Artie and Bedevere shrugged and absently took these and the rest of their weapons and bags. They lined up at the door, Thumb in front and Kay at the rear.
Thumb said very forcefully, “We’re ready, Master Lavery.”
“Yes, I can see that,” he hissed, no longer smiling. But since he was still dressed in his blue jeans and the stupid D&D T-shirt and was completely unarmed, he didn’t look too dangerous.
Every inch of the cat, however, looked mortally dangerous. Lavery stepped backward into the hallway and scratched it under its chin. Schrödinger made a sound half-way between a growl and a purr. Kay’s nerves rattled her every bone.
Lavery said with a fake smile, “Right, then. Shall we?”
With a tone of assuredness that comforted Kay greatly, Thumb said, “We shall.” And they filed out.
They walked down the hall away from the main entrance for a long time. Lavery led the way and Schrödinger came last, padding silently behind Kay. Kay continually fought the urge to look over her shoulder at the cat, afraid that if she did, it would pop her head off with its ridiculous teeth.
Finally they reached the end of the hall, which terminated with a normalsized door. Lavery unlocked it with a large silver key. It creaked open. A dark tuft of thick grass revealed itself on the other side.
Lavery held out his hand, and they passed through the doorway.
The library’s backyard was as big as a football field. The boughs of the giant elm that was the library arched over the expanse of grass, obscuring the sky above. They were so dense with leaves that it was hard to tell if it was night or day, dusk or dawn.
A knee-high wooden fence marked the perimeter of the yard. The elf moved to the front and said, “This way, please.” He started walking toward a low, windowless house with a thatched roof at rear of the yard. Next to the house sat the other cat, Mrs. Tibbins. Kay was not at all psyched to see her there.
Behind the house was an oak forest so thick and so dark it put everything they’d trudged through the week before to shame. Its great trees were draped with Spanish moss and, as they drew closer, it gave Kay a sinking feeling, as if something was in there, waiting.
Finally they reached the building. Schrödinger walked past them and sat down opposite Mrs. Tibbins.
Lavery said, “Well, here we are. The map you require has been pulled and laid out for you. I will take my leave now, but the kitties will stay here. If you need anything, just tell them and one will come and find me.” And before anyone could respond, Lavery was off in the direction from which they’d come.
Kay looked sidelong at the cats. Artie and Bedevere still seemed to be out of it, but Thumb looked sharp. He nodded at Kay, turned the handle on the door, and pushed it open.
The map house appeared to be just a single room. Along the walls were dark wooden shelves loaded with rolled-up charts, and in the middle of the room was a large, waist-high table. A floodlight illuminated it and threw the corners of the room into total darkness. Spread out on the table was a huge, yellowing map.
They went to the table. Thumb clambered on top of it. He clapped his hands hard at Artie and Bedevere and asked loudly and deliberately, “Do you feel any different, lads?”
As if on cue, both Artie and Bedevere put their heads in their hands and groaned. Bedevere straightened and cracked his back. Artie looked from his hands into his sister’s mismatched eyes—it was as if he was seeing them for the first time in ages.
“How long were we in there?” Artie demanded, sounding every bit like his old self.
“Were we really wasting time playing cards?” added Bedevere with an uncharacteristic twang of fear.
“Yes, we were wasting time playing cards,” Thumb confirmed, “and I have no idea how long we were there. Best case is we were really only there for a day. Worst case… I don’t even want to consider the worst case.”
“Did any of you notice how similar that dorky elf and I look?” Kay asked. “Also, more than once he called me ‘Sister Kay.’ That made my skin crawl.”
“Now that you mention it,” Artie said a little desperately, “I do remember that. What’s going on? Why would anyone want to stall us?”
“I don’t know,” answered Thumb. He looked hard at the map under his feet. “If I had to guess, it would be so that the Fenland witch could have enough time to get here. She may want to see you in person, Artie, before she tries to put a stop to you. Or maybe Numinae wanted to slow us down so he could have more time to make up his mind about our quest. Without knowing who’s behind Lavery, we can’t be sure.”
