The Camelot Spell

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “The Isle of Apples. Are we dead?” he wondered aloud.

  “I don’t feel dead,” Ailis said.

  “How would you know?”

  “All right, I wouldn’t. But I don’t feel dead.” Ailis’s braid had been pulled loose by the magical winds. She had a nasty bruise forming on one side of her face but seemed otherwise unharmed. Newt did a quick inventory of his own body and decided that nothing was broken; he was only sore. Gerard was already pacing the courtyard, one hand on his sword’s grip, the other touching the high stone walls as though expecting to discover a door hidden from his sight.

  There were no doors. No windows. No portals. Nothing save featureless gray stone walls rising high above their heads, and the mosaic on the floor that was becoming more and more disturbing by the moment—Newt noticed that several of the sea-creatures were in the process of eating humans.

  “I think we’ve arrived,” Ailis said.

  “Yes, but where? And how do we get from here to where we need to be?” Gerard asked Ailis.

  Brains, child! You were given brains! Use them!

  It wasn’t a voice in her head this time. Or, rather, not a new voice, but a memory of Merlin, particularly irate at one thing or another, storming down the hallway. He had seen her walking in the other direction and trying so hard not to be noticed. He snapped the words at her, as though she had personally displeased him by some act of notable stupidity.

  Perhaps she had. Only not then. Now. How did he keep it all straight? The answer was that he didn’t, of course. That’s why he was so short-tempered.

  “If the doorway led us to this place…then this courtyard must open to something. This is merely the entrance hall—the chamber where unexpected visitors might be judged friend or foe, and actions taken accordingly.”

  “We’re not exactly friends,” Newt pointed out.

  “No. But—”

  Gerard came back, interrupting her. “There’s a door here.”

  A door of the sort none of the three had ever seen before, not wood or hammered metal sheet but stones that, when slowly slid aside, revealed an entrance wide enough for them to enter one at a time.

  “It may be a trap.”

  “Of course it’s a trap.” Ailis sounded as though she had finally lost patience with the lot of them. “You have any other ideas?”

  Gerard shrugged and stepped forward.

  Passing through this doorway was not as painful as the other. They left the courtyard behind and entered a huge room, slightly smaller than the Great Hall in Camelot but more ornate, with rich rugs underfoot, jewel-toned tapestries on the walls, and gentle golden glow coming from hundreds of candles set in crystal holders that reflected their light up and out, brilliant enough to make the stars weep in shame.

  And at the far end of the room, seated in a great golden chair shaped like a swan, was Morgain. Her long black hair was loose, falling in a glossy curtain down over her shoulder and pooling in her lap. A great black cat lay at her feet, its green eyes blinking at the three strangers without any curiosity at all.

  “Welcome, my dears.” Her voice was soft, amused. Her face was a flawless mask.

  “To your lair?” Gerard asked.

  “To my home.” She spread her arms, indicating her surroundings. “Is it not lovely?”

  Gerard took a long, careful look around. “It is indeed. All sparkly and doubtless sticky, like a spider-web. Did you let us in merely to kill us, or did you plan to bore us to death first?”

  “Gerard!” Ailis was horrified, astonished, and not a little afraid, but Newt put a calming hand on her arm, pulling her back slightly. He was smiling faintly, as though he had finally figured out what Gerard was doing.

  Morgain, rather than being offended, merely laughed. A wonderful laugh, full and rich, and all three were reminded once again that she was Arthur’s half-sister. Arthur had a laugh like that. “You have learned your lessons well, young man. Irritate your opponent, insult her. Make her lose control of her temper so that she does something without thought, something to show her weakness. Although it would not be ‘her’ would it? Always ‘him.’ Always the man as the opponent.” Her good humor had turned to bitterness.

  “You are a worthy opponent,” Gerard said. “I would treat you no differently than any man.”

  She looked at him, tilting her head slightly as though weighing the truth of his words. “Perhaps you would. If so, there may yet be hope for my brother’s otherwise worthless court.”

