by Hiatt, Bill
I stood for a while, keeping up the magic battle, but paralyzed inside, uncertain what to do. Then, in one white-hot instant, those thoughts were stunned away as lightning struck me—literally.
People can be killed or badly injured by being struck by lightning, but Morgan had carefully crafted this lightning so it was only a pale reflection of what lightning usually is. Still, every hair on my body stood straight out, every nerve tingled, my concentration shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, and I fell to my knees. Alcina, freed from having to defend herself against me, attacked me full-force with every ounce of magic she had. In seconds I could feel the defenses I had put up wearing thin, and I was still too stunned to reinforce them. Barring a miracle, Alcina would have me again in a few minutes. The guys, still dodging Morgan’s lightning, would be hard-pressed to come to the rescue, even though they were agonizingly close. Nurse Florence was too far away to feel.
I focused what little concentration I had left on resisting Alcina’s influence. I probably couldn’t buy myself very much time, but even a few seconds more of freedom was better than nothing.
Suddenly a felt a different presence very nearby. Khalid! He had moved fast enough to dodge Morgan’s lighting and was rushing at Alcina with speed far greater than her human body could match. By the time she realized he was there, he had drawn his dagger and was poised to thrust it into her breast.
“Don’t kill her!” I whispered urgently. I don’t know if he heard me, if his aim was terrible, or if Alcina managed to shift out of the way a little, but he stabbed her in the arm instead of in the heart. She shrieked and stumbled backward, but Khalid stayed on her. I felt her power recede and knew she was trying to aim it at Khalid, but I sensed it wasn’t working. Alcina had fashioned her control spell around sexual love, and she probably saw Khalid as too young, blunting her ability to cast the spell on him successfully. Either that, or his half djinn nature gave him some protection. He struck again and again, wounding her several times.
From somewhere Morgan was trying to hit Khalid with lightning. He dodged successfully, but that gave Alcina enough of a breathing space for her to run a few paces away and try to open a portal. She almost succeeded, but a combination of fatigue, pain, and blood loss caused her to lose control of the portal, letting it collapse after just a few seconds.
I managed to struggle to my feet and tried to sing in an effort to speed my recovery. The sounds I produced sounded more like croaking than singing, but I did feel myself revive just slightly. A little more, and I could begin to help Khalid.
He was going to need reinforcements of some kind—and soon. Morgan had shifted her focus toward the pier as soon as Khalid had attacked Alcina, and lightning was striking often enough to rattle the windows in the nearby seafood restaurant. I wondered idly if the restaurant was still open. If it was, the patrons seated near the beach-side windows had been getting quite an eyeful, but fortunately the place looked dark—probably closed. I also wondered if enough lightning strikes would set the pier on fire. Since Alcina was still on the pier, I hoped Morgan would avoid that kind of mistake.
Even as I was thinking about Morgan, she appeared overhead, and I could hear the guys behind me as they surged in my direction. Alcina was still having trouble sustaining a portal; perhaps Khalid had wounded her more deeply than I had imagined. There was fresh blood on her gown, lots of it. I shuddered at the implication of that, but either Nurse Florence (if we were lucky) or Morgan (if we were not) could certainly still heal her. I tried to move in her direction but staggered and felt dizzy. Clearly, I was trying to move too soon. Much as I hated the delay, I kept on singing, which made me feel better, but at an agonizingly slow rate.
Again Morgan had no difficulty creating an impasse with the guys, who clustered around Shar and touched Zom to keep from getting zapped. However, she needed more than that. At minimum, she needed to rescue Alcina, but she probably wanted to snag me again as well.
I could feel Nurse Florence reaching out to me, examining my condition, but I knew she needed to be closer to heal me effectively. At almost the same time, I felt Alcina’s power engulf me, much weaker than the first time, but still unmistakable. Then that power faded. Looking over at the pier, I saw Alcina stagger again.
While I was watching Alcina, I realized that Morgan had switched tactics. The guys were moving in fast on Khalid’s position. Once they arrived, Shar would have him touch Zom, and he too would be immune to Morgan’s lightning, so, instead of keeping up that attack, Morgan created a little whirlpool in the air, not really a tornado, but enough to pull Khalid’s body up into the air.
