The Long Chron Read online

The Wizard simply nods his head and I see the largest of the four men club Lance over the head with the heavy shovel in his hand. Lance instantly crumples to the ground. I involuntarily let out a loud scream, which continues on as the four men move forward to beat Lance with what they have in their hands.

  When they finally pull back, I see nothing more than a bloody heap. No movement, just a pile of broken bones and flesh.

  I fall to my knees, tears streaming down my face as I realize that The Wizard has taken away everything that I have come to love about this place in my short time here.

  “To your feet,” The Wizard commands. “Arise and receive your punishment.”

  “Chelle!” I hear shouted from somewhere in the crowd. “Chelle, I’m here!”

  The Wizard turns at the voice of Griff and then looks back at me. “I had wondered where your cohort was hiding.”

  “Griff!” I scream, suddenly feeling as though maybe there’s a chance that not all is lost. Maybe now that he’s here everything will move forward with the prophecy somehow. Maybe there’s still a chance.

  “Let him through!” The Wizard yells. “He must be destroyed along with this young witch. Here, now, at these stables.”

  The crowd splits open once again and Griff is seen thirty feet away. He runs to my side, taking only a sideways glance at the body of Lance before he confronts The Wizard.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, bub?” Griff screams. “If you dare touch a hair on Chelle’s head, I can promise you that you will not live to see the morning.”

  “You are hardly one to make threats, terrorist. The Hour of Death is upon us. I have several thousand people here behind me who will decide which one of us will be the one to see the morning’s light.”

  I stand to my feet, regaining my composure, using Lance’s body as a strengthening measure. I can’t give up now. I don’t know how this is going to play out, but I’m still certain this is it. This is when we will succeed. We have no choice.

  “Did you get it?” I ask Griff.

  He looks at me with a knowing smile, somehow combined with a fearful grimace. “Who do you think I am? Of course I got it.”

  He reaches into his tunic, pulls out the pendant, takes it from around his neck, and hands it to me.

  “I don’t think so,” The Wizard commands. “The pendant is mine!” He makes another gesture at Wyllt. Wyllt leaps forward toward me and in an act of panic, I open the sphere and hold it out in front of me as though it were a weapon, dropping the pitchfork, my actual weapon, in the process.

  “Stop!” The Wizard yells at his impish servant. Wyllt immediately complies.

  “That’s right,” I smile, feeling the power of the moment. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “You have no clue of the power you hold,” The Wizard states. “Besides, I have my own such sphere. There’s nowhere you could go that I would not be able to follow.”

  “I have no doubt that’s true,” I answer. “I don’t believe you wish to follow me. In fact, with what I know about you, I’d guess you’d be happier if I were to completely disappear, even if it meant you lost access to this sphere.”

  “That will never happen,” The Wizard says in hushed tones. “You shall die this night. It has been declared.”

  I look down at the clock face of the sphere, still not certain how to set the destination on this device, but knowing that at this point I have nothing left to lose. I notice Griff lean over slowly and grab the pitchfork from where it had landed.

  “Do not press your luck,” The Wizard says, fear filling his voice.

  “Why are you so afraid?” I ask, knowing the answer to the question, asking only for the mob’s benefit.

  “The Wizard is never afraid,” he answers. “In fact, to show that I hold no fear toward you, I shall allow you to use your device, to free yourself from this. But do so quickly!”

  “Oh, it’ll be quick alright,” Griff yells as he swiftly swings the pitchfork up and pierces The Wizard through the chest. “That’s for Aggie!” he shouts as the old man falls to the ground.

  “What’d you do that for?” I scream in response. “You’re supposed to kill him at the cathedral!”

  “Screw your damned prophecy. He’s dead, ain’t he? Let’s get out of here before we join him.” Griff grabs my hand and begins to pull me into the stable.

  Looking around at the still-angry faces of the crowd, I do the only thing I feel we have left. I press the clock face into the center of the space in the compass. The crowd looks at me in shock as the wind picks up around us.

  The same thin cyclone as before appears above us and suddenly the world turns black.

  Chapter 33

  I hear a loud scream followed by a few more, joined with a couple of gasps as well as the grumbling murmur of many voices all around us. I open my eyes and am blinded by the bright light of the sun as I see the cathedral directly above me. I stand and look to see that Griff and I are on the cathedral steps. The Wizard is sprawled out at our feet. Griff shakes his head as he stands, shooting me an unhappy glance as he recognizes our location.

  A crowd gathers around us. Unhappy glares are aimed in our direction until finally we are confronted by two men wearing full armor and holding large swords in their hands.

  Without a word, they pull us through the crowd toward the back of town.

  “What the hell did you do?” Griff asks. “We were safe! The Wizard was gone! Why did you use that stupid thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer. “I got scared.”

  “Well, what’s happening now? Where are they taking us?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. We could be anywhere. Well, I mean, we could be anywhen. I just hope we’re not being taken back to The Wizard.”

