Prince of Time

by Tara Janzen

  If he could.

  “Won, aye. But ready?” Tamisk asked, and in the pool the dragons roared.

  Shaken, Morgan looked back at the water. Flames shot out of the beasts more immense and fierce than before, with more hot white core than haloing rainbow colors. He stepped back, feeling the shocking heat of the blast like a violent desert wind. The dragons’ next blast licked up the sides of the bowl and broke free of the vision, dancing upon the water in a scorching conflagration. He retreated again, wary of the mage’s power, but there was no escape. Tendrils of the dragons’ white-hot fire leaped out of the mazer and snaked around his arms, cutting him like razor-sharp blades. Morgan gasped with the pain.

  “Stop it, Tamisk!” he heard Avallyn cry out. “He is no Dragonlord.”

  “No, he is not,” the mage agreed coldly. “He is only a man with the fate of the world in his hands. If there be any chance for him to live, let him be tempered by dragonfire, and let us see who forged his rune-chased blade... Scyld.”

  The mage no sooner invoked the sword’s name than the flames snaked down Morgan’s arms and leapt onto the sword’s grip, turning it into a searing brand in his hand. Blood followed the fire snake’s path, running from his wounds. The wide ivory rings fitted around the sword’s tang cracked and crumbled to the grass, smoking. The metal on the grip turned soft, then liquid, melting away between Morgan’s fingers in agonizing streams of molten gold and silver, burning him to the bone. Yet his fingers remained whole.

  Pain dragged him to his knees, and he doubled over, a silent scream lodged in his throat. Gods save him! How could his flesh not be charred to ashes? What magic could create such vile torment?

  He tried to let go of the sword, but ’twas melded to his palm. When the last of the precious metals poured out onto the blade, there was naught left of the grip but a burning rod of sky blue crystal with a violet core.

  Gasping for breath, in agony, Morgan stared at the sword as if seeing it for the first time. Gold had run into every rune, making them glitter and shine. The silver had hardened in beads along the length of the blade’s channels, giving the sword an odd aspect. The cutting edges were stained a smoky dark purple.

  “Edge of Sorrow,” he heard Tamisk say. “The gridelin poison conjured in the Waste from the sap of the bia tree.”

  “Release him, Tamisk,” Avallyn cried. “He is Claerwen’s, and as a Priestess of the Bones, I demand it!”

  “In time,” was the mage’s reply.

  In time, Morgan would die of the pain. In time, he was certain his hand would char and he would suffocate from the searing heat.

  “A Magia Blade,” Tamisk murmured. “Do you not see it, priestess?”

  “I see you hurting him for no reason.”

  “No reason?” the mage exclaimed. “How else is a Magia Blade to be revealed except by the hand that wields it?”

  “It will do us no good, if he’s dead or—” She stopped, not finishing her thought.

  “Or broken?” Tamisk finished for her. “Is that your fear? That I’ll break him with one test of valor? And what good would he do you then, Lady Avallyn, when you stand before Kryscaven Crater and contemplate the unleashing of Dharkkum? Will he stand then? Or flee?”

  Flee, Morgan silently screamed, if he had any sense, but sense was quickly being burned out of him. He would flee now, if he could, but pain held him in its fiery grip, and he could not move.

  “No?” Tamisk asked him, one eyebrow lifted, his eyes wickedly bright and green. Green. The color of Old Earth. “Are you so sure?”

  The bastard could read his mind.

  “Well, let us see,” the mage said, turning to Avallyn. “If you would not have him tempered, Priestess, then take the dragonfire upon yourself.” Tamisk made a small gesture, and a ball of fire burst into flames at her feet.

  “No!” Morgan roared, leaping up and swinging his blade in a killing blow against the mage and his magic.

  The blow never landed, but was stopped in midair by a lift of Tamisk’s hand and a spoken word. Morgan’s arm trembled with the force of power pushing the blade back from the mage’s body. Sweat ran down his face, stinging his eyes. The fire at Avallyn’s feet vanished, and the fire in the crystal grip was gone suddenly as well, and the burning pain. Scyld was yet a sword again, albeit one far different than before.

