She mimicked her description, raising her own hands to cover her ears. “What are they thinking? That their thoughts leak out? Of course it’s ridiculous, but it doesn’t change anything.” Ashley caressed the outer rib of Bonnie’s left wing, and her voice dropped again, catching in her throat. “I . . . I’ve heard them call me . . . mutant . . . and alien. . . . I know how it feels. And sometimes . . . it makes me wonder. Maybe they’re right. . . . Maybe I am a mutant.”
Dr. Conner joined the girls, one hand in his pocket, the other carrying a spiral notebook. “I see you two are becoming acquainted.”
Bonnie read the familiar expression on his face, a smiling glow that had fooled her for years. With her wings exposed, everything seemed out in the open—vivid, clarified, transparent. Now she saw in his smile the pearly whites of a polished hypocrite, a charlatan scientist. His act was wearing thin. It was time for him to deliver. She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the floor. “Can I see my mother now?”
“Very soon,” he replied. “I promise.”
“Is she here?”
“Yes. I’ll explain in a moment.” He handed the notebook to Ashley. “The samples are excellent. I think the photoreceptors are working. I see no reason why we can’t begin in the morning, but let’s set up a communication session for tonight.”
Ashley’s smile stretched across her face. “Great! I’m going to check on Daddy first. I’ll be back.” She grasped Bonnie’s wrist and gave it a squeeze before jogging toward a far corner of the lab.
Bonnie’s father picked up the backpack from the chair, lifting and lowering it a couple of times. “Is something in here?”
“Just my journal. I can’t fit much else when my wings are in there.”
He laid the pack on the chair with her coat and buried both hands in his pockets. “I’ve heard about your dangerous adventures, and you’ve been very brave. I’m asking you to be brave once again, because only you can rescue your mother. That’s why I brought you here.”
It was a practiced speech, like many she had heard through the years. Her father’s eyes gave away a hint of insecurity, like he was covering hidden fears, conveying urgency and dread. But his speech, and so many other things, weren’t adding up. What did he really know about her adventures?
Scenes from her battle with Devin flashed through her mind, the slayer’s gleaming sword heavy in her trembling hands and his hateful eyes glowing with vengeance. The memories pumped adrenalin through her body, and her heart beat like the wings of a hummingbird. She fought against the overwhelming thoughts and her father’s powerful sway over her, but she couldn’t keep her lips from trembling. She gulped, barely able to speak. “What do I have to do?”
The professor pointed as he hurried through a path of thick leaves and scattered stones. “It’s just over this rise.”
Walter and Billy jogged after him, and Billy’s mother tracked close behind. When they came to a clearing, the professor stopped and pointed again as he tried to catch his breath. “There . . . there it is.”
Billy and Walter halted next to the professor, and they gazed at the awesome sight. The sword stood upright, as straight as a boot camp cadet waiting for a drill sergeant to bark out a command.
Billy’s mother caught up. “What are we waiting for? Let’s do it!”
She ran ahead to the foot of the stone, and the others hustled to join her. “C’mon, son,” she said, making a cup with her interlocking fingers. “I’ll give you a boost.”
Billy shook his head, stripped off his gloves, and handed them to his mother. “Thanks, Mom, but I can make it.” He leaped to the first ledge and grappled the top of the stone. Two seconds later he stood next to the sword, ready to grasp its hilt, but he paused and leaned down. “The prophecy says I have to hold the diary.”
The professor stretched his lanky body and handed up the diary. Billy stood again, holding the book in his left hand. With his right, he grasped Excalibur’s hilt, pausing a second and taking a deep breath.
Billy tensed his muscles, and as he tightened his grip, heat radiated from the sword. Steam rose from the crack in the rock, and the sword moved easily, like a spoon in thick pudding. Billy pulled it out effortlessly, his eyes wide and his mouth open. He stared at the blade, the newly exposed portion glowing hot. His right arm trembled under the sword’s weight, but he managed to raise the blade high above his head.
Walter pumped his fists. “Yes!”
Billy’s mother gave Walter a high-five, and the professor copied their actions, clumsily giving high-fives to each of them.