Memories of the battle on Samhain flooded back to me. What Morgan was doing with Khalid looked a lot like what Ceridwen had done with me. Khalid could not fly like a full-fledged djinn, or even like me, now that I had a little practice. Nor could he manipulate the air currents that were holding him the way I had on Samhain. Had I not had that skill, I would have died then. With a shudder, I realized that Khalid might well die tonight. He was helpless, the guys could not reach him from the ground, and I was still too dazed to be of much use. Nurse Florence, who had been chanting to ward off the lightning, was now at my side, but could she heal me fast enough? I tried to point out Khalid’s dilemma, but she told me to relax, and then I felt her healing energy sweeping through me.
Morgan was maneuvering herself toward Alcina’s position. The guys tried to move forward, but Morgan pointed to Khalid, thrashing about uselessly in the air, and they got the point. No one wanted to lose Carla again, but no one wanted to see Morgan hurt the kid, either.
As Morgan floated in the direction of her nearly fallen sister, she pulled Khalid along with her, and it dawned on me that she would take him hostage in an effort to force me to go with her, if not immediately, then certainly later.
“Don’t try to heal me right now,” I mumbled as insistently as I could to Nurse Florence. “Stop Morgan somehow! Whatever else happens, we have to keep Carla and Khalid…” My throat felt too raw to continue, but Nurse Florence had gotten the point, and by now she could see that I was not in any immediate danger of dying.
“I’m no match for Morgan, Tal. The bulk of my training has been in healing and defensive magic. Yes, I can counter some of what she does, but that won’t be enough to stop her from getting away with at least one of them.”
She paused for a moment, looked me in the eye, and said, “There may be one way. Do you trust me?” I nodded. She put her hands on me, and I felt a sudden, tremendous rush of power revitalizing me, energizing me, giving me a shot at stopping Morgan myself. But she was giving me too much strength too fast, exhausting herself, letting herself drop to a dangerous level. I started to resist, but she shot me a strong mental reiteration of the need to trust her and just kept pouring her power, even her very life-force, into me. Only when she was nearly unconscious did she stop, and by then her vital signs seemed so low I actually feared for her life. Could she, the incarnation of cautious decision-making, really have taken such a huge gamble?
She managed to lie down on the grass rather than falling down. “Go!” she whispered, right before her eyes closed.
Talk about dilemmas. She didn’t seem as if her heart was going to stop or anything like that, but she was so fragile that leaving her alone seemed like too big a risk. On the other hand, if I didn’t do something, she would have risked her life in vain. Reluctantly, I looked around. In the short time Nurse Florence had emptied practically everything except her very soul into me, Morgan had gotten to Alcina on the pier and was probably checking her condition to decide whether or not she needed any emergency healing before Morgan opened a gateway back to Alcina’s island or somewhere else far away from us. Khalid was floating right above, still struggling futilely to escape. If I was going to act, I had to do so right away.
I shot diagonally into the air, heading both up and over, toward the pier. As I did so, I grabbed the air around Khalid and pulled Khalid free before Morgan realized I was back in actio
n. I had intended to set him down gently next to the pier, but he was thrashing so much that instead he fell out of the air, hitting Morgan with considerable force and throwing her off balance. Less frightened than I might have expected, he pulled his dagger, but Morgan, nearly as fast as he was, slapped him out of the way. However, in the seconds that defense took her, the guys thundered down the pier, with Shar in the lead, Zom’s emerald flash lighting the way. I landed a little further south on the pier, wedging myself between Morgan and Alcina, drawing White Hilt, and shouting, “Surrender!” as White Hilt’s flames lit up the night.
Morgan might have been able to fly away before the guys got to her, she might even have been able to simultaneously dodge my fire, but she couldn’t possibly grab Alcina with me standing between them. I also saw in her eyes more than a little fear, despite her attempt to mask it. She wasn’t as sure as she had been that I wasn’t going to incinerate her on the spot. In fact, much to my amazement, she fell to her knees before me.
