Echoes of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 1) (61 page)

Loki raised his sword to make the final blow, but movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Cast on the floor were his and the Irishman’s shadow, but a third was there, adjoined to Patrick’s. It was this third shadow that was rising off the floor, growing into a hooded figure.

“What...”

The hooded figure shot forth his palm and planted it squarely in Loki’s chest, sending him reeling backwards. It then reached over to Patrick’s sword, which dangled from Patrick’s exhausted hand, and tapped it with its finger. The sword began to vibrate, and then made an audible hum. The Apparition lifted its head. Patrick saw his own countenance peering back from the cowl, greeting him with a mischievous smile and wink.

Patrick struggled to his feet just as Loki was regaining his footing. First they looked to each other, then for the interloper, who was now gone.

“Whatever manner of trick that was, it did you no good,” Loki sneered, gesturing to the hourglass. “You are too late.”

There was only a pinch of grains left. With a bellow, Patrick lunged forward, closing the short distance between them. The sword in his hands now sang, shaking his arms with its voice.

He swung down hard on Loki, who met the blow with his own raised weapon. Loki’s sword shattered in a shower of sparks and slivers of blade. Loki went down with a shocked expression on his face and a red gash across his chest. Patrick did not waste any more time. He stabbed Loki’s torso with a double-fisted thrust.

There was an explosion of silence.

The sword ceased its singing. The grunts and cries of battle were gone.

Loki’s mouth was fixed in an O, his eyes wide at the blade protruding from his chest.

Then suddenly, the silence was shattered by a wail that came from somewhere above the chamber. Patrick thought it sounded like Katherina.

He slowly slid the blade out of Loki’s body. Loki tried to stand, but lurched and fell to his knees. He managed to get up, only to fall again. He lay at the foot of the hourglass; the sands were reversing their flow. They were falling up.

A smile curled on Loki’s lips, and it was then that Patrick realized that he still looked like him. Patrick looked at his own arms. He was still Loki.

Loki began to laugh, which caused blood to gurgle and foam out of his mouth. “Perhaps it is prophetic, yes?” he said, gesturing tiredly between them. His image blurred and he was once again Loki, and Patrick was Patrick.

Patrick sighed in relief.

Loki’s laugh turned from a silent chuckle to an incredible guffaw.

“What is so damned funny? You are dying,” Patrick said.

This caused Loki to laugh more, but when he settled down, he said, “You think this is the end of me? You think you have truly destroyed me? You have only wrested the physical from me! Had this occurred outside these walls of air, indeed I would be gone, but that is not the case. I will be back! Come when the Jotuns swallow the sun and moon at Ragnorok and the Antichrist walks the earth at Armageddon, I will be there. And where will you be, mortal, but cold in the ground. Until this day, you will know my eyes when you peer into the shadows. I will be there staring back at you, and you will hear my voice in the gurgle of the dark waters, my face in the dark of the moon, and my spirit in the shiver you feel across your spine. I am not gone.”

Loki convulsed in more laughter, but a hellish light began to glow in the wound in his chest. His laughter twisted into screams. The light turned into the head of a serpent and it rose before Loki’s face, hissing. Loki’s expression turned to wrath and he grabbed the serpent with both hands and wrestled with it, and the serpent grew and grew, wrapping itself about the man.

Patrick took fearful steps out of the way as Loki and the snake faded. Before they winked out of existence, all Patrick could hear was Loki’s angry cries.

Nothing remained but the hourglass.

#

Katherina relinquished the bronze rod and grasped two of the flowers about the stems just beneath their heads and struggled to keep them from her. Even so, vines were twining around her legs and torso and little lion heads were latching onto her flesh, stinging her. She cried out and fought harder, but the room was now completely filled with the creatures, yellow heads lining up to attach to any exposed part of her body. A growling flower hovered near her mouth, searching for an opportunity to silence her for good.

“No!”

