Caller of Lightning

by Eytan Kollin

  Peter shook his head. “That makes no sense. How did you come to be here?”

  “You think I let those journals slip out of my hands? No. When my dear husband, who loved studying those, died—I sent them far and wide, all thirty of ’em, to make sure we’d have help stopping those as would hurt people. It ain’t how we came to be here, it’s how you came to me.”

  King kept reading, but at this point the glow completely covered both of them.

  The Widow Eversleigh kept on talking. “We paid attention to the portents, and whatnots, of course. Can’t be too careful with portents. Never know when they’re gonna lead you astray. When the time was right, we activated the Manydoor. My nephew, did I mention him? He brought me a Manydoor from the cathedral. He’s a good boy now, though—stopped all the thieving and studied to become a Vicar. This,” she waved her hand, “is what I was meant to enable, by the Lord’s grace.”

  Peter was stunned by the cessation of verbal onslaught, but at the same moment King concluded his recitation. The glow receded, and Ben sat up, looking at King in wonder.

  “Thank you.” Ben patted himself down, in shock that all the bits seemed to be in place. “What of William?”

  “You’re welcome,” King said dryly and closed his Bible. He looked over at William, still unmoving. Slowly he stood and walked over to the younger Franklin. “A good Christian holds forgiveness in his heart. I will try to forgive him. But he is gone. There may be a way, but not yet.” He nudged the prone William with a toe. “I’m sorry. He was a crap master and a crap person, but still, I’m sorry for you.”

  Ben stood stock still, ignoring the tears streaming down his face. His jaw clenched. His back straightened. At his sides, his fists clenched until his knuckles popped. “I am going to kill the King.” He said it simply, a statement of intention, and to no one in particular. Ben wiped at his eyes with the back of his sleeve, then looked at the Widow Eversleigh, “Can this Manydoor get us to the Tower of London?”

  The Salt Tower,

  Tower of London

  London, England

  38

  Meiko!

  “So, it’s finally time, is it?” the pompously dressed man said.

  Myrddin just looked at the stranger, unimpressed. “I assume you are one of George’s ridiculous lackeys. He was always good at surrounding himself with the worst.”

  “Lackey?” The man’s lips went thin and his eyebrow twitched. “I am Thomas Penn, the True and Absolute Proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania. You will yield, Merlin Emræs.”

  “My name, minion, is Myrddin. Merlin is a myth I created for the masses, which you purport to not be.”

  “So, all that outside?” Thomas inquired.

  “Just a show to grow the legend. But enough talk, where—”

  With a swift motion, Thomas flung his arms wide and white fire erupted from his hands. It landed where Myrddin had been, scorching the walls and floor, but he had vanished.

  “Æris.” Thomas turned just in time for an airborne lamp to hit him on the side of the head. He was knocked off his feet, and hot wax burned his cheek below the slice on his temple. From his prone position—without pause—he took out a small silver horn from under his shirt and blew into it. No sound was heard, but Myrddin knew the artifact. The horn was an artifact of war, used to summon others to one’s aid.

  He smiled grimly and slapped his hands together in a booming clap. “ABRECAN!”

  The horn crumbled to ash, a big enough surprise that Thomas froze. They had thought the metal indestructible. Myrddin made no such mistake. “Æris.” He started wildly flinging his hands, using the fairly-easy-to-maintain spell to hurl everything he could see that wasn’t bolted down at Thomas Penn. A stanchion, dragging rope, clipped the back of Thomas’s skull as he tried to regain his feet.

  The proprietor curled into a ball, stunned, trying to protect his head.

  The door opened, revealing a Manydoor, and a regal-looking woman stepped through with a terrier in her arms.

  Thomas grunted, struggling to throw off the daze and rejoin the fight as he was pelted.

  The Countess didn’t wait. Flinging her hand forward she snapped, focusing her gaze on her target.

  His air armor protected him from physical attack, but not magical. Myrddin threw his left hand up to cast a defensive spell but was too late. The force blow the Countess had thrown landed between his legs, and he doubled over in pain. “Boardrand!” He grunted and slapped his thigh.

