“You could have tried just a bit harder to resist her,” Savaric said weakly, glancing at Elias.
“Shut it, Savaric. You know as well as I do that she would have gotten what she wanted in no time. She’s so powerful … impossible to resist.”
Savaric shrugged. “What did you give her?”
“The two pieces of the map leading to the first two keys.”
Savaric nodded.
“She’ll be back for the third eventually.”
“Good. Let her try.”
Savaric sniggered. “What, you’ll be ready for a fight next time? Going to start working on your magical powers between now and then?”
“Nay,” Elias said. “Won’t be necessary.”
Savaric raised his eyebrows at him and waited for a fuller answer.
Elias turned his head away.
“Well? Speak!” Savaric said.
“You see, it won’t be necessary because we don’t have it.”
“WE? What do you mean WE don’t have it?”
Elias cringed. “The scribe in the market. He stole it from me.”
Savaric slumped against the wall, completely defeated. His head dropped to his hands. After a long silence, he said, “That’s it, then. It’s over. We’ll never know what it said.”
A few moments later, Elias said from his corner, “That’s not entirely true.”
Savaric sighed. “And what do you mean by that, ye useless waif?”
Elias glowered at him. “Useless! See if I tell you, then!”
“Sorry,” Savaric replied curtly after a short silence. “How is it not true?”
Elias continued to glower at him. “Because, you … you heartless beast, I got the same scribe to translate it before he stole it from me.”
“Oh?” Savaric’s face turned hopeful. “Did you memorize it?”
“Yes,” came the spiteful reply. “If we ever get out of here, which is probably never, we can have a happy little trip together looking for …” Elias looked hard at him and bobbed his head toward the door of the cell. “Whatever it is the maps lead to.”
They turned away from each other, and silence prevailed for the rest of the day. When the daily meal came, arriving in two bowls sloshing on the floor, the boys were much more interested in eating. After slurping up the gloppy, undefinable mush, Savaric said, “I’ve seen her before.”
Elias, licking his fingers for every possible morsel of food, looked at him unimpressed. “Impossible. You’re just recovering from being ill. Stop speaking nonsense.”
“No, really…”
“How is your knee, by the way.”
“It’s finally healing, thanks. But really, I know I’ve seen her before.”
“Where then—you’ve only lived in your village and never gone anywhere else until now. On this journey, I’ve been with you most of the time. Except…”
“Yes, yes. Except the times we—or you—have been locked up. I know. Let it rest.”
“Fine,” Elias said with a wave of his hand.
Savaric retreated into deep thought for a while, eyes closed, his face creased into an angry look. Suddenly his eyes opened wide, and his expression changed to surprise.
“I know—I’ve got it.”
“Where then,” Elias said evenly.
“She was the woman I saw in my dreams, the woman who was walking through the woods. Remember I told you?”
“Oh yes, you said you dreamed about a beautiful woman, when you told me about the wolf pack.”
“Yes, that’s it. It’s strange, I remember the dream so clearly. She was walking through the woods, glowing, just like she did here. Then she got closer and changed into a crow with the head of a dragon. It rushed right up to me with its mouth wide open and spouting flames. But the flames were different; they burned me, but not with heat.”
Elias looked at him, surprised. “Do you think that’s what she meant when she said she had been looking for you? In your dreams?”
Savaric returned the surprised look. “I don’t know. I suppose that could be true. I don’t know what she could want with me. Somehow she knew about…well, you know. I wish I knew what these maps lead to. A lot of people have gone to a lot of trouble to find us and take them away.”
Elias nodded. “It’ll be a miracle if we ever find out.” He paused, thinking. “It’s funny, in a pathetic kind of way, but I’m the one who’s supposed to get my parents out of prison. Now I’m locked up. And they have no idea. We’ll probably rot away in here.”
Savaric nodded and sighed. “Don’t lose hope yet, Elias. We still have something they all want. Something will change eventually.” With that, he lay down on the cold stone floor and settled in to try to sleep.
Hours later, in the middle of the night, a sliver of moon rose above the mountain, far above the cell deep below. The moonlight shone weakly over the land around the mountain. Trees showed dark blue against the inky sky. A crow flew in and came to rest on a branch above a clearing on the mountain’s flank. Two guards stood next to a large boulder. Their hulking presence would seem strange to the casual observer, guarding an empty, lifeless mountain. Curious villagers from all around knew of the mountain and would come to peek at the two seemingly useless guards standing at attention guarding nothing. They were all hoping to see what some had claimed to see—Morgain le Fey walking to the mountainside, melting into the rock, and disappearing.
But this night the observers were not curious villagers but a small band of men, armed with shields, swords, knives, and arrows. They observed the post from across the clearing then split up, flanking the mountain on both sides of the entrance.
The band of men waited until light shone from behind the boulder, showing that the entrance to the mountain had opened. Moving silently, they attacked the two guards, dispatching the sleepy men with quick flicks of their knives. They moved quietly into the tunnel behind the section of mountain that had been carved away to make the entrance. A tunnel chipped into the rock stretched deep into the mountain. Seizing the torches from the sconces on the wall, the men made their way down the tunnel. A heavy scraping sound behind them made them turn their heads toward the entrance. The massive stone door had closed behind them. The men glanced at each other and grimly moved further down the tunnel.
