Circles of Seven

by Bryan Davis

  Shiloh leaped into his embrace. “Daddy! It’s you! It’s really you!”

  He spun her around, laughing and crying, kissing her cheek over and over again. “Shiloh! My dear Shiloh!” He wrapped her up in his arms. “My daughter is alive from the dead! Praise the King of Heaven! My daughter is alive!”

  After a final spin, Patrick turned to the others, his face bursting with joy. “She’s alive! Can you believe it? My daughter’s a—” He suddenly dropped his chin, and he turned slowly toward the dead body in Joseph’s arms.

  Shiloh pressed her cheek against Patrick’s. “She gave her life for me, Daddy. Bonnie died to set me free.”

  Patrick let Shiloh slide down to the ground. He strode forward and pushed his arms under Bonnie, joining hands with Joseph and making a two-man cradle. As they began descending a path that led into the valley, Joseph looked back at Billy. “Follow us into the grail, and bring Apollo . . . and your faith.”

  Billy took Apollo from Walter and trailed the two men as they wound their way into the valley, following a narrow, switchback path. The valley was littered with bones, dusty, crumbling bones, many still pieced together in the shapes of dragons. When Joseph and Patrick finally arrived at the bottom, they laid Bonnie’s body down in the midst of the densest collection of whitewashed dragon remains. Billy tramped through the dust and set Apollo next to an arching set of blanched ribs.

  Joseph shook Patrick’s hand. “Go and be with your daughter.” Patrick bowed and hurried away.

  Joseph spread out his arms and turned his head from side to side. “Young man, can these bones live?”

  “What?” Billy squinted at the unearthly scene, a strange old wanderer standing in the midst of a valley of dry bones. “Why are you asking me? I thought you’d tell me what this is all about.”

  Joseph folded his hands at his waist. “Do you not remember what your professor sang to you after your adventure with the candlestone?”

  “Well, I remember his singing, but I don’t remember the song.”

  Joseph bowed his head. “Then listen to the words again.”

  A voice rose from the valley floor, the professor’s gentle tenor somehow pouring forth from the bones as if they themselves were singing.

  A valley deep, a valley long

  Lay angels dry and dead;

  Now who can wake their cold, stone hearts

  Their bones on table spread?

  Like wine that flows in skins made new

  The spirit pours out fresh;

  Can hymns of love bring forth the dead

  And give them hearts of flesh?

  O will you learn from words of faith

  That sing in psalms from heaven

  To valley floors where terrors lurk

  In circles numbering seven?

  The beautiful song left Billy breathless. He placed his palm on his chest as if to keep his heart from leaping out.

  “And you have seen Merlin’s verse, have you not?” Joseph continued, his head still bowed. “Speak it to me.”

  Billy pivoted and gazed under the bridge at the red boulder on the other side. Although it was a few hundred feet away, its huge letters were easy to read. With trembling lips he spoke the prophecy.

  The final circle numbers seven,

  And beasts await your sword’s command.

  The greatest danger tests your faith,

  And wisdom’s touch will make you stand.

  The bridge of faith still lies in wait,

  The narrow path of answered prayer.

  Restore the fountain from the stone,

  Regenerating souls laid bare.

  Joseph lifted his head. “I ask you again, can these bones live?”

  Billy firmed his chin and nodded. “Yes, they can live.” He then squinted at Joseph. “But how?”

  “Turn now,” Joseph said, “and approach the prophetic stone. Then raise your sword and strike it.”

  Billy pivoted and urged his tired legs into a lumbering jog. As he approached, the red stone seemed to grow, towering over him like a scarlet skyscraper. He slid Excalibur from its scabbard and lifted it in the air with both hands. The white letters suddenly blazed with fire, flames dancing in the deep etchings. Billy hesitated and glanced back at Joseph.

  “Strike the rock!” Joseph yelled. “Strike it with all your heart!”

  Taking in a deep breath, Billy pulled back his arms and lunged toward the heart of the stone. With a mighty swing, the blade cracked against the face, slicing a gash from the top of his stroke to the bottom.

