The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [43]
Out of the thunder there came a higher-pitched noise: the scream of a bird of prey, swooping down on an unsuspecting hare. From the sky came a great, shadowy form, plummeting to land on the grass next to Ailis.
A fleeting shimmer, and the bird’s wings extended and the torso grew, and grew, the body turning and twisting on itself as the astral bird became the figure of a man.
Merlin had answered.
“By all the old oak, girl, I’m busy!” He glared at Ailis, clearly expecting her to apologize. She glared right back.
“Tell…Sir Matthias”—the honorific came with difficulty from her, she was so angry—“that we need to go. Morgain asked us for help, Merlin! How can we refuse?”
Merlin blinked, his craggy face not losing an inch of its irritation, but refocusing with visible effort on the here and now. In her frustration, she had clearly forgotten that he had no idea what she was talking about. “Right. Hold a moment.” He reached out with one hand and touched the side of her face with his fingertips, a single feather falling from his skin as he did so. “Think hard what you need to tell me,” he commanded her.
The two boys and the knight waited while Merlin took what he needed from her memory. When his hand dropped and Ailis’s eyes opened again, Newt realized that he had been holding his breath.
“Absolutely out of the question.”
“What? But Morgain said—”
“Morgain says many things. Few of them are to be trusted. Ailis, think, girl. Do you really believe that I would endanger Britain this way? If Morgain’s life were truly so necessary to the land’s well-being, wouldn’t I have dealt with that already?”
Merlin was making a great deal of sense, and Newt could feel his own commitment begin to wane. Morgain was not, after all, to be trusted. Merlin had sworn to protect the land as well.
“Merlin!” Ailis was less willing to listen.
“She is not to be trusted, Ailis. Her touch is poison, her malice is toward all beings in Camelot without equal. She hates Arthur and all people affiliated with him, and you are not immune to her. No. I forbid it. I forbid it. You are not to leave this camp.”
Something heavy settled over them, thickening the air. And for an instant, Newt could not breathe. He was being forced down, forced away from himself, somehow. A red haze began to rise over his eyes, making it impossible for him to think, only follow. Something stirred in his blood, deep and heavy, and he beat it down. Anger had never served him, not once, and he would not let it rise up and master him now.
“I refuse your geas,” Ailis said, raising her hands as though to throw off that heaviness, and suddenly Newt could breathe again, the red haze fading as quickly as it had risen, his normal, rational thoughts taking over once again. “You will not take our choices away from us!”
“Ailis!”
“No, Merlin.” She met his look again, head-on. “You will not remove our choices from us. Not by force, and not by magic. Not ever.”
And with that, she turned and walked away from the group.
“Women!” Merlin muttered, and with an upward swing of his arms, leapt back into feathered form, rising like an arrow back into the sky and disappearing before he reached the first cloud.
Gerard looked at Newt to read his reaction. Sir Matthias was spluttering in confusion as to what had just happened. Without speaking, Newt turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Gerard to try and calm the knight down.
Hours later, Gerard was finally able to slip away from Sir Matthias, who had seemed determined to fill the squire’s every moment with errands and small, foolish details. He found Ailis, as expected, back by the fire where Morgain had first summoned them the night before.
She was sitting cross-legged in front of the now dead fire, her trousers visible underneath her skirt. She had not been wearing them before. Her long red hair was braided around her head, the way Morgain had been wearing hers, and a leather sack was