"Are you, Lucifer, content with these conditions?" Gabriel asked.

"Yes," he replied. The Creator's terms were frightfully routine. It was sometimes tempting to wonder if his Master had any imagination at all.

"What would You claim if victorious?" Gabriel asked the Creator.

"Restitution to the candidate according to My terms; that the candidate remain completely unmolested by Lucifer or any that serve him for the remainder of his natural life; and that any benefit coming to the candidate or the world at large from this contest remain unchallenged by Lucifer or his servants, so long as the candidate lives."

"Will you, Lucifer, concede to these conditions if proven wrong?" Gabriel asked.

"I will."

"One thing remains to seal the wager," Gabriel proclaimed, "that you make, each, your case to the candidate, himself. For from the first day it has been ordained that mortal men and women shall be free to choose."

"By right and tradition, the Creator is first," Lucifer replied, constrained by form to say so, though he preferred this anyway, since it gave him power of rebuttal.

Between them, Joby's eyes moved rapidly behind their soft, smooth lids, already deep in dream; for it was not to the conscious child that the Creator and His adversary would appeal, but to the deeper self that moved relentlessly like magma beneath the cool, slow crust of Joby's waking life.

"My King, I would serve you with my life. Only name the quest."

Sir Joby knelt again before Arthur's dais, eyes cast reverently toward the floor, eagerly awaiting his lord's will.

"Should friendship be hobbled by such formality, Sir Joby? Rise, and add the pleasure of your countenance to that of your courtesy."

"As Your Majesty wills," Sir Joby replied, unable to suppress the smile that fountained from deep within him as he rose and looked into the laughing gray eyes of his beloved lord, Arthur, King of Briton, and Master of the Roundtable.

"We have much to discuss, Sir Joby, but I would be out in the light and air on such a splendid morning. Will you consent to ride with me awhile?"

"I am yours to bid, Sire," Joby beamed, "but I would be well pleased with such a privilege."

"Then I extend it on one condition," Arthur said, "that we put aside the manners of majesty for now and speak instead as friends. A king may command what he likes, I am told, but I often wonder of late if I am yet allowed friends, or only subjects now."

"Does the king truly doubt my friendship?" Joby smiled.

"Nay, the king does not," Arthur answered dryly. "Nor do I. So pray, for this short while, let us have none of the king between us. I will call you Joby, and you shall call me Arthur."

"As you wish, my-Arthur. I am deeply honored."

"As am I," Arthur replied, descending to clasp Joby's hand.

A moment later, they were riding at a joyful speed through one of Camelot's lesser gates. Joby dimly remembered the royal stables, the grooming and mounting of horses; but the day was so bright and fair that all else was quickly forgotten. The companionship of his king and the swiftness and vitality of their horses left Joby giddy with the love of life, as glossy ravens scattered before them, cawing complaints as they sought refuge among heavily laden apple trees nearby. It was all so perfect.

After a long and boisterous ride, they stopped to rest their horses within a lofty wood. Joby felt the glade's deep, cool silence like a large, soft hand upon his shoulder as he dismounted. Rough, ruddy trunks of immense girth soared from burled bowls half as wide as houses into a dense canopy that cast its own twilight, pierced only by occasional shafts of green and silver sunlight. Swept by breezes that did not reach the forest floor, the immense trees swayed together in a ceaseless, solemn dance that seemed to engender the stillness beneath their branches. A liquid trill of birdsong from somewhere deeper in the wood spiraled upward into silence. A tree frog chanted quietly nearby. A squirrel rustled in the branches high above them. These and the wind's voice were the only sounds.

Arthur found a seat on one of the great, mossy tree bowls, and beckoned Joby to come sit beside him. "Joby," he said gravely, "you have served me faithfully on too many occasions to count, and the love you bear me brings me deep joy and gratitude."

"I have no greater satisfaction than knowing we are pleased with one another," Joby replied.

"Nor do I," Arthur said. "I have need of a champion, my friend."

