My Merlin Awakening (35 page)

“Mermaid magic, remember? Not a spell.” Vane pulled away with a sardonic smile. “Come on, champion, time to show our mettle.”

Clarence and another wizard lit fireballs on their palms and went in front of the bull to lead the way. I waited for the others to walk ahead of us before going to Matt.

“Matt, listen, about the Minotaur and this cave—” I gestured at the cavern. I had to tell him what Excalibur had shown me about Vane.

A fierce light colored Matt’s amber eyes, he caught my arm in a tight angry grip.

What had I done now?

CHAPTER 17 - THE WHITE BULL

CHAPTER 17
THE WHITE BULL

Matt’s eyes fixed on the black veins running just under my skin. “You didn’t need to do this.”

A dim blue fireball floated in the air beside us. It was a reminder of how close he had come to not making it. Usually, Matt’s magic burned so bright, it could blind a person. I glanced down at his hold. His knuckles had turned white from strain. I said simply, “It brought you back.”

He didn’t say anything.

“The arm is fine.” I tried to tug my arm away, but he held it tight.

“Don’t ever do it again,” he spat out. Releasing me, he stalked ahead.

I stared after him.
Was it me or did every guy come with a crazy button?

“It’s you,”
came the caustic reply.

“You’re welcome,” I shouted at his disappearing back.

To my satisfaction, his shoulders stiffened. He kept walking and with him went the light. It only took a few seconds in the encroaching blackness to convince me to run after him. I went past Matt to the middle of the group. I was going to have to figure out what was going on with Vane myself.

We reached the end of the passageway and emerged into another cavern.

A long narrow stone bridge stretched across a river of murky water. A gold carving of a bull had been gouged into the rock just before the bridge.

“Definitely the right place,” Vane said.

Grey put one foot on the bridge to test it. “It’s steady, but slippery. One wrong step on the slick stone and you’ll be swallowing water. What fun.” Grey took his first step onto the bridge.

“Wait.” Colin stopped him. He picked up a loose rock from the ground and threw it out over the bridge. Gigantic tentacles sprang from both sides of the bridge like snapping jaws. Suction cups lined with sharp spikes on the tentacles caught and crushed the rock with ease.

“Fun,” repeated Blake.

“Wizards! Blast this creature,” Vane ordered.

“Don’t collapse the bridge. We don’t have the energy to float everyone across. Who knows what else might be in the water,” Matt said.

The wizards all lined up. Colin threw another rock toward the bridge. The wizards shouted a spell. A tremendous gust of wind spun out at the creature. A roar filled the chamber and the whole cavern shook. Water lapped over the bridge. The river started rising.

“Great, that worked,” Gia said from beside me.

Grey touched his neck where the gills had been. “We can’t swim.”

“No.” Vane twirled the trident in his hand in contemplation. “We could try Excalibur.”

I took a step forward.

Matt stopped me. “She’s not going in without any forethought. You’ve risked her enough.”

Vane rounded angrily on Matt.

“We’re running out of time,” Clarence interrupted. “We need a glamor. A shield until we cross the bridge.” The older wizard muttered a word and his whole body disappeared.

“Clarence, wait—” said Matt.

“Shhh.” Vane held up a hand to silence him.

Clarence was already on the bridge. I squinted my eyes. A shimmer of dust made its way across the bridge. No one spoke as we held our breaths. The dust reached the end of the bridge. I let my breath out. A roar shook the chamber.

A giant female head on a long, slim neck rose out of a hole at the other end of the bridge. As wide as the bridge itself, its Medusa head had snakes instead of hair squirming out from its follicles. On its face sat one giant eye and a mouth with three rows of teeth.

“A gift from the Gorgons,” Vane muttered.

The creature emitted a shrill, rolling scream.

“Clarence, shut your eyes,” Vane shouted. “Don’t look at it.”

It was too late. The creature smiled. The cloud of shimmering dust in front of it solidified into a solid stone statue in the shape of Clarence. Tentacles flew out of the air and crushed the statue. Beside me, Gia let out a mewling sound of grief. I wanted to do the same.

Vane cursed. “It’s a Medusa. We have to cut off its head.”

“Or it’s a Scylla.” I replied. “We just passed Charybdis.”

“In which case cutting off the head will replace it with two,” Vane completed.

“How do we know which one it is?” Blake asked.

“How do we kill it, in either case?” Colin asked.

The bull snorted beside Vane. It stomped on the golden carving in the rock.

I looked at it. “What is he saying?”

“Hear for yourself.” Vane put his hand on my shoulder and put his other hand on the bull’s bridle.

“I will run across. I am fast. You keep your eyes closed. I will tell you when to strike. Then, I will be champion. I go to the great fields. I was saved for this. It is my time, Sire—“

Vane dropped his hand from my shoulder.

But I’d heard enough. “No.”

“Yes.” Vane jumped on top of the white bull, using one hand. In the other, he carried the trident.

They raced across the bridge. Tentacles rose once again. I watched, my heart in my throat, as the bull jumped through the tentacles with easy grace. They reached the hole just as the creature’s head rose from the water, snakes writhing. The bull jumped over the snakes. It landed on the other side right as the creature’s head fully surfaced. The creature whirled at the same time that the bull did. The monster caught the white bull with its eye. The animal turned to stone. His own still squeezed shut, Vane stabbed the creature’s eye with the trident.

