Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (89 page)

“I… don’t know,” Memory admitted.

Memory turned back to the screen, but the words were blurring in her eyes. She turned away, staring down the city street as she took deep breaths.

Will took over on the computer again. She could hear his fingers gingerly pressing the keys, one slowly after another. Sixteen years was a long time away from technology after all.

I owe him so much. Now I owe everyone so much. What can I do?

The thought of the dire hatred Nyneve must hold against humans made Memory’s stomach contract into a tight ball. Memory couldn’t stop asking
why
. Why was she doing all of this? Did she hate humans so much she would do something so destructive, or was she truly insane? Inside her mind, Memory laughed wryly. No, Nyneve wasn’t insane. She had planned so carefully and so cleverly for so long. She never seemed insane. If anything she just seemed deeply sad, and hurt.

Memory closed her eyes to the chaos around her, trying to think.

“I know how horrible it feels,” said Hope. “The pain of having someone choose somebody else over you.”

“You never did agree with the Pact, angered that your lover chose the humans over you.”

“Myrddin allowed the humans to include Branding into our Pact, and what did he get for it? Branded and killed by the very humans he loved too much!”

Myrddin. His name was different here, and so was Nyneve’s. Merlin and Nimue, she’d seen these names reading over the Arthurian legends just now.

In those legends, Merlin disappeared, and from the play she saw in the pub on her night out with Clara, as far as those in Avall knew he’d just disappeared as well. But Nyneve had definitely said Branded and killed. She loved him, but he chose Arthur and the humans over her, and then was Branded and killed. It hurt in Memory’s heart just thinking about it. That could be the kind of pain to twist someone forever.

Across the street, a man stood on top of a truck whose bed held a round tank. A water reservoir. People lined up down the side walk, holding metal cooking pots, buckets, and jugs. One woman came out of her house holding a tall glass vase.

The water is off,
Memory recalled. Such a simple thing, but something humans couldn’t live without. Memory wondered if living without magic for the fae was like humans living without water.

The man on the truck took a long hose and dipped it into the tank, filling the length of the hose with water. Keeping one end twisted closed in a tight grip, he pulled the hose back out of the water, with the other end still in the tank and lowered the closed end down to the waiting vessels.

When he released his grip and opened the hose, the water started to flow, rushing through the hose, starting a syphon, bringing more water with it.

This world, filled with iron, is draining away all the magic from Avall. I’ve seen it in the Veil, rushing out like a tide, taking with it the life of all the fae. Without that magic, without the spark of connection within humans they need to defend themselves against the unseelie fae, they will all die. And yet I have so much magic inside me, so much it burns me up.

“I can be the hose,” Memory said in a whisper.

“What? Mem, are you okay?” Will asked.

Memory just nodded silently. A plan was forming in her mind and with it, peace was settling on her. The feeling was like what she’d experienced when she’d once decided to end her own life, that same sense of calm and closure, but this one came with a sense of determination. She would fix this, no matter the cost.

Memory turned around and looked at Will and Shonae. Shonae still had her human appearance, but her eyes had shifted back to all black, her glamour fading along with her strength in this world of iron. “It’s okay. We’re going back to Avall,” Memory told her, and then looked into Will’s eyes, her newfound calm almost breaking under their cool blue gaze.

“I have a plan,” she said.

Will looked back at her for a long moment, a frown growing deeper as the moment dragged on. “Your mouth is saying you have a plan, so why am I hearing you say goodbye?”

Memory’s mouth smiled, but her eyes were sad. Will always did know her too well. She didn’t want to say it, but everything told her that it was goodbye. Goodbye to everything good she had found in her life, in herself. Goodbye to Will and their love for each other. Goodbye to her sister, and Roen, and all her new friends. Goodbye to everything she knew.

I don’t want to go, not again
, a tiny voice cried inside her.

Memory closed the voice away. She didn’t have the luxury of selfishness or weakness anymore. “I have a plan,” she said again, studying Will’s features, the earthy shade of his tangled hair and the way his dark brows made his blue eyes flash like lightning, trying to capture and lock them in her mind forever. “And I know you won’t like it. I know it might be goodbye. But I have the power to do this so I have to do it. I can save the humans, the fae, and Avall.”

Will reached for her and held both of her hands in his. He spoke slowly, his voice crackly with emotion. “I don't want to lose you, but I understand. You've always been my hero, but as much as I want to, I can't keep you for myself. I know it's time for you to be a hero to the whole world.”

Memory leaned forward in her chair, wrapping her arms up around Will’s neck and shoulders, holding him tight.

He kissed her once on the space between her cheek and ear, then whispered, “Just know, no matter what happens, you’ll never lose me. I’ll always be there for you. I’ll always wait for you. Always.”

The lights began to flicker off and on and more tremors hit. The floor buckled, splitting the linoleum, and every computer screen went black.

“I think that’s our cue to go,” Memory said. “If my plan doesn’t work we’ll need a backup. Plan B is using Caliburn to stop Nyneve. The sword should be powerful enough to work against her even with her iron resistance, since it’s made of magically dense iron. Fingers crossed, anyway.”

