Victories Read online

  Spirit realized she was holding the pen in her hand. But it wasn’t a pen. Partly that was illusion, partly it was a kind of talisman. The only way she could think of what she did next was as if the talisman were a sock and she were turning it inside out.

  The sword she held in her hand was long and heavy. Letters too bright to see clearly danced down the length of the blade. The pommel was gold, inlaid with a design of the same white horse she’d seen on the banner.

  On Guinevere’s banner.

  The others were all staring at her.

  “Is that … Excalibur?” Loch asked. “Yes. It is,” he said, answering himself. “I know that sword.”

  “Why do you have it if he’s Arthur?” Addie asked. “Oh, and don’t expect me to show off the Cauldron just yet. But I have a surprise for you later.”

  “Oh good, more surprises,” Loch said unenthusiastically.

  “She has it because it’s hers,” Burke said. “And because if I had it, I couldn’t do … this.”

  He held both fists out in front of him. The cheap tacky rings glinted. Suddenly there was a silvery glow in the air in front of him. A shield.

  “Unbreakable,” Burke said with satisfaction. He lowered his hands and the shield-shape vanished. “This was what I truly should have been, back then. The protector. Maybe if I had been.…” he left that unfinished.

  It only took a thought for Spirit to fold the Sword away again, and Loch had already done the same with the Spear. The four of them looked at each other.

  “The legends got so much stuff wrong,” Spirit said, because she knew now that it was Guinevere who’d given Arthur Excalibur, not The Lady of the Lake.

  “The legend had it coming,” Loch answered.

  “So,” Burke said, glancing at Spirit, “what now?”

  “I know it sounds really stupid, but … I’m hungry,” Addie said self-consciously.

  “I can go out and—” Loch stopped, breaking off whatever he’d been about to say. “There’s food in the kitchen. But it’s going to be really weird having you guys do the cooking now.”

  “I—” Burke stopped. “Arthur didn’t grow up in a fancy castle.”

  “That’s not how Morgause tells it,” Loch gibed.

  “Kings and Queens or not,” Spirit said, “unless Vivianne did her own cooking in Avalon, Burke and I are still your best hope to avoid starvation.”

  “Nope,” Addie said with determined cheerfulness. “If there was a kitchen in Avalon, my other self never saw it.”

  * * *

  Almost two weeks had passed since Vivian’s departure, and the four of them had settled into a routine. They worked harder than any of them—even Burke—had ever worked at Oakhurst, but now it was on one skill and for one goal.

  Mastering the Hallows.

  For Spirit and Loch, it was a matter of adapting lessons in armed combat they’d learned at Oakhurst to magical weapons: Excalibur and Arondight. Arondight—the Lance—would strike any target at which it was thrown, and Excalibur—the Sword—was said to give victory to whoever wielded it.

  Burke’s practice with the Shield was a little different, as he had to call it into being through an act of will, and its impenetrability was linked to his determination. Fortunately, Burke was very determined.

  But it was Addie whose Hallow provided her with the greatest challange, for the Cauldron worked far differently from the other Hallows. Addie’s keys didn’t turn into anything, as the other tokens did, but when inserted into the ignition of any vehicle, they turned it into a Cauldron of Plenty, which could transform anything placed into it into whatever she wished it to become. The power of the Cauldron seemed—at first—to be infinite: magic without cost. But the need to place something into the Cauldron to transform it into something else meant that they couldn’t simply, for example, wish up bombs or allies or something to strike Mordred and the Shadow Knights dead. Their victory would have to come through battle: the four of them against Mordred, his army, and his supernatural allies.

  And so Spirit ended each day in the same way: by talking to Merlin.

  Part of her remembered him as her old friend and counselor. The part that was Spirit did not know him as well, but trusted him as much as her other self did. And each night she went and spoke with him—sometimes alone, sometimes with the others—to try to find some weakness in Mordred’s plans they could exploit.

  TELL ME AGAIN WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT MORDRED ESCAPED FROM THE TREE, Spirit said. At first it had seemed very strange to receive her mentor’s wise counsel through glowing letters on a sheet of glass, but the longer Spirit possessed her Reincarnate memories, the more her other self seemed to learn. At least the things she did over and over stopped seeming so jarringly strange.

