by James Riley
Something fluttered above him, and he looked up to find a cloaked figure floating in the air, just like he’d imagined. Instantly his blood ran cold, and Fort had to remind himself that he was seeing the Old One from afar, and the monster couldn’t see him in return. Slightly reassured, he stepped closer, hoping to see whatever it was Merlin wanted to keep from him.
One of the creature’s hands was just bone, like the hand of a human skeleton, while the other seemed to be a spiked, armored glove of some kind. Inside the cloak, the being seemed to have no body, just shimmering images that made Fort’s head hurt. And where the face should have been was what looked like an infinity symbol, only melting, making it even more horrific.
This had to be the Timeless One. But other than how terrifying he looked, what was it that Jia and Rachel couldn’t tell him about? What was the secret Merlin had sworn them to secrecy over? What—
“FORSYTHE?” the Old One said, pointing straight at him with a finger. “YOU CANNOT BE HERE. WHERE DID YOU GET THAT POWER? MERLIN MUST BE CHEATING! ”
And before Fort could even begin to understand what was happening, black light surrounded him, and the cottage faded the rest of the way from view around him, leaving him fully, physically in the apocalyptic land of the Timeless One.
- TWENTY -
FORT JUST STARED UP IN horror at the Old One, his limbs all frozen with fear. How had the spell gone so wrong? All he’d wanted to do was see the Timeless One, not talk to him, not let him know he was being watched!
The Old One must have felt it somehow and brought him to… wherever, or whenever, this was.
But maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he could still teleport away—
“WE ARE FAR FROM YOUR TIME, FORSYTHE,” the Timeless One said, slowly descending toward him. “YOU WOULD HAVE NOWHERE TO GO. BUT HOW DID YOU GAIN THIS POWER, THE MAGIC TO FIND ME? YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE MORE THAN A TELEPORTATION AND A HEALING SPELL!”
Now confusion competed with fear in Fort’s mind. What had he said? How could an Old One know that much about him? “I know a lot more magic than that!” he shouted, trying to act brave, even while he backed away from the monster on trembling legs. “Stay back, or I’ll… knock this world from orbit!”
“THIS WORLD IS YOUR WORLD, HUMAN,” the Timeless One said, advancing slowly toward Fort. “JUST IN THE FUTURE. BUT ENOUGH OF THIS. I WILL SEE FOR MYSELF HOW YOU LEARNED THIS MAGIC.”
Black light filled Fort’s eyes, and he was blinded for a moment, only for the light to disappear as quickly as it’d appeared.
“HE GAVE YOU THE BOOK?” the Timeless One roared, and all around Fort, black light infused the surface of the ground, causing rocks to crumble into dust and dirt to fade away into nothingness. “MERLIN CHEATS AT OUR GAME. THIS WILL NOT STAND! ”
Even the ground beneath Fort began to shake now, losing any cohesion as the dirt and stone withered into nothingness, and Fort scrambled out of the beginnings of a sinkhole to what he hoped would be solid ground… if anything could escape the Old One’s rage.
If this was Time magic, Fort couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around how powerful it must be to dissolve earth and rock. For the first time, he realized just how right Merlin had been: There was no way Fort would have stood a chance against the Timeless One. At best, he’d have only gotten in Rachel’s way, and then, only if she had Excalibur. Without the sword, how could any of them face this creature?
Just as Fort’s feet began to sink into the ground, the Old One’s anger seemed to lessen, and the light of Time magic disappeared as the Timeless One floated closer once more. “HE HAS BROKEN THE RULES, FORSYTHE,” the creature said. “YOU WERE MEANT TO BE KEPT OUT OF THIS BATTLE. MERLIN AGREED TO THOSE TERMS, AND YET, NOW HE WOULD ARM YOU AGAINST ME. I SHALL NOT ALLOW IT!”
The Old One’s rage returned as he spoke, and again, black light seemed to appear all around Fort, but this time, he knew he had to try to calm the Timeless One down, or he’d tumble into whatever lay below the ground beneath him. “I don’t know what this deal you’re talking about is, but Merlin didn’t arm me or train me. He said I wasn’t allowed to face you, because I was useless!” Saying it out loud would have embarrassed him in any other situation, but right now, the terror was too real to worry about that. “Whatever this thing is, I promise you, Merlin didn’t break any rules!”
