The Medievals 2 Page 11

“You are from the Silk Lands?” Mulan asks him, gesturing for Master Cheng to rise.

  “Yes,” Master Cheng confirms with a nod, his top-knot falling over his face. As he rises, he introduces himself. “I am Jun Cheng, of the Hua Quan village.”

  “And you are a denizen of the Realm now?” Mulan asks.

  “I am the King’s hand, and the Prince’s tutor,” Master Cheng says with pride. “I have lived in this kingdom and away from my village for more than twenty years.”

  But Mulan does not share his esteem for the Realm, saying, “You now serve the King of a people that banished magic and mystical beings from its borders? That turned their backs on Merlin, on the Caemons and the Shen, on Wendolyn -- forcing us all into hiding?”

  Mulan’s voice is thick with an accusation of betrayal, and this is not lost on Master Cheng, who seems unprepared to answer his idol’s charge.

  For Richard, he can hear echoes of King Lemlee’s complaint: that the past and present Kings and Councils of the Realm built a wall that kept the Truscans and other magical creatures from their homes, and forced them to live apart from humans.

  “It is more complicated than your words suggest,” Richard’s father says before Master Cheng can speak, coming to the rescue of his loyal hand.

  “Is it?” the Blind Shen prods.

  “Careful that your tongue is not bitter before the King,” the Constable warns Mulan.

  But the King waves off Clyburn and then turns back to the Blind Shen.

  “After the Endless War, we were in an uncertain hour," the King explains. "The Realm was weakened. The deaths and devastation caused by the saurians had driven fear into the hearts of the people -- a fear that magic could lead to our own end. Merlin shared this concern, and realized that the potential threat of his staff outweighed the potential good. And Merlin also agreed to King Avedon’s decision to wall off all mystical beings from the humans in an effort to protect us. Our societies would not intermingle, we would not trade together, we would be separate but safe. Or so we thought. I admit to you now that the recent events and Waldron’s threat to the Realm have opened my eyes to the misjudgments of the past. We allowed evil to grow in darkness. And we closed ourselves off to the very people that could help save us in our time of need.”

  Richard’s father pauses, then looks to Wendolyn.

  “The measure of an action is its consequence,” King Henry says to Wendolyn. “Because of our laws, you were forced to keep your true self hidden, as were many others. I bear responsibility for your plight. All of us in this room owe you a profound apology.”

  The King gestures to the White Hairs that circle the long clawfoot table and, perhaps not knowing what else to do, the White Hairs nod solemnly in the direction of Wendolyn.

  Richard is warmed by this expression of remorse by his father toward Wendolyn.

  “It is our wish now only to protect you,” Richard’s father says with assurance.

  But as Richard’s father continues, the warmth that Richard feels intensifies to the point of overwhelming him, and he realizes that the source of the heat is not emotion at all, but instead, something else. His cheeks are suddenly flush. And there is a subtle heat growing at the nape of his neck.

  “Richard, are you alright?” Wendolyn asks, her voice pulling Richard’s attention to her eyes, which show concern.

  Everyone in the room turns to Richard, and it seems that nobody else feels the same heat that he does.

  “I feel--” Richard begins, his mind still trying to locate the source of the heat.

  “Your leg…” Loxley says, directing Richard to look down at his legs.

  There, Richard sees a tiny thread of smoke emanating from the pocket of his right pant leg, and he can suddenly feel a searing heat concentrating against the skin of his thigh.

  Why are his pants catching fire?

  Richard reaches deep into his pocket where he finds a rock: the source of the heat. He quickly pulls the hot stone from his pocket and lets it drop from his burning palm.

  “What is that?” King Henry asks, eyeing the stone on the floor of the Council Room.

  It is the saurian stone, Richard realizes.

  It is the rock that came loose in his hand as he climbed Mount Saurian. He had tucked it into his pocket before leaving on the quest, and there it has remained, consigned to the bottom of his memory beneath his adventures through the Beyond.

  “It is a stone pulled from Mount Saurian,” Richard says, answering his father’s question.

