Avalon Rising (14 page)

The winds in the high skies are heavier, sharper, piercing like icicles on my skin. The currents wail like a banshee, too forlorn ever to find peace. I’ve encountered the storms of winter on the path to Avalon, and as I follow it, I can feel each snowflake slicing against my face until I must draw down my goggles to keep my vision intact. My
jaseemat
does nothing to smooth out the ride or strengthen the wings, but at least it keeps the fire burning and churns the propellers higher in the sky.

When I’ve surpassed the thunderous clouds and their chaotic bolts of lightning, the sky turns bright blue, curving over me like a sphere. Beyond, the black night might still dwell. Indeed, stars shine just as they always do, but now, it’s in a realm of perpetual calm. A bit of quiet heaven.
CELESTE
steadies on a current, and I set the lever between the spokes of the helm to keep my aeroship southbound.

I walk the deck. The shuttering of propellers fades into the background, and my own ragged breath vies for gulps of air to steady my heart and keep me alive. Merlin’s handwritten instructions I clutch against my chest.

“I’m sorry, Rufus,” I whisper. Every time I blink, the devastation in his violet eyes haunts me more and more. “I’m so sorry.”

But he must understand. And surely, he will go with Sir Tristan and his warriors to Jerusalem. He will offer to repair any damages that might come about to their own flying ship. While working, he’ll realize why I couldn’t let him come with me, not when Marcus had already lost one parent and might have soon lost another.

Caldor flits to the table where I set the excess
jaseemat
from my satchel while the signet remains safe in the pocket of my cloak. I find Merlin’s forgotten scrolls tucked beside a journal and crouch awkwardly, the firelance in my holster hitting the floor until I must shift to my knees to stay comfortable. My fingers drift over the thick, grainy parchment. I’d forgotten about these, and I have yet to see if there are any other hidden pages I might have missed. And so, I unravel one. Like the sorcerer might have forged them out of thin air himself, these are as brand new as a forthcoming day.

But, no, I don’t believe the words I’m reading. Because even though they’re scrawled beautifully in Merlin’s own version of the Latin alphabet, there’s no way these words strung together like a necklace of glass beads are anything but magic.

To blind a man. Yeuxeuse fambratcricoh kemphah solohite.

To resurrect. Redia chatusolach azah morterejiakah.

I slam my hand over my mouth as my eyes pore over lines and lines of the stolen words Merlin never destroyed. Words that might have easily fallen into the wrong hands. Words I tossed against my back without any concern for the supposed maps or sketches I thought would help Rufus and me in the Perilous Lands. Words horridly easy to memorize, and just as difficult to forget, like the spell to bring a man back to life, a horribly tedious task, only doable in an hour’s time. The same one Merlin mentioned in his letter to Azur.
Redia
.

The one that would bring about a horrible fate to the thief of magic using it.

Redia chatusolach azah morterejiakah …

But the journals don’t end there: they contain the history of the Holy Grail and how it contains sumptuous power craved by the demigods. I’m nearly sick at the thought of Morgan le Fay finding something as precious as this. On the second page, the scrolls have lists and words I don’t recognize. More spells. Merlin’s own or stolen from a demigod, in all likelihood the Lady of the Lake. I tear them from their bindings as though to separate them from the journals would make them less real.

“Oh, Merlin, why would you have kept these?” I whisper. And why would he have told me to bring them?

A way to move through space, a way to raise a heavy object from beneath the water, or rein it in from the sky. To conceal. Manipulating the laws of nature. Diagrams of a human corpse and how dead blood could serve as a makeshift essence of life. Mechanical people not unlike Mordred, turned into monstrous machines not because of a weakened life, but enhanced on top of their own perfect bodies.

“Fascinating, is it not?”

I jump as the smooth voice of the sorcerer whispers into my ear. Quickly, the spells are stuffed into my dress’s pocket, and my firelance is cold and quick in my hand as I aim at the empty space around me. But I’m alone. Merlin’s not here, and even if he were, was I supposed to fire
this
? A firelance I got from the madman’s very own clock tower? One I managed to find in lieu of his missing pistolník?

I inhale the wind like it might make me powerful, pressing my palms against my eyes until the pressure is relieved. “Calm down, Vivienne.” Naturally, all of this is from hunger, or exhaustion, or fear. So much has happened since I left Camelot but a day ago. I’m bound to feel a little out of my mind.

“Don’t be foolish, girl. You know what laws of the universe I’m able to transcend.”

