Victories

by Mercedes Lackey

  And what he saw chilled him with horror.

  Mark paused only to snatch up Morgause’s sword from the floor, and ran.

  * * *

  “Are you sure this is what Doctor Ambrosius wants me to do, Teddy?” Clark Howard asked nervously.

  He’d been down in the Game Room when Teddy came looking for him—he knew there was some kind of student uprising going on among the kids who’d run away from the school, and he really didn’t want to be involved. Much better if he could visit them in the dungeon later and present himself as a nice guy who could get them out of trouble for a little friendly cooperation.

  He knew about the Master Plan, and that Doctor Ambrosius was the real brains behind all of Breakthrough. They’d finished the last hack three days ago, in plenty of time for Doc A’s schedule. He wanted to launch on May First, because that was a big holiday in the old Soviet Union, and it would help convince everyone that the Russians were behind this. Clark thought that was pretty neat: not only would Breakthrough be the only ones with magic after the missiles flew, they’d be the only ones with much of anything. The whole world would become one giant amusement park owned by Breakthrough. And he’d be able to do anything he wanted.

  “Would I be here now if he didn’t?” Teddy asked, smiling. “You can do it by yourself, can’t you?”

  “Of course I can,” Clark said, irritated. “I wrote most of this code. All I need to do is get into the server and send it.” Teddy was just like his brother Mark: a rich prettyboy executive who never got his hands dirty. Unlike people like Clark, who actually had useful job skills and had to work for a living. Not as soon as this goes live, he told himself gleefully. Once the Black Dragon rises for real, it’ll be just like the game, for everyone.…

  “Okay,” Teddy said, smiling. “Party on, dude.”

  Clark ignored him, opening the browser window and beginning to type. There were piles of printouts and manuals surrounding his workstation, but he didn’t need them any more. Like he’d said, he’d written the code. And it was just waiting in the library to upload.

  “Stop!”

  Clark jumped at the sound of Mark’s voice. He took his hands off the keyboard.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s called a first strike, dear brother,” Teddy said. “Why wait? The element of surprise is crucial in war. You’ve told me that often enough.”

  “You idiot,” Mark snarled, striding toward him. “You’ll kill us all!”

  “Keep typing,” Teddy said, in a low voice. He turned and walked toward Mark, drawing his sword as he went.

  Clark actually thought the swords were the best part of this whole deal. Swords were cool. When Mark had moved them all to Nowhere, Montana, all of them had gotten swords. Armor, too, just like in Rise of the Black Dragon. He didn’t like that as much, because it was a lot heavier than it looked, but the sword was awesome. Some of the guys (like Teddy) went overboard on the whole medieval Dark Knight thing, wearing their swords and armor most of the time. Clark preferred to be comfortable.

  He winced at the first sound of sword on sword. Mark and Teddy were really going at it. He turned away from his console to watch.

  “Hey, guys?” Clark called after a moment. “You want to take it outside?” If any of the equipment got damaged, Doc A was going to flay everyone involved. Or even anyone nearby.

  Both men ignored him.

  Clark got nervously to his feet. Maybe it would be a good idea if he got out of here, and made like he’d never been here at all. The only problem was, there was only one entrance to the computer room, and Mark and Teddy were fighting right in front of it. He edged nervously along the wall. Maybe they’d move further into the room and he could make a run for it.

  He’d never realized that swordfighting could be so loud.

  At least they aren’t using magic, he thought hopefully. The last thing we need down here is a fire.…

  As if his thoughts had been a spell of Summoning, there was a wash of flame. Every scrap of paper in the computer room caught fire at once in a choking wave of heat. Over the crackling of the flames, Clark saw Teddy fall to the ground.

  He killed him! Mark killed him!

  He heard the fire alarm begin to sound, and the fire suppressant system—too little, too late—began flooding the room with carbon dioxide. The fire-door rolled down over the entrance, and as it did, Mark stepped back into the hall.

  Clark screamed and ran toward the door. “Hey! Wait! Don’t! You can’t shut the door! I’m still in here!”

