by James Riley
“Don’t use the spells too soon,” Fort said, and she sighed, then punched it closed again. “And you probably don’t need to actually punch out like that.”
“I think I do, actually,” Rachel said. “It’s a lot cooler this way.”
Jia smiled, then whispered something in her ear. Rachel turned red, then grinned.
Fort didn’t want to know what they were talking about. “Anyway, let’s get back to what we’re doing here, like you said, Rachel?” He pointed in the direction of the cottage’s debris. “It might take us a while to find anything in all the wreckage.”
“He only destroyed it because he was possessed by Spirit magic,” Sierra told him. “Damian didn’t have a choice.”
Fort gritted his teeth. “What about when he tried to kill us the other times? No Spirit magic then.”
“I’m with Fort, Sierra,” Jia said. “Whatever Damian used to be, he’s completely lost it. You should have seen him.”
Sierra sighed and turned away, blocking off her thoughts from Fort, which was probably for the best. But she was right that Damian wasn’t their concern right now, not if she wouldn’t tell him about the Avalon dragons. They really needed to search through whatever was left of the cottage to see if they could find a way to contact Merlin.
In spite of how spread around the remnants of the cottage were, it actually looked like Damian’s dragon fire had been carefully targeted, as the trees around the cottage appeared untouched. The spot where the cottage had stood, though, was mostly just ashes and an occasional leftover piece of wood or charred metal.
“This is odd,” Rachel said after a few minutes of sifting through the ash with her hands. “The cottage was so much bigger on the inside, but I’m not seeing nearly enough wreckage here. Even if it was all burned up.”
“Plus it was mostly made of high-tech plastic,” Jia pointed out. “That might have melted, but it wouldn’t have turned to ash. I’m not seeing anything like that here.”
They had a point. Fort frowned, running his eyes over what was left. There really should have been more remains here, even the cottage had been destroyed. From what he could tell, there looked like enough debris to account for the outer cottage, but nothing inside.
Which meant maybe the cottage hadn’t been as destroyed as it looked.
Near the front of the wreckage, a larger piece of wood had survived, if singed on all sides. It looked familiar enough that he began to wonder, and he stepped over to it, then picked it up.
“Hey!” something shouted, and he immediately dropped the piece of wood. Whoever it was that had spoken let out a groan of pain. “A little warning would have been nice!”
Fort gently turned the board over this time and found a metal imp staring back at him, attached to the wood.
Right. These were the remains of the front door and its magical door knocker.
“Oh, it’s you lot,” the imp said, glaring at him. “Haven’t you all done enough?”
Ember hissed at the imp, and it hissed back.
“Where’s Merlin?” Fort asked as his friends all came around to see what was going on.
“Inside, as usual,” the imp said, rolling its eyes.
“Inside?” Jia said. “But the cottage is gone.”
“The outside is, maybe,” the imp said with a sigh. “Do you truly not understand? I shouldn’t be shocked by human ignorance anymore, I suppose.”
Fort stared at it for a moment, then lifted the piece of door with one hand until it stood vertically in the dirt. Then he knocked on it.
The door pulled out of his hand almost instantly, flying open. A wave of warm air flooded over Fort.
“Finally!” said an old man wearing a tattered brown robe, with a long white beard tossed over his shoulder, ducking out of the door-sized hole in the air. Behind him, Fort could make out a cozy-looking light but not much else.
“Merlin?” Rachel said, a huge smile spreading over her face. “We’re here for training!”
“Good, because we don’t have much time,” the magician said, waving them inside. “You’re due to face the Timeless One in just under a year, and if you’re not ready by that point, humanity is doomed.” He waited as they all stared at him in shock. “Well? In or out, children. We have to start your training now, or you’ll never be ready in time!”
- ELEVEN -
YOU JUST SAID WE HAVE a year,” Fort said. “Is that really not enough time to train?”