Or at least Fort desperately hoped Merlin hadn’t, or else there was no telling what the Old One might do.
“OH, I KNOW WHAT HIS EXCUSES WERE,” the Timeless One said, floating toward Fort so quickly that Fort couldn’t help but leap backward in surprise. The creature’s infinity-sign face came within inches of him, and Fort could smell an awful sort of decay, like the monster’s cloak had been rotting away for centuries. “HE TOLD YOU IT WAS TO LEARN THAT DRAGON’S LANGUAGE, BUT THAT WAS ALL A FACADE. HE MEANT FOR YOU TO FACE ME, BATTLE ME!”
“No!” Fort shouted, flinching away from the creature. “I swear, he never—”
“AND NOW THAT HE’S BROKEN THE RULES, I NO LONGER NEED TO ABIDE BY THE AGREEMENT!” The Timeless One whipped around, almost knocking Fort over with his cloak. “I SEARCHED FOR THAT BOOK FOR MILLENNIA, BUT HE’D HIDDEN IT WELL. NOW I WILL TAKE IT, WHEN I BEAT THE FINAL ARTORIGIOS AND DOOM THE OLD MAN!”
Fort’s heart raced so fast he could hear it in his ears, but still he couldn’t help but wonder about the Old One’s words. A game, rules, an agreement… what was going on between Merlin and the Timeless One? Fort knew that Merlin had been training Artorigios against the Old One for centuries, but why? What sort of person was Merlin to make deals with an Old One?
And why would the Timeless One want a book of dragon language?
“I promise you, he wasn’t letting me do anything!” Fort shouted, raising his shaking hands to try to calm the creature down before the Timeless One wiped him from existence. “It really was just about learning to speak to Em… to my dragon. That was it! ”
“YOU CANNOT KNOW HIM LIKE I DO, HUMAN,” the Old One said with disgust. “HE ALWAYS CHEATS, BUT NOW I KNOW HIS METHOD AND CAN PLAY HIS GAME. THE AGREEMENT WAS THAT I GAVE HIM A YEAR TO TRAIN HIS NEWEST ARTORIGIOS, BUT THERE ARE WAYS AROUND THAT. ALL SHE TRULY NEEDS IS THE SWORD, AND ONCE SHE REGAINS THAT, THEN I SHALL END THIS RIDICULOUS GAME ONCE AND FOR ALL!”
What? Rachel wouldn’t have a year to train? This was all going to happen as soon as she got Excalibur back? He had to warn her, warn Merlin! He—
“YOU WILL NOT WARN ANYONE, FORSYTHE,” the Timeless One declared, and the black light intensified, pushing in on Fort from all sides. “AS FAR AS YOU’RE CONCERNED, NONE OF THIS WILL HAVE HAPPENED, SO YOU WILL NOT REMEMBER ANYTHING TO TELL MERLIN OR YOUR FRIENDS. BUT I SHALL BE SEEING THEM ALL SOON, AND FOR ONE, FINAL TIME!”
Before Fort could respond or react, the ground dropped away beneath him, and he tumbled into darkness, screaming in surprise and horror. The blackness of the Time magic grew as he fell, blinding him with its light, and then…
Fort flipped through the book in front of him, Ember’s head in his lap as she gently snored. These words were just so dangerous. Any one of them could be used wrongly and set off a whole chain of magic he never intended, if he wasn’t careful. The fact that Merlin hadn’t even mentioned that they were words of magic before letting Fort loose on the book made him wonder what the magician thought would happen. Couldn’t Merlin see the future? If so, he shouldn’t have been surprised that Fort had set himself on fire.
But the one word he was looking for didn’t have any negative drawbacks that he could think of. It was one of the pretty normal ones, but it also had its uses, if he could just find it.…
He flipped past the remnants of a page, looking like someone had ripped it out, and absently he hoped that wasn’t the one word he was looking for. But what would the odds be?
But as the night progressed, Fort got more and more frustrated. No matter how quickly he searched, he just couldn’t find the word for “see” in Ember’s language, the one spell he’d need to find out w
hatever it was Merlin was hiding from him.
