She smiled, just a little. “I wish.…” She stopped. She wasn’t sure what she wished for. To be Guinevere, and not remember having been Spirit? To just be Spirit, without the memory of a whole other life—and love—crowding her brain? “I wish we didn’t have to fight the forces of evil,” she said finally.
“I hope…” Burke’s voice trailed off. “I hope this battle will be an end to it,” he said.
Spirit shuddered. The thought that she might die was both terrifying and unreal. The thought that Guinevere would have to be born again because Mordred was still around … that was a fear real enough to make her shake. When Guinevere was born again—if she was—and if she remembered herself again, she wouldn’t remember having been Spirit White. Spirit knew Guinevere must have been born over and over since Mordred had been sealed in the Tree. But she didn’t remember any of those lives or deaths.
Our life is but a brief candle, lighting our way between darkness and darkness, the ghostly voice of her other self whispered in her mind. It leaves behind it no trace. And yet … I would lay down this burden if I could.
So would I, Spirit thought.
“Well, soon enough we’ll know,” she said, putting on a show of comic bravado to make Burke smile. “Come on. Let’s go see what’s yummy in MRE-land.”
“Nothing,” Burke said fervently, and squeezed her hand. “And I hope you’re right. About Mark, I mean. Because blowing up the world is a real deal-breaker.”
* * *
It took them a week to make their preparations. Transmutation turned basic sports equipment to stone or metal, and Vivianne conjured the transmuted items into true spears and swords—and armor.
The last thing they meant to do would be the most dangerous, because it was the most likely to attract attention. For the trip to Oakhurst, they would need horses. Addie couldn’t drive a school bus over the muddy terrain between here and Oakhurst, and the sound of its engine was something no spell of Illusion could cloak. So just before they left, those with Animal Control or Animal Communication would summon horses. The scouts had seen horses running loose, and even if there were stables inside The Fortress, there weren’t enough for all the horses around here—both the ones from Oakhurst, and the ones some of the kids in Radial had had. So they’d call the horses. And mount. And ride out. And Addie would bring Brenda and Veronica in the van, following the riders as well as she could. At least somebody would be out of the battlefield. And maybe—if this didn’t work—the three of them could actually manage to warn someone before Mordred brought the world to an end.
Only if that had any chance of working, it would have been Plan A instead of being somewhere down around Plan Q.
All too soon, their attack wasn’t days away, but only an hour or two at most. They’d spent the afternoon putting blankets up over all the windows, and if any light showed through, well, it would be candlelight, and not as likely to attract attention.
The gym was a quiet hive of activity, lit by the flickering light of the emergency candles from the shelter. Everyone was checking their armor and weapons with grim concentration. Spirit knew that most of them weren’t really sure about what they were about to do—or to be more accurate, about why they were doing it, aside from taking the chance to strike back at the people who had persecuted them for so long. But one thing Oakhurst had excelled at was turning them into warriors.
“Take a walk with me?” Burke asked, coming up to where Spirit sat, nervously twirling the pen, her disguised Hallow, between her fingers.
She glanced up. Football padding and a heavy sweater had become armor and chain mail. He looked both more and less like the man her Reincarnate memories told her he was. “Sure,” she said, getting to her feet.
To her surprise, he led her outside. The sky was cloudless, but the stars weren’t the bright bitter stars of winter. It was spring, and the air had a fugitive hint of warmth. She looked up, taking a moment to admire the beauty of the night sky. It seemed as if every day since the Spring Fling, she’d been saying goodbye. Goodbye to the sunrise, to the sunset, to cheap fast-food hamburgers, to Coca-Cola. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Everything around her seemed painfully real—and painfully short-lived—as if she had to notice them, pay attention to them, because it would be the last time she would see any of them. It didn’t matter whether it was wonderful—snowdrops by the side of the road, the haze of new leaves on the trees—or not so wonderful—scratchy blankets, a damp basement, bad food—she was having each experience for the last time.
Soon would come the last time she ever saw Burke.