Merlin looked at Fort with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, did you gain the power of time in the last few days, boy? I must not have noticed. Those who believe they have enough time will find they always come up short. What you think will be around forever will someday disappear, leaving you with nothing but regrets.” He frowned, then looked at his wrist, where a hologram appeared, showing a bunch of strange numbers. “Or maybe my watch is broken?”
Fort, Jia, and Rachel all looked at each other, while Sierra snorted. Merlin quickly looked up at her image, glowing with Mind magic. “And you, young lady, don’t belong here. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
Sierra looked at him in surprise, then flashed a sad, guilty look at Fort. “Yeah, I guess I do,” she said. And then she disappeared.
“Wait, where is she going?” Fort asked Merlin. “What just happened?”
“She’s got other things to do now,” Merlin said. “Just as important as me training my new apprentice, if you’d get out of her way.”
Confused over what had just happened, Fort looked back at Rachel, who shrugged. Sierra had something else to do? She clearly had known what the old man was talking about, but why hadn’t she told Fort about it before?
Did this have something to do with Damian? It must, since there wasn’t anything else that Sierra would need to hide from him. He began to regret their argument even more now, realizing that Sierra felt like she had to keep a whole side of her life from him. Maybe if he’d been more open-minded, she would have told him what was going on.
“Or maybe she didn’t tell you because you don’t need to know,” Merlin said, doing that annoying thing that Cyrus used to do, using his Time magic to see what Fort was going to ask, and then answering it before he could. “Now can we get started?”
“Okay, fine,” Fort said, gritting his teeth. “But before we start training, I have a question about Avalon, and the dragons there.” He patted Ember, who was looking at Merlin with curiosity. “We think the faerie queen is trying to capture Ember, and I want to send her somewhere safe, which would probably be to her own kind on Avalon. But I don’t have the spell to—”
“Wait, am I getting mixed up here?” Merlin asked him. “Did you pick up Excalibur? I thought my apprentice was the girl with the fire inside.” He pointed at Rachel.
Fort looked back to find Rachel beaming, though she blushed when she saw his glance. “I didn’t pick it up, at least not at that moment,” Fort said. “It sort of burned me. But later—”
“That’s what I thought,” Merlin said, and turned to Rachel. “What are you waiting around for, apprentice? Get in here. We have work to do!” He beckoned her through, and she quickly passed by Fort, wincing at him as she went.
“I’m not letting Rachel fight an Old One by herself,” Jia said, pushing past Fort as well. “If you’re training her, you’re training me, too.”
Rachel squeezed Jia in a side-hug, while Jia gave Merlin a defiant look.
“Of course I’ll be training you, Jia,” Merlin said, looking confused now. “No one said you couldn’t help Rachel.”
“Okay, so then I’m helping her too!” Fort said, and moved toward the door as well.
Merlin put up a hand. “I’m afraid not, boy.”
This stopped Fort dead in his tracks, and he stared at Merlin in shock. “What? But why not?”
Merlin gave him a pitying look. “You don’t have the power to fight an Old One, not directly. If you attempted to battle the Timeless One, you would not only fail, but you’d doom your friends as well. I�
�m sorry, but I will not train you.”
Fort’s mouth dropped open, not believing what he was hearing. “I… I faced the Old Ones twice, though.”
“No, you fought a possessed teenage dragon, the first time,” Merlin corrected him, his tone gentler now. “And the second time, you wisely chose to run after D’hea was destroyed. You aren’t without your talents, boy, but you are sadly bereft of the power needed.” He nodded over his shoulder at the others. “Even these two, born on the day magic returned, might not have what it takes. But at least there’s a chance with them.”
“Wait, Merlin, uh, sir,” Rachel said, coming around to stand in front of a now-speechless Fort. “If Fort wants to help, he can! He’s gotten really good at his teleportation spell—”
“Does everyone now think they can see the future as well as I?” Merlin said, his bushy eyebrows rising. “Why must apprentices always think they know so much? I have seen it, child. And perhaps what I do, I do for the boy’s sake as well? Would you see him get hurt, or worse?”
