Dragon's Met
Part Ten
by peregrin anna
c. 2001


(Disclaimers and notes may be found on the introductory page .)




Chapter  65

If it were an art to overcome heresy with fire,
the executioners would be the most learned
doctors on earth.
           ~ Martin Luther


There wasn't much to be said--or done, Gary thought ruefully--after Nessa left.  As the last of the light faded from the rectangle of window, he and Morgelyn sat on the floor underneath it, backs against the wall.  Waiting for doom to show up at the door.

Gary shook his head at his own pessimism, but it was hard to avoid it in this place.  Darkness and cold seeped out of the ancient stones as night fell, like fog coming in off Lake Michigan.  

"How long--"  Morgelyn swallowed, as if it took all her courage just to ask the question.  "How long until they come for us?"

"Hopefully not for a long time," he said, then choked on a wry laugh.  Would it be better to starve to death down here, rather than facing what was in store for them upstairs?  He could feel Morgelyn staring at him, even in the darkness.  "I--I just meant--" he started to explain, but she scooted closer, until their shoulders were touching.

"I know," she said dully.  "I would rather brave the rats down here than the ones up there.  Ad adjuvantum me festina..."  

"That a spell?"  Gary kept his tone light, hoping she'd know it was a joke.

"A prayer.  'Make haste to help me, oh Lord...'"  Morgelyn folded her hands as if she really was praying.  "'Tis from the Mass said in times of pestilence and dire need.  It is what I was praying by the waterfall, when you first came."

"You--you were praying?"

"And I received an answer."

"Not a very good one," Gary muttered, glancing around at the gloom.  Trying to keep them both warm, he put his arm around her shoulder.

"It is not yet over.  May God protect us both in what is to come," Morgelyn whispered.  

There wasn't even a trace of irony in Gary's fervent, "Amen."

The night settled in around them.  Time meant nothing--it crawled, it galloped, for all Gary knew, it ran backward.  There was no sound except for the birds and insects out on the moor and the occasional rustle in the straw he'd piled in the corner.  He tried not to doze off--wouldn't do for the dragon slayer to fall asleep on the job.  Besides, his head still throbbed, and there was something about concussions, about not sleeping, that he'd learned in a first aid class, or maybe from watching ER.  But he knew, the next time he opened his eyes in near-total darkness, that it was hours later.  Morgelyn was breathing evenly, her head on his shoulder, and his muscles had grown stiff and cold against the stone.  

And heavy footsteps were echoing in the stairwell outside their door.

Gary knew what they meant.  He spared a look back at the window, hoping against hope to see Fergus again.  There was no one there, no one to save them but themselves.  Beside him, Morgelyn lifted her head and gripped his wrist.  "It's the middle of the night," she whispered.  "What do they want?"

Grimly refusing to answer, to even let himself think of the possibilities, Gary got to his feet despite the protest of every muscle in his body.  A faint, flickering glow was growing stronger through the tiny window in their door.  Morgelyn scrambled up, brushing straw and dirt off her skirt with her good hand.  She hooked a tangled mass of dark hair over her ear.  "Gary..."

The footsteps stopped outside their door, and the torchlight illuminated her huge, worried eyes.

"Whatever happens," Gary told her as the bars fell away, "whatever happens, we're sticking together.  Got it?  They're not gonna hurt you--"

The door flew open with a bang.  Though she jumped, Morgelyn held Gary's gaze and nodded.  "Together."

They both turned to the doorway to face the guards.  Gary drew in a breath, resolute, as the two stout shadows descended the stairs.  He felt Morgelyn stiffen beside him.  "I mean it," he whispered to her, and took half a step ahead.

"Out of the way, mate," growled the smaller guard.  "It's her we want."  He stomped closer while the taller one held back, lifting a torch that cast foreboding shadows through the room.  "Come along, witch.  Brother Banning wants to see you."

Chin high, Morgelyn planted her feet and would have stood her ground, but Gary pushed her behind him.  "No," he said firmly, widening his stance and bracing for a fight.  They'd left the door open.  If he and Morgelyn could just get past these two, he thought with a ridiculous surge of hope, they could make a break for it.

"Give over the wench, man," growled the guard.  "You know there's no choice here--and it's clear you don't know what to do with her."  Morgelyn gasped, and the man on the steps chuckled.  

Shaking his head, Gary backed up against the slow, menacing advance, arms spread wide to keep Morgelyn behind him.  He'd meant what he'd said.  No way in hell was he going to let her go anywhere with these two, let alone to Banning.  But the guard stepped even closer, shoving his face over Gary's shoulder to leer at Morgelyn.  "We all know the witch has to burn.  But first we're going to have a bit of fun."  

"No," Morgelyn breathed.

"You heard the lady."  Gary took a step forward, trying to force the guard back the other way.  "Get away."

"Get on with it, Cam," muttered the guy on the stairs.  

But the guard sidestepped Gary, keeping his sneering gaze on Morgelyn.  He was having fun scaring her, Gary realized with a sick jolt.  "Oh, we will all hear her soon enough.  Won't be no priest to stop your screaming this time, lass."

Intent on his prey, he didn't notice Gary's fist drawing back, or he surely would have moved before it slammed, lightning-quick, into his stomach.  He doubled over, cursing.  "Damn it, Roy, get down here and help me!"

Shaking out his fist as Cam tried to straighten up, Gary saw the second guard hurriedly fit his torch into a wall bracket at the foot of the stairs.  It wasn't going to be a fair fight, but it might be their only chance.  He turned to push Morgelyn into the corner, as far away as he could make her go.  "Stay back--"

"Gary, duck!"  

Spinning back around, he managed to dodge one pass of the end of Roy's staff, but not the second.

It caught him in the shoulder and sent him sprawling into the straw pile.  Choking on the foul bits that lodged in his mouth and nose, Gary started up again, only to see the wide end of the staff barreling toward his head.  He threw up his arm, but the blow didn't come; instead, there was a grunt.  

"Gerroff, wench!"  

Morgelyn had jumped over him and grabbed Roy's arm.  Hanging on with one hand, she gave Gary time to get to his feet.  Roy elbowed her off with a growl as Cam stood up behind her.  Stumbling backward, she fell right into Cam's arms.  He pulled her against him in a bear hug, grinning viciously and lifting her off the floor as she tried to twist free.  "Let me go!" she shouted, but he only laughed, dragging her with him as he sidled toward the stairs.

Gary saw it happen in bits and flashes, like a film with missing frames, as he tried to stay away from the heavy staff whizzing through the air, his head its sole target.  As he ducked again, he threw himself forward, plowing headfirst into Roy's massive gut.  Propelled backward, the bigger man staggered into Morgelyn.  

Somehow, she managed to squirm out from between the two guards.  She took two steps to Gary, who through pure chance and no forethought grabbed the hand that wasn't hurt.  He meant to pull her behind him again, but the guards were both angry now, cursing and moving faster than Gary would have thought possible.  

Cam made a grab for Morgelyn--and caught her left hand in a fierce, squeezing grip.  Gary felt it immediately, before he even realized what had happened, what it meant--Morgelyn froze, rigid, her mouth in a round "o", and then went limp.  A small whimper of pain escaped as she closed her eyes and sank to her knees.  Like a shark smelling blood, Cam squeezed harder, yanking her out of Gary's grasp.  Roy ran back and hefted the torch from its bracket.  

Gary didn't think, he couldn't; he just saw Morgelyn crumple over, drawn away from him, dragged along the floor, toward not only the stairs, but the fire.  She blinked back at him, pleading for help with her eyes; Gary sprang toward them and threw a right that hit Cam in the jaw.  Pain exploded up Gary's arm, and he felt heat near his cheeks.  Roy grabbed Gary by his vest and tried to pull him away, but Gary, who at least wasn't trying to fight with a torch in his hand, kicked out and connected with a knee.  Released, he stumbled a few steps forward.

Morgelyn was on her knees, eyes squeezed shut, trying to pry Cam's hand away from her own.  Laughing at her ineffectual efforts, he was caught by surprise when Gary hit him from behind, driving a fist into his side.  Cam turned and threw an elbow into Gary's gut; Gary tottered back, arms pinwheeling as he tried to maintain his balance.  

Another, sharper cry of pain rang out--Cam still hadn't released Morgelyn, and Gary could see, horrifyingly clear in the torchlight, how he squeezed his ragged fingernails into the blisters on her hand.   And then, before Gary could recover himself and make another move, Roy thrust the torch between them, so that when Cam hauled Morgelyn up in a merciless jerk, it was right in her face.

For a moment Gary saw her face through the flames, her eyes huge, her mouth open as if to scream, and he was sure that it was over--that he had failed her.  There seemed to be voices and noises all around them now, in the dark and flickering shadows, but his attention was focused only on his friend.  He made a move as if to knock the torch loose, ducked under Roy's arm, and plowed his good shoulder into Cam's gut, yanking on his arm, trying to get him to release her.  They fell and rolled together once, twice; the hand pulling at Gary's hair was his assurance that at least it wasn't torturing Morgelyn.  One more roll and a sharp tug on his hair, and Gary's head connected with a stone wall.  He fought to keep from blacking out, to hang on to Cam's tunic, to keep him away from Morgelyn, until it was the only thought he could hold.  

Just hold on, don't let go, don'tletgo...

Cam's face danced in and out of the dark spots in Gary's vision; there was another tug on his hair, then shouts that he couldn't understand, and Morgelyn's gasping sobs, but they were all fading away.  Gary felt his strength giving out, his grasp on reality slipping--and then the guard gave another loud grunt and went limp, slumping on top of Gary and blocking out the world.  

When he could breathe again, when he knew he hadn't blacked out, Gary heaved and pushed Cam's limp form away.  Too dizzy and breathless to stand, Gary scanned the room from his knees, but his vision wouldn't clear, and he couldn't figure out what had happened.  It didn't make sense, the only thing that made sense was--half-crouched, he turned and scooted across the floor toward the only sound he recognized, shaky breathing and choking sobs, until he found Morgelyn curled into a fetal position, her burned hand cradled against her chest, rocking back and forth.  

"It's me, he's gone, it's okay, I'm sorry, oh God I'm so sorry," he whispered, reaching out to touch her shoulder.  She didn't respond.  "Morgelyn, please--"

A shadow fell over them; there were booted feet in front of his face.  "Get away from her!" Gary snarled, and wrapped his arms around Morgelyn's shoulders, bent over her to try to protect her, somehow.  

...don'tletgodon'tletgodon'tletgo...

