Morgain's Revenge (6 page)

“O
h. My. Lord.”

Newt was too busy throwing up to care about the misery in Sir Caedor’s voice. The moment they had trotted through Merlin’s gateway, he had slipped from Loyal’s back, landing on his hands and knees in the grass. He puked up the oatcakes and hot tea he’d had for breakfast.

“That’s…never happened before.” Like Gerard had been through so many portals, to be such an expert, Newt thought with what energy he could spare.

“Hush, pup,” Sir Caedor said, clearly echoing Newt’s own thoughts. The knight was leaning against his own mare, one hand curled around his stirrup-cup as though needing it to remain upright. Gerard alone remained on his horse’s back, but he was leaning
forward against its neck, clenching the mane between his fingers, his complexion pale. Giving up, he slid with a groan down onto the grass behind Newt and rested his face against the cool earth.

Newt stopped heaving, set back on his heels, and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Water. He needed water to wash his mouth out. He got to his feet slowly, unsteadily, and turned to remove a waterskin from its tie-down on Loyal’s saddle. What he saw, over the horse’s withers, made him forget all about his recent incapacitation.

Black clouds scudded across the sky, ominous roiling shapes gathering over distant hilltops, moving far too fast to be anything other than a rainstorm—a very bad rainstorm.

“I think we’ve hit a patch of bad weather,” Newt said, trying to sound casual. “Any idea if there’s shelter nearby?”

“The blighted wizard’s thrown us near three or four days’ riding upland,” Sir Caedor said, looking around before raising his eyes to the incoming storm. “Well past Londinium and the worst of the Cotswold Hills.”

Gerard was still on the ground, now looking decidedly green. “I don’t think I can ride.”

“Then we’re going to get very wet.”

“Over there,” Sir Caedor said, recovering faster than either one of them. He gestured toward a low rise of grass, with a notable overhang facing them. “Come on, lad, get up. You can make it over there.”

“I…”

“Get
up
, boy.
Now
.” His voice was tough, but not unkind. With a combination of encouraging words and a strong hand, Sir Caedor got Gerard back on his feet, and the three began walking as swiftly as they could, not willing to get back on their horses until the dizziness of the magical transport subsided.

“Umm…” Newt said as they got close enough to see the overhang better. The rise was perhaps twice Sir Caedor’s height, and several man-lengths long, with enough room to shelter all three of them and at least two of the animals.

“It’s the only thing around, boy.” Sir Caedor was clearly impatient at Newt’s hesitation. Even Gerard looked at him sideways when the stable boy dug his heels in. The horses continued forward, but the mule also stopped, its ears twitching in agitation.

“That’s a barrow: a giant grave, a resting place for the bones of great warriors from an earlier time, built into the turf.”

“It’s shelter. The dead won’t mind.”

“The dead
always
mind,” Newt said, but allowed himself to be coaxed forward, dragging the mule along in turn. Neither of them looked happy about it.

Gerard and Sir Caedor were two stones from the same quarry, Newt thought ruefully; it didn’t occur to them that disturbing the dead, even the long-dead, never led to anything good. Stubborn, headstrong, ignorant warriors, both of them, so certain that nothing in the ground could be a threat.

He hoped that they were right.

The barrow was smaller than they’d thought, so they unsaddled the horses and took the packs off the mule. They shoved the packs as far under the overhang as they could just as the air darkened around them, going from clear morning light to shadowed dusk instantly with the arrival of the storm clouds.

“I hate storms,” Sir Caedor muttered. “All inconvenience, no redeeming value.”

“Grows the crops,” Gerard said.

“Hmmmph.” The knight removed his armor and fit as much of himself under the overhang as he could, his legs sticking out into the open air. Gerard sat next to him, his legs tucked up underneath.

“Newt, leave them. They know about storms.”

“It’s not the storms I’m worried about,” Newt muttered again, but not loud enough for either of them to hear. He finished tethering the horses to a running line, gave the mule a comforting pat on the side, and came to join the other two.

“This reminds me of a time during my early years, when I was still trying to make my name…” Sir Caedor began, and while Newt didn’t bother to look interested, Gerard settled in to hear the man’s story. At the very least, it would be a way to pass the time while they waited for the storm to pass.