The leader walked forward, watching down the tunnel for reinforcements from the guards. Suddenly he pitched forward, his foot slipping into a dark shaft dropping far below. A shower of pebbles and dirt fell away. The man behind him quickly grabbed his chain mail and pulled him back.
“Careful, my lord.”
“Yes, Bedivere. Thank ye,” the leader said. He swung the torch down toward the gap in the ground, lighting the sides. The light faded away after twenty feet, leaving the rest of the gap in darkness. A wooden ladder leaned on the side, but only extended beyond the top of the hole by an inch. The first rung required a deep step down, with nothing to grasp for balance above.
“Hold this, you two, while I get on.”
“Yes, my lord.” The two men dropped to the ground and extended their arms to steady the ladder below. The leader turned his body and used the men’s heads and chain mail for support to clamber down. When he had made it to the end of the ladder, he called up, “Throw a torch down.”
The torch lit the rock walls as it fell and sputtered when it hit the sand at the bottom. The leader quickly scooped it up. As he brandished the torch, he crouched into a fighting position. Whipping the torch from side to side revealed three passageways leading away, stretching into the darkness.
He called up the gap, “Follow.”
A few seconds later a man dropped into the space beside him. “Already am following,” he said cheerfully.
“Good. Watch those passages. I’ll watch this one.” The two men stood back-to-back, watching alertly as the rest of the band steadily dropped into the space around them.
Down one of the passageways, a tiny prick of light floated languorously through the air. Bedivere blinked and ru
bbed his eyes. When he looked again, it had come only a little bit closer, moving at the stately pace of a great river. “My lord,” he said.
The leader turned around and looked in the same direction as Bedivere. He squinted his eyes at the distant light, and his face tightened. His hand went for his weapon, drawing out an enormous sword. As soon as the blade cleared its sheath, the blade glowed a brilliant cobalt blue. Silver laughter, as smooth as flowing water, floated toward them.
The silvery voice said, “Oh, it’s you. I should have known only you would be fool enough to come into my mountain.”
The leader’s face hardened further, his jaw set. “And only you, Morgain, would imprison innocent children.” His deep voice, its timbered strength like a vast ancient forest of massive trees, echoed down the passage, the crashing waves traveling and gathering volume.
“Oh my goodness, sounds like you are finally growing up, dear boy,” the silver voice mocked, sounding like a simpering little girl.
Suddenly a flash of white light traveled at lightning speed down the passageway. It hit one of the men as he dropped from the ladder, exploding against his armor and sending him flying through the air. He crumpled to the ground. Before he had even touched the ground, another flash of light hit another man, then another and another. Two of the men used their shields to repel the blasts, but still received great shocks that left them weakened on the ground. The leader held his shield strong and deflected the blasts with his sword, but he only succeeded in splitting them, leaving multiple smaller blasts buzzing around with ferocity, looking for their next targets. In just a few moments, everyone but the leader lay crumpled on the ground. He stood at the ready with his sword, waiting for the next assault.
The white pinprick of light came outside the edge between the gap and the passageway and paused, hovering in the air. It grew brighter, filling the room with a blinding, impossibly brilliant light. The leader still stood tall but squinted, raising his hands to protect his eyes. The light dimmed slightly, and Morgain stepped into the gap.
“When will you learn, dear boy, that you can’t fight me?”
“I suppose when you learn not to be so wicked, dear girl,” he said sarcastically.
“Awww. I’m not all bad. You should know,” she said with mock slyness. As she spoke she rose up the gap, past the ladder leading to the outside passage. “You’re too late, you know, I have it all.”
“Oh?” he replied casually, watching her ascent.
“Yes, darling. For once, I have it all instead of you. You always take, take, take. But not this time!” Her laughter tinkled down on him like fairy dust. “Oh, you naughty boys.” Two more bright lights flashed above him. And then the white light faded away, leaving the orange glow of the torch to light the passage once again.
The leader sighed and pulled a couple of the men up from the ground. “Are you all right?” he asked. They nodded and followed him down the passageway Morgain had emerged from. They hurried down the dark passage, and soon the sounds of fighting, grunts, shouts, and the clanging of metal between the posted guards and the men resonated back down the passageway to their recovering compatriots. In no time at all, the leader opened the door to the lone occupied cell and looked down at the blinking, cowering boys huddled on the floor.
CHAPTER 22
The boys gaped at the men standing above them, their hulking bodies blocking the flickering torchlight that lit them from behind. Their shadows loomed in the tiny cell. By pure instinct the boys pushed with their feet and scrabbled away to the back of the cell, fear rising in their throats like bile.
“On your feet!” one of the men commanded, his voice loud with the force of one used to being instantly obeyed by dozens of troops.
The boys pushed their way up the wall with their hands, standing as close as they could to the only solid and secure thing that existed for them.
A man pushed through from behind. “No need to frighten them, Gawaine. They have been frightened enough already.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The boys continued to stare at the group before them, saying nothing. The armed band stared back.
