Discord’s Apple (28 page)

A falcon hovered over the newly cleared driveway. Then another flash of light blazed, and the falcon disappeared.

Merlin stood before them, his sleeves rolled up, the top button of his shirt undone.

At once, they all left the car. Claw marks scored the paint all over it. Arthur jumped off the roof and met his friend and mentor, clasping his arms.

“A simple scouting mission, you said,” Merlin grumbled.

Evie and her father went to Mab, who was panting hard and trying to pick herself up. The hound was more red than
gray, bleeding from gouges taken out of her neck, shoulders, back, flanks, and belly. She flattened her ears, peered up at them, wagged her tail a couple of times, and didn’t make a sound.

Cradling Mab’s head, Evie heard herself making nonsensical comforting noises, telling Mab what a good girl she was. She was a foolish dog, really—she didn’t have to fling herself into the fight like that. She should have stayed safe. But she was a dog with a mission, and who was Evie to criticize?

Her father took longer to lower himself to the ground, on obviously complaining limbs. He hissed with pain before adding his own voice to Mab’s praises. “That’s a girl, it’s okay, girl.”

Alex knelt beside her. “How is she?”

First aid didn’t seem remotely useful. Evie said, “I don’t know.”

“Well, her tail’s still wagging, so it can’t be too bad, eh?”

Mab’s watery gaze seemed to ask him if he were joking.

“Can you do something for her?” Frank rubbed Mab’s head, almost absently.

“I’ve been a soldier for over three thousand years. I ought to be able to dress a few wounds. Let’s see if we can get her into the house.”

“I’ve got her.” Arthur had joined them. He got to one knee and scooped the hound up in his arms. Mab’s immense body nearly obscured him, but he hefted the weight with seemingly little effort. He moved slowly and carefully. Mab yelped once, but didn’t struggle.

Slowly, with Frank leading the way and Alex walking near Arthur, they went into the house.

Merlin hung back, scanning the prairie around the house. Evie waited for him.

“They’re out there,” he said. “A gathering storm. They’ll lay siege to the place.”

Movement caught her gaze. She looked out to what had drawn his attention. A few coyotes remained, loping around the edge of the property. They didn’t approach or make any threatening moves; rather, they seemed to be patrolling, marking a circuit around the house, watching for anything that might approach, or try to leave.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“Wait. Plan. Pray, if you’re so inclined.”

And whom did one pray to, when deities appeared and kidnapped your father? They went to the house. Merlin backed up to the porch, keeping his gaze outward, still searching the surrounding fields.

The others had placed Mab on a bath towel on the kitchen table. Alex presided over the impromptu operating table. His tools were a bottle of peroxide, a box of gauze, and a thread and needle.

“She’s going to be fine,” he told Evie after she’d locked the door. “So long as she doesn’t enthusiastically rip the stitches out as soon as I’m done. But you wouldn’t do that, would you, girl?”

Mab gamely attempted a tail wag. Her expression was humanly woeful.

He continued conversationally, “And I suppose you’ve had your rabies shots? Never mind.”

Her father leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his stomach.

“Dad, are you okay?”

“You didn’t have to come after me like that,” he said, his voice low.

Her tone was matter-of-fact: “Yes, I did.”

“She didn’t act alone, Mr. Walker,” Arthur said.

Her father closed his eyes. “I know. Thank you. Thank you all. Alex, let me get you a clean shirt. That one’s a little messed up.”

The front of Alex’s shirt was scarlet. The rest of them had escaped relatively unscathed, but he looked like he’d seen battle. “Thanks. That’d be nice.”

Frank started to turn, then stumbled, slumping against the wall.

Evie reached his side in a heartbeat. Arthur was there as well, lunging across the kitchen. Alex, needle in hand, could only watch.

He brushed them away. “It’s the stress catching up with me, that’s all.”

“Dad!” Recriminations were laden in the word. Tension edged her voice.

Not waiting for explanations, Arthur stepped in and pulled Frank’s arm over his shoulders. “Come along, friend.”

“Bed,” he said with a sigh.

“That’s right.”

Evie followed them, wondering why her father would accept help from a mythical stranger and not from her. Though she supposed you didn’t argue when King Arthur insisted on carrying you to bed.

