Bedtime Story (60 page)

And whatever you do
.

He looked out at the water.

“I’m going to die here,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m never going home.”

You might not have to wait that long …

David rose to his feet.

Look
, he said, as if David wasn’t seeing through the same pair of eyes.
There’s a light
.

There was nowhere to hide. The only thing more daunting than hiding in the small building where he had found the Sunstone was the idea of running into the dark woods.

“Who do you think it is?” he asked, touching his ankle, making sure that the knife was still there.

We’ll find out soon enough
.

David didn’t become frightened as the minutes passed, as the light grew larger, as the boat came into view. So much had happened to him, he was content to just watch and wait. As the faint sound of oars on the water reached his ears, David pulled the knife from its sheath and held it in his lap.

Not long now
, Matt said.

“No, not long.”

He stood up when the boat was close enough for him to see the figure of the old man, paddling hard toward him. David held the knife loosely in his right hand, sure to be standing straight and tall as the light fell across him.

“Dafyd!” the magus cried out when he saw him, but David stood stock-still, not allowing the slightest hint of emotion to touch his face.

The old man dug his oars harder into the water, driving the boat onto the beach. Before it had even come to rest, he was clambering over the gunwale, opening his arms.

“Oh, Dafyd,” the old man said. “Thanks be that you’re alive. I didn’t dare hope—”

David took a step back from the old man and raised the knife between them. “Stay back,” he said, hoping his voice sounded firm.

“You’re hurt,” he said, trying to reach the wound on the side of the boy’s head.

David stepped back again, bobbing his head to avoid the man’s touch.

“The captain did that to you?”

“Loren,”—David pointed the knife at the man’s chest—“what the hell is going on?”

The magus seemed confused.

Maybe it’s the knife
, Matt guessed.

David ignored the voice in his head, and focused on the magus’s face.

“The captain came back alone and ordered the men to break camp.” He shook his head. “I knew it was a mistake when the two of you set out alone, but I could do nothing …”

David wasn’t used to seeing the magus so rattled. The blade wavered. “What did the captain say?”

“He didn’t
say
anything,” the magus said. “Not about you. He told the men that they were going to ride hard, through the night if they had to. That they were going home. The men cheered when they heard that.”

David could picture the scene, could imagine the joy he’d have felt to learn that he was going home.

“When I asked him what had happened on the island, he said that your part in this was done, that you wouldn’t be returning to Colcott with us. And when he said ‘us,’ he looked at me and said, ‘And that goes for you as well, Magus.’ ”

The knife point dipped. “He left you?”

The magus nodded. “With enough food for a couple of days, and the slowest of the horses. And the boat,” he said, indicating it with his hand.

“And you came to rescue me,” David said slowly.

“I would not have put it past the captain to kill you once he had the Stone,” the magus said. “But I hoped that he had only abandoned you on this shore, the way he had so quickly abandoned me.”

David lowered the knife to his side. “I’m glad you came,” he said, trying to keep the relief he was feeling from dissolving into tears.

“I swore an oath to protect you,” the magus said firmly, “and to help you to the fullest of my ability to recover the Sunstone.”

“Not necessarily in that order,” he muttered.

“No,” the magus said. “In precisely that order. That is where the captain and I differed: he wanted the Stone for his Queen, regardless of the cost. The oath I swore, though, was to protect you, to ensure your return. Even at the cost of my own life.”

“At least it didn’t come to that,” David said, hoping for humour to
fill the air as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing, to make it fit with the events of the journey.

“It might still,” the magus said gravely.

“Why? What do you mean?”

“We’re not finished,” the old man said. “We haven’t much time, and we must get back to the castle before the captain. There are steps that must be taken—”

“But you said the captain only left you with one horse.”

“We won’t be riding.” The magus gave a meaningful glance behind him.

“The boat?” David asked.

The magus nodded. “It’s four days hard riding back to Colcott, maybe five, though I have learned not to underestimate the captain. By boat, we should take no longer than three. Getting to the river’s mouth at the north end of the lake will be the hardest part.”

To his surprise, David was nodding. “Then we should get—”

The magus lifted one hand. “We have a little time,” he said. “I took the liberty of adding a tincture to the drinking water as the men were breaking camp.” A smile cracked through his silver beard.

“You poisoned them?” His hand tightened again around the knife.

The magus shook his head. “I’m shamed that you would think me capable of cold-blooded murder after all this time. No, not poison. But they will sleep very well. Irresistibly.”

David’s grin matched that of the old man. “That was clever,” he said.

The magus shrugged. “These arms are not as suited for rowing as they once were. And you’re not apt to be much help.”

“No, I can row,” David said.

He looked at David with sudden curiosity. “The last time I saw you, you could barely hold your own weight,” he said warily.

David nodded. “I’m feeling much better,” he said.

“You touched the Stone, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” David said. “Why? Is that—?”

“No. No, that’s fine. That’s just fine.” A smile broadened his face as he fell silent.

