Demons and Druids (2010)

by James - Daniel X 03 Patterson

  "Brilliant! I was looking for this the other day" he declared. Without turning around, he handed me something. It was a kind of shallow clay cup, and it felt strangely warm in my hands.

  "Hold this for me, my dear Daniel? We shall need it in another twenty or thirty years."

  "What is it?"

  "The Holy Grail, for heaven's sake! Isn't it obvious?"

  Chapter 56

  I PUT the sacred vessel down in a clear spot on a table across the room. Very carefully. But I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

  "Say, Merlin," I began, thinking on my feet. "You don't suppose I could borrow that? I'm, um, pretty sure we could use that in the future, too."

  "Hmmm... perhaps we can negotiate something, fellow Alien Hunter," said Merlin. "But first we must focus on more important matters at hand." He stood up to face me and smiled. "Here it is!"

  His eyes were shining. I mean, they were literally shining, a bright neon blue that gave his robe a purple luster. It was a moment before I realized that they were reflecting light from the even more mind-shattering item that was clutched in his hands.

  I had never seen it before, but I recognized the form instantly. It was nothing like the laptop that I'd left in the London town house, but the thin leather-bound book Merlin now held out toward me had pictures that flickered in a familiar way, symbols that somehow ate their way into your brain. It looked a little like an ordinary high school yearbook, but the gold, flowing script stamped on the cover confirmed that there was nothing ordinary about it.

  .

  YE OLDE LIST.

  Terra Firma.

  .

  This was The List of Alien Outlaws, about fourteen hundred years older, and analog instead of digital.

  "Ye Olde List? Merlin, this has to be a joke!"

  Merlin had only to open the book to prove me wrong. On its yellowed pages, the words shimmered, and lifelike illustrations of devils, goblins, and gargoyles--which were actually aliens , I realized--danced in the wide margins. Literally, I mean--the pictures on the paper were moving.

  Merlin pointed to a scene, and I took the book from him to examine it more closely. It was an inked black-and-white drawing of two figures standing on the moonlit shore of a wide lake. In the middle of the water, a huge maelstrom split the otherwise smooth surface like a hole torn in silk. At its center burned a small, ragged flame.

  The whirlpool and the shadows that filled it were slowly spinning, projecting a rotating halo on the clouds overhead. And then suddenly the taller of the two figures turned around and looked toward us.

  I dropped the book.

  It was me.

  And that wasn't even the most incredible part. At the same moment that I recognized my own face, a caption flickered into existence under the picture: The arrival of Phosphorius Beta in the British Isles.

  "I hope you don't have plans tonight," said Merlin. "I do believe we have aliens to catch!"

  "I say." I heard Arthur's voice at the doorway, where he stood carefully balancing three mugs of cider. "Do tell, chaps: what on earth is an alien?"

  Chapter 57

  MERLIN was good on his feet, I must say. He convinced Arthur that an "alien" was a rare species of insect that we had a mutual interest in--which we'd discovered after discussing the great mastodon. He explained that we were going on a hunt for the creature that night, but that Arthur surely wouldn't want to join us since "aliens" lived only in the smelliest and murkiest swamps.

  Well, it wasn't entirely a lie, anyway...

  Only a few hours later and closing in on evening, Merlin led me across the meadow on the opposite side of the brook, then into a dense wood.

  It was just after twilight and the forest was the "dark and scary" kind, but Alparian senses are keen and the two of us had very little trouble finding our way through the trees. Merlin even skipped a little and, what can I say, i t j ust reinforced the fact that I liked this ancient little guy a lot. Somehow, he didn't seem to feel the weight of the world, as I always did, on his shoulders.

  "Now then, you must know a great deal about Beta," he said, spinning into a backward jog. "You came all the way here to help me, did you not?"

  "We've met, yeah," I said darkly, my skin practically blistering at the memory of our last encounter. Actually, I came back in time to help me, I thought. And Dana, and all of my friends. If I could eliminate him now, I could return to the present, and Dana and I wouldn't be face to face with death.

  "Right, then. I presume you know his history."

  "I know that he'll be here in England for another fourteen hundred years. And that he won't be finished until everything on Earth is ash. You mean there's more?"

