Avalon Rising (10 page)

A wail blasts our ears. I drop my firelance, and it clatters to the cobblestone. Tristan searches the skies. I look at Rufus, whose gaze rests on the windows of the high towers in this kingdom. He won’t blink—he won’t let down his guard. His copper-plated hook lifts higher as Tristan shouts orders in Arabic to his men, who lift their firelances and crossbows and curved swords to the skies in response. Then Sir Tristan turns back to me. “Get out of this place.”

I shake my head stubbornly. Though I can feel the blood rushing from my cheeks, and though my hands shake uncontrollably, I cannot give up. Especially when to return to Camelot would mean my father sending me away. “No.”

“Clearly your Sir Marcus is not here! Keep to the outer citadel and we can escort you and your manservant back—”

“No,” I say again, and seize my firelance from the ground to aim at him.

The reaction is stalled, but immediate once I click back the weapon’s hammer: Tristan lifts his hands, his weapon dropping so he can kick it a few feet ahead. Unarmed. “Lower your weapons,” he tells his men behind him.

Rufus’s eyes rest on the knight as he leans in close. “My lady, Marcus is—”

“We’re not going to find your son here, blacksmith,” I declare. The truth must be known, and the agony inside at withholding something so important from Marcus’s father slays my heart into a million brittle shards of glass. “But if we find the Fisher King first, the path to Avalon would be revealed.” Somehow, what Merlin has ordered me to do will lead me to Marcus, and then to Azur.

Rufus draws away from me, a shadow falling over his eyes. “You knew he was never here, didn’t you?”

I stare for too long at the blacksmith, and the truth of my lie is too painful to admit. I lower my firelance, tuck it into the holster at my side, and storm toward the main castle with two sets of footsteps on my heels.

“Stop!” Rufus growls in a voice too father-like to adhere to etiquette when addressing a noblewoman, but I don’t blame him for his anger. Nor would I expect anyone in his situation be any less volatile. “We’re leaving this kingdom and returning to Camelot at once!”

I reach a set of iron-lined wooden doors at the top of five stone stairs. They’re noble and grand, but when I reach the rings and pull, they’re locked. “Blast.”

Sir Tristan’s gloved hand presses against the doors, as though it isn’t the lock keeping me out of the castle, but him. “My lady, get back to your ship.” His voice is disciplinary with a quiver desperate to remain polite. “This is no place to explore.”

“I’m not
exploring
, Sir Tristan,” I reply, my words abrupt and terse. “I was sent here. This is the only way we can hope to find the Grail.”

Light flashes in the sky, followed by a burst of thunder, like God himself might be just as furious at my sins.

Tristan jumps ever so slightly, and his eyes fall shut in relief. “Just thunder.” But no rain to accompany it in a land so dead.

Something catches my eye on the wall behind him. I blink, glancing at Rufus at the base of the steps as he holds tightly to his iron hook. Then I circle Tristan to get a closer look at the wall.

“My lady—” Tristan begins.

There’s a smudged window there. I grip the sleeve of my cloak to wipe it clean. “Rufus!” I call. Behind the glass is a scroll entitled,
DO NOT VENTURE INSIDE THIS KINGDOM DAMNED
.

Rufus hesitates, but only for a moment. It might be curiosity that comes over him, or his acceptance that to free the Fisher King would mean saving his son. “Guard your eyes.” I lower my goggles, and Rufus throws his elbow into the glass; it breaks easily, letting him grab the scroll and unroll it. He hands it to me.

My fingers unroll the parchment. I read out loud.

“Our king has been cursed to die slowly, in a way no man would wish for. We’ll be emptied of generations before he takes another true breath. To save him has proven impossible. They’ve guarded our sire with three tests—VALOR, INGENUITY, and RIGHT JUDGMENT—a soul of true bravery must pass in order to free him from these earthly chains. Many have come and tried; none will succeed. To endure this hellish existence is the destiny of the Fisher King.”

I lower the scroll. Rufus is watching me, and the regret in his eyes is palpable. “A kingdom turned into a trap. We never should have come here.”

