Dragon War

by Shay Roberts

  Tyler leans in, sounding casual. “Whatever happened to Argyros?”

  Caratacus shrugs. “Returned to Rome, I heard. Along with the rest of them. Took his guns with him.”

  The disgusting Roman stops to refill his mug.

  Tyler speaks with excitement. “Caratacus, these tales of valor are the best I’ve ever heard. I’m traveling north, into Pictland, to establish a trade route. I would love to visit these glorious battle sites and pay tribute to your fallen comrades. Where should I start?”

  Caratacus is so moved that he seems about to cry. He puts down his mug, grabs a stick, and begins scrawling maps in the dirt. For the next half hour, with his eyes glowing, he shares the dates and locations of the battles, and where the dead are buried. As much as I want to kill this man, I recognize that his emotions are real, and that his information is priceless.

  I already knew that Tyler was a naturally talented time traveler, but now I see another side of him. He is clever, and good with people. Without him, I can’t imagine this quest succeeding.

  After all the maps have been drawn, Caratacus is spent. He sends Drustan off again to fetch blaeberries, then gnaws at his roasted rat.

  He points at me as he speaks to Tyler between bites. “She your wife?”

  “A friend.”

  The words sting a little. Certainly, I am more than a friend. On the other hand, do I really want Tyler explaining our relationship to this vile man?

  Caratacus claps Tyler on the shoulder. “Smart man. Never get married. Wives turn into hags, but wenches stay young forever.”

  He openly admires my figure. Then he frowns, swaying drunkenly as he gets to his feet. He stumbles closer, peering at my legs.

  “Where’d she get these tattoos?”

  Even now, he is talking to Tyler. These are my legs, my tattoos. Talk to me, you idiot.

  Tyler replies calmly. “She got them years ago. Some man from the north. I don’t remember his name.”

  Suddenly, Caratacus looks very sober. He yells in a voice that booms across the village.

  “Pictmen!”

  He backs away from us, pointing his mug like a weapon. He screams again, his voice even stronger.

  “They’re inside the perimeter!”

  Somewhere, a bell begins to ring. Farmers with sharp tools approach from all sides.

  Tyler turns to me. “Well, my young wench, the party’s over, and you’re the designated driver.”

  He holds out his hand.

  I flash a mock scowl. “I should leave you here.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you at all.”

  I take his hand, giving it a squeeze before making the jump.

  Twelve hours into the future should be about right. It will be dark then, and hopefully the villagers will be indoors. Then we can slip into the forest.

  As I make the jump, I sense something amiss. My gut clenches in fear as I feel myself being pulled by … something.

  We are being forced into a longer jump, crossing space as well as time!

  Is Tyler taking over? How can that be? It’s too soon for him to make another jump.

  What is happening? Why have I lost control?

  Serpent of the People

  TYLER BUCK

  Something’s going wrong with Rose’s jump, but I’m not sure what. We’re moving in space as well as time, as if homing in on an anchor. But of course, Rosemarie doesn’t know how to use anchors yet, so she can only travel in time, not space.

  Moments later, we emerge beside a moonlit lake. Bats flit over the shimmering water, and I hear someone crying.

  I turn to Rose. “Are you okay?”

  She nods. The crying isn’t coming from her.

  Gnarled trees, some of them spotted with glowing green lichen, crowd the lake. Between one pair of trees, a white-robed figure kneels in the moonlight. It’s a man with long hair and a beard. He wears a crown of flowers, their blossoms falling apart, the petals falling like his tears.

  He lifts his head. His face shows a strange mixture of fear and relief.

  “Take me now. I am ready.”

  He spreads his arms and bows his head.

  Rose whispers to me, “What is happening here?”

  “No idea.”

  The kneeling man, who looks to be in his thirties, calls out to us, his voice heavy with emotion.

  “Kill me. I have summoned you here to end my suffering.”

  What the hell is going on?

  Rose walks over and kneels at his side. “Are you hurt? Can we help you?”

  He stares at her, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Who are you, girl? Certainly not the demon I summoned.”