  Outside, the sun went black and the ground turned to ice, but Clark Howard wasn’t aware of that.

  And a few moments later, he wasn’t aware of anything at all.

  * * *

  “I, Lancelot du Lac, King in my own land and vassal of Arthur of Britain—”

  The words had come without thought. Why not? They were true. He was as much Lancelot du Lac as he was Lachlan Galen Spears—probably even more so. He remembered being an old man with aching joints and old battle scars, tending the herb garden in the monastery at Glastonbury. That was a part of the story most people didn’t know. Lancelot had taken holy orders after Mordred’s defeat and lived half his life in the cloister.

  Why not? Arthur was dead, and if Mordred hadn’t actually won, he’d smashed Arthur and Guinevere’s shining city. Camelot had been no more.

  But the dream had survived, because Lachlan Spears remembered reading The Once and Future King, and so he knew it had, even though he’d never imagined he’d be living it. But from the moment he held the Spear of Britain in his hands, he’d known—they’d both known, Loch and Lancelot—that this moment would come.

  The moment when they had to fight.

  When he had to kill.

  He’d kept his worries to himself. The others had been dealing with their own problems: Guinevere, Arthur, The Lady of the Lake. Each of them had a burden of memory that wasn’t just some fun Past Life Memory™ that let you brag about being Cleopatra or Napoleon, but an identity that was as real, more real, than the ones each of them had grown up with.

  This time.

  From the first moment Loch had realized what they were up against, that it was only the four of them and the Hallows against Mordred and his Empire of Evil, he’d doubted they could win. It didn’t matter. Not to fight would have been worse, even though Lancelot’s memories gave Loch nightmares. Loch had grown up as a victim of the cruelest sort of bullying. He’d never wanted to hurt anyone.

  Loch Spears had never believed there was anything worth fighting for.

  He’d been wrong.

  At least today he was spared the knowledge that he was killing other people. The things here within the walls of The Fortress were the stuff of nightmare, but at least they weren’t human.

  And at least he wouldn’t have to live with himself afterward.

  It was amazing how easy violence was. He’d only had a moment to catalogue the foe—trolls and hellhounds, Waldgeists and giants, lamiae and dwerro—before he was fighting for his life. The Spear spun in his hands. His enemies turned to stone, or caught on fire, or simply rotted away in seconds. It would have been a game, except for the fact he could hear the screams of the kids he was leading into battle.

  With Spirit at his side, Loch fought his way forward, climbing over the bodies of monsters. Striving to reach Mordred. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes. His skin burned where something not of this world had spattered him with its dying blood. And through it all, he saw Spirit fighting Mordred, shining silver blade against black, Light against Darkness.

  He knew where she was going. The Gallows Oak. Mordred’s one vulnerable point. And he vowed to protect her as she strove for it.

  And he failed.

  One of the lamiae dropped on him out of nowhere. He screamed in pain as its claws cut through his armor. Its graveyard stench made him gag even as he fought for his life. The thing screeched, its high-pitched wail making his ears hurt, as Cafall grabbed its l
eg in his jaws. Then Burke was there beside him, and together they turned to face the horde of trolls that thought to take him unaware.

  They were freakish, horrible things, with mottled purple skin and jaws lined with gleaming teeth. Their mouths were too huge for their faces—Loch could have stuck his head inside easily, if he’d wanted a quick death.

  They made cooing noises, like pigeons. He thought that was the worst.

  The Shield of Britain flared between Loch and the trolls. His Spear could pass through it. Their weapons could not. He killed them quickly, efficiently—a thrust of his Spear into their chests or stomachs and they began to liquefy at once.

  He was just turning away from the last of them as the ground shook.

  Burke howled in outraged fury.

  The ground was alive with twining vines, black and limber as tentacles, each covered with impossible thorns as long as his hand. Loch saw Mordred lash out at Spirit, saw the spray of bright blood as the baneblade bit flesh.

  Saw her fall.

