The Spirit of Nimue (The Return to Camelot #3)

by Donna Hosie

  Tell Arthur that your name was Gwenddydd.

  Why was my inner voice doing this? It was like I had no control over it whatsoever. It had all gone horribly wrong. The hurt expression on Bedivere’s face now matched Arthur’s, and it was worse than any wound inflicted by dwarf-riders or Archibald or Slurpy. Knowing I had caused these wounds in the two people I loved most was a knife that went straight into my heart.

  “Does the name Gwenddydd mean anything to either of you?” I cried in desperation.

  Arthur had reached the doors. They opened. Merlin was standing on the other side. He was wearing long white robes with a thick silver chain around his waist. Several pieces of fur, like rabbit paws, were hanging from links. His startling blue eyes shone with a triumphant look.

  “I knew it. I knew it from that first moment I saw you by the waterfalls that bear my name,” said the sorcerer, and he slammed his glowing staff into the floor.

  A sonic boom shuddered through the Great Hall. A bell started tolling, and it was so loud it was like being in a church tower on a wedding day. Arthur, Bedivere and I were all knocked off our feet. Mist started to rise from the Round Table. It was a huge white cloud. A picture formed in the centre of the hovering fog, blurred at the edges. It showed a crowd of people. Behind us, the doors to the Great Hall slammed shut.

  “What is this, Merlin?” asked Arthur. Fists started pounding against the closed doors. People outside were trying to get in. They must have heard the boom and the bell, and come rushing to help.

  “It is the past to which your sister refers. The past which causes her so much anguish, and a past which inextricably links us all,” replied Merlin.

  Bedivere gave me his hand and pulled me up. I did not let go. Arthur, Bedivere and I watched the scene projecting above the Round Table. It showed Arthur, a golden crown on his head, standing at the top of glistening black stone steps. He was surrounded by knights in white cloaks. Images of red dragons were on every surface, from flags in the wind, to the clothes on their backs.

  But something wasn’t right about Arthur’s face. It was his eyes. The blinding blue had disappeared. They had a strange glassy appearance: the same opaque whiteness that I had seen in my vision.

  There was a woman walking towards Arthur. Her long golden hair rippled in the wind. Although there was no sound coming from the image, I knew that if there was, I would be listening to wind chimes. Nimue’s mouth was moving rapidly.

  “Is she singing?” I asked Merlin.

  “A song of sorts,” he replied. The old man couldn’t take his eyes away from her. She was so beautiful.

  And then another woman appeared. This one did not have the grace of Nimue, who walked like she was gliding on the air. This other woman was kicking and clawing and beating against four guards, who were dragging her to a long pole, which was raised on a black stone dais. She had long, dirty blonde hair which was tied back. Her feet were bare and marked with streaks of dried blood.

  I knew her. I had seen her before.

  But I hadn’t just seen the woman before, I had seen the crowd around her too. Only closer, much closer. I could remember the jeers and the insults that were being yelled, the glassy eyes that didn’t look human...

  “Gwenddydd.”

  “You remember,” said Merlin.

  Not yet. Not all of it.

  My inner voice was still mine in sound, but it was completely detaching itself from my thoughts. It had always had a will of its own - usually to just torment me and state the fears that sucked away at me - but now it was doing something so totally weird, I thought I was really starting to lose it.

  “Who is Gwenddydd?”

  “I remember this,” said Arthur, but his voice was distant and not directed to anyone in the room.

  Hands were still pounding on the doors. Voices were yelling for the king to let them in. Arthur looked over his shoulder, but he didn’t move.

  “The name is also familiar to me,” said Bedivere. He raised his hand and went to touch the mist. It recoiled from his fingers, swirling like steam from a hot cup of coffee.

