Thigocia lowered her neck, and Edward climbed down as he had been taught, stepping across the first three spines, then jumping the rest of the way. He looked back at the dragon and nodded respectfully. “I think you’d better go with the others. The king made no exceptions.”
“Very well,” Thigocia replied, dipping her head.
Makaidos stretched out his wings. “Leave a horse tied for each of them, and we will be on our way.”
Edward hustled to join the king and marched side by side with him, trying to catch his breath. “I apologize . . . Your Majesty. I didn’t . . . consider myself worthy to ”
“Exactly why I called you,” the king said, clapping Edward’s shoulder. “When the lake spirit said to beware of my counselors, the truth of her words resonated in my heart. I have long believed that someone is plotting to wrestle away my throne, so I need to take action to prevent it.”
“Will you trust this spirit, Sire? The dragons warned that she is dangerous.”
“Dangerous to them, perhaps.” He stopped and looked back at the dragons as they circled low over the departing ground troops. Sirs Devin and Barlow led the way down a path toward Weary Hill.
Arthur lowered his voice. “Dragons cannot always distinguish the target of danger, and Thigocia declared that the sword appears to be holy.”
Edward eyed the leading knight, clad in dark mail and marching quickly. “Do you believe Sir Devin? Are all dragons possessed by evil spirits?”
The king continued toward the edge of the swamp, slower now as the mists surrounded them. “I don’t know whom to believe, so I brought you here to ask your help. I will make a formal pronouncement later, but you are now a knight. I want you to befriend both Sir Devin and the dragons. Get them to trust you. Learn their secret counsels, and report your findings to me.”
Edward tried to keep a proud smile from bursting forth as he walked beside the king, but he couldn’t calm his breathless voice. “And what of Merlin? He is your closest advisor.”
“Merlin would never turn from me, but he would also never act as a spy. He trusts Makaidos without question, so you must make sure you hide your efforts from him.”
“I will be sure to avoid him.” Edward shook his head. “I have never understood his loyalty to those creatures.”
With the mists now completely enveloping them, Arthur stopped again and laid a hand on Edward’s shoulder. “Your distrust of dragons is warranted, but you will do well to keep your mind from prejudice. I just want the truth.”
Edward glanced at the gloved hand, his smile now breaking through. “Yes, Sire. I understand.”
Both men turned toward the water’s edge and closed in on the lady’s gift. The sword stood on its point, about a third of its length driven into the moss-speckled loam. Edward knelt close to it and examined its hilt and blade. “It’s magnificent! The workmanship of a master craftsman!”
Arthur grasped the hilt. “At least this one isn’t in stone.” He pulled, withdrawing the blade easily. “It seems that the Lady of the Lake had no scabbard for me,” he said, holding the blade high.
“Or instructions, Sire.”
“Indeed. The lady’s mention of secret fire reminds me of a legend I heard as a child. Such a weapon could mean the difference between victory and defeat in the coming battle.” The king turned the hilt around in his hand. “But I have no idea how to use it.”
“May I suggest inquiring of Master Merlin? I can fly to the castle with Thigocia and bring him back.”
“No need. He will be on the front lines by now, exhorting the troops. We’ll meet him there, but we’d better hurry. He won’t wait to command the march if he believes God has given the word.” Arthur slid Excalibur into his old scabbard. “If the sword’s fire is as powerful as I have heard, maybe today will prove that we won’t need the dragons ever again.”
Chapter 3
The Hidden Portal
Sapphira stood on the top rung of the ladder, stretching to reach the upper edge of the highest shelf in the museum’s library. Grabbing it with her fingertips, she pulled herself up and slid her feet in the usual spaces between stacks of scrolls. With a muffled grunt, she swung her body up on top of the shelf. Fortunately, Anak stood guard on the other side of the museum’s wall, out of sight and out of hearing range.
Resting for a moment, she looked out from her lofty perch. Her vision had already become sharper, the first sign that a portal was near, the clue that had helped her find this one years ago when she was searching the top shelf for something new to read. For some reason, this portal was invisible, not a column of light like the others in the below lands, maybe because it originated in the world above.