  He’d thought, before this began, that when there was no more hope he’d just stop fighting. In the heat of battle, death would be quick. He knew that with her death the day was lost, but he redoubled his efforts, fighting as if he’d suddenly gone mad, stabbing at the vines, pinning them to earth, chopping at them. He heard Burke roar like the bear that was his totem, saw the flare of light as baneblade met Shield.

  Then there was a wash of cold intense enough to suck the breath from his lungs. The vines shattered like glass. And impossibly, amazingly, Spirit staggered to her feet.

  Her left arm hung useless at her side, but she moved grimly forward. He clambered over the brittle thorns to follow. He was just behind her as she raised Excalibur and struck the Gallows Oak.

  Everyone on the field felt what happened next. It was her Gift, her Power, the power of pure Spirit, untainted by hatred or ambition, that bound all of her people together for a moment into one body, one soul, one force. It was that force that split the Tree open, exposing the true body of Mordred.

  The sun went black and a storm wind rose. Blinded by the darkness, Loch staggered forward. Mordred had seen her. Mordred was attacking. His stolen body fell, dying. But from the threshold of death itself he struck at her.

  Loch heard Spirit scream.

  He spun, transfixing Mordred with the Spear, but it was too late. Burke ran forward. The body of Kenny Hawking, dead since 1971, dissolved into scattered crumbling bones.

  The light returned.

  Burke was holding Spirit in his arms.

  Around them, the battlefield clattered to silence. With Mordred’s death, his sorcerous allies vanished.

  “Here! Burke! Burke!” Addie’s scream cut through the silence. She was standing beside the black van at the far end of the battlefield, covered in blood. “You have to hurry!”

  Loch could feel it too: like a falling tide, Mordred’s death had destroyed his power and that of his followers. The power of the Grail, no longer needed, was about to vanish from the world as well. And with it, Spirit’s chance for life.

  Burke lifted Spirit higher in his arms and ran to meet Addie. The two of them ran down the field together, and when they reached the van, Burke flung Spirit into the back and slammed the doors.

  Ouch, Loch thought. That’s gotta hurt.

  He turned and looked behind him. The once-green lawn was nothing but mud and craters now. It looked like a war zone. On it, the Army of Light stood, or sat, or knelt, clinging to their weapons. Loch began to count. When he reached twenty-six, he knew they’d won a greater victory than any they could have imagined.

  Every one of them was still alive.

  “We won.” He tried to shout, but his voice came out a hoarse caw. The cheer they raised in answer was equally ragged, but it was followed by laughter.

  And over the sound of the laughter, he heard a dull rhythmic pounding.

  “Hey—hey—hey—” Loch heard Spirit shout, muffled, from inside the black van. “Is somebody going to let me out of here?”

  TEN

  Oddly, Spirit was never in any doubt that they’d won.

  She opened her eyes, feeling as if she’d just been abruptly awakened from a deep sleep filled with strange vivid dreams. She stared up at the ceiling above her for a long dazed moment before realizing: Oh. I’m in Vivian’s van. It’s the one QUERCUS left for us. It smelled of swamp and mildew and wet dog. She wrinkled her nose as she sat up. The doors were closed, but daylight was shining in through the mud-smeared windows. She could hear noise from outside—talking, laughing, cheering—and for a moment she thought she was somehow back at Oakhurst, at one of the Saturday football games.

  But she wasn’t. The van was at The Fortress. Muirin was dead.

  She raised a hand to her mouth, thinking of that, and then flinched away. Her hands were covered in blood. She was wearing filthy rags. A tattered sweater. Some football padding. She pulled it off, slowly.

  My name is Spirit White. Today is the fourteenth of April.

  She, Loch, Burke, and Addie had escaped Oakhurst three weeks ago during the Spring Fling Dance. They’d followed directions sent to Spirit by her mysterious chat-room friend QUERCUS. Only QUERCUS was really The Merlin of Britain. He’d led them to a safe haven, where they discovered they were all Reincarnates, the Grail Knights meant to oppose Mordred in the final battle. She’d been Guinevere.

