Ultimate Magic (9 page)

“Why?” demanded the dragon. “We must go! We can’t afford to lose any more time.”

Merlin merely stroked his long beard. From somewhere in the middle of the mass of gray hair came the sharp
snap
of an owl’s beak. But the wizard didn’t seem to notice.

“I understand,” he said at last. “Yet we also can’t afford to plunge into this new battle with no forethought.” He twirled a strand of gray hair around his finger. “Just what do you know about this monster who sent the minions?”

“Precious little. Except that it smuggled itself into Avalon disguised as a leech.” The dragon ground his spear-sharp teeth, recalling the leech’s attempt, long ago, to kill him with malevolent magic. “And that it has grown steadily stronger, becoming so powerful it could attack us with this evil pestilence.”

He swished the tip of his tail, hurling a dozen minion carcasses into the air. Two or three of them bounced off Merlin’s blue robe. One hit the top of his shaft, which sizzled with sparks that instantly burned the carcass into ashes. And one grazed the side of Marnya’s neck, making her rear up like a startled mare. She glared at the dead minion, growling angrily. Meanwhile, the scales on her neck turned shadowy gray for several seconds before finally returning to luminous blue.

Beneath his beard, Merlin scowled. “Anything else? Anything at all?”

“Only that it serves Rhita Gawr. And that its form is”—the dragon paused, recalling the shadowy image he’d first seen in Bendegeit’s lair—“
darker than dark
.”

Merlin’s fingers reached deeper into his beard, twirling ropes of hair. A sudden
snap
made him yelp and nearly jump out of his boots. He yanked his hand away from the beard, vigorously shaking a nipped finger.

“Now, Euclid,” he scolded. “That was rude, brutal, and disgraceful! As well as positively unowlish.” He frowned, examining his bruised fingertip. “Save your bites for mealtimes!”

From deep within his beard, muffled by all the hair, came a mirthful chuckling sound. Two yellow eyes gleamed mischievously, then disappeared in the gray strands.

Giving his finger another shake, Merlin turned again to the dragon. “All this is mysterious, Basil. Very mysterious.”

“What do you mean?” The enormous tail thumped on the ground impatiently, spraying mud all around.

“I mean,” replied the wizard, “that we have almost no idea what this monster is really like. Does it have any weaknesses? Why has it remained hidden for all this time? Does it have some more sinister plans, beyond defeating you and your allies in battle?”

“It serves Rhita Gawr!” roared Basilgarrad. “Do we need to know any more than that?”

“Yes, if we are going to defeat it.” The tufted brows rose higher. “What I’d like to know most of all is . . . how exactly does it gain its power? From what source? What fuels all this”—he kicked a pile of minion carcasses—“this dark magic?”

The dragon slid his gargantuan head closer, so that his lower lip almost touched the point of Merlin’s hat. In a low voice, he growled, “The only way we’re going to find the answer is to go to the Haunted Marsh.”

Merlin stroked the hair of his chin, keeping his hand well out of Euclid’s reach. “That’s another thing. Not a very hospitable place, that Marsh. I’d rather go any other place in Avalon! Even a goblin fortress is a pleasant destination by comparison. Just how do you know that’s where this monster is hiding? What makes you so certain?”

“This,” rumbled the dragon. Reaching up to his shoulder with a pair of claws, he plucked a small, charred scrap of paper from the gap above a scale. He then dropped the scrap, which twirled as it floated down into Merlin’s open hand.

The wizard pursed his lips, studying the burned fragment. He pressed one finger against the hand-drawn arrow that remained visible. “I do sense magic here. Just a bare remnant, mind you, but enough to know that the magic was once very real, and also very strong. But what did this scrap come from?”

“A map. A magical map.” Basilgarrad hesitated, remembering Merlin’s severely damaged relationship with his son, Krystallus. “It was a gift from . . . a friend. Someone adventurous enough to have won it on his travels. And also generous enough to give it to me, because it could only be used once.”

“And you used it to find where the monster is hiding?”

“I did. And it said, without any question, the Haunted Marsh.”

Merlin nodded approvingly as he leaned against his staff, pushing its tip into the muddy ground. “That map was, indeed, a precious gift. A generous gift. What loyal friend of Avalon gave it to you?”

The dragon’s broad chest expanded as he drew a deep breath. “Krystallus.”