As a final insult, her father indicated for Arthur to pause outside the bedroom door. “Evie, stay here.”

Arthur took him inside and closed the door.

Back to the wall, she slid to the floor, pressed her face to her knees, and covered her head with her hands.

Some long minutes later, the door opened and closed again. Arthur emerged, a white T-shirt in hand, which he put over the back of a chair near Alex.

Arthur then moved to sit on the floor beside her. “He took something for the pain. He’s resting now.”

She sniffed loudly and wiped her face, attempting to hide that she’d been crying. She looked away from him, not wanting him to see. Her voice caught, though, and betrayed her. “I try to help him, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“No,” he said. “There isn’t.”

He touched her shoulder, and she took in the invitation to lean against him while he held her, his chin resting on her head.

At least she wasn’t alone anymore. How bad could things be if Arthur of legend was fighting for her? He didn’t seem much like a legend just now. He was a solid, human presence, warm and protective. She rested in his arms, grateful for the moment to catch her breath.

A throat-clearing sounded nearby. Alex, looking sheepish.

“I was wondering if I could get help carrying Her Majesty to the sofa? The dog,” he explained, gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder when Arthur looked quizzically at him.

Evie stood quickly, flushing, embarrassed that she was flushing because she had nothing to flush about. Except that Alex was staring at her like she did.

Arthur carried Mab to the sofa. The dog filled all of it but a corner where Evie sat and stroked her head. The fur there was silky, flat against her skull. She hoped to calm the dog into sleeping, giving her wounds a chance to heal. It hurt to see proud Mab so weak.

Alex stood behind the sofa and watched over them. Arthur had moved away, to look out a window.

Merlin watched Alex closely. “Three thousand years, you said. That would make you older than I am.”

“Likely,” Alex said without facing the wizard.

“How? How does one live so long and survive being run through by Excalibur? You
must
be one of the old gods. Like her.”

Alex looked at each of them, Evie last. His hands clenched on the back of the sofa. For a moment, she thought he was going to leave, turn and storm out as he’d done whenever she’d asked too many questions. But Merlin was difficult to refuse.

When he finally spoke, he spoke to her. “I fought beside
Odysseus in the Trojan War. The day after we entered the city”—he didn’t have to tell that part of the story—“I was taken prisoner by Apollo, who was unhappy with the turn of events. He enslaved me and intended to keep me for all eternity, enspelling me, to make me ageless and impervious to harm. Things didn’t quite work out, but I was stuck.”

“Apollo the god?” Merlin said.

“He wasn’t a god.” Alex straightened and paced along the back of the sofa, his gaze downcast. “
Hera
isn’t a god. None of them were. They were just people with too much power who used it for their own gains. You, Merlin—you matched her in a fight. You have as much power as any of them. You could have been a god, but instead you chose to serve. That has been one of the worst frustrations of my long life—living among the prayers, the shrines, the temples, the saints and knowing all the while that the gods we worship are just people.”

Arthur had found a cloth dish towel from the kitchen and was cleaning Excalibur. The movements were slow, methodical. He said, “There is the one God. The true God.”

Alex suppressed a chuckle and shook his head. “They died. The gods I worshipped as a boy are all dead. Zeus sacrificed himself to destroy the ancient pantheon and change the world. That’s what it takes to change the world, you know: a person of great power sacrificing himself, trading his own life for the transformation. So he did, and in a few years, the footprints of the many gods faded. When the gods stopped answering prayers in so personal a manner as the myths tell, the myths changed, the many gods became one. A god who was an idea rather than a person was born. He became all gods.”

“Then what of Christ his Son?” Arthur said, true to his own legend.

“Do you know I saw him once?” Alex, brash and insensitive, continued. “He could have been the greatest wizard since Zeus himself. The power of Zeus, the charisma of Apollo—he
could have been a god. But a lot of magic had left the world by that time. It’s my theory that he learned somehow of what Zeus had done—the sacrifice of self for power. It’s a story in so many cultures: the hero gives his life to restore his land, and is reborn as the king. That was what he was trying to do, I think. He succeeded, in a sense: I think he’d have been surprised to learn how far his name has spread. And how it is used. But he gave his life for that fame. His followers wait for his coming that never happens. And meanwhile, thousands of minor wizards work their magic in his name and call them miracles.”

