by Hiatt, Bill
By now the flames were an inferno, their very touch death, and the knights backed up to avoid being burned right where they stood.
Then the rain started.
I had been so focused on getting my own magic working fast enough to do us any good that I had lost track of what Morgan was doing. She may not have understood the idea behind a force field, but she certainly would have known that water puts out fire.
We had pushed the flames to such intensity that at first the rain became steam and hissed away, but Morgan was more than capable of intensifying her attack. The rain became a downpour, a deluge, a flood from the sky. The hilt began to burn my hand, and my throat became more and more scratchy. I could feel the others struggling to keep up the music as more and more of the rain knifed through our fiery shield and hit us in great, chilling drops. White Hilt itself sputtered as the rain starting hitting it directly.
Then the flaming ceiling above us collapsed, and the full force of Morgan’s unnatural storm nearly drove us to our knees. The wall between us and the knights looked more like desperate smoke than fire. In seconds even that tenuous defense would be gone. The group had given me what strength it could, and given us all a chance, but even together we were no match for Morgan. Unless, unless…
During Stan’s brief, ill-fated martial arts career, he had told me the old proverb about using an enemy’s strength against him. Morgan had created an incredibly powerful storm, one that threatened to beat us into the mud. However, as far as I could tell, she had seldom if ever left Annwn in the last few hundred years, while I had been living in the “real” world and learning its lessons. I thought of the weather in scientific terms as well as magic ones, and I believed I knew enough about meteorology to be able to visualize a way to use that storm against her, if my friends and my magic held out long enough.
I stopped trying to sustain the firewall. The knights, battered by the rain themselves, did not react very fast. With what power I had left, I caught the steam clouds, accelerating their condensation into even more rain. The condensation released heat into the surrounding clouds, and I again accelerated a natural process, encouraging the heat to build, creating a low pressure area that in turn caused the wind to begin to spiral inward. Much faster than in nature, but using the same basic processes, I took the conditions Morgan had created and brewed myself up a hurricane, with my friends safe in the eye. The knights and Morgan were not so lucky.
Shield and armor made the knights maybe sixty pounds heavier than they would otherwise have been, but keep in mind that hurricanes of enough magnitude can easily suck up cars. Two of the knights fell back fast enough; the other ten screamed as they spiraled upward, on their way to Oz…or death. I tried not to think about the second part. Morgan herself had managed to push the hurricane back from her as she tried with all her might to still the roaring storm. She would succeed eventually, but her first attempts failed because she did not understand what she was dealing with.
A combination of the storm’s fury and her frenzied efforts to stop it shattered the illusion she had been maintaining. First the unnatural brightness faded; then the rows and rows of apple trees dissolved as if the rain were melting them. In their place stood a few dead trees with barren branches and rotting bark, the sole distinguishing features in the gray and dreary realm that was Morgan’s true home. I heard a thud and noticed an empty suit of armor, rusted and useless, hit the hard ground. Even Morgan’s knights had been more illusion than real.
The Voice started speaking through Dan so abruptly I nearly jumped. “Morgan has tried so hard to make this place Avalon that she has poisoned it irrevocably. The illusion drained all the substance away, until only the husk you see remained, corrupted beyond redemption.” Morgan screamed then, screamed into the wind, her voice echoing and re-echoing eerily all around us, her face twisted in frustration, her eyes gleaming murderously.
“How do we get out of here?” I asked urgently. I could feel the hurricane begin to lessen as Morgan contended against it. She might be ruler of a wasteland rather than a paradise, but that did not render her any less capable of killing us all.
“Observe,” said the Voice, having Dan’s body step aside to reveal a glowing doorway. “The way home.”
Without a moment’s hesitation I yelled at everyone else to get through the portal. Numb both physically and mentally, they all complied without question. When they were through, Dan more or less shoved me through and then followed, just as the hurricane was dying down.
