In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy)

by Sarah Zettel

  “Yes, mistress.” It bobbed its head frantically. “Of course, mistress.”

  Cautiously, Risa lifted the lid away. The demon crawled shivering out of the kettle and perched on the edge of the fountain. Its brother fluttered down beside it, and plucked at its skin as if to give comfort.

  Risa looked sternly down at the creatures. “Euberacon said he doesn’t keep his life where such as I can find it. Tell me where he does keep it.”

  The demon cringed. “No, mistress. Do not make me say!”

  There is no time for this! “Where does Euberacon keep his life!”

  Then, the demon smiled, and a warning sounded in the back of Risa’s mind. “He keeps it in the place that may be seen with both eyes, waking and sleeping, left and right. He keeps it in foul and hides it with fair.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ha!” The demon leapt from the fountain’s edge, clapping its wings “Mistress said a question! Mistress said a question! Mistress may not ask another! I am free! Free!” It grabbed its brother’s arms and they rolled in tumbled in midair, screaming out their glee at her foolishness.

  “It should not have insulted you so, my brother!”

  “Indeed it should not! Now we must tell the master!”

  “Yes! Yes, the master! It thinks distance matters to such as he! Oh, he will shout when he hears what it did to us!”

  Cackling in anticipation, they vanished into the night sky, leaving Risa gaping up at them.

  She clenched her fists until her nails cut into her skin. She had known Euberacon could come and go in the blink of an eye. How could she have not stopped to think any watchmen he set would be able to do the same?

  Stop it. Think, Risa. It gave you an answer. There must be meaning in it. There must.

  What was there in both eyes? What did she see waking and sleeping? Risa stared about her, turning in place. The wind blew hard and cold, the fountain splashed. She saw white marble, but she knew grey stone. She saw beautiful tiles and she felt the mud. She saw the fountain clear and beautiful, and she felt its broken edge.

  The fountain!

  Could it be? So close?

  Close enough to be well-guarded. Hidden by illusion from those who could not see. Hidden by filth and ruin from those who could.

  Risa shut her eyes and plunged both hands into the fountain. Her hands felt the muck built up after years of neglect. She groped frantically, blindly, up to her elbows in the silt of decaying leaves and mud and ice-cold water. Her fingertips brushed something smooth and she seized it, lifting it high.

  To her eyes, it was as if it had just appeared in her hands. It was a small, cylindrical casket. It was heavy enough to make her think it was gold she held. It was about the width of a broom handle and the length of her hand. It was made in two halves that fitted snuggly together to keep safe whatever lay within.

  Risa pulled and the two halves came open to reveal a roll of creamy parchment.

  As she did, she heard a scream of outrage so strong and so terrible it might have come from hell itself. Her heart froze in her chest, even as she tossed aside the case and unfurled the parchment. She had barely time to take in the runes and sigils that crowded the whole of its surface before the gates flew open and Euberacon still astride his miraculous horse galloped through, his robes flying around him as if he might take wing. Risa was barely able to scramble out of the way. He pulled the horse up short and wheeled it around. His face was fury incarnate and her pain and her weariness made her shrink back, but at the same time she held the parchment up in both hands.

  And Euberacon froze where he was. Moving no more than once muscle at a time, he dismounted the horse.

  “Give that to me,” he croaked.

  Risa straightened. She smiled as far as her crooked mouth permitted. “Why?”

  “Because I command it!” he shouted. He should have flushed with anger, but instead his skin had gone white as snow.

  “I found it in the mud,” said Risa. “It cannot be that important. I thought to tear it in two. It will do admirably to feed the kitchen fires.”

  “Whore!” screamed Euberacon. He made to run forward, but Risa only held the parchment higher, and he reeled back, as if she had dealt him a physical blow.

  “So,” said the sorcerer, his voice suddenly filled with honey. “So. I underestimated you. I thought you were a barbarian, fit only for slavery. I see now I was wrong.”

  He took a step forward. Risa clutched the parchment tighter. He froze.

  “It was my ignorance that did this,” he said softly. “I did not expect to find such a pearl here among the swine. You know only some of what you can do with your heart and will. I can teach you the rest. You can be queen of this isle, or empress in Constantinople, if you so desire. All you need do is pledge yourself to me, and I will show you the whole world.”

  “What good will the world do me when all the world sees a monster?” asked Risa.

  “I have told you, what has been done can easily be undone. I can even teach you to change your own appearance as you need or desire. You can be anything you wish.”

  “Do you think you are tempting me?” cried Risa. “I have seen how you treat those who serve you. I know who you ally yourself with!”

  “You know only what you have seen, and I tell you there is a whole world that yet remains hidden to you. It is just in sight, if you choose to open those eyes that are inside you.”

  Risa swayed. Would it be worth it? With magic, no one could harm her again, no one could frighten her, sell her, starve her, imprison her again. She would have her own power and would be dependent on no one, not kin nor stranger.

  “No.” She shook her head, trying to clear such thoughts from her mind.

