Morgain's Revenge

by Laura Anne Gilman

  All three jumped as Morgain strolled into the room, elegantly dressed in a gown of dark blue. Her expression was cool, distant, and somewhat amused. Newt looked horrified, Gerard looked cautiously nervous, and Ailis looked guilty.

  “Morgain, I…I invited them. I—”

  “Witch-child.” Morgain lost some of her amusement. “Never lie to me.”

  Ailis bowed her head. Gerard suddenly noted that her auburn hair was unbraided. He hadn’t seen her hair out of its normal thick braids falling over her face since they were children. And was that a feather knotted into the red strands?

  “Yes, Morgain. I am sorry. But you won’t make them leave, will you?”

  The sorceress sighed. “I did let them enter my home. Yes, of course I knew you boys were here. What good is it being me, if I cannot tell who is inside my very own walls? I let them enter, nonetheless, knowing that they were brought here only by their concern for you. Is that fact—the fact that they not only live, but were allowed to find you—reassurance enough?”

  Ailis still felt guilty, but a stubborn glint was in her eyes when she looked up. “No. I want your word that they’ll be safe here.”

  Morgain let out an undignified snort of laughter, and for a moment she looked barely five years older than Ailis herself.

  Ailis could almost see Morgain’s brain working. After even this short time, she was beginning to understand how her teacher thought. Were the boys enemies? Or potentially useful allies?

  She had let them into her fortress, so she did not fear them. But Morgain was nothing if not complicated, and she surely had hidden reasons for what she did. What was important was that she not reject them out of hand. Because if Morgain thought they were a threat, spies sent to report back to Camelot on her plans, that would be altogether different.

  “Gerard and I have been friends for a long time. He was concerned about me. Now that he knows I am content, there is no cause for alarm. Right?”

  She focused intently in Gerard’s direction, willing him to pick up on her cue. To her surprise, however, it was Newt who responded.

  “It does seem as though we came all this way to rescue a fair maiden who needs no rescuing,” he said with a laugh that sounded too forced for Ailis’s comfort.

  “I’m sorry that you came all this way for nothing,” she responded, still wishing Gerard would stop standing there like a lump and join in—to show that he understood that there was no need to confront Morgain. If he would just play along, Morgain would not hurt them.

  “Done and done. If they are that dear to you, and you to them, then of course the boys may stay as long as you wish them to.” The sorceress paused, her expression growing stern again. “And not a moment longer.”

  “Thank you, Morgain.” Ailis heard what the boys might not have, that the option was not to let them go, but to kill them. Ailis was the valued pawn here, not them.

  “And you are not to allow them to interfere with your studies.” The threat in Morgain’s voice was clear this time. So long as Ailis remained obedient, the boys would be well-treated. “If they must practice their weapon skills, I will have a teacher come in.” She cast a thoughtful glance at Gerard, clearly remembering the fact that he had managed to defeat her in armed combat the last time. “In fact, I think I will insist upon it. The witch-child’s is not the only talent I cannot bear to see wasted by the closed minds of Camelot.”

  “Even knowing that I might eventually use those skills against you, Lady Morgain?” Gerard asked. Ailis drew a sharp breath of alarm.

  The sorceress laughed. “Even so, young squire. Who knows? Like my young apprentice here, you may begin to understand more of the world around you, see that there is more to it than Camelot, and Arthur-says-so, or Merlin-says-so.”

  Gerard was feeling a little like he had the first time he was knocked off his horse during a tourney practice. The world was spinning slightly askew. He knew something was going on around him, but he couldn’t quite focus on it. This all seemed very…wrong. He knew it was wrong, that he wasn’t supposed to be agreeing to all this. But it also seemed practical and reasonable. Ailis was safe and healthy. Morgain was agreeing, in effect, to a truce while Ailis made up her mind. It wasn’t as though there was anything back at Camelot for them to rush back to, either.

  Or was there?

  The Quest. Right. And they were here for a reason. Information. They were supposed to be gathering information—to find out what Morgain was planning, why she seemed so dead-set against Arthur’s Quest. He remembered that now.