  “I am Rosemarie, and this is Tyler. We did not come to kill you.”

  He stands tall, graceful in his white robe, and surveys us.

  “A Pict and a dracoform. I must be losing my touch.”

  With the back of his hand, he wipes the tears from his cheeks, and stoops to pick up a long black staff, carved with a snake’s head at the top. The eyes of the snake, made of black gems, seem to move.

  He waves the staff at the surrounding area. “Welcome to Lochend, the final resting place of Merlinus Caledonensis. Or as some call me, Merlin.”

  I feel a thrill of excitement as he says his name.

  “You’re the Merlin? From King Arthur?”

  He looks puzzled. “I know of no King Arthur.”

  Rosemarie speaks gently to him. “What happened? Why do you want to die?”

  “The more interesting question is this. Why have you delayed my departure from this grim earth?”

  Rose looks back at me. Both of us are wondering how much we should tell him.

  Wasn’t Merlin supposed to be one of the good guys? If we can stop him from killing himself, the world will be a better place. Also, he may be able to help us.

  I know it’s against Academy rules to tell Merlin who we really are. But this whole quest is against the rules, and I’m not in the Academy anymore, so what the hell.

  I turn to Merlin. “Rose and I are time travelers. We’re from the future. We’ve come back to save the dragons. We were making a time jump when you snagged us.”

  He falls into a skeptical silence.

  Rose reaches into my pouch, pulls out her class uniform, and retrieves her glasspad from its pocket.

  She holds up the device. “There’s an app on this pad that uses stars to pinpoint our location and date.”

  Merlin and I watch as Rose opens the app and holds the pad up to the night sky. There are clouds on the horizon, but it’s clear overhead. She holds the pad up for several minutes, until the device beeps.

  The glasspad brings up a date.

  October, 452 CE

  Okay, so we just jumped fifty-two years into the future.

  The pad also shows our location on a map. We’re twenty miles northwest of the western end of Hadrian’s Wall. That’s a good fifty miles from Drustan’s village.

  Merlin stares at the pad in wonder.

  Rose turns to Merlin. “It says the year is 452. Is that correct?”

  Merlin nods. “By the Roman calendar, yes. Tell me, what people created this wonder you call a pad?”

  “I do not know which society, but it would come from about sixteen hundred years in your future.”

  He shakes his head in disbelief. “This world is filled with chaos and evil. How could it have survived for so long?”

  Rose looks at me for help, and I jump in.

  “All I can say is that it gets better. We still have evil and chaos, just not as bad as what you might have here.”

  Merlin points into the woods. “My home is nearby. Please join me for some mulled wine. There you can explain to me how you intend to save dragons that are already long dead.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he begins walking a trail that skirts the lake. His black staff raps the ground with each step.

  Rose puts her glasspad in my pouch, and we follow Merlin.

  Soon, the trail turns a
way from the lake. Merlin stops to take a last look over the water.

  “I should have known she wouldn’t come. Not even at my death.”

  Rose responds, curious. “Who?”

  “Ninianne. The half-Fae mistress of the lake. We were together once. I taught her spells, and she taught me how to love. Now she’s broken my heart, and the world has lost all color.”

  Could this be the Lady of the Lake? I’ll bet it is. This is the actual Merlin!

  Rose speaks in a comforting tone. “I am so sorry, Merlin. I can see how important she is to you.”

  Does Rosemarie know Merlin’s story? I can’t catch her eye.

  Merlin turns away from the lake and we continue down the path. As we walk between the weirdly twisted trees, my mind races. Merlin said he doesn’t know a King Arthur, so those events probably haven’t happened yet. Should I tell Merlin his destiny? It might give him something to live for.

  But what if revealing his future somehow derails the natural chain of events? I know enough about history to be certain that chivalry was important for the rise of Western civilization. King Arthur’s round table represented equality and fairness. What kind of world would we live in if that never happened?

  On the other hand, what if I’m supposed to tell Merlin about his destiny with Arthur? What if this meeting between us was meant to kick off the whole chain of events? By not telling Merlin, would I be dooming the future to a world without King Arthur?

