Dragon Sword (15 page)

“
We can go back, Mom. All of us! On
their ship. It’s way easier than just shooting through the Fifth
Dimension like a cannonball. Trust me.”

“
I can’t go back, Eli. Not now. Not
yet.”

“
Why not? We can just leave and let
them have their history.”

“
But it’s our history, too, Eli.
Don’t you see? And if it starts unraveling too fast, if they invent
time travel too soon, if it gets used as a weapon…Somebody has to
stay here. The things that happen between now and the time you’re
born are awful enough — your father knows I can’t let them get any
worse.”

“
Then when will you ever come back
to Dad? To me?”

Suddenly the time-ship’s version of
“Midnight Clear” seems to be pounding in my ears, and it feels like
everyone in the world is staring at me and my mom — even though
it’s only everyone on the bridge.

“
I
can’t
yet, Eli. I
wouldn’t be any kind of parent to you at all if I let the world get
even more wrecked than it already is. Please try to understand
that.”

Mom wipes her eye, and I’m thinking
there still might be some way to figure this out — convince her to
go, convince the soldiers not to shoot at Clyne or Thea, and get us
all on that ship, but before I can even think
how
, something
unpredictable happens.

Fort Point explodes.

At least, a chunk of it does, and
right then, the tension snaps. Bullets are whizzing every- where —
I think I see Gravlox get hit in the arm — bazookas tear off chunks
of the bridge railing and the suspension cables as they try to
blast the ship, and I land hard, cracking my knee as Mom pulls me
down to the pavement. It’s like we’re in a war.

Well, I guess we are.

I don’t hear “Midnight Clear”
anymore, but instead a loud sound like chanting and moaning
combined. From the ship, which rotates upward, then tilts on its
side again. Thea’s trying to get to Clyne, to both of us, but she
can’t get low enough.

A few of the shots hit the craft,
but it seems to absorb the explosive force, though its color gets
darker and darker each time, and it starts to wobble.

Clyne is jumping around. “Ouch!
Mammals! Stop!” he yells. He looks like one of those guys in an old
cowboy movie being made to skip and dance when the bad guys shoot
around his feet. I feel sorry for him, and worried, and then mad
that I can’t help.

And then I watch in horror as my
friend jumps over the side of the bridge.

“
Clyne!” I jump up, but Mom pulls
me back down.

When I look up, the time-ship’s
disappeared, and so have Clyne and Thea.

Chapter
Eighteen

Eli: Fixing Time

December 24, 1941 C.E.

“
The fort, come on.” Mom prods me
to follow her down the stairs before everyone’s attention turns
back from the vanished ship.

Below, one of the fort walls has
been ripped open, and we can see smoke billowing out. Mom is in a
panic to see if the time-rip is still contained.

“
Whether it was the geometry of the
walls, or some element in the bricks, or the weather, or the soil,
I don’t know, Eli. But something kept Samuel’s WOMPER-reaction
contained inside the fort.”

“
So the whole fort was like a giant
version of Dad’s time spheres?”

“
More or less.” She seems
distracted. I can’t blame her.

The explosion was Rolf’s work. He
must’ve been the “scared soldier” who waved to us as he headed
toward the fort. A surviving witness with blood running down his
face described him yelling something about Hitler as he jumped
straight into the time-rip. He was holding a pair of
antlers.

Seconds later, the bomb went
off.

“
If the whole thing’s destroyed
now, Mom, you can come home. There’s nothing to keep watch
over.”

“
The time-rip’s invisible, Eli. The
only way to know how far the field has spread is to watch its
effects. For all we know, anything from Civil War veterans to
cavemen could start popping up anywhere in San Francisco. But
what’s worse is
he’s
out there now.”

“
Yeah. Rolf.”

“
He could be trying to change
history, to force it in some different direction, right this
moment. Things are spinning even more out of control, Eli. I can’t
come home.”

The smoke is getting in my nose,
making my eyes watery. Mom dabs my face with her sleeve.

“
Someone has to go back after him,”
she adds in a quieter voice. “The portal here seems to be flowing
back to ancient Britain at the moment, based on the things coming
out at this end.”

“
Like the antlers?”

“
Yes.”

“
And you want me to go after
him?”

“
No. You should return to your
father.”

“
But you sent this!” I hold up the
note on Fairmont letterhead with the word
help
on
it.

“
I was feeling desperate that day.
I wanted to come home. I still do. But I can’t. That was like a
message in a bottle, Eli — I wasn’t really sure where it would wind
up. Look at the ink.”

She lightly touches the
paper.

“
After the explosion, when I
regained consciousness in Samuel’s lab, I still had most of the
things that were stuck in my pockets. Including the pen I’d been
using.”

I know the one she means: a carved
wooden pen, shaped to look like a double helix, those two long
twisted strands of DNA. Dad gave it to her as a gift when they were
dating. I always considered it one of those details that just
confirms your parents are, in fact, a little weird. She reaches
into her pocket and takes the pen out now.

“
I don’t show it here much, because
no one knows what a DNA strand looks like yet. But I wrote the note
with it. I’m working on a theory that objects hold a kind of energy
or memory of a place or time— and can help take you
there.”

“
But that won’t be any use to you
in finding Rolf.” Now it’s my turn. I take the chrono-compass out
of my pocket. “This can help me find him, though. And you can go
back home.”

“
What is it?”

“
A prototype Dad was working on.
Like a steering wheel through time.”

“
Dr. Franchon?” One of the soldiers
comes up, and I hide the compass in my hand. He points to me. “I
have orders to hold the boy here until everything gets straightened
out. A lot of people have a lot of questions for him. And for you,
too.”

