Page 23

A fragment of one of the smaller rocks that burst above them struck Kate’s temple in a glancing but painful blow. Kate stumbled, trying to catch herself on the side of the passageway walls as her vision blurred and an intense wave of pain washed through her body.

Magda turned back, her dark eyes searching for Kate in the dim light.

“Kate? Where are you?” Magda called out.

“Here. I’m... here .” Kate tried to breathe through the pain in her skull, but it was difficult. She reached up to touch the side of her head, and her fingers met a warm, sticky liquid.

Blood.

Kate stared at her fingertips. Head wounds usually were superficial, but they bled a lot, right? Please, God, let that be true... because I don’t feel that good.

“Kate, are you okay?” Magda asked.

“Yes, I’m fine.” Kate knew it was a lie, but she had to get a little farther inside, make sure it was safe for her friends before she sat down to rest.

Magda took Kate’s hand as they moved deeper into the tunnel, deeper into the dark. She was thankful to hold Magda’s hand and for a short while to feel that she wasn’t alone, or that someone besides the grumpy kobold might care about her.

“Be quiet, both of you,” Patch whispered somewhere up in front of her. Kate stared into the gloom, trying to spot the kobold. She thought she could make out his dark form just ahead.

The sky vanished above, and they entered a cave-like passageway. No sunlight broke through here.

“It’s too dark,” Kate said. “We can’t go forward without a light. Is this one of the mines your brothers work in, Patch?”

“No, this is something different. Something I’ve never seen before.” Patch stopped and faced Kate and the troll. “I don’t know where we are now... Maybe she knows.” He pointed a knobby finger at Magda.

Magda looked around and then slowly tilted her head back to look up at the ceiling.

Her thick lips parted as she pointed at faint silvery swirls that covered the ceiling.

Kate, her head aching, stared at them in confusion.

The silvery lines glowed faintly. What would cause something like that?

Nothing Kate knew of. But then again, this world had different rules, as well as creatures and mysteries that she could spend a lifetime studying.

“The Crystal Cave,” Magda whispered, her voice quivering. Kate squeezed the troll’s callused hand.

“Is something bad in here?” She offered Magda her dagger. “You can take this if it will make you feel safe.”

“No. No danger.” The troll shook her head, and her faintly silver fur shimmered in a way not unlike the light above them. Magda wasn’t at all what Kate had expected trolls to look like.

“Patch, do you know what the Crystal Cave is?” Kate asked.

Patch nodded slowly, as if in wonder. “The only Crystal Cave I know is a place where a wizard was born. But that place was never in the labyrinth. It was... by the sea.”

“A wizard?”

“Aye, but not just any wizard, the wizard. He found himself here. Or there. Whatever. He was one of you, in a way, but something more.” Patch sounded almost reverent. “He had enough power to challenge King Bahden in the great wizard war.”

“The wizard war?” She remembered Patch telling her something about Roan’s father and how he’d stolen Queen Guinevere from her world. “Wait... you don’t mean Merlin , do you?”

“Do not speak his name,” Patch hissed in warning.

“Why not?” Kate whispered. Her head was still throbbing painfully.

“Because you might wake him.”

“Wake who? Merlin?” This time she whispered the name.

Patch growled in frustration. “Have you read no tales of him in your world, girl?”

“That was a thousand years ago. He would have to be dead now.”

“Nothing here that dies stays dead. And certainly not wizards with his power. He sleeps on the isle of Avalon, which is partly in your world, partly in ours.”

“He’s sleeping?” Kate asked.

“At the foot of the bed where King Arthur rests. Close your eyes, girl. If this is the Crystal Cave, the legends say you can hear him breathe.”

Kate closed her eyes, feeling very foolish, but then she let out a breath and let her mind wander. The pain in her skull began to fade.

Then she heard it. A breath that was not her own or Patch’s or Magda’s.

And then, within the darkness of her mind, a vision slowly bloomed before her.

She saw a man with golden hair lying on a bed covered with a red velvet mantle.

The man held a single white lily, whose petals shimmered in the light.

