The Book Knights

by J. G. McKenney

  Gal ignored the threat, too busy weighing her options. Their only hope was the classroom halfway between them and Mordred. Cradling her bag, she grabbed Arti’s arm.

  “Come on!”

  The Incendi captain reacted immediately, giving chase. He yelled to his troopers, “Go around! Cut them off!”

  Navigating through an obstacle course of broken desks, Gal led Arti to a large window devoid of glass on the classroom’s outer wall. She tossed her bag out, and Arti followed suit, casting her duffel bag through the framed opening. They jumped through the window, landing in a tangle of arms and legs on a sprawling vine-covered juniper. Freeing themselves from the prickly shrub, they scrambled to their feet, recovered their bundles and sprinted toward the motorhome a few hundred feet away. Like a black panther, Mordred leapt from the window, nimbly touching down on the grass behind them.

  When Merl saw what was happening, he frantically slammed the vehicle in gear and accelerated down the street toward the girls, turning sharply, jumping the curb in a shower of sparks. Arti reached the motorhome first and, fumbling with her duffel bag, threw open the passenger door.

  As Gal waited for Arti to climb into the vehicle, she looked back. Mordred was coming fast. She threw her bag through the open door and spun around to face him, knife in hand.

  “Hurry, Arti!” yelled Merl. “I have to get you out of here!”

  “Hold on!” screamed Arti. “We can’t leave Gal! Do something!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Merl noticed the other troopers running across the field toward them, brandishing their lighters. He knew the weapons were powerful enough to short out the vehicle’s electrical system.

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Go!” commanded Gal. “Now!”

  The motorhome’s engine revved loudly as Merl slammed his foot down on the accelerator. As it lurched forward, the vehicle jostled and bounced, and the passenger door slammed shut knocking Arti against the center console. She rebounded, clawing at the window, just as Mordred arrived.

  “Gal!” she cried.

  Gal didn’t see the blow that shattered her fingers, sending the knife clattering to the asphalt. There was only the Incendi captain’s whisper and a stab of pain. She staggered back, cradling her hand, trying to understand what had happened.

  Mordred cursed at the motorhome as it sped way, his body vibrating with rage. For the second time, he had failed to capture the Penderhagen girl. Failed Morgan Fay. “Bring the car around!” he yelled across the yard to his troopers. “We’ll go after them. This one will tell me where they’ve gone.”

  “I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’,” said Gal. With her good hand, she reached down for the knife.

  Mordred uttered another lyrical phrase, backhanding Gal above her left eye, tossing her like a ragdoll onto the roadway. She landed on her back, arms splayed like an angel. A moan came from her lips, and she tried to get up, but the world spun wildly, forcing her back down.

  Mordred was angry at himself for hitting her so hard. If the girl died, she was useless to him. It was then that he heard a deep rumbling sound and noticed a sleek white car approaching at high speed. As it raced toward him, its brakes locked, and it skidded sideways. It was still moving when the driver’s door flew open, and a young man launched himself at Mordred. The Incendi captain murmured something, just as a powerful kick landed squarely on his chest, sending him reeling.

  Making sure that Mordred was down, the young man removed his leather jacket and covered Gal with it. He reached for her hat and stuffed it in his pocket, then delicately lifted Gal from the roadway and carried her to the car. Opening the passenger door, he set her down gently in the seat.

  “Tenera,” he whispered. Hold on.

  Taking his place behind the wheel, he slammed the car into gear. The Charger’s powerful engine roared, and slick wide tires devoured the asphalt. As he sped away with the injured girl in the seat next to him, the young man looked up at the rearview mirror and was amazed by what he saw. The man in black was standing!

  The young man wiped a greasy hand on his pant leg and glanced down at the girl with concern. At least he knew the captain and his troopers wouldn’t be coming after them. It would be a while before they got their car running again.

  “Let’s get you to Aunt Vivian,” he said, in an accent identical to the proprietor of Lakeside Antiquities. “When you’re able, you can tell me where your friends have gone.”