“
Where are you taking
him?”

He doesn’t answer that question.
“Sorry, ma’am. You’ll have to say goodbye here.”

Mom bends over and whispers to me.
“I should be the one to fix this. I helped make this mess. You need
to go home.”

“
We all need to go
home.”

She takes out a slip of paper. “I
was hoping I could get this to your father.” With her DNA pen, she
quickly scribbles something else on it, then slips it in my pocket.
“I love you more than anything, Eli.”

“
Sorry, Doctor.” The soldier is
eager to get going.

“
I want to go with him,” she tells
the soldier. “Wherever you’re taking him.”

If I stick around, they’ll keep
asking me questions that will get harder and harder to answer. But
I don’t know if I’m going home, either. Mom’s right about getting
history unstuck, or back on track. Especially if Rolf Royd is out
there trying to change things.

Mom is arguing with the soldier,
and while she does, I take the cap out of my pocket and begin
rubbing the Thickskin off, right around the area that DiMaggio
signed for me — right over the
D.B.

I start to feel the cap tingling
against my skin. I pull it on.

“
I love you, too,” I tell her. And
in case it’s already morning, I add “Merry Christmas.” By the time
she and the soldier turn around, I’m gone.

Hopefully she’ll worry less,
thinking I have the compass. I didn’t want to tell her it all fused
together on my trip back here.

I’m really not sure where I’ll wind
up.

Chapter
Nineteen

Eli: Lake Arrivals

Somewhere in Old
England…

I’m completely soaked
again.

I stagger, coughing, out of the
lake and flop down. Two guys in costumes are staring at me. They
both have beards. One is wearing…not a crown, exactly, but a ring
around his head, with a small jewel in the center over his fore-
head. His robes and vests are kind of greasy, his hair’s a little
matted, and he’s holding a sword. “Merlin, is this one of yours?”
the jewel wearer asks.

Merlin?
Couldn’t be. Then
the one asking the question is probably…

“
Arthur?” I sputter it more than
say it. I guess they aren’t costumes after all.

“
What a bold lad, to appear out of
the ether and address his king like an old friend.”

I can’t worry about the ground
rules for talking to some ancient king right now — the trip across
the Fifth Dimension has made me sick, and the waterlogged Seals cap
is already beginning to tingle on my head, but I’m not ready to be
jerked back into the time stream yet.

I was lucky enough to get here
without being able to use the chrono-compass. I don’t have anything
from King Arthur’s England that would have taken me back here. Rolf
is the one with the White Stag’s antlers…

Which he scratched me with. Is
there something in my blood now? Some secondhand body-memory of
this place? Do I have stag WOMPERs in my veins?

I don’t know. Thinking about it
gives me a headache, along with the tingling. I snatch the cap off
and toss it toward Merlin for safekeeping. “Could you hold that,
please?” Then I bend over and throw up.

“
A most peculiar lad, indeed.
Methinks he mocks his king.”

I glance up between heaves to see
that Merlin has my cap in his hands, and he’s chuckling a little as
he examines it. Then he points to a spot over the lake, where I
appeared. “Did you see how he came out of the very air like that,
Arthur? You may not be
his
king at all.”

“
Then who is he? Is this one of
your tricks, you senile wizard, to try and make me keep this bloody
sword?”

“
No one can make you keep
Excalibur, Arthur, if you no longer feel worthy of it.”

“
Bah! Another of your tricks, you
goblin, with your prodding words. This has nothing to do with my
worth
.”

I can still remember, before
WOMPERs and Mom’s disappearance, that I had a regular life. Part of
that included seeing my mom and dad fight sometimes. I can still
remember how ridiculous I thought some of their arguments were, how
I could see their fights starting, like a long, slow fuse on a
cherry bomb. But they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be able to stop or see
what they were doing, and soon they’d be shouting at each other.
Eventually someone would slam a door, and there’d be silence for a
while until someone made up.

Merlin and Arthur sound like
they’re starting one of those married-people fights right now. Over
Excalibur. The Dragon Sword.

“
In fact, you haunted,
spell-casting
toad
, I cannot wait to hurl this infernal
scrap of metal into the water right now and let
her
worry
about keeping it out of the hands of every throne-smitten young
buck who comes wandering down the road.”

“
Apparently, Arthur, she’s not
waiting too much longer to accept the privilege.” I look over the
lake, in the direction Merlin is nodding.

There’s a woman hovering there, and
she’s practically
naked
— the only thing covering her is the
long, flowing hair floating around her body.

Who is she? How does she stay out
there like that? She’s waving now at Arthur, at Merlin.

“
The Lady of the Lake will
disappear, Arthur. She won’t wait forever.” Merlin doesn’t seem
very concerned. He’s still giving my cap the once-over.

Maybe the Lady of the Lake is
time-tangled, too. Maybe there have always been people like me,
throughout history, who can fade in and out of different “whens”—
and maybe that explains a lot of ghosts and spirits and magic
beings.

Maybe I’m not the only Danger
Boy.

Then she winks. Right at me. I
swear it. And then she’s gone.

The water where’s she vanished is
still churning.

“
The lad has scared her
off.”

Lad.
At least it’s not
kid.
Lad, like Laddy. King Arthur and Laddy.

I’m in a cartoon.

But cartoons are supposed to be
fun. And not so sad.

I finally feel less nauseated, and
I stand up. The water in the lake begins bubbling again, and I
turn, thinking maybe she’s come back. But it’s not her.