  Somehow, though, seeing Ailis’s smile, and Newt’s fascination with the griffin…and yes, he admitted it, the thought of learning some of the moves, perhaps, that Morgain had used when they fought, sword-strokes different from any he and the other squires were being taught back home, was appealing.

  This was dangerous, consorting with the enemy. Justification after justification slid through his mind. He could stay. Win Morgain’s trust. Win Ailis back to them. If he could come back with information useful to Arthur, useful to Merlin, they would overlook other things. Hadn’t Arthur himself decreed that Morgain was not to be killed, because of the shared blood that ran in their veins? Perhaps he could even convince Morgain that it was time to put away her anger, and join her brother’s Court!

  Visions of glory raced through his head. Perhaps he could become the youngest squire to ever be knighted. He could eventually earn himself a seat at the Round Table!

  That was all he had ever wanted, all he had ever worked for. And if staying here, with Morgain, for a little while, could earn him that…

  Some small voice in the back of his head was still protesting. This was wrong. This was some glamour, some magic of Morgain’s twisting his thoughts, confusing him. There was more here that they were supposed to be doing, something that needed to be done now…. Gerard shut that voice out. He was here for Ailis. Ailis was safe. He would bring Ailis home, just a little later than they had planned.

  “Enough!”

  All four humans jumped at the sound of the new voice. Sir Tawny reacted to the intrusion by posturing for an attack, and ended up stuck halfway in and halfway out of the doorway. His head slammed against the doorjamb and made him let out a yowl of pain that simply added to the clamor and confusion.

  Tall, was all Gerard could think. Towering, although the figure in front of them could not have been much more than Morgain’s own height—certainly nowhere near as tall or broad as most of the knights of Camelot. But the heavy gray hooded cape gave an ominous air to the newcomer, an impression only aided by the way Ailis cringed away from it.

  “How dare you enter here?” Morgain asked the shadow-figure, standing, almost instinctively, between Ailis and it.

  “I dare because you have called it upon yourself, Morgain Le Fay. Or have you forgotten all, in the midst of this foolishness? You brought me here. You fed me. You gave me entry into their lives. And now you waste your time and magic attempting to win over these…playthings.

  “There is no more time for distractions. You have wasted enough time with that child, much less allowing two more to clutter the path.”

  Gerard felt for where his sword should have been, wishing more than anything for his fingers to close around the comforting coolness of its hilt, to feel the weight of the blade in his hand. Not that it would do him any good. The thing in front of them spoke in a voice like thunder and radiated heat like a white-burning fire. Gerard knew as well as he knew his own name that nothing that looked or sounded like that was going to fall under a simple metal sword.

  It was up to Morgain to protect them—or not.

  The hooded figure spoke again. “You have important things to do, Morgain Le Fay. Are you still committed to this? Are you still willing to sacrifice for this?”

  Morgain stood tall and proud for a long moment, then her shoulders slumped slightly. Her head dipped in acknowledgment of these words.

  “Get rid of them,” the figure commanded. “Then come to me.
The world turns, and our time has come to act. It is your moment of glory, Morgain. Do not let it pass.”

  The figure pivoted and left the room without another word. Morgain turned a gaze gone cold as ice upon them.

  TWENTY

  The three were quickly taken prisoner by ghostly servants summoned by the imperious snap of Morgain’s fingers. Ailis was allowed to bundle up some of her belongings, but Newt and Gerard were not to help her. Morgain, meanwhile, stood in the middle of the room and watched everything with a cold, distant expression.

  When Ailis indicated she had everything she wanted—a book, a small blanket, and a few trinkets—Morgain led the way down the hallway to where they were to be kept until their fate was decided. Morgain’s back was straight and her shoulders squared under her gown, but Newt had the feeling that she was as much a prisoner as they were.

  The figure had frightened Ailis and Gerard but Newt had felt a different chill. Not fear, but familiarity. There was something about the being that ticked in the back of his mind, back in a place and a time he never thought about anymore.

