The Iron Chalice

by J. M. Briggs

  “So it would seem,” Merlin heard himself agree.

  Morgana sank down on the small bed beside him, her shoulder brushing his own. They said nothing more and Merlin lost all sense of time as he watched Gofiben and Bran work on a sword. His bones ached, but as he sat in the warmth of the forge listening to the familiar song of hammer against metal, Merlin felt something easing in his chest. It became a little easier to breathe and even the lingering worries about the challenges the next days would bring were not enough to discourage him. Shifting his hand, he found Morgana’s curled into the blankets next to his own. Without a word he slid his hand over hers and squeezed gently, saying nothing when she turned her palm and took his hand in return.

  10

  Scuffle in Cardiff

  They were back in Cardiff with only a tiny bit more information and with fairies after them. Aiden was still lying in a coma and slowly dying in front of his parents, who’d almost lost his little sister Aisling to cancer years before. There was a painful ache at the bottom of Alex’s spine that she couldn’t shake, and the sick feeling her in stomach had settled in for the long haul. The entire situation made her feel helpless and lost. Even when she’d been leading those children out of the Sídhe tunnels, she hadn’t felt helpless. There’d been a clear enemy to fight: she’d known who to stab and what to do. There was no such clarity here.

  Cold air rushed over Alex’s exposed face as she stepped out into the freezing Cardiff air from the warm grocery store. The light of the sign illuminated the dim street and Alex glanced around at the few other shoppers still out and about. She couldn’t help but shiver despite her winter coat. The combination of December chill, low elevation, and the ocean breeze meant that the cold was seeping into her bones. Behind her, Alex heard Jenny make a soft, distressed noise as the others joined her. Nicki breezed past them and walked to the edge of the sidewalk with a bag of food in hand. A moment later Bran stepped up next to Alex with Lance right behind him carrying another bag.

  “I think we’re good for at least tonight and breakfast,” Bran said as they began to walk up the street towards their hostel.

  The Cardiff streets in this area were of a good size and pretty clean. New metal and glass buildings were right up against older and, in Alex’s opinion, more attractive brick buildings. Shops, some large and some small filled the bottom floors along their route to their home for the night. There were several obvious office buildings and a few that Alex thought might have flats above the shops. It was a city that blended old and new, but Alex was in no mood to enjoy being there.

  “Thanks for paying again Jenny,” Bran said breaking the silence. “When we get back we’ll see about trying to get Morgana or Merlin to reimburse you.”

  “I’m not sure they like me that much.” Jenny’s voice didn’t hide her nervousness. “But seriously don’t worry about it. If Daddy decides that he’s really angry about this then I’ll suggest cutting off my allowance until things are paid back.”

  “You’d have to give up shopping,” Alex said. She looked back at Jenny only to have the shorter woman meet her eyes straight on.

  “I can live with that: this is more important.”

  Bran chuckled and looked down at his free hand where he was still holding a few coins, one of which had a slightly rounded octagon shape. “The pound isn’t so bad,” Bran remarked casually. He slid the coins into his pocket. “I always thought that English money was weirder than that.”

  “It used to be,” Nicki said from where she was leading the group lazily towards the hostel. “Sort of like the money in Harry Potter, but they went to a metric system like ours sometime in the 70s.”

  “What, no year?” Bran asked with a teasing smile. “No exact date?”

  “I have no bloody idea,” Nicki replied in a rather bad British accent, finally cracking a bit of smile. “Years are difficult to keep track of and I’m not British so I don’t care that much.”

  “Still, it’s almost scary the amount of random stuff that’s in your head.” Alex smiled and sped up a bit so she was walking alongside Nicki.

  “Are all your conversations like this?” Jenny asked. The question earned a muffled chuckle from Nicki and an outright laugh from Alex.

  “Pretty much yeah,” Alex agreed. “You can’t keep it too heavy all the time. We’d probably be crazy by now if we didn’t allow ourselves some levity.”