“Didn’t you know this in Lyonesse?” I ask.

Rufus shakes his head. “But I should have expected it.”

Tristan steps backward, glancing up at the height of the tower. How strange to regard something so immense, so grand, so cold and inanimate, but come to realize that inside is danger alive and just waiting to be found. “This cannot be,” he whispers.

Despite the sharp cold, I lower my hood, my eyes returned to the door. “Open it.” Merlin’s sword was once at my waist, but now it’s in my hand. The old fool said I’d be tested, and certainly, these tests are his. Let it begin.

Rufus works quickly at the lock as a selection of tools rests at his feet. The gadgets are small and intricate, and I can’t help but envy how quickly they snap the hinge and unlock the door. He throws his heel into the wood. The door bursts open and slams against the wall inside the stale entrance.

“Wait,” Sir Tristan says. He turns to his crashed aeroship and the men slowly making their way toward us. “We’ll search this place, not you.” He whistles loudly and beckons over the rest before facing me. “I cannot let a noblewoman fight in my place.”

Without waiting for my response, which was most assuredly to be one of insult, Tristan takes the five steps needed to speak to his men. The music of their conversation is trumped by the occasional outburst, like they might refuse to embark on this side quest.

As they quarrel, Rufus and I step inside. What were once lush red carpets are covered in sawdust and tattered scrap metal. The remnants of suits of armor lie about as though something had seized hold of the knight who owned it and torn him limb from limb. I inhale sharply at the splintered bones in a glove.

But, “Hold on,” I say. “If they were able to get inside but no further, that means—” I turn on my heel.

Too late, though. The door slams shut, as though alive itself, and mends the hinge the blacksmith destroyed, securing it tighter.

I run to the door, my palms against the rough surface as I listen to Tristan pull at the iron rings. Pound his fists. Call,
“My lady! Damn it all!”

Rufus likewise yanks on the rings, but it’s no use. “It won’t budge.” He swings his gaze over to meet mine. “My tools—”

His lock-picking tools are on the other side.

We could try slamming welding iron from my own satchel into the hinges, but it would never be strong enough.

“Forget it,” I say in a voice unsure of itself. The sense of protection Tristan’s presence gave me vanishes into the dank air. We’re alone in this. “There must be another way out then.”

I hold Marcus’s quicklight high, leading the way with the point of my sword piercing the space in front of me.

Then there’s a gentle tinkering sound, like how the wind rustled my aeroship on its currents. Like how a castle will settle when all is silent. Like how a man in a suit of armor will walk when his squire hasn’t properly oiled the hinges.

“What is that?” I whisper. I’m tempted to fall back, to let Rufus be the one to face this test, but Merlin told me to find the Fisher King.

It must be you.

And if Merlin believed I could past these tests, then it is quite possible I might come out of this alive.

In the distance is a set of descending stairs beautifully lined in red carpet that hasn’t yet lost its shade, with sculpted gold railings leading to the main tower.

“This way,” I say.

But then the squeaking becomes louder, and now it’s more rhythmic. Like footsteps, slow and heavy. They march one after the other until finally, one foot of black iron steps from the staircase in perfect view of where Rufus and I stand. I lose my breath.

“My lady,” Rufus says in horror.

The armor’s other foot takes the next step, and when my quicklight’s glow is bright enough to illuminate against it, I see the intruder: a walking, moving suit of armor with a long sword withdrawn and held high in a gloved hand. But the most frightening part is how its helmet looks, particularly its visor.

Because that visor is lifted high, and there appears to be nothing inside.

“That’s impossible,” Rufus says. “Wraiths fell when magic did.” My eyes widen as I face him. I wonder if these are the same creatures Marcus spoke of when he told me stories in the barn of his father in Lyonesse. And then Rufus’s gaze settles on something behind me. “Vivienne, get out of the way!”

I turn back as the wraith lifts its sword and leaps from the staircase into my path. Rufus steps in front of me, wielding the same heavy iron hook that served him in Morgan’s war. The wraith slams its blade against Rufus’s weapon. Throws him off. The iron hook slides down the hall, clattering against stone.