"I would serve you with my life, Sire. Only name the-"

"Yes, yes, I know," Arthur said, waving him to silence with a sad smile. "But I would not have an answer before you've heard me out. This is not remotely like before."

"I beg pardon, My Lord. I did not mean to interrupt-"

"None of that, Joby. You promised." The king sighed, then smiled. "I am entangled in a contest, Joby, with my oldest and most formidable enemy. It is a desperate and deadly affair with more than mortal parameters."

"Magic?" Joby asked.

Arthur nodded grimly. "Of the darkest kind. And, as you know, where magic is involved there are strange and immutable conditions laid on all concerned, even kings."

Joby nodded.

"That is why," the king continued, "I can tell you so little; only that the fate of all Camelot is at stake. The enemy is vastly more subtle, powerful, and vicious than any I have ever sent you against; the quest will be long and terrible beyond your imagining, and-mark this well, Joby-I will be utterly unable to aid you in any way whatsoever while it lasts, which may well be half your lifetime. Your entire youth, my friend. Consider it well. Should you fail, we all fail. There will be no rescue this time, no second chances, no further hope at all. Do you understand me?"

After a moment, Joby nodded, daunted despite himself. . . . Half a lifetime . . . without Arthur's help. "My Lord," Joby began from force of habit. Arthur frowned. "I mean, Arthur . . . I am willing to try, but . . . how can I hope to win such a contest without your aid? What am I that the fate of all should rest with me alone?"

"You are the friend I trust," Arthur said, "the champion I choose." He paused to consider Joby thoughtfully, then said, "Make no mistake, my friend. You owe me not this undertaking! I will take no less joy in you should you refuse. It were far better to do so now, than to agree in vain bravado. But, should you agree, know that though I, myself, can help you not at all, everything else of mine in Camelot, every loyal subject, every inch of my realm, will be at your disposal if you but ask.

"Most of all, hear this, Joby. I know beyond question that you will give everything to this pursuit, but should you fail despite that, the fault will be my own, not yours."

"This is meant for comfort?" Joby asked, smiling wanly. "That my shame would fall on you? Pray, encourage me some more, Arthur. Tell me I am to ride to battle on a giant snail, or minus an arm."

"It is good to hear you jest." Arthur grinned. "But nay, Joby, I think I have encouraged you enough. Think on what I've said, and answer in your own good time."

Joby felt no need to think. "I will do this thing for you, Arthur, whatever it is, or die trying."

"Do not be hasty, Joby. There is time to let it turn."

"That is my answer, Arthur," Joby insisted. "If need be, that will be my answer tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow after that, until this trial has passed us by."

For a moment both men were silent, gazes locked. Then Joby recognized the tears in Arthur's eyes, and looked away lest they be answered in his own.

"There is no other man in Camelot, I think," Arthur said quietly, "who would have answered so without at least inquiring after his reward."

Joby snorted, still not trusting himself to face his king. "Arthur, what reward have you to tempt me with that approaches the honor of . . . of your faith in me?"

"Behold my choice," Arthur whispered to the empty air around them, "and tremble."

Joby looked up to see who Arthur spoke to, but saw no one else. A shiver ran down his spine, and he was about to ask if they were alone when Arthur said more loudly, "Come, Joby, we must return to Camelot before sunset. The trial is upon us soon enough."

With one last glance around the clearing, Joby followed Arthur to their horses, fierce pride, swelling affection, and twining dread at war within his breast. He still did not know what task he had agreed to. Longer and more terrible than he could imagine, Arthur had warned. Well, he had no small imagination.

The ride home passed in thoughtful silence. Not until they were just miles from Camelot, trotting through an open riverside stand of alder trees, did Joby speak again.

"How am I to know it, Arthur?"

The king looked at him blankly.

"The test," Joby said. "What is it? When does it begin? Surely I must know something of it beforehand, mustn't I?"

"I have told you all I may, Joby, lest I violate the trial's conditions and forfeit all to my opponent at the start."

