Heart of Valor - V1 Dec 2004

by Lisa Jane Smith

  And, though she cast portal after portal in a mad expenditure of power, she was too late. By the time she reached England, Arthur was dying.

  The knights tending him on the field of battle gave way before her, watching her with frightened eyes. She knelt beside him.

  “Is it … done?” He spoke with great effort.

  The tears Morgana had held back with Merlin could be held back no longer. “Yes, Your Majesty. It is done.”

  “He … didn’t suffer?”

  “No,” she whispered, and watched him nod once, content. She followed his feeble gesture toward a gleam of silver on the ground.

  “Lady … your gift. I have no need of swords now. …”

  When she took it he sank back and closed his eyes. Then, very softly: “Guinevere …”

  He could say no more, but he didn’t need to. She understood.

  “Your Majesty, I will protect her. I will keep her safe as long as she lives.”

  Arthur smiled.

  Later, it would be said that the Lady of the Lake and two other beautiful maidens dressed in black came in a barge to carry the body of King Arthur over the sea to Avalon. This was not true. Morgana had made a promise to protect the living. It was a promise she kept as best she could.

  *

  In the red convertible speeding north Alys stirred and moaned, her head tossing. Janie, behind the wheel, heard it but did not look back. Her eyes stayed fixed grimly on the roadway, except when dropping even more grimly to glance again at her wrist.

  Alys had been having nightmares for some time, but no amount of shaking or shouting would wake her. And on Janie’s wrist, the crystal in her bracelet had shattered.

  FIFTEEN

  The Old Straight Track

  “Claudia.” Janie spoke without taking her eyes off the road. “I think I remember from last summer that we have to drive through San Francisco to get to Point Reyes. Look in the glove compartment and see if there’s a map of the city.”

  Claudia rubbed her fist over her eyes. “Ummmm …” she said, trying to sound too sleepy to do it.

  “It’s easy. Just pull out all the maps and see if one says San Francisco in big white letters on the front. First just look for SAN, okay?” Janie’s voice was impatient, and Claudia flinched, fingertips tracing the outline of the amulet under her shirt. But it could not help her now.

  Slowly, she pulled out the maps and looked at them in despair. Big white letters swam and muddled in her mind.

  Even more impatiently: “All right, you spell it for me. Read out the white letters you see.” When Claudia made no answer she snapped, “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you read?”

  Claudia swallowed and thought of black letters on white pages, swimming and muddling in Mrs. Anderson’s classroom. Getting backward and out of order. She bowed her head.

  Janie glanced at her sharply. Eyes back on the road, she said, “But you read at school. You have a reader.”

  “I guess a lot,” said Claudia in a small voice. “And—I copy the other kids… .” It was only when she had to read by herself that she had trouble. It was like a secret code everyone understood but her. She swallowed again.

  “Why didn’t you tell anybody?”

  Claudia shook her head. Until this year she had thought letters were like that for everyone, jumping around and mixing themselves up every time your back was turned. “I didn’t want anybody to think I was stupid.” She looked at Janie pleadingly. Didn’t want anybody to know I was stupid, she added in her own mind “You’re not stupid,” said Janie. She said it without emotion, but it woke a spark of warmth in Claudia.

  “You really think I’m not?”

  “I know you’re not. You may have a learning disability. That’s something that can make it harder for you to learn to read. But it doesn’t make you stupid. There are special books, special classes that can help if you do have one. When we get home we’ll talk with Mom and Dad about it. And with your teacher.”

  The tiny warmth grew and spread, filling Claudia’s chest. Maybe she could learn to read after all. She’d never be smart like Janie, but … just to read, like the other kids, to break that secret code! Right now she wouldn’t even mind talking with Mrs. Anderson. Right now if she saw her she would probably hug her.

  “That’s when we get home.” Janie’s voice brought her back to reality. “Right now we’d better pull over. I need a map and it’s time I checked in the visioning circle again. Get that rabbit ready.”

  “His name,” said Claudia, surprising herself, “is Benjamin.”