“I surrender, Taliesin, but as a member of one of the ruling families of Annwn, I invoke the right to have my fate decided by a ruler of Annwn.”
“To what ruling family do you claim kinship?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.
“To the family of Oberon, king of all English faeries.” Whether she was truly a reincarnation of Oberon’s mother or not, I was not in a position to reject her claim out of hand. The original Taliesin had never been in this exact situation, but he knew enough about faerie law for me to understand the firestorm I would set off if I took her fate in my own hands, and Oberon afterward claimed her as family.
“I accept your surrender but not yet your kinship claim,” I said in as authoritative a tone as I could manage. “You will be our prisoner until your right to invoke a relationship with Oberon has been settled.”
“As long as you fulfill your obligation to investigate my claim before trying to determine my fate yourself, I accept your terms,” replied Morgan, already recovering some of her former haughtiness.
Of course, a long faerie legal wrangle was about the last thing I needed, but at least Morgan would be out of circulation for a while. Well, at least she would be if I could figure out the answers to questions like, “Where can we keep her prisoner?” Even more pressing questions needed to be answered first.
“Shar, check on Al…check on Carla; if she’s still bleeding, try to stop it. Everybody else, cover Morgan. I need to check on Nurse Florence.” The pier was too narrow for all the guys to actually be within striking distance of Morgan. As Shar moved around her to reach Alcina, however, Dan moved into position and held his blade at Morgan’s neck. Just in case Morgan somehow got out of range before he could strike, Khalid stood close at hand, holding his dagger. I would have had him step back, but what would really have been the point? The kid would find a way to do what he wanted, regardless of what I said.
I sprinted back to where Nurse Florence lay, unmoving. Even from a distance, I could sense she was still alive, but just barely. It was at this point I wished I had been more insistent about her teaching me to heal. The original Taliesin had been able to do simple things like stopping bleeding, but he had never faced a situation like this. I couldn’t very well call the paramedics. I hated to even think it, but there was only one person I could call. I pulled out my cell and called Carrie Winn’s private number.
“Yes?” said Vanora groggily, but as always in Carrie Winn’s voice.
“It’s Tal.” I could almost feel her become wide awake, even over the phone. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we have a situation. We captured Morgan and Alcina, but Nurse Florence is just barely alive, and I don’t know how to heal her. We’re at Goleta Beach, near the pier.”
“I’m on my way!” she said very quickly, then hung up on me. I might not like the woman, but she had proved she would do whatever needed to be done. I glanced over at the guys, who seemed to have their part of the situation in hand, and then I focused on keeping Nurse Florence alive. I hadn’t mastered the kind of energy transfer she had used to revive me, but I knew how to sing energy into people, so I started singing my heart out, and though she didn’t revive noticeably, at least she did not sink any closer to death.
It suddenly occurred to me as I sang that, though I had not studied healing magic in detail, I had certainly experienced and witnessed a great deal of it. Could I perhaps have learned some of it without realizing that was what I was doing? Before I could explore that possibility, however, a portal snapped open nearby, and a clearly exhausted Vanora, in her usual guise as Carrie Winn, stepped through. She must not have been able to locate a body of fresh water nearby, so the only way to get here fast was the Annwn shortcut, much as the Order cautioned against using that route too much.
“Tal, let me see her,” she said, all business. I stepped out of the way, and Vanora quickly knelt at Nurse Florence’s side to examine her.
“Thankfully, she will live!” Vanora said after a minute. “It will take time for me to get her ready to travel, though. Some of my security men will be here soon to take Morgan and Alcina into custody.” She looked up at me. “I’ll want to get the details of what happened here, but I need to take care of Viviane first. Good job, though.” Then she was focused on the healing, and I knew enough not to try to talk to her anymore, so I walked toward the pier, just to make sure everything was still all right.
Even at first glance, I could see that everything had gone horribly and completely wrong in the few minutes I had sustained Nurse Florence before Vanora arrived. Stan was convulsing on the pier, and Dan had just swung his sword away from Morgan’s throat and straight at a distracted Gordy, whose concern for Stan nearly got him killed. He noticed Dan’s attack only barely in time to parry Dan’s blow, and because Gordy wasn’t really well positioned, he staggered backward, in turn knocking Carlos off-balance. Dan advanced relentlessly, swinging like a crazed killer, wielding his blade with a kind of berserk energy that kept both Gordy and Carlos on the defensive, as well as apparently protecting Dan from being struck with fear by Gordy’s sword.
