by Vox Day
Holli saw that Khasar’s eyes had narrowed when Puck mentioned shadowstalkers, but when the archon noticed her looking at him, he shrugged and urged her to follow the diminutive Fallen. They climbed the short distance to the tower and entered it, then climbed several flights of stairs until they reached the top. From there, they had a spectacular view of the loch, as the slowly rising sun began to illuminate the ripples on the quiet water.
“The chamber of the sword is only about three hundred yards out from the shore,” Puck pointed to the middle of the lake. “There used to be an sub-aquatic tunnel leading out to it, but it collapsed a long time ago, either right after the sword was put there, or when the castle was blown up in 1692. Khasar, what you and Melusine and I are going to do is to dive into the water off the top of the Great Hall over there, on the right, and splash around enough to attract Nessie’s attention. We’ll lead her off to the north, at which point the Prince and the once and future Faery King will resurrect the tunnel in order for the children to run through and grab the sword.”
“Forget it,” Khasar replied instantly. “You expect me to leave the two of them with two Fallen princes? You may hold me in contempt, having fooled me once, renegade, but do not think to do it again. We Divine are not so stupid as you think us.”
“Suit yourself,” Puck shrugged. “Of course, I’m assuming that you’ve got the firepower to blow through hundreds of tons of rock, and enough muscle to hold back thousands of tons of displaced water.”
His eyes glinted as he showed his teeth to Khasar, who said nothing. “I didn’t think so.”
“Can you really do that?” Holli asked the Faery King.
Oberon nodded thoughtfully and stroked his short beard. “This was never my demesne, but it is not so far from Albion. Now that I am freed of my bonds, I can draw upon the very power of the earth and water itself. However, I must caution you that an effort of this magnitude will never pass unnoticed. You must make all haste in recovering the sword, and tarry not in returning it to its master.”
Oberon gestured towards Prince Jehuel, who smiled primly and looked pleased, although he seemed to be avoiding Holli’s eyes. I wonder what’s up with him, she thought, as he glanced at her then looked away again.
“Will they come? Are you sure they will notice us?” Khasar was looking frustrated, but what choice did he have? Someone had to keep the monster busy, and both Oberon and Jehuel were needed elsewhere.
“On wings of eagles, one might say, if eagles were very large demons capable of out-flying a jet fighter.” Puck shook his head. “Nice try, archon, but the king does not exaggerate. When he draws upon the land, even mortals will know something is afoot. The Mad One and his warriors will be here within minutes.”
“So, we have no chance even if we have the sword?” Derek cried. “There’s five of you, plus Holli is six, and I don’t count because I can’t even see what’s going on! If he shows up with an army, what will you do?”
“Never fear, child,” Puck said, reaching up to pat Derek on the head. Holli flinched, as the anger in Derek’s eyes flared up so fast that she thought he was going to punch the irritating demon. “We have a surprise awaiting him as well. Just run along now, fetch that sword, and I’ll take care of everything.”
I just bet you will, Holli thought, glaring at the evil little being. Why was Khasar just going along with him? Why? But with no clue of what she could possibly do about anything, she reluctantly followed Derek back down the crumbling stairs as the archon leaped off the parapet and followed the two demons over to the northern tower. Entering it felt disturbingly like entering her own tomb.
With her angelic vision, the hidden steps to the passageway were not difficult to find in the tower’s cellar. What looked like nothing but an ancient stone floor to her human eyes glowed brightly purple, a circle of violet fire with a green rune sealing it shut. Oberon stepped inside the circle, kneeled down and placed his palm upon the rune and said something long that sounded like complete gibberish. Nevertheless, it quenched the purple flames instantly while the rune flickered twice, then disappeared itself.
Oberon rose, took a step back, and with a wave of his hand caused a huge six-foot by six-foot square of stone to rise from the floor and deposit itself to the side of the huge hole it had just exposed, a hole which proved, upon closer look, to be steps. Prince Jehuel immediately plunged down them, but Oberon waited for the two mortals.
