Gawain (Knights of Excalibur Book 1)

by Hanley, Donald

  She took a step forward, deeper into the lake, and he reached out quickly to stop her. She turned at the touch of his fingers on her arm, her deep brown eyes determined and worried at the same time. The silver band across her brow had a circular disk where a gemstone should have been, but the mounting was empty.

  “Help me,” she said, in a voice that seemed strangely familiar. “We have to find the way across before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?” he asked, but the fog thickened and she vanished, leaving him grasping nothing but air.

  Hawk awoke with his hand stretched out across the bed, blinking in the unfamiliar darkness. The four of them had huddled around the table all evening, using Butler’s tablet to search for cairngorms in the Boston area and elsewhere around the world, pausing only once to eat a hot but hasty meal delivered by a taciturn Pendragon employee. Even with the assistance of Dr. Nguyen’s team in the regional office, they came up with nothing by the time they decided to call it a night. Hawk was certain Trisha thought the whole endeavor was completely pointless and he couldn’t really argue with that. He had the exact same opinion.

  He sat up on the edge of the bed, raking his hands through his hair and grimacing at the throbbing ache all along his left forearm. He massaged his arm carefully, wondering if Trisha would yell at him if he took off the bandage. Probably, he thought sourly, and he left it in place.

  His phone on the night stand told him it was just after three in the morning and he shook his head resignedly. He got up and stepped out into the darkened hallway, listening carefully for any sign of movement. The door to Butler’s bedroom across the hall was slightly ajar, but there was no light or sound from that direction. The women shared the king-size in the master bedroom and Hawk hoped they were getting a better sleep than he was. Nim could be a snarky bitch when she was tired.

  He plodded into the kitchen, rummaging blindly for a glass in the cupboards and filling it with cold water from the fridge dispenser. He brought it into the living room and slumped into one of the chairs, propping his elbow on the armrest and leaning his head on his fist as he glowered into the deep shadows across the room.

  Now what? he wondered, not for the first time. Lucas is convinced he’s done with his Quest and Nim agrees with him. But I have no idea what to do. We found Trisha but how the hell are we supposed to find the right cairngorm? There must be millions of them out there. Fuck. He sipped his water, wishing it was something stronger.

  “Gavin?” Nim’s quiet voice startled him and he twisted around in his chair. She was a pale ghost in the archway leading to the master bedroom, barely visible in the faint light leaking through a narrow gap in the curtains. “Having trouble sleeping?”

  “Something woke me up,” he said softly. “What about you?”

  “The same,” she said with a trace of dry humor in her voice, “but in my case it was someone, not something.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” he grumbled. “I was quiet.”

  “I’m a light sleeper.” Nim crossed behind him to one of the floor lamps in the corner of the living room. She turned it on at the lowest setting, but it was blinding after the near-darkness in the apartment. He blinked away the spots and then blinked again when he got a good look at her.

  All she wore was a clingy camisole of creamy silk that hung from her shoulders on thin spaghetti straps and a pair of matching scalloped tap pants. Her hair was down, flowing in soft waves around her shoulders, and her bare legs went up a long, long way. In all the years they’d known each other, she had always been dressed properly and modestly, but with the light shining on her from the side, her scanty outfit looked almost translucent. All he wore were his gym shorts and he cleared his throat awkwardly as his cock stirred.

  “You should get back to bed,” he said. “I just got up for some water.” He held up his glass to validate his excuse.

  “I will shortly. We didn’t accomplish much last night. Do you think we should keep trying in the morning or find some other approach?” She walked over to the other chair and her breasts moved just enough to capture his gaze. She seated herself gracefully and leaned back in the chair, crossing her legs demurely at the ankle. Her toenails were white-tipped like her fingernails and his dick gave another twitch. It was pointed in entirely the wrong direction to be waking up right now, but he couldn’t make the necessary adjustments with her sitting right across from him. “Gavin?”