Rachel quickly shook her head. “Of course not! I just—”
“If Merlin’s seen it, we should listen to him,” Jia said to Rachel, grabbing her arm and softly pulling her away. She gave Fort a sad look, but he could barely process it.
After infiltrating the Dracsi world and fighting William in London, he’d almost forgotten that he wasn’t as powerful as the others. Not being born on Discovery Day had sort of faded from his mind, what with everything else going on. But now, here was an ancient wizard to bring it all back up, and Fort couldn’t think of a thing to say to argue.
There wasn’t any denying it. He just wasn’t as powerful as the others and knew only two spells by heart. Really, he should have realized he’d just get in the way if they actually had to fight an Old One. Merlin wasn’t wrong: Damian was just possessed by one the first time he’d faced the eternal creatures, and Fort had barely lived through his actual encounter with them in the Dracsi dimension.
“Okay,” he said quietly, nodding his head. “You’re right, and I understand. Maybe you could help me with my dragon, then?”
Rachel sighed, but Merlin just smiled at him. “Of course, boy. I offered to do just that the last time you were here, if you remember.”
Fort didn’t, given what had occurred in between, but now that Merlin mentioned it, he could recall the old man saying something about dragon problems. Fort had assumed at the time that Merlin had meant Damian, but this was just more proof that the old wizard knew what was to come, and if he said Fort shouldn’t fight the Old One, then Fort should listen.
“I just need to get her to safety,” he said miserably. “I’ve heard there are other dragons on Avalon, and if you can tell me where there’s a door or portal or something—”
“There were a dozen different ways,” Merlin said, nodding. “Unfortunately, they all require Space magic, and from what I recall, that book’s been destroyed now, hasn’t it? Still, I do have a way to help.” He glanced back at Jia and Rachel. “Are you two still here? Why haven’t you gotten started?”
Rachel and Jia shared a look. “Because you haven’t told us what to do,” Rachel said.
“Do I have to tell you to breathe as well?” Merlin said, pointing inside the cottage. “Go, apprentices! We have little time as it is!”
Rachel and Jia both slunk through the doorway, looking guiltily at each other. Fort took a deep breath, glad at least that Merlin was willing to help him with Ember. The last thing he’d expected was to be sidelined in the upcoming fight so harshly, but now that it’d happened, Fort felt like he should have known. Who was he to think he could face the Timeless One? Excalibur had known, back when he first held it and the sword lit on fire, rejecting him. Why hadn’t he himself seen it?
Ember meowed sadly and began rubbing her face against his cheek. In spite of himself, he smiled and reached up to rub her head. It was almost like she’d sensed his sadness and was trying to console him.
“Thanks, little girl,” he said to her, and she purred, then relaxed back to his shoulder as he followed the others inside.
Lost in his thoughts, Fort almost bumped into Jia, who’d stopped a few feet into the cottage. “Whoa,” she was saying, looking all around. “How is this possible?”
Fort followed her gaze and gasped. He’d expected at least some damage to the place, given the utter destruction outside, but instead, everything looked exactly like it had the last time he’d been here, utterly untouched.
“Welcome to my sanctuary,” Merlin said, gesturing grandly to them. “Try not to make a mess, eh?”
- TWELVE -
HOW COULD THIS BE? IT was as if nothing had changed from the last time Fort had visited the cottage, that time with Cyrus present. A long table filled the dining room, while a pot of something bubbled over the fire in the fireplace, filling the cottage with an aroma that made Fort’s stomach rumble.
But Damian had completely destroyed the cottage. What sort of magic had protected it? And where was the cottage, if not connected back to the outer shell? Fort had definitely noticed it being larger on the inside than outside when last he was here, but this was something else entirely.
“Where are we, exactly?” Jia said, asking Fort’s question for him. “This can’t be connected to the cottage we saw in the clearing.”
