Dragon Sword

by Mark London Williams

  “Inside, let’s go. The Allies’ secret time-travel project ends here, hundreds of years before it begins.”

  “I’m not from the same war you’re from!”

  “We are all from the same war, Roy Rogers.”

  That’s when we went in to see Clyne holding the sword over King Arthur.

  But Rolf isn’t thinking about what war he’s in now. All he’s thinking about is not stabbing himself in the guts with a blade he can’t control.

  Rolf looks like he’s getting electroshock treatments, the way he’s being jerked around. Finally he spins and smashes the sword against the wall of the cave, knocking it out of his hands. Instead of reaching for it, he pulls out his gun again. This time, he aims at Clyne.

  “Pick it up,” he tells him.

  Clyne cocks his head. “Mammal weapons. No thanks.”

  “You can control it. You will pick the sword up and return to the ship with me. You are from an inferior race, but I need you.”

  “Inferior skkt! race? Don’t judge species-wise. First guesses can be wrong — I know. Besides, kktng!”— and Clyne tapped on the weird helmet he was wearing —“we were here first.”

  “You won’t be here at all unless you pick up that sword.”

  “Field trip rules say no threats can be made ch-ch-chng! or agreed to.”

  “Very well.”

  I reach down and grab the sword handle, but it’s like trying to hold a bolt of lightning, and it shoots out of my hand. The distraction is enough to turn Rolf toward me. It all happens so quickly, I’m not sure if his gun is clicking and maybe I should be dead, but I’m not. I run straight at him and plow into his stomach with my shoulder, knocking him on the ground. Maybe I should still be scared, but now all I feel is white-hot anger.

  “Quit hurting people!” I have a rock in my hand and I want to bash him with it, hurt him right back. “You kill families and innocent people! Mothers and babies!” I spit at him.

  “It isn’t killing,” he answers slowly. “It’s sweeping the floor.”

  That’s it. I’ve never hurt anyone. Never beat anyone up before. But my mom is stuck some- where trying to fight guys like him who are hurting kids on purpose, and maybe it’s time one of this big punk’s plans backfired after all.

  “No.” It’s Thea. “Don’t.”

  Rolf doesn’t hesitate in the slight pause to grab his gun and pull it up point-blank. “Cheap sentimentality, Roy Rogers.” I see him squeeze the trigger —

  “Empty.” That’s Merlin.

  “The little pellets inside. I transformed them into powder, over by the lake.” Rolf is pulling the trigger frantically. “I pride myself on being a little useful, still,” the wizard adds.

  Only then does it feel safe to turn my attention away from Rolf, where I see the biggest surprise of the day.

  Thea stands holding Excalibur.

  “You are nothing but a bully.” She has the sword pointed right at Rolf. It doesn’t shake or tremble, and neither does she. “Bullies killed my mother. Bullies burned my city. I will not have my friend become a bully, too.”

  Now the blade is pressed against Rolf’s lip, right under his nose. His eyes cross as he stares at it.

  “Name your parents,” she demands.

  His eyes widen a little more, but he doesn’t answer. “Name your parents!” And as I wonder what Thea’s about to do next, it hits me: He doesn’t understand her.

  “She said tell her who your parents are.” I’m wearing a lingo-spot, and Rolf speaks English. Thea flicks the tip of the sword under his nose. “I think you better tell her.”

  “Lukas and Marie,” he whispers.

  “Again. Like you miss them.” She doesn’t take any pressure off the sword. I’ve never seen Thea like this.

  Rolf understands that order just fine. “Lukas and Marie,” he says, louder. And then adds, without being asked, “Two sisters, too. Katarina and Liesl.”

  “My mother’s name was Hypatia,” Thea tells him. “She was murdered. Eli, tell him who your parents are.”

  “Sandusky and —” I stop myself. I don’t want to say my mom’s name. Rolf would know Margarite Franchon. She was probably one of the people he was after. I didn’t want him to know I was her son. “My mother disappeared after an accident.”

  “K’lion? Your parents?”

