The great dragon ground his many rows of teeth. “No,” he declared. “You must fight. I will go . . . to her.”
“All right,” agreed Merlin grudgingly. “But first get me to the cord. As fast as you can!”
Basilgarrad swooped upward again. Beating his powerful wings, he growled, “Get ready.”
“Ready?” asked the wizard. “For what?”
“For your chance to fly on your own.”
“My what?”
Basilgarrad nodded as his wings pumped. “This way, you might get to the cord without being seen.” He tore through the fumes, steadily gaining speed. “And without drawing me into the fight.”
“But, Basil—”
Abruptly, the dragon slammed both his wings backward, halting his flight in midair. At the same time, he whipped his neck forward, hurling Merlin into the vapors. The wizard suddenly flew—his arms flailing, his robe flapping, and his beard blown backward by the wind. He sailed straight at the dark thread that connected the troll to the sky above—and at the troll himself. Fortunately, Rhita Gawr’s lone eye was turned elsewhere, at the spot where Marnya had fallen.
Merlin shot toward the cord. As the wind whistled past, he judged his altitude to be about halfway between the troll’s belly and the pulsing eye. If I can just grab that cord, he thought, I’ll be near enough to inflict some damage.
Euclid, who had been hiding in a deep pocket, poked out his head. Seeing that the wizard was flying through the air, he shrieked in horror. Then, seeing their destination, he shrieked again. Furiously working his little wings, he wriggled out of the pocket and into the air where he could control his own flight.
An instant later, Merlin struck the cord. Like a windblown moth landing on a branch, he hit hard and clung tight, even though his momentum nearly threw him past. Wrapping his arms and legs around the thread, he hung on, trying to keep himself from falling. Though he slid some ways down the length, he finally steadied himself. Breathlessly, he leaned his forehead against the cord.
I feel it pumping! He knew that every throb made his enemy stronger. In a matter of seconds, Rhita Gawr would be unstoppable.
He lifted his head, knowing what he must do. Peering up at the thick vapors that obscured the stars, he could see the outlines of the troll’s muscular shoulders and angular jaw. Both were lit by the ominous glow of the bloodred eye, which continued to flash in time to the pulsing thread.
That eye, thought Merlin grimly, is his weakest point. And my only hope.
Taking one hand off the cord, he pulled his staff from his belt. Firmly, he grasped the staff, just below its twisted, knotted top. His voice a bare whisper, he spoke to it as he would have spoken to an old friend.
“I need you now, Ohnyalei, more than ever before. I need you to gather all the power you have. Every last spark, whatever you can muster. For even that,” he added with a glance at the glowing eye far above, “might not be enough.”
The staff quivered, trembling in his hand. Then, like a subtle dawn, its top began to glow ever so slightly. Soon a faint, silvery aura surrounded it.
Merlin watched it closely, between anxious glances skyward. He never noticed, far below by the troll’s waist, the other person who also clung to the throbbing cord.
Krystallus, for his part, never looked up—and certainly never realized that, if he had, he would have seen his father, preparing to strike a blow with the staff. Indeed, Krystallus was busy striking blows of his own, working feverishly to pierce the dark thread with his dagger. Sweat dripped from his face and hands, while his arm muscles ached from the strain. Yet so far he had just barely scraped the thread’s tough surface.
Where is Basil? And my father? he wondered, wiping his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his tunic. And what happened to that other dragon who was doing so well at harassing this monster?
At that very moment, Basilgarrad was dragging Marnya’s limp body out of the reeking pool where she had fallen. Gently clasping her fin between his teeth, he tugged to free her from the pool. Although the ooze sucked at her body, his great strength prevailed. He dragged her onto soggy but more solid ground, then somberly gazed at her.
Clumps of peat and decaying flesh covered her face; black muck streaked her once-radiant scales. Her azure eyes lay hidden behind closed lids. Far worse, though, was her utter stillness—the stillness of death. She did not breathe, or blink, or moan.
Basilgarrad lifted his massive head to the sky, stretching his neck upward, and bellowed in pain. It was an anguished sound, terrible to hear for all its pain. For no sound ever heard in Avalon carried more suffering than the sobs of a dragon.
