Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [34]
To that small voice inside her own head, Ailis was unable to respond. And when she looked up again, Morgain was gone.
The next afternoon, Morgain again appeared for a brief time, interrupting a nap filled with disturbingly vivid dreams. This time the enchantress took Ailis to the far tower, where they stood by a huge open window and watched seabirds circle and dive into the ocean.
“I’ve never seen birds so large.”
“There are none larger on this isle, and indeed, few larger anywhere,” Morgain said. “They are warriors, in their own right.”
“I’ve dreamt…” Ailis stopped, suddenly shy, then plowed forward again. “I’ve dreamt of flying like that.”
“Have you now?” Morgain asked, her head cocked in curiosity. Then the sorceress raised her left hand, and made a movement with four of her five fingers. A strange noise rose from her slender throat as she did so. One of the birds, not quite as massive as the others, broke away from his circling and came closer—close enough that a sleek white feather fell from its wing, spiraling down in a lazy eddy, directly into Morgain’s upraised fingers.
Almost as long as Ailis’s hand, the feather gleamed with sea spray and some strange iridescent sparkle that seemed to come from within the quill itself.
“A talisman of your own,” Morgain said, a sly reference to the last time they had met.
Ailis tucked the feather into the knot of her braid, where she could feel it occasionally brushing against her back. Then they descended the tower into a huge dining hall, where the afternoon meal was laid out: the most incredible food Ailis had ever tasted, beginning with a soup made from fresh berries, followed by a massive baked fish, crisp tubers, crusted bread that steamed when she broke it open to discover butter already melted inside, and a strange vegetable that looked too spiny to be edible but tasted wonderful.
Faintly visible ghostly servants moved platters around and refilled empty glasses, then retreated against the wall to wait until they were needed again. Ailis wondered if they were real people, ghosts, or, perhaps, purely magical constructs. Did they serve willingly? Did magical creatures care who they served? Was this to be her fate, someday? And could she possibly convince any of them to help her?
Raising a hand, she indicated to one that she would like more wine. Watching carefully, Ailis saw a figure look to Morgain first for permission. So much for that. If it needed approval to even give more refreshment, helping Ailis to leave without Morgain’s knowledge was out of the question.
“Do you like the sturgeon?”
“It’s quite good.”
And it was, along with everything else at the meal. They sat at a long table, covered with a cloth of shimmering white linen and set with plates of polished metal that glowed in the candlelight, goblets of crystal filled with dark ruby wine, and horn-handled eating instruments that might be useful as weapons, were she to slip them into her pocket and take them away from the table.
And now, as the translucent servants cleared away the meal’s dishes, another platter floated in, this one was covered in bite-sized pastries, cunningly made in the shapes of miniature animals. Ailis, after looking to Morgain for permission and receiving an encouraging nod, chose a white stag. Biting into it revealed a fruited filling that filled Ailis’s mouth with a tart, tangy sensation.
“Pears,” Morgain said, in response to Ailis’s happy sigh. “There’s nothing quite like a pear.”
Awash in a strange contentment that seemed to come from nowhere, Ailis was willing to take her word for it. The thought that this was magic, all magic, and she might well be under an enchantment, flitted through the girl’s mind. But since she couldn’t do anything about it if it were so, Ailis let the notion pass, and chose another pastry: a unicorn with an impossibly tiny gilded horn.
The unicorn was halfway to her mouth when the doors behind her crashed open. Ailis froze, an instinctive response. Morgain’s face seemed to tell her to stay still