Unlucky Charms (The Cold Cereal Saga) (14 page)

“Quit your bleating, lamb,” said one of the men.

“And I suppose thou knowest why my tower falls, sorcerer?” asked the king.

“I do. I do. Set that man free and I’ll tell you, and if I’m wrong you can still sacrifice me.”

They’d tied the peasant’s ankles and were just beginning to hoist him up on the frame. King Vortigern chewed his lip.

“My … blood’s probably really magical right now,” Merle added. “I’ve been eating a lot of unicorn and stuff.”

The king thought this over, then shrugged theatrically and ordered the peasant be released. They cut him free, and he continued to snore beside the cauldron. Then all eyes were on Merle, and the men let him go. He snatched up his Slumbro and crammed it into his jeans pocket before speaking.

“Beneath this hill lies a hidden pool. And in that pool two dragons fight—one dragon’s red, the other’s white.” He hadn’t meant to rhyme just then, but he figured it was all to the good. He stepped down from the cage to lead them to the secret tunnel beneath the hill, then realized he hadn’t a clue where it was.

“Archie,” he whispered. “Assume this hill is Dinas Emrys in Wales, United Kingdom. Do any geological records mention a cave entrance?”

Archie sent a map to Merle’s watch face, and he led the king and his men to a gap in the rocks, shrouded by moss. The others lit torches; Merle lit the flashlight on his key chain.

“What rare light that burns without heat!” Vortigern said of the flashlight.

“Thanks,” said Merle. “I got it free for opening a checking account.”

They descended into the hillside, through a narrow passage, each hunched and a little fearful beneath the suffocating patience of the earth. There was a breeze against their faces, rising from below, and here and there thin roots breached the rock walls like hairs, like they were plunging into the cavernous nostril of some sleeping giant. The nostril rumbled, as if snoring.

“There,” said Merle, worried he’d lose his audience. “See? The dragons fight, and their fighting shakes the earth. The red dragon represents—”

Merle stopped short, realizing he’d just stepped into a large open chamber. It should have been dark, but the space was lit dimly by some source he couldn’t identify. It was a huge, damp vault, enclosing a dark pool. And that pool was turbid and foaming with the struggle of two magnificent dragons.

Merle had known what to expect, and still he could only stare, stupid and gaping, at the creatures. Dragons. One white, one red. Each the size of an elephant, slick as a fish, tightly built with coiled, ropy muscles and a whiplashing neck, like lightning made flesh. He’d never seen a dragon. He’d heard of the colossal pink one that had terrorized the world before he was born, of course, but it spent most of its time in Ireland or someplace.

The dragons, mercifully, couldn’t seem to care less about Merle and King Vortigern and his men. The men had all fallen silent, watching. The white dragon was dominant, trying to bite the red on its nape and hold it down. They crashed together into the deep of the pool, and again the earth rumbled.

“Um … so. The red dragon represents the Britons,” said Merle to whoever might be listening. “The white one represents the Saxons. The Saxons have the upper hand now, but one day soon, the red dragon will rise up and prevail.”

“Why’d you tell them that?” asked Scott. “It’s kind of a weird thing to say.”

Merle shrugged. “I have no idea. But the books said that’s what I said, so that’s what I said.”

“But … wait. If the books say you said it, but you only said it
because
the books say you said it, then—”

“I’m either too tired or not tired enough to have that kind of conversation right now,” Merle told him. They were winding through a cramped little maze of a town, and Merle added, “We should be close now.”

“We won’t know we’re
really
close until we see water,” said Mick. “Avalon is an island.”

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “When I saw it with my … salmon sight, on the cruise ship, it was definitely wet. Swampy.”

Merle checked the map again, but let it be. “Anyway, there’s one more thing to tell. Eventually Vortigern and his men leave, and while I’m standing there watching the dragons, an elf steps out of the shadows. A real
familiar
elf.”

He was one of those regal, Tolkienesque elves that made you feel fat and unlovely. Six-five, lean, sloe eyed, with short green mossy hair.

“You’re name’s Conor,” Merle said.

The elf frowned almost imperceptibly. “My name is Mossblossom.”

“Yick. I can see why you changed that.”

“King Vortigern called you Merlin,” said the elf.

“That’s what he called me, yeah.”

“You know much, Merlin. My Lady of the Lake will be curious about you.”

Merle didn’t know what to say to that. He winced at the dragons—the white had finally succeeded in subduing the red, and now the waters calmed. “They’re … they’re not actually fighting, are they?”

“Not fighting, no.”

Merle coughed. “I think maybe I’ll give them some privacy,” he said, turning to go. “You coming?”

“Alas, I am … chaperone to this congress. By order of my Lady.”

“Good luck with that,” Merle said as he left.

“I hope we meet again, Merlin of Ambrosius,” said the elf.

Merlin didn’t look back. “I don’t,” he said through his teeth.

“This is it,” Merle said now, in the truck. “We’re right on top of it.” They’d passed through the town and emerged at the foot of a tall hill. Taller than Dinas Emrys had been.

Merle, Scott, and Mick got out and stood around the poppadum truck in the dark, in the quiet little town of Glastonbury, in Somerset, in the west of England.

“Well,” said Mick. “
This
doesn’t look right.”

CHAPTER 14

It was only when John looked in on him hours later that Erno realized the night had passed and he had quite possibly fallen asleep with his eyes open, half focused on the bleak and bleary poem. The unicat was curled in his lap.

“Up already?” asked John. “Polly’s still conked out. Your sister, too.”

