by TJ Green
She crossed to the window. “Orlas and Arthur see Merlin’s prison; it is not of their own choosing, but nevertheless, they are happy here. For now. I have no idea how long that will last, as to be quite honest I have never brought anyone with me before. I wasn’t even sure it would work.”
Tom joined her at the window and watched them amble through the trees and around the tower.
She gazed up at him. “What sort of man are you?” Her voice had dropped to a seductive murmur. “I would like to know what prison you would be in.”
As he looked down into her green eyes, he could think of nothing except how pretty she was, and his gaze drifted across her face and down to her lips. “Why do you look so young, if you’re as old as Vivian?”
She laughed. “Because Vivian’s appearance is an affectation. She chooses to look that way. She says it is useful to remind herself of her great age.” She stepped closer to Tom, almost whispering, causing him to lean in closer to her. “I think she does it because age suggests great wisdom.” Smiling conspiratorially, she added, “I prefer to have people underestimate me.”
And they’d certainly done that, he thought. Annoyed with himself, he stepped back to clear his head. “Release the spell now, and then go. I won’t stop you. Arthur was your friend. And he’s a fair man, you know that.”
She stood for some moments thinking, and then shook her head. “I can’t. If I release him then I release Orlas, that damn man who bound my powers and locked me up for days.”
“But how long will the spell last?” Tom asked, desperately trying to find a way out of this.
“Forever. Probably.”
“People will search for us! And you. We weren’t the only ones looking for you and Merlin.”
“They’ll have a long search.”
“You know Vivian sent us here. Once she knows we’ve disappeared, she’ll come to find us. And she’ll still be looking for you! She was worried about you. Don’t you care about that?”
Nimue looked absently out of the window again. “She shouldn’t have bothered. She knows I can take care of myself.” Abruptly she turned. “What’s your name again?”
“Tom.”
“Well, Tom, it’s been very nice to meet you, but you’ve distracted me enough. I need to cast another spell to get out of here, which is, to be quite honest, long winded and difficult, and one I avoid doing if at all possible. I’m going to put you to sleep for a while so I can cast uninterrupted.”
“Wait! How do we break the spell? What if we wait until you’ve gone?” And then he realised what she’d said. “You’re going to do what to me?”
She stepped even closer to him, making him edge backwards until his back was against the wall. Pressing her fingers to his forehead, she smirked. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”
The last thing he remembered was a feeling of overwhelming tiredness and a rising wall of blackness as he slid to the floor, unconscious.
10 Without a Trace
Beansprout followed close behind Woodsmoke and Brenna, as Woodsmoke led the way to the cave entrance. The rain was a steady drizzle, the mist was getting thicker, and dusk was falling. She could see only a few feet in front of her.
Woodsmoke’s movements were uncanny. He slipped like a ghost through the landscape; she could hardly see him. Brenna was easier to see, but silent, and Beansprout moved quickly to keep up, trying to keep her footing in the wet. For a few seconds they disappeared and she was alone, with just the shush of rain to keep her company. And then she was aware of noise – disembodied voices, shouting. She stopped, uncertain of what to do. And then Brenna and Woodsmoke reappeared, emerging wraith-like from the mist.
Woodsmoke spoke first. “Something’s happened. I think I heard someone say that they’ve disappeared. There’s a least half a dozen Cervini by the cave entrance. Wait here.”
A cold feeling of dread crept through Beansprout. “Who’s disappeared?”
But he’d gone.
Beansprout and Brenna looked at each other anxiously. They stood for a few minutes, listening to the muffled voices. Despite her heavy cloak, rain trickled down Beansprout’s neck and caught on her eyelashes. She brushed the water away impatiently.
There was a break in the voices and she heard Woodsmoke speaking. Had they caught him? She stepped forward involuntarily, but Brenna caught her arm, gesturing at Beansprout to listen. The voices sounded calm, even reasonable. What was going on?
And then Woodsmoke appeared again. “Come on. It’s all right.”
He turned and led them a short distance around mounds of rock and ferns, until they emerged in front of the cave entrance where a group of Cervini stood talking. They fell silent as the three approached, and Woodsmoke said, “These are the friends I was telling you about. It’s just us, and our friends you saw in the cave. We want to help.”
Despite the wet and the chill, the Cervini wore only sleeveless jackets and trousers made of animal skins, and their feet were bare. There were both men and women; some had long hair, some short, and they all had curious markings on their skin.
A tall grizzled man with grey hair stepped forward. He nodded at Brenna and Beansprout and said, “Woodsmoke tells me you are friends of Arthur, the man I found in the caves.” He studied Brenna for a few seconds longer and then smiled in recognition. “You are Aerikeen. Fellow shapeshifters are always welcome.” Then his smile dropped. “I fear it’s too late. They’ve disappeared and the cave is empty. They vanished before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do.”
Beansprout’s feeling of dread grew stronger. Surely they couldn’t have just vanished? “Was Tom with him?”
“The young man? Yes, he’s gone too.”
“Can we see the cave?” Woodsmoke asked.