Shadows surround me, vanishing as soon as I turn to them. They’re in the corners of my eyes, cold fingers falling upon my shoulders and neck. They whisper,
“It will die, it will die,”
slow in speech, but quick to avoid me.

The shadows leave, and I hold my blade high, just as Gawain taught me. But the wraith is merciless and stalks for me once it’s sent Rufus into the wall, a stunning clanging of metal against metal ringing through my bones. I hold tightly to the sword and keep the point between us. The wraith moves as quick as lightning, striking its weapon faster than I can follow, refusing my attack.

He finds his footing and scrambles to a skeletal body, rotted away long ago and dressed with brass chest plates and a shield. Grabs the sword still shining at the waist. There’s a sharp whistle when he’s able to free it from the sheath; the wraith jerks at the sound. Rufus readies to charge. “There’s a way to beat it—”

But before he can say how, the wraith casts its arm toward the blacksmith, and suddenly, a bolt of translucent white light charges the air and sends Rufus onto his back. His head smashes against the stone floor, and he falls still.

Then the wraith turns to me. It inclines its head, and in the visor I see the faint wisp of black smoke in the shape of a wicked face staring. Rufus isn’t moving, and I’m not sure if he’s alive or dead, and I can’t think about that anymore.

I align one boot in front of the other and grip my sword tightly. Perhaps this is the test of valor; if so, there must be a way to pass it. There has to be a solution. I think back to what I had to learn quickly about war and its many costumes. The wraith wears a suit of armor. That’s all. Twisted metal easily flawed. I know from Gawain that there are weak links under the arms and in the neck. But before I can consider a plan of attack, more shadows appear and vanish, like black lightning. The whole kingdom falls silent—now there’s no sound of Sir Tristan and his men desperately trying to get through to us—and each flash of blackness draws closer as the seconds pass. The wraith seems not to notice. The shadows are for me alone.

I swallow my fear and clutch the sword tighter. A burst of smoke-like light breathes me in, and my head goes light and warm, and it says those words again in its whispered voice, but this time, different.

“Estakah mortuusashay estach, estakah mortuusashay estach.”

Oh God, it’s magic. But I’m completely intact, and the words haven’t slain me.

And then I realize what the shadows mean for me to do: I must steal magic to win.
It will die.
That spell will kill the wraith.

And then it approaches again, a blade ready to strike. When it does, I lose my balance, the toe of my boot catching on the carpet. I fall to the stone floor with a burst of air forcing itself from my lungs. The wraith straightens in its suit of armor, its head turning slowly but with tenacity nonetheless. I panic. Yank the satchel’s straps from my back and the cloak restricting my breath. Another step closer, and this time, the blade’s shine is blinding against my dropped quicklight. I shuffle backward on my palms and heels. My teeth grit and grind, but then the quicklight illuminates a gleam of silver I’d forgotten about. The firelance at my waist.

I regard this hallway and the many suits of armor torn apart. None of them had embraced the mechanical arts. And how much would the demigods despise that mindboggling world their own creations would be powerless against?

Maybe this is how I win. By refusing their temptation of magic in favor of something I know much better.

The wraith is coming closer, but the frost has stuck my firelance to its holster. I only have time to reach for my dropped sword. As my blade clashes with the wraith’s, I remember all Gawain taught me. The wraith spins the blade against mine until my wrist bends painfully.

My grip loosens, and my sword goes scattering across the stone floor, thumping against Rufus’s stilled body. “Damn!” I cry.

The armored suit steps closer.

I must be quick.

My hand returns to the holster at my waist. Yank at the firelance again. The wraith’s footsteps are thrusts of thunder echoing against these cold walls. Its armored glove grabs my throat and lifts me off my feet. Finally, the firelance loosens, but dangles from my hand. The grip on my neck hurts, and it’s cutting off my breath, and I can see the hints of dancing shadows in place of what should be a face, but there’s no face, and my boots are kicking in fierce protest, but this might indeed be how I share the same fate as the others. How could I think I’d ever pass a test the likes of which
knights
failed?

