The Camelot Spell

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Excuse us a moment?” Gerard said, taking his companions by the arm and leading them a short distance away, out of their host’s hearing.

  “I don’t like this,” Newt said.

  “I really don’t like it,” Ailis said in a small voice. “He stinks.” The two boys looked at her, and she clarified, “Of magic. Can’t you—” No, they couldn’t, clearly, despite it being so obvious to her. “I can smell it on him in here. This entire room. Magic. Of a darker sort than anything I’ve ever felt from Merlin. If we agree, we’ll be bound by the terms. We’ll end up like half the workers in the fields, the ones with the dead eyes.”

  “You think they’re bound by magic? Daffyd is using magic to control his Grange?” He looked at Newt, who nodded, remembering the strange weight in the room when they came in. “Then the King needs to know about this!”

  “To tell him, we’ve got to escape first,” Newt pointed out. “I say we decline his offer and pass on dinner as well. Once we get away, we can try and figure out what to do about the map glowing.”

  “Agreed,” Gerard said. His face was pale with anger, not fear.

  Behind them, the door opened. Two large men stepped inside, short swords strapped to their waists, clearly there to enforce the rules of Daffyd’s surprise game.

  The three companions looked at each other: Newt unsurprised, Ailis afraid, Gerard furious.

  “This is your hospitality?” Gerard demanded. “Armed guards to force us into a bargain we have not agreed to?” He might have sounded impressive if his voice hadn’t cracked halfway through. Still, he stood his ground, glaring at Daffyd.

  “My boy. There have been no threats made.” But the threat was implicit in the way the two guards stood.

  Gerard growled like one of the hounds from the kennel, then turned to his companions. “We each get a chance, that should—”

  “No.” Daffyd shook his head with mock sorrow. “One request, one agreement, one chance. Those are the rules.”

  “That’s not fair,” Ailis protested.

  Newt snorted. “Nothing about this is fair. Nothing about any of this has been fair.”

  Gerard nudged Ailis and got Newt’s attention as well. They moved away from both Daffyd and his guards. “Look around,” he said in a tight whisper.

  “What?” Newt kept his voice low as well, but they could all hear the fear in it.

  “Look around this room,” he said again, still whispering. “The map. It’s glowing.”

  “How can you tell?” As far as they could see, it was still tucked into his back, safely out of sight.

  “I can feel it. It was warm before, but it’s almost hot, now. Almost…almost as if it knew I couldn’t see it and wanted to be sure it got my attention.”

  “You think the talisman is in here?”

  Gerard’s scorn won through the anger he was feeling about the trap they found themselves in. “Any other reason the map might be glowing, horse-boy?”

  “I haven’t any idea.” Newt put his hands on his hips and glared at Gerard, wanting nothing more than to knock him down again and wipe that look off his face once and for all. He caught the guards staring at him and lowered his voice again. “It’s all magic…and I’m tired of it.”

  “Well, don’t be. It might be the only thing that saves us,” Ailis snapped. “Merlin put his magic into the map,” she reminded them with a bit more patience. “So if the map is getting warm now, it must be reacting to something in this room. It’s Merlin helping us as much as he can. That’s what he meant when he said he couldn’t help us directly. He has to work through the map.”

  “So if the talisman is in here,” Gerard said in an undertone, “wouldn’t that be Daffyd’s most valuable possession? Do you really think he’ll let us walk out of here with it?”

  “He has to if we find it,” Ailis insisted. “His own magic should bind him to his side of the deal, the same as it binds us. But we need to find the talisman first. And we have no idea what it looks like.”

  “Then we’d better start looking,” Newt said, but his voice didn’t sound like he had much hope of success.

  The three of them separated and walked around the room as though deep in thought over their predicament, carefully avoiding getting too close to the two guards by the door.