  Red liquid gushed out, spilling over Billy and knocking him down. Torrents of crimson carried him along the valley floor, sweeping him toward Joseph. As the rushing tide slowed, the old man waded over and helped him to his feet. Billy held tight to Excalibur, and the blade dripped red, as though freshly drawn from a kill.

  The flood abated to a shallow stream that covered the valley floor, flowing gently around Bonnie’s body and the dragon bones. Joseph held Apollo in one hand and gripped Billy’s wrist with the other. “Now lift up your sword and paint the skies with the visions of the night, the dreams that have prophesied all that you are about to see.”

  Billy aimed Excalibur toward the sky. The beam exploded from the blade and seemed to rip into the hazy blue backdrop, scarring the heavens. Billy’s recurring dream flooded back into his mind—the muddy water, the bone-filled cemetery, the electric fence.

  Billy guided Excalibur, drawing line after line in the sky until he had emblazoned a shimmering fence on his sparkling canvas that hovered hundreds of feet above the entire valley.

  Excalibur’s beam died away, but the fence remained. A rift in the sky near one edge created a gate that swung open, leaving a gap in the fence. From the center of the gap, another beam of light shot out and drilled into the valley floor, spreading out until it covered the riverbed like a silver carpet.

  The beam expanded into a huge dome of swirling luminescence, like an inverted funnel of pure light. From all around the cone, tiny rays shot out toward Bonnie’s body, striking something sparkling on her chest. The rays bounced back in dozens of colors, filling the dome with a kaleidoscope of reds, yellows, and blues.

  Shiloh leaped to the edge of the cliff, shouting excitedly at Billy. “It’s my necklace! That’s what’s making all the colors!”

  Tears rolled down Billy’s cheeks. He tried to call back, but he could only whisper. “It’s a regeneracy dome. The light’s creating a regeneracy dome.” He sighed, then laughed, more tears slipping down his cheeks.

  The colorful streams multiplied and wrapped around the skeletons. Moisture oozed from the bones, and their ashen shade turned gleaming white—fresh, clean, and new. Jumping off the ground, the bones seemed to dance, rattling against each other and piecing together, joint to joint. Soon, a menagerie of skeletal dragons stood motionless on the valley floor, like statues in a science museum.

  In a flurry of bubbles and ripples, the red liquid from the riverbed began crawling up the beasts’ leg bones, coating them in scarlet as it ascended and tying the skeletons together with ligaments, tendons, and muscles. The reddish coat thickened into leathery skin and scales, turning beige as it dried and hardened.

  The process stopped abruptly. The red river dried up, and the regeneracy dome shrank, enveloping only Bonnie’s motionless body in the midst of its swirling colors.

  Billy lowered Excalibur and glanced at his rubellite ring. The color was static. No pulsing. He scanned the valley again. Now, instead of a bunch of bones, the riverbed was full of lifeless bodies—fully formed, but still lifeless.

  Joseph scooped up a handful of dust and scattered it into the breeze. “Speak to the prophetic rock, son of man. Say, ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’”

  Billy slid Excalibur back into its scabbard and turned toward the boulder, now alabaster white instead of red. He took a deep breath and repeated Joseph’s words, his voice shaking like an earthquake. “Co
. . . come from the four . . . four winds, O breath, and . . . and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”

  A song rose from the valley floor. This time, instead of the professor’s solo, a choir of angelic voices sang an ecstatic chorus.

  Whither shall I go from thy spirit?

  Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:

  If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

  If I take the wings of the morning,

  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

  Even there shall thy hand lead me,

  and thy right hand shall hold me.

  Billy gave a short laugh, mixing it with a stifled sob. “It’s . . . it’s Bonnie’s song. They’re singing Bonnie’s song.”

  Long tails began swishing. Wings stretched out like taut parachutes. Great mouths opened in yawns and roars, fire spitting out in weak streams. Eight dragons lifted and dropped their legs as they lumbered around on the dusty valley floor.