"Back off!  You come any closer and so help me, I'll--"

The feet did back off, but they were replaced by knees, and then a face.  "You are not in a position to make threats, my friend--not that they are needed."  Gary blinked, and the dark spots in front of his eyes went away, replaced by a familiar face, furrowed with concern.  "What in the name of all that is holy--Gary, what--Morgelyn?"  Fergus reached out a hand.  "Is she--?"

...don'tletgodon'tletgo...

Gary kept blinking at Fergus, but he stayed where he was and didn't relinquish his hold.  He had to be imagining this.  It couldn't be real.  Everything was swimming in front of him, and he felt stupid and thick, but the one thing he knew was that he wasn't going to let go of Morgelyn, not this time.

Fergus's voice grew sharper when Gary wouldn't, couldn't answer.  "For the love of God, what's happened to her?"

"Hush!" hissed another voice.  "You will bring the whole village down upon us."  A large, meaty hand landed on Gary's shoulder.  "Come, lad, let us help you."

Gary shook off Father Ezekiel.  But he unfolded himself from his crouched position, pulling Morgelyn with him.  "I promised her she wouldn't be alone."  He saw, but ignored, the wide-eyed stare Fergus shot at the priest over his head, and scooted around so he could see Morgelyn's face.  She was still as a stone in his arms, her eyes squeezed tight in the flickering light that was growing stronger--or maybe Gary's vision was just clearing.  "It's all right," he said, his voice low.  "You--you can open your eyes."  She sucked in a breath between clenched teeth, and her eyelashes fluttered.  "They're--the guards are--Fergus is here.  I--I think it's safe now."  

"Not unless you make haste."  Father Ezekiel reached down and would have grabbed Morgelyn by the arm, but Gary stopped his hand, rocking back on his own knees.  

"Just give her a second, will ya?"

Morgelyn blinked watery eyes at him and at their rescuers.  Gary grasped her elbows and pulled her to her feet, drawing an arm around her shoulders.  She wasn't standing very steadily--or maybe that was him.  

"How--" she finally whispered, biting on her lip and drawing her hand in.  "Fergus?  W-what happened?"  

"Good timing," Gary muttered.  Cam, the guard he'd been wrestling with, lay over by the wall where Gary had left him.  The crumpled mass of red jersey across the room must have been Roy.  The light seemed to grow stronger--maybe the moon was rising again--and Gary could see every crag in Father Ezekiel's face.

"Talk later," the priest said gruffly.  "There is no time to lose."  He turned to Fergus.  "You know the way out?"

"Up the stairs, through the kitchen, second door."  Fergus reached for Morgelyn's arm.  But she turned back, looking at the far wall of the cell, and gasped.  Following her stare, Gary finally realized why the light in the room had been growing brighter.  Somehow in the fight, the torch had landed in the pile of dirty straw and caught; foul-smelling smoke was already wafting through the chamber.  Though stone wouldn't burn, the straw would.  

"We're outta here."  Gary started for the stairs, but Morgelyn pulled out of his grip and darted back into the corner.  Skirts lifted high, she stomped at the flames.

"Morgelyn, are you mad?" Fergus exclaimed.  Gary and Ezekiel hurried after her.  

"We cannot let them burn!  We cannot, we cannot..."  Over and over, louder, too loud, she repeated it like a wild prayer.  Gary reached her first and caught her shoulders; Ezekiel grabbed him roughly and pulled them both back.  

"Let it burn," he growled.  

"No!"  Morgelyn was shaking again, and Gary wondered if she was even in her right mind.  He wondered if any of them were.  

Firmly taking hold of her elbow, Ezekiel drew her toward the stairs, where Fergus watched the whole thing with his mouth agape.  In a low, urgent voice, Ezekiel said, "You must leave this place.  You know why those guards were here--what they were taking you toward.  You must leave," he repeated, his face bent close to Morgelyn's.  "And it would be better if no one followed."

Gary understood immediately.  Morgelyn took a couple more beats.  Her good hand flew to her mouth.  "But--"

"It is the only way," Fergus insisted.  Ezekiel pushed Morgelyn toward the bard.

"Those men," she whispered, turning back and pointing to the unconscious guards.  

"The ones who were trying to kill you?" Fergus snapped.  Gary knew what Morgelyn intended, and would have gone back, but Father Ezekiel shoved him toward the steps as well.

"I will get them out.  Go."  

Gary met Ezekiel's eyes in the ever-growing light and saw all he needed to see.  The priest understood, now; believed them both.  With a surge of relief and hope, Gary pulled Morgelyn to the steps, but she twisted back, took a step toward Ezekiel.

"Father--"

"Get her out of here," he insisted gruffly, and jabbed a finger in Fergus's direction.  "Listen to that one.  Do not stop for anything, and do not look back."

"What about you?" Gary asked.  "If they find out you helped us--"

Ezekiel shook his head.  "They will never know."

Teary-eyed, Morgelyn stood on tiptoe to kiss Father Ezekiel on the cheek.  "Thank you," she whispered.

"You are no witch, child."  He rested his hand on her head for a brief moment, as if he were giving a blessing.  "Not an evil one, at any rate.  Now leave."

The smoke was filling the room now.  Gary met Father Ezekiel's eyes one more time, the nod they shared a thanks, a commitment.  He reached for Morgelyn's arm, and this time she didn't resist.

"Hurry!" Fergus urged, and they followed him up the stairs and into the cool night air of the kitchen.





Chapter 66

We grow accustomed to the Dark
When Light is put away
           ~ Emily Dickinson


They left the dungeon behind, following Fergus up to the abandoned kitchen.  Gary fought the urge to cough smoke out of his lungs and nostrils.  The moon was still nearly full; scudding clouds darted over it, causing deep blue shadows to move and shift just as much as those cast by the flames downstairs.  Placing what he hoped was a reassuring hand on Morgelyn's shoulder, he kept her between himself and Fergus.  Long, shady fingers reached out toward them from inside the abandoned fireplaces and under the broken tables, then retracted.  Gary didn't know if the worst danger was behind them, or up ahead, where someone--Banning, Nessa, Malcolm, more guards--might jump out of the shadows to reclaim them.  

Hurrying through the kitchen on feet numb with cold, Gary could feel Morgelyn's breathing, uneven as his own as they struggled to keep up with Fergus.  Gary didn't need to be told to keep silent; if those goons had been coming to fetch Morgelyn, either they'd been planning to have a little 'fun' on their own, or, more likely since those two didn't seem to have the brains for planning, someone had been waiting to--to--

Well, it didn't matter what they'd been planning.  They wouldn't get a chance to do it.  What mattered now was that Gary and his friends kept out of their way.  

He was surprised when Fergus headed, not for the crumbling walls and the moor beyond, but back toward the portion of the manor that was still in one piece.  Morgelyn twisted back to shoot Gary a scared, confused look and he whispered, "Hey, why don't we just--"

"Shh!"  The bard didn't even look back, and after a moment's hesitation, they followed him, making the turn for the intact hall.  Fergus skidded to a halt in the archway.  His eyes frantic even in the shifting moonlight, he shoved them back into the shadows between the stone pillars and peeked around the corner.  The heavy protest of a door opening somewhere down the hall stopped Gary's breath.  Ice-cold and trembling, Morgelyn's fingers wrapped around his wrist.  Unbearable seconds later, the door creaked shut, and Gary let the air out of his lungs.

When Fergus motioned to them that it was safe to go, Gary took a step forward, but Morgelyn still held his arm captive.  He turned and found her rooted to the floor, unmoving in the shadows.  Her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips pressed together, and Gary couldn't free his wrist from her steel grip.  "Hurry," Fergus whispered, and reached for her other hand, but Gary elbowed him away before he could touch the burned palm.  Fergus flashed him a look of pure consternation.  "What--"

"Leave her hand alone."  Gary placed his free hand over the cold fingers gripping his wrist and tugged.  "C'mon, Morgelyn, let's go."  Blinking, she took a tentative step out of the shadows, then let Gary push her on ahead, after Fergus.  

Light leaked out of the cracks around the door at the end of the hall.  Banning had probably been looking for his guards, for his victim--Gary set his jaw in resolute anger.  He didn't realize how tightly he was squeezing Morgelyn's shoulder until she squirmed in his grip.  When Fergus motioned them to a stop in front of the second door on the left, she stared up at Gary with frightened questions in her eyes, but he only mouthed, "Sorry."

Fergus opened the door only wide enough for the three of them to slip through one at a time, then closed it silently behind them.  He let out a relieved sigh and pulled its latching device through, but Gary didn't dare breathe easy yet.  They were still in the castle, after all, and if anyone came down the hall, their hiding place would turn into a trap.

The room was shadowed, unlit, and nearly as dark as the dungeon had been.  A single window faced away from the moon, and only indigo and grey shadows had any form.  They had all become shadows, Gary thought, and then told himself to get a grip.  Morgelyn stepped away, venturing farther into the room.  "Now what?" Gary hissed to Fergus.

Fergus drew in a deep breath--even in the dark, Gary could see his shoulders heave.  "Now we--"

"I warned you about fire, girl!"  

Gary's skin exploded into a thousand goosebumps at the wasted growl, which came from a dark corner of the room.  Morgelyn stumbled back into him with a gasp; her good hand came up to clutch at the arm he wrapped around her shoulders.

"'Tis only Robert," Fergus hissed.  "He knows a way out, just as you said."  Gary couldn't answer--he was still trying to find his breath.  Morgelyn's head tipped back and rested against his chest for a second; she let out a shaky sigh.  He peered into the corner, but all he could see was a huddled shape that looked more like a broken pillar than a human being.   

"Robert?"  Morgelyn gently pulled Gary's arm away and stepped toward the shadow.  "Did you come to help us?"

"Warned you--"

Reaching out, she touched the strange shape, but her hand flew back when he started to cough.  "I know," she whispered between hacking coughs.  "I know you did.  Thank you, Robert."

"Fire'll burn you.  Stay clear of it, you hear?  Need the dark, not the light.  Need the stone, not the wood.  Dragon's treasure is gone, no one wants to see any more..."

The goosebumps wouldn't leave Gary alone; they crawled up and down his back and his arms, teased at the top of his spine.  He sidled back to the door and pressed his ear against it, but he couldn't hear anything.  

"An entire afternoon of those ramblings, trying to figure out what he was saying, waiting for nightfall."  At Gary's elbow, Fergus kept his complaints low enough so that only Gary heard.  "You may have been better off in the dungeon, my friend."

"No," Gary told him firmly.  "No, we weren't."

Robert's shape peeled out of its shadow, though even then he was only a hulking shape with raggedy edges.  He leaned on a thick, twisted branch.  It still had leaves on it, and they rasped when he moved closer to Morgelyn.  She reached out, and this time she squeezed his arm.  "You are very brave to come and help us."

