The Invisible Tower (10 page)

Suddenly there was a sparking electrical sound, and then a pale see-through curtain encircled all but Lance. The archer said, “I'll be here when you get back! Good luck!”

And before they knew it, the dark forest was no more.

A blinding flash of light came
and went.

They stretched their faces and rubbed their eyes and when they recovered, they found themselves on the road that Artie had strolled along with Bercilak, the green knight.

“Everyone all right?” Thumb asked.

“Yep,” said Artie.

“A-OK, Shorty,” affirmed Kay. “But whoa—what happened to you and your rabbit?”

As before, Thumb had grown two feet taller. His rabbit had followed suit. He was now as big as a medium-sized mutt. At that size, his teeth really did look pretty vicious.

“I'm bigger here,” Thumb explained. “Vorpal, too.”

“I can see that. And you have a sword, too.”

Thumb patted the sheathed sword on his belt. “Ah yes, the Welsh
wakizashi
. An old friend.”

“Great, so I'm the only one without a weapon,” Kay said.

“Yes, for the time being, but don't worry. Cleomede will be yours soon enough. Artie—do you know where we are?”

Artie dug his compass from his pocket and flipped it open. “Yeah. Let me just get our bearings.”

He held the compass level to the ground. The needle swirled around in both directions before grooving into the magnetic field. Maybe it had had a tough time crossing over too.

Artie pointed Cleomede in the direction he thought was right and said, “It's this way.”

“Very well, lad. And remember something—Cleomede is perfectly visible here. More than a few are likely to recognize her on sight. You're no longer anonymous like back home.”

“Got it,” Artie said.

They started off and didn't talk because there was so much to take in.

The trees were huge. Their trunks were measured in yards rather than feet. Artie figured they must be the oldest trees he'd ever seen. Many of the flowers along the edge of the road looked like flowers from back home, but then there were tons more that Artie had never seen. There was a green flower in the exact shape of a butterfly; an orange poof that looked more cloud than flower; and a flat brown one that was a perfect square.

Also, the sky was blue, but purple too. And the clouds were mostly white but ever so slightly pink. Artie wondered if it was a trick of the light, but couldn't be sure.

But the strangest things were the sounds. These hadn't come across when Artie met Bercilak in the video game, and they were fairly unsettling.

All around, the woods produced very quiet rustles, clicks, coos, snaps, and
whispers
. The sounds were almost imperceptible, but there was no doubting they were there.

Kay asked the obvious: “Tom, are we alone?”

“My darling Kay, we are never completely alone,” Thumb answered cryptically. Certain parts of the Otherworld are more alive than the corresponding parts on your side. It's perfectly normal.”

They walked along in silence before Thumb added, “Besides, we have the king of all lands with us, and he is armed!” Artie wasn't sure if Thumb was being sarcastic, but it didn't make him feel any better if he was. Artie was a twelve-year-old with a sword on his way to get another sword. That made him dangerous?

After a few dozen more yards Artie caught sight of a blue bluer than blue through the trees. Thumb and Kay carried on as he walked to the side of the road. He parted a thick stand of bushes and there, not far beyond them, was the Lake.

Artie said, “Hey, guys, wait up!”

Just as both of his companions stopped, they heard a horrible wail from above. They craned their necks. At first there was nothing, but then, far overheard, emerged the silhouette of a giant vulturelike bird. It made broad turns in the sky, gliding on invisible currents; Artie assumed that it was looking for something to eat.

Something like them, perhaps.

Thumb exclaimed, “Good stars! Would you look at that!” The vorpal bunny reared, and Thumb brought him under rein. He patted him on the neck and whispered something into his ear.

“What is that, Tommy?” Kay asked incredulously. “It's huge.”

Thumb answered, “That is a magnificent Argentine. The largest bird ever to have plied the skies, my girl. Extinct on your side. I'd warrant it's nearly twenty-five feet from wing tip to wing tip.”

“Holy cow,” Kay said.

