Camelot Burning (26 page)

Thirty-Two

Merlin's words encase me in fear. An eternity of silence passes before I speak.

“How?” My voice quivers as the seconds tick away. “Merlin, how do I do it?”

“Calm down.” I don't miss the flinch of pain on his ghostly face. “Crawl inside the vent and light the fuel in the heart's chambers. Once lit, pour in the
jaseemat
. Azur's incantation will be released when you open the box. Go!”

I grab my mother's arms. “You must escape. God knows how this will turn out!”

“No, Vivienne, I won't leave you here alone!”

And she's firm on that.

The wooden box in my hand feels like one of Merlin's flimsy teacups, delicate as crystal. On his desk is a quicklight I set into my apron pocket. Black leather gloves fit to my elbows. There's a hatch on the underside of Victor's belly. A lock spins as it would on
l'enigma insolubile,
and the door swings down.

“Let me help.” My mother cups her hands together for a boost.

She lifts me into the belly, Azur's box in my hand. Each breath I take inside reverberates with warning.

Victor creaks under my weight, but Merlin's craftsmanship is durable. One hand guides me through twisting pipes and sprockets. The ticks of the cogwork heart grow louder with each step. My fingers drift across the gears. Every mechanism is there for a purpose—to run Azur's
jaseemat
through copper veins. To give Merlin's creation a strange bit of life.

My fingers brush leather. Patchwork lungs containing two separate iron reservoirs of fuel and steam: one to breathe fire, one to propel the body. I reach for the tube connecting the fuel reservoir to the ticking heart, finding the chamber. Above is the lever, extended for Marcus's grasp. I push that thought aside. My fingers seize the heart's lid. I grunt as I try to release it.

“Vivienne … ”

“Another second,” I plead, quiet words like thunder in my ears.

That second passes, and then another. I can't remove the lid. To keep the chamber from leaking prematurely, the thief Merlin used an enormous amount of strength to tighten it.

I set the box at my feet. With both hands, I put all my weight on the lid's turn.

It gives, and I breathe out in relief. “Good.”

The smell of fuel sets me back a few feet. It's a slow-burning gas Merlin manipulated specifically for this endeavor. There won't be an explosion, but a gradual, fiery trickle that will transport the
jaseemat
and control the weapon's outburst of flames.

I pick up the box, my quicklight ready. “Please work.” I press the lever, and it hisses. My boot rests upon my knee. I swipe the quicklight against the bottom until a flame catches. Around me, Arthur's Norwegian steel shimmers, translucent enough that I see my mother's shadow on the other side.

I carry the flame to the chamber. The fire turns blue, orange, and yellow, moving deeper throughout the gears. I open the box, and the
jaseemat
dances like lights in a northern sky.

Azur's voice speaks.
“Yaty ala alhyah.”
Come to life.

I waste no time in pouring in the
jaseemat
. It falls out like water, moving in swirls onto the iridescent tongues, wrapping itself around them, pulsating as though a ticking heartbeat. I'm fascinated and set my hand against the steel to gather myself. My skin rings with song.

The
jaseemat
moves in a ballet. I feel myself falling—

BOOM!

Victor jolts, sending me onto my back. I sit up, my feet pushing me backward.

BOOM!

“Vivienne!” my mother screams from the hatch.

I climb to my feet and run.

Victor's violent kicks force me to dive for my mother's arms. She pulls me to safety, and we watch together as the horrifying fruit of Merlin's imagination shakes with breath. A long protrusion at the base flickers as its tail. The heavy appendage slams down on the mosaic, sending gemstones into the air.

BOOM!
with each strike, like the ringing thunder that brought me down the steps.

The tip of the tail grows into a five-prong spike. Each prong duplicates and resets itself on a growing spherical bulge, equidistant from one another. And then again. Then again—until it's a full glorious morning star, a weapon of destruction and heft. The sharp tips twist into deadly hooks, threatening to rip apart any living thing that touches it.

“Run!” Merlin cries.

