Sacrifices

by Mercedes Lackey

  “—but why make things easy for them?” Muirin finished.

  “Yeah, I try not to upset people carrying Uzis,” Burke said dryly, and Muirin laughed.

  SIX

  It was actually a few minutes before curfew when Burke and Spirit got inside, and it was easy enough for them to mingle with the other students heading for their rooms. Their boots and coats attracted no attention—everybody just assumed they’d been outside for a legitimate reason. Still, it was more of a relief than Spirit had expected to reach her room and shut the door. From the moment she’d climbed into the back of Muirin’s car with Burke earlier this evening, she’d been thinking: This part isn’t very dangerous—and this part isn’t either. But it all had been, and now that she was safe—as safe as anyone got at Oakhurst—she could let herself realize it.

  She hung up her coat and the rest of her outdoor gear—hat, gloves, scarf—in the closet, then sat down on the bed to pull off her snow boots. At least by the time she’d reached the hall in the girls’ dorm wing, her boots had been dry; there wasn’t a single mark on the carpet to show she’d been outside.

  Not that Oakhurst needed visible proof you’d done something—she was sure there were some Gifts they weren’t being taught about in class, just so they could be used against them. And if one of the staff had Scrying, and thought about using it …

  The five of them were screwed.

  Either they don’t have it or they aren’t using it, she told herself firmly. And if they haven’t used it yet, why start now?

  It was cold comfort, but it was all she had. She pulled out the (red) sweater she’d bought in Billings and shrugged into it. Wearing something that wasn’t in the school colors had never seemed more like an act of defiance, and the fierce joy she felt at defying Oakhurst disturbed her. It could so easily tip over into uncontrolled rage—and if she lost her self-control in this situation, she was doomed.

  I need to talk to QUERCUS, she decided. She sat down at her computer, but she decided to check her email first. Just as well, as there were a dozen emails from Maddie about the Spring Fling. Spirit groaned as she skimmed them. Who cares what music we pick? I bet Breakthrough’s going to take over the entertainment just like they did at the Sadie Hawkins Dance. At least the next meeting of the Committee wasn’t until Wednesday. And that means I get out of Endurance Riding that day! she thought, and that actually was such a relief it made her feel almost happy.

  She was just reaching for the Ironkey when there was a tap at her window.

  She stifled a yelp and gingerly pulled back the curtain. Burke was standing outside in the snow. He waved.

  “What are you doing out there?” she demanded, opening the window. She was glad she hadn’t changed to her pajamas already—she wasn’t quite ready to go there with Burke.

  “Wanted to talk. Can I come in?”

  Fortunately the windows in the ground floor rooms were large and low. She pulled it open as wide as it would go—the wave of cold night air was like opening a refrigerator, and she winced—and helped him climb through the window. He brushed off as much snow as he could before swinging his legs over the sill.

  “Nice,” Burke said, looking around her room. “Very, um, pink.”

  Spirit rolled her eyes. “I suppose yours is blue?”

  He grinned at her. “What else?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “So,” she said. “How come we lied to Muirin?” She hadn’t meant it to sound so much like an accusation, but she couldn’t take it back now. “I mean—”

  “We didn’t exactly lie,” Burke hedged. “I guess I wanted to talk to you first before we told the others—and I guess I wanted to tell them all together so we could figure out what to do next. I mean, we’ve found Merlin, so we just have to figure out how to … um, get him to help us, I guess.”

  “Are you sure?” Spirit said doubtfully. “About Merlin, I mean.” Something still didn’t seem right about Wolfman’s story.

  “You saw the picture,” Burke said, sounding surprised at her question. “Stephen Wolferman’s army buddy is Doctor A. With everything else Wolfman told us tonight, it makes sense: we know Mordred was in the oak, and he got out—the night of the ‘Hellriders Massacre’—and the only survivor was Kenny’s buddy Wolfman. And the only way that makes sense is if Kenny Hawking is Merlin. Wolfman should have been killed—or taken over like the others—I know I’m guessing about what happened to the Hellriders who vanished, but it makes sense, right?—but he wasn’t. So Kenny—Doctor A—Merlin—must have protected him somehow.”