  Merlin’s home is little more than a sod hut. I guess I was expecting a castle floating on air.

  We sit on low wooden stools around a log fire, sipping a mulled wine so spicy it makes my nose tingle.

  On one side of the hut’s dirt floor, I see a tangle of hides that must be Merlin’s bed. I’m pretty sure they’re the source of the ripe smell the wine is almost covering. Maybe that’s why his girl bailed on him. Ladies don’t like it when you don’t wash your sheets.

  The other side of the hut is dominated by a long table covered by roots, branches, flowers, herbs, and something that makes an occasional squeaking noise. I assume those are the snips and snails and puppy-dog tails he uses for his spells.

  Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe Merlin did live in a floating castle, but when the Lady of the Lake dumped him, he fell into a deep depression and started living like a slob. That version of events sounds more romantic.

  Merlin is more interested in Rosemarie than me, so she does most of the talking. She tells him about her life with the Draig, her transition to the Time Academy, and our mission to save the dragons.

  Merlin goes easy on the wine, keeping his head clear and asking a lot of questions. As he begins to ask about his own future, Rose and I develop an unspoken agreement to tell him everything we know.

  Rose knows a little about the legend, but I end up explaining most of it. When I mention Excalibur, Merlin leaps to his feet, staining his white robes with mulled wine.

  It turns out that Merlin’s half-Fae love, Ninianne, used to carry Excalibur before hiding it in the lake. I explain that this is the sword King Arthur will use to establish chivalry in Britain, and it is Merlin’s destiny to guide Arthur to the weapon.

  However, in those stories, Merlin is old. And the Merlin before us doesn’t have a single gray hair in his beard. So it’s possible that Arthur hasn’t been born yet.

  At this point, Merlin goes off on a tangent about birth magic and astrology, and postulates a method of discovering Arthur’s predecessors and hastening the king’s birth. It all sounds a little manipulative, maybe even borderline evil, but who am I to question Merlin?

  Rose steers the conversation back to the dragons and asks for Merlin’s advice on defeating the Romans. As it turns out, he has none. The Romans were gone before Merlin was born. Of course, there are some Latin-speaking villages, and a few elderly Roman vets around, but no active Imperial soldiers.

  Rose asks him about Hadrian’s Wall, telling him that something felt off about it. Merlin explains that the Salii, the Roman priests of Mars, blessed the wall in order to keep the Fae away. The lower Fae are unable to cross it, but the High Fae can use Som to pass through it.

  Thanks to my recent classes at the Academy, I actually understand what Merlin’s talking about. Som is a shadow plane where time passes more slowly. Only witches and High Fae can access it.

  Merlin knows a lot about Fae, especially the Caledonian Loch Fae. He tells us that Ninianne is half human and half Loch Fae. He gets a mournful look when he speaks about her. Clearly, he fell hard for Ninianne. I wonder if she cast some sort of spell on him.

  It’s nearly morning by the time the mulled wine runs out. Merlin shuffles off to bed, promising that after a good nap, he’ll take us north along the ley lines so we can reach our destination without danger. I have no idea what ley lines are, but Rose and I are thankful for any help he can give us. We lay out the bedrolls on the dirt floor and catch a little sleep.

  The ley lines are pretty wild. I’ve never experienced anything like them. Merlin takes our hands and leads us over the invisible lines of force, revealed to him by Ninianne. Merlin describes them as a spiderweb pattern of earthly magic that crisscrosses Britain and lands beyond.

  As we travel along one of the lines, Merlin taps its magic and we begin to speed up. The landscape whizzes past as we walk, and blurs as we begin to jog. The weird thing is, we don’t get tired. The ley lines energize us. My headache completely disappears, and for once, I’m not hungry.

  We pass occasional groups of people, mostly farmers, but Merlin assures us his magic hides us from their eyes. It wouldn’t do for them to see us streaking across the countryside.