Meanwhile, Morgan had taken advantage of the uproar to drive one of her ever-present daggers into Shar, who had just been getting up from where he knelt by Alcina, Zom raised, presumably about to try to disarm Dan. Shar managed to twist, wrenching the dagger out of Morgan’s hand and aiming Zom right at her, but her strike had gone deep, and even through his shirt I could tell blood was oozing down his back.
What could have caused all this mayhem? There could only be one answer.
Alcina!
She must have regained consciousness while Shar was checking her for bleeding. Perhaps feigning continued unconsciousness, she might have tried to control him, but, assuming he was retaining skin contact with Zom, she wouldn’t have been able to. Realizing she wasn’t getting anywhere, she had reached out for Stan, perhaps seeing him as the most vulnerable, but somehow her attempts to control him had gone awry, perhaps because of David’s presence within him. I’d need to be closer to be sure. Then she had managed to get some kind of hold on Dan, how strong I couldn’t yet tell, but I feared pretty strong from the way he was acting.
In any case, Vanora could not take her attention away from Nurse Florence right now, and her security men were at least a few minutes out. If the situation could be saved at all, I would have to do the saving.
I let White Hilt blaze and floated up onto the pier, as close to Morgan as I could get without getting between her and Shar’s blade.
“You have already surrendered, Morgan. Stand down, or I will give no quarter!” Morgan shot up into the air, and I followed, matching her speed in a way she probably didn’t anticipate.
“Last chance!” I yelled.
Again Morgan’s first response was derisive laughter. “If you had the guts to kill me, you would have done it already!” she shouted back, mockingly.
Trying hard not to think, I let White Hilt’s flames engulf her. No, I didn’t want to kill her, even now. I just had no ch
oice.
I had braced myself for her agonized screams as the fire bit into her skin. I’m not sure whether I was more shocked or relieved when I heard none. Probing within the flames, I could tell that she had prepared herself for a fire attack in much the same way I had prepared myself for Alcina’s mind control. If I could keep up the fire long enough, though, I would eventually eat through her protection, so our duel became a question of which one of us could last longer, much as my earlier duel with Alcina might have if Morgan and Khalid had not intervened.
I could still hear the clash of faerie steel below, and though I kept most of my attention on Morgan, I risked a quick scan of the area below. Shar seemed to be trying to force Alcina to remove her spells—not a good tactic, since she knew he couldn’t really hurt her. Even from up here, I could feel him weakening. Gordy and Carlos were holding Dan at bay, but only just. Stan was still writhing helplessly behind them.
Where was Khalid? From up in the sky, I couldn’t tell. I guessed he was trying to maneuver invisibly. If so, I was too far away to be sure. I could only hope he wouldn’t get himself hurt in the battle.
Abruptly my attention was pulled back to Morgan. I knew she would try something, but I wasn’t expecting the approach I was feeling. Morgan’s signature attack had always been electrical storms, so I figured I would be dodging lightning any second. Instead, I felt intense cold coming from the center of my fire, slashing at it, weakening it. I tried making the fire hotter, but the cold almost immediately became more intense, as if in direct response.
In a moment a sword tore through the outer edge of the fire, its blade gleaming icily in the moonlight. I tried to seal the gap, but the sword sliced through the flame, not with its metal, but with the intense cold it generated.
Perhaps from us Morgan had learned the advantage of keeping a surprise weapon in reserve. Perhaps she had just obtained this sword. Either way, I doubted the fact that its power was the exact opposite of White Hilt’s was coincidental. Morgan had prepared very well for a battle she knew would happen sooner or later. That said, I wasn’t seeing any sign that she could channel the power of her sword in the way I could channel White Hilt’s. Clearly, the sword could radiate cold, but at least she could not throw waves of cold at me. Well, she couldn’t unless she was saving that for a later surprise.