socalfunplaces Chapter 42 Knights of the Round Table
Chapter 42 Knights of the Round Table
The candles in the round table room had been burning for half an hour.
Arthur stood before the round table, with five knights on either side. The lord of the North leaned against the door, still munching on a piece of dry bread.
On the round table, the miniature Britain that Morgan had magically constructed had shrunk back onto the parchment surface, but the markings of the gray fog remained.
From the east coast to the west coast, there is a discontinuous dotted line with a hole in the very center, as red as if it had been branded with a hot iron.
Arthur was not given any foreshadowing.
"Vortigern, the white dragon of Britain, the embodiment of the will of the island, was sealed away by King Uther for more than ten years. Now he can no longer suppress him. At most, the seal will break in a month."
The day he fully awakens, the gray fog will engulf the entire island.
From Hadrian's Wall to the south coast, from the east coast to the western mountains, everything alive, breathing, with a beating heart, would be dragged into his "dream."
He paused.
"The forty-seven people in the Northern Lord's castle have now awakened. The price was that I used my dragon power to trace back the gray fog passage and scrape something off his core."
"Just a little nudge, and one person wakes up. How many people are there in Britain by then? Hundreds of thousands. I could nudge them one by one, and I'd never finish."
No one speaks.
"The Picts prepared to offer a sacrifice, using the remnants of their divine blood to infuse Vortigern into his body, soothing him back to sleep."
The cost is the death of everyone; the effect is twenty years.
Kai frowned. "They..."
"They are not enemies," Arthur said calmly, "but I will not choose the path of sacrifice."
Gawain spoke up, "Where's the seal?"
"King Uther's six seals have been broken three times; the path of sealing has been traversed."
He traded his entire lifespan for a dozen years. If I trade my entire lifespan, how many years can I get in return? Twenty years? Thirty years? And then what?
The next red dragon will come every thirty years, generation after generation. What's the difference between this and the Pictish sacrifices?
Gao Wen remained silent.
"So there's only one option left." Arthur pressed his finger on the red dot in the center of the map, "Kill."
Tristan's fingers paused on the strings. "And then what?"
"The Age of Gods ended, and the mystery faded away."
"And you."
Arthur did not answer immediately. He glanced at the Northern Lord by the door, then at the tower outside the window, where an ice-blue light shone.
"I am the red dragon, and Voodoo is the white dragon. We are two branches that grew from the same tree."
Even if we kill him, the power of the Red Dragon will decline, but the throne will remain, the Holy Sword will remain, and the Dragon's Heart will remain.
But the 'standard' will be lowered, from the level of 'the embodiment of the island' to the level of 'human'.
Kai's brow furrowed even more. "Downgrade to the 'human' level, and then what?"
"Then I am Arthur Pendragon, King of Britain, no longer the 'Red Dragon'."
Or rather, those things will become "the power that once existed."
He looked at Kai.
"I am still me."
Kai stared at him for a long time.
"I just heard it; it resonates when you get close to it."
When the resonance is so strong that you can't distinguish one from another, when you strike with your sword, you're not just cutting him, but also yourself.
"right."
How can you tell the difference?
Arthur remained silent for a moment.
"I have no idea."
"Can you guarantee you can tell the difference?"
I can't guarantee that.
Kai tapped his finger on the edge of the table, not hard, but in the quiet round room it sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil.
"If you can't guarantee it, then we'll go with you."
Arthur looked at him.
"right."
Kai laughed, the kind of laugh that says, "I knew you'd say that."
"Okay, I'll go."
Arthur's pupils contracted slightly. "Kai..."
"Don't get emotional yet." Kai raised a hand. "I'm going, it's only because you're my brother. I told you I'd entrust my back to you."
He pulled his hand back from the edge of the table and pressed it against his chest.
"Fighting for survival, that's what you want, right?"
Arthur did not deny it.
"Then I'll give it to you," Kai said.
"I acknowledge you—Arthur Pendragon—and you are worthy of my life."
There was a moment of silence in the round table room.
Then Gawain stood up.
"I'll go."
His voice wasn't loud, but the stone walls of the round table hall echoed every word.
"Damn it, because when you made me sit at the round table, you didn't ask me who my father was, where I came from, or why the Holy Sword of the Sun only shines in my hand."
Gawain placed his hand on the hilt of the Sun Sword.
"You said that there is no hierarchy at the round table, and that everyone has their own reasons for sitting here. So I chose to walk with you to Vortigern."
His gaze met Arthur's.
"I know Vortigern is stronger than me, stronger than all of us, but you still went to fight someone stronger than yourself, so why shouldn't I?"
He sat down.
Tristan played a single note.
"I'll go."
His fingers glide lightly across the strings, producing a series of extremely soft arpeggios, like water flowing beneath ice.
"I went because you said that music can remember stories, and if Vortigern wins, Britain will have no stories."
Without a story, no one needs to remember anything, my piano…”
He looked down at his fingers.