"Brave...huh...not brave...stupid peddler wouldn't leave me in peace.  Just wanted to sleep."

"Stupid?" Fergus asked indignantly.  "Who defeated both guards with his bare hands?  Who saved--"

The rest of his speech was muffled when Morgelyn whirled on him and smothered him in a tight hug.  "Does that answer your question?"

"Quite well."  Fergus pulled back, staring into his friend's eyes.  "Morgelyn--what they did--what they were going to do--"

But Gary saw the way Morgelyn bit her lip and ducked her head, and figured there would be time to get everyone up to speed when they were safe.  "Can we leave this for later?  We gotta go."  Though the hallway remained silent, he couldn't shake the fear that the guards were about to break up the little reunion.  

"What of Father Ezekiel?"  Morgelyn looked back to the door.  "We cannot leave him, if there is any chance the others will discover that he helped us."

"He said they would not," Fergus insisted.

But Gary went back to the door--with what intentions he didn't know--but then his hand froze, hovering just above the latch.  He could smell smoke--faint, but recognizable as more than just a fire in a hearth, and in the hallway there were footsteps, closing fast.  Damn!  How were they supposed to get out of there if--

"Come on, man, help us out!"

Gary spun on his heel; Fergus was struggling with one of the stone blocks protruding from the wall.  Robert had wedged his staff into the space between it and the surrounding stones, and was trying to lever it out, while Fergus grunted and pulled, inching it out to reveal an opening behind.  Gary stepped over and, with strength he didn't know he had left, wedged his good shoulder into the opening and pushed against it until the crack was wide enough for a person to slip through.  Dizzy from the effort, he leaned against the solid portion of the wall and tried to catch his breath.

"You should not have let him do that.  He is hurt," Morgelyn chided Fergus.

"He is bigger than any of us, and he is the one who said--"

"Hush!"  Robert's voice cut through the bickering like a knife.  Gary blinked away the worst of the dizziness and saw the old man standing, head cocked toward the main door of the room, with one finger on his lips.  They all froze as footsteps and voices neared, slowed, then turned for the kitchen--and then all hell broke loose.  Even the heavy oak door couldn't keep out shouts of "Fire!" and Father Ezekiel's calls for assistance.  Robert's finger fell from his lips; Fergus took the old man by the elbow and guided him to the opening they'd created in the wall.  

"Gary is right, we need to leave now," the bard whispered.  "Show the way."

Gary couldn't see anything beyond the opening, just worse-than-pitch black.  Darkness seemed to flow out and pool around their ankles.  

"Sir Eglamore's descendants were smugglers," Fergus explained with a smirk that Gary could hear, if not see.  "This leads all the way to the ocean."

"So, we've got a castle, a dungeon, and a secret passage," Gary muttered, pushing himself away from the wall.  "Ya know, this is how clichés get started in the first place."

"Quickly!  No more fire, hurry," Robert kept muttering to himself as he led the way through the opening.  When Gary followed Morgelyn through, he felt a rush of damp air and a dizzying sense of space opening up in front of him.  Robert swung his stick around, forcing them to stay close to the door.  "Wait, stairs."

How were they supposed to negotiate stairs in near-darkness?  Slick stairs, Gary realized, as the damp stones sent a chill up through the soles of his feet.

"Gary!" Fergus hissed in his ear.  "Help me move the stone back!"

"No!"  Morgelyn's skirt whipped against Gary's legs when she spun around.  "I told you, Fergus, he is in no state to be moving boulders."

"And what state will he be in when they break through that door and follow us down here?  What state will you be in if they do?"  

As if to punctuate the peddler's argument, muffled pounding started up in the room they'd just left.  They were trying to break the door down, Gary thought wildly, and again, a surge of fear and desperation leant him strength.  The stone must have been on some kind of track or groove, because once their efforts overcame its inertia, it slid back into place and sealed them all in complete darkness.

Even through the stone, the sound of the door to the room shattering open could be heard.  How long before whoever was out there discovered their secret?  They were all standing there, holding their breath, and he couldn't help but think it would be better if they moved.  Gary shuffled his feet nervously, not sure now big the landing was, or where the walls were.  

"Seven steps.  Six steps, five..." growled Robert.  Couldn't the guy make up his mind?  Then Gary realized that he was counting as he made his way down the stairs.  "Come on, girl!"

At his side, Morgelyn gave a gasp and was gone.  Gary reached for her, but his hand met only air, and then, as he waved it around, a wall.  He stuck his foot out and found the steps; could feel Fergus's breath on his neck as they made their way down.

The stairs were rough stone, and the walls loomed close around them, the tunnel not much wider than Gary's shoulders.  Voices and curses came through the stone, fading as they reached the last stair.  It was higher than the others, and Gary stumbled off it and into Morgelyn, grabbing her skirt when he reached out to break his fall.  Fergus bumped into them both from behind.

"Oh--oh no--Gary?"  Morgelyn's voice drifted toward him in the darkness and her hand latched onto his sleeve, pulling him up.

"Okay, I'm okay..."  

"Warn me the next time you do that," Fergus grumbled.

"Keep going!" Robert's disembodied voice insisted.  "Cannot stop here, too many dragons too close behind."  

After some fumbling, Gary let go of Morgelyn's skirt and got a hand on her shoulder instead, pushing her wild, frizzy hair out of the way.  They all fell silent, shuffling through the inky black.  The muffled voices in the room above faded away to nothing, and the stone door never moved.  Finally, after what might have been a few yards or a few blocks--Gary couldn't tell in his disoriented state--they stopped.  

"Is everyone here?"  Fergus tugged at the back of Gary's vest, looking for a handhold.  In the end, he just grabbed a handful of the leather, pulling it tight around Gary's bruised midsection.  "Morgelyn?  Robert?"

"Robert is just ahead of me."  Morgelyn's shoulder drooped under Gary's hand, her own exhaustion as evident as his.  "Are we really away?  They will not find us here, will they?"  

No one answered.

"Turn should be here...wait."  Robert's muttering wandered off ahead of them.

Gary's only clue as to where they were was the way their whispers echoed off the walls of the passageway--or maybe it was a cave by now--the air was cooler, and he could hear dripping somewhere up ahead.  He had a feeling that the ceiling was close to his head, but maybe that was just paranoia.  After all, his skull had been bumped enough in the past few days.  

"All right, turn up here.  Hurry, now."

"Where are we going?" Gary asked Fergus.

"Away.  And forward."

They moved through the darkness as a human chain, silent and cold.  Gary had dozens of questions, but none of them needed answering right now more than one--how long until they were safe?  

Okay, maybe two--was he going to make it until then?  He had aches on top of aches, new on top of old.  He didn't know if his shoulder would ever work properly again--it was growing stiff, and moving his arm hurt, but the spot where Fergus tugged at his side hurt more.  The air was so damp that his clothes clung to him after only a few minutes.  Darkness presented all kinds of obstacles that he would have stepped over without even thinking about if he could see--dips in the surface, little puddles of water, outcroppings from the wall, and tiny, sharp stones that felt like knives in the soles of his feet.  He kept waiting for his eyes to adjust, like they had in the woods and on the moor, but it didn't happen.  

Every once in a while there would be a rush of new, chill air from his right or his left, and a sense of expanded space, a change in the way their footfalls echoed.  Sometimes they would pause at these junctures and turn when they started off again.  Gary knew he should have been keeping track, just in case, but it became impossible in his befuddled state.  When he asked, once, how their guide knew where to go, Robert muttered, "Ocean, boy.  Can't you smell it?  Dragon slayer's nose must be full o' smoke."  

But he really couldn't smell anything like the salt water brisk of the seashore.  Gary didn't know if he would have trusted Robert, if he hadn't experienced for himself just how uncanny Marissa's sense of direction could be.  Of course, there was also the fact that he was too exhausted to do anything but trust and follow through the absolute night of the caves.  

This was the world Marissa walked through every day, he reminded himself, and was impressed anew at her ability to maneuver in it.  Since smelling his way through it was beyond Gary, he focused on listening.   Listening to drips, to scuttlings too small to be human, to Robert's muffled cautions and coughs.  Listening to Fergus's nervous sighs when Gary didn't move quickly enough.  And listening to Morgelyn's little gasps, the ones she tried to swallow as they fumbled along.  

Between the villagers, Banning, and then the guards, she'd taken as much physical abuse as Gary, and her spirit had been tested until there wasn't much left.  She didn't have a lot of experience, Gary suspected, with being a target.  She'd trusted her neighbors, trusted the way her world worked, and it had all turned inside out in a couple of days.  Gary understood that all too well.

He was reluctant to admit, even to himself, how much his worlds had started to merge and layer right in front of his eyes back there in the dungeon, just before Fergus and Father Ezekiel had come.  Because, for him, it had seemed like it was both of them.  Not just Morgelyn, but Marissa, too--hurt and terrified and bullied and face to face with real evil.  Maybe he had, as Fergus had suggested, taken one too many blows to the head.  All he'd known, at the moment he'd seen her curled on the floor like that, with nowhere to hide from the fire and their tormentors, was that everything he knew about friendship was there, in that place of horrors.

He was grateful for the reassurance of her wool-clad shoulder under his hand while his own inner voice echoed: don'tletgodon'tletgo...

Not this time, not for anything.  But he could feel Morgelyn stumbling, even when the way was smooth, and he himself had to focus on one step at a time, pushing past exhaustion and everything that hurt.  Despite his best efforts to stay alert, the relief at being able to move, at being free and alive, was pulling the adrenaline from Gary's system far too quickly.  Finally he turned to Fergus, even thought it didn't help him see the man any better.  "Where--"  No, wait, that wouldn't help.  Gary didn't know where anything was to begin with.  "How much further?"

"I am not certain."  Fergus gave Gary a little shove in the back, urging him to keep up with the others, but Gary tripped on a loose rock and nearly fell.  He could hear Robert and Morgelyn stop as he grunted; felt Fergus catch him and pull him back to his feet, but he was so dizzy with exhaustion and darkness and sheer disorientation that he wished the other man would have let him fall.  At least once he was down, he wouldn't have to go any farther.  

"Fergus," he whispered, stabilizing himself with one hand against the wall, "we can't go on stumbling around in the dark.  We need--"  Doctors, Gary thought.  A hospital.  A place where people didn't want to hurt each other.  

"Rest without fear," said Morgelyn, somehow finding them in the darkness.  She slid her arm through his.  

"Yeah," Gary said, "that too."  An overwhelming whiff of stench announced Robert's return.