And it was getting late. Well, okay, time wasn’t actually moving, not here in Merlin’s cottage, but Rachel and Jia would be back soon, and he’d have completely missed his chance.
“I don’t suppose you know the word for ‘see’ in your language, do you?” he asked Ember.
She glared at him as she woke up, then yawned widely. “Ve—” she said, right as black light filled the cottage, and Rachel, Jia, and Merlin returned.
- TWENTY-ONE -
HEY,” RACHEL SAID, LOOKING EXHAUSTED as she dropped into the seat next to him. “Got anything to eat?”
She was covered in dirt and dust now, and back to wearing her leather armor. Jia had the same cloak on she’d been wearing after her last training, though now it had several slices out of it, as if she’d been dodging swords, though maybe not very well. She sat down as well, though far enough from Rachel that Fort could tell they hadn’t fixed their problem while they were gone. He wondered again if he should try to help.
“Um, there’s stew,” Fort said, nodding at the dishes that were already floating over to them. “Are you both okay?”
Ember sniffed at Rachel, then turned up her nose and settled her head back into Fort’s lap and closed her eyes.
“Not even a little bit,” Rachel said, greedily reaching for the bowl before it landed, then immediately starting in on the food. On the other side of the table, Jia was doing the same without even saying a word. “I think I made a rock so heavy it will mess with time, so that’s fun,” Rachel continued through spoonfuls. “Never thought I’d say that sentence.”
“Um, what?” Fort said, briefly thrown out of his own thoughts about his two friends. “Does that mean you’re basically making a black hole?”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Rachel asked Merlin.
The old man just shrugged. “Don’t try to make science out of magic. The two fundamentally are the same thing, but neither particularly likes the other. You should see how they fight when you lock them together in a room.”
“He’s always like this,” Rachel said to Fort, when he gave her an odd look. “Don’t question it.”
“Fair enough,” Fort said. “Jia, were you really learning puppetry?”
Jia slowly looked up from her stew, some of which was now dripping from her chin. She held out a hand and opened it, revealing a tiny wooden sculpture of a person, complete with a face, clothes, everything. She set it on the table, then went back to eating.
“Jia says she’s too hungry to talk,” the sculpture said, making Fort leap out of his seat in surprise. “Whoa there, giant human. You need to calm down!”
“Is that Jia talking through the puppet?” Fort said, pointing at the tiny wooden sculpture. “That’s amazing!”
“Who are you calling a puppet?” the sculpture said, stalking toward Fort. It gestured, and the seat Fort had just been sitting in reared back like a horse, then slammed its legs into Fort’s chest, knocking him to the floor. He looked up in shock to find the sculpture standing over him on the table, a satisfied expression on its face, as Fort’s chair began to buck around wildly. “That’s what I thought, big man!” it shouted down.
“Your golem’s getting out of control again,” Rachel said to Jia, not looking at her. “You should probably fix that.”
Jia sighed as Fort stood back up and snapped her fingers. The puppet froze in place, right in the middle of giving Rachel a dirty look, and Fort’s chair immediately froze as well. “Sorry about that,” Jia said to Fort. “I think she might have developed sentience at some point along the way, because I used to be able to control her. Now she’s a little tyrant and has figured out how to use the magic that infuses her on other things. If I leave her alone for even a minute, I come back to a small army.”
Fort just stared at her. “You learned all of this in a month and a half?”
“Actually, I kept them a bit longer than I originally thought,” Merlin said. “After all, Excalibur is due to return soon.”
Right, Fort had almost forgotten it was so soon. At least that he was allowed to help with—though he wasn’t exactly excited about how many soldiers and students they were going to be up against. They’d definitely need a plan.
Once they had Excalibur, Rachel would still have the rest of the year to train with it, so that was something.
“How long were you gone, then?” Fort asked.
Rachel winced. “Four months.”
“Four months? You can’t keep going like this!” Fort shouted. “You need rest, and apparently food. Aren’t you feeding them, Merlin?”
“I’m trying,” Merlin said, shrugging. “Food is available, but both are just too engrossed in their studies and practice.”
“Engrossed is the right word,” Rachel whispered. “The food is disgusting in medieval times. No one washes their hands, and everything smells like horse and cow manure. And the water? Yikes.”
