Unlucky Charms (The Cold Cereal Saga) (30 page)

“Fantastic,” said John. “
They
have magic ammo now. Fire ammo.”

More flaming stones fell all around. One bounced off the boulders and into Merle’s lap, and he hooted, pitched it off quickly, and then sucked on his fingers.

“Is that what magic smells like?” asked the queen. “Smells of paraffin.”

Merle peeked over the boulders. “She’s right,” he said. “It’s not magic—they’ve got a big vat of kerosene. They’re dipping the bullets in it and lighting ’em on fire. Heh. Bet they’d rather not get a flare in it. Get ready to run.”

John heard the Hairy Men chattering and a petulant voice joining them from afar.

“Well, I’m here
now
. Morgan le Fay doesn’t run for you or anyone.”

“Better zip into the sack, Your Majesty,” said John. “You too, Finchbriton. When I say so, hold your breath.”

“CHILDREN OF ADAM!” Morgan screeched, closer now. “I’M COMING TO RECLAIM THE PRIZE!”

John stole a look and instantly regretted it. Now he’d have the picture of furious Morgan—face like a gash, tramping across the pockmarked and smoldering island while a petrified rain thumped around her—to take to his grave with him.

“Hold on,” said Merle. He shot a flare. “Missed.”

Morgan sneered at the flare but didn’t break stride.

“Missed again,” Merle said a second later.

“Give me your flare gun,” he told John after firing a third time. “I’m out.”

John handed Merle his gun, but as he shifted around, a sling bullet grazed his shoulder.

“YEEEEAAH!”

“Missed again. Are you okay?”

“Erg.
Fine.
Do you want me to do that for you?”

Just then Merle fired a final flare, and it landed in the vat. The kerosene ignited, sending up a bright FOOSH of flame. The Hairy Men scattered, wailing and covering their eyes, and Merle and John raced to the bank and dove beneath the water.

CHAPTER 32

Emily couldn’t sleep. She sat up, listened to the old mattress springs bray and creak. Erno was supposed to be watching her, making certain her sleep wasn’t disturbed, but there he was, snoring in the chair by the bed. She reached out to where Archie perched on the headboard, and he stepped down onto her arm. Then she tiptoed out of the room and shut the door behind her. She might as well get some work done.

Scott couldn’t sleep. He wondered how many hours straight he’d been awake now, in this prison cell. Twenty-four? Thirty?

“How long do you think we’ve been in here?” he asked Mick.

“Six hours, maybe.”

“Six—that’s all? Are you sure?”

“No, I amn’t sure. I didn’t bring my Rolex. Is it important?”

“Well, I was thinking of scratching marks into the wall, to count the days, but … never mind,” said Scott. “It’s not like we’ll ever be able to count them anyway without a sun or moon. What makes this world work, anyway? Where’s the light coming from? What makes the plants grow? What keeps it going?”

A voice said,

“
What keeps our kingdom going, glowing on?

Suspense—suspense and stubborn expectation.

A wish to witness how the story ends.
”

Scott squinted at the silhouetted face in the door’s window. “Beautiful damsel?”

“Nah,” said Mick, “it’s just Dhanu.”

“
What fools you were to come and court the courtly
,”

the changeling said through the door.

“
More fool was I to lend you my good name.

What covenant could you have hoped to gain?

The mission of the Fay is right and just.

It must be just—for if their cause were not?

For lack of glamour’s blush they’d wilt and waste.
”

“Thassa crock,” Mick said cheerily. “We’ve gotten it all turned around, we Fay. I think we used to tell ourselves we needed to be good, to be honorable, an’ that the glamour was our reward. Now ’s our barometer. If we still have our glamour, then we’re sure we
must
be good, no matter how heinous we’ve become. I think yeh know what I mean.”

Dhanu watched them for a moment.

“
It was
my
honor pledged
, mine
on the line

When conduct safe I promised in the court.
”

“I know,” said Scott. “I’m sorry.”

Dhanu smirked.

“
And now apology, from you to me.

From jailed to jailer; that is passing strange.

For all your folly, still I’m fain to think

You spoke with honest valor in the court.
”

Scott and Mick were silent.

“
If I arrange your swift release, will first

You swear what you foretold will come to pass?

The Fay, all Fay, led safely to your world?

Admired and living free among your kind?
”

“Sure,” said Mick. “That’s what he thinks. That’s what we both think.”

“
He made predictions all his own in court
,

So now I’ll have his answer for myself.
”

Scott opened his mouth to reassure Dhanu as well, and it would have been easy, so easy to lie. Instead he grimaced as he realized he was about to be honest. It really wasn’t all that simple after all. What do you know.

“No.”

Mick turned his head. “Lad?”

“… No,” Scott told Dhanu. “I won’t promise that. It wouldn’t be right. I think that’s what will happen … mostly … but I can’t make any guarantees. I’m just a kid—I don’t have any power in my world.”

“
Scott
,” said Mick.

You couldn’t read Dhanu’s dim face there, in that small frame in the door, but when he spoke again it seemed to be with greater urgency.

“
I trust you grasp the pact I’m offering?

An oath, mere words, and then I’ll set you free.
”

“Sorry, Mick,” Scott breathed. He turned to Dhanu. “Yeah, I understood you the first time. Thanks, but … I guess I’ll have to stay in here.”

