by Bill Hiatt
“Sometimes I feel like I can trust him,” said Michael.
“I think he actually took something I said to heart,” added Eva.
“I don’t mean to be crude, but you know he just wants to get in your pants, right?” asked Gordy.
“I know,” she said, blushing slightly. Michael blushed, too, but I managed to play it cool.
“Before I thought that was all that was going on,” Eva continued. “There’s…there’s more now somehow.”
“I still wouldn’t give him a knife and turn around so he could thrust it in my back,” I said, “but my instinctive reaction is the same as Eva’s. Maybe the balance between good and evil in him is shifting a little.”
Gordy sighed loudly. “OK, I’ll go along with this, but I’m still not convinced he can be trusted.” I took that reluctant agreement, as it was likely as far as we were going to move Gordy in the short term.
It took just a few minutes to craft a tynged that would satisfy Magnus and to bind myself with it. Providing him with blood proved to be a little more challenging.
If Magnus had been able to perfectly replicate my blood, there wouldn’t have been a problem, but he couldn’t. The spell that made him so like me ironically did perfectly copy my blood, but its “perfect” copy lacked something, because it couldn’t be used to renew the spell. I couldn’t duplicate my own blood that completely, either, yet Magnus required a larger quantity to feel secure than I could safely give. It took some doing, but we managed to work out a spell that would cause my body to produce enormously greater quantities of blood than normal, then cast it as Magnus started to drain me. He was able to take what would have been my whole blood supply, enough to last him months, if not years, and yet I was able to maintain my normal blood level. I felt a little weird after, but I didn’t seem to have suffered any permanent damage.
Having rigged up a suitable container that looked something like a backpack but kept the blood in stasis so it wouldn’t clot or otherwise decay, Magnus was ready to restore Jimmie. I had half expected him to need a “reminder,” but he brought up the subject himself as soon as the blood was stowed.
The removal of Atlante was more difficult than I anticipated. The old sorcerer did not yield without a psychic fight so intense I felt as if my head would explode, but he had no real chance. Together, Magnus and I were probably stronger than Atlante, and definitely the lyre put the odds in our favor.
At one point in the process Atlante tried to dig into Jimmie so hard we couldn’t extract the sorcerer without injuring our friend. Fortunately, Magnus had designed the spell that permitted Atlante to occupy Jimmie’s body in the first place, so Magnus was able to undo the magic and still leave Jimmie intact.
The instant Atlante was severed from the body, Magnus poured Jimmie back into it. Simultaneously, Arianrhod captured Atlante’s displaced spirit in moonbeams. The sorcerer struggled, but gradually his cries and his transparent form both faded, until the moonlight remained, but he was gone.
“He will not trouble you again,” she said. “I have used my authority to force Atlante into exile in Emania, the realm where the dead await reincarnation. He cannot escape from there without my consent.”
“What happened?” mumbled Jimmie, sitting up awkwardly. Then he noticed Magnus and reached for his sword.
“Wait!” I yelled, stepping between them. Jimmie looked too dazed to have been much of a threat to Magnus. Still, I didn’t want to risk either of them being hurt.
It took almost as long to get Jimmie to accept that Magnus was sort of a provisional good guy as it had to get Atlante out of his body. Jimmie did come around eventually, though grudgingly, but he kept watching Magnus, perhaps expecting to find evidence that Magnus was still a total villain.
As soon as the opportunity presented itself, Eva was kissing Jimmie—much more passionately than seemed necessary, at least in front of everybody.
Michael, who was standing next to me, muttered, “Get a room.”
“Huh?” I said, looking at him. His eyes told me all I needed to know.
“I think part of me just died,” he almost whispered to me.
“I promise you’ll get used to it,” I told him, patting him on the shoulder. It was a good thing he couldn’t read minds the way I could.
While everyone welcomed Jimmie back, Magnus made preparations to go. The biggest question was what his destination should be.