  “But he’s dead, isn’t he? I mean, that’s why they’re dragging us through town, isn’t it?”

  “Still haven’t figured out how this time travel stuff works, huh?”

  “Nevermind, I don’t want to understand.”

  We are finally dragged to the bridge that leads across a chasm to the castle we had seen from Geoffrey’s home. We cross the bridge and are brought under an ornate open gate, entering a magnificent courtyard, filled with sculptures of stone and bush. A great fountain sits before us, which we are directed around and to a set of stairs off to the right of the grand entrance.

  We enter a small door and are shoved down a narrow flight of stairs to a dark cramped basement.

  “Looks familiar,” I say.

  “See one dungeon, you’ve seen a hundred,” Griff laughs.

  “Silence, prisoners!” says the man on our right. He opens a gated door and shoves us in, causing me to fall to the ground. He slams it shut and without another word, the two of them exit the same way we had entered.

  “Alright,” Griff sighs. “Now what?”

  “Well, first, we’re going to have to figure out some way to get out of here and to the body of The Wizard.”

  “Why’s that?” Griff asks, sitting up in interest.

  “We need the pendant he was wearing. Ours isn’t going to be able to get us home.”

  “Well, if you knew that, why didn’t you grab it off him before we got pulled away?”

  “Sorry, I’m still getting used to this whole time travel thing, too. They were dragging us off before I could even figure out why it was daytime.”

  “Alright, well, if we’re lucky, they’ll have a potter’s field around here somewhere and we’ll be able to dig him up after we get out of here.”

  “Gross, but okay. So, then how do we get out of here, oh master of dungeon secrets?”

  “You’ve got me,” Griff shrugs.

  “What?” I yelp. “I thought you knew everything about dungeons.”

  “Well, yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean I can get out of all of them.”

  “Can’t you pick the lock or something? Find another hole on the ceiling? Anything?”

  “Getting out of the cell isn�
�t the problem,” he answers. “This dungeon’s right outside the castle’s front door, a castle that just so happens to be somehow situated in the middle of a deep canyon with only one way to get out. I don’t know if you noticed, but there were quite a lot of guards sitting out in the courtyard and on the gate above the bridge.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Yeah, so, we need someone who’s more familiar with the lay of the land before we try to escape that way, someone who might be able to direct us around all of that. What about the pendant?” he asks. “Couldn’t we just use that to do whatever we did to get here in the first place?”

  I open the pendant and point it toward Griff, repeatedly pressing the clock face in and out of the setting in the middle of the compass face. “I don’t know what’s wrong. It was like this the first time we traveled. Maybe there’s a refresh period or something?”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, this was your bright idea. What’s the next step?”

  “Hey, I was the one who got us away from that mob, why don’t you do something for a change?”

  “I killed The Wizard and got you that damned locket back. I think I’ve done way more than you.”

  “Fine, but that doesn’t change anything. I still don’t have any ideas.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to come up with something quick,” Griff frowns. “I have a hard time believing that this place is afraid of old school capital punishment.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and all that. We’re in here because they saw us standing over a dead body. We’re more than likely sitting on death row as it is.”

  “Oh.”

  “And there’s one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Have you looked at the guy sitting in the cell across the hall?”

  I hadn’t noticed we weren’t alone down here. It was actually quite quiet. I walk to the bars and look across, squinting my eyes in the dark at the figure I can just make out across the way. I turn quickly to Griff and yell in the quietest yell possible, “Is that--?”

  “No fake beard or polyester costume, but it sure looks like him, doesn’t it?”

  Chapter 34

  “Holy crap, it’s him!”

  “Guess it looks like I didn’t kill him as well as I thought I did, huh?”

  “Don’t you know what this means?”

  “Yeah, that he can apparently outlive a pitchfork to the chest. Maybe he really is a wizard.”

  “No, you big dummy. We went back in time to before he was able to get into power. And he’s locked up down here in the dungeons with us.”

  “And not dead.”

  “No, he’s dead. At least the one you killed is dead. This is him a year or so before we even met him.”

  “So, what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it means we can stop him from ever getting in power. Maybe it means that at some point he’ll realize that we were found standing over his dead body looking an awful lot like we were the ones who did the killing. You can bet Uyther’s going to be pretty curious about how we went about killing a man who’s still rotting away in his dungeon.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “And…well, actually I’m not sure what that means.”

  A sound of clinking keys echoes down the hallway outside our cell and I look eagerly to see if our salvation is on its way. A shabbily dressed man enters my view and limps as he makes his way in our direction, stopping finally before our cell. Then he turns his back to us and speaks to the man in the opposite room.

  “Alright, prophet-guy, the King got your message. He’s ready to speak to you now.”

  A series of clinks and chunks sound through the room as the dungeon keeper opens the cell for The Wizard and leads him deeper into the dungeon out of our sight.

  “Looks like he’s chosen to talk to The Wizard instead of us.”

  “Yeah, that could be bad.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Don’t you remember what Geoffrey said about what caused Uthyr to finally believe The Wizard actually had power?”

