28 - IN WHICH KYNDER CHATS WITH MERLIN

Kynder’s first dragon ride was a doozy. Tiberius, whose neck had been outfitted with a double-seated leather saddle, had pulled out all the stops. He whisked them over Sylvan and across the Otherworld Sea, with clouds, sky, and stars streaking by at the speed of sound.

They arrived at a point high over Fenland several hours before dawn, four days before the new moon. Above them was the black firmament, a cosmic sieve perforated with a million points of light; below was a soft carpet of gray clouds. In the east a large storm pulsated with rainbows of lightning.

The dragon, which had not yet spoken during their trip, said calmly, “Hmmph. That tempest moves fast thisaway, and a fog rides swiftly from the other direction on a westerly front. They’ll be meet’n at the rendezvous by sunup.”

“Can your sight penetrate the clouds, my friend?” Numinae asked.

“Yeah, can you see Arthur?” Kynder wondered.

Tiberius leaned forward and strained his eyes on the shrouded land below. “Hmmph. They are not here. None are. All is cold and damp.”

“Well, I’m glad we beat them,” Kynder said.

“When do you think Fallown will arrive?” Numinae asked Tiberius. The Leagonese dragon had also been summoned to the rendezvous, just in case they needed help.

“In the last dark before the dawn,” Tiberius said.

“Good,” Numinae said, and patted his dragon’s neck. “There’s a rock in the sea a mile from the shore. You can land there. When someone shows up, we’ll head in.”

“Hmmph,” Tiberius grumbled. “Hold’n tight.”

With no other warning, he folded his wings and dropped headfirst to the earth, piercing the thick blanket of clouds. They emerged more than a minute later only a few hundred feet above the sea. Tiberius opened his wings and gently glided to a stop over a black rock.

Fenland was in the distance, a dark line rising from the water.

They waited in silence. Water lapped pleasantly at their rocky perch. Kynder closed his eyes, and Numinae and Tiberius only spoke sparingly. After a few hours a great bank of fog overtook them. Fenland disappeared as visibility dropped to only a few dozen feet. Numinae pulled a lamp from a saddlebag and turned it on. Its green light gave the fog a sickly hue.

The sea became completely calm. Sounds vanished.

“This sure is a weird fog,” Kynder observed.

Tiberius shifted his weight from one leg to the other and let out a long “Hmmmmph.”

“It is,” Numinae said, hastily extinguishing the lamp. “We’re not alone.”

A chill ran down Kynder’s back as it hit him: “Merlin’s here.”

“Yes,” Numinae said in a fierce whisper. “He mustn’t see me yet. I’m sorry, my friend.”

And then Numinae moved out of the saddle and appeared to become one with Tiberius, melding into the green dragon’s iridescent skin right before Kynder’s eyes.

Before Kynder could say anything, an unseen hand grabbed him by the neck, yanking him from the saddle. Within seconds Kynder was being pulled through the air, his feet dragging along the water’s surface. Tiberius vanished in the fog behind him as Kynder heard the dragon snap his wings and surge into the air.

Kynder was being hauled through the mist as if through a maze. The wizard was trying to confuse the dragon, and it apparently worked, because before long Kynder neither heard nor saw any sign of Tiberius.

Which was unfortunate.

But what was more unfortunate was that Kynder was having a hard time breathing. The magical hand gripping him was literally choking the life from him.

Finally he came to a stop over a narrow white-sand beach. A black bluff rose sharply to his left, and to the right was a dune dotted with tall grass. Beyond this Kynder made out the tops of the trees that populated the vast swamp of Fenland.

The sea was at his back, and in front of him was Merlin, still holding Kynder by his neck with some spell.

The wizard was dressed in a black leather robe and had donned a simple linen cowl. Fog billowed from the bottom of his clothing, as if it were the source of the mist covering the sea. He pointed the owl-head of his cane directly at Kynder’s chest.

He did not look happy.

“Where is the stone that I gave you?” the wizard demanded.

Kynder clutched at the wizard’s invisible hand. He couldn’t talk. He was getting light-headed.

“Pshaw!” the wizard spit. He brought the head of his cane down swiftly, breaking the enchantment that held Kynder. A loud crack rang out over the beach as Kynder collapsed to the ground, a sickening snap coming from his right leg.

“My leg! You broke it!” Kynder wailed.

“Did I? So sorry,” Merlin said insincerely.

“What happened to you?” Kynder asked, trying to stay still, afraid to move his leg at all.

“Nothing happened to me. This is who I am,” Merlin said darkly.

“I see,” Kynder said with a note of resignation. “Well, I gave the stone away.”

“To whom?”

“Numinae.”

Merlin made a throaty sound of disgust. “And what, pray tell, did that thing have to say about it?”

“He said it was a keeper stone, that it kept me from doing certain things—namely, looking into who you are. He said I didn’t need it to be in the Otherworld, which is clearly the case. He said you were manipulating me.”

“How . . . revealing.”

“And he said you were lying to Arthur.”

The wizard blew out his cheeks. “I did nothing of the sort. I have been faithful to all of you. That’s more than I can say of you, Kynder. You should have stayed at the Library. You should have kept the stone.”

Kynder let out a quick breath. “So I could remain ignorant of what really motivates you?”

Merlin waved his cane dismissively through the air. “Ignorance is safety, Kynder Kingfisher. As a father, I would expect you to know as much.”

Kynder shook his head. “Man, you have a lot to learn.”

