by Jamie Hawke
The last of him entered, and then it collapsed in on itself with a burst of red light that shot outward, knocking us all over and pausing the fight.
When I looked up again, all of the void and the storm was gone, replaced by a single man who was standing there with his long white robes flowing, a beard of white and grey to match.
“Merlin,” Morganna said, smiling wickedly.
“You,” he replied in a raspy voice, moving his hands to form a spell, but she simply stepped forward before he could finish and thrust her hand onto his heart. It was as easy as that—no magic, no fight to the death. She pulled her hand back, and with it the glowing red Ichor I’d come to recognize, as Merlin’s body collapsed to the ground where Arthur’s should have been.
Morganna absorbed the Ichor, and before our eyes she seemed to grow in size and power. It was like a shadow had fallen over her, but her eyes glowed bright green and the air around her seemed to push outward, as if she had too much power and it was taking up all of that space.
We had failed—Morganna had won.
44
My first thought was to run in and attack, and believe me—I tried. With all of the buffers from Nivian, along with my magic shield and enhanced sword, I actually believed I had a shot. Charging at her with Excalibur held high, blue was trailing me and my skin was crawling with the power of my tattoos feeding me more energy. My war cry would’ve scared the largest grizzly bear, maybe even a dragon, I was certain.
And yet, all it took from her was a swipe of her hand to send a gust of wind at me that threw me back and onto my ass. With another swipe, a burst of lightning shot out and nearly hit me, but I held up Excalibur and the lightning hit, surging through me in a way that actually gave me more power! This was the first time I’d seen that skill class upgrade come into effect, and I was impressed.
I thrust forward with the sword and watched with excitement as the blast of lightning went right back at her. She held up both hands in annoyance, causing the lightning to bounce off of her. At least it took out a goblin and sent Captain Hook, who had just recovered, stumbling back, his hair smoldering and eyes looking dazed.
An explosion sounded and I turned to see Morganna looking dazed, but pissed. Sekhmet was there, scepter in hand, grinning. With her at the reins, I took the opportunity to upgrade as fast as I could—I’d need everything I could get. A quick upgrade to the shield that would send a shield stun out and then I paused, grinning. My group Tempest attack was ready, and I had the Ichor point!
It was mine, and now I couldn’t wait to try it out.
Morganna and Sekhmet were facing off, all hell about to break loose.
“You want a plaything, is that it?” Morganna said to Sekhmet with a sneer. “See, I’m too busy for you… so let’s see if your friends can come out to play.”
None of us knew what she was talking about, I was sure, until she brought up one hand and one of the massive standing stones fell backwards, breaking the ground around it. A moment later, hands reached up, pushing dirt aside, and I expected skeletons or zombies to come stumbling out.
Instead, it was our enemy from the tombs, Isis herself. She wasn’t alone, however. Crawling out at her side and then standing tall with a roar of exaltation to be free was a man I hadn’t seen before, but one who wore Egyptian robes and had bursts of silver and black coming out of him like twisting light.
Sekhmet took a step back, fell to one knee, and her mouth hung open. Apparently, this man was the last person she wanted to see right now. It was Ptah, her former lover who had deserted her for Isis. All this time Sekhmet had guarded against this moment, and now he was free to do his worst again, thanks to Morganna.
“Enjoy the gift,” Morganna cackled, returning to her magic to attack me as I charged again. At least I was putting up a bit of a fight, now that I knew I could absorb certain Tempest spells and use the sword to shoot them back, even if it was only hitting the surrounding monsters and distracting her.
Two large lizards came up from my rear while a small man with a crooked nose—Rumpelstiltskin, maybe?—leaped at me with a dagger, but I was charged up and spun on them, cutting through one lizard and sending blasts of icy wind at the others. While the small man was preparing another attack, three Shades emerged from his shadow and came at me, but I struck them down with Excalibur boosting out, expanding and shining double. I took the prana while he stumbled back, weakened.