“Quite,” Thumb agreed. “But don't let it concern you. It's mainly a carrion eater. We only need worry about it if we die. In which case, we'll have nothing to worry about at all!”

“Way to make a girl feel comfortable, Tommy,” said Kay.

Artie forced himself to forget about the huge bird and said, “Guys, what I was trying to tell you was that we're here. The Lake's right over there.” Artie pointed through the forest on their left at the patches of brilliant blue water.

Kay and Thumb joined Artie and they abandoned the path. Artie led the way, using Cleomede as a machete.

The Lake was round and a couple of miles across. The buoy was plain to see in the middle. To their right, about a quarter of the way around the lake, stood a massive tree. It was perfectly shaped—a thick, sturdy trunk jutted from the ground and about ten feet up the branches reached straight out uniformly. The canopy was shaped more like a mushroom than a tree, and it towered over everything in sight. Next to it and turned upside down was a red-hulled canoe.

“Good stars again! The great American chestnut. Those used to be everywhere on your side, you know.”

“What happened?” asked Artie.

“Can't remember the exact cause—some beetle infestation or fungus wiped them out, I think. There's a few left, but none like that. I bet it's nearly as old as I am.”

They walked to the tree, and Artie flipped the boat over. Underneath it were three paddles and a cloth sack. Artie opened the sack. It contained a clunky old cell phone and a note.

Artie unfolded the note. It read, “Hello, good sir knights! I hope this finds you well. Please take this phone and keep it. Service is awful around here, but better to have one than not. I wish you the best of luck and I hope to see you all soon!” Bercilak had signed it with a stamp in green ink that depicted the same seal he had on his breastplate—a holly branch crossing a battle-ax in front of a pine tree. Under that he'd scribbled down his phone number: 2-305-67.

As they got the canoe into the water, Artie told them how they were supposed to go about getting Excalibur. Thumb squirmed at the idea of flinging Cleomede into the depths, but Artie assured him it would be okay. They got into the little boat. Artie was in front, Kay was behind him, Vorpal was next, and Thumb brought up the rear.

Kay asked, “You're sure you're good back there? I have a merit badge for canoeing from summer camp.”

“Kay, my dear, I am over a thousand years old. I'm well acquainted with the J-stroke.”

“Just making sure,” Kay said.

They shoved off and paddled easily toward the middle of the Lake, making good time.

But after a few minutes a headwind picked up that made paddling a little harder.

Then, as they made their way, a shadow moved across the water. Artie looked up. The magnificent Argentine had blotted out the sun, training its eyes on the world below. Artie put his head back down and continued pulling against the water. The sound of wind and the bow slicing through the water was all he could hear.

But then another sound came from far off on their right. The canoeists whipped their heads in its direction. The trees on the far bank of the Lake shook and fluttered and turned from green to black in an instant. They seemed to grow upward in a surge, like a smoke plume rising from an explosion.

But the trees weren't actually blowing up. What made the sound were birds. Millions of birds.

A swarm lifted into the sky and bulged and thinned and bulged again. It wheeled through the air and rose over the Lake like a storm.

“What are those?” yelled Artie over the noise.

“Passenger pigeons!” Thumb yelled back.

The creatures rose from the trees without pause, like the forest was a spigot gushing birds. They moved quickly and covered most of the Lake in less than a minute.

Then a terrifying screech filled the air above them and the magnificent Argentine broke through the bottom of the flock with a crash of feathers, flapped three times, and surged back upward. The flock barely registered the flying monster. It didn't seem to care that this huge bird was literally plucking its members out of the sky by the mouthful.

Artie tried to ignore the carnage above and looked back in front of him just as the bow of the canoe bumped into the buoy. They scraped alongside it, and Thumb and Kay threw out ropes to secure them in the strengthening headwind.

Artie's heart quickened.

He lifted Cleomede from the bottom of the boat and leaned over the side, dipping the full length of the blade into the water. He pulled it out. The sky suddenly got much darker. He looked over the surface of the Lake, where little whitecaps had begun to form and break.

