by James Riley
Of course, with their luck, Gabriel would probably be waiting there in the trophy room too. His father, the colonel, had brought him back to the school during the London attack, using Gabriel’s Space magic to teleport TDA soldiers into the city.
“There,” Fort said, pointing to the end of the hall, where a large, bank-vault-like door stood slightly open. “That’s it.”
“Okay,” Rachel said, stopping him a ways back. “We go in there, say we’re replacement guards, and then get as close as possible to the sword. Then you teleport it and us out of here. No fighting, no hurting soldiers or our old classmates. Got it?”
“Got it,” Fort said. “What do we do if they know we aren’t supposed to be replacing anyone?”
Rachel reached into her pocket and pulled out a number of miniature wooden sculptures of monsters. “Jia’s got us covered,” she said with a smile.
Fort raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t they kind of small?”
“They’ll grow,” Jia said from his pocket. “Trust me.”
Rachel took a deep breath, then nodded. “Let’s go, then. Follow me.”
She strode down the hallway like, well, like an officer in the TDA, then paused at the door one more moment. Finally, she grabbed the handle and pulled it wide. “Major Paine and Private McHenry reporting for guard duty—” she started to say, only for her mouth to drop open.
Just behind her, Fort saw what had stopped her and couldn’t think of a word to say either.
Facing them in the room were at least two squads of TDA soldiers, each one holding lightning rods aimed right at the door.
And then Fort laid eyes on the sword. Excalibur was encased in some sort of transparent glass box, though only two people guarded it. One was Agent Cole, the federal agent who’d hunted Sierra down, then returned to the Oppenheimer School to run it in Dr. Opp’s place.
And the other was Fort’s best friend, who he thought had been lost in time.
“It’s them, Agent Cole,” Cyrus said, nodding at the door. “These are the two thieves I told you were coming for the sword.”
- TWENTY-EIGHT -
TAKE THEM DOWN!” AGENT COLE shouted, and the TDA soldiers immediately fired their lightning rods straight at Fort and Rachel.
Fortunately, Rachel was faster. She used her magic to yank the concrete floor up between them, letting the electrical spikes strike the rock instead. “Out!” she yelled at Fort, while throwing something from her pockets into the room.
Fort knew better than to argue and quickly leaped back into the hallway, preparing a teleportation portal. There was no time to think, but that couldn’t have been Cyrus, could it? The last Fort had seen him, William had taken over Cyrus with Spirit magic and had had Cyrus send himself into some distant time, only coming back when William sent word it was okay.
And considering William had lost his magic shortly thereafter, that time wasn’t coming up anytime soon. So if Cyrus had brought himself back, why come here, back to the Oppenheimer School? He had to know that Agent Cole and Colonel Charles couldn’t be trusted.
Rachel slammed the vault door shut just in front of him, bringing his attention back to the present. “Move!” she said.
Only when Fort tried to move, he found he couldn’t. His legs, his arms, everything was frozen in place, like he’d been paralyzed. But how—
A group of Oppenheimer students appeared at the end of the hallway, each one of them glowing with blue Healing light from having used a Paralyze spell on them. “Nice job, everyone!” shouted Moira, one of Fort’s former classmates. “Now put them to sleep! Agent Cole wants to question them!”
But before the students could attack, a large blue sphere formed around them, and suddenly Fort found he could move.
“Get us out of here!” Jia’s golem said, leaping to the floor as she freed Rachel from the paralysis spell as well. “I’ll hold them off!”
Fort started to open a teleportation portal, but before he could, the floor suddenly gave out from under them, and they tumbled into darkness, the blue protective ball still surrounding them.
They landed hard, but whatever the ball was, it saved them from any broken bones. Unfortunately, it seemed to have shocked the little golem enough to disrupt Jia’s attention, because the wooden doll fell to the floor, completely limp now.
“We’ve got incoming!” Rachel shouted, and Fort looked up to see more students, this time with glowing red hands.
Destruction students. They’d been the ones to take out the floor beneath them. This wasn’t good.