Darkness veiled the distant floor, but with her enhanced vision, she could still see the ring of twelve statues saluting the focal tree. Not far above, the room’s ceiling arched to a peak at the center a dome covered with crisscrossing lattice. Two horizontal support beams intersected beneath the dome, one of them attached to the wall next to Sapphira.
Since the curved ceiling began its upward arch near the wall, she had to crawl along the beam to stay beneath the dome, but as she slid out toward the center of the room, she was able to straighten and eventually rise to her feet. Inching toward the intersection, she spread her arms to keep her balance. A sense of sadness crept into her mind, darkness and loneliness, the second clue that had helped her find the portal that lay ahead.
The feeling of sadness grew, pure despair invading her mind, images of Acacia plummeting into the chasm, Nimrod’s hand swinging toward her unguarded cheek, and Morgan’s twisted face as she cried, “Freak of nature!”
Finally reaching the intersection, she withdrew a stick from her pocket and looked straight up, holding it high. She whispered, “Flames, come to my firebrand.” Instantly, a lively flame ignited the end of the stick. Curling her toes around the edge of the beam, she swung the torch in a slow circle and closed her eyes, imagining a swirl of warmth enveloping her as it did on that night long ago when she danced with Elohim.
As soon as the sensation of heat sank to her fingers, she opened her eyes again and watched the flame expand as it fell around her body and spun into a cone. Within seconds, the cocoon of fire enveloped her, and sparks of light flashed all around. Then, as she slowed her torch, she lowered it, allowing the flames to dissolve. Now, instead of the high reaches of an ancient tower, a castle stood at the top of a steep hill. Apple trees and gardenias grew all around, and their fragrance wafted past on a gentle breeze. Off to the right, the sun settled low on the horizon, casting her long thin shadow across the grass. She sprinted to the closest apple tree and ducked behind the trunk, away from the view of the castle, and, she hoped, away from Morgan’s piercing eyes.
She laid her stick at the base of the tree and glanced at the swamp behind her, shivering at the thought of the horrible serpents lurking beneath the deceptively peaceful surface. During a previous visit, stopping to wash her face in the shallows had almost proved fatal. If not for her proximity to the portal and resulting sharp vision, she would have been a wiggling belly lump at the bottom of the swamp.
As she skittered up the hill toward the castle, she pulled her veil down and bent low. Several flat terraces interrupted the slope, like a giant’s grassy stair steps. As she approached the dark building at the hill’s apex, she slowed her pace. Sneaking past a pair of turrets, she imagined a watchful guard peering out of one of the tiny windows. After circling around to the back of the castle, she stopped at a heavy wooden door, painted black and speckled with mildew splotches.
The door was locked, as usual, but a barred window up above allowed a breeze to flap the inner draperies. A thick vine grew along the side of the door, leading past the window on its meandering climb over mossy stones.
The short steeple in the center of the castle’s roof cast a long shadow over her, providing some cover for her familiar climb. She grasped the vine and began scaling the wall, poking her toes into
the tiny cracks between the stones as she pulled her way up the slippery surface.
After swinging herself to the window’s ledge, she pushed her head between the bars, then grunted softly as she forced her torso into the elaborate bedchamber.
Sapphira pushed her veil up and tiptoed into the corridor. The waning sunrays streamed through a stained glass window on one end, red and blue panes filtering the orange light and casting eerie colors across her path. She glanced both ways and leaned against a railing that overlooked the lower floor. No one was in sight. She had seen Morgan twice during her other visits here, and Naamah once, but she had managed to avoid them . . . barely. Getting caught meant certain death for her and probably for Paili as well.
Sidestepping the creaky boards, Sapphira scooted down the stairs, then hurried along a maze of corridors until she found a thick wooden door slightly ajar, as usual. Picking up an unlit torch from a nearby basket, she nudged the door open wide enough to squeeze through. She descended the stone steps, and the tiny sliver of light from the doorway above faded.
