"Go!" Jake ordered again, shoving him away and spinning to block a blast of light from the demon who had called himself GB. Joby found he knew now who that demon was. Beyond the battle raging between Solomon, Lucifer, and Jake, the school was burning, and, as Joby watched, several other buildings through the town went up in gouts of flame. He heard shouting in the distance, saw people running through the streets, and knew that he'd been running too, all his life. Now the running had to stop.

"No," Joby said to Jake, even as the woodsman used his magic to shield them again from Lucifer's attack. "I have to stay."

Jake turned back to face him in distress. "Leave!" he said. "This is beyond you! There's nothing you can do now, except-"

"There's nothing anyone but me can do," Joby insisted. "This was my fight all along." He looked Jake squarely in the eye and added, "I was . . . sent to do this."

Jake uttered a low groan, and turned back to where Lucifer was now engaging Solomon. "Stop!" he yelled. "Merlin, stop! Lucifer, the boy has claimed his right!"

There was a sudden stillness amidst the roar of flames and distant panic, as both Solomon-had Jake called him Merlin?-and Lucifer turned to stare at Joby.

"His right to what?" Lucifer sneered.

"To face you on his own," Jake replied in weary resignation.

There was an even deeper silence. Then Lucifer began to laugh.

"NO!" Solomon exclaimed. "Joby, you've no idea what that means!"

"I never seem to," Joby said feeling terrified and pale. "But I had a dream once, as a boy, where King Arthur asked me to fight the devil for him, and I said I would. It was such a real dream that . . . it took me years to forget it." He looked again in grief at the destruction all around them. "And it's taken all of this to make me willing to remember again." He looked back to Solomon, or Merlin, or whoever the old enchanter really was. "I still want it just to be a dream, but . . . I can't go on pretending, can I."

The old man stared sadly at him, then said, "No," and bowed his head.

"He called you Merlin," Joby said, awe and sadness too mixed to pry apart. "Was it really you then, who told me to be perfect?" Joby asked. "That night in Camelot?"

"No," Lucifer sneered before the old man had a chance to speak, "that was I."

Joby felt something large collapse inside himself after all that trying to live up to Lucifer's fraudulent advice had cost him-and so many others. "I'm . . . glad," said Joby, smiling wanly at Merlin. "I've always liked you."

At this the old man just looked more desolate than ever.

"So, let me understand this," Lucifer said cheerfully, "little Joby has decided to resolve all this by challenging me to direct combat?"

No one replied, least of all Joby, who supposed he was simply going to die now. And yet, why would Arthur . . . or whoever that had been . . . have sent him off to do a thing he had no power to do? There had to be some way to win.

"Have I misunderstood?" Lucifer asked when no one answered.

Joby took a breath and shook his head.

Lucifer's mirthless grin fell away. He stretched an arm out, not toward Joby, but back toward the burning town, which had grown ominously silent while they'd talked. There came a groaning rumble, and several buildings simply vanished into a giant hole as a sound like the gasp of some great whale filled the air and tons of water jetted out of cave mouths all around the headlands. For a moment all of Joby's attention was required just to stand as a rolling ground swell passed beneath them. Then other buildings swayed and fell throughout the town, and Joby's courage vanished, but his fear that if he hadn't run so long and hard all of this might have been avoided did not.

When the earth had finally ceased to move, Lucifer lowered his arm, and said, "I'll let you take the first swing then, boy, just to make it sporting."

Joby clung in terror to the conviction that there had to be a way. If it was really the devil standing there before him, then he figured it must have been God who'd come to him as Arthur that night. Who else could it have been? And God, Joby was sure, could not have sent him out to face this just to die. So, Joby thought through all the little magic that he knew, and found just one possibility with any potential. Ironically, Lucifer had been the very one to teach it to him. Concentrating on the trick he'd used to blow up rocks and bugs, Joby gathered up the power in himself that "GB" had helped him find, letting it build until he doubted he could hold much more. Then he aimed with all his will at Lucifer's arrogant brain, and stepped out utterly on faith.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the devil looked astonished, and reached up to clutch his head and howl . . . with laughter.

Joby's focus failed, and he felt his legs go weak with fear.

When Lucifer had finally gasped his last guffaw, and wiped his eyes, and turned to look at Joby, there was not a hint of humor in his face. Only rage burned in those frigid blue eyes, a terrible, unquenchable fever. Joby only hoped that whatever Lucifer was going to do would not last long or hurt more than he could bear.

"I'm impressed," Lucifer growled derisively. "If you had any idea how hard I've always had to work to give your paltry little efforts at magic any strength at all, you'd understand just how amazed I was to feel anything just now. Given your descent from that conniving snake charmer over there, you've got some little power in you, but it's held in check behind so many walls of fear and disbelief that, without my aid, you'd never have been able to lift ashes in a tempest, you worthless insult to my pride."

He stretched an arm toward Joby, as Merlin grasped his head in grief.

"You," Lucifer hissed like water dropped onto a griddle, "have always mattered less than the empty speck of dust shed by a single diatom that dies in darkness on the ocean floor. Tell your beloved Arthur that I said so, when you see him next."

