by Bill Hiatt
“I want to help!” I said weakly.
“Appreciate the thought, but no,” said Taliesin firmly. “It’s taking everything we have just to slow the poison’s progress. We can’t risk losing contact with you, and if you exert, you’ll spread the poison faster.”
He made sense, but that didn’t make me any happier. Some little kid I didn’t even know was defending me, and I was doing nothing.
Shar and Gordy hung close, swords out, ready if the light failed us. I couldn’t miss the emerald green glow from Shar’s blade or the sunshiny glow from Gordy’s.
Taliesin explained as he worked. “Shar’s sword is essentially antimagic. It prevents its wielder from being affected by hostile spells, and it breaks many spells if it hits them. Gordy’s exudes sunlight, among other things. Either one should dispatch a shadow with a touch. Khalid’s arrows, with their little radiant explosions, can probably take out more than one at a time.”
“Stop the chatter, and focus on the healing!” demanded Bisavó.
“It’s important to keep Lucas in the right mood. If he panics, the poison will act faster,” Taliesin explained.
“I’m not going to panic!” I said, more from embarrassment than from offense.
Taliesin looked me in the eye. “Then you’re a nut case. Any sane person would panic at least a little right now. Unfortunately, the poison really does feed on that reaction.”
Two more crashes in rapid succession, and the parking lot looked much gloomier.
“Khalid! Can you get them far enough back that they can’t throw things at the lights?” asked Taliesin.
“I’m trying!” Khalid said squeakily.
His arrow explosions had been pretty consistent, as had the shadow screams I felt, but it was as if one group was wiped out, and a new one took its place.
Another crash.
“We should charge them,” Shar suggested loudly. “We’ll cut right through them.”
“You’ll be scratched for sure!” I protested.
“Their dragon armor protects most of their bodies,” muttered Taliesin.
“That leather stuff is…what…like dragon skin?”
“You can see that?” asked Taliesin. “Oh, of course you can! You could see the shadow assassin too, right?”
I nodded.
“Khalid can see the shadows, but the other guys can’t. They’d be fighting blind. Shar, Gordy, stay close. Even with dragon armor, it’s just too risky.”
“We’ve only got three lights left,” Shar pointed out. “If those go, they’ll be all over us…all over you and your patient.”
The cold reached my shoulder.
I heard another crash. My mind had started working more slowly, but I wondered if I was going to die here, out in my high school parking lot.
I wouldn’t even be able to say good-bye to Gavin, to Mom and Dad.
“Nurse Florence, you think you can hold him for a minute?” asked Taliesin.
“Maybe, but only that, Tal. Without both of us, the poison will spread much faster.”
“Hang in there, buddy,” Taliesin said to me. Then he let go, jumped to one side, and drew his own sword, the blade of which burst into flames.
Shar and Gordy stepped aside. Taliesin moved toward the shadows, and then he used the sword like a flame thrower, spraying fire across a wide area. I suspected the light was more of a problem for the shadows than the heat. Either way, I felt lots of screams.
The cold reached into my chest. I coughed once or twice, hard, and Viviane looked alarmed.
“Tal, I need you right now!” she called.
Taliesin appeared at my side, with Shar and Gordy in tow, which surprised me. Shouldn’t they be poised to defend us?
“Khalid! Keep firing in all directions until you’re out of arrows!” yelled Taliesin, and several explosions lit up the night.
“Between my fire and Khalid’s arrows, they’ll stay back, at least until he stops shooting,” said Taliesin, putting his hands back on me. “We have to cure Lucas before they try to advance again.”
“You could drive them back another time if you needed to, right?” asked Gordy.
“I can’t do that and hold back the poison,” Taliesin pointed out.
“Could someone else do it?” I coughed again as the poison worked its way further into my right lung.
“I’m the only one who can work the swords that way,” replied Taliesin. “They aren’t really designed to…wait, Shar, get closer. Let’s see if Zom can break the poison spell.” Shar moved forward.
