The Camelot Spell

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “I suppose we could just ride under it,” Ailis said doubtfully, shifting a little in her saddle to relieve some of the pressure in her legs. She had ridden often when she was a child, but never for so long and not for many years. But she would sooner have her tongue cut out than complain in front of the boys, who would take any sign of weakness as proof that she should have remained back at Camelot.

  “You want to ride off the road and across the fields?” Gerard asked. All three turned to look at the broad expanse of fields. Riding through them would mean riding down the crop that was growing there. Even if they were careful, the horses would be destroying food people might need in the winter. And there might be animal holes or hillocks where, in the dark, a horse could stumble and break its leg.

  “Bad idea,” Newt said finally, and while Ailis wanted to argue when Gerard nodded his head as well, she gave in. They knew horses, and the road.

  “So what then?”

  “The road is going in mostly the same direction as the moon,” Gerard decided. “We’ll follow it for as long as we can. It’s not as though we have anything specific to go on anyway. Only a puzzle-rhyme from a madwoman.”

  “One that matches the information on your stolen map,” Newt said, his matter-of-fact tone at odds with the tight expression on his face. Ailis looked from one of them to the other and set her heels into her gelding’s side, making him break into a trot that almost shook her out of her saddle. She had never known such boys who disagreed with each other!

  “The moon’s moving,” she pointed out. “We should be, too.”

  They rode in relative silence for another stretch, each of them deep in their own thoughts. Camelot and the chaos of the Great Hall seemed impossibly far away in the mostly quiet air. The wind touched the trees, the leaves making a faint shimmering noise. Once or twice the sudden cry of something hunting or hunted reached their ears. But otherwise the only noises were the heavy thudding of hooves on packed dirt, the swishing of tails, and the slightly nasal sound of Newt’s breathing.

  “Oh, look!” Ailis said, broken out of her own thoughts by the sight up ahead. “Isn’t that pretty?”

  “That” was the reflection of the moon, now at a slanted angle overhead, on the waters of a small lake to their left. The waters were so dark as to seem black, and the silver-white light of the full moon created a reflection that appeared to be almost solid. As they watched, it appeared to sink below the waters, twisting and curving until it formed a bridge just below the surface of the lake.

  Gerard and Newt both reined their horses in beside Ailis’s to watch the phenomenon.

  “It almost doesn’t seem real,” Newt said.

  “It’s not,” Gerard retorted, but without any heat. The sight was lovely, almost magical in its effect but totally natural…merely a trick of the eye.

  “Do you suppose—”

  Whatever Ailis was going to suppose was lost as a harsh cry and the sound of heavy wings overhead made all three of them duck instinctively. A great owl, its wingspan as far across as Ailis’s outstretched arms from fingertip to fingertip, swooped low and continued across the water. The moonlight touched its feathers, turning the grays and browns into silvers and golds, before the bird curved around and flew into the night and disappeared across the lake and out of view.

  “By all that’s holy,” Gerard said, and crossed himself almost without thought.

  “Magical,” Ailis whispered, still staring as though the bird might return simply because she willed it.

  “The owl,” Newt said a few beats afterward. “‘The owl, lonely flier. Moonlight, water, what you desire.’”

  The other two turned to stare at him.

  “Do you think—”

  “You mean—”

  They both spoke at the same time, stopped, looked at each other as though expecting the other to continue, and then started again.

  “You mean—”

  “You can’t mean—”

  They both stopped again and stared at Newt. The stable boy shrugged and stared out over the water. No, Into the water. He urged his horse into motion, heading down the road toward the lake and the moonlight bridge.

  If this wasn’t the place the woman’s riddle had spoken of, he’d eat his saddle.

  After a moment, the others followed hard on his gelding’s hooves, holding their breath in anticipation of…something. They weren’t sure quite what.

  “Halt!”

  Newt had to pull up hard on the reins to avoid running over the figure that appeared in front of them. The apparition was tall, wearing a long dark robe with a hood. For a moment their hearts leapt with the hope that it was Merlin come to meet them.