“I have a lot to learn? From whom?”

Kynder’s leg began to feel very warm. He tried to see if the bone had broken the skin, but because of the way his leg was bent under him, he couldn’t tell. “Maybe from me,” he said. “Maybe from Numinae. But definitely from Arthur. He’s loyal. Noble. He helped you.”

Merlin chuckled. “Ah, nobility. I was just speaking to Artie about that. It’s true that Artie is noble. Nauseatingly so. Trust me, I know noble better than any living thing. Arthur the First was disgustingly noble. And don’t get me started on his knights. Gawain, Perceval, Tristan—they were impossible. Please, save me the lecture.”

Kynder felt like he was the one being lectured to but didn’t bother to point that out. “And you told Artie you thought he was noble too? Just to manipulate him?”

“Of course. Flattery is an extremely effective motivator.”

“He’s a kid, Merlin.”

“I don’t care,” Merlin barked. Kynder noticed that the overcast sky was beginning to lighten. Dawn was nearly upon them.

“Man, you’re ruthless.”

“Yes.”

“And all you want is revenge on Morgaine, isn’t that right?”

“Yes!” Merlin said. A powerful crack of thunder rolled over the hill from the direction of the swamp, and the clouds there began to let down a curtain of rain. Merlin cried, “That witch ruined my life. She stole it. She and her agents exiled me to the other side of the world. You try being imprisoned for a thousand years and see how you like it. She deserves nothing but death for what she did to me.”

Kynder looked away. “Figures you’d be this way, since you’re a . . .”

Merlin narrowed his eyes and asked, “A what? What do you think you know?”

Kynder didn’t answer at first. He was preoccupied as his hand gently probed the jagged edge of a tibia jutting from his leg. Finally he said, “I know what your father was, Merlin Ambrosius.”

Merlin recoiled. The fog obscuring his feet thinned, and he drifted to the ground. He leaned close to Kynder’s face, eyes red with fury, tattoos writhing like snakes. He was terrifying.

“Don’t speak of my father!” he boomed. And then, in a fierce whisper, “The boy cannot know.”

“Of course he can’t. He would never help you if he knew that you were a half demon, hell-bent on revenge over everything else.”

Merlin spit an oyster of phlegm into the sand.

“But why Arthur? Why my son?”

“He is not your son! He is an experiment. And I couldn’t escape without him.”

“Oh my god,” Kynder said heavily, realization dawning. “That’s why she made him.”

“Yes.”

“Because only he could get Excalibur and free you, and she couldn’t kill you unless you were free.”

“Yes.”

“And you knew this all along?”

“Of course! The witch and I are mortal enemies, but sometimes even enemies must pursue common goals so that one day they may meet.”

“So all this is just to settle some stupid score?”

“Not stupid to me or her. And if it matters to you, she does want to keep the worlds separated. She doesn’t care if your world destroys itself.”

“But you don’t either.”

“No. Why would I? In truth, your world’s atmosphere is already poisoned. It has passed the tipping point. It cannot be saved.”

“But that’s no reason not to try! And what about the Otherworld? Won’t the Otherworld fall too, if our side falls first?”

“Eventually, yes.”

“And you don’t care about that either.”

“No.”

Kynder fought back a ball of acid rising from his stomach. “Why do you need Arthur now? Why can’t you just kill Morgaine by yourself? A big wizard like you . . .”

Merlin gave Kynder a smart-aleck smile and said, “Because in spite of my feelings about him, Artie is powerful, so why not use him if it increases my chances of killing Morgaine? Why not stand against her with the one who wields Excalibur at my side?”

At the mention of Excalibur, Kynder was struck with a revelation. Now he understood why Excalibur wanted Merlin dead!

He also understood that Merlin could not know what he’d just gleaned. The secret was for Artie, and Artie alone.

Kynder forced this revelation from his mind, and tried to distract Merlin by asking, “Taking control of the Seven Swords is as important to you as gathering Artie and his knights. Isn’t it?”

“More,” Merlin said, sounding surprisingly honest. “Steel is stronger than flesh.”

“What are you going to tell Arthur when he gets here?” Kynder asked.

Merlin smiled. “What are you going to tell him, Kynder?”

“The truth. That he’s being used. That you’re disingenuous at best.”

Merlin made a tut-tut sound and shook his head disapprovingly. “Arthur—yours and the one that came before—is nothing but a vessel. Both were created to be used. Both only exist for purposes at hand. You won’t tell him anything. Least of all the truth.”

“The heck I won’t,” Kynder said.

Merlin stroked his chin and said with a heavy air of conceit, “Let’s see. Shall it be death or amnesia for you, dear Kynder?”

Kynder didn’t give him the pleasure of a response.

“I certainly don’t need you anymore,” Merlin continued. “You were here to raise Artie Kingfisher, and you did.”

Merlin rose into the air and held his cane in both hands across his body. White wings of fog unfolded from behind him as his power grew, his staff beginning to glow brightly.

Kynder had failed his children, and he felt like a total idiot for it.

“I like you, Kynder, in spite of your defiance,” Merlin continued. He nodded, as if to himself. “Yes. I think it shall be amnesia, perhaps preceded by a rather long coma. To keep you from meddling.”

Kynder couldn’t move. His leg was hot now. This was it. Noiselessly, the light from Merlin’s cane shot at Kynder’s head.

But then, as if from nowhere, Tiberius darted between them. The wizard howled, and for Kynder, everything went black.