Nightside bit feats (A Hard Day's Knight)

Excalibur passively does...something that causes people to act out of character. It's implied to have something to do with fate:

“When did this arrive?” I asked Suzie.

Her ears pricked up as she caught the seriousness in my voice. “Two, three hours ago. I heard a knock on the front door, looked out, and there it was. Leaning against the wall. At first I thought it must be for me since it’s so obviously a weapon; but then I saw it had your name on it, so I put it on one side for you, for when you got home.”

“Think about it,” I said. “You wouldn’t normally bring a strange, unexpected parcel into our home and leave it lying round without running it through a whole series of security checks first, would you?”

“No,” said Suzie, in a way that made it clear she hadn’t even considered the point before and was wondering rather angrily why she hadn’t. “It felt ... right. Like it belonged here. Why the hell didn’t I find that suspicious?”

“Because the parcel didn’t want you to,” I said.

We both glared at the brown-paper package.

“Could it have some kind of compulsion, or geas, attached to it?” said Suzie.

“I think we’re in bigger trouble than that,” I said. “I’m getting a distinct feeling of destiny.” -A Hard Day's Knight

Fate manipulation is implied again:

“Oh shit.”

“Yes, quite,” I said. “Next question: how did our mysterious benefactor pass unscathed through all our security systems? The land mines and the floating curses? We spent ages setting up the defences round this house, to protect us from our enemies and discourage the paparazzi. Our regular postie has a special dispensation; this guy shouldn’t even have made it to the front door.”

“Oh, this has destiny written all over it,” said Suzie. “Let’s run.” -A Hard Day's Knight

Excalibur's power burns too brightly to be scryed by John Taylor:

I raised my gift, opening up my inner eye, my third eye, my private eye. I studied the parcel with my Sight, which shows me all the wonders and horrors of the hidden world, and scanned the parcel for booby-traps or hidden messages. I barely had time to assure myself there were no hidden extras when I cried out despite myself and fell back, as what was inside the parcel blazed up fiercely, a magical, spiritual light that dazzled and blinded me. My inner eye slammed shut as my mind flinched away from something it couldn’t bear to look at directly. -A Hard Day's Knight

A description of Excalibur:

The scabbard turned out to be six feet and more of tooled leather, with Celtic markings and designs, and a whole bunch of symbols from a language I didn’t even recognise. The foot-long hilt of the sword seemed to have been fashioned from a single piece of bone, polished to a fine dark yellow sheen. I brushed the last pieces of torn paper away from it, and the scabbarded sword lay alone on my table, in my kitchen, like an unexploded bomb, or a warning from history.

“That ... is not just any old sword,” said Suzie.

“No,” I said absently. “That’s Excalibur.” -A Hard Day's Knight

Anyone who wields Excalibur gains explicit knowledge of how to use it:

I took a firm hold of the polished-bone hilt, set my other hand on the scabbard, and slowly eased the sword out of its sheath. It came easily, almost eagerly: five, maybe six feet of blade that glowed supernaturally bright in the gloomy kitchen. Suzie made a shocked, almost awed sound, and fell back a step. I held the sword out before me, the hilt fitting perfectly into my hand, and the long, golden blade shone brighter and brighter, free at last after centuries of waiting. I swept the blade slowly back and forth, supporting the whole length of it easily with only one hand, and it all felt so natural, as though I’d been doing it my whole life. The long, golden blade seemed impossibly light, almost weightless, moving easily with my hand as though it belonged there.

I stamped back and forth round the kitchen table, thrusting and cutting, the golden blade leaping this way and that. The longer I held Excalibur, the more I knew how to use it, how to handle it. Without quite meaning to, I ran through an increasingly complex series of attacks and manoeuvres, jumping and pirouetting as I slammed the blade back and forth. Suzie fell back to the kitchen doorway, to give me plenty of room.

“All right, cut it out, I’m impressed!” she said. “Where did you learn to use a sword like that?”