He shrugged. “If you want. Our shaman is there now. I’m Rek, the one who first recognised Nimue. I wish now I had never laid eyes on her.” He sighed as he turned. “Follow me and I’ll tell you what happened. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d swear someone had made it up.”
Rek led them along the winding passage, and at the cave entrance, he stopped. “This is where I was, watching it all. And there,” he said, pointing to the centre of the room where a dreadlocked man stood within a circle of burning torches, “was where they were standing with Nimue. She was supposed to be releasing the spell to bring Merlin back, but the torches burned blood red and they disappeared. Gone. Then the torches went out.”
Rek headed to the shaman’s side. “Nerian, these are Arthur’s friends, come to help.”
Nerian was examining something in his hands, but he looked up, his dark eyes bleak. “Your help is welcome, but if I’m honest, I’m not sure what we can do. I’ve been trying to work out what Nimue has done. These are the herbs she used - the remains of those herbs she left at the entrance.”
“May I?” asked Woodsmoke, holding out his hands.
Nerian handed them over. “I recognise wormwood, sage and vervain, but there is something else in there I’m not familiar with.”
Woodsmoke sniffed the bundle and wrinkled his nose. “It’s bitter.”
“Yes, I’ll work it out,” Nerian said.
“You didn’t know the spell, I presume?”
“No. If I’d realised what was happening, I’d have stopped her.” He looked around the cave. “There is nothing else here to help.”
“Could you repeat the spell, if we had the herbs?” Brenna asked.
He shook his head, uncertain. “I don’t think so. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. She was very careful to remain quiet.”
Brenna exchanged a worried glance with Woodsmoke. “Do you mind if we look around?”
“Go ahead.”
Brenna changed form and flew up and around the cave, while Beansprout joined Woodsmoke as he paced around, grim faced and irritable.
“What are we looking for?” she asked him. The cave was uniformly bare; the floor a mixture of rock and earth, and moisture trickled down the rock walls.
“But even if we’d been here, we couldn’t have stopped this. We’d have either disappeared with them, or watched them, like Rek did. At least we’re able to help now.”
Woodsmoke just grunted.
They continued their search, but the cave yielded nothing; whatever was here had been hidden very well. They returned to the Nerian and Rek who were deep in hushed conversation.
“This is hopeless,” Woodsmoke said to them. “We can’t find anything! Brenna?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, sorry.”
Panic had started its insidious spread through Beansprout. “Nerian, I know you can’t do Nimue’s spell, but can you break it?”
“Usually only the witch who cast it can break it,” he said. “Unless death intervenes. But I’ve had an idea. I’m going to summon Herne.”
“Who’s that?” asked Beansprout.
“The God of the wilds, the moors, the forests, the ancient rocks; his magic is earthy and powerful. It is rumoured that Merlin was like a child to him. I feel sure he will release him.”
Woodsmoke frowned. “Surely he would have released Merlin a lot sooner than now?”
“But we never knew what had really happened to Merlin before. And besides,” Nerian said, sounding slightly offended, “Gods do not usually intervene in our affairs.”
“And we summon him how?” asked Brenna, ever practical.
“Here, where the spell has been worked. But first I must return to the Great Hall, there are things I need to collect for the ritual. And we must tell the others what has happened. I’ll be back within a day.”
Woodsmoke nodded his agreement. “I’ll go and fetch the horses and we’ll sleep in the first cave tonight. At least we’ll be dry.”
As the others made their way out of the cave, Beansprout paused within the circle of burning torches. Whatever magic Nimue had used was impressive, and Beansprout had a thrill of excitement as she realised what she wanted to do with her new life in the Other.
She was going to learn magic.
11 Spells and Potions
When Tom woke up he had no idea how long he’d been unconscious for. The first things he became aware of were the cold, dusty floorboards pressed against his face, and the soreness of his right arm trapped beneath him. He rolled over onto his back, flexed his arm gently, and then sat up, wondering what had happened.
Nimue had gone, but other than that, the room looked the same. Had she really left them here? He struggled to his feet, shouting, “Nimue!” over and over again. But his calls were swallowed by the walls, and the silence quickly settled round him.
What was he going to do? If he did nothing he would be trapped here with the others, possibly forever, and he was in the unenviable position of being fully aware he was trapped in a spell. He’d go mad. There was no delirious enchantment to muffle his mind. He paused for a moment, weighing up his options. His unease doubled as he stood alone, feeling the weight of eons shifting around him. It was as if he was suffocating.
Suddenly it struck him – he knew what his talisman was. The silver bough, tucked in a pocket of his cloak. Fahey had said something about it protecting him. But from what? Madness? And then he had a moment of panic; had Nimue stolen it while he was unconscious? He patted his pocket and sighed with relief. It was still there. How come it didn’t protect him from specific spells? He shrugged. He had enough to worry about.
He turned to Merlin. Perhaps if he could rouse him, Merlin might be able get them out. But then he realised – if Merlin could do that, surely he would have escaped years ago.
The advantage of not being enchanted, like the others, was that he had his sanity, and a talisman. Tom straightened his shoulders with determination. He was going to get them out of there.
