Powerful Magic (52 page)

          
Still Rhiannon said nothing to him.
 
Still chanting, she held fast to Edmyg's hand, watching and waiting.

          
Love is the most powerful magic
.
 
Remembering the truth of these words, Kenric held out his hand.
 
With a shaky smile, Megan took it, her devotion shining bright and true from her amber eyes.
 
With his other hand, Kenric took Rhiannon's, and Megan took Edmyg's, linking all four of them together with the bonds of love.

          
Seeing, Myrddin’s eyes narrowed with fury.

          
"I will have retribution!"
 
One with the awful keening of the wind, he howled.
 
"Victory as well.
 
This I swear."

          
Kenric tensed.
 
"You foreswear then.
 
I will not allow it to be so."
 
He inclined his head, the impact of the invisible blow sending Myrddin staggering back.

          
Myrddin let out a cry of rage and pain.
 
Straightening, he lifted his hands, both simultaneously.
 
Twin bolts of jagged, white lightening flashed at them.
 

          
Without a single movement, Kenric deflected it.
 
As the love/contentment/joy of their linkage flowed through him, filling him with raw power, he knew awe.
  
Never had it been so strong, so powerful as it was now.
 

          
Myrddin issued another challenge, growling words so tangled up with furious emotion that they were unintelligible.
 
Flinging spells at them in rapid succession, spells so full of darkness and evil that they fouled the very air, he howled curses.
 
Each and every one of them bounced harmlessly away from Kenric/Megan/Rhiannon/Edmyg.

          
They were one entity, joined in love.
 
As such, they could not, would not kill unless it became absolutely necessary.

          
Slowly, with an infinite patience that came from somewhere outside himself, Kenric opened a tiny chink in the armor their joined love created. He sent love/patience/kindness at Myrddin, small waves of it at first, then gradually increasing in strength until the light it created was blinding.

          
Resisting it, Myrddin continued to fight, his visage dark and unforgiving.
 
His aura, black and unwholesome, swallowed Kenric's attempt to make him see/feel/understand, turning the love into something unholy.

          
Kenric saw and mourned.
 
And still, the mighty strength of love flowed through his every pore.

          
By Myrddin would have none of it.
 
Darkness clashed with light as the powers of love and good warred with hatred and evil.
 
Above them the sky mirrored the struggle below,
 
dark clouds roiling furiously against the pure cobalt blue of a perfect sky.

          
The power increased, solidified.
 
Exultation flowed through Kenric/Megan/Rhiannon/Edmyg.

          
A crack appeared in the earth between them, a jagged fissure that snaked between Myrddin and them. With a cry of triumph, Myrddin moved towards it.
 
From it, indeed from the bowels of the earth below came an unearthly wailing, a stirring of beings so evil that their names must never be spoken out loud.

          
"He summons help."
 
Rhiannon cried.
 
"We must be strong."

          
Pure blackness seemed to envelope Myrddin - an inky darkness that flowed from the bowels of the earth.
 
The chants and moans and cries of the voices below grew louder, more certain.

          
Myrddin began to change.

          
 
Kenric had heard of such things - dark faerytales, mere stories meant to frighten children into behaving.
 
But never, even in his training with the Faeries, would he have believed the thing that Myrddin became.

          
Twisted and misshapen, Myrddin moved in some sort of jagged dance.
 
Steam poured from the cracked earth, reeking with the stench of things better left alone.
 
No longer appearing even remotely human, he embodied the very things that he would not release.
 
If bitterness and hatred, evil and rancor could take shape, so Myrddin's visage and body transformed to give them that vessel.

          
Then Kenric knew he had no choice.
 
Knew
they
had no choice.
 
Myrddin - or the thing that Myrddin had become - would have to die.
 

          
"You're no longer alone."
 
Megan told him, whether out loud or inside his head he could not tell.
 

          
"We are here, all of us."
 
Rhiannon/Edmyg confirmed.
 

          
Though he didn't want to, indeed every fiber of his being fought against it, Kenric fused their energies into a sword of light, even as the evil thing that Myrddin had become loomed dark and foul over them.

          
Still, he hesitated, remembering his vow not to kill.
 
    
"Now."
 
Rhiannon/Edmyg/Megan urged.
 

          
But the minute hesitation was enough for the evil energy to attack.
 
Kenric/Megan/Rhiannon/Edmyg felt the force of it course through them, soiling them on contact, venomous and rank.
 
If it penetrated their pores, they would die.

          
"Now."
 