  “Hmm? Oh, no,” he said, averting his eyes hastily. “We’re never going to find the damn thing just guessing. We need more information.”

  “I agree,” she sighed. “We need another vision to point us in the right direction, especially since we have less than twenty-four hours now before Trisha leaves us.”

  “Merlin’s Quests are usually pretty open-ended,” Hawk noted sourly. “He’s not likely to suddenly pop up out of nowhere and tell us exactly where to look.”

  “Lucas’s visions have been very timely and specific,” she reminded him.

  “Well, yes, I suppose,” he admitted grudgingly, “but he hasn’t gotten one since. Have you?” Nim pursed her lips with a pensive frown. “Nim?”

  “You know, it’s strange,” she said thoughtfully, glancing towards the master bedroom. Hawk took advantage of her distraction to shift in his seat, trying to casually move his cock to a less painful orientation. “I seem to remember standing near water.”

  “Water? You mean a lake?”

  “Yes, it may have been.” She looked at him curiously. “Why would you guess that?”

  A vague memory of something dark and solid flashed across his mind. “Was there a boat?”

  “Yes,” she said, straightening in surprise. Her breasts jostled with the movement and her nipples steepled the thin material of her camisole. Blood surged into his cock, tenting his shorts despite his desperate efforts to convince it otherwise. Nim’s gaze dropped into his lap and her eyebrows climbed. “Why, Gavin,” she noted dryly. “You seem to be glad to see me. How sweet.”

  Hawk rarely blushed but he felt his ears warm. “Maybe if you weren’t parading around in your underwear, things like this wouldn’t happen.”

  “Maybe if you remembered to take my valise from your car before someone ran off with it,” she countered acerbically, “I’d have something else to sleep in.” She hadn’t been happy when they discovered the theft last night. “Nonetheless, I need you to think with your other brain for a minute. Did you dream about a lake?”

  Hawk crossed his legs awkwardly, trying to hide the evidence of his spontaneous and definitely unwelcome arousal. “I think so,” he said gruffly. “I was there and ... and there was someone else too. A woman. Was it you?” he frowned.

  “No, I distinctly remember seeing both of you, standing at the edge of the lake. You were searching for something.”

  “An island.” They both turned. Butler stood at the end of the hall, his rumpled hair in desperate need of a comb. He wore a t-shirt and plain pajama bottoms. “You needed to take the boat to an island but it was hidden in the fog.”

  “You had the same dream, Lucas?” Nim asked him. He nodded as he came forward, dropping onto the couch with a jaw-cracking yawn. “Interesting. We all saw the same vision tonight. That’s never happened before, that I know of.”

  “Merlin’s just showing off now,” Hawk grumbled.

  “Or he needs to make sure the message gets through to one of us. What does it mean, though?” She tapped her fingertips on the arm of her chair as she thought. “Lucas is right,” she said finally. “The island is clearly Avalon. Merlin wants us to go there.”

  “How?” asked Hawk irritably. “You said it yourself: we’ve tried over and over again to find it. What’s different now?”

  “Trisha,” said Butler, as if it was obvious. “She’ll find it for us.”

  “Using the cairngorm, I suppose.” Hawk said it sarcastically, but suddenly that thought didn’t seem quite so absurd. They all looked at each other in startled silence.

 
; “So now all we need to do is locate it,” said Nim finally, shaking her head despondently. “Before midnight tonight.”

  39

  Trisha stood just out of sight by the bedroom door, straining to hear the quiet conversation. She hadn’t heard Hawk in the kitchen, but Nim sliding out of the bed had woken her from a strange dream about a foggy lake. A dream, it seemed, that everyone had somehow shared.

  She felt guilty for eavesdropping on them, but it was the only way to learn what they were really up to. She was surprised that they kept up their Camelot fantasy even when they thought they were alone. It was clear they truly believed they were actual characters from the Middle Ages and that made her very uneasy.

