Carrie Vaughn - Discord's Apple

“Can you do something for her?” Frank rubbed Mab’s head, almost absently.

“I’ve been a soldier for over three thousand years. I ought to be able to dress a few wounds. Let’s see if we can get her into the house.”

“I’ve got her.” Arthur had joined them. He got to one knee and scooped the hound up in his arms. Mab’s immense body nearly obscured him, but he hefted the weight with seemingly little effort. He moved slowly and carefully. Mab yelped once, but didn’t struggle.

Slowly, with Frank leading the way and Alex walking near Arthur, they went into the house.

Merlin hung back, scanning the prairie around the house. Evie waited for him.

“They’re out there,” he said. “A gathering storm. They’ll lay siege to the place.”

Movement caught her gaze. She looked out to what had drawn his attention. A few coyotes remained, loping around the edge of the property. They didn’t approach or make any threatening moves; rather, they seemed to be patrolling, marking a circuit around the house, watching for anything that might approach, or try to leave.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“Wait. Plan. Pray, if you’re so inclined.”

And whom did one pray to, when deities appeared and kidnapped your father? They went to the house. Merlin backed up to the porch, keeping his gaze outward, still searching the surrounding fields.

The others had placed Mab on a bath towel on the kitchen table. Alex presided over the impromptu operating table. His tools were a bottle of peroxide, a box of gauze, and a thread and needle.

“She’s going to be fine,” he told Evie after she’d locked the door. “So long as she doesn’t enthusiastically rip the stitches out as soon as I’m done. But you wouldn’t do that, would you, girl?”

Mab gamely attempted a tail wag. Her expression was humanly woeful.

He continued conversationally, “And I suppose you’ve had your rabies shots? Never mind.”

Her father leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his stomach.

“Dad, are you okay?”

“You didn’t have to come after me like that,” he said, his voice low.

Her tone was matter-of-fact: “Yes, I did.”

“She didn’t act alone, Mr. Walker,” Arthur said.

Her father closed his eyes. “I know. Thank you. Thank you all. Alex, let me get you a clean shirt. That one’s a little messed up.”

The front of Alex’s shirt was scarlet. The rest of them had escaped relatively unscathed, but he looked like he’d seen battle. “Thanks. That’d be nice.”

Frank started to turn, then stumbled, slumping against the wall.

Evie reached his side in a heartbeat. Arthur was there as well, lunging across the kitchen. Alex, needle in hand, could only watch.

He brushed them away. “It’s the stress catching up with me, that’s all.”

“Dad!” Recriminations were laden in the word. Tension edged her voice.

Not waiting for explanations, Arthur stepped in and pulled Frank’s arm over his shoulders. “Come along, friend.”

“Bed,” he said with a sigh.

“That’s right.”

Evie followed them, wondering why her father would accept help from a mythical stranger and not from her. Though she supposed you didn’t argue when King Arthur insisted on carrying you to bed.

As a final insult, her father indicated for Arthur to pause outside the bedroom door. “Evie, stay here.”

Arthur took him inside and closed the door.

Back to the wall, she slid to the floor, pressed her face to her knees, and covered her head with her hands.

Some long minutes later, the door opened and closed again. Arthur emerged, a white T-shirt in hand, which he put over the back of a chair near Alex.

Arthur then moved to sit on the floor beside her. “He took something for the pain. He’s resting now.”

She sniffed loudly and wiped her face, attempting to hide that she’d been crying. She looked away from him, not wanting him to see. Her voice caught, though, and betrayed her. “I try to help him, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“No,” he said. “There isn’t.”

He touched her shoulder, and she took in the invitation to lean against him while he held her, his chin resting on her head.

At least she wasn’t alone anymore. How bad could things be if Arthur of legend was fighting for her? He didn’t seem much like a legend just now. He was a solid, human presence, warm and protective. She rested in his arms, grateful for the moment to catch her breath.

A throat-clearing sounded nearby. Alex, looking sheepish.

“I was wondering if I could get help carrying Her Majesty to the sofa? The dog,” he explained, gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder when Arthur looked quizzically at him.

Evie stood quickly, flushing, embarrassed that she was flushing because she had nothing to flush about. Except that Alex was staring at her like she did.

Arthur carried Mab to the sofa. The dog filled all of it but a corner where Evie sat and stroked her head. The fur there was silky, flat against her skull. She hoped to calm the dog into sleeping, giving her wounds a chance to heal. It hurt to see proud Mab so weak.

Alex stood behind the sofa and watched over them. Arthur had moved away, to look out a window.

Merlin watched Alex closely. “Three thousand years, you said. That would make you older than I am.”

“Likely,” Alex said without facing the wizard.

“How? How does one live so long and survive being run through by Excalibur? You must be one of the old gods. Like her.”

Alex looked at each of them, Evie last. His hands clenched on the back of the sofa. For a moment, she thought he was going to leave, turn and storm out as he’d done whenever she’d asked too many questions. But Merlin was difficult to refuse.

When he finally spoke, he spoke to her. “I fought beside Odysseus in the Trojan War. The day after we entered the city”—he didn’t have to tell that part of the story—“I was taken prisoner by Apollo, who was unhappy with the turn of events. He enslaved me and intended to keep me for all eternity, enspelling me, to make me ageless and impervious to harm. Things didn’t quite work out, but I was stuck.”

“Apollo the god?” Merlin said.

“He wasn’t a god.” Alex straightened and paced along the back of the sofa, his gaze downcast. “ Hera isn’t a god. None of them were. They were just people with too much power who used it for their own gains. You, Merlin—you matched her in a fight. You have as much power as any of them. You could have been a god, but instead you chose to serve. That has been one of the worst frustrations of my long life—living among the prayers, the shrines, the temples, the saints and knowing all the while that the gods we worship are just people.”

Arthur had found a cloth dish towel from the kitchen and was cleaning Excalibur. The movements were slow, methodical. He said, “There is the one God. The true God.”

Alex suppressed a chuckle and shook his head. “They died. The gods I worshipped as a boy are all dead. Zeus sacrificed himself to destroy the ancient pantheon and change the world. That’s what it takes to change the world, you know: a person of great power sacrificing himself, trading his own life for the transformation. So he did, and in a few years, the footprints of the many gods faded. When the gods stopped answering prayers in so personal a manner as the myths tell, the myths changed, the many gods became one. A god who was an idea rather than a person was born. He became all gods.”

“Then what of Christ his Son?” Arthur said, true to his own legend.

“Do you know I saw him once?” Alex, brash and insensitive, continued. “He could have been the greatest wizard since Zeus himself. The power of Zeus, the charisma of Apollo—he could have been a god. But a lot of magic had left the world by that time. It’s my theory that he learned somehow of what Zeus had done—the sacrifice of self for power. It’s a story in so many cultures: the hero gives his life to restore his land, and is reborn as the king. That was what he was trying to do, I think. He succeeded, in a sense: I think he’d have been surprised to learn how far his name has spread. And how it is used. But he gave his life for that fame. His followers wait for his coming that never happens. And meanwhile, thousands of minor wizards work their magic in his name and call them miracles.”