No! she shouted inside her mind. I won’t think that way! We’ll win!
She knew she’d try her best. They all would. But knowing that did nothing to change the sense that she was bidding the world a long farewell.
“I figure they’ll start Calling the horses soon,” Burke said, breaking into her thoughts. “After that, if somebody’s going to notice us, we’ll be noticed,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about it one way or the other. But I wanted to talk to you first.”
Spirit glanced up at him in puzzlement. They had no goodbyes to say to each other—it was ill luck before a battle. “What about?” she asked.
“I know what you can do,” Burke said. “You did it to Dylan. You need to do it to the others—I know some of us must be Reincarnates, and I think you can see who. Waken their memories. Now. Before we fight.”
“I—” Cravenly, she’d hoped he’d forgotten what she’d done before. She knew she could call the Grail Knights to awareness, just as Mordred could call the Shadow Knights. It was the one thing she and Mordred shared: the bodies they wore in this life were both magicians whose Gift was of the School of Spirit. It was why, she supposed, Mordred had been able to take Kenneth Hawking’s body for his own. And why she’d been able to see through the web of glamourie he’d woven around Oakhurst and all it contained. But as often as she’d considered waking the memories of the other Reincarnates, Spirit, if not Guinevere, had rejected the idea. Tried not to think about it. “Burke.…” she said, and stopped. She didn’t know what words came next.
Burke was waiting for her answer. He would wait, she knew, as long as he had to for her to give it.
“Elizabeth said that she, Elizabeth, didn’t exist,” Spirit began in a low voice. “She said she’d never existed, that Elizabeth Walker was nothing but a dream Iseult of Cornwall had dreamed—and awoke from. And you know, at the time I thought she was just crazy. But now I know she’s right. Spirit White doesn’t exist. Neither does Burke Hallows. Or Lachlan Spears. Or Adelaide Lake. There’s only Guinevere and Arthur, Lancelot and Vivianne. And I can barely deal with that, and Addie.… I don’t think Addie’s there any more. I think Vivianne has forgotten Addie. We might die today. Some of us probably will die, and it doesn’t matter if I, Guinevere, have seen it a thousand times before. It still scares me. It’s still death. And how can I take away.…” She paused, swallowing hard. “How can I take away their last moments of life by turning them into someone else?”
“You must, my lady.” There was nothing of Burke in his voice now. “This is the battle we have all pledged our souls to fight. The battle we bound our spirits to an endless rebirth to wage. Do you think I rejoice to have been denied Heaven? To wander the earth like a hungry ghost, century after century, denied both rest and my true name? And yet, it is a yoke I willingly bend my neck to, for I pledged to be a strong shield between the land and its enemies.”
“Even if it’s Montana and not Britain?” she asked, desperately hoping to sway him. This isn’t our fight—not Arthur’s and Guinevere’s—it’s theirs.…
“Even so,” Arthur answered. “And I pledged my life and my soul gladly to this task. So did we all. You do not have the right to choose this for them, this oblivion and forgetting. After all this time, our friends, our allies, deserve the right to ride into battle knowing who they face, and what—and why. And … they are our sworn vassals, my Queen. Blooded knights and mighty s
orceresses. Their memories—their skills—may be all that save us.”
“But if we win?” Guinevere said urgently. “Arthur—if we win—what becomes of us?”
That was the fear behind all the others. Not of defeat, but of victory—of facing all the years this strong young body might live knowing herself nothing more than a ghost out of time. Fitting into the world around her as poorly as Mordred himself did. Yearning always for a land and a time lost beneath the crashing waves of centuries.
“It doesn’t matter,” Arthur said heavily. “I cannot allow it to matter. I am sworn to give my life for the land, and in life and death, my word is the same: I serve. I cannot order this, my lady. But I can ask it. Give your people the chance to knowingly redeem their oaths.”
She bowed her head. Spirit, Guinevere, who she was and who she’d been was nothing but confusion in her mind now. All that was left was the promise she’d made so very long ago.
