Knight Rising

by T. Mikita

  27

  Understanding

  As they drove, Evelyn made several calls, first with her book and then with her phone, setting things in motion. She spoke with several individuals and expressed urgency that they were to meet at the hospital. What she did not call, was a doctor.

  Asher’s mind spun wildly. He was worried about Jules, and he wasn’t up for pleasant conversation. Aunt Evelyn did not seem to mind.

  Asher looked out the window as they drove through the wooded hills of the Allegheny forest. In the dark, the landscape seemed to change far faster than it should. Asher kept feeling like he needed to rub his eyes to make sense of what he was seeing.

  “Don’t look at the scenery,” his aunt said at last as she pocketed her little book. “Your brain will try to process the images and it will give you a headache.”

  Asher wanted to ask if his aunt had learned what had happened to Jules? He hoped his aunt could help her and they would not be too late. He felt like he was trapped in his nightmares. That they would arrive only to find her dead like he had for his parents.

  Behind them sped a dark Chevy Suburban with the four-man security team inside. Asher wondered if they had silver bullets in their guns. He nervously rubbed his palms together, his stomach churning.

  “Is Jules alright Aunt Evelyn?” Asher asked finally, uncomfortable in the looming silence between them. “Have you heard anything?” He didn’t know why she couldn’t answer a simple question, but he wasn’t going to beg. His father lived without her; so could he. Not for very long, some innate sense told him. He needed her. And he didn’t want to need anyone.

  Aunt Evelyn shifted in the deep leather seat as she clicked her phone off.

  “Is she ok?” he asked again. “What do you know?”

  Aunt Evelyn stared at him silently, as if assessing him and Asher thought she would not answer.

  “She’s my friend,” he whispered. “Please, I have to know. If it was your friend…” Her impassive face softened a little as Asher continued. “I told you, I wouldn’t have escaped that thing without her…” The undead creature that had attacked Asher, now seemed almost unreal. Almost.

  Evelyn sighed and closed her eyes. “Julianna is stable,” she said finally. “But if she was struck by what I think she was, time is of the essence.”

  “I told you we should have brought her here in the first place. I told you she helped me fight the basilisk. I told you she could see them too.”

  Asher could not hide the anger in his voice. He didn’t try to. This was his aunt’s fault. If she had approved Jules’ transfer to the school in the first place it would have been done already and Jules would have been safe—at least as safe as any of the students at Whitehall were.

  “I know,” Evelyn said softly, but she did not apologize for refusing Jules admittance. “But her family is not…”

  “What?” Asher snapped. “Rich enough?”

  “No,” Evelyn said, but she didn’t explain further. She only rubbed her head distractedly. “It’s complicated,” she said at last.

  “That’s an excuse,” Asher said tightly. “If she dies, I’m never joining your stupid order.”

  “You think to threaten me?”

  “Yes. You seem to want me to stay. Those are my terms.”

  Aunt Evelyn set her jaw, but Asher was stubborn too.

  She glared at him. “You don’t understand. There is more at stake than what you want. Even now, you don’t understand the responsibility on your shoulders, and that is your father’s fault.”

  “Don’t blame this on Dad.”

  “The responsibility was his, and he abdicated it! His responsibility to the Gate. And to you. He abandoned it all for his mundane wife!”

  “He loved Sharon.”

  “I know,” his aunt said. “I know,” she repeated more softly. She rubbed a hand over her face. “Michael wanted a normal life. He wanted you to have a normal life, but the problem is, we are not normal, Asher. We are Pendragons. There is nothing about our family or our heritage that can be explained quickly and casually.” Evelyn said as they rode through a darkening night. “Your father neglected your education, and I cannot fix his oversight in a day. We are not like other people, even other Guardians, and we never will be. That is just one of the prices we pay for power. You still don’t fully understand the strength you possess. But unfortunately, you will soon,” she said softly. “Your life and the lives of your friends may very well depend upon it.”

  “Dad didn’t believe that.” Asher retorted sullenly.

  His aunt glared at him. If looks could kill, Asher thought, he would have perished on the spot. He wondered if she really had that power. Was it possible to kill with a look? Goosebumps raised on his arms. He could almost believe it. His Aunt Evelyn was freaky scary when she wanted to be.

  “Oh, Michael believed.” Evelyn replied tersely. “He rejected our ways, but he believed. There is a difference. But it was his lack of attention to the arcane rites that cost him his life.”

  “My dad did nothing wrong, except die.” Asher returned in frustration, his anger rising.

  “Yes,” Evelyn said. “Michael got himself killed because he was in a dangerous situation and was still too proud to ask for help.”

  That comment stopped him. Asher felt his anger leak away. Was that true, he wondered? “Would you have helped him?” Asher asked finally. “If he had asked?”

  “Yes,” Evelyn said softly. “Above all else, he was my little brother. I didn’t agree with his choices, but he was family and I would have done whatever I could have to help him.”

  Asher saw tears in his aunt’s eyes before she angrily dashed them away. “Just as I will do what I can to help you,” she added.

  Asher didn’t know what to say. The silence stretched awkwardly and he felt a wave of remorse. “I’m sorry,” he said finally.

