“So we’ll bring you back and that’ll be it! Then we’ll destroy the Books!”
Gabriel shook his head. “It is too late.”
“But—”
“Listen to me—all I have done since I met you, I would do again. I regret nothing. But if you have your brother bring me back, then everything, every sacrifice I have made, will be meaningless. Your destiny is to restore order and peace. You must let me stay.”
Emma was gripping his hand as hard as she could. He was wrong; she knew he was wrong; she just had to convince him!
He lifted her chin so her eyes, blurry with tears, met his.
“Remember, no matter the distance between us, you will always be with me.”
The sobs broke from her chest, and Emma threw her arms around his neck. He was wrong! He was wrong! She knew he was wrong! And yet, even as she thought that, a voice inside her, a voice that hadn’t even existed just days before, told her that he was right, that the order of the universe was that people died, and you lost them. Today she would say goodbye to Dr. Pym and Gabriel. One day, years and years from now, she would lose Kate and Michael or they would lose her.
Death was the reckoning all had to pay.
But the love you gave was yours. That, you got to keep.
And even as her heart broke, she could feel her love for Gabriel like a flame burning inside her.
“She must go,” Dr. Pym said. “Now.”
Still clutching him around the neck and sobbing, Emma whispered, “I love you.”
And he whispered back, “And I, you.”
Then Dr. Pym took her hand and led her to the edge of the cliff. She drew her arm across her eyes to wipe away the tears. She could see out over the mountains to the endless space open before them. Gabriel stepped to her other side. She took several deep, shaking breaths. She didn’t look at him. It was enough to know that he was there.
“So…how do we get to the portal? Can you fly me there or something?”
“Not exactly,” the wizard said. “Hold the book tightly.”
“What—”
“I am sorry about this.”
And then he pushed her off the cliff.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Reckoning of the Dire Magnus
Of the three dragons diving toward them over the roofs of the city, all were black and two were roughly the size of Wilamena, while the third was half again as large.
“I’m going to put you down with King Robbie.”
“No!”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s just as dangerous down there! I’m not leaving you!”
“Very well, Rabbit.”
And Wilamena drove herself forward, aiming them directly at the trio of dragons.
Michael shouted into the wind, “Are you sure this is the best course of action?”
But the golden dragon only beat her wings harder. As they passed over the city gates, Michael glanced down and saw King Robbie and the army of elves and men and dwarves as they began to lay siege to the walls. King Robbie had already erected bulwarks to protect the fighters from the arrows and spears and boiling tar being poured down from above, while behind them the ice was cracking as the last of their soldiers reached the shore.
Then the three dragons were upon them. Wilamena unleashed a jet of flame, and the trio spiraled out of the way as the flames licked at their wings.
“Why didn’t they try to burn us?”
“Because of you. You are too precious. That is the only advantage we—”
Wilamena shrieked in pain and lurched to the side. One of the smaller black dragons had spun about and sliced her belly with its claws. The dragon grappled with them, its jaws snapping at Wilamena, who was biting back just as fiercely. Michael, in desperation, had drawn his sword, but there was nothing he could do. Then he heard a shriek behind him and whipped about to see the second of the smaller dragons coming directly for them.
“Wilamena!”
He didn’t know if his voice would carry over the shrieking and hissing, but the golden dragon thrust herself away and dove. She banked across the top of the wall, beating her wings furiously, but Michael could see the two black dragons close behind.
“Where’s the other? Where’s the third?”
But Wilamena didn’t respond.
In seconds, they were away from the city, out over the cliffs, and all was strangely silent and dark. Wilamena flew lower, skimming the water, and Michael could feel the spray cool and wet against his face as the sea threw itself against the rocks.
“There,” Wilamena growled.
Before them, the cliffs curved, and in the rock was a kind of natural archway.
“I don’t understand. What’re you—”
But Wilamena was already through the archway and banking to follow the curve of the island. The moment she was out of sight of the other dragons, she climbed hard, looping back as she gained altitude, and Michael looked down and saw the other two dragons heading into the archway, the first one already through, and then he and Wilamena were plunging straight down, and this time she didn’t have to tell him. Michael put a hand to his glasses and took a deep breath.
She slammed into the back of the second dragon, driving it underwater, forcing it down to the rocky floor of the sea, and it was impossible to see anything with the darkness and the thunder of bubbles, and Michael’s lungs were soon screaming for air. He was aware of a great ripping and tearing, a terrible violence happening very close by; then Wilamena launched herself upward, breaking the surface of the water, and Michael took deep, gulping breaths, and he looked to see Wilamena throwing aside a pair of huge, batlike wings.
Then the first dragon was on them.
This time, amazingly, it was Michael who helped.
His sword was still drawn, and he turned with it raised, and, thanks to the sharpness of the dwarfish steel and the force of its dive, the other dragon impaled itself on the point.
Michael felt as if his arm had been wrenched from his body and he cried out and let go of the handle, leaving the sword embedded in the dragon. The two-and-a-half-foot sword was not long enough to kill the creature, but the beast fell away, shrieking.
