He tried to think of how to explain himself. To explain that the sword Excalibur and its scabbard were linked by the spell that had created them—one to cleave and the other to protect. They were bound together like the Tower and its ravens. Some story should have reunited them, eventually.
But then Arthur left in a time machine, carrying the sword. Sword tried to cleave its way into a new future, but the spell that bound it wouldn’t let it leave scabbard behind. Arthur got trapped in between, unable to come through to Goodborough, where Merle waited. But with the stolen power of the time machine, the sword cut reality in twain, a sharp spike through two overlapping worlds—even as the scabbard drew the world’s magic close and protected what was left.
So a bubble of magic, protected by a lost scabbard. And a king with a sword, forever trying to cut his way free. Bring the scabbard to Earth, and the sword can finally follow, and all would be reunited. He figured.
It felt like a lot to have to shout across a field.
Then there was a poleax in his face.
“Rise,” said an elf, “so that we may bind thy wrists, and take thee to thy judgment at the feet of fair—”
A rock bounced off the elf’s helmet.
He turned, furious. Nearby, the other elves crouched into defensive positions. “Who dares?” he cried.
A man, the same man Scott had spoken to right before getting shot in the foot, stepped out from the darkness of the trees. “Lea—leave him alone!” he said, barely shouting, his voice a warble. “He’s just a boy!”
Another rock sailed out and missed the elves entirely. It hadn’t been thrown by the man, however—a fact that was not lost on anyone.
“Return to your homes!” called the elf. “This does not concern you!”
More rocks now, many of which were landing dangerously close to Scott himself, not that he didn’t appreciate the sentiment. The elves were joined by more and more compatriots with spears and swords, yet the humans too emerged from hiding in greater numbers. Scott noted grimly that few were armed against the elves with anything worse than sticks and stones. Sticks and stones wouldn’t break their bones. This was a time for words.
“Fairies of Oberon!” shouted the same elf. “Fall in line!” And the army of Titania formed rows as best they could amid the fallen trees.
“No!” said Scott. “Please, don’t hurt them!” He turned to face the people. “Get back! Back into the forest! I’ll be fine!”
“Fairies of Oberon! Charge!”
“BUG ZAPPERRRR!” answered a chorus of voices nearby, and a string of birds swooped low and crossed the paths of the advancing Fay. The bird in the lead breathed blue fire. The next four carried pixies. Astride the last was Polly.
The fire startled everyone, Scott included. That, plus a family of pixies flying past their ankles, had a profound effect on the regiment of elves. They tripped over tree trunks, branches, their own feet. They inadvertently stabbed their toes and the toes of others. Whole teeming companies of elves tumbled over, only to trip up the row immediately behind them.
“PIXIE JINX!” called Polly, and she flew to Scott’s shoulder on the back of a starling as he got to his feet. “You came back,” she said. “Did you forget something?”
He smiled at her. “You know I did.”
“I’m trying not to tell you how horrible you look. But it’s really superscary.”
“I’ll be all right,” Scott told her, though he wasn’t sure. “I just have to get through that rift.”
Finchbriton was setting trunks alight, keeping the elves off balance. The people by the trees continued to throw rocks, and now the trooping Fay seemed uncertain what to do.
“I have this scabbard under my shirt,” said Scott.
“This what?” said Polly. The starling whistled something anxiously, and Polly whistled back. This seemed to calm it.
“Scabbard. A sheath, like for a sword. It’s a long story, so you’ll have to trust me. You need to take the scabbard and fly to the rift. Once you go across, you have to take it to that big park Mom took us to that day, do you remember?”
“I can’t carry that,” said Polly. “It’s too big.”
“Please try. I’ll . . . I don’t know. Distract Titania and the others while you do it.”
They were nearing Titania’s royal retinue and the long line of Fay and magical beasts waiting to make the Crossing. Scott was still trying to be sneaky, but he was pretty sure they were all watching him. He crouched behind a tangled trunk.
Some of the children of Goodborough still mingled near the rose arch where they’d come across. But they now appeared to be waking as if from a very deep sleep. They began to wander, unbidden. More than one called for his mother.
Fi and Morenwyn, astride a crow, landed on Scott’s opposite shoulder.
“What cheer, Scott,” said Fi. “You look abysmal.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m supposed to take this scabby thing through the rift,” Polly told them.
Fi eyed Scott’s many injuries. “That’s not a fair thing to call your brother,” he said.
“Scabbard,” Scott said, and he showed them. “Not scab, scabbard. I have the scabbard of Excalibur.”
Morenwyn gasped. “Mother’s monument. How did you—?”
“She let me take it,” Scott told her. “After I told her what it was. Honest.”
“You may trust in Scott, my dear,” said Fi.
“Well . . . if that is the scabbard of Excalibur,” said Morenwyn to Polly, “then it’s the only thing keeping your brother alive.”
Titania asked a dog-headed aide,
“What fresh iniquity is this he plans
With yon antiquity, which by his hands
Hath risen from the sea to grace my lands?”
but you could tell she wanted Scott to hear her.
“I didn’t follow that one,” Scott admitted.