"Keep going, keep going.  Do you want the dragons to find you?"

Morgelyn leaned her head against Gary's arm for a moment, then released it and went after Robert.  

"Or," Fergus said with mock cheerfulness, "we could just keep stumbling around in the dark forever."

Gary sighed.  "I guess it beats the dungeon."





Chapter 67

"It is a long distance," Admael said, "both in time and space."
"It is a risk," Adnarel agreed, "but one I think we must take...The
pattern is not set.  It is fluid, and constantly changing."
"But it will be worked out in beauty in the end."
          ~ Madeleine L'Engle


There had been too much information dumped on him to digest all at once.  Chuck was only too happy to volunteer to take Aunt Gracie home--before Lois and Bernie showed up again, before Crumb scowled a new hole in his forehead, and before he imploded from sheer overload.  

Marissa must have felt the same way, because she jumped at the chance to go with him.  After they dropped Aunt Gracie off at her home--and after a whispered conversation between the two women on Gracie's front door stoop that made Chuck feel like a stranger all over again--they made the drive back to Marissa's place in silence.  Even with the car windows rolled down the air was still and heavy, as if the city was holding its breath.  It sat on Chuck's chest like a weight, stifling his ability to think and speak.  

But he wanted to know what was going on, or at least what Marissa thought was going on, and so he broke the silence as he trailed her and Spike into the living room.  He stopped to turn on the lamp on the end table, then said, "Okay, spill."

At first, a tiny hitch of her shoulders as she dropped onto the couch was the only indication that Marissa had heard.  She pulled the crystal ball out of her bag and held it on her lap, looking like a spruced-up nineties version of a gypsy fortune teller.  Lost somewhere in her own thoughts, she entwined her fingers around the globe.  Shifting from one foot to the other, Chuck cleared his throat, and she turned her face toward him, slow in the stiff air.  "Spill?"

Chuck shuffled over to the chintz chair and perched on its arm.  "I know you're cooking up something, sister, and it ain't gnocchi and cookies.  Wanna tell me what that was all about, with Mr. and Mrs. Indiana Jones and the book?"

"You don't know?"

Chuck felt the muscles between his shoulder blades tense--tense, hell.  He was going to explode if something didn't happen soon.  "I have an idea, but I want to hear it from you."  

Marissa ducked her head again, as if she couldn't bring herself to come right out and say it.  Given what Chuck suspected, he didn't blame her in the least.  

"Look, it's great that you think all this is somehow gonna...help Gary."  Still trying to reconcile Marissa's faith--and what he really wanted to believe--with what everyone else seemed to think, he nearly choked on that last bit.  "But all that talk about plagues and burning people at the stake has me spooked."

Marissa whispered, "Me too."  Then, with more conviction, "What if--what if he's there?"

He'd suspected--no, he'd known that she was thinking that.  But hearing it out loud made Chuck's arms break out in goosebumps.  Planting a foot on the floor to keep himself from tumbling off the arm of the chair, he held out his hand, palm forward, as if she could see it.  "Wait, wait, just--hold on, Marissa.  Do you know what you're saying?"

Nodding, Marissa set her jaw in a serious line.  Chuck wished someone would buckle him in, because he had a feeling this roller coaster was about to careen out of control.  

"Do you remember last spring, when Gary was knocked on the head trying to stop the construction accident?"  Her words were deliberate, her tone cautious, as if she were setting china plates on a glass table.  "Did he ever tell you what happened?"

Chuck sighed.  Of all Gary's exploits, that had been one of the weirdest, and Chuck had been genuinely worried about Gary's sanity afterward--kind of like he was worried about Marissa's now.  "He said--he said something about a dream he had--"

"He didn't think it was a dream."  

Despite the heavy air, a chill chased up his spine.  "A dream," he insisted, "about a--a wagon driver, and a bar, and a singer and her brother--"

"--and the Chicago Fire," Marissa finished for him.  

"Gary didn't stop the Chicago Fire."

"No.  But he helped save Jesse Mayfield's ancestors from it."  

Damn.  He'd hoped it had all been a dream.  His, if not Gary's.  "He was conked on the head, Marissa," he countered, even though he knew it wouldn't get him anywhere.  "Then he started spouting some weird theory about physics and time and--"

"Time."  Marissa lifted the ball, and the way she traced her fingers around the knots in the base gave him the creeps.  

"You know, that's very New Age, very trendy," he told her.  "Very Riverdance."

Her shoulders sagged; she flashed him an exasperated look.  Even Spike, curled at her feet, managed to look disgusted.  "Chuck--"

"I can't help it!  I get spooked, I fall back on pop culture.  And this is very damn spooky."

"It's not New Agey, because it's not new.  It's old, it's from another time."  She touched a spot where two lines of silver intersected.  "Time is out of joint..."

Chuck jumped up and stalked over to the window, hauling it open in a desperate attempt to get some air.  "Oh cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right?  Hey, I took theater, ya know," he added when her look turned startled.  "Not all my culture is pop.  But just 'cause Shakespeare wrote it, doesn't mean that Gary's in the middle of--of that ."  Hands curled into fists on the sill, he leaned back against the window and set the rocker next to him in motion with his foot.  He wasn't sure that what Marissa was implying would be better than Gary being at the bottom of the lake--but there was no way he was going to say that.

Marissa set the globe on the coffee table and got to her feet, too, suddenly agitated and pacing--Marissa, pacing--just from the end of the sofa to the front window and back, but still...spooky, again.  She folded her arms over her chest, as if she wanted to huddle into her sweater and never come out.  

"But it does mean--it has to," she insisted.  "He's there.  He's there where that book was written, or those people--he's there .  Those are his initials on that thing."  She waved a hand over her shoulder at the crystal ball she'd left on the coffee table.  

"Don't have to be."

"They are."  Marissa thrust her hand in Chuck's direction.  "The story said they needed a dragon slayer--someone who could help them.  That's what Gary is.  They blamed this woman for the plague, or something like it, and they--it wasn't her fault, she just wanted to help."

"But Marissa, this person died six centuries ago.  It's sad, but the world went on--"

"Do you think that would matter to Gary?"

Running a hand over his cheeks and chin didn't help Chuck to wake up.  "Yeah, okay, it would.  But he doesn't speak their language, and what he knows about history--well, it's more than what I know, but you could still probably fit it all in a picture book.  He used to sleep through Western Civ.  And how'd he get there in the first place?"

"I don't know, I--"  Marissa stopped a few feet from Chuck, twisting her fingers together as she spoke.  "I guess it's magic."

Chuck pushed himself off the window sill, throwing his hands out wide.  "Just like that?  Magic?"

"That's what the paper is."  

A delivery truck whooshed by outside, and they listened to the sound while Chuck tried to decide how to counter that one.  He hadn't meant to play devil's advocate, but someone around here had to keep them from going completely nuts.  "Look, I can--or I used to be able to--hold the paper--when Gar would let me near it.  I could see it and touch it and read it--it came with some kind of instructions."

"No, it doesn't; it doesn't tell Gary how to fix the problems."

"It's better than this!  Even if I believe this new theory of yours, what are we supposed to do?"

"There has to be a way to bring him home, Chuck, there has to be.  Don't you see the kind of danger he's in?"  Marissa wrapped her arms around herself.  "There has to be a--a--"

"A reason for all this?"  Chuck had aimed for sarcasm, but it didn't quite come out that way.  How was he supposed to maintain his cool exterior when his own voice was betraying him?

Marissa's lips twisted into a sad little smile.  "Yes."

"But--okay, let's say this is even possible.  You're talking plague here--bubonic plague."  It was Chuck's turn to pace, as vague memories of drawings from his history books surfaced--rats, fleas, and grinning, dancing skeletons.  "Didn't people just--fall over dead in the streets from that?  Gary's not a doctor.  Or say it's the witch.  What if she puts the whammy on him?"  He waved his arms, just getting good and warmed up, but Marissa shook her head.

"There weren't witches.  They were just women who knew more than they were supposed to--and if he's trying to help her--"

Chuck pressed on despite the stricken look on Marissa's face.  "And how's he supposed to do that?  What's he gonna do, throw himself in front of an angry mob?  Wave his newspaper and a cell phone around and try to stop them from torching her?  You know, if they burned a woman at the stake for reading and writing and knowing which plants cured warts, what are they going to do to Gar?"

Marissa dropped into her rocker, both hands covering her face.  "What have they already done?"  

Spike got up and padded over to the rocker, nudging Marissa's knee with his nose.  Even from across the room, Chuck could see her shoulders shaking.  Damn it, he hadn't meant--

"Marissa, I--I'm sorry."  He started toward her, but didn't quite make it--something held him back, and he ended up perched on the back of the sofa.  

She rubbed both palms across her cheeks, and then dropped her hands into her lap.  "You're right.  You're right, that--that dream I had--Gary--he's there, but he's in trouble, Chuck.  We have to find a way to get him back."

Chuck sighed.  "Like I told you earlier, there's nothing I'd rather do than go to the G-man's rescue.  But how?"

Determination returning to her expression, she set the rocker in motion.  "Fight fire with fire, I guess."

"What?"  Chuck gripped the back of the sofa to keep himself from sliding off at the mental image of an angry, torch-wielding mob.  "I'm not tying anybody to the stake!"

She flashed him a look of pure disgust.  "That's not what I meant at all.  Magic.  We need to find a way to use it, too."

The world righted itself--a little.  "Oh.  Well, great.  I'll just have my secretary call David Copperfield."

"No, it's--"  She shook her head.  "It's all magic, Chuck.  It's been about magic and miracles since Gary first got the paper."  

"Marissa--"  He pushed off the sofa, took a step closer to the rocker.  "I-I'm trying, I really am, it's just--"

The phone shrilled out in the foyer, and Marissa shot to her feet, hurrying past him to answer it.  She held her hands out in front of her, but didn't seem to need a cane or a dog to get around her own house.  Chuck wandered over to the stuffed armchair and slumped into it, wishing he could understand just what it was he'd agreed to believe.  He'd heard it, she'd said it right out loud, and he still was having trouble accepting it.  What the heck was wrong with him?  All that sunshine out in LA must have fried his brains.

Another truck rushed by, and in the silence that followed, Marissa's voice was suddenly louder, less agitated than when she'd been speaking to him, but a lot more confused.  "Yes...no, it was a woman, that's what you said.  Betsy said so, too...No, no one else, why--?"  An interminable pause, then: "But what about--okay.  All right.  Yes, we'll be here.  Please call as soon as you know anything.  Thank you, Josh.  'Bye."