As if by her command, the flowers suddenly halted their advance. They started to waver in place, then went limp altogether, falling from her body. The hedge of vines that filled the room collapsed in on itself. Without hesitating, Katherina danced away from them, but it wasn’t necessary. Right before her eyes, they faded in color then turned to dust.

Confused, she ran to the mirror.

There she searched in its glass and screamed, backing away in horror with hands to mouth.

“No! No! It can’t be!” she wailed, seeing Loki standing over Patrick’s body with a sword run through it.

She turned away and slumped to the floor, sobbing.

Patrick was dead because of her, and she would be Loki’s whore for the rest of her days.

She could not allow that.

She took a deep breath and stilled her sobs, wiping away the tears. Standing, she smoothed out the front of her dress. The mirror was now only a reflective surface. Her reflection was now calm, her crystal eyes glinting coldly in the light.

Footsteps scuffed on the stairs.

“No, Loki, you cannot have me,” she said icily.

She bent over and retrieved the bronze rod from the floor, examined it with a detached air, then turned and struck the mirror. When the shards fell to the floor, she chose a particularly long and pointed one.

#

King Mark slowly opened and closed his hand before him.

Though the thawing was almost instantaneous, he was still a bit chilled and stiff. His clothes were soaked and water was falling everywhere in drops from the buildings. The first thing he had done was send men out in all directions to find out what had happened. Slowly the story came in from the villagers, who were still trailing in, about the magic storm that had engulfed the keep.

None of it made sense. It all had started when he dropped that bauble. Was it some sort of magic? What was its purpose? So many questions, so few answers.

Sir Corbin came trotting into the room. He too was still soaked.

“Well, is everyone accounted for?” King Mark asked.

Corbin sucked air in between his teeth. “I am afraid not, Mark. All are present except the Lady Katherina, and of course Sir Gawain, the Viscount Loki and his valet who were not present to begin with. And...” he hesitated.

“Well, what is it?”

“Perhaps you should come see for yourself.”

Mark sighed heavily. Judging from Corbin’s tone, it wasn’t a good thing. He looked to the Lady Christianne, who sat on the throne wrapped in a blanket. He held out his hand to her.

#

The sight of the maidservant Aimeé pained him deeply.

More questions. Why Aimeé? And the bed of flowers? He sighed again. “Take her to the church, summon Father Constant and the Mother Superior, and Rosa Maria. I believe she was the closest thing the girl had to family around here.”

Several Avangarde moved to do their duties and he watched them carry away Aimeé. “Damn, damn, damn.”

#

Patrick bounded up the steps two at a time until he came to a single door. The top of a tower.

He tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge, even after he threw back the bolt. Something was wedged between it and the frame.

Without hesitation, he threw all his weight into it and it burst open to reveal the sight of Katherina lifting a jagged piece of glass over her chest.

“No!” he cried, rushing forward. As he did, he swung the sword in a wide arc. The sword’s tip caught the shard and shattered it into pieces.

Her jaw dropped and she took a step back at the sight of Patrick. “Is this another trick of yours, Loki? Are you still so cruel?”

Patrick tried to come forward but she scampered away, snapping dried old vines and flowers, kicking up dust. “It is I, Patrick, really.”

“If this is so, then tell me the end of story.”

Patrick frowned. “What?”

“The story, the pictures on the wall in chapel, you told me a story about them. What was the ending?”

Patrick now understood. The illusions Loki had been casting. She did not know who was who. He put down his sword and came forward, hands open.

“The knight returned home victorious,” he said, a sad and pleading look on his face. “And his Lady came rushing into his arms, joyous that he still lived and that her honor was saved.”

Katherina’s tear-streaked face broke into a smile and she ran toward him. Patrick met her halfway and they held each other tightly. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair.

“I was so afraid,” she started to say, but he hushed her.

Then suddenly, the entire castle rocked as if by an earthquake.

“What was that?” Katherina asked, and no sooner had she then another tremor shook the foundation.

“I do not know, but I think we'd best be leaving now.” Patrick took her by the hand and rushed out the door, grabbing his sword on the way out.