  “Gwenddydd was betrayed by the Lady of the Lake,” said Merlin. “She was a great seer, the best Logres had ever known. I had already been tricked by Nimue, and imprisoned in the roots of an ageing tree near the falls. Gwenddydd, who was now alone without my protection, had suffered much loss, for her son died young, and my disappearance caused her even more anguish. She was my natural replacement as counsellor to the king, but Nimue – fearing any woman who was close to Arthur – convinced him that Gwenddydd was a witch, intent on evil. I have taken this memory from Lady Natasha’s past, hidden deep in the recesses of her mind. Look at their eyes. The king and his advisors are under a spell. Nimue’s magic does not hold for long here in the court of Camelot, and it would have been extremely painful for her, but endure it she did.”

  The woman, Gwenddydd, was now being tied to the stake. I knew the terror she was feeling. Not just from the memory of Bedivere’s father trying to kill me, but I had the bitter taste of adrenaline. I knew what Gwenddydd was feeling, the fear, the hopelessness.

  “You said you took this memory from my past,” I said. “I don’t understand. Was I Gwenddydd? Is that why I see and feel her being burnt at the stake? Have I been reincarnated?”

  Merlin shook his head. A laugh came from his chest, but it wasn’t funny.

  “It took one thousand years for Arthur to return to Camelot, Lady Natasha. It has also taken Gwenddydd one thousand years to return. The fact that she and Arthur both returned together is a source of great surprise, and joy, to me.”

  “I still don’t understand...”

  “He’s saying you are Gwenddydd, Titch. Not was – you are her.”

  “What?”

  “Is that your belief, Merlin?” asked Bedivere. “That the spirit of Gwenddydd sits within Natasha?”

  “And not quietly, I imagine,” replied Merlin, raising a grey wiry eyebrow at me.

  “Look, I’ve had a lot of voices in my head, but I can’t remember anyone called Gwenddydd in there,” I responded, backing away from the image, which was now flaming with a silent fire as the bound figure was burnt alive. Even without the volume it was sickening, because my imagination was more than capable of substituting silence for reality.

  Horrific, isn’t it? Of all the ways to die. I would not wish that on my worst enemy.

  Go away, I thought. I needed my own headspace. I didn’t have the capacity to share.

  Seventeen years I’ve been in here. I think I deserve a bit of time now, girl.

  And suddenly it was as if someone had pulled back the blinds around my thoughts, my inner voice.

  “Titch.”

  “Natasha.”

  Arthur and Bedivere both made a grab for me as I fell to the floor. From outside the hall, I could hear something large being battered against the doors. The heavy oak wobbled with each thump, but the doors remained firmly closed.

  This was the truth. My truth. My moment of revelation. The inner voice that had harassed me for years wasn’t mine at all. All this time I thought the snark and nastiness had just been my conscience, I thought it was normal – my normal. A voice I deserved to hear because of what I had done to Patrick.

  But all this time someone else had been inside my head. Talking to me, listening to every thought I had. A spirit, a ghost.

  “She talks to me,” I gasped. “She’s been talking to me ever since I can remember. She’s talking to me now.”

  I’ve been trying to toughen you up, girl. You can be quite the whinger, you know.

  “You’ve been horrible to me for seventeen years,” I cried.

  No. I have only spoken to you for nine years. I remained silent, learning your voice, for the first eight years. Then the Lady of the Lake took Patrick, and I knew my time was coming. So that was when I started to speak to you in your own tongue. You had to believe I was part of you. I made statements that you thought were questions and asked questions that you
believed to be statements. At the beginning of your quest, I told you that they had the wrong Arthur, because you needed to see this world with your own eyes, not mine. You needed to learn, understand and accept. So I existed in your thoughts, in your time. And I must agree with my brother, the words of your land are most fascinating.

  “Your brother?”

  Merlin clapped his gnarled hands together and made a sound that was like a child giggling.

  “A sister returned,” he cried. “And to think I feared this moment would be too difficult for Lady Natasha to bear, but yet again, she has proven me wrong. I have missed you, Gwenddydd.”

  Arthur and Bedivere were still on either side of me. My fingers had interlocked with theirs. I never wanted to let them go.

  Merlin stalked across the floor towards me. His crooked nose was inches from mine.

  “King Arthur, Sir Bedivere, and Natasha, Lady Knight of the Round Table, may I finally introduce you to the voice inside Lady Natasha’s head. For she is Gwenddydd. My sister.”