  Alex grimaced at her own words as the pain in her back flashed rather brilliantly along with an answering pain in her head. She forced herself to keep smiling. Her pace slowed, allowing Nicki to move ahead of her once again. A moment later, Jenny darted up next to her and reached over with her hand to brush over Alex’s own gloved hand. The touch was simple and muted thanks to their gloves, but to her surprise, Alex could feel the knot at the back of her spine ease a tiny bit. She smiled at Jenny and was rewarded with a warm look in return. Jenny gently knocked her shoulder against Alex’s upper arm and a soft laugh escaped her.

  Looking over her shoulder, Alex caught Lance watching then with a fond smile as he walked at a slower pace to match Bran. Alex studied Lance for a moment, waiting to see if he’d react further. He didn’t seem distressed by the action, despite Jenny and her apparently having been married several times in previous lives; instead he was smiling softly. A soft sigh of relief escaped her, both for Lance understanding that she needed her friend, and that she was a straight woman who had dodged the Guinevere and Lancelot bullet.

  Whatever moment of calm she almost had ended abruptly when Alex felt an odd turn in her stomach. There was a sudden but brief smell of something rotting before she heard a strange giggling sound in the distance. She looked over at Bran and saw him shaking his head and looking a bit distressed. Nicki had stopped in front of them and was looking around with wide eyes. The giggling sound was getting louder, and the Cardiff natives were looking around in surprise, confusion and some in fear. Many were moving into stores or speeding up their pace as if driven away by some distant memory of the danger.

  “Into the alley,” Alex ordered the others as she gestured into the dark side street to the right. “Come on!”

  Nicki reacted last, turning and staring at Alex for a moment with an unreadable face, but then Nicki lowered her eyes and walked past Alex into the alley. The creepy little giggles were getting louder, and in the distance, Alex could hear sirens. That wouldn’t do much good, and she had the urge to shout ‘its fairies, evil little nasty fairies you bloody idiots’ at them. Instead, she joined the others in the alley and looked around. The brick walls of the three-story buildings made her feel closed in, with the gray sky overhead offering no sense of freedom. She forced herself to focus and glanced around for any cameras in the alley. Thankfully there didn’t seem to be any.

  “Is it more fairies?” Jenny asked. Alex noted that Jenny wasn’t trembling even as she looked around with worry.

  “Do you think we can make it back to the hostel?” Lance moved closer to Jenny, his usual casual and relaxed stance shifting to alert and protective.

  “I don’t think we should lead them back to civilians.” Bran looked around the alley with a frown, flexing his fingers in preparation. “They’re after us.”

  “Lance, you and Jenny head back to the hostel, hopefully, they’ll only attack us,” Alex ordered. Her eyes jumped to the alley entrance, bracing herself for whatever was coming.

  “But-” Lance cut himself off and swallowed, glancing between Jenny and the three mages. “You sure?”

  “Yes, now go!”

  Lance grabbed Jenny’s hand and tugged her towards the alley entrance. They only made a few steps before a small creature dropped down in front of them. It laughed and reached out to scrape its claws along the old bricks of the alley wall. Lance cursed and pushed Jenny back as they retreated into the alley. The sound more of eerie giggling over their heads made Alex look up in alarm.

  Small creatures crept into view off of the roof, moving down the brick walls like large spiders. Alex
caught sight of small violet eyes underneath the piles of dirty rags that covered their small bodies. Her hands shook and her heart beat harder and faster in her chest at the sight of those eyes. She distantly heard someone calling out to her, but it was the movement of the creature that helped Alex look away from those eyes. One of the creatures crashed down on top of a trashcan with a low hissing sound. White sharp teeth stained with red were flashed at them just before a swirl of yellow magic smashed through the air and knocked the creature against the bricks. Its small clawed hands slashed helplessly at the air as it was pinned.