I whip around, following the voice. A flash of Merlin’s cocked brows, gold-rimmed eyes, tattoos on his shorn skull, phoenix feather woven through his small goatee. I see a glimpse of the emerald stone in his wooden cane; I see the long robe he set upon his shoulders. And then he’s vanished.

“Merlin? Merlin, if you’re really here, show yourself!” I call. The firelance trembles in my hand, and nowhere can I see the man who was my mentor. Certainly, insanity has found me instead.

“Or perhaps I’m more real than ever,”
comes the whisper again. This time when I turn, Merlin is there. In front of me and in my mind at the same time. Just as he was in the woods with the Lady of the Lake, using a spell that lets him do so.

Sensu ahchla tetay meo loqui havahchi …

He’s real, and he’s fading in and out of existence. More so now than before. Any stress or pain in his face from the curse Morgan le Fay inflicted upon him—and that he readily took for himself once her sword dug into his heart—has faded for a sense of addiction and delight. He looks as he did when he stole magic to hide Marcus and me all those months ago: strong, valiant, able to withstand any attack and offer brutal retaliation. “Perhaps I’m here to ensure you’re on the right path.”

I grit my teeth at the venom in his voice. “No, you’re nothing but a figment of my imagination. A thief of magic who never gave it up, but hoarded it in his tower for years!” I’m ready to pull free the parchment from my pocket to prove it.

He circles me like I’m his prey. “A figment of your imagination? Huh! Hardly. While you are brilliant, there’s no way you could have imagined the likes of me as I am now.” He presents himself, and indeed he’s different from the sorcerer I knew. He stands tall without his limp, and while his eyes carry such wisdom only a man of countless eras could ever possess, his skin is radiant, shining. His gaze crawls over every corner of my aeroship. “A fine attempt. Could have used Lena’s expertise, perhaps.” I frown. “Who?”

Merlin smirks. “Someone you’ve yet to meet, experienced in the ways of maneuvering vessels and toys affiliated with the mechanical arts. She could have helped you forge a secret passageway or a storage chamber, one that would let you hide the most valuable trinkets and information you have on this ship.”

I shut my eyes and rub them. Perhaps Merlin’s lost what’s left of his mind and thinks he speaks to another. I feel the energy of the past two days finally subside for exhaustion. “You’re a hallucination from lack of sleep or food—”

“I’m as real as I’ll ever be, girl.” His walk toward me is as smooth as the wind. “Azur couldn’t contain me for long. How could I remain in a vault when instead I could witness the days soon to come?” When he speaks, it’s like he’s planning for a funeral instead of a jubilee. “To let you carry out your quest, I’ve locked the Lady of the Lake in the woods, a trick from an old foe I never imagined would come to mind.”

He speaks of Morgan. Oh God, he speaks of Morgan. “You have one focus now,” Merlin continues. “When you first became my apprentice, you longed for the opportunity to learn more about the mechanical arts, how they could enhance the world in ways you could only dream. Once you saw my mechanical falcon take flight from my window, you had to know more.”

He’s circling me, and I feel like I’m at the gates of heaven on trial for sins I’ve not yet committed. “You’re the one who taught me,” I reply. “Or has your memory escaped you with your sense of right and wrong?”

“Do not speak against me, Vivienne, dear. This is not about me; it’s about the apprentice I left behind, unaware of the danger I put her in, yet seeking to dive straight into it.”

“How so?” I think of Azur’s frightened eyes when he told me about alchemy and magic.

“Now you’ll want the Grail,” Merlin continues, “but not for Camelot or your mother’s ensured safety or even for love. No, you’ll soon long for the Grail to know what sort of power it might have. Yes, you’ll want to study it, learn more about it, see if there’s not only a way to use its magic for good, but perhaps your own creations as well. After all, good and evil are two wildly opposite ideas, and yet, subjective. Perhaps your definition of
good
would differ greatly from, say, Sir Marcus’s, or mine.”

Now I feel the unmistakable call of the Holy Grail, and I’m cloaked with the prospect of absolute knowledge and wisdom. I cannot deny how it fascinates me.

“So what,
pagan?
” I spit back, angry at how well he knows the workings of my mind.

Once I uttered that slur at Merlin, and he flinched as though I’d slapped him; this time, the word passes through his transparent being as though it might not exist any more than he does.

“You saw how magic destroyed the Fisher King, and yet, that doesn’t discourage you.” Suddenly, he steps closer, and I know he must be real because now he speaks as a mentor, not a challenger. “You must understand the severity of all this, Vivienne.”