  Ten minutes later, Janie looked up from the shaving mirror, violet eyes dark and worried.

  “What is it?”

  “Two very, very big hot spots of power. One near Point Reyes, yes. But another one much nearer. Just north of San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge.” Janie’s voice hardened. “And I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

  *

  “…

  lys? Thank heavens. No, don’t go ba …” “… ‘mon now. Just please try …”

  “Alys!”

  Alys sat bolt upright, heart pounding. The dark outside the car was full of tall, shadowy shapes. Tall? Towering. There were trees at Point Reyes, but …

  “Where are we?”

  “So,” said Janie dryly. “You’ve finally decided to join the living. We’re at Muir Woods.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because,” said Janie, “something very big has happened here. And because Morgana is in trouble.” She held the heavy bracelet aloft. Alys blinked at it stupidly, still feeling half-asleep. “To give you an idea of how big,” continued Janie, “look at this.” The shaving mirror was one solid blaze of green with only threads of reddish background.

  “Makes Elwyn and the entire Wild Hunt look like fireflies in comparison,” she said.

  Alys nodded, but she scarcely heard the last words. Her attention was turned inward. She didn’t know how, but she knew Morgana was in trouble. She sensed it. She raised her eyes to meet Janie’s.

  “Looks like that thing won’t be much help in getting an exact location for us.”

  “You’re right. This whole place is supersaturated with magic. But there is a center to it somewhere. We’ll just have to do our best and hope.”

  Alys reached down for the sword, then gasped and dropped it. It hadn’t done that since the first time she’d touched it. She rubbed her arm, then, jaw set, reached again. This time she was able to keep her hold on it.

  “Let’s go.”

  They took a few things from the car with them. The flashlight. Janie’s virtue wand. A few granola bars. Benjamin, who didn’t want to go but yielded, trembling, to Claudia’s persuasion.

  Alys had hiked through Muir Woods before. In the daylight. On the trails. This was different.

  They steered clear of the campsites, heading away from the one fire pit they glimpsed in the distance. At first they followed a trail, but presently, after a doubtful consultation with the rabbit, Janie led them off it into the damp pungent” world beneath the trees. She was the only one who could see much, having the flashlight. Alys felt a twinge at leaving the trail behind. It was their last connection to civilization, to normal life, to outside help. Once in the wood they were on their own.

  The great trees stood all around them like sentinels. Furrowed trunks soared straight up for thirty or forty feet before branching to form a canopy that obscured the sky. Fortunately, few plants could live in the perpetual dimness below, and so the underbrush was not as thick as it might have been. Still, Alys found herself dragging the heavy sword through low-growing ferns and over and under trunks that had fallen or, for some reason, chosen to grow horizontally. She gritted her teeth against the ache in her arm.

  The only sounds to be heard were the steady crunch and crackle of their footsteps and the occasional grunt of effort. And—a creaking. Alys, without knowing it, slowed her pace to listen. It was not like the creaking of a door hinge or gate. It was m
uch louder, deeper, almost a moan.

  “It’s the trees,” said Claudia, a note of hysteria in her voice. Alys realized the others had stopped, too.

  “Never mind,” she said, trying to sound reassuring and pushing away the picture of one of those giant columns creaking and tearing and crashing down. “It probably always sounds like this.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Claudia was almost sobbing. “It’s too quiet. There aren’t any animals. “

  Alys realized this was true. Standing silent like this she heard nothing but the groan of the trees, and, very, very far away, the screech of a horned owl.

  “They’ve been frightened off—” began Janie, but she stopped and they all gasped. So quickly that it was over before they could react, the world had lit up. Every leaf, every needle, was illuminated from above and behind. And for that instant the black forest had turned green, not just ordinary green, but a neon, ultra, incandescent spring green medley. Benjamin thrashed in Claudia’s arms, trying to thump his back feet. While they were still gaping a crash of thunder split the sky.

  “Must be right above us,” said Janie.

  It didn’t matter much. The woods were already damp and the canopy protected them. But every so often that flash would come, searing their eyes for an instant, banishing the shadows, showing them just how far away the treetops really were. And the thunder was deafening.

