The Lord of Obsidian [Quest for Earthlight Trilogy Book 2] Page 21

  He swept his black-clad arm in a wide arc. A sunny hillside superimposed itself over the green paddock. On the gold-green grass lay Merlin, arms sprawled. He could have been either unconscious or asleep. Or—Peter's heart leapt painfully—even dead. He wore a lightweight tunic and leather sandals. A mere few feet away—apparently trying to protect the fallen wizard—Dreyfus faced his much larger, three-headed enemy. Vague shadowy shapes lurked in the background, circling the hill. Peter glimpsed the pale gleam of narrowed eyes. Then he caught the flash of three sets of enormous yellow fangs. Three pairs of red eyes glared above them before the vision dissolved and the green field with its three circles of flames returned.

  Peter blinked, staring briefly in amazement at the sky. He had been totally unaware of any gathering of cloud. Only the contrast between the brightness of Sujad's demonstration and the present dimness made him realise how black the sky had become.

  "Now don't tell me I've shown you a lie, Pukling!” Sujad snapped, bringing Peter's attention back to him. “I'm not stupid. I wouldn't show you mere illusion. You'd see straight through it."

  Peter frowned. No, it wasn't just a vision, but something's not quite right. I wish I could put my finger on it. That looked like an English scene and it was obviously summer. It might have been back in Arthur's time, too. Why should Merlin have taken Dreyfus back to his own time?

  "No, you're not lying.” Then suddenly Peter realised that he had neither heard nor seen Jamie and John since the horses had bolted and he swung to face the other circles of flame. “Jamie! John!” Sujad's sneer widened even more.

  "We're all right, Peter. But it's getting awfully hot. I don't know how much more I can take.” Strain showed in Jamie's panting voice.

  Why am I wasting time arguing with Sujad? Peter asked himself. If I don't get Jamie and John out of the blue fire right now it may be too late. He closed his eyes and strove to recollect the stars and planets wheeling in the blackness of their vast universe. And suddenly they were there behind the darkness of his lids. The murmur of their music was all around him. And, as before, the right one whispered the necessary spell to him.

  Peter opened his eyes and shot out his hands, fingers rigid. He shouted one word—a word he instantly forgot. Bolts of rainbow-colored light blazed from his fingertips. One hit the blue fire around Jamie and the other the flames encircling John. The blue fire went out and the kaleidoscopic light enclosed both boys, pulsing rapidly.

  A furious cry broke from the Lord of Obsidian. In a frenzied burst of rage he sent charges of blue light in Peter's direction. Peter instinctively doused the blue flames with his own stream of light. But eventually he began to feel his power lessening. Exhaustion started to set in. Panic rose within him. Sujad's blue flames became increasingly larger. And Peter could now feel their heat. The colors of the Earthlight's powers were slowly being smothered by them. The Lord of Obsidian grew before Peter's eyes. The black cloud around him now encompassed nearly half the field.

  It was only when Sujad burst into his cackling laughter that Peter saw the man held the Obsidian Orb. In a rush Peter realised that Sujad was using the orb to steal his growing powers. And it was now too late to check him. “Spirit of Obsidian, can't you stop him?” he cried in silent despair.

  Briefly he felt around him the pulsing of the Power of Obsidian. But it disappeared almost as soon as he sensed it. Peter instantly realised why: the Essence of Obsidian didn't want Sujad to discover its true nature. It stayed barely long enough to let Peter know it would help.

  Sujad saw merely Jamie and John, still iridescent from the energy that Peter had poured over them, both raise their arms towards him. Just as he was about to turn his attention from Peter to the twins, great shafts of colored light shot from their fingertips. Their timing was perfect. The prismatic bolts of lightning struck Sujad while he was unprotected by his own blue fire. They forced him to retreat. The black cloud swirled around him angrily. Before either Sujad or his cloud could recover, Peter spent the last of his powers in throwing a protective shield around himself and the twins.

  "Run!” he shouted, not too sure how long the spell of protection would last.

  The three boys took the quickest route back to the house and stables—across the fields, scrambling through barbed-wire fences and climbing over gates. The barbs tore their clothing and gouged their flesh. But none of them felt the pain until later. Trust us to choose a field as far from the house as possible, Peter reflected wryly. Some startled cows looked up and ambled out of the way as the boys raced across their pasture. Thank goodness Bart doesn't keep a bull!