“Annwn isn’t going to be safe,” I pointed out. “Neither is our world, probably.”
“Some out-of-the-way corner might work, but probably a whole different world is better,” agreed Magnus. “Best none of you know where I’m going, though. I can take Atlante’s ring, and if I’m clever enough about the lost things I visualize, I can end up somewhere none of us have ever been.”
“You’re not taking that with you, are you?” asked Gordy, pointing to the lyre of Orpheus.
Magnus shrugged. “No choice, man. If I want to stay out of Nicneven’s clutches, I’m going to have to go to places we’ve never been, and I have no idea what I’ll find. The power of the lyre is my best bet to survive.”
“Not unreasonable under the circumstances,” I said, giving Gordy a look I hoped would preclude further discussion. It did. I would have liked to keep the lyre myself, but I couldn’t easily wield White Hilt and use the lyre at the same time anyway, and nobody else among us was a musician.
“How do we let you know when Nicneven is truly gone?” asked Eva.
“You can’t,” said Magnus. “I’ll have to find some way to observe what’s happening from wherever I am.”
I knew such magic surveillance across worlds was possible, but difficult, even if the worlds were fairly closely connected, as ours was to Annwn. Farther away meant more elaborate and wearying magic, but Magnus could do it—if he wanted to.
I had another moment of concern. What if Magnus, now supplied with enough blood to last him until he found a way to manufacture it, didn’t intend to return?
I didn’t really need to worry. The tynged Arianrhod had bound him to required him to surrender Robin’s body within the year. Then again, Robin might not be the only one I was worried about.
All things considered, Magnus got a fairly good send-off. He didn’t get a good-bye kiss from Eva, for which he was clearly campaigning, but she did hug him. Even Gordy shook hands with him. Jimmie didn’t, but I could hardly blame the guy.
“You know, you just might need this,” said Magnus, looking at the ring.
“So might you,” I pointed out.
“I can use it to open the Valley of Lost Things, then hand it off to you. I’ll end up in some random place, but if it ends up being inhospitable, I can always portal somewhere else. That whole worry about getting lost forever assumes a traveler doesn’t have the magic to return to some other place outside the Valley.”
“That sounds a little chancy,” I said. “What if opening a portal doesn’t work the same way wherever you end up?”
Magnus smiled. “Then I’ll be a lost thing, and since you have the ring, you can come find me.”
Still pretty nervous, I stood next to him while he used Atlante’s ring to open his way into the rainbow vortex that was the Valley of Lost Things. As promised, he handed the ring to me. Then, with one look back, mostly at Eva, and a quick wave, he was gone. In a moment the gateway faded away behind him.
After that, Arianrhod insisted on feeding us, and so we had the long-delayed feast after all. It would have been unwise to refuse her hospitality, at least once she relieved us of the requirement of having to stay forever if we ate. Anyway, the food was, well, unearthly, and the occasion certainly worth celebrating. We had gotten both Jimmie and Khalid back, when we might have lost them.
That said, no amount of roast boar or roast duck so tender it melted in our mouths was going to change the fact that we still weren’t in great shape. We now knew Nicneven was alive, but not where she was or what her overall plan was. For that reason alone, we couldn’t just go ch
arging back to Santa Brígida, take Vanora down, and get the place back to normal. Hecate had so much firepower on Olympus we didn’t dare to even think about trying to rescue the Olympians, who had helped us so many times before. Especially now that we were down two sorcerers, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
Arianrhod told us Gwynn was still holding out against his enemies, but, outnumbered as he was, he was steadily losing ground. Helping him out made sense. We might be able to restore balance in that part of Annwn at least, maybe then get help from Gwynn to fight our other battles.
Yeah, that made sense, but none of us could stop thinking about the fact that Carla was still probably trapped in her own body by Alcina; that we didn’t have a clue what was happening with Stan, Shar, and Dan; and that our parents were within arm’s reach of Vanora any time she chose to take them.
