He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) (33 page)

“Yes we can,” Tristram
said
as though there was no doubt. He glanced to Michael. There was doubt all right. “You roll over and float. We’ll tow you.”

Kemble didn’t waste strength on protests. He just rolled over on his back.

“Your job is to hold onto our waistbands, one in each hand. Can you do that?”

“Yeah.” Kemble got a determined look around his mouth that Michael had seen on his father. No wonder Drew said Tristram called him the Prince of Wales.

“All right then. We rest a lot.”

But thirty minutes later Michael and Tristram were spent. Kemble couldn’t hold on, so they were trying to tow him by his waistband.

“Time to toss in the towel,” Kemble almost whispered.

“Not happening,” Tristram gasped. But he knew as well as Michael that they’d made little progress in the last minutes. The island seemed unreachable. Could they really drown half a mile from shore?

“Let me go,” Kemble demanded weakly. “Your only chance.”

“No dice,”
Michael sputtered.

Kemble pushed weakly at his brother. “Let go, damn you.”

“If I have to knock you out, I will,” Tristram said. Kemble slipped under before Michael grabbed him and hauled him up.

“Give it up,” Michael gasped. “Delta Force never leaves a man behind.” His head was buzzing. He couldn’t think. He wouldn’t let Kemble sacrifice himself, but they were all going down, and it wouldn’t be long.

Tristram looked around. “You hear that?”

“What?”

“That sound.”

The buzzing in his head was getting louder. A swell lifted them again. Michael caught a glimpse of orange. Orange?

“Hey!” Tristram yelled, with new energy. “Hey, over here.”

Michael gripped Kemble with one hand and waved the other as a swell rolled under them again. A boat. It was a boat and it was passing them about forty yards out.

“Over here,” Michael yelled, his throat raw. Tristram shouted too. The guy in the boat was searching the horizon. Tris and Michael redoubled their efforts.

“Senior!” Tris shouted.

Brian Tremaine turned, saw them, and brought the day-glow orange launch around. Michael had never seen anything so welcome in his life.

“He was right,” Tristram gasped. “There was a launch on
The
Hail Mary.
”

“
That’s
the name of your sailboat?” Michael was sputtering salt water.

Brian cut the motor as he drew near. “Almost missed you.” He looked horrified.

“That would have been a shame,” Michael managed.

Brian shot him an incredulous half grin as he leaned over the side to grab Kemble, who looked like he’d faded into unconsciousness. As Brian pulled Kemble over the big round inflated side of the launch, he sobered.

Nobody said anything while Brian got first Tristram, then Michael, into the launch. They lay in the bottom, gasping. Having something solid between him and all that salt water seemed like a miracle to Michael.

When Michael could lift his head, he saw Brian checking Kemble. “He’s pretty cut up. Lost blood,” Brian said.

“I think Dowser’s running on empty, too,” Tristram panted.

“Like you’re a bundle of energy.” Michael pulled himself up to lean on the side of the launch. “Where’d you get this thing?” he asked Brian.

“Lodged in some rocks just outside the surf line way down the beach. Thank God it’s orange.” Brian pulled the throttle on the little motor and the launch took off. “Explosion must have kicked off the inflator or it would have sunk like a stone,” he yelled over the noise of the motor. “Now if it only had enough gas to actually get us anywhere.” He tapped the tank. It thudded hollowly.

“Out of the frying pan,” Michael muttered.

He was startled when Tristram started to laugh.

*****

Drew rolled her head, trying to rid
herself
of the dreams that wouldn’t seem to go away. This time it was bright lights and people shouting. She was moving through the crowd as though she was levitating. Rhiannon’s face was a clown mask of sadness. St. Claire was shouting orders.

“Out of the way. Let us to the plane.”

She stared up and saw one of those rolling stands that held an IV bag with clear liquid in it. Light refracted through the liquid into a rainbow of pretty colors that ran down the tube and into her arm.
Drugs, like colored magic.

How she wished that Michael were here in this dream. He’d been in many others. She’d seen him swimming. Not happy swimming though.
Desperate, exhausted swimming.
She’d seen him in the back seat of a car. And Tristram was there too. She’d seen him on a gurney with an IV stand just like hers.

She tried to sit up, but there was a strap across her chest. She struggled. Rhiannon’s exaggerated face seemed to be made of liquid wax as she said, “There, there, honey. We’ll get you home safely.” The words echoed and banged around in Drew’s head.

“No,” she said. “Don’t want to go with
you.…”

Rhiannon reached up and turned a little knob on the packet of rainbow liquid. The slide of liquid into her arm turned bright purple.

Drew felt
herself
winking out like a light.

*****

Michael sat with his back against the big palm, knife at the ready. He was starting to shake with chills and night was coming on. When they had first come ashore, Brian had bound up Kemble’s wounds. He’d cut Tristram’s jeans leg off above his swollen knee. And he’d tied up Michael’s thigh, which was beginning to bloat and redden ominously. Then he’d taken one of the knives they’d gotten from the dead thugs and disappeared into the jungle. Michael had built a fire using driftwood they’d limped around gathering above the tide line, and he’d used a flask they found on one of the dead bodies to bring water up from the stream. Now Tristram sat with his leg up on a mound of sand. Kemble lay in a heavy sleep.

“Why’d you laugh, Tristram, when your father said the boat didn’t have enough gas to get anywhere? I didn’t think that was especially funny.”

“Call me Tris,” he growled. “Only Senior calls me Tristram. He and Mother.”

“Done. But why the laugh?”

“Because I can make the engine run. Senior was just messing with you.”

“That’s your power. Uh, magic, I mean.”

“Yep.” He looked up at Michael. “Like yours is Finding.”