Halfway into Caedor’s somewhat disjointed and rambling tale of a long-forgotten battle in the highlands, a downward strike of lightning startled the horses, making them shift and shudder uneasily.

“Here comes the rain,” Gerard said needlessly, as a wave of water came down in sharp pellets. “Hopefully it won’t last long. Merlin gave us a gift, sending us this far along. I’d hate to waste it.”

Sir Caedor grunted, clearly annoyed at how nature had taken the steam out of his story. Newt merely shifted on the ground, feeling a cold prickle on the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the air turning colder.

“We shouldn’t be here.”

“No, we should be back at Camelot, warm and dry,” Sir Caedor said. “But that’s not the lot of a knight, and we do not complain. The lot of a knight is to champion his king, and complete his mission no matter the cost.”

But Newt had stopped listening to the knight.

“Something’s spooking the horses,” he said, watching them shift and look over their shoulders out into the driving rain.

“More than the storm?” Gerard asked. He might be leading this journey, but when it came to livestock, he deferred to Newt’s experience.

“I think so.”

“There is nothing out there save a few sodden rabbits,” Sir Caedor said, dismissing Newt’s fears. “As I was saying, this reminds me of when I was a young knight, out to—”

Newt got to his feet and walked slowly out into the rain, his hand resting lightly on the dagger he kept strapped to his upper leg.

“Be careful,” Gerard said, picking up on Newt’s unease.

The ground squished under Newt’s feet, all grass and mud. His balance was thrown off by the slippery surface, and when he reached the first horse, he laid
one hand on the beast’s flank to steady himself while he tried to wipe the waterlogged hair out of his eyes in order to see better.

“Newt?”

“I don’t know. I think—” He got no further before the ground seemed to rise up to assault him, a hard slap across his face pushed him away from the horse, causing him to stagger and fall on his backside. The mud splashed up around him, getting in his mouth and eyes, but not so much that he couldn’t see his attackers coming forward through the rain: tall, elongated, with narrow, sharp-chinned faces; mouths too wide; eyes oddly shaped. Narrow hands reached for him, mud dripping off to reveal white bones underneath.

“Barrow-wights!” Newt yelped, scrabbling backward toward the overhang. Realizing that it would be no safer there, he crawled forward just as quickly.

“Look out!” Gerard yelled, dashing forward as another figure rose out of the dirt, coming toward Newt. The horses stamped their hooves and snorted, clearly wanting to run away, but restrained by the tie-downs.

“Sir Caedor, help me!” Gerard shouted, knocking up against one of the mud-covered figures and
coming away with only a handful of mud to show for it. His sword did no damage at all, as far as he could tell. The wight slashed at him, scoring him on the same cheek Merlin had cut. Unlike Merlin’s blade, this slice stung like fire. He might not be able to hurt them, but they could clearly hurt him.

“Sir Caedor!” he called again, more urgently this time. The knight, his sword drawn, took a pair of wights down with one blow, but found himself surrounded again almost immediately.

“We need to get away from here!” Newt said, somehow getting to his feet and fumbling with the knots he had recently tied in his horse’s reins. The water had already swollen the leather to the point where the knots were almost impossible to undo. In desperation, he swiped at them with his dagger, cutting the horses loose and grabbing at the now-flapping reins before they could bolt.

“Our supplies!” Sir Caedor said, reaching back underneath to grab the closest pack. “Squire, distract them!”

“Distract?” Gerard asked in disbelief, then turned to face the mud-covered skeletons once again. “Right. Distract.” Lifting his sword and holding it lengthwise across his body like a barrier, he charged
the nearest wights—four of them now, and more shaking free of the ground even as he moved—screaming at the top of his lungs: “Arthur! The Pendragon! Camelot!”

By now covered with mud from the number of times he had slipped and fallen, Newt was worried that Gerard might attack him, as well. Using the horses as cover, he reached out to grab the first pack from Sir Caedor, slinging it over his mud-and rain-slicked shoulder. He shoved one foot into Loyal’s stirrup, and swung up into the saddle. He pushed the horse forward, using the beast’s bulk to knock over one of the wights. It fell, while striking out with one bony hand at the horse’s eyes.