Memory cast the man on top of the water tank one last glance. Her fingers tingled with adrenaline as she stood up and said, “It's time this vessel spilled.”

Only half of the horses and carriages sent out into the city to bring back civilians returned. The last horse that returned, returned without a rider, followed by a sea of monsters. Unseelie knights led them, mounted on their huge black griffons.

Eloryn watched from the grand balcony that fronted the palace, her hands clutching at the icy marble balustrade, a cold wind blowing in her face.

The plan was simple, force the larger unseelie numbers into a small space so that their best fighters could take them on armed with iron. Alward’s book had spoken of three hundred men holding off an army of thousands by doing that and she was hoping to make that work for them too. It had to work. If it did not they were lost and Eloryn knew it.

Even if it did work, it was only a short term solution.

The throne room would be their battle ground. The balcony stood at the front of it and Eloryn looked behind her, assessing the preparations. The space was part of the old inner keep, directly below the Round Room, built of solid stone that had lasted a millennium. The two back entrances had been blocked off, hiding and protecting the people of Caermaellan where they sheltered in the servant quarters within the ancient fortified walls. Wards against the fae had been carefully placed out of sight through the large entry hall in a way to channel the fae without being too obvious. The wards would not hold forever, and once the fae worked out what they were doing, the wards could be found and destroyed. The fae could only move in a certain direction thanks to those wards, blocking all other entries and leading them straight to the fighters with iron. Erec stood there, shoulder to shoulder with his best men. Behind the first row of fighters stood more soldiers, prepared to take up the iron of any who fell, and keep fighting. Behind that were doctors and wizards, ready to care for the injured.

Roen placed his hand over Eloryn’s. “It’s ready. We only had time for one, but it is ready to go when you are.”

Eloryn nodded. She looked down at the people in the hall. They were all ready and willing, but could she really give the order that would send so many of them to their deaths? Eloryn exhaled slowly, feeling the breath warm her cold lips. She had to.

She faced the army of unseelie fae before her. A mix of twisted creatures filled the palace courtyard, giants standing out between them, looming over the rest. Higher still, those that could fly hovered and swooped in the air, ready to attack. Eloryn glanced at the window beside her, double checking the glazing of salt that had been applied.

The unseelie knight that had captured them in the lands of Tearnan Ogh came to a stop just below the balcony and looked up at Eloryn. His lion-like steed roared through its sharp beak.

“Leave here now,” Eloryn called down, making her voice as strong as she could over the wind and thunder and shuffling of the monstrous army. “We still have our magic and will defend ourselves with it!”

“Human lies!” the fae knight roared to his troops.

Eloryn nodded to Roen. As she lifted her arms to the sky, Roen set off the flash bomb he’d created above the balcony. A huge fireball swirled through the air above Eloryn’s fingertips, lighting the courtyard and raining orange sparks over all of them.

The unseelie fae shrank back, but the knight in command reared his steed. “Magic or none, we will fight! Our queen commands it.”

Eloryn’s hope that her ruse might turn the army back without any more deaths dissipated into the air along with the smell of black powder. Her hearing was already humming with the sound of her pounding heart when the knight called the order to attack.

She stood still, numbed. A fairy gold tipped arrow streaked past Eloryn’s face. Roen grabbed her arm, shocking her back into action.

Together they ran down the stairs and through the entry hall to the first line of fighters.

The fae crashed through the front doors, crowding into the hall behind them.

A semicircle of steps led up from the hall to the throne room. Eloryn’s legs pumped and her breath came in hard gasps as she ran up them. She had never been so frightened. Everything seemed sharper, clearer. Every breath was one she drew purposefully, nothing was unconscious. She might die, and every breath seemed incredibly precious.

When she and Roen reached Erec, he nodded to one of his men beside him. The man was huge, and when he grabbed Eloryn around her shoulders and lifted her from her feet, she knew there was nothing she could do. She raged against him anyway. “What are you doing? Stop this!”

Roen’s face twisted in on itself, anger and sadness and guilt all there as he looked at Eloryn and did nothing. “I’m sorry. Without your magic you can’t be on the front line, and we knew you would insist anyway.”

Tears filled Eloryn’s eyes like hot acid. “Of course I insist! I can’t leave you here. How dare you do this to me?”

Roen stood by Erec and drew the iron bar he’d been armed with, facing the oncoming horde. “Take her to safety, quickly,” he told the large man. The soldier did as he said, carrying Eloryn swiftly through a cleared path between the human army to the back of the throne room.

Eloryn sobbed and screamed, betrayal firing off every emotion in her. And even then, she knew Roen was right. She could do nothing at the front line. She could not fight with a sword or blade as Roen or Erec could. She would only get in the way. Her own uselessness hurt her even deeper than the fact that Roen and Erec had to force her to accept it.

But if that was the last time she ever saw Roen, she wasn’t sure she could take the pain.