Gripping the torch more tightly, she whispered, “Grant me fire to light my way.” The top of the torch flickered, then blazed with light. Sapphira grimaced and whispered again. “Not so much!” The fire died down, giving just enough light to illuminate each step as she continued the deep plunge.
When Sapphira reached the bottom, she padded quietly across the hard dirt floor, following a glow of wavering lights in the distance. Twenty lanterns, some lit and some unlit, hung on each side of a pair of iron gates that blocked a rectangular entryway through a solid wall. The gaps between the black bars were too narrow even for her to squeeze through. The first time she had tried, her head had become wedged, and she spent nearly an hour freeing herself. Finding no way to get in that night, she finally gave up and went home. Since then, however, she had figured out how to pass. It had taken years of thought, but she finally deciphered the code and had since made it through the gate many times. The secret was in remembering Mardon’s control room combination.
Waving her arm across the field of lanterns, she whispered, “Sleep!” and every wick fell dark. Then, pointing at the first lantern on the left, she said, “Awake!” and it flashed to life. After repeating the command to the next five lanterns, Sapphira leaned her head toward the gate’s locking mechanism. A faint click sounded. She waved her hand at the lanterns again. “Sleep!” They all darkened.
She sidestepped toward the lanterns on the right and pointed at the first nine in order, commanding them to awaken. Then, after listening for the lock to click, she waved them back to darkness. Finally, moving to the left again, she lit thirteen lanterns. The lock clicked more loudly and the iron frame swung open a few inches.
Sapphira quickly restored the lanterns to their original condition and entered the gate, closing it behind her, careful not to let the lock reengage. Still carrying her torch, she padded into the dungeon’s anteroom, a huge chamber with rocky walls all around and a high ceiling, reminding her of the caverns in the lower world. Except for the gate behind her, three wooden doors, much like the one at the top of the stairs, stood as the only way out.
It was at this point that Morgan’s sorcery and Mardon’s scientific wizardry always baffled her. Every time she came, the doors led to something different a pit that plunged into darkness; a winding path through a dismal, uninhabited tropical forest; an endless meadow with deep hoofprints as the only sign that anyone ever journeyed through the grassy expanse; and a deserted, rocky wasteland with a gorge that carried a flaming river at the bottom. Since her vision cleared as she approached a door, and sadness shrouded her mind, she knew the doors were portals to other dimensions that somehow stayed open for anyone to stumble through, perhaps to be lost forever.
Sapphira regripped her torch. It was time to choose a door, maybe for the last time. But why should the portal reveal anything new? Exploring the strange lands over and over had never turned up a soul, living or dead. Still, there was one place she hadn’t searched, the dark pit. Sapphira shivered. Falling into the unknown took more courage than she had to offer.
She reached for the door on the left and opened it, revealing the huge meadow. She sighed. Nothing new there, just dried horse dung fertilizing a million acres of grass. After closing that door, she strode ten paces to the right and opened the second. A rocky ledge overlooked a deep chasm and a lava river, much like the one in her cavern back home, but this one was outside under the sun and sky in a land that held nothing more than lava pots and squealing lizards, a place an imprisoned boy could never survive. Finally, she pulled open the third door, revealing a dark hole, the pit she had never dared to explore.
She dropped to all fours and peered into the hole. It reminded her of the abyss she and Paili had dangled over, but this one breathed no streams of light and had no gems lining its walls. Still, an odd wind seemed to try to suck her downward, whipping at her dress and coif as she leaned over the precipice.
She whispered to her torch. “Give as much light as you can.” As the fire blazed, she reached it into the hole, extending it to one side, then the other. Nothing. Just blackness as far as the eye could see.
Pulling up and resting on her knees, she looked back at the iron gate and the dark path home. She set her torch on the ground, allowing the fiery head to blaze over the pit. “I failed,” she muttered. “I said this was my last try, and there’s nothing new.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Elam’s probably long dead anyway, so what’s the use?”