"But . . . how shall I prepare then? How am I even to recognize the enemy?"

Arthur shrugged. "How is evil ever recognized, Joby? What does it look like? How does one oppose it?"

Joby reined his horse to a halt and stared, beginning to comprehend the true difficulty of his position.

"I told you the trial was long," Arthur said, and wheeled his horse around to go on. "Come, Joby. The sun slows not at all in deference to our troubles."

Shaking himself from disbelief, Joby spurred his horse and followed.

Neither of them spoke again until they had stopped on the brow of the last hill overlooking the coastal headlands of Camelot. They had beaten sunset by half an hour, and the scene before them was so beautiful that even Joby's solidifying distress could not prevent him from being moved.

Graceful stands of pine and cypress, weathered and sculpted by salt and storm, stood nearly black against the green-gold fields and the glittering sea beyond. Out past the cliff tops, mammoth stacks of rock thrust out of the water, their heads bent back above the mist, as if gazing at the sky in prayer. The distant boom and sigh of surf was mixed with the musical bark of seals, the strident cry of seabirds, and, from somewhere, the measured tolling of a bell. Out over the water, long lines of pelicans skimmed the troughs between huge swells moving ponderously toward shore. A high whistling cry drew Joby's gaze up to find hunting osprey hanging nearly motionless above the river mouth, waiting for their dinner to swim past below. The air carried scents of iodine and sea salt, wood smoke and dry wayside herbs, cedar bark, and weathered stone. And rising at the center of it all, the walls and roofs and spires of Camelot.

"Look at it, Joby!" Arthur exclaimed. "Is it not lovely?"

"In truth, it is worth . . . anything to defend, My Lord," Joby sighed mournfully.

Arthur frowned and turned to look at Joby. "It is always ill advised to fill a bright moment with some future darkness, friend. Your trials, whatever they may be, have not yet begun. Can you not be here now, with me?"

Joby took a deep breath, nodded, then surprised himself by laughing aloud. Arthur was right. Who knew how many more such moments he would be afforded?

"Care to place a wager, My Lord?"

Arthur looked startled.

"I will beat you to that lookout on the river's mouth by three lengths!" Joby shouted, spurring his horse so that he was well away before half the words were spoken.

"You cheat!" Arthur shouted, prodding his mount after Joby's. "That bodes well!"

Joby did beat him, and when the two men had finished laughing and impugning each other's character, they sat their horses quietly in the spreading shadow of a giant old cypress, gazing at the beach below. Well-formed waves stood up and filled with light, like walls of brilliant jade, then tumbled down in creamy gouts of pure white foam, rolling in to spread across the sand before hissing back into the bay.

"You neglected to say what was forfeit if I lost that race," Arthur observed.

"I neglected to think of anything," Joby replied.

"You are truly not much suited to the business of reward, my friend. It is wise to look after one's own interests, I think-at least a little. No one else is likely to."

"This is all I want. . . . All I'll ever want," Joby murmured at last, still gazing at the sun-blazed bay and the dark-cliffed, wood-crowned headlands beyond. "To breathe this air, and gaze at all that lies about us here. There is no fairer prize."

"Lovely, yes," Arthur replied. "But is it good?"

"Of course, My Lord," Joby said, wondering if the question were some trick. "How could this be anything but good?"

Just then, an osprey plunged like thunder into the river mouth, and rose again to flap heavily inland toward its nest, a silver fish hanging in its talons.

"Death just came to some hapless creature there," Arthur replied. "Life and death go on all around us here. The fragrant wood smoke we smell bespeaks the end of some fair tree even as it warms some cheerful hearth. Are you certain all you see is good?"

"As I am certain of anything, My Lord," Joby answered. Then understanding dawned. "And you think this evil that I am to confront will be as easily recognized?"

"Nay," Arthur conceded, "though one may learn to know it as certainly, if not as easily. Still, perhaps it was unkind to conjure such dark clouds just when you had let them clear. See? The sun leans down at last to kiss the water. Let us ride out farther, you and I, and watch their embrace."

