by Hiatt, Bill
Just as I was realizing that we had a problem, Sir Arian landed right next to me. “There is a deep fog rolling in from the east,” he began solemnly. “It is not a natural fog. My men and I sense dire evil within. I know not who would dare raise such wickedness in an area ruled by Gwynn ap Nudd, but they will come to regret their arrogant folly.”
However much they might come to regret it later, I was pretty much regretting it now. We were traveling toward the east, and as I glanced in that direction, I could already see the fog swallowing part of the road we were on. Avoiding it seemed impossible, unless we all flew around it, and the guys couldn’t do that. I suppose we could have magicked them into the air, but steering that many people who really couldn’t steer themselves would be problematic, to say the least—even assuming that the fog couldn’t follow us, and I was sure my luck wasn’t going to be that good.
“What’s our next move, Sir Arian?” Before he could answer me, he had to stretch out his arm so that an owl could land on it, and not just any owl; it was larger than I had ever seen, and its eyes were certainly bigger and brighter. Sir Arian whispered to it in what seemed to be owl language, then sent it flying toward the west.
“Owls are Gwynn’s sacred birds,” he explained. “That one will carry the message of this incursion to Gwynn, who will be here straightaway with a much larger force. As for our next move—”
Before he could finish, we both saw the enormous night-black raven emerge from the steadily advancing fog and fly with unnatural swiftness after the owl. At Sir Arian’s signal, nineteen fairy arrows pierced its breast—and it just kept on flying. Sharpening my vision, I looked closely at it and could see why the arrows had not stopped it: it was already dead, reanimated by the darkest of dark magics. Sir Arian could see the same thing.
“Aim for the wings!” he shouted to his men. “Alive or dead, it can’t fly if its wings are badly enough damaged.”
The next round of arrows punctured the wings in several places, and the raven began to falter, but its momentum was still carrying it closer to the owl. I had already drawn White Hilt, so I simply channeled its flame into a bolt aimed at the raven. Unfortunately, a combination of factors, including my comparative lack of experience with ranged weapons and my inability to adjust the focus of my enhanced distance vision quickly enough, caused me to miss.
Another round of faerie arrows sailed through the air, but the raven struck the owl first, digging its claws into it and causing it to lose control of its flight. The owl tried to turn its head enough to counterattack with its beak, but it was unable to twist that far. In a moment the two birds crashed into the top branches of a nearby alder tree and were lost to sight.
The raven’s flight had only distracted us for a couple of minutes, but in that time the fog had picked up speed, cutting its distance from us in half. The guys had already drawn their swords, but there was still no visible enemy. One of Sir Arian’s men flew off to attempt a rescue of the messenger owl, while the rest landed with our group.
“I cannot accurately gauge the strength of this menace,” warned Sir Arian. “In such circumstances, I would counsel retreat.”
Much as I wanted to get Carla to the Order’s headquarters, retreat seemed the only option for now—except that the fog, which must have been accelerating exponentially, suddenly engulfed us, rendering retreat difficult, if not impossible. Aside from feeling the cold gnawing at my bones, I realized that I had lost all sense of direction. Perhaps that was the fog’s effect, or perhaps it was actually shifting us to a different place. That second kind of attack, difficult to pull off in the regular world, was easier in Annwn, and it would be a serious threat in our present circumstances, because if we could be shifted out of Gwynn’s territory, he would not be able to protect us. Then there was the problem of finding our way to the Order’s headquarters. Getting lost in Annwn would not be easy with someone like Nurse Florence along, but it was not impossible.
“Don’t move!” I yelled to the guys; the faeries I felt sure would know how to handle the situation. If anyone got separated from the party at this point, that person could be in grave danger.
Whether we were being moved or just disoriented, the fog effectively disrupted our defenses. It was thick enough that a threat could get very close to us before we could see any sign that anything was wrong. As for the faerie archers, their primary fighting mode was completely eliminated. They all managed to land, stow their bows on their backs, and draw short swords they carried for just this kind of situation, but unquestionably they were at a disadvantage. Nonetheless, they encircled us, determined to fulfill their trust—or die trying. The question was, what exactly was in the fog?
We did not have to wait too long to find out. The fog did not muffle sounds, and so we had no difficulty hearing the clanking of enough armor to suggest that a sizable force was approaching, though from which direction was impossible to say.
A short distance away, I could just make out the emerald gleam of Zom as Shar wielded it to cut through the fog, which, being magical, could not resist the blade. Clever as that idea was, it didn’t get him very far, because Zom only affected the part of the fog it actually touched, so even if Shar took his biggest swing, he could only clear the area within a blade’s length of himself, and it started to fill in again very quickly.
The sound of armor all around us had become louder and louder, but I still couldn’t tell from what direction it was coming. I gave up trying and instead went back to singing, pouring every ounce of power I could into my words, heightening the guys’ abilities, speed, and morale for the fight that had to be only a minute or two away at most. Near me I could hear Nurse Florence casting a spell in an effort to lift the fog.
