Ancient Fire (15 page)

Waiting for a woman. A woman who’s never
touched land.

After a moment, she appears from under the
water, calmly floating up, then hovering just over the surface. The
woman remains utterly serene, as if rising from a lake then
standing above it were scarcely remarkable. She seems very patient,
as though she could wait a long time to take tired kings into her
liquid embrace, take them into the lake with her when their hearts
are broken for the last time.

This king is very tired. He’s seen too much
war, too much bloodshed — and knows he’s caused a lot of it.

When he was younger, he never thought he’d
wind up hurting like this. He thought everything would be
perfect.

The king is going to throw the sword into
the lake, let this water sprite have it, because this sword, it
seems to him now, is the root cause of all his misery.

He remembers pulling it from the rock when
he was younger; he remembers thinking it would make him
invincible.

That was a lie. It only made him king. Now,
no more lies. Just water. And silence.

He holds the sword above his head, ready to
fling it into what he thinks will be its final resting place.

“Arthur.”

It’s Merlin’s voice. The old wizard is
always speaking at moments like this, breaking the king’s
concentration, never quite taking anything seriously enough.

This time Merlin’s pointing. Out at the
water. The serenity is even draining from the Lady of the Lake’s
face. There’s a swirl of foam and bubbles next to her, and
something unexpected. An intruder.

It was just supposed to be the king and
Merlin here, alone with the water sprite, to dispose of the sword.
The sword and a whole lot of bad memories.

But there’s someone else. Someone who’s kind
of…fading in. Thrashing about in the water, gasping for air, trying
to swim.

Is it another wizard, here to challenge
Merlin? Or perhaps a spirit, the wandering ghost of some man killed
by the king in a forgotten war?

The king can’t tell. But Merlin doesn’t seem
worried. He seems, in fact, slightly amused.

But then, Merlin always seems amused, no
matter how bad the situation.

The small caps and breakers in the lake are
shredded apart by the frantic splashing as the intruder buzzes
through the water like a small, agitated shark.

As the trespasser draws near, the king
lowers his sword and lets it rest in the mud by his leggings.

It’s a boy coming to them. Out of the water.
A boy.

Soon to be a man, but not quite. About
twelve years old.

Wearing jeans and a baseball cap—though the
king wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to call them.

“Hello,” the boy finally gasps.

“Well met,” the king says. “Or, perhaps, not
so well. Merlin, is this one of yours?”

The boy looks from one man to the other,
then back at the king. “Arthur?” The boy speaks with the strangest
accent the king has ever heard.

But the conversation is interrupted. The
water starts bubbling and churning again. And another boy begins
fading into view.

And don’t miss Eli Sands’s further
adventures!

DANGER BOY: Episode 3

Trail of Bones

When a time-battered Eli Sands lands in the
year 1804 at the launch of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition,
he has no idea he’s about to take part in the frontier adventure of
a lifetime!

DANGER BOY: Episode 4

City of Ruins

When Thea is infected by slow pox, Eli and
his friends head to ancient Jerusalem to find a cure.

DANGER BOY: Episode 5:

Fortune’s Fool

The Danger Boy stories reach a climax in the
forthcoming adventure that ends in a reckoning from which no one
returns unchanged.

Mark Williams is a fiction writer,
playwright, and journalist. He is the author of the LA Times
Bestselling
Danger Boy
series for young
adults. As a journalist, he’s written for
Variety
, the
Los Angeles
Times
,
and
The Los Angeles Business
Journal
,
and is currently a columnist for
Below the Line
, covering Hollywood and its
discontents. His plays have been produced in San Francisco, Los
Angeles, and London, and he’s written comic books, short stories,
and video game scripts. He teaches workshops on creative writing,
genre studies, and storytelling for the Walt Disney Company and
other places. He lives in Southern California, raising a couple
“danger boys” of his own.