She didn't so much walk back into the room as drift, her expression, for once, unreadable.  Chuck's ribs constricted painfully, and the air in the room went from heavy to smothering.   

"Marissa?  What's wrong?"  Because something had to be wrong, didn't it?  It wasn't as if they could get good news for a change.

She sat down on the couch, pulled the quilt off the back and into her lap, and scrunched whole handfuls of it until riots of color oozed out between her fingers.  "Josh wanted to know--he couldn't remember what he'd told us earlier, and he wanted to know if it had changed."

"It?"  Chuck threw a glance at the crystal ball, but it was still where she'd left it on the coffee table, innocuous and still.

"The story.  In the book."  Her words, like the quilt she clutched, tightened and twisted.  "They're still checking with their other sources, and the copies, but..."  Marissa trailed away, lost again, leaving Chuck with his heart in his throat.

"But what?  You're scaring me."

She let go of the quilt, fingers splayed just above her lap.  "Don't think, just tell me exactly what you remember.  What was the story at the end of the book, the true one, about?"

He didn't have to think; he remembered just fine.  "A woman.  She got burned at the stake for being a witch."  It was hardly a trick question.

"Alone?"

"Yeah, alone."

Marissa shook her head.  Her hands traced the geometric patterns of the quilt over and over, faster and faster, until he had to force himself to look away.  "That's what I thought, what we all thought, but--something's changed.  Josh says--the book says there was a man kil--executed with her."  

No.  Chuck thought.  Nonononono...

"And it's not just Kelyn's original.  The photos they found of the copies, the people they talked to in England, they all say the same thing.  That's the way they think it's always been.  Josh wasn't sure, he's trying to make sense of it, but he sounded like he didn't even trust his own memories."

He didn't even try to hide his confusion.  "Marissa, I know what I remember.  Betsy Cooper didn't say anything about a man."

She nodded.  "Don't  you see?  It's real, he's there--he's the one who changed it.  That man who's in the story now, it's--"  Covering her mouth with her hands, she broke off.

Chuck really, really, really didn't want to say it.  He didn't even want to think it.  

But he had to.

"It's Gary."





Chapter 68

Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?
          ~ Percy B. Shelley


They wove their way through the darkness for what felt like forever.  Gary tried to keep his mind off his discomfort and exhaustion by making a list of what he'd do when he got home.  Take a hot shower.  Shave with a real razor and foam.  Brush his teeth.  More than once.  Put on jeans and a clean, soft flannel shirt.  Sleep on a real mattress.  Have a steak and a--

That was a mistake.  He couldn't think about food, not when the last time he'd eaten was--shoot, well over twenty-four hours ago.  He'd been a little preoccupied since then, and even now his stomach's protest at the thought of food was only half as ferocious as it should have been.  Even more alluring was the thought of sleep.  On his own bed, his own clean sheets, after a steak dinner...

If he ever saw steak again.  If he ever got home again.  

But before that could happen, he had to make sure these people were going to be okay.  And find the Dragon's Eye--or get it back from Father Ezekiel.  How was that supposed to happen?

It seemed safe to talk now--surely if anyone was following they would have caught up.  "How'd you--did you convince Father Ezekiel to help us?" Gary asked Fergus over his shoulder.  

"You did that, my friend.  He came and found me."

"Whaddya talking about?"

"Am I speaking Arabic?"  Fergus shoved Gary to catch up with Robert.  

"But--but he didn't--" Gary stuttered as he nearly plowed into Morgelyn.  "I tried to tell him, and he didn't come for hours.  She was hurt, and he knew it, and he didn't come."

"Oh, Gary..." Morgelyn sighed.

"He could not march in there and take you out through the front door in broad daylight," Fergus snapped.  "There were people everywhere, including your dear Lady Nessa."

Gary felt Morgelyn shiver.  "She's not my anything," he muttered.  "And yeah, I know she was there.  She came to see us."

"What did she want?"

"Doesn't matter."  Gary's tired voice bounced off the stone.  The rest of his explanation was cut off by the coughing fit that overtook Robert.  

They all stopped; Gary could hear Morgelyn shuffle over to the old man, murmuring questions, but he spat out, "Leave me be--wait here--"  and took his hacking farther down the tunnel.

Fergus didn't say anything for a moment, but Gary didn't have the energy to explain what Nessa had offered.  "In any case," Fergus finally continued, "it took me much of the day to find Robert, and to make him understand.  Ezekiel came upon us in the woods--he found us, when I had given up hope of ever getting his assistance.  What you said to him must have made a difference.  He said you convinced him that it didn't matter what Morgelyn had done--"

"I've done nothing!"  Her protest was weary, the words worn out from repetition against stone walls of doubt.  

"I know that, I truly do," Fergus assured her.  "But Father Ezekiel was not so sure at first.  It took your dragon slayer to remove the blinders from his eyes."  

Even though no one else would see it, Gary shook his head.  All he'd done was panic, big time, and try to get a familiar face to help.  "I didn't think he believed me."

"You must have been very convincing nonetheless.  Ezekiel told me that after they sent you both back to the dungeon, he had to stay and talk to Banning and Malcolm long enough to make sure that they weren't going to resume their--their--"

"Torment," Morgelyn whispered.

"--any time soon," Fergus finished after a pause pregnant with anger and frustration that Gary understood completely.  "He told them that he had uncovered new rumors and he needed time to talk to the townspeople--that perhaps there was another source of all this evil."

"Surely he did not blame Gary."

"Wouldn't matter--" Gary began.  He blinked hard and wished for some light, any light.  Maybe a conversation wasn't such a good idea.  Listening to the disembodied voices, including his own, swirl and dart through the darkness made him feel as if he were floating, the way he did when he took too much over the counter cold medicine.  Backing up until he felt uneven rock at his back, he leaned against the wall of the cave for support.

"I believe he had quite a time trying to tell them something that wouldn't cast suspicion on some other soul," Fergus murmured.  "Finally they said they would get it out of one of you somehow.  There was nothing more he could have done to stop them.  So he came and found me--which was not easy to do, since I was trying to find Robert, and he was hiding in the woods."

"I told you he would not blame you, Gary," Morgelyn said.

"I still have no idea why he believed me, though."

"I wager not even Father Ezekiel himself is sure of that.  He thinks you are touched," Fergus declared with a hint of manic glee.

Gary snorted.  "Tell him to get in line."

"But he also thinks you have Morgelyn's best interests at heart, and that if any magic has been done, it is more than outweighed by the evil that was done to correct it.  And when you told him to take your belongings, when you did not try to lie about it, but instead did everything you could to convince him to stop them from hurting Morgelyn....that was what won him over, if you ask me.  He thinks you are mad, but he respects you."

"He trusts you," Morgelyn added.  "That explains everything."

It didn't explain where they were going or what was supposed to happen next, but before Gary could ask, Robert's coughs and mutterings neared again, and resolved themselves into words Gary could understand.

"Not much farther."    

He could hear a faint, throbbing rhythm, and guessed they were somewhere near the coast.  Blinking as they all moved toward the sound, Gary realized that there was a lifting of the dark up ahead--a grey light, faint but different from the utter black around them.  He'd been in the dark so long, he wasn't sure if it was real or just his exhausted imagination, until, around one more corner, the light grew pearly, moonlight streaming through a crack in the cave wall.  It was enough to show the grey-washed faces of the people around him, the way Fergus flashed him a wry grin and Morgelyn rubbed at her eyes.  Robert nodded as if in answer to an inner voice.  "Yes.  Soon you rest--" but was interrupted by his own coughing fit.

"Robert?  Are you sick again?  Here, let me--"  Morgelyn continued speaking in a low, soothing voice, placing her hand on the old man's forehead as he bent over and tried to draw regular breaths.  Gary pulled Fergus out of earshot, toward the crack in the rocks, no wider than his hand, that was letting in the light.  

"We can't go anywhere, far or not."  Gary watched Morgelyn shake her head as Robert spoke to her.  She swiped at her eyes, then staggered backward.  Robert caught her, somehow.

"How does he do that?" Fergus muttered.

"'Tis nothing," Morgelyn murmured in a weary, choked voice that didn't convince any of them.

"Sit you down."  The gentleness in Robert's wasted voice gave Gary a hint of what the man must have been like a few years ago.  

"I can keep going, but Robert, you are ill.  We must--"

"Sit you down, child," Robert repeated, and when he would have pushed her to the floor right there, Gary stepped in, took her elbow, and sat her on a flattish outcropping of the cave wall, one that wasn't completely wet.  

"I can go on," she protested.

"I can't."  He lowered himself gingerly to the floor next to her perch.  "I don't know if anyone's behind us, but at this point, I'm willing to find out, if it means I can rest for a couple of minutes."

"He is sick again."  Morgelyn's whisper came through clenched teeth; she leaned her head against the stone wall behind her.  "What are we going to do?  I have nothing here that will help him."  She let out a short breath of a laugh.  "I have nothing at all."

"We'll think of something," Gary muttered.  

"But what about our rendezvous?" Fergus was asking Robert.  Even in the near-darkness, Gary could see, or maybe he was imagining, since he knew them so well, the deep furrows on Fergus's face.  "We are already late.  'Tis long past moonrise."

"Which is why," said a new voice that made them all jump, "I came to meet you."

Gary looked up in alarm, but couldn't find the will to stand, or to do anything more than stare open-mouthed at the apparition who stood before them in the moonlight, holding a small rushlight torch.  

Morgelyn whispered, "Declan?  What are you--how--"

The priest's nephew flashed the same happy grin that Gary had seen on his face at the festival the day--no, two days--before.  "My uncle sent me to meet you.  'Tis a very exciting adventure!"

Behind the lanky form, Fergus snorted, but Gary didn't, couldn't, find it funny.  Morgelyn winced and shook her head.  "No, Declan, it is not exciting."  Her voice cracked around the words and echoed off the walls.  "It is a horror."

"Horror..." Robert intoned behind them.  "Horror and fire, dragons and smoke..."

Declan's expression melted into one of dumbfounded shock.  With a helpless glance at Gary, he knelt before Morgelyn and whispered, "My lady, they told me you had been ill-used, but I did not know--"  He leaned forward, peering closely at her.  Morgelyn flinched away from the torch with a soft, wordless exclamation that spurred Gary into action.  He jumped to his feet, grabbed Declan by the cowl of his robes, and dragged the younger man a few steps back.  

"I meant no harm, I assure you!"  Declan turned wide, frightened eyes to Gary.  