  Billy clenched his fist and shifted his gaze from his rubellite to Bonnie’s motionless body. The song continued, bursting out in rapturous crescendo.

  If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;

  even the night shall be light about me.

  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;

  but the night shineth as the day:

  The rubellite’s red eye never blinked. All the bones were gone, and eight dragons stood here and there, still stretching and testing their newly restored bodies, but Bonnie lay deathly still in her dome, hundreds of sparkling hues bouncing off her body.

  Joseph laid a strong hand on Billy’s shoulder. “I don’t know why she was excluded from the regeneration, Son. My understanding was that the plan called for her to be revived with the rest of them.”

  Billy shivered, nausea boiling in his stomach. He could barely speak. “Did . . . did I mess up something?”

  “Mess up?” Joseph tilted his head. “Perhaps you could use that idiom. I would say you just didn’t recognize the light at the bridge, so God gave you another one to follow. It proved to be a longer path, one that I am not familiar with, so I have no idea how it will end.”

  “Isn’t there anything I can do to make it right?”

  “I know of nothing,” Joseph replied, handing Apollo to him. “Do you have an idea?”

  Billy took Apollo and hugged it with both arms. “Well . . . I read a prophecy about a dragon chained in darkest pits. Maybe it means I should go back to the pit and try to find my dad. But I don’t know how that will help Bonnie.”

  “You crossed the bridge,” Joseph said. “You cannot return to the other side, not without a new portal.”

  Billy jerked his head up. “What’s that noise?” A buzzing racket seemed to rise from the direction of the valley’s boulder dam. He rotated on his heels. A mass of fluttering wings swarmed at the base of the white stone.

  Joseph shouted over the din. “Passage beetles!”

  Billy pulled out Excalibur and waved it back and forth, creating the dome of light. “Will they attack?”

  “So far, it seems not, but if they do, not even the dragons are safe. Their bite can pierce armor . . . and your photo-umbrella. Neither blade nor beam will hinder such an army.”

  Billy allowed the beam to diminish and sheathed Excalibur. “Is the bite fatal?”

  “Not to souls already dead. All victims pass to a deeper circle where they face greater torment, but a bite to a living human is likely to be a fatal wound.”

  Billy rubbed the welt on his neck. “Would someone who’s already been bitten be immune?”

  “I cannot say. I don’t know if it’s ever hap—.”

  The buzz suddenly grew louder. “They’re coming this way!” Billy shouted.

  Joseph clutched Billy’s shirt collar. “You must mount a dragon and fly! I will send the other dragons to collect your friends and follow.”

  Billy jerked away. “I can’t. There’s something I have to do.” He marched toward the bridge, Apollo dangling from his hand. The fluttering beetles charged toward him in a thin stream and encircled him, like vibrating yarn spinning around a spool. In seconds they knitted a shroud of tiny armored bodies, wrapping his legs and torso. As they crawled on his skin he waved his arms at Joseph. “Get everyone out! Now!”

  A sharp sting on his hand jolted his brain. Another shot across his neck. More bites dug into his arms, sending a tidal wave of ripping agony along his spine. Through the mass of buzzing antennae and wings, he could still see Bonnie’s body lying in the dome . . . motionless. He blew two beetles from his lips with a fiery spurt. “Good-bye, Bonnie. I’ll see you again . . . someday.”

  The entire scene began to dissolve before his eyes—Joseph, Bonnie, the dragons, the valley—all melting to the ground. The sky swirled like a black tornado, and the ground collapsed beneath his feet. He plummeted down a slippery tube at breathtaking speed.

  The beetles peeled off his body, stripping upwards like flakes of dead skin. His shirt flopped up into his face, and his sleeves tried to ride up his arms. Seconds later he slowed to a stop, landing gently on his feet. He straightened his shirt and patted his hands on his chest. The beetles were gone, but his skin felt like fire.