  THE NIGHT THE HELLRIDERS FOUGHT ONE ANOTHER AT THE PLACE THAT BECAME YOUR SCHOOL, FRIEND SLEW FRIEND, THROUGH MORDRED’S INFLUENCE, FOR THE PLACE OF THE GALLOWS OAK WAS EVER A FELL RESORT. THE DEATH BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT VICTIM WAS ENOUGH TO WEAKEN THE SPELLBOND THAT HELD HIM CAPTIVE.

  BUT ONLY HIS SPIRIT GOT OUT, Spirit said. HIS BODY’S STILL IN THE OAK, AND HIS SPIRIT HAS POSSESSED KENNY HAWKING. DO YOU THINK HE’S STILL ALIVE?

  There was a pause as Merlin thought. I FEAR KENNETH HAWKING’S SPIRIT IS GONE FOREVER, he said. BUT HIS DEATH PROVIDES OUR ONLY HOPE. IN SENDING HIS SPIRIT FORTH TO TENNANT HAWKING’S BODY, MORDRED HAS MADE HIMSELF VULNERABLE.…

  I DON’T SEE HOW, Spirit answered crossly. IT MAKES HIM MORE INVULNERABLE, NOT LESS. IF WE KILL HIS “DOCTOR AMBROSIUS” BODY, ALL HE HAS TO DO IS RETREAT INTO THE TREE AGAIN.

  “Hey.” Burke walked into the control room and leaned over the back of her chair. He glanced over the lines of chat. She looked up and smiled at him, even though it was difficult these days for Spirit to separate her awareness of him as Arthur from her awareness of him as Burke. She wasn’t sure which of the two she loved—but then, most of the time Spirit wasn’t really sure who she was, either.

  “What happens if we kill Mordred’s real body first? Burn the Oak?” he asked.

  “You know as well as I do that the Kinslayer cannot die,” Spirit answered crossly. “No weapon can slay him.”

  “It’s been a long time since Merlin sealed him up in the Tree, though,” Burke said doggedly.

  “Okay then!” Spirit snapped. MERLIN. BURKE WANTS TO KNOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF WE DESTROYED THE TREE BEFORE WE KILLED MORDRED?

  Assuming we could actually fight our way through the Legions of Hell and do that, she added mentally.

  There was so long a pause that Spirit began to wonder if they’d lost the connection, but the screen was still lit and the cursor was still blinking. At last, letters appeared on the screen.

  IF HIS STOLEN BODY WERE KILLED, IT IS AS YOU HAVE SAID: MORDRED’S SPIRIT WOULD RETREAT INTO HIS TRUE BODY. BUT IT IS HIS MALIGNANT SPIRIT WHICH RENDERS HIS TRUE BODY UNKILLABLE. SEPARATED AS THEY ARE, HIS TRUE BODY CAN BE DESTROYED. AND WITHOUT HIS TRUE BODY TO SERVE AS REFUGE, MORDRED CAN BE KILLED IN HIS STOLEN FLESH.

  “Then by fortune and by the grace of the Light, we may end the peril of the black serpent, Mordred Kinslayer, forever,” Burke said. Like all of them, his speech swerved between High Forsoothly and normal, but Spirit was getting used to it. It was as if she’d lived a life as Guinevere, and then lived a second one as Spirit. Of the hundreds of lives she—Guinevere—must have lived between those two, she had no memory. It was the same for the other three, she knew.

  “Reach Oakhurst, destroy the Tree, and there won’t be anything left of Mordred. Then slay his stolen body to finish the job. Without him, the Shadow Knights will probably give up the idea of turning Earth into a radioactive cinder,” Spirit said.

  Defeat Mordred, and there would be an end to the eternal rebirth.

  She wondered if it would feel like dying.

  “And even if they don’t, they’ll be leaderless,” Burke answered. “Ask Merlin if it’ll work.”

  IF WE DESTROY THE GALLOWS OAK, AND THEN KILL MORDRED, WILL HE BE TRULY DESTRO
YED? Spirit typed. HIM, HIS MAGIC, EVERYTHING?

  NOT ONLY HIS FELL AND STOLEN FLESH, BUT ALL HIS MAGIC, Merlin answered. ALL HE HAS SUMMONED AND CONJURED WILL PASS AWAY. YET THIS IS A PATH FILLED WITH DIFFICULTY AND PERIL, MY QUEEN.