"I know."  Gary's reply was terse, delivered as he released the young monk and moved closer to his friend.  "Morgelyn, it's okay," he said, taking hold of her shoulders.  She shook her head, then nodded, her eyes meeting Gary's in blank confusion.  "It's just Declan," he told her.  "I think he's here to help."

"I am, I promise--I meant no harm."

"Then keep that away," Gary told him firmly, waving a hand in the direction of the torch.  "Far away."  

"Of course, of course, whatever you say.  Here--"  Declan tossed the torch onto the stone floor of the cave and stomped it out before approaching Morgelyn again, casting a wary glance at Gary, who stepped aside, but only a foot or so.  Declan pulled a makeshift kind of backpack, a bundle of cloth tied with twine, off his shoulder and held it out to Morgelyn.  "A peace offering, m'lady."

She didn't look up.  "Please don't call me that."  Declan undid the twine and placed the bundle in Morgelyn's lap.  Her eyes widened.  "My cloak! How did you find it?"

"My uncle sent me for it, along with--oh, have a care!"

Working one-handed, Morgelyn unfolded the cloak, and something hard fell out onto the damp floor of the cave, rolling toward the far wall.  Fergus stooped down and picked up the small jar, like the ones that lined the shelves of Morgelyn's cottage.  He held it toward the light.  "Is this food?" he asked hopefully.

"No, a salve for burns.  My uncle insisted I find it and bring it, though he would not tell me why--what is amiss?" Declan asked, startled again, for Morgelyn was crying, quiet tears running unchecked down her cheeks.  

Gary snatched the jar from the bard's hand, pried off the cork lid, and held it out to Morgelyn.  "Will this help the burns on your hand?"

Biting her lip, she nodded.  "Hold it for me, and I--I will put it on."  She reached toward the jar, scooping goop out of it with two fingers and touching them tentatively to the palm of her left hand.  This close, Gary could see more tears spring up in her eyes.  "I need cloth for a bandage."

A ripping sound in Gary's ear made him jump and turn--Fergus was tearing off the bottom of his shirt, all the way around.  "Let me," he said, and elbowed past Gary.  He started wrapping the cloth loosely around her hand.  

"There is a safer place up ahead," Declan said.  "Drier, and not so dark.  I brought food, and a few other things, as my uncle instructed..."  He trailed off, looking utterly lost.  "How can they think she is a witch?"

Gary shook his  head.  "I don't know if they really believe it, or if they're just using it as an excuse for--a lot of other things."  

Fergus was sitting next to Morgelyn on the low stone, one arm around her shoulders.  She bent forward, her unbandaged hand over her eyes.  

"Hey--" Gary began.  He knelt and touched her arm; Morgelyn moved her hand away, rubbing tears off her cheeks.

"I cannot--I cannot stop."

"That's because you know it's safe.  Can you make it a little farther?"

Morgelyn sniffed.  Clutching Gary's sleeve, she got to her feet.  "Of course I can."  Fergus scooped her cloak up from the cave floor and draped it over her shoulders, then helped her with the pin.  "Thank you.  I am not an invalid," she added when all three men tried to take her arm at once.  "I can walk on my own."

"Almost there," Robert muttered.  "Almost there."





Chapter 69

I will connive no more
With that which hopes and plans that I shall not survive:
Let the tide keep its distance;
Or advance, and be split for a moment
By a thing very small but all resistance;
Then do its own chore.
          ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay


About fifteen minutes later they made another turn and the cave opened up--not the huge arch of a movie cave, but a jagged opening that was as high as Gary's shoulders and wide enough for a couple people to fit through at once.  The rock floor on which they stood protruded out a few feet, and then, as much as he could tell in the blue-washed light, ended abruptly.  What lay beyond--or below, because the water sounded more like it had that first night on the cliffs than it did up close on the beach--Gary couldn't see.  

"You must be careful about walking out there--the floor drops off, as you can see.  But otherwise, you will be safe.  None shall find you, unless they know some other way in--and I doubt that many do."  Declan's eyes were round as quarters, and his blonde hair glowed in the moonlight.  "I grew up in Gwenyllan, and played in some of these cliffs, but I had to let Robert lead me to this one from an opening in a hillside near the river."

"Bunch of stumbling girls--cannot find anything on their own.  Only one who knows what she does is the girl."  They were all standing in a rough semi-circle, as near to the opening--and the moonlight--as seemed safe.  Robert reached over and patted Morgelyn's shoulder.  "End of the caves here.  Peddler knows, he knows what to do next--wait until day, when he can follow his nose."  The old man coughed, sounding weaker than he had before, and stepped toward the tunnel they'd just left.  "Leave you now."

"No, Robert--"  Morgelyn reached for his sleeve and caught a strip of torn fabric that came away in her hand.  "Stay with us."

Robert sidestepped her reach before she could grab for him again.  In the moonlight, Gary thought, he looked like a raggedy ghost.  "Must go," he growled.  "Safe journey."  One crooked finger extended from the tattered robes and pointed straight at Fergus--how, Gary had no idea.  "You promised," he intoned.

He moved back into the tunnel.  Morgelyn stared, her mouth half-open.  Gary started after the old man, but Fergus caught his arm from behind and, despite his lesser size, pulled Gary around.  

"Let him go."  Fergus's gaze swiveled from Gary to Morgelyn.  "This is what he wanted."

"He is all alone, and ill."  Morgelyn's voice was choked; Gary was afraid she might start crying again.  Not that he blamed her one bit.  

"This is what he wanted, Morgelyn," Fergus repeated.  "You know Robert--he is tired; it has been a long day for him.  For all of us."  

"He is more than tired."  Morgelyn raised her voice, and it echoed off the close, damp walls.  "Can you not see?  If we do not help him, he will die."

She started for the tunnel, but Fergus jumped in front of her and caught her by the shoulders.  "He made me promise to let him go.  There is nothing more you can do for him."

Anger flashed across Morgelyn's face--Gary could see her eyes narrow even in the dim light--and she pushed Fergus away.  With both hands.

And then doubled over, biting her lip, her bandaged hand clutched to her stomach.  

"Oh, dear," Declan murmured.  

Aching with sympathy, with empathy, Gary put a hand on Morgelyn's back.  

"I wanted to help him," she whispered.  "I only wanted to help all of them--"

"You cannot--" Fergus began, but she straightened up immediately.  

"Yes, I can!  I have to, and you--it is not your place to tell me what I cannot do."  Her cloak spun out from her shoulders when she stalked away, stopping with her back to them all just where the protective roof of the cave met the jagged outline of sky.  Huddled in her cloak, Morgelyn looked alone and lost and Gary understood; he knew what it was to try and fail to help, to think there was no other way to do the only thing that could possibly matter...

He glared at Fergus as he pushed past him.  "You can help," he told Morgelyn softly.  "We'll find a way, we'll find Robert again.  We'll fix this, Morgelyn."

"There is no fixing this." Fergus grumbled.  Gary whirled on him.

"There is.  We will.  But first we need some rest.  Morgelyn?  Right now, tonight, you have to take care of yourself, or you can't help anyone."  He sounded like Oprah, for Pete's sake.  But it worked.  

Her shoulders slumped.  "I cannot go any farther."  

"Me neither."

Fergus let out a breath of relief.

"You do not have to.  There's--oh dear."  Declan stared at the walls that lined the cave, the scattered piles of boulders carved out by the sea, and Gary wondered whether they were safe from tides in here.  

"What are you doing?" Fergus asked Declan.

"There are things for you--food, and--oh, all rocks look the same in the dark!"  

They all caught the unintended joke at the same time.  Fergus snorted, but Morgelyn started to laugh, high-pitched, with an hysterical edge.  Clamping her hand over her mouth, she leaned against the cave wall.  Infected by her giggles, Gary was close to laughing himself when Declan exclaimed, "Oh, here 'tis!" and pulled two bundles from a bowl-shaped indentation in a rock that protruded from the wall at eye level.

He gave the first bundle to Fergus.  "There is food here for several days, and money."

"Too much money," Morgelyn breathed, when Fergus pulled out a jangling leather purse, weighing it in his hand.  Looking genuinely horrified, she pushed her friend's arm toward Declan.  "We cannot possibly accept this!"  

Fergus, on the other hand, looked genuinely thrilled.  He pulled the money out of her reach.  "Of course we can!"

"My uncle will skin me alive if I take it back," Declan protested, so wide-eyed that Gary knew he was serious.

"What do we need this kind of money for, anyway?" Gary wanted to know, and Morgelyn drew her brows together, frowning.  Whatever she'd figured out, she didn't like it.

Ignoring the question, Fergus jingled the bag in his hand.  "I thought priests took a vow of poverty."  

"Except for indulgences and masses for the dead," Declan said, "they do."

"But there has not been that much wealth in Gwenyllan since Father Ezekiel came, and even if there were, he wouldn't accept--Declan, is this Father Malcolm's money?"  Looking from Declan to Fergus, Morgelyn stepped back, pulling her cloak tight around her.  "It came from--from her."

"From wh--Nessa?"

Declan shrugged at Gary's question, but Morgelyn shook her head fiercely.  "I will not take it."

Fergus hefted the money one more time before stowing it in the pouch at his waist.  "It matters little where it came from, if it will help us get away."

"Of course it matters--"  By rights Gary should have been too tired to pick up on emotional innuendo, but he heard the way Morgelyn's next words turned to ice.  "Get away?"

Uh-oh.  She was not happy about that.  But what did she think they'd been doing this whole time?

"Yes."  Fergus gave a satisfied nod.  "As far away as Lady Nessa's money will take us."

Declan went on eagerly, oblivious to the duel of wills that was playing out before him.  "Uncle Ezekiel said that you should leave before dawn for Plymouth.  Do not try to board a ship in Polruan, though it is closer.  'Tis the first place they will look, and you are sure to be noticed."  He turned to Gary.  "He said that perhaps you should take them back to your home, sir, wherever it may be."

"Uh..." Gary didn't know what to say to that.  "Maybe."

"My heart grieves that I will not see these friends again, but as long as you are safe..."  Declan looked back at Morgelyn.  "Do you know the way to Plymouth?"

Morgelyn was too busy glaring daggers at Fergus to respond.  "Leave?" she said in a low voice that boded no good.  "Board a ship?"

Fergus bristled and set his jaw into a solid square block.  "What else are we to do?"

"Fergus, I will not--"

"What is that?"  Gary croaked, trying to cut the budding argument short.  He moved to stand between the two and pointed at the second bundle Declan held.  Of course, every loosely-wrapped armful of burlap bag, or wool, or whatever it was, looked about the same to him, but something about the shape of this one was familiar.

"'Tis yours, sir.  My uncle said--"

Gary grabbed it from his arms.  It was heavy and solid, and if it was what he thought it was...