  He straightened up, his shield spell protecting him as the woman rained invisible blows down with each snap. “Æris babilónum,” he gasped through his tears. In the normal course of events, Myrddin didn’t need his hands to cast; but controlling so many threads simultaneously was too taxing. He needed the extra focus.

  Myrddin waved his right hand at Thomas, sending him flying across the room just as he was about to regain his feet. Simultaneously, he waved his left hand at Amalie Sophie. She was lifted bodily till she was pinned in the air. He left her suspended there, his left hand held up while he wove his right hand in a pattern around his left. “Handfaestnung!”

  The terrier fell from her arms as the spell took hold and immobilized her hands. It ran at Myrddin, growling and trying to bite his heels, where it drew blood from his ankle. With a grunt he kicked it. The terrier yelped once before it was silenced by impacting the ceiling.

  “Meiko!” the Countess screamed. The terrier whimpered at the sound of its name. When Thomas tried to stand, yet again, Myrddin closed his right hand with a muttered, “Basengen,” and a flash of light erupted around Thomas. He screamed in pain. From the hallway, six men in courtly attire—Fellows of the Royal Society loyal to the King—ran into the room just in time to see the flash. They all shied away, agog at the scene of destruction in the room. It was one thing to see small parlor tricks and know magic was real. It was a completely different thing to see wizards battling and wish magic wasn’t real.

  Myrddin grunted, scanning them for any visible artifacts. If he could destroy enough of them, the King’s spell would misfire. Even though they were all a hundred times stronger with the comet overhead, it wouldn’t be enough. Proximity counted, and there was only so much casting a single person could do before they started consuming their own body to power the spells. None of the cowering men had anything visible.

  Before Myrddin could act further, the Manydoor opened again, and this time a burly man burst in, quickly followed by King George, resplendent in his white furs. As King George quickly took in the scene, he hurled a lightning bolt at Myrddin. “Don’t just stand there, you fools,” he barked at the Fellows from the Royal Society. “Rush him!”

  Countess Amalie began screaming, writhing against her invisible bonds.

  The electrical fire shattered against his shield, but Myrddin was beginning to sweat with the exertion. He released the fire around Thomas and turned his attention to the King.

  Sir John moved toward the King. “My Lord, the Royal Society does not seem so use—”

  “Useless.” King George gathered more lightning from the air and hurled it against the invisible shield protecting Myrddin. “Don’t talk. Fight.”

  Myrddin had let his left hand drop down, sending Amalie Sophie, who had begun shrieking as soon as King George told them all to rush Myrddin, dropping to the floor. She landed with a sickening thump. She moaned weakly and didn’t get back up. Meiko the terrier limped to her side and began nuzzling her face. Myrddin then brought both hands forward in a grasping motion. Speaking the words, “Æris babilónum!” he lifted the charging Sir John Pringle into the air. As John struggled, his feet dangled, face turning red.

  Myrddin turned his attention to King George. “Wæhþoll!” He stomped a foot down just as the other man threw a third bolt of lightning. An invisible fist slammed into the seventy-six-year-old king’s gut, and he went down.

  Myrddin dropped his prisoners and rolled to the side, the bolt missing him by only a couple of feet.

 
George rolled over, gasping. “Gib mir deine stärke, Wurdiz.” He was an old man, but the toll of the battle was heavy, and his now-sunken cheeks and gray skin made him look easily like he was over a hundred. In the time it took Myrddin to recover his feet, the King held out his right hand toward the still-gaping Royal Society members. John collapsed, then his body rapidly desiccated, turning nearly instantly to dust. In quick succession each of the other members of the Royal Society were quickly consumed by the King’s spell. George stood back up. “I’ve learned a new trick, teacher.” Gone were the sunken eyes, the pallor, the near-death exhaustion. The King looked like a man of forty again.