Walter clambered up the stone and gave Billy a manly embrace. He slapped him on the back and relieved him of the book. With two catlike leaps, Walter was back on the ground handing the diary to the professor.
“Bring Excalibur down, William,” the professor said as he opened the book. “We must make haste.”
Walter rubbed his eyes and peered at the ragged parchment. “I can’t see any new lines, Prof.”
Billy joined them, gripping Excalibur with both hands. The professor eyed the book closely. “William, hold it nearer. I can see something.”
As though summoned by the sword itself, new words slowly appeared on the page, matching the calligraphic script of the lines above. The tantalizing letters grew clear and bold.
The professor gestured for the others to stand back, and he cleared his throat. “I shall begin reading with the first line of the previously unfinished quatrain.”
Bring here the sword of Camelot
To read of wisdom’s page
Without its words, instruction blurs
For all who hear the sage
The candlestone conceals a trap
Where Satan’s minions dwell
In darkness she will seek her joy
And find the gates of hell
A sword, a knight, a fiery son,
Transluminated heir
Shall enter into darkest realm
To battle in its lair
Beware, O knight, of easy prey
Who stand with back yet turned
For cowards strike a blinded foe
And die for what they’ve burned
The professor paused. He brought the book closer as though he were trying to read microscopic print. “That’s all I can see. The metric beat and rhyme scheme are complete, and the script nearly fills the page. Perhaps that’s all there is.”
Billy held the sword close to the book again. “Then we should be allowed to check the next page. Let’s see if something shows up.”
The professor lifted the top corner. “Very well.” Everyone drew nearer to look as he turned the page.
“It’s blank,” Walter said. “Blank as my brain during a math test and empty as my stomach is now.”
The professor closed the book and tucked it under his arm. “Obviously the book has nothing more to reveal at this time. Let’s hurry back to the plane and decipher this new conundrum.” He placed a hand on his stomach. “Perhaps we’ll be able to think more clearly once we have taken a meal.”
Billy’s mother smacked her son’s gloves into his palms. “Then let’s get airborne! There isn’t anything left to do here. Jared—I mean, Clefspeare said he’d deliver Billy’s drawing to Arlo’s porch, and we have the sword.”
Billy pulled his gloves over his hands and heaved the weighty sword up on his shoulder, holding the hilt with both hands in front. As he trudged through the forest, the final stanza of the poem smoldered in his mind. “Prof, the last part of that poem, the part about cowards striking a blinded foe. What do you make of it?”
The professor kept his stride, his white hair bouncing under his beret. “I thought you might find its lesson familiar, William. I’ve said something similar many times. A knight opposes his enemy face-to-face. A stab in the back is the way of the coward. If you must fight, attack your enemy head-on. That is the way of valor.”
“I remember. But what if he wants to kill you? Shouldn’t you take him out before he takes you out?”
“Yeah,” Walter agreed. “What’s wrong with a surprise attack on the bad guys? They deserve it, don’t they?”
The professor halted and faced his students. “If God commands a surprise attack, then so be it; he has done that before. But a brave warrior assumes that his Lord will protect him as he charges with confidence into battle. He will even call out to his enemy to stand face-to-face.” The professor’s furrows deepened, and his skin seemed to turn gray. “Considering the words of this prophecy, we can assume that God has ordained that we carry out no surprise attacks. Do you understand?”
Walter nodded. “Sure, Prof. I get it.”
Billy kept his eyes focused on his mother who was standing by a large oak tree up ahead, waiting for them to catch up. “Yeah, I think so.”
The three continued down a dirt path, quick-marching through the forest. The professor’s warning blistered Billy’s mind.
No surprise attacks.
He twisted his neck to eye Excalibur’s blade. He held in his hands the ultimate weapon, one that could vanquish the dragon slayers and rescue Bonnie. He understood the poem well enough to know that Bonnie was in trouble—something about Satan’s minions and the gates of hell. But what could he do? He had practiced long and hard, and he felt the urge to zoom to Montana and do a little transluminating on Devin’s cronies, or at least whack their ugly heads off. Was he brave enough to do it face-to-face?
The feel of his fingers wrapping around the sword’s hilt brought courage, but something was wrong. The blade’s surface held all the strange etchings he had expected, and it was as heavy as a bundle of crowbars, but it lacked luster; in fact, it was dull.
