Blue Moon (17 page)

Zorvanis bowed his head, and Merlin was tied to his back, behind the great wings. The elves moved with care, and she knew that Merlin would be safe, that in his remaining years he would be treated with great respect.

Nimue tested the straps and, on her way past, scratched the dragon child behind his ear and smiled.

I know this, for that dragon child was I. I was born on this world, so many winters ago.

"I will remember,” I promised her, and she smiled her sad smile and turned to sing her song.

She sang of the lands where magic ran like blood. She sang of Avalon and Lyonesse, and Atlantis and Olympus. She sang of lands whose names are now forgotten, and of lands that were never named. She sang of the depths of the ocean, of the high, cold north and of Antarctica and her crystal caves where magic pooled. She sang the secret names of all the races, named the different peoples, dividing them up like the twelve tribes of Israel.

The world glowed. Every rock, every leaf was outlined in blue, every creature glowed as the magic within them reacted.

The humans did not, nor did Nimue.

The glow shifted. Each rock became two, each leaf had its twin, and they began to move away from each other as they were pulled apart. The people did not suddenly gain a twin, but they, too, began moving away from each other.

Nimue wept, her eyes filled with pain as the magic was ripped from her to go with its own kind. It is a mark of her strength that she continued to sing.

I watched as she receded from us, became smaller and smaller as the new world pulled away from the old. She raised her hand, briefly, then turned away. Her task was done.

The rest I know second-, perhaps third- or fourth-hand.

Alone in the clearing, she fell to her knees. Merlin was gone, as was her magic. She lay down, bone-tired and bereft, and decided she wasn't going to move ever again.

She stayed there until she felt a presence. Rolling over onto her back, she saw him. She knew she should get up, should curtsy, but she couldn't. She didn't care. Not about anything.

He sat down beside her. “You look different now. You probably realize that, but you should be prepared."

She tried to sit. He took her hands in his and pulled her up.

"It's done, then, my king. It's all gone."

He nodded and sat down beside her. “Do you think we will live long, without magic?"

"I hope so. I guess we only have as long as God gives us."

"Indeed.” He looked across the plains, his eyes so sad. The end had come for him, as well.

"It is not your fault, Arthur. Merlin spoke as if this was all inevitable."

"But why now? Why is everything falling apart now?” He shook his head. “It would have been alright, with a little time. We could have fixed things."

She took his wrist, as she had another's earlier. “I don't know."

She felt tears prickle in her throat and behind her eyes. She could not see as far anymore, she realized; her hearing was not as keen.

"This time tomorrow, we will be the only ones who know what came to pass. In a few years time, no one will ever even miss what they once had,” he said. “I'm going to miss him,” he added after a while. “I'm going to miss them all."

She nodded, closing her eyes against the tears. She felt him put his arm around her, and the last Lady of the Lake wept on the shoulder of her king.

Zorovin looked at her expectantly.

"Wow,” Sierra said.

He nodded. Dragons were proud of their ability to tell a complete tale.

Sierra shook her head in amazement. “I don't think I've ever heard you chain so many words together in one sitting,” she teased. “It's nice to see that you have more responses in your vocabulary than ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ and ‘you will, wizard woman.’”

"You did not listen,” he said sadly. He had expected something else, like, “Wow, you're really a dragon?"

She laughed softly. “I listened,” she said. “It was a wonderful story."

He stood up, feeling strangely disappointed in her. “It was more than that,” he said. He shook his head, hoping to order his thoughts and winnow the nonsense feelings out. “I am tired. I think I shall go to bed."

"It's early,” she protested.

"I am old, and the spell took much out of me.” He shrugged. “If I do not sleep, I will not be able to cast anything tomorrow. And time is of the essence."

"I guess."

He could feel her disappointment but told himself firmly it was not his responsibility. “Goodnight, then."

"Goodnight."

