The Artifact Hunters

by Janet Fox

  “I think Willow and Lark should stay behind,” said Amelie. “You two can look after things in the castle. Willow, why don’t you try and find Canut?”

  “Yes, please?” said Colin.

  “We can do that, as long as we don’t run into him again. You always were our favorite, Amelie,” Willow said, and blew kisses.

  Isaac said, “All right, then. Let’s find a way out of here that is a bit easier than those stairs, since we will be with the knights.”

  Kat unrolled the scroll and they all crowded around. “There.” She pointed on the map. At the far end of the armory was an old door, shorter than Isaac was tall, that opened onto a long tunnel, which led away from the castle.

  “Looks like it ends up on the edge of the cliff,” Leo said.

  “That will be perfect,” said Isaac. He looked up at the others. “Are you ready?”

  * * *

  * * *

  The knights, about two dozen in all, formed an orderly line and then began a slow march toward the door out of the armory. The children followed.

  “Goodbye,” Willow called. “Good luck. You might just survive. And if not, you can always become ghosts and join us.”

  “Well, that’s comforting,” Colin muttered.

  “I’ll make a beautiful pie for when you get back,” Lark called.

  “But don’t eat it,” Leo whispered unnecessarily.

  The long, dim stone tunnel rose slowly upward. The air was close, and except for the soft clink of armor, it was still and silent. The faint blue light radiating from the knights guided them, and the walls of the tunnel closed in until Isaac had to hunch low and tilt his head. The knights were shorter than he was, even in their armor. They marched on and on, slowly, up and up. Isaac had to trust that the tunnel was leading them to a place where they could make a stand and face Moloch on their terms and not inside the confines of the castle that was overrun by forest magic.

  Closer and closer, the walls of the tunnel drew on either side until Isaac began to smell the salt air of the sea and hear the distant pounding of surf. Then cold air rushed in on them, and they emerged into the chill of early evening.

  They were on the cliff edge far from the castle, which they couldn’t see—the forest had overgrown it and crept down to the very edge of the cliffs. The air was damp and foggy, and Isaac was at once chilled to the bone. The others rubbed their arms for warmth.

  “Now what?” Kat asked.

  But before Isaac could answer, they heard it: a terrifying screech from overhead. A blast of flame arced through the dark sky, the dragon a darker blot above them.

  They turned as the dragon descended to the rocky ledge and Moloch and Daemon both slid from the beast’s back. Moloch unfurled his own huge leathery wings, turned to face them, and smiled. “My dragon is a very good hunter,” he said. “And now we’ve found you.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Isaac

  1942

  Isaac gasped. This Moloch was not like the Moloch he’d met earlier. This Moloch was terrible. This Moloch radiated menace and anger, exuding evil.

  His teeth were sharpened to sharklike daggers. His single eye burned like fire. He stank of rot, and he was dreadful: bloody face, claw hands, huge leathery wings, skin stretched over cheekbones sharpened to points.

  The pendant on Isaac’s chest vibrated so that it was all he could do to stand still. Moloch pulled hard at Isaac, forcing him to enhance the magic that Moloch wanted.

  And Moloch wanted darkness. The darkest kind of magic. Isaac could not resist him.

  Moloch waved a hand, and everyone except Isaac and the knights fell to their knees and cried out. Isaac staggered, trying to hold himself together.

  The wind howled and stinging sleet pelted them. Even the earth beneath their feet seemed to heave. The hum in Isaac’s head was so loud it drowned out the sound of the sea pounding the cliffs, and he tried to fight, tried, but it was so difficult . . .

  “Now you understand,” Moloch said. “Now you see what you’re up against.” His single red eye gleamed, and the scar that ran up his cheek to his empty eye socket puckered as he grinned. A new gash, slashed across the other side of his face, dripped blood.

  Moloch was using Isaac to amplify dark magic and Isaac couldn’t stop him, as hard as he tried. The raw power that emanated from Moloch was overwhelming. Isaac’s legs buckled as he fought to stay upright.

