Morgain's Revenge (16 page)

“G
ahhhh!” Merlin glared at the three of them, then carefully pried himself off the ceiling, and lowered himself slowly back down to the floor. He took a moment to brush himself off and adjust his robes. Then and only then did he look up to meet their carefully straight-faced expressions.

“So nice of you to come by to see me, however unexpectedly. Ailis, child, it’s good to see you.” Merlin looked at them carefully, and didn’t ask where Sir Caedor was, or what had happened to their horses or supplies. Or how they had managed to suddenly appear in the middle of his private rooms.

“You’ve been away for some time,” was all he said. “Arthur’s been gone and back with his Marcher Lords already. I was beginning to become somewhat worried.”

“The Quest?” Gerard asked, focusing on the thing that had been all-important to him not so long ago.

“Is about to ride out, if not the next morning, then the day after that. They have been waiting only for better weather—something stirred up a nasty storm in the north, and we’ve been feeling the effects of it even down here. But come, sit, tell me everything. Ailis, you fairly glow of magic. What
have
you been up to?”

She opened up her hand, where a trace of her spell still lingered. “Morgain wants the Grail,” she started. “For her own glory, but also because she believes that it’s the only way to protect her beliefs, her way of life, against Arthur. Something about the land, the Old Ways…I didn’t quite understand all of it. But she believes, passionately.”

Merlin nodded, as though none of this was really a surprise to him. “Her family is too rooted,” he said. “Old trees are strong, but they don’t stand forever.”

“She has players on the field,” Ailis continued. “She’s trying to match them to yours, as best I could tell. But I’m not sure what she’s going to do with them. I don’t think she knows, exactly. That was why she was in the castle, to learn what our plans were. Only…

“There was another…person there in her fortress. Someone with a lot of power, helping her…”

Merlin suddenly looked alert. “Go on, child.”

Ailis told the rest of her story. Newt and Gerard were practically squirming in their seats with the desire to interrupt with their own take on events.

“And then Morgain…they both disappeared. I think maybe she saved us.” Ailis ended. She reached up to touch the feather in her hair as though seeking reassurance from it. Then she used that same hand to reach out and touch Newt, sitting beside her. He tried to smile and closed his own hand over hers, warm and human and comforting.

“This shadow-figure Ailis described…have you anything more to add?” Merlin finally asked the boys.

Gerard shook his head. “It was almost as though I couldn’t look directly at it. Him. Her. I don’t even know what it was. Its voice…the voice scared me. It was like a cold knife at the base of your neck.”

Newt started to say something, then merely nodded his agreement. Anything else he thought of was just from myths, stories from his childhood, things that had no place here in this room.

The enchanter looked carefully at all three of them, each in turn. “All right. There are things the three of you aren’t telling me, but I’ll trust your judgment that Arthur and I don’t need to know whatever it is. And that if you change your minds, you’ll come to me.”

Merlin sat back and looked at them as a whole, contemplating, until all three were squirming in their seats again.

“It’s good that you’re back now. You need to travel with the Quest. All three of you, not just master squire here.”

Newt looked astonished, while Ailis almost fell off her stool in shock. “How?” she asked.

Newt, more pragmatic, asked, “Why?”

“I’ll arrange it,” Merlin said in a way that was not reassuring at all. “And because I suspect that it’s important that you be there, whatever happens. You’ve been marked by this, the three of you. You’ve earned your place, and none may say otherwise. Not merely by being in the right place, but by being the right people in the right place, and not merely once, but twice now. Once is accident. Twice is fate. Three times…” Merlin looked at the three of them, his eyes tired and yet filled with a deep, luminous magic.
“Three times becomes legend.”

And with that cryptic comment, he shooed the boys out of his study, commanding them to get some rest and let him handle everything for now. “Ailis, not you. The king wants to ask you a few questions further, if you don’t mind….”

The last view they had of Ailis was as Merlin propelled her away from them, by means of one firm hand on her shoulder, down the hall in the opposite direction.

There was no way—after all that—that sleep would be possible. Without discussion, the two remaining travelers found themselves sitting in the barn, in a stall that was currently without an equine occupant. The stable had the added advantage of being out of the way of the chaos that once again seemed to be gripping Camelot.