  Morgan knew dreamstone, and dreamstone was Scyld’s core. The light pulsed from its violet heart and streamed through his fingers.

  “Your instincts are good, prince,” Tamisk said, releasing him with another gesture and word.

  Scyld fell to his side, its point embedding in the dirt, his arm too tired to hold it. With his other hand, he wiped the sweat from his face. His gaze was riveted to the mage, while in his mind, he debated whether or not to kill the bastard.

  He could.

  With Scyld, he could. He knew it, and his eyes bored into Tamisk, willing him to read his mind yet one more time and see what truth he may.

  “Perhaps,” the mage conceded, “but you have far more deadly enemies than me, Morgan ab Kynan, and we are all best served if you deal with them. Don’t you agree?”

  Ignoring Tamisk, Morgan turned to Avallyn. “Are you hurt?” His voice was hoarse, barely intelligible.

  “I am unharmed, dread lord,” she said softly, looking stricken. Her face was pale, her eyes wide. “I fear I have not served you well to bring you here.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I am served in this.”

  He hated what they faced and loathed the mage for giving him such excruciating pain, remnants of which were flashing beneath his skin and shooting up his arm—but he was served.

  Dragons.

  “I want to see them,” he said to Tamisk, and the mage nodded.

  “They await you in the past.”

  “And Mychael ab Arawn?”

  Tamisk shrugged, a slight, graceful lift of one shoulder. “He survived the battle, but the cost was high in terms of the years of his life. For certes Llynya of the Light-elves will still be living when you return to Wales. Their fight with Dharkkum in the Fifth Age did not take so much from her. Of course, she was Yr Is-ddfwn, from Rhayne’s own line of the Starlight-born, the purest line of descent for the fair folk. Mychael’s blood was much mixed with that of men, with his strongest line coming down through the priestesses.”

  Morgan wiped his face again and returned his gaze to the pool. Instantly, he felt the lure of the beasts. His blood sang when they roared, and the fiery remnants of pain became easier to bear, for ’twas dragonfire.

  Tamisk’s gift.

  “The weir will be destabilized if you are successful. There is little chance that you will be able to return—but mayhaps once more through the weir is all you’ll wish.”

  Morgan slanted the mage a considering glance, meeting his too-green eyes.

  Tamisk smiled faintly. “Neither Palinor nor the High Priestess of Claerwen will thank me for awakening the dragonfire in you, but the Priestesses of the Bones have forever known more of death than of men.”

  Morgan looked to Avallyn and saw her stricken expression turn to one of wary concern—as well it should. The barriers had been destroyed. The decision had been made, whether ’twas by Tamisk’s magic or a true writ of fate. He would have her.

  “She is a willing sacrifice,” Tamisk said, “but I trust that you will put her life before yours.”

  “Aye,” Morgan answered, not taking his eyes off her.

  “And that you will protect her to your dying breath, and if the sword so allows, even beyond your death.”

  “Aye.” There was no hesitation. She was safer with him than anywhere in the galaxy or beyond. And for what she must do and where she must go, to the past to battle Dharkkum, he was the one, the only one, who had a chance of bringing her back alive.

  “And that her quest will be yours, the banner for you to take up whether she lives or dies.”

  “Aye.” But she would live. She had to live. They were bound by fate, and bl
ood, and fire, dragonfire, and she was his. Avallyn Le Severn, Princess of the White Palace and Priestess of the Bones, was his in this world and the last.

  Chapter 17

  Avallyn sensed the change in him, and it was not one she welcomed. She now had what she had professed to want, the Prince of Time committed to Claerwen’s goals. He would journey through the weir and return to his own time. He knew now what danger they would face, and he was willing to face it. But the cost to her was greater than she had foreseen.

  The balance of power had shifted.

  She was no longer in charge.

  “What dragon’s fire have you given him, Tamisk?” she asked. “He is not a Dragonlord. Nor is he meant to be.”

  “Not even I can confer dragonfire where it is not already present,” Tamisk said. “You see the Magia Blade in his hand. Dragonlord or nay, the sword is his, and we should thank the gods it is so.”

  “So Stept Agah’s line ran true?”

  “True enough, it seems, for our purposes. All may not be lost.”

