The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [32]
The enchanter’s usual wry sense of humor, his sly wordplay, was missing. He wasn’t smiling here. He wasn’t dancing one step beyond the understanding of mere mortals. He looked worried. And distracted.
“Master Merlin?”
He turned to look at her, and then he did muster a smile. “The little servant-maid. Ailis, yes?”
“Yes.” He remembered her name. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? With enchanters one could never tell.
“Good. You’re here. I couldn’t remember if you would be or not. Smart little girl. Too smart, but you’re going to need that.”
Ailis opened her mouth to follow up on that, her need to know if he was the one speaking to her finally overpowering all her other fears, but Merlin had moved on.
“And so you’d be the horse-boy.” That he said to Newt, who inclined his head guardedly, not sure if he should admit to anything where Merlin was concerned.
“Good. All three here as they need to be.” His eyes focused on them again, meeting their gazes, each in turn. “Listen carefully and look carefully, and remember, because I can only share this with you once.
“Listen, children.” His voice became hypnotic, his eyes darker, his face more stern; the frustrated, mortal man disappearing once more under the deep water of the enchanter Merlin. “Remember. At the cost of your souls, remember.”
His long, slender fingers moved, conjuring flame out of air, and the flame etched letters in the ice wall between them:
INTO THE MOMENT
SLIDES THE MOMENT
THE MOMENT SHATTERED
ONE INTO THREE
RECLAIMED BY THREE WHO ARE ONE
AND ONE WHO IS NONE
THREE TO BE CLAIMED
BEFORE THE MOMENT TURNS AT HOME
“Do you have it, children?”
“I think so,” Gerard said, while the other two squinted at the letters, frantically trying to memorize the words as the flame started to flicker and fade. It sounded like the riddles the villagers spoke in. Maybe Newt was right about why they spoke that way. If Merlin spent a lot of time around them, the way the map suggested…
“Don’t think! Know! You must remember. You must know. You are the sole and only hope our kingdom has.”
“Us?”
Merlin smiled crookedly at him, the majesty of his magical self dispersing and leaving only a man trapped in a house of ice. “Nobody else has shown up; looks like it will have to be you, fates save us all.
“But beware.” He stared at each of them in turn and, mortal or not, his dark eyes pierced them into their hearts. “There is very little time. Arthur needs you, and he needs you to return within seven days.”
“Seven—” Gerard started, then shut his jaw and thought. “Seven days from when it happened, or seven days from now?”
“Seven from the midnight of their sleeping. Seven is a magical number. Would have been easier if it had been fourteen or twenty-one, but that’s magic for you, never considerate…” Merlin’s voice trailed off, his gaze went elsewhere, and then he came back to them with a sharp snap.
“Repeat it, children. Repeat it together.”
It was awkward, each of them remembering the words in a different rhythm, but by the third line they were speaking in unison:
“Into the moment
slides the moment
the moment shattered
one into three
reclaimed by three who are one
and one who is none
three to be claimed
before the moment turns at home.”
Merlin nodded and the light came back into his eyes a little. “Good. Good. You have the map?”
The three looked at each other, almost but not quite beyond wonder that he would know about that as well. Gerard retrieved the map, unrolled it, and held it up so that Merlin could see it.
“Good lad.” He put his hand to the wall, and Gerard, acting on some unspoken command, placed the map against his side of the wall as well, so that all three—palm, ice, and map—were touching. There was a shimmer of sparks, almost too brief to see, and then Merlin took his hand away. “Oh, Arthur, you idiot, did you really think