Dozens of fireballs came crashing down from the floor above like some kind of apocalyptic rain, followed right behind by several of the students. Rachel managed to knock the fireballs out of the way with a nearby concrete wall, but two of the other students, boys that Fort recognized as Bryce and Chad, shot a few thousand gallons of water straight into her chest, sending her flying into the opposite wall.
Fort got a portal open before they could do the same to him, and he leaped through it, emerging right next to Rachel. “I’m taking us back to the cottage!” he hissed at her, opening another portal as the Destruction students advanced on them.
“No, get us back to the sword!” Rachel shouted, electrifying the water now pooling on the floor. Chad and Bryce, both walking through the puddles, got hit by the electricity and went sprawling to the floor. “We’ll never get another chance at this if Cyrus is up there!”
Fort gritted his teeth but knew she was right. He pulled a teleportation portal down over the two of them, and they appeared in the dragon bones trophy room, where Fort expected to find a few dozen TDA soldiers waiting for them.
Instead, there was absolute chaos.
Monstrous golems of all different sizes were attacking the soldiers, like cursed dolls in some horror movie. Some were almost as big as a person and shaped like some kind of terrifying beast covered in fur and bristling with fangs, while others really did look human, just lifeless and awful.
Most of the soldiers were screaming in terror, trying to get the golems off them, but Jia’s practice had paid off as she kept them all moving in different directions at once, attacking with the golems’ hands, feet, or whatever they had, as well as her own magic.
These were what Rachel had tossed into the room, like a grenade of eerie puppets. And it made sense why Jia hadn’t returned to the golem they had, if she was controlling this many at once!
“The sword!” Rachel shouted as Agent Cole grabbed the transparent glass case to make a run for it. Fort opened a portal, and Rachel leaped through, then pulled the nearby wall out to grab Agent Cole, imprisoning her in the rock.
“Cyrus!” the agent shouted, and Fort and Rachel both turned in surprise to find their friend disappearing into nothingness, leaving behind just a flash of a shadow. Uh-oh.
“Where is he?” Rachel shouted to Fort, taking down two nearby TDA soldiers as the rest tried to reach their leader. “Do you see him?”
Fort quickly opened portals all around Rachel, but a stray lightning bolt sizzled into his leg, and he toppled to the floor, everything going dark for just a moment. He heard Rachel shouting from a distance and, somewhere behind him, the vault door opening again, but his head was ringing, and it was so hard to concentrate. Also, somehow it was getting harder to breathe, like the air was thicker than before.
Wait, no, the air was actually thicker. As Fort’s head cleared, he found himself in the middle of a strange fog, far too dense to see through and weirdly almost solid. He could still breathe, but it took some effort, and he could feel the thick air sliding down into his lungs uncomfortably with every breath. What was this, and who—?
A blurred shadow gradually slowed into something resembling Cyrus, and Fort realized what was going on: This was one of Rachel’s new tricks for fighting the Timeless One. She’d made the air in the room almost solid, and it was slowing Cyrus down.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t helping Fort much, though, and he struggled to open a portal in front of Cyrus
but missed as the other boy flashed right past it, still moving too quickly to catch. He heard Rachel shout in surprise as if from a great distance and realized the fog must be messing with the sounds, because she hadn’t been too far before.
But before he could figure out what had happened to her, the air thinned out, revealing all of the Oppenheimer students now surrounding Fort. Next to Agent Cole, Cyrus had the box with Excalibur, and Rachel slumped to the floor next to him, apparently unconscious.
“Take him!” Agent Cole shouted, and all the Oppenheimer students turned to unload on Fort at once.
“No, STOP! ” he shouted, not sure what else to do.
Only he didn’t say “stop” in English.
The entire room froze in a shimmery black light, and Fort’s eyes widened as he realized that he’d done this, using his new magic. He’d stopped time for the entire room.
And then he collapsed to the floor, completely exhausted.
Apparently, just knowing the magic words didn’t mean he had the power to cast such a powerful spell. And it wouldn’t have helped that he wasn’t born on Discovery Day.