  Their voices faded into a dull mumble and she held her breath to try to make out what they were saying. She could tell who was speaking by the pitch of their voices but the words were indistinct. Very slowly, she eased her head around the edge of the doorway, hoping that none of them was looking in her direction.

  All three were sitting in the living room in various stages of undress. It looked like they were in the middle of a game of strip poker, one that Hawk was losing badly, but their faces were all very serious.

  “Maybe we can ask Trisha to stay longer,” said Butler earnestly. “We’re not going to be able to find the right cairngorm on our own.”

  Nim shook her head. “We’ve already asked too much of her. Her life was endangered yesterday when Chantal attacked. We can’t risk a repeat of that.”

  “But –” Nim silenced him with a raised hand. Even wearing nothing but her lingerie, she had a very regal presence, like the Queen she claimed to be.

  “We’ll ask her in the morning, but it’s her decision, not ours. I think we should return to New York as soon as we can tomorrow. Hopefully Lionel will follow us and not her.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Hawk asked.

  “I’ll have the local office assign an agent to keep an eye on her for a couple of days, until we’re certain she’s safe. We should know by then what Lionel is up to.” Hawk looked like he was about to argue, but he just shook his head. “Try to get some sleep,” Nim said. “Tomorrow will be a very busy day.”

  She rose to her feet and Trisha ducked back into the bedroom and hurried to the bed as someone turned off the lamp in the living room. She slipped under her covers and closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep as Nim entered the room, but she paused at the foot of the bed.

  “Oh, you’re awake.” Trisha had no idea what gave her away and she thought about maintaining the charade, but she finally rolled over to face Nim. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “I heard voices,” Trisha said, truthfully enough. “Who were you talking to?”

  “Gavin and Lucas.” Nim was almost invisible in the darkness, but Trisha felt the bed shift as she perched on the corner. “We were discussing our plans for tomorrow.”

  “I thought we were going to look for that jewel.”

  “Do you think it would do any good?” Trisha shook her head silently, but Nim sensed her answer despite the darkness. “I agree. If you don’t already know where it is, looking through all the catalogs in the world won’t help.”

  “So what happens now? Is the Quest over?”

  “Quests end when they’re completed, but sometimes that takes years,” Nim sighed. “A few are never resolved. We’ll see if anyone has any insights in the morning, but I think it’s time to let you get back to your life. We’ll take you home and then return to New York.”

  Trisha’s heart bumped with a surge of hope that her ordeal might actually be over soon, but she couldn’t quite rid herself of a niggling doubt. “Can I ask you a question?” she hazarded carefully.

  “Certainly.”

  “Why did you tell me all that stuff about Arthur and Camelot and the rest?”

  “To help you understand all the strange events you’ve experienced these last couple of days.”

  “But isn’t that dangerous? For you, I mean. What if I tell someone else? Aren’t you afraid of your secret getting out?” Don’t you have to silence me now? she thought anxiously, her hands knotting in the sheets, but Nim laughed, a warm and throaty sound.

  “What do you imagine would happen if you told your friends back at the hospital about us?”

  “They – they’d know. Everyone would find out about you and Viviane and the Knights and ...” Her voice trailed off as she tried to imagine Marcia’s reaction to the story. It was a toss-up between a skeptical eye roll and derisive laughter. “They wouldn’t believe me,” she said, slumping back against her pillow.

  “We’ve been outed many times over the centuries, Trisha,” Nim told her with a smile in her voice. “The reaction is always the same. Nowadays, with the Internet, we do get some unwanted attention from the conspiracy theorists, but that’s about it. We can operate openly because no one believes that we truly are who we claim to be.”

  “I’m sorry.” She sensed Nim’s surprise at her expression of sympathy. She wasn’t sure herself why she felt bad for them, but she did.

  “It does get tiresome, I admit, but it’s for the best.” Nim’s face was a faint oval in the darkness, but Trisha saw it tilt. “You have another question.”

  “Well, I don’t want to seem rude or anything ...”