The wind was now whipping all around them, and clouds gathered overhead. A shard of lightning broke across the sky, and Michael saw what looked like a large cave, high up the cliff.
“There!”
A moment later, they were flying full tilt into a deep, wide cave in the side of the island.
“Do you know where this goes?” Michael asked.
“No.”
Michael said no more, but he glanced back to see the other dragon entering the cave behind them.
—
“But there must be someone who can take us! Please! We—”
“Maybe you didn’t hear so good,” said the boat owner, whose face was the shape and texture of a paper bag that had been left in the rain. “Loris belongs to the Dire Magnus now. He’s the baddest of the bad. And it ain’t just him. Monsters. Trolls. Whole island’s overrun.”
“Worse than that,” said a sailor at the next table. “I was talking with Giuseppe. He saw a fleet heading toward Loris. Warships and the like. Gonna be a heavy squall. Better steer clear.”
“Exactly,” the first man said. “Forget about Loris. Drop anchor here.”
“You don’t understand!” Clare was frantic. “Our children are there!”
But the men in the tavern were through talking and turned away from the couple.
Angry and frustrated, Richard and Clare walked out into the night air. They had arrived here, in San Marco, an island at the edge of the Archipelago, perhaps an hour before, flown by Gabriel’s friend, the old pilot. The pilot would’ve taken them farther, but there was nowhere to land on Loris, which meant the couple needed a boat. For that, the pilot had directed them to the tavern where the boat captains congregated. Then he’d left, intending to retrieve Gabriel’s body from the village on the Arabian Peninsula. There
had been no way for Richard and Clare to carry his body across the ropes that Rourke had strung over the chasm; indeed, they’d barely made it across themselves. Still, the decision to leave Gabriel’s body behind had been heartrending, all the more so because of his sacrifice.
But the time to reflect on that, and mourn his loss, would come later.
“What’re we going to do?” Richard said as he and his wife stood outside the tavern.
“Maybe we could steal a boat.”
There was a sound behind them, and they turned to see that the waitress had followed them out. She was a thick-shouldered woman in her fifties.
“You say your children are in danger? That’s why you want to get to Loris?”
“Yes,” Clare said. “Can you help us?”
“There were two fellas trying to get there a while ago. No one would take them either, so they ended up buying a boat.” She looked toward the harbor. “The jetty there. Fourth berth. You can just see ’em. Careful, though. They seemed a bit strange.”
Richard and Clare thanked her and hurried down to the water. They found a small boat, not more than twenty feet long, with a rickety-looking motor that a pair of extremely old men were arguing about how to start.
“I thought you said you knew how to do this. The battle’ll be over by the time we get there.”
“Well, if it is, I promise I’ll clobber you on the head with a club. Can’t have you missing all the carnage.”
“I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me when the motor starts or the world ends, whichever comes first.”
“Excuse us,” Clare said. “Are you going to Loris?”
The two old men stopped what they were doing and looked up. Richard would have guessed they were both a hundred years old if they were a day. And there was also something about them that made him think instantly, Wizards.
Neither old man spoke; they just went on staring at the couple.
“I’m afraid we can’t pay you,” Richard said. “At least not right now. But we really need to get there. And yes, we know about the battle.”
One of the old men nudged the other. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That I’m a handsome devil?”
“No.”
“That she looks exactly like you know who.”
“Yep.”
“Spitting image.”
“Spitting image.”
Richard realized that they were looking at his wife.
Then, all by itself, the engine roared to life. The two old men let out yelps of joy.
“Get in! Get in!” cried one of them. “No point standing around! The battle ain’t gonna go on forever!”
“That’s right,” cried the other as the couple climbed down the ladder and into the boat. “That’s unless you’re thinking of opening a shop, the Standing-Around-on-the-Dock-While-We-Save-the-World Shop.”
“Let me introduce myself,” said the first old man after they’d cast off the ropes and were speeding out of the harbor. “My name is Beetles; this is my butler, Jake.”
—
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not; you’re bleeding.”
The second black dragon was dead. Wilamena had lain in wait for it past a bend in the cavern, clinging to the ceiling till it was right below her; then she’d fallen on it, the same as she had with the other dragon. This time, though, the dragon had been prepared, and the fighting had been savage. Michael had found it the more frightening for being difficult to follow in the darkness, though it was illuminated now and then by blasts of fire from both dragons.
Michael had felt useless, and even more than useless, an encumbrance, for in trying to protect him, Wilamena was leaving herself more open than she should. Finally, he’d taken his knife and sliced the straps that held him in the saddle and leapt off, bouncing and rolling down the rocky wall, and it was a testament to his dwarfish armor that he hadn’t broken every bone in his body.
Once at the bottom, he’d turned over, groaning, just in time to see an enormous shape falling toward him. He’d barely managed to roll out of the way as it had landed with an earthshaking crash. The shape had come down so fast and the cave was so dark that he hadn’t been able to tell which dragon it was. Then he’d looked and seen the black scales. He’d waited, hardly daring to breathe, but it hadn’t moved.