Reaching the back wall of the throne room, the large soldier put her feet back on the ground, but kept her wrists held tightly in his. Around them, the wizards of the Council had laid out blankets and cots, pots of boiling water, liquor, bandages, every non-magical healing supply they could collect from around the palace. Bedevere and Bors flicked through the pages of an ancient book on herbalism. They stood there ready, looking in understanding at Eloryn and the man who held her.

“You can let me go,” Eloryn said, trying to calm her ragged voice. “I will stay here, but I need to help tend to the wounded as they come back to us. It’s something I can do. Please let me.”

The crash of metal sounded from behind them as the first unseelie fae met the front line. Some tried to fly through to get behind them, but the wards blocked them midway along the room, holding them back like an invisible barrier.

One harpy got brave and tried to fly low through the front line of soldiers. She swooped, and Eloryn saw an iron blade clip her as she tumbled past the soldiers. She continued to tumble through into the back of the room, not far from Eloryn. The fae died screaming on the floor, writhing and twisting, her feathered wings burning crisply and sending the scent of burning flesh into the air.

The soldier let go of Eloryn’s wrists, running back up to the front line to fight. Eloryn took out the iron button Clara had handed over, and for a moment thought to join him. Then the first of the injured came back to her, dragged out of the fray by one of the supporting guards. Every nerve ending in her body cried out as she forced herself to calm her breathing, and knelt by the injured soldier. Bedevere met her there, and together they worked to bandage the large gashes in the man’s neck, trying to save his life. Everywhere hung the stink of battle, the sizzle and smoke of iron meeting fae flesh, the sweat and fear and blood of humans.

She would not be useless in this fight. While others took lives, she would do everything she could to save them.

Opening the Veil door back to Avall was easier than Memory hoped. Stepping back through the Veil was harder. Shonae went first, eager to leave the iron filled human “hell”, and Memory and Will followed hand in hand. Memory could feel the strength in his hand, and knew he wouldn’t let go.

They stepped out of the Veil into the darkness of the underground lake, deep beneath the palace of Caermaellan.

“Can you just imagine if I had been able to use Veil doors when we were younger? The trouble we could have gotten out of, or into.” Memory sighed as she cracked some super-sized glow sticks they stole from a sporting goods shop before leaving the other world. Will had also grabbed a fitted black t-shirt from the store, discarded the last shreds of the old shirt he wore and put it on. By the time they left, they weren’t the only people looting shops, but having the Veil door escape plan still made it easier.

Memory shook the glow stick, and the bright radioactive-yellow color it shed gave the cavern an eerie feeling. It sparkled over the black water in front of them, and the white fur of Shonae’s natural form.

“There is iron here,” the faun said.

Memory looked at the now empty crates left scattered on the loose sand and rocks. All the iron Thayl had hoarded there was gone, so her theory about Caliburn must be right. “Will, do you remember how you told me that the fae never came down here, for a long time, even before the other iron was here? The legends of King Arthur have these vague references to Excalibur coming from a lake, and being returned to a lake after Arthur’s death.”

Will said, “I thought the sword came from the stone.”

“For something that is in the realm of myth and hearsay, passed down by word of mouth from the original source and changing every time, we have to work with what we’ve got. And what we’ve got, is this lake.”

“Definitely worth a shot,” Will agreed.

They unwrapped the rest of the glow sticks, and the sound of them cracking echoed in the quiet cave.

Memory stripped off her top layer of clothes, dropping her mostly shredded jacket on the ground beside her boots.

“Shonae, I need you to be our sensor.”

The fae looked her up and down, mouth open in offence. “Your what?”

“I need you to come with us and feel out where Caliburn is.”

The faun blinked, shivered, and stepped back. “Do you know what you are asking of me?”

“Yes,” Memory said. “And I’m sorry. But there is more at stake here than just us.”

“I am free of my debt to you now. I would leave, but the strength of the iron here saps my magic.” Shonae sighed. The dark water whispered over the pebbled shoreline like hushed words, and Shonae’s black eyes held Memory’s in a level gaze. “If I had not been so afraid to die in your trap, none of this would have happened to me. I will accept my fate now. So be it.”

Shonae began to walk out through the water. Her cloven hooves clacked and slipped on the pebbles, and Memory extended a hand to help her.

The water was so cold it burned Memory’s toes as she stepped in. She gasped, trying to get her balance and keep both of them up. Will had left his new t-shirt on the shore and waded into the lake in front of them as though he didn’t feel the cold at all.

They left a few glow sticks on the shore, and each held a couple as they moved with hurried caution into the vast black body of water.

Shonae clutched tight to Memory’s arm, leaning heavier and heavier to support herself. It was obvious that the fae was weakening fast. Caliburn had to be near. Just how near was the question. Would Shonae die before they even got close?

The water became too deep to walk. The three swam together, marking a rough grid pattern through the lake, Will and Memory working together to keep the faun afloat.

Shonae went limp and cried softly. Her head went under the water and Memory grabbed for her, holding her up.

The faun’s eyelids hung heavy over her black eyes, water beading over her furred muzzle. “It’s here… very near. I cannot go farther.”