  They were now racing up a long incline. When we get to the top we should be able to see the house and the stables with the lake and the forest behind.

  It seemed to Peter that they would never reach the top—that the horizon, like a mirage, retreated as they advanced. And the ascent was getting steeper. Peter's breath now came hard and fast, as though he had run a marathon. His heart thumped as much with fear as from exertion. His thoughts raced ahead of his feet. What's happening at the stables? What's Sujad planning to do to Argent and the mares? And where are Merlin and Dreyfus? He had a grim feeling that when he crested the hill he would find himself instantly plunged into the second battle with the Evil One and his Lords of Corruption—perhaps without Merlin and Dreyfus. And Sujad has sapped most of my power, making him even stronger than he was. I should have called upon the Spirit of Obsidian straight away. If we fail in this second battle it will be my fault.

  As Peter panted up the last, and steepest, part of the slope, he heard frantic shouts. Then, with terrible clarity, he saw why. The window in the loft of the barn exploded. Flames shot out. They reached an incredible height in mere seconds. Sparks flew in all directions, several falling into scatterings of hay near the stables.

  Even before the sparks flew, however, Peter's incredulous eyes saw something else: Argent's silvery form going from stall to stall. She dipped her head at the door of each stall—and as she passed, Peter saw that each door opened. The horse inside instantly rushed out to join the pony. Argent followed the last horse. They stampeded across the yard, the thunder of their hooves joining the roar of the flames.

  Before they disappeared, Peter saw the other horses slow down to allow Argent to take the lead. Then trees blocked his view and the sound of hooves abruptly stopped. The horses didn't reappear on the other side of the trees. It was as though the ground had opened up and swallowed them. The roar of the fire suddenly increased. And before the boys’ horrified gaze the stables went up as if someone had soaked them in petrol.

  Yelling incoherently, Peter, Jamie and John tore down the hill as though devils were after them. In seconds they reached the stable yard, where people milled everywhere. In the thick of the action, Bart shouted orders over the roar of the flames. Stable hands passed buckets filled from the tap in the yard. But the fire seemed almost to feed on the water. The heat was already tremendous.

  Bart caught sight of the boys as soon as they entered the yard. He rushed over to them. “Thank goodness you're back!” His broad face was flushed and lined with anxiety. Sweat and soot streaked his skin. “The horses are all right. Goodness knows how they got out. But they've bolted. Young Bernie's gone after them on his bicycle so they shouldn't get far. You three come to the lake and help me get the pump going."

  Peter and the twins wasted no breath replying. They turned and followed Bart as he raced from the yard towards the lake.

  "Has someone called the fire brigade?” Peter yelled as they pelted through the trees hiding the barn and the stables from the lake.

  "Susan has. But they'll be too late. The lake's our only chance. If you boys can take the hose up to the fire I'll get the engine working."

  The pump house was an ugly concrete-block building with a thick wooden door. Surrounded on all sides by trees, it was well screened from view. There was no pathway leading to the door, which was securely padlocked. Bart unlocked it with a key from the heavy bunc
h he always carried.

  "There's the hose.” He jabbed his finger at a large pile of carefully coiled fire hose. “It might be rather heavy. There's a clear area through the trees leading from the pump house to minimize damaging the hose. You can't miss it. Get the hose up to the part of the forest that's in danger of catching fire."

  Bart's words brought Peter up short. He remembered the vision he had seen in the flames in Bart's own hearth. The forest fire I saw was right here. Briefly he recalled his other vision of a forest on fire when the Obsidian Dagger had hurtled towards him. Was that vision also of the same forest fire? If it was, they were already too late to stop it."This is all Sujad's doing!” his mind screamed at Bart as he and the twins grappled with the coils of hose.

  "I know,” Bart called silently but calmly as he went about the business of getting the pump working. “It's the beginning of the second big assault on the Earthlight."

  Peter, Jamie and John heaved at the hose. It seemed to take ages to get it outside.

  Peter snatched up the loose end and set off through the trees. “Oof! Who'd be a fireman?"