  Every so often Janie would stop to consult with Benjamin and Claudia. At last, under a massive tree decked with lichen, they stopped dead.

  “He’s tired,” said Claudia, near tears herself. “And he never wanted to come in the first place and he only did it because he loves me and he’s terrified. “

  “I don’t care if he’s terrified. I want a straight answer! Which way?”

  Claudia knelt in the grass and bent close over Benjamin. He was trembling with exhaustion and it occurred to Alys suddenly that he was probably no longer saying anything at all. When Claudia at last looked up, Alys felt sure.

  “That way,” Claudia said, pointing defiantly.

  Alys followed the gesture, then she shook her head. “No. This way.”

  “Alys—”

  “It’s not just bossiness, Janie. I know. Don’t ask me how, but I do.” She tried to peer through the shadows at Janie’s skeptical face. “Will you once,” she added wryly, “just please trust me?”

  There was a silence. Then, with a sigh, Janie surrendered. She handed Alys the flashlight.

  Purposefully, not daring to explore the sensation of knowing too closely lest she lose it, Alys led them on. At times the scent of crushed bay leaves rose around them as they passed through a space left open by the redwoods. Twice they had to cross small creeks, scooting precariously along the moss-covered trunks that spanned the icy water only to struggle through wet masses of bracken on the other side. Claudia fell in.

  They came to a clearing ringed with laurel trees.

  “Very close,” said Alys, and then: “Morgana!”

  They ran to her, the flashlight wavering crazily. She was lying on her side, turned away from them, the Gold Staff hugged close to her body. Her eyes were shut, her skin pale against the blanket of dark green needles. Alys bent over her and then a flash of lightning illuminated the scene behind her.

  “What happened?” gasped Claudia.

  Alys could only shake her head dumbly, the details of that image seared on her eyelids. A tree, a monolithic tree, towering, majestic, its living heart exploded outward. What was left was a gaping charred hollow in the trunk with smoldering strips of bark still clinging to the edges of the hole. The entire clearing was littered with splinters blown outward by the blast.

  “He got out,” she said, answering the question at last.

  “Who?”

  Alys turned the flashlight on Janie and saw that Janie knew. “Someone unfriendly,” she said, reaching for Morgana.

  She meant to shake her. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even touch the little sorceress. A thin, almost greasy-feeling shield resisted her fingers. It was as if a layer of air only molecules thick separated them from Morgana’s skin.

  “The wards have collapsed,” said Janie, squatting beside Alys. Her face was bleak.

  Alys read that expression without difficulty. “And you can’t uncollapse them.”

  “Not without a Silver Staff at the very least. A Gem of Power would be more like it.”

  “You opened a rent in our wards at home.”

  “I loosened one of the ward anchors for a few minutes. Alys, those wards were strong enough for our purposes, but they were only a double-layered octagon. Only seventeen anchor points, including the central one. This shield of Morgana’s has one hundred eighty-two, and every one of them as tough as steel. Nothing can get through that, not sound or light or touch or magic.”

  What about memory, thought Alys. The fragments of dreams, scenes like snapshots which flickered as suddenly as the lightning behind her closed lids, were clearer now. They came more frequently. Scarcely aware of what she was doing, she leaned over and placed both hands on Morgana’s back. She shut her eyes.

  “Alys … ?”

  She ignored it. Sun on the lake near the Forest of Darnantes. The darkness of Tintagel tower at night. Silver eyes and a heartbreakingly terrible smile. A Gem that glowed blue like the sky at midmorning.

  “Go on,” whispered Janie behind her. “You’re doing it.”

  The swirl of a gray cloak, the sound of mocking laughter. The coppery smell of blood on a battlefield, the salty taste of tears. Blue eyes, weary and sad, gazing beyond her. And the Gem, the Gem that brought destruction, the stone in the sword …

  Something melted away beneath her fingers and she was touching warm cloth. With a twitch and a sneeze Morgana rolled over, opening wide dark eyes.

