The Book Knights

by J. G. McKenney

  Fay eased up to the podium, a dark angel basking in a halo of light. She looked out at her audience and smiled, knowing this was the moment she had waited a quarter century for. Every face, every set of eyes surrendered to her. The cameras that ringed the stage were a tool of that unquestioned authority, the far-reaching reins with which she steered a nation. The exhilaration she felt made her wonder why she had ever doubted herself.

  Her fear of the Challenger had come to naught, and even if such a person did exist, it was too late to stop what she had put in motion. Although an unlikely candidate, Fay believed the Penderhagen girl was the one named in The History. The girl had been hiding somewhere on the island and was likely already dead if Mordred understood the clue Fay had offered him through The Meditations. But even if the girl was still alive, no one had ever passed The Test, and no one ever would—not with the only surviving Grail Tome safely out of reach behind impenetrable walls of stone and iron. Fay smiled, knowing she would return to the book tonight after the Archive was a pile of smoldering ash. The final page would be waiting for her, ready to receive Wyzera’s pen. Ready to receive her words.

  Waves of applause and cheering washed against the stage for over a minute before Fay raised a hand for silence. The hush was immediate, and the CEO let it hang in the air for what seemed an eternity before offering the gift of her voice.

  “Praise the Corporation,” she intoned into the microphone, and the crowd chanted the words back to her in a deep, enveloping echo.

  “Tonight we arrive at a milestone, a great moment in our history,” said Fay, her ivory face framed by a close-up that flashed across countless screens. The audience stared into their devices to better regard the beauty and depth of her expression, conditioned as they were to abandon flawed reality for virtual perfection.

  Fay raised her arms in a solemn gesture, the sleeves of her shimmering black dress hanging like wings below her upturned hands. “It has been twenty-five years, and we have come so far together. Our righteous journey to overcome the legacy of those who would dictate our existence—who would inscribe our lives and bind us with words—has not been easy.

  “But your courage and strength have vanquished the literate, and your children are free, at last, to live in a world of unbridled vision.” She smiled into the camera and was answered with a chorus of delighted gasps.

  “Such an achievement demands a worthy sacrifice,” said Fay, looking across the stage at the mound of books on the pyre, “a ceremony to rid us of the past, a ritual to finally achieve our true potential.”

  She took a deep breath and declared royally, “It is time for the Archive to burn!”

  A roar of approval shook the stands, and thousands of vidlinks were thrust high into the air, aimed at the pile of books on the platform, eager to record its destruction. A chant crept through the audience like a hungry flame, starting low and growing, reaching out, demanding to be fed.

  “Burn! Burn! Burn!”

  Fay closed her eyes in ecstasy as the mantra reverberated through her. She leaned toward the microphone and spoke her slogan above the steady drone, “A picture is worth a thousand words. Show, don’t tell. You are the Corporation.”

  Another cheer went up, and the chant continued, louder than before, “Burn! Burn! Burn!”

  Fay lifted a long match from the podium and held it up in front of her with both hands for the audience to see, a religious relic, a symbol of their communion. Keeping it raised at arm’s length, she gracefully approached the pyre of books in long, slow, sweeping steps, the silky fabric of her gown floating along with her. The chant reached a fever pitch, her followers voicing their delicious ignorance, their sumptuous need to submit.

  “Burn! Burn! Burn!”

  From overhead, a tall boom camera followed her across the stage like a great serpent tracking its prey, preparing to strike. A flaming torch stood next the platform upon which the books were piled, and Fay came to a stop, standing solemnly beside it. Another microphone was lowered until it was close enough to amplify her words. Staring into a monitor off stage, a puffy, red-faced Victor Herrat let out a deep sigh, seeing the CEO had found her mark. Everything was perfect, everything in place. It would be his directorial masterpiece.

  Fay thrust a hand toward the audience, palm out, demanding silence again. The chant suddenly ended, and a thousand vidlinks hung in the air, mirroring her gesture. She smiled, acknowledging the absolute obedience of her people, then returned her attention to the match in her hand. She carefully pushed its dark red tip into the blazing torch and watched it hiss to life, throwing sizzling sparks as it ignited. Every set of eyes was focused on its tiny flame. Watching. Waiting.