I firm my jaw. “I will not turn into the Fisher King. I want the Grail for Camelot, Merlin. For Azur’s sake. Jerusalem’s. Otherwise, I would have left for safer grounds long ago.”

“You wouldn’t have, as your lover seeks the same thing,” he retorts.

“That’s not why I do this!”

A frightening calm comes over Merlin. A smile of distrust swerves to the side of his face. He leans closer, forcing me against the helm. “We shall see. You managed to evade the temptation of magic, and you passed the Fisher King’s tests, but can you rise up to a far more difficult challenge?”

With one quick reach, he’s got the helm in his grasp and twists it until the lever holding the trajectory snaps into two. The deck under my feet turns sharply—I scream. My hands reach for anything that could keep me upright, but before I can seize the helm myself, I’ve fallen. And when I look up at the traitorous sorcerer, he’s vanished.

He’s sent my aeroship soaring for the ground.

I stumble to my feet and retake the helm, but it’s stuck now, and the furnace is out, even though I’d cast more than enough
jaseemat
inside. I look at the clouds I’m diving into, at the satchel and all its contents spilling out around me, at Caldor slamming against the railings and chirping wildly, steam valve whistling. The clouds vanish. All I can see is the earth coming at me.

Oh God.

Desperately, I set all my weight upon the helm, begging and praying for its shift.
“Merlin!”

But my aeroship hits thick, snowy trees and snaps across the ground, and all I can do is grab on tightly and pray that death will come swiftly.

It feels like I’m caught at the forefront of a mountain as it crashes into an ocean. A burst of snow sprays like a volcanic eruption of ice instead of lava. My body bangs against a railing, and I grit my teeth and fall, readying to feel the shattering of my bones into bristle shards.

It never comes.

A ringing sound thuds at the inside of my skull, like my aeroship’s furnace might still be popping with fire and charcoal, and as I find the courage to open my eyes, the sputter of the furnace dies. The propeller spins like mad against the snow, chopping up the tougher clumps. The nose of my ship has been completely obliterated, but God bless the Norwegian steel Rufus used to reinforce my vessel with the strength of dragon scales.

I release my breath, and with it comes sob after sob and hot tears. I pull my legs close and tighten my arms around them, rocking back and forth and letting myself cry the tears I’ve wanted to shed ever since Camelot fell, since Arthur’s death, since I saw the utter despair on Marcus’s face after his childhood home fell to the flames’ wrath. All of this blasted work—all of the hours I put into this horrid vessel, only so it’d crash into this barren wilderness. I’ll never find Marcus now. I’ll never find the Grail. I might never find my way back home.

I want nothing more than my mother’s arms around me, my father stern yet loving presence beside me, assuring me in the kindest way he can manage that everything will be “quite all right, Vivienne, dear.” I even wish Owen were here to gently tease me like only a brother could.

My mind drifts to Merlin. It couldn’t have been real, having him in the air with me. It was only my imagination. That’s all. Just my imagination, and I crashed because I couldn’t handle the ship as well as Rufus could. Merlin never would have put me in such danger; he never would have tried to kill me, for goodness sake. This was my fault.

After what feels like forever, I’ve cried all my tears, and there’s nothing left but an insatiable hunger and a terrifying realization: I’m alone in this now. Before, at least I had Rufus as company. But now, I don’t even have a horse. All I have are a few scrolls and journals containing the sorcerer’s words scribbled at the height of his thievery of magic. A supply of hastily-made
jaseemat
that hasn’t been tested to its full capacity. And the knowledge that I abandoned Marcus’s father so he wouldn’t have to go on a dangerous quest.

You did this for the magic, Vivienne, dear. Don’t delude yourself.

I banish the quiet whisper from my mind. My eyes are heavy and swollen from crying, and I wipe my cheeks dry. The stairs lower to the ground, past the broken wing that makes me pause. I remember building these wings. It was autumn and still warm enough to be in Merlin’s clock tower without requiring an abundance of furs. I’d been proudest of the wings; I’d used the sewing tricks my mother had taught me, my mother whose meticulous fingers could weave spun gold into kingly garments in less than a day’s time. She’d be proud to see the silk-sheet wings and their lassoing iron hooks, now jagged, threadbare edges dancing like flags in the wind, the loose strands pulling free of the mast and sailing over the trees.

How will I rebuild
CELESTE
? The task is more impossible now than ever, but I cannot worry about that, despite the despair that’s come over me. I need to find the nearest village before nightfall. I need food, an inn. Above, the clouds promising awesome storms are warning enough to get out of the countryside.

