Camelot Burning (19 page)

“Morgan's legion.” I shudder, my eyes turning back with reluctance. Now more than ever, I'm eternally grateful I only saw a glimpse of them by the gates.

Merlin frowns. “So it appears. This is the real danger—not Pelles's mindless men. Azur was right. This is unspeakable.” He takes the man's face in his hands, moving the head from side to side as he studies the bolts. “Poor bastard was still alive when she did this, but
Telum Paret
hadn't taken effect yet. God rest him.”

From the dry wound, Merlin pulls out a small bit of copper cogs that were sharpened to incredible points. “It's from a pocket watch.” Realization comes over him as he glances at the foliage-covered
fusionah
. “He must have been denied bearings, so he used what he had to end it.” Merlin checks the man's neck and wrists: sure enough, long, dried cuts from a blade could not end the man's life. “The same ingenuity you showed during the attack, my dear.”

I shut my eyes. I don't want to think about that.

“Escaped while his mind was still his own.” The thumps of Merlin's off-balanced steps toward his horse are slow.

“What does all this mean?” Marcus asks.

Merlin rests against his saddle. “Copper, boy. I couldn't touch the damned stuff for years. Leave Morgan and whatever machine she sets upon the castle to me. The knights will have to use copper somehow to keep her drones at bay. Camelot could use the supply in my clock tower for bearings, I suppose, but I don't like the plan, Vivienne, as it's a horribly weak metal for—”

“No, not if you can make it sharp enough,” Marcus says. The sorcerer's eyes dart to the squire's. “Lancelot's sword has hooks on the blade. Granted, not copper, but it's damn near impossible to have anything touch the edge without slicing through, even without force.”

Merlin's eyes widen. “They forge weapons like that in the north. That's right.” His hands search his pockets for his snuff box. “Crossbow bolts reinforced with copper edges. Bearings. I'll need to get started once we return. The blacksmith must know.”

“The knights will need thousands, Merlin,” I say. “That'll take time. We must turn around—”

Merlin drops his quicklight. The orange glow disappears before striking the forest floor. His body shakes. Marcus's light shines against the sorcerer's skin. I swear I see the blood rushing through Merlin's veins.

“Oh God,” he mutters.

Something is wrong. The horses go restless. Marcus grips me tighter.

“Merlin!” I shout.

When Merlin doesn't respond, Marcus drops from the horse. He gauges the land with caution. “She's … damn it, wizard … ”

Merlin's gaze drops to his quicklight, absent of its glow. “Even my inventions are at her mercy. How can that be?”

Marcus's quicklight is next to die, leaving us in near darkness. I drop from the saddle as Marcus pockets the useless tool. My fingers seize the miniature
fusionah
from my waist. Shakily, I uncap it and straighten my arm with the barrel scoping the land.

And seeing Marcus shake his head does nothing for my nerves. “There's no use for weapons.”

Merlin quivers with whatever madness has taken him. “I wonder if Mordred screamed when she bolted his bones, too.”

“Merlin, stop!” I shout, feeling the cool metal dig into my palm. “We have to turn around!”

Merlin breathes heavily, the only sound for several moments. “No,” he says. “Vivienne, please. When we return to Camelot, I cannot leave my tower. Not for any reason.”

He gasps. Icy fog bursts from his mouth.

“She's here.”

Twenty-Two

Everything happens so fast.

Marcus yanks me out of danger's way, but Merlin is faster and casts his arm toward us with eyes glowing red. His lips struggle to form words, which slip along his voice like warm honey.

“Cachey havachah.”

A wave of twisted light shrouds us with a translucent sphere, like we're underwater. Camouflage from the slow, approaching footsteps. I find a tragic sense of regret in the sorcerer's eyes. The realization of what he did sets in. Marcus's arms go tightly around my shoulders like a shield.

“No, Merlin!” I whisper in vain.

But he doesn't answer. He turns toward the path, where a hooded Morgan le Fay stands.

A low voice whispers in my mind.
Sensu ahchla tetay meo loqui havahchi …
The spell Morgan uttered to access my mind. It should feel invasive and mind-splitting, but it's soft, encouraging.

“You find yourself in a bind, Merlin,” Morgan purrs.

Marcus pulls me close, remnants of angry curses on his lips. “We have to get out of here. What did he do?” he whispers.

To say it out loud would make it true, but now I'm more frightened of the familiar whisper in my head. “He stole magic to veil us from her.”

“What?” Marcus hisses.

Merlin's eyes shut. A chill comes over his body. His eyes snap open.

