Lamorak stood as a great gale of wind gathered all over his body, wrapping around him like a living cloak. The air howled and spiraled, lifting strands of his hair, pressing his clothes against his skin, filling the space around him with a pressure that made the other knights step back. He was no longer just a man he was the center of a storm.
Gareth turned to face everyone, his voice cutting through the roar of the wind.
"We're going to escape." His words were sharp, urgent, leaving no room for hesitation. "There isn't much time for me to reveal all the details of this plan."
He looked at each of them in turn at Galahad, at Tristan, at Percival, at Leodegrance, at Kay, at the unconscious Lancelot, at the weeping Kiroto.
"You all just need to trust me." His voice hardened. "This is for Camelot."
He raised his fist to the level of his chest and tightened it hard the muscles in his arm bulging, his knuckles going white.
"For Camelot to survive." His eyes burned. "And to grow stronger."
He lowered his fist.
"We will return much stronger than now." His voice softened just slightly. "But we must survive."
He turned to Galahad, looking directly into his eyes.
"Do you trust me, Galahad?"
Galahad smiled.
Sweat droplets fell from his head tracing paths down his temples, his cheeks, his jaw. His body was still trembling from the aftermath of the Death Sword, still weak, still recovering. But his smile was steady.
He said to himself, his inner voice calm and certain.
Gareth. A man who would have been king if King Arthur did not exist. Not because he's powerful... he's not strong.
He looked at Gareth at the devil, at the man who had pulled a dagger from his own forehead, who had been strangled and stabbed and broken, who was still standing.
But because of his mind.
He's not a man you can trust. Not because of who he is... but because of what he is capable of pulling off.
He thought of all the schemes, the plots, the machinations that Gareth had woven over the centuries. The betrayals. The victories. The miracles.
That man swore the greatest of loyalty to our king.
His heart warmed.
He swore that amount of loyalty to Arthur... and swore brotherhood to all the knights.
He met Gareth's eyes.
This is a man that I truly trust.
Galahad spoke out loud.
"Of course I trust you." His voice was firm, absolute, certain. "I would be a fool not to."
He spread his arms.
"Everyone trusts you." He smiled. "To shake hands with the devil is the best option... than to meet an angel who will promise you heaven and earth but still fail."
Gareth nodded.
"Then, Galahad..." His voice dropped. "I will need your sword."
He looked at Lamorak.
"The greatest attack you have ever made." He paused. "I need you to go with Lamorak."
Lamorak grunted.
"Finally." His voice was filled with excitement, anticipation, release. "You're saying that."
He looked up at the grey sky at the clouds, at the nothing that stretched above them.
"Before, I would have flown into the sky alone." He smiled. "But now..."
His blade Storm Cutter began to glow.
The silver light was not like Excalibur's gold. It was colder. Sharper. The light of lightning, of thunder, of destruction.
The blade brought forth a new gale of wind that spread all around them rushing, howling, pressing against their skin. The wind found Galahad and wrapped itself all around him, covering his body entirely.
It began to grow.
From a gale into something much bigger. Something much larger. Something that lifted.
Both Lamorak's feet and Galahad's feet were lifted off the ground.
Lamorak looked down at Gareth and the others.
"Goodbye." His voice carried on the wind. "And try to survive."
He looked at the sword in his hand at Storm Cutter, at the power that flowed through it.
"This will be the greatest storm that I have ever created."
Galahad interrupted him.
"No." His voice was sharp. "It should not be the greatest attack you have ever created."
Lamorak's brow furrowed.
"Then how..." Galahad smiled. "...are we going to survive Valhalla?"
Lamorak was silent for a moment.
Then he laughed.
"Alright." He raised his blade higher. "If that's the case..."
The winds intensified.
"I will call this move..."
He shouted.
"THE FINGER OF THE STORM GOD! "
Tristan smiled.
"Such a nice attack." His voice was warm, genuine, appreciative. "Would love to see it."
Percival smiled his bleeding eyes still strained, but his heart light.
Gareth smiled the devil's face softening into something almost human.
Sir Kay smiled his weak body propped against the boulder, his eyes bright with hope.
Sir Leodegrance smiled his stumps pressed against his chest, his heart full.
Even the devil Gareth had a smile on his face.
Only two did not smile.
An unconscious Lancelot his body still still, his eyes still closed, his breath still shallow.
And Kiroto her face wet with tears, her heart heavy with grief, her future uncertain.
Galahad and Lamorak began their ascension.
Lamorak continuously wrapped the both of them with thick and dense layers of wind each layer pressing against the last, compressing, hardening, protecting. The cocoon of air around them grew thicker and thicker, until it was visible to the naked eye a shell of swirling wind that contained them both.
"Hold on," Lamorak said, his voice strained with concentration. "Or else, before we reach the top... your body might break apart into many pieces."
Galahad gripped his sword tighter.