Nearby, in the shadows, sat Ganta, his little wings folded against his back. All the joy of breathing fire had vanished. Instead, he wondered how the fire of life, especially in someone so fully alive, could end so quickly.
Several tears, as dark as the billowing fumes of the swamp, fell from Basilgarrad’s eyes. Down his face they rolled, sliding over his scales, then down his long neck all the way to his shoulders. There, catching sparks of green light from his eyes, they dropped. Still glinting, they landed on Marnya’s lifeless throat.
“Marvelous!” boomed the troll, his voice rising in raucous laughter. “I would kill that insect again, if I could. Just to see you suffer.”
Basilgarrad, consumed with sorrow, didn’t respond, or even look up. He merely stroked the contours of Marnya’s face with his wing tip.
“Did you not hear me?” thundered Rhita Gawr. “Are you deaf, or just cowardly?”
When Basilgarrad still did not reply, the troll glared at him. Enraged, he stepped toward the mourning dragon. But the cord held him back, preventing him from taking more than a single stride. With a roar of frustration, he stamped his huge feet in the swamp, splattering mud and fluids. Because he continued to fix his pulsing eye on Basilgarrad, he didn’t notice the two much smaller figures hanging from the cord itself.
Merlin, hoping his staff was finally ready, gazed into its silvery glow. “Is that everything you have?” he whispered. “We will need it all.”
He watched as the staff ’s top glowed a bit brighter, crackling with energy. “All right, then.” He raised the staff and started to point it at the troll’s evil eye. “Send your mightiest blast to—”
Rhita Gawr suddenly bellowed in surprise, stopping the wizard from finishing his command. In that instant, Merlin turned and saw exactly what his foe had seen. Krystallus! Down at the junction of the cord and the troll’s belly, Krystallus sat holding a dagger, trying to sever the connection.
By the breath of Dagda, that brave lad! thought Merlin, just as surprised as the troll.
His roar of surprise quickly turning to fury, Rhita Gawr reached down with a massive hand and plucked up Krystallus. He pinched the struggling man’s chest between his thumb and forefinger, so hard that Krystallus gasped for breath and dropped his dagger. The blade plunged downward, bounced off the troll’s knee, then fell into the bog below.
As Rhita Gawr lifted him higher, toward a drooling mouth filled with jagged teeth, Krystallus passed very close to Merlin. Seeing his father suspended from the cord, Krystallus opened his eyes wide with astonishment. For a brief moment, their gazes met—two pairs of coal-black eyes that had not looked at each other for years. In that moment, both father and son saw more than they had believed possible.
Merlin, still holding his staff above his head, hesitated. His tufted eyebrows lifted to their highest. Should I blast the troll’s eye or help Krystallus? Try to save Avalon—or my son?
Seeing the consternation on his father’s face, Krystallus immediately guessed the wizard’s thoughts—and dilemma. “No, Father!” he croaked, barely able to breathe. “Forget about me. Kill this beast!”
Rhita Gawr’s immense mouth slavered as he carried his victim higher. “I will eat you, worm. Devour you!”
Still Merlin hesitated, as if he’d been frozen in time. He knew what he should do. Avalon needed him to seize this moment, this fina
l chance, to save it from Rhita Gawr’s domination. The staff he held right now was not just a weapon, but the last hope for their world.
Besides, Krystallus was not really someone deserving special treatment. He was, in fact, someone whose words had cut deeper than any sword. Who had done everything possible to distance himself. Who had, more than anyone else, hurt the wizard’s heart.
Who is, Merlin told himself, my son. He bit his lip. And he is right! He knows that he must die—so that Avalon might live.
In a trembling voice, he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Krystallus. Very sorry.”
He grimaced, watching for another instant as his son approached the troll’s drooling mouth. Then, his decision made, he aimed his glowing staff and spoke the command:
“Save him. Save my son!”
A fiery bolt of lightning shot from the top of the staff, sizzling on its arc through the air. It struck the troll’s hand, just below the knuckles—not hard enough to destroy the monster’s flesh, but to singe it. Rhita Gawr roared in sudden pain, opened his burned hand, and dropped Krystallus.