  “That makes sense,” Spirit said slowly. “He must have been a Reincarnate—the Reincarnate, really. If Elizabeth was able to awaken her Reincarnate memories all on her own, then maybe seeing Mordred freed from the oak tree awakened Kenny’s. So he chased Mordred away, or, or, or something. But”—the thing that was nagging at her was coming closer to the surface now —“why would he come back and found Oakhurst here? Around Mordred’s oak tree?”

  “That’s the part that actually makes sense,” Burke said. “You remember Ms. Groves telling us how magicians would put their spirit into something outside themselves—like a rock or a box—to keep it safe and make themselves more powerful? Maybe Mordred put his into the oak tree. Or maybe Merlin wants the oak tree so he can stick Mordred back into it again.”

  “Maybe,” Spirit said doubtfully. “But if ‘Kenny’ is Merlin, he’s supposed to be the good guy, right? So why is Oakhurst full of Shadow Knights? Why did he call them back here?”

  “Maybe it’s a trick,” Burke said slowly. “Maybe he’s called them all back to trap them. Or … maybe he isn’t really in charge. We wondered what the Wild Hunt was for. Maybe it was to keep Merlin helpless and trapped.”

  “But we got rid of it back in December,” Spirit said, shaking her head. “So he ought to be … re-Merlinized, right?”

  “Maybe he’s trying. Maybe that’s why he’s seemed so weird lately. And I know December feels like a really long time ago, but … whoever called the Hunt and was making the sacrifices has only missed two so far—Midwinter and Candlemas—Imbolc. Maybe they have to miss a third one before the spell is really broken. And maybe Merlin can’t figure out who’s on his side any more than we can.”

  Spirit nodded slowly. Burke’s explanation made as much sense as anything else, and she certainly didn’t have one of her own. “But what if we’re wrong about everything?” she said. “Burke, we’re just guessing.”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you first.”

  Spirit bit her lip. “Do you think maybe we shouldn’t mention the part about Merlin?” she asked hesitantly. “We know how Mordred escaped now. And we know the missing Hellriders became his first Shadow Knights. If we can find pictures of them … one of them has to be Mordred, right?”

  “But you said yourself Merlin’s the good guy,” Burke said. “We can’t know who he is and not tell the others. We need to help him.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Spirit said slowly.

  “I hope I am,” Burke answered. “Thanks.”

  “For what?” Spirit asked.

  “For listening,” Burke said. “For helping. I better go. It’s after lights out and I don’t have Muirin to make me invisible.” He took her by the shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. “We’ll get through this. You’ll see.”

  He opened the window again and climbed out. Spirit reached to close it.

  “And maybe Mr. Green can help, too,” Burke said. He raised his hand in a wave and strode off.

  Spirit closed the window very slowly. She’d been feeling better about everything—they’d found Merlin, and now he’d destroy the Shadow Knights and summon the Grail Knights—until Burke’s last words.

  The only people Mr. Green is going to help are the Shadow Knights! He’s one of them! He’s a friend of Ovcharenko’s!

  She pulled the curtains shut again and sat down on her bed. If Burke thought Beckett Green was on
their side, what else might he be wrong about?

  QUERCUS will know, she thought desperately. Her hands shook as she fumbled in the drawer for the Ironkey, but when she plugged it in and clicked the book icon, the chatroom window didn’t appear. She opened her browser. Instead of the familiar intraweb home page, there was a white screen with the words SYSTEM DOWN FOR UPGRADES.

  She was all alone.

  * * *

  The day was cold. A raw gray wind whipped through the bare branches of the trees. It had been spring when Arthur drew the sword from the stone. It had been summer when they married. The years of Camelot seemed all too brief, as if the glorious reign of Arthur and Guinevere had only filled a handful of seasons. And now it was autumn. Arthur was dead and his kingdom was broken. All that remained were the magnificent white horses that had been her gift to him. Symbol of the king’s justice and the rule of law.

  There was one last sentence to see carried out.

  “I will craft a prison that will hold you until the end of Time.…”

  The memory of The Merlin’s words gave her courage.