“You didn’t say anything to Merlin about…about what happened,” Gerard said. “About agreeing to stay with Morgain, in the fortress.”

“Neither did you.” Newt poked at the straw with one finger, idly.

“No, I didn’t. It didn’t…it didn’t seem real,
everything that happened there. It doesn’t seem real now—like that was all a dream. Everything up until then? Real. Sir Caedor’s death. Real. The boat was far too real. But the moment we got to the fortress…it was like dream-time.” Gerard turned to Newt. “What do you think?”

“It was real. It was all real.”

“Of course it was. I meant—”

“I know what you meant. And it all felt real to me. Every minute.” He paused. “Be thankful, if it’s blurred for you.”

“Yeah.” Gerard shoved the straw with his foot, then blurted out, “Something’s bothering you.”

“Me?” Newt looked up, an innocent expression coming over his face.

“Yes, you. Something more than the fact that we’ve got to ride out tomorrow morning with half a dozen knights who’re probably more like Sir Caedor than we would choose.”

“You’re getting smarter,” Newt said, dropping the “dumb stable-boy” expression.

“You’re getting more evasive. Is it still about all the magic stuff?”

Newt sighed, resigned to finally having this conversation. “A little. Not the magic itself, but…”

“You might as well tell me. Ailis can attest to the fact that I can be really stubborn once I start digging at something.”

“It’s not magic. It’s what magic does to people.” The words came out of his mouth as though they were being pulled from him, one letter at a time. “When I was a little kid…Ger…we have to watch Ailis.”

“Watch her? Why? You think that Morgain might try something again?”

“I think…I think we keep getting away too easily. That portal we used to get back from the Orkneys—Ailis says she made it. But how? She says she can’t do it now. Something in the fortress spoke to her, showed her how…but what if it actually was Morgain? Or, worse yet, the shadow-figure? What if they sent us back here and let Ailis think she did it on her own?”

“Why would they do that?”

“Why did Morgain agree to let us stay? Why did she take Ailis in the first place? It’s all a long, convoluted plot to Morgain, you know that. Everything she does, it’s all aimed at striking back at Arthur—the way we all wanted to stay there, even after just a few minutes? Think about it, Ger! Ailis was there so
long, and was so enamored of that woman, and what she could do—” He stopped cold, and stared at his friend with a sudden thought. “Ger, what if Morgain didn’t come to the castle to spy on Arthur at all? What if the goal was Ailis all along?”

“That’s impossible. How? And why would Morgain care about one girl, even if she does have some magic? Ailis wouldn’t ever endanger any of us.”

“She might not be aware of it. She might not even be…Argh. I don’t know.” Newt put his head down in his hands, covering his face and shuddering like a horse shaking off flies.

Gerard was starting to follow the threads of Newt’s thoughts, and he didn’t like them at all. “You think they did something to her?”

“I think—I
know
that magic is addictive—appealing. We both felt that. Morgain…she can twist your mind. I know that I’d feel better if Merlin was keeping a close eye on Ailis, instead of sending her away.”

“He’s not sending her away. You heard him, we earned this spot, all three of us. Together.”

When he saw that Newt still wasn’t convinced, he went on. “We’ll take care of her. Think about it, Newt. What better place to send someone who might
be magic than into the company of half a dozen hardheaded knights who don’t use magic—don’t have any interest in magic—with her two best friends who know what to look for?”

Newt kept his face in his hands, but his shoulders relaxed a notch.

“We’ll keep her safe, Newt. No matter what. That’s what we did in the fortress. That’s why Merlin’s sending her with us. So we can keep her safe.

“And who knows,” he said, suddenly thinking of it. “Maybe her magic, whatever it is, will help us find the Grail!”

They looked at each other, the same thought suddenly in their minds.

Newt spoke it for both of them. “And then Morgain—and the shadow-figure—will know where it is. Even if she wanted Ailis this go-around, more than any strike at Arthur, she was dead-serious about the Grail and what it meant to her. And we have no idea what it really means to the shadow-figure. Merlin has to—”

“Merlin has thought of it already.”

Neither boy had heard the enchanter join them, and they jumped guiltily as he spoke, stammering their apologies.