  Spirit always felt a little strange when Merlin addressed her by Guinevere’s royal title. It was as if Merlin thought of Spirit White as a convenient and temporary fiction, and Guinevere of Britain as her true self. And Spirit only wished things were that clear cut.

  THEN THAT’S WHAT WE’LL DO, she answered. GO TO OAKHURST, DESTROY THE TREE, AND THEN DESTROY MORDRED.

  Somehow.

  THEN I GIVE YOU GOODNIGHT, MY LADY, Merlin responded. AND WISH YOU SWEET REST TO PREPARE YOU FOR BATTLE.

  GOODNIGHT, MERLIN, Spirit answered, and began the elaborate process of shutting the machinery of the computer control console down.

  “I’d feel a little better about things if he wished us luck,” Burke said.

  “Merlin’s a magician,” Spirit answered absently. “He doesn’t believe in luck.” She sighed deeply. “I don’t think this is going to be as easy as I made it sound,” she added.

  Burke chuckled. “Nothing ever is.”

  * * *

  It was just before sunrise in the first week of April, and Spring had finally come for real. The dawn woods were mist-shrouded when Addie let the black van ghost to a stop and the four of them climbed out. She’d taken a roundabout route, driving cross country, to hide the van in the trees. It would be a several mile walk to reach Oakhurst, but Spirit had wanted to see how matters stood in Radial, particularly the state of The Fortress. It probably won’t be that easy, but it would be nice to think it could be, Spirit thought.

  They were all dressed identically in low sturdy boots, and pants and tunics in mottled woodland camouflage, and hooded cowls to cover their hair. The Cauldron Hallow was where their clothes had come from—an uneasy compromise between the modern day and their Reincarnate memories. In had gone the secondhand sweats, out had come these outfits.

  “Follow me,” Loch whispered. He moved noiselessly through the trees, slowly enough for the others to follow. But as they reached the edge of the trees.…

  “Uh.” Loch sounded disturbed. “This is bad.”

  Spirit hurried forward to stand beside him. She saw what he’d seen. “Yes it is,” she said flatly.

  The town was gone as if it had never been. The roads, the outlying houses—gone. The lake Addie had created during their escape from the Spring Fling was still here, currently covered in morning mist. A mile or so to the east of it stood The Fortress. Of all the buildings in what had once been Radial, only it was unchanged. Surrounding it now stood a Bronze Age village of huts. The people were already going about their daily tasks. It was somehow more horrible that they weren’t dressed in RenFaire outfits, but in the dirty and torn twenty-first-century work clothes of their former lives.

  “Ohhhh.…” Spirit said softly, looking at them. “I can—”

  “What?” Burke asked.

  “I can see what he did to them,” Spirit said, amazed. “No wonder Mordred didn’t want to teach the School of Spirit. It’s where his Gift comes from.”

  “A magician can never be fooled by a spell from their own School,” Burke said in satisfaction.

  “So that’s why Mordred was so insistent on having the Macalister kids at the Spring Fling,” Loch said. “He must have used them to get at their families.”

  “Contagion,” Spirit said bleakly. “He’d have to be close by to ensorcell them. It would be so convenient to let them spread the spell themselves. Anyone without a Gift would be affected, so anyone who showed up to investigate would fall under it too.”

  “It’s probably how he’s planning to control the refugees after he launches the missiles,” Burke said.

  “But why would he—?” Addie asked, staring out at the newly-medieval village of Radial.

  “Serfs,” Loch said. “He needs laborers. To— To till the soil, bring in the crops, do all the scutwork. Sure, he’s a magician—but I can’t see him wasting his time using his power to bring in the harvest.”

  “He’s re-creating what he knows,” Spirit said, reasoning it out. “You— I— All of us, all of the Reincarnates, we remember that time, yes. But we also remember being born as who we are now.”

  “And the Kinslayer doesn’t,” Loch said in a hard voice.

  “No,” Spirit said. “And that’s just one more reason we have to make sure he doesn’t get the chance to remake the world.”

  “If we’re going to lift this spell, we need allies,” Loch said. “Come on.”

  * * *

  The village was a work in progress. Spirit wasn’t sure where the houses and buildings that had been here before had gone—not even their basements remained—and the new village was clustered around the walls of The Fortress, just as a village would have been clustered around the walls of the castle in medieval times. She could see the places where the foundations of new huts had been laid out, and near the lake there was a place where mud bricks were being made. The huts they passed were one-room cottages. Some of the doors were open, and they could see makeshift beds inside. The huts were already empty—by this time in the morning, good little medieval villagers were already in the fields. The people Spirit and the others could see were working with hoes and rakes—not even a horse-drawn plow.