  “A court which you’ve spelled to sleep,” he retorted.

  “Ah. Yes. There is that. Is that what you’re here about?”

  “We translated the spell.”

  “And do you understand it? Do you truly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you certain of that? Without someone to tell you, how can you be sure?” Her eyes sparkled with an evil sense of amusement, and her red-tinted lips curved in an unpleasant smile. Gerard was reminded of an adder hissing its defiance.

  “We’re certain,” Ailis said, stepping forward when Gerard hesitated. Morgain took one look at her, and the smile softened the smallest bit, but was no less predatory.

  “Girl-child. How did I miss you before?”

  Ailis gulped, but stood her ground. “We understand the spell. ‘Time marches on. / Time cannot stop. / King and maid alike must pass. / Only one tear may set them apart / and only one tear may set them free.’ Time moves forward for everyone…but a tear sets them apart. A tear was used to stop time. And only a tear—likely from the same source—can set time to moving once again.” Ailis looked at Morgain as directly as she could. “You cast the spell. I don’t think that you would allow anyone else to take part in it. You want this to be personal. Completely personal. So the tear came from you.”

  “And you think to take a tear from me to end the spell?” Morgain laughed again, but softer this time. “Clever. Quite clever. I gave you too much of a clue. But, as I said, it is good to know there are at least some in Camelot who can think beyond the way things have always been done.” She leaned forward, placing her pointed chin into the cup of her hand and raised one arched eyebrow. “So, tell me. How do you plan to take this tear from me?”

  “I thought I would do it the traditional way,” Gerard said casually, drawing his sword from its scabbard. “Beat it from you.” He was bluffing. Despite his words about treating her as any other opponent, he didn’t think he could fight a woman. On the other hand, she was a danger to his king. He would do whatever it took to free his king. That was what a knight did.

  Morgain laughed a third time, clearly astonished. “You would challenge me? To battle?”

  “Are you afraid to meet the least of your brother’s court?”

  “Steel to steel? How…quaint.” She could take all three of them down with her magic. All four of them in the room knew that—five in the room, since it was so obvious even the cat at her feet must know. But there was a point of honor involved. Morgain spoke of not being treated as an equal; she had been bitter when speaking of men’s ways. So now she would have to face him using one of those ways. If she could defeat him, she would be vindicated. Justified. Triumphant twice over.

  And, as the daughter of Gorlois, a royal daughter of Cornwall with generations of warriors in her bloodline, she had training in the art of the sword. Years ago, before she relied so much on her magic….

  “Unless, of course, you are afraid of my skills,” Gerard finished.

  That did it, as he had known it would. She rose from her swan-throne and strode toward them. As she walked, her embroidered robes changed into a leather jerkin over cloth shirt and pants similar to what the three of them wore, only of much finer fabric. In her hand she now carried a strange blade. The grip was of red wood, and the quillion was a simple black disk that seemed barely enough to protect a man’s knuckles, much less an entire hand. She pulled it from a black scabbard and Gerard had to admire the glittering beauty that was revealed. Barely an arm’s length and too nar
row to be taken seriously, the metal shone like the moon, its oddly shaped tip and tapered edges covered in some strange tracings, like the embroidery on Merlin’s robes. Gerard took it—and her—seriously.

  She dropped the scabbard on the floor and smiled at him, the smile of a confident woman. “Have at it, then, man-child.”

  Gerard felt his body fall almost instinctively into fighting stance; knees bent to provide stability and speed, shoulders relaxed, holding up his own much less lovely but stronger-looking blade, ready to attack or defend as needed.

  They circled each other warily while Ailis and Newt got out of the way. The cat remained by the throne, watching them all with supreme indifference.

  Morgain held her blade in one hand, using the other to balance herself. Each studied the way the other moved, looking for a weakness, an opening. Gerard didn’t see anything he could exploit, so he went on the offensive, lunging suddenly, without any shift or change in his body that might signal his intentions.