  Looking directly at the main camera, Fay said the words she had waited two and a half decades to utter: “With this flame, I bring light. With this heat, I cleanse.”

  The CEO moved her hand toward the pyre slowly, aiming the burning match at a piece of paper near the base of the mound of books. She let the tiny flame hover there, teasing the audience, heightening expectation. The moment was even more intoxicating than she imagined.

  “You’re too late, Morgan. It’s over.”

  The voice was blunt and heavy, and Fay staggered back from the pyre as if she’d been struck. It sounded as if the words had been uttered directly into her ear by someone standing next to her. But she was alone on the stage, no one else there. Her heart raced, and a bead of sweat formed on her perfect brow. The elation was suddenly doused, replaced by confusion and terror.

  “Yes, I’m still here,” said the voice. “Surprised?”

  Fay gasped as she recognized the man she betrayed so many years ago. “Merl? It can’t be!”

  The microphone carried her words out to the audience, and the chanting became muddled and disjointed before finally dissolving. Was this part of the ceremony? Some new element added to entertain them? Off stage, Victor Herrat was in a panic, knowing it wasn’t part of the script. What was the CEO doing?

  “Oh, but it is me,” said Merl, his words pounding in Fay’s mind. Fear distorted her face, and she stared out at the audience, paralyzed. “I’m very much alive, as is the Grail Tome I rescued from your madness. How else would I be speaking to you now?

  Fay could feel the magic bristling in the words and knew that what he said was true. It was Merl! He lived! And so did the second Grail Tome! He was using The Meditations to speak to her, and that required a great deal of skill and control. Once, he had been afraid of the books, unwilling to tap into their potency, but now he commanded that power with apparent ease.

  “You failed, Morgan. Arti Penderhagen wields Excalibri. The final page is hers.”

  Just then, a scream went up from the rear of the auditorium, and the crackling sound of lighters filled the air. In a desperate attempt to flee the ensuing violence, rows of spectators cascaded down from their seats, pushing into those ahead of them until wave after wave of bodies washed against the stage.

  Fay stood like a statue next the pyre, suddenly old, as if the years she had cheated caught up to her at once. She couldn’t help but think the chaos unfolding in front of her was a product of Merl’s ominous pronouncement, that he commanded it. The horrible realization smothered her hopes; it was over, her dynasty was at its end, the legacy she had labored so hard for had been stolen. The final page is hers.

  A squad of Incendi guards ran to the CEO, surrounding her, shielding her from the violent stampede. Fay forgot about the match she was holding until it burned her hand, and she flinched, casting it away. It landed softly on a crumpled page at the pyre’s edge, its tiny flame surviving the wind of flight and fleeing bodies. It rested there, tasting the paper beneath it, before unfolding like the yellowy blossoms of a flower.

  The fire crept to the outermost books on the pyre, their dry covers quickly surrendering to it. A four-hundred-year old Astengan treatise, The Cost of Liberty, bubbled away into memory; a collection of Parmellese epic poems dissolved, their heroes’ feats to be forgotten. One great w
ork unwillingly betrayed another, delivering death to its neighbor.

  The troopers closed their protective ring around Fay and hurriedly whisked her away, narrowly escaping the tall boom camera as it crashed to the stage. The auditorium lights flickered once, twice, then finally went out.

  His bond with the book was suddenly broken, and Merl lurched back in his seat, his gloved hands sliding from the Grail Tome open on the round table. It took a moment for him to gather himself, for each fragment of memory to fall into place. The spell had sapped his strength, and he breathed deeply, eyes blinking, waiting for the cobwebs shrouding his mind to clear.

  From what he could tell, The Looking Glass had worked as intended, transporting his consciousness into Morgan Fay’s. He had been there with her, a part of her, seeing and hearing everything she did: the faces, the voices, a thousand hovering screens.