“Um, not to be a wuss, but I can’t see anything,” Derek muttered. Holli grabbed his hand, and he took it with a grunt that she accepted as a thanks of sort. He was, as usual, disgruntled about her advantage, but at least this time he wasn’t too proud to accept her help. As they began their second descent, she heard the large stone block grinding back into place. Even though she knew she could fly right through it if necessary, the sound still made her blood run cold. She squeezed Derek’s hand; after a moment, he squeezed it back.
These secret steps went far, far deeper than she’d ever imagined possible. It was like walking up a skyscraper in reverse, and she dreaded the thought of trudging back up them. Assuming, she thought darkly, they even got the chance. As they descended, she wondered who had built them, and how they’d managed to dig through the solid rock and under what she had read at the hotel was a very deep lake. They must have had some serious angelic help, she decided after losing count somewhere around fifty flights.
“Eighty-one floors,” said Derek, breathing hard in her ear after they finally reached the bottom. “We’re hundreds of feet down.”
Holli wished he hadn’t said that. She could feel the oppressive mass of the rock surrounding them, millions of tons just waiting to collapse upon her. But worse still was the sense that all that rock was just a thin skin keeping back all that water from rushing in and drowning them. She could feel her sense of hysteria rising, but she bit her lip and forced it down. Daughter of the King. You’re a Daughter of the King. You’re a Daughter of the King and you’re not afraid of anything! She told herself that over and over as she and Derek followed Jehuel and the golden glow that now surrounded him as he led them forward, into the tunnel and under the menacing weight of the terrible dark waters only feet above their heads.
Chapter 33
Snow and Storm
Arthur O’Bower has broken his bands
and he’s come roaring owre the lands
The king o’ scots and a’ his power
canna turn Arthur O’Bower
—Mother Goose’s Melodies for Children
The tunnel ended abruptly in a jumbled pile of broken stone.
Holli swallowed hard at the realization that somewhere on the other side of that pile, however thick, were the waters of Loch Ness. She looked at Derek; his face was glistening and he nervously ran his forearm over his sweating brow. At least she wasn’t the only one who was scared. Even the two fallen angel-lords looked a little uneasy, but after taking a deep breath, Oberon stepped forward and placed his hands on the closest stone. Holli would have preferred it if the Faery King had looked a little more confident, though, and she grabbed onto Derek hard enough that he grunted with pain when the earth began quaking.
The rumbling grew louder and Holli was about to start screaming when suddenly two huge bolts of green lightning leaped from the Faery King’s open hands. There was a deafening roar, and the two mortals fell to the broken stones of the tunnel as an almost unthinkably powerful magic hurled aside the massive pile of rocks that kept out the waters. Holli cried out and clung to Derek in fear, burying her face in his chest, but the horrid watery onslaught never came. Instead, she felt hands at her back, pulling her to her feet.
“Get up, Holli Lewis, and run!” Jehuel shouted in her ear. “There is no going back!” You are a Daughter of the King, she told herself again. You don’t fear anything. She didn’t really buy it, but between that and Jehuel’s urging, she managed to get moving. But she came to a stunned stop when she ran forward a few steps and saw what the Faery King had wrought.
A circular hole was bored through the water, throbbing and undulating with the terrible pressure of the deep. The ground was murky and wet, black, foul-smelling goop with weird, unidentifiable things sticking out of it. Surrounding her, above and on either side, was the inky dark of Loch Ness, held back by nothing but the invisible force of the Faery King’s will. Derek was at her side, but he was no more eager to step into that disgusting black lake bottom than she was.
“Do not tarry, children,” Oberon muttered, the strain of his effort showing in his voice. “I cannot hold this for long.”
Holli looked at Derek. His eyes were wide and full of fear, but he shook his head. There was no need to say anything. Without a word, they took off running with Holli leading the way, stumbling and slipping through the murk that sucked at their shoes and slowed them down.
“I can’t see anything,” Derek shouted suddenly. Holli realized that she’d adjusted her sight without thinking about it.