Finally, he’d ventured, “Wilamena?”
A long, terrible moment. Then, from the darkness above: “Yes, Rabbit. I’m alive.”
Michael had watched her moving down the cave wall, slow and careful, clearly favoring her right side. Then she’d tried to glide the rest of the way, and he’d seen that her wing was injured as well. She’d landed heavily beside him. Up close, and with the glow coming off her golden scales, he’d seen wounds crisscrossing her body.
“Come. We will fly back to the city.”
At first, Michael thought she was not going to be able to fly at all, but she found her balance, pumping harder with her left wing, and soon he saw flashes of lightning that told him they were nearing the cave mouth.
“You should not have leapt off like that.”
“I had to; you were getting hurt trying to protect me.”
She said nothing, but he heard, and felt, her deep, rumbling purr.
Then they emerged from the cave into the open air, and the largest of the black dragons fell on them from above. Michael saw the movement from the corner of his eye, but by the time he yelled a warning, one of the dragon’s talons had ripped a gash, the deepest yet, in Wilamena’s side. The dragon’s dive took it past them, and Wilamena jerked herself in the direction of the city. She beat her wings frantically, but she could muster no real speed, and when Michael turned, he saw the black dragon circling above them.
“It’s not attacking!”
“It knows I’m as good as dead. It’s savoring the victory.”
Suddenly, Michael felt a searing pain, and he looked down to see that fresh blood, bubbling up from the wound the dragon had given Wilamena, was scalding his leg. He reached into his bag and gripped the Chronicle, then laid his body flat, placing his hand directly on the gash. The dragon’s blood burned his skin, but he kept his hand where it was. For one fleeting instant, he thought of Magda von Klappen warning him not to use the Chronicle; then he closed his eyes and called the magic forth.
For the second time, Michael shared the elf princess’s life, her joy in the living world, the way she could feel the hush of moonlight across her skin, or remember, perfectly, a birdsong she’d heard a hundred years before, and as he shared her memories, he learned that she had transformed herself into the dragon too often and for too long, that Pym had warned her when he’d refashioned the bracelet, telling her that if she wasn’t careful, she would find herself trapped forever as the dragon, but she had taken the risk, and kept taking it, for Michael’s sake.
Then came a tearing deep inside him, and Michael cried out and collapsed against the dragon’s back.
“Rabbit!”
Gasping, Michael couldn’t bring himself to respond. But he thought of Kate collapsing on the beach after using the Atlas to stop time, and told himself that whatever damage he’d done to himself, or to the world, Wilamena had been hurt, and he’d had no choice.
Then there was a scream behind them, and the black dragon attacked.
“Hold on, Rabbit.”
Wilamena dove hard for the island, and Michael, even in his pain and confusion, noted that she still flew unevenly, swerving about as if she had no control. He saw the ground rushing up and scrambled to grip the saddle as Wilamena crashed face-first into the beach. He went flying head over heels, but landed unharmed on the sand. When he finally had managed to stand and his vision righted itself, he turned to see the black dragon crowing over his foe, letting out long triumphant roars as Wilamena cringed before it. Wilamena herself was covered with blood and sand and favoring the side that had been wounded. Her left wing lay crumpled beneath her. M
ichael didn’t understand; why hadn’t the Chronicle worked? Why wasn’t she healed?
Then the black dragon threw back its head to let out a belt of flame, and Wilamena leapt upward, snapping her jaws tight around the other’s neck. The jet of flame was cut off. But the black dragon was bigger and stronger, and it fought back, clawing at Wilamena’s chest and torso, sending cascades of golden scales shimmering into the darkness. Only Wilamena refused to let go. With her jaws locked tight, she yanked this way and that, till with one great, vicious, twisting wrench, she ripped the other dragon’s head clean off. The black dragon stood for a moment, blood and fire shooting from its neck, then fell over on the sand.
The golden dragon let out a thunderous roar and shot flame hundreds of feet into the sky. For Michael, it had been like watching dinosaurs battle, creatures from some savage, primeval past, and Wilamena was one of them.
She walked toward Michael, limping slightly.
“You tricked him. You made him think you were still wounded.”
“Yes. But you used the Chronicle when you should not have. I felt it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Though the truth was, Michael sensed that something inside him had been broken, something beyond even the Chronicle’s power to fix. His hand trembling, he pulled the red book from his bag and leafed through the pages.
“It’s just a book now. The magic’s all in me.”
He said it woodenly, both knowing and not knowing what it meant. Then he opened his hand and let the book drop onto the sand; he didn’t need it anymore.
“You saved me,” the dragon said. “But at great cost to yourself.”
“I’d do it again.”
The dragon lunged forward, seizing him by the collar of his tunic and lifting him, like a mother cat might a kitten, then depositing him on her back.
“Come.”
In less than a minute, they were over the city. Michael saw that several large holes had been blasted along the walls, and the fighting there was close and intense as their army surged forward. The golden dragon landed on the beach, where there seemed to be a command area of sorts. As Michael leapt down, King Robbie rushed up and hugged him.
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