The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [30]
“So where do we start looking?” Newt asked. “Anyone have a brilliant plan? Preferably one that doesn’t involve magic, if it’s all the same to you two.”
Gerard glared, annoyed by the stable boy’s continued lack of respect and proper awe for Merlin, if not magic in general, and by the way Ailis’s face fell at Newt’s words, though she never said anything out loud. Newt was, after all, the one who had understood the riddle and gotten them here. Credit had to be given.
“Up there,” Gerard said, pointing to the slight hill at the far end of the sandy ledge they were on.
“Why there?” Newt asked.
“Because there’s nothing here,” Gerard said as patiently as he could. “So we should go higher, in order to see what else is on this island.”
Newt shrugged, placid and sturdy as a carthorse. “All right.”
They led the horses, stumbling and cursing a little when the wet shoes slipped on the grassy hill. There was little light now that the moon was beginning to slide down in the sky, and the air was cool, so they were soon shivering as well.
“Almost there,” Newt said, dropping back to give Ailis a hand when she lost her balance and almost fell. She resisted taking his offered hand at first, but common sense got the better of her pride. His surprisingly warm fingers closed over hers and tugged her up the last bit of the rise to where Gerard was already standing, looking out over the view.
“What is that?” Newt asked. “That” referred to the pulsing gold arc of light off to the left, rising over the trees.
“Magic.” Ailis kept her tone even, despite the urge to be sarcastic. The warm glow that the sight created inside her was clearly not shared by her companions. Not everyone reacted the way she did to the presence of magic. Ailis had trouble remembering that, despite Newt’s constant muttered comments.
“Which means that’s where Merlin is.” Gerard, seemingly oblivious to the sight in front of him and to the tension building between Newt and Ailis, tugged on his horse’s reins and led it slowly down the other side of the hill.
“More magic. I suppose it was to be expected,” Newt said unhappily, right on cue. When Ailis looked sharply at him, he shrugged. “There isn’t any magic in the stables. Just honest horses. I miss that.” He followed Gerard down the incline, still muttering under his breath.
Ailis stood on the ridge a while longer, watching in awe. The hill sloped down into a grassy plain, without a tree in sight. In the middle of that plain was a small house; a small house with clear walls, a top and bottom, that pulsed with pale blue and gold light.
Magic indeed.
She smiled, her entire face reflecting her elation. King ensorcelled, horse and mule and belongings stolen, traveling while soaked to the skin with Gerard still angry with her—it still made her feel as though the world was a wonderful place indeed.
FIVE
The source of the light was a structure unlike any the three had ever seen before. Gerard and Newt slowed, leading their horses at a snail’s pace. Ailis strode on ahead of them, her braid thumping against her back as she increased her pace.
The glow was, in fact, coming from the house they had seen from the ridge. It was, in many ways, an unexceptional little cottage—four outer walls surrounded four different rooms of equal size. There was minimal furniture inside: chairs, a bed, a table. One room had a fireplace, with a heavy black pot over it, set into one wall. But the hearth was cold and the pot was empty.
Ailis could tell all of this because the walls were clear. As was the furniture. It was like looking into a particularly still pond of clear water and seeing fish dart right next to your hand even though they were out of reach. Only in this case the dark form moving behind the walls wasn’t a fish.
“Ah. There you are.”
Whatever they had