  The forgotten stone now pulses with a deep green glow, smoke still emanating from it as it seems to spasm on the floor.

  “What is happening to it?” the Constable asks, posing the question on everyone’s mind.

  “The rock -- it is coming to life,” Master Cheng says, his eyes narrowing on the saurian stone.

  As Richard watches the stone bending and twisting before them, he remembers when he first held the stone and wondered what piece of the saurian was in his palm: A toe? A finger? A piece of the monster’s heart?

  “How is this possible?” El Cid wonders aloud.

  “Waldron,” Mulan utters with suspicion.

  And as the Blind Shen says the Rune’s name, a shadow seems to pass over the Council Room.

  Mulan’s suspicion and the rippling shadow join together to form a meaning in Richard’s mind that urges him to the window, where he has an unobstructed westerly view of the Realm. Beyond the castle walls and the King’s Arena, beyond the villages and the slope of green forest that rises up out of a valley, Richard sees Mount Saurian.

  And at its peak, there is a floating congress of darklings gathered in the air above the mountain, like a black flag billowing in the wind as it announces the arrival of an ominous fate.

  “Look! The Rune!” Loxley exclaims, pointing toward the mountain, and Richard notices that the others have joined him at the window.

  From this distance it is hard to be sure, but as Richard squints his eyes he can just make out Waldron sitting atop one of the saurians, slipping out from behind the murder of black birds.

  Just then, a bolt of lightning surges from Waldron and knifes into the mountain’s snubbed crest.

  The tip of the peak breaks apart into two slabs, each half falling away, reshaping the outline of the horizon. As the two slabs descend, crashing against the cliff’s face, the mountain gives birth to two saurians, their wings and bodies revealed. Once formed, they push off the mountain, and then the awakened beasts climb back up through the air, joining Waldron and the other waiting saurians.

  “Waldron is using the staff to wake the saurians,” Wendolyn says from behind Richard, dread coating her realization.

  A chill whispers through Richard’s spine as he remembers standing on one of the mountain’s ledges with his father, imagining the saurians entombed within the rock below his feet, the beasts just waiting for their chance to breathe again.

  And now, here they are, life pulsing through their bodies for the first time in three hundred years.

  “Borin, you said the Rune would need an army to defeat the Realm,” Vladeen says. “It appears he will have one.”

  On the horizon, the mountain continues to crumble as lightning surges from the staff that Richard can now see Waldron holding, and those magical flashes free the saurians from their ancient prison. Each new saurian drops through the air before spreading its wings and then finding its station next to Waldron.

  Until this moment, Richard has wondered why the two saurians agreed to serve as Waldron’s sentinels. It seemed odd that the beasts once created to destroy the Runes were now helping one of them. But now Richard understands the details of their pact: if the saurians helped the Rune capture Merlin’s staff, then Waldron would free their ancestors from the hold of the mountain.

  Silence seizes Richard and the others as they witness the growing army of saurians filling the sky. The only noise Richard can hear is El Cid uttering something in Spanish beneath his breath. As the army swells, the mou
ntain retreats. And the skies grow even more menacing as dark clouds move in.

  “More than a hundred saurians will be at our walls before the morning dew is off the grass,” Master Cheng surmises.

  “Welp, seems I must be gettin’ on if I’m to avoid the pandemonium,” Loxley says, throwing his bow over his shoulder and turning to the King. “Respectfully, Your Highness, I’ll take my chest of coins now while the gettin’ is still good.”

  “Where are you going?” Richard asks Loxley. “We need to stop Waldron.”

  “I don’t make a habit of borrowing someone else’s trouble,” Loxley retorts, giving a dimpled smile that has the effect of a shrug on his darkly complected face.

  “Someone else’s trouble? After all this -- all we have endured -- how can you still be so shallow?” Richard questions, hoping his harsh judgment on his character will dig beneath Loxley’s skin.

  But Richard’s words do not penetrate, and Loxley muses, “Shallow waters see more sunlight.” Then, he adds: “Some day, the worms in the dirt will find me. No point in me going diggin’ for them.”