“I didn’t,” I said, forcing myself to stop. I was hardly even breathing hard. “I’ve never handled a sword in my life. Excalibur is making all the moves; I’m just along for the ride.” -A Hard Day's Knight

How it feels to <s>chew 5 Gum</s> wield Excalibur:

Suzie looked at me thoughtfully. “How did the sword feel when you handled it?”

“Light,” I said. “Almost weightless. Good balance.”

“No, John. How did it feel ...”

I thought about it. “Like it could do anything. Like I could do anything. Like nothing in this world could stand against us as long as we fought in a noble cause.” -A Hard Day's Knight

Excalibur turns invisible when it's strapped to its wielder's back:

 On an impulse, I picked up the scabbard and slung it over my shoulder. Leather straps appeared out of nowhere, and I pulled them into place, securing the scabbard on my back. My hands moved expertly, knowing exactly what to do. I could feel the weight of the sword, hanging all the way down my back, almost to my heels. I could sense the hilt standing up behind my left shoulder, waiting to be drawn. I could feel Excalibur’s presence, like a shield at my back that no weapon could ever pierce. Like another pair of eyes, watching out for me. I was so taken up with all these new feelings that it took me a moment to notice that Suzie was looking at me very strangely.

“What?” I said.

Suzie walked round me in a tight circle, examining me from all angles. “The moment you strapped that sword into place, it vanished. Gone. Invisible. Are you sure it’s still there?”

“Yes,” I said. “I can feel the weight of it, the pressure of its purpose. And it feels like it’s got my back.” -A Hard Day's Knight

Suzie's ammunition is capable of punching holes through steel armor:

A pack of futuristic knights in space-age armour appeared suddenly over the roof, borne aloft on anti-grav backpack units. They assumed a very professional-looking formation and came swooping down with glowing energy blades held out before them. Suzie took up a comfortable stance and shot them out of the sky, one after the other. Her specially adapted ammunition blew great holes through the space-age armour and punched right through their steel helms. The futuristic knights blew apart like so many clay pigeons. Suzie didn’t miss one. Dead knights drifted slowly away across the night sky, impelled on by their sputtering anti-grav units. Some bodies had heads; some didn’t. -A Hard Day's Knight

Description of a soulbomb:

“When you blow something apart, you get energy, yes? Blow an atom apart, and you get a lot of energy. Blow a soul apart, and you get the kind of energy, the kind of explosion, that can blow holes in reality itself. It has happened in the past. There are those who see it as the ultimate form of suicide. Destroy your soul, and you get to cheat Heaven and Hell.”

“So,” I said, “we’re talking about an explosion big enough to destroy the whole mall?”

“At the very least. The Mammon Emporium is positively crawling with all the very latest kinds of protections, magical and scientific, hopefully enough to contain the explosion. But nobody knows for sure. We could lose the whole district. We could lose the whole Nightside ... And God alone knows what kind of fallout a soulbomb would produce ...” -A Hard Day's Knight

A statement regarding the Outside:

“The destruction of hundreds of dimensional gateways might be enough to fracture reality and blast open other doors. The kind that lead to places we like to think of as Outside our reality. The kind of door we’ve done everything but barricade and nail shut from this side. You know the kind of dimensions I’m talking about, John. Where Things from Outside have been waiting for millennia, just for a chance to force their way in and destroy every living thing in creation. Do I really need to say the Names?” -A Hard Day's Knight

Soulbombs can blow things right out of reality:

There was a soulbomb explosion some twenty-odd years ago, in Tokyo’s fabled Sinister Zone. Blew it right out of reality. Just a bloody big crater now, with energies radiating in all directions that can mutate your DNA if you even think about going to take a look at it. The Japanese have been throwing all kinds of lizards into it, hoping they’ll mutate into giant forms ... They do love their cinema, the Japanese. -A Hard Day's Knight

Another explanation regarding the nature of Outsiders:

“Do you know the kind of Things from Outside we’re talking about?” I said carefully. “They exist in dimensions far from ours, far from reality, as we understand it. They’re not even life, as we understand it. They hate life, and destroy it wherever they find it. They want to destroy the Light, until there’s nothing left but the Darkness they hide in.”

“You’re saying they’re evil?” he said politely.

