Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [12]
He might look like the familiar old Newt, but he didn’t sound like him. Gerard had never heard the stable boy quite so agitated, even during the worst moments of their mad ride to break the sleep-spell, the month before.
Perhaps Newt’s nervousness was because Merlin had used magic on him. The stable boy, while not denying magic’s usefulness, had always been uncomfortable around it. Gerard had wondered about that, especially when Ailis started to show signs of mastering it.
“Merlin, what about Ailis? You have to get her back!”
“What?” Newt stopped babbling and stared first at Gerard, then Merlin, then back at Gerard. “Ailis? Who took Ailis? When? How? Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?”
“Morgain, just now, we don’t know yet, and we are,” Merlin answered. He snapped his fingers and paused from his search of the desk. A chair slid along the floor behind him, stopping just shy of hitting the enchanter in the back of the knees, and Merlin sat down with the perfect confidence of someone who knew that the chair would indeed be in position for him. “Gerard. Continue your story.”
The squire took a deep breath, settling his mind as best he could, focusing on nothing but the exact events in question. Newt ran one hand through his hair, raking it back impatiently, and let his gaze settle on Gerard’s face as though afraid he might miss even one syllable of the story.
“I told you, I saw a glow in the hallway. In the servants’ ways, not the main hall.”
Merlin nodded. Of course someone like him would know of all hidden ways in the castle.
“The light…it was green, like…well, not like anything I can tell you.” He had no idea how to describe that color or the sensations that the glow sent through him. But Merlin was expecting it. Ailis was relying on him. “And…there was this sense of terrible wrongness. So I went forward and I saw her.”
“Morgain?” Merlin asked, leaning forward.
“No, Ailis. She was facing me, and scared, and the glow was all around her like…like a bug caught in tree sap. It was only after that I saw Morgain standing behind her.”
“And then?” Merlin prompted.
“And then it got so bright I had to close my eyes. It hurt. And when I opened them again, they were…gone.” Gerard felt horrible having to admit it, even worse than he’d felt at the time. Then, he’d been so startled and so angry. Now, with time to think…he was scared. He kept wondering what he could have done, what he should have done. What a knight—better trained, wiser, smarter, braver—might have done. He was supposed to protect the innocent, not stand by while they were taken out from under his very nose. He had failed. He had hesitated like a page waiting for instructions.
That memory made his indignation at the seneschal’s attitude rise again. “Godrain wants us to do nothing, to let Morgain think she’s not been detected.”
“No doubt Godrain is an officious fool, but in this case his thinking is sound.” Merlin tapped his chin thoughtfully while he spoke. “Morgain overconfident would be an easier target than Morgain feeling hunted. She has already been taken down once in recent weeks; her pride must have driven her to make another foray.”
“You’re saying we should just leave Ailis with her? In the hands of that…woman?” Gerard was outraged. Who knew what was happening to her as they sat here and argued.
“I am saying no such thing. Sit down, both of you.”
Gerard hadn’t even noticed that both he and Newt had gotten to their feet.
“But—”
“Sit.”
They sat.
“I know you’re worried. So am I. Ailis struck hard at Morgain, last they met, and the sorceress is not the sort to forgive that. I said that Morgain overconfident is a good thing for us. And it is. Because once again, boys, there’s hard truth coming. I gave Nimue’s little icehouse the slip because I knew I was needed here.”
Gerard frowned, wondering if it was so simple to