  Leo pushed himself to his feet. Isaac hadn’t seen him take a sword from the armory, but there Leo was, waving one wildly and hollering, “I’ll fight you . . .”

  But Daemon flew at Leo, knocking him flat and standing with front feet on Leo’s chest as the sword skittered across the ground. The wolf bared its teeth in Leo’s pale and frightened face.

  “Let’s see what happens when I take away that boy’s mind,” Moloch said, and Leo began to cry out.

  Amelie yelled at the knights, and Bedwyr came to her side, but the other knights, turned evil at a command from Moloch, surrounded Amelie and Bedwyr with swords drawn, as Moloch laughed and waved his hand. Snakes emerged from the empty ghost armor, slithering toward Amelie, who screamed in terror.

  Colin yelled commands at Daemon, but Wyvern lifted into the sky, dove at Colin, plucked him off the ground, and flew into the clouds.

  Kat, holding her right arm out with her fist clenched, began to chant, “Freeze with winter. Freeze with winter.”

  “And you, you think you’re so powerful.” Moloch thrust his arm in her direction, and she froze, her spell backfiring on her.

  “You see? I have them all under my power,” Moloch said.

  Isaac went down on one knee, bracing against the wind and Moloch’s energy.

  Isaac was alone, and the evil magic that Moloch mustered was running through Isaac, channeled through him, becoming stronger by the second, as he knelt before the dark fae.

  The sky was a swirl of black clouds. Trees groaned and cracked in the forest.

  “Give up, Isaac,” Moloch called. “I’m using you anyway. I’ll take the key and the Vault.”

  Moloch moved close to Isaac and stretched one clawed finger out and hooked it under the chain around Isaac’s neck. He was helpless, frozen.

  But the chain holding the key became welded to Isaac’s throat. No one can take this from you by force.

  Moloch couldn’t take it. And though Isaac couldn’t tell, the chain must have emitted a shock to Moloch, who yanked back his hand with an angry growl.

  “Give it to me, Isaac, and maybe I’ll spare them. And you.”

  Only if you relinquish it.

  Moloch continued, “Fine. I’ll take you with me. Yes. Think of what we can do together. With your abilities, why, you would be a prince of the Unseelie. You are part fae.” Moloch paused. His red eye glowed brighter. “I’ll not only spare your friends, you can bring them. Make them your pets.”

  Isaac was silent. The wind howled and sleet ran down his cheeks.

  Moloch moved closer and his voice became a purr. “Isaac. You can stop this human war. You can stop all wars, forever. Be the first hero of a new world. If we unite and take over the realms—both faerie and human—imagine.” Moloch’s red eye gleamed. His huge leathery wings expanded. “You’ll command armies. We’ll slaughter all who stand in our way.”

  Spare his friends. Become a prince in a fairy-tale realm.

  Stop the war. He could stop the Nazis. Isaac Wolf could stop the Nazis, could chase them out of Prague, could chase them off the face of the earth. He could find all the stolen people—Miss Rachel, her brother, all his vanished friends and neighbors. He could repair all that had been lost, prevent more atrocities. Isaac could see it—how glittering the new age was that he’d begin. How everyone would revere him. He’d be a true hero, a new kind of hero for a new world, a world right out of great tales.

  Except that it would really b
e a world of darkness. An Unseelie world.

  Which you must not do.

  Magic was powerful. And the temptation to become someone of power, whether that power came from magic or not, would always lead down a dangerous pathway.

  Those who wish to win wars will stop at nothing to use magical artifacts for evil purposes.

  Isaac knew the consequences of giving in to Moloch, as clearly as if he’d been gifted with Leo’s foresight. As clearly as if his father was there, lecturing him yet again on right and wrong. Or his grandfather on making a choice.

  Because the right thing is not always the easiest.

  He knew what he, or anyone given such power, could become. He must not relinquish the key. He must become a hero, but not the kind that Moloch wanted.

  Isaac needed to be the kind of hero who stands up for what is right and not for what is easy, or self-gratifying.