  John grabbed the length of hose behind Peter and followed. Together they managed to move the hose in the direction of the fire. Jamie stayed at the coiled end serving the hose out. Before he came to the end of the coil the engine throbbed into life. The noise increased as the pump sprang into action. Bart made his way to the door and he and Jamie ran to join the others. When they reached the burning buildings they found the men already playing the hose onto the trees at the forest's edge.

  "Thank goodness the house is far enough away to be safe,” Bart gasped as he joined the line of workers passing buckets of water. Others were busy beating out sparks before they could find anything to burn. Bart looked at the infernos engulfing his barn and stables. It's really a waste of time and effort, he told Peter in bitter mind-speech. Even the fire brigade won't be able to put this out. But I can't just watch while my life's work burns around me. The flames carried on consuming. Bart ground his teeth. I can't stand this any longer. He left the men passing the buckets and ran over to the two grappling with the hose. “Turn it onto the fire!"

  They looked at him in surprise.

  "We've hardly started here, Mr. Brown,” one man protested. “I don't think the forest's safe yet."

  At the grim expression on Bart's face, however, they turned to play the hose onto the nearest building. But the water never reached the fire. The engine in the pump house spluttered and died.

  Before anyone could move or say anything, Bernie came tearing across the yard on his bicycle, panting. “I can't find the horses! They've vanished into thin air!"

  But Bart clearly didn't hear. He was already running back to the pump house. Peter heard Bernie's cry and his heart tightened. Sujad must have them. He didn't succeed in burning them alive so he's trying something else.

  Bernie took one look at the flames, saw the futility of trying to put them out, and turned his bicycle.

  "I'm going to look for the horses,” he told Peter, who knew the horses meant more to Bernie than just that without them he would have no job.

  Peter turned back to the scene of the fire. But in the few seconds between Bernie's arrival and departure it had changed. With the exception of the roaring flames it might have been a tableau he was looking at—or a photograph in three dimensions. Even Jamie and John, now helping to fill the buckets, had been frozen where they stood. Peter and the fire seemed to be the only moving things there.

  Even as he stood gaping foolishly, the cackles of Sujad the Great filled the air. Peter looked up. Sujad's black cloud swooped towards him over the top of the flames. It was as though both cloud and master were showing their contempt for fire, and their power over it. The Lord of Obsidian was clearly visible within the cloud. He stayed hovering over the flames. They seemed to make no difference to either him or his black cloud.

  Peter's chest tightened. As he could think of nothing to say, he remained silent.

  "Well, Pukling? I've done a really good job this time haven't I? Two fire appliances have just arrived at the gate, incidentally. They're all in the same predicament as this lot.” He chuckled and waved his hand contemptuously at the immobile fire-fighters. “They might just get here when the flames have burnt themselves out."

  "By that time you will have burnt yourself out,” Peter said involuntarily, and then wondered what made him say something so obviously foolish.

  Sujad laughed again. “Are you going to set fire to me, Pukling?"

  "I don't need to—you've already done that yourself."

  Sujad laughed uproariously. Why am I saying such silly things? Peter wondered.

  Then Sujad's laugh changed to a vicious scowl. “I've had enough of you, Pukling. And you're not provoking me into playing cat-and-mouse games with you while you wait for Merlin or your precious Lady to rescue you. I'm getting rid of you NOW!"

  His last word came out in a shout. It would have reached Bart over the roar of the flames, but Bart was standing motionless looking down at the silent engine in the pump house.

  Sujad raised both hands in the air. His voice resounded over the valley, and his words sent a chill down Peter's spine. He looked over the Lord of Obsidian's shoulder. Racing towards them was the black cloud of the Evil One himself. It hovered in the distance, as though merely there to keep an eye on things. Its master neither spoke nor showed himself. But his malevolence poured down on Peter like a physical force. It was so tangible that Peter unwittingly stepped back. His legs buckled under him and he went down on his knees, unable to get back to his feet. It must look as though I'm submitting to him. I might almost be worshiping him, he thought.