  His words sent a chill down her back, reminding her of her suspicions when she’d deep-scented Morgan.

  “You thought it was?” she asked. The outcome aside, the journey itself was too fraught with danger for it to be embarked upon as a fool’s mission.

  “I have wondered,” the mage admitted, “and I have doubted, and of late my biggest doubt was that you could even lay your hands upon such an... unexpected prince, let alone bring him to me. In truth, I did all that I could to have another sent in your place, an Ilmarryn maid whose magic is less naive and whose loyalty to the White Palace supersedes that to Claerwen. Your mother was adamant in your favor, though, and so we are here. But come. Time is short.”

  With a gesture for them to follow, he turned and walked out of the glade. Avallyn hazarded a glance at Morgan and was again unnerved. The differences in him were subtle, but telling. The white blaze in his raven black hair shone brighter. His eyes were an even deeper shade of blue, like the night-dark sea of Dragonmere by torchlight. The energy of his life force nearly arced off him. For ten years he had lived in her world, a stranger surviving by his wits and thievery. Now he was going back to his. Tamisk had shown him his purpose in the pool, and in purpose was power. More than the dragonfire that had tempered his hand and revealed his sword, ’twas purpose she saw lighting the depths of his eyes—and she instinctively felt that she was part of that purpose, a great part. Verily, her sense of alarm grew with every heated look he sent her way.

  Reason enough to be unnerved, and to be wary. His kisses were wondrous, but Palinor had forbidden any congress between them, a fact he had already dismissed as meaningless. Yet mayhaps her mother had been right. Mayhaps to mate with him was not in her best interest, despite the wonder of his kisses. ’Twas no loss of virginity she feared, but further loss of power. In his current state, Morgan would consume her.

  Sweet Mother, what woman wouldn’t be leery? The High Priestesses of Claerwen were always virgin, and Avallyn knew a part of Palinor resented the sacrifice she’d been chosen to make—to breed a daughter to save the world, and with an Ilmarryn Magia Lord, her last choice, if there had been any choices to be made; and to always be relegated to the second tier of priestesses, to know she could never rise any higher, despite her talents, her intelligence, and her yearning to rule.

  Palinor had not been given a choice, but Avallyn could make one. Palinor had forbidden her to have any sort of physical intimacy with the Prince of Time, and she expected to be obeyed. Avallyn, though, had already taken it upon herself to kiss him. She could as easily take it upon herself to choose power over a man’s love—if ’twas love she saw burning in his gaze. Her inexperience gave her no way of gauging the difference between love and lust. Perhaps the dragonfire had ignited some beastly desire in his heart that was far outside the bounds of a love-filled joining.

  The thought heightened her alarm and sent her hurrying after Tamisk. Best then to choose power, she assured herself, and save herself from ravishment.

  Morgan smiled to himself, sheathing Scyld. Avallyn was thinking too hard. He could see it on her face. What was to happen between them was inevitable and not to be feared. What was to happen to them in the past, though, was a different matter. If he was truly to be her protector, the greatest protection he could offer would be to leave her behind when he went through the weir. He would have Llynya to help him, and possibly Mychael, and Owain and the mage, if he and Ailfinn Mapp had survived their years in Kryscaven Crater. If not, he would have the old woman’s book.

  Aye, it all came back to the books. The mage’s, which Tamisk wanted, and Ceridwen’s, the Red Book which had brought him to such a pass.

  Tamisk had said time was short. Morgan felt it as well, but there were things he had to learn before they left the mage’s tower, especially if he was going back alone.

  He brushed aside an overhanging branch and saw another copper orb skimming through the leaves. Two more followed, drifting down from higher up, one spinning in from the outer expanse of the tree, all of them seeming to trail after Tamisk.

  Or not seeming, for when Morgan caught up to the mage, the orbs were lined up behind him, hovering in midair in front of an ancient spherical contraption Morgan remembered from Dain’s time in the tower. In the twelfth century, no one save Dain had dared the Hart’s eyrie for fear of the mechanical mystery lodged within its curved walls. Facing it now, Morgan realized the wariness had been well deserved. A strange hum of energy emanated from the spherical skeleton of bronze rings and the dreamstone pillar they circled around, making the hair on the back of his neck rise.