A sudden gust caught the torch and nudged it off its perch. Sapphira lunged for it as it sailed into the hole, but her hands grasped empty air. The torch fell into the darkness, a shrinking light beaten about by changing crosswinds. And then it stopped. The tiny flame flickered steadily, yet far away.
Sapphira leaned her head into the hole. There was a bottom to this pit after all, but who could ever survive such a plunge? As she studied the distant light, a strange sound entered her ears, a rough, rumbling growl. She jerked her head up and spun around on her knees. Stalking toward her, a huge dog bared its teeth, a rainbow of colors shimmering across its body from the tips of its triangular ears to the end of its pointed tail.
Sapphira tried to stand, but her knees collapsed, and she fell to her seat. She pressed her hands against the floor and slid backwards, but with the pit only inches behind her, she couldn’t go much farther.
As the dog approached, taking one stalking step at a time, its growl deepened. The lanterns at the gate threw the beast’s shadow over her, yet with her vision crystal clear, she could see every pulsing capillary in its bloodshot eyes.
Sliding back another inch, she teetered on the edge of the pit. The image of Paili’s face flashed in her mind. Who would take care of her? Who would protect her when Morgan led her to the edge of the chasm? Would another innocent underborn suffer Acacia’s fate?
A sense of heat radiated against her thigh the Ovulum in her pocket, emanating a soothing warmth for the first time in centuries. That was all the answer she needed.
With a final push, Sapphira fell backwards into the pit.
Arthur and Edward stopped their horses at a low ridge overlooking the troops as they lined up only a stone’s throw away. The skies had darkened, and light rain dampened their heads. The king nodded at a scarlet-robed old man standing in front of the regiment. “It looks like we’re too late to ask Merlin about the sword,” Arthur said. “I will have to learn to use it in battle.”
As the rain grew heavier, Merlin paced in front of the soldiers, his hands behind him and his robe swishing. His powerful strides belied his wild, white hair and wrinkled face, and his resonating voice matched his vigor. “Men and dragons,” he shouted, “we are not here today to cross blades with men of equal stature. Though their men stand taller and their armor repels our sharpest arrows, though their numbers make them seem as thick as rats in a latrine, in the end, they are lesser men than we.”
A low rumble of thunde
r sounded in the distance, and large raindrops plastered Merlin’s hair against his forehead. “As they have marched from village to village,” he continued, “these barbarians have murdered children and committed unspeakable acts against every female, from the very young to the very old. And they have attacked at night, cowardly spearing the fighting men in their slumber and rolling their severed heads into the middle of the streets, laughing as they committed their crimes against the women and children in the public squares, thinking the God of the universe could not see their abominations or will not lift up his iron fist and smash their vermin bodies with one mighty blow.”
Arthur’s men shook their fists and shouted. “Smash the vermin!” The dragons thumped their tails on the ground, plumes of smoke rising from their nostrils as they clawed the muddy path.
“You are better men than they,” Merlin continued, lifting his voice even higher. “You follow Arthur, the king who has given his life and rule to the greatest king of all, Christ, the Lord!”
The men shouted, “Christ, the Lord!” and began clanking their swords against their shields. The dragons remained silent, though they continued to paw the ground restlessly.
“Yes!” Merlin yelled. “With the word of God as your sword, and faith as your shield, you cannot fail!” As another loud clap of thunder echoed his shouts, Merlin stripped off his robe, revealing a suit of silver chain mail and a scabbard attached to a strap on his back. “So march!” He pulled a sword from the scabbard and lifted it high. “We will send these rats back to their latrine, and they will learn what it means to offend the heart of the living God!”
Merlin strode ahead on the path. The men followed him, waving their swords and shouting huzzahs. Barlow raised his new shield and marched side by side with the prophet. At the far end of the pack, Sir Devin walked alongside Palin, the king’s scribe. The two inclined their heads toward each other as if in conversation and drifted farther back in the lines.