Blue Moon (37 page)

She knelt by him, opposite Alex. She placed a cool hand on his forehead, stroking it until his eyes opened. His eyes were silver, with no whites or pupils, just glowing silver. They unnerved her, but she smiled at him anyway.

"You're going to be fine,” she reassured him.

He turned his head away, and she worked his shirt up until the whole wound was exposed. The edges were stiff, hardened and yellow, and she could see bone and tissue because a chunk of skin had been ripped away. The good news was that it bled less freely now, but what blood oozed out was not clean but mixed with a green puss.

She carefully placed the poultice she'd made, bark and all, magic side down, over it. He jerked and hissed at her.

The length of bark was just large enough to cover it all. It stuck to his skin, and when she gave it a light tug, it would not pull away. Libby pulled his pants up a little higher to anchor the bottom of the bark anyway, and pulled his shirt back down.

"Impressive,” Sierra said quietly. She stood over them with her arms crossed, her face blank of emotion except for a kind of calculation.

"You do not seem ... overjoyed,” Zorovin said. His eyes were normal, Libby was relieved to see. Then she laughed at herself. She was one to talk.

"Who are you?” Dashiel asked. Alex was busy helping his father sit up.

Sierra looked at him through slitted eyes. “Oh, charming. A talking dog."

Zorovin stared at her coolly. “I suppose it had to happen someday."

"What? That I don't love you anymore?” Her voice was bitter.

"No, that the original soul would find a way to reclaim her body.” He struggled up. “I read hearts as well as minds, sometimes, and if you can get past your anger over what was done to you, perhaps you might be able to do something constructive."

She smiled a little. “Like kill Sabin?"

Zorovin looked back towards the castle. “Close enough."

"Don't worry about that,” Alex urged. “Concentrate on mending."

Zorovin looked over at Libby then said, almost kindly, “She isn't your sister anymore."

"I kind of got the idea when she didn't recognize Dashiel,” Libby replied.

"So, you're the one,” the woman hissed, clenching her fistss. “Your sister stole my body! She stole my life."

"Catherine...” Zorovin began, but whatever he was about to say became moot as Catherine turned and ran into the woods.

They made a less than inspiring party, Rita-Sierra thought. She limped in a body that felt cold and slimy from the inside out, and Raul knew they were in a strange situation but was treating it all off-handedly, as if he figured he'd wake up any second.

She'd felt better in the group that counted two dragons among its numbers, that's for sure. When she thought that, though, she winced. Zorovin...?

The thought ended in a sigh. She could not afford to think about him. She didn't want to think about the whole lot of them, really. Alex was going to break Libby's heart, and Rita-Sierra knew that now she'd been reminded how cool it was to have a sister, she was going to die and never get to tell that to Libby.

They were running across the thin strip of land that connected one cavern with another. It arched across the magic, and she could see a huge chunk of the outside. Rita-Sierra thought she could see her little boat off in the distance. It sparkled, called to her. She thought about lying down in it, covering herself with the lovely dark blue velour blanket and drifting along the ley lines. It was too late, she knew, to go to the other world.

They'd taken a wrong turn somewhere, they had to have. Instead of going up, back to the surface, the tunnel took a huge left and opened up into another cavern. A beach of black sand stretched out into the pool of viscous green magic. Her bare feet crunched softly, sinking into the sand. She could feel this, like she felt all things, dimly, through a gauze fog. The colors were dull, the feelings, even when she pinched herself, were deadened. Her eyes felt scratchy, and she wondered how Cathy's soul had been able to come back into this collapsing body and take up residence without going completely mad.

Raul spoke, and she turned and stared at him until he repeated it.

"We ought to go back,” he said.

She blinked, trying to get a better picture of her old lover. She scratched her cheek absently, and skin shredded away. She wiped the flakes off with distaste, barely feeling the new skin under her fingers.

There was a flicker of movement over his shoulder. Sabin turned and looked at her, smiling widely when he saw her.

