The Dragon King (3 page)

“Cool,” Qwon breathed.

“Morgaine used to do tricks like that all the time,” Dred mused.

Qwon leaned on Dred a little and said, “Lucky for us, there’s no Morgaine around here.”

“You can say that again,” Shallot said from behind them.

Kay pushed past her brother and walked into the chamber. “C’mon, guys, let’s check it out.”

The Royal Chamber was a round room seventy feet in diameter with a high domed ceiling. The floor was covered in thick animal pelts. The air inside was cool and fresh. The walls were hung with the banners of the old Knights of the Round Table—those heraldic signs emblazoned on their shields or sewed to the tunics covering their armor. In front of each banner was a chair—and between the chairs was a massive round table.

The party filed in. “Far out,” Erik commented, scanning the impressive room. All of them stared, their mouths hanging open.

Artie pointed across the room to a red banner with three crowns on it. “That one’s King Arthur’s,” he said proudly.

“And there’s Sir Kay’s!” Kay exclaimed excitedly. “And there’s yours, Tommy!”

“Aye, lass.”

“And that one was the first Mordred’s,” Dred said, pointing the Peace Sword at a banner with a double-headed eagle stitched over a field of purple and white.

“Who are those for?” Qwon asked, sweeping a finger across a series of unclaimed emblems.

“Perceval and Gawain,” Artie said.

“And Tristram and Lancelot,” Shallot added.

“And Galahad,” Thumb said reverently.

They turned circles, taking it all in. The high ceiling and the banners were impressive enough, but what was most jaw-dropping was the table. It was so big that it looked as if the tree that produced it had been felled on the spot, and the room then built around the stump.

At forty feet across, it simply dominated the room. Artie walked right to it and laid a hand on the smooth, worn surface. The wood was strangely warm to the touch, and as his fingers felt the grain, his mind filled with sounds that only he could hear: the banter of countless men, and a few women, talking over one another; the clank and bang of metal; the thump of boots on the floor; laughter and music and revelry. Here was where King Arthur the First had discussed his problems with his knights. Here was where they strategized tactics and undertook new quests. Here was where they feasted and relaxed and told their stories. Here, at this table, Arthur was safe, with his friends and confidants.

And Artie would be too.

Artie spun on his heel to look at his friends. “I . . . I don’t know what to say. Guys, this is it. I can’t thank you enough. Each of you has saved my life at some point, some more than once. You’ve all been nice to me, and encouraging, and, well, not freaked out. Or not
too
freaked out, anyway. But guys”—he waved his hand behind him—“this is it! This is where King Arthur—
King Arthur!
—went about his business. It’s where the Knights of the Round Table decided what was right and what was wrong, and figured out how and where to fight for what they believed in. And now . . .” He trailed off.

“It’s where we will do the same, Brother!” Dred said excitedly.

“Darn right!” Kay seconded, pulling Cleomede from its sheath and holding it overhead. Then all of the knights drew their weapons and pointed them at the ceiling and called out Artie’s name.

Artie smiled and his heart filled. He’d never felt like this. Never. Not back home in Shadyside, not in battle, not even when he’d put that school bully, Frankie Finkelstein, in his place.

“That’s right, guys,” Artie said. “Welcome home. Welcome, New Knights of the Round Table!”

There was more cheering and backslapping and hugs and smiles, as all of them were infected with the joy of having achieved a goal that not five months earlier had been unimaginable. As the noise died down, Kay found herself next to Artie and said, “We did it, Bro. We freaking did it.”

“Yeah, we did.” He turned to the group. “We need to talk about what’s next. We’ve got to help Kynder, and we need to deal with Merlin, as much as I don’t want to.”

“Aye, lad.”

“And we need to open this King’s Gate thing, wherever it is.”

“That we do, Artie,” Numinae said quietly, holding out a hand to guide Artie to his throne.

“Great,” Artie said, following Numinae’s direction. “Everyone, let’s grab some Round Table pine and talk things over.”

They sheathed their weapons and made their way around the table. As Artie walked to his throne he passed a simple stone chair pushed against the wall. It was so small and out of the way that he didn’t give it a second thought. But Numinae, who walked alongside him, said quietly, “Remind me later to tell you something important about that chair.”

“Roger that,” Artie said.

Finally he reached his throne. It was large but also very plain. Its rough finish was reddish brown and it had two simple flourishes: a blue velvet seat cushion and a plate-size circle cut out of the apex of the chair back. Inside this cutout was a lens of pale glass that caught the room’s meager light.

Artie scooted between the table and the throne. He placed Excalibur on the table with a clunk. He grabbed the armrests and lowered himself onto the cushion.