  Guinevere heard muffled shouting and the clink of chains as Mordred Kinslayer was dragged to his prison. His hands were bound with iron and silk and ivy, his mouth had been sewn shut, his body was weighted down with a hundredweight of silver chains. Even such bindings would not hold him for long—but there was a stronger prison waiting.

  Beside the sacred tree The Merlin waited, patient and terrible as the land itself. Arthur’s knights pushed Mordred toward the oak with their wooden stangs.

  The Merlin began to chant.

  Mordred began to sink into the tree as if its wood were softened wax. He struggled, eyes wild with anger and power. In a moment more it would be done. The land would be cleansed of the terrible evil.

  But at the last moment, Mordred tore loose the sinews that sewed his mouth shut and roared out a single terrible word. The chill gray of the day turned to howling darkness and killing cold—but The Merlin stood fast, and when the terrible darkness had passed, the oak’s bark was seamless.

  Mordred was bound.

  The Merlin staggered forward, writing words of fire into the wood: a binding and a warning. Then at last, he turned to look at her. “It is finished,” he said, in a voice flat with exhaustion.…

  “Are you well?” she asked, and saw his mouth twist in a bitter smile.

  “The Kinslayer made one last attempt to gain his freedom,” The Merlin answered. “He cast a spell that will bind me to this aging flesh until the end of time. He means someday to escape his prison—and he means there to be no one left to fight him. But this prison will endure as long as the land itself endures. He has failed.”

  “But we will not fail,” Guinevere said fiercely. “Hear my vow, Merlin of Britain: until Death itself claims Mordred Kinslayer, I pledge myself and my people to this task. When he comes, we will fight. And we will win.”

  “The land has heard your vow,” The Merlin said. “And I pray the day you speak of never comes.”

  So do I, Guinevere said silently. So do I.

  * * *

  Spirit woke up feeling as if she hadn’t slept at all. Maybe I’m coming down with something, she thought hopefully, before reflecting that even the flu wouldn’t get her out of classes. They’d just Heal her with magic. And probably give her a demerit. Or a million demerits. When she’d come to Oakhurst, demerits had meant you were confined to your room between classes. Now … She shuddered. She wondered if enough demerits just meant you disappeared.

  At least today she wasn’t running late. She had time for a shower, even. When she finished dressing, habit made her check the computer again. The intraweb had been down last night. Did that mean they knew about QUERCUS?

  Oh don’t be silly, Spirit Victory White. If they did, you’d already be dead.

  She winced as she played back her words in her mind. It was true. Loch wasn’t the only one in mortal danger. Everyone at Oakhurst was—especially the five of them.

  She took a deep breath. That ought to frighten her more than it did. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe it—she’d had plenty of proof in the last six months that it was true. It happened. It happened a lot. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized she was angry more than afraid. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. We’ve already lost our families. And nobody cared. And Oakhurst came and took us. And now it’s trying to kill us.

  It wasn’t fair. And she wasn’t going to let them keep doing it. She didn’t know how to stop them yet. She only knew she had to try.

  The intraweb was back up this morning (of course it was, because she didn’t have enough time right now to contact QUERCUS), and there was an email from STAFF saying students should expect intermittent outages for the next few days. Great, she thought, sending the email to TRASH. And when it’s working again, I bet it’s going to be full of great new ways to spy on all of us.…

  Maybe they’d start turning on the web cameras without you knowing. She made a note to keep the lid of her laptop closed when she wasn’t using it—the last thing she needed was for some Breakthrough nerd to be watching her in her underwear.

  She skimmed the other emails quickly. There was the usual Morning Motivational Message (she wondered who was writing them and if they were ever tempted to just recycle the old ones), and an email from the Dance Committee saying that due to construction on the school grounds, the Wednesday meeting would be held in Radial instead of at Oakhurst. Rats, she thought. I’m not really looking forward to spending another three hours watching everybody drool over Breakthrough’s shiny toys.

  She almost skipped the second email from STAFF, thinking the server had just hiccuped and sent the Motivational Message twice, but habitual caution made her open it to be sure. She was glad she had. She skimmed it quickly, then went back and read it more carefully.

