The Clubhouse was a mess. And slightly on fire. Sir Lance emerged through a doorway with Gwen held in an armlock. ‘Move,’ he said coldly to her.

‘Lance? I don’t understand. You said—’

‘And you believed me? More fool you.’

Tears rolled down Gwen’s cheeks. ‘You never said a truer word.’

The Boy rolled into a spinning stop out of the whoosh of fairy travel. ‘Hold it – right … there …’ he said, as he tried to get his balance back again.

‘You! How did you survive! I should have thrown you into space when I had the chance!’

Gwen took advantage of the distraction to try to break free. The knight stuck out a metal-booted foot.

‘Aah!’

The Boy rushed over. ‘Are you all right?’

Her face didn’t look it. ‘My ankle,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if I can walk.’

The Boy turned to face Lance with his hands curling into fists.

That was when he noticed that Lance wasn’t wearing his helmet, and there was a strange glow in his eyes.

 ‘I’m going to destroy you, boy. And then I’m going to unmake this place. Places like this should not exist. And soon, nor will you …’ Lance drew back a gauntleted fist and swung. This time the Boy didn’t go down like a sack of lemons. He just crumpled.

There was a scream from the clubhouse, and everything went black …

*

He woke up lying somewhere soft.

It was the carpet of the clubhouse bar.

He opened one eye – the other didn’t seem to want to. The blur in front of him resolved into a figure brushing its long dark hair out of its face, looking down at him and looking worried.

‘Morgana?’ he asked.

She smiled weakly. ‘I told you,’ she said, ‘it’s Morgan to my friends.’ She sounded like she was about to cry.

‘What’s … what’s happening?’ he said. His voice sounded oddly slurred.

‘Oh, the usual. You know. Lance is trying to destroy this dimension. He’s kidnapped Lady Gwen. Oh, and he’s done something to the doors. So none of the other knights can get back here. I think he may be possessed.’

‘Why’s he … ?’

‘… want to destroy everything? Something’s found its way into his head. An Ideaemon, I think they’re called. Merlin was always so much better at this than me.’

‘Merlin? Merlin’s real?’

For the first time since he’d got back, a look of genuine amusement twinkled in her eyes. ‘Boy,’ she said, gently. ‘What do I look like? Scotch mist?’

‘Sorry … I …’

‘It’s okay,’ she said softly. She ran a hand over his head, and he winced, and her face shut down a moment. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t kill you. Hitting an unarmoured man with a gauntlet on his hand. And Lance, whatever else he may be, was always strong. I mean, he was always … well, Lance, but I think the Ideaemon has taken over.’

‘What’s an … what is an … one of those things?’

‘An Ideaemon? Sort of like a cross between,’ she waved her hands about, ‘like a mad idea and a daemon. They take over people’s heads sometimes. Find ways in and bring more of their own kind in, I shouldn’t be surprised. Destroy everything around them. You’ve heard of the Dark Ages? The Fall of Camelot?’

‘Sort of. I can’t seem to think so clearly.’

‘That’s why you’ve got to rest. Don’t move about so much. It’s all right. I’ll look after you. He can’t get in here again. Not while the Ideaemon is still inside his head. I’ve activated the wards.’ She sighed. ‘Better late than never.’

‘Can we …’ the words were hard to form, ‘can we do anything?’

‘Not much,’ she said. ‘It’s part of my deal here. I get to work behind the bar, but I don’t have many of my powers. I can’t open the ways again.’

‘Is …’ He frowned. ‘What happened to Gwen?’

Morgana sighed even more deeply. ‘I tried to warn her about him. This is the Dark Times all over again. He’s carried her off. I think the Ideaemon means to use her to help unravel time and space around here. Or whatever else it’s got on its twisted mind.’

She paused, her expression darkening with every passing moment. ‘Do you know how many people died, how many lives were ruined or destroyed altogether the last time one of those managed to open a gateway for all its little friends?’

Suddenly Morgana just seemed very, very tired, and somehow, older.

‘Don’t!’ she said, putting a hand on his shoulder warningly.

 ‘I’ve got to,’ said the Boy, struggling up – and then falling back down again. .

‘You mustn’t move. You’ll kill yourself!’

