by Dyrk Ashton
* * *
“Copy that,” she says, “but we have things well in hand. A Templar is nothing if not prepared.” She returns the radio to the communications specialist and gazes out the back of the truck to inspect the temporary camp.
The vehicles have been gathered close to the helicopters, and fog is setting in. Engineers are completing the erection of a field tent, inside of which soldiers are having their evening meal.
A generator hums to life and lights blink on, illuminating the camp.
The lieutenant approaches. “Perimeter detection is in place and prepared for activation, Colonel.”
“Proceed.” The lieutenant relays the order with his radio. Around the camp, thin beams of green laser-light appear, then more, intersecting until the entire area is enclosed in a domed grid of threads of light.
“Motion detectors and infrared cameras are also placed and activated,” says the lieutenant. “Our coordinates are being monitored by satellite as well. Nothing can approach that we won’t be aware of.”
“Let’s hope nothing tries,” the colonel replies. “Hope, and pray.”
* * *
Edgar clips the radio to his belt and joins Fi, Zeke, and Peter, who have gathered around Myrddin. Pratha and Mrs. Mirskaya inspect the area for signs of how the stones may have been broken. Myrddin runs his hand over runes on the surface of one piece, mumbling under his breath. They glow faintly then flicker and fade.
“What was this?” asks Zeke. “It looks like some kind of stone circle, like Stonehenge, maybe.”
“It was,” says Peter. “Myrddin built it long ago, like so many others. Like Stonehenge.”
Zeke’s academic curiosity is piqued. “What was it for?”
“Focusing the power of ancient words, for various purposes. Mostly they were used for travel, from one circle to another. Much like slipping, but only on this world, and only for those who knew how to use them. There were few who did. Fewer who still do.”
Mrs. Mirskaya kneels with palms pressed against pieces of stone. “It is broken by magic.”
“What kind?” Peter asks.
Pratha cuts in before Mrs. Mirskaya can answer, “A potent invocation, to render Myrddin’s undone. Other than that, I cannot tell.” Mrs. Mirskaya scowls at her. “Do you know?”
Mrs. Mirskaya huffs and pushes to her feet. “Nyet, I do not.”
Peter says, “This circle was built for a single purpose, to travel to Freyja’s compound. It was to be our passage there.” He turns to Edgar. “It looks like we’ll need to impose upon our newfound Templar friends for transport to Norway.”
“Already arranged, milord,” says Edgar.
Peter eyes Baphomet, who stands back from the doorway, recovering from the encounter with his father’s rage. “But for now, I’ve put off interrogating our prisoner long enough.” He looks through the door to the ruin of the vault beyond. “It may have been taken, but we must see if we can find the Chair.”
* * *
Fi and Zeke stand at the end of an aisle, gawking at the immensity and condition of the place. Mrs. Mirskaya tut-tuts at the mess, hands on hips.
Myrddin looks lost. “I don’t know where to start.”
Fi cranes her neck to take in the vastness of the ceiling. “This place is huge.” She recalls being in the tunnels beneath Peter’s home when they were caving in. “If Kleron came, could he collapse it on us?”
Pratha waves her hand gracefully in the air. Seemingly satisfied, she says, “The structural wards are still strong. This rock is not coming down any time soon.”
Myrddin says, “The passing of Isis explains the deterioration of the valley and lake, however. Even the sickness of the old willow.”
Zeke asks, “How old is that tree?”
“Not that old. I remember it sprouting. Two thousand years, I suppose.”
“That’s pretty old for a tree. I know some species live that long, but I didn’t think a willow.”
Mischief glints in Myrddin’s eye. “The locals once believed it was a lost descendent of Yggdrasil, an extension of the World Tree itself.”
Zeke rubs his face and runs his fingers through his hair. He says to Fi, “You’d think I’d get used to this by now.”
Fi says, “I hope not.”
Edgar approaches Fi, his concern for her regarding Peter’s outburst clear on his face. “I’m sorry you had to witness that.”
“It’s okay,” she replies. “He obviously cared for her a lot. Isis, I mean.”
Edgar says, “He cares for everyone, and that, my dear, is what tortures him most.”