David waited a few moments for him to say something. He didn’t. “I suppose we should go.”

The magus nodded. “Yes, we should. But there’s one thing I want to do first.”

D
AVID GRUNTED AS HE DUG
the oars into the water, a small sound of exertion that echoed across the dark, silent river.

The magus, sitting on the small bench across from him, looked up at David from the book in his hands. The lantern was at his back, lighting both their way and his pages, but making it difficult for David to read his expression.

“Are you tiring?” he asked, his voice warm with concern.

“No,” David said, to his own surprise. He had enjoyed the past few hours, feeling the pleasant ache in his arms and the tightness in his back. “This morning I couldn’t have lifted one of these oars,” he said, digging in again. “Let alone actually rowed.”

The magus nodded. “Such are the powers of the Stone, it seems.”

Don’t say too much
, Matt said.
You still can’t be sure of him
.

“Is that what it says in the book?” David asked, looking at the volume the old man was holding. It was the book from the bottom of the gold chest.

The magus had asked David to show him the small building, ‘the last of the hidden places’, before they left the island.

“It was really that simple?” the magus had asked, standing outside the stone building, holding the lamp high to illuminate the doorway. “It was only a matter of walking through the door?”

“The trick was getting here, I guess.”

“No,” the magus said. “The key was proving yourself.”

David tried to push Matt’s comments about his being tested to the back of his mind.

The magus stopped before the chest and lowered himself to one
knee. Bowing his head, he reached into his robes and clasped his amulet with his left hand, his mouth moving slightly.

David turned away, giving the man a moment of privacy, turning back only when he heard the rustle of his robes.

“This place,” the magus said slowly. “It is one of the holiest sites of our faith, only rumoured to exist, until now. I feel …” He stopped, trying to find the right word. “Humbled to be here, to be the first of our brotherhood inside these walls. Until this moment, no one knew if Gafilair had succeeded in concealing the stone. To see this place, to know that he succeeded …”

David waited a moment, then asked, “If he succeeded, why didn’t he return to the kingdom?”

The magus took a long time to answer. “He disappeared to keep his secret. To keep all of this safe and hidden, for you.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“The Brotherhood is sworn in our duty and loyal, absolutely, to the King. Had Gafilair returned, and had the King changed his mind, he would have been honour-bound to reveal the place where the Stone had been concealed. Had
any
king asked, the Order would have had no choice but to reveal the truth, had they known. The only way a secret lasts for a millennium is if there is no one to tell it.”

The enormity of what the magus was saying washed over David. “He sacrificed himself to protect the secret.”

“To protect the Stone. And to protect the kingdom from those who might misuse it.”

The words chilled him. “What is Captain Bream going to do with it?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer.

“He’s going to give it to the Queen.”

“Wasn’t that the whole point of this trip? To bring the Stone back to the Queen?”

The magus looked at him sadly. “No. That was the captain’s goal, his orders from the Queen. But so long as the King lives, my loyalty, and the loyalty of the Order, is to him.”

“But the Queen said she wanted the Stone to heal the king.”

The magus nodded gravely. “Yes, she did say that.”

David waited for him to say something more, but the magus was looking down at the book, flipping carefully through the pages, filled with the brown ink of the first magus, now familiar from the maps and clues.

Leaning back on his bench, David lifted the oars from the water, letting the boat move with the current as he watched the old man.

“The book doesn’t say much about the properties of the Stone itself,” the magus said. “It’s a diary, mostly. An account of Gafilair’s travels in his quest to conceal the Stone. A description of the magics he used to build the chambers, the traps. ‘The trials,’ as he called them.”

David snorted, thinking back to the trials, tasting the river water in his lungs, feeling the burns on his back. But he sensed an opportunity to ask the question that had been bothering him since they had left the stone chamber hours before.

“If the Queen doesn’t want the Stone to heal the King, then why does she want it?”

“Perhaps the Queen really does want to heal the King,” the magus said reluctantly, as if he would have preferred not to talk about it. “But you felt the Stone’s power. If she were able to use that power, to tap into the force of the Stone, the kingdom would be hers.”

David shook his head. “But, isn’t the kingdom already hers?”

The magus shook his head. “She rules in the King’s stead, and in the King’s name. Her power is borrowed from him. If he dies, the crown should pass to the next in the line, not to her. But with there being no prince, with the Stone the Queen could claim rightful dominion.”

It took a long time to build up the courage, but in the parking lot of the motel in Seaside, I couldn’t really put it off any longer.

“Do you want your own room? I asked Jacqui.

“I don’t think so,” she said, looking out her window.

After checking us in, I hefted the bags out of the back of the van while Jacqui helped David out of his seat. In the bright afternoon sun I was struck by how pale they both looked.

We had all had a rough night: David had had two small seizures between midnight and four, and Jacqui and I had sat up with him until we were sure he was calmed.

“It’s getting worse again,” Jacqui had said. “I wonder if it’s travelling, or …”

I hadn’t mentioned the book, the precious few pages that remained.