Sitting upon the floor, head resting against the stone foot of the bed, was an older man with silver hair and a long silver beard.

He wore robes the color of midnight, and faint silvery stars shimmered in the fabric.

The man breathed in and out, and the air in Kate’s lungs seemed briefly to match the old man’s.

“Did you see?” Patch whispered, and the vision vanished.

Kate blinked and opened her eyes. “Could you see it too?” she asked.

“No, but I’ve been told mortals can... mortals, the Seelie and Unseelie. They all have a connection to Arthur and to the wizard, because both were born with the royal Fae in their blood. I guess these are the caves after all.”

“Is... is Mer—the wizard bad? I always thought he and Arthur were good.”

“Are they? Maybe. The Seelie think the Unseelie are bad. Are they? Sometimes good and bad depend on who is left to tell the stories. But I suppose Arthur might be as close to good as a mortal can get...” Patch said slowly, as if trying to figure out how best to explain this.

“But it isn’t time for him to wake yet. Your king.

.. Arthur, he is the once and future king.

We are not in the future yet, we are in the present. ”

“But isn’t every minute of the present once the future?” Kate couldn’t help but ask.

Patch narrowed his eyes. “Aye, but that isn’t what I mean.

Just leave him to rest. You have enough to worry about, don’t you?

You want to save your brother and go home.

Waking the wizard and the golden king..

. Well, that wouldn’t do you much good. Just stir up a lot of stuff best left unstirred for now. ”

“Oh...” Kate had secretly started to wonder if perhaps Merlin could send her home, but maybe Patch was right.

Kate touched the damp cave walls and felt a gentle breeze track through the tunnel. She smelled the scent of rain or near rain in the air. It was hard to describe, but it was... soothing, enticing. It smelled a little like Roan.

“You smell that?” she asked the others. “I smell rain, I think.” She gently released Magda’s hand and walked deeper into the cave, following the thick silvery trails as stalagmites and stalactites formed a latticework pattern in the tunnel.

They had just enough light now that their eyes adjusted to keep moving.

“Rain? What rain?” Patch scrambled to follow her, loose rocks sliding beneath his feet. “Wait, girl, wait!”

But Kate wasn’t waiting. She smelled petrichor, the scent of rain-soaked soil. It was the smell of a place that humans could live in and grow crops in and only humans could smell it. She’d learned that in some science class years ago.

She grinned as she continued to follow the slowly glowing trails of light as they grew brighter and brighter.

She slipped through a small gap and stepped into a vast opening that was as big as a football field.

Beautiful crystals grew out of the stones everywhere.

But it was the thousands of glowing lights around and above her that made her suck in a breath in awe.

The world glowed blue and green like a thousand stars in the night sky.

“Beautiful...” Magda spoke behind Kate.

“Yes,” Kate agreed. “Beautiful.” She walked deeper into the cave and stared at the pulsing lights. She got a glimpse of one of the stars up close and she laughed. It was no star.

“These are glowworms,” she whispered to Patch and Magda.

“Worms, eh?” Patch grumbled. “They good eating?”

“Probably not. They are a bit like fireflies. I’ve never seen them in real life.” She swayed a little on her feet.

“Kate need rest,” Magda said. “Kate is bleeding.” The troll tried to catch her arm.

“I’m fine, really.” Kate waved Magda away, but she wavered and the pain in her head grew stronger. Magda caught her, then lifted her up in her arms and carried her.

Kate felt too weak and too tired to protest. Her head lolled back as she looked up into the night sky of glowworm stars.

Had Roan ever been here? Had he ever seen this?

Kate wished he had. It was one of the most incredible things she’d ever seen.

And she could just picture how his blue eyes would reflect the stunning light.

Surely he knew about it. He was a king, after all, and this was his labyrinth.

“We have to summon the king.” Patch’s voice sounded so far away now.

Roan... Roan could help me... Kate’s thoughts danced in a circle within her head, spinning out and back inward until little else made sense except that she wanted Roan to come.

Kate stared at the beauty of the stars above her as they slowly vanished into darkness.

“She’s fading...”