His heart filled even more. This was it. They were now King Artie Kingfisher and the
New
Knights of the Round Table.

But as soon as his full weight rested on that ancient chair, the hall filled with the sound of a tempest and Artie’s banner whipped up and battered the air. The others gasped and had to catch their breath as a wind swirled through the room. What was happening? A high-pitched howl pierced their ears. It came from behind Artie, and he spun to look, half expecting to see the ghostly bodies of his long-gone parents staring down at him. Instead, he saw an opening in the wall behind his banner. Before he could say anything, a bright-green flash blinded all of the knights. Some raised their weapons, others their hands. But not Artie. Instead, Artie was being whisked into the air on invisible strings and dragged into an unknown portal.

Artie reached out to try and grab something—anything—that would stop him. But nothing was there. He heard his friends calling out in desperation and caught sight of Sami bounding over the Round Table, his massive arms outstretched. The light grew very bright, and Artie yelled, but no sound came.

And then, just like that, the world was dark.

Blackness. Utter and complete. Artie’s
body was suddenly weightless. It was like he was in a dream. . . .

He tumbled through this featureless abyss, the
thump-thump
of his pounding heart the only sound he could hear. But he was not afraid. Because Artie knew with total certainty that he had just passed through the King’s Gate.

He didn’t know
how
he knew; he just did. Like so much that had happened to him, it was magic.

He drifted for an indeterminate amount of time.

Then a loud noise came like a thousand doors opening all at once. Artie blinked as images appeared before him. A tree. A car. A television. A sword. An Xbox controller. A bird. A dragon. A waterfall. A thin blue line. A white stag. His sister’s red hair when it was still long. The Seven Swords. The many-tailed fox from Japan. Twrch Trwyth. Lavery. Cassie and her crazy eyes. All of it. Everyone he and Kay had seen and met on their adventures in the Otherworld. He saw creatures: dire wolves, a giant vulture, a pigeon, a saber-toothed tiger, an aurochs, all manner of dragons.

Then he saw one final thing: the Serpent Mound in faraway Ohio, where little Thumb had opened the first crossover point between the worlds; the moon hung in the sky like an ornament. It was a scene from a fairy tale. And then Artie thought,
I
am a thing from a fairy tale.

And that was when Artie realized that
all
of earth’s crossover points had just been opened—triggered by the opening of the King’s Gate. It seemed that in this strange abyss, he was passing each of these portals that linked the Otherworld to the normal world Artie had grown up in.

The worlds had finally been rejoined.

From now on it would be just like the old days when fairies and men interacted; when spirits visited the likes of Qwon’s ancestors in Japan; and when lucky children would be able to play in fields or attics with little people like Tom Thumb. As Artie passed through this void, he understood that this was the way the worlds were meant to be, and it made him feel great. They shouldn’t be separate. There were not two worlds but one. Everything was connected, and everything was wondrous. Everybody—every kid or grown-up from every age of man—wanted to believe in some kind of magic, and now they would have that chance again. Moreover, Artie understood that if he could just find enough sangrealite to bring to his side, then he could get started on giving his world a completely clean source of energy.

Maybe, just maybe, Artie could
literally
save the world.

Which was pretty nuts.

Then the images disappeared, replaced by total darkness. Whether Artie drifted through this black place for days or for a split second, he couldn’t say. Time was immaterial. Would he die there? Would he get out? He didn’t know. A pit of anxiety began to grow in his belly, but when it reached his lungs, causing his breath to quicken, a face formed in the middle distance. It belonged to a man with ruddy hair, thin lips, and hazel eyes. The face got closer. There were his neck and shoulders. Artie could see that his nose was so crooked, it looked as if it had been broken in about a thousand fights with a thousand bullies. The man was older than Artie, perhaps by thirty years. There was a long scar over one of his cheeks. Stubble roughed the skin like sandpaper. His hair was long and swept into a ponytail. A shirt came into view. It was . . . silver.

The man smiled.

Artie frowned. Who wore a silver shirt?

And then Artie saw that it wasn’t a shirt at all. It was the edge of a breastplate. Across the top of the breastplate, over the collarbone, were three small crowns, a stripe of red painted behind them.

Artie stopped drifting and realized that he was face-to-face with King Arthur I.

“Hi,” Artie mouthed, the void swallowing all sound.

King Arthur sat atop a massive speckled horse. Both wore full plate armor like you’d see in any half-decent medieval RPG video game (like
Otherworld
, for instance). Arthur raised his hand. The old king wanted to show the new king something.

Arthur pointed.

Artie squinted. It was hard to make out, but at the end of all the darkness there was a simple black door, and in its center was a little hole shaped like a crown.