Dhanu studied him, then turned and motioned to someone who must have been standing with him there, in the hall. There was a jangling, and the bolt slid free of the lock. The door opened, and Scott and Mick scrambled to their feet.

Dhanu was accompanied by another changeling Scott recognized from before. This second teen had Scott’s backpack. Now Scott could just see Dhanu’s face in the blue light of the cross-shaped window, and he was smiling. Sort of a rueful smile.

“
Our horses wait in secret down below.

Now softly, and attend to what I say.

And if your drop of fairy blood bestows

A drop of fairy grace, do use it now.
”

Scott was stunned. “Thank you.”

“
I think you’ll be a king among your kind
,” said Dhanu.

“Nah,” said Scott, shrugging uncomfortably. “I’m thinking maybe a lawyer.”

CHAPTER 33

“If you were truly Merlin,” said the queen, “then I think you have much to answer for. All that I-know-the-terrible-future-but-I’m-going-to-let-it-happen-anyway business.”

“Oh.” Merle laughed. “
That.
”

Merle and John were still dripping wet, though Her Majesty and Finchbriton had remained relatively dry inside the backpack. They walked back through the southwest of Ireland, toward the rift, on their guard but otherwise enjoying a rare moment of triumph.

“Putting aside the tragedy of Lancelot and Guinevere,” said the queen, “you must have known that Arthur would have a bastard son who would grow up to oppose him.”

“Mordred,” Merle agreed, nodding. “So why didn’t I stop it? I actually tried. I did. Just like I got Arthur born by doing everything wrong, I got Mordred born by doing everything right. All the old accounts agreed that Mordred’s mom was Morgause, so I never left her and Arthur alone together for even a second. Sure, some newer versions of the legends said Mordred’s mom was Morgan le
Fay
, but I knew that was just because modern writers think Morgan’s a fun villain and they wanted to make the stories simpler by getting rid of characters. Right? So I’m watching Morgause like a hawk, and meanwhile Arthur and Morgan le Fay are sneaking out the back together.”

The queen pursed her lips but said nothing. John said it for her. “Arthur and that … wild child?”

“She had a more alluring glamour back then, I swear. And actually ran a comb through her hair every now and then. So Mordred was born after all, but I was there to meet Arthur on the battlefield of Camlann. Arthur killed his son, but Mordred got Arthur pretty bad, too. The books all say that four queens took him off to Avalon to rest and heal, but I guess that’s just ’cause no one was around to know the truth. It was actually me.”

Merle drove his skittish horse and cart through the field of the dead, a hundred thousand men, looking for movement that was not some crow or snake in the grass. Quiet as an anvil. Only the dry curses of scavengers creaking under a leaden sky.

When his horse quailed and wouldn’t go any farther, Merle got down and walked, slipping occasionally on things he didn’t care to identify, looking for that extraordinary sword and the Pendragon device on a shield, looking for his friend.

He found Arthur breathing shallowly on the ground next to the body of his son. He pressed on the king’s wound until the bleeding stopped, mostly, and dressed it with fresh linen.

“Merlin,” said Arthur, fluttering his papery eyelids. He looked so much older than Merle remembered, so much older than his years. “So I’ve died, then. Is this heaven or hell?”

“What a thing to say. I’ve missed you too.”

“What are you doing now?”

“I am trying,” Merle grunted, “to drag you back … to my cart. The books said Lucan … and Bedivere would be hanging around to help?”
(Cough.)
“But I guess they just made that up?”

After the better part of a sweat-soaked hour, Merle had Arthur in the wagon, and they were away. Merle had to keep nudging Arthur to keep him awake.

“Whither we travel?” asked the king after one of these proddings.

“Avalon.”

“Good. I shall return the sword Excalibur to the lake and fulfill my vow.”

“Mmm … yeeeah. Why don’t you hold on to that, actually,” said Merle. “You’re gonna need it where we’re going, and I don’t intend to let you die.”

“Old friend,” said Arthur. “My wound is mortal.”

“Let’s let twenty-first century medicine decide what’s mortal and what isn’t. You’ll be amazed how different the doctors are from the ones you have here. Like, do you know what they’ll almost never put on an open wound? Moss. And they’re gonna wash their hands and everything. You’ll feel like a king. The Once and Future King.”

He snuck them both through the back door tunnel to his secret cave, explaining all the while that there was a new kingdom, another world that needed his help more than any other. They were going there. Inside the cave Arthur found Archimedes, and some work benches, crude tools, copper and tin wire, pipes. The time machine Merlin had built for him was a hundred times larger than his own and would have looked to the modern eye more like plumbing than science. But to the medieval man, plumbing
was
science, and Arthur was much impressed. Merlin told the king that he must place himself within a large octagonal ring, surrounded by batteries of fairy gold.

“You can sit,” said Merle.

“I will stand.” Arthur was barely on his feet, but he raised Excalibur, pointed it before him as if ready to cleave his way into the next millennium.

Merle and Archie gripped their little octagon. “Okay, Archie,” said Merle. “Sync us up and do the math. Then jump.”

Arthur’s machine rattled and hummed. And glowed. There was a lot more light than Merle expected. Especially from Arthur’s trembling sword. Excalibur was incandescent.

Then there was a
pop
, and Merle and Archie were in New Jersey.