The Dragon King

by Nils Johnson-Shelton

  “We can’t touch him, sire!”

  Artie stared across the sky. “Come on! Is that all you’ve got?”

  Merlin moved his mouth, but Artie couldn’t hear the words. The Beast reared. Artie prepared to get drenched.

  But this time was different. A cloud of locusts sprayed from the Beast’s jaws and were on the dragons in a flash. The insects clicked and clawed all over Artie and Numinae, and got caught in the dragons’ eyes and nostrils.

  Numinae spoke an incantation. Instantly, the swarm flew away. He wasn’t the forest lord for nothing.

  First water, then bugs? Artie thought. What’s next?

  “Next” was not fun. Fire and ice and electricity and several huge rocks hurtled toward them. Snoll and Tiberius parted, trying to dodge the attack—but it bent and turned toward Tiberius! Numinae raised his hands and magic shot from them, and Tiberius blew smoke into the air. They were able to either combat or evade the fire and ice and electrical power, but several of the rocks got through. Both Tiberius and Numinae were battered hard and struck unconscious. Tiberius rolled over in the sky and fell. Within seconds they passed into the cloud cover below and disappeared.

  Artie knew it was time to surrender. He yanked Scarffern from his pocket and blew it hard three times, signaling that it was over.

  “What is that for, child?” Merlin’s voice boomed all around, as if it were part of the weather. “Calling more dragons, are you?”

  “No, Merlin. You have—” But just as he was about to say that Merlin had won, Smila and Azur burst through the clouds behind the Beast. And then, on the other side, came Chime—still carrying Shallot and Kay—and Aquilia!

  “Ack!” Merlin sputtered, caught off guard. He spurred the Questing Beast, and it spun in midair. Smila let out a stream of ice and snow. The Questing Beast didn’t flinch. It countered with a blast of orange fire so hot that Artie, over a hundred yards away, felt it on his face and chest. The ice melted and steamed, and the Beast let out another blast, an order of magnitude hotter than the last. It caught the white dragon and instantly burned it to a crisp.

  Chime came in close to the Questing Beast, spraying the golden glitter that would disintegrate anything it touched. But Merlin waved his cane, and a gale blew out, scattering the glitter in every direction. “Kay!” Artie yelled as the Beast whipped its snake head and caught the golden dragon in its massive mouth and very simply bit it in two. Shallot and Kay were unharmed, but scared. Artie watched in horror as they clung to Chime’s lifeless head as it too fell through the clouds and out of sight.

  Azur and Aquilia shot into the breach. The blue dragon had possibly the strangest attack of all. It spit light, blinding and blue. Aquilia was next to her, her eyes closed, hoping to use the light as cover. But Merlin held up the cane again, and the Questing Beast opened its mouth and expelled a huge cloud of darkness that swallowed the blue dragon’s light like a black hole eating a star.

  “Kill!” Merlin hollered. The Questing Beast attacked the airborne dragons with lightning quickness, using more columns of sun-hot fire. Azur succumbed first, catching fire along her right side. Her wing simply evaporated in the flame, and the rest of her sizzled and turned to ash. Aquilia was next. She tried to fight the Questing Beast’s fire with her smoke breath, but what was the point of that? There was no point. The wizard’s power was too great—far too great. Aquilia lit up, from nose to tail, and fell, crackling, to the ground.

  “Get us out of here!” Artie said to Snoll, suddenly very afraid. The plan would never work if Merlin just incinerated him.

  Snoll dived. Artie dug his fingers into the thick feathers and squinted against the wind and rain. They were on the ground in seconds. Snoll landed near Lance, Dred, Qwon, and the other knights, who were all frightened and disturbed to have seen the dispatched dragons raining from the sky. As Artie jumped down and ran to them, he saw Tiberius and Numinae in the distance lying in an unconscious heap. Kay and Shallot were in a little gully to the east, also knocked out. Artie was about to tell the black dragon to stand down, but Snoll spun and took back off, driven mad with fury over the fate of his kindred. At the same moment, Merlin and his Beast dropped through the clouds. Snoll gave Merlin a jet of scalding oil, and the Beast counterattacked with more fire. Snoll’s oil stream lit up and retraced its way into his head and body, and like Scarm before him, the black dragon exploded.

  The knights watched, crestfallen and horrified, as feathers and chunks of flesh churned to the ground.