  The study itself was unremarkable, a farmer’s hodgepodge of bits and ends: bags of seed in one corner, ledgers on a narrow shelf, and a pile of harnesses tossed in another corner. The floor was scuffed from wear, and the only furniture other than the chair Daffyd sat in like a throne was a battered wooden table covered with more ledgers and parchments. It was prosaic and ordinary and boring, and no place you would think to find a magical talisman that would help free a king from enchanted slumber.

  Newt walked slowly, trying to pretend that he was deep in thought while his gaze scanned every surface, every handspan of the room. It had to be in here. Not because he believed Gerard’s stupid map, but because if it wasn’t, he had no idea what they’d do next. He wasn’t going to become a slave in all but name for this madman of a farmer, that was for sure! And he wouldn’t let Ailis end up here, either. The thought of abandoning Gerard to his fate was tempting, but Newt quickly discarded it. He didn’t like the oh-so-proud squire any better than when he had knocked the snot out of him four days earlier, but it would take all three of them to even have a chance of escaping this room. Once they’d gotten free, they’d have to abandon the horses. It pained him, but he knew the animals would be treated well here—good horses were more valuable than people, especially if you used slaves—and the surprise factor of not trying for the stables might ultimately buy them some time.

  On the other hand, trying to go on foot would slow them down horribly. Even if they found the talisman here, they’d still have two more to find and—counting the rest of this day—only four days left to do it.

  Newt ran the plan over again in his head, trying out all the possible angles. It had about as much chance as a goose in Cook’s huge hands, but he’d yet to see a goose give up without a fight. He looked up, meaning to try and catch Gerard’s eye, when something caught his attention.

  There. In the far corner of the room, in a jumble of junk. He frowned, trying to determine why he was looking there. It was nothing. Just a…

  He frowned again. What was that? A goblet of some sort? Glass, clearer than the rough-blown versions normally seen around Camelot: wide and rounded at the bottom, but lengthening and narrowing at the top, with a tiny mouth. And it was small, barely the size of two hands clenched together.

  Whatever it was, it was…glowing. Faintly. Barely even noticeable; barely even there, unless you were looking with eyes that had seen too much magic for comfort. Tiny blue sparkles around it were similar to what had come from Merlin’s hand when he touched the map. That alone gave Newt the confidence to move toward it.

  The closer he got, the more intense the flickers became until he was amazed that nobody else was jumping forward to grab it. A quick glance backward showed that the two guards were oblivious so long as nobody went near the door, and Daffyd was watching Gerard. So the squire had been right about how Daffyd would react, if not in the way he thought. Ailis had been conferring with Gerard, their heads bent together, red to blond. But while Newt watched them she looked up as though sensing his attention. He let his gaze flick from them to the talisman—what he hoped was the talisman—and then back again. Her eyes widened slightly, and she nodded, then reached out to touch Gerard’s hand as though continuing their discussion.

  Gerard then picked up a tarnished metal tankard and turned toward Daffyd, distracting him further, while Ailis walked slowly to join Newt on the other side of the room.

  “You see it?”

  “Yes.” She moved forward, as though drawn on a string, and reached out to lift the talisman from the junk surrounding it. “It’s beautiful.” Her voice was soft with amazement.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. But…it feels warm.” T
hey were whispering, but there was no need. Daffyd was still watching Gerard, and the guards were watching Daffyd, waiting mindlessly for his signal.

  “Like the map?”

  “I…don’t know. I suppose.” Her fingers were stroking the glass the way she might a kitten, examining and protecting at the same time. The sparks seemed to flow into her skin and then back out into the glass, slowly fading the longer she held it.

  “You’re stalling, Gerard.” Daffyd’s voice carried across the room. His tone was still jovial, but the blade was no longer hidden. “Give me your guess. Or pay the forfeit.”

  “This,” Ailis said, holding up the glass object, her fingers curved around the widest end. Daffyd turned to look at them with satisfied anticipation.

  But his expression faltered and broke as the blue sparks flared again, deeper and darker and more brightly than before, almost as though taunting Daffyd’s disbelief.

  “Impossible!”