  Merl had been watching the vidlink, waiting for Morgan Fay to make her appearance. When she stepped onto the stage, a shiver ran down his spine; she hadn’t aged a day in a quarter century. The image stirred up a painful mix of emotions in him, as if he was still looking at her through the flames, still trying to understand why she had answered his devotion with treachery. It surprised him that his feelings were still there, still raw after so many years. And even more surprising was the fact that, for a brief moment after announcing himself, he sensed the same regret, the same loss, in her.

  He had delivered his message; he was sure of it. Morgan Fay knew he was alive and that he possessed the second Grail Tome. But the connection had not lasted long enough for him to weigh Fay’s reaction to his bluff about the final page being written by Arti. Something happened that pulled her away, severing the link between them. There was screaming and panic and the distinct sound of lighters snapping the air, and the last thing he felt was Morgan Fay’s utter dread at the thought that he was the cause of the violence, that he controlled it.

  Then Merl remembered the burning match.

  It had been in Fay’s hand, and he felt the sting of its tiny flame along with her. She had been standing next the pyre when she dropped it, just as the Incendi were rushing to her aid. But where did it land?

  Merl reached for the vidlink he’d placed next the book, just in time to see a squad of Incendi guards hastily escort Fay away. The streaming images went in and out of focus, shaking with the motion of the fleeing spectators. Bodies were everywhere, a battle line was forming between Incendi guards in riot gear and a rabble of armed men.

  The last thing Merl saw before the vidlink went black made his heart sink. The bottom of the pyre was smoking, and a small flame appeared.

  CHAPTER 25

  Within the narrow confines of the tower platform, Lance and Mordred faced off, circling one another, trading places on the floor’s polished stone grid like two chess pieces in a deadly end game. Neither had faced as skilled a foe, and both knew that a misstep would be answered without mercy. For two combatants so expertly trained in the strike of words, the outcome was anything but predictable.

  Mordred was privileged to have studied The Verses from the source, from the very pages of the Grail Tome itself. That direct connection had infused the power of the poems into his mind and body, each potent phrase forging memory and movement into a single entity, arming his will with an arsenal of terrible weapons.

  And though Lance had learned The Verses indirectly through the oral tradition of his family, he was not without his own advantage. He could call upon the lessons of his Uncle Jean, The Bard of Lucinne, the great master and teacher who instilled in his nephew a true appreciation of the Art. The fighting poems were more than tools to the young Ferencian, more than rote devices to be employed in battle. To Lance, they represented the power of words in its purest form, something to be revered and respected. In return for his veneration, they answered his will, not as servants but allies.

  Standing at the top of the narrow staircase, away from the gladiators battling in their stone arena, Arti and Gwen watched the dizzying flurry of strikes and blocks with awe, finding it hard to discern one man from the other in the violent blur of fists and feet. The steady hum of words reverberated through the space, a continuous cadence spilling from the combatants’ lips as they spun and kicked and punched at each other. The Cobra, The Falling Sky, The Dagger’s Edge; they recited one ancient poem after another to amplify their actions and shape their attacks. And each time those efforts were negated by an equally potent defense; The Mongoose, The Storm Breaker, The Shattered Blade. In harmony with their words, auras enveloped each man, shrouds of energy pulsing under the weak glow of the wall sconces.

  Both fighters were marvels of speed and power, but their methods could not have been more different. Where Mordred was machine-like, structured, and precise, Lance had an elegant, flowing style. A dancer’s style. As dissimilar as their techniques were, each countered the other perfectly, wills conversing and colliding with equal force. Frustrated by the stalemate, Mordred backed away from Lance, employing a different strategy, drawing upon his cruelty to shift the balance.

  “She died well,” he said, catching his breath, observing the subtle change in his young opponent’s face, a flicker of emotion.

  Gwen called out from the stairs, “Don’t listen to him, Lance!”

  Mordred started to circle again, studying Lance with a vulture’s eyes. “I remember her final breath. The last beat of her heart.”

  Lance squared himself to his opponent, turning with him. From somewhere in his memory among the countless hours of training and practice, his uncle shouted a warning: An unshielded mind is the knight’s bane; the most dangerous strike comes from within.

  “She called you a Knight of Maren,” growled Mordred, “but you left her alone and defenseless.”