  The dragons were dead. Artie was the Dragon King, and it didn’t make a lick of difference. Merlin was something different, something more.

  Artie was about to yell his surrender, when Qwon screamed, “Look!”

  Uphill, dust and leaves flew in a ball of commotion. “What is that, lad?” Thumb asked, his voice shaking with excitement and fear.

  “It’s Erik,” Artie said. “He’s fighting with something.” Do it, Erik, he thought. Betray me.

  Artie looked to Merlin, who had stopped to watch the fight below with as much curiosity as Artie and his friends.

  “Kid, I’ve got an infinite arrow,” Lance whispered, nodding in the direction of the distracted wizard.

  “Do it.”

  Lance calmly nocked it. He took a knee behind an awestruck Bedevere and eyed the wizard’s head. Lance relaxed his fingers and breathed. And then he let go.

  The arrow shot forward, air twirling over the fletching and picking up speed. The shot was true. But at the last split second Merlin spotted it, and the wizard morphed into a puff of smoke before re-forming. He smiled down on the archer and held up his cane. The knights saw nothing—no bolt of electricity or waft of air or string of fire—but Lance’s bow exploded in his hand, the pieces flying everywhere. The force of the impact sent both Lance and Bedevere to the ground, knocked out cold.

  Qwon and Dred raced to check on them as the Questing Beast landed.

  “How are they?” Artie asked.

  “Lance is fine,” Dred said.

  Qwon held Bedevere’s hand. “Bedevere too.”

  They returned their attention to Erik, who was still fighting some unknown foe. But then there was a flash of recognition in the melee, and Dred gasped. “Erik’s fighting Sami?”

  “Sami was defending Numinae,” Artie whispered. “Erik wants the sword Numinae’s carrying. Erik has betrayed us.”

  Qwon blurted, “Betrayed us. But why wou—”

  Artie sliced a hand through the air. “Shh.”

  Then, unbelievably, Erik bested Sami with a direct hit to the side of the Swede’s head. As Sami fell over and rolled away, Erik hustled to Numinae and labored to pull the sword—sheath and all—from his hip. Then Erik walked briskly across the field. When he got to within a dozen feet of Merlin, he stopped.

  “You’ve won,” Artie finally yelled, moving toward a tumbledown Neolithic stone structure thirty feet away.

  “I know, fool king,” Merlin said smugly, eyeing the same spot. “Slave, give it to me.” Erik held the sword out, and Merlin took it.

  “No one say a word,” Artie ordered in the barest whisper.

  Thumb obeyed, but Qwon blurted, “Artie!” as Dred clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Go, Brother,” Dred said, understanding something that Qwon didn’t.

  Artie winked at Dred, who held Qwon tightly.

  “Thanks,” Artie said.

  He dropped Flixith and raised his hands. As he neared Merlin, Artie thought, Poor Erik. He doesn’t even know what’s happening to him.

  Artie stopped when he was only a few feet from the crazed wizard. “You’ve won,” he repeated. “You’ve gotten everything you wanted.”

  “No, not everything. Not yet.”

  Artie fought back tears. “Please, spare my friends.”

  “We shall see.”

  Artie put his hands together. “Please.”

  But the wizard just smiled and said nothing.

  29

  CONCERNING MERLIN’S BLACK HEARTr />
  Merlin held up the sword that Erik had handed him. “That is all, thrall. You are dismissed.” Erik collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Artie felt relieved. Whatever part Erik had played in this final act was done.

  The wizard and the king now stood opposite each other, not ten feet separating them. Next to them were the two Neolithic stones, one upright and the other at an angle, forming a triangle of empty space big enough for a man to walk through.

  “Do you know what these rocks are called?” the wizard asked.

  “No idea.”

  “Arthur’s Quoit, which is a fancy way of saying Arthur’s Tomb. Some of the fools of this side believe that King Arthur is buried here. Of course, we know better, don’t we—sire.” He said the last word with such heavy-tongued disdain that it nearly made Artie laugh.

  “Sure we do. The real Arthur is long gone.”

  Merlin snickered. “That’s right. Still, it’s fitting that you will die here. If you wish, I can bury you under these rocks. I wouldn’t mind it, really. It will be nice to have a reminder of my triumph so close to home.”

  “If it makes you feel good, Merlin. Go for it.”