  That hope was dashed as other figures could be seen behind them, seemingly appearing out of the air.

  “Bandits,” Gerard muttered, his hand instinctively going to his sword’s hilt as he silently counted their opponents. Too many. If Newt had been trained to fight, maybe…

  The horses shifted uneasily, clearly wanting to bolt at this sudden rise in tension.

  “I believe this is where you hand over your belongings,” the leader of the bandits said, placing his hand on Newt’s gelding’s neck and moving in close, effectively keeping Newt from pulling any weapon he might have on his person. Gerard swore. Hand moved away from his hilt to rest on his knee. Only a fool fought when there was no hope of winning. Better to use his brain to find an advantage. “Study your opponent,” Sir Rheynold always said. Find their weakness and use it.

  “Your belongings, if you would, young sirs.”

  “We have none.”

  It was an even bet who was more surprised at the clear voice that rang out into the night, the bandits or the trio from Camelot. But Ailis swallowed hard, nudged her horse forward, and kept talking.

  “We’re as poor as you. Perhaps more so. If you must take something, take my horse. He’s not attractive, but he is a very good ride, young, and has no brands on him, unlike the others, so no one could claim you stole him, later on.” The two horses the boys had brought with them carried Camelot’s mark on their ears, easily identifiable by any knight or noble these bandits might encounter. There’s no way to insist upon your innocence when you’re riding a beast you have no legal claim to.

  “You might be lying,” the bandit said thoughtfully.

  “We might. But you can see that we are not dressed well, riding at night with no adult to protect us. No jewels. No fancy weapons. And we are very young and not much glory to kill.” She put on her very best serious expression, the one the ladies of the court seemed to prefer on those who served them—the proper face, Lady Melisande called it, although she never said proper for what.

  It seemed to work on bandits as well, because the leader peered closely at her then laughed.

  “You bargain well, little merchant. And I do not want to have the blood of children on my hands.” The King’s Law was harsh enough on murderers, but those who killed children found no mercy in Arthur’s lands. “Your lives are worth…” The leader walked around them, casually noting the quality of their horses and confirming that the other two were indeed clearly marked. “Your horse and the mule. And whatever it carries.”

  “Whatever it carries save our food,” Ailis bargained. “Killing children by starvation is no better.” Gerard had kept the map on him, and his belongings were tied to his own saddle. Anything she or Newt had placed on the mule could be well lost if it let them live. Hopefully the boys would agree.

  The leader waved one hand carelessly, and two of his followers began going through the mule’s packs, removing the packets of food and waterskins, first sniffing them to make sure they contained nothing more interesting than watered-down wine.

  “Down you get, little merchant,” one of the bandits said, appearing by Ailis’s side with unnerving silence. His hands were huge, and he lifted her down from the saddle without trouble. She held her breath, thankful that she had tucked up the skirt she wore over her trousers in order to ride,
praying that the darkness would keep him from noticing her gender.

  “Be good,” she said to her horse, patting it on the neck as the bandit led it away. She felt terribly isolated on the ground, and the look Gerard was giving her when he dismounted to take up the discarded foodstuffs made her feel even worse. So when the leader strode toward her, she had to force herself not to run from him, but stand tall, every inch the defiant boy they thought she was.

  The other bandits had already disappeared into the darkness with their prizes, barely a word spoken among them. Their silence was more frightening than anything else.

  “You.” The bandit leader gestured to Newt. “Take up your companion, boy. It’s the least you could do.” He vanished into the shadows as Newt moved his horse closer, putting out a hand for Ailis to take and pulling her up behind him.

  She could feel Newt’s back tense when she put her arms around him, but this horse was wider and higher up from the ground than she was used to, and she wasn’t going to risk falling—especially since he had the reins. Not that she didn’t trust him, but it was a long fall to the hard ground and…

  She suddenly realized that Gerard was still staring at her with that disbelieving, betrayed expression on his face, clearly visible in the moonlight.