Merlin started, almost losing his grip on the staff. “Krystallus?”

“Yes. Your son.”

Anguished wrinkles appeared on the mage’s brow. “I have no son.”

Basilgarrad gazed intently at his friend, knowing that this was not the time to discuss such a painful topic. In a firm but gentle tone, he rumbled, “We must go.”

Merlin sucked in his breath. “Yes, you’re right.”

The wizard opened his hand, started to toss the scrap aside, then hesitated. For an instant he stared down at it, as if trying to read the mind of the person who had once owned it. Finally, with a somber shake of his head, he dropped the scrap and watched it float down to the mud.

“All right, then.” Basilgarrad began to spread his wide wings again. “To the Marsh.”

Marnya, too, opened her version of wings. Along the edges of both flippers, webbing expanded. Her gleaming blue tail pressed flat against the ground, ready to push hard enough to hurl her body into the sky.

By her side, near the splayed claws of one of her feet, young Ganta rustled his paper-thin wings. Tiny as they were, they dwarfed his slim body. In a small, piping voice, he cried, “I’m ready, master Basil. Let’s win this fight for Avalon!”

The green dragon glanced down at his bold little nephew. “I hope we will, Ganta. I hope we will.”

11:
S
HADOW OF A
S
HADOW

Of all the qualities of a survivor, the first and last are courage.

Far away from the battlefield where Basilgarrad and his companions had fought for their lives, a young hawk raced through a whirling sandstorm.

Like a silver-winged arrow, the hawk shot through gusts of blasting sand, ignoring all the tiny grains that pelted his feathers. Sand struck his eyes so forcefully he kept them almost shut, flying blind into the turbulent wind. Yet he continued to race through the swirling storm, his wings beating as fast as his heart.

For right behind him flew death.

Six vicious dactylbirds, their jagged wings slapping powerfully, shrieked with hunger. Every wingbeat hurled their bodies forward, as if they leaped across the air rather than flew through it. Their heavy-lidded eyes, dull red, stayed nearly closed, yet the hunters never veered from their prey. They could smell the blood of their victim through anything, even a cyclone of sand.

Their bloodstained talons slashed at the hawk. Murderously sharp, they raked the sky, just as they would soon tear through the feathers and flesh of this young bird who had dared to evade them. Once dactylbirds chose their prey, they almost always prevailed and gained satisfaction—even when that prey offered only a few bites of meat to chew on. Though hunger had sparked this pursuit, the predators now felt mostly bloodlust, made even greater by the hawk’s desperate attempt to lose them in this howling storm over the desert of northern Malóch.

The dactylbirds shrieked louder than ever as their hooked beaks snapped just behind the hawk’s tail feathers. Those feathers, like the silvery ones of the small bird’s wings, showed terrible wear from this chase. Already, several torn pinions had fallen away, while many more showed rips and holes or were bent askew.

Desperately hoping to escape, the brave hawk flew speedily northward, right into the pelting sand. His tattered wings strained their hardest, though his muscles screamed with every stroke. He knew that his sole hope to survive lay in flying even deeper into this furious storm. Nothing else mattered. Not even the fact that his route was carrying him perilously close to the sinister place that lay just beyond the edge of this desert—a vile swamp so choked with deadly fumes and ghouls that people called it the Haunted Marsh.

At last, the hawk’s bold gambit started to show success. He could hear the dactylbirds’ shrieks grow quieter as they fell behind, at first only by a wing’s length or two, then by more. Though he didn’t dare to slacken his pace, let alone take the time to look behind, he sensed that his plan was working. He was going to live!

His wings beat harder, despite his strained muscles. Their strokes gained power from the taste of triumph, as well as his strong will to live. He could almost see, in his mind’s eye, his mate, whose diamond-bright eyes and lively spirit had won his heart in the early days of spring. And he could almost hear the energetic peeping of the three healthy chicks who now filled their nest on a sheer cliff by the western coast of Mudroot.

When he’d first glimpsed the dactylbirds approaching, his only thought was to lure the predators away from his family. Now, however, he felt sure that he would also return home. A bit tattered from his escape, but very much alive.

As the distance between the hawk and his pursuers lengthened, the storm began to diminish. The winds didn’t howl as loudly; the sand blew less forcefully. Spaces of relative calm appeared between the swirling gusts. Now and then he coasted on the swells, giving his exhausted wings a few seconds’ rest. He even dared to open his eyes a little wider and caught his first glimpses of the desert dunes below.