  Nim chuckled softly. “Go on. I won’t be offended.”

  “What do you do if someone asks for proof? Just saying you’re the Lady of the Lake doesn’t make it true.”

  “You’re quite correct. I can’t prove I’m the Nimuë of legend. There are no written records from that time, other than the stories that Geoffrey of Monmouth and others published centuries later. There are no portraits of my face, no DNA samples to match. There’s absolutely no way to verify my claim.”

  “Then why do you keep saying it?”

  “Because it’s true.” Trisha bit back a sarcastic retort and just shook her head. “All I can do is try to convince people that I might be her. Some believe, many don’t.”

  “How? How can you possibly convince anyone you’re actually a thousand-year-old magician?”

  “Every person is different. What would it take to convince you, Trisha?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. What sort of proof would lead you to think I might actually be Nimuë?”

  “I – I don’t know. Something magical, I guess. Something you couldn’t do with mirrors or holograms or tricks or whatever.”

  “Ah. And what is magic to you?”

  “What?”

  “What’s your definition of magic?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Using spells or wands or – or amulets to do things.”

  “No doubt with familiars and pentagrams and potions thrown in for good measure,” Nim laughed. “You’re describing the mechanics of magic, how different practitioners execute their enhancements. I define magic more simply, as the alteration of the world around us according to the will of the magician. Does that sound fair?”

  “I suppose,” Trisha said doubtfully.

  “Those who are more closely attuned to the fundamental nature of, well, nature, require fewer tools and rituals to achieve a particular result. A wand is very useful for improving focus, for example, but a pointed finger can do just as well.”

  “Okay,” Trisha said cautiously. “Are you saying you don’t need any of those things?”

  “Generally not. I do have a wand I use when greater precision or power is needed but I didn’t bring it with me on this trip.”

  “So you won’t be able to do any demonstrations,” Trisha guessed wryly.

  “Not at all. For example, I can do this.”

  Nim held out her hand towards Trisha, as if she was giving her a small grapefruit. Trisha frowned at it uneasily, but her hand remained still and empty. “So is something supposed to happen?” she asked. Nim’s smile broadened and Trisha suddenly realized she could actually see her smile and her hand and most of the bedroom. A gentle golden-hued light suffused everyw
here, seemingly originating from the palm of Nim’s outstretched hand. “How are you doing that?” she gasped.

  “Magic, of course,” Nim told her serenely. “These days, this would be called pyrokinesis, the creation and manipulation of fire through my thoughts.”

  “That’s not a fire,” Trisha argued. She looked around the bedroom carefully, trying to figure out how Nim pulled off that trick. She must have rigged something in the fixture over the bed, but Trisha couldn’t see any sign of a light source.

  “I’m only allowing the light itself to manifest. Here, I’ll show you the actual flame.”

  A small dot of golden light appeared over her hand, growing quickly into something that resembled a candle flame, but much, much larger. It danced above her palm, flickering in some unfelt breeze, shading from ruddy umber at its rounded base to bright canary yellow at its pointed tip. It looked so incredibly real that Trisha leaned away from it, even though Nim showed no discomfort.

  “That’s – that’s a hologram!” Trisha insisted. “There’s no heat!”

  “That would be uncomfortable, but if you insist.”

  Nim lowered her hand but the flame remained where it was, hovering over the bedspread. Suddenly. Trisha felt a blast of heat on her exposed skin and she flung the covers aside heedlessly, nearly turning her ankle in her haste to get away. She stood with her back against the closet door, staring wide-eyed at the miniature inferno floating above the bed.

  “That’s – that’s – that’s a fire!” She could barely get her whirling thoughts corralled. “How did you do that?”

  “An excellent teacher and years of practice.” Nim didn’t seem to do anything but the heat faded away and the flame condensed into a dimly glowing ball that drifted up higher and hung near the ceiling, like a pale sun the size of an orange. “I could add the rest of the effects but I don’t want to set off the smoke detectors.”