  In Dain’s time, only the rods holding the orbs had moved, sliding along grooves in the outside rims of the rings. But this—this great rolling of the whole circular framework was indeed indicative of a thing of power.

  “Do not be alarmed,” Tamisk said, reaching for another of the orbs hanging off one of the rigs.

  Morgan didn’t think Tamisk could do too much more to alarm him after what had happened at the scrying pool.

  He was wrong.

  “Llagor, Rakis,” the mage murmured, releasing the orb into the air.

  The energy hum instantly rocketed upward to a far more disturbing degree. Morgan felt it pulsing through his veins.

  “Once Ailfinn’s book is retrieved,” Tamisk said, raising his voice to be heard above the hum, “Avallyn must bring it back to the Hart and place it in the chamber that lies within the sphere’s pedestal.”

  “Why Avallyn?” he asked.

  “Because her blood is the key that opens the way into the heart of the pillar.”

  There was no equivocation, only a blunt statement of an unacceptable truth. His thought to leave her behind was no good.

  “How much blood?” Morgan asked, holding himself in check, his sword hand tightening into a fist at his side.

  “A small measure only, a few drops each time we set a book into the chamber,” Tamisk said without bothering to glance in his direction. The mage’s attention was fully on the orbs. He sent another spinning into the air, then another, and another, until there were eight in all, each with a name. The energy leapt to new heights with each release.

  Morgan was rooted to the spot where he stood, his whole body—right down to the cells in his brain—in thrall to the rhythmic pulses coming from the sphere.

  Tamisk did look at Avallyn when he pulled three small vials out of his pocket. The potions inside were deep red, and Morgan thought there was a good chance that the vials held the princess’s all-important blood. For certes, she seemed least affected by the sphere’s force field. For himself Morgan wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

  One by one, the five newly released orbs finished their paths and lined up with the others, until all eight had formed a ring, a spinning wheel crowning the pillar above the circling rings. As the orbs spun, a portal opened and revealed a hand’s-width tunnel bored into the crystal. Tamisk removed the three vials already resti
ng on a shelf inside the chamber and set them on a nearby table, next to a large, ornate, orange-colored book. Then he replaced the old vials with two of the fresh ones from his pocket. And again he looked toward Avallyn.

  “Priestess?” He extended his hand to her. “Will you set the Gratte Bron Le yourself?”

  Her expression grimly resigned, Avallyn stepped forward. Satisfied, Tamisk dropped the third fresh vial back in his pocket and took out a pre-taped bandage.

  Morgan instantly understood and caught her with his hand on her arm. “Let him use the blood he already has. You don’t have to do this.”

  “But I do,” she said simply. “From my vein to the chamber is the surest path.” And he knew it to be true.

  Whatever love they found was secondary to their purpose, and perhaps of all the truths he’d been forced to face, Morgan resented that most of all. Dharkkum and the wormhole terrified him, but those were his battles. This thing with Avallyn’s blood was outside of him, and he didn’t want any part of her outside of him—especially if it could bring her harm.

  Steeling himself for what might happen, he watched her approach the armillary sphere and put her hand and arm through the spinning wheel and into the crystal tunnel. A ray of light flashed, cutting her deep, and she gasped, all of her muscles tensing.

  Morgan stepped forward, his gaze riveted by the steam of blood spurting from her arm, but he was stopped by Tamisk taking quick hold of him.

  “It’s a small amount they take,” the mage said, his gaze fixed on Avallyn. “And the prize is well worth the price. Look.”

  With a precise bit of sleight of hand, Morgan took advantage of the mage’s moment of rapt attention. It took less than a second to accomplish his goal, but in that second, Avallyn’s blood had pooled inside the crystal chamber. He watched it flow in a stream toward the center of the pillar, where it disappeared from sight. In moments, a window opened at the far end of the chamber, a window of light. Avallyn immediately pulled her arm free. Her face was drawn, her body shaking, and Tamisk moved forward and handed her the bandage. Behind the window, another chamber was spinning. Round and round it went until it slowly coasted to a stop.