Bedevere studied the map and said, “I say we just grab it and get out of here on the double.”
They were about to agree when a noise suddenly came from one of the room’s dark corners.
A robed figure emerged from the darkness. “No!” it squealed. “You will take nothing from this library. Nothing! The kitties! The sweet little kitties!”
The figure was hunched, about five feet tall, and looked to be very skinny under its baggy brown cloak. Aside from its creepy voice, it didn’t seem to be all that threatening.
Still, they drew their swords.
“Pfaw!” the figure intoned. “I am old! Put away your weapons, put them away, put them away…”
“Show yourself !” barked Artie.
“Ah, the abomination speaks, eh?” The figure put its wrists to its hips and did a little mocking dance, laughing. Then it said in a singsong tone, “Stop, young knight in black! Put that parchment back! Nothing leaves! Nothing!”
“This map does, madman!” Bedevere said forcefully, pointing at the parchment on the table.
The cloaked person cocked its shrouded ear in his direction. “Ah! ‘Man,’ you say? Ha!… He thinks me a man!”
“Elf, sprite, troll, sorcerer—I don’t care!” Bedevere proclaimed bravely. “We need this map and we’re taking it!”
The figure looked like it was about to yell back at Bedevere when its voice changed drastically. It stopped dancing and started to turn in circles, saying, “No! No! No! Not safe! Not safe for me—or you either! No! A trickster! A sneaky old trickster!”
All the menace of the voice had faded. In its place was the squealing, wounded voice of a woman.
It sounded very familiar to Artie.
He stepped forward and quietly asked, “What did you just say?”
“Not safe! Not safe for me—or you either!”
Artie sheathed Excalibur. He’d heard those exact words before.
“Do you have a phone?” he asked.
“Yes, yes of course!” she said desperately, pointing a shivering finger at one of the darkened corners. “Every night she calls me, every night she calls and frightens and reveals. Every night she portends the horrors the child will bring into our realm. Every night, every night…”
Artie asked, “Who calls? Can you call our world with it?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Have you?”
“YES!”
“Who calls you?”
The stranger shook her hands and suddenly threw off her hood. With the sinister voice back in her throat she screamed a single spittle-filled word into Artie’s face. “Morgaine!”
Artie recoiled and placed his hand back on Excalibur’s grip, but he didn’t draw. Thunder clapped outside. One of the kitties roared. The ground beneath them began to thump, as if it contained a great beating heart.
“Is she here?” Artie asked.
“Here? Here? Fool! No. Oh, but she has shown me! You have no chance, tinfoil king. No chance! She knows!” As she said this, she flicked a finger at Artie’s chest, as if to prove his insignificance.
Artie took a couple steps back, and the crazy woman followed him, staying in his face. It was then that she stepped into the light. It was then that he saw them. The eyes!
Like any ranting, senseless person’s, they were wide and watery and bloodshot, but unlike most other people’s eyes, their irises were of two entirely different colors: one sky
-blue, the other clover-green.
Artie breathed in sharply.
Kay took two shuffling steps forward, letting Cleomede fall to her side. Artie felt her heart racing, her voice searching for strength. She stammered meekly, “M-m-mom?”
There was no question. The woman’s silken hair was mostly gray but was streaked here and there with bolts of red. Her cheekbones were high, her nose pointed, her eyebrows full. She was old—far, far older than Kynder—but it was obvious that she had once been as beautiful as Kay surely would be.
The old woman spat a primal hiss at Kay. And then, as if overcome by shame, she turned and hid her face.
Kay stepped next to Artie, grabbing his arm for strength. She said quietly, “Cassie.”
And that’s how Artie and Kay found the woman who’d abandoned the Kingfishers so long ago.
22
IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ESCAPE FROM THE GREAT LIBRARY OF SYLVAN
“Cassie, Cassie, Cassie,” the old woman lamented, as if she’d not heard her name in an age.
Kay released Artie’s arm and moved closer to her estranged mother. “It’s really you?”
“Yes,” whimpered Cassie, unable to look her daughter in the eyes.
“But how did you get here? Why are you so old?”