Libby wrote down everything the man had told her that day on the plane. Everything, even the stuff she didn't believe. Now, she took the three-ring binder from under the couch, wiped off the dust and sat down to read.

"The Merlin Stone,” the first page said. She flipped a few pages and began reading.

It was the greatest conundrum science had ever dealt with. The sphere, a deep, clear blue with what looked like dirt embedded in its surface, was trapped in a block of ice. The block was perfectly square and cold, yet though one's hands came away wet from handling it, the ice never melted.

The team, after much discussion, decided to put the sphere in a waterproof tray and leave it out on the table overnight “like a pound of meat,” Abigail Keefer joked. The room remained a pleasant seventy degrees all night long, but there was no melting.

Dr. Loncraine and team launched a battery of tests to determine the true nature of the ice and what it contained. MRIs, laser imaging and geological analysis were just the beginning. The results were the same across the board, and repetition did not make them any easier to believe. Geoff Murray took the various readouts, printouts, films and plates and laid them across the table then explained the findings.

"Not one of our scanning devices picks up the presence of the ice, let alone the sphere. The machines have all been tested extensively, but they don't detect a change of temperature, the fact that something's in front of them, nothing. It's like it's not there. And we can't get any samples to test. We've tested the melted water from our hands, and all we get are epithelial cells and the regular things you get from hands, absolutely nothing else."

So, the scientists and archeologists had to rely on the oldest of old-fashioned equipment—their own senses, a light table, a ruler. The block of ice was a perfect cube nine inches on a side. The sphere, barring distortion from the ice, was about six and a half inches across. It was perfectly round.

One day, Anne Marie and Valerie Tesla were experimenting with the block, projecting different colors and qualities of light through it. While the light's effects couldn't be monitored using technological gadgets, things could be observed.

"I just noticed something,” Anne Marie said to her sister-in-law while Valerie was changing the gels. “These look like land masses."

"Maybe,” Valerie said, putting a green and a blue gel in together and turning on the light.

It was amazing
, Anna recorded later in her notes.
The ice acted like a prism, covering the walls with rainbow refractions. The sphere glowed. The light projected through it, creating two spheres on the wall. The shapes moved as if slowly rotating on some axis towards each other. They had shadows, and the one on the left had shadows that looked somewhat like the Earth's landmasses. The one on the right, it was more exact ... the left shadow was a fuzzy duplicate of the right.

Valerie was fascinated. They decided to run and tell the others, and by the time they gathered everyone, twenty minutes had passed.

When they turned off the light, the images of the twin planets were burned into the wall.

"Maybe,” her source had said then, “maybe everything would have been alright if we hadn't left it on for so long.” He fell silent for awhile. “Everything began to go wrong that very night."

Libby stopped reading. She found it ironic now, how she hadn't believed him, not at all. She could look back and see every wrong turn she had taken. Sabin had told her everything was inevitable.

She flipped to the back of the book, where she had written some of her own experiences. A year after she'd graduated from school, her sister had been murdered. Shortly after that, she first spoke to Doctor Loncraine, who told her all about the Merlin Stone. She'd thought at the time that he wanted her to ghostwrite a book for him but found out he was a college friend of Doctor Seward's, and that Seward had not been researching college students to discover how stones reacted with people. He had been searching for one who would react to stones.

That had explained the desperation with which he pursued her. He'd sent the files on her to his friend, and his friend had tracked her down. Apparently, they had been searching for her for a long time.

While she was writing the book, she ran into Sabin again. At least, at the time, she'd thought it was coincidence. He began wooing her, buying her roses and leaving little presents and slips of colored paper with poems written on them in odd places for her to find. He was gentle, and he was so very sorry he'd hurt her and let her leave him.

It's hard to ignore such constant devotion—especially when one is lonely. After four months of all the chivalry and romance and joy she could stand, he begged her to marry him. She was cut off. Her sister was dead; her parents didn't really seem comfortable around her since the police still considered her the main suspect. So, she agreed. She agreed because he was good at making it seem like she meant the world to him.