‘Please – help me stop him.’

Morgan looked tearful. ‘I could get us out of here, you know. We could go somewhere. I think my old motorcycle still works. We could fly out of here.’

‘But what about everyone else, the world – wait, motorcycle?’

Morgana blushed. ‘Sometimes a girl just – have you ever seen something and it just felt right? Besides, it’s fun to fly up to the diner and get a chocolate malt sometimes on my days off.’

She sniffed. ‘But I don’t suppose …’ She looked at him. ‘You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You’re going to try and stop him.’

She murmured something under her breath which he didn’t quite catch and then wiped her eyes on a sleeve. She reached out for his hand and held it a moment, then nodded, as if reaching a decision. ‘What can I do to help? And why are you grinning at me like that?’

‘I think I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘I’ll need your help. And probably the faeries.’

Morgana smiled back. ‘Now you’re talking my language. They don’t call me Morgana le Fae for nothing, you know. What’s the plan?’

He told her.

She shook her head. Then she grinned. ‘Why do I begin to suspect you have more hidden depths than a magic lake?’

‘Can you – is there something you can give me to help me move?’

‘I can mix you something up. But you realise, I’m no good in a battle anymore. I gave up my powers a long time ago.’ She looked down at him. ‘You do know,’ she said softly, ‘even if you beat him, the strain will probably kill you?’

He tried to smile bravely. It came off as a wince. ‘Where I was before I got here, that was probably going to happen anyway. Morgan,’ he said. ‘… I’m glad you’re my friend.’

‘Me too,’ said Morgan. ‘Come on, let’s get you moving. I still have a few tricks left up my sleeve.’

She helped him gingerly to his feet, as if she was afraid he might shatter to pieces before she could do anything.

*

The faeries floated in formation in the warded area around the clubhouse.

‘Listen up, all you knuckleheads,’ a tiny voice was saying, ‘friend Boy needs our help. Are we going to let him down now?’

There was a tiny chorus of ‘No!’s, though also a few ‘Who?’s and ‘Why are we here, again?’s.

‘I heard that. Don’t make me fly over there! Get ready to move out!’

*

The Boy staggered out onto the terrace. Morgana had given him a potion to help him keep going. He didn’t like to ask what was in it, but she’d seemed to enjoy making it. He just hoped it was non-alcoholic, that was all – he needed a clear head.

He wasn’t entirely sure where to find Lance and Gwen, but he had a suspicion or two.

Namely that it might be a good idea to start looking over by that big glowing vortex near the lake.

‘Wait!’ said a voice. It was Morgana. ‘Are you sure about this?’

For a moment he was suddenly inside his own memory. Long years of being lost without hope, where no one had any kind of use for him. And now, as if it was meant to be, he was being presented with a chance to do something worthwhile.

Or something that needed doing, anyway.

He was sure it was worthwhile, too, but everything was a bit numb and hard to sense at the moment. Might have been him, might have been the potion.

‘What if I’m the only one who can?’ he asked.

Morgana looked at him, lip trembling. ‘Come back safe, do you hear? Or … just don’t let yourself get killed.’

As she stepped back inside, the air around the clubhouse up to a few yards out glowed solid and crackly and pale blue for a moment.

The Boy crossed the threshold of the Inner Wards and set out towards the lake and the vortex. His steps had an oddly final feel to them, like somewhere in his thoughts there was music playing from some unseen band. A last march, into the unknown – and the final battle.

As he walked, he had time to think. Never thought it was going to end this way, was what he thought.

It was almost a relief. Being killed in battle fighting for maiden fair was at least traditional. Maybe it’d count for something at last at the pearly gates. If there was enough left of him to count, he thought, eyeing the swirling vortex – spirals of dark purple and what he’d swear was negative light or “absolute darkness” were spiralling into it out of the void somewhere. Certainly they couldn’t be coming from surrounding space. Up there, it was the Och Aye Nebula as far as the eye could see.

Forward into battle, like the knights of yore … See, Arthur’s banner – flying as before …

*

Gwen was tied to a tree. There was no sign of Lance. There was a kind of circle gouged out of the turf. That was what the vortex was spinning out of into the sky above. He noticed that the outer edges of the Links – those he could see, anyway, up around the mountains and the outer hills – were getting … kind of grey. Like the colour and life was being sucked out of them and into the dark vortex.