  Moloch said, “Come, now. It’s all over for you and your friends anyway. Come with me. The fae realm can be . . . lovely.”

  “Then why don’t you go back?” Isaac said with effort. “Stay with your Unseelie friends?”

  Moloch narrowed his one eye. “They aren’t my friends,” he snarled. “They are my servants.”

  Ah. Servants.

  Not friends.

  Isaac fought against the power of Moloch and remembered he was supposed to have some kind of special knife, a knife he would have picked up on his first time travel in the ring of stones had he not botched it. Maybe if he tried again now . . . He reached in his pocket for the watch.

  But the watch wasn’t there. He’d left the watch in the Vault. Another mistake.

  Colin was somewhere up in the night storm in the claws of the dragon. Amelie and Bedwyr were at the mercy of the knights, with poisonous snakes surrounding Amelie. Leo was flat on his back under the weight of the wolf, and Kat was frozen, her hand outstretched, fist clenched, a blue light slipping from between her fingers.

  A blue light.

  At the same moment that Isaac saw the light, Leo said, in a strangled voice, “Chatelaine. Use the—” before the wolf growled and snapped.

  The chatelaine. The chatelaine held dark magic. A witch’s soul was imprisoned inside the thimble. The chatelaine held dark magic, so maybe, just maybe, since he was already channeling dark magic, maybe he could turn it on Moloch.

  Isaac concentrated all the power he had on Kat’s chatelaine.

  But it was more than all, because he also felt a surge of energy from his friends, a positive energy. Isaac used it against the dark magic, channeling the bright, good magic through his heart.

  He knew what was needed to win over the darkness. The power of good magic. The bright energy of friendship.

  Isaac, unlike Moloch, had friends.

  And then, instead of shifting out of fear, Isaac realized he could make a shapeshift from this combined bright goodness, and he pushed up to his feet and became taller and stronger even than Moloch.

  Isaac moved to stand with Kat, holding her arm out and holding her up, frozen as she was.

  The knights around Amelie dropped their swords, and the snakes vanished. Daemon slipped off Leo with a whimper and ran for the woods. The dragon descended without a sound onto the cliff edge and let Colin go, and Colin together with Amelie and Leo joined Isaac to support Kat.

  Kat’s fist began to glow, then her fingers opened.

  “What are you trying now?” Moloch snapped, but there was a tremor of fear in his voice.

  The chatelaine was bright with blue light, and as Isaac concentrated—as he willed the dark magic he channeled into the chatelaine, as he willed the bright magic he channeled from his friends into his heart—a shot of blue light came from the thimble on the chatelaine, a light so bright he had to squint.

  Something emerged from the thimble, and then a figure formed before Moloch, a ghost-witch woman. Isaac concentrated all his energy through her and against Moloch.

  The blue ghost-witch stretched her arms toward Moloch.

  Moloch’s red eye widened. “No! You can’t . . .” as she embraced him with a burning blue fire.

  Moloch, in the arms of the ghost-witch, was consumed. He vanished with a strangled cry into a thread of smoke.

  Before Isaac could react, Kat woke from her frozen state and fell against him. He still held her arm out as she clutched the chatelaine, and she cried, “Catch the soul in silver old.” The ghost-witch turned and became a wisp that fled back to the thimble as Kat closed her fist around her chatelaine again, and Isaac and the others kept her from collapsing.

  The magical storm around them fell to silence, the sleet stopped, the trees stilled, and the clouds broke apart, swift and silent in stringers and bands, to reveal twilight stars.

  * * *

  * * *

  The night stars filled the sky, the entire Milky Way a fat ribbon of light.

  “His name’s Wyvern,” Colin said, as he patted the snorting dragon on the neck. “And he actually didn’t like Moloch at all.”

  Kat shook herself, the chatelaine back in her pocket. Amelie and Leo had pulled themselves together, and there were hugs all around.

  “Moloch knew that I hate snakes,” Amelie said with a shiver.

  “He tried to take my mind,” Leo said.

  “It’s horrible, being spelled,” said Kat.

