by Paul Crilley
But nothing worked. The flames kept getting closer.
They were getting closer to the tower, and it was obvious to all who watched that this was their destination.
Jack turned his horse into the final wide road that led straight to the gates, the road the three of them had used only half an hour earlier. Jack sighted the gates and tried to coax an extra burst of speed from the horse. It must have sensed that that end was in sight, as it renewed its efforts, stumbling into a clumsy canter. Emily followed suit. The flames raced along the rooftops on either side of them, leaping, snaking across thatch and wood, slowly pulling ahead of the horses despite their best efforts. The flames arrived at the end of the street and poured from the rooftops like a waterfall of lava, pooling then flaring up into a wall, trying to block off the exit to the street.
The flames pulled together, closer, closer. They were five meters apart. Three. Then two.
Jack dug his heels in, and William could hear him screaming at the horse. The horse bunched its muscles and leapt, sailing over the flames and landing on the other side. There was the briefest of pauses, then the second horse burst through, an instant before the two sides touched together, blocking off the street.
William felt the tension rush from his body. He thought he heard Corrigan mutter “yes!” but wasn’t sure. The horses galloped through the gates and onto the tower grounds, heading straight in their direction. William watched the fire for a second longer. It had stopped moving now. He wondered why it wasn’t trying to follow Emily and the others.
But then he saw the army of fey marching along the road outside the walls, heading straight toward the gates.
That was why. The Fire King didn’t want to burn his allies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
In which Emily and William are reunited and all take refuge in Merlin’s workshop.
When Emily saw William appear at the top of the stairs leading into the White Tower, she stumbled to a halt and stared in shock. She wondered if she was seeing things, if their escape from the flames hadn’t addled her brain. But then Corrigan appeared, grinning ear to ear.
“Kept him safe for you, Snow,” he shouted. He thumped William on the leg. “Look at that. Good as new.”
Emily and William locked eyes. There was relief there. For both of them. But things needed to be said. Things needed to be sorted. And now wasn’t the time.
“Oh, and just so you know,” said Corrigan, “there’s an army of about a hundred angry fey marching toward us. We should probably barricade ourselves inside.”
Merlin winced and turned stiffly to Emily. “Do you know this creature? Or should we just kill him now?”
“I know him. This is Corrigan. The piskie who has been helping us.”
“Ah. He doesn’t look like much.”
Corrigan glared at Merlin. “Who’s the old man, Snow? You picking up strays now?”
“This is Merlin,” she said, her eyes flicking across to William as she said it.
Corrigan stared at him critically. “Are you sure? He looks a bit … decrepit.”
“I’ve been locked in a block of crystal for over a thousand years!” snapped Merlin. “Why don’t you try that, and let’s see how spry you look.”
“I hate to interrupt,” said Jack,“but if there really is an army on the way, shouldn’t we get to your workshop?”
“Yes. Of course. Follow me.”
Merlin climbed the steps, brushing past Corrigan and nodding amiably at William. He led them toward the stairs and was just about to climb them, when Emily realized someone was missing.
“Where’s Katerina? Wasn’t she with you?” Emily fervently hoped so, because otherwise it meant she had simply deserted them back at Cavanagh’s house.
William and Corrigan paused, looking at each other in puzzlement.
“She was right here,” said William. “She came down the stairs.”
They hurried back to the door and peered outside.
“There,” said Jack, pointing toward the gate. They could just see Katerina sprinting across the grass.
“What’s she doing?” asked William.
“Probably what we should be doing,” answered Corrigan. “Running away.”
“She’s not running away!” snapped William. “She can’t be.”
Katerina disappeared through the gate, vanishing from sight.
“Looks like it to me,” said Corrigan.
“We don’t have much time,” called Merlin. He hadn’t moved from the stairs. He nodded at Wren, who helped him up the steps.
The others reluctantly followed. Merlin led them along a corridor and into the chapel. He approached a blank piece of wall and rested his hands against the stone. A grinding sound echoed through the chamber, and a faint line appeared in the wall, widening until it revealed a door.
Merlin pushed it open, and Wren helped him through. The others followed, descending a long flight of stairs that ended at a round green door with a doorknob set exactly in its center. Wren turned the doorknob and stepped aside so Merlin could enter first. The enchanter hobbled inside, breathing a great sigh of relief.
As he entered his workshop, there was a loud whoosh of rushing air, and a blue pillar of fire leapt into life in the center of the large room. Merlin moved to the side and waved everyone in.
“Welcome to my lair,” he said, then frowned. “Sorry, that sounded rather ominous. Welcome to my workshop.”
Emily stepped across the threshold and looked slowly around. It was a workshop. But it was also a library. And a study. And a sleeping chamber. It was all these things and more. Books were strewn everywhere. On desks, on the floor, on wooden bookshelves. A huge table ran the length of the room, covered with odds and ends. Emily peered along its length. The section closest to her was strewn with tiny gears and cogs. A half-finished bird made of metal was lying on its side, its body complete except for wings. Emily reached out to touch it, and it turned its head and whistled softly, a note of inquiry. Emily swallowed and drew her hand back. She moved to a nearby reading desk. A huge book was lying here, a book that Emily had seen before. It had the emblem of the Invisible Order on the front, the two entwined dragons devouring each other’s tail. This was the Historia Occultus—the Hidden Histories. The book that Sebastian had shown her and William only a couple of days ago in Somerset House, the book that held all of the history of mankind between its pages.
