The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [111]
He offered a word of advice now and again, and eventually Madoc offered him a modified apron to wear to protect him from the showering of sparks, and Archie took an active role in restoring the sword.
Rose watched this in wonderment. Archie had been Madoc’s teacher before he was hers. He had been present when her mother fled Alexandria, during the first betrayal. And now, here he was, centuries later, helping Madoc to create the weapon that would destroy a piece of himself.
Archimedes did not judge him, and was no more or less critical than he was with anyone else. Is that because he’s mechanical, and not truly alive, she wondered, or is there something more? Is it perhaps because he knew Madoc before he was Mordred, before the betrayals— and is helping the man he was, not the man he is?
Is there a difference? And is the difference in the man I see, or in how I choose to see him?
She also looked back at the professor, reading in the Scarlet Dragon, and wondered what had motivated him. This trip would very likely cost him his existence—an existence that was essentially a second chance at life. But he had risked it to seek out the very man who had killed him, to ask for his help. Why? How could he have believed it was even possible? And yet there Madoc was, doing the very thing they needed the most.
Rose suspected she knew what her uncle John would say if he were here: This is what it means to grow up, to learn why we do the things we do and make the choices we make. It just comes down to how much you believe in something, and doing it, and not worrying about the outcome.
Come to think of it, she reconsidered, that was more along the lines of what her uncle Jack would say.
Madoc worked for one hour, then two, then four. The sweat was pouring off him in rivulets, and his arms had gone brown with the heat.
Again and again he flipped the sword with the tongs and hammered away at it as if possessed. Slowly, ever so carefully, the pieces of the sword began to coalesce into a whole again.
Finally he swung the hammer high over his head and struck the last blow.
Tossing the tongs to Archimedes, he dropped the hammer in the sand and walked over to the water’s edge.
He stood there for a long moment, examining the glowing red metal. Then he bowed his head. “Thank you, Nimue. Forgive . . .”
Madoc knelt and plunged the sword into the water.
A cloud of steam issued up and enveloped him, and for a moment he was completely enshrouded in the whiteness. But then it evaporated, and he rose to his feet.
Madoc turned around to face the others. In his hand, he held the gleaming black sword Caliburn.
He clenched his jaw. “This is what I wanted,” he said numbly. “This is what I fought for, what I . . .
“Here.” He flipped the blade around to offer the hilt to Rose. “Take it. I no longer want it—not when I know what it’s already cost me, and everyone else who has touched it. Take it.”
But Rose merely stood there with her hands at her side.
“You have the sword Caliburn in your hand,” she said. “You have a Dragonship. You could return and take the throne if you wish. You could defeat your own Shadow easily—and then you would be master of the world.”
Archimedes let out a squawk, and Quixote stared at the girl in astonishment. Was she suddenly insane?
Madoc met her eyes, trying to read what he saw there. She was inscrutable, and worse, there was no guile in her. She was really offering him the sword and the ship.
“Madre de dios,” Quixote muttered.
“Choose,” said Rose.
“I shattered this sword the first time,” Madoc told her evenly, “because I truly believed that was my destiny. I return it to you now, whole and unbroken, because I know that it is not.”
“That,” Rose said as she took the sword from his hand, “is why you were able to hold it at all. And that, if nothing else, means there is worth in you still.”
Quixote