"I told you,” he crowed to the woman who entered behind him. “I knew she would be drawn here."

"I wasn't drawn here, you idiot! I got lost."

Sabin shrugged. “Same difference."

The woman behind him sighed. “The castle does as I command. The tunnels shifted so she would come here. So, properly, she was led."

Sierra backed closer to the shore.

"Big deal.” Sabin smiled, and drew closer to her. “I have you right where I want you."

She grabbed a fistful of sand and threw it in his face. He reacted just as she hoped, pawing the dirt from his eyes.

"Run! Get help!” she yelled at Raul.

He swung the telescope like a club, coming down on the back of the head of a guard who had come into the room last. The guard fell into the woman's arms, and they collapsed in a tangled heap.

He paused at the door.

"Go!” she screamed as Sabin grabbed her hair.

Raul ran. The guard stumbled after him.

"You play fast and loose, bitch,” Sabin hissed as he jerked her head back.

She looked him right in the eye. “I'm dying, you creep. I don't give a damn."

He leaned closer. He was smiling again, and his teeth looked very sharp, very cruel.

"I don't think so,” he snarled through clenched teeth. “That is not what I have planned for you right now."

He whipped his arm around and threw her toward the magic. She tried to stop herself, but momentum carried her over the edge. The sand disappeared from beneath her feet, and the magic sucked her in like quicksand. She struggled, but it only seemed to make matters worse. She was up to her shoulders, being pulled down.

She felt the stuff, viscous and thick, lap at her chin. She took a deep breath as it covered her nose. Her last vision was of Sabin standing on the shore, laughing, the woman looking on.

It came up over her head. She lifted her arms, hoping for one last moment's contact with the air, but she was already too far down and sinking fast.

Breathe, a voice in her head commanded.

No, she thought as her lungs began to hurt.

She seemed to have stopped moving, so she tried swimming again. She couldn't move, but hung suspended in the thick, syrupy flow. She forced her eyes to open, to overcome the fear of it. The world glowed faintly all around her, the color of crushed emeralds in sunshine.

You won't live unless you breathe
, the voice said insistently. She realized it was her own. But how?

—
I'm a ghost of sorts, I guess. Maybe just a memory, passed on to you.

—
Of whom?

Silence. The middle of her back burned fiercely.

—
Perhaps I should begin at the beginning.

—
Maybe that would be less confusing.

—
Breathe.

She let the air out of her lungs. It balled up and escaped, flying upward. Hallucinations telling you to breathe, she thought. What will you think up next?

She breathed.

The fluid rushed into her, into her nose and mouth. It lay heavy in her lungs, but she didn't have the urge to cough. In fact, she felt better, her mind seemed to clear. She could feel the warmth of the fluid around her ... see fine details in the magic.

—
Better, no?

—
Much.

—
Clear your mind, then, and let me tell you a pretty little story I've heard...?

She did as she was bid.

—
You have heard of the Merlin Stone?
the voice inquired.

—
Yes.

—
Now, sometimes the story can come off sounding like Merlin went, made the stone, spilt the worlds and that was that, but the fact is there was quite a war about it. People who saw magic as their lifeblood against people who thought magic's possibilities were played out. And central to this, although they did not know it, were sisters—Nimue of the Lake and her half-sister, Morganna Le Fay.

—
Though neither of them knew it at the time
, the voice continued,
a piece of each of them went into the making of the stone. From them both Merlin took a slice of their magic and their will, to give balance to the stone, because as fiercely as Morganna loved magic, Nimue hated it.

—
But she was the Lady of the Lake
, Sierra protested.

—
Yes, because it was her function. It was what she was born for, but she blamed magic for ruining her life. It couldn't bring her what she wanted. It couldn't even save the people she cared about, so why would she like it?

There was a moment's pause.

—
So, Merlin made it so that two sisters helped split the worlds, and because of this, two sisters would be needed to rejoin them. Sabin needed to find a pair of sisters, two who would fit the requirements.

