Ultimate Magic (18 page)

“I did it, master Basil!” piped the young dragon. He flapped his wings enthusiastically and bobbed his little head. “I scared off the ghouls. With my breath of fire!”

Only half hearing, Basilgarrad nodded. “I’m sure you did.” Then he beat his wings, charging straight at the enemy he was longing to fight—and soon, to defeat.

His enormous body tore through the fumes. Shredded vapors trailed from his jagged wing tips, his deadly claws, and his massive tail. Merlin, ready for action, crouched atop the dragon’s head. Both of them knew that now, at last, they would face Rhita Gawr. And that their battle would determine the fate of Avalon.

As they burst through the last curtain of clouds, the troll stood in clear view. But Rhita Gawr’s attention was not turned toward them. Rather, his entire wrath was directed at another foe, a more slender dragon whose luminous blue scales gleamed even in the darkness of the swamp.

Marnya! Seeing her made Basilgarrad’s heart leap—not with joy, but with dread. For she was flying perilously close to the troll, barely dodging the savage swipes of his hands.

“Be careful!” shouted Basilgarrad. He pumped his wings, accelerating to his greatest speed.

The flying water dragon didn’t hear the warning. She continued to spin around the troll’s head, nearly grazing one of his ears. As she swooped past, she flicked her tail, slicing the troll’s earlobe.

Rhita Gawr roared in uncontrollable rage while black fluid oozed from his wound. Clearly pleased with her success, Marnya slowed down just enough to take a brief glance at what she’d done. At the same time, her foe’s red eye flashed vengefully—and marked her trajectory. Before she could speed up again, the troll swung his huge fist.

“No!” cried Basilgarrad.

“Look out!” shouted Merlin.

Their cries combined with Marnya’s scream and the sound of crushing bones as Rhita Gawr’s fist slammed into her body. She tumbled from the sky, spiraling down into the swamp.

25:
M
ERLIN’S
D
ILEMMA

Of all the things I’ve wished for, two stand above the rest: a clearer understanding of the choices I was making . . . and a little more time to make them.

Marnya!” shouted Basilgarrad. His voice echoed around the Marsh in a broken, distorted refrain.

He tilted his wings and started to veer down to the spot where she had fallen, a bubbling pool shrouded by sheets of dark vapors. At that instant, Merlin tugged on the edge of his ear. “Not now, Basil!”

“I must go to her,” the dragon moaned.

“Later,” pleaded the wizard. “Listen, I know how you feel. Believe me, I do! But we have only seconds left to stop that troll. Before it gains all the power coming down that cord—all the power of Rhita Gawr!”

Basilgarrad hesitated, but continued to swoop downward. His eyes, usually glowing so bright, seemed as shadowed as the surrounding swamp. “Can’t . . . leave her. Can’t . . . lose her.”

Though Merlin’s eyes grew misty from his friend’s plight, he pounded his staff on the dragon’s head. “Basil, this is our last chance! We must fight!”

The great dragon ground his many rows of teeth. “No,” he declared. “
You
must fight. I will go . . . to her.”

“All right,” agreed Merlin grudgingly. “But first get me to the cord. As fast as you can!”

Basilgarrad swooped upward again. Beating his powerful wings, he growled, “Get ready.”

“Ready?” asked the wizard. “For what?”

“For your chance to fly on your own.”

“My
what
?”

Basilgarrad nodded as his wings pumped. “This way, you might get to the cord without being seen.” He tore through the fumes, steadily gaining speed. “And without drawing me into the fight.”

“But, Basil—”

Abruptly, the dragon slammed both his wings backward, halting his flight in midair. At the same time, he whipped his neck forward, hurling Merlin into the vapors. The wizard suddenly flew—his arms flailing, his robe flapping, and his beard blown backward by the wind. He sailed straight at the dark thread that connected the troll to the sky above—and at the troll himself. Fortunately, Rhita Gawr’s lone eye was turned elsewhere, at the spot where Marnya had fallen.

Merlin shot toward the cord. As the wind whistled past, he judged his altitude to be about halfway between the troll’s belly and the pulsing eye.
If I can just grab that cord,
he thought,
I’ll be near enough to inflict some damage.

Euclid, who had been hiding in a deep pocket, poked out his head. Seeing that the wizard was flying through the air, he shrieked in horror. Then, seeing their destination, he shrieked again. Furiously working his little wings, he wriggled out of the pocket and into the air where he could control his own flight.