“Come, beloved,” she said heavily. “Let us go inside.”
* * *
She looked around the gymnasium. Among the students who’d survived the attack on Merlin’s base there were a dozen Reincarnates who had not yet been Awakened. It would be cruel to do it in front of everybody.
It would be cruel to do it at all. But Arthur was right.
She walked over to Maddie Harris. Maddie had been Queen of the Ditzes at Oakhurst, legendary for hitting “Reply All” on her e-mails and sending the entire student body blow-by-blow accounts of Dance Committee infighting. In this life only, Guinevere whispered in Spirit’s mind. No one could have survived at Oakhurst as long as she had without being more than that. Now that disaster had well and truly struck, Maddie had dropped the over-the-top hysterics and end-of-the-world posturing. Spirit supposed it had been protective coloration in its way, for Guinevere knew her as Brangane, the confidante of Iseult of Cornwall, a woman whose sorcerous power had rivaled that of her mistress.
“Maddie?” she said. “Could you come out into the hall with me for just a second?”
Maddie frowned, but set aside the sword whose steel blade she was sharpening and got to her feet. “Sure,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Just a few last-minute things,” Spirit said. She pushed open the doors that led from the gym into the school. “There’s something I need you to do before we leave today.”
“What?” Maddie asked.
Spirit reached out and took both of Maddie’s hands in hers. “I need you to wake up.”
She felt the power uncoil within her, flowing from her hands into Maddie’s. She saw Maddie blink in confusion, then watched her eyes grow wide with the knowledge of a life Maddie Harris had never lived.
It was over very quickly.
It felt like a death.
“My queen!” Brangane gasped. She started to curtsey, then caught herself. “Oh my god.…” she whispered, now sounding like Maddie.
“I’m sorry,” Spirit said helplessly. “Iseult is here,” she said. “Go to her.”
Brangane withdrew her hands from Spirit’s and stepped away. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Spirit waited a moment longer, then went out into the gym to fetch another Reincarnate.
Dagonet had been Arthur’s Court Fool, the only one licensed by law and custom to speak truths the King might not wish to hear. Dagonet had also borne another title: he had been the master of Arthur’s spies. It seemed oddly fitting that in this life he was Allan Tate, Illusion Mage.
“You should have done this sooner, my lady,” he said the moment he’d been Awakened. “For now you must ride into battle without any goodly rede of mine.”
“I will not cry your pardon for keeping mine own counsel,” Guinevere answered him tartly. “Would you have done any differently than I?”
Dagonet smiled. “You have done no other than I would myself have done. Now bide you here, and I shall send you another brave spirit to waken to battle.”
I suppose that will work better than me going to drag people off one by one, Spirit thought to herself wearily.
A few moments later, Noah Turner walked through the doors. Noah Turner had been Cei, who had been raised beside Arthur in the halls of that lonely northern castle where Arthur had gone to be trained in all the arts of war. “Allan said you wanted to tell me something?” he asked doubtfully.
He stared at her in confusion when she awoke his true self, and fled back into the gym without a single word. The door had barely finished swinging back when Chris Terry pushed it open.
“I, uh.… I guess I’m one of Arthur’s court?” he said uncertainly. He smiled at the look on her face. “I mean, it’s not like you could keep what you’re doing in here a secret. And you guys have all been acting weird since you came back. So.… I’m in. Only.… do you know…?”
“Who you were before this life?” Spirit finished gently. “You were my noble knight, Gaheris of Orkney. And I’m sorry to have to break the news to you, but Dylan’s your brother.”
Chris laughed. “I guess I can deal with that. Just … is it going to hurt? Like when Doc A tested us?”
“No,” Spirit said. She held out her hands. “It doesn’t hurt.”
* * *
Kylee Williamson burst into tears when she regained her Reincarnate memories. She was the Reincarnate Bertilak, and Bertilak had been the wife of the Green Knight. And Beckett Green—the Green Knight—was dead.