  "Ah, that's not the half of it, Daniel the Traveler." He ducked just in time to avoid a branch and then straightened up again, still backpedaling so fast that I had trouble keeping up. "It sounds like they sent you unprepared... with no cheat sheet. This isn't good, not good at all.

  "Let's see..." He sighed, the way a teacher sighs before launching into an hour-long lecture, then jumped like he'd been pricked with a pin, and spun around 180 degrees. "The lesson will have to wait. We're here."

  Chapter 58

  "THIS IS WHERE HE COMES. There's no doubt about it, Daniel." Merlin cocked an eyebrow and his eyes sparkled with intelligence that went far beyond his childish appearance. "I calculated it very precisely. At least, I think I did. Couldn't find the notes I made, of course!"

  We were on the banks of a small lake, its surface as smooth as a freshly Zambonied hockey rink in the moonlight. I was struck by a vivid memory of time travel. Could this be the same lake that I'd seen? The one covered with fire?

  Merlin was pretty sure of himself and pulled me down into a crouch behind a thorny bush that stood near the water's edge. He didn't need to crouch, of course. Even standing on his toes, his tufted white hair wouldn't have shown over the leaves and branches.

  We waited in silence. Merlin had hardly stopped talking, laughing, or moving since I'd met him, and so seeing this other side of him was downright eerie. I knew he meant business now. The Alien Hunter in him had come out.

  After a time, it almost seemed like he'd stopped breathing completely, a sign that trouble was near. The slightest shift in air could mean trouble.

  There was motion on the water. Even though the lake's surface was as flat as a mirror, we both felt it: the air molecules were vibrating in an unnatural, mechanical rhythm.

  And then it slowly opened. A circle appeared in the center like a bull's-eye. Only it was nothing like the raging vortex I'd seen in Merlin's illustration.

  It was more like a shimmering egg-shaped hole, with the entire universe inside.

  A luminescent form reached out of it and extended above the water. It was a wispy tendril of colored flame.

  I gasped out loud.

  A time traveler. Beta is a time traveler. The thought hit me head-on with the force of a semi.

  Merlin pointed to the lake and we both watched as the flames continued to leak slowly into the misty air.

  All at once, there was a whistle and a rush of wind, and then a burst of heat filled the cold night. The time hole was gone.

  For a moment, a single fiery flower, twenty feet across, hung in the air. Then fire ran across the still water in a line that led away from us, into the dark woods on the opposite shore.

  Before the flames disappeared from sight, I thought I saw a silhouette rise out of the bushes and follow the line of fire into the trees.

  Merlin was shaking his head in disbelief. "A real live Phosphorian. Beautiful--in its disgusting, deceitful, destructive way. Never thought I'd live to see it."

  I stood up without taking my eyes off the trail of the invader. "So, what's the quickest way to follow him? We've got work to do!"

  "Slow down, Alien Hunter," Merlin said. "I know where he's headed. And with time travel at our disposal, we've got all the time in the world."

  Chapter 59

  LIKE A LOT of magicians, Merli
n could be really annoying when he wanted to. After his mysterious comment at the lake, he refused to say anything further. Not a peep out of him as we made our way.

  When he guided us back to his mill, instead of the supposed lair of Beta, I threw a fit--but he just spent the rest of the night braiding and unbraiding his beard.

  Well, I certainly didn't feel like I had all of the time in the world, and I was getting antsy. Part of me wanted to grab him by that stupid white beard, shake him around like a baby's rattle, and scream, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? BETA IS HERE, AND WE HAVE TO STOP HIM NOW BEFORE HE GETS MY FRIENDS! AND ALL OF ENGLAND!"

  But this guy had this crazy idea that there was a time and a place for everything.

  The next dqy Merlin mysteriously insisted on bringing Arthur and me to London. This was London pre-sewer system , and the whole place smelled like... well, yeah. Arthur had been nursing a black eye from Kay and wouldn't say more than a couple of syllables to me as we rode by oxcart. I'd been brooding about letting Beta slip through our fingers the night before and wouldn't say more than a couple of syllables to Merlin.