A keyhole.

Arthur gave Artie a stern look. He jabbed his finger at the door, then at himself, and then, finally, at Artie.

Arthur was saying that he had once gone through that door and that Artie would have to go through it as well.

All he had to do was find a crown-shaped key.

The ancient king spurred his horse and it launched forward, barreling toward Artie, who couldn’t move out of the way. He brought his hands to his face and ducked, preparing for impact. There was no sound, but he could feel the horse’s hot breath on the crown of his head just before it hit. Artie was terrified, certain that he was about to be trampled to death in some weird dreamscape.

Only he wasn’t. There was no pain. In fact, he didn’t feel a thing. The horse had passed right through him.

But the dreamscape had changed. Artie
could
hear again. And what he heard was the wind blowing.

He opened his eyes. No. The wind wasn’t blowing.
He was falling through the sky!

He cartwheeled violently and saw purplish clouds, a sprawling forest, and a hill in the distance. The wind squealed. A flock of pigeons flew past him. Then he caught sight of the horizon and looked down. He was falling over a lake—
the
Lake—and it was getting closer, fast.

He scrambled in the air, trying frantically to control his body. He didn’t have a parachute—he was going to die!

But as Artie approached the glassy surface, another unexpected face appeared, this one just below the water. Was it . . . ? Yes, it was! The Lady of the Lake smiled placidly, as if to say, “Relax. You’ll be fine.”

Here goes nothing,
Artie thought. At the last moment he righted his body so that his feet were straight down. Just before impact he brought both hands to his face, took a huge breath, and clamped his nose shut.

Splash!

Artie slowed quickly but had to hang on to his nose and clench his jaw to prevent his entire head from filling with water. As he regained his sense of direction, he kicked and paddled, hoping to get to the surface and take a full breath of air.

But no matter how hard he tried to swim, he went nowhere.

No. Worse than that—no matter how hard he tried to swim, he went deeper!

He looked down. His heart was full of fear and his lungs were stinging. Beneath him was the blue form of the Lady of the Lake. She had wrapped her watery tendrils around his feet and was dragging him to the depths.

“Dash your fear,” her calm voice echoed in his ears. “I am helping you.”

He wanted to scream, “By drowning me?” but didn’t dare open his mouth.

She dragged him farther and farther down. His ears wailed and popped painfully three, four, five times. The light from the day faded. The water pushed all around him.

There was no avoiding it. He was going to drown. And then he did.

Only he didn’t drown. He
was shocked to find that he was still breathing—
breathing water
!

He began to panic, but the Lady wrapped him in a big hug. “Stay, friend; you are alive and well.”

Artie willed his body to stop moving. He stared into the dark eyes before him. He could see them perfectly, as if there were no water to blur his vision.

The Lady—who still had the face of a girl of five or six, and whose skin and hair were still tinted blue—retreated a little. “Try to breathe easy.”

Easy for her to say, Artie thought. His face must have contained some indication of his discomfort, for the Lady said, “It is all right. Your body will accept it. Stay,” she repeated. “Calm your heart.”

Artie did as he was told. He found himself barely breathing at all, yet he was very conscious and very much alive. The water must have contained a high concentration of oxygen; either that or the Lady was simply keeping him alive with some kind of aquatic magic.

They were in an underwater cul-de-sac with a high wall of rock on three sides. All around, the water was lit by an ethereal glow. As Artie’s senses adjusted he realized that the source of light was the Lady herself; she shone in blues and greens and the ends of her hair trailed light like a luminescent sea creature. Behind the water fairy was a stand of tall plants that shimmied on unseen currents. Artie understood that she was right: if there was any danger in the world above, then he
was
safe here. Artie felt like this might have been the safest place in either of the worlds.

He tried to talk, but the Lady held up a hand. “I regret to say that you will be unable to speak. I will attempt to answer your queries, though. I am Nyneve. The Lake is me, and I am the Lake. . . .”

You mean you can hear my thoughts? Artie wondered, realizing that if she really was the water, then she was literally inside his head. Not to mention a lot of other places.

He blushed a little, and the Lady gave him a comforting smile.

“Not perfectly, but I can comprehend the direction of them.”

Artie’s thoughts swung helplessly to Kynder and Kay and all of his friends. Then he thought: I need the Grail, Nyneve. I need the Grail to save my dad.

“Yes, I will tell you about the Grail in good time. But first I must warn you of the wizard.”

Merlin?

“There is a thing you must know about him, Arthur.” She paused and retreated a little on the currents. “The sword wants him dead.”