  The ground radiated intense heat, rising into his face like steam in a sauna, and his toes chafed in his shoes. Lifting his feet one at a time, he tested the ground. Although it gave a little bit, it seemed solid enough. He looked up. High in the dark sky a tiny circle of brightness peered down. He set Apollo near his shoes and drew out Excalibur, creating an ambient glow that illuminated his immediate surroundings in the oven-like chamber.

  A stony ceiling capped the room just out of arm’s reach. Directly over Billy’s head, a six-foot-wide tunnel with sheer, vertical walls exited the chamber. Far above, a ray of light shone down like a distant full moon, the same circle of brightness he had noticed before.

  Billy moved Excalibur toward his feet. “Auggh!” He jerked his knees up and down, dancing in place. The floor was crawling with worms, long, orange and black striped worms slithering in a knotted mass, thousands, maybe millions. His feet squashed a dozen or more, sending streams of worm juice spraying all around. A ripple of fire passed across the surface, igniting the injured worms, but they kept right on squirming, apparently unable to die.

  Billy settled his feet in the writhing quagmire, his skin tingling as hot worms oozed between his socks and pant cuffs. He summoned Excalibur’s beam and stirred it into the wormy soup, but it had no effect. The blade’s glow was enough, however, to illuminate the chamber. A column of fire shot up, spewing a geyser of flame that splattered the arching roof with a sparkling coat of orange luminescence.

  Far away to his left, two walls came together to form a dark corner. Lifting his feet high, he strode to the nearer wall, squishing more worms and dodging another fountain of fire. He ran his hand along the wall’s surface and poked his finger into one of its many deep divots. Did candlestones once occupy these little holes?

  As he approached the corner, he found a sneaker with a PF logo on the side. Worms slithered across the outer lining and crawled through the eyelets, chewing on the frayed laces and canvas. A sparkle of light caught his eye. He stooped, finding a spot on the floor clear of worms. A glow pulsed on the clean stone tile, strobing between two distinct shades of crimson. He picked up a chain next to the glow, lifting a gold ornament with a pulsing red light in the center. Shiloh’s pendant!

  Walter gulped, backing away from the edge of the cliff. “Billy disappeared!”

  Shiloh grabbed his elbow. “I think those bugs ate him!”

  “They couldn’t have! They disappeared, too!”

  “Walter!” Joseph shouted from the valley. “Come down here!”

  Walter leaped toward the cliff and zipped along the path, Palin’s sword in hand, skipping most of the hairpin turns and sliding down the slope. He sprinted up to Joseph’s side, breathless. “What hap
pened? . . . Is Billy okay?”

  Joseph laid his hands over Bonnie’s regeneracy dome as if warming his fingers. “I do not know. This development was not in Merlin’s plan. Only the Almighty can guide Young Arthur now.”

  Walter gazed inside the kaleidoscopic aura. “But what about Bonnie? Wasn’t bringing her back to life part of the plan?”

  One of the dragons stretched out its neck, hovering its head over Bonnie. Joseph reached over and stroked its tawny scales. “It was part of the plan,” he replied, “but events arose that I did not expect. I honestly don’t know what will happen next. But for now, you must do your part.”

  Walter pointed at himself. “My part in the plan? I’m just here to help Billy and Bonnie!”

  Joseph knelt and scooped up a stray passage beetle, gripping it by the outer shell to avoid its blue spittle. “That is the way of prophecy,” he said, rising again. “Purposes are always fulfilled, though individual participation and outcomes vary.”

  The dragon draped the end of its tail over Walter’s shoulder. Walter eased his hand over it, pressing his fingers in between the spikes. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Confusing, but okay.” He gazed at Joseph’s dark eyes. “What do I do?”

  “First, help me with Bonnie. Dead or not, her body doesn’t belong in the circles. We must get everyone back to the world of the living as soon as possible.”

  “Suits me,” Walter said, hoisting the sword over his shoulder. “Show me the door, and we’re outta here.”

  Joseph lifted his eyes toward the sky. “The gate is up there.”