  "Beta won't be going anywhere, Daniel," Merlin said under his breath. "And there's a reason we need to be in town. It's all part of making history. We can't mess with that, you know."

  "That little crackpot!" Arthur muttered. "I don't have time for this!"

  I looked at him appreciatively, and a grin flickered on his face for the first time that day but quickly gave way to a frown.

  "Kay left this morning," Arthur finally put in, "and if I don't repair his saddle by the time he gets back from his tournament, he says he'll give me another one of these." He pointed at his black eye.

  "Why do you put up with him?" I said. "Foster brother or not, I would have punched his lights out--er, hit him. Smote him?"

  "He never used to be this way, Daniel. But lately all he thinks about is taking over from Father. When Father's gone, Kay will be lord of the castle. And I won't be anything. Kay will probably turn me out onto the streets."

  Somehow I doubted that.

  "Out of the cart, young men," Merlin called to us. We were more than happy to jump out of the teeth-shattering set of wheels and were immediately distracted by the streaming crowd.

  "So where to, Merlin?" I called over my shoulder.

  But he was gone.

  I hardly cared at the moment, I have to say. That chipper, gnomish man-boy was getting on my nerves.

  Arthur and I decided to see what the crowd was up to, and we were led to a ramshackle wooden church--really not much more than a tinderbox with a steeple. There was a growing huddle of people in the middle of the yard, around a very familiar-looking monument.

  A huge boulder was half buried in the ground. Protruding from it, a sword hilt stood at attention. I almost fell over on my face.

  A sword in a stone. The sword in the stone?

  Chapter 60

  I HEARD A MAN calling out as if it were a circus or the county fair. "COME ONE, COME ALL! TRY YOUR LUCK! PULL OUT THE SWORD AND BECOME KING OF ALL ENGLAND!"

  Hmm. Not quite as romantic as they made it out to be in the books.

  Right now a balding, powerful-looking blacksmith type was leaning over the sword. He spat in his palms and rubbed them together vigorously, ready to get a good grip.

  As soon as he grabbed the hilt, though, the man's body went rigid and there was a crack . A moment later he flew backward a good fifty feet, like he'd been drop-kicked by Beta.

  I took a step forward and got a closer look at the sword, only to be surprised by its, well, plainness. It didn't loo k l ike a great king's sword at all. The hilt was just ordinary metal--no encrusted jewels, no gold filigree...

  And then I did a double take.

  This was no sword. I recognized a certain, um, Alparian essence.

  "Merlin?/" I said in my mind.

  "Heh heh. Guilty as charged," said the sword back to me.

  Chapter 61

  IT FIGURED. It was exactly the kind of thing I would do. A creative solution to the problem. If I'd known there was a problem to be solved.

  "I thought we couldn't mess with history?" I communicated to Merlin.

  Tm not messing with it, Daniel, I'm facilitating it," he shot back.

  "Are we quite done here?" Arthur said at my elbow. "I'm not overly fond of crowds, mind you."

  "Daniel, give us a little help here. Arthur's a very worthy lad," I heard Merlin say inside my head. "Just needs a little confidence boost. A little push. So, push/"

  I moved a few steps closer to the boulder. Arthur followed me, looking bewildered. "What, are you going to give it a go?" he asked.

  "No. Not exactly. You are."

  Arthur backed away as if I were crazy--or an alien, for God's sake.

  "Are you mad? I'm a boy, a stepson who could never be king. I won't embarrass myself here. I will not do it."

  I grabbed his arm and held tight. "You won't embarrass yourself. You will take a pull at the sword. This is the way life works. You have to try. You have to take a risk sometimes."

  "No--you do it!" He held firm.

  Oh man, I thought to myself. What if I was the one who pulled the sword from the stone? What would that do to history?

  "I'm not... from around here. I'm not... English," I stammered. "It wouldn't be right."

  "Where are you from then, Daniel? France? Please don't tell me France."

  "Alpar Nok," I blurted. "The United States of America. Either-or. Take your pick."

  "I've never heard of either of them!" Arthur said and held his ground.