Right now, I didn’t see the point in leaving the Legends alive. Too much was at stake. So as much as they’d warned me against it, I charged the man and removed his head with an amplified, clean strike, absorbing his Ichor a moment later. Bam—level thirteen, and I had an Ichor to use.
“Be careful!” Sekhmet shouted as she came to my side, and I almost snapped back at her. She saw the look in my eyes, and pointed at Isis and the man. “They’re our enemies here. You defeat, you capture—kill if you have to—but remember that every life you take by choice, rather than because you’re left without any other option, affects you, breaks down your resolve to fight the shadow.
She was right, of course. I was already feeling like an ass, like an ass who wanted to take more lives and do nasty things. Note to self—killing, bad. Stop it.
Isis roared with laughter, flying at me with her claws at the ready, and the man darted forward in bursts that reminded me of horror movies from the nineties. Luckily for me, Sekhmet, Bastet and Nivian were with me, the four of us going back-to-back in a loose square as the enemies closed around us. The biggest threat seemed to be this new couple, although we still had to deal with the easier foes.
Bastet was weaving purple shields and clawing away like a champion, and my tattoos and Excalibur were in full blue flame mode, bursts like electricity even running up the sword and sending an extra oomph into each strike.
Blast after blast suddenly shot out from Sekhmet’s scepter, but they seemed to be missing something, as if she couldn’t fully commit to striking down this man. Of course, he had once been everything to her, by my understanding, so it would have to be one of us who dealt the final blow.
He flashed over to her and held out his hands, darkness channeling through him and toward her, so that she fell to her knees, screaming, and the scepter started to slip from her hands. Bastet came to her rescue, the cat darting between Sekhmet’s legs and leaping to get a good set of claws dug into the man’s groin—he fell back, cursing, trying to swat her off.
Meanwhile I was trying to work toward them, using my new group attack in ways that were blowing my mind. If I thrust into the air focusing on the attack, bursts of electricity shot out, hitting surrounding enemies. A good thrust into the ground would send a shockwave like tremors through the earth, knocking them down. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen around water or other elements. Still, I wasn’t getting there fast enough.
The man was almost up when I got a lucky shot, boosted by Nivian, that blasted him in the face. With his power, the blast didn’t do lasting damage but sent him back on his ass. Bastet rolled out of the way as Isis came at her, but instead of attacking, knelt at the man’s side and cradled his head, checking on him.
I had a feeling the relationship between these four had been a complicated one. A story for another day, because everyone seemed to have stopped fighting then, as something in the sky seemed very out of place.
A helicopter was coming right for us.
We all stared, dumbfounded, watching it land. I expected Morganna to hit it out of the air with one of her spells, but she stood there watching like the rest of us. She must’ve been equally as confused, though, because she simply took a step toward it, hair not even reacting to the wind from the blades, and stared in annoyance and curiosity.
When the blades stopped and the door opened, out stepped Agent Torrind.
“You look different, Riak,” he said, his voice cutting though the silence. “And look at this mess you’ve gotten yourself into. But don’t worry, Daddy’s home.”
“Go fuck y
ourself,” Morganna said, and thrust out a hand that sent a barrage of lightning and fire at him, each strike coming one after another in successive hits so that, by the time she stopped, a wall of smoke remained. She chuckled to herself as it cleared, and we saw scorched earth, an utterly destroyed helicopter, and… the agent.
“How…?” Sekhmet said, stepping up to my side, her lioness face contorting in confusion.
I imagine every single person or fairy tale there was asking themselves that exact question.
And Agent Torrind, for his part, had an answer. He held out his hands, his suit destroyed and falling off of him—but his body transformed as it did, so that he was glowing, too bright to look directly at, and began walking toward Morganna.