  Raising her hands, Alex inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. It was getting easier and easier to find the small warm spark below her lungs. Energy and adrenaline surge through her veins as the small spark burst to life, pulling on the soft flow of magic around them. Opening her eyes, Alex called the magic through her arms. Dark silvery sparks the color of wrought iron danced off her fingertips and formed an orb in her right hand. Alex swung her arm forward and released the orb through the air. It collided with the pinned creature held by Bran’s magic, and Alex watched with a hint of satisfaction as the creature dissolved with a low crying sound. The soft giggles from above turned into hisses, and more of the creatures dropped down into the alley.

  These were smaller than the things that had attacked them in Glastonbury with gray wrinkled skin and smaller ears. As they spread out and moved into the better-lit parts of the alley, Alex could see more clearly that their little ragged hats were dark-red, and her stomach turned as a vague memory of something from her book of fairies poked at her memory. One of them snarled and lunged at her. Alex dove to the side and looked over her shoulder to see the creature catching itself on the wall. It looked back towards her with flashing violet eyes and grinned at her, showing its red-stained teeth once more.

  A spear of ice glowing a soft blue color shot past her, impaling creature in the leg against the brick wall. Alex stayed still and began to form another orb of magic in her hand as another spear of ice blasted through the air leaving a wave of cold air in its wake. Alex saw the creature dissolving into dull gold dust in the corner of her eye as she turned to find more creatures moving in on them. Bran had his back up against one of the walls and was throwing creatures away from him in waves of yellow sparks, but Alex could see that he was already panting.

  Blue magic swirled around Nicki’s hand and illuminated her angry features in a terrifying manner. Nicki waved her hand through the air in front of her sending blue sparks flying all around the creatures. They began to move towards her only for the wave of magic to solidify into spikes of ice that swept up to crush them. Three more came towards Alex and she tightened her grip around the orb, pulling the magic back into her fingers. They jumped towards her, and Alex opened her hands and released the pent up magic. It lashed through the air as small dark lightning bolts and stuck the small fairy creatures with a hiss.

  Alex lost track of how many there were as her own gray magic swirled in the air alongside Nicki’s blue sparks and Bran’s yellow waves. Bran’s telekinetic use of magic wasn’t great for killing them, but Alex noted gratefully that he was keeping them away from Jenny and Lance. Nicki’s ice shards hurtled through the air, sometimes striking the creatures fatally, sometimes injuring them and sometimes leaving dents in the trash bins. It was a rush of adrenaline: a release of anger as the fear dissipated leaving a sense of certainty of victory that Alex tried to banish as soon as it began to emerge.

  Alex could almost feel the hum of the light mounted over one of the heavy metal doors on the back of her neck. It was like an itch as the energy ran over her skin. Her fingers were beginning to ache as another blast of magic was released through them. There were fewer creatures now, and no more seemed to be coming. Around them were piles of little rags, and Alex kicked a few out of her way as she spun and blasted one of the creatures trying to sneak up on Nicki. Vaguely she wondered if the cloth remained since it came from this world unlike the Sídhe’s armor, but the sight of one last creature climbing along the wall towards Jenny and Lance made everything else vanished.

  Claws slashed towards Jenny, gleaming in the low light of the lamp. In the corner of her eye, Alex saw Bran push his hand out towards the small creature. The claws snapped through the air even as the creature was tossed back, but they sliced into the sleeve of a letterman jacket. Yellow magic flared and the small creature smacked against the side of the alley while Lance groaned in pain. Anger hit Alex in the chest as she saw red blood seeping out of Lance’s wound even as he slapped a hand over it. Alex thrust her arm out towards the creature and felt her magic rush forth into her fingertips. Lightning jolted off her fingers and struck the creature in a blast of flickering light and energy. It didn’t even make a sound as it dissolved.