Then I could see sparks all around me as swords clanged against swords. From what I could tell, we faced a small force—at least I hoped it was small—in black armor. The only thing that saved us from disaster in the first round of attacks was that the attackers swung rather slowly. Otherwise they could have gotten close enough to us to wound us almost before we could respond. Even as it was, we were hard-pressed immediately. Our adversaries might be a bit slow, but they were strong, bringing their blades down with enough force to jar out teeth and nearly rip the swords from our grasps. Only Shar and sword-enhanced Stan really had enough muscle to maintain firm grips in the face of that kind of assault, and the faeries couldn’t come close. One of them was disarmed almost immediately, and they quickly switched strategies and started dodging more than parrying.
It did not take me long to figure out that our foes weren’t human. I managed to hit the closest ones with fire, but the resultant superheating of their armor didn’t elicit any response from them at all, not even a whimper, much less a scream. Could they be animated suits of armor such as we had encountered a couple of months ago during our first meeting with Morgan? No, I thought I could smell burning flesh. Come to think of it, though the armor made it difficult to tell, they could be reanimated dead, like the raven earlier. (I tended not to think of them as undead, because that’s really a modern term. At King Arthur’s court, one was either alive or dead, and that was it.)
It was Shar who first proved my theory. Zom would not break whatever was animating them just by striking their armor, but any flesh wound might just end their unnatural travesty of life, and hacking away at armor with a sword like Zom, it was only so long before Shar could actually wound an opponent, at which point that opponent clattered to the ground, dead again, just as I had suspected.
The rest of us were not doing as well. It did not take me long to realize I needed fire hot enough to melt the armor on one of these dead knights to do their dead flesh enough damage to “kill” it, but it was dangerous to stir up that much of a blaze in such close proximity to either humans or faeries. Not only that, but Sir Arian was shouting at me to be careful and not anger the forest. I did get a couple good shots in, but I needed to find a way to do better than that before we were overwhelmed.
Gordy an
d Carlos both had faerie swords designed to affect living adversaries, so neither one was much supernatural use against the dead, though physically they could still cut through ordinary armor pretty well, and fortunately the dead had only ordinary armor. Stan was managing a little better, because the strength his sword gave him enabled him to strike his opponents a little harder. Dan, on the other hand, was managing worse. His sword protected him against bleeding from a wound, but these opponents appeared to be striking to hack off limbs, and not bleeding wouldn’t help him much if his arms ended up lying on the ground. To avoid being struck, he had to dodge their blows, just like the faeries did. If we got out of this alive, I would have to remember to point that out to him.
Abruptly the fog melted away. I glanced at Nurse Florence, who was shaking from the effort. As it turned out, the effort was well worth it, because the battle turned decisively at that point. The faeries took to the air and started pounding the remaining dead with archery attacks. The dead were confused by airborne enemies, and the faeries were expert at scoring hits in the armor’s joints, weakening it and soon causing it to fall apart. They also hit gaps created by the guys’ swords, and those faerie arrows seemed to short-circuit the animation of the dead almost as effectively as Zom did. With better vision, it was easier for me to hit the dead with fire where it would do the most damage. Under these conditions, we made short work of the revived corpses sent against us.
Then, tired from all the sword swinging, arrow shooting, and spell casting, we had to face the one who had sent them.
CHAPTER 8: ONE HELL OF A LIP-LOCK
The good news? We still seemed to be on the same road, in the middle of the same forest, facing in the right direction to proceed on our trip to the headquarters of the Order of the Ladies of the Lake. The bad news? Blocking the road was now a chapel that covered the entire pathway and seemed to press unnaturally into the trees on either side of it. I could almost hear those trees screaming in protest. In theory, we could work our way through the forest and come out on the other side of the road, but I sensed that such a strategy was not really possible. If we tried, the chapel would simply relocate to block our new path. There was no way around, only through.
For those of you who are thinking, “OK, then just walk through the chapel,” the situation was more complicated than that. Clearly, this was no ordinary chapel. Quite aside from its sudden appearance in Gwynn’s kingdom, an intrusion that had Sir Arian and the other faeries fuming, the chapel was not adorned by any cross, and its front facade appeared to be black marble. Though I could not see the other outer walls very well, as far as I could tell, they were all black marble as well. The heavy bronze double entry doors had a disturbingly unbiblical portrayal of an army of skeletons surrounding a knight. Whatever this place was, it was not a Christian house of worship. Nonetheless, I was willing to bet its construction was typical in at least one way: it would have no back door, so there would be no walking through it. The only way to continue our journey would be to pass whatever test the creator of the chapel had in mind. Above the door hung the shields of many knights, presumably those who had earlier tried and failed to pass the test, if the fact that the shields were hanging upside down was any indication.
The dead knights we had faced had not been carrying shields. It did kind of make me wonder…
“Well, what now?” asked Dan. “I notice the door is slightly ajar. Someone seems to want us to come in.”
“But should we?” asked Carlos. “Why not just find a path through the forest and walk around?” I explained my thinking about that, with Sir Arian nodding grimly in agreement.
“If you want to reach your destination, someone will have to go in,” Sir Arian said unhappily, “but the situation is doubtful at best. I say we turn back. Gwynn will want to drive this abomination from his kingdom, and then you can proceed in safety.”