  “Many sires and dames, ssk! Thea. Clutch-parents all, raising the young in groups. Kelber was special clutch-‘dad’ to me, passing on star lore and telling of dimension travel by nightfire. Lemny mothered sweetly, smm! with Cacklaw tips and legends, and fern soup for gray days with nostril ailments.”

  Thea keeps staring at Rolf. “There, you see? You are no different from the rest of us. You’re somebody’s child, too. You come from someplace. Everything you’ve told yourself to make yourself a bully is a lie.”

  I translate it for Rolf. His face changes, and, for just a moment, he almost looks like a normal teenager, instead of someone pretending to be a grownup. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. Just lies there against the cave wall.

  Having made her point, Thea throws the sword down. I see Rolf’s eyes bulge a little, and his body twitches. I realize he’s trying to go for the sword again but can’t. He’s unable to move.

  “I recast the spell I had on him by the lake. He won’t have use of his arms and legs for some time. This should make your prisoner easier to handle.”

  “Thank you, Merlin,” Thea says.

  The word prisoner lands on me with a thud. If Rolf is our prisoner, where are we supposed to take him? And what are Clyne and Thea going to do?

  “I guess maybe we will need to get back to the ship,” I say. There’s a nod from Thea.

  Merlin helps King Arthur to his feet, and with his good arm, the king lifts up Excalibur, holding it now like he’s never seen it before. He keeps casting glances at Thea, and so do I.

  “What?” she finally says, after being stared at so much. “He is a bully.”

  But that’s not why we’re looking at her. Thea acted like holding the sword was no big deal. But our stares are making her a little self-conscious. “Perhaps we should leave now.”

  “Would like first to take science trinkets, memory objects, and ancient-history knacks from an old friend I snkkt! never knew. You, King,” Clyne says to Arthur, “knew him well. His name was Ungarth.”

  “A fierce beast. And a deadly opponent for many.”

  “A witness. A lastling. He had no one to share reports with. And so left one here t-t-ttt! on the wall.”

  Clyne proceeds to tell Ungarth’s story as he moves along the sides of the cave, pointing at the pictures and symbols. When he finishes, Arthur seems a little shaken.

  “So much of what I thought I knew…was wrong,” he says quietly.

  “I tried to tell you,” Merlin says.

  “Be quiet, wizard!” King Arthur snaps, then turns to Clyne. “And to you, I would like to make my amends to Ungarth. I can no longer ask his forgiveness directly.”

  “That mistake-mend is not mine to grant. But tew-ptt! I forgive you. Time journeys are unknown to you, rectifying is out of reach. So head forward now kt-chw! with a rephrased heart.”

  “Thank you,” Arthur replies. “If you just said what I think you did.”

  “If you and Ungarth could have just sn-kww! played k-kt! Cacklaw instead of trying to kill each other, the wall report would read more kindly,” Clyne says. Then he begins to gather things from around the cave.

  Thea and I move to help him. “Appreciated, friends, but this snkt! is something I need to do singly. I believe he would have wanted klkt! a Saurish witness. And I am the closest thing to clanfolk his memory will have.”

  As I wait with Thea, I have a “clanfolk” question for her. “Thea, when you had us tell about our families…You’ve never mentioned your father.”

  She nods, while watching Clyne move slowly and carefully through Ungarth’s things. “And perhaps now I never will.”

  “Why?” />
  “I don’t know who he is. Mother said I couldn’t know until I was older.”

  “Why was that?”

  From nodding, she changes to shaking her head. “That’s one of the secrets they killed when they took her. The answer is somewhere back in Alexandria. Waiting for me, perhaps. But I doubt I shall ever return. The fire took the city I knew.” Before I can ask anything else, she continues. “And you, Eli, how come you wouldn’t tell the bully who your mother is?”

  “Because I think her real name is a war secret now. I didn’t want him to know it.”

  “It’s not just the bully who shares a fate with us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s Arthur and Ungarth, too. Time and history have broken all our families. All of us, except perhaps him.”