Sensu ahchla tetay meo loqui havahchi …

I'm cold, and tornadolike winds whip around me. When I blink, I see a world of golden walls and streets. A dull chalice with iron studs and a leather grip. Under my feet, clouds and blue ocean.

The sorcerer looks at Morgan with contempt, but a small smile plays against his lips.
Merlin, no.

“The only mistake I made was leaving Camelot,” he admits in a smooth voice I have never heard him use, and I'm certain Morgan notices it, too. That slight smile vanishes quickly. “How dare you, Morgan? How dare you stand here wearing a cold smirk like a chain of fine gold mere hours after you made Pelles's men attack us?”

Her eyes shine. She practically beams with joy. “It was just to bring a healthy bit of fright to you, wizard. Nothing you couldn't handle.”

“We were forced to kill brothers-in-arms because of your magic. Knights of Camelot died today!”

She lifts a finger. “Ahhh, Merlin. That was not my doing. You could have saved them. With one quick spell, you could have brought them back. The one inked on your skin in a script I cannot read.”

Merlin's coolness fades, and he clenches his left hand.

The witch circles him, gesturing the trees. “And now another obstacle. But the spell to release yourself from these woods isn't difficult.”

Merlin paces in front of where horses and his wagon once stood. All evidence shielded.

“No, it isn't. You knew it before I gave you that lesson on alchemy. What on earth was I thinking, Morgan? Did magic help you sense the vulnerability of the farmlands? Is that why you let the handmaid go? She was no longer the leverage you needed, was she?”

I grow hot with anger at the memory. I hate that Morgan held fear over me.

She doesn't blink. “There's more to her than that. You might have suspected it for years while those fools were out there searching. Don't think I didn't see her importance as soon as the idiot opened her mouth.”

My eyes fall shut. I never should have said a word. Marcus shuffles, and I wonder if he's figured out my connection to Merlin.

“It's time to leave the forest now, sorcerer. Despite what magic I've mastered, controlling time is another question, and an informant waits outside these woods with the specifications of Excalibur for Mordred. Now, return to what awaits in Camelot.”

Merlin's face is full of awareness, like he might know whom the witch means.

Azur was right: she has an informant. Someone Lancelot might scour the kingdom to reveal. And now Marcus tenses against me. I look at him with questions in my eyes and the memory of papyrus between his fingers. As his breathing strains, he looks back, and I see in those violet eyes how he managed to find Excalibur, how I was a convenient reason to see it again. Why he went to the farmlands today in the first place.

Merlin sighs as though calling a bluff. “And what will I find in Camelot, my dear? A newly built set of northern gates? Perhaps more burnt farmlands? More lives lost?”

A corner of Morgan's lips tugs up in a dark smile. “Arthur returns.”

“His attempt at justice failed, I presume?”

“He never found Glastonbury. Britannia is under my control. All except for Camelot, but I can wait for your incantation to fade. Arthur entered these woods, too, Merlin. Incredible how they manage to stretch over quite a range of countryside. Conveniently so. My brother and his knights walked in, but never found their way out.”

Merlin steels his eyes. “What did you do?”

She notes the shining red fruit hanging from skin-patched trees. “I kept him out of Camelot. Plenty of food and water in these woods. Of course, not understanding the trap was enough to plant seeds of insanity, but only temporarily. Now, he'll return to the betrayal I've arranged.”

Betrayal. My eyes and Marcus's lock again, but now his beg for understanding. He runs the back of his fingertips across my burlap cloak.

Merlin is silent long enough that I can hear the gentle pattering of rainfall. A storm the trees shield us from. Oddly enough, it's comforting.

Sensu ahchla tetay meo loqui havahchi …
A man's voice. I search my mind for foreign languages that would match it in hopes it might not be magic, but there's nothing. All I can think of are clouds three kingdoms past. Sea and sky meeting with a kiss. The sorcerer standing tall with both hands resting atop the emerald stone in his cane. Watching, studying the picture my mind paints. I shake my head of these scenes. Of everything bursting into a world of gold.

“Have you nothing to say?” Morgan taunts.

The sorcerer shrugs. His eyes flash at mine; he smiles. It'd be insane to think he saw the floating kingdom that appeared in my mind's eye. But it's Merlin, and he's a thief of magic again.

I know he did.

Merlin takes a satisfied breath. “I'm trying to decide which of these fields would most likely have poppies this time of year.”

She grits her teeth, her voice poisonous against his dripping sarcasm. “You belittle my power.”

“Huh! Born out of revenge for Uther stripping you of your name and of desperation for the king's bastard son,
conceived through too much absinthe and not enough foresight. I've been wondering, Morgan: how do you keep your boy loyal? Do you use
Telum Paret,
or is that solely for those you forge into iron soldiers?”

