my gaze. “Can you think of a more fitting resting place, Alfred? Here, beneath the symbol of all they held dear, in the last refuge of the wizard who seduced a farm boy into believing he could create perfection on earth. And, tonight, the circle comes round: Lancelot brought down the walls there above and now his last son pays for their fall here below. Of course you belong here. Of course you do!”

I stepped into the passageway. Vosch called softly behind me, “Adieu, adieu, Alfred Kropp! ‘An orphan’s curse would drag to hell/A spirit from on high;/But oh! more horrible than that/ Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!’ ”

Rock crunched beneath my feet. The way down was very narrow in places, forcing me to turn sideways and shuffle carefully between outcropping of razor-sharp stone. The walls wept with moisture and the wind whistling from the entrance chamber became a high-pitched wail: the cries of Merlin’s ghost for the kingdom love had lost. I touched the sharp stones with my fingertips and thought of dragons’ teeth. The opening behind me was the lips and I was in its mouth, heading for its gullet.

I reached the opening to the main chamber. A year ago I had died in there, the belly of the dragon. But, like a year ago, I didn’t see what choice I had. None of it was going to stop unless I did something to stop it. I didn’t ask for it, but I had it and, like Nueve said, what I had was a gift, not a treasure. Treasures you hoard away. Gifts you don’t.