“They’re so different from us they’re beyond simple labels like Good and Evil. Those are human beliefs, human concepts. They’re bigger than that, beyond that, monstrous beyond anything we can imagine because our concept of evil isn’t big enough to encompass the things they do. We call them Outsiders because they’re outside anything we can understand or accept: outside morality, or sanity, maybe even Life or Death.” -A Hard Day's Knight

The portable Timeslip can be used to send things to the Outside, including soulbomb-level explosions of energy capable of harming Outsiders:

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I really was, “but you’ve been made into a soulbomb. I don’t think that can be undone. And since an oracle on the way here told me that you were going to detonate no matter what, I think the man who paid for you to be made over into what you are probably installed a fail-safe, to take the decision out of your hands after a certain time. So that even if you did have a failure of nerve, you’d still go off. But even if you can’t decide not to explode, you can still choose when, and why. I need you to detonate when I tell you; and I will channel the blast away through this.” I showed him the gold pocket-watch. “I know, it doesn’t look like much, but it contains a Portable Timeslip under my control. I can find the dimensional rift the Outsiders will use to come through and turn your detonation away from the other dimensional doors, so that all the energies blast right through the rift as it opens. A soulbomb explosion is enough to hurt even Things from Outside. You can use your death to strike a blow against them. Won’t be enough to kill them, but it’ll hurt them, and make them back off and think again. How does that sound? You could be remembered as the man who saved the Nightside. How’s that for making a difference?” -A Hard Day's Knight

Excalibur protects John from a soulbomb explosion as he transfers the energy to the Outside using his portable Timeslip:

He closed his eyes and seemed to relax completely, as though finally putting down some terrible burden. He gave up the last thing that held him together, and when the explosion came, it was too big to see or hear. A light too bright to bear, and a sound that filled the world. I held Excalibur out before me, between my body and the blast, the point on the floor, the hilt before my face, my hands gripping the cross-piece. When the soul detonated, all I could do was hang on to the sword, blinded and deafened, torn at by forces I could barely recognise. I concentrated on my link to the gold watch in my pocket, using all my mental strength to funnel the energies through the Portable Timeslip and throw them at the Outsiders’ dimensional rift. It wasn’t difficult: once I started the process, the watch did most of the work. Otherwise, I’d never have been able to do it.

I clung to Excalibur as the storm raged round me, hanging on like a drowning man to a raft. The raging energies seemed to keep on coming, destruction without end, power beyond belief, and myself only the smallest mote in an angry god’s eye. But the blast did end, eventually, and the world slowly came back into focus round me. I could see and hear again, left trembling and shaken by the storm that had passed. It took me a long moment to unclench my hands from Excalibur’s cross-piece and look slowly round me. The mall seemed perfectly normal, undamaged, safe and sane again. The light was very bright, and there were no shadows anywhere. I reached into my pocket and closed the gold watch.

The Outsiders had been thrown back into Darkness, and Humanity had been saved because one man had given up his soul to do it. But he shouldn’t have had to. My mission wasn’t over yet. There was still justice to be administered. Justice, and vengeance. -A Hard Day's Knight

Lady Gaea, AKA the Lady of the Lake, is apparently too big to fit inside of the material world, much like several other higher-dimensional beings in the series:

“Lady Gaea, it is Sir Percifal of the London Knights who calls you. Come speak with us, in Arthur’s name, for the bearer of Excalibur has come amongst us. John Taylor of the Nightside is here; and we’d all like to have a few words with you about that ...”

He straightened up quickly, as from deep in the well there came a great roaring sound, of something rushing towards us, building and building like an approaching tidal wave. I could feel the pressure of something big coming, of something too large to fit easily into our fragile material world. I looked round and realised that all the knights had backed away from the well, as far as they could go, their steel backs pressed against the stone wall. A few had even retreated into the stairway. I moved quickly back to stand in the doorway. I can pick up a hint if you hit me with it hard enough.