  She met his lunge with a perfect parry, turning his heavier, less gracefully forged blade away and attempting to slide in under his own defenses. But he knew the trick to that, and was out of range before the blow could land.

  They had, he suspected, the same teachers—or at least teachers who taught the same style. But that blade, so exotic looking, suggested that she had learned from other masters as well. Gerard would have to be careful.

  Before the thought was finished, he felt her behind him, moving more swiftly that he could imagine, the blade scoring across his shoulder blades and almost cutting through the leather that protected him.

  He cursed, turning to face her, reluctant respect in his voice.

  “Language, child,” she said, still smiling. Then she lunged in turn, her blade shimmering in the candlelight. Gerard refused to be distracted and beat it away with a heavy clang of his own blade and forced himself within her fight-circle. Dangerous, so dangerous; with her speed and the lightness of her blade he was at a disadvantage. He could practically hear Sir Bors bellowing at him now about stupidity and getting killed.

  But he was there, barely a handspan from her body, and bringing his sword up for a disabling blow….

  Suddenly he was on his back, breathless, his hand holding onto his hilt only through instinct, not intent.

  She had kicked him! And, he realized, feeling the bruise forming already, had she been able to stretch her leg out farther, he would have been incapacitated long enough for her to finish him off.

  Gerard rolled left as Morgain came in for the kill. He got to his feet as she spun around, blade outstretched, her face drawn back in a fierce snarl that would have looked natural on her cat.

  “Dirty tricks? I should have expected such from you.” In fact, he should have. Sir Bors would have had him back at basic trials if he had been there to see such foolishness. Never expect honor from a dishonorable source.

  But Sir Bors wasn’t here.

  Gerard matched her, snarl for snarl, and went on the offensive again. His sword wasn’t as nimble as hers, but he knew how to handle it as well as most knights twice his age and experience, and he had an advantage they lacked.

  He could play dirty, too.

  On his next lunge, Gerard didn’t go for any of the usual targets: heart, arms, or legs. Instead, he drove the blade directly at her lovely, unprotected face, aiming for the spot directly between her eyes.

  She backtracked, as he’d suspected she would, and tried to regroup. He pressed, moving forward faster than she moved back. It left him slightly winded, but the urgency of the situation gave him stamina he might otherwise have lacked. He beat against her blade once, then again, until she spat at him and leaped out of the way, just before he would have backed her up against a patch of bare wall.

  “Never let them get hold of a tapestry, boy,” he could hear Sir Bors say. “That’s just another weapon you’ve given them.”

  He felt the kiss of her blade just as he began to turn, incredulous that she could react that quickly. A small part of his mind dealt with the injury: a shallow slash across the back of his left leg. Bloody, but not deadly. It would hamper his ability to move, however, the longer he had to stand on it. Finish this, he thought. One way or the other, time’s wasting. Finish it.

  A flurry of action, lunging and then lunging again, driving her back when she expected to step forward and attack at will. He shut down the part of his mind that was aware of the pain; shut down all awareness of anything save the blades flashing and twisting in front of him, the smell of blood in his nostrils, the feel of the heavy metal in his hand, the rightness of it all. None of this was directed; his mind had retreated and let instinct take over in a place that he knew was dangerously familiar to the berserks, the mad warriors of the cold lands Sir Bors told stories about.

  But it worked. Without knowing quite how he had done it, he had driven Morgain into a corner, parrying her attack and slamming both blades into the wall, hers held there by the greater length and weight of his.

  It could have ended there, but for Morgain’s greater speed and agility. Somehow she slipped from that cage, sliding her blade out from under his and spinning almost in his arms to go back on the defensive.

  Irate at being bested, Gerard slapped at her, missing her blade entirely and taking a stinging cut on his underarm for it. But the flat side of his blade connected just behind her calves as she turned again, and the blow sent her to her knees, twisting as she fell so that she landed on her backside.