“Oh, this is just the space between moments,” Merlin said, waving his hand absently. “Time doesn’t pass here, so you won’t be missed while you’re training, or babysitting exotic pets.” He nodded at Ember, who didn’t seem to notice.
That was something, at least. The last thing Fort needed was for his father to come looking for him and discover his empty bedroom. If time really didn’t move here, then he’d arrive back just minutes after he left. Not to mention he felt far less guilty about not spending that time with his dad.
But still, the whole thing made Fort’s head hurt. “How are you doing it, though?” he said, looking around. “If this is Time magic, how can it be connected to a doorway back in the clearing? That seems more like Space magic if anything. But then you couldn’t freeze time here.”
Merlin grinned. “Look who’s an expert now. If you must know, boy, Time and Space magic are closely related. You’ll find quite a bit of overlap between the two.”
“Closely related?” Fort asked, feeling even more lost. “What do you mean?”
Merlin winked as two other versions of the old man appeared next to Rachel and Jia, who both jumped in surprise. “When it comes down to it, space and time both describe where something is. And just because I’m here now…”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t be over here in a minute,” the Merlin near Rachel said.
“Or here in two minutes,” the third Merlin added.
For a second Fort thought this was it, the moment his brain just gave up on all of this magical stuff and went on vacation. Instead, he forced himself to try to figure it out, whether this was some of the hidden technology at work or Time magic. Or both, maybe. But how could—
The Merlin near Rachel looked down at her. “As I said, we have to get started, or you’ll never be prepared for the Timeless One.” He paused, looking at the original Merlin. “I did say that already, didn’t I?”
“Yes, just a bit ago,” the first Merlin said.
“Well it bears repeating,” the third Merlin said. “We’ve trained six Artorigios to defeat the Timeless One, and every one failed to defeat him. And they had a lifetime to prepare! So we’re going to have our work cut out for us.”
“Indeed,” the second Merlin said. “You’re quite wise, my friend.”
“Ah, you’re too gracious, and likewise,” the third Merlin said, bowing low.
Fort rolled his eyes at this, suddenly more annoyed than confused, while the second Merlin turned back to Rachel. “Now, young lady, where is your sword, may I ask?”
“Um, about that,” Rachel said, cringing. “I sort of lost Excalibur, so we probably need to find that first.”
&nb
sp; All three Merlins stared at her for a moment, then began to laugh. “Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard that excuse,” the one closest to her said. “Points for originality, my dear.”
“You’re misremembering,” the original Merlin said. “Didn’t that Roman legionnaire lose it against the Saxon invaders once?”
“Oh, that was temporary at best,” the second Merlin said, waving his hand dismissively. “A matter of moments, all told.” He glanced at Rachel. “How exactly did you lose it? And don’t say Saxon invaders—that excuse has apparently already been used.”
“Ellora sent it through time so that Colonel Charles wouldn’t get it,” Rachel said, blushing and staring at her feet, which surprised Fort more than anything. Rachel hadn’t been this intimidated by anyone, even the colonel. “It was the right call, but she went with it, and we have no idea where they went or when she’ll be back.”
“Oh, that’s what you meant by losing it?” her Merlin asked, shaking his head with a laugh. “I thought you were referring to something else. I knew about that, child!”
“Of course I did,” the third Merlin said, laughing as well.
“From the start,” the original Merlin told her.
“The sword and Ellora will return in five days, and you three will retrieve it,” Rachel’s Merlin told her. “Simple as that.”
The three of them would retrieve it? So Fort was going to be allowed to help with that? That made him feel a little better, at least.
“Retrieve it?” Rachel asked. “But won’t it just show up where she was at the time? So in the medical bay at the Oppenheimer School?”
“Of course,” the Merlin closest to her said. “Why? Is that a problem?”
“A bit of one,” Rachel said, sounding almost apologetic. “We, I mean Fort and I, were kicked out of the school. Jia’s still there, but she’s under guard, and I’m not sure—”
The Merlins all laughed again. “You children need some perspective,” Rachel’s Merlin said.