Moments later, they stood together upon the western-most cliff top, gazing out at one small band of fog poised above the farthest horizon. As the sun fell behind it, its edges burned like molten gold, and elusive rays of peach and salmon, powder blue, and palest yellow stretched briefly up into the lavender sky.

As stars began to bloom above twilight's fire-red, green, and cobalt bands, Arthur broke their long silence. "At the worst of times, friend Joby, I look most keenly for whatever beauty may be near at hand, and drink as deeply as I can. I cannot recommend such drafts highly enough for those who would learn to recognize evil, and remain proof against it. Feed your heart, Joby. I trust your heart more than I trust the wisest head in Camelot. . . . Now come. At the castle they will think us drowned or kidnapped by now. You will have a meal fit to your courage, and a night of peaceful sleep in our finest chambers."

They had barely entered the castle when Arthur was scolded off to some too long neglected urgency by a flock of long-suffering advisers, leaving Joby to wander on his own until the service of dinner in Arthur's hall.

"My congratulations, Sir, on such a lovely presentation," Lucifer fawned as God looked up from Joby's bed. "Stunning use of landscape! But, lovely as they are, spun glass castles are so easily fractured. Just a little tap is all it takes at times. . . . Goodness!" he enthused, glancing theatrically at the Donald Duck wall clock over Joby's bed. "Is it my turn? So soon?"

Knowing the old stick would never stoop to take the bait, Lucifer plunged into Joby's dream without waiting for the Creator to reply.

Joby found himself on a balcony overlooking a moonlit rose garden, distant merriment still audible within the palace behind him. The banquet had been grand . . . he thought . . . well, rather vague actually, but definitely grand . . . he was fairly sure. A breath drawn in appreciation of fragrant yellow roses that climbed the trellis from below became yet another sigh. Each sigh had been longer than the last that night.

"That sounded rather laden with care," offered a grave voice behind him.

Joby whirled to find a tall figure standing in shadow at the balcony's far end.

"I . . . I thought I was alone," Joby stammered, disconcerted. Then, "I beg pardon. That is rude greeting, but I was-"

"Please!" insisted the other, stepping out into the moonlight. "It is I who must apologize, lurking in the shadows so. I was here when you came out, and did not know whether to disturb you or merely keep my peace until you'd gone. Stupid of me really."

The stranger's voluminous robes were rich with velvet and gems, his silver-templed mane swept back regally, his brows thick and wise above icy blue eyes so penetrating, even by moonlight, that the strong compulsion to stare into them was quickly at war with an equally uncomfortable urge to look swiftly away.

"I'm at a loss," Joby said. "You seem familiar, but I cannot summon your name."

"I am not easily summoned," the other said, smiling at some private joke with a look so shrewd that Joby knew suddenly who he must be.

"Would you be the king's adviser, Merlin?"

"Why . . . yes! That's exactly who I am," the man said, seeming first surprised, then pleased. "How perceptive of you to guess. Most don't, you know; by design actually. I am often more useful to the king unrecognized." Merlin waved the matter away with an ingratiating smile. "Be at ease, Sir Joby. I well understand how preoccupied you must be given the perilous quest you have undertaken. And I must say, I am well pleased with the king's excellent choice of champions. I have long been an admirer of yours myself."

Joby's eyes widened. "You know of my quest?"

Merlin offered a self-deprecating smile. "Who would know, if not the king's highest adviser?"

"Well, yes. Of course." Joby blushed. "I . . . I am deeply flattered by your esteem, though I would take even greater comfort in knowing what, precisely, I am such an excellent choice for."

"Perhaps I can assist you then," Merlin replied.

"I would be deeply in your debt," Joby sighed. "But the king has made it plain that I may be told nothing of my ordeal beforehand."

"Not by himself," Merlin said, smiling. "That is one of the conditions laid upon him in this matter. But not all are subject to such restrictions. Myself, for instance."

"You can tell me what this concerns?" Joby blurted out. "It is allowed?"