Michael cleared his throat. Better not to mention Drew. “I ... heard something about that.”

“I’ll bet you did. Drew said she tied you to a bed for a couple of days while you detoxed.” He grunted a laugh. “Drew is a force of nature, like Mother.”

Michael gave a wistful smile. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Tris frowned at Michael. “She wasn’t so good when we found her.”

Michael didn’t think he’d enjoy being on the receiving end of Tris’s disapproval. “I was trying to keep her out of all this.”

“By humiliating her? Shit. She’d been crying her eyes out.”

Michael swallowed. “I had to be sure Rhiannon would discount her.”

“So that bitch could get a powerful sword and you could get your wife back. Great.”

Michael was ashamed of himself. More than when he’d been a drunkard. Not as much as when he’d killed Alice. He stared at the fire. “Didn’t work out like I planned.”

A rustling from the jungle signaled Brian’s return. A bucket of water sloshed at his side. He held his bulging shirt tied at the corners. The man looked exhausted. Michael managed to push himself up and limp painfully over to relieve Brian of some of his burdens.

“Where’d you get the bucket?”

“I did several kinds of scavenging.”

Brian knelt by the fire and untied the corners of his shirt. He had a breadfruit and a ripe jackfruit. The jackfruit smelled like Juicy Fruit gum. They’d eat at least. “Tris, cut these open,” Michael said, tossing them over. “Save the jackfruit seeds. When you boil them they’re like potatoes.” Michael handed Tris his knife and knelt to fill the flask with water.

Brian sorted through the plants. “Good job with the fire. These stones will do nicely.”

“Salad?” Michael asked.

“I was lucky enough to find some
chenopodium
ambrosioides
and some croton
lechleri
.”

“Oh, goody.” Couldn’t the man speak English? Or was he just showing off? He caught a glimpse of a thick red stalk. “Wait, that’s Sangre de
Grado
. Dragon’s blood.”

“That’s its common name, yes.
Excellent for sealing wounds.
Paico
is the common name for
chenopodium
. Fights parasites.”

“You’re a regular pharmacy here.”

Brian laid the
Paico
leaves across the hot stones, where they began to sizzle. “When Tremaine Enterprises teams first get to a disaster site, they’re usually ahead of the drug shipments. We train our people on what local plants can help.”

“That what you do? Disaster relief?”

“Among other things.” He laid the Sangre de
Grado
carefully on the largest rock. “Sit here where I can see you and take off your pants.”

“But I think Kemble....”

“Kemble can’t find Drew. He’s second in line.”

Michael was shocked. His own son...?

Brian turned his leaves on the stones. Did he realize what he’d just implied? “Kemble’s wounds aren’t infected. He hasn’t been trotting around the jungle like you have.”

Michae
l’s wounds were infected. He couldn’t argue with that. He pulled down his pants and sat. Did he spend all his time naked around these guys? Brian untied his makeshift bandage. The wound looked bad. He’d seen some bad wounds, and he recognized the signs.

“You know survival skills,” Brian remarked.

“Delta Force.”

“Looks like you’ve seen some action.” Brian gestured to the scars on Michael’s torso.

Michael grunted. “These weren’t from the action.” Brian lifted a brow in question as he turned the leaves once more on the hot stone. “Taliban prison.”

“How long?” Tris asked.

“They tell me it was fourteen months. Seemed longer.”

“It would.” Brian peeled the plants off the stones and squeezed their juice into Michael’s wound. The Sangre de
Grado
sap ran blood red.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Michael swore.
That juice seared like
acid.

“Brought up Catholic?” Brian asked.

Michael did a double take. Had he heard the man right?

“Not that I care,” Brian continued. “We’re not really religious in the conventional sense.”

Tris emitted a gusty sigh behind him. “Here it comes.”

“Stay out of this, Tristram,” his father said. He laid the leaves themselves in Michael’s open wound.

Michael tried to keep his stomach from heaving. “Stay out of what?” he croaked. “I’m ‘lapsed’ Catholic. What do you care?” What was worse than lapsed? Whatever it was, that’s what he was. He had no use for a God that would let Alice get cancer.

“Well, if you want to raise the children Catholic, I wouldn’t have a problem.”

“What ... what children?” The pain must be making him stupid.

“The ones you’ll have with Drew.” Brian tied the bandage around Michael’s thigh.

“Wait a minute, now,” Michael said. “Kids?” He’d be backing up if he could stand.

“You raised her magic. That means she loves you.” Brian’s voice had steel in it. He took some more steaming leaves and blood-red stems off the hot stones. “So, you’re going to marry Drew and you will damn well make her happy.” He squeezed juice into Michael’s hip wound.

He raised her magic? Wasn’t she always a Seer? “Uh, I like Drew,” Michael hissed.
Damn that hurts.
“I really do.” He more than liked her and he knew it. But he wouldn’t be backed into a corner. There were metaphorical ways of being tied up as well as literal. And why did everyone think they were destined “mates” anyway? He steadied his breathing, just to prove to Tremaine Senior that he could. “But aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? We have to find her first.”
Michael hated to remind a father who obviously cared for his daughter that he might have lost her, but he was under attack. He couldn’t marry Drew. He was still too confused about everything. He saw Brian’s expression grow even grimmer.

“You’re right. We’ll find her. Then we’ll talk.”

Brian got up and went over to tend to Kemble. He talked softly to his eldest son while he squeezed juice and
laid
on his leaf poultices.

Tris scooted up beside Michael and handed him a cleaned crescent of jackfruit. He looked like he was going to speak. “Don’t start,” Michael said. “I get it. You both love Drew, and you think you know what’s best for her. But believe me, you don’t.”