The fire was too sudden and too painful to allow Joby any voice, or thought, or movement. Wrapped in steel threads of magma, he endured the endless moment of his death because there was no other choice.

Then, at last, the pain was gone, and, for an instant, he stood, ten years old again, out on Taubolt's beach, the laughing wind riffling through his hair, sunlight sparkling on the water all around him, as the day grew impossibly brilliant, unimaginably clean. Then the glittering scene surrounded him, and entered him, and somehow became him. He heard his own voice giggle, and felt himself dissolved in joy.

Beautiful! he thought. So beautiful!

And he was gone.

37.

( Heart's Desire ) As Swami tossed and moaned, Gabriel stood watch uncertainly. Swami's dreams were one of their most potent tools in searching for the Grail, but it always worried him to let the young man suffer. As Gabe leaned down to wake him, the lad's whole body snapped taught and bolted upright with a wordless scream. Gabriel reached out to hold him, but the boy would not be calmed.

"It's come!" Swami cried. "Gabriel! We have to help them!"

"Peace, little brother," Gabe said. "It was just a dream."

"No!" Swami said, pulling from his embrace and getting up as if he meant to leave that minute. "No! I saw it!" He began to weep. "They're destroying Taubolt! Gabe, we have to do something!"

"What did you see?" Gabriel asked with apprehension. "Did . . . was Joby . . ."

"Gabriel."

"My Lord?" Gabe asked, joy and fear at war within him to hear his Master's voice again after so many years in exile.

"Come to Me," said the whisper in his mind.

A shiver of dread passed through him. The time for judgment had arrived.

"Little brother, I am summoned by my Master," he said tenderly to Swami. "I must leave you here . . . awhile. But take courage. If anyone can help Taubolt now, it is He. Wait here and be at peace, my friend. He will care for you. Be at peace."

He kissed Swami's forehead one last time, with all the reassurance he could offer, and saw the boy unclench. Then he stepped out of the world Swami knew, into another he had been too long gone from and might never see again when this was done.

His legs moved of their own volition, step by measured step, along the shadowed path, though he had no legs to move. His progress was calm and stately, though the speed at which he traveled seemed astonishingly fast. He knew the word astonished, what it meant, but not the way it felt. The light ahead of him was beautiful and always near, though he never seemed to close the distance, nor ever seemed to mind. He knew who he was, and where he'd come from, though not why he was here, or where he was going. But he did not care to know. There was a sense of many others moving all around him, though he was totally alone.

Until another joined him.

He saw no one, but felt him there, moving at exactly the same speed beside him, a comfortable, familiar presence that he didn't think to question.

"Jake," he said, just to say the name, though he hadn't any voice. Not really.

"It's Michael, Joby," said the voice without a sound.

"Ah," said Joby, not surprised.

"I have come . . . to bring you," said the person who was nowhere at his side.

"I'm glad," said Joby, though he'd felt no need of a companion until then.

They walked in silence after that, having never made a sound, until, briefly, they were joined by someone else who hovered, never there, beside them in what seemed-another word that Joby knew, but couldn't feel-surprise.

"Gabriel?" said Michael, never speaking. "Have we failed?"

"I do not know. He calls," said the other as silently, then fluttered from their presence, leaving only Joby and the one named Michael continuing alone together toward a light almost close enough to touch, and far enough away to never reach at all.

Then a figure stood before them, here where Joby had never reached anything. Though half in darkness, the figure was familiar in a very different way from all else around them that seemed familiar. It was someone he had known. There was a name, and for the first time since he'd come here, he remembered what it was to "want," and suddenly a lot of things returned to him, of which the figure's name was one.

"Ben?" And "joy" was something Joby could remember too. "Ben, is that you?"

"As you wish, Your Majesty," said the other's voice, smiling, "I've been Ben as well."

"Ben!" Joby exclaimed, and found he could have arms now that he wanted them to embrace his friend, who reached to hold him too. "Ben, what are you doing here?" He laughed. "It's so good to see you! You look so . . . young!"

"As do you, Your Majesty," Ben said, grinning in the pale light.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" asked Joby.

"You must know, Sire," Ben replied. "I'm sure you do."

"I . . . don't though," Joby said.

"With all respect, Your Majesty, I think you must," said Ben, "or you would not have known me, for I look not at all as I remember looking when I was Ben; no more than you seem much like Joby here. Think hard, and it will come to you. Who were we back in Camelot, my lord? The first time we were men."

"The first time?" Joby said, remembering "confusion" now as well. "Ben, it's me," he said. "I'm Jo-" He stopped, and felt the strangest thing. A flash of red. A ruby glinting in the sun. Set into the pommel of a sword. . . . A sword of silver. A crown of gold . . . a yellow dragon on a field of red . . . a bridge. A quarterstaff. A mighty splash, and himself floundering in running water as Ben stood on the bridge above him laughing at-"Good heavens," Joby murmured, reacquainted, now, with astonishment as well. "Lance! . . . It's you?"

"Arthur." Lance smiled, going down upon one knee. "My Lord and King and brother of my heart. Well met, and God be praised that it should be this soon."