“Jia had diarrhea for weeks,” the little puppet said, only for Jia to snap her fingers, freezing it again, turning red as she did.
“How do your studies progress, Forsythe?” Merlin asked him, nodding at Ember, who climbed up to sit in the middle of the book, covering it with her body, she was so large now. “Soon she’ll be too big to hide effectively from the faerie.”
“Oh, it’s going okay,” Fort said, cringing a bit. “Ember knows how to ask me for food and water, and I can tell her ‘My name is Fort’ and ask her where la biblioteca is. So, you know.”
“Two very important first steps,” Merlin said, his eyes twinkling in the light of the fire. “So nothing out of the ordinary happened while we were gone, then?”
Fort blinked, wondering if the magician knew what word he’d been trying to find. “Nope, everything’s fine!” he said. “Just reading over vocabulary words and trying to memorize them. Having a great time with it all.” He winced. “Though it’d help if the words were in alphabetical order. It does take forever to find anything.”
“They are organized alphabetically,” Merlin said. “Only it’s by the word of power, not your language, so I understand the issue.”
“Hey, Fort,” Jia said. “I meant to ask you before we left, but I got caught up in everything. Do you know what’s going on with Sierra? I couldn’t reach her last time I was here… so, um, yesterday.” She threw a look at Rachel, who was avoiding her gaze. “I wanted to have a talk about something.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t get ahold of her either. What’s she doing?” Rachel asked.
“Ask him,” Fort said, nodding at Merlin, not liking the reminder that Sierra was off somewhere with Damian, the Worst Dragon of All Time. “He’s the one who’s hiding everything.”
The old man smiled gently at them. “We all have our parts to play in this game, and she’s busy with hers. You can chat in your heads later. I swear, you teenagers always need a phone, or magical equivalent. I never had this problem with Wart when he was your age.”
Rachel almost choked on her bite of stew.
After eating, Rachel and Jia both used their slap bracelets to return home, saying good-bye to Fort, but not to each other or Merlin. Fort decided that next time he saw them, he really did need to say something, if just to see if he could help. Maybe he’d try Rachel alone first, then Jia, in case either was more comfortable sharing with him.
But for now, it felt like he’d been studying for hours, and he could barely keep his eyes open. “I guess I should get going too,” Fort said to Merlin, who was staring into the fire. “I could use some sleep.”
Merlin nodded, turning back to look at him. “Sleep is important. But perhaps you haven’t learned enough for tonight. Trouble will follow at the same rate your dragon grows later, Forsythe. The sooner you get her to safety the better, I would imagine.”
Fort stared at him for a moment, then sighed and dropped back into his seat. “Good point,” he said, trying to pull the book out from under Ember and failing miserably until the dragon indignantly picke
d herself up off it. “I’ll stick around awhile longer now and see if I can’t figure out how to teach her the phrase ‘please make a portal to another dimension so that the creepy faerie queen doesn’t use you against your own kind.’ ”
“Poetry in any language,” Merlin said, his hands glowing black. “I bid you good luck and a good night, Forsythe. Learn all you can.”
Ember looked up at him with a strange look, and he winked at her, then glitched out of sight, leaving Fort alone.
“I wonder if he was always weird, or if it took a few thousand years to make him that way,” Fort said to Ember. The dragon ignored him. Instead, she reached out and yanked the book closer to herself, digging her dragon claws into it as she flipped several pages over. “Hey, I need to read that,” Fort told her, and tried to retrieve the book, but she batted at him with her other claws as his hands got close. “Hey!”
She just stared at him for a moment, then closed her eyes and made herself comfortable, her dragon paw now lying right in the middle of the page. He leaned closer to her, thinking he could quickly pick her paw up and yank the book away before she noticed, only to stop as he saw what page she was on:
K’paen—Learn.
“You’re never going to k’paen to behave, are you,” Fort told her, scratching her behind her triangular, scaly ears. She began to purr, sounding strangely like she did in cat form, then opened her eyes and stared up at him again.
“K’paen,” she said, tapping the book with one claw.
He stared down at her in confusion. “You want to learn the book? It sounds like you know all the words already. Really, I’m the one who…” He trailed off as the dragon’s meaning finally occurred to him. “No, you want me to use it, don’t you?”