They went into the sky at an incredible speed.
So fast that their bodies seemed like lines of air streaks of light and wind fired upward like arrows from a bow. It was almost invisible. The eye could not track them. The mind could not comprehend them.
How many seconds did it take them to reach above the clouds?
No.
Not just above the clouds.
They had transcended that stage breaking forth and still going, climbing higher and higher, until the clouds were a distant floor beneath them, until the grey sky became dark, until the stars began to appear.
Lamorak was the only one who could perceive anything in that moment.
His senses attuned to the wind, connected to the storm tracked their ascent, measured their speed, calculated their position. He felt every gust, every pressure, every shift in the air around them.
As for Galahad, he could not perceive anything.
He was going too fast.
His body his mind, his senses could not keep up. He was a passenger in his own flesh, carried by forces beyond his control, pushed beyond the limits that had always contained him.
Finally not with his own power he had overcome the limits that he had.
He had transcended.
They arrived there.
A place filled with clouds.
Not the grey clouds of Valhalla something higher. Something purer. Clouds of white and silver, glowing with an inner light, floating in a sky that was no longer grey but deep blue, almost black.
Both of them stopped.
Lamorak looked down only seeing clouds, only seeing the white expanse that hid the battlefield below.
"So." His voice was quiet, almost reverent. "This is how far high I can go. At this moment."
He nodded.
"Then there's no need to worry."
He turned to Galahad.
"Let us begin."
Lamorak began to gather wind from all the clouds around him and all around Galahad.
The clouds surged toward him flowing, rushing, pouring into the space between them. They were infused with wind, thick with it, alive with it. The winds that gathered formed around the two of them winds so strong that they were moving the clouds, pushing them aside, clearing a space in the sky.
"Your job is pretty simple," Lamorak said, his voice calm despite the chaos around them. "The ability of your blade Cut."
He looked at Galahad.
"Keep using it. Once I get to a certain extent..." He paused. "I know you will feel it. Once I get there... please trust me."
Galahad nodded.
"I trust you."
The winds below the residue of Lamorak's power spread out in all directions, pushing against the knights with great and mighty force. Gareth and the others were meant with large gales that blew everywhere, pressing against their bodies, threatening to lift them off the ground.
Gareth tried to maintain his stand on the ground his feet digging into the sand, his body leaning into the wind, his teeth gritted against the pressure.
He said to himself, his inner voice almost amused.
I don't know which one seems better.
The winds... or the sun?
King Arthur's body became the sun.
And the sun became him.
He blazed a pillar of golden fire that consumed the air around him, that melted the sand beneath his feet, that turned the grey sky to gold. His hair was flame. His beard was flame. His armor glowed with a light that came from somewhere beyond the physical.
And within his mind, faint memories that he could not recall completely began to play.
They came to him in fragments shards of a life he had lived, a past that was both his and not his, a story that had already been told.
He who shall pull this sword out of the stone... shall become king over all.
He recognized the voice.
Is that... Merlin's voice?
Another memory came.
My lord. You have done it. You have become the sun. You have brought peace not just to our nation, not just to our continent, but to the entire world.
The voice was younger, warmer, filled with pride.
You are now a symbol of peace to anyone, anywhere.
The voice cracked with emotion.
It's truly wonderful. All powers in the world are yours.
Arthur's heart ached.
Is that... the voice of Galahad?
Another memory came colder, sharper, bitter.
What kind of king are you? I hate you. You don't even show the slightest of love for me.
The voice was familiar in a different way intimate, wounded, cruel.
You can't even perform as my husband. The sun of the world... you're not even a measly star in our relationship.
Arthur's steps faltered.
Is that... the voice of my wife?
Arthur arrived.
He stood at a distance of five metres from where Mordred stood.
The son.
The traitor.
The child he had loved and lost and killed.
Mordred had finally achieved the zone. He had unlocked a sense that did not exist a divine sense that allowed him to perceive the world without his body, to exist without being touched.
And with it, he said one word.
He knew Arthur had finally arrived.
"Hello, Father."
Arthur was still stuck in his memories.
The voices echoed in his mind Merlin, Galahad, Guinevere overlapping, fading, returning. He could not escape them. Could not focus.
But he heard it.
The voice of his son.
It was a faint whisper barely audible, barely present but it was there. Cutting through the fog of his memories like a blade through silk.
Arthur's heart did not know what to feel.
He responded.
"Son?"
The word was uncertain questioning, hesitant, aching.
Standing apart from each other father and son.
Arthur was like a blazing light that consumed all. He was like the sun descended upon land burning, blinding, absolute.
Mordred could not feel this.
He had found the Zone. He could not feel the heat. Could not see the light. He stood in the presence of the sun and felt only stillness.
Now father and son had reunited.
As the storm was coming.
Arthur blazed.
Mordred stood still.
And above them, the storm gathered.