  As we travel the lines, Rosemarie can’t stop laughing. If she laughs any harder, she’ll pee herself. Her happiness lifts Merlin’s dark mood, and most of the pain disappears from his eyes.

  The only time we slow down is when we cross the Antonine Wall, which disrupts the ley lines. The earthen wall is ten feet high and sixteen feet wide, built on a stone foundation. The Romans dug a ditch on the north side, about ten feet deep, for extra security.

  The Romans stopped manning the Antonine Wall hundreds of years ago. Much of it has collapsed, and the ditch to the north is overgrown by plant life.

  Beyond this wall lie the seven kingdoms of the Picts, which were never conquered by the Romans. From here on, there are fewer trees, and we progress more quickly across the landscape. By the time we stop, I estimate we’ve covered a hundred and fifty miles in only a few hours.

  This is an amazing way to travel. In only a day, Merlin can travel to anywhere in Britain. The whole island is his playground.

  When we reach the Highlands in Cait, Merlin stops at the distinctive horse-head rock formation where Caratacus described his first battle with the dragons, sixty-seven years ago, relative to Merlin’s time.

  From here, all we have to do is jump back in time, and we’ll be where this whole fiasco began.

  Rose invites Merlin to accompany us, but he declines. He’s eager to begin tracking down the origins of Arthur.

  Merlin’s eyes tear up as he hugs Rose and thanks her for bringing meaning to his life.

  Never mind the fact the Arthur thing was my idea. Rose didn’t even know about Excalibur. Man, I shouldn’t be petty. I’m just glad he likes one of us.

  He kisses Rose’s cheek and, with only a nod to me, steps away, preparing to join the ley line.

  But for some reason, he hesitates, scratching his beard. He turns back, his face showing concern.

  “Rose, my dear. I must give you something. I have a strong feeling you’ll need it.”

  What’s he giving her? It better not be another kiss.

  Merlin approaches Rosemarie, gently removes the crude staff from her hand, and replaces it with his own creepy staff.

  He looks at the staff with pride. “This is Snakehead, a Fae weapon given to me by Ninianne’s people. The dark wood cannot be broken and will shatter any metal it strikes. It will also shield you from meta
l objects, such as sword blades or incoming arrows. Anyone in direct contact with you will share that protection. But you and any others must be careful not to wear metal on your bodies. No iron, no gold, no silver. Lastly, know that the weapon is an ancient serpent. When you use it in combat, the head of the staff will bite your adversaries, rendering them unconscious. Snakehead draws its power from the earth, so its magic never needs to be replenished. All I ask in return for this powerful artifact is that you agree to respect and protect the Fae, wherever you may encounter them.”

  Rose examines the staff’s black snake eyes, which move ever so slightly, and the Fae runes carved along the staff’s midsection.

  Thanks to the language bug, I understand the runes. They translate to people’s serpent, or serpent of the people. And by people, they mean Fae. To them, humans are not considered people. I remember that from my class on paranormals.

  Rose nods her head respectfully and tries to hand Snakehead back to Merlin.

  “I am honored by your generosity, great Merlin, but I cannot accept such an important gift. Surely you will need it in your struggles ahead.”

  Come on, Rose, just take the staff. It looks badass, and we can use it against the Romans.

  Merlin doesn’t answer, or move to accept the staff. He simply bows to Rose, blows her a kiss, and disappears onto the ley line.

  Very dramatic. I’ve never blown a kiss to anyone. I’ll have to remember that.

  I watch Rosemarie, still standing with the staff extended. A cold Highland wind whips her blond hair into a flowing stream. She looks like a goddess from Greek mythology. She awes me, and I know now that I love her.

  She turns to me, her voice determined.

  “It’s time to take the fight to the Romans.”

  A Fiery God

  TYLER BUCK

  Our first task is to test out the Snakehead staff.

  We pull the iron pot from our camping gear and Rosemarie strikes it with the staff. The iron pot shatters, as Merlin said it would. The pot makes a sharp crashing sound, like glass breaking, and the pieces scatter across the Highland grass. Very impressive.