“You’ve been rescued. You know that, right?”
The boys nodded and exchanged quick glances.
Finally, Savaric spoke up. “Who are you?”
Gawaine stepped forward and peered into his face, his face inches away from Savaric’s. “Pay your homage, brat. That’s no way to speak to a king.”
Savaric swallowed hard. “I … I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Your lordship, sir,” he stammered.
“Your majesty,” Gawaine barked.
“Your majesty,” Savaric repeated.
“This is King Arthur, and you will address him as such, peasant,” Gawaine said, breathing into his face.
“Yes, sir.”
“Gawaine, enough. Let’s get out of this wretched mountain and worry about formalities later.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The king stared at them for a few moments, his almost white, ice-blue eyes piercing them, taking in every detail of their appearance. His dark-blonde hair waved past his collar. He wore no crown, nothing that distinguished him from the men around him, only the finely made, massive sword that hung at his side. He turned and left the cell, and the other man fell in behind him. Gawaine pushed the boys to follow, and then took up the rear. The group walked through the passageway in single file, stepping over the bodies of the guards as they went. When they came to the gap, the rest of the band stood at ready, while some had already ascended the ladder to the upper passage.
Savaric whispered to Elias, “I don’t remember coming down a ladder, do you?”
Elias shook his head, then crossed over to the ladder and climbed up.
Soon the group stood at the rock that served as the door to the mountain. It remained steadfastly closed, its huge bulk mocking them. Three of the men put their shoulders into it to move it with pure strength, but the boulder didn’t budge in the slightest.
The king sighed. “I’m not the least bit surprised. Morgain never makes things easy.”
He paced back and forth, deep in thought, then turned to look closely at the walls and the rock itself. He pulled out a chalice that sat in a niche carved in the wall next to the entrance and ran his hand around the edges, looking for a lever or anything to grasp.
“Bring one of those torches over here.” One of his men obeyed, and he took the torch and thrust it closer to the niche, looking at it closely.
Savaric wasted no time looking around as well. There wasn’t much to see. Just rock that had been chiseled back for the passage. The widened area was lined with a pair of sconces on each side. Each sconce was carved into fantastic mythical animals, a horse with an eagle’s head, a sheep with a lion’s head, a crow with a dragon’s head, and a stag with the wings of a bird.
“What is that?” Savaric whispered to Elias.
“That’s a Peryton,” he said, pointing to the winged stag. “I don’t know the names of the rest.”
“Oh,” Savaric said as he looked around. He walked over to the crow with the dragon’s head and stared at it, thinking hard. He then took one of the torches that leaned against the wall and thrust it into the sconce. The great rock instantly began to shift, opening the entrance. Every head in the room looked at the rock moving and then turned and looked at Savaric.
He shrugged, looked sheepish, and said, “I just thought…”
Arthur cried out, “Arms at ready!”
The boys were thrust back away from the entrance as swords and shields clanged into place.
The men pushed their way out of the cave, their shields forming a protective wall. They were met with the sounds of the wind through the trees and the distant hoot of an owl. Arthur stood behind the line scanning the hillside and the tree line. “Arms down,” he said quietly. The men slowly put their shields down.
Arthur stepped out in front of the men. “Gather the horses. Let’s put distance between us and this bewitche
d mountain.”
Within a few minutes, Savaric and Elias sat behind two men astride horses that galloped at full speed through the weak light of the moon. The countryside swept past them in a blur, with shadows leaping in strange shapes and forms. Once, Elias thought he saw a wolf running alongside them, leaping through the trees. The wolf turned its head and looked at him, its eyes glowing with white fire piercing the dark. Elias shut his eyes in fear for a moment, and when he opened them the wolf had disappeared. He looked all around, shifting his weight to turn his body and see further.
The man he was riding with growled, “Be still.” Elias obeyed.
Before long, lights of a structure glowed in the distance. As they drew closer, the ramparts of a tall castle became clear, its drawbridge open and well lit. The band didn’t slow or hesitate but remained galloping, the horses’ hooves thundering on the wooden bridge, into the castle courtyard and came to a sudden halt. Great chains clanked loudly behind them as the drawbridge was raised. Hands reached up to the boys and brought them down to the ground, and then pulled them into the passages leading into the castle.
Moments later, they sat in a great hall in front of a pleasantly crackling fire, with bowls of lusciously smelling steaming beef stew in their hands. The boys greedily ate the first hot meal they had had in weeks.
The king sat across from them, staring into the fire. For a long time, silence prevailed in the room.
“How did you know?” Arthur said finally.
Elias and Savaric looked at each other and said nothing.
The king waited, eyebrows raised.
Elias elbowed Savaric. “You … your majesty, know what?” Savaric said.
“How to open the door?”
“Oh. Well, it was a guess based on a dream I had. I saw Morgain in my dream, and she turned into a crow with the head of a dragon. I saw that sconce there that looked like she did in my dream, and I thought that may be the way out since there was no torch in it. So I put the torch in the sconce and the door opened.”
“You saw Morgain in a dream?” Arthur replied incredulously.
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
The Secret Key of Pythagorum Page 13