The woman shifted her shoulders and sighed. “I… I don’t remember everything—it was something like when he came into your bedroom those many years ago…” She trailed off. “He” clearly meant Artie. And she clearly didn’t like him.
Thumb said solemnly, “A dark magic has made her old, Kay; I can see it as plain as day.”
“Yes, yes,” Cassie confirmed. “So dark. So many false promises faded into that darkness. A new life, a new child, a new beginning…”
“A new child.” Kay shuddered at what she was about to ask. “Not Lavery?”
“Yes, Lavery,” Cassie said quietly.
“But how?” Kay wondered. “He’s at least five years older than me.”
“Wood elves age very quickly in the beginning, and very slowly at the end, Kay,” Thumb explained.
“Yes,” Cassie hissed. “He’s your half brother. And he’s more your true brother than this, this … thing!”
Artie didn’t like being called a thing, but since his parents were a finger bone and a lock of hair, he silently admitted that she had a point.
Then Cassie spun and raised her arms. Bizarro Cassie was back in full effect. She yelled, “Copy! Experiment! Puppet!”
“Now, wait one moment, Miss Cassie,” interrupted Thumb.
“Shh! Silver-tongued gnome, be quiet!”
With a crooked finger she pointed at Artie and said accusingly, “You think you have a destiny? Toadswill! Swallerwash! She is coming! She is sending her servants as we speak! If you escape her now, then she will use other means to draw you to her! Where is the one whose name begins with Q? Isn’t she with you?” Spittle drained from the corner of her mouth as her radiant eyes darted around the room, desperately seeking someone who wasn’t there.
Kay asked, “Who are you talking about?”
But Artie knew, and his heart fell into his shoes. “Qwon,” he simply said.
“Qwon! Yes! None of you are safe! None of you are safe from the fine wrath of the high lordess Lady Morgaine!”
At the mention of her title and name, two deafening sounds came at once: the roars of the saber-toothed cats, and a fierce howl of wind tearing through the forest around the little building.
Thumb said, “Artie, sire, I have a bad feeling. I think we ought to go. Now.”
Thumb was right, but Artie felt that he owed his sister a big favor where Cassie was concerned; it was crazy, but he didn’t think it would be right to hightail it out of there without her. He was about to say as much when Kay yelled over the din, “I think Thumb’s right, Artie! We’ve got to leave her for now. It’ll be okay!”
But they weren’t so sure of that last point because the underground booming intensified, and then the map house simply disintegrated in a poof of black dust. One minute it and all its contents—including the map and the table that stood in front of Bedevere—were there, and the next minute everything was gone.
Artie’s back was turned to where the cottage’s door had been. Kay unsheathed Cleomede and lunged at her beloved brother with blinding quickness as if she was going to run him through to the hilt.
And she would have if Artie hadn’t pivoted at the last split second; Cleomede whisked past his neck, touching it like a feather, before continuing on into the space behind him.
Which was suddenly occupied by the silent and gaping mouth of Mrs. Tibbins. In the same instant that the walls had disappeared, this cat jumped from where the door had been, landing catlike—which is to say, freakishly quietly—just a few feet behind Artie.
Cleomede slid between the cat’s knifelike teeth and into its mouth. The blade effortlessly ran through everything that made up the head and neck of the feline. Cleomede sang for blood in Kay’s fingers, and it was terrifying.
The cat died instantly. It was very gruesome. Cleomede’s bloody tip extended at an angle into the air above the cat’s scruff. The animal collapsed and whip-lashed Kay’s arm, forcing her to release her sword. She had to turn around to extract Cleomede and that was when she saw her mom.
Cassie had her back to the darkened forest. Suddenly a thick and gnarled oak, draped in Spanish moss, came to life. A pair of boughs surged forward like giant arms, wrapping up the old woman in a tangle of wavering flora.
Cassie screamed. Kay ran to her mother, intent on hacking this plant creature to pieces, but the woods were too powerful. Kay’s eyes locked on her mother’s, and for a moment they could read each other’s thoughts as if they were written in the air between them. Cassie’s eyes said, I’m so sorry. And Kay’s eyes said, I forgive you, Mama!