Taliesin took one hand off of my arm to put it on the sword hilt, and suddenly I was bathed in an emerald flood. The poison convulsed within me. For a second, I thought it was gone. However, as soon as the emerald light receded back to the sword, my arm went cold, and the poison advanced again.
“The spell is too powerful,” said Taliesin, obviously frustrated. “The poison seems to be gone, but it reasserts itself almost immediately.”
“Shar, give Zom to Lucas,” Taliesin continued.
“I’m not trained in sword fighting,” I said, trying to make my brain work.
“It’s not to fight with; its power will keep the poison from doing anything while we pound the shadows with everything we’ve got,” Taliesin explained.
I took the sword and felt immediately better. Evidently he knew what he was doing.
Then Taliesin started singing in a language I didn’t understand, and I felt his power grow.
“What’s he doing?” I whispered to Viviane.
“He can do magic without music,” she explained, “but he’s even stronger with it. We don’t know exactly how many shadow assassins are left, but there could be a great number, so he’s trying to generate as much power as he can.”
Taliesin stopped singing long enough to yell, “Close your eyes!”
Just before I did, I saw Gordy hand Taliesin the sunlight sword. Even through my eyelids, I saw the blade flare like a supernova, and the screams of the shadows became deafening.
Suddenly there was nothing. Psychic silence all around us. Blessed silence. Taliesin had driven the shadows away.
Even Bisavó abandoned her skepticism at this point. “Wonderful, wonderful! You have destroyed them!”
“I wish it were that simple,” said Taliesin.
“Creatures like shadows cannot be destroyed,” added Viviane. “The kind of attack Tal used can banish them for a while, and the pain of it would make any ordinary creature think twice about attacking again, but, at least if the Order’s records are correct, the Populus Umbrae will never give up on a target. They’ll just keep coming back.”
“We’ll just have to kick their butts over and over until they get the message,” said Gordy.
“What Nurse Florence is trying to tell us is that they’ll never get that message,” said Taliesin sadly. “We’ll have to find a way to seal off the realm from which they originate, and that’s a little above even my pay grade.”
“From what you’ve told us, we’re dealing with the shadows of ancient Greeks and Romans, right?” asked Shar. “Could the Olympians help?”
“The Olympians?” I felt a little overwhelmed again.
“Yeah, they’re real too,” said Gordy, “and we’re on pretty friendly terms. One time Tal almost got very friendly with Aphrodite, if you know what I mean.”
To my surprise, Taliesin, who had been so calm during a life-threatening situation, turned bright red, and Bisavó snickered, reminding me of the primary motive the Encantado had in visiting our world.
“To…to get back to…the point,” stammered Taliesin, but he didn’t get to finish.
“There’s a girl over there, lying at the edge of the parking lot!” announced Khalid, who must have been scouting.
Shar and Gordy went over to retrieve her and came back in a couple of minutes.
She must have been the assassin girl. Even in the now-feeble light of the parking lot, I could tell her skin was pale, as if she lived underground. The
contrast with her black outfit made her skin stand out, almost as if it were glowing.
For someone who had almost killed me earlier, she looked physically unimposing. She was relatively short and not obviously well-muscled. Magic must have done some of the heavy lifting.
Actually, I fought to not feel sympathy for her. She looked so helpless, lying unconscious in Shar’s arms.
“That sunburst must have overwhelmed her so much it knocked her out,” Taliesin said slowly. “She has to have spent almost her whole life in darkness.”
“What do we do with her?” asked Gordy.
“Kill her!” suggested Bisavó emphatically.
“We don’t kill people unless we have to,” replied Taliesin calmly, “and she is no threat now.”
“She will be when she wakes up!” argued Bisavó, clearly not about to let go of the subject. “And she isn’t ‘people’ anyway.”
“She was once,” said Viviane quietly. “From the information Coventina gave us, it sounds as if she’s a changeling; she was stolen from her parents and raised by the shadows to be a killer.”
“I don’t care how she came to be what she is!” replied Bisavó emphatically. “She tried to kill Lucas!”