  Gal tried to speak, but her words were barely a whisper.

  “Ca…mel…Lot.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Gwen woke up coiled in her blanket, fully clothed, the bedroom light still on. A corner of The Knights of Maren, the book she’d been reading through the night, was wedged under her, jabbing at her ribs.

  Freeing herself from the covers, Gwen sat up and lifted the book to her lap, positioning a pillow between her back and the headboard. She opened the book with a renewed sense of purpose; if it could explain Mordred’s strange powers, it might yet hold the secret to defeating him and saving the Archive.

  After a moment of searching, she found the part of the final chapter she’d been reading before sleep had claimed her, an account of the Knights’ final years before they dissembled. Discovering nothing helpful in those pages, Gwen cursed the book for failing her. Then she saw the faded script on the inside of its back cover.

  The swirling letters had melted into the soft velum glued to the stiff leather backing, but Gwen could still make out each faint character. She read the first two sentences aloud to herself: “The Oath of the Knights of Maren. Swear fealty and be called.” The remaining three lines were written in another language; she guessed it was Old Ferencian. Slowly, carefully, she pronounced each word.

  “Ca litera ede castere. Ca stiva ede rizer. Ca crisa ede essent.”

  Gwen had no idea what it meant. Frustrated, she slammed the book closed and tossed it on the foot of the bed, accepting the awful truth: The Archive was going to burn and she could do nothing to save it. The one thing she truly loved in the world—the one thing worth living for—would be taken from her, and all she could do was watch. For four years, she’d risked everything to visit the collection, fiercely protecting her dangerous secret. What would she do if she could no longer withdraw its treasures? How could she survive without reading? Feeling helpless, she sat on her bed and stared down at the book near her feet.

  She noticed the tiny sword fastened to the tome’s cover no longer pointed upward; it had rotated almost ninety degrees and was angled toward the binding. Wondering if she had loosened it when she slammed the book shut, Gwen rocked forward on her knees and probed the sword with a finger. It didn’t budge. She grabbed the book and spun sideways on the bed, kicking her legs over the edge. Holding the tome in her lap, she pushed hard on the sword with her thumb, determined to straighten it. It still wouldn’t move.

  Until she lifted her hand.

  It was then that the little sword came to life, slowly spinning around the brass stud that was its axis, making a quarter turn before coming to a stop.

  Gwen stared down at the book, eyes wide in disbelief. Did that just happen, or am I losing it? Maybe I’m still asleep. But she knew that what she seeing was real, not imagination, not the product of a dream. She watched for more signs of life from the tiny sword. When nothing happened, her amazement surrendered to curiosity and experimentation. She turned the book in her lap and waited.

  The sword answered her, revolving again.

  Gwen repeated the exercise, carefully observing the result of each manipulation. She noticed that the sword always ended up pointing in the same direction—like a compass. But that begged the question: What was it pointing at?

  She flipped open the book’s back cover and read the faded words again. “The Oath of the Knights of Maren. Swear fealty and be called.”

  Gwen leapt from the bed, book in hand. “It’s all true,” she laughed, making the connection. “The knights still exist. They’re out
there somewhere, and it’s showing me the way.” The overwhelming anguish of a minute before was gone, and she felt like she’d been reborn. If she could find them in time, maybe they could stop the Archive from burning.

  Gwen wrestled a clunky suitcase from her closet and clicked open its locks. She rifled through her dresser drawers, stuffing the suitcase with clothes, then she ran to the adjoining bathroom to retrieve her toiletries.

  Lugging the suitcase down the hall and through the kitchen, she noticed the red message light on the refrigerator door was still flashing atop its vidscreen. Only now, a picture of Victor Herrat’s chubby face competed for attention with that of Gwen’s mother.