Mrs. Mirskaya looks across the room to where Peter comes out of the second set of doors in the far wall, absent-mindedly pulling cloth covers off piles of boxes and picking through debris. “He is worried for Arges and Asterion as well.”
“We all are,” says Pratha, coming around the end of a row of shelves, inspecting a broken bauble she holds in her hand then tossing it away.
“And Tanuki,” says Myrddin.
“Of course,” Pratha replies.
Edgar sees Zeke perk up at the mention of these names and says, “The Tanuki of Japanese legend, yes. He served Peter in the First and Second Holocaust. As a batman, or aide-de-camp, of sorts.”
“And Arges? The cyclops?”
“The armorer of the gods,” says Edgar, and Zeke can see he’s impressed. “He was known by many names, of course, but he lost an eye in the second Great War. He was not that way by birth.”
Zeke sees Pratha staring at the floor, her expression uncharacteristically solemn at the talk of Arges, so he moves on. “I thought Asterion was a king of ancient Crete?”
Edgar says, “There were several kings by that name, but they took them from the first, the Asterion of which we speak. The Bull, he is called. For quite literal reasons.”
Myrddin speaks with heaviness in his voice. “It was Asterion who rallied us against the Asura in the First Holocaust, before Father escaped from the Tartarus. He marshaled us in the Second as well, kept us organized, never let us give up. The Bull remained by Father’s side for quite awhile after as well. For a time they called him Nandi. A pillar of the Deva clan, if ever there was one. Father’s right arm.”
The Firstborn are lost in silence, fathomless depths of memories passing beneath the surfaces of their eyes. They all look so sad, Zeke refrains from asking more questions.
Pratha finally speaks up. “All right. We need to find the Perilous, question Baphomet, and be off to locate our sisters and brothers. The Goat may know where some of us are.”
Myrddin looks over the size of the vault. “Hmm...”
Mrs. Mirskaya says to him, “This could take all night. Can you call to it?”
“It’s not a river or a stone, madam,” Myrddin responds. “It’s a chair.”
“Let’s split up,” Fi offers. “We could cover more ground.”
“Famous last words,” says Zeke.
“This isn’t a horror movie.” Zeke gives her a look and she reconsiders. “Well...”
“Do not fear,” says Mrs. Mirskaya. “We are safe here, for now.” Her method of comforting doesn’t offer much comfort. Fi shakes her head at Zeke, who grins. “What? Oh you little kholigani.” She flaps her hands at them to go away. “Get searching. Idti, go!”
“Wait,” Zeke asks. “What does it look like?”
“A chair,” Myrddin answers, exasperated. “Oh, and if you see it, give us a shout. Don’t touch it. And whatever you do, do not sit in it.”
“See?” Zeke says to Fi. “Horror movie.” She smacks his arm.
* * *
The sun has disappeared behind the mountains and the sky grown dark. “What do you think it’d be like, Mikey, living for fifteen hundred years?” Private Timothy O’Brien asks Corporal Michael Winslow, who walks behind him as they patrol the inside edge of the perimeter in the heavy fog.
“You mean like Galahad?” Mike replies, following Tim around a craggy boulder in an area of ground humpe
d with grassy mounds. “Fuck all if I know. If I hadn’t raided a den of them vampires with the colonel in Liverpool, I wouldn’t even believe that old fella was him.”
“Them others, though. How old d’you suspect they are? Who are they, d’you think? And what?”
Mike doesn’t answer. After a few more steps, Tim stops and turns. His friend is nowhere to be seen. “Mikey?” he calls out. His training kicks in. He readies his rifle and prepares to report in—but a grassy mound behind him, six feet in diameter, flips open like a lid and four many-jointed legs spring out. The longest two, hairy and clawed, hook him backwards into the pit before he can make a sound. The hump drops shut, hidden as it was before it opened.
* * *
Edgar and Fi poke through clutter on shelves at floor level, flipping back old blankets, opening wooden boxes. Having climbed up, Mrs. Mirskaya picks her way along a shelf above them.
Fi asks Edgar, “Can someone like Isis really die from grief? Even Firstborn?”