I land on the snow and steady myself. My feet and legs wobble from being in the skies for so long. A swift current of air bites at me, and the hood I set atop my hair does absolutely nothing for the chill.

I set Caldor on my arm and pour some
jaseemat
into its steam valve. “You’re all I have right now,” I whisper. “You and the promise that something great will come from all this.” I whisper the proper words to bring the falcon to life, and as the golden powder illuminates the tiny machine, I set its navigational gauge to take me southeast—inland. I’ll follow the woods until I reach a body of water—a river, perhaps—and then continue on until I find a village. I send Caldor into flight and hold Merlin’s glasscovered navigational piece in my palm. The arrow spins in circles and finds its path.

With my tools in Merlin’s leather satchel, I glance at my aeroship. At the Norwegian steel bound to be pillaged if I’m not quick to return in a few days’ time with the tools and textiles necessary to fix it. When I’d built a miniature version of it using Merlin’s hookah, it’d simply been to calm crying children at feasts in Camelot. But this aeroship is more important. To bid good-bye brings all sorts of strange and confusing melancholy. But I must find shelter.

There’ll be miles before I’ll see another living soul, and there are miles behind me as night draws closer. Caldor keeps my pace, and my lungs are on fire from running for so long. After a while, everything blends together with hunger and exhaustion, and only the short bursts of delirium keep me from falling flat on my face. I cross a frozen stream, my boots sliding across the slippery surface, and come out on the other side to a bough of evergreens. Tall and majestic and of significant difference from the forest I’d just left. This might be a good sign.

And then, from beyond the trees’ edge, comes the telltale crackle and hiss of a fire. No strong, thundering winds like the infernos Morgan le Fay set upon Camelot, but a campfire. I freeze in case my footsteps on the crunchy snow would be loud enough to warrant unwanted attention. But when I glance about, there are no shining eyes staring at me from amongst the trees. I take a leap of faith and another step. The smell of sweet-burning wood finds me, and I follow the plumes of smoke and ash grasping at the evergreens’ branches. As I approach, the voices accompanying the fire grow louder.

“—on purpose, you know.” The voice belongs to a man, words stretched as though he might have food in his mouth, and accented as well. I don’t recognize where in Britannia he might come from, if this is still Britannia. “They’ve scoured the entire countryside for nothing else other than our gold, leaving us hungry and hopeless. Mark my words: it’s
on purpose
. They already know the Grail isn’t in the countryside.”

“Why would they bother? The Black Knight has enough wealth to sustain a kingdom for eons.” The second voice is a woman’s. Older, and with the same accent as the man. “The sight of my mother’s gold necklace is nothing compared to the Grail, and they know that. That’s why they tore apart the Holy Land. Eat your food.”

There are gentle scrapings: the scratching of tin and iron. A gear system set automatically with a wind-up tension cord, I’d guess. Then nothing. I peek around a thick fir at two figures sitting side by side on a fallen tree with a small fire blazing between them. They have a boiling pot sitting atop with a wooden spoon that when stirred sends the smells of cooked meat and spices into the air.

My eyes lock onto the steaming pot and nothing else. I’m wild with hunger, and all I want—

“What have we here?”

A lurking figure appears on one side of me, and then a taller one arrives at the other. I jump in surprise. Each grabs an arm tightly enough to hurt. A hand clamps over my mouth before I can scream.

“Looks like we have a visitor,” the second says.

I shake my head in protest, but they take me into the range of the firelight, and through it, I look at my captors. Two burly men with scowls on their ice-burnt faces. The first one drops his dirt-caked hand from my mouth.

I swallow hard. “I’m passing through. I didn’t mean—” I pause, and their eyebrows lift, waiting for me to continue. But I cannot tell them about the aeroship, the crash. That alone would lead to other questions, approaching too closely the idea of Avalon. “I’m not—”

“Drop the girl,” the woman says from the other side of the fire. “I’ll see her for myself.”

The men do so, and I dare not move as the woman steps around the fiery cinders for me. When she steps past the flames, I see how her dark red hair has been tied at the back of her neck with a threadbare kerchief to keep out the cold. The furs around her shoulders are heavy, a tribe of foxes lying on her arms. Her eyes are light and older than mine, and from what I can tell, they’re all villagers, but the woman carries an aura of wisdom that gives her rank.

She comes close enough to study my face. “You’re not from these parts. Look at her skin—” she grabs my hand and casts back the sleeve of my robe, revealing my bare arm “—she hasn’t worked outside a day in her life, has she, Seamus?” A flick of her wrist drops my hand from hers, and the men grab me again, in case I were to run. She circles. “Where are you from?”