  Chapter Seven

  Gwenddydd

  “What is your sister doing inside my sister’s head, Merlin?” growled Arthur. “Get her out. NOW!”

  But I’m such good company.

  I was going to go mad. I was going to end up one of those old crones, like the woman back in the kitchen at Caerleon Castle. I was going to become a crazy lady with no teeth, who laughed at her own jokes, and rocked back and forth with no one but the voices in her head for company.

  “I can’t exist like this,” I cried. “It was bad enough when I thought it was just my voice, but knowing someone else is existing through me is horrible. It’s perverted. Why me?”

  I was waiting for Bedivere to make a run for it. Why on earth would he want to be with me anymore, when I was a living, breathing crackpot?

  Slurpy was right. I was a freak.

  “Why Natasha?” he asked. “Why did Gwenddydd choose my Natasha?”

  Merlin stared at me. “You have a choice. Allow me to see into your thoughts and I will answer for my sister, or she can speak through you.”

  Tears were prickling away. My nose was starting to ache with the pressure of trying not to cry. I didn’t want any of them in my head. Why couldn’t they leave me alone?

  There is no need to cry. At least you have a corporeal form. I’m not even vapour or mist. I am nothing but voice.

  The noise from outside the hall was increasing. Arthur looked anxiously at the double doors that were shaking and splintering with every heavy thud, as those outside tried desperately to get in.

  “Titch, can you hold on until we get you somewhere more private?” he asked. “If I don’t let them in, then we’re going to have a riot on our hands.”

  “Do I have a choice in anything anymore?”

  “I will not leave you,” said Bedivere, as Arthur went to the doors and opened them. At least twenty knights, several ragged-looking men, and Guinevere fell through the doorway.

  And nor will I – at least not yet.

  Merlin led me and Bedivere out of the Great Hall, and up six flights of worn, wet-looking stairs. Arthur was left to explain why the doors had sealed themselves. He said he would follow us, but for once I wanted him to stay behind. More witnesses to this madness was more than I could handle. I was being taken to one of the turrets at the top of the castle. The air was stifling hot. By the time we reached the circular bedroom, my injured leg was hurting so bad I thought I was going to puke with the pain.

  The sorcerer looked pensive. His staff, which usually glowed red or amber, was milky white with a hint of powder blue around the edges. I had never seen it that colour before, and it worried me. Blue was bad, very bad.

  “Do you all use the same kind of magic?” I asked. “Is it something that can be taught?”

  “You remain concerned about the return of Lady Morgana, do you not?” replied Merlin.

  “Before I left with Talan and Guinevere, I saw her. Her eyes had gone white, and she was trying to do something to one of the dead knights.”

  “Morgana was never skilled in the art of necromancy,” replied Merlin, with a contemptuous snarl that showed off his decaying teeth. “I would not let that trouble you.”

  Slurpy with an army of zombies – now that was a thought I wasn’t going to erase easily.

  “Natasha saw the child with the blue fire. Can Lady Samantha restore her gifts?” asked Bedivere. “For I am deeply troubled by the linking of the names: Lady Samantha and Morgana. I remember times before the enchanted sleep, times which too many here seem to have forgotten. Morgana was an ally of Mordred. To have her so close to the king now, to have borne his child, can only mean ill tidings.”

  Merlin ran his fingers through his grey beard, which had bits of dried food stuck to it. “The spirit of my sister, Gwenddydd, truly resides inside Lady Natasha, but they co-exist, and have done for eighteen winters. The spectre of Morgana is not just within Lady Samantha, it is her very essence reborn. Morgana travelled through the Vale of Avalon with Arthur after the Battle of Camlann. Their spirits waited for one thousand years and then came together as new. Their child now has the blue flame, and to be born with the gift is a unique happening. But remember this: the blue flame can also be a source for good. Only the Gorians and Sir Mordred have twisted it for their own evil intent. I see nothing in the heir’s future to show a life dedicated to malevolency.”

  “But can Sammy get the flame back?”