Wedded bliss lasted two months. She held out for a little more than half a year, and then he revealed his true self to her.

She remembered the trip to the woods, the weird, treelike creature, her certainty she was about to die—and that it would not be merciful or painless.

She crossed her arms on her chest and shivered. She knew what her dreams would be like—that she would dream of waiting, and of a bathtub full of regret.

But she didn't. What she did dream was almost worse. Familiar horror is almost comforting, because you're used to it.

"Time to wake her up?” a man asked.

"Yes.” His voice hissed in the darkness. “Yes."

A hand touched her, and she knew she could pretend no longer, that he knew she was awake. He always did.

He was still beautiful, even if she didn't love him anymore.

"Tell us, Libby. Tell us where it is."

"You've been with me all this last year. You know all my secrets."

"Not the one I wanted in the first place. Tell me now."

Something stepped into her range of vision. Its face was like scarred, gnarled wood, its skull and neck covered in bark. Its teeth were vicious splinters, and a twig with two leaves stuck out from one cheek.

"Tell us, bitch,” it rasped.

She swallowed and looked away.

I'm going crazy, she thought. This is a dream, I'm going nuts—oh, God, make it stop.

He took the blanket off her. She felt air on her skin, his weight on the table.

"Tell me,” her husband said, turning her face so she would see the tree-creature grinning as if at some sport. “Or his turn comes after I'm done."

"I don't know. Please, Sabin, I swear I don't know."

"Did you ever read the coroner's report on your sister? Did you ever find out exactly how she died? They found splinters inside her, Elizabeth, and thorns."

There was a rasping sound to her left. The tree thing was laughing.

"Alright,” she said, closing her eyes. She could do this. She'd done it before, just close her eyes and be somewhere else. “Just do what you will. If I'm still alive afterwards, maybe you'll be satisfied that I don't know what you're talking about."

"Brave words. How come you're crying, then?"

She didn't answer. She was trying to be somewhere else, with someone else.

"I could conduct a banishing, but I think I shall just kill thee,” a voice interrupted. It was not a hero's voice, but cracked and rough, as if whoever it was had never spoken out loud before.

She turned her head to see, and was blinded by a flash of lightning, close and searing hot. The tree man screamed as it engulfed him, and a smell of burning garbage filled the room, choking her.

"Who in the second hells do you think you are?” Sabin screamed, and she heard the impact of something on flesh, and a grunt. She heard fighting, things falling, but she couldn't see.

Hands came down over her eyes. Sabin began muttering, and she felt pain, worse than what the bolt striking so near had caused.

"You're blind, Elizabeth,” he said, “But I will give you such sight."

He was yanked away, and there was another bolt of lightning—she could feel and smell it. Then, hands came again, different hands, ripping away the straps at her wrists and ankles. He smelled odd, different, like ozone and leather and rock.

He patted her head gently then wrapped her in the blanket. He picked her up.

"There is a fire, child. ‘Twill be faster if I carry thee."

She wrapped her arms around him. He was thin, tall, not like Sabin, who worked out. He carried her easily, moving in a long, loose stride that bore her swiftly past the fire and up the stairs.

She felt safe for the first time ever. Secure. She wanted him to carry her forever, carry her far away from here and protect her always.

Eventually, he set her down. He had begun to stumble as he carried her, and she sensed he needed to rest. She felt him kneel again in front of her. He grabbed a corner of the blanket and pulled it tighter, using something to pin it so it was more secure.

She blindly grabbed his hand. It was long-fingered and broad, callused.

"Who are you? Are you okay?"

He waited a long time to reply. “I am fine,” he said. “I must leave you here. I think you should be safe."

He stood. She heard him stumble away. She stood, using the tree to help.

"Wait! I don't know how to get home ... Please, can you explain what happened back there?"

"Your people come,” he said, but she could not pick up which direction his voice was coming from. “Stay where I have placed you."