  Isaac looked from one to the other and managed a weary smile.

  “You’ve grown,” Amelie said to Isaac, tilting her head. “You were always tall, but you’ve grown even taller.”

  Isaac’s face grew hot. “All of you,” he said. “I couldn’t have done this alone. But you gave me your energy.” He paused, then pointed at Kat’s fist. “You’re going to have to show me how you control that thimble. Especially if we have to hunt artifacts like it.”

  “She always wanted one thing. Just one,” Kat murmured. “All the bad she did to us, she did for that.”

  “What?” Isaac asked. “What did she want?”

  Kat said, wistful, “She wanted love.”

  “The wraith,” said Isaac, remembering, “it called itself magister. It loved her, too. That’s what I felt when I saw into its mind.”

  Amelie looked up into the sky. “Now that I think about her, and even it, that way, it’s terribly sad.” She sighed. “That makes it easier to understand.”

  She exchanged a glance with Colin, and he nodded. They were all silent, except for the snorting dragon.

  “So. We’re going to hunt artifacts,” said Colin.

  “We’ll travel through time and space,” said Amelie.

  “It won’t be easy,” Isaac warned.

  “But we’ll be the Artifact Hunters,” said Leo with a grin. “Brilliant.”

  CHAPTER 57

  Isaac

  1942

  The first task for the children after they dispatched Moloch was to find MacLarren and see what they could do for Gumble.

  Kat worked at spells to return the forest to normal (or as normal as an always-enchanted-although-not-usually-evil forest could become) and send the dire wolves back to wherever they came from.

  Wyvern allowed Colin and Isaac to fly on his back so that they could search the forest for the teachers.

  The moon, once it rose, was halfway to full, so it was bright enough to see as the dragon circled the castle. They spotted MacLarren first, but when they landed they were astonished to find Gumble, too. Both were a mess of filth but in fine fettle, though maybe Isaac and Colin were not as surprised to see the teachers as their teachers were to see the boys riding a dragon.

  “We thought you were a goner,” Colin said to Gumble.

  “We were strung up like two coneys in a snare,” growled MacLarren.

  “Yes, it was quite unnerving,” said Gumble, removing debris from her hair.

  “Beatrice was the
clever lass, aye,” said MacLarren. “Before that creature was able to do its worst, she created for herself a doppelgänger so that’s what it played with. We got out of the trap but couldn’t escape until it was gone. It were an awful sight to see it with Beatrice’s look-alike and the things it done to it. Knives and mechanical replacements and all.”

  “Angus was very helpful by working out how to free us from the creature’s trap and we hid in the upper branches of its tree,” Gumble said. “It was a bit chilling to see myself cut to ribbons. Now, what about this dragon? What’s been going on here? All we could tell was that a storm had the castle under siege.”

  Colin and Isaac exchanged a look. “We have much to tell,” Isaac said.

  Wyvern flew to the castle tower and curled his great green body around it and settled down comfortably, after dislodging a few loose roof tiles.

  The other children were jubilant to see Gumble. Her mechanical double was removed from the kitchen—“Easy, now,” said MacLarren. “She be a tad too familiar”—to be buried in a far corner of the castle grounds.

  Willow had found Canut and Lark had unspelled him, and Colin rolled on the floor with his giant dog as Canut slobbered happily.

  Baines was the worst victim. They found him still spelled in the small library. A bird had begun to build a nest in his outstretched hand.

  Kat whispered in his ear, “Return.”

  A shimmer surrounded the man as the gold misted away. He blinked, then blinked again, looking at the partially built nest he held. “I had the most interesting dream,” he said vacantly. “Magic is wonderful. Don’t you believe in magic?”

  The others exchanged surprised looks.

  “Excuse me. I must fulfill my mission. Off to destroy the world.”

  “Oh dear,” said Kat. “My spell wouldn’t have done that to him.”

  “I do believe,” Miss Gumble said, “a little trouble is brewing.”

  “I bet Moloch had a hand in it,” said Leo.