Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [43]
“Yes,” Morgain said, leaning back and gazing at her student with pride. “Yes, you did.”
In her fascination with the spell’s result, Ailis completely missed the dangerous glint of satisfaction in Morgain’s eyes.
“The lodestone says we take the left-hand road.” Gerard looked up from the stone hanging from its leather cord over the unfolded parchment. He was getting quite good at reading Merlin’s maps. Once you got past the fear of touching a sigil and setting off some unpredictable protective spell, they were remarkably useful things.
“There is nothing there but a small village,” Sir Caedor said, dismissing the map and the lodestone. “I do not think a dangerous sorceress would be hiding among the fisherfolk cottages. If she were, even a young girl like your maiden would be able to escape, no? To the right, boys. Follow the road to the right,” and he pointed to the fork in the road, to where a small but elaborate watchtower rose. “That is where we must look.”
“Does he never tire of being wrong?” Newt asked quietly. He reached up to touch the scab on his face, feeling the warm glow that spread from his hand into his chest when he did so. It had the feel of King Arthur to it, a wry awareness of bigotry and frailty in even the best of men, rather than Merlin’s more brusque, abrasive affection. How he knew that, Newt didn’t know. But that warmth was all that kept his calm intact, worn to shreds by the endless hard riding and continued uncertainty. Sir Caedor’s negative opinion about Ailis’s fate was not helping matters, either. The boys were trying so hard to stay optimistic, but every day that passed, and every doom-saying comment by the knight…
No. She had to be safe. She had to be. Otherwise there was no point to any of it. He didn’t care about Morgain, or her plans, or Merlin’s power plays. Newt just wanted Ailis to be safe.
“Apparently not,” Gerard said in response to Newt’s question. The squire folded the map into well-creased quarters and handed it back to his friend. Then he replaced the lodestone around his own neck, where it slipped comfortably under the open collar of his shirt.
“Sir Caedor, the lodestone tells us to take the left-hand path. And so we shall.”
The knight muttered under his breath, just as he had every other time Gerard had gainsaid him, but did not protest further.
Finally, Caedor said, “It may be that the village is more important than it looks.”
And that, both boys knew, was as much as they would get from Sir Caedor. It was enough.
“Come on,” Newt said, swinging back into the saddle and gathering up the reins. Loyal shifted, as impatient as his rider to be done with this traveling. “Every hour we waste is an hour Ailis is waiting.”
Left unsaid was the awareness that they might already be too late.
FOURTEEN
“Three touches of air to a dose of water, and…” Ailis’s memory failed her for a moment. Then the voice she had come to depend upon rose up from inside her and supplied the answer. “Grave dust to fill the air,” she finished triumphantly as she meandered through a new hallway.
“So.”
A voice came from out of the shadows, before the speaker came into view, scaring all thoughts of spell-work out of her mind completely. Ailis had heard the ladies-in-waiting speak of their blood running cold, but she had dismissed it as foolishness; the overreaction of women who didn’t understand fear or fright.
She would have whispered an apology for underestimating them, if she could have found enough moisture in her mouth to form the words.
“So, you are the girl who has interested our hostess, distracted her from that which she must be doing. This costs me time, that I must be here, and not elsewhere.”
The speaker stood directly in front of her, but Ailis could not have said what she looked like, or if, in fact, she was indeed female. The voice was a strange whisper, as genderless as the wind, and the body…
Ailis could not have focused her gaze on the figure even if she had wanted to. And she didn’t. The warning voice in her head was now a scream. Don