The creature screamed. Vane stabbed it again, one vicious strike that drove deep into the creature’s soft pulp of a cornea. This time, the creature’s wail shook the whole chamber. It gave a great shuddered and fell forward, right on top of Vane.

“Vane!” I cried out.

Opening his eyes, Vane kicked the monster with both feet. Blood colored the water as it sank down into its murky depths.

“Let’s go,” Matt urged.

Water splashed even higher across the bridge.

“Hold hands,” Matt yelled as he grabbed mine.

Gia held my other hand and we ran across the rapidly disappearing bridge. We reached the hole. Vane stood on the other side with the trident. The creature’s head drifted into the hole. Snakes floated lifelessly in the water.

“Step over it,” Vane commanded.

Matt jumped on the floating head. He crossed.

Next, the creature’s head squished under my feet. Two steps later and I stood on the other side too. As the others followed past the fallen Scylla, I went to the bull. I put my hand on the stone statue. A few wrinkles marred the smooth surface. The transformation had preserved the bull’s scars. I bit my lip. “We never even asked him his name.”

“
Mahoksa
. Great bull,” Vane answered. He came up beside me.

I faced him. “That was reckless.”

“I am reckless.”

“Why did you take out the eye instead of the head?”

Vane’s lips twisted into a small smile. “Maybe I believed you.”

“You didn’t hesitate at all. You knew the answer. When it screamed, could you
understand
it?” I frowned at him. “This is beyond your wizard abilities—to understand a rare creature such as this. You couldn’t possibly understand it unless you had mermaid—”

“I
am
a mermaid… sort of. Lelex changed me, Ryan. I’ve managed to keep myself intact, but part of me will always be mermaid. I will always have these.” He touched his gills. “I thought you understood that.” His pupils flared green. “Does that disgust you?”

“Of course not.”
It worries me.

The mermaids were savages and Vane already had aggressive tendencies.

“Good.” His pupils returned to normal and he turned back to the bull. “We should put the creature to rest.” He raised his hand at the bull statue. “
Antyakriya atasa
.”

A sharp wind surrounded the bull. It whittled into the stone statue and ground it into fine dust. Vane blew into the air and the dust scattered, landing in the water.

It was a quiet group that went into the rough doorway beyond the bridge. Beyond it, we emerged onto another ledge. This time, there was no river. We stood on a cliff and below us lay the biggest maze I’d ever seen.

“Are you sure there’s no other way?” Blake stared down over the valley.

“This is why we came, Emerson,” said Vane. He and the other wizards floated a giant fireball over the ledge to light the valley. The circular maze stretched across the whole interior of the hill. The paths led to a center. Despite the open top, the center remained shrouded by some kind of lush vegetation.

I took a step closer to the edge and stumbled.

Vane caught me. “Careful.”

Matt directed a fireball beside me. It illuminated a path of narrow steps leading down into the valley. The path spiraled down, as steep and as long as the one back on Fira, but no donkeys carried us this time.

Grey groaned. “It’s going to take us days to figure this out.”

“No,” Matt waved a hand in the air.

A stream of faint blue light colored the air. The light morphed into a picture, a replica of the maze. We all looked at it closely and compared it to the maze below.

“It’s accurate.” Matt huffed.

Blake cleared his throat. “Maybe I could double check?” He muttered a magical command. A burst of wind buzzed around my ears. Yellow overlaid blue light. It matched perfectly.

Matt scowled at Blake. “You see?”

Beside me, Vane’s lips twitched with suppressed laughter. I elbowed him. Matt’s eyes narrowed in our direction.

“I’m fine,” Matt muttered. He waved a hand and a yellow line threaded a course through the maze to the center. “I need someone to hold the map.”

I opened my mouth.

Matt raised a brow. “Someone who doesn’t mind being shirtless.”

I closed my mouth.

Vane leaned down to my ear and said just loud enough for Matt to hear, “You would be my first choice.”

Matt stiffened. Despite knowing that Vane said the words to needle Matt, his husky voice still sent a shiver down my spine. There was an underlying edge to his tone I couldn’t put my finger on. Actually, I wanted to see
him
shirtless, though not for any sort of pleasurable reason.

Grey slid off the top of his toga. “Alright, do what you have to.”

“Turn.” Matt flicked his hand at the picture and it flew at Grey’s back. Blue light sank under his skin and a tattoo of the maze inked itself on the smooth surface. Matt started down the steps and Grey followed him closely.

Vane stared out at the valley, the trident in his hand.

“What are you thinking?” I asked him.

“Do you remember the story of the Minotaur? You must fight the monster to find whatever else trapped inside.”

“You think the Minotaur is at the center?” I said.

A bittersweet smile tugged at his mouth. “Yes, but I don’t have a problem with monsters. They can be killed. It’s the ‘whatever else’ that worries me.”

***

We walked for the next several hours. I glanced at Grey’s back. Five hundred and fifty steps down from the cliff, we crossed into the maze. The entrance had been made from an arch of three giant stone slabs—which Blake reminded me was called a trilithon. Matt drove us to walk at least a quarter of our way through the maze before we persuaded him to stop in a circular clearing.