  She and Alys stared at each other. Then a flash of lightning blinded and when Alys could see again the little sorceress was on her feet, gazing into the sky above the clearing intently, body taut as a bow.

  “I should have realized you’d come,” she said at last, her attention abruptly back on them. Her eyes dropped to the sword, and she nodded, unsurprised. She swept Janie and Claudia with a glance.

  “We got chased out,” said Janie. “Thia Pendriel sent boojums.”

  “And so of course you at once made for a place of safety,” said Morgana dryly. Then she shook her head. “Never mind. Of course, I am grateful, and once again in your debt. But I must go now, and you cannot follow me. Merlin will have joined Thia Pendriel by now. If they force the Passage open and get through to Weerien the Council will not know to stop them. And they must be stopped.”

  “But can’t we—”

  “No! You children stay. Stay here. With the vixen.” She glanced around, a line appearing between her brows. “Where is the vixen?”

  Janie froze. “She … well, she—”

  “There’s no time now. We’ll discuss it later. Try to get out of the woods if you can. Things are about to happen. Now stand back!”

  Alys had seen a portal cast before. It was not, however, the sort of thing you got used to. Morgana thrust out the Gold Staff and a light sizzled from it, corkscrewing to outline a helix that swirled and dazzled like a tunnel of gold. It punched straight through the trees and extended as far as the eye could see north. While they were all still gasping Morgana stepped into the tunnel and it disappeared.

  “You’re welcome,” shouted Alys as the last bit of gold winked out. They were left alone with the flashlight and the cherry red embers surrounding the charred hollow. Janie stood, gazing, as Morgana had, at the northern sky.

  “Now what’s that?” snarled Alys, offended, when she followed her gaze.

  Janie, eyes on the ribbons of rainbow-hued light which could barely be seen above the trees at the edge of the clearing, shrugged. “The aurora borealis?” she offered.

  “We’re not that far north.”

  The ground lurched below them.

  “I think Morgana has arrived.”


  “But how do we get there?”

  Janie, suddenly serene, turned to face her. “You know, you are crazy,” she said equably. “I don’t know. Let’s sit down and think.”

  *

  Elwyn was gazing down at the Pacific Ocean, white-tipped waves crashing far below. “There. I told you you’d like it.”

  Charles eased himself gingerly to the edge of the precipice. Lightning flickered somewhere near the horizon. “Oh, sure I like it. But I’ve got to go back now. And how do we get down?” He turned back to Elwyn who was watching him, cerulean eyes fixed on his face, moonlit hair blowing about her. It made him feel strange.

  “Do you like me?” said Elwyn abruptly. He hadn’t expected her to answer his question; Elwyn never answered questions. He didn’t see why it should bother him now. “Because,” she said, softly, “I like you.”

  She was deranged, birdwitted, weak in the upper story. She was also ravishingly pretty and smelled like night-blooming jasmine. Before Charles had the first idea what he was going to do, he had grabbed her and kissed her.

  Elwyn laughed blithely. An indescribable sound, thought Charles dizzily, something between birds and bells. She leaned over and kissed him back.

  “Listen,” said Charles, sitting down hard. “I’ve got to get back to my sisters.”

  “Shoosh,” said Elwyn, sinking gracefully down herself. She sparkled, glowed, lilted when she talked. He leaned forward and shut his eyes.

  Lightning flashed red against his closed lids, and thunder cracked like a mirror being broken. Charles jerked back.

  “There aren’t any clouds. “

  Elwyn looked up, then down. “It’s that Gem thing,” she said patiently. “It does thus when wielded.”

  “What? Heart of Valor?” He leaped up.

  Elwyn now looked disconsolate—and, yes, vexed. “No,” she said, frowning, “the other.”

  “What? Never mind. Elwyn, I’ve got to get over there. To wherever it is the Gem is being used. No—wait; I’ve got to get to my sisters, first. Elwyn,”—he took her by the shoulders and shook her, looking into that forget-me-not gaze—“Elwyn, I know this is hard for you, but for the love of Mike will you please try to tune in for a second? I need you to listen to me.”