“Sir Caedor, here!” He shoved the reins of one horse into the knight’s hands, not waiting to see what the older man did with them. He was a knight; he knew how to handle himself in battle. Kicking his horse forward again, Newt moved away from the barrow and into the melee of Gerard and six—no, seven mud-coated wights. “Ger! Up!”

The squire risked a look away, saw the third horse, and dove for the saddle, dragging himself up into it by sheer force of will.

The moment Gerard was secure in the saddle,
Newt urged both horses into a full-out run, not bothering to check and see if Sir Caedor and the rest of the supplies were with them. From the thundering of hooves hard on their heels, the knight had wasted no time following their lead.

The barrow-wights, having driven the intruders away from their resting place, did not bother to follow.

T
he morning of the fifth day after her abduction, Ailis woke in her comfortable bed and stretched, feeling not fear or boredom, but anticipation. For the first time in her life, the first time she could remember, there were no chores in front of her; no duties, no responsibilities. Nothing except what she might find in the course of her explorations.

It had taken her a while to get over her fear that someone would drag her back to her rooms and punish her for leaving. But this morning those fears seemed as far away as…Camelot.

After a quick sponge bath in front of the fireplace in her sitting room, she dressed in the comfortable clothing unseen servants had left for her the night before: a durable russet wool dress that matched her hair color, worn over a cream-colored shift of some
soft material that moved against her skin as though it were alive, and her now-familiar deerskin slippers. She supposed that the slippers on her feet were a reminder that she was not to leave the castle, while the clothing—otherwise suited for exploring—was tacit permission to continue as she was going.

But regardless of the clothing’s purpose, there was no possible way Ailis could stay in her room. Not when she had discovered such magical wonders waiting for her in the seemingly endless hallways of this place!

“Rrrrrrrrr?”

The griffin’s greeting had become an expected part of her morning. Ailis pushed through the wooden doors and walked confidently over to scratch its lowered head, just behind where ears might be on another beast.

“Good morning to you, too, Sir Tawny.” She had not been able to come up with a name that conveyed the combination of dignity and affection the beast showed her, and so fell back on a descriptive nickname, the way her family had once called her Red. “Are you ready to go?”

She had been surprised on the first day when the griffin had decided to follow her—surprised but
strangely comforted. At the same time, she was not at all surprised that every passage she wandered down in the seemingly endless maze of halls, and every room she chose to go into, was large enough for the creature to go with her, save her bedchamber. When she returned to her rooms, the beast waited in the hallway until she was safely inside, and then disappeared back to whatever lair he slept in.

“Are you guard or guest?” she had wondered. Yet there was no reply beyond a black-eyed blink and a low rumbling purr.

Now Sir Tawny followed her wherever she went, and if Ailis was disappointed to encounter no other living thing in her rambles, the things she did discover more than made up for it.

Today she was returning to the hall of colors. As best she could tell, it was in the center of the keep. The ceiling was arched with great soaring beams, and between those beams, rather than wood or stone, glass separated inside from out—colored glass, blues and greens, shading from dark to light the way an ocean might if you were to see it from below the water’s surface.

When you stood in the middle of the hall and looked up, you
were
under the surface of the ocean.
Great fish swam by, huge-finned things with sharp teeth, elongated creatures with silvery shells and dark red eyes, massive schools of tiny glittering fish that turned and turned again almost more quickly than her eye could follow.

None of it was real. She knew that. But it was so lovely, so solid-looking, that even Sir Tawny tried to take a bite out of a passing fish.

“Do you think Morgain wishes she were able to live underwater? Is that why she created this? Do you think she’s actually
been
under the ocean?” Anything was possible to one with as much magic as the sorceress.

Ailis stood watching the magical illusions float past, and could almost imagine that she herself was underwater, breathing as fish do. Her arms rose, and she moved them the way she might in a pond or lake. Her eyes closed, and the fish began to gather around her, as though drawn by her efforts. One of them brushed by her cheek, and the contact made her giggle. That in turn made her open her eyes again, and she stared into the gullet of a huge fish, four times her own size, toothy mouth open as though it were about to swallow her whole.