  The Evil One made no further move. Sujad looked from his master to Peter. Peter felt—almost like a physical force—the surge of Sujad's exultation as he saw that his master intended to leave Peter's destruction to him. To Peter's horrified eyes he seemed to grow and swell as he raised his arm. The finger he pointed at Peter looked enormous. Peter waited for the blue fire to strike. He knew he had no power left—not even enough to summon the Lady to his assistance. He closed his eyes in despair.

  * * * *

  DREYFUS WATCHED the three boys ride from the stable yard, his dejection all too apparent.

  Merlin smiled down at him grimly. “Sorry, old boy, but you and I have other work to do. You're coming with me."

  "Can I get a horse ready for you, sir?” a voice behind him asked.

  Merlin turned to see Bernie standing at the door of one of the stalls. His grim face relaxed into a polite smile.

  "Thank you, Bernie—no. I'll not be riding today. If your boss wants to know where I am, tell him I've taken the shepherd to gather the flock. He'll know what I mean."

  Bernie looked bewildered. “But the sheep don't need gathering, sir. They're on fenced pasture."

  "I wasn't referring to Mr. Brown's sheep, Bernie. If you give him the message he'll know what I mean."

  "Yes, sir.” Still looking perplexed, Bernie returned to his duties.

  Merlin turned back to Dreyfus. “Come, boy!” He clicked his fingers and Dreyfus's stance immediately changed to that of an eager, alert dog. He trotted after Merlin as though accepting the sorcerer as his master. Merlin was all too aware that Bernie was surreptitiously watching them leave as he rubbed dressing into a saddle.

  Merlin walked with long-legged strides, his partly buttoned coat swinging out behind him. The dog trotted briskly at his heels, his tail waving. They went only as far as the nearest stand of evergreen trees. There was no one around to notice that—like the horses after them—he and Dreyfus failed to emerge at the other side.

  * * * *

  FROM THE hilltop, Merlin looked down on the peaceful valley basking under the warm summer sunshine. In the far distance to his right and slightly behind him he could see the circle of stones that he had been responsible for restoring. On his left and slightly in front of him sheep grazed in golden-green meadows. He stood up and mov
ed to face the distant view of Stonehenge. Then, holding his arms out before him, he started descending the hill. A dog trotted at his heels. A warm breeze sprang from nowhere and blew the folds of his robe around his legs. As he walked, Merlin started to chant. Halfway down the hill he stopped. He lifted his head and emitted the weirdest sound Dreyfus had ever heard from a human throat. It was like the howl of a wolf. Dreyfus instantly threw back his own head and his howl almost made Merlin's hair stand on end. Then, as the plains came alive with dark, moving shapes, Dreyfus stopped howling. He moved down to join the wolves. He felt suddenly more affinity with them than with the sorcerer.

  The wolves received the message: it's time to hunt. Their instincts told them there had never been a hunt like the one they were about to undertake.

  But Merlin remained on the hillside a split second too long, was too slow in closing the gap between himself and the dog. He took one step towards the wolves. But the Lord of Obsidian divined his purpose. Sujad the Great sent one great bolt of blue lightning across the plains. It struck Merlin full on and he fell heavily backwards. Dreyfus, however, was impervious to Sujad's blue fire. So yet again he found himself facing his formidable three-headed enemy.

  Warily they circled each other. The wolves were unable to assist either of them. The Absolute Law held them fast.

  Dreyfus knew by instinct he had no time to dally. He threw back his head and howled. Cerberus stood frozen, taken aback by Dreyfus's strange behavior. He realised too late the reason for it. A stream of red mist issued from the area of the dog's throat. Before Cerberus had time to dodge, he was enveloped in it. With a nerve-racking cry the three-headed dog disappeared.

  The red mist began dispersing, becoming more pink than red. Dreyfus rushed back to where Merlin lay. Frantically he licked the sorcerer's face. But Merlin wouldn't stir. Dreyfus pawed at his chest and whined. Gradually some of the pink mist drifted in their direction. As soon as it reached Merlin's face, the sorcerer opened his eyes.

  And he saw flames leaping in the air and Peter standing staring upwards. He saw the boy fall to his knees. He saw Peter close his eyes and knew his despair. He saw the Lord of Obsidian expand until he blotted out everything else. And he saw Sujad the Great point his finger to blast Peter with blue fire.