  Bran was close enough that he reached Lance in two quick strides. The torn sleeve of Lance’s letterman was already turning red, and Jenny was gripping Lance’s other arm with a horrified expression. Alex stared at them both for a moment, painfully aware of her shaking limbs and the sudden difficulty she was having breathing. She was uncertain if it was from the combat or from the shock of fearing Jenny was going to die.

  “The leather sleeve protected you some.” Bran rushed over to Lance and examined at the injury. “Could have been worse.”

  “Good,” Lance huffed around clenched teeth.

  Lance bit back a groan and shifted his arm carefully to examine his wound. Alex grimaced at the sight of the sliced flesh just visible around the oozing blood. Forcing herself to move forward, Alex looked at Jenny who was shrugging out of her coat. In one quick motion, Jenny pulled off her black outer shirt and tied it around the wound. Blood splashed onto her blue camisole, but she didn’t lose focus until the shirt was secure.

  Alex stepped forward and touched Jenny’s arm gently. Her friend nodded and took her hand off the rough bandage long enough to pull her coat on. A hand on her shoulder tugged her back and Jenny stepped right up next to Lance again, once more in her coat. There was a look of intense concentration on Jenny’s face, and her hands were shaking the tiniest bit.

  Looking up at Lance, Alex braced herself for a pained or maybe angry expression. Instead, he was watching Jenny with a slightly slack jaw and dazed eyes. Soft worried noises were escaping from Jenny while Lance almost smiled and looked ready to melt. Alex froze as she looked at the pair of them. For the moment, in light of his injury, Jenny seemed to have abandoned all her embarrassment and residual guilt, and Lance was soaking it up like a puppy in a sunbeam.

  “This is deep; we need to deal with this.” Jenny looked right at her with stern eyes and a determined tight jaw. “There has to be a hospital in a city this size.”

  “There'll be questions about how he got injured,” Bran said.

  “Bran’s right,” Alex agreed.

  Holding back a grimace, Alex turned to face Nicki who was standing off to the side near the alley entrance watching them. Her expression was blank and she looked like someone merely watching something on television or studying a painting. The distance in her eyes and the far off expression made Alex uneasy. Then Nicki’s eyes turned to her and she could see a flash of realization in them.

  “Nicki, we need you to heal him,” Alex said as calmly as she could manage.

  “He’s not a mage!” Nicki protested sharply. Nicki’s face went from strangely blank to a blend of different emotions. “It might not even work on him. I’ve only ever healed Alex and some minor shit, nothing major. That’s Morgana’s field.”

  “Nicki, he may not have any magic,” Bran cut in smoothly, “But that will probably make it easier since he doesn’t have any magic to fight against you with.”

  “It will drain me: healing is exhausting and I’m already a bit tired,” Nicki said as she started to pant.

  She was faking being exhausted when two seconds ago she’d been fine. The knowledge rattled Alex, and she clenched her fists. She didn’t like the hot feeling churning in her stomach; it felt too simil
ar to how she’d felt when she first found Lance and Jenny together, it felt like when she’d realized just what the Sídhe used children for and how she felt whenever she thought about Arthur. Stalking forward before she’d even fully processed how angry she was, Alex stopped in front of Nicki and stood up straight to use her extra four inches to look down at the other girl. Nicki’s eyes flickered with regret and guilt, but then the stubbornness was back. Something inside Alex nagged at her that this wasn’t the right way to go about this, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  “Look, Nicki,” Alex said in a low voice that carried an edge to it. “I know you’re angry at me right now and I’m not going to argue about that.” Alex’s heart was beating almost painfully in her chest now and her lungs felt constricted. “I’m sorry for my mistakes about Arthur and I’m sorry that Aiden is the one who had to pay for it.” Nicki’s face was paler than usual and the ice in her blue eyes was fading. “But right now, I need to know if you are willing to heal Lance or not. If you aren’t then we need to get him to a hospital and figure out a story to tell the cops. That wound is deep and if we don’t there will be permanent damage.”