“They can,” says Pratha, leaping to the floor from an even higher shelf, startling Fi. “It’s not up there,” she interjects, but expands on what she was saying. “We can. A long life can be a difficult thing to bear. Loneliness, anguish, despair, these are our worst enemy. Sometimes more so than our Asura brothers and sisters.” She continues to search while she speaks. “Some have allowed themselves to be overcome, to waste away and perish. Others have taken their own lives, or rushed into battle in hopes of having it taken for them. Only the strongest survive.” She looks at Mrs. Mirskaya, “The most cynical or those with a cause,” to Myrddin down the row, “the crazed,” and to Edgar, “and those with spirits true.” She taps herself on the chest. “Or the coldest hearts.” She peeks inside a broken urn. “But the answer is yes, any can die in this manner.”
Her gaze falls on Peter, farthest down the aisle, searching by himself. “All except Father. What he’s endured, still does, not even I can imagine.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Though,” she says softly, “I get the feeling there’s something else weighing upon him. Something not spoken.” She says no more, and the others don’t ask.
Fi considers Pratha’s words, watching Peter. Her father. But before a confusing and profound melancholy overtakes her, she glances around. “Where’s Zeke?”
* * *
In the next aisle over, opposite from where Peter searches, Zeke pulls back the corner of a tattered oilskin to reveal musical instruments, discarded and in disarray. He picks up a lute. It’s badly scratched, scorched along one side, the neck is chipped, and only two strings remain. Zeke holds it in playing position and strums the strings. He expected it to be out of tune, but the sound it produces sets his nerves on edge and makes him feel ill. He palms the strings to silence them and the feeling goes away. “Yeesh,” he says to himself, and remembering Peter’s guitars, turns it over. On the back of the neck is an elegant scrawl, though gouged in as if by a claw, that reads Lucifer. Zeke exclaims something like “Ee-yargh” and pitches it back on the pile.
He leans closer to inspect it, a sour look on his face, but something else catches his eye. He pulls the oilskin back further, uncovering a pile of dented armor and cast-off weapons. There’s a broken sword with a pommel stone that looks like a ruby, a mace made of green glass with spikes knocked off, some axes with notched blades. Even in their condition, all shine as if brand new—but the haft of a particular sword gleams brighter among the rest. It looks made of gold, the pommel cast in the form of a cherub’s head, grinning and chubby-cheeked, and the cross-guard spreads like wings of an angel. The shining steel blade is in perfect shape. He knows he shouldn’t, but he reaches for it, then hesitates—
“Go ahead,” says Peter.
Zeke jumps and yells, “Shit!” jerking his hand back and holding it to his chest.
“It won’t harm you. Pick it up,” Peter encourages.
“Really?”
“Yes really. What do you think, I’d fool you into touching it so you’d die instantly? Remember who you’re talking to, Zeke.”
“Oh,” Zeke says, recalling that Peter doesn’t lie. Supposedly. “Yeah.”
Zeke looks at the sword again. “It’s beautiful.”
“An Astra weapon, though not of the highest class.”
Zeke gulps. He slides his fingers over the pommel to the grip, lifts it into the aisle. “Oh man.” He holds it in front of him with the point aiming at the ceiling, admiring its beauty. “It’s not heavy at all.” He brings his other hand up to take the grip with both hands—and a voice erupts from the blade, exquisite, and very loud.
“Ahh-AHHHHHH!” it cries. “Ahh-AHHHHHH!” The sound fills the hall. The sword vibrates in his hand with each cry, the grip tingling as if with electric current. It doesn’t hurt, but locks his grip and Zeke can’t let go. And it keeps doing it, over and over. “Ahh-AHHHHHH! Ahh-AHHHHHH! Ahh-AHHHHHH!”
* * *
Fi looks up. “What’s that?” she shouts over the sound.
Pratha says, “I haven’t heard that in quite some time.” She pinpoints the location of its source and heads off down the aisle. Myrddin skips after her, cackling with glee. Fi looks to Edgar, but he’s as clueless as she is.
Mrs. Mirskaya says, “Come, I will show you.”
They round the end of the aisle where Peter is leaning against one of the upright beams of the shelves. “Just let go,” he shouts to Zeke, who still has hold of the haft with both hands. The blade quivers, pulling him this way and that with each “Ahh-AHHHHHH!”
“I can’t!” he cries.