First things first, he couldn’t just leave Merlin lying on the floor. It was wrong. He ran downstairs and grabbed a pillow and blankets off the bed, putting the pillow under Merlin’s head and wrapping the blankets around him. It was probably pointless, but it made Tom feel better.
Now it was time to see how Arthur and Orlas were. Outside the tower the air was mild, with hardly a breath of wind. It felt like spring or autumn, as if it was the beginning or the end of something, but some trees were in full leaf, while others were shedding leaves – layers of their rich reds and russets were strewn across the ground, collecting in bundles against jumbles of rocks and in overgrown thickets. Daffodils nodded in the sunshine, and a tangle of roses was growing through the trees. Tom was sure all this wasn’t meant to happen at the same time. If this place had no seasons, did it also mean it had no day or night? He would soon find out. But that also filled him with panic. How would he know how long they had been there? The Other already had a misplaced sense of time; with no markers at all he could be here centuries and never know. What if he’d been here months already?
But it felt almost beyond time, with a watchfulness that could wait, and had waited, for millennia. He was tempted to see if there was a boundary, and was about to set off in a straight line, keeping the tower behind him, when he decided against it. There was a very real chance he could get lost, or even forget what he was doing in the first place. Which was? Oh yes. Getting out of here. He shook himself. Was he drugged? He had to act. Now. Before he fell asleep, like Merlin.
He could see Arthur the bear, absently wandering through the trees. He made a beeline for him, jumping over streams and scrambling over boulders, before coming to a halt a short distance away. Feeling foolish, he shouted, “Arthur, can you hear me? See me? Hello! Are you in there?” But the bear simply shook himself like a gigantic dog and ignored him. And Orlas, grazing in the distance, continued to tear up huge chunks of grass. Whatever Tom decided to do, he was going to be doing it alone.
He raced back to Merlin’s room. If Merlin had taught Nimue the spell, and if the tower was a representation of Merlin’s workshop, then the spell must be here somewhere, maybe in a spell book. And if he found it, he might find a way to reverse it.
He was worried that something in the room might have changed, but he found it just as he had left it. The fire still burned, and candles still spluttered in dark nooks. He doubted Merlin’s spell book would be on one of the shelves; surely it would be on a workbench if he used it frequently. He started looking on the bench furthest from the door. Papers were scattered across it haphazardly, and he rifled through them. What did a spell book look like? Old and leather-bound? He found letters, scrawled notes, books on animals, birds, and the properties of stones. But no spell book.
He moved on to the middle bench, working methodically from one end to the other, getting distracted by drawings of eyes, dissected hearts, and other grisly organs. And then, buried beneath a pile of papers and bags of herbs, he found it. A huge, black, leather-bound book of spells.
He cleared the space around it, and opened it carefully. It was very old, and worn with use. The front cover was marked and stained, and when he opened it he found the spine was broken, and the pages turned easily, some loose at the edges. The pages were well worn too, the edges grubby where they had been handled.
A quick glance was enough to show him there were hundreds of spells. Each started on a new page, and some were long, going on for pages, while others were only a few lines. There were notes and small drawings in the margins, and trapped within some pages were feathers, herbs or flowers, and what looked like fragments of animal skins. The writing was small and cramped, as if spiders had walked through ink and scrambled across the page.
Tom sighed. This could take a while. He pulled over a stool and settled in.
After what seemed like hours, during which he became distracted by several bizarre-sounding spells, Tom eventually reached the end of the book. There was no spell for imprisoning a person. That made sense – why would
Merlin want to write that down?
A wave of despair washed over him and he realised he was very tired. How could he break a spell he couldn’t even find? He rubbed his face and put his head in his hands. He had never felt so lonely. His eyes were closing with tiredness, and he rested his head on the spell book, his head spinning with questions.
Seconds later, he jerked upright. Nimue hadn’t recast this spell, she had just taken them back into it. That was a different spell. He needed to reverse Nimue’s spell, so that should be the spell he looked for. Now he groaned again. If he was to rescue Merlin, he would have to find the original spell and reverse that. But by reversing the spell and rescuing them, would he kill Merlin? Nimue had thought so.
His head hurt. Magic was complicated, and he had no idea what to do.
He dragged himself to his feet. He had to find the spell to imprison a person. It had to be here somewhere. Damn Nimue. And damn her green eyes.
12 Merlin’s Cave
Beansprout sat in a circle with Brenna, Woodsmoke and about a dozen Cervini, in what they had now named Merlin’s Cave.
Nerian had returned earlier that afternoon with small drums, herbs, and what looked like ceremonial clothing. He had arrived in stag form, with everything attached by a harness to his back. When he turned back to human form the harness hung from his shoulders and he was almost bowed beneath the weight of his pack. He had immediately summoned all of the Cervini, leaving only a few to guard the entrance as a precaution.
Beansprout felt oddly claustrophobic. When she’d stepped onto the moor that morning, the rain had stopped, but with the granite walls rearing up behind her, and the mist pressing in thickly from all sides, the world seemed to have become very small and ominous. And now that so many of them were crowded into the cave, it felt much smaller than it had done when she’d first entered it yesterday.