And then the tree creature retreated into the deep forest in a blur, and Cassie was gone.
Kay fell to one knee.
Artie, standing next to Mrs. Tibbins’s corpse, wanted to run to his sister and comfort her, but other stuff was going on behind him.
“Artie!” Thumb and Bedevere yelled in unison.
Artie spun.
Schrödinger reared several feet away. He looked pretty angry that his kitty friend had been killed so easily. So did Lavery, who was on Schrödinger’s back. The elf was still dressed in his jeans and D&D T-shirt, but he was no longer unarmed.
He had chosen his weapon, and it wasn’t some stupid gaming die. Instead it was a really odd-looking silver rifle with a sword on the end of it, and he spun it over his head like a spear.
Turned out Lavery wasn’t so geeky after all. In fact, he looked pretty darn tough.
Vorpal initiated the fight. Taking a massive leap, he walloped the tiger’s cheek with his hind legs. He bounced again and landed near the cat’s rear, where he took a deep bite out of one of its legs.
Following Vorpal, Thumb leaped on top of the cat so he could pester the elf at close range. In seconds Lavery was covered in cuts and lashes. Thumb took some lumps too, but the little knight was possessed. After one impressive, Yoda-like flurry of twists and turns, Artie swore that Lavery lost a finger. Then the elf screamed as Thumb did him the disservice of lopping off his long red ponytail in one blazing swipe.
Meanwhile, Bedevere was busy making huge, loping swings at the cat’s face. As Vorpal tormented Schrödinger’s hind legs, Bedevere brought down the claymore cleanly through the cat’s right forepaw.
The cat roared just as Lavery’s disembodied lock of hair fell to the ground next to Bedevere.
Bedevere smiled. It was obvious that he loved to fight.
But he smiled too soon, because at that exact moment Lavery fired his rifle at Bedevere’s arm, which suddenly lay on the ground, quite separated from Bedevere.
The wounded knight howled. The sound tore Kay from the forest that her mom had disappeared into. When she saw the arm, she nearly fainted.
But not Artie. He bounded f
orward to join the battle. As Artie arrived, Lavery fell from the wounded feline, Thumb following. Vorpal occupied the cat while Artie stood next to Thumb so they could take on the elf.
Lavery fought hard. He made several deep gashes in Artie that instantly healed. He also managed to thump Artie in the ribs so violently that Artie felt them snap. These too healed instantly.
Still, it all hurt wicked bad.
But Artie and Thumb were too much for Lavery, and in a desperate flurry the elf was laid on the ground and disarmed. The young king lorded over him; the little man was at his head, the Welsh wakizashi’s edge drawn tight over the skin of his neck.
Artie breathed hard as he demanded, “Witch-elf, bring Cassie back!”
Lavery’s eyes were closed. His chest heaved.
He shook his head slightly. “I didn’t take her!”
Thumb, wild with anger, said, “Let me kill this thing, sire.”
Artie seriously considered it. But something about Cassie and Kay—something about being even slightly-kinda-theoretically related to this wood elf—turned him off from this idea.
He looked over his shoulder at Kay, who comforted Bedevere, and turned back to Thumb.
“No. Enough killing and hurt for one day. We need to take care of Bedevere.”
Artie began to turn to his fallen knight, hoping that his sword’s sheath and his healing skill might mend him like they had the wolf. Thumb continued to hold Lavery with his sword.
It was then that they all became very aware of something that didn’t sound good at all.
And it was then that Lavery, his mouth full of blood-stained teeth, began to laugh.
“What is that sound?” Artie demanded of the elf.
The elflaughed more. Thumb pressed on his neck ever so slightly with his blade. The elf said nothing.
He didn’t need to. An explosion went off somewhere under their feet as a section of grass about fifty feet away lifted up like a big trapdoor. Smoke rose from the scar in the ground. Somewhere from within the smoke came a series of deep, rabid chokes and burps.
Thumb moved away from the elf as he rushed to Artie.
Artie was momentarily dumbstruck.
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