His voice is drowned out by the thumps of the creature's front talons, dagger-sharp, scooping up gems in fast, easy swoops. Firelance shoulders come to sharp points, the skin over the barrels peeling back to reveal long, black tunnels. Bronze-colored plates on its body turn to scales. A massive head lifts up from the folds of awkward, triangular arms. Smooth and long and pointed, Victor's eyes are infernos staring at mine above the nose, a mighty drill longer than Excalibur. Its mouth sends devastating blows of fire straight for the ceiling.

I push my mother toward the door. “Go!”

We reach the stairwell in time to hear a newborn dragon screech for blood. As we climb, the cobblestone rattles as though the monster could create an earthquake. Dirt falls into my hair. I scrape my knees and palms as I climb the trembling steps.

At the ladder, we stop, out of breath. The etchings in the ceiling chip away and fall onto our clothes.

“Go now,” I tell my mother. “Leave Camelot on the aeroships.”

She firms her lips. “Vivienne, there's something you must know about Avalon—”

The cellar door lifts, and we look into the masked face of the blacksmith who's found us behind his workshop.

I know it's because of the shaking ground that he's here. I know this even though I can't see his face. But there's no time to explain. “Take her!” I cry, pushing my mother toward the ladder. “Take her to the aeroships!”

She pulls away from me. For a second, I feel the blacksmith's eyes behind his mask stare as though questioning why a girl would stay in this damned place. But he obeys and seizes my mother's arm, lifting her easily.

My mother's eyes go wide with fear. She twists in the blacksmith's arms to no avail. “No! Vivienne! You cannot do this! You have to run!” Unafraid of the masked man, she grits her teeth. “It cannot be this way! You know this!”

But he ignores her and slams the cellar door over my head.

I throw my goggles onto Merlin's desk. His window captures Morgan's black-armored legion in its frame, haloed by the flapping wings of the same black birds that followed her from the woods. But I don't know whether to be more terrified of her or of what the sorcerer has become.

He is no longer monster or man. He rests in the limbo between: skin, muscle, and bone faded away, only distinguishable from his chair by occasional flashes of light. His mask cocks to the side, and every few seconds, he twists in his suffering.

I step forward. “Merlin?”

He opens a cloudy eye. “Well done, Vivienne. You have one more task.”

“Marcus.”

A gloved finger points at the window. “He's down there.”

In front of the city gates, knights line up. Galahad, Arthur's new first-in-command, barks orders with his usual nonchalance. The ground rumbles; the knights ignore it. But they can't ignore the screeches.

“Victor will be a fine weapon, Vivienne. A machine with a soul of its own.”

“It'll wreak havoc on the entire kingdom,” I say in exasperation. I'm unleashing a monster into the world. What am I thinking?

“Trust me.”

I swallow my frustration.

In the thousands, the red and black flags of Morgan's legion wave, carried by soldiers that will seize Camelot for their witch.

Calls from the cliffs draw my attention to a crumbling break in Merlin's clock tower wall, letting me see the other side. The view's incredible, better than the balcony circumventing the Round Table. An aeroship docks at the cliffs, floating in the wind with pristine sails flapping wildly. Above crashing capped waves, the people of Camelot flee for safer land. My tear-struck mother boards the closest aeroship. I breathe a brokenhearted sigh.

“Vivienne, it has to be now.” What's left of the color on Merlin's dying skin fades to gray. “Do not be caught by Morgan. Camelot needs … ” He sputters violently, as though suffocating.

“Merlin?”

A twist of pain comes about him. Two cloudy eyes stare me down. His breaths are heavy. He wants to speak, but can't. I draw my lip inside my mouth and bite until I taste blood.
He mentioned a moment of no return, when the soul was free, indestructible …

“Not like this,” he rasps, and I'm searching the entire clock tower because he's vanished, and his voice is omnipresent—

Then he materializes in front of me as the complete Merlin I once knew. Without even his limp. Only full white eyes that look as Morgan's did when she tried to steal magic here.

“Merlin—”

His face changes into a reptile's, and he lunges at me with a hissing tongue. I scream, backing into the desk behind me, letting all atop come crashing to the floor. He hears my voice and his face returns, save for the white eyes, two burning suns.