"What is it?" Morgelyn asked, curiosity overcoming her irritation with Fergus.  Gary was too busy working the damp knots to answer.  Between his headache and the shadows he could barely see them.  

"Damn it," he swore.  "There's something wrong with these knots."

"I did not open it!" Declan protested.  They all looked up at him, startled by his defensive tone.  "My uncle said that I was not to open it under any circumstances, and I did not."
 
Suddenly grateful for the tight knots, Gary shifted his efforts to feeling the contents.  He could make out a crinkle of paper, the heft of leather and cloth, and, wrapped inside them all, the weight and solid shape of the Dragon's Eye.  Father Ezekiel had had good reason for his admonition.

"It's okay," he told Morgelyn.  "Everything's here."

"Thank God," she whispered.  

Their eyes met, and said so much in that half darkness that Gary wasn't sure which way was up by the time he blinked.  Home--everything he had of home was there in his hands again, and it was as much his ticket as that money was Fergus's, and Morgelyn's, if--

Well, that was the big if, wasn't it?  If she'd take it, if she'd go--

"...go and make sure my uncle is well," Declan was saying.  Gary blinked hard a couple of times.  It was getting harder and harder to focus on what was real and what wasn't in all the darkness and his whirling, exhausted thoughts.  

"Please do," said Morgelyn.  "He saved our lives, and if anything happens to him, I shall feel responsible."

"It would not be your fault," the young man assured her.  "He would never blame you, nor would I."  He looked at Gary.  "You have all you need?"

"I think so," Gary said, clutching the bundle to his chest.  "Thanks."  

Morgelyn spread her hands wide.  "Declan, I do not think my thanks are enough compensation for all you have done--or your uncle--but I know not what else to offer."

"Your thanks are more than enough, I assure you."  Declan shifted his feet.  "If--Morgelyn, whatever happens, I swear by my life, I will make sure the truth is told.  It is a very grievous thing to use the name of God to commit such atrocities."  

Fergus raised an eyebrow.  "The truth could get you killed in these parts."

Declan shook his head.  "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ye free," he quoted.  "The Christ told us so, in the Gospel of John."

"And look where it got him," muttered Fergus.

"Be careful, Declan," Morgelyn cautioned.  

He turned to her, and his expression deepened into something more serious than Gary had ever seen on that face.  Declan's voice went quiet, but it filled up the hollows of the cave with its command.  "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.  For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel."

Gary stared at Declan, knowing his own mouth was hanging open, but powerless to close it.  He was pretty sure he'd never look at Patrick in quite the same way again.

Morgelyn had listened with her head bowed; when she looked up again, she was biting her lip.  "Thank you," she finally repeated, and it sounded as if she was choking on the words.  Declan nodded.

"I will go with him to make sure I know the way out."  Fergus was talking to Gary, but even in the gloom, Gary could see the concerned frown he gave Morgelyn.  "I will return soon."

Gary waited until they had rounded the corner and their footfalls had stopped echoing back to them before he turned his attention to his bundle.  He sat down near the entrance, where the moonlight was strongest, and went to work on the knots.  Morgelyn sat next to him, curling her legs under her skirt and drawing her cloak around her like a blanket.  The knots finally gave up the fight, and Gary opened the bundle.  He pulled out his jeans, boots, sweater, newspaper--

But it was the Dragon's Eye he was most concerned about.  It had been rolled into his leather jacket.  After he'd unwrapped it, he held it up to the faint light and sure enough, the colors sprang to life, though not as intensely as they had in the abandoned manor house.  

And he felt--a pull.  Sadder now, not as urgent as it had been that morning, but still, calling him.  

"What does it mean?" he asked, though he was pretty sure Morgelyn didn't know the answer any more than he did.  

Her expression troubled, she touched the Dragon's Eye with a tentative finger.  Her face was a seismograph, registering warring emotions in rapid succession, a new one with every blink.  "You should go home."

"No."

"But--"

"This isn't over."  He took a deep breath, then tipped it in her direction.  "Take it, Morgelyn.  I want you to--I don't want to be pulled back there before I know you're going to be safe."

Fingers frozen on the glass ball, she stared up at him.  "But what if that never happens?"

His empty stomach churned its own acid.  It had to happen.

Didn't it?

"What are you talking about?"  Fergus's return startled them both.  "Gary?  Morgelyn?  What is--what is that thing doing?"

"Calling him home," Morgelyn said, staring at the colors.  

"You are leaving us?" Fergus managed to sound offended, confused, and the tiniest bit relieved, all at once.

Gary bit his lip, watching Morgelyn for another moment.  "I'm not going anywhere until I know what's going on," he finally said, and dumped the ball into her lap.  The minute he let go of it, its light went out.  

Marissa, he thought, I know you hate this word, but I'm sorry.  I truly am.  He just hoped that somehow, some way, she would understand.

"No, Gary--"  Morgelyn held the ball back out to him, but he crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw.

"I can be stubborn, too."

Fergus sighed, picked up the other bundle, and extracted a loaf of bread.  After tearing it in two, he held half out to each.  "Eat," he muttered.

"Please, Fergus, do not be angry," Morgelyn said wearily.

"I am not angry at you."  Hard-edged, but just as exhausted, Fergus's response was barely audible over the waves.  "It is too late now to make any decisions.  Eat.  Sleep if you can."

Gary's stomach had rumbled at the first whiff of the bread, and he tore off a huge chunk and shoved it in his mouth.  Coarse and thick, it was just about the best thing he'd ever tasted.  

Setting the Dragon's Eye on the floor next to him, Morgelyn got awkwardly to her feet and approached Fergus.  "Nor am I angry with you."  She tore her bread, and offered him half.  "You are my oldest friend, and--"

"Except for Robert?"

"What?"

"Surely you do not think me older than Robert."  Fergus's voice was a little too hoarse to pull the joke off, but it was enough to break the tension.  He took the bread and gulped down two bites while Morgelyn forced out a short "huff" of a laugh.  "Sleep for a while," he told her.  "You look as if all the hounds of hell have been chasing you."

Morgelyn cocked her head at him.

"That was not a joke," he said sadly.  "'Tis too close to the truth."

"Here."  Gary picked up his sweater and folded it into a square, then stood and handed it to Morgelyn.  "It's not the most comfortable pillow, but, well...it's better than a rock."

"Thank you."  Moving back to the wall, she sank to her knees, then toppled over, drawing her cloak around her and tucking the sweater under her head.  Gary watched for a minute, then paced over to the opening and looked out at the ocean.  It was a cloudy night, and he couldn't see nearly as many stars as he had the first time.  

"You should rest, too,"  Fergus told him.  "I will keep watch, though I doubt anyone will find us here."  

"I shouldn't."

Fergus's sigh was pure exasperation.  "If I have to argue with you as well--"

"No."  Gary rubbed the back of his head, wincing.  "No, I just mean--I had a concussion, you know?  Probably a couple of them.  Got knocked on the head," he elaborated when Fergus held out his hands helplessly.  "And I shouldn't sleep for long, no more than three or four hours--not nearly as long as I'd like to.  That's what the doctors told me the last time."  

Fergus still looked confused, but he nodded.  "It will not be much longer than that until sunrise, at any rate.  Sleep while you can," he added, gesturing at the floor next to Morgelyn.  "You will be no good to anyone if you cannot keep your eyes open when the time comes."

"What time?  What's gonna happen next?"

"I do not know."  Fergus glanced at Morgelyn's sleeping form, curled into her cloak.  "I do not think any of us do."

"We should though--we should know."  Gary glanced over at Morgelyn, but she didn't stir.  Lowering his voice, he asked Fergus, "Where's the book?"

"I told you before.  It is hidden."

One last surge of exasperation hit Gary.  "You left it?"

"I could hardly bring it along, with Father Ezekiel there!  What would he have thought?"

"How are we supposed to know what's going to happen?"

"But I do know."  Fergus crossed his arms over his chest.  "We are going to leave this place far behind; I am going to take Morgelyn somewhere *safe*.  The book can rot in the woods for all I care."

"In the--"  Trying to contain his anger, Gary chewed on his lip.  Okay, maybe Cat would bring it in the morning, if he needed to see anything.  For now, they were relatively safe, and after the past day, he decided, that was good enough.  

He turned his back on Fergus without another word.  There was really only one thing he wanted before he gave in to his exhaustion, and he found it tucked neatly into his boots--the pair of socks he'd been wearing when he first got here.  He let out a sigh of pure relief when he slipped on the tube socks, warm and dry and sheer heaven after walking around on cold, wet rocks.  Fergus watched him without comment, then strode over to the cave opening and leaned against the wall.  

Morgelyn was asleep already, her breathing even and quiet.  One hand rested on the Dragon's Eye, reassurance, Gary thought; she must have needed that connection.  He tilted his head back against the rocks, wishing it would stop pounding.  Even a drink of that mead would help--anything to dull the day he'd just lived through.  

For the hundredth time at least, he wondered how things were at home, if anyone knew he was gone, if the homesickness he felt was mirrored by--what, grief?--and did he want them to feel that?  Had what he'd seen in his last issue of the Sun-Times really happened?  How would he get home to find out?  There in the room with Father Ezekiel, the panic he'd felt when he'd reached for the Dragon's Eye--was that really Marissa's, or was it just his own?  So much could have happened...

He'd never been so damned confused.

But despite the ennervating questions, sleep finally caught him in its net.  Lulled by the monotonous pounding of the waves, he slipped into oblivion.





Chapter 70

Reality, he says, is relative
Can you see the border?
          ~ Ian Hepburn


It might have been minutes she sat there, lost in thought after Josh's call, or it might have been hours.  The traffic quieted down for the night, and the preternatural stillness of the atmosphere seeped through the open window.  Marissa fought the urge to unfold the quilt in her lap and hide under it--hide from a situation she didn't understand and couldn't change.  

No, they had to change it.  For Gary, they had to.

She traced her fingers over the quilt blocks.  Eight triangles made a pinwheel.  

"Marissa?"  Chuck's voice drifted across the chasm of stillness.  "You know what really scares me?  This is starting to make sense."

Everything made sense, if one could find the reason behind it.  Perpendicular rectangles made fence posts.  Kites and squares made stars.  Everything was part of a pattern...

Eight tiny triangles and one big one make flying geese, her grandmother had told her, because geese always fly in the same formation, a v-shape, always.  They just know how, and no one can explain why.  They just know.

"It's different," Josh had said, his words tangled in confusion, "but I can't remember what it said before.  I just know it's different."

"Marissa?  Hel-LO?"