An instant later, Merlin struck the cord. Like a windblown moth landing on a branch, he hit hard and clung tight, even though his momentum nearly threw him past. Wrapping his arms and legs around the thread, he hung on, trying to keep himself from falling. Though he slid some ways down the length, he finally steadied himself. Breathlessly, he leaned his forehead against the cord.

I feel it pumping!
He knew that every throb made his enemy stronger. In a matter of seconds, Rhita Gawr would be unstoppable.

He lifted his head, knowing what he must do. Peering up at the thick vapors that obscured the stars, he could see the outlines of the troll’s muscular shoulders and angular jaw. Both were lit by the ominous glow of the bloodred eye, which continued to flash in time to the pulsing thread.

That eye
, thought Merlin grimly,
is his weakest point. And my only hope.

Taking one hand off the cord, he pulled his staff from his belt. Firmly, he grasped the staff, just below its twisted, knotted top. His voice a bare whisper, he spoke to it as he would have spoken to an old friend.

“I need you now, Ohnyalei, more than ever before. I need you to gather all the power you have. Every last spark, whatever you can muster. For even that,” he added with a glance at the glowing eye far above, “might not be enough.”

The staff quivered, trembling in his hand. Then, like a subtle dawn, its top began to glow ever so slightly. Soon a faint, silvery aura surrounded it.

Merlin watched it closely, between anxious glances skyward. He never noticed, far below by the troll’s waist, the other person who also clung to the throbbing cord.

Krystallus, for his part, never looked up—and certainly never realized that, if he had, he would have seen his father, preparing to strike a blow with the staff. Indeed, Krystallus was busy striking blows of his own, working feverishly to pierce the dark thread with his dagger. Sweat dripped from his face and hands, while his arm muscles ached from the strain. Yet so far he had just barely scraped the thread’s tough surface.

Where is Basil? And my father?
he wondered, wiping his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his tunic.
And what happened to that other dragon who was doing so well at harassing this monster?

At that very moment, Basilgarrad was dragging Marnya’s limp body out of the reeking pool where she had fallen. Gently clasping her fin between his teeth, he tugged to free her from the pool. Although the ooze sucked at her body, his great strength prevailed. He dragged her onto soggy but more solid ground, then somberly gazed at her.

Clumps of peat and decaying flesh covered her face; black muck streaked her once-radiant scales. Her azure eyes lay hidden behind closed lids. Far worse, though, was her utter stillness—the stillness of death. She did not breathe, or blink, or moan.

Basilgarrad lifted his massive head to the sky, stretching his neck upward, and bellowed in pain. It was an anguished sound, terrible to hear for all its pain. For no sound ever heard in Avalon carried more suffering than the sobs of a dragon.

Nearby, in the shadows, sat Ganta, his little wings folded against his back. All the joy of breathing fire had vanished. Instead, he wondered how the fire of life, especially in someone so fully alive, could end so quickly.

Several tears, as dark as the billowing fumes of the swamp, fell from Basilgarrad’s eyes. Down his face they rolled, sliding over his scales, then down his long neck all the way to his shoulders. There, catching sparks of green light from his eyes, they dropped. Still glinting, they landed on Marnya’s lifeless throat.

“Marvelous!” boomed the troll, his voice rising in raucous laughter. “I would kill that insect again, if I could. Just to see you suffer.”

Basilgarrad, consumed with sorrow, didn’t respond, or even look up. He merely stroked the contours of Marnya’s face with his wing tip.

“Did you not hear me?” thundered Rhita Gawr. “Are you deaf, or just cowardly?”

When Basilgarrad still did not reply, the troll glared at him. Enraged, he stepped toward the mourning dragon. But the cord held him back, preventing him from taking more than a single stride. With a roar of frustration, he stamped his huge feet in the swamp, splattering mud and fluids. Because he continued to fix his pulsing eye on Basilgarrad, he didn’t notice the two much smaller figures hanging from the cord itself.

Merlin, hoping his staff was finally ready, gazed into its silvery glow. “Is that everything you have?” he whispered. “We will need it all.”