And then a jet of water blasted up out of the well, dark blue-green sea-water, and it slammed against the stone ceiling before falling back as a shower of rain. Drops of water ran harmlessly down the knights’ armour. I wasn’t so lucky, but there are times when a white trench coat comes in handy. The water fell back into the well, and when I’d wiped the moisture from my face and eyes, a young woman was standing elegantly on the surface of the water filling the well.

An extremely good-looking woman, in a long dark dress with a bright scarlet sash round her waist. And not a drop of water on her anywhere. She smiled brilliantly about her, stepped forward, and set an elegant bare foot on the rim of the well. She reached out a hand to me, so I could help her step down. I took her hand automatically and was quietly surprised at how normal and human her hand felt in mine.

She was human, and she was beautiful, but she was also so very much more than that. She was Gaea. All the world in a woman. You only had to be in her company to know it. -A Hard Day's Knight

Merlin (of Sinister Albion) appears:

And that was when lightning slammed down into the bar. Huge jagged bolts of blue-white electricity, jumping from ceiling to floor to every metal object in the bar. Sparks jumped and exploded, crackling loudly on the air. I could feel the wild energies tingling on my bare skin, and my hair stood up. The air stank of ozone. The lightning slammed down again and again, filling the bar with brutal, merciless light. Tables and chairs caught fire. The floor suddenly cracked apart, a long, jagged line that ran from one end of the bar to the other, the crack widening and splintering as it tore itself apart. Everyone in the bar was running for the exit. Some were on fire. There was screaming and shouting and all the sounds of pain and horror. I put my back to the bar, and Suzie was right there at my side, shotgun at the ready.

The crack in the floor widened further still, becoming a crevice full of darkness. And up out of that bottomless darkness rose a huge iron throne, its heavy black metal carved and scarred with crawling unquiet runes. And sitting at his ease on that cold iron throne—Merlin Satanspawn of Sinister Albion. The greatest living sorcerer of a realm where evil had triumphed. He smiled on me as the throne came to a halt, hovering over the abyss; and it was not a human smile.

The living Merlin was tall, easily eight feet, and grossly fat from lifetimes of indulging his many appetites. Naked, his skin was flushed, stretched taut with heavy rolls of fat, and covered in ancient Celtic and Druidic tattoos. The designs were hard to make out, stretched and distorted by his huge shape. His face was wide, his arms and legs huge. His eyes were sunk deep into his skull, and his smile showed teeth yellowed with age. There was something in those eyes, and in that smile, that held me where I was like a mouse hypnotised by a snake. The knowledge in that stare, the centuries of experience, the sheer concentrated happy evil ...

Dried blood had caked under his long fingernails, and more was trapped in the heavy lines round his mouth. Goat’s horns curled up from his lowering forehead, and scarlet flames danced up from his eyes, rising and falling as his gaze moved this way and that. They say he has his father’s eyes ... And an inverted pentagram had been branded deep into his bare chest. No-one was going to steal this Merlin’s heart.

Simply sitting there, on his brutal throne, Merlin’s presence was overwhelming. He seemed to curdle the bar’s atmosphere and poison the air by being there. Merlin Satanspawn, the Devil’s only begotten son, the anti-Christ who’d corrupted and destroyed the greatest dream of all, to make his Sinister Albion. -A Hard Day's Knight

Merlin kills a flower with his breath:

Merlin raised one fat hand, and a rose appeared in it out of nowhere. He offered it to the two bouncers, and they both turned up their noses. Merlin laughed softly, a flat horrid sound with all the wickedness of the world in it. He brought the rose to his mouth and breathed on it, so it withered and died in a moment.

“Big deal,” said Alex, his voice steady. “I can do that most mornings. Of course, I am not a morning person.” -A Hard Day's Knight

Merlin states that the Devil (his father) is everywhere, in all worlds:

“We’re not toys,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm and casual and not in any way impressed. “You may be the big mover and shaker in your world, but we’ve seen better. And you’re not in your world now.”