  In a fit of anger, Gwen grabbed a tall brass peppermill from the kitchen counter and smashed the display; the distorted faces of her mother and the director smiled back at her through a web of shattered plastic. Then she turned around and brought the peppermill down on the vidlink she’d set on the granite counter top the night before. The satisfying CRUNCH! sent pieces of the device flying in all directions.

  It was official: Gwen Degan was a decap, a fugitive. And though she knew breaking the law made her an Incendi target, she felt liberated. Never again would she be a tool of Morgan Fay’s Corporation or a bargaining chip for her parents. No longer would she have to pretend to be something she wasn’t just so she could do the one thing she truly loved. In her heart, she knew there was another way, and with the help of Guillaume de Lac’s book, she was going to find it.

  With the suitcase stashed in the trunk of the car, Gwen set The Knights of Maren on the front passenger seat, so she could keep her eye on the sword as she drove. The tiny blade realigned itself as she backed out of the driveway and continued to slowly turn as the car altered course. It was pointing south, and Gwen followed its lead through the eastern part of the city, the castle on the hill staring down at her, bearing witness to her escape.

  It wasn’t long before she found herself driving along the Coin Canal, competing for space with an ever-increasing flow of Corporation trucks heading in the same direction. The sword was pointing directly past her at the waterway, indicating her destination was somewhere on the other side, somewhere on the island.

  Her childhood had been filled with frightening stories about Old Tintagel, the home of outlaws and crime and violence. As she approached the East Bridge, Gwen considered stopping and turning back, but she knew that was impossible. She glanced at the sword fastened to the book resting on the seat next to her.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Arti didn’t speak to Merl on the way back to the Camel Lot. Her anguish at leaving Gal to the mercy of Mordred had hardened into resentment so thick, Merl was afraid he might never break through it. As he backed the motorhome into the garage and shut off the engine, he pleaded with her.

  “I’m sorry, Arti. I…I had to get you out of there.” He leaned back in the seat, covered his face with his gloved hands, and rubbed his eyes. “I couldn’t let you be taken.”

  “Why didn’t you protect her?” screamed Arti. “Why didn’t you use magic…the stuff you learned from the book? You studied it. You said so.” Tears spilled down Arti’s cheeks, and the words hiccupped from her throat. “You should have done something!”

  She glared at Merl, wondering why she had put so much faith in a man she barely knew, afraid that her misplaced trust had cost her friend’s life. Why hadn’t she been more careful? Why hadn’t she listened to Gal’s warnings?

  “It’s not that easy,” said Merl, wounded. “Spells take time and…concentration…and I need the book to focus them. The Meditations are very dangerous; if I’d tried using one of them against Mordred, I might have done more harm than good. He’s not one to underestimate.”

  Arti’s eyes narrowed, accusingly. “You know him?”

  Merl sighed. “I know of him, yes. He’s Morgan Fay’s right hand, captain of her Incendi police, and cruel to the core.” His expression darkened behind a curtain of shame. “And though I wish with all my heart it wasn’t true, he’s my son.”

  “What?” gasped Arti. “I mean…how? I mean…”

  “I didn’t find out about him until years after Morgan’s betrayal, long after she left me for dead in the flames. I…I never knew about a child.” Merl shook his head slowly. “She never told me.”

  “You mean…you were…”

  “Close.” Merl looked down at Arti, uncomfortably. “Very close.”

  “If she didn’t tell you, then how did you find out? That Mordred was your son, I mean.”

  Merl turned in his seat and looked back at the motorhome’s rear bench where the Grail Tome was stored.

  “The book told me. Two years ago. I was having a difficult time with a passage called The Eye. It’s a piece translated from an old dialect of South Verinese, containing wonderful allusions to time and memory.” His icy blue eyes thawed a little. “Quite sublime, really.

  “I was focusing my thoughts, concentrating on each phrase in isolation, careful not to allow the words to overwhelm me. Then it happened: a window opened in my mind revealing a truth that I was not prepared for.