  The guards stirred at his outburst but, seeing no physical mayhem, did nothing more than glare suspiciously at the trio.

  Daffyd stood, his entire body radiating a palpable menace. There was no more landed farmer—he was every inch the bandit, more so than the ones who had robbed them by the lakeside. “Give that to me!”

  “No.” Gerard stepped forward, getting between the farmer and the talisman. “You said we could have your most valuable possession if we guessed it. We’ve guessed it. It’s ours.”

  “He didn’t know,” Ailis said. “He didn’t even know what his most valuable possession was! That’s why no one has ever escaped him, because even if they found what he thought was most valuable, it wasn’t. He was thinking in terms of what was important to him, probably something costly, not what was valuable in and of itself. The talisman has been here, all the time, but he thought it was junk. But the magic knew that somehow, it was the most valuable thing he owned!”

  “Silence!” Daffyd roared. Ailis inched back, but her hold on the talisman remained steady. Gerard stepped into the blast of the man’s anger, his shoulders squared and firm as though he were readying a lance for a joust.

  “Your own magic betrays you,” he said, and even the faint squeak in his voice didn’t faze him. “No matter what you thought or believed, it doesn’t matter. Your words bind you, as they bind us, and now you must abide by them. Let us go.”

  Daffyd scowled terribly, his predator’s smile a true grimace now, but Gerard stood firm. Newt put a hand on Ailis’s elbow and, without discussion, the three of them began the short walk toward the door, the talisman sheltered in the crook of Ailis’s arm.

  They could smell the somewhat musty odor of the guards’ bodies rising off their skin before Daffyd barked out a command, and the two men stood aside, letting them exit without harm.

  They walked down the short hallway without seeing anyone and were outside in the courtyard before any alarm was raised.

  “Praise the gods,” Ailis whispered, but Newt merely tightened his grip on her arm.

  “We’re not safe yet,” he said. “I’m going to go get the horses.” If the guards didn’t move, if Daffyd really was bound by his own spell…they had a chance, if everything played out well. And if not…“You two, start down the road like you’re walking away. Just do it!”

  They looked like they wanted to argue, but Newt turned and started walking slowly, casually toward the stables before they could say anything.

  “Come on,” Gerard said when Ailis hesitated. “Come on. He can handle the horses. We need to get out of here.”

  They had taken their belongings with them, not trusting their safety, so there was nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other until they were out of the shadow of the Grange, back on the main road, out in the deepening shadows of the afternoon.

  “Walk faster,” Gerard said, stretching his own legs now to cover more ground.

  “But Newt—”

  “Will be riding. Stop worrying about him!”

  They increased their pace, watching the workers in the fields out of the corner of their eyes, alert for even a hint of an alarm. But the workers remained bent over the crops, intent on their work. Gerard felt the weight of shame drape over him for running away like this. A knight was supposed to rescue those in need and certainly anyone trapped by Daffyd’s spell deserved to be freed. But…he wasn’t a knight. Yet. They had barely escaped themselves. How could he help anyone else?

  “When this is over,” he promised them, even though they couldn’t hear, “we’ll come back. Arthur himself will break that spell and free you.”

  There was a hollow thudding noise behind them before Ailis could respond, and Newt arrived, riding his own horse and leading Gerard’s and a third by the reins.

  “You stole a horse?” Gerard was horrified.

  “I borrowed it,” Newt said. “We’ll make better time if we’re all mounted. Besides, I think she has a fascination for your noble steed.”

  In fact, the mare did seem attached to Gerard’s horse, staying close to him as they waited for their riders to mount. With a glance at Newt, Ailis took the reins from him and swung herself into the saddle of the dark brown mare. The saddle was uncomfortable, but the beast seemed to have a sweet enough mouth, and after a flick of one delicate ear, she responded well to Ailis’s commands.

  Gerard stopped long enough to take the talisman and wrap it carefully in a length of cloth, securing it safely before swinging himself up and into his own saddle.