  George held up a hand, and Myrddin felt his shield crumble under the other mage’s will. He fell to his knees, using all his strength to keep the crushing will from consuming him. He had nothing left to cast with. “A tiny version of the comet spell?”

  “Don’t.” The King walked up to Myrddin and slammed a right hook across his jaw. Myrddin spit blood, gasping and fighting to not fall over. “Talk.” George whaled on his former mentor, taking out decades of frustration and anger. “Fight.”

  Thomas Penn had recovered enough to stand, though his visage was burned and horribly scarred. He held his hand to the Countess and helped her recover her feet as well. Without a word, Thomas advanced toward Myrddin and stood beside his monarch.

  The King snorted in obvious contempt. “Look upon him, Thomas,” he spoke. “The great Merlin Ambrosius, discoverer of all the mysteries of the comet, first among sorcerers, too cowardly to use its power, but foolish enough to think he can stop his betters from doing so. Everything about him is a lie. Your time has long since come to an end.”

  “My name,” said the ancient sorcerer, “is Myrddin Emræs. I am a soldier.” He rolled over onto his back, coughing weakly. He spat the pooling blood from his mouth.

  “Yield now or face His Majesty’s wrath,” Thomas ordered.

  “I’ve seen the comet ten times, each holding a stretch of years longer than you have been alive between them.” He rolled onto his side and spat out more blood.

  “No. There are no terms of surrender,” the King ordered, sounding very much like the soldier he had been before becoming king. “The Crown will have the pleasure of delivering its wrath personally. Hold him down, Thomas. Feel free to get your fists dirty.”

  As Thomas knelt over the prostrate wizard, leaning with all his weight on a knee pressed against Myrddin’s neck, King George walked to the Countess Amalie. Licking his thumb, he rubbed a spot of blood off her cheek.

  “I’m fine, my love,” she said, sitting with her back to the wall. “I just need a moment to recover. Go tend the moment at hand.”

  He nodded, softly stroking her hair, then strode across the room and opened the far door. Hew Draper’s cell lay on the other side. George opened his arms, and at the clenching of his fists, the gathered artifacts flew toward him. The star metal artifacts swirled through the air around him, then several of them settled onto his person: the suit of armor, rings, and the sword from the East. Even a halberd floated at his side as if prepared to be his second.

  Once he had adorned himself with the wearable and usable objects, he moved his hands toward center and brought them together as if crushing something between them. The rest of the objects came together, then melded into a solid mass, extraneous material burning off or dropping to the ground. With a few twists of his hands, they formed into a semblance of a sash, which wrapped itself over his shoulder and around his waist.

  “Move away, Thomas.”

  The King’s vassal struggled to the side as he stood. He was cold and calculating, watching the gasping Myrddin like he was an insect. A blast of pitch-black smoke poured from his raised hand, boiling through the air toward the slowly rising wizard.

  Myrddin raised his hands. “Heaðusigel gebærdstán.” The two words created an orb of brilliant light in front of him that dissolved the smoke before it approached. He was panting, struggling.

  From where she sat, the Countess snapped her fingers again, and the blow caught Myrddin on the bottom of the chin.

  Thomas stepped forward, held his wrists together in front of him with his palms held wide, and shouted, “βελοσφενδόνη!” which was quickly followed by a flaming dart erupting from the empty space between them and speeding toward Myrddin.

  Myrddin struggled up to one knee. “Heofonfýr!” A tiny bolt of lightning hit the dart, which exploded in a shower of bright sparks.

  Myrddin was dripping in sweat and breathing hard, while it seemed that his opponents were barely exerting themselves at all. He had been spiritually, magically, and physically beaten down. All too quickly Myrddin found himself being surrounded and squeezed by the smoke tendrils of the King, who also took the opportunity to send the halberd into the fray, taking swings at Myrddin as he tried to cast spells to dodge.

  Myrddin could smell his flesh beginning to burn. This is it, he thought. I can’t defeat them; others will have to.