‘Watch out!’ called Gwen. But he’d been ready. He swung around as Lance drew a sword and brought it whistling towards him.

Lance looked kind of miffed when it turned into a golf club as it struck the one the Boy raised to meet it.

‘What!?’ Lance’s voice seemed to have gone all echoey and abyssal, like it was coming from somewhere far away and not terribly pleasant. ‘You know, this is just what I hate about this place! Nobody ever takes anything seriously!’

He swung at the boy’s head again.

He just managed to parry it with his own club, but it jarred his funny bone.

‘Sir Lance,’ he began, ‘Knight of the Course …’

‘You stupid boy,’ came the echoey dark voice again, ‘I am so much more than Sir Lance now. I am rising. I will be as a god!’

As if to reinforce this, some of the clouds swirling round the vortex let out a burst of dark lightning which crackled into Lance and surrounded him with an aura of whispering bolts of electricity.

‘… Kn-knight of the course,’ he said again. ‘I challenge you.’

‘Challenge me? Oh, boy, you have no idea … soon I will be more powerful than Arthur and all his knights ever were. And when I am, your world and all that is in it will be mine. The old order, the old ages, the old world will be swept away! Camelot was just the beginning! And you – you think you can defeat me?’ The Knight Formerly Known as Lance laughed. It was clear “Lance” didn’t live there anymore. Something Else did – why, those capital letters practically dripped with Forgotten Evil.

‘I challenge you,’ the Boy repeated, remembering what Morgana had told him when he’d asked. ‘The form that holds you in this place is still that of Sir Lance, a Knight of the Course.’ He raised the club, gripping it by near the club part and holding it aloft like a knight would hold a banner. It glowed with white light and, here and there, a twinkle of blue. The amulet under his shirt glowed with it. He could feel the cool warmth of it.

A bolt of dark lightning smashed him to the ground.

The Lance Ideaemon grinned, and walked over to where the Lady Gwen struggled furiously against the bindings holding her to the tree. ‘You see – the Links will fall. And you will help me do it.’

‘Never!’ she screamed. ‘Get away from me!’

‘And whyever should I do that?’

‘Because I said so,’ said a voice behind him.

The boy was staggering to his feet again. The amulet under his shirt was smoking and the golf club disintegrated in his hands as he rose, but he was still standing. Just about.

The Ideaemon laughed again. That horrible abyssal laugh. ‘This is just too delicious.’ It called up to the sky, ‘Is this all that is left to oppose me? A boy – no good to anyone or anything – and the love of a dead king.’

‘He is not dead!’ said Gwen. ‘He lives always in my heart. Always. Do you hear me?’

‘Always, my love?’

‘Yes, always!’ she snarled in defiance. ‘If my Arthur were here, he’d destroy you!’

‘Arthur,’ it called, ‘oh, Arthur, wherefore art thou?’ It turned back to her, and its voice changed again: ‘I killed Arthur myself, love.’

He saw Gwen go pale as death. ‘You!’

‘So you finally recognise me at the last? I am Mordred, slayer of kings!’ The voice changed again. ‘I am Ideaemnos! Bow before me!’

‘I challenge you,’ said the boy again, calmly, from behind him.

‘Are you still here? Go away, boy. I may even let you live. The Lady Guenivere and I have a date with destiny. Together we will unmake this place.’

‘I challenge you,’ he said again. Only, this time, something started to change in the air. Mordred, né Ideaemnos, swung round. ‘Knight of the Course thou art, perjured and treacher, but still bound. I call upon thy oath.’

‘Nice try – but you are no knight. You have no standing to challenge me. Game over, boy.’

‘Not so fast. I am champion to the Lady Morgana, peer of the Round Table.’

‘And champion to me!’ called Gwen. She smiled at him.

‘No dice, boys and girls. The queen can have no champion but her precious long-lost Arthur. And as for that faded remnant behind the bar, her banishment still stands. She’s lucky she got off that easy –though if she did but know how I arranged it.’ It smirked. ‘And besides, you have no club with which to play.’