"My instrument will become a piece of wood, with only a few silent strings stretched across it."
Lancelot did not speak.
He stood up, took the longsword with the lake-blue hilt from his waist, and placed it flat on the round table. The blade was three inches from its sheath, and the lake-blue light leaked out from the gap, reflecting on his face.
"I was raised by the spirits of the lake."
His voice was low, like the lapping of a lake.
"Vortigern is the will of the island; killing him would be difficult without harming the mystical side of Britain."
Elves, fairies, and lake nymphs—they all belong to the mystical realm; their world will tremble at the moment Vortigern dies.
He pulled the sword out completely.
"But you said you were going to kill Vortigern, not the mystery of the whole island."
The tip of the sword pointed at the red dot on the map.
"If you can kill only Vortigern and not involve the mystic world, I will go with you without making an enemy of the elves."
Arthur looked at him.
I can't guarantee that.
"I know." Lancelot sheathed his sword. "But as long as you say you're taking the 'examination,' that's enough."
He sat down.
Bedwell was the last to speak.
He did not stand up; his silver prosthetic limb rested on the edge of the table, and candlelight streamed across the metal surface.
"I have nothing to give you."
His voice was flat.
"Kay will turn his back on you, Gawain has the Holy Sword of the Sun, Tristan has the harp, Lancelot has the Lake Spirit's Regalia, and I only have this one..."
He raised his silver prosthetic limb, and his five metal fingers slowly opened and then slowly clenched in the candlelight.
"I can't hold the sword, I can't hold the shield, I can't hold onto anything that can help me charge to Vortigern."
"Bedwell," Arthur began.
"Let me finish." Bedivere's voice remained calm, but his silver fingers clenched tightly.
"You once said that not everyone at the round table needs to wield a sword."
You said, some people hold swords, some hold pens, some hold maps, some hold… You looked at my prosthetic limb and said, 'Some people hold order.'"
His silver fingers slowly opened.
"Order is not rules, not laws, not 'who should listen to whom,' but everyone knowing what they are fighting for."
He stood up.
"I'm going with you for the sake of order."
Before Vortigern, Kay fights for your life, Gawain fights for his choices, Tristan fights for the story, Lancelot fights for the elves—this is order.
A silver prosthetic limb was pressed against his chest.
"By fighting against the truth, you have made us all know who the real enemy is and what the real price is."
You didn't lie to us, you didn't coax us, you didn't tell us 'we'll definitely win,' you laid all the cards on the table and let us choose for ourselves."
He looked at Arthur.
"This is the truth, and I acknowledge it."
The round table room remained quiet for a long time.
The candlelight flickered on the faces of the five knights.
The Northern Lord finished the last bite of his dry bread.
"And me?"
Everyone looked at him.
"I am not a Knight of the Round Table." The Northern Lord clapped the breadcrumbs off his hands.
"I'm not even a knight. That wretched place in the North can't produce knights, it can only produce people who live a long time."
He stood up and walked to the round table.
"But I slept in the gray fog for three days, and during those three days, I dreamed about some things."
He looked at Arthur.
"The White Dragon is looking for the Red Dragon."
The chill within Arthur's body trembled once more.
"It's not about finding an 'enemy,' it's about finding a 'other half.'"
As the gray mist seeped into my magical circuits, I sensed it; it was searching for a passage, from its pure black core, to…”
The lord of the North tapped Arthur's chest with his finger.
"Your dragon heart."
The air in the round table room suddenly felt heavy.
"The coldness and black marks within you," said the Northern Lord.
"That's it calling you, calling you with the dragon power that you share."
Arthur placed his hand on his chest, the four beats of the Dragon's Heart remained steady as usual.
That trace of coldness and that spot of pure black mark slowly rotated deep within the Dragon Power River, like a pair of meshing gears.
"It's calling me, and then what?"
The lord of the North looked at him.
"Then you respond to it, let it find you, and then you tell it that you are not it."
"How can I tell you?"
The lord of the North remained silent for a moment.
"I don't know, I'm just someone who slept in the gray fog for three days."
But I know one thing: the more you resist it, the stronger the resonance becomes.
Resistance itself is a form of connection; the harder you push it away, the harder it pulls back.
He drew a line on the round table with his finger.
"You have to walk over to it, stand in front of it, and let it see clearly that you are different from it."
Kai frowned.
"Stand in front of Vortigern and let him see? That's not..."
"To their deaths," the Northern Lord chimed in. "Yes, to their deaths, but haven't you already decided to go and die?"
No one refuted.
Arthur looked at the Lord of the North, the man who had guarded the harsh, cold north for twenty years.
He slept in the gray fog for three days. When he woke up, he didn't become hysterical or kneel down to pray. He just ate a piece of dry bread and said, "The white dragon is looking for the red dragon."
"Are you going?" Arthur asked.
The lord of the North glanced at him.
"Oh my god, I'm going to see what that thing that's been calling out in my dreams for three days looks like."