“She wants to know what the scabbard’s for,” said Fi.
Just then the sky erupted in pink flame. A stirring vortex of it began to sink into a funnel that seemed to be lowering its blazing finger down on everyone in the clearing. Human and Fay alike cried out, and put down their weapons, and gaped. Again the music stopped, and it was suddenly very quiet. Until Titania cried out.
“No rarer mortal wound was ever scored
Than that which comes by scabbard, not by sword!
Oh, fie! What power hath this cursed gift
Which lights the sky but douses out our rift?”
“What?” said Scott. “I’m not doing this! What about your rift?”
“Scott,” said Fi. “Are you certain your scabbard is not the cause?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We were watching the rift for a while before you got here,” said Polly. “And it’s like it stopped working right after you arrived. Haven’t you noticed? Nobody’s left and no kids have come through for a while now.”
“But it’s still there,” said Scott. “It’s getting bigger, even.”
“I see it too,” said Polly. “But they don’t.”
The dog-headed aide stepped forward with an announcement.
“By order of Titania the first:
Destroy the boy and break apart his prize
And stone his bones and take his heart and eyes;
The best reward to he who does the worst.”
“Jeez,” said Polly.
All the pixies were here now—Denzil and Fee and Fo rallied around—and Finchbriton came to rest on Scott’s head. Scott was covered in birds and tiny people.
“It would have worked.” Scott sighed. “My plan. I swear it would have.”
“I believe you,” said Polly.
Every kind of elf and beast descended on them.
CHAPTER 33
“HALT!”
It was Titania who had spoken. At least, Scott thought it was Titania—it sounded a little panicky for her. And it hadn’t even rhymed with anything.
The approaching swar
m of blade and hoof and talon and claw did halt, and then they all looked back to see the changeling Dhanu standing behind Queen Titania with a blade at her throat. He spoke.
“Make way, and let the boy and pixies pass,
Lest wicked fate befall this stately head
And terminate this once great head of state.”
“Good one,” said Fo.
“I thought it was forced,” said Fee.
The crowd parted, and Scott passed elf and glittering sprite, griffin and manticore, giant and ogre and troll. Also shimmering moths, a family of trees, a golem twisted out of intricate wire, a woman made of bees.
“It’s so quiet,” said Scott. He could hear the crunch of the grass beneath his feet. “There’s nothing as quiet as a crowd of people staring at you and not saying anything.”
“Unless maybe a crowd of monsters staring at you and not saying anything,” Polly offered.
Soon he stood once more before the High Queen of the Seelie Court, Titania of the Fay. The giants holding her sedan chair aloft were looking abashed and self-conscious. Dhanu must have leaped onto the back of the chair from a nearby tree. His hand, the hand holding the knife, was trembling. Titania herself appeared smaller than she had in the Tower, smaller even than she’d looked only twenty minutes ago. She might have been Scott’s age. She said,
“My changeling friend would never be so brash—”
but Dhanu wouldn’t let her finish even a stanza. He pressed the quivering knife closer.
“My faithless queen will keep her tongue in check.
A hunted life has made me passing brash.”
“Dhanu,” said Scott. “Thank you. You’ve been a good friend. But I don’t want to do it like this.”
Dhanu looked doubtful.
“Careful, Scott,” whispered Fi. “Loathsome as it may be, we have to press every advantage.”
“No, Scott’s right,” said Polly. “Look at her—she’s just a kid.”
“She’s as ageless as stone, little sister.”
“Please,” said Scott. “You put the knife down, and I’ll walk over to that rift, and Her Majesty won’t stop me because . . . because she’ll look into my heart or whatever and know I’m not up to anything. And tomorrow we’ll think about all the mistakes we almost made.”
Dhanu looked rattled. But he slowly lowered his blade.
“For good or grievous ill, I’ll trust in Scott.”
Only when the danger was past did Titania shiver. She breathed greedily, and swelled a bit with each inhalation, and looked to be about to speak but checked herself.
Scott walked swiftly to the rose arch before anyone changed their mind. He looked about him and saw a hundred thousand humans and Fay watching his every move. A single baby was crying somewhere. Fifty or so Goodborough kids lingered near the rift, looking shell-shocked. Scott thought he recognized one of them.
“You’re that new kid,” said Denton Peters. “Aren’t you? You were the one in the bus station bathroom who thought elves were stealing his backpack.”
“It was a leprechaun,” Scott answered, walking past. “We’re friends now.”
“I’d forgotten about you, but . . . you haven’t been in school since Erno and Emily disappeared, have you?”
“I’ve been busy with stuff. Can we catch up later, Denton? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Sorry.”
Scott stopped at the threshold of the huge arch. It wasn’t so quiet anymore—the furnace in the sky roared, and the fiery tornado it was forming had nearly touched down.
“This is it,” Scott said to Polly. “Take the scabbard.”
No,” said Polly. “I won’t. Morenwyn says it’s keeping you alive.”
“Polly, please. I came back here to save you. Let me save you.”
“You’re not just saving me, you’re saving everybody.”
Scott winced. “I know. But it was easier to think about if it was just you.”