  Oh my god. Loch, you were right.

  If you didn’t have a suspicious nature—if you hadn’t been at Oakhurst even as long as she had—it would have looked perfectly ordinary. It was the usual preachy “lets all get along” thing she’d seen so often. But this one was all about how the students of Oakhurst were the leaders of tomorrow, setting an example for everyone they met, and so they were reminded it was important to be tolerant of everyone’s beliefs and lifestyles. Bullying or harassment of students on the basis of race, creed, or sexual orientation was absolutely forbidden.

  “Sexual orientation”? Like if, oh hey, they just happen to be gay or something?

  Oakhurst had been setting all of them at each others’ throats from the beginning. They didn’t need to fight about religion (since Doctor A was doing his best to turn them all into atheists) or skin color (assuming there’d been anybody here who wasn’t the whitest of white bread) when they could fight over who was the best wizard. Now Oakhurst was changing the rules. It didn’t matter what it looked like on the surface: the email was telling them they were supposed to care about—and fight about—those things now.

  I’m not your pet monkey, “Staff.” I won’t do it. And my friends won’t either.

  She wondered if Muirin knew what Breakthrough was doing. She was going to have to make up her mind about Muirin. About all of her friends, really. She couldn’t go on just half trusting them, picking and choosing what she told them and doubting everything they did. That’s like being a little bit pregnant, her mother’s voice said in her mind.

  I miss you, Mom, Spirit thought. And Dad. And Fee. I wish …

  She didn’t wish they were here. She wouldn’t wish Oakhurst on her worst enemy, let alone on her family. She wished she was there—and even more than that, she wished Oakhurst didn’t exist at all. She sighed. Avast, me bucko, Dad said in her mind. Batten down the hatches and prepare to repel boarders!

  She smiled painfully. I love you, Dad. I love you, Mom. I’ll make you proud. You’ll see.

  * * *

  In terms of what had become the “new normal,” the day wasn’t too bad. Mr. Gr
een had taken over “gym class”—he worked them as hard as Ovcharenko had, but he wasn’t a sadist about it, trying to hurt them. He actually seemed to care that they learn to protect themselves. Under other circumstances, she might have liked him.

  If he wasn’t one of Breakthrough’s people.

  If she wasn’t afraid she was losing Burke to Breakthrough because of him.

  There was another fight in the Refectory at lunchtime. Zoey and Maddie started screaming at each other about some Dance Committee thing, while Spirit did her best to become invisible so she didn’t get dragged into it. The fight quickly got physical. This time Angelina Swanson and Daniel Stewart broke it up before the security guards could step in, but Angelina separated Zoey and Maddie by summoning a blast of air that knocked both girls sprawling.

  That wouldn’t have happened last September, Spirit thought, stunned. Heck, that wouldn’t have happened last month.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Angelina shrieked.

  Spirit tensed, certain something else horrible was going to happen—the School of Air had some of the most destructive Gifts of any of the four Schools: Weather Witchery, Transmutation, and all the forms of Communication and Control. They’d been taught the Communication and Control Gifts could only be used with animals, but Muirin had said once that if they were strong enough, they could be used on people too.

  “Hey, hey, Angie, back it down,” Daniel Stewart said. “Chill, huh?”

  “Choose,” Angelina said to Maddie and Zoey. “Demerits—or skip lunch.” She smiled coldly. “I’d go hungry, if I were you.”

  Spirit finally took a deep breath when the three of them left the Refectory. Wednesday’s meeting is going to be fun, she thought, wincing.

  She didn’t have long to worry about it. While she was waiting in the lunch line, Addie slipped her a note. They were meeting tonight.

  What might happen there was a lot scarier than Dance Committee.

  * * *

  Loch had found them a new hiding place. The Tyniger mansion was three stories high, but above the third floor there was a huge space—like an attic—where the servants’ quarters were. The old servants’ stairs had originally gone from the attic down to the first floor, but now they were blocked off below the third floor—and that meant, to get to the servants’ quarters, you had to go all the way up to the third floor.