  “As you have been told before, she needs only to ally herself to someone who has the gift, and it will return,” replied Merlin.

  “So as long as we keep Arthur’s girlfriend away from Gorians and Nimue, and even you, then we’ll be alright?”

  “The king’s lover would not dare make an attempt to source my magic,” replied Merlin. “And the Lady of the Lake is cautious too, fearing what Morgana will do for love, and so she will keep her distance, for now. But there is still one, here in these very castle walls now, who has the means to restore Morgana...”

  “Sir Mordred is deep within the bowels of the castle,” interrupted Bedivere, understanding straight away what Merlin was saying. “There are more than ten guards of Camelot guarding the entrance.”

  “Camelot is not an impenetrable fortress, Sir Bedivere. Not for those with cunning and deception as their allies.”

  I couldn’t concentrate. Pressure was building in my nose and ears; I felt them about to pop like a balloon. My head was killing me, and I really wanted a bath, and sleep that actually involved a bed. I just wanted time to forget this, to escape just for a few hours.

  “Can you get Gwenddydd out of my head or not, Merlin?”

  “I cannot,” he replied, “nor would I. My sister has skills that surpass even mine.”

  “So I’m stuck with her?”

  “Until such time as she decides to pass over, then yes. You awakened her, Natasha, Lady Knight of the Round Table. By questioning her death and existence, you allowed her essence to claim its rightful identity.”

  “You have borne her presence until now, my love,” said Bedivere soothingly. “You can endure this.”

  He is quite the knight. I’ve always thought that. Pity he was the one who killed me.

  He was under Nimue’s spell, I thought back. He didn’t kill you, and neither did Arthur.

  So, now that you know the truth – the history between me and Nimue – will you help me? Help me find peace, Natasha, and you will have peace also. I give you my word.

  You will leave my head if I help you?

  I want to avenge not only my death, but my brother’s imprisonment.

  Why me?

  Fate, Natasha. History is not just a conduit to the past, it is our futures as well. Our histories are written before we have taken our first breath, but our destinies are controlled by our choices. Nimue was waiting, biding her time, for her chance to influence Arthur’s history – and yours. She claimed Patrick for her own, and unlocked a chain of events that ultimately led to you
and Arthur finding your way back to the land of Logres. What she did not expect to encounter was your determination, your strong will to protect those you love, and also Arthur’s love for you. Arthur chose you over her. A mortal over a sorceress. A future over the past.

  Bedivere and Merlin had become echoes. I was concentrating so hard on my conversation with Gwenddydd that I couldn’t see the bedroom anymore. I was floating in a white light.

  So what do we have to do? What do I have to do?

  We must crush the spirit of Nimue, Natasha. She must be sent to a place where she cannot be freed, and we must separate her from the link that binds her to Arthur.

  I’m not hurting my brother.

  No physical harm will come to your brother, of that you have my word.

  Bedivere and Merlin were gone, and I was alone. Why had they left me? How long had I been talking to Gwenddydd? It felt like minutes, but it could have been hours. I wanted to find Bedivere, but the large canopied bed was just begging to be slept in. My heart could wait, my body could not. I didn’t even bother undressing. I just flopped down onto the satin covers and closed my eyes. My last thought before I drifted away was how enjoyable silence actually was.

  Trumpets. Hundreds of them. Rising in one symphony that wasn’t any better than the roosters that kept me awake the last time I was in Logres. I groaned and lifted myself off the bed. My leg throbbed. I stripped down to my underwear, and untied the bandage that had been wrapped around the arrow wound. My skin had turned fluorescent yellow with green highlights for good measure. The bruising was the size of an orange. In the centre, the bloody skin was crudely stitched together with what looked like leather string. I dry-retched at the sight. The smell from the wound reminded me of bleach.

  Rising from the bed, I limped over to one of the slits in the tower wall. Outside there were hundreds of men, horses, and wagons. They were separated out into several colourful camps, which made the scene below look like a rectangular rainbow. Little white and yellow dots scurried around the ground. It took me a while to realise it was an invasion of geese and chickens.