  She points across the cave to Merlin. I don’t know how he could have heard us, but he’s nodding with a smiley expression like he’s been part of the conversation all along. Thea suddenly walks over to Clyne and starts gathering things with him. He looks at her. Not mad, just curious about what she’s up to.

  “It’s all right,” she says to him. “Ungarth won’t mind. I am the last of my kind, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Eli: Time Boom

  Somewhere in Old England & Dates Unknown

  “What’s the word again?”

  “Sentient.”

  “But doesn’t that mean it can think?”

  “I’ve only been using it a short while, but yes, the vessel seems to be…if not quite making its own decisions, then augmenting mine.”

  “Doing stuff you didn’t tell it to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, do you trust the ship?”

  “I certainly trust K’lion’s people. They built it.”

  “But do you trust the ship?”

  Thea doesn’t get to answer that question. We’ve loaded up all the items from Ungarth’s cave into the Saurian time-craft, and Clyne has just loaded Rolf. We’re saying our goodbyes to Merlin and Arthur.

  “I still have something of yours,” Merlin pulls my Seals cap out of his sleeve. I’m glad to see it’s managed to become perfectly dry in the wizard’s robes. I feel a bit doofusy for losing track of it, but then, I did have a gun pressed to my head.

  I start to reach for the hat but realize that most of the Thickskin has come off. And I’d rather ride in the ship with Thea and Clyne.

  “Thea, could you hang on to it, please?” I ask. “I don’t have any covering for it right now.”

  She shrugs, then puts it on her own head. “My friend,” she explains to Merlin, “has a symbiosis with this strange floppy helmet.”

  “It’s a cap,” I remind her.

  “The cap serves as a key,” she continues, “to unmoor him in time.”

  “That’s always an option,” I tell her. “If the ship spooks you, you and Clyne could hang on to my legs.”

  “I will trust the ship for a bit longer. Besides, we have the prisoner.”

  “Too bad, Thea. I was hoping we could moor you here for a while.” It’s Merlin again. He’s nodding the same way he did in the cave, with that keeping-secrets-around-me-is-useless expression. “I would say, lass, you could learn a lot. But I suspect you could offer just as much.”

  Thea still isn’t sure where she should go. Her real home, she says again, is gone.

  “But your father could still be in Alexandria,” I remind her.

  “He could be. He could be anywhere else on Earth. He could be dead. And I’m not ready for the heartbreak of a fruitless search, Eli. Not now.”

  She doesn’t want to come back with me, because every time she visits 2019, she gets shot at. And she doesn’t want to spend her life explaining herself to Mr. Howe and his DARPA goons. I ask about Clyne’s planet.

  “I will return to Saurius Prime someday, because that’s where the remnants of the Alexandrian library are. But though K’lion’s people are generous, that’s not quite home, either.”

  Arthur comes out of the ship after an impromptu tour from Clyne. “Amazing, Merlin. You should see it. I should have you conjure one for me — imagine the crusading we could do!”

  “First, sire, you’ve a home to rebuild.”

  “Aye. And a sword to get reacquainted with.” He raises Excalibur once more, which he’s been doing a lot since we left the cave.

  “Are you going to find your knights again?” I ask.

  “Or let other knights find me. I do not know. ’Tis a different world from when we sat at the Round Table. I will rebuild the castle and see what happens next. But for now, I shall politely refuse to fade away.”

  And then I think: But isn’t that what happened? Didn’t King Arthur just fade away? Did we change things by making him want to stick around? And if we just changed things, is it for the better?

  My dad mentioned a theory once that for every fork in the road, for every situation with more than one possible outcome — which is most of them —there’s a new and parallel world created. A different one for each possibility. And each possibility after that. Which makes for an infinite number of forks in the road, and worlds to hold them.

  First there’s Mom, talking about how World War II was working itself out differently from the way it went the last time — and now this: King Arthur acting like he practically expects the cartoon Laddy to come riding up at any moment so that his royal adventures can continue.

  I didn’t want to keep making so many different worlds that I couldn’t find my way back to my real home. Or that Mom and Dad would always have to stay apart.