Fi says, “What the hell?”
“Good Lord,” says Edgar, astounded. “It’s the Singing Sword.”
Mol barks at the annoying din.
Peter walks calmly to Zeke and grabs the blade with one hand. The voice becomes muffled, as if he’s covering its mouth. “Let go now,” he says to Zeke.
Zeke does, then hops around, shaking his hands out and rubbing them to get the feeling back. “Is that all it does?” he asks.
“It will cut though steel without resistance,” says Peter, “and take the head off a Firstborn.” Peter deposits it back onto the pile with a clang. “Other than that, yes, that’s all it does, and it never stops. And you’re right, you can’t let go, not until someone takes it from you.”
“Why?” Zeke exclaims.
The others approach. Mrs. Mirskaya says, “Myrddin made that thing and gave it to Thor as a joke.” Fi and Zeke both look at her. “Was funny, then. Thor was bol'shoy mudak.”
Fi translates for Zeke. “‘Big asshole.’”
“It made Thor quite angry, however,” Pratha adds. “So Arges made him a hammer to appease him, and keep him from killing Myrddin.”
Myrddin grins, nodding.
Zeke’s feeling lightheaded. Shaking his head to clear it only makes him dizzier. While the others look over the instruments, weapons and armor, he goes to the other side of the aisle where moldy tapestries and an old sheepskin are piled on crates on the bottom shelf, then plops down on them and leans back.
Peter speaks as he turns to Zeke. “My apologies, Zeke, I just thought...” His voice trails off, curiosity mixed with concern clouding his features. Edgar looks stricken and Myrddin inhales sharply. All the Deva have various expressions from serious concern to downright horror. Except Fi, who’s looking from one to the other trying to figure out what’s freaking them all out. Then she sees the subject of Peter’s attention.
Behind Zeke’s leg, a corner of the tapestry is folded back, revealing the leg of a chair. It looks constructed of thick dark wicker, the surface woven in patterns of Celtic linear knotwork, the foot in the shape of a beast’s, replete with claws.
Zeke opens his mouth to speak, but Edgar whips a finger to his own lips, holding up his other hand, fingers splayed as an indication for Zeke to be silent—but he’s too late.
Voice trembling, Zeke says, “What?”
The tapestry and furs of his seat are shredded as vines spring forth, creaking an
d whipping the air. Nearby crates and boxes are thrown clear. The vines wrap Zeke’s legs, waist and chest. Stunted branches lift like armrests and the vines secure his wrists to them. More vines snake out from the back, which is shoulder height, and encircle his neck and forehead, holding him tight. The wicker toe-claws lengthen, punching through the bottom of the shelf and burrowing to root themselves in the stone and earth below.
Whatever the hellish thing is, it finally settles with Zeke trapped in its clutches.
“Oh my God,” Fi gasps, hand over her mouth.
Edgar and Myrddin are pale, the distress of Peter and Mrs. Mirskaya tangible, while Pratha looks on with scientific curiosity.
Edgar says in a soft but grave tone, his hand still out, “Listen to me, lad, this is important. Do not speak. Do not utter a sound. And don’t move.”
“What is that?” Fi asks, frantic. “What’s going on?”
Keeping his attention on Zeke, whose eyes are wide in fright, Edgar answers, “Zeke has just sat the Siege Perilous.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HIGHLANDS
SIEGE PERILOUS
Zeke sits very still, squeezing the gnarled arms of the Chair in bewilderment and terror. Myrddin paces, tapping his lips with one finger. He sees the others leaning close to Zeke. “Come away this instant!”
They back up, except for Edgar, who says, “Look at me, lad. You’ll be all right. We’ll get you through this. Just give us a moment. Concentrate on staying calm. Don’t say anything, but nod if you understand.” Zeke blinks a few times, then nods. “Good lad.” Mol whines with worry. Edgar forces a smile and joins the others, huddled across the aisle, and calls Mol to him.
“What is that thing?” Fi asks. “Why is it called the Siege Perilous?”
“Arthur named it,” Myrddin answers. “He thought it sounded ominous and foreboding.
“It sounds ridiculous,” says Mrs. Mirskaya.
“What it does is anything but,” says Edgar.