“Take my hand,” she said, turning back and grabbing his when she realized that he couldn’t see her either. But when she started to turn around again, her attention was grabbed by something moving in her peripheral vision. She looked to her right, to the north, and saw to her horror, that something very large was moving towards them, and moving towards them fast.
“The monster’s coming!” she shouted, and the two of them somehow managed to run even faster. Her left foot sank in a soft spot and her shoe came off, but she didn’t hesitate to abandon it.
“There! I can see something—there’s light ahead!” Derek yelled. Sure enough, there was, a soft white light glowing wondrously in the black abyss. Thank you, God! She dared a quick glance off to the side, and saw to her relief that Khasar and the two demons had managed to draw off the monster. It looked like snake threaded through a turtle without a shell, which might have been funny if it weren’t for the violent speed with which it turned and snapped at one of the brightly glowing figures that twisted and rolled about its long, snaky neck.
At least it wasn’t snapping at her, she consoled herself as she kicked off her other shoe. The light was close now, only another hundred feet, and she was practically flying towards it, though not so fast as Derek, who’d let go of her hand as soon as he was able to see again. He was sprinting like a track star towards what looked like an undersea cavern, in the middle of which was the sword, Chrysaor.
It was the sword itself which was shining, casting out a light that was almost blinding at close quarters. It shone in the darkness like an emblem of their hope, its white blade sheathed halfway in stone. There was nothing overtly special about it, no jeweled hilt like Excalibur, but there was a power radiating from it that struck her with such awe that she almost forgot to be afraid. Derek, reaching the blade, leaped up on the broad stone and pulled Chrysaor from its adamantine scabbard. He brandished it triumphantly at her, but his shout of joy died in his throat and she saw his eyes go wide at something behind her.
“Down!” he shouted, and she hurled herself to the muck without delay. Something huge and leathery swept over her head with an earsplitting roar; the neck of the monster! It roared again and as abruptly as it had come, it disappeared. Holli rolled over and saw it swimming back towards the depths, and when she looked back towards the cavern, she understood why. There was dark green blood dripping from Chrysaor, staining its white brilliance.
“That’s the Loch Ness Monster?” Derek said, bemusedly, looking at the blood from the wound he’d dealt it. He seemed to be in a state of shock, or at least stunned that he was still alive.
“Come on!” Holli lurched towards him, her feet sinking in the muck, and pulled at his sleeve. “I don’t think we have much longer.” She couldn’t really tell, but the tunnel carved through the water seemed a little smaller and tighter than it had a moment ago. Maybe Nessie’s violation of Oberon’s spell had weakened it or something. It didn’t matter. They had to get out of there, now!
Again, they ran, knowing that the monster could strike again at any moment. Holli looked to the left and to the right, but she saw nothing, not even the three angels in the water. It seemed like an eternity, but it could not have been long before they saw the green glow surrounding Oberon’s hands, but it was dimmer now, and shaking. They had almost reached them when there was a sudden flash of movement to the left and again the snaky neck slashed through the magic tunnel, this time in front of them. Holli saw nothing but onrushing white teeth, coming directly for her, when the tunnel abruptly collapsed under the massive pressure of the black waters.
She screamed and reached for Derek, grabbing his arm as black liquid Hell exploded all around them.
Holli woke up lost in darkness, wondering what had happened. It might have been seconds or centuries after that dreadful moment of sheer terror. She blinked, and with angelic eyes saw that Derek was lying next to her, his hand still clutching Chrysaor. Blood was trickling from beneath him and she caught her breath, thinking he was dead, until she saw that his back was moving up and down. He was still breathing? But where were they? She rolled him over and saw that he had landed on two broken rocks, tearing open the old wounds on his chest. They were bleeding, but nothing life-threatening, thank God. She whispered a quick prayer of thanks for their mysterious rescue, then looked about the vicinity.
They were at the foot of the stairs, of all things, at the bottom of that unthinkably deep staircase below the castle watchtower. The minus-eighty first floor, she thought. Something groaned, and she jumped, until she realized it was Oberon, nearly unrecognizable under a veil of shattered stone dust. He shook his head and blew dust out of his eyes, then nodded to her.