The world around us seemed to shudder momentarily, and then we landed with a jarring thud on the dais in the city council chambers; I somehow knew we had only been gone for a minute or two at most. The lights were still out, and everyone around us was shrieking. At first I thought we had stumbled back into some kind of massacre. Then I realized the ceiling sprinklers had gone off, drenching everyone in the room. Obviously there had been no fire, so there was only one possible explanation.
Someone who knew we were going to come back soaking wet was covering our entrance. Even as stunned and exhausted as I was, I couldn’t help but wonder how to fix my other immediate problem.
Stan, of course, already knew who I was, and Dan never remembered what happened while the Voice was using him as an instrument, but six other people had seen Morgan Le Fay treat me as if she had known me for centuries—which she had; worse, they had seen me work magic, and pretty spectacular magic at that. I was in close physical proximity to them when we first popped back into our world, but we were surrounded by dozens of other people, even before the lights came on, and the parents rushed upon us as fast as they could. There was no way I could even enforce a command not to talk about what they had seen. All I could do was hope for the best—which, given the way my life had been going, didn’t seem like a winning strategy.
“Tal!” my mom half-yelled as she hustled up on stage, closely followed by my dad, both pretty soggy, just like everyone else in the room. “When the lights went out, I…I was worried about you.” Logically, she would have had no reason to worry, but perhaps her maternal instincts had correctly identified a possible threat she could not consciously be aware of.
“I’m fine, Mom. It’s just water.” Stan’s mom, as if she too had sensed something, was hugging him hard enough to crush him, and I wondered if maybe I had her figured wrong. Perhaps part of her control freakery really did come from love after all.
None of us students said much to each other as our parents collected us, but I couldn’t help noticing the stare that Carlos gave me, or the uneasy way that Aabharana wouldn’t make eye contact, or even the completely unreadable expression on Eva’s face as she passed by me.
“Taliesin!” said someone right behind me. I turned around, and there was Carrie Winn, soggy but somehow able to carry it off better than most people.
“Ah, and you must be Mr. and Mrs. Weaver,” she continued, sweeping toward my parents in a friendly, but nonetheless forceful, way. “How proud of your son you must be.”
“Yes, we are!” said my dad, actually meaning it, at least I thought so, as he reached out to shake Ms. Winn’s outstretched hand. My mom, by contrast, was a little shaken to be suddenly confronted by the city’s founder and uncrowned queen.
“Oh, Ms. Winn, I’m such a mess!”
“We all are, dear,” replied Ms. Winn, shaking my mom’s hand vigorously.
“You’re beautiful, Mom,” I surprised myself by saying. She blushed, just a bit, and Ms. Winn raised an eyebrow.
“A scholar and a gentleman! I wonder…I know you want to get home and get dried out, but could I borrow Taliesin, just for a second? I have an internship opportunity I’d like to discuss with him.”
If pride were fire, my parents would have burned up right on the spot. “Of course! Tal, we’ll meet you out in the parking lot.”
Ms. Winn thanked them and then hustled me off to one side, away from the friends I so desperately needed to do something about, but even as a high school student, I knew that Ms. Winn was not a pers
on you said no to.
When we were a safe distance away from everyone else, our conversation in any case largely covered by the mob of people shuffling around in the room, Ms. Winn turned to me and said in a low voice, “Taliesin, that was quite a victory over Morgan. Impressive, to say the least.”
I must have looked incredibly stupid with my mouth hanging so far open. “You…you know about that?”
“Why are you so surprised?” she said gently with a small smile. “After all, you have been getting my help and advice for some time.”
Ms. Winn was the Voice!
“You have never identified yourself before.”
Ms. Winn nodded solemnly. “The situation is much more…difficult than I at first thought. I have to work with you more directly from now on. The internship I mentioned to your parents will be a good cover if I need to contact you directly.”
“Is this because of Morgan?” Ms. Winn chuckled a little at that.
“My dear, Morgan has been a prisoner in that little corner of Annwn for centuries. Oh, she can still do some mischief if someone stumbles into her prison, but she has long been insane and in any case cannot leave—or call anyone else to her.”