Ailis screamed, jumped back, and fell, landing
on her backside on the floor. Her eyes went wide, and she spread her fingers as though searching for a rock or stick or anything that might be used as a weapon to fend this monster off. Her heart sped up to the point where she couldn’t hear anything except a thumping in her chest. The air suddenly felt cold and clammy against her skin.

“Sir Tawny?” she managed to croak out, but the griffin did not come to her rescue. She could not take her eyes off the sea monster long enough to look around for him.

No way to tell herself that this was all magic; that the fish could not really truly exist; that they were on solid ground, not deep in the ocean. Those teeth looked far too real, too solid. And magic could kill just as easily as an ordinary sword. All it took was intent.

Don’t be some fish’s meal, Ailis….
Merlin? A faint whisper, barely even there. She probably imagined it. No matter. She grabbed onto it, angry at the thought that the enchanter might think she would be so weak, to be taken down by a figment of magic….

“Not me! No you don’t!” she cried, throwing up her arms and closing her eyes again as the monster
loomed closer, rancid breath blowing onto her skin and up her nose. The smell made her want to gag. She was overcome with disgust, swamping even the fear until all she felt was revulsion, and from that revulsion came more anger. “Get. Away. From. Me!”

A blast of fish-gut breath washed over her and…then it was gone.

Ailis opened her eyes to an empty chamber. Even the colors seemed more muted now, tinted with a pale golden light rather than the watery green of earlier.

“Rrrrrr?”

Shaking so badly she could hardly take it, Ailis reached out and found a handful of warm feathers, and the cool breath of the griffin reached over her like a benediction.

“Some help you were,” she said, using him to haul herself up off the floor. She looked around the room and shuddered.

“I almost forgot,” she said. “It’s pretty, but it’s still magic.
Morgain’s
magic. Nothing good can come from that.” It had been nice while it lasted, that feeling of freedom—of pleasure without price—but it was a dream, and she was awake now. Something inside her protested, but the weight of her terror, and the knowledge that nobody would save her if she
could not save herself, weighed down that ambition until it sank without a trace. Ailis was a practical girl. She’d always had to be: no room for dreams in the life of a servant. That was what had saved her over and over again. It would be what saved her again now, if anything did.

She thought about going back to her room and locking the door behind her, but that didn’t seem right, either. Hiding was easy, but not always practical.

“I need to find a way out of here,” she said. “I can’t stay. I can’t let the dream make me forget.” There was more at stake here than just her own comfort. Morgain had found her way into Camelot’s walls, and only Ailis knew. That meant that Camelot was in danger, terrible danger. She had to tell Merlin—or tell the king. She had to tell someone, somehow.

Sir Tawny sighed in disappointment, but otherwise remained silent.

“Wise girl,” Morgain murmured, passing her hand over her scrying mirror and making the image of the two figures disappear. “Wise, wise girl.” She did not know whether to be annoyed or amused by the
witch-child, who had so far refused to succumb to her fears, despite being completely out of her element.

It was tempting to go to that floor, to walk with the witch-child and show her the wonders hidden therein; to teach her how to control the seascape room so that the shark would attack at her command; explain the proper way to make the wall-lights glow according to your mood; or shift the puzzle-floor so that the creatures depicted in the mosaic underfoot seemed to gambol and dance.

She could not let the girl go. Morgain considered that she could have easily killed Ailis the moment she realized someone had seen her in Camelot’s halls. She had in fact planned on it at first. But then Morgain recognized the face, those dark eyes filled with horror and surprise but no hatred. Something had made her take the girl instead—take her and keep her.

She supposed the thought had been there from the beginning: No child so filled with the potential for magic should be left untutored. Merlin had seen it and had clearly put his touch on her…but he had not taken her as a student, the foolish old man. So Ailis was still fair game.

Morgain didn’t want a student, herself. Too much effort, too much bother. But a hostage—one
with potential to be useful in the long run…that was a different matter.

And so the girl was being treated more as an honored guest than a prisoner. No prisoner ever had such run of this place before—not even prisoners who
thought
they were honored guests. Morgain felt a twinge of regret at her actions, but she stifled it firmly. There were other brands in the fire, other considerations to be…considered.

There were others in residence who must be kept in mind. Others who would not be pleased to know of the girl’s existence.