“Well done.”
“I don’t know what happened. I thought we were dead. The water… it came rushing in.”
The Faery King smiled ruefully. “I could not hold it out any longer. The monster was just too much. If you had left the mortal shadow a moment later, I could not have saved you.”
“I did what? Jumped out of septus?
“You did. What astounds me is that you took him with you.” He indicated the prone figure of Derek. “I did not know such things were possible, but it seems you managed to draw upon the power of the sword through him, or perhaps it was something else, I cannot say. Fortunately, the monster was caught off-guard by the collapse of the tunnel, so I was able to seal off the passage against the water and pull you through the stone. The beast is a spirit of water and would not follow.”
Holli looked disbelievingly at the tons of rock that once more served as a huge underground cork. He pulled them through that? Even considering what she knew of the shadows, it was still remarkable. “Thank you,” she said.
He smiled again, this time genuinely amused. “I’m told we need that sword.”
Okay, fair enough. Either way, she was glad he’d bothered to grab her and Derek as well. But how had she done that? Derek stirred, and she kneeled down next to him as he began to wake up. “Where’s Jehuel?”
“I sent him up to the tower when I felt my strength failing. Let us make haste to join him. There will be aftershocks to my working here, and the seal may not hold.” Even as he spoke, the earth shivered and Holli fancied that she could see a trail of water seeping through the rocks. But when Oberon quickly stooped to lift Derek in his arms, she realized that it wasn’t her imagination.
“Take the sword,” the Faery King commanded as it fell from Derek’s still-nerveless grasp. “I cannot touch it.”
Holli picked it up; the hilt felt oddly warm to the touch. Then a cracking sound behind her gave her wings, literally, as she leaped into the stairwell and began flying upwards right behind Oberon as the stony seal broke and the waters of Loch Ness rushed in with all the mindless fury of a subterranean hurricane. They spiraled up the staircase, with the water nearly lapping at her heels as the explosive pressure sent it rushing higher, ever higher.
She was getting dizzy with the constant upward spinning and her vision was reduced to little more than endless
grey stone, whirling around and around, but she did not dare leave the material for fear she’d drop the sword. The water seemed to be alive, ravenously pursuing, and droplets of spray lashed out at her as if from foam-flecked jaws. Oberon, too, was handicapped by the need to carry Derek, and for one terrible moment, Holli thought they were lost when the cold liquid licked at her feet before engulfing them entirely.
But just when she had determined to leave septus behind and hope that she could still somehow manage to hang on to Chrysaor, or at least note where it fell, the icy burn that was freezing her feet suddenly dropped in temperature. Still swirling higher, she was too sick to her stomach to look down, but when she twiddled her feet, she realized they were dry. Oberon, too, had noticed something, for she had to spread her wings and arrest her frantic climbing in order to avoid running into him.
“The waters have stopped. We’ve reached the tower and we’re above the ground,” he said, floating to the nearest stairwell and gently depositing his burden before slumping to the stair. He was looking almost green beneath his beard. With a groan, he buried his face in his hands. “I think if I could vomit, as you mortals do, I would.”
Holli was glad he couldn’t, because if he did, she had no doubt that she’d quickly follow suit. “Is he okay?”
“I believe so.” The Faery King placed a hand over Derek’s face. For a brief moment, a greenish light flared, and Derek, choking and coughing, rolled sideways away from the fallen angel’s hand.
“Get that thing away from me!” he shouted.
“I am sorry, but I am no healer,” Oberon apologized and Holli caught a whiff of the acrid stink as he waved his hand. Holy cow, that was foul! “I thought that might wake you.”
“Yeah, along with the dead buried in that cemetery over there,” Derek said, still gagging. “Hey, Holli, you got the sword! What happened?”
“Stuff, lots of stuff,” Holli said wearily. “I’ll tell you later. Let’s get this thing to that Jehuel before those black spiral things get here, m’kay?”
