Fall of Knight by Peter David

the next. They’re bigger than life. And now I’m being told that, here you are, King Arthur, seated right in front of me.”
    “Do you believe in God, sir?” Percival suddenly spoke up.
    “Of course I do,” Stockwell said unhesitatingly.
    “So why should believing in Arthur Rex be that much of a problem?”
    “Because he’s not God. He’s a man, flesh and blood.”
    “As was the Christian savior, as I recall. If he walked in here now and proclaimed that he had returned, would you believe him? Or would you figure him to be a madman.”
    “Truthfully, probably the latter.”
    “I don’t know about you,” Gwen said, “but I find that kind of sad. That we’ve reached a point in our society that…I don’t know.”
    “Men cling to faith as their reason to believe in God,” said Arthur, smiling sadly. “Sometimes it seems to me that their faith also prevents them from believing as well. People have no trouble handling the divine…as long as it’s a safe distance away. How are we to aspire to be closer to God when, if He comes closer to us, we head in the other direction.”
    “Are you now saying you’re God?” asked Stockwell.
    “Hardly. On the other hand, if He presented himself to me, I would certainly be more inclined to give Him the benefit of the doubt than to dismiss Him out of hand.”
    “Fair enough. But the fine line we walk, Arthur, is that those who claim to be nearer our God tend to get on the wrong side of the American people, since everyone wants to believe that they themselves have their own personal connection with the almighty. Ron is telling me stories about the Holy Grail, and I’m not certain how to—”
    “You could try showing them this,” suggested Percival. He reached deep into his coat, and when he withdrew his hand, there was a gleaming goblet in it.
    Stockwell gaped at it for a moment. Then he started to reach for it before reflexively pulling his hand back. He stared at it with uncertainty. “Are you saying…that’s it?” Percival nodded. “May I…?”
    Percival glanced at Arthur, who nodded slightly. The Grail Knight strode forward and, rather than handing it to Stockwell, placed it in the dead center of his desk. He took several steps back as Stockwell just stared at it.
    “Breathe, Terrance,” Arthur said gently.
    Stockwell exhaled heavily, not realizing until that moment that he’d been holding his breath. Slowly, his hands trembling in spite of himself, Stockwell reached out and took the Grail carefully, balancing it with both hands. Then he experimentally shifted the cup from one hand to the other. “It’s…colder than I expected,” he said finally.
    “Did you think it would be scalding to the touch?” asked Arthur.
    “I’m…not sure. I’m not sure what I…” He shook his head and placed the Grail gingerly back down on the desk. “I thought it would be…revelatory in some way. That I would hold it and—”
    “Be instantly nearer to Jesus?” asked Percival.
    “I suppose that sounds ridiculous.”
    “It doesn’t sound any one way or the other. Your expectations are what they are. No one’s going to gainsay you.”
    Stockwell nodded, although it was hard to know whether he’d actually heard what Percival had just said. Instead he said, “I was skeptical of everything Ron told me. Then we brought in Nellie, and she told me practically the exact same story. Just enough variances to make the differing point of view believable, but in all the major aspects, the stories matched up.”
    “So you believe, then.”
    “I would say, Arthur, that I’m perhaps eighty percent of the way there. My concern is this: If it’s this much effort for me to believe, how in the world are we going to convince the American people? Or the world? How are we going to say that Arthur Penn was truly King Arthur, and that he found the Holy Grail and used it to cure his wife?”
    “First of all, Percival found the Grail,” Arthur corrected him.
    “Well, that