She looked up to find her brother. He was approaching Merlin.
“Are you going to summon the Raven King?”
Merlin was leaning against the long table. He laughed bitterly. “Me? Boy, I can’t even summon the strength to walk, never mind summon the Raven King.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “And as it turns out, even if I did have the strength, it wouldn’t make a difference.”
“Why?” asked William.
“Because I have no memory of how to wake him. I can remember some of it, but the spell itself …” He tapped his head. “Gone. Or rather”—he turned and pointed to a section of the workshop that had been curtained off— “over there.” He sank down into a chair. “So to save everyone a thousand years ago, I’ve doomed us in the here and now.”
“Then why did you want to come here?” asked Emily. “What was the point if we can’t do anything?”
“I told you. I need to restore my magic. If I don’t do that, I’ll be dead in a matter of hours. Once I have my magic restored to me, we’ll see what can be done.”
“And how long will that take?” asked Wren.
“It took a full day and a half to complete the process the first time. It will take the same amount of time to reverse it.
“A day and a half!” exclaimed Emily. “But it will be too late by then. London will be gone. So will half of England. Thousands of people will be dead!”
Merlin looked wretched. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “You did the right thing. You rescued me. But sometimes we’re just not successful in what we set out to do. Sometimes we ha
ve to settle for what we can get. Right now, I don’t know how to summon the Raven King. We will just have to wait.”
“Excuse me,” said William, “but will this help?”
William handed over a slim leather book to Merlin. Merlin took it from William and flipped through the pages, his eyes widening as he did so. “I remember this! I wrote it down before I started siphoning off my magic. It was all the knowledge I was afraid to lose.”
“What is it?” asked Wren.
“Information. Spells and notes. Among many other things, this book holds my instructions on how to summon the Raven King.”
Emily stared at William in wonder. He had done it? He had actually succeeded in finding a means to summon the Raven King?
“Where did you find it?” asked Merlin.
“A fey prison. Beneath Newgate,” said Corrigan.
“Ah, yes. I contemplated leaving it in the library of the Invisible Order, but I didn’t think it was secure enough. So I left it at the prison. I was the last person alive who even
remembered it existed. I thought it the safest place.”
“Why not leave it here?” asked Emily.
“If Arthur and his knights hadn’t succeeded in capturing Morgan Le Fay, there was a chance she would have found my workshop here. Of course, the tower wasn’t built yet. That came much later. If she found the information contained in this book, then all would have been lost.”
“So you can summon him?” asked William excitedly. “You can wake Bran the Blessed?”
Merlin frowned in confusion. “Bran the Blessed? Bran is dead, my boy. Even I can’t bring someone back from the dead.”
“But it says in there. It says he is the Raven King.”
Merlin opened the book and quickly scanned the contents. “Ah, I see. No, Bran was the Raven King, yes. But I didn’t mean he would be awoken from death when the need arose. What I meant was that as long as Bran’s bloodline exists, then the Raven King will live. The power of the Raven King flows down through Bran’s descendants.” He stared at his book with some distaste. “I really wish he hadn’t used such a name, though. The Raven King. The true name of Britain’s protector is the Pendragon. As long as the blood of the Pendragon clan lives on, Britain will have her protector.”
William’s face fell. “Wait. So the Raven King—the Pendragon or whatever—might not even be in London?”
“Oh, he’ll be here. Whoever he is, he will be drawn to London. It is as if he is pushed by fate. The Pendragon will always be involved in tumultuous affairs. Will feel drawn to events that will one day become history. The blood of the Pendragon pulls them to trouble like iron filings to a magnet. It has always been so. Just look at King Arthur.”
William gestured at the book. “So wake him up. Say the words!”
“I can’t! The words must be said at the site of Bran’s grave.”
“But Katerina said he was buried beneath the Tower of London. That’s why we came here!”
“Ah, I see,” said Merlin softly. “Some of the legends say that, yes, but Bran was not buried beneath the Tower of London. He was actually buried beneath Tower Hill. Come here.”
Merlin limped over to what appeared to be a well built into the floor of his workshop. But as they approached, Emily saw it wasn’t a well at all. It was one of the crystal dragon eyes she had used to look inside Somerset House.
Merlin touched the glass. A pale pink glow surrounded his hand, spreading out like ripples in a pond, washing up against the edge of the glass and bouncing back again, growing brighter and brighter as it did so.
An image appeared, showing a bird’s-eye view of the White Tower, the tower above Merlin’s workshop. Surrounding the tower (and within the walled enclosure) was the fey army they had seen approaching. They appeared to be waiting for something. Outside the Tower enclosure they could see a massive wall of fire stretching along the street.