"Two half-sisters,” she whispered. “So, we're like Nimue and Morganna reincarnated?"

—
Oh, no. They're both still very much alive. But you are a pair very much like them. A younger sister who lusted after magic more than any man. Vibrant, sensual ... that is you. You even have her hair. Then there's the older sister, seemingly grounded in reality but far too dreamy, placing her hopes on home and hearth, born with a gift. Nimue's was magic, and Libby's is the fact that she can feel the magic inherent in stones. I think that was what Sabin was looking for all this time, a woman born with a feel for stones.

—
The researcher ... Seward. Do you think he knew?

—
I don't know.

—
There's something you don't know?

—
We don't know a lot of things. Put your feet together, point your toes and join your hands over your head.

She did, and felt movement downward.

—
But I do know
, the voice continued,
that he needs you both. Alive, and fully healed. That is why he pushed you into the magic. He knew that when the magic infused you, that it would trigger the spell that he'd subtly placed upon you, to regain the will of Morganna Le Fay, to give you that part of her, just as your sister has Nimue's part. He just didn't realize the gold magic you drank would open a doorway in your head—the voice you hear—to explain things.

—
What?

—
Merlin needed peace, so he visited Morganna Le Fay and took away her will to fight—the strength of her magic. He stole it and bound it to the Stone, just as Nimue bound hers to it years later. But Nimue was wise. She gave her magic a purpose, a direction, and so when the box was opened, your sister was given the gift of it. I was freed when the ice melted from the stone, but I had no purpose until I was drawn to the mark on your back. Now I give what I am to you.

—
We're not going to fight Sabin?

—
It is not our will
, the voice said, and Sierra smiled. She could feel the will, and knew it was not just Morganna Le Fay who was freed from the Stone when the ice melted. It was her freedom as well.

She sank to the bottom and traveled through the tunnels. She did not duck and swing through the magic but swam through all of it, careless. As she swam, she changed. Her hair lengthened, her clothes melted away until she was dressed in a simple, loose dress of white, sleeveless and knee-length.

She felt herself passing near the bridge, and she thrust out of the magic and grabbed the narrow arch of stone. She climbed up onto it and crouched. Her tunic of white glowed softly from the magic that suffused it, a glimmer of pink here, some blue there. She threw back her head and laughed. She felt good, clear, whole—she hadn't felt this way in years. Like she was where she belonged.

Magic does this, she thought. The whole world could be like this. Everyone in it can be this whole.

She stood and balanced on the beam, running across it lightly with bare feet, the loose cloth blowing in the breeze. She leapt from bridge to shore then spun and looked back at the castle. The moon hovered just above it now, the towers in silhouette. It was huge seeming to take up a good quarter of the sky. She smiled at it, and went to find her sister.

They stood on the shore once again.

"There is no more time to waste,” Zorovin said. “Alex and I will fly you and Dashiel into the castle grounds and drop you off. We'll try and avoid being seen. Then we will do some scouting while you take the purple magic and work your way up. We'll find you."

"Yes, sir,” Libby said with false cheer. The straps of the backpack she'd woven from brown magic were pulling on her shoulders already.

Zorovin and Alex transformed, and when it was done, the huge black dragon formed his hands into a cradle for Dashiel. The dog was panting in excitement as he climbed around the claws, since he'd never gotten to fly before.

—
You see what Dashiel does.
Alex's voice sounded in her head.
Imitate him.

"Shall I pant?” she asked as she climbed into his interlaced hands.

The backpack caught on one of his talons, and she pulled it free. His talons were long and sharp, but the skin of his hands was warm and vibrant. He gathered her close to his chest and took off.

"It's really cool that you're a dragon,” she said, mostly for something to say.

—
Do you really think so?

"Yes. Can I speak to you just in my head? It would be easier."

—
Try
, he suggested, not telling her he could read her thoughts all the time, now that he was a dragon again.

—
It doesn't matter to me. I know that I can't use the same path to travel here as the dragons, but, you know, we could do something.