As the meal neared an end, Arianrhod could hardly have helped noticing how fast our morale was spiraling into free fall, probably the opposite of what she expected to happen.
“Is there some other way in which I might assist you?” she asked gently. “Anything within my power I would gladly do.”
“We don’t have enough information to know what to do next,” I said. “Usually, we have some kind of plan. Now we have no idea which way we should move.”
I explained our various dilemmas as best I could, and she was naturally an advocate for our rescuing Gwynn as soon as we could. She was also, however, surprisingly understanding about how difficult that would be when some of our friends were at risk, to say nothing of our parents.
“Let us see what we can,” she said, gesturing me away from the table and toward her throne. When I got close, she took my right hand and pointed toward the moon image floating above the throne.
“Relax, stare at the moon, and allow the visions to come,” she said, gripping my hand more tightly, as if she expected me to be pulled into the moon image.
The silver disk started spinning, slowly at first, then faster and faster. It also seemed larger and larger to me, as if it was growing, or I was moving closer to it.
I began to see why Arianrhod held my hand to anchor me.
Finally, the silvery light began to flicker, and the visions came flooding over me like a vast, dark sea.
Much like what Coventina had shown me in her underground lake, the images were disturbing, but they were far less distinct. Too much magic was being deployed to obstruct exactly this kind of vision, and there were too many variables, too many imminent choices. Trying to see the present gave me foggy images at best; trying to grab a possible future was like seeing a tiny flame in the midst of a vast, undulating darkness.
However, I knew I couldn’t throw away this chance. If I could figure out what to focus on, I might get some information, and even obtaining one fact I couldn’t use magic to search out on my own would put us one step closer to finding some escape from impending disaster.
I focused on my missing friends, and that yielded one scrap of the present that gave me some reason for hope. They were still alive, but instead of being imprisoned, they were hanging out at my house in Santa Brígida, seemingly unscathed—physically, anyway. They all looked exhausted, and something was clearly gnawing on Stan, but they were alive!
The one jarring detail was the presence of Umbra, the shadow assassin, who was sitting with them, even talking to them, as if they were all long-time friends. Of course, we’d just been hanging out with my evil twin, so I could hardly complain about their choice of company. Doubtless there was some reason for them to be with her.
Reuniting with my friends, welcome as it would be, did not solve our problems. We would be a little stronger, but still not strong enough to overcome our many adversaries.
My head had begun to throb from the intensity of my concentration, but I had to hold on a little longer. I tried my best to concentrate on ways to obtain more powerful support for our cause.
I was hoping for something like the Holy Grail, but all I got at first was a gray void, with light struggling in the distance to break through but not quite making it. Then there was a lightning flash so abrupt and bright it made me jump, followed by thunder loud enough to make me want to cover my ears.
I found myself looking at Lucas…no, not Lucas…one of his previous lives…no, not that, either, but someone…something…somehow linked to him. He looked a bit like Lucas, only robed in fiery red and brilliant white, larger than life, Lucas expanded by power, Lucas surrounded by energy, Lucas throwing lightning.
We had suspected Lucas had someone more powerful within him. We had not been wrong. If this vision was true, he was somehow linked to a being powerful enough to be classed with the elder Olympians.
I knew Lucas had resisted finding out who he had been, but now that I knew he could become an even more powerful ally when we desperately needed one, I was confident I could make him reconsider.
Suddenly I lost the image of Lucas in utter darkness. Somehow, I could see enough to discern a great shape, primal and massive, yet with something else within it, a human shape frozen into the larger mass like a fly in amber. Neither of these were the being to whom Lucas was linked, but I sensed an intertwining of all of our destinies somehow.
Just as I was reaching the point at which I would have to break away from those visions, my mind wandered to Eva, and I got a sudden, clear jolt of who she had been once. Her past self wasn’t relevant to our quest for allies. It was highly relevant to me—but I could never tell her what I now knew.