  "Who's next?" bellowed some kind of monk standing near the stone. "Who will be king of England? Who has the courage to be king?"

  I raised my hand high. "He will be!" I yelled above the crowd's murmur. "I'll go after you," I whispered in Arthur's ear. "And I have a tip for you too."

  "What--what tip?" stammered Arthur.

  "Wipe that other guy's spit off the hilt before you pull the sword out."

  Finally, finally, Arthur smiled. Then he patted me on the shoulder and walked up to the stone.

  "Well done," said Merlin inside my head. "That was exactly the push he needed. Firm, but not threatening. I'm impressed, Daniel."

  Now all I could do was watch.

  As soon as he put his hand on the hilt, he changed. It was as if Arthur was remembering something he'd forgotten since he was a child. Courage and knowledge flowed into his face and flooded the depths of his eyes.

  Whatever was happening to Arthur, the crowd sensed it too. In a matter of seconds they were whispering, jabbering, moving in closer to the stone. He didn't seem to notice. He was just staring up at the sky with wonder and sadness all mixed up in his face.

  "He changed! Did you do that?" I whispered to Merlin over our telepathic intercom.

  "I'm not that powerful," said Merlin. "By the way, make sure he doesn't swing me around too much, okay? I get motion sickness."

  Then Arthur gave a mighty yank at the sword in the stone--a truly heroic pull--and out it came.

  So what happened was history, not myth.

  Take my word for it. I was there.

  Chapter 62

  I WAS HAPPY for my new friend and all. Really.

  But I hadn't forgotten about my old friends, and my promise that I'd never put them in real danger again. And if Beta had anything to do with the fire at my house on that fateful day fourteen centuries later... well, I was going to get him before I got The Prayer--and I couldn't wait a minute longer.

  So in the late evening of the first day of celebrations hailing the new king of England, I found good ol' Pendy and bowed deeply before him.

  "My lord," I said in the most serious tone I could muster.

  "You needn't call me that, Daniel. If you'd not dropped into my life--"

  "Never mind about that. As long as I don't have to call you sir, I'm cool."

  Arthur looked bewildered by the term but grinned anyway, and I told him I was turning in for the night. Me
rlin was still partying down--and let me tell you, the dude knew how to get jiggy wit' it, Dark Ages style. I figured I had at least an hour to sneak into the mill and dig around for some clues. Frankly, I'd had it with Merlin playing the Medieval Man of Mystery all the time when we had a job to do.

  As I approached the mill I noticed a faint glimmer of candlelight through the window and stopped dead in my tracks. Was it possible that Merlin had beat me back? He was a wizard, after all. He could've zipped back on a broomstick if he'd wanted, although after all the ale he'd had to drink, I'd have seriously advised against it.

  I was about to create some night-vision goggles but then stopped myself, remembering I'd need to preserve whatever power I could in case I ended up in battle tonight. If I'd learned anything from this latest adventure, it was to conserve energy. I'd have to use good old-fashioned stealth instead.

  As I peered through the window I used no alien superpowers whatsoever--congratulate me--to cleverly deduce these three things: The figure I saw was too tall to be Merlin. Easy one.

  The figure appeared too pathetic and powerless to be alien. Didn't even need alien-radar for this one.

  The figure had the same goal I did: to find some specific piece of information buried in Merlin's leaning towers of parchment.

  As it turned out, the figure would make it a lot easier for me, since it took very little for this clumsy burglar to tip one of the towers. The material scattered everywhere.

  "Blast!" he hissed, putting his candle down on the floor and scrambling to shuffle the papers back together. But then he stopped dead in his tracks, moving the candle over to get a better view of something he'd spotted.

  "Ah, yes," he whispered, nodding as he committed the information to memory. Then, in a flash, he dashed out, the paper sailing behind him and drifting back down to the floor.

  I didn't need night-vision goggles to see him in the moonlight. On a hunch I decided to follow Sir Kay to wherever he was so very keen to go.

  Chapter 63

  IT WAS ALMOST midnight. I had spent the last hour breathing stifling air in the pitch-black tunnels of a coal mine, which was actually a natural cave a few miles away, where the locals would dig up coal a basketful at a time.