Shouldn’t it be glowing? That’s what all the stories said, and it shot out a beam when Bonnie held it. Sure, I pulled it right out of the stone. That was cool. But why isn’t it working now?
He tried slipping off his gloves again and holding it with his bare hands, but that didn’t change anything. Had anyone else noticed? Billy wished he had a scabbard so he could sheathe the sword and hide its apparent impotence. As he hiked onward, the sword’s weight pressed on his shoulder, pinching his skin even through his jacket. If the sword was such a burden when carried like this, how could he possibly wield it in battle? He couldn’t make it glow; he could barely even hold it up! He boosted the blade higher on his shoulder and kept moving, listening to the leaves crunching under their hurried steps. He couldn’t help but feel they were all rushing headlong toward a whirlpool, and he didn’t even have a paddle.
Bonnie sat on one of the swivel chairs. Her father stooped and placed a gentle hand on her knee. “This is all very difficult to explain,” he said softly, “so I want you to pay close attention.”
He licked his lips and blinked before clearing his throat to continue. “You may not have guessed what happened to Devin. Excalibur transformed him into light energy, and the candlestone absorbed his fractured particles into itself. Devin’s cohort, Palin, saw your battle from a distance but couldn’t get there in time to help. After you threw away the stone, he knew he couldn’t battle both you and a dragon without it. Even though you flew away, Clefspeare was recovering, so Palin waited for him to leave. He searched for hours but never found Excalibur. He wondered later if you flew away with it, but I told him it was much too heavy. You’d never be able to fly with that much weight.
“Anyway, he found the stone and he brought it to me, thinking I could help him resurrect Devin and reconstitute him. He knew Devin and I had worked together, studying dragons and their ability to use light energy to extend their lives. I was the only person who might be able to help.
“You see, back then we had Excalibur in our possession and learned quite a bit about how it works. When Devin took off on one of his rabid dragon hunts, I insisted on keeping the sword with me, because our analysis of its power wasn’t finished, but I promised to send it to him if he needed it. Later, he convinced me that he could capture a dragon for our research if he only had his sword, so that’s how it came back into his hands. Apparently it’s lost forever.”
Bonnie didn’t know exactly where the sword was, but she had a good idea of the area where she dropped it. Since she didn’t trust her father, she decided it was best to keep quiet, at least for now.
He gestured for her to stay put and stepped toward the wall. With a flick of his wrist, he spun a dial a couple of times and opened the door to a safe. He pulled out a lockbox, sliding the small metal case with great care, and brought it to Bonnie. He opened the lid a crack, and Bonnie stood up and peeked inside.
The candlestone! Even with this minute exposure, it seemed that a darkening cloud enshrouded the box, the loss of light starting at the edge of the lid. Bonnie felt a small dose of the same queasiness she experienced on the mountain when the slayer first showed her the stone, the bane of every living dragon.
Her father snapped the box shut. “Palin’s claim that the stone had captured Devin intrigued me, so I told Palin I would look into it, but, of course, I had no intention of bringing that monster Devin back to physical form. I wanted to create a test to see if he was somehow really within those crystal walls. That’s where Ashley came in. In our efforts to mimic a dragon’s ability to capture light energy, she had already helped me build miniature synthetic photoreceptors that could attach to human tissue, so, with her knowledge of physics and physiology, I thought she could come up with a way to figure out what’s going on in there.”
Bonnie’s father motioned toward Ashley’s equipment. “When you see how all of this works, you’ll be amazed.”
Bonnie pointed at the box. “So is he in there? Inside the candlestone?”
“Yes, and he’s fully alive.”
“So what does that have to do with Mama and me?”
He stepped back toward the safe. “When Palin brought the candlestone to me, your mother’s health was rapidly deteriorating. I was desperately trying to bring my photoreceptor research far enough along to help her, but there wasn’t enough time.” He slapped the safe’s door shut and spun the dial. “I decided to take a drastic step. I transformed your mother into light energy and allowed the candlestone to absorb her, keeping her safe for the time being, hoping that some day I could restore her when my research provided a way to keep her from dying.”