  At the outer edge of the village was a hut twice the size of the others. Brenda Copeland was standing in the open doorway, tossing handfuls of grain to the ducks and chickens in the yard. Spirit glanced at her friends, unsure of what to do now, but before she could make up her mind, Brenda caught sight of the four of them.

  “My lady—my lords,” she gasped, dropping to her knees. Grain spilled everywhere, and the ducks and chickens swarmed her, trying to get the food.

  Spirit heard Addie stifle a despairing giggle. How could something be funny and horrible at the same time?

  “Get up,” Spirit said desperately. “I— You have to come with me right now.”

  Brenda looked puzzled, but didn’t argue. There was a stand of trees across the field behind The Fortress. As soon as they got there, Spirit relaxed a little. At least now they couldn’t be seen as easily.

  “How may I serve you?” Brenda said humbly.

  “Tell me what you remember,” Spirit said.

  “I don’t understand.” Brenda stared at her in bafflement.

  “Your name is Brenda Copeland,” Spirit said carefully. “You live in the town of Radial, Montana. Your father is the Sheriff. And … something happened to you on March 22nd. Do you remember the Spring Fling?”

  Suddenly Brenda’s face filled with horrified awareness. She opened her mouth to scream, but Burke lunged forward and clapped his hand over her mouth.

  “We’re here to help!” Spirit said as Brenda struggled. “If you draw their attention, they’ll kill us all!”

  “Do you understand?” Loch asked. Brenda nodded, and Burke slowly took his hand away from her mouth.

  “I … What’s going on?” Brenda demanded, her voice shaky. “I went to the dance at Oakhurst. I remember thinking the decorations were creepy, and then— And then.…” Her voice trailed off, and there was a long moment of silence. “You said you’d tell me what was going on,” she said at last. “After the Library. You said you’d tell me what was going on, and you never did.”

  Spirit took a deep breath. This was a good sign—she’d promised Brenda an explanation after the Shadow Knights had attacked the Town Library, but she’d never had the chance to deliver it. “This is going to sound freaky,” she warned, then launched into the explanation: Oakhurst was a school for orphaned magicians. Dr. Ambrosius was the one who made them orphans. Dr. Ambrosius was actually an incredibly ancient evil necromancer who intended to take over the world and become its evil overlord.

  “So you’re all … witches?” Brenda asked, when Spirit was done.

  “Magicians,” Addie corrected automatica
lly. “That’s what they called us up at Oakhurst anyway.”

  Brenda looked around, her eyes still wild, and then down at herself. She was barefoot, her feet filthy, wearing muddy blue jeans, a T-shirt far too large for her, and a tattered barn coat. Spirit could see her mouth quiver as she fought back tears. No matter what Spirit had gone through in the last couple of weeks, at least she’d had some idea of what to expect. Brenda’s world had been turned inside-out and upside-down in an instant.

  “I— Can you— Can you fix my dad?” Brenda asked. “He’s the Sheriff. He can help.”

  Maybe he can, Spirit thought, but before she could answer, Burke spoke up.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Brenda.” The soft hesitancy Spirit was used to hearing in Burke’s voice was gone now. It was hard to think of him as he’d been when she first met him. Now when she looked at him she saw Arthur, High King of Britain, not Burke Hallows, high school student.

  “Your father is a good man,” Burke said. “Never doubt that. But if he tries to be the Sheriff here and now, Breakthrough will kill him. And I don’t even want to try to explain to him about the fact that magic is real—at least you’d had a taste of it before today. He hasn’t. For now, he’s safer where he is.”

  “But.… If you aren’t going to break this, this spell over everyone, what are you going to do?” Brenda asked, a little desperately.

  This time Burke waited for Spirit to speak. “We’re going to Oakhurst, to free any of the other students being held prisoner there,” Spirit said.

  “You’ll need some help,” Brenda said. “Come on.”

  Addie glanced at Spirit. Spirit shrugged. She didn’t think Brenda intended to betray them after what she’d seen.

  Brenda led them through the maze of the village until they reached a small hut on the far edge. The door was open, and Veronica Davenport stood inside working at a long table. It was covered in mounds of green plants.