  “Are you really?” Evelyn snapped.

  “What do I have to do?” Asher grumbled. “I was disrespectful. I was stupid, and I apologize for it. I don’t know what else you want me to say, Aunt Evelyn.”

  “When rules are made at Whitehall, they are not arbitrary. Rules cannot be broken without consequences. They are made to keep you safe, at least as safe as we are able.”

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  Evelyn sighed and relaxed visibly. “Very well. I accept your apology.”

  Asher was not sure how much the apology would change her attitude towards him, perhaps not at all, but he was glad to have made it.

  She reached out and put a hand on his. “I loved my brother. I love you too, you know. You are not just a Pendragon. You are my blood and I would have raised you as my own.”

  That was what their argument was about, Asher realized. He was the source of the argument that had caused brother and sister to be estranged for over a decade. Evelyn had wanted Asher to come to the school when he was six. He realized that now. He had learned that historically that was the age when the youngest pages were inducted.

  His Aunt Evelyn continued talking. “Asher, you have a birthright. When you are ready you may enter the innermost circle of the Order, but not if you do not take this seriously. If you don’t, you will be dead within the next year or two. Perhaps sooner.”

  Asher shook his head. “I’m trying. Don’t you see, I just learned about all this a few months ago. How much more seriously can I take it? Monsters and magic? It’s all just too much.”

  “Yet, you have seen them with your own eyes. You have fought them.”

  “Yes,” Asher agreed hesitantly, “but it’s…” Suddenly words started pouring from his lips. Things he had felt for a while now but didn’t want to admit. “It still feels like some sort of dream. Some terrible nightmare. Like it can’t be real. Like I should wake up tomorrow and Dad and Sharon will still be alive.”

  “I know,” Evelyn agreed. “You should have been given small bits and pieces of information to prepare you to accept who and what you truly are. All of this on the he
els of tragedy is hard to accept. But now that your existence has been revealed to the Otherworlders, you do not have the luxury to proceed in a leisurely fashion to learn what you must. What you should have learned already.”

  Asher harrumphed. “Yeah, it’s not enough monsters want to kill me. You and the other teachers are trying to do their job for them with the endless combat lessons and homework.”

  Evelyn sighed. “I’m not the bad guy here, Asher, and neither are the teachers at Whitehall. Perhaps I have been overly critical of you. If so, I apologize.”

  Asher stared at her in shock.

  “I do understand my brother’s decision,” she continued. “He wanted to give you as normal a life as was possible. That meant no contact with our world. Or with me. So you are grossly unprepared, but that is not your fault.” There was true regret in his aunt’s words now. “You were his son, not mine. And his decision was understandable, if unrealistic.” She broke off with a heavy sigh. “Especially after Vanessa’s death. I wish that many things could have been different, but we must both deal with the reality of what is.”

  Asher nodded. “Aunt Evelyn, I can’t really tell you that I will do everything right, or even that I want to embrace this life. My father kept away from it for a reason. But you are my aunt; my father’s sister, and I respect you enough to listen to you and to do as you ask of me. I can see that you are a woman that is well-respected here. I see the way people defer to you. I do not think it is only because you are the headmistress. I think it has something to do with the Gate itself. It gives you a sort of power, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” she said. “If you do enter the Order, and learn the rites, you will understand more completely. I hope you will do so if only to empower and protect yourself to do good. There are still Knights among us, who embrace the power, but do not really understand the vows of chivalry, equality and honor.”

  “But without the power, we are helpless,” Asher said.

  “And without chivalry, equality and honor, we are no better than the monsters we fight,” she said softly.

  Asher considered that for a long while.

  At last, his aunt spoke again. “A mundane human is practically helpless in the face of what is really out there. That is why, your father marrying Sharon while he held the Pendragon Legacy was so troubling. If he loved her; really loved her, he should not have brought her such danger.”

  Asher thought it was the first time he had heard his aunt speak Sharon’s name, but he wanted to argue the point. He had to... “But they were happy.”

  “That’s what Michael said when I told him how irresponsible he was being, staying in the mundane world playing house.”

  “Is that really what you said to him?”

  Evelyn nodded.

  No wonder he threw her out of the house, Asher thought.

  “He hoped the gift skipped you, but it was too early to know. I asked him, how would he explain to his grandchildren even if the gene did skip. We both knew that the Pendragon bloodline would not go completely dormant, and he shouted at me. He said that at least it would be a generation of happiness, and when I objected, he said, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.”

  “I told him he wouldn’t. He’d leave that burden to me, because he would be dead, and his wife and child with him. I begged him to let me take you. To train you. There were other Guardian children at Whitehall. There are always children…” Her voice sounded haunted. “You would not have been alone. Michael refused. He said you were his son, and he would choose what was right for you.” Her voice was very soft. “That was the last time we really spoke.”

  Evelyn had been right Asher thought bitterly. And Sharon had been killed by creatures she couldn’t even see. “Did Mom know?” he asked suddenly. “I mean, Sharon? Did Dad ever tell her the truth?”