So bright was the dazzling flash, it illuminated the whole marsh and, for a brief instant, dispersed the many layers of shadows. Even as Rhita Gawr roared from the burn, he was forced to shut his eye as he reeled from the brilliant flash—which prevented him from seeing what happened next.
Merlin leaped off the throbbing cord. Carried aloft by his still-glowing staff, he flew up to catch Krystallus. There! The wizard wrapped one arm around his son’s waist, holding him tight, as the hairs of his unruly beard mingled with those of the younger man’s flowing mane.
In a last burst of power, the darkening staff carried them both downward. Just as they landed in a boggy pool some distance away from the troll, the staff sputtered, sparkled one more time, then finally extinguished. Darkness once again filled the Marsh, lit only by the pulsing red glow of Rhita Gawr’s reopened eye far above their heads.
Merlin used the staff to steady himself as he stood in the muck of the pool. He slid his fingers along the staff, now as dark as the fumes rising around them, fully aware that its power was spent. It would take, he knew, quite some time for its magic to restore itself. Just as he knew that he no longer could do anything to stop Rhita Gawr. Yet he still, somehow, felt sure he’d made the right choice.
Peering at the staff, whose edges dimly gleamed with the red glow, he whispered, “Thanks, my friend.”
Krystallus, who was standing in a deeper part of the pool, stepped toward his father. His boots squelched in the mud as he approached, his face entirely a scowl. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Merlin nodded. “I know.”
“That was stupid.” Krystallus brushed a clump of peat off his nose. “Really stupid.”
“Yes, I know.” The wizard ran a hand through his mud-stained beard. He paused, as Euclid’s feathery form dived out of the sky and back into the nest. Then, gazing at his son, Merlin added, “But as you know well . . . it wasn’t the first time I’ve done something stupid.”
Krystallus gazed back. His scowl started to melt away, for he’d clearly heard the note of apology. “I guess,” he replied, “that runs in our family.”
Far above them, Rhita Gawr roared angrily. “Where are you, worm? When I find you, I will crush you, maim you, skin you, and devour you!”
His bloodred eye, seething with rage, searched around the swamp. But the two small humans down in the murky pool, shrouded as they were by dark fumes, eluded him. Bellowing with wrath, the troll tugged at the cord that kept him from moving—and from completing his long-awaited conquest of Avalon.
The dark thread pulsed once more, pumping the final drops of power into his body. Then, all at once, the cord started to dissolve. Black sparks exploded all along its length, hissing and crackling in the vapors. The whole thread, stretching all the way up to the empty place between the stars, disintegrated. Only one trace of it remained: a thin trail of black sparks that hung in the air, crackling ominously.
Rhita Gawr roared in triumph. He was, at last, completely free.
26: A SINGLE GRAIN OF SAND
Power is usually defined by what it does—its effects on people and places, positive or negative. But its effects aren’t nearly as important as its sources. That’s where you’ll find the enduring mysteries . . . and the ultimate power.
Rhita Gawr’s eye fell on Basilgarrad, its fiery red glow searing the darkness. Still stroking Marnya’s lifeless body with the tip of his wing, the grieving dragon had not budged from the swampy pool.
“You,” boomed the towering warrior, “will be the first to die.” He took a heavy stride, slamming down his foot in the swamp. “The first of many!”
His roving red eye glanced at the dangling trail of black sparks that rose up into the sky. That, he knew, was all that remained of the dark thread that had delivered his power from the Otherworld; the rest of the cord had finally disintegrated. For the first time since he had arrived in Avalon and taken a troll’s mortal form, Rhita Gawr’s mouth twisted in a savage grin. His time, at last, had arrived.
He took another giant stride toward Basilgarrad. The force of his footstep shook the whole marsh, making the cowering ghouls burrow themselves deeper into the mud. Clods of peat and muck splattered the green dragon’s back. Yet he still didn’t move from Marnya’s side.
Not far away, across the pool where Marnya had fallen, Ganta’s small body shivered in fear at the hulking troll. But he didn’t flee. Through chattering teeth, he vowed to himself, “As long as master Basil stays . . . I’ll stay, too.”
Glowering down at Basilgarrad, Rhita Gawr declared, “If you are too cowardly to fight me, I will simply crush you, like the worthless insect you are. And then I will do that to your world.”