  Merlin smiled. “You gloat, young Arthur.”

  “It’s just whatchamacallit—gallows humor. I’ve got no reason to gloat. Not by a long shot.”

  Merlin turned the sword in his hand. “Because I have this.”

  “Yeah,” Artie said heavily, letting his chin fall to his chest. “Because you have that.”

  “Erik was under my control this whole time.”

  “Wha—?”

  Merlin held up a hand and cut Artie off. “Through his eyes I saw that you would be carrying David’s silly sword into battle. I know you thought I would pull it from its scabbard, right off your back, and try to strike you down.”

  Artie fidgeted; his pulse raced. “I . . . I really wish that hadn’t happened.”

  “I’m sure you do. Anyway, now I have Excalibur. Why you gave it to that mad tree man is beyond me.”

  Artie gulped. “He’s not mad. You are.”

  “Ah. Perhaps.” Merlin licked his lips and inspected the sword in his hands. Artie’s heart quickened even more.

  “You should be afraid, boy.”

  “W-why?”

  “Because I am going to kill you with your own blade. It was brave of you to go into battle without Excalibur and its healing scabbard—but it was also stupid.”

  Artie didn’t speak for a few seconds. “I had to try. Carrying the Sword of David was a calculated risk.”

  Merlin chuckled. “‘Calculated risk’? My, my, listen to you. You’ve come a long way, Artie Kingfisher.”

  “Not really,” Artie said uneasily, his voice cracking. “You want something from me, just like you always have. Only now, it’s my life.”

  Merlin cocked his head to the side. “Right you are.” He took the sheath in one hand and wrapped the dark fingers of his other hand around the hilt. “But tell me—how foolish did you think I would be? Don’t you know I’ve been watching you since you gated here? You haven’t so much as touched that sword on your back. It is poison. Evil. The Sword of David is even more insidious than me. It was idiotic of you to put so much faith in that blade. No matter how well disguised it is to look like Excalibur.”

  Artie eyed the ground. “Another calculated risk, Merlin. I figured you’re so powerful now, it was my only chance.”

  “That is true, young Arthur. And I will say that I did not foresee the purity of your brother, Mordred, or his willingness to defy Morgaine. The very fact that you retrieved David’s Sword, and concocted this far-fetched plan, is impressive.”

  “Maybe—”

  “But now your planning—and your luck—have run their course.”

  Merlin tilted his head, and Artie’s legs gave out from under him. He fell onto his hands and knees. He looked up at Merlin, suddenly afraid to die. “Merlin, please, don’t. . . .”

  A long and sinister smile broke across Merlin’s face. “Meet your end with your face up, king. Let me see your eyes as your head rolls across the ground!”

  And with that Merlin unsheathed the sword and threw the scabbard into the purple brush of St. David’s Head.

  At that moment, Kay Kingfisher clawed her way out of the gully she and Shallot, who was still knocked out, had fallen into. Kay wiped her eyes as she searched the battlefield. The vibe she was getting from Artie—who, she was so happy to discover, she had been reconnected to—was off the charts. It was so confusing that she didn’t know what was going on. It didn’t take long for her to see what was happening, though. Merlin stood over him with a sword. He was going to chop Artie’s head off! It was just like Artie had predicted!

  “No!” Kay shrieked. Merlin hoisted the blade and sliced through the air. Qwon, Dred, and Thumb reached out and screamed.

  Artie closed his eyes as time slowed. He tried to dodge the blade, but Merlin was fast, even in the slow-motion world. The edge caught Artie and sliced deep, striking his jugular and the strong muscles in his neck. Blood jumped from the wound, and he fell over sideways in agonizing pain, but he still had his head. Artie curled on the ground and gazed at Merlin. The wizard was shocked that Artie had been able to move at all, and so quickly to boot. Artie rolled out of the way as Merlin brought the blade back into the air, readying for the death stroke. Artie rolled twice, three times, four. And when he finally sprang to his knees, he had his hands on the hilt of the sword strapped to his back. Merlin bore in on him, brandishing the weapon that Erik had delivered.

  Artie pulled out his sword—the sword that everyone believed to be the Sword of David—and held it over his head, Conan-style. The metal of the blade was shiny and bright, and the blood channels glowed with anticipation. Merlin’s expression went from shock to fear as he saw that Artie’s neck . . . Artie’s neck was healed!