“But she grabbed me and the other students…”
“No!” Ms. Winn cut me off decisively. “Morgan did not pull you into Annwn. Someone else threw you in.” I must have looked puzzled, and Ms. Winn’s tone became more impatient. “There is an opposing force working in Santa Brígida. I have known for some time, but I did not expect such a bold move, such a direct attack. In one way, though, what happened tonight was very fortunate. I think I know who our enemy is.”
“Who—” I started to ask.
“No time for that now. Your parents will be wondering what’s going on as it is, and I’m not one hundred percent sure yet anyway. I will let you know as soon as I can verify my hunch.” Ms. Winn looked around cautiously. “It’s time for you to go.” She shook my hand. “Just be as alert as you were tonight, and I’ll be in touch.”
Since we had almost gotten taken prisoner by Morgan Le Fay tonight, merely maintaining the same level of alertness didn’t seem like enough, but this was not the time to argue. I said goodnight to Ms. Winn and walked out, somewhat shakily, to join my parents. The fog had cleared, and the sky actually sparkled, but the night’s beauty did little to allay my uneasiness.
I finally knew who the Voice was, but that revelation raised as many questions as it answered. I had beaten one enemy only to discover another, potentially far more powerful one. Some of my fellow students now had questions I couldn’t begin to answer.
Typical! Just typical!
CHAPTER 10: TRIANGLES
Despite the ominous events on Founders’ Day, life for a few days seemed normal, or at least what passed for normal in my universe. There were no attacks, no urgent messages from Ms. Winn, no intrusions by the Voice (which I somehow hadn’t gotten around to just calling “Ms. Winn,” or something similar). My dad, though he might have been happier if I had plastered the walls of my bedroom with Taylor Swift posters, had pretty much decided I wasn’t gay, and, since from his point of view everything was falling into place for me, didn’t even complain about my harp playing. My mom fretted less than at any other time in the last four years. I was doing well academically, keeping myself in combat-ready physical shape, even finding time for some band practice. I almost gave in to the temptation to believe my life really was as good as it seemed to be.
The one jarring note in this particular symphony? Naturally, the “Annwn Six”: Carlos, Jackson, Eva, Mary, Natalie, and Aabharana, the people who had seen me forced to be who I really was. As far as I could tell, none of them had said anything to anyone else, probably for fear that they would sound crazy. I wasn’t even sure they spoke to each other about it. The one thing I indisputably did know was that they had not forgotten their experience. I could tell from the way they treated me. Carlos and I had never exactly been best buds, but now he made a point of avoiding me; however, when that wasn’t possible, he kept his eyes on me every minute, as if waiting for some colossal display of magic. Jackson couldn’t avoid me in that way because of band practice, but I noticed he always managed to avoid being alone with me, and he, usually the most laid back person I knew, seemed more nervous than my mom at her worst. Natalie eyed me suspiciously whenever she saw me. Stan offered to talk to her, but I told him not to; what could he say that didn’t run the risk of making the situation worse? I didn’t see Mary at all, which meant she was successfully avoiding me—we had no classes together. Aabharana became the only one of the six who tried to spend more time with me rather than less. Suddenly she wanted me back on the staff of the literary magazine, and she showed up so often where I was that she could have been stalking me, yet she seemed to have trouble making eye contact with me. Under other circumstances, I would have thought she was crushing on me, but in this bizarre situation, I had no idea what she was doing. Hell, she could have been thinking I was a heretofore undiscovered avatar of Vishnu for all I knew.
The result of all these reactions? The air was so thick with tension I could practically see it. Sooner or later one of these people would say something to someone. I had this mental image, no doubt painted by Hollywood, of a dam breaking, one little crack at first, then the whole structure collapsing, unleashing countless gallons of liquid destruction to drown me. Yeah, I know, overly melodramatic, but I couldn’t get the image out of my mind as much as I tried.
You probably noticed I haven’t mentioned Eva. She was out of school for a few days, but when she returned, she became the first crack in the dam.