He raised his enormous foot, preparing to smash it down with all his weight on the dragon’s back. His lips curling into a snarl, he spat, “You are nothing to me. Nothing! To me, you are as puny as a grain of sand.”
Something about those words nudged Basilgarrad, stirring him from his grief. As the troll’s words echoed around the Marsh, they also echoed inside his head. As puny as a grain of sand . . . grain of sand . . . grain of . . .
“Sand,” said the dragon. He shook himself, as if awakening from a nightmare. Then he glanced over at Marnya, whose azure blue eyes he’d never see again. He cringed, rattling his wings against his sides. Yet now, for the first time since her terrible fall, he remembered why she had fought. Why she had died. For Avalon, the world they both loved.
The troll’s monstrous foot rose right above him. But Basilgarrad paid no attention. He was too busy trying to remember something about sand—something that Dagda had once told him. How did it go? Yes, that was it! “Just as the smallest grain of sand can tilt a scale, the weight of one person’s will can lift an entire world.”
An entire world. In a flash, he thought about Dagda’s strange command that he swallow one small particle—a single grain of sand, a drop of water, a wisp of cloud—from every realm of his world. He often wondered why the great spirit had given him such a pointless order. After all, what could he possibly gain from a single grain of sand?
His dragon’s chest heaved as he drew a great breath. All at once, he understood! By swallowing a tiny particle of each place, he took into himself more than a portion of that place’s physical marvels. More than that, much more, he took into himself a portion of its magic.
Rhita Gawr smirked, holding his massive foot over the dragon’s back. Roaring louder than ever, he began, “AND NOW . . .”
Basilgarrad’s eyes widened. Not because of the nearness of his own death—but because of what Dagda’s command truly meant. His mind racing, he realized that if he held the magic of Avalon’s realms, then he truly held the magic of Avalon. All of it. Every last glimmer. And that, surely, was the ultimate magic.
As Merlin had once told him, “You are Avalon.”
“YOU . . . ,” continued Rhita Gawr, his foot poised.
> Urgently, with all his heart, Basilgarrad called to that magic. Loyal friends of Avalon, wherever you are, hear me! Give me your power, your passion, your love of this world. Give it to me now!
“SHALL . . . ,” boomed Rhita Gawr, savoring this final instant before he killed the insignificant pest beneath him.
Basilgarrad felt a subtle, prickling sensation, somewhere deep inside his chest. It felt as if a tiny spark had been kindled. Then came another. Another. And another. Soon his whole body was almost buzzing with this new energy.
Right away, he knew its source. He could see glimpses in his mind, one after another, of tens, hundreds, thousands of creatures in faraway places—all across Avalon—responding to his call. Sylphs in Y Swylarna paused in midflight to send him their magic. Mudmakers in the farthest reaches of Malóch turned their huge brown eyes in his direction. In faraway El Urien, faeries hovered in a forest glade, their silver wings humming Wings of Peace. In Lastrael, the realm of eternal night, a small black butterfly glowed eerily, sending him a dark kind of light.
And more, as well. Brilliant fish leaped out of the Rainbow Seas of Brynchilla, their bodies shimmering like living prisms. All across Olanabram, giants slammed their huge hammers against mountains of stone, while farmers rang their magical bells. Deep in Rahnawyn’s caverns of flaming jewels, a young dwarf played her harp, making musical fire that burned ever so bright. And even beyond Avalon, in the shimmering mist of Fincayra, a wandering wind stirred at his call.
“DIE!” roared Rhita Gawr, slamming down his foot.
Basilgarrad instantly rolled to the side, moving with incredible speed. He whipped his mighty tail and smashed it against the troll’s descending foot—so hard that Rhita Gawr bellowed in pain. Seeing the troll wobble precariously on the other foot, Basilgarrad leaped into the air. Pumping his wide wings, he flew straight at the leg still planted in the Marsh and crashed into the troll’s knee with explosive force.
Howling with rage and agony, Rhita Gawr teetered on his battered knee. One more bash against that knee from Basilgarrad’s shoulder—and the troll shrieked, spun his arms wildly to regain his balance, and then fell with a shattering thud into the swamp.