The Indigo King - James A. Owen [67]
“Uh, zero points?” asked Hugo.
“The points in history that allow travel, or at least communication, in the case of the lesser points. There was a good one about fourteen years before your prime time that I was able to use to send a message to Verne. I don’t know what it was that happened then, but it must have seemed like the end of the world.”
“One or the other,” Hugo said, “from what I’ve been told. So,” he continued earnestly, “this message you sent. Will it allow Verne to fix whatever it is that happened to me at Addison’s Walk?”
Hank shrugged. “I don’t know. When you showed up, I thought I’d better let someone know. Mistakes like that usually aren’t mistakes at all.”
“You think someone deliberately arranged for me to come here?” asked Hugo.
“I do, and what’s more,” Hank said, checking the silver watch, “so does Sam. You’re to stay here, at least for now.”
Hugo was aghast. “But why? Isn’t there some sort of … I don’t know, time machine they can use to whisk me back to Magdalen?”
Hank gave a wry chuckle and scratched his neck. “It doesn’t quite work that way. I’m still a novice, a foot soldier, if you will. But even I know you aren’t supposed to mess around with time by traipsing to and fro.”
“But you’re here,” Hugo protested. “Isn’t that meddling?”
“No,” said Hank. “I’m here in part because one of the Caretakers’ Histories said I was. So I was meant to be here. You weren’t.”
“But don’t you see,” Hugo declared, having suddenly realized something. “I was. I was meant to be here. Or else how do we explain the Grail book that I supposedly wrote in?”
Hank stared back at him, puzzled. “That is a good question,” he said, removing the silver watch again. “I’d better—”
Before he could finish speaking, the watch emitted a high-pitched squeal and began to spark, then smoke. Hank shook it, then held it to his ear. It had stopped ticking.
“That looks bad,” said Hugo.
Hank bit his lip, thinking, then replaced the watch in the secret pocket. “Come on,” he said, standing. “Let’s see where this goes. It’s high noon—the tournament is about to begin, and Merlin will be looking for me.”
Hank loaned Hugo a cloak and spare helmet, which they hoped would lend just enough camouflage to the professor’s appearance that he could move about more freely. It worked for the most part—although the elves kept pointing at him to get his attention, then making rude gestures.
“I’m starting to warm to the opportunity I’ve been given to have this adventure,” Hugo said dryly, “but if I never see another cursed elf, it’ll be too soon.”
The tournament was centered not at the great stone table, as Hugo assumed it would be, but around a field to the west of it. There a great tent had been erected facing a low hill, on which they could see a few crumbling walls that marked rough boundaries around a shallow depression.
The participants had assembled around the front of the tent, waiting for the announcement and a proclamation of the rules.
“Taliesin’s tent,” Hank murmured as they approached. “Hang back a bit, so we can watch. We don’t want to get too wrapped up in events. No telling what could happen if we get involved in something by accident.”
Hugo was more than willing to keep a comfortable distance. He’d realized with an alarming clarity that these knights assembled here were not the same as those he’d read about in the great medieval romances. These were warriors; battle-hardened and less likely to be chivalrous than they were to be actors in a play. What’s more, he wasn’t certain that all of those at the gathering were even human.
There was movement at the rear of Taliesin’s tent, and Hugo saw Merlin exit from a flap in the tent, and then walk around to the back of the hill. A few moments later he reappeared at the crest of the hill and strode down into the assemblage.
“What a show-off,” Hank whispered, scribbling in his notebook. “He was up there just so he could arrive last and appear to have come down to everyone else’s level.”
Merlin passed easily through the crowd, which parted to let him through.