I didn’t hear the beginning of her conversation with Dan. She must have tried to ask him about Founders’ Day. Dan, since he had been the channel for the Voice at that point, had no idea what Eva was talking about, but she must have thought he was lying to her. When I arrived on the scene, she was yelling at him, her green eyes glistening with tears, and he was just staring at her, dumbfounded. Before he could recover from his surprise, she turned away from him and stormed off down the hall, so distracted that she didn’t even notice me.
I’m ashamed to say my first reaction was to visualize some highly unlikely scenario in which she confronted me, I told her the truth, she was overcome by my honesty, revealed the secret feelings she had hidden even from herself, and we ended up in bed together, making love for hours, finally able to acknowledge the passion that had always been there.
To be fair, I had fallen in love with her before she was with Dan. We had one of those elementary school romances—I know some fifty-year-old out there is scoffing about puppy love, but bear with me. We were “together” for two years—pretty substantial time for that kind of usually ephemeral relationship—before I hit twelve, and my past lives hit me. During the time I was learning how to deal with the chaos in my head, she drifted away from me and toward Dan. Perhaps such a shift was inevitable. He was moving toward being the football star even then, he was popular, he was good looking—and he was normal. Perhaps she sensed the amount of ancient baggage I was hauling around; I never knew. Perhaps the gossip influenced her. A lot of former “friends” had whispered when I came back that I was “mental,” that I had had a breakdown, that it was only a matter of time before I had another one. The fact that I didn’t go out of my way to socialize with anyone besides Stan probably reinforced that kind of impression. Oh, the gossip died down pretty quickly when people realized that I wasn’t going to start barking like a dog in class, or eating chalk, or any of the other colorful conjectures a preteen mind could dream up. But by then the damage was done. Eva and Dan didn’t end up as a formal couple until they both got into high school. Dan was a year older, so he was fifteen and Eva, who was my age, fourteen, when they became official. But there had been pretty clear signs well before that of the connection between them.
I don’t want to give the impression that I blamed Eva. She may have drifted, but I did nothing to hold her. A thousand times I must have
daydreamed going over to her house, telling her I loved her. I didn’t, because I was afraid, afraid she would laugh in my face, or, more realistically, that she would pity me for what I had gone through but finally reveal that she just didn’t feel the same way about me that I did about her, sending me away with the lead weight of the “let’s just be friends” talk. Eventually, some of my self-confidence came back, but by then it was too late. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just turn off my feelings like a light switch, and I figured if I could love her that much four years later, as miserable as the situation was, then the love must be real; surely puppy love or a mere infatuation would never have sunk such deep roots into my heart, roots I could not tear out, however much I might long to.
I should also mention that Dan had been a total jerk to me for most of high school. It was only on the day of the pwca attack, the day he had come to my rescue under the control of the Voice, that he gave me any reason to feel guilty about my feelings for Eva—and even then, I figured, he was only being nice to me as a result of outside influence. Even so, I had no intention of violating the “bro code,” no matter how strong my feelings for Eva. Eventually I would find someone else…wouldn’t I?
After classes but before our afternoon workout, I walked out to the woods behind campus and sent out over the wind a call for help to Dan. I had never tried that before, but the Voice had told me Dan would always answer my call if I needed him. Sure enough, in just a few minutes Dan appeared. I could tell from the subtle differences in his manner that my call had shifted him into Voice mode, even if the Voice wasn’t actually running him at that point.
“What’s up?” he asked tensely, looking around as if he expected a dragon to come lumbering down the path after us, breathing a fire a thousand times hotter than that of White Hilt. To his surprise, I asked him to tell me about his fight with Eva, and he did. Just as I thought, I was the cause.
“I want you to go to Eva right now…and I want you to tell her everything.” Yeah, I know—I was blowing whatever slim chance of getting together with Eva myself. But I could never feel right about being with her this way, so probably it was better to remove the possibility before those roots could dig even deeper into my heart.