  He didn’t want to think about it now, either. So he focused instead on the sights and sounds around him; how the servants accompanying them made no noise when they walked, the way the long feather in Ailis’s hair flipped back and forth with her breathing, the fact that they had been walking far longer now than could be justified by the length of the corridor as seen from the outside, and that he could sense the soft padding noises of something following them.

  Morgain finally stopped in front of a door and opened it with a twitch of her fingers.

  “Inside.”

  The room was about the size of Ailis’s sitting room, but it was unfurnished, with no windows or fireplace.

  “Food will be brought,” Morgain said. “I am unfamiliar with the appetites of boys your age. If you are still hungry, Ailis will show you how to call for more.”

  Thanking her seemed out of place, considering their circumstances, so all three remained silent. Morgain didn’t seem to notice.

  “I must go. Stay out of sight and keep out of trouble, and you may yet live through this night.” The servants filtered out of the room, and the sorceress followed, pausing only to allow a low-flowing shape to pass by her into the room. With black fur and golden-green eyes, Newt recognized the cat that had been with Morgain back on the Isle of Apples.

  “She will guard you,” Morgain said, and shut the door firmly behind herself, leaving the three alone. A solid click of the door being locked echoed into the silence.

  “Guard us? Great.” Newt looked nervously at the cat, who stared back at him in a manner quite unlike most large cats he had ever encountered. The beast seemed to be amused by his nervousness.

  Gerard, meanwhile, had focused on something else entirely. “What did she mean, ‘stay out of sight’? What else are we likely to do while locked in here?”

  Ailis sat down on the floor and folded the fabric of her skirt to the side of her to make a cushion of sorts. She then patted the makeshift nest. The boys watched in amazement as the cat crawled over and curled up with its head resting on her knee.

  “Some guard,” Newt said.

  “Oh, she’s fierce. I’ve seen her take down a deer in flight,” Ailis said casually, as though there was unlimited space for a deer to roam these halls. Then again, there probably was. There could have been an entire herd of them around the next corner.

  “You’re calm about all of this,” Gerard observed, “considering Morgain just pretty much betrayed you.”

  “Betrayed?” Ailis looked up, honestly surprised. “There was no betrayal. Not by Morgain’s standards, anyway.”

  “She promised—”

  “She promised to teach me, to not send you away without my consent, to allow us to remain unscathed. Has she broken any of those promises?”

  Gerard threw up his hands in exasperation. “She’s locked us up. And I don’t think it’s so she can deliver us back to the safety of Camelot at her convenience.”

  “She hates Camelot,” Ailis agreed. “And I know now why.”

  When the boys stared at her, she shrugged. “Merlin helped cause her father’s death. He manipulated her mother, all for the sole purpose of creating Arthur. Once there was a male heir, Morgain wasn’t important anymore, not the way she was raised to be. Wouldn’t that make you bitter?”

  “A male child—” Gerard started, protesting.

  “That’s not always the way it’s been,” Newt said thoughtfully. “In some lines, the female child was the one who inherited. Still is that way, in some places.”

  “Not here.” Gerard was confident in that.

  “Not in Arthur’s Britain, no.” Ailis sounded bitter herself. “But Morgain’s family remembers before, when the Romans came. They were here when Boadiccia was queen.”

  “Who?”

  Newt sighed, as though not believing Gerard could be that ignorant. “Boadiccia. Queen of the Icini. The Romans invaded and tried to take power from her family. She rebelled and was killed.” When everyone—including the cat—looked at Newt, he shrugged. “People talk about a lot of things in the stable that they don’t mention in Arthur’s halls.”

  “So, Morgain believes that she has cause to be angry with Merlin and Arthur.” Gerard was adding things up in his head. “Is that why she’s so set against us winning the Grail? Because it will make Arthur’s hold on the throne that much more powerful?”