  “I saw an infant curled up in Morgan’s arms, a tiny little creature squirming and crying with all its might. Then there was the image of a fair-haired child—a boy about eight or nine years old—dancing before a sparring pole, driving his feet and fists into the structure with unnatural force. The last thing I saw was a tall man, the boy grown, standing stiffly at attention. She was there again—Morgan, I mean—placing on his head a hat with the Incendi badge. I could hear her words: Flames took your father, and with flames we will cleanse the world.

  “It was like a lightning bolt to my brain. I told myself it was just imagination, nothing rooted in reality. But it would not be denied, I knew it was true. I knew I had a son.” The old librarian’s face hardened. “And like his mother, he’s become a monster.”

  Arti remembered the night Mordred attacked her on the bridge, how fast he moved and the strange language he used. “He knows The Verses, doesn’t he? That’s why he’s so strong.”

  “Yes,” said Merl. “Morgan trained him in the art of striking with words, and he’s become a master of that discipline. And to answer your next question, I have neither the strength nor the skill to stand against him. The best fighters are those who study The Verses as children; it was something the Knights of Maren discovered when training their first pages. The power of words grows in unison with the mind and body. If a youngster is instructed properly, as an adult they will be far superior in combat to one who has come late to the Art. My abilities pale in comparison to those of Mordred; he would have easily beaten me—and captured you. Our quest would have ended today.” Merl’s face revealed just how difficult it had been for him to abandon Gal. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Even though she understood his decision, Arti’s heart refused to accept it. “Gal is my friend,” she said fiercely, tears returning to her eyes. “We should have tried.”

  Bowing under the heaviness of grief, Arti looked down at Gal’s bag cradled in her lap. Noticing the corner of a piece of cardboard poking up through its cinched mouth, she opened the bag to find the glossy ad from the records room, featuring the happy family. And below it, squeezed in next to the coins and cans of food, was the familiar mustard-yellow book with an embossed crown on its cover.

  Tears streamed down Arti’s cheeks as she lifted The King’s Errand from the bag. The bookmark waited in place at the penultimate chapter; Gal would never know how the story ended. Arti hugged the book tightly against her chest and wept.

  For the rest of that day and the night that followed, Arti refused to talk to Merl. She woke the next morning to see Merl sitting at the round table examining Excalibri and its well. The pen and sphere rested atop the closed Grail Tome, and he was staring at them through a thick magnifying glass, muttering appreciatively to himself. Leaning stacks of smaller books covered the rest of the table, pa
per marks protruding from pages containing notes from the old librarian’s decades of research.

  Merl had given Arti some herbal tea to help her sleep, making a bed for her on the cushioned rear bench after removing the Grail Tome from its hiding place there. Her rest had been fitful, and as much as she wanted to escape the traumatic events of the previous day, she couldn’t. But being awake was even worse, and she wished she’d never opened her eyes.

  “There’s some bread and honey on the counter,” said Merl, still peering through the thick lens at the ornate silver pen. “And I found another tin of Crentian Herb. Pour yourself a cup.” He nodded toward the tea pot resting on the small cooktop.

  “I’m not hungry,” mumbled Arti, pulling up her blanket and turning away from him.

  Merl lowered the magnifying glass and leaned out from the table to look back at her.

  “I know how difficult yesterday was for you,” he said, with more sternness than sympathy. “And it’s clear you blame me for it. But let me remind you that it was your idea to go back to the school, and that I warned against it. I’m sorry about Gal—I mean that. But the threat facing us is bigger than her, or your parents, or you, or me. If Morgan Fay writes the final page of The History, no one will be safe, no one will be free.

  “I never told you, Arti, but I used The Meditations to see the future Morgan will scribe if we don’t stop her. It was only a fleeting glimpse of what could be, but the intensity of the evil I felt in that moment nearly killed me.” Merl shivered, remembering the terrible vision the Grail Tome had shared with him of the world under Morgan Fay’s spell. “Every scribe and reader was dead, and without the power of words for protection, what was left of humanity had surrendered its will, forced to worship a dark deity that had once been the woman I loved.”