Still, even entirely devoid of energy, Fort almost laughed at the absurdity of everything as all around him, various students were just moments away from unleashing their magic on him. All he had to do was get to his feet, grab the box with Excalibur, teleport out with Rachel, and they’d be home free!
Fort grunted, then pushed himself up to his knees, then to his feet. As he stood, the room swayed dangerously, and Fort grabbed a nearby student to steady himself. Not wanting to faint, he quickly regained his balance, then stumbled over to where Cyrus waited with the box.
“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” Fort said to his frozen friend. “But we’re going to need to talk about this later.” With that, he reached out a hand to take the box.
Cyrus grabbed him by the wrist before he could.
“Hey, Fort,” the other boy said, smiling slightly. “How about we talk about it now?”
- TWENTY-NINE -
WHOA!” FORT SHOUTED, LEAPING BACKWARD in surprise, then almost falling back to the floor when the room began to dance again. “Cyrus, you’re awake?”
“Of course,” his silver-haired friend said, then reached out to help support him. “I knew it was coming, so was prepared with my own magic. Are you okay?”
“No!” Fort shouted, but let Cyrus help hold him up. “I’m not okay. What are you doing here? You’re helping Agent Cole now? Rachel needs that sword to take down the Timeless One!”
Cyrus’s smile faded. “You don’t know everything that’s happening here,” he said. “But to be fair, there’s no reason you should.” He raised a glowing hand, and without thinking, Fort immediately raised his own, ready to defend himself, only for Cyrus to give him a sad look. “Really, Fort? I’m not going to fight you. I just wanted to make you look normal again. It’s weird talking to a stranger.”
Fort slowly lowered his hands, having almost forgotten about Jia’s disguise spell. The glow of black Time magic surrounded him, running Jia’s spell in reverse, and a moment later, he had shrunk back down to Cyrus’s height.
“There,” Cyrus said. “That’s better.”
“Fine,” Fort said. “Now tell me what you’re doing here. I thought you were lost in time after everything in London! And where is Ellora? She should have come back with the sword.”
Cyrus nodded. “She did. The Healing kids put her to sleep right as she appeared. Agent Cole is holding her for now, until the UK takes her home.”
“We can’t let them,” Fort said. “Not after how they treated those students before!”
“I’ll make sure she’s okay,” Cyrus said. “But that’s not why we’re here—”
“And you still haven’t said how you’re back!”
“It wasn’t hard, actually,” Cyrus said with a shrug. “I assume you took away William’s magic with the sword, because I was myself again by the time I arrived in the future. His spell must have broken when he lost his power.”
“So why didn’t you come back when I took William down?” Fort asked. “And why are you here? The TDA aren’t the good guys, Cyrus. If we let them have Excalibur, who knows what they’ll do with it. We barely stopped Colonel Charles from starting a world war over my father, remember?”
Cyrus sighed. “I do remember, of course. But I can see what’s to come, Fort. Colonel Charles isn’t the issue today. Right now, there are bigger worries.”
“What’s a bigger worry than the Old One of Time?” Fort asked, raising his eyebrows.
Cyrus paused for a moment. “Fort, I’m going to ask you to trust me. If you’ve ever thought of me as a friend, listen to me now. What I’m about to ask you is for the good of everyone. Do you understand me?”
“Okay, yes, I understand,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he did. “Just tell me.”
Cyrus looked him in the eye. “I need you to leave the sword here, Fort.”
Fort took a step back in shock, not even sure what his friend was saying. “I hope you’re joking, Cyrus, because that’s insane. There’s no way I’d ever leave it here, not with Colonel Charles or Agent Cole. But even if they weren’t going to use it, we still need it to use against the Timeless One. If we don’t, humanity is going to suffer, not to mention that the faerie queen will throw us in her prison for the rest of our lives.”