He turned Cleomede in his hands, gripping the blade. He extended the sword in front of him. The boat began to rock, and the buoy clanged against the gunwale.

Artie knocked once against the side of the buoy. It made a dull thud. He counted to three.

The sky turned black, and he didn't know why. His hands tingled.

“Hurry, lad!” screamed Thumb.

He knocked the pommel against its target again. As he counted, he looked up.

The flock of birds suddenly dispersed, breaking from the center in all directions, leaving the giant bird all alone, its head twitching nervously back and forth.

Artie knocked the sword a third time. Cleomede was getting hot to the touch.

“Artie, hurry!” screamed Kay.

A noise broke over them like a bomb going off. It was a huge, hollow, flapping sound, far worse than that of the magnificent Argentine.

Artie craned and saw a long, iridescent green dragon twirling overhead, practically blotting out the entire sky.

Kay shouted, “What the?”

Then it dived. The magnificent Argentine had gone from hunter to prey.

It banked defensively. Its wing tip cut the surface of the water, then it straightened and drove directly for the canoe.

Artie held up Cleomede and tried to remember what Bercilak had told him to do next. But he couldn't.

The bird strafed them, its raptorlike feet bumping the buoy and shaking the canoe violently. Everyone grabbed the boat and held on for dear life.

The dragon glided over them, moving through the air like a snake. Artie thought it looked more like a Chinese dragon than your typical European-style, Middle Earth kind of dragon. That didn't make it any less terrifying, though.

The giant bird was scared, but not for long, because in an instant the serpent plucked it from the sky. The dragon made horrible gurgling noises as it choked down its prey whole, the bird's mighty feathered wings folding into the serpent's mouth.

They were stunned.

The dragon licked its chops. The bulky, and still moving, form of the bird could be seen in the beast's scaly belly. For a brief moment the monster seemed content.

But then it looked straight at them and let out a wail that beat upon their hearts as much as it did upon their eardrums.

It prepared to dive again.

Thumb drew his sword and yelled, “Ask for the sword, boy!”

Artie was momentarily paralyzed. Should he really be throwing the only magical blade in the boat away at a time like this?

Kay screamed. The vorpal bunny, his long ears pulled over his straining black eyes, screamed too.

Artie hoisted Cleomede above his head, shrieked, “Excalibur!” turned the sword to the water, and shoved it into the Lake's depths, letting go of his only defense.

The blade sluiced the water, and for a moment everything went black.

The blackness lifted like a
slow fade-up in a movie.

Artie was still on the boat, still clutching the gunwale, still on one knee. His face was still contorted in a mask of fear and urgency.

He eased his grip and relaxed his face.

He blinked.

Calmness washed over him.

He looked at the water. Its surface was weird. It was still. No—it was moving. Only very, very slowly.

The boat also moved slowly as it righted itself incrementally.

Time was almost frozen.

Artie looked into the canoe.

Kay was on her butt, her face grimacing in confrontation. Vorpal was ready to pounce into the air and attack. Thumb stood at full height. He held his sword above him with both hands. His mouth was wide with fury and his eyes were lit like exploding stars. He looked very brave.

Artie looked up, and there it was. A great green dragon. Bright and shimmering where the light hit it on the margins, dark and foreboding on the underside that rushed toward them.

Or had been rushing toward them. Like everything else, the dragon was practically stock-still.

Artie took the creature in. It was glorious. It had red rubied teeth and its golden horns were curled like a ram's. Its wings were powerful-looking but small. They didn't seem large enough to keep the thing aloft. It was more like the dragon swam through the air. It was pretty magical.

But most impressive were the thing's eyes. Their black pupils were shaped like a cat's, and the streaked iris was an explosion of color. Traveling around the eyeball, every hue could be seen, from brightest blue to deepest green to fieriest orange.

The dragon had rainbows in its eyes.

Which made Artie think of his sister, with her blue and green eyes, which in turn brought him back to his senses a little.