  Only she wasn’t Guinevere now.

  The Reincarnate memories that had driven her were gone. She remembered what had happened, but it was like remembering the plot of a movie she’d seen. She crawled to the door of the van and tried to open it, but it was jammed.

  “Hey!” she called, banging at it. “Is somebody going to let me out of here?”

  Burke opened the door in a squeal of hinges. When he saw her, his smile was radiant. “Hey,” he said softly.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been asleep.” She looked out across the courtyard. “Wow,” she said.

  “‘Wow,’ is the word,” Addie agreed. She appeared beside Burke and hugged Spirit fiercely. “We won.”

  “I guess.…” Spirit said doubtfully. “Where is everybody?”

  “Well the Legions of Hell vanished along with the Gallows Oak,” Loch said, walking over to them. He looked as if he had a headache. Spirit could sympathize; it looked as if all their Reincarnate memory-selves were gone, if Loch’s expression was anything to go by. “But that leaves about a million Shadow Knights and Mark Rider to deal with, so.…”

  “Help!”

  There was movement at the top of the stairs. Spirit took a step forward. Addie did too. The rest of the kids were coming to join them, climbing through the ruts and potholes that had been a smooth lawn only a short time before. Among them were some of the Radial kids. Spirit recognized Brenda, Veronica, Adam and Tom Phillips. Even Kennedy Lewis was there.

  Spirit turned back to face the steps of The Fortress as the shouting continued.

  “It’s Joe!” Addie said as the figure came into view.

  Joe Rogers was—or should that be ‘had been’?—one of the Oakhurst Student Proctors. He’d also been a member of Oakhurst’s secret fraternity, the Gatekeepers. He was dressed now in what looked like a version of the Oakhurst school uniform in Breakthrough colors: black pants and blazer, red shirt, black and silver striped tie. But the tie was loose and askew, and his clothes were rumpled, as if he’d rolled down a flight of stairs in them.

  “Help!” he shouted. “Somebody help! There’s been an accident!”

  For a moment Spirit couldn’t think what to do. She hadn’t liked Joe, who’d always been trying to get her in trouble, and he was one of Mordred’s people besides.

  “Oh, crap,” Loch said. “He’s going to fall.” Loch ran toward the steps, sprinting up them just in time to catch Joe as he collapsed. “He’s fainted!” Loch called down. “And I can see inside! There’s bodies everywhere!”

  “Come on!” Spirit called to the others, an
d followed Loch up the steps.

  * * *

  She remembered the first time she’d seen the walls of The Fortress, and Dylan had been babbling about all the things The Fortress contained. Spirit had never figured out where he’d gotten his information, but it turned out to be right. The Fortress held dormitories, armories, gymnasiums, libraries, swimming pools—even a greenhouse. That was in addition to offices and workrooms—but there weren’t as many of those as you’d expect, because The Fortress had been built as, well, a fortress. The main wing, where the offices were, was decorated in Early Evil Overlord—a lot of glass, a lot of black granite—and the Breakthrough logo everywhere.

  I’m never going to want to play another computer game as long as I live, Spirit thought fervently.

  And Loch was right. There were bodies everywhere.

  “Looks like some kind of a seizure,” Blake Watson said, kneeling beside a woman in Shadow Knight armor. “She’s breathing, and her vital signs look good. She’s just … unconscious.”

  “They’re all like that,” Burke said, coming in. “Well, most of them. A few of them are conscious, but disoriented. Most of them think they’re in California, for some reason.”

  “That was where Breakthrough was headquartered until it moved here,” Loch said.

  “There must be hundreds of them,” Spirit said.

  “Hey!” Dylan came running in, skidding a little on the smooth floor. “I found the hospital. I don’t think it’s big enough, though,” he added, looking around.

  “What are we going to do?” Spirit asked dazedly. It was bad enough that every one of the Breakthrough people had apparently been struck by some kind of backlash from Mordred’s death. But the townspeople had all gotten their real memories back—and the town was still gone.