The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [34]
“Seafeathers,” he cursed. The girl-child. She had been trying to reach him again. Was it a day ago? An hour ago? His sense of time, never accurate to begin with, had entirely slipped away since the Quest had begun. No, he had no time to spare for students now. Not if he was to do any of the half-dozen impossible things his king asked of him. But that was no excuse for turning her away if she were in need.
Still. She had reached out, and then gone away. So either the distress had been unimportant, in which case he was not needed, or she had resolved the situation on her own, in which case he was not needed. Or if it was too late now, he was not needed.
There were priorities. And, as dear as the girl-child and her two friends might have become to Merlin the person, Merlin the enchanter had other things he had to attend to first.
“She’s a smart girl, Ailis is,” he said to the owl. “And the boys with her—they’ve done well, very well. Toss them into water, they swim. Toss them into the air, they fly. If they need me, they will reach out again.”
The owl swiveled its head and looked at him, but did not respond.
“And now for my other problem child,” Merlin muttered, turning to a mirror that was propped against a nearby wall.
“Show me my king,” he commanded it.
Arthur was not accustomed to riding out alone anymore. The boy he had been—Wart the orphan boy—had gone everywhere alone, or with just a hound to accompany him. But the High King of Britain went nowhere without a full retinue, a mini-court to watch his every move.
This evening, he had slipped out, using the secret passages of Camelot they all thought he didn’t know about, the small tunnels and hidden doors.
He rarely used the secret ways, preferring to keep them for times of great need like tonight.
A decent distance from the walls and the guards stationed therein, Arthur slid down off the nondescript mount he’d taken from the stables and let the beast chomp at the short grass.
“I know you’re there,” he said calmly.
She did him the courtesy of not dragging things out, respectfully not making a splashy entrance. Morgain merely stepped out of the air as though walking through a doorway.
“Good evening, Morgain. You look well.”
“You have something you wanted to say? An offer perhaps? A surrender?”
“Leave my knights alone, Morgain. Leave my people alone.”
“Your people?” She raised one eyebrow as though astonished. “Have you marked them, as you do your cattle?”
He sighed, his broad shoulders slumping. “Morgain, I don’t want to argue. I never want to argue with you. Why don’t you understand that what you ask is impossible? The times you remember are gone, long gone. This is the new way, the way of the future. You need to let go of the past.”
She hissed at him, like an angry cat.
“You are my sister; my blood.”
“Only half. And you turned from it, Arthur. You turned from the old ways of our mother, and took up the Imperial banner when it landed in the mud where the soldiers of Rome dropped it as they fled this land.”
His hand went instinctively to the brooch holding his cloak at one shoulder; an eagle made of silver, its wings outstretched to swoop and strike. “I took what was good of their ways, and what was good of ours, and made something new; something strong. I honor laws made by man. I don’t rule by blood and incantation. Camelot is governed by laws everyone can see, can feel, and can appeal to for justice.”
His gaze was as impassioned as hers.
She sighed and said, “You are my brother, Arthur. I remember the day you were born. I held you in my arms, wiped your first tears…before Merlin took you away.” She paused and her normally glorious eyes were filled with an undeniable sadness. “But we have drawn lines and chosen sides. We have nothing more to say to each other.”
With that, she turned and disappeared back through the air, leaving Arthur standing there feeling alone.
Back in Camelot, Merlin sighed as he watched his king remount his horse and ride slowly back