I closed my eyes, and Arianrhod had to keep me from falling over. When I opened them again, the image of the moon had stopped spinning and had receded to its former size. So many other things were different, though—at least, the way I looked at them was.
“My lady, did you see the same visions I did?”
“Yes, and they filled me with hope. Why do you look so unhappy?”
“Lucas could help us if he could reconnect with the past life we saw, but we have no way of awakening his memories safely. The only one I’m familiar with is dark. I don’t want to corrupt myself again, and I don’t want to inflict the kind of pain on Lucas that the spell brings.”
Arianrhod smiled brightly. “Have you forgotten so soon my power over reincarnation? I can awaken his past without causing the damage the spell you know does. That casting cuts against the natural order, but the power I possess works within that order.”
I should have known that, especially considering the fact that I’d seen Hermes use similar abilities.
“In that case, my lady, let me see if I can convince my friend to allow you to do so.” She nodded, and I walked a little unsteadily toward my friends.
“Stan, Shar, and Dan are all alive and well,” I said. “They’re at my house, of all places. I can pick them up and have them back with us in minutes.”
Everyone was happy, especially Khalid and Jimmie. I could feel morale rising like a warm tide all around me.
“Maybe you’d better get them before anything else happens,” suggested Gordy. “If they’re in Santa Brígida, Vanora could find them at any time.”
“Good point,” I said. “My lady, have I your permission to get them right now and bring them back here?”
“You do indeed,” she said, still smiling. “I will have food prepared, in case they have not eaten.”
Knowing the people involved, I was pretty sure they would have raided my refrigerator by now, but I wasn’t about to deprive them of the pleasure of Arianrhod’s hospitality, so I didn’t say anything.
It took me a very short time to open a portal. When I emerged, all three of them were pointing swords in my direction, which they lowered as soon as they saw who I was.
“Thank God!” said Stan. “We thought you were dead.” Before I knew it, I was encircled in a group hug. I had to laugh inside thinking how impossible this would have been a year ago. At least that was one thing that was better.
“I could have said the same about you guys.” I pointed out when the hug broke up
.
“Is everyone all right?” asked Dan.
“We have no idea what happened to Nurse Florence, but everyone else is with me.”
I had been aware of Umbra hovering nearby, but now I also realized Mrs. Golfinho had run into the room.
“My Lucas is all right!” she hollered, catching me in yet another hug.
“Yes, he’s just fine,” I said, uncomfortably conscious of the fact that she was in her teenage form—her very beautiful teenage form.
I managed to break free and said, “I’m sure we have a lot of information to exchange, but here isn’t the best place, right?”
“We knew how well protected your house was, and we figured Umbra could get us out fast if Vanora attacked.”
“Apparently not as well protected as I thought…since the defenses let in a shadow assassin,” I said, looking at Umbra with as emotionally neutral an expression as I could manage. She met my gaze but said nothing.
“Hard as it may be to believe, she’s on our side now,” said Dan. “We couldn’t just abandon her, so we experimented a little and discovered that a human shadow assassin who comes with good intent and walks in the front door instead of traveling through shadow can get in.”
I hadn’t meant to leave such a loophole, but apparently it worked out well, so I tried not to worry about it.
“There’s a story about how Umbra ended up on our side,” continued Dan, “but yeah, we should get out of here. Where did you have in mind?”
“Oh, Arianrhod’s tower over on Annwn’s moon,” I said. “Yes, that’s another story,” I continued in response to their shocked expressions, “but one I can tell you just as well once we’re safe.”
Everyone agreed with that idea, and in a just a few minutes I had them safely back in Caer Sidi.
Lucas naturally tensed at the sight of the girl who had tried to kill him only a few weeks before. Shar assured him she was no longer hostile, and, with that awkwardness over, Arianrhod hustled us back to the table and fed our new arrivals, while we brought one another up to speed on our recent adventures.