Polly urged her bird away, and then so did the pixies. “Go,” she said. “I don’t understand what you’re doing, but I’m sure it’ll work. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Scott almost broke down. But he forced himself into the rift.
“I keep leaving people,” he whispered.
After a few moments in the rift, he wondered if his plan was doomed to fail after all.
Titania said,
“Alas, at last you find your hopes denied—
There’s no one waiting on the other side.”
But then Scott was gone.
CHAPTER 34
And he was back in Goodborough.
Mick was waiting there for him, and the leprechaun shied at the sight of Scott’s injuries.
“Lad—”
“I know. Forget it. Who traded places with me?”
Mick smiled. “Who d’ yeh think?”
Dad, thought Scott, his eyes stinging. Of course Dad. He blinked until he could see clearly again.
“We have to get—”
“To the park, I know it,” said Mick. He waved at a nearby jeep. “Meet our new friend the staff sergeant—he’s gonna give us a ride.”
The sky was on fire again here too.
Scott and Mick piled into the jeep. “Is that the unicat?” asked Scott.
The jeep peeled out.
“Essentially,” said Mick. “An’ Emily an’ Erno an’ Biggsie are okay. They’re here.”
Scott breathed. Even though he didn’t really need to.
“So is everyone waiting at the park?”
Mick didn’t answer right away. “Almost everyone,” he said.
The jeep bucked right up into the park and skidded to a halt next to a cluster of people.
“Scott!” Emily sang. “Omigosh!” She ran to hug him, then seemed to reconsider at the last moment. “You look like garbage. Do you really have it?”
Scott showed her the scabbard. It felt strange, like it was dragging something behind him, like it was getting more and more massive with each step. Eventually he had no choice but to drop it, and it landed like a monument in the center of Merle’s octagonal ring.
Emily leaned in, and breathed. She squeezed her eyes tight, concentrating, and a beautiful pinkness flowed out of her.
Then everyone, Scott and Mick and Emily and Erno and Biggs and the queen and the United States Marines were knocked backward, and when they raised their heads there was an old but magnificent man standing in the center of it all. He wore a crown, and armor, and had a horrible wound in his side. He looked down.
“Oh. There it is,” he said, and with some effort he retrieved the scabbard from the ground and sheathed his sword. Then he looked around at the unlikely group of people surrounding him. “What’s all this, then?”
Scott turned to face him. “You’re the once and future king, returned to save us in our time of greatest need,” he wheezed. “Also, I helped.” Then he collapsed.
Blood rushed now from his injuries, as if to make up for being late. Above him, the sky was clearing. The worlds were blithely merging. Emily leaned over him.
He smiled at her. She couldn’t smile back. “Big magical hoo-ha,” he told her as she pressed on his wounds.
King Arthur was already being tended to by the marines, and the queen. He turned his head this way and that.
“Where’s Merlin?” he asked.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
EPILOGUE
Emily and Erno and Biggs stood in front of a narrow little house in Brooklyn. Biggs was freshly shaved and looked nice in his custom suit and tie. Erno looked rumpled as usual. Emily looked as radiant as she ever had, and was even wearing her hair up for the first time. She’d grown an inch in the last month.
A little winged fairy flitted overhead. A car passed in the street behind. Erno checked the address again.
“It’s right,” said Emily.
“This is weird,” Erno said.
“You said so on the train. I agreed.”
?
??Okay,” Erno breathed. “Let’s do it, I guess.”
They were about to step forward when Biggs stopped them.
“Kids,” he said. “Harvey.”
The rabbit-man was standing in the next little yard, half covered by bushes. But he was visible. He was wearing his glamour. And the fact that a passing cyclist only gave the rabbit-man a brief glance, like you might give a clown or a person on crutches, showed just how much the world had changed in five weeks.
Harvey stepped out. Biggs growled.
“What are you doing here?” said Emily. She might have growled a little too.
“Tying up loothe endth,” said Harvey. He offered them a photograph in his outstretched hand. Emily glared at him, but took it.
It was a picture of Mr. Wilson. A new picture. He looked as old as ever, but his hair was trimmed shorter than the twins had ever seen it and his mustache was gone.
“He’s okay?” Emily gasped. “Where is he?”
“In an athithted living home in Delaware. He doethn’t remember anything from the latht year, or claimth not to. But he’th doing better. I’ve written the addreth on the back. If you wanna vithit him, you’d better thoon. They’re gonna let him move out.”
Emily smiled. But it was the mild smile, Erno noted, of someone who was merely pleased that an old friend was doing okay. “We never knew what happened to him,” she told Harvey. “He just took off again, the morning of the Merging. We were beginning to fear the worst.”
Unseen by Emily, Erno and Biggs shared a look.
“Really,” said Harvey. “Well. Theemth he fell off a bridge and landed right in my rowboat.”
Erno frowned. “You were there? What were you doing in a rowboat?”
Harvey spat. “Coming back to help,” he said, and he screwed up his face like the thought disgusted him. “Can you believe it? I’d thpent tho much time around Mick, I’d thtarted developing a conscience. Ain’t never had one of thothe before.”