"Lance, get up. Get up," said Joby, reaching down to drag the man back into his arms. "Oh, Lance, I can remember now! And . . ." He stood back, "dismay" now added to the other feelings he'd retrieved. "Have we done it all again? Camelot in ruins . . . And Guinevere! I've failed her twice! Oh, Lance, I cannot bear it! Am I dead now? Yes, I am, and it's too late to reach her! Too late . . . again!"

"Your Majesty, perhaps it's not," Lance said. "I am sent with tidings that you are not to come among us yet." He looked down sadly. "Sire, you must go back."

"Again?" Joby whispered, wondering if the heavy breath he drew was as real here as pain and disappointment seemed. "I'd hoped all that was finally done," he said quietly. "Am I to pay for failing twice? Is that why I am yet allowed no rest?"

"Sire," said Lancelot, tenderly, "He explains Himself least of all to me." He placed a hand affectionately on Joby's shoulder. "But think. You'll have the chance you craved to find her, and to make amends. I'll not be there to muddle things this time."

"Yes. How selfish of me not to see that," Joby said. "By God, I will! At least, I'll try." He smiled, then barked a quiet laugh. "It seems I cannot even manage dying without several tries. Well," he sighed and turned to leave, then stopped, looked back at Lancelot, and asked with some regret, "is it . . . very wonderful?"

"My Lord," said Lancelot, seeming caught between unbridled joy and sympathy, "if I possessed an angel's tongue, I could not describe it. I know it must be disappointing to be twice turned out, but they do say third time is the charm." He raised a hand in parting. "For now, my lord, good-bye, but we await you with great joy. It will be soon enough, I think. Now go. And, Arthur, . . . kiss her, more than once, for me."

"I will. . . . Good-bye once more then, Lance . . . for now. . . . Good-bye."

Merlin sat amidst the smoking rubble that had been, so recently, the fairest town he'd ever known, and held the lifeless body of his grandson in his arms, and keened as he had never wept for centuries before. As Joby died, Merlin had flown at Lucifer in a mindless rage, prepared to blow a hole in the very fabric of the world if that might destroy the fiend. Then the Creator's summons had rolled over them like thunder, and both angels had vanished in an instant, along with all Hell's demons.

"Oh, Joby! Joby!" Merlin cried, rocking in his pain. "I never should have loved at all, to see it come to this!" He threw his face up at the sky, and sobbed, "Oh, God, forgive me! Please! Forgive me! I should not have disobeyed!"

"Did the devil . . . say . . . I was your grandson?"

For an instant, Merlin didn't understand where the pale voice had come from. Then he looked down in shock to find his grandson's eyes no longer vacant.

"He said he was going to destroy everything your grandson loved," Joby barely more than whispered. "Was he talking about me?"

"Joby?" Merlin gasped. "My God!" He threw his face once more toward Heaven and shouted, "Oh my God! Oh, thank you! Joby! How are you alive?"

"I . . . am, aren't I," said Joby, sounding perplexed. "I thought I burned."

"Ah, Joby," Merlin wept, dragging him into his arms. "It was not that kind of fire. I'm so sorry that you suffered it, and so glad you're . . . back! Oh God! You're back!"

With some effort Joby pulled free, and sat up to look around at all the ruin. "There's nothing left at all," he sighed. "I'd hoped all this was just a dream."

"My boy, of course there's something left. There's you, by God!"

"I talked with Lancelot," Joby said. "I remember who I was." He turned to look at Merlin. "I remember you now too, but is it true? Am I your grandson now?"

Merlin nodded, momentarily unable to harness any voice at all.

"So you gave me that book about . . . ," Joby smiled, then laughed, "myself?"

"I had no idea," Merlin said, "that you were-had been . . . I just meant for you to know him, not to be him. . . . And you're not, you know. Not anymore. You're you now!"

Joby's gaze turned inward. Then he nodded. "Yes. That was there," he looked bleakly around once more, "not here. But have I failed again?"

"I cannot see what more He could have asked of you. If anyone has failed, it was myself, and . . . and others perhaps. I fear . . ." Merlin sighed, his joy dimmed for the first time since Joby's miraculous return. "I fear that we have terribly betrayed you, Joby. Lucifer may win in spite of all you've done."

"You?" Joby asked. "How? You helped me more than anyone."

"Yes, and in so doing, we've all disobeyed Him, myself and several angels. Perhaps that's why we lost this way. I . . . I should have trusted Him."

"Disobeyed?" Joby said in clear distress. "He didn't want you helping me?"

"His will was never mine to question," Merlin sighed. "Yet I took it upon myself to change the course before you. . . . Not just once, I fear, but many times."

"But . . . didn't He want me to win?" Joby asked in clear dismay.

"I cannot believe He didn't," Merlin said. "But He commanded all of us-everyone who served Him-not to help you unless you asked us to, and you were such a stubborn lad. So quick to blame yourself, to grieve or fight, and try, but never, never would you ask for help! In truth, it was a trial to us all."

"But, how could I have asked you?" Joby protested. "I had no idea any of you were there! Or that I was even in this trial! . . . At least, not consciously," he said uncomfortably. "Not since I was a child, anyway."