I stay as close as I can to the truth. I’m too exhausted to lie. “The north. I lost my way.”

“How? What are you doing in these parts?”

I hesitate. I shouldn’t tell them about my aeroship. “I’m looking for someone.”

Her eyes crinkle with suspicion. “Who?”

Then I realize something that might put me in her favor. Anyone in these English-speaking parts would know of Arthur and Camelot. They’d prove to be an ally. I must trust in that. “A knight of Camelot.”

The three men laugh wildly, as though I might have mentioned Hercules or someone just as impossible. The man Seamus bounces in his seat, laughing through a gaptoothed smile. But the old woman doesn’t flinch. She stares at me. Finally, she holds up a hand, calling for silence, and the men obey. “You must know how ridiculous of a quest that’d be, my lady. In a land infested with rogues?”

I didn’t know there were rogues here, but I pretend. “Of course. But I’m desperate.”

The man who took my arm first chuckles. “What of her, Briana? Let’s take her back to the village. She might bring in a pretty penny.”

Briana cocks her head to the side. “Yes. She’s young, likely still pure, and her appearance is rather striking. We could sell her to the inns and taverns before calling her family to pay up.” A plotting smile spreads over her face, and the meaning behind that sentiment sends a bout of dread across mine.

I shake my head. “Let me go.” I pull my arms from the grips of the two very strong men, but they don’t let up. “Let me go now!”

“Quiet, you,” the first one says.

I don’t know what else to do; I struggle against the two men. I have a firelance hidden at my hip, and they’ve missed Merlin’s sword on my back. But neither are within reach.

Briana taps my chin. “Nothing personal, dear, but ever since rumor spread that Arthur of Camelot fell, there’s been nothing but havoc in these parts.” She gifts me with an overly-patronizing smile. “You understand, this would be the only way we wouldn’t have to eat squirrel and the rotting roots too good for them. Have wine for the first time since our king turned into a pillar of dust.”

They’re descendants of the Fisher King’s subjects. How many generations have been without a kingdom since the curse fell upon him?

Briana smiles. “Course, it would—”

“Hold on,” Seamus says. He takes a bite of meat and spits out a long, thin bone, one too small for a chicken. “Seeking a knight of Camelot? Who’d you say you were?”

I keep my mouth shut. I won’t give them any more information, not if they already have plans to sell me to the men of their village. I yank my arm, good and hard, but I’m still their captive.

“What difference does it make?” Briana asks.

“Because,” Seamus says, standing and wiping a greasy mouth on his sleeve, “just this morning I heard from the cobbler’s wife there was word of a girl of some importance, what have you, who escaped from Camelot.” He makes his way to Briana’s side.

“Is that so?” Briana says, glancing back at me.

I feel my lip quiver in fear, but I must be strong. I look straight into the older woman’s eyes. “I’m not from Camelot; I said I sought a knight from there.”

“You wouldn’t know of too many knights otherwise, girl. Not with your status. You wear the clothes of a queen, not a harlot. Your words and the way you say them indicate you’re castle-born. Your mannerisms, likewise. Who are you?” Both of them inch forward. These two might be demigods themselves, controlling the men whose hands bruise my arms.

“I’m no one,” I whisper.

“Not only that,” Seamus says, ignoring my answer. “Seems as though someone in Camelot found the coordinates to Avalon. Seems as though someone
knows
them. And wouldn’t you guess who that was, Briana?”

“I guess it was probably a foolish girl who made the silly mistake of trying to get that information out of Camelot without anyone noticing.”

A smile stretches Briana’s face until the lines deepen around her eyes, and the two men lift me so only the toes of my boots touch the snow.

Suddenly, a sharp whistle pierces the air. A whistle of urgency. Of danger. Briana and Seamus dart their eyes toward it. The hands on my arms loosen. And their allure over me breaks.

“Rogues,” Briana whispers, her voice dripping with resentment and leaving an aftertaste of horror. “Leave the girl. I’m not losing my neck if they’re looking for her, too.” The men toss me into the snow, and I cover my head as they kick ice and dirt over me in their attempt to run.

Desperately, I look for signs of danger, and suddenly I hear breaths of commands shooting into the air like cannons. Up ahead, boldly-colored garments contrast the dull trees and snowy wilderness, the same yellows and oranges and purples Gawain told me rogues traditionally wore. Through the fog in the distance, the steady sound of horses galloping grows louder. A dozen makes their way through the barren trees, breaking through the fog with long, curved swords.

The Spanish rogues are here.

And they’re riding straight for me.