  “So you are just going to leave?” Richard asks incredulously.

  “It’s over, Young Blood. You just haven’t realized it yet. You won’t save the Realm, but you can still keep the blade from your belly, as I intend to do.”

  Richard moves out ahead of Loxley, stopping him from leaving the Council Room. “I’ll die before I let him destroy the Realm.”

  The King looks to Richard.

  “Let him go, Richard. He has fulfilled his end of our bargain. Now we must fulfill ours,” Richard’s father says, before turning his attention to Loxley. “A horse will be readied and waiting for you at the gates. Your bounty will be there as well. I thank you for your service to the King and your fellow countrymen.”

  Loxley nods to the King, and Richard searches the thief’s face for any hint of shame. But there is none.

  Then, Loxley gives Richard a caring smile, one with genuine affection as he says, “Here’s hoping someone writes a song about you, kid. And that I get to hear it in my old age.”

  As Loxley turns and leaves, disappearing into the curve of the hallway, Richard’s heart sinks.

  Ivanhoe grunts. “You cannot be surprised, Prince. He cares about saving his own neck. He told you so at start in those very words.”

  “Now there should be no wondering about why I do not trust the humans,” Mulan says, gesturing toward the doorway that Loxley just exited. “Humans care only for themselves.”

  But then Richard looks to Wendolyn, and there is something deep in her violet eyes that lifts him out of the disappointment of Loxley.

  “Maybe the Blind Shen is right,” Richard says, turning to Mulan. “Maybe this is the fate mankind deserves, as you said back in the Eternal Forest. The things we have done in our past… Perhaps we are not worth saving. But we can be. Merlin saw something good in us. Something worth fighting for.”

  Richard moves toward Wendolyn as he continues.

  “Our ancestors together created the saurians that destroyed the Runes. And the shame of that split our two worlds. But maybe that is why you and I are here now. Maybe that is what has kept you in my mind all these years. Together, we can restore the balance between mankind and magic,” Ricahrd offers.

  Then, he beseeches her with his eyes: “Help the Realm defeat Waldron and I promise I will spend the rest of my days making us worthy of it.”

  By her eyes, Richard can see that Wendolyn is moved by his passion.

  She turns to Mulan, saying, “He is right. This is what I am meant to do.”

  It is clear that Mulan wants to respond to Wendolyn, but Wendolyn turns to the King before Mulan can speak.

  “I wish to fight,” Wendolyn declares.

  “I cannot permit that,” the King says, shaking his head. “My duty to Merlin, which I have shamefully disregarded before this moment, demands that I protect his descendants above all else. You will be safe in the Keep along with the Queen. Master Cheng can escort you there.”

  Master Cheng nods.

  “No. I must fight,” Wendolyn insists, a determination in her violet eyes that Richard has not before seen.

  The King considers Wendolyn for a moment, then looks to Richard for counsel, something he has never done before.

  Richard nods to his father.

  “Very well, then,” the King acquiesces to Wendolyn. “Master Cheng, please hurry to the Queen, and see that she is safe.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Master Cheng bows and exits the Council Room.

  Then, the King turns to those remaining in the room: “A great evil comes for us today. All other days will seem bright compared to this one. We will need every soldier and every citizen to fight. Today, uncommon courage must become common for us to win this battle.”

  El Cid takes a step forward.

  “El Cid believes that if the Rune and these saurians defeat the Realm, the blood will not stop at its borders,” the Spaniard judges. “El Cid will fight the Rune here to keep him from reaching the shores of Espana.”

  The King nods his appreciation. “Thank you. You do a service to our people and yours.”

  Then, the King turns his attention to Ivanhoe, his eyes presenting his old friend with an unspoken question.

  “I will fight until the saurian meets his violent end,” Ivanhoe grunts his answer, his grim motivation always bubbling in his veins.

  Then, King Henry looks to Richard, putting his hand on Richard’s shoulder.

  “Not long ago, you went to Mount Saurian with the hope of conquering it and completing the test of Kings,” his father intones. “Well, my dear son, it seems Mount Saurian is now coming to you.”