He watched as the staff ’s top glowed a bit brighter, crackling with energy. “All right, then.” He raised the staff and started to point it at the troll’s evil eye. “Send your mightiest blast to—”

Rhita Gawr suddenly bellowed in surprise, stopping the wizard from finishing his command. In that instant, Merlin turned and saw exactly what his foe had seen. Krystallus! Down at the junction of the cord and the troll’s belly, Krystallus sat holding a dagger, trying to sever the connection.

By the breath of Dagda, that brave lad!
thought Merlin, just as surprised as the troll.

His roar of surprise quickly turning to fury, Rhita Gawr reached down with a massive hand and plucked up Krystallus. He pinched the struggling man’s chest between his thumb and forefinger, so hard that Krystallus gasped for breath and dropped his dagger. The blade plunged downward, bounced off the troll’s knee, then fell into the bog below.

As Rhita Gawr lifted him higher, toward a drooling mouth filled with jagged teeth, Krystallus passed very close to Merlin. Seeing his father suspended from the cord, Krystallus opened his eyes wide with astonishment. For a brief moment, their gazes met—two pairs of coal-black eyes that had not looked at each other for years. In that moment, both father and son saw more than they had believed possible.

Merlin, still holding his staff above his head, hesitated. His tufted eyebrows lifted to their highest.
Should I blast the troll’s eye or help Krystallus? Try to save Avalon—or my son?

Seeing the consternation on his father’s face, Krystallus immediately guessed the wizard’s thoughts—and dilemma. “No, Father!” he croaked, barely able to breathe. “Forget about me. Kill this beast!”

Rhita Gawr’s immense mouth slavered as he carried his victim higher. “I will eat you, worm. Devour you!”

Still Merlin hesitated, as if he’d been frozen in time. He knew what he should do. Avalon needed him to seize this moment, this final chance, to save it from Rhita Gawr’s domination. The staff he held right now was not just a weapon, but the last hope for their world.

Besides, Krystallus was not really someone deserving special treatment. He was, in fact, someone whose words had cut deeper than any sword. Who had done everything possible to distance himself. Who had, more than anyone else, hurt the wizard’s heart.

Who is
, Merlin told himself,
my son.
He bit his lip.
And he is right! He knows that he must die—so that Avalon might live.

In a trembling voice, he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Krystallus. Very sorry.”

He grimaced, watching for another instant as his son approached the troll’s drooling mouth. Then, his decision made, he aimed his glowing staff and spoke the command:

“Save him. Save my son!”

A fiery bolt of lightning shot from the top of the staff, sizzling on its arc through the air. It struck the troll’s hand, just below the knuckles—not hard enough to destroy the monster’s flesh, but to singe it. Rhita Gawr roared in sudden pain, opened his burned hand, and dropped Krystallus.

So bright was the dazzling flash, it illuminated the whole marsh and, for a brief instant, dispersed the many layers of shadows. Even as Rhita Gawr roared from the burn, he was forced to shut his eye as he reeled from the brilliant flash—which prevented him from seeing what happened next.

Merlin leaped off the throbbing cord. Carried aloft by his still-glowing staff, he flew up to catch Krystallus. There! The wizard wrapped one arm around his son’s waist, holding him tight, as the hairs of his unruly beard mingled with those of the younger man’s flowing mane.

In a last burst of power, the darkening staff carried them both downward. Just as they landed in a boggy pool some distance away from the troll, the staff sputtered, sparkled one more time, then finally extinguished. Darkness once again filled the Marsh, lit only by the pulsing red glow of Rhita Gawr’s reopened eye far above their heads.

Merlin used the staff to steady himself as he stood in the muck of the pool. He slid his fingers along the staff, now as dark as the fumes rising around them, fully aware that its power was spent. It would take, he knew, quite some time for its magic to restore itself. Just as he knew that he no longer could do anything to stop Rhita Gawr. Yet he still, somehow, felt sure he’d made the right choice.

Peering at the staff, whose edges dimly gleamed with the red glow, he whispered, “Thanks, my friend.”

Krystallus, who was standing in a deeper part of the pool, stepped toward his father. His boots squelched in the mud as he approached, his face entirely a scowl. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Merlin nodded. “I know.”

“That was stupid.” Krystallus brushed a clump of peat off his nose. “Really stupid.”

“Yes, I know.” The wizard ran a hand through his mud-stained beard. He paused, as Euclid’s feathery form dived out of the sky and back into the nest. Then, gazing at his son, Merlin added, “But as you know well . . . it wasn’t the first time I’ve done something stupid.”