A Honeycomb of Souls (short story)

was the fifth short story in the anthology Out of the Shadows, published by Arcbeatle Press. It made heavy use of Arthurian legend, including reintroducing Bedevere, who had appeared in the online short story The Door We Forgot released before the anthology, but had not appeared in the previous stories int he book.
== Summary ==
In Arthurian times, Merlin and King Arthur send the knights Bedevere, Gawain, Galahad and Agravaine to defeat a monstrous entity called Morch'aliach with the help of Merlin's sister and fellow wizard, Ganeida. However, after four days' ride to Ganeida's cottage and a further journey to reach the cursed cave, Agravaine goes against the others' wisdom and collapses the cave's entrance instead of finding some more permanent way of dealing with the entity. At the ensuing feast at Camelot, Ganeida meets up with her brother, who sends her to the 21st century to finish off Morch'aliach, giving her the address of the Preternatural Research Bureau's HQ.
In 2019, shortly after Azacca Dixon gets a fright from his first meeting with the ghostly Bedevere who has been haunting P.R.O.B.E. HQ, the team receive a visit from Ganeida. After they accept that she is indeed Merlin's sister, that she has time-travelled from Arthurian times, and that King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were real in the first place, she explains that she needs their help to defeat the Morch'aliach entity. Naturally agreeing, Giles summons Origin Zero to their aid, as she has the ability to see ghosts, souls and other such things.
The group make their way to the house which has been built over the medieval cave, and whose basement is now the lair of the entity. The family residing in the house have vanished without a trace, quite recently. As they descend, they begin having visions of ghoulish apparitions of the dead, people about whose deaths they feel regret, but Origin Zero tells them to ignore them. They make their way to the "core" of the entity, a hideous tree-like structure made of worms with a large eye. Bedevere stabs it with his broadsword; this initially has little effect, but Ganeida, on a stroke of inspiration, begins telling a story aloud of the entity's death, involving the link provided by the sword between Morch'aliach and the original Camelot. Exploiting the creature's power against it, she, Origin Zero and the others manage to summon ghostly versions of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, who manage to mostly destroy Morch'aliach, releasing all the souls it had trapped. It is reduced to a single worm which Ganeida crushes underfoot.
With the day saved, Giles manages to persuade the whole team, including Origin Zero and Ganeida, to have dinner together to talk things over and calm themselves down.
== Characters ==
* Maxie Masters
* Azacca Dixon
* Bedevere
* Ganeida
* Giles
* Tasha Williams
* Origin Zero
* Agravaine
* Galahad
* Gawain
* King Arthur
* Merlin
* Morch'aliach
* Kelly
== Worldbuilding ==
* Origin Zero last worked with the Preternatural Research Bureau on something related to "the Austere House".
* Origin Zero thinks that Morch'aliach sounds like "a dark god" "like Cthulhu or something".
* Merlin was unable to take part in the adventure himself due to being busy with a party "on Hytheriax VII".
* Ganeida's human mother was a nun. She and Merlin share a father, who was allegedly a demon, although Agamya Akhtar guesses he was really an alien perceived as a demon by the medieval chroniclers.
* When P.R.O.B.E. enter the abandoned house, "the Netflix idle screen" is playing on their television set.
== Story notes ==
* This story is told non-linearly, intermingling scenes set in Arthurian times and in the present day.
== Continuity ==
* Azacca Dixon first meets Bedevere, and more about the reasons for his ghost-like existence is revealed. (PROSE: The Door We Forgot)
== External links ==
Category:Out of the Shadows short stories