  Euberacon straightened. He was a storm cloud towering over her. He was death itself. “Listen to me, woman. Do this thing and you will remain as you are now. This will be my final word and it shall not be undone until the Doomsday come. You will be forever a monster. Risa of the Morelands will be gone, and there will only be Ragnelle the Loathly Lady.”

  A vision assailed her. She saw the hideous, tusked monster she had become walking toward the great church of Camelot. All the court spread out on either side in silence. Men stood grim and stoic. Women turned their faces away. A child screamed. Gawain stood on the church steps beside the pale and tremulous bishop, and in his eyes there was no more love, only pity.

  Risa shook her head. Tears stung her eyes. The parchment wrinkled in her fingers. No. Not that. Anything but to be pitied, to be feared and loathed. No.

  “Give me the parchment, and you will have your beauty and your knight, all shall be for you as any woman could want.”

  Want. Need. Choice. The riddle from the beginning of all this nightmare came winging back to her.

  “As any woman wants?” She lifted her head. “Answer me this. What is it every woman wants?”

  The sorcerer looked at her blankly. “The same as every man. Sovereignty.”

  “Wrong, my lord.” And with a single motion, Risa tore the parchment in two.

  Euberacon threw back his head and howled in pain. A wind from nowhere suddenly blew hard, catching up his robes to tangle his limbs. He threw up his hands, to ward off what, even Risa could not see. Thunder sounded, overhead and from the ground. All the world pitched and shuddered, and Risa fell backwards. The scraps of parchment flew from her hands, caught up by the wind. Euberacon screamed again and clawed for them. A second thunderclap sounded and beneath the sorcerer’s feet the beautiful tiles he had made with his magic split open. The rage and pain turned to terror, and Euberacon fell into the earth. Risa threw her hands over her head, but could not block out the sound of the sorcerer’s fading scream.

  Silence returned but slowly. Risa lifted her head. The fortress was gone, and there was only the ruin. Where Euberacon had stood there was a jagged, black crevice with no bottom she could see. The parchment scraps had landed on the near side of it and lay in the mud. Unwilling to trus
t her legs to hold her, she crawled forward and picked them up. They seemed to tingle slightly in her hands.

  If I took these back to Merlin, she thought. If I could learn to read these things, then perhaps I could learn his secrets. I could win back my true shape …

  And she thought of the demons, she thought of the bargains that were surely written there in blood.

  Risa tossed both halves into the crevice. “Freedom,” she whispered as they fluttered down into the darkness. “The answer is freedom.”

  The ground rumbled and she heard a loud sigh, and the crevice snapped shut so tightly, it was as if it had never been.

  She stared at the place for a long time.

  “Mistress?” said a tremulous voice behind her.

  Nessa. “Yes?”

  “Mistress, is it over? Are we … are we …”

  Risa lifted her head. She stood in the middle of the ruinous fortress. Nessa, Drew and the stableboy all huddled beside the fountain. Drew had his arms protectively about the other two. All around them stretched the tangle of the wildwood. A bird complained at being woken. Another answered. A third called in defiance of the first two and soon the air was filled with chatter, complaint and merry song.

  “Yes,” said Risa. “Yes. It is over. It is morning and we are all of us free.”

  “What do we do now?”

  What do we do now? Risa stared at the broken walls.

  Searching the countryside for his lost lamb. But what countryside? Where?

  She pulled together her torn thoughts. “If there is any food, bring that. If there is a cloak, bring that too. I fear we must walk out of this place.”

  The forest of the Green Knight offered Gawain neither sun nor shadow to guide himself by. All was twilight and the air was heavy with approaching rain. Still, he did not look behind him. He sighted on the trees ahead to keep himself moving in a straight line. He looked neither left nor right, partly because he had been so instructed.

  Partly because in his heart, he was not sure what he would see if he did.

  A pair of shadows moved and shifted directly ahead. Gawain walked toward them, and as he drew near he saw they were horses; Pol and Gringolet, saddled and harnessed, and looking a little affronted, as if they wanted to say “what took you so long?”

  He found he was not at all surprised. He tied his charger to his riding horse and mounted. The forest was old enough that the way between the trees was clear of underbrush and tangling limbs. It was almost as easy as riding on the high way.

  A little while later, they came to the pile of his gear, and Gawain reclaimed sword and shield, mail coat and spear.

  And Gawain rode on.

  While Nessa and the stableboy, Donat, scrounged for food in a kitchen that proved to be little more than an oven and an open yard, Drew helped Risa search the ruins that had been Euberacon’s fortress. There was one whole room, down in the cellars where Risa’s cell had been. In the illusion, this had been his tower workroom. The tools of his trade remained, as did the animals in their cages. All these they threw open, letting the creatures fly or scurry to their separate lives. They found a chest of robes and cloaks. Although her skin crawled at the thought of touching something that once belonged to him, it would be far worse to be seen on the road as she was.

