The Warlock's Gambit (10 page)

I
n a mad rush, everyone cleared out through the portal — just in time. Arms slammed the door shut, and the beast slammed into the other side of the door. Morgan reactivated her shield, and Arthur drew both guns. Lexi and Vassalus waited beside the door, one to each side, to ambush the monster if it came through. But Arms and Valet didn’t take up defensive positions or draw their weapons.

“Are we safe now?” Arthur asked.

Valet nodded.

“The monster can’t reach us?”

Arms nodded.

“That was weird, huh?” Lexi said. “What now?”

Everyone looked at Arthur, who was still puzzling over the Wastes. There had to be a point to it.

“Well … now we …” Arthur shrugged. “I dunno. Take a break?”

Vassalus nodded toward the door to the Inner Sanctum. “Take on the ultimate challenge and prove our mettle?”

“I don’t think so,” Arthur said. “Not yet.”

“We’re going to have to do it sooner or later,” Lexi said. “Best not to wait too long.”

“I know, but we’re just not ready. I think we should go to the Training Room and practice with our weapons until dinner. We need to get better at this. After that, we use the c|slates and see if we can learn more. Then we’ll get a good night of rest and take on Kjor tomorrow. Sound good?”

“Are you sure, Arthur?” Morgan asked. “Lady Ylliara did say that time was of the essence. And there’s not much we can learn in one evening of practice”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“It practically
is
nothing.”

“Look, I just don’t want to die …”

“No one does, moron.”

“Yes, obviously. But I want to be as ready as possible. We’ve got all that information on what's waiting for us from my dream but no idea how to use it to our advantage. Don't we need a plan?”

“So let's come up with a plan and go.”

“Morgan,” Arthur nearly growled in frustration as he tried to put his reluctance into words, “can’t we please wait till tomorrow? I just need one more night here because … because dying now would be worse than dying a week ago. I’ve just figured out where I belong. I’ve got a home, my own room, and I’ve gotten to actually know …” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head.

“Know what?” Morgan said.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Fine,” Arthur snapped. “Now that I’ve gotten to actually know you.”

Was Morgan blushing? She turned and headed down the hallway. “Let’s go train, then … moron.”

In the Training Room, Arms made Arthur and Morgan put their weapons away and stand side-by-side. Then, he pulled a lever. Four cannon-shaped devices lowered from the ceiling.

Arthur looked at Arms. “What are those for —”

WHOOSH!

THUMP!

Arthur doubled over as a rubber ball, about half the size of a kickball, struck him in the stomach.

“Hey!” he said, gasping for breath, watching the ball roll away and then disappear with a puff of smoke. “What gives — whoa!”

Arthur dodged to his left as another ball zoomed toward him. He didn’t react fast enough. The ball hit him in the shoulder, and worse, he ran into Morgan and knocked her down.

“Jerk! You touched me again!” she yelled, climbing to her knees with a grim look in her eyes. “How many times do I —”

WHOOSH!

THUMP!

A ball struck Morgan in the chest. She cursed and got to her feet.

“Such language!” Lexi said, deftly dodging a ball shot toward her. “We’ve got to clean your mouth out.”

Morgan shot her a look — and that got her clipped in the knee when she reacted too slowly to the next shot. She moved to activate her force field. Arms paused the session, pointed at her, and shook his head.

“I think the point is to not use the force field, my dear,” said Vassalus.

Morgan sighed. “Fine.”

Arms reactivated the cannons, and this time Morgan and Arthur paid attention. Arthur dodged well enough that he only sometimes got struck, and then it was never a direct hit. Morgan, on the other hand, was a lot slower at reacting to things like this. She took at least a partial hit from every shot, and several direct shots. It was clear why the Manse thought the force field was a good choice for her. Every time a ball hit her, she grunted or cursed or said, “Argh!” She was growing more irritable by the moment, and that was making her worse at dodging the projectiles.

Lexi and Vassalus, on the other hand, never got hit. Arthur wasn’t sure they needed training, so maybe the point wasn’t for them to learn but to stay in shape. Did they need to stay in shape, being numina?

Too much thinking led him into getting bonked in the ribs. The balls did hit pretty hard, almost hard enough to leave a bruise. He understood Morgan’s frustration.

“That’s it!” Morgan said, with a devious look on her face, “I’ve had it.”

Arthur thought she was going to throw up her force field, but instead, Morgan ran straight toward the cannons, and then slid under them. She waved at Arthur from the other side — but a moment later, the smile and the wave disappeared.

A cannon flipped around, launched a ball, and pegged her in the face at point-blank range. With that, she went down. Arms waved a hand, and the cannons lifted back up into the ceiling. Arthur rushed over. Morgan had tears in her eyes, and blood trickled down from her nose onto the Training Room’s rubber floor.

“Morgan, are you all right?” Arthur asked, falling onto his knees beside her.

“Poor dear,” Lexi cooed.

Vassalus turned on Arms and growled, “Unacceptable! Cheating, that was. Lady Morgan was not expecting such a villainous move!”