Cyrus winced. “I know you had no choice, but the fact that you made deals with her is a huge problem. You believe the TDA isn’t on your side? The faerie queen is your actual enemy. She wants to return here, Fort, to bring her children back where she thinks they belong. That faerie girl isn’t just here for a dragon. She’s learning about modern-day humanity too, so the queen will have an advantage when she comes back to push humans out of her former land.”
Fort’s eyes widened. “That’s why she’s here? I knew the queen hated that they were exiled, but no one said anything about pushing humans out for the faeries to come back.” He pictured Xenea and her complete disregard for all things human and wondered if it could be true.
But then he remembered her face while she watched the movie and how she wanted to see it again, in spite of that doing nothing for her mission. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d go along with a war, not from what little he knew about her. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “Maybe the queen does want to come back, but I’m sure we can figure out a way for that to happen without anyone getting hurt. Besides, the only reason Xenea is here is because I made a deal for my father.”
“Which the queen suggested,” Cyrus said. “But even that can wait for now. You need to know what’s happening with the Timeless One and Merlin. You’re being thrown in the middle of a game between two all-powerful creatures, a game that’s been going on for thousands of years. And the only way to keep you safe is not to play.”
“A game?” Fort said, frowning. “What kind of game?”
“The kind where humanity lives or dies depending on who wins,” Cyrus said. “That’s how serious this is. But they can only play through their pawns, which right now are you, Rachel, and Jia. If the three of you refuse to play, the game can’t continue.”
“But Merlin’s on our side,” Fort said, feeling even more confused now. “He helped King Arthur. And he wants to stop the Old Ones, who I know for a fact want us all destroyed.”
“Merlin’s doing those things so he can win,” Cyrus told him. “None of you matter to him, not compared to his game. And if you do finally succeed in using that sword on the Timeless One, then the whole future is going to be in horrible danger.”
Fort rubbed his forehead, not understanding. “None of this makes sense, Cyrus. Are you trying to tell me we need the Timeless One?”
“In a way, yes,” Cyrus said quietly. “There’s a lot you don’t know about him. A lot Merlin wouldn’t tell you, though he did tell Jia and Rachel. Do you want to know what he’s hiding from you, what he swore the others to secrecy about?
”
This got Fort’s attention, striking right through all the confusion of the past few minutes. “You know what the secret is?”
Cyrus nodded. “Merlin’s trained all the Artorigios, right?” he said. “And the first six all faced Emrys, the Old One of Time, and lost. But Merlin himself has never tried to fight Emrys. Why do you think that is?”
Fort shrugged. “What, are you going to tell me that’s part of the rules?”
“It is, but not the way you think,” Cyrus said. “Merlin can’t fight Emrys, because if he does, all of time could be destroyed. So they came up with the game, these two lifelong enemies. Merlin would train a human to face the Old One using an Avalonian sword, something that could actually hurt an Old One, while Emrys agreed to let Merlin train the human and wait for Merlin’s pawn to be ready. The game hinges on the fact that Emrys doesn’t believe a human can ever win, while Merlin thinks they can. Regardless, Merlin has seven chances, seven human Artorigios, to face Emrys. All Merlin needed was for one human to win, but so far, he’s zero for six. And Rachel is the last one. After that, Emrys wins.”
“Which still sounds like a bad thing to me,” Fort said. “Not to mention that if we just skip out on whatever game those two are playing because you say so, then the faerie queen will—”
“Forget the faerie queen!” Cyrus shouted, his face contorting with anger. “She doesn’t matter, not in this. Merlin’s the dangerous one, and you’re falling into his trap! Do you think he gave you a book of magical spell words just to talk to your dragon? Who suggested you Learn the whole thing, so you’d take it all in? He did! He can see the future, Fort! Everything that’s happened so far has been according to his plan!”
Fort blinked in shock. “He… knew? But why would he—”
“Because he’s lost six of these matches against Emrys,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “He knows Rachel will lose too, even with Jia at her side. But he knows you, knows that if you’ve got the power, you’ll stand by your friends no matter what. So he secretly makes sure you’ve got the magic to do just that. He arranged for it all to happen.”