  “One talisman captured,” he said with satisfaction, gathering up the reins and urging his horse into a slow walk. “One third of the way there.”

  “But we’re already on the fourth day,” Newt said grimly. “Where does the map say we should go next?”

  Even the horses seemed to look at Gerard, who pulled the map out of its packet and unrolled it. He stared at it for a long moment, then looked up at them.

  “It’s not glowing anywhere.”

  SEVEN

  They finally settled on heading east by the simple expedient of Newt tossing his dagger, a handspan of sharpened metal with a horn handle, into the map and determining that they would head toward wherever it landed. When Ailis withdrew the dagger, she ran her fingers over the narrow hole, frowning slightly. And she gasped when a spark jumped off the map into her finger, then back down again into the map, sealing the rip behind it.

  She looked carefully at the map, rolled it up, and handed it back to Gerard. She mounted her mare and turned her in the right direction, waiting until Gerard was ready before touching heels to flanks and starting on their way.

  They hadn’t traveled more than an hour when Ailis asked, “Is it glowing yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Farms gave way to scrub woods, and then the trees grew taller and thicker around.

  “Is it glowing yet?” Newt asked this time.

  “Not yet.”

  “We’re going the wrong direction,” Newt said in disgust.

  Ailis took offense at his words. “There’s no guarantee that the other direction was right, either.”

  “Yes, and the next talisman might be in Eire, kept by the wee fairy folk, for all we know!”

  “It might be in Avalon,” Ailis added, finally pushed to annoyance by all Newt’s whining about how terrible magic was. “It might be in Palestine waiting for us to find the Grail and trade for it! It could be anywhere, so why wouldn’t it be where the map sends us? We have to go on faith. That’s what it’s all about. Faith. Trust. Belief.”

  “Gullibility.” Newt spat the word like it was a curse.

  “Why are you so miserable?” Ailis demanded. “Why can’t you—”

  “Why can’t you leave me be? I’m not your slave to order around and—”

  “Children…” Gerard rode between the two of them, interrupting the bickering before they could get worked up into a decent lather. “Ailis is right. We have to trust Merlin. If finding the talismans were impossible, he wouldn’t have sent us on this journey.” />
  “You really believe that?” Newt asked.

  Gerard stared straight ahead between his horse’s ears, watching the way the shadows flickered off the leaves from the setting sun behind them.

  “I have to,” he said finally. “I have to believe. Otherwise we might as well go home. Besides, Merlin proved himself before we were even born. He helped bring Arthur to the throne. That’s more than we can say.”

  “Who gets to say when we have proven ourselves?” Ailis asked, keeping the same even tone of voice with obvious effort. “At what point have we done enough? Will returning triumphant with the talismans be enough? Or will they pat us each on the head and send us back to our chores?”

  Gerard flinched as though the words physically hurt him. He had obviously wondered the same thing more than once.

  “Let’s worry about getting home and waking everyone up,” Newt said, making his own sort of peace offering. “Then you can argue over what sort of reward you deserve.”

  “I’m not looking for a reward,” Gerard said.

  “Of course you are,” Ailis said acerbically, glad for a more familiar target. “It may not be phrased as such, but you want to be rewarded, the same as we do.”

  “I just want—”

  “To get attention. To be recognized. To be treated as an adult, not a child.”

  “All right. Yes.” Gerard glared at her. “Are you happy now?”

  “It’s not about being happy. It’s about—”

  “Glowing.”

  “What?”

  “The map’s glowing!” Newt pointed at Gerard’s saddlebag, which was, in fact, emitting a distinct blue light through the leather.

  “Excellent!” Gerard reined in his horse and turned in the saddle in order to pull at the straps, withdrawing the tube. Blue light ran up and down his hands to the wrist, flickering like a living thing.

  “What does the map say?”

  “Hold on!” His horse stopped, confused by the strange shifts of its rider, and the others pulled in alongside him. He unrolled it with one hand, tucking the tube under his other arm.