The storm’s fury faded, until finally he felt only occasional pecks of sand against his feathers. Finally, he chanced a look behind. Curling his neck, he opened his eyes fully and peered into the whirling cloud that he was leaving.

No sign at all of those miserable dactylbirds!

His chest swelled victoriously. He’d done the impossible. Not only had he saved his family, he’d eluded an entire flock of ruthless predators. He straightened his neck again—then noticed something strange.

A new and much darker cloud loomed straight ahead. Unlike the storm he’d just flown through, this cloud wasn’t made of blowing sand. Nor was it made of dust or moisture or anything remotely tangible. No, this cloud was made from an eerie, concentrated essence that seemed, somehow, darker than a shadow of a shadow.

The hawk shuddered, then tilted his wings to veer away. From somewhere below, he heard a high, rasping shriek. He turned even more sharply. As he did, he caught a whiff of something putrid, as foul as a swamp of decaying corpses.

The Haunted Marsh!

With all his remaining strength, he beat his wings to fly away. He’d go anywhere, plunge back into the sandstorm if necessary—whatever it would take to get away from this frightful place. New power came to his strokes as he flew as fast as he could.

But not fast enough. At the instant the hawk veered away, something stirred within the dark cloud. A wispy shape, some sort of being that had no wings yet moved with alarming speed, rose out of the vapors, reaching swiftly toward him. Higher it stretched, and higher, like a shadowy hand, its vaporous fingers groping for its victim.

The hawk screeched in terror as the air around him suddenly darkened. At the same time, the temperature dropped sharply, chilling so much he felt the marrow of his bones begin to freeze. His muscles tightened, his sight disappeared, and no matter how hard he fought to escape this sinister grip, his strength faded.

He released one last muffled screech as a final thought filled his mind. How he knew this, he couldn’t be sure. Yet he knew it beyond any doubt.

He’d been captured by a ghoul, one of the most feared residents of the Haunted Marsh.

12:
A
P
RECIOUS
M
ORSEL

Have you heard people say that we are what we eat? What we most consume? That’s only partly true. What we truly are, in our depths, is what we most desire.

Slowly, inexorably, the marsh ghoul’s deadly grip tightened. Darkness and cold seeped steadily into the hawk, clogging his mind and choking his breath. Weaker and weaker he grew, until he couldn’t struggle any longer.

All the hawk could feel was the terrible, bone-cracking cold. Everywhere. Like a limp bunch of feathers, he lay in the ghoul’s grasp, his dying heart only barely beating.

The shadowy creature of the Marsh could have easily killed him right then. It would take only one small additional squeeze, one quick cold breath, to extinguish the last remaining flicker of life in this little bird. Yet the ghoul resisted, keeping that flicker alive, as it shrank back down into the Haunted Marsh.

Why? Not because this bird’s living meat was something so special it was worth saving. And not because the bird would yield much in the way of food; those few shreds would make barely a swallow. While any fresh meat, even such a tiny amount, was desirable, a true delicacy in these harsh days in the swamp, the ghoul resisted consuming its prey for one simple reason. The bird belonged to someone else.

The marsh ghoul’s master waited, even now, for this most recent victim. Writhing in its pit of death, a hole filled long ago with rotting corpses, the monster Doomraga expected its slaves to deliver every creature they captured. Immediately. No matter how small, no matter how miserable, those victims provided nourishment . . . although that nourishment came from a source other than flesh and bone.

Doomraga craved something far more precious. Not the mere body of creatures—but their pain, their sorrow, their ultimate despair. Indeed, it could barely recall the days when it had fed, like a common leech, on the blood of its prey. For many years now it had thrived, instead, on suffering. The more horrible, the better.

Anywhere in Avalon, far beyond the borders of the Marsh, wherever creatures suffered—there Doomraga found sustenance. That is why it had done so much to sow the seeds of hatred, greed, and arrogance in this world, sending its servants to coax the flamelons, fire dragons, and others to go to war. At long last, those seeds had sprouted, producing the War of Storms. Nourished by all that negative energy, Doomraga had grown immensely large—and immensely powerful. Strong enough to send a whole army of minions, only moments earlier, to destroy that cursed green dragon who continued to be such a nuisance. And, even better, strong enough to complete its final—and greatest—task.