An uncontrollable surge of anger comes over me at this pathetic doom. “No! I will not die because of an empty suit of armor!” I sputter.

I drop my hands from the wraith’s grip, risking the seconds without air to further yank back its steel mask. I set the firelance’s barrel inside. I pull the trigger.

The blast echoes, slicing through the back of the helmet, drawing the wraith’s suit back from the recoil.

The wraith drops me, and I scramble to my feet again. I watch as the armor falls and comes apart at the seams. Melts like water, vanishing into the carpet with only its helmet atop of what appears to be a long harpoon, shining like a crescent moon that drank the stars.

The only sound I can hear is my own breathing, rapid and shaken. No wind passes through the windows, but nonetheless a bitter cold refuses to let up. My hands tremble, and my teeth chatter. I’m certain all of this is a nightmare and not the real world I thought I knew. But that certainty falters as the shadows vanish, leaving behind the stark, white light of overcast skies poring through the frames. Dead and still as always in the Perilous Lands, though without the hauntings that wished for me to become a thief of magic.

Rufus groans from the corner. I run for him. “Rufus!”

He sets a tender hand to his head where a deep gash parts his skin. Furrowing his brow, he looks around. “I’ve had worse. Where is it?”

“Gone,” I breathe. “It needed to be slain by way of the mechanical arts. We passed the first test.”

His eyes dart around in disbelief, at the steel helmet and the harpoon atop that appeared out of nowhere. A smile crosses Rufus’s face, and then he is the image of Marcus my heart cannot forget.

“You passed it, Lady Vivienne. Not I.”

The cold is persistent in this kingdom, and so for now, I give up on warmth. Furs tight around my body and Merlin’s sword re-holstered at my side, I lead Rufus up the stairs. My right hand carries my firelance, and my left holds the harpoon at the blacksmith’s insisting. It’s heavy and awkward, but it would do great damage alongside Rufus’s reclaimed iron hook once more strapped to his back.

I haven’t told him about the spell the shadows whispered to me. I don’t know how he would react to that, and besides, we still have yet to discuss my horrid lie. But now is not the time.

“The scroll implied the second test would be one of ingenuity,” Rufus says in a low voice, hardened with a scoff. “When was the last time philosophers and thinkers lifted a weapon to solve a puzzle?”

We reach the next floor. My boots clack on the stone, polished to shine like a sun that would never find its way through such narrow windows. Ahead are two wide and heavy doors, made of wood darker than any I’ve seen. Carved into them are visions of land and rivers and fishermen. I imagine what sort of life these people had in a kingdom plentiful of happiness and prosperity. And how the Fisher King himself might consider this scene just as torturous as his plight.

I take a breath, hoping it might inflate me with the courage I desperately need. “Let’s get on with it, then.” I grab the iron rings of each door and push them open. A gust of icy wind nearly throws me off-balance, and I stumble. My foot feels for the floor, and suddenly I realize it’s crumbling beneath my weight. “Oh!” I cry.

Once the gust passes, we look down at a dark abyss below my boots. Above us is a wonderment of windows and arches bordering delicate oil paintings upon the ceiling, fading from sunlight and time.

“There’s no way to pass,” I breathe. I search for a way to cross to the door on the far side of the room, perhaps a catwalk or a set of stairs on either side of the walls, but there’s nothing. “We must be in the wrong place,” I add as an echo follows my voice.

Rufus points. “I don’t think so, my lady.”

The doors across the blackness slowly open, revealing a third set of brightly-lit stairs. There’s no one standing on the other side, but it’s enough to convince me we must continue onward.

I nod. “Then we’ll have to use what’s been given us.” But how? The second test is
ingenuity
, and frankly, the cleverest thing to do at this point would be to turn around, head straight back to the aeroship, and leave this desolate place. I could return to Camelot and live a life of safety in a northern nunnery.

But I saw my father walk away when I made the choice to leave. That life is gone now.