“You see,” his voice came with a hint of familiarity, but much deeper, much more… godly, “we didn’t allow you to run unchecked all these years simply because humans were stupid enough to believe you’d help them win the war against fairy tales. No—while they are that stupid, you were left alive because of me. You were chosen to lead me here, to finally achieve your destiny, your calling.”
“And that is?” Morganna asked, voice starting to show worry as it cracked.
“To allow me out of my cage,” he replied, and in that second the light faded as his head transformed into that of a falcon one minute, a strong man with fiery hair the next.
“Father,” Sekhmet muttered, eyes wide. Her hand took my arm and she whispered, “We have to go… now.”
“Go where?” I hissed, and saw that Nivian was inching closer to us, Bastet at my feet.
“Anywhere but here,” Sekhmet muttered. “Now.”
“Father…?” I said, putting this together. “You mean that’s—”
“Ra. Yes. Now, can we…?”
“Ah, daughter,” Ra said, eyes turning to us with a hint of humor. “I’ll deal with you in a minute, but first.”
He suddenly burst forward like a flash of light, hands on Morganna as we’d seen her with Merlin, and while Nivian grabbed me and Sekhmet, Bastet leaping into her sister’s arms, we witnessed Ra pulling the Ichor from Morganna, tearing away her magic, her power… her life.
And as his eyes were moving back toward us, Nivian muttered, “Arthur, take us with you!”
I was confused, at first, but then saw what resembled ashes, only sparkling, tumbling down from the sky, falling around us. Our surroundings started to fade as Ra began to address his new followers.
“You have a choice,” he said. “You now follow me, or die. And when I say die, I mean completely—there will be no prisoners under my new world order. The gods have returned, and we will control this world along with all others.”
He kept on, but his voice became muffled, the last bit barely audible as he seemed to have noticed us vanishing and began commanding the others nearby to stop us from escaping, kill us or die themselves.
I might have felt bad for them, if not for the fact that they’d been trying to kill us moments earlier. What was happening with us, though, I had no idea.
We seemed to still be alive, floating in grey mists. Nivian was to my right, eyes wide, searching, while Sekhmet was holding onto Bastet, both floating to my left. We’d escaped. Our enemies couldn’t get to us. For now, at least, that would have to do.
45
My feet were suddenly on solid ground, without falling or even stumbling. Green grass under my feet, the tendrils of mist floating amongst it in patches, rising up in others and even starting to fade. More of what appeared to be a grass field became visible, then several weeping willows, and finally patches of blue sky.
By the time it had all faded, I’d had enough time to realize what had happened—that we’d gone through a portal.
“Where’d the portal take us?” I asked.
“Wrong question,” Nivian said.
I frowned, realizing I was somehow wrong. “The right one being?”
“You might ask where Arthur took us, and the answer would be that we’re in the Fae land.”
“Wait a minute,” Sekhmet said, letting Bastet jump out of her arms and investigate our surroundings. “Is Arthur not dead?”
“She ‘sacrificed’ him to call upon Merlin,” Nivian answered. “But didn’t take his Ichor, didn’t end his life, exactly.”
I ran a hand through my hair, trying to grasp all of this. “And now we’re in Fae land.”
“And if we can find the nearest lake…” Nivian turned at a meow from Bastet, where she was already moving off from us toward a lake. In spite of Nivian’s weary expression, she actually managed a smile. “There we go.”
“How does this help us?” I asked. “I get it out there, but in here?”
“In here, in some senses, works a lot like out there. Our magic can be amplified, in certain ways, and there are, of course, the Fae and the Shades to worry about. As for how this, in particular, will help… Well, watch and learn.”
We reached the edge of the lake and she gestured me forward, to look into the water from the edge. I expected her to shove me in or something, so knelt hesitantly, but when I saw my reflection my heart leaped with excitement—there in the reflection, staring back at me, were Red, Sharon, Elisa, and Pucky!
Arms wrapped around me and I turned to see Pucky there by my side, the others now with us too.
“Magic,” Nivian explained with a wink. “This is where my darker self sent them… And again, sorry about that.”