And yet, how much harm could it do, to speak with the girl—to allay her fears, perhaps, and prevent any unfortunate and doomed attempt to escape? The process of winning her over, making her more pliable, more…useful had begun.

Yes, Morgain decided, reaching down to stroke the ears of the great black cat sleeping by her side. She would do just that—for the girl’s own good, and her own as well.

“Here? You intend for us to camp here?”

Gerard looked around in confusion at the
knight’s outburst. Newt had chosen a good spot to make camp: a flat clearing a short distance off the wide dirt track they had been riding on. Surrounded on two sides by thick-trunked oak trees, with a small creek running along the third side, it seemed a pleasant enough place to stop. There was wood for the fire, water for cooking and drinking, grass for the horses to graze on, and it was far enough from the road that if travelers went by during the night, they would not be seen. In fact, Gerard had been about to compliment Newt on his scouting, as soon as he got back from watering the horses downstream.

“What is wrong with it, sir?” Gerard asked politely. His face might hurt from the strain, but he was polite. King Arthur and Sir Rheynold would expect no less from him.

Sir Caedor went off into a litany of things that were wrong with their campsite, most of which seemed to revolve around the fact that they would be sleeping outside on blankets, rather than inside on beds. Sir Caedor, it appeared, did not enjoy being outside of walls at night, especially this far north of Camelot’s reach, among people he deemed “savages and heathens.”

Gerard added all this to the list of things that Sir
Caedor did not like, which so far included the way the mule had been loaded, the pace they were traveling at—too slowly, consulting the lodestone too often rather than simply aiming themselves in the general direction it indicated—the dried foods they had brought, the way that the boys did almost everything, and Newt, on principle. Newt himself had obviously been holding back laughter at some of the knight’s comments about “lowly brats” and “the stench of stable,” but Gerard was considering notions of how to teach the older man some manners.

“I’ve heard worse,” Newt told him. “From you, in fact.”

Gerard had to admit the truth of that. They had not gotten off to a good start. Their first meeting involved an exchange of insults, a fistfight, and a scolding from Sir Lancelot. But Newt had proven himself since then. He had become a friend.

None of this seemed to matter to Sir Caedor. When they had stopped to water their horses around mid-afternoon on the first day, Caedor had handed his reins to Newt and gone off to the bushes in order to relieve himself, saying over his shoulder only that Gerard should make sure that “that boy” did not take anything from his saddlebag. Yes, Newt did work in
the stables, but Caedor’s casual lack of respect—due even a kitchen scullion—had made Gerard’s jaw drop in astonishment. This was not how he had been taught that a knight should behave. It was certainly not how the men who trained him would act, not even when they were in their cups during a long-running banquet, or exhausted after a hard-won tourney.

If it had been up to him, Gerard would have mounted and ridden away right then, leaving Sir Caedor’s horse tied to an old oak tree. Newt, however, had merely shrugged and picked up Gerard’s reins as well. “It’s not worth it. He is who he is. And all he sees when he looks at me is the stables. That’s never going to change.”

“It’s not fair.”

“You’re still on about fairness?” Newt made a noise like a horse’s snort. “Grow up, Ger.”

“You shouldn’t take that sort of—”

“Gerard, he’s a knight. Annoying, yes, but no better or worse than anyone else.” Newt looked at the squire with a sort of pity. “You need to stop thinking of them as if they’re made of gold. They’re men, that’s all. Men who are very good with weapons, good on horseback, but…”

“We take a vow when we’re knighted,” Gerard protested.

“You haven’t taken the vow yet, and you’re a good fellow. Someone who isn’t…how is a vow of charity, chastity, and honor going to create something that isn’t there?”

“You’re wrong. Being a knight
means
something.”

“To you it does,” Newt allowed.

Gerard drew breath dramatically to retort, but a voice in the back of his head suggested that carrying on would be pointless. Gerard reached up to rub at the wound Merlin had left on his face, which still itched, and let the discussion go.

They waited in silence for the knight, then remounted and moved on.

And yet those words from hours past had been a heavy weight in Gerard’s throat since then, until he felt as though he were going to choke on it. He needed to show respect for the older man, and yet he also needed to respect the training they had both sworn to live by.