  As the King moves to leave the room, he looks to Clyburn: “Sound the tower bell. The Rune has awoken his army, now it is time to wake ours.”

  The King exits the Council Room, with the others following behind him. But as Richard walks toward the door, he passes the stone on the ground.

  It is still writhing, the skin of the amorphous body part glowing green. After a moment, Richard lifts his boot, and then stomps the saurian stone with his heel. When he lifts his foot up again, all that remains is a lifeless rock.

  {Wendolyn}

  The sky is holding its breath, as if bracing for the attack that is certain to come.

  A curtain of dark clouds has scudded in on the horizon, and somewhere behind those clouds, Waldron and the saurians loom silently.

  The air is eerily still, and Wendolyn wonders if the absence of sound does not hold more violence than all the sounds one can imagine. At any moment, Wendolyn thinks, the curtain could open and the sky will loose the fiery beasts upon the Realm.

  “Wendolyn,” Mulan says, stealing her attention from the horizon. Wendolyn turns to Mulan, standing beside her on the battlement. “Your intentions are noble. But I implore you this last time: let us leave now before it is too late. These are not your people.”

  All around them, soldiers are readying for the fight. Archers line the parapet, filling their quivers. Down on the ground, infantrymen hoist boulders from carts and then position them into catapults: El Cid and Ivanhoe are among them, with the Spaniard’s massive body doing the work of several men as he shoulders the rocks all by himself. Meanwhile, somewhere out there at the vanguard of the King’s vast army, is Richard. He had volunteered to remain with her, but Wendolyn knew he was needed at his father’s side. And so she insisted that she should stay with Mulan and the Lady of the Lake.

  “Mulan is right, Wendolyn,” the Lady of the Lake says.

  She is floating next to them just on the other side of the parapet, her watery body stretching from the moat at the base of the stone wall, and climbing all the way to their level.

  “This is not your fight," the Lady of the Lake says. "They decided that when they forced magic from the Realm and created the Beyond.”

  “They came to rescue me when I believed no one would,” Wendolyn argues, recalling the hopele
ssness of her existence as she lay on that cold slab of stone in the Memory Chamber, forced to imagine a life without ever seeing the sun or stars again.

  “Your importance far outweighs that of the humans,” the Lady of the Lake says. “You have a destiny that is greater than this moment before you.”

  It was strange for Wendolyn the first time she heard Waldron distinguish her from the humans, and it is still strange now hearing the Lady of the Lake do it as well. Until these past weeks, she has always thought of herself as human, even if there was a faint sense of otherness that tugged at her soul.

  Wendolyn looks to the birthmark on her shoulder. The map that led her to the Sorcerer’s Staff. Her destiny that was stamped onto her skin.

  “Where would I go?” Wendolyn asks, momentarily yielding to the Blind Shen and the Lady of the Lake’s plan.

  “To the Order. They will protect you,” Mulan assures.

  “I can take you there this very moment,” the Lady of the Lake says.

  “You will train there. Master your skills. I will help you find your true voice,” Mulan says. “And when the time is right, we can come back for the staff.”

  “It will be too late,” Wendolyn reckons as she looks out over the readying army and beyond, to the villages of the Realm that are sewn into the landscape. “Waldron will have wiped out the entire Realm by then. We need to stay and help them.”

  “You are not ready,” the Blind Shen warns.

  “You make the same mistake Thorne made,” Wendolyn responds.

  “Thorne protected you until his dying breath,” Mulan argues.

  Emotion chokes the Blind Shen's words as she comes to Thorne’s defense. And Wendolyn wonders about the depth of the relationship between Thorne and Mulan, the Caemon and the Shen.

  “He waited, believing that I was not ready to know the truth of who I was. I can no longer wait until others believe I am ready.”

  “Wendolyn, you are not listening to me!” Mulan yells, frustration taking hold, her voice catching the attention of the archers on the battlements. “You are not prepared for the great evil that is upon us. He will do everything in his power to bend your mind to his, to use you as his weapon.”