“She will not try again; that much I can promise you,” said Taliesin firmly. “We can keep her asleep easily enough. For the moment, she’s more a logistical problem than a threat. We have more pressing issues, like finding a way to cure Lucas. He can’t keep holding Shar’s sword for the rest of his life.”
“You’re right,” acknowledged Bisavó. “Curing Lucas is the most important thing right now.”
“This isn’t a good location anymore,” said Taliesin. “Someone may have heard the lights breaking or seen that flare. Also, the shadows could attack again any time. They can probably track Lucas through the poison in his system, but I doubt they can do it while he holds Shar’s sword. We should be able to move him without having them follow.”
“Alcina’s island?” asked Viviane.
Taliesin glanced at his watch. “It should be around nine in the morning there, so the shadows can’t attack even if they figure out where Lucas is.”
Viviane nodded and raised her arms, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. Slowly a silver whirlpool formed in the air in front of her, expanding until it was large enough to walk through.
“That’s a portal,” said Taliesin, noticing my worried expression. “This particular kind is Celtic magic. Nurse Florence and I can make one to connect to any of the other worlds we’ve been to, and, from there, to any point on earth we’ve been.”
“Other worlds? You mean like Mars?” I asked, amazed.
Taliesin chuckled. “No, not planets. Worlds. Other planes of existence, or realms, if you prefer. The island we’re going to is in another world, making it even harder for the shadows to track you.”
Taliesin glanced in Bisavó’s direction. “Ma’am, you’re welcome to come with us, or we can use your memories to open a portal to the Encante if you’d rather.”
“I am not leaving my Bisneto until he is well,” Bisavó said firmly.
“In that case we’ll all go straight to the island, but I’m going to go through and make sure it’s safe first,” said Taliesin. “I’ll be back in a minute if all’s well.” He walked through the portal as if he were doing no more than walking through a doorway, and then vanished. In a surprisingly short time, he reappeared.
“It’s all good!” he announced. “Ladies first!” He waved Nurse Florence and Bisavó through.
“Speaking of, what about the girl?” asked Shar.
“As I said, logistical problem,” Taliesin said slowly. “We really shouldn’t leave her here. As long as we keep her in the sun and keep her asleep, she shouldn’t be a threat. Let’s take her with us.”
Shar nodded and carried the girl through, with Khalid and Gordy close behind him. Taliesin took me through last.
Even though I had been told what to expect, I was still jolted to suddenly be standing on a white, sandy beach with the early morning sun momentarily blinding me. When my eyes recovered, I noticed we were right at the shore, with waves almost reaching our feet, so Taliesin ushered us a little further inland. In the distance was what looked like a large medieval castle.
“What is this place?” I asked, continuing to look around.
“It used to be the headquarters for an Italian sorceress named Alcina,” explained Taliesin. “We use it for special projects that are too risky to do at home, and it also makes a good place to hide if the need arises.”
“What happened to Alcina?” I asked, feeling a little silly. Taliesin hadn’t brought me here to give me a tour or a history lesson. Still, I had always been curious…
“I’ll tell you later, Lucas. It’s kind of a long story.”
“Yeah, with us, pretty much everything is a long story.” Gordy grinned. “At least the stories are interesting…most of the time.”
“What are we going to do about healing Lucas?” Viviane asked pointedly.
“As I see it, if we can do it under any circumstances, we ought to be able to do it now,” said Taliesin, looking in the general direction of the sun. “As long as Lucas holds the sword, the poison can’t do anything, and the direct sunlight might make it weaker. We should be able to draw it out of him, and then I think the sun will do the rest.”
They had me lie down on the sand, and then they went to work very quickly. Taliesin sang to amplify his power. The rhythm was so compelling, I wanted to get up and dance, but that would probably have looked silly, so I restrained myself. My legs felt nervous though, like they wanted to do something.
They put their hands on me again, and then I felt their power inside me, wrapping around the poison, enclosing it, trying to pull it free. It resisted. I could almost feel it digging in. They surrounded it, but they still couldn’t draw it out.