Erno rubbed his eyes. “Good. Good, she needs the sleep.”

The small square window was an ocean-bottom blue. It was very early. John was wearing a three-piece gray gabardine suit with a pink tie and handkerchief.

“Don’t know when this so-called car is coming for me,” he explained. “Must be ready.”

Erno stood, upsetting the cat, and followed John downstairs.

Biggs was standing in one corner of the front room, asleep. Prince Fi paced back and forth like a sentry in front of the goblins, who seemed to be engaged in talk of good ol’ Pretannica with Harvey.

“Jutht thurprized we didn’t know each other already,” Harvey told Pigg and Poke. “Uth havin’ the thame uncle and all.”

“We’re nearly brothers, when it comes down to it,” said Pigg.

“A pooka’s more goblin than elf, so they say,” added Poke.

Harvey nodded. “Thatth true.”

Just then a tinny rendition of “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” started playing from somewhere. Everyone but the goblins looked around.

“Is that a phone?” asked Erno.

“Not one of mine,” said John.

“It is, actually,” said Pigg, tilting his head toward the folds of Reggie skin hanging down around him.

“It’s the mobile we stole off you at the Goodco factory last year,” Poke added, smiling apologetically.

“You changed the ringtone,” John said, aghast. As if this was the final straw, the ultimate indignity. Not the identity theft and character assassination so much as the ringtone. He set about the distasteful task of rifling through the pockets of a full-length Halloween costume of himself and found the phone.

“Hello?”

“That’s it today?” said the voice on the other end. “Just hello? No ‘Queenpunchers Anonymous’ or ‘You have reached Reggie’s House of Fruit’ or whatever?”

John winced at Erno. “It’s early,” he said.

“That it is. Car’s out back.”

“I’m on my way.”

The sun was up, and Merle, Mick, and Scott had driven in and around Glastonbury and the surrounding countryside twice; asked for directions three times; breakfasted in the truck; and made mildly personal comments to one another on the subjects of eating habits, driving ability, age, height, and all-around usefulness. Scott made the mistake of mentioning that in books about magic villains and world saving, there was always a main character who died, and they had a spirited discussion about which of them, if any, it would be. Or if any of them even qualified as a main character. Then they didn’t say anything for a long time.

Finally, in unspoken agreement, they gave up.

They were sitting now in a pretty garden on the edge of a stone ring around a two-thousand-year-old hole in the ground called the Chalice Well. It was apparently one of Glastonbury’s chief attractions, purportedly the last resting place of the Holy Grail.

“This mission of ours,” said Mick. “’Twas always doomed, wasn’t it? That’s why they sent the likes of us?”

“It was a long shot,” Merle admitted. “Assuming this place was the mythical Avalon, we didn’t even know where to begin looking for the queen.”

Scott could just barely see Glastonbury Tor from here, a sharp hill with a church on it that rose up from the surrounding plains. This hill had been an island back when the area was flooded, but the lady at the Chalice Well admissions gate said it hadn’t been
that
flooded for a while.

“So when the Freemen’s files said Avalon, do you think they meant somewhere else?” asked Scott. “When I saw the queen with my salmon sight, she was hard to focus on.”

“Is that definitely what we’re callin’ it?” said Mick. “Your ‘salmon sight’? I vote for somethin’ else.”

They’d driven all night for nothing and were all a little grumpy. Scott read aloud from the visitor’s brochure again, just because he knew it annoyed Mick.

“‘The interlocking circles on the well cover represent the inner and outer worlds, a symbol known as the Vesica Piscis. A sword bisects these two circles, possibly referring to the legendary Excalibur, sword of King Arthur, who is believed by some to be buried nearby.’”

“Please shut it,” said Mick.

Scott put the brochure away. Merle appeared to have nodded off.

“Maybe I should check in at home,” Scott said, dialing one of the new disposable cell phones they all had now.

“Hi,” said Polly on the second ring.

“Glastonbury’s a bust, maybe,” Scott told her. “It doesn’t look like Avalon. What’s going on there?”

“Dad left awhile ago. Erno and Biggs are working on the puzzle poem with Archie the owl. Erno wants to thank Merle again for leaving Archie.”

“What about Emily?”

“She’s sleeping in. Hold on, Erno wants to know how you’re doing.” Scott listened to Polly explain to Erno that they hadn’t found the queen, that Avalon didn’t even look like Avalon. Then there was a pause. “Um, Scott?”

“What?”

“The goblins overheard me talking,” said Polly, “and one of them, I think Pigg … no, maybe that’s Poke. Which one’s the ugly one?”

Scott didn’t know how to answer that question. “Does it matter?”

“I guess not. One of them just said, ‘
Course
they didn’t find Her Majesty. She’s in the
other
Avalon.’”

Scott felt suddenly more tired than he could have thought possible. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not, but maybe they are?”

“No, it makes sense, actually—I bet they’re telling the truth.” Scott sighed. “I think they kind of like telling the truth if they know it isn’t gonna make your life any easier. The queen is in Pretannica,” he said, and Mick groaned. “How are we going to get to Pretannica?!”

“I dunno,” said Polly. “Maybe Mr. Wilson’s poem is a clue?”

“That’d be nice. Can you put Erno on?”

“Just a sec.”

Erno took the phone. “Hey.”

“Hey. What have you worked out so far?”

“Well,” said Erno, and Scott could hear papers rustling. “Practically all the lines are about time or temperature. It has the words year, week, frozen, hours, day, degrees, minutes, sec—”

There was silence on the line for a bit. “Seconds?” finished Scott.