Ghost-white snakes of mist hung heavy among the solitary trees of the moor valley.
It felt too much like a dream to Thomas. Still, he did not fear to follow. Only one person had knowledge of what had transpired in front of the gallows—the old man himself. Only he, then, could have sent the silhouette to his tent.
At the farthest edge of the camp, she stopped to turn and wait.
When Thomas arrived, she took his right hand and clasped it with her left.
“Who are you?” Thomas asked. “Show me your face.”
“Hush, Thomas,” she whispered.
“You know my name. You know my face. Yet you hide from me.”
“Hush,” she repeated.
“No,” he said with determination. “Not a step farther will I take. The old man wishes to see me badly enough to drug my sentries, so he’ll be angry if you do not succeed in your mission. Show me your face or I turn around.”
She did not answer. Instead, she lifted her free hand slowly, pulled the hood from her face, and shook her hair loose to her shoulders.
Nothing in his life had prepared him for that moment.
The sudden ache of joy to see her face hit him like a blow. For a timeless moment, it took from him all breath.
It was not her beauty that brought him that joy, even though the curved shadows of her face would be forever seared in her mind. No. Thomas had learned not to trust appearances, that beauty indeed consisted of heart joining heart, not eyes to eyes. Isabelle, now in the dungeon, had used her exquisite features to deceive, while gentle Katherine—horribly burned and masked by bandages—had proven the true worth of friendship.
Thomas struggled for composure. He couldn’t understand it, but he felt drawn deeper into the world, as if he had been long pledged for this very moment.
She stared back, as if knowing how he felt, yet, unlike him, fearless of what was passing between them.
“Your name,” Thomas said. “What is your name?”
“I don’t have a name.”
“Everyone has a name.”
“Everyone of this world,” she answered. “What if I am nothing more than a spirit? A walking dream?”
“You toy with me. As if you already know me. Who are you?”
“Someone who wants to believe that you are one of us,” she answered.
“One of you. A spirit? A walking dream?”
As answer, she took his hand, lifted it to her mouth, and kissed the back of his hand so gently he wondered if he had imagined her lips brushing against his skin.
She dropped his hand again. “I have already said too much. Follow me. The old man wishes to see you.”
Abruptly, she turned and he had no choice but to follow as she picked faultless footsteps through ground soon darkened from the moon by the trees along stream of the valley.
They walked—it could have only been a heartbeat, he felt so distant from the movement of time—until reaching a hill which rose steeply into the black of the night.
An owl called.
She turned to the sound and walked directly into the side of the hill. As if parting the solid rock by magic, she slipped sideways into an invisible cleft between monstrous boulders. Thomas followed.
They stood completely surrounded by granite walls of a cave long hollowed smooth by eons of rainwater. The air seemed to press down upon him, and away from the light of the moon Thomas saw only velvet black.
He heard her return the owl’s call, but before he could question the noise, a small spark appeared. His eyes adjusted to see an old man holding the small light of a torch that grew as the pitch caught fire.
Light gradually licked upward around them to reveal a bent old man wrapped in a shawl. Beyond deep wrinkles, Thomas could distinguish no features—the shadows leapt and danced eerie circles from beneath his chin.
“Greetings, Thomas of Magnus.” The voice was a slow whisper. “Congratulations on succeeding in your first task, the conquering of the castle.”
“My first task? Who are you?”
“Such impatience. One who is Lord of Magnus would do well to temper his words among strangers.”
“I will not apologize.” Thomas filled with indignation. “Each day I am haunted by memory of you. Impossible that you should know my quest at the hanging. Impossible that the sun should fail that morning at your command.”
The old man shrugged. “Impossible is often merely a perception. Surely by now you have been able to ascertain the darkness was no sorcery, but merely a trick of astronomy as the moon moves past the sun. Your books would inform a careful reader that such eclipses may be anticipated, or predicted, as some might say.”
“You know of my books!”
That mystery gripped Thomas so tightly he could almost forget the presence of the other in the cave. The young woman.
The old man ignored the urgency in Thomas’s words. “My message is the same as before. You must bring the winds of light into this age and resist the forces of darkness poised to take Magnus from you. Otherwise, it’ll be little more than a fortress of mist. The assistance I may offer is little—the decisions to be made are yours.”
Thomas clenched his fists and let out a frustrated blast of air. “You talk in circles. Tell me who you are. Tell me—in clear terms, man—what you want of me. And tell me the secret of Magnus.”
The old man turned away from Thomas, disappearing and reappearing in the shadows of the cave.
“Druids, Thomas. Beware those barbarians from the isle, Thomas. They will attempt to conquer you through force. Or through bribery.”
Yet another layer of cryptic answers. “Tell me how you knew of my quest that day at the hanging. Tell me how you know of the books. Tell me how you know of the barbarians.”
“To tell you is to risk all.”
Thomas pounded his thigh in anger. “The risk is shrouded and hidden from me! I am given a task that is unexplained, and with no reason to fulfill it beyond my vow. And then you imply it is but the first of more tasks. No more circles.”
Even as he fought his own frustration, Thomas sensed sadness from the old man.
“The knowledge you already have is worth the world, Thomas. That is all I can say.”
“No,” Thomas pleaded. “Who belongs to the strange symbol of conspiracy? Is the Earl of York friend or enemy?”
The old man shook his head. “Thomas, very soon you will be offered a prize which seems far greater than the kingdom of Magnus.”
The torch flared once before dying, and Thomas read deep concern in the old man’s eyes.
From the sudden darkness came the old man’s whispered words. “It is worth your soul to refuse.”
The Orphan King (Merlin's Immortals) Page 17