“You are a mad blasphemer,” Arthur said.

“Thank you, my lord.”

Evie kept petting Mab’s head. The dog was breathing deeply, sleeping. “Hera lived,” she said. “And magic is coming back into the world. What do we do?”

Merlin turned from the window. “Miss Walker, do you believe that Hera will start a war if she gets what she wants?”

The apple still nested in her pocket, pressed against her hip. Long ago, Discord created the apple for the express purpose of sowing strife. Its power had not diminished. Hera would know how to use that power. Such a little thing, rolled onto the floor of the U.N. General Assembly. Metaphorically, of course. She would offer one or another country weapons, money, political dominance—and see them fight for the prize. She could offer one supremacy in space, another free trade, a third a telecommunications empire. Watch them take her bribes and do her bidding.

“She can manipulate the one that’s already starting,” she said, not certain how she knew, or where her growing confidence came from. Except that her father was dying. He succumbed, and she knew more than she should.

“Then we take our stand against her. Someone must oppose her.”

Arthur gazed at Merlin with a shadowed look in his eyes.
Past battles, lost wars—who knew what memories played in his mind’s eye?

“Is that why we’re here, Merlin? To build a new kingdom from the ashes, as we did before?”

“You are here because someone must oppose her. Who better than you?”

Alex crossed his arms. “How? Oppose her how? Do you know where she is? What her next plan is?”

Merlin scowled. “She’ll come here, of course. We’ll wait for her.”

“We’d be fighting a purely defensive battle if we stay here. We can’t win.”

Arthur sided with Merlin. “I’d like nothing better than to take the fight to her, but I have no forces and no knowledge of her position. Here, our position is at least mildly defensible.”

“The house is protected,” Evie said. “No one gets in unless invited. No one gets into the Storeroom except the guardian and his heir.”

The men looked at her, but her gaze was distant. She couldn’t pay attention to them. She recognized the Storeroom, the power it had carried for centuries, as her family immigrated from place to place, carrying its contents with them—somehow they carried everything as they traveled. The knowledge of how they did it eluded her still. She could ask her father. He’d know.

“Then we’re safe for now,” Alex said. His brow was creased, watching her with uncertainty. Like he didn’t know her. “Perhaps we should get some rest. So that we’re ready when she comes back. She
will
come back.”

Evie closed her eyes, wanting to forget. Give the knowledge back to her father. “Yes.”

Arthur glanced out the window, his gaze searching the distant horizon. “We’ll keep a watch in shifts. Sinon’s right. You should try to sleep.”

That was astute, the
try
to sleep. Evie felt exhausted to her very bones, but she hated the idea of falling asleep. Even with Arthur standing watch.

“Feel like taking a walk?” Arthur said to Merlin.

“Another scouting mission?” the old man grumbled.

Arthur grinned. “I thought we’d make sure there aren’t any more of those dogs prowling around.”

Merlin made a distracted motion of assent, and the two strode to the kitchen door.

Before they went outside, Evie hurriedly stood and called to him. “Arthur. Thank you. Thank you for staying.”

He nodded and gave her a smile—a vivid smile that would inspire his people to follow him into battle. They couldn’t lose, not with Arthur leading them.

Then he and Merlin were gone, the door closed.

Alex unbuttoned and peeled off his shirt, stuffing it into the trash under the sink. He washed his hands and arms to the elbows. The water ran pink off him. Evie’d guessed right, he was well built under his coat. He had sculpted muscles on his arms, shoulders, and chest, flexing with his movements. They weren’t excessive, but they promised an efficient strength.

“You’re falling in love with him,” he said, his tone too flat to be mocking, as he stared at the running water.

She started to be angry. She wanted to be angry at his presumption. But the emotion faded.

Instead she made half a laugh and shook her head. “Of course I am. Aren’t you? But no, not really, I think. He’s too heroic. Larger than life, untouchable. Like Superman. He scares the shit out of me. I’m not good enough to fall in love with that. Not brave enough. Or beautiful enough.”