Blake Watson breathed a sigh of relief when he knew he had once been Peredur, one of The Merlin’s knightly escort. “I’d been afraid I wouldn’t be brave enough to fight,” he said in a low voice. “Now I know I can. Thank you.”
It didn’t take long. When the last of the Reincarnates had been Awakened—Andrew Hayes, Fire Witch, became Bedivere, who had once held the fire of the Grail in his bare hands—Guinevere walked back out into the gym.
Seventeen of them were Grail Knights. Thirteen were Oakhurst’s student magicians. And two were the people they were doing all this for—but it was their fight, too.
“What about the rest of us?” Angelina asked.
Spirit looked around the room. The Grail Knights all stood together. Brenda and Veronica stood at the edge of the non-Reincarnates, looking a little lost.
“The rest of you are just going to have to settle for being fabulous,” Spirit said. It was as if Muirin stood at her shoulder, whispering the words into her ear. There was scattered laughter. “Remember, just being you, you survived everything that Oakhurst and Breakthrough could throw at us. This doesn’t change anything. Breakthrough is still going to start a war, and we still have to stop it.”
“If it doesn’t matter—” Troy Lang began.
Then why did you do it? Spirit heard the unspoken words as clearly as if they’d been said aloud.
“No. She’s right.” Kelly Langley—who wasn’t a Reincarnate—stepped forward and turned to face the crowd. “This doesn’t change anything. Maybe you think it’s glamorous to be turned into somebody else. But there’s nothing glamorous about what we’re going out there to do. It’s going to be messy, and a lot of us are going to get hurt. I’m glad to still be me. And I’m also glad we have some experienced dragon-slaying help. And I am going to kick ass!”
This time, everyone cheered.
EIGHT
When it was still an hour before dawn, they opened the doors of the gym and pushed the black van out into the yard by hand, so that the sound of its engine wouldn’t alert any listeners. The Air Mages with Animal Communication and Animal Control began summoning horses, and Troy turned the basketball court from blacktop to turf.
At the very last minute, Gaheris worked a spell to fill the morning air with a thick, dense, impenetrable fog. The horses that had been summoned came silently through the mist, like ghosts, and stood patiently waiting to be saddled.
“Hey, who’s this guy?” Molly Piercy asked. She was one of the Air Mages who’d helped call the loose horses. She patted the shoulder of a horse none of them had ever seen before. The animals
the Oakhurst students had practiced Endurance Riding on were all chestnuts or bays—this one was so white he nearly glowed.
“He’s not from anywhere around Radial,” Brenda said. “I know everybody’s horses from the county.”
“And the Shadow Knights’ horses are all black,” Kelley said. “Okay, who wants to be a target?” They all knew that the reason commanders from the old days used to ride white horses into battle was because they could be seen for miles. Their riders were automatically targets.
“I think he’s here for me,” Spirit said. She walked up to him and stroked his nose. “Hello, Passelande. It’s been a long time.”
The White Horse of Britain nodded his head up and down as if he understood, and she leaned against him for a moment, savoring the warmth and the familiar scent of horse.
“All of our old friends have come,” Burke said, coming to her through the mist. At his side walked an enormous white hound. It looked a little like a wolfhound, and a lot like something nobody had ever seen before.
“Cafall!” Spirit said in delight. “Where did you come from?”
Cafall—Arthur’s hound—shoved his wet nose into her hand. She scratched his ears.
“From the same place Passelande and all the rest came from,” Burke said, stroking Cafall’s head as well. “Because Mordred is loosed, and the last battle is to be fought.”
“The Palug Cat, and the Green Knight, and the Boar of Triath,” Spirit said. “They all stand now, with us—or against us.” Arthur’s Court had been a place not entirely of the world in which they now stood, and creatures of Otherrealm had moved as freely through it as the men and women of Britain.
“It’s a good omen,” Burke answered. “Are you ready?”
“I am,” she answered. He made a stirrup of his hand and tossed her up onto Passelande’s back. She didn’t need saddle or bridle to ride this horse.
Victories Page 15