  Merlin stumbled to his knees. He looked at the sword in his hand. The metal of the blade was dull, and there were no blood channels. It didn’t look anything like Excalibur!

  “You tricked me!” Merlin cried, his face awash in disbelief. “This is not Excalibur at all! How did you—?”

  “I knew Erik was under your sway, Merlin. I knew he would betray us all along. I revealed a fake plan in front of him, knowing you would think that Numinae had Excalibur. But I switched the swords—and you fell for it! Maybe I’m smarter than you think.”

  Merlin’s power had drained from him like water from an unplugged sink. Artie walked to the wizard. For everyone watching—Kay, Qwon, Dred, Thumb, even Numinae and Tiberius, who were both coming back around—it happened in a blur. Artie put a hand on Merlin’s shoulder and the tip of Excalibur over the wizard’s heart. He looked into Merlin’s eyes and said, “You’re free!”

  Artie pushed the sword bodily through the old man, and it emerged black and stained on the other side. Then Artie pulled it out, and with it came a clump of black and rotting flesh: Merlin’s demon heart. Excalibur lit up and burned this foul pith to a white ember. It exploded with a pop and disappeared.

  In that instant the skies cleared and the Questing Beast cried out and fell into three pieces, its parts no longer bound by Merlin’s magic.

  For Merlin had no more magic.

  Artie released the wizard’s shoulder, and Merlin fell over sideways. Kay hollered with joy and pride and disbelief, jumping up and down. Qwon and Dred and Thumb fell to their knees and hugged and cried and laughed. Numinae and Tiberius were smiling, smiling, smiling.

  Artie used Excalibur to knock the Sword of David away where it wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Then he knelt next to the wizard and said, “I’m sorry, Merlin. I had to do it. Excalibur had to do it, too. Nyneve was right. Kind of. But you know who was more right? Kynder.”

  The ancient man looked up at Artie. His eyes were no longer red. They were white, and brilliant blue, and his pupils were as dark as deep pools. “Sorry?” he managed to say. “You’re sorry?” Merlin smiled—not an evil smile, but a real one. “Yo
u have saved me. I am the one who is sorry. With my dying breath, I thank you. I thank you and hope that you can forgive me.”

  Artie wanted to say so many things but didn’t. He stroked Merlin’s bald head, still dark with the marks left by the liquid sangrealite.

  “Artie,” Merlin whispered, “I was not all bad. Even to you. I hope you can see that.”

  “I know, Merlin.”

  They paused, staring intently at each other. The king and his ancient wizard. Then Merlin said, “Oh, by the trees! Those children! What did I do to those children?”

  Artie smiled. “We didn’t kill any. They’ll be all right.”

  Merlin coughed, and black blood ran from his mouth. “Artie, listen carefully. Follow Thumb into my caves. Find the sangrealite. I have gathered so much. Take it. Take it. Make the worlds whole.” And then Merlin reached out and touched Artie’s hand, and in that one touch Artie learned all the secrets to melting the magical element. “Use that, Artie Kingfisher. My last magic. Use that, my king.”

  Merlin withered before Artie’s eyes. Artie took Excalibur’s scabbard from his back and laid it across the wizard, but he knew it was futile. The old man was finally free. The old man was finally, and blessedly, dead.

  Artie reached out and shut Merlin’s eyelids. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

  Kay Kingfisher watched all this, frozen and in awe, a smile so big and toothy that her face already hurt. “That is Artie Kingfisher,” she said out loud. “My awesome little brother.”

  She looked down the hill to Qwon, Dred, and Thumb. She held up a fist and shook it. They returned the gesture. In the distance, where he had been sent to guard the moongate, Bercilak jumped and clanked with unrestrained pleasure. She turned to the gully and saw Shallot making her way out. Kay didn’t say anything. The fairy would learn about what had happened soon enough. They had done it. Artie had done it.

  As Kay turned back to her brother, a small voice came from her left. “Excuse me, miss?”

  Kay couldn’t remember ever being called miss before. She turned to the voice. Two kids a little younger than her, both with light hair and large eyes, walked toward her. The smaller one, a girl, had a bruise on her head. The larger one, a boy, limped badly and had a big abrasion on his right forearm. Both were clearly kids who Merlin had taken and forced to fight for him. “Hey, guys,” Kay said gently.