“She’s on our side now?” Red asked, staring at Nivian with hesitation.
“In a strange way, she never wasn’t,” I replied. “Just, you know…”
“Shadow,” Sharon said, nodding.
“That and a desire to protect Arthur,” Nivian replied, as she stepped forward and introduced herself, embracing each of them as she apologized. “Not every day you get attacked by a mermaid and sent to the Fae land, is it?”
“Not most days,” Elisa replied with a laugh, accepting the hug with grace.
When they were done, Sekhmet cleared her throat, motioning at our surroundings. “So… what now? How do we get back?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Nivian replied. “It was only because of the shadow part of me that I was able to send you here in the first place. Not a power I’m able to recall without it—and that’s not something I’m able to use at will.”
“So we’re fucked,” Red said. “Wonderful.
“I don’t get it,” I admitted. “This place, it’s like a whole actual world? Not just the strange planes of mist and Shades I saw with Riak?”
“In a sense,” Nivian replied. “It’s like this—it was a land of magic, of fairies, dragons, and more… until we discovered it. Now there are communities here, established by fairy tales who no longer wanted to live among the Normies of Earth.”
“So the legends of Arthur going off to live in Avalon…?”
She nodded. “True, though they left out the vampire part. At the time, it was one of the only ways to keep the vampire side of him at bay. To ensure he no longer faced the darkness, he came here with me and we enjoyed a long, healthy time together. That all ended the day he was brought back.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, my heart aching for her.
She bit her lip, nodded, and said, “Come, I’ll show you where we stayed. Maybe he’ll be there.”
The home she led us to was tucked away behind trees and up against a cliff-face at the side of one of many rolling hills. It wasn’t horribly constructed, but clearly had been done without a construction team in place. The place’s saving grace was that it had been nicely decorated with flowers and was surrounded by a garden with all manner of vegetables and fruits growing. I saw one strawberry bigger than an apple, and was willing to bet it was the juiciest, sweetest strawberry I’d ever come across.
“Arthur,” she called out, running in, and when I took a step to follow, Elisa put a hand on my arm and shook her head slightly.
We waited while Nivian called out his name several more times, appearin
g at different windows. After a few minutes, the situation became clear.
She stumbled back, eyes full of sorrow. “I was afraid of this…”
“Could he be… out?” I asked.
“When she sacrificed him like that, she sent him here… in exchange for Merlin, but in a way that didn’t leave him whole. He might be here in spirit, but not beyond that.” She took a deep breath, processing this, and then tried to smile. “Come, rest. We’ll find a way back to the fight when we’re all… ready.”
The last word had been hard to get out as she tried to stay strong, and then she turned and led us to a room that could be ours. There were only two rooms in the place, and she said she’d work on figuring out more of a bedding situation. Maybe go visit others she knew who came here occasionally, or maybe the Fae would bless us.
She left us to it, and we milled about the room, making ourselves at home. I stared out the window, taking in this world in the glory that it was without the mists, now noticing the hills and mountains in the distance. We had no idea how we were getting out of here, yet, though we were working on it. For now we had accept that as enough, and be happy that at least we were together.
And that meant all the difference—because being together meant we could actually be together.
Still, it was frustrating as hell. When Sekhmet, Bastet and I had filled in the rest of the team about what had happened, and we’d discussed our options and decided there really weren’t any, I laid back on the bed, closed my eyes, and said, “Fuck.”
“I know I’m usually the pessimist,” Red said, coming over to me, lying down on the bed next to me, propped up on one arm so that she could look me into my eyes. “But today, no. We’ve come too far, made too much progress… and the world faces too great of a threat for us to lose hope.”
“You sound like a fucking superhero movie,” I said, rolling my eyes.
She leaned in, pressed her lips to mine, and said, “That was to make you shut up.” I opened my mouth to try and say something else, when she leaned in again for another kiss.