They ran down the stairs and passed through the demolished chamber. As they did, they did not notice that the hour glass was cracking and falling to pieces, and that the sands inside were still falling upward, now to the ceiling of the room. They ran down the second set of stairs and passed through the last room, the one that led outside. From the corner of her eye, Katherina thought she glimpsed Minion hanging upside down against a pillar, pinned there by a dozen crossbow bolts.

#

The shaft of light that emanated from the tallest point of the castle was brighter and more active than ever. Its color was vibrant and powerful, like the color of the sun. It seemed to be drawing all light through it and funneling it heavenward, draining the surroundings of color and substance.

The beam was not only drawing the light away in pulses, but the castle as well. First loose tiles and stone were sucked skyward, but then whole chunks of masonry followed by entire sections of the castle. When it was gone, the mountain began to break away like shattering crystal.

The swan cut the air ahead of the escaping party. Siegfried’s hooves pounded on the water. Sir Gawain bent forward in the saddle, clutching the reins, and the Lady Katherina rode behind him, clutching his waist.

“You can make it boy, not much further now!” Patrick shouted.

The last of the glass mountain broke away. Next, the lake. It funneled skyward in a cyclone. Katherina observed the wall of destruction bearing down on them.

“Go faster!”

Patrick put his heels harder to Siegfried. Six paces in front of them, the swan disappeared into the air. Patrick smiled.

Just as the cyclone of water touched Siegfried’s wake, they slipped through the curtain of air, and were gone.

#

They collapsed on the grass.

Patrick smelled of blood and sweat, his hair was sticking to his face, and his cape and surcoat were in complete disarray. Katherina did not look much better. Siegfried nuzzled through the grass for a meal and the swan was nowhere to be seen. It was a beautiful sunny day, though all was wet and dripping as if it had just rained. And the sky was blue, reflecting in a placid lake.

Patrick sat up and gazed at the stone island.

“I cannot believe that all just happened.”

“You are hero. You are my hero. Thank you. I do not know how else to say that. It was not easy thing for you.”

Patrick picked some wet leaves from her hair.
Had
he done it all for her? Did he love her? His mind and body were telling him yes, but his heart was being its characteristic silent self.

As if she were reading his thoughts, she asked, “How did it come to be you that came?”

Patrick shrugged. “I was in the wrong place at the right time. I was the only one left of the Avangarde. It had to be me.”

Katherina toyed with something in the grass. “Had it been anyone else but me in there, would you still have come?”

Patrick was silent for a long moment. “Yes,” he said at last. “It would have been my duty and my fate, I think, to do it. But because it was you, I had all the more reason.”

Katherina had that look she got when she was trying to break something painful to him. It was then that Patrick fully knew. He had always known.

“You do not love me, do you,” Patrick said.

A long silence, then Katherina slowly shook her head. “No. But that does not mean that I am not grateful or do not care for you because I do...”

Patrick put up a halting hand.

“It is all right, my dear Lady. I cannot blame you any more for not loving me than I can blame the sky for raining on me.” Patrick wrung water out of his cape and laughed. “I am sorry for being an ass.”

Katherina put her hand on his forearm. She looked as if she wanted to say something comforting, but didn’t know what.

Patrick came closer and knelt before her. He cradled her face in his hands. “It is the good things about you that I should remember. I will never forget them, or you. I believe you are right in not loving me, for we are different people, you and I, and later on down the road, we would have parted ways and it would have hurt me a hundred times more than this. As it is, you hold a special place in my heart and I should be thankful that you came into my life at all. It was, after all, quite the adventure.”

Katherina took Patrick’s hands and kissed them. “Ever the romantic, you.”

They hugged then, long and strongly. Patrick would never have guessed that lost love would be so pleasant.

Katherina gently broke the embrace and led him towards Siegfried by the hand. “We should be going. We will be missed. And you will return hero. Certainly now you will be Avangarde and you can pick and choose from any of the Ladies you like. Though I wager you would rather be with Aimeé...” She paused at his reaction. “Patrick? What is wrong?”