  “I doubt it. It is against the tenets to speak of it to mundane humans,” Aunt Evelyn said. “But my brother broke with many of our ways, so I don’t know if he warned her. But I do know that, I don’t want you to be alone, Asher. Like my brother was.” Tears were once again forming in her eyes. She stopped for a moment and took a long breath. “I am not doing this well. I am not used to emotional moments.”

  Asher wondered if that was why she did not come to his dad’s funeral. Impulsively he voiced the question before he was too embarrassed to ask.

  Evelyn took another deep steadying breath. She took so long to reply Asher thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Your father was the Guardian of Whitegate,” she said. “Even having left the Order physically, your father’s power was still bound magically to the Gate. Although he did not live here for many years, when he died that title and the burden of power transferred to me. It is a debilitating experience. Otherworlders know this, and typically use the change of the Gate Guardian to wreak havoc. I had responsibilities here. I could not be there, Asher. I’m sorry Michael did not make that known to you before his death.”

  “Aunt Evelyn, I’m sorry,” said Asher, finally feeling that he understood her a little better. “It just felt so awful to go through that alone.”

  “You are not alone,” she said. “Strangely, it is most often the children who survive. Even if they do not grow up at Whitehall, their parents hide them, or their scent is not strong enough with the magic for Otherworlders to detect them at first. If I can…if we can, we find them. The Order takes in the children. We give them the best lives that we know how. It may not be a good life, but it is a life.”

  She had a faraway look in her eye. “I’ve seen what the Otherworlders can do when they locate a Guardian who, for one reason or another, chose to stay away from the protection of the Order and go off on their own. Usually, I arrive in time only to bury them, if there is even enough left to bury. It’s a job I hate. I have had to watch far too many people I care about be put in the ground.” She swallowed regretfully. “But I never meant for you to go through that alone. Please know, I would have been there if I could have been.” She looked at him, her blue eyes intense.

  “I know that now,” Asher said softly, holding back his own tears. He had wanted someone to blame for everything that had happened. He had wanted to blame his aunt. But it wasn’t her fault. Not really.

  “Well then,” she said, attempting to regain her composure. “Now that is settled, we may be able to do something about setting things to rights.”

  “I don’t see how.” Asher said bitterly. His parents were dead, nothing could make that right.

  “You can,” his aunt said with feeling. “We must channel all of that loss, anger and hate, into something constructive. Where it will end up being a force for something good. You can be a part of that.”

  She took a breath. “It is your decision to make, but either way you must know that our magic does not rest silently.”

  Asher could almost feel the power in her words. There was an answering warmth in himself. For once he had to agree with his aunt. He would not sit quietly.

  Asher glanced outside again and realized that they were much closer to Pittsburgh than he thought they would be. They were indeed traveling more quickly than he expected. Magic, he thought. It was truly wondrous, but he deeply wished that the cost of power was not quite so high.

  28

  Preparations

  Asher settled back in his seat. “What exactly happened to Jules, Aunt Evelyn?” Asher asked. “Do you know?”

  “She was attacked. The police think it was gang related or a drug trade gone wrong.”

  Asher blew out his breath.

  “Could it have been drugs?” his aunt asked. “A number of Otherworlders frequent criminal circles.”

  Asher shook his head. “No,” he said. “She’s clean. She was fucked up for a while when her dad left, but she’s okay now. Her mom drinks a lot,” he added.

  “And then you left,” Aunt Evelyn said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not running a half-way house,” Aunt Evelyn said.

  “I know,” As
her said. “She will be okay, as long as some Otherworlders didn’t kill her. Just help me get her through this, please Aunt Evie.”

  Aunt Evelyn nodded. “When we get there… I will do everything I can for her.”

  The statement implied that it might not be enough. Jules might still die in spite of what they did now. It might be too late. Asher tried to pull his mind off of the awful thought. He couldn’t think of that now.

  Asher stared out the window. Trees were rushing by incredibly fast. It was impossible to look at them without becoming dizzy. He closed his eyes again as vertigo attacked him.

  After a while his Aunt Evelyn continued. “If what I believe has occurred, we will do a ritual by her bedside.”

  “You want to do this at the hospital?” Asher asked doubtfully. “Won’t someone see? Ask questions? Or try to stop us?”

  “We can shield the magic from sight. Humans, see what they want to see, remember.”

  Asher nodded. He knew that was true.

  “Now, although this is not the most powerful ritual, it will force most entities to loose their grip upon a human…your friend.”

  “You think she is what? Possessed?”

  “Cursed perhaps or controlled. It would be a way to get to you, Asher.”

  “So, even though I wasn’t there, I still put her in danger?”

  His aunt did not confirm his suspicion. She only said, “If that, has occurred. You will need to take part in the ceremony to free her.”

  “Me?” Asher asked. “I’ve never done anything like this before, Aunt Evelyn. We’ve practiced fighting, but not magic. Not really.”

  “I know, but you have begun the focus exercises, and she is your friend,” Aunt Evelyn said. “That will have to be enough.”

  “Okay, but…” Asher looked hesitantly back at the security van behind them and considered. “I don’t want to mess something up. What if I make it worse?”