“Go! I can't risk my last minutes of sanity keeping from attacking you! That rage must be for Morgan!”

I run for the door as smoke surrounds the ghost he is. Taloned feet thump across the floor, and pointed black nails slice the air between us. I run as fast as I can down the spiral steps, leaping over them, covering my ears as the terrifying roars of something otherworldly threatens to follow.

Then comes the explosion.

The tower succumbs to a greater inferno than the harvester I destroyed. The heat of a fire I've never known catches up with me, and I scream again, nearly plummeting to my death. Oh God, something has gone terribly wrong. It must have.

The flames disappear as soon as I reach the cold ground of the cellar. The harsh roars ring in my ears, and I shake uncontrollably.

Trust me,
Merlin had said.

I nod and will myself to my feet, remembering my last task before we'll trust Azur's alchemy for Camelot's salvation.

I spring up the steps and bound through the cellar door to look for Marcus.

Blasts of artillery and cannons devastate the gardens.

I run for them.

Run, run, run, and don't think it through any more than that.

Arthur stands at the forefront, observing as Galahad next to him sends a dozen men at a time across the drawbridge while the rest maintain formation at the gates.

Leather-gloved hands straighten sheeted-metal armor and belts carrying the blacksmith's reinforced ammunition. I can't find Marcus, but I know he'll be fighting in Lancelot's place as long as Owen's enigmatic remark never amounted to anything.

But if Marcus has already been sent in …

Galahad growls orders as the men ready themselves for possible death.

I duck under branches, race through beds of flowers, stomp them to the ground. My elm has been uprooted, my crossbow exposed. There's still one bolt in the compartment—I think. No time to check, regardless I yank my crossbow from its roll of leather and snap the cuff to my wrist. Put all my strength on the latch until it bends backward: a temporary fix for long-range shooting. Twist the bow on the cuff's cog so it follows the line of my arm. To my feet, then. I pass knight after knight as I run, but each is a stranger.

Then, as I near the edge of the gardens, I see him. “Marcus!”

He's in the last unit, armored in sheet metal and thick leather, standing by his horse, his hand on Lancelot's sword at his waist. A face too distracted to have heard me above the screams of war.

My heart pounds as I gauge the skies where Morgan's cannons fly, crushing the merlons of the castle's parapets, heading straight for the quarters where people once lived. I pray my mother is far enough away that she doesn't hear the destruction of our home. I search for Merlin, for any signs he survived whatever blast happened in his tower—and for the monster he promised would rise.

I have to push myself to try again. “Marcus!”

Another blast. I cover my head and crouch, my eyes squeezed shut as the ground shudders. Once it's passed, I look to him.

He's heard his name. His kohl-wrought eyes fall upon mine. He's still at first and then sprints toward me. I run from the gardens, meeting him in the middle.

“Get back!” He catches my arm. “Get to the aeroships!”

I pull myself free and throw my arms around his neck. He smells like smoke and leather, and his hair's delightfully tangled. “Thank God they haven't sent you in.”

“What do you mean? I'm going in next!” He grabs my arm again to send me to safety. For a moment, he's distracted by my exposed skin and tries his damnedest to look away.

“Marcus, you have to listen to me.” I search the beautiful violet eyes I would look into for all eternity if I could. “Merlin's weapon—”

He lifts me to my toes, his face no more than a breath away from mine. “Please, don't do this. Not now. Let Merlin come down himself.”

I grasp his stubbled cheek. “It can get to the surface, but you have to activate its wings. You're the fastest runner in Camelot. Listen to the earth below us. I'm sorry, Marcus. I'm sorry you're here and not escaping with your mother. I'm sorry this is why Merlin needs you. But when the weapon surfaces, you have to pull the lever on its back and then you need to run, Marcus. You need to run!”

The land rumbles. Our eyes lock for too long. He tightens with worry and surely it's for his own life, but he nods nevertheless. I hold on as long as I can, but he drops my arm and runs back to his horse.