  Instinct took over again. Gerard was dark with fury at being cut not once but twice. “Yield,” he said, his knee on her stomach, his blade held crosswise against her pale white neck. Up close, she was even more beautiful, her eyes wide and dark enough to fall into. For once, Gerard was almost glad he wasn’t full grown. He suspected that, had he been older, those eyes would have disarmed him in a way her sword skills had not been able to.

  “I have never yielded,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “You have never fought me.” It was sheer bragging, and Gerard was sorry the moment the words left his mouth—especially in light of the fact that she had, in fact, almost beaten him. Those deep eyes darkened even more, and he felt her shift, even with the blade to her neck. Then he was knocked over sideways by an unexpected assault, and when he recovered from being slid across the floor several lengths he looked up to see Newt and Ailis holding her down, a dagger lying on the carpet between the two of them.

  “Poisoned?” he asked, indicating the dagger Morgain had magicked into existence.

  “Most likely,” Ailis said, breathing heavily. Newt had Gerard’s sword and was holding it awkwardly, with the point over Morgain’s face, dissuading her from trying anything else.

  “Unlike Gerard, I’m very bad with this thing. I might do something…clumsy with it. Like rip your face open. That would be a shame, since it’s a very pretty face.”

  “Do it,” Ailis said. Her voice was harder than either of the boys had ever heard before. “Kill her.” Under the anger, Newt thought he heard fear.

  “The king won’t like it,” Gerard said, coming to stand next to Newt.

  “I don’t care. Merlin wanted her dead. He doesn’t want things without reasons, not reasons we can understand, maybe, but reasons. That is enough for me. Kill her.”

  “You’ve been beaten,” Gerard said to Morgain. “Your only hope is to use magic again—but Newt will kill you before you can do anything. He has no sense of chivalry. And he will not hesitate to kill a woman, not even the sister of his king.” Gerard hoped that was true, anyway. Newt wasn’t trained for this. How would he do against a human opponent?

  “Or,” Ailis said, her fear making her foolhardy, “you might call your servants, of whom I’m sure you have many. But they would see you defeated by three children. And they would never forget that, would they? Their enchanter mistress, the great and terrifying Morgain, brought down by three children, and two of them mere servants.”

  Morgain moved her h
ead as though to respond to the girl’s taunt, and Ailis drew a sharp breath in. “A tear,” she said in astonishment.

  “A what?” Gerard paused, caught by the urgency in Ailis’s voice but not really hearing her.

  Ailis pointed at Morgain’s neck. Where her shirt had been torn away, something glinted in the candlelight.

  With a dubious look at his companion—there was no way she could have seen that from where she was—Gerard placed his hand over Newt’s, using the tip of his sword to catch the chain around the sorceress’s neck. He lifted it away to reveal a thumbnail-sized gemstone the yellow-red of a new flame.

  “This?” Gerard asked Ailis. “A trinket?”

  Morgain glared up at him, and he lowered the sword just enough to remind her who had won their battle.

  “It’s a tear,” Ailis said, moving closer so that she could see it better. When Morgain turned that glare on her, she stepped back, out of range again. “Look at it! Can’t you feel it?”

  Gerard looked, shrugged, then winced. All he felt were his muscles telling him how much they wanted to put the sword down and have someone apply a healing poultice to the places Morgain had scored on him during their battle.

  “A tear?” Newt asked. He stared at Morgain the way he might a snake about to strike, if you weren’t entirely sure if you were out of its range or not.

  “A tear!” Ailis said impatiently. “A tree’s tear. Amber.” On seeing their continued blank looks, she elaborated. “It’s magic. I can feel it.”

  “Witch-child,” Morgain said, and her voice was soft again, silky and convincing. “Witch-child, where have they been hiding you in cold, harsh Camelot?”

  “I’m not a witch,” Ailis said, taking another step away from that voice.

  “My tear speaks to you. My magic calls to you. Have they been teaching you, witch-child? Or do they ignore you, pretend you don’t exist, save all their power for those born with—”

  “I’m not a witch!” Ailis yelled, fear and anger mingling in her voice. “Take it from her, Gerard.”