  “Yeah, he said there was an attack on the city.”

  “What if we were the attack?”

  “Crap.”

  “Yeah. How do you feel about breaking out now?”

  “If you’re right, I’m guessing we won’t have the time to do—“

  The sound of clinking echoes through the cavernous room once again, bringing Griff to immediate silence.

  The sound nears until we finally see the same dungeon keeper we had seen only moments earlier.

  “The King wants to see you two as well.”

  He opens the gate and Griff runs at the man, tackling him to the ground. “Run, Chelle!” he yells at me.

  I wasn’t quite ready for Griff to act so quickly, but after only a moment’s hesitation, I sprint, heading deeper into the dungeon.

  “No, kid,” Griff yells after me. “We need to get out of here!”

  I turn and see he is gesturing for me to run toward the exit. I bolt in the opposite direction I had originally chosen and within seconds I’m at the staircase making my way to the top. Griff is right behind me, pushing me forward until we finally make it to the door.

  As we exit into the courtyard, a series of horns blast through the air and the attention of every man in the area turns to us.

  Griff puts his hands above his head. Realizing our Hail Mary plan has failed, I do the same.

  Chapter 35

  We are dragged into the castle and placed directly in the royal court, pushed down onto our knees as we wait to be graced with the king’s presence. The Wizard is knelt down beside us, looking quite happy with himself as we enter.

  “His royal highness, King Uthyr,” someone shouts. Immediately after, a tall, broad man with a glorious thick red beard and long red hair steps into the room from a doorway behind the throne. He walks with a heavy stride as he places himself in front of the ornate chair that is saved for only his royal hindquarters.

  My eyes light up with joy as I see the man who enters behind him.

  “Geoffrey!” I shout without thinking.

  “Silence!” the guard to my left yells as he slaps me across the back of the head. I cry out, more in surprise than pain, and decide to continue my joy over Geoffrey’s continued existence in silence. Yeah, I know he’s still really dead, but at least he’s alive right now, for this moment.

  “So, great oracle,” Uthyr says with an almost derogatory air. “It would appear that you have managed to create quite a scene here within the fair city of York. I must admit, I am impressed. My guards assure me that the man found on the steps of the cathedral shares an impressive likeness with you.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” The Wizard says in a humbled tone.

  “I am still not certain how this proves what you prophesied. Although these two may, in fact, be terrorists intent on causing harm to my kingdom, it seems to me that they are more than likely just pawns in your attempt to thwart my throne with silly games.”

  “I assure you, my lord, that this is nothing of the sort.”

  “You say this, however, I cannot help but notice the Moorish maiden is wearing a pendant of St. Christopher that looks a great deal like the one you yourself were first found wearing. The same pendant that was found on your double as well, I might add.”

  “I swear I have never seen these two individuals before in my life.” He looks at me with a knowing grin as he says this. I find myself fighting an irresistible urge to slap him.

  “I have tired of you and your antics, Myrddin of Ambrosia. I do not know how you managed to organize such a spectacle while held within my own dungeon, but I assure you that you shall not be allowed to do any such thing again.”

  “My lord, please,” The Wizard begs in fear.

  “Under royal decree, the three of you shall be burned at the stake as soon as preparations c
an be made. What do you think, Geoffrey? Will we be able to make this happen yet this afternoon?”

  “I do believe we can arrange things in that amount of time, my king.”

  “Perfect. Make it so.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Geoffrey runs out of the room toward the front of the castle, his footsteps echoing through the large hall that contains the king’s throne.

  “As for the two of you,” Uthyr says, turning his attention toward us. “I know this may appear quite drastic a punishment for two who have just appeared within our city’s walls. I promise you, were this to have occurred under different circumstances, you would retain a much more democratic system of judgment. I hope you don’t hold it against us.”

  And with that statement, he stands and exits out the very door he had just entered through. The guard to my left pulls me to my feet and directs us out of the room. I want to cry, but so many things have happened lately, I’m not sure what to cry about.

  Chapter 36

  Back in the dungeon.

  Even better. This time we’re sharing a cell with that idiot I feel weird still calling The Wizard. Griff has taken up residence in the far corner of the space, refusing to respond to anything. The Wizard, however, seems to have taken on a much more gleeful attitude toward the whole affair.

  “What do you find so funny?” I ask him.

  “I just can’t believe you’ve done it again.”

  “It? Again?” I ask, feeling all the more curious.

  “Rescued me. I was told that you would appear, that you would save me through my very own death, but I didn’t believe it.”

  “Told? By who?”

  “By the very man who told me I should gain court with the king. The man who claims I am destined for greatness.”

  “You’re working for someone else?”

  “I don’t know that I’m working for him, but yes, I am acting under the suggestion of another.”

  “Who?”

  “I do not know his name. Indeed I saw little of his face even. I only know he promised me great riches and power, were I to tell the king I could offer salvation from a great evil.”