  He had not lied. The whole of her monstrous form remained, and though she railed inside it, her mind and heart pounding against it as her fists had once pounded at her cell door, it did not change.

  Drew helped her into the cloak. She forgave him for looking relieved as she drew the hood to hide her face.

  All at once, she heard the thudding of horse’s hooves. Her heart seized up in terror, as if she had forgotten any other way to respond to some unexpected thing.

  “Wait here,” said Drew, hurrying from the room.

  But she could not wait, not here, not alone. Instead she crept to the shadows of the doorway where she might see, but not be seen.

  A rider on a black palfrey came through the gate. He had a white charger tied to the riding horse, and a silver shield hung from the saddlebow. But Risa needed no such token to know at once who she saw.

  Gawain. Risa pressed both her fists into her mouth to stop herself from screaming out his name. What little strength she had fell away and she staggered, catching herself against the wall.

  Nessa had preceded Drew into the yard. Gawain looked down at her, seeming a little dazed, as if he had been too long in the sun. “Who is lord here?”

  “There is no lord here, not anymore. There is a …” Nessa’s voice faltered. “There is a lady.”

  “I would speak with this lady.”

  “Sir,” Drew stepped up, bowing his head humbly. “We’re nothing here and nobody. If its help or house you’re looking for …”

  She could remain in hiding. She could creep away. She could find her cure first. There must be a way. There were cunning-men in the far west. Merlin had come from there.

  He did not have to see her as this monster.

  “I would see the lady of this place,” said Gawain.

  For all she had seen, for all she had done, nothing felt more difficult. Risa walked out into the sunlight, face and figure obscured by the black cloak, she faced Gawain.

  Then, she drew back the hood.

  The black horse whickered and danced in consternation at the sight and stench of such a creature. Gawain stilled it with his expert skills. His face remained calm.

  “Are you the lady of this place?” he inquired with quiet courtesy.

  “Yes.” It’s me, Gawain! cried her heart. It’s Risa! But her tongue would not move.

  He looked at her little, piggish eyes. He looked long and he looked hard and he did not flinch, nor did any pity or fear cross his face.

  And then he spoke.

  “The nymph is all to laurel gone;

  The smoothness of her skin remains alone.

  Yet Pheobus loves her still.”

  He threw his arms around her, catching her up and holding her to him so tightly she thought they might meld together and never again be parted.

  After a little while he did loosen his embrace. Sadly, she stepped away and stripped off the cloak. Look again, Gawain. See this crooked body, see this monster’s face. See what price I’ve paid for fighting my doom.

  “This is what I am Gawain. This is what he said I must remain.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He kissed her then, with all the love he had given her so freely when she was beautiful, and though the tusks and the jagged teeth cut at him, still he did not hesitate. Risa threw her arms around his shoulders, answering kiss for kiss, heart to heart.

  And the pain was gone, and she felt each joint, each bone straighten into their proper places, and the scales drew themselves back and her skin grew whole again, and her hair blossomed forth, cascading down her back, and her face, the face she had wept and mourned and screamed over, grew round and fresh again, and her mouth resumed its rightful shape.

  She pulled back and regarded Gawain, weary, unshaven, and alight with happiness with her own eyes. He did not appear at all surprised

  “Come, my lady,” was all he said, taking her arm in his and pulling her close. “Let me take you home.”

  Epilogue

  It was midday when the white-haired woman came to the center of the forest, but the heavy shadows of the trees made all as dim as twilight. She bowed to the mound and looked longingly at the fresh stream that chattered down its side to pool at its feet. There was great power to be had in those waters, if one could find a way to harvest them. Perhaps one day …

  But today she had other business. Amid this ancient forest of oaks and maples, ash and alder, there stood a single thorn-apple tree. It looked lost and small, trying to spread its blossoming branches to catch what meager sunlight the other trees permitted to fall so far. It did not look like it would live for long and another witness might have wondered how such a tree came to be in such a place. A lone raven sat in it
s branches, croaking angrily at the intruder.

  But Morgaine just laid her hand against the thorn-apple’s bark.

  “I truly am sorry, Kerra. If there had been another way, I would have done it. But you see, you liked your power too much. You tasted what it was to rule over men, and would no more have been content to wait at my side until stars and men were ready. So when I needed a sacrifice, I’m afraid you had to be the one.” She snapped off three blossoming twigs. “These yet will serve, as you ever have.” She held them up as if the tree could see. “You did well,” she added as she stepped back. “Without your interference with the girl, the Easterner might have had his way and brought Camelot to its knees. It is not time, though, my dear. Not yet.” She turned her face toward the west. “Soon though, Arthur, my love. Soon.”

  And she was gone, and there was only the whispering of the trees to the wind and a soft, distant sound that might have been a woman’s tears.

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  Copyright © 2004 by Sarah Zettel

  Cover images istockphoto.com/©Mike Kiev, ©Duncan Walker

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  Published in association with Athans & Associates Creative Consulting

  Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.