Arthur, first and last king of a united ancient Britain, looked fondly at the gleaming broadsword mounted on the mahogany-paneled office wall. "A fine piece of work," he said. "Looks more ornamental than practical, though. Excalibur would probably snap it like a bit of straw."

John Matthews, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Camelot Historical Ventures Incorporated, laughed. "No doubt about that. This one was ordered from a catalogue. The only battle it was designed for was competition with the Franklin Mint."

Arthur pried the sword from its mounting brackets, grunted in disappointment at the dullness of its edge, and took a few experimental swings. Matthews watched him with something approaching awe; he knew from personal experience that the sword was heavy and hard to handle, but the shorter, solidly-built man made it cut the air as if it was as light as an orchestra conductor's baton.

Grunting, Arthur returned the blade to its place on the wall, and sat down on the overstuffed leather couch. "Dull. Bad balance. Definitely meant for show. Now, Excalibur Excalibur was beautiful, but she was meant to be wielded in battle."

Arthur's eyes seemed to focus on another time and place. "Excalibur was a magical weapon in its day," he said softly. "The blade was forged from the finest steel in all Britain, shaped by pouring molten metal into a mold--ex khalibre is Latin and Arabic for 'from a mold', I thin--instead of grinding down a flattened piece of pig iron. Then the swordsmiths pounded her into her final shape, gave her an edge as sharp as any razor, and tempered the metal until it was hard as diamond but flexible as a willow wand."

He looked, up, catching Matthews' eye. "Men feared her," he said. "She cut through plate armor, shields, and mail like a good dagger through soft cheese. Other blades shattered when they met her in battle."

"Excuse me. Excalibur was a she?" Matthews asked.

"Was, is, will always be. It takes a woman to destroy a knight with such devastating ease."

"Ah. Guinevere."

"Not that I blamed her for what happened. I wasn't much of a husband, and that damned Frenchman was so pretty, half the knights were in love with him, too. Good fighter, too, du Lac was "

Matthews cleared his throat, unsettled by Arthur's apparent willingness to discuss his unfortunate marital problems. "You were saying something about Excalibur?"

"Yes. Yes. She was great in her day. But these days if you'll pardon the wordplay she just won't cut it. One of those little guns, an oozy I think you called it, could cut an armored knight to pieces. And it's not as if we even have Excalibur, anyway. It's somewhere at the bottom of a lake, unless Bedivere broke his word again."

"So, without Excalibur or with her I don't see how I can be of any use to you or your friends."

"Britain is more than just Britain, the world needs you," Matthews protested. "There is a plague of despair and cynicism almost everywhere. Corporations dictate government policy with no concern for anything but maximizing profits. People, especially the young, see greed and self-interest making the rich and powerful richer and more powerful while everyone else slips further down the road to hell. Money is might, and might means right anyone who questions the profit-makers' decisions is swept aside, declared a criminal, even killed."

Arthur sighed. "Corporations. Your Camelot Incorporated is a corporation, isn't it? 'A commercial enterprise with the rights of a person'? And you said it was formed to market tours of a reconstructed Camelot and my Arthur of Camelot's burial mound. It hardly seems that you are qualified to cast stones at others."

Matthews reddened. "It's true we started out hoping to make money. But we all loved the idea of Camelot and the Round Table. And when you returned, it reminded us all of the ideals we once cherished."

Arthur laughed. "John, my frien--I believe you are my friend--however you got into this business I am just a man. Not a messiah, despite all the mythic rubbish that settled on my tomb along with all the dust."

"The part about you returning wasn't rubbish. I mean, you're here."

"I'm here. At least, I think I'm here, and you seem to believe it, too. Merlin would tell me that even with magic, it's best to question things that seem unlikely. How did I get here, if I've been dead for what, almost fifteen centuries?"

Matthews hesitated, unsure of how much Arthur would understand. Even worse, if he did understand, he might lose faith in his own strengths. Still, Arthur deserved to know the truth.

"You were cloned," Matthews said at last. "Your body was grown from tissue taken from a corpse found in a hidden tomb in a desolate part of Wales. The armor and other artifacts found in the tomb made your identity clear."

"'Cloned'", Arthur murmured, as if tasting the word. "This body was made by your modern magic." He shook his head. "If what you say is true, then I'm not Arthur the king in Camelot, I mean I'm just some manikin that looks like him."

Matthews groaned inwardly. Arthur had to believe that he was Arthur, or his expensive and illegal in many countries resurrection would have been for nothing.

"Maybe that's true to some extent," he admitted. "But there are things about you that science, our magic, can't explain. The body in the tomb was eventually found to be of about the right age to be the Arthur of legend, but it was so well-preserved that the archaeologists who found it tried to resuscitate it. They thought that it was a twenty-first century man who'd somehow found his way into the tomb and passed out from lack of oxygen."

"Well bodies found in peat bogs seem newly-dead, or so I've heard."

"Then there's your memories, your personality. We tried to download to teach you everything that we thought Arthur would know, using some untried magic."

"And you succeeded."

"And we failed ," Matthews said. "Your memories seem authentic, and include many things that we could not make part of your, um, package. A lot of the things you talk about contradict the material we tried to give you, but on every point, we've been able to corroborate your version of things. And your speech and vocabulary are largely modern, even though we tried to imprint Latin and Middle English and knowledge appropriate to your to the original Arthur's time."

"There is magic at work here, Arthur. Even the most cynical of our group has had to admit it."

Arthur shook his head. "Magic. The what did you call me? The Once and Future King returned, to cure the world of despair and the return of 'might is right' instead of 'might for right'".

Matthews nodded. "We believe that you can change the world. We believe that you must change the world, or the human race may degenerate into thousands of self-serving factions that will eventually grind each other into dust."

Arthur stood. He reached the wall in a single stride, wrenched the ornamental sword from its brackets, and whirled, bringing the blade sweeping down into the polished wood of Matthews' desk with a crash that sent Matthews diving for cover. The blade cut deeply into the desk and snapped off at the hilt.

"How can I change the world?" Arthur roared. "With toys like this? Even Excalibur herself would be worthless in this future of yours!"

Trembling, Matthews climbed back into his chair. He suppressed a shudder as he surveyed the ruins of his desk; "toy" or not, in Arthur's hands, the decorative sword could have been lethal. He took a moment to allow his heartbeat to descend back into his chest.

Finally, he said, "You're right. For all its power as a practical fighting tool in the past, Excalibur would be almost useless as a weapon today. The battles that need to be fought now can't be won with steel and a strong arm."

"Then what weapons or tools would you have me wield? I was a soldier and a statesman in far simpler times than these; what good am I now?"

Matthews tried to convey some of the wonder and hope that he felt, to wash away the look of panic he saw in Arthur's face. "You are Arthur ," he said. "Even in the days of Camelot, when steel and strength made kings, your greatest power came from your ability to inspire others. Your weapons or tools today will be your voice, your heart, and your legend."

Arthur let the sword hilt fall to the floor. "I can try to do as you ask. But it will be a very slow thing. I can sway the hearts of a few at a time, out of the multitudes you say are out there."

Matthews smiled. "You can reach a lot more than a few people at a time, Arthur. Let me tell you about something called television. And the Internet. And broadband . . ."

Arthur managed to display his best public smile, while inwardly he groaned. Matthews was at least as boring as Merlin at his most pedantic. But someone had once said, when in Rome . . .