I think of the skyward look of anguish on the dead man's iron-plated face. The horror that must be the life of the witch's boy is nearly enough to make me feel sorry for Morgan.

But not for long. She casts her arm toward Merlin as he unsheathes the sword at his waist. The magic strikes ferociously, sending him to the ground and his blade lost amongst the trees.

“You'll never find Avalon, nor the Grail, and you won't have Camelot,” he breathes. “It was built for justice and peace. It will never be yours.”

“If you had asked me twenty years ago, I might have agreed,” Morgan says, her voice shaking. “But now, I'm stronger than you ever were. All I need is the girl's mind and Mordred will have a fighting chance.”

What does she mean? My heart races.

Merlin rises, hanging at the waist as tremors run over his skin. “Your boy is a machine, not a man, and he cannot live without the mechanical arts you've darkened for your own evil purposes. His mother is a common witch and wasn't a very good healer before that. You'll destroy your soul, leaving him to suffer alone.”

At once she's inches from him, and the sorcerer's neck is in her grasp. She lifts him high with one hand while the other stretches across his face. When her palm touches his forehead, Merlin shakes in agony. I cover my mouth, holding back any screams of terror.

Then there's a flash, and she drops him. Merlin lands again on the forest floor. Blood pours from his nose. He spits more onto the leaves.

Morgan searches with piercing eyes. “There's another here. You've hidden someone from me, Merlin. It's not the girl, is it?”

My blood goes cold.

She steps away, carefully studying each tree as though sensing the veil. Marcus pulls me close until I'm hidden in the warmth of his skin and the roughness of his clothes.

“No … ” he whispers, but the words carrying an unbearable weight aren't for me.

“There's no one else here,” Merlin drawls in pain.

“You're lying.” She steps toward us. “Two. I feel their presence. Young ones. Perhaps they helped you leave Camelot while my attention was elsewhere. Perhaps one is foolish enough to risk one life for the love of another.”

Another footstep in our direction. Marcus and I dare not move in case she could hear the crunching of leaves under our feet. She leans close to examine a tree. Studies its fleshlike bark and hairy branches with indifference. Marcus holds me tightly. The witch is mere inches from my ear, close enough to hear me breathe if I were to. Merlin's eyes find mine despite the concealment spell.

Don't move or make a sound.

It's his voice uttering the familiar words in my mind.
The witch moves on to the next tree.

Merlin,
I think, hoping to mercy he'll hear me back.
You stole magic to shield us.

A wave of light comes over Merlin's skin. His eyes roll in ecstasy.
There was no other way.
The stronger the whispered spell beckons my mind, the clearer his unspoken voice. His eyes are a horrifying mix of sadness, desperation, and thrill, holding contact until he can bear it no longer.

Morgan continues searching. “Where are they, Merlin?”

“There's no one here, bitch.”

Morgan flicks her fingers. Merlin tenses, and the veil around Marcus and me rustles. “Desperate enough, yet? Only a few simple words.”

His lips peel back over his teeth. “You will never beat me.”

She smiles, one of triumphant insanity. “I feel I already have. Keep the twits hidden. You'll have to steal magic to free them!”

Merlin twitches. He tears off his gloves. Invisible fingers seek his snuff box. Morgan watches, amused. And now the spell is more frantic. Panicked to stay inside my head.

I'm sorry. God forgive me I am,
he whispers between the honey-tasting words I can't understand.

Merlin, please.
I hold Marcus tighter.

Stay out of Camelot until nightfall. Only return under cover of darkness. Let no one see you. For God's sake, as soon as you're freed from this wretched place, make for Camelot's land, where I'll ensure Morgan is blind to your presence and the squire's. Trust the boy: have him bring you back to the castle! Don't be caught by the witch—she mustn't use magic on you!

Merlin's head rolls as though his neck has snapped clean in half. Marcus clutches me tighter. We watch Merlin pry open his snuff box, toss the lid aside, breathe in as much as he can, shaking his head like a wet dog of the blood pouring from his nose.

“Oh God, yes!”

Morgan casts her hand toward him. Skin peels back from muscle. Jagged shards of bone pierce flesh where shins and forearms should be. His body struggles to exist.

I can't bear it any longer. He must put an end to this. I know he can. “Merlin!”

Morgan's head snaps up in my direction. Marcus clutches me with a death grip, curse word after curse word streaming from his lips.

But as she storms forward, Merlin reaches us first, his hand seizing mine.

“Taharouverechkoh nobiserahmah!”

Merlin breaks through the veil, and we scream as the sorcerer's theft of magic churns a tumultuous wind and turns everything black.