“We may not have that luxury,” I said sadly. “If Morgan Le Fay is behind this—” I started, only to be interrupted by an audible hiss from the faeries. “If she is,” I continued, “then this whole situation was set up precisely to get us to turn around. If that’s what she wants, I say we can’t give it to her.”
“Morgan would not dare such a thing in Gwynn’s kingdom,” objected Sir Arian.
“Someone has,” observed one of the other faeries.
“I’ll go in,” I said. “If Morgan spoke the truth, she needs me, so whatever is in there won’t kill me.”
“Morgan is not the only possibility,” said Nurse Florence. “If she is behind this, why send an army of the dead that could possibly have injured Carla and defeated her whole purpose?”
“The army gave us a hard time at first, but it was slow, and it was ill-equipped, at least as far as its armor was concerned” pointed out Dan. “If the same group had been given faerie armor, it would have been a different story. If you ask me, that battle was designed to throw us off a little, not to kill us. Morgan could be behind it.”
“Or it could be a preliminary test to determine who is worthy to enter the chapel, in which case any evil spell caster might be behind it,” argued Nurse Florence.
“Any insane, evil spell caster who believes he can risk the wrath of Gwynn ap Nudd,” corrected Sir Arian.
“The only way to know is to go inside,” I insisted. “From out here, we can all sense evil, but that’s about it.”
“If your mind is set on this course,” said Sir Arian, making little attempt to conceal his unhappiness about the idea, “then I will go in.”
“I can’t ask you to risk yourself, Sir Arian. This is my journey, so this is my battle.”
“This is all of our journey,” said Gordy loudly. “We are a team. Tal, you may be the leader, but you can’t shut us out.”
“I do not mean to be abrupt,” said Sir Arian, in a voice that suggested he really meant to be more than just abrupt. “However, all of you, Taliesin included, are guests here. You are our responsibility.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated the other faeries. “If anyone goes in, it will be I, and no other.” With that, he literally flew at the door, cutting off any further objection I might have had. However, just before he reached the chapel, the door slammed shut with a resounding clang. Sir Arian smashed into it at full speed and fell to the ground in a heap. Fortunately, Nurse Florence was on hand, and her healing power would work just as well on faeries as on humans. She and some of Sir Arian’s men moved him away from the chapel, at which point the door opened a little bit.
“Clearly, it wants someone specific,” suggested Stan.
“Or it wants humans, not faeries,” added Shar.
“Well, all we have now is trial and error—and I’m going to be the next trial,” I said firmly. If I was going to get this done, I needed to do it while Sir Arian was still unconscious.
What I had thought was a simple enough statement unleashed chaos. The faeries stepped in front of me only a little faster than the guys did.
“You will do as Sir Arian directs,” said one of the faeries menacingly. Well, at least he was trying to go for menacing, but what was he really going to do? Shoot me with his arrows?
“And what exactly has he directed?” I asked harshly. “He said he was going in. Clearly, he can’t. Has he given you orders to block my path? No, he hasn’t. So get out of my way!”
“His intent was clear enough,” said the faerie, not giving an inch. “You cannot pass.”
I found myself feeling a little desperate. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I knew turning back was probably exactly what Morgan wanted, and I couldn’t allow anyone else to risk himself in the chapel. “I think we both know I can pass. The question is whether I have to sweep the road with you first.” The faerie still didn’t back down, but I made him flinch a little. Doubtless he was aware that faeries might be faster, but humans were stronger—and I could speed myself up if I needed to. He may also have heard about how well I passed Gwynn’s test a couple months back.
“Really?” asked Shar. “And
are you going to sweep the road with all of us? Because you might have a little harder time getting past me than past one of our faerie friends.”
“Enough alpha-male competitiveness for one day!” shouted Nurse Florence from somewhere behind me. “I need you all to stay where you are and be quiet so I can properly heal Sir Arian.” Being sensitive to subtext, I knew that was directed more to me than to anyone else. From her point of view, I was the one creating the problem.
So I was all alone. As far as I could tell, the only hope of getting Carla to Wales and safely away from Morgan was for me to enter the chapel, a course of action everyone else was apparently dead-set against. Even Stan, whom I might have expected to stand up for me, had become part of the human wall blocking my path.
I looked over at Carla. Her beautiful face was so impassive that it might have belonged to a statue. Every instinct I had told me that if Morgan managed to capture her, Morgan would find a way to ensure that Alcina, and only Alcina, emerged from that coma. Carla would be as good as dead. And it would be as much my fault as her current condition was—unless I entered the chapel.
Silly as it was, I began scheming about how to take on all of my friends and the whole faerie escort. Obviously, I couldn’t take them all on physically, but perhaps there was some application of magic that would do the job, particularly if I could hit them with something that they weren’t expecting.
“I’ll go in,” shouted a high-pitched voice from behind me.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I had forgotten all about Khalid. Generally, he had been hanging close to Shar, so I hadn’t worried about him, but now he had taken one of his gigantic leaps and landed halfway to the chapel. Shar, caught by surprise and currently functioning at human speed, had no hope of catching him. The faeries might have had a shot, but they too were taken by surprise and didn’t react immediately.