  Ailis reached over and petted the cat until it relaxed back to her knee. “I think so. She wants it for herself, too, but mostly it’s to strike against Arthur. To make him too weak to hold the throne, so that he’s not Arthur the High King, anymore.”

  “And what’s going on now?” Newt asked. “Is it related to the Quest? Is that what that…person meant about it being time to act?” Surely by now, the Quest should have already departed, each knight racing to be the one to find the prize and bring it home.

  “I don’t know.” Ailis shrugged. “That…person hasn’t been happy that I am here. I know they’re planning something, some way to destroy the Quest, something that it thinks I’m distracting Morgain from accomplishing.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t like I was stopping her from doing anything—not like I could have stopped her.” Ailis reached up to stroke the feather in her hair absentmindedly. “I hope Morgain’s all right.”

  “What?” Gerard’s exclamation was loud enough to rouse the cat again, who half-opened its slitted eyes and glared at him.

  “I said I hope that she’s all right. This stranger has her worried. I can tell.”

  “Maybe she should be worried,” Newt said. “You need to be careful who you invite into your home. Sometimes, they don’t leave so easily.”

  “We should be more worried about how we’re going to leave,” Gerard said.

  “Leaving really isn’t a problem,” Ailis said offhandedly.

  “Right,” Newt said. “Ailis, you know I care for you, but I think that your brains have softened, sitting here, inside this…place.”

  She pushed the cat gently off her knee and stood up. “You doubt me?” Her tone was imperious, offended. She walked over to the door, which they had all heard Morgain lock, and placed her palm flat against the wood. “Walls are for keeping. Doors are for leaving. If I choose, I leave.”

  There was an audible click, and the door swung open into the hallway.

  “It’s not that difficult,” Ailis said. “Morgain knew such a simple spell wouldn’t keep us locked up. That’s what her words meant.”

  “Come on, cat.” And with that, she walked out into the hall, the great black cat close on her heels.

  Newt and Gerard looked at each other, then at the now-empty doorway, and practically ran each other over, trying to be the next one out of their prison.

  “You know the way out?” Newt asked, since Ailis was walking with a determined stride that indicated she had a goal in mind.

  “No.
I need to find Morgain.”

  “Morgain? Ailis, have you lost your mind?” Gerard caught Ailis by the arm, then dropped it again when she turned on him, her eyes wide and angry. The cat snarled, low and dark, its ears flat against its skull.

  “Right,” Gerard said, taken aback. “Morgain.”

  Newt fell in beside Gerard as Ailis raced with disturbing certainty down the unmarked hallway. “Look on the bright side,” he said quietly. “Maybe she’ll send our bodies home when she gets over being annoyed.”

  “Shut up, Newt,” Gerard said, mainly because he had been thinking exactly the same thing—and wasn’t sure if the ‘she’ he was thinking of was Morgain, or Ailis.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Ailis led them up a short flight of stairs to a huge blackwood door that made both Gerard and Newt hang back, although neither of them could quite say why.

  “Are you sure we should…I don’t think we’re supposed to go in there,” Newt said.

  Ailis had been certain of her actions walking up the stairs, but the last few steps her feet had slowed, like they were moving through something thick and sticky. Her face had gone from determined to puzzled. “I don’t…understand.”

  “Maybe she’s not so good a friend as you thought?” Gerard’s voice was nastier than he meant it to be.

  “She’s not a friend,” Ailis said. “She’s my teacher.” There was a difference clear in Ailis’s mind. Gerard and Newt, comforting behind her, and Sir Tawny, upset at being left behind—those were her friends. Morgain was no friend, but she wasn’t an enemy either. Ailis was pretty sure of that.

  “Well, maybe this is another lesson,” Newt said. “Ailis, if we go in there…”

  But Ailis had already reached the door and used that same wiggle-finger motion Morgain had used on other doors. It slid into the wall and she slipped inside.

  Muttering something Newt couldn’t quite hear, Gerard went in after her. Newt considered turning tail and going back the way they came, but even as he thought it, his feet were carrying him forward. They were in this together, no matter who was stupid enough to lead.