And Kenric, no longer doubting, sent the sword of light into Myrddin, striking him down with one blow.

          
The power it took was enormous.
 
As Myrddin fell with an inhuman howl of fury, the black bowels of the earth yawned open even wider to receive him.
 

          
Kenric/Megan/Rhiannon/Edmyg were knocked back A loud groaning filled the air as the earth began to close again.

          
Everything changed in that instant.
 

          
The earth moved together with a loud clap and a shudder.
 

          
The clouds fled before the blue sky, the sun peeked over the horizon and then rose in a glorious blaze of gold and orange.

          
The foul stench vanished, replaced by the heady scent of wildflowers and green grass.

          
Once more the birds began to sing, songs of joy and hope and peace.
 

          
All was right with the world.

          
Unutterably weary, Kenric climbed to his feet.
 
Next to him, Rhiannon and Edmyg did the same.
 
He turned to his right, to help Megan up, to pull her close for a well-deserved embrace.

          
She was not there.

          
Something should have warned him, even if at first he believed the awful emptiness he felt inside came only from the destruction of another human being.
 
But the horrible truth dawned on him as he searched right, then left, behind him and in front.
 
Disbelieving, he sank to his knees, head tilted back in a silent howl of anguish.
 

          
Megan, his soul mate Megan, was gone.
 
And this time, he could not sense her anywhere.

#

          
One moment Megan had been standing at Kenric's side, her hand linked with his, her heart as well.
 
The next, she knew only blackness, then woke to a sound she had nearly forgotten - the low pitched sound of electricity humming.
 

          
Opening her eyes, she realized she now lay in a hospital bed, hooked to numerous machines, an IV in her arm.
 
The air reeked of antiseptic, the smell of hospital and illness.
 

          
A riot of flowers of every color lined the window sill and shelf. The elaborate arrangements seemed lacking somehow; none of them looked as vibrant as the flowers had in Rune.

    
     
Rune.
 
Kenric.
 
Had it been a dream?
 
She glanced at her finger.
 
The silver ring of crystalline beads seemed to shimmer and glow.
 
Her betrothal ring, Kenric's ring.
 
She sighed with relief.
 
Fine.
 
Now all she had to do was wait.
 
Rhiannon had brought her to him once.
 
Surely she could do so again.

          
Or could she?
 
Heart heavy, she remembered when she’d asked her, Rhiannon had said she couldn't send her home.
 
What if Megan's traveling through time had been a fluke, a one time spell that's effectiveness had faded?
 

    
Panic coursed through her.
 
She had to get out of this

bed.
 
Now.
 
Surely there was something she could do to get back to Kenric, some way she could help ignite the magic that would send her there.

    
At her sudden movement, one of the monitors hooked to her began beeping a frantic warning.
 
A nurse came running into the room, skidding to a stop when she saw Megan sitting up.

    
"Oh my."
 
The plump, fortyish woman put a hand to her

ample chest.
 
"Let me call the doctor."

    
"I don't want a doctor."
 
Megan knew she sounded peevish, but didn't care.
 
"I want my clothes.
 
I need to go home."
 
She needed to go home all right - home to Rune and to Kenric.

    
The monitor quieted of its own accord.
 
After checking it, and several others, the nurse nodded.
 
"You wait right there.
 
I need to call the doctor.
 
He's left explicit instructions that he was to be notified if there was any change."
 

          
She shook a finger at Megan, clucking. "You're a very lucky young lady.
 
Struck by lightning!
 
It's not everyday that someone comes out of a coma, you know."

    
A coma.
 
Megan's heart began to pound double time.
 
Only
 
by touching the crystal beaded ring, turning it on her finger, was she able to keep calm.
 

          
"How long?" Licking lips gone suddenly dry, Megan cleared her throat. "How long was I in a coma?"

          
The nurse looked pleased by the question, as though by asking it she’d expelled her doubts that Megan was entirely in full possession of her facilities.
 

          
"Nearly a week."

   
      
Megan frowned.
 
A week.
 
She'd been back in the past much longer than that, close to two months, maybe even longer because of the time she'd spent in the land of Faerie.
 
The seasons had even changed.
 
And Kenric had told her time passed differently in Rune.

          
She swallowed.
 
"What happened?"

          
The nurse smiled then, a kindly smile that made Megan want, irrationally, to cry.
 
"Don't you remember?
 
You were hit by lightening.
 
You were barely alive when they brought you in.
 
Now lay quietly while I go page the doctor and your fiancé. "