The boy looked down at the crumbling remains of the club Morgana had lent him.

The Universe loves a straight-line.

Yes, he does, said a voice of air and water.

An arm rose out of the lake. It held aloft what looked for a moment a bit like a sword, but soon resolved itself into …

‘It can’t be!’

The arm drew back and flung it and the boy raised his hand. It practically floated into his grip. Along the side it read: Ex Caliber: Niblickski No. 9.

He is mine, said the voice from out of the lake with an air of satisfaction. Game on.

*

It was the final hole. The flag fluttered wearily in the breeze from the vortex. It had come down to this. Sudden death.

Under the watchful eyes of the Faeries, Ideaemnos’s every shot had been carefully counted. There was no possibility of cheating. He had to play the game fair for once.

Ideaemnos hadn’t liked it, but the magic of the Links was a strong one. And possessing Sir Lance as its way in, it was bound. At least, as far as it could get away with.

But even so, it wasn’t as if the boy had ever played before. He was learning, and swaying, as he went – and half-dead besides. If he fell, he would forfeit. And the Lady Gwen would be the first to die, followed by all his friends.

He swayed in the breeze as he moved up to take his shot.

He could see Ideaemnos sweating.

Himself? He was praying: Please. Take me, if that’s what it takes, but please spare them. Spare Morgana and Gwen and Leilana. Spare the Links. And the Fluttering Tartan bar and grill. And the Och Aye Nebula. And … the world. They don’t deserve what Ideaemnos would do to them.

He felt a voice in his head: Why do they not deserve it? They bring it about. They acquiesce to all the little lies that make it possible. For what do you ask that they should be spared? They did not spare you. You are nothing to them.

A memory, the shadow of a memory, floating through all the head-trauma and amnesia and mystic time-travel complications and magical flim-flam spoke: For one who helped me, he thought forlornly, with his last breath of energy. For one who cared. And it wasn’t always like that. I remember, not so long ago, when it was all real. Help me save it. Please. For what once was. For one who cared when no one else would. … Hello?

There was a long silence from the voice. He guessed it wasn’t going to say anything more.

This was it. Do or die.

He felt it as he began to bring the club down. Like ghostly arms guiding his swing. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a figure made up of outlines of blue. She was wearing a scarf. She smiled at him.

The Ex Caliber Niblickski No. 9 struck true. The ball sailed towards the flag. It bounced on the fairway and rolled forward – slowly, slowly …

‘No!’ Ideaemnos ran after the ball.

A small shooting star whizzed past the boy’s head.

‘Leilana, no!’

A taller than average faery blocked Ideaemnos’s path just as he was nearing the still-moving ball.

‘Don’t you know it’s bad sportsmanship to pick up lost golf balls while they’re still rolling. Mark Twain told me that once,’ she said, grinning. She span round, bringing one leg up as she did.

Beside him, the Lady Gwen, released on her own recognizance for the duration of the match, winced.

‘She kicked him …’ the boy said, faintly.

‘Yep,’ said Gwen, nodding.

‘She kicked him where it hurts.’

Gwen nodded again. ‘Right in the illusions.’

The ball rolled home with a bouncing sound that seemed somehow amplified so that you could hear it all the way from there.

‘Leilana, get out of there, now!’

The faery didn’t need telling. She ran and leapt into the air in tiny form again and zipped over, as the vortex spiralled out of control towards Ideaemnos’s prostrate form.

‘Noooo! I was so close! This isn’t oooooverrrrrrr – yoooouuuuu haven’t heard the laaaast of meeeeeeeee— !’

There was a sound like the end of a milkshake beneath a searching straw, or the last swirl of water circling the bath plug, and the vortex was gone. Colour started returning to the world around them.

And the Boy fell forward onto the grass.

‘Friend Boy!’

To Be Continued … ?

[You Are Here –> Part 7, The Once and Future Swing.]

[Previous –> Part 6, Find the Lady.]

 [Part 5, Fairway to Avalon.]

[Part 4, The Friend of the Fae.]

[Part 3, A Knight of Course.] 

[Part 2, The Missing Links.]

[Back to the Beginning: Part 1, Tea Time.]