Artie knew it was crazy to think that a sword could want something, but this was Excalibur they were talking about—and Excalibur was anything but a typical sword.

I kind of want him dead too, Artie admitted halfheartedly. Merlin had given Artie strength and self-confidence and even purpose, which was a tall order for a twelve-year-old boy. But he’d also taken a lot from Artie. He’d lied throughout this whole thing, and he’d practically killed Kynder. The thought of that alone filled Artie with rage.

Nyneve smiled. Her teeth were as white as pearls. Her eyes twinkled with something between satisfaction and desire. “Good that you wish him dead too, for the only hand that can wield Excalibur in slaying the wizard belongs to you. Arthur, you alone must strike down Merlin Ambrosius with Excalibur!”

Artie’s body shook. He’d seen what Merlin could do in battle; Artie did not dig the idea of fighting Merlin up close and personal. He wondered, Why me?

But he knew the answer.

“You are the king,” she said matter-of-factly. “Pray, Arthur, has Numinae told you of Merlin’s soul?”

Artie frowned. Huh?

“It is part demon. This, in sum, is why the firebrand wishes him dead.”

A demon!
Artie thought, his head spinning. Really? If true, that could explain a heck of a lot.

“It is true. Confronting the wizard will be unavoidable, Arthur. Excalibur is risen for this purpose. Do you understand?”

Artie nodded unenthusiastically. Yeah. I get it. Me versus a sorcerer. A sorcerer who, not that long ago, I looked up to. . . .

Great.

He shook his head and thought, But the Grail . . .

Nyneve held out both hands. “If you must have the Grail, start with the witch. She knows things I do not.”

What? Artie had just defeated Morgaine—now he had to ask her for help?

Nyneve didn’t offer an answer. “The magic sustaining you is weakening, sire. Before you leave, I ask you to receive a gift. The king of the Otherworld is due one last tool. This is exceedingly powerful, one of the most potent items the worlds have ever seen. Few know of it. Arthur the First possessed it, and in all his years never found occasion to use it. Wait here.”

Where else would I go?
Artie wondered.

Nyneve drifted away. As her glimmering body drew closer to the wall, it revealed a cutout in the stone. It was lined with a silvery metal, throwing Nyneve’s luminescence in all directions. She reached in and worked out a small something that Artie couldn’t see.

She returned, her hands cupped together. In them was a thin metal tube, no longer or wider than a finger.

“This is Scarffern.”

Artie looked at it dubiously. That was one of the most powerful things ever? What was he supposed to do with it?

“Blow it, sire. You must discover its spell for yourself. Excalibur is the symbol of your power, Arthur Pendragon the Second, and it is a swift and cunning blade. But Scarffern is the
secret
of your power. Properly wielded, Scarffern will make the lords and lordesses of the Otherworld respect you, even if they despise you.”

Morgaine, Artie thought.

“Yes, sire.”

Artie held out his hand, and Nyneve dropped the little tube into it.

“Keep it safe.”

Artie looked into Nyneve’s eyes. Thanks, Nyneve, for watching over this. Excalibur too.

“It is my duty, my liege. Now, our time is up. Since you haven’t Excalibur with you, I’ve opened a moongate by the chestnut tree. It will return you to Tintagel.”

In that instant Nyneve disappeared and the grotto went completely dark. And then Artie started to rise—fast. He clenched Scarffern in his fist as the water rushed around his body. As he rose, he found that he could no longer breathe. His heart quickened, his chest tightened, and within ten seconds he broke above the surface like a submarine blowing out its bellows.

Red-faced, Artie gasped and got control of himself.

He was treading water in the middle of the Lake, close to the buoy he’d visited with Kay and Thumb back when they were first there to get Excalibur. Moored to the buoy was the red canoe.

Artie swam to the boat. He climbed in and collapsed, catching his breath and gathering his thoughts. He stared up at the Otherworld sky. Every now and then a pigeon flew by. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the angular silhouette of a red-tufted jaybird—one of those Fenlandian creatures loyal to Morgaine—as well.

The sun was fading and the air was starting to cool. He was still wet. He needed to get back to the castle.

He pushed the mysterious Scarffern into a front pocket of his jeans. He untied the canoe’s line, positioned himself in the rear seat, and began to paddle. He easily sighted the chestnut tree and navigated toward it.

He paddled hard, and it felt good. His heart rate rose, his chest warmed. Sweat gleamed on his forehead. As the boat glided through the water, he watched the shore grow closer and closer. Then he caught sight of the shimmering light of a moongate. He was nearly there. He was nearly back with his friends.

But what Artie didn’t know was that just above the moongate, perched on a large branch, was his old friend and new enemy, the wizard Merlin.