“Enough already. If you’re going to be fools enough to think I didn’t know something like this was happening…had happened…was going to happen, then you think I’m even more of a doddering old fool than I actually am.”

“Then why?” Gerard asked.

“Because it might not have. It still may not have. Ailis is a good girl, a wise girl, with a smart head on her shoulders and brave and loyal friends at her side. I did not lie—she has earned her place on this fool Quest, despite her gender. Were there not women who followed the Christ when he bled into this cup? Who is to say a woman is not the one to find it? In that, Morgain may be entirely correct.”

“You want to use her, too. To find the Grail.” Newt’s tone was more of an accusation than was safe, speaking to an enchanter, but Merlin ignored it.

“Once we have the Grail, we will be in a better position to protect her—and any others who may be like her—from Morgain’s reach. Camelot is safe. Ailis is safe. Arthur’s kingship is safe. Everyone’s happy, then,” Merlin said.

If so, Newt wondered, why didn’t any of them
look
particularly happy?

“T
his,” Gerard said in satisfaction. “Now
this
is how you’re supposed to set off on a Quest!”

They were standing by their horses, waiting for the signal to mount. Around them, pennants snapped in the light breeze, and sunlight glimmered on the metal points of spears, catching highlights in the armor of the knights around them. Ailis was stroking the nose of the sturdy gelding she had been given. She was wearing trousers under her skirt, for easier riding astride, but her hair was tied up in her usual braid, the feather fastened to the end where it draped over her shoulder with a smaller version of the bands the boys wore on their arms. The queen had given it to her that morning, without ceremony, without words, but with a gentle hug and a kiss on the cheek for luck.

Ailis had to admit that Guinevere was quite sweet. No spine, no fire in her soul, but she took the beauty and the fortune that had been given to her and made the best of it. Ailis could see now that if you did the most with what you were given, you should feel no regret.

Ailis still didn’t know what she had been given. She could see it in Gerard, how he stood a little taller, gave his opinion more clearly now. The death of Sir Caedor had dulled some of his shine, but tempered him at the same time, like a blade dipped in fire for the final proving before being taken into battle.

Newt, on the other hand, still seemed the same as ever. Deeper, maybe. He held himself more still, as though waiting for some sound only he would hear. She wondered what his change would be, then shook off that mood with an effort.
Let go of the past,
she could hear Merlin advising her.
Forget what Morgain taught you…for now. Wait. Grow stronger before you take too much onto yourself.

“Looking forward to sleeping under a canopy?” she asked her friends, banishing thoughtfulness with teasing.

“Hah. Odds are, we’ll be rolling our blankets under a tree somewhere, cursing the roots, same as
always,” Newt said. “Canopies are for knights and soft-skinned castle-dwellers.”

“Certainly you’re neither,” Gerard said in return. “In fact, I think I heard someone saying they planned to use you for target practice, as your hide is so tough arrows will bounce right back to the archer.”

“Funny.”

Ailis leaned against her gelding, hearing it whiffle gently under her touch, and soaked in the strange normality of it all, the banter between her friends, the familiar sounds and smells of Camelot, even the bawling of a guardsman trying to maintain some sort of control over the chaos. The days spent with Morgain seemed so distant, now. Merlin had warned her about that; it wasn’t magic, exactly, what had happened to her, but Morgain
had
been influencing her, trying to bring her over to the sorceress’s side of things.
Don’t rush into magic, no matter how appealing it may seem
.

Ailis had nodded when he said that, to show that she understood. It was Merlin who hadn’t understood, though. She had known all along that Morgain was playing her. That didn’t make what she learned any less true. It didn’t make the fact that Morgain had protected her—
and
her friends—any less courageous.

It absolutely did not make her want to wait, to claim the strength she could now feel deep inside herself.

She reached up to touch the feather, smiling as she felt the familiar warmth of it in her fingers.

It didn’t change the fact that she had felt the rise of something greater inside her. Something wonderful. Something magical. Something that was neither Merlin nor Morgain, but spoke directly to her.
Magic
. It was in her, too.

“You nervous?” Newt asked her, looking around at the insanity surrounding them.

“Terrified,” she said, and smiled brilliantly at him until even his usual worried scowl relented, and he smiled back.

“Mount up!” came the call, and, anticipating the adventure to come, the three of them did.