“But my father is everywhere, in all worlds,” said Merlin. “And where he is, I have power. Do not think I am weak because I am out of my domain.” -A Hard Day's Knight

He causes Lucy Coltrane's heart to rip itself out of her chest with a spell:

He gestured lazily with one plump hand at Lucy Coltrane, and she cried out in pain as her back arched suddenly. Her breath came fast and panicked, her eyes full of horror. Merlin gestured again, and Lucy’s chest split apart in a flurry of blood and broken bone. Her heart ripped itself out of the great wound in her chest and flew across the intervening space to nestle into Merlin’s waiting hand. Lucy collapsed as all the strength went out of her, blood still spurting from the great wound between her breasts and spraying from her slack mouth with her last few gasps for breath. Betty was there to hold Lucy before she hit the floor, but Lucy was already dead, her wide eyes fixed and staring. Betty lowered her slowly to the blood-slick floor and sat there with her, hugging the dead body to her while she cried silent, angry tears. And Merlin Satanspawn brought the still-beating heart to his mouth and ate it greedily, stuffing the pulsing meat into his mouth. And when he was done, and he’d eaten every last bit of it, he licked all the blood from his fingers like a small child with a treat. -A Hard Day's Knight

And then reverses the damage, bringing her back to life, just to prove a point:

“That wasn’t a demonstration of power. That was a little something to get your attention. This ... is the demonstration.”

And Lucy Coltrane sat bolt upright in Betty’s arms, drawing in a deep breath of air. The great wound in her chest was gone, her eyes were wide open, and she grabbed on to Betty with desperate hands as she fought to get her breathing back under control again. She had been dead, and now she was alive again; and Merlin Satanspawn chuckled happily.

“I am my father’s son, inflicted on the world to do his will; and I can do anything the Lamb could do.”

(And I remembered Jerusalem Stark saying that his new allies could bring his dead wife back to life. That he’d seen proof ...) -A Hard Day's Knight

John sort of reminds us that the series has introduced other characters on par with Merlin, if not superior to him:

“You really think you can find Stark before Merlin does?” said Alex.

“Of course,” I said. “I have a gift; and I know the Nightside better than he ever will.”

“Yes, but ... he’s Merlin!” said Alex. “Alive and in his prime, after fifteen hundred years of practicing his craft! With all the powers of the anti-Christ! He could probably pull the Moon down out of the sky and crash it into the Nightside for laughs! And I’m not sure there’s anyone in the Nightside who could stop him!”

“Do I need to get you a paper bag to breathe into?” I said. “Of course there are people here who could stop him! Off the top of my head, there’s the Lord of Thorns. And Hadleigh Oblivion, the Detective Inspectre. And Jessica Sorrow, the Unbeliever.”

“You really do know some scary people,” said Alex. -A Hard Day's Knight

Excalibur's nature makes it invisible to John's eye:

I concentrated on my gift and sent my mind soaring up and out, shooting up through the bar and rising high into the dark skies above. My mind rose free, no longer held back by the limitations of flesh, and I could See all across the Nightside. The huge Moon glared more brightly than ever though it had no sun to reflect light from. There is no man-in-the-moon face on the Nightside’s Moon; it’s a huge dead silver eye that sees everything and cares for nothing. The stars danced all round me. If I listened really hard, I could hear them singing. I looked down across the brightly lit streets and squares, the flares and smears of gaudy colour as the Nightside spun slowly beneath me. Hot neon blazed, and magics dazzled, but I couldn’t See the sword Excalibur anywhere. Its nature made it invisible to everyone except the man who bore it, rightly or not. -A Hard Day's Knight

Excalibur controls the natural world and everything that lives in it, or so Artur believes:

“Excalibur is far more than just a sword. You have no idea what it really is. To own the sword, to have control over Excalibur, is to have control over the natural world and everything that lives in it. Merlin may be the most powerful sorcerer my world has ever known, he may even be the anti-Christ he claims to be; but all of that is nothing in the face of Excalibur. Merlin is still a living man, and part of the natural order of things, and Excalibur rules the living.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” said Stark.