She swallowed hard, found her voice.  "It sounds just like Gary, doesn't it?"  

"To get involved in something this far over his head?"  There was a rapid tapping on the hardwood floor, Chuck's staccato bouncing of his foot.  "Yeah.  It's so far over his head, it's no wonder he drow--"

"Chuck!"

"It's over his head, over the Center for Disease Control's head, over Amnesty Inter-freaking-national's head..."  He was up, circling the room as he took off on a verbal tirade.  Slumping back against the sofa, Marissa tuned out, too overwhelmed to take it in any more.  The day came back to her in disconnected sound bytes, without any coherence, without any pattern at all.

She picked one thread out of the tangle of her thoughts.  "One of courage..."

"..and he probably could have asked for help and didn't, because he's so--Huh?"  Chuck's restless footfalls came to a halt somewhere behind her.  

"Maybe that's the key," Marissa said quietly.  "What Betsy Cooper said the words on the crystal ball mean.  One of courage, one of faith, one of clearest sight..."

"In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie," Chuck finished dryly.  

Marissa shook her head; her thoughts shifted, tumbled, and realigned themselves, but they still made no sense.  "There has to be a reason."  It was her mantra, it was a life raft in this sea of impossibilities.

"A good reason?"

"Of course a good reason."  Pushing herself up on the sofa, she twisted so that she was facing him.  "What are you implying?"  

His voice snapped through the air like a whip.  "Well, geez, Marissa, what part of 'burned at the stake' sounds like a happy ending to you?"

Marissa turned her back on Chuck, flopping back down to a sitting position on the sofa.  She smoothed the wrinkles she'd left in the quilt earlier and told herself that she was not going to cry.  Not again, not in front of Chuck, not when they were so close to finding out what was going on.  "Gary's there to change the ending."

"Oh, yeah.  He's done that all right!"

Josh had said...no.  She clenched her teeth until her molars ached.  She knew, she just knew.  Like the geese.  "It's not over."

"And let me tell you, even if it's not--all this changing history is dangerous, even if he thinks he's changing it for the better."

"I assume it would be for the better, if it's Gary."  Marissa imbued her words with all the "end of discussion" finality she could muster.  She wanted him to stop--stop voicing all her own doubts and fears before she became too weary and gave in to them.  "He--Chuck, please--"

Tea.  She needed scalding hot tea to dissolve the lump in her throat.  Setting the quilt aside, she got up and headed for the kitchen.  

Chuck trailed her like Spike after table scraps.  "Changing history is a big problem, Marissa; did you ever think about that?  He tried to stop the Chicago Fire without even thinking about what that would have done to the future.  There might not have even been a McGinty's if he had!"

"But he didn't stop it.  He helped the people he needed to, and changed the past just enough to stop that building from collapsing.  It all worked out."  She focused on the water running into the teakettle, on counting until it would be at just the right level, on carefully testing the gas burner with her palm just above it.  She was not going to give into Chuck's ravings.  

Even if he refused to stop.

"Look, I'm still trying to make this make sense.  Let's say that is what's happening--Gary's back in the middle ages, trying to stop a plague or a witch hunt or--whatever.  What happens if he changes it?  What happens to us, to everything?"

"We'll be fine."  There were mugs, teabags, spoons--all kinds of things to worry about.  She didn't have to listen to this.  

"You don't know that!" Chuck exploded, and Marissa dropped the box of teabags.  They scattered over the counter and at her feet on the floor.  He came to help her pick them up, and she really wished he wouldn't get so--so strident this close to her face.  "Trust me, I've seen enough B-grade science fiction movies to know what happens when you go messing around with history.  You change one little thing, and everything else is affected.  Gary could--he could sneeze and spread a Chicago germ that would wipe out a whole village--he could start the plague, for that matter!"

Marissa straightened up and took a step back.  "For heaven's sake, Chuck--"

"Or he could meet my great-great-great-whatever grandmother and she could fall in love with him and never marry the right guy!  I could end up not being born!"

"That's ridiculous."

"You've never seen Gary.  Women fall for him at the drop of a hat."

"That's not what I mean.  This is not about you."  He handed her the box--the wrong box, she decided.  She needed decaf.  There was herbal tea somewhere in the cupboard, peppermint or something...her fingers traced Braille labels until she found it.  Chamomile.  Perfect.  She wrapped her fingers around the reassuring geometry of the box and told Chuck, "Nothing is going to happen to us.  Gary's there for a reason; we just need to be sure that he can get back home."  

His voice came from the general direction of the table.  "But what if he does do something that changes the present--changes us?"

The corners of the cardboard box started to give way under the pressure of her palms.  She opened the lid and took out two teabags.  "Then that will be for a reason, too."

"Oh, that'll be a real comforting thought as I'm blinking out of existence!"

"Don't be melodramatic."

"Oh, I'm being melodramatic?  You--you're talking about reason in the same breath that you're talking about a crystal ball taking a guy back in time!  Explain that to me, will you?"  He stalked out of the kitchen.  

With a sigh, Marissa leaned back against the counter and wrapped one arm around her stomach.  No, she really wasn't going to cry, even though it was turning out to be just as hard to keep Chuck on her side as it had been to get him there in the first place.  Aunt Gracie had been right.  Faith itself was the most difficult step of all.  If only Chuck would--

His footsteps thudded back into the kitchen, and something slammed onto the table.  "What is this thing supposed to do?"

The crystal ball--he was slamming the crystal ball around?  "Chuck, just--calm down, okay?  Don't break it."

"You said you made it work this morning."

"Well, not work, exactly."  Gary hadn't come home, after all.  

The kettle whistled.  Marissa filled the mugs and carried them both over to the table.  The sound of a chair scraping across the linoleum was like fingernails on a chalkboard to her exhausted nerves, and she jumped.  Tea sloshed out of the mugs and onto her hands.  

"Here, sit."  Some of his calm and good manners restored, Chuck took the mugs from her hands and set them on the table, guided her to a chair with a touch on her elbow.  She heard him ease himself into a chair, then sigh.  "Tell me."

"I didn't make it work, it just--happened, like I told you in the office this afternoon."  She gulped down tea, but it didn't help at all.  Placing the mug back down on the table, she reached for the ball, or where she thought it might be, but withdrew her hand almost as soon as she realized what she was doing.  She was half-afraid to touch it, after Josh's call; afraid it would burn her, or that she'd touch it and know that Gary--

"You want it?"

Marissa pulled her hands into her lap and shook her head.  "No, you try."  There was no Patrick to interrupt them this time, and maybe--maybe they could get Gary home.  Right now, before the worst happened.

"Try what?" Chuck asked.  

"Think about Gary.  About a time when it really mattered.  When you and he--when we needed each other."

He was silent for a long moment.  Then he sighed.  "Remember when Crumb used to call us the Three Musketeers?"

"And the Three Amigos," she countered with a faint grin.

"The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, too."  Chuck's voice had grown quiet, soft.  "I miss that."  

No amount of tea would break down the boulder lodged in her throat now.  "We still are, Chuck.  All of us."

But he kept going in the past tense.  "It was the only time Crumb ever called me something besides short, the only time he didn't massacre my name--when he was lumping me in with the two of you."

"Crumb does like you.  He's just--"

"Got a funny way of showing it."

"Yes."

"You know," Chuck said, less edgy now, "Gar--he always stuck up for me, to Crumb and everybody else, even though I was a rat half the time."

Marissa lifted an eyebrow.  "He still does."

"I still need sticking up for?"  

"Only when financial, personnel, or supply issues come up."  Marissa waited a moment, but he didn't laugh.  "You want him back?"

"Yes, Marissa, I--I really really do."

She reached out and touched Chuck's arm.  "He can come home--" she began, but he tensed, and then swore under his breath.  Something tingled under her fingers, through the cotton cloth of his shirt.

"Chuck?  What is it?"

"What the hell is this thing?  It looks like the Rainbow Connection," he squeaked.

Gary had said there were colors...her heartbeat tripled.  She reached out tentative fingers, and Chuck placed the glass under them.  There was something, she felt it again, something beyond words--

Someone.

The feelings weren't as intense as those of the morning; there was not as much fear, just an overwhelming wave of sorrow and exhaustion.  And connection.  It was still there, he was still there, and there was nothing Marissa could do now to stop the tears that stung her eyes.

"Gar?"  Chuck choked.  

He'd felt it, too.  This was...confirmation, she knew she hadn't been imagining it.  "Chuck," she whispered, "we have to--"

Another feeling hit her, a wave of regret.  

And just like that, it was gone.  All of it.  Gary.

"Where'd he go?" Chuck asked, but she couldn't answer.  

Gone, sighed the faint breeze that tickled the back of her neck, even though the window in here was closed.  Neither one of them moved, and the air went still again.  Marissa knew it wasn't going to do any good, not tonight; she was holding on too long, past reason, even the reason she believed existed--

--but not past hope.

"This is what happened before?"

"Yes and no.  It's not the same."  Still she held on, kept contact, if only to ask, just in case, one more chance that maybe...but she knew in her heart it wasn't going to happen tonight.  "He felt exhausted, Chuck."

"Gary?"

"Gary."

"I felt--I dunno, it was weird."  A slight change in the way he was holding the crystal ball, a little push toward her, told her he wanted her to take it.  She wrapped her hands around the glass, and a chair squeaked as Chuck shifted his weight.

"Did you see colors, Chuck?  Like Gary did, that first day?"

"Yeah--it got all swirly, like a lollipop on an acid trip.  Are you sure that lettering doesn't say Lucasfilm?"

She sighed.  

"Okay, okay," Chuck acquiesced.  "I don't--I can't say if it was Gary--it's not like I saw him or anything.  How can you be so sure it's him?"

"I don't know, it just--it was."  She just knew.  She couldn't explain it, any more than she could explain why, now, there was nothing there, try as she might to touch the right place, to reach out with her mind and heart and find him again.  "It's just--well, sometimes I come out into the bar and know he's there, even with all the other people, and this is--it's like that."

"You always did seem to pick up stuff out of the atmosphere."

Marissa let the silence fill between them again for a few moments, then set the Dragon's Eye back on the table with a sigh.  "It wasn't like this morning, though--thank God.  He's alive, and the danger isn't so bad."

"Except for that whole gonna-be-burned-at-the-stake deal, right?"

She didn't have an answer for that, so she sipped at her tea instead.  It was cold, and offered no comfort at all.





Feedback:  'Tis a consumation devoutly to be wished.   peregrin_anna@hotmail.com


  On to Part 11
  Back to Introductory Page
  Back to GTA Stories
  Back to GTA Home