“It’s okay, Vassalus,” Morgan muttered. “I got too clever. This is what happens when you get too clever without actually knowing the rules.” She pinched her nose and leaned back.

As Arthur caught his breath, thinking about her performance, Morgan eyed him.

“What?” he asked innocently.

“I know you want to laugh at me — go ahead — get it out of your system.”

“I admit, it was funny, the look on your face when the cannon flipped around and aimed at you. But a busted nose isn’t funny. I hate that feeling. I don’t want to laugh. Promise.”

Morgan grunted in response. She let go of her nose and leaned forward. No blood dripped down. She pointed at Arms. “Bring the cannons back down. Let’s do this.”

“Are you sure, madam?” Vassalus asked.

Morgan nodded. “Do it. But let’s make it interesting.”

“What’ve you got in mind?” Arthur asked.

“Let’s try running and moving around the room. That should be easier than just staying in the same area.”

The cannons dropped and began firing, quickly proving Morgan wrong. As they moved, the cannons flipped and swiveled, easily tracking their progress. The cannons also decided to up their game, as well. Sometimes, they would fire two balls at them instead of just one. Morgan still got at least clipped with every shot, and Arthur was getting hit more and more. Finally, when he was out of breath and had just taken a shot to the shoulder, he held up a hand.

“That’s enough.”

Arms made the cannons stop.

Morgan looked irritated. She was clearly the kind of person who wanted to keep doing something until she mastered it — even when it was futile.

“I’m sure we have other skills we need to work on,” Arthur told her. “And you do have a force field to use in battle.”

“Okay … fine. What now?”

Arms lowered the targets for the rayguns.

“Good,” Arthur said. “This will let us catch our breath.”

They got into position where Arms wanted them to and took their shots. After a few minutes, Arms pulled a lever, and the targets began zooming toward them — worse, they weaved and bobbed and zigzagged as they did so. It took five shots before Arthur got his dead-center, when it was halfway to him. Morgan kept missing her target. When it got three-fourths of the way to her, the target stopped and flashed red. A blaring buzzer sounded in the most irritating way possible.

Morgan threw her raygun down in frustration. “I’m no good at this!”

“You will get the hang of it, my dear,” Vassalus said. “It just takes practice.”

“But Arthur doesn’t have any trouble with it at all.”

“But he was born for it,” Vassalus told her. “We each have our unique skills.”

“Yeah, I can’t work any of the tech here,” Arthur said. “That’s something I’m going to have to work at, just like you’ll have to work at this.”

Sulking, Morgan picked up her raygun and gestured for Arms to give it another go. After half an hour of firing at targets, with Morgan getting buzzed half the time and Arthur getting buzzed once (the targets kept speeding up after each successful attempt), they took a break. But not a long one. Arms, it seemed, was quite the taskmaster in his domain. He made Arthur do more target practice with the rayguns, while Morgan had to use the telekinetic power of her gloves to pick up rubber cannonballs from a distance and move them around. She was better at that.

After what seemed like another half hour, Arms pulled the smallest canister from the wall and held it up.

“Crap,” Morgan said, standing.

Arthur drew his rayguns. “Let’s do this. Numina, you ready?”

Vassalus and Lexi nodded.

Arms tapped on the canister twelve times … did that mean they were going to have to face twelve of … whatever those were?

“We need a plan,” Morgan said.

“Problem is, we don’t know what to plan against,” Lexi cautioned.

“Let’s stick close together and back away from the canister,” Arthur said. “Once we see what we’re facing, then we can come up with a plan. And be careful, everyone — we can’t afford to get injured. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

“Should we even be doing this, then?” Morgan asked.

“Well, if we can’t handle this, then maybe we aren’t ready to face the —”

Smoke billowed out from the canister and formed into twelve beasts that looked like monkeys with lobster claws for hands and eagle wings. The beasts shot toward them en masse.

“Morgan, shield up!” Arthur said. “Protect us from the front. Lexi and Vassalus, you guys protect from the rear. I’m going to shoot at them. As soon as anyone spots the red dot, let me know.”

Morgan clapped her wrists together. “On the neck, moron. Pay attention.”

“Oh.” Arthur had been so focused on the plan that he hadn’t noticed.

Ten minutes later, they were exhausted, scratched, and bruised up a bit, but otherwise okay. Arthur had taken out most of the creatures with shots, while Lexi and Vassalus had taken out a few that had tried to circle around behind them. Arms capped the canister and gave them a nod of approval. Together with Morgan, Arthur slumped down against a wall, exhausted and drenched in sweat.

“That was intense,” Arthur said.

“He went easy on us,” Morgan replied.

“But it was still intense. I’m going into the hot tub, tonight — after my shower, of course.”

“I’ll need the hot tub too, so don’t hog it.”

“You don’t have your own hot tub?”

“Just a small shower,” Morgan replied. “My room is not … as fancy as yours.” She tilted her head. “Wonder what that says about you?”

“That I’m tired of sharing a bathroom with my grandmother and living in a closet-sized room?”