  The King and Thomas, smelling blood, closed in. The King held up his hand to Thomas, pausing him mid-stride. Like a conductor with his baton, George’s hand came down, and he sent smoke and flame at Myrddin. The intense heat made them both cover their eyes and protect their faces. When the incendiary blast receded, they saw the kneeling form of Myrddin seemingly cast in gray stone. As they approached, Myrddin collapsed into a pile of dust.

  George didn’t even pause. “Let’s go. The rest of the star metal is in Philadelphia. We need to collect the Assembly Bell and complete the ritual.”

  Thomas put his hand upon the door and chanted, “Φιλαδέλφεια.” He then opened the door and bowed. The King and Countess passed through, Penn following behind. The door closed, leaving an empty and battle-scarred chamber behind.

  As soon as they departed, the wall shimmered. The wallpaper seemed to ripple, then reality just bent to the side by about three degrees. A human form slumped forward out of the distortion, collapsing to its hands and knees. Myrddin looked up, panting. He could feel his life force ebbing. With a groan, he stumbled to the second chamber.

  He had made a difficult decision in admitting to himself that the best hope to defeat George and stop him from bringing the comet crashing down was Polly’s group of friends. She had trained under him, as had George and all his vassals, but the others—they were different. Magic was a vastly different and personal experience for each wizard, as he well knew. That they would be able to do things that George couldn’t even conceive of was their biggest strength. It could be the way they would succeed where he had failed. Could be.

  Reaching out his hand toward Hew Draper’s alchemical carving, oblivious to the blood running from his nose and ears, Myrddin closed his eyes and concentrated. The carving appeared to be pulled from the wall, a three-dimensional set of glowing lines of purple and black, almost folding in on each other, hovering just above the floor. The sorcerer and the object began to glow as it floated closer and closer to the door the King had exited through.

  King George had been his second-best student, but he didn’t know all the secrets. The Manydoor could connect to any door that had a matching clasp, so long as the wielder had a handle from the Salisbury Cathedral, where the artifact had originated. There was a second way to use it too, when the comet was overhead. Hew, Myrddin’s best student, had known that. You could use the extra magic the comet produced, almost like it was æther that infused the very air and connect all the clasps. But the price was high. The highest. He would only have one more chance, if this worked, to stop George and the ritual.

  Myrddin Emræs, originally a vassal of Gruffydd ab Rhydderch of Deheubarth, who sought his fortune in the east of England as a blade for hire after his ruler’s death, had ended up fighting at King Harold’s side out of loyalty and admiration. For all of that, it had only been to watch yet another ruler fall, and the conquest and destruction of all he had known to unfold before him. He was ready to return to the Earth from whence he came. An
d it was a small price to pay in order to spare others even a small bit of what he had experienced.

  It stops now, he thought.

  He concentrated all the power he had ever felt or known, all the love he had ever felt or known, all the joy he had ever felt or known and whispered his final word, “Álísendas.”

  The Manydoor burst open, the alchemical stone carving hurtled through the opening, and as the Manydoor slammed shut, Myrddin’s body consumed itself. His cheeks shrunk in on themselves and his skin went gray. In the space of just a few seconds, he starved to death and collapsed as his soul left this world.

  Kensington Palace

  London, England

  &

  The Franklin

  Workshop

  Philadelphia,

  Pennsylvania Colony

  39

  Either Way,

  Something's Happening

  Peter Collinson kept watch, carefully peering out into the hallway through the slightly ajar opening to the dressing chamber, as Polly made her best efforts to activate the Manydoor. He breathed in deeply. Magic, treason, adventure—none of this was what he had expected when the Royal Society made him a fellow. But God’s will was God’s will, and he would follow the path laid out before him.

  “I don’t know, Peter,” Polly said. “I’ve heard of these things, but I haven’t actually seen one before. I can’t really imagine how they work—” Just then, the door started glowing faintly. Polly stepped back. “Um, I think I did it? Did I do it? Either way, something’s happening.” The portal flew open.

  Peter left his post and rushed to Polly. They both peered suspiciously through the door. They couldn’t make out anything beyond a latticework of glowing blue lines in the inky-black portal.