  “What?” she asked him. “What was I supposed to do? Let them take everything we had, maybe kill us, too?”

  “I wouldn’t have—”

  “You would have argued, maybe challenged them? And where would that get us, except dead? And no mission, no Merlin. So we’ve lost one horse and the mule. They let us keep most of the supplies, which they wouldn’t have if I hadn’t amused them.” Not to mention, which she wasn’t going to, what they might have done if they had realized that she was a girl. She shied away from that thought and went on. “You’re afraid that with two of us on Newt’s horse we’ll move too slowly? Do you want me to get down and walk then?”

  Neither boy answered. Ailis felt as if they were blaming or, worse, punishing her for their loss of goods. She felt a cold tension burning inside her at their continued silence. It was as though it were consuming everything in its path, leaving her hollow and shaking, caught up in an abyss. Her mouth opened to scald them with her anger, but no more words came out. A tight fist clenched in her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe.

  “Let’s go,” Newt said finally, moving his gelding forward and startling Ailis who wrapped her arms around his waist to stay on. He could jibe at Gerard’s pretensions endlessly for the entertainment of it, but seeing Ailis so angry at the other boy made Newt uncomfortable.

  “Go?” Gerard repeated stupidly.

  “Moon’s going to be overhead soon.” Newt looked up and the others followed suit. It seemed like hours while they were facing down the bandits, but in truth it had only been a span of minutes. The moonlight still slanted down onto the water, but the path somehow seemed less solid, more of a dream or an illusion. “If we’re going to do this, we’d better do this.”

  “If the moon goes down before we get across…” Ailis started to say. She caught herself, remembering the owl winging over the water. There was no room to question: They had to trust the words the woman spoke—and their own instincts.

  “We won’t let it. Ride!” Gerard shouted and kneed his stallion toward the lake and the stretch of silvery moonlight that spanned it. Newt’s horse followed close behind. Ailis clung to Newt tighter, her hood falling back and her braid flying out behind her like a tail as they ran. Water splashed around the horses’ legs. Gerard’s ride stumbled, then recovered. The moonlight caught their clothing, the horses’ coats, and their tack and turned everything into shadows of itself.

  The water moved up to their knees, soaking them through. Gerard was muttering under his breath, while Newt tried to remember what he knew about how well horses, even laden horses, could swim. Ailis merely closed her eyes and buried her face against Newt’s back, praying as hard as she could to whichever gods might be listening. Then the hooves seemed to catch on something, and suddenly they were moving on a flat surface and the waters were falling away from their knees, down to the horses’ hocks.

  “The moonlight bridge,” Ailis whispered.

  “What?”

  “A story I heard once. The moonlight bridge will give you what your heart desires….”

  Gerard was too far ahead to hear, but Newt clearly did not believe her. Because she was a girl, Ailis thought bitterly. For all their sniping at each other, the two boys still listened to each other. But not her.

  “There’s something else….” She couldn’t remember what, though she knew it was important.

  She felt Newt shift in the saddle, as though he were turning to look down at the water.

  “Dear God,” he whispered, and she felt him shift slightly again, the muscles in his back and legs tightening. He seemed to lunge forward and Ailis felt him slipping out of her grasp.

  Then she remembered what else she had heard about the moonlight bridge and grabbed for him again, this time desperate for his safety, not her own.

  “Don’t look. Don’t look!” she yelled, her fingers closing over the rough fabric of his trousers, one hand grabbing at his belt to haul him back into the saddle.

  “Please, Newt, don’t look,” she sobbed. She remembered now. “The moonlight bridge gives you a vision of your heart’s desire…. And those who dive in after it are never seen again.”

  Maybe they got what they dreamed of. But it wasn’t in this world.

  “No,” Newt gasped. His backside was firmly back in the saddle and his hands were shaky on the reins. He was looking straight ahead now. “I’m not looking. Not looking.”