Merlin moved his hand over the image, and it slowly shifted to the northeast. He pointed at a small hill just outside the walls of the enclosure. “Tower Hill. It is a magical place, the oldest spot in London. The first stone of the city was laid here. That is where the blood of the Pendragon must be awoken.”
“Except we now happen to be surrounded by a small army,” pointed out Wren.
“Yes. So it would seem.”
“So what do we do?” asked William. “We can’t just sit here waiting to die.”
“You are entirely correct.” Merlin winced and walked over to a table. He picked up a small stone and held it up. The entwined dragon symbol of the Invisible Order was engraved into the stone. “We have the means of getting into Tower Hill.” He held up the journal. “We have the means of waking the blood of the Pendragon.” He put the two objects back on the table and moved across his workshop to the curtained-off area. He pulled the curtain aside, revealing a ghostly figure lying on a long stone plinth. The figure was Merlin, looking like he was peacefully asleep. The real Merlin climbed up onto the plinth, his hands moving through the half-seen figure. “But first, I need to restore my magic, because if I set off to wake the Raven King now, I do not think I will make it back alive.” He lay down. The ghostly image seemed to shift and sink over his real body, so that the only way you could tell there were two was a slight blurring around the edges of Merlin. He opened his eyes again. “Trust me. I don’t like doing this. But sometimes waiting is the best way forward. My advice is to get some sleep. My workshop is warded. They could burn the tower down around us, and they still wouldn’t be able to get inside.”
Emily stared at him hopelessly as he closed his eyes once again. She felt angry at Merlin. She knew it wasn’t fair. If he didn’t do this, he would die, and then what would happen? They would need him in the days ahead. But he had been the focus of all her hopes. Right from the very beginning, she had thought that he would be able to fix everything. And now she was expected to just sit here and wait? While people died and London burned?
No. That wasn’t the type of person she was.
The others were still peering into the dragon’s eye, watching the fey army. Emily quickly picked up the stone and the journal and slipped them inside her coat. Then she joined the others. The fey had completely surrounded the White Tower.
There was no way she could get through their lines without being caught. But Emily wasn’t about to let that stop her. She touched Will on the shoulder. When he turned and looked at her, she put her finger to her lips and nodded toward the door. He stepped away from the eye and followed her.
Emily carefully pulled the door open and slipped out onto the small landing at the bottom of the stairs. When William joined her, she closed the door and fished out the journal and the stone.
“The way I see it,” she said. “We were both right. We need the Raven King, and you found the way to summon him, but without Merlin we wouldn’t know about Tower Hill and we wouldn’t have this.” She raised the stone into the air. “In which case your journal would be useless anyway. Agreed?”
Will thought about it, then nodded.
“So I think what we should do is sneak out of here and summon this Raven King ourselves. Then we can put a stop to all this nonsense once and for all. Are you in?”
William nodded. “I’m in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
In which Emily and William attempt to wake the Raven King.
Emily and William crouched down just inside the door to the White Tower, making sure to keep out of sight of the fey milling around on the grass below them. Emily could see a lot of the Tuatha guards mixed in with the smaller fey. They looked incredibly frightful, standing in small groups with their spears resting against their shoulders, casting dark glances at the tower.
“What now?” asked William.
Emily wasn’t sure. She’d been hoping for some kind of a gap, something they could slip through. They couldn’t even look for a back window or anything, as the tower was completely surrounded.
A ripple of movement ran through the fey.
Some of them turned and looked over their shoulders. The Tuatha straight
ened to attention, their eyes fixed on something.
“What’s going on?” asked William.
Emily got down on her stomach and crawled forward. A line of fire burned higher than the walls, a fiery barrier that blocked off the main gates. Walking across the grass toward the tower were the silhouettes of two figures. One was huge, the other slightly smaller. The firelight glinted against the larger figure, striking highlights from its metal armor.
It was Kelindria and the Crimson Knight. And if it was the Crimson Knight, that meant … Emily stared hard into the darkness. There. A few feet behind the knight. She could just make out the red glow of two pairs of eyes. The two remaining Hounds of the Hunt.
“Do you think she’ll burn the tower down?” asked Will.
“I don’t think so. She’ll be after the key to the Faerie Gate. She can’t risk its being destroyed.”
“That’s something, I suppose,” said Will. “Still doesn’t help us, though.”
He was right. They needed a distraction. Something big. Something that would shift all attention away from them. Then they could try to escape through one of the other gates, seeing as the wall of fire seemed to block only the western wall.
Emily and William were watching Kelindria as she walked toward them. So it took them a few moments to realize something was happening off to their left. It was subtle at first, a few clashes of sound, but after a few seconds there was a scream, then a shout taken up by the other fey. All attention shifted to the south side of the enclosure. One or two of the fey standing below them started to run, then more and more, until a wave of fighters swept toward the sounds. Even Kelindria and the knight shifted direction and started running off to the left.
The field of grass outside was deserted. Emily and Will looked at each other in amazement, then quickly clattered down the stairs to see what was going on. Their view was blocked by a tower that jutted from the southwest corner of the enclosure.