“I wish I had your sword,” said Artur. -A Hard Day's Knight

The only way to truly "bring someone back to life" is to pull them back from the Afterlife by force. And Merlin is fully capable of this:

“I have seen Merlin kill a man, then raise him up again, for the pleasure of it,” said Artur. “Sometimes he kills the man over and over again, so he can keep bringing him back. To prove that no-one can escape from him and to see the suffering in the man’s eyes as he is snatched back out of Heaven’s grasp. Merlin is the anti-Christ, and he can do whatever he wants. Give me the wonderful sword, Stark, and you shall have your wife again.” -A Hard Day's Knight

Statement about the timelines of the setting:

“Remarkable piece of work, this, Mr. Taylor. Remarkable. This Door can give you access to any alternate history track you can think of and a few most people would be better off not thinking of. All you need is the correct co-ordinates. I should point out that you have to be extremely exact when entering the co-ordinates if you want to get the world you want and not one just a bit like it. Now, Sinister Albion. Are you sure you’re sure about this, Mr. Taylor?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” I said. -A Hard Day's Knight

In searching through the timelines, John confirms that there are "endless" alternate universes, "worlds without end":

I raised my gift and let it glide forward and sink into the Door. Beyond it I could see endless scenes, flickering on and off, worlds without end, worlds come and gone in a moment—some familiar, some horrible, and some so utterly other I couldn’t even make sense of what I was Seeing. I concentrated, frowning, focusing on Sinister Albion. Worlds fanned out before me like a pack of cards; and one world snapped suddenly into focus. I pulled back immediately and concentrated on the brass combination lock on the Door. The mechanism whirled back and forth, spinning rapidly under the impetus of my gaze, then it snapped to a halt, and the Door swung open a little. -A Hard Day's Knight

Excalibur can absorb offensive magic on the level of Merlin Satanspawn:

I swept the sword back and forth before me, then looked Merlin full in the eye. He stood up abruptly from his iron throne and shoved one hand out at me. Magic blazed and crackled on the air, rewriting reality itself as it forced its way towards me ... and the sword absorbed every single bit of it. Sucked it right out of the air. I grinned at Merlin and cut suddenly at his extended hand. The golden blade flashed through the air, and Merlin snatched his hand back barely in time to avoid losing it. -A Hard Day's Knight

Merlin's protections stop Excalibur from running him through:

I stepped forward and thrust Excalibur straight at his heart; but the blade couldn’t reach him. It slammed to a halt a few inches short. I cut at him again and again, grunting with the effort I put into every blow, but brightly as the sword blazed, it still couldn’t pierce his protections. -A Hard Day's Knight

Something involving the Gaea of Sinister Albion being held at bay by Merlin:

We all looked round sharply at an unexpected noise; and there, in the middle of the Court, a fountain sprang up. Clear, bubbling freshwater, rising a good twenty feet into the air, falling down to wash away all the years of accumulated blood and filth on the floor. And out of that clear water stepped a tall young woman in a long blue gown, with dark hair and a face I immediately recognised. Gaea, mother of the world. It only took me a moment to realise this wasn’t the same woman I’d met in Castle Inconnu; this Gaea was gaunt and harried and had nothing of Gayle’s easy humanity. This was the Queen of all the Earth, free at last of Merlin’s domination, come walking amongst us. -A Hard Day's Knight

All versions of Gaea across the multiverse are aspects of another being who is above the material plane:

“I know who you are,” she said. “And how and why you came here. I know you because your world’s Gaea knows you. We’re all aspects of the same person, or personification. It’s complicated.”

“Really,” I said. “You do surprise me.” -A Hard Day's Knight

The Nightside apparently isn't on Earth:

“We have our own dimensional doorways, Mr. Taylor. For when we ride to war on other worlds, in other dimensions. They won’t work anywhere on Earth because that’s Drood territory. But the Nightside isn’t on Earth, technically, so we can be there in moments.” -A Hard Day's Knight

It is eventually stated quite outright that the verse has "an infinity" of possible timelines and futures:

“This is what the world will look like,” I said, “when all the wars are over and done with. This is what you would inherit after your civil war, Your Elven Majesties. But this is only one possible future, one possible Earth. There are many others, a whole infinity of possibilities. Tell them, Arthur.” -A Hard Day's Knight