  “All is ready now for our swirly-bump voyage!” Clyne declares, emerging from the craft. He was referring to our plan to drop Rolf off somewhere in 1941, maybe with the U.S. or British Army. Then I would go back to Dad, in 2019. He must be pretty worried about me. Depending on when we touch back, I’ve been gone either a short time or a long time. I never know till I get home.

  Thea finally decides to return to Saurius Prime with Clyne, at least for a while. “But perhaps when your castle is fixed, it could use a library,” she says to Arthur and Merlin.

  “Perhaps it could, m’lady. Perhaps it could.” The king bows to us, and Merlin nods.

  “My binding spell should be good on your captive for some time yet,” the wizard adds. “But I am not entirely sure how sudden chronological changes affect it. Your ship’s arrival shook him loose before. Be careful of sudden disruptions. I’ll look forward to hearing about your journey next time.” And then he bows, too.

  Next time?

  Stepping into the ship, I see how different it is from the “school model” Clyne had before. The body of the craft itself seems almost…liquid — walls and floors have shaped themselves into seats for all three of us.

  Rolf is on a low bunk in the back. Part of the wall had oozed out to make restraints around him.

  I take a seat and settle in. It makes itself snug around me. Thea is the pilot: She moves her hand over what must be a control panel — though really there are hardly any buttons or switches — and an area around it starts to glow.

  “We need something to guide it back to that time of war,” Thea says. “To give the ship a scent, so to speak.”

  “Well,” I say as I look around, “what about Rolf’s uniform? It’s the one he stole at Fort Point.”

  “Bring a piece up here. This seems to be where the vessel’s…brains are. Though perhaps it’s all becoming a single intelligence.”

  I try to tear a corner off Rolf’s jacket, but it’s too thick. “We need something sharp.”

  Rolf has been unusually quiet — considering how much he likes to brag. Merlin’s spell didn’t freeze his mouth, exactly, just reduced his voice to a whisper. But I’m close enough for him to try it out.

  “We have weapons more terrible than this,” he rasps. “This war is just beginning.”

  “This ship isn’t a weapon.”

  Then he laughs. A croaky whisper-laugh, which gives me t
he creeps. “You always want everything to be so nice, Roy Rogers! Existence isn’t nice. It is fierce. But you know that. You’re not the good little cowboy you pretend to be. I see it in you. The dragon. You have it, too.”

  “I do not!”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Thea tells me.

  “Leave his word-salad alone,” Clyne adds.

  “You hear me, don’t you, Roy Rogers? You know the truth. You would do what I do to survive. To prevail.”

  I can feel the anger inside me again. But I’m not like him. People who are like him always want to believe everyone else is the same way.

  “Just shut up,” I spit.

  Then I see the knife.

  It’s jutting out from the ship wall, like the bunk, or the seats. The Saurian craft has manufactured it and appears to be…handing it to me.

  But why? Why did it make a knife?

  I snap it loose and use it to cut off a piece of Rolf’s uniform. Is that why I have it? For a simple task? Or was the ship sensing something else?

  In me?

  No.

  That’s not who I am. No matter what Rolf says. No matter what corny secret name Mr. Howe gives me. I’m just a twelve-year-old who wants to be home playing Barnstormers.

  Right?

  I hand the piece of cloth to Thea, who puts it on the control panel, which…absorbs it. She closes her eyes. “Find it,” she whispers.

  And I can tell by the feeling in my stomach that we’ve just burst into the Fifth Dimension.

  Different parts of the ship swirl into translucent portholes outside, and I see the wildly vibrant colors streaking by in long lines — except for the ones that seem to explode in little pinwheels. Between the bursts of color, utter, utter blackness: the true opposite of light.

  And then the sensations that come with it: a cross between giddiness and itchiness, memories seeming more alive than they ever have — almost as if they’re dancing in front of you, like a portable Comnet screen.

  Clyne, this time, just seems to be admiring the ship. “Gennt has once again stretched the ectoplasm of the possible!” he says, running his claws along the interior. Then he stops to consider. “But tk! I wonder if we’ll be tested on any of this.”