“Maybe. I think it means you're a Mr. Fancy Pants.”

“A Mr. Fancy Pants?” Arthur chuckled. “Yeah, that’s me all right.”

Morgan took out her c|slate and stretched it to the size of a large tablet. She still had her gloves on, and they weren’t finished powering down. She scrolled and swiped across the screen. Then suddenly, the glove on the hand that was swiping lit up, and her hand made full contact with the screen. The glove gave off a spark, and that slammed Morgan back against the wall. But her hand didn’t leave the screen. Her eyes went wide, staring off absently into space, and she didn’t budge at all.

“
M
organ?!”

Arthur grabbed Morgan’s hand and ripped it away from the c|slate. If not for the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, Arthur would’ve thought that she was dead.

Blinking again, she seemed to pop back into herself. She lifted the glowing glove up in front of her as it powered down. Her eyes drifted to the c|slate, and then to Arthur — narrowing. Annoyance twisted up her face.

“What did you do that for?!”

“What?” Arthur asked in surprise.

“Don’t
ever
touch me again.”

“I was saving your life, Morgan. I
had
to touch you. You had gone into a coma or something.”

“Nonsense. I was fine. You interrupted me.”

“How?”

“I was … I was just …” She frowned at her gloves. “I was … interfacing … with the c|slate …”

“Interfacing? What does that mean?”

“My mind was interacting — directly with the c|slate — like I didn’t need the GUI at all.”

“The gooey? What the heck are you talking about?”

“The GUI — Graphical User Interface,” she said loudly, as if he were hard of hearing.

He shook his head, not understanding.

She sighed irritably. “The part of the computer you interact with. The windows, the apps, the buttons, the cursor, the stuff you see and use … all of that is the GUI.”

“There’s a name for that?”

“Of course there’s a name for that, moron. And I skipped it and went straight in. The c|slate was responding to my thoughts … whatever I wanted it to do, it would just do it … like … like my brain was a mouse and my thoughts executables, you know …”

“Sure.” He had no idea what an executable was; something you killed? “But why would the gloves let you do … that? They came from the Armory.”

“I don’t know. The other functions make sense.”

“Perhaps,” said Vassalus, “it is useful when encountering alien technology …”

Morgan nodded. “Makes sense, alien tech may be very … well, alien. We might not be able to interact with it in a normal way, due to differences in biology or concepts or whatever.”

“Oh. Well, then sorry I touched you,” Arthur said. “We didn’t know what was happening. We were really worried — all of us.”

“It’s true,” Lexi said. “Very true.”

“Indeed, madam,” Vassalus added. “I was most concerned.”

Morgan patted Vassalus on the head. “I — I understand. Sorry. You were just trying to save me. I appreciate it.”

“If you want, you can give it another try …”

Morgan looked at her gloves and then her c|slate. “No, that was pretty intense, and I was already exhausted. I’ll try it again if we survive this. I think that’s probably a high level function, you know? Something I’m supposed to learn about before trying. Because I feel like I just took a three-hour math exam, after spending another hour dodging those rubber cannonballs.”

Even though Arthur knew he sort of had superpowers in him — like that surge of speed he’d used to rescue Morgan from the takaturio — he was a little jealous of what she’d gotten. He had two rayguns and better reflexes; that was it. Well, he did have a special sword, but they couldn't get to it. She had a raygun, a force field, telekinetic gloves, and could interface with alien computers. His father had been able to create a giant glowing sigil that could banish the training monsters in an instant and probably make sigils like the ones hanging in the doorways on his own. The problem was, Morgan had all her gear and abilities available now, while Arthur’s powers were unpredictable and untrained. He didn't even know half of what he
should
be able to do. And the few things he could do, he couldn't depend on. But it's not like that was Morgan’s fault, or even the Manse’s.

They decided to forgo a second training session and spend time studying the c|slates instead. That way they could relax and plan their attack strategy after dinner. They took showers and baths before eating a late meal in the Dining Hall. It was practically a feast: roasted quail, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn dripping with butter, broccoli dripping with olive oil, freshly baked rolls, and layered chocolate cake with icing. Arthur was stuffed afterward. And even though he appreciated the wonderful food, he couldn’t help but feel that maybe Cook had understood this might be his and Morgan’s last meal and had gone all out to honor them.

Morgan played with the desk computer in the Office and her c|slate while Arthur sketched and watched the
Blues Brothers
. Then Morgan came in and insisted that he pull up the extended edition of
The Fellowship of the Ring
before bed. She was pleased when the television had it available. Watching the extended version with all the additional scenes made the movie new all over again. Arthur was so happy that, for the next hour and a half, he completely forgot about the danger they'd be facing in the morning.

When Frodo offered to take the One Ring into Mordor, despite being small and not knowing the way, because only he could do it, Arthur paused the video. He glanced over at Morgan. She was looking at him, too. Their eyes met, and they stared at one another for a minute — silent — understanding.

Morgan smiled wryly. “Never thought I’d end up being Samwise Gamgee.”

Arthur nodded. “Never thought I'd be charging into Mordor.”