I take a breath and gauge my options. Like the armored wraith, this is a test, and I’ve beaten the first one. Let the second do its worst. I grab hold to the door’s frame and lean over the threshold, listening to the echo of nothingness below. The stench of mold and the stickiness of humidity are potent, clamoring to my skin and suffocating my breathing. But they’re also clues.

“Water,” I say, tilting my head as the whisper of waves rises to my ears.

Water far below, like in a canyon or a grotto lost and forgotten for eras. Glancing up, I spot a rowboat hanging alongside the wall, as though to taunt the Fisher King after his curse came upon him. Then there’s a sound, like an exhale—a gasp, something breaching the surface for air. I’m quick to straighten. The gasp rises twice more. It could be one creature, or it could be three.

“The demigods ensured we wouldn’t be able to use that,” Rufus says, his eye on the rowboat.

I ignore Rufus’s assertion and look to the ceiling, lifting my quicklight high enough to illuminate the entire canopying stone. Shadows form when they cross the sculpted wooden beams, adding dimensions to the painted scenes. I realize each panel is a story, one chapter at a time, and when fire is added to the equation, there’s another tale to discover: one that was initially hidden.

“Rufus,” I breathe. “Look.”

The first panel by itself is a vision of a banquet, nobility and princes dancing with longhaired girls whose flowing dresses and lacy bodices could only belong to princesses. There is a purple-robed king sitting on a wrought-iron throne, laughing and lifting a goblet quickly enough that red wine spills over the sides. His queen dances with their children, and minstrels play around them. When I lift the quicklight higher, a shadow appears as the beam separating each panel corrupts the image. Now the king’s face is distorted, melting, and the queen and their children have spears and harpoons piercing their hearts. Their faces of laughter, once jovial and celebratory, are now twisted with tears and blackened mouths. A vision of death.

I cover my mouth and drop the quicklight. It clacks against the smooth stone floor and rattles before falling still, the flame vanished. I don’t speak, and neither does Rufus. But I feel him watching me and lift my chin. “Is this what happened?”

“Try the next panel, my lady.”

We look to the right, at the next panel without shadows. A scene of fertile landscapes: the countryside with farmers and mechanical harvesters and wheat and hay and livestock being led down dirt paths by happy serfs. The sky is powder blue, and the grass is fresh and alive. A river dissects the fields, and in it are fish and children playing in its turquoise waters.

“Now the quicklight, my lady. Nothing to be frightened about; it’s just a painting.”

I know this, but the sense of horror is prominent in this place, and it’s gotten a hold of me. Nonetheless, “Right,” I say, snapping the quicklight against my boot and lifting it high.

The beams cross the image, and the shadows show a dried lake, a dead lake. One of the children has morphed into a monster. A monster with a long neck and a rabid tail, with sharp teeth and fiery eyes, with scaly fins and razor-sharp gills. Livestock is black with disease, and serfs are made skeletal by the shadows, as though starving. The sky is overpowered with rainclouds, and the grass is painted with blood.

“What kind of beast is that?” Rufus asks in amazement. We might realize at the same time that the splashing beneath us has grown quiet.

“Is this what happened? Is this the curse of the Fisher King?” I ask. The first panel shows what was; the second shows the demigods’ wrath. What will the third reveal? “Rufus, you must know more. What did they say in Lyonesse?”

His face is white. “I didn’t think it was as bad as this.” “What is the third panel?” I demand, because I can’t bear to see it for myself. This curse could have fallen upon Merlin. Merlin might have been mere days from the same sort of fate as the Fisher King the moment he decided to give up his thievery of magic. This could have been Camelot. This could have been my home.

“Let’s see for ourselves,” Rufus says. “As the first two have shown us what the curse entailed, perhaps the third will show us how to lift it.”

I push aside the sudden rush of fear and glance up. The third panel is of a girl, possibly no older than I am. She’s got white-blonde hair and her dress is asymmetrical, bright crimson. The features are pasty and unclear, and she’s holding something in her hand, something that resembles a half-moon perhaps. Or a smile.