  The accusation stabbed at Lance’s conscience; his beloved Aunt Vivian was dead because he hadn’t been there to protect her. When Mordred saw the flash of guilt in his opponent’s eyes, the sudden inward look of self-doubt, he knew the young Ferencian’s mental armor had been pierced. In the split-second Lance’s guard was down, Mordred pounced, humming a rapid stream of words, lashing out with his right hand, grasping Lance’s right wrist, spinning him violently toward the iron door. From behind, Mordred hooked his left arm under Lance’s, wrapping his palm around the back of his neck, slamming him against the barrier. Still gripping Lance’s other arm, Mordred wrenched it behind his back, driving it up into his shoulder blade. There was a sickening pop, and Lance grimaced at the explosion of pain as his shoulder dislocated.

  Unable to free his arms, Lance desperately tried to wrap his legs around Mordred’s, to gain purchase and break the hold. Mordred anticipated the effort, throwing Lance face down on the floor, straddling his back, making escape impossible.

  “Knight of Maren,” mocked Mordred. “You’re nothing!”

  He leaned close and whispered venomously in Lance’s ear, “De la flamma, sombral.” From flame, shadow.

  Mordred slammed Lance’s head into the granite floor, shattering his nose and opening a wide gash above his cheek. Arti screamed as blood poured from Lance’s battered face, pooling on the stone slab beneath him. Gwen ran to Lance’s aid, jabbing at Mordred with the electroshock baton. The Incendi captain mumbled a verse, and the white bolt from the lighter climbed up his back and leapt across to the iron door, repelled by the words. He let go of Lance’s lame arm, grabbing the weapon from Gwen, shattering it against the floor before driving his fist into her stomach, propelling her backward into the wall. She thudded off the stone, curling into a ball, gasping for air.

  With his head pressed against the blood slicked floor, Lance looked over at Gwen. The sight made him want to scream. He’d failed her just like he’d failed his Aunt Vivian. Like he’d failed Arti and his oath. Despite all his training, the countless lessons his Uncle Jean had taught him, Mordred had won, and it sickened Lance to think what he would do to Gwen and Arti. No matter how hard Lance struggled, he couldn’t shake the Incendi captain from his
back.

  Mordred answered Lance’s efforts by driving his face into the floor again. Still on his knees, he straddled Lance’s back, wrapping an arm around his neck. Uttering another string of words, he began to strangle him.

  Arti knew she must do something or watch Lance die. But what could she do? Gwen had tried to stop Mordred with the lighter, and all it got her was a fist in the stomach.

  I don’t even have a weapon.

  Then Arti remembered Excalibri. Fumbling in her pocket, she withdrew the wooden case and flipped open its lid. Raising the pen above her head, point down like a dagger, she launched herself at Mordred, stabbing it with all her strength at his exposed back. He noticed her coming just in time to utter a verse—the same one he had used against Gwen and the lighter—but this time the words failed him.

  Immune to Mordred’s defense, the pen sank deep between his shoulder blades. With a roar, he released Lance from the chokehold, reaching back with both hands, clawing at Excalibri’s tiny silver pommel.

  Coughing for air, Lance rolled out from beneath Mordred, a poem flowing from his lips. He focused the power of The Battering Ram on Mordred’s chest, delivering a crushing kick that sent the Incendi captain hurtling back into the iron door. Mordred staggered on his knees, trying to rise, but his legs would not obey him. He opened his mouth and uttered a last slurred phrase, a string of disjointed words that Lance didn’t recognize, then he swayed for a moment and collapsed face down on the bloodstained floor.

  Finding his feet, Lance warily approached Mordred’s body. He reached down and touched the Incendi captain’s neck but felt no pulse. “From flame, shadow,” he whispered.

  Lance turned to see Gwen standing. Her legs were a bit shaky, but she raised a hand to put him at ease. “I’m okay. Just got the wind knocked out of me. And my back hurts.” She rubbed it and winced, “Can’t wait to see the bruise.” Lance’s eyes softened beneath the mask of blood. “But you don’t look so good,” she said. “Your face. Your arm.”