“Damn!” said Taliesin. “I was sure we were going to get it out that time.”
Bisavó tensed. “You’re not giving up, are you?”
“Tal never gives up!” Khalid grinned widely.
“I’m not giving up at all,” replied Taliesin, “but I do need to think a minute. Why is this poison so powerful?”
“At a guess, the Populus Umbrae had millenniums to experiment with it and very little else to do, at least in the beginning,” replied Viviane.
“Well, we don’t have millenniums to find an antidote,” said Taliesin grimly. “In fact, we probably only have as long as daylight holds.”
“I thought you said they couldn’t track me as long as I held the sword,” I said worriedly.
“I’m confident they can’t,” replied Taliesin. “They might, however, be able to track her,” he continued, waving in the general direction of the assassin. “You know, our resident logistical problem. I didn’t want to leave her in your town; she’d be dangerous to any normal person, even without her weapon. That was when I thought we could cure you on the first try. Now, though, I’m realizing that when it gets dark, the shadows might connect with her. At best, they’ll retrieve her. At worst, they’ll connect to this island through her, come here, and we’ll have to fight that battle all over again, with the difference that they now have a better idea of our strategy.”
“I said from the very beginning that we should kill her!” pointed out Bisavó.
I had trouble adjusting to the fact that my great-grandmother seemed so bloodthirsty.
“And you know, we might have to do just that,” said Taliesin sadly, “but it’s a last resort, understand?”
Bisavó glared at him but did not continue the argument.
“We’re still nowhere with the poison, right?” asked Gordy, probably trying to change the subject.
“Yeah, we need to focus,” agreed Taliesin. “So with a physical poison already in the bloodstream, what would a doctor do?”
“Introduce an antidote, if there was one,” Viviane said almost instantly.
“Great!” Shar said grumpi
ly. “We don’t have one, or we would already have done that.”
“Don’t we?” asked Taliesin slowly. “What is the one thing the shadows can’t take?”
“Light!” Khalid said eagerly.
“Yes, Khalid, exactly!” Taliesin agreed. “And Gordy, what does your sword radiate?”
“Light,” he said, “but we can’t exactly stick the blade into Lucas to get the light inside him.”
“Of course not,” said Taliesin, “but—”
“We might be able to capture some of the light magically and inject it into the affected area!” said Viviane.
“Could that be dangerous?” Bisavó asked suspiciously.
“I don’t see how,” Taliesin said, though he did seem to mull the idea over for a second. “The sword was blessed by Apollo, who has powers of healing as well as light. In fact, though its blade can be deadly in combat and brings disease with every wound, a mere tap of the blade administered to a friend can heal wounds. We have seen its power in action.”
“Why not just tap Lucas with it, then?” Bisavó asked.
“Because the sword only heals physical injuries; it doesn’t break spells,” replied Taliesin.
Just to satisfy Bisavó, Taliesin had me hand let go of Shar’s sword for just a second and tapped me with Gordy’s. As Taliesin had predicted, Gordy’s sword didn’t cure the poison, and I had to grab Shar’s sword back right away to prevent the poison from spreading again.
“You see?” asked Tal. “The light sword must not have been crafted with supernatural poisons in mind. That doesn’t mean, though, that the poison can resist direct exposure to the blade’s light. It’s the best plan we have.”
Apparently Bisavó’s skepticism, allayed for a while by Taliesin’s earlier display of magic, had come back in full force. “Why not take him to this Apollo, then? Surely the one who blessed the sword would know better what to do.”
“We did think of that,” said Taliesin patiently. “Unfortunately, Shar tells me his attempts to invoke the Olympians are hitting a blank wall. Usually that means they are in combat, or at least preparing for combat, and Olympus wouldn’t be a safe place to take Lucas under those circumstances. It’s also possible that the shadows, who, after all, live adjacent to the Greek underworld, have a direct route to the Olympian plane. Without research, we can’t be sure.”