  “You saw your heart’s desire?” she asked, curiosity momentarily winning out over fear.

  But Newt only murmured, “I’m not looking,” as if to convince himself.

  And then they were all three on the sandy shoreline of an island that had absolutely not been there when they first rode into the lake. Newt let out a long, quavering sigh that Ailis could feel through his entire body. She hugged him tighter, trying to say something—she wasn’t quite sure what. Maybe next time he’d listen to her….

  Gerard turned his horse to face back the way they had come. Ailis and Newt, reluctantly, followed suit. There was the shore, clear as could be in the night air. As he watched, the moon changed position slightly and the path they had followed shimmered and became only light on the water.

  “That was too close,” Newt said, watching the bridge disappear. “How’re we supposed to get back?”

  “Go forward,” Gerard said practically. “Look for something on the other side. There may be another bridge.”

  “Let’s worry about that after we find Merlin,” Ailis said. “If we find Merlin.”

  Gerard got down off his horse, making a face as his boots squished with the water inside them. The temptation to take them off and drain the water out was great, but he knew better. Beside the fact that wet leather would be unpleasant if not impossible to put back on, the thought of being caught barefoot and therefore vulnerable in unknown territory was something Sir Bors would never forgive. And Gerard had no desire to be used as an example in a future lecture on preparedness. The fact that nobody would ever know, if he didn’t say anything, never entered into his mind.

  “So where do we start looking?” Newt asked. “Anyone have a brilliant plan? Preferably one that doesn’t involve magic, if it’s all the same to you two.”

  Gerard glared, annoyed by the stable boy’s continued lack of respect and proper awe for Merlin, if not magic in general, and by the way Ailis’s face fell at Newt’s words, though she never said anything out loud. Newt was, after all, the one who had understood the riddle and gotten them here. Credit had to be given.

  “Up there,” Gerard said, pointing to the slight hill at the far end of the sandy ledge they were on.

  “Why there?” Newt asked.

  “Because there’s nothing here,” Gerard said as patie
ntly as he could. “So we should go higher, in order to see what else is on this island.”

  Newt shrugged, placid and sturdy as a carthorse. “All right.”

  They led the horses, stumbling and cursing a little when the wet shoes slipped on the grassy hill. There was little light now that the moon was beginning to slide down in the sky, and the air was cool, so they were soon shivering as well.

  “Almost there,” Newt said, dropping back to give Ailis a hand when she lost her balance and almost fell. She resisted taking his offered hand at first, but common sense got the better of her pride. His surprisingly warm fingers closed over hers and tugged her up the last bit of the rise to where Gerard was already standing, looking out over the view.

  “What is that?” Newt asked. “That” referred to the pulsing gold arc of light off to the left, rising over the trees.

  “Magic.” Ailis kept her tone even, despite the urge to be sarcastic. The warm glow that the sight created inside her was clearly not shared by her companions. Not everyone reacted the way she did to the presence of magic. Ailis had trouble remembering that, despite Newt’s constant muttered comments.

  “Which means that’s where Merlin is.” Gerard, seemingly oblivious to the sight in front of him and to the tension building between Newt and Ailis, tugged on his horse’s reins and led it slowly down the other side of the hill.

  “More magic. I suppose it was to be expected,” Newt said unhappily, right on cue. When Ailis looked sharply at him, he shrugged. “There isn’t any magic in the stables. Just honest horses. I miss that.” He followed Gerard down the incline, still muttering under his breath.

  Ailis stood on the ridge a while longer, watching in awe. The hill sloped down into a grassy plain, without a tree in sight. In the middle of that plain was a small house; a small house with clear walls, a top and bottom, that pulsed with pale blue and gold light.

  Magic indeed.

  She smiled, her entire face reflecting her elation. King ensorcelled, horse and mule and belongings stolen, traveling while soaked to the skin with Gerard still angry with her—it still made her feel as though the world was a wonderful place indeed.