Camelot's Blood (30 page)

Haltingly, almost bashfully, Agravain stretched out his arm. Laurel crossed the chapel swiftly and let herself be folded into his hard embrace. For a moment, they did nothing else but stand there, each taking strength and comfort from the other's presence, reminding themselves that what lay within their hearts was real. New and confused it might be, but it was real nonetheless.

That moment was all they were granted. The wind blew hard once, laying the fire's flame sideways and sending the wisps of salt skittering like snow across the floor.

Lot's eyes flew open.

“She comes.”

Lot moaned and twisted, pain flushing his sallow skin. Laurel reached at once for the whisky jug. Lot tossed back and forth, and saw Agravain standing there. His head lifted, the muscles of his neck straining like cords to the breaking point.

“Traitor! Bastard traitor!” He cried. “You bring her here! I should have known! You who did this!”

“No …” began Agravain, frozen by the ferocity of his father's sudden attack.

“Kill you with my own hands!” Lot grappled with the coverings. “Should have killed you all! You're her children! Every one of you, hers!”

Something was coming. The suspicious, tentative wind changed, turned sour as if wafting over the midden. It grew heavy and cloying, a storm wind to bring crows and other creatures of ill omen.

Laurel forgot the whisky jug and instead moved to bar the door.

“Leave us,” said Agravain.

Laurel did not even turn. “No.”

“You have no part in this. Go now.”

A poor time to try that lie, my husband
. Did he feel it? The sick heaviness in the wind. Did he understand it was already too late?

Lot …

It was the softest of whispers, audible to her blood, rather than her ears. It was the voice she had heard before, but more silken now, and far, far sweeter. Beguiling, seductive, welcoming. Behind her, she felt the king straining towards it. With her own heightened awareness, Laurel could discern his fear, his yearning, his mad, desperate hope that this once, just this once, it truly was Morgause.

Lot, my lover, I am here
.

But no. He knew now and his whole face collapsed into fear. It was not her. Again. Ever. It was the other one. The other one.

“No!” screamed the king. “I beg you! Hide me!” He clutched at Agravain's hand. “Mercy!”

They've laid a fresh bed for us. How pretty …

Agravain could not hear the voice. One glance at him was enough to see that. He could not hear this cold parody of a lover's greeting that made his father scream in agony.

Laurel stood square on the threshold, barring the entrance with her body and her anger. The witchlights burned in her soul, and they let her see.

A soft, silver wraith slipped through the night. Laurel knew it from the cold, skilled touch of its power. She knew the knife-sharp edge to its smile and its black eyes. Oh, she knew those black eyes.

I will not cower before you. I've seen your power. I know your power. I may fall before it, but I will not fear it. I will not fear you
.

Blood and slaughter. Gareth dead. Agravain dead. Bronze and black triumphant. Lynet bloody to her elbows as she was the day their father died …

I will not run from you, though you walk with Death himself
.

“Morgaine,” said Laurel aloud. “You will not enter here.”

Ahhhh!
It was the sigh of the winter wind through dead grasses.
You're still here, despite all. You are welcome to me, Laurel Carnbrea
.

“This is not your place. You can give no welcome here.”

“No, no. Let her in. You bitch!” screamed Lot, and Morgaine laughed, sweet and silvery as the king shuddered, groaning with helpless, twisted lust. “My love, my love, I am here! Oh, God, it hurts. No …”

“She's here?” demanded Agravain. “Why can I not see her?”

You are wrong, Laurel Carnbrea. This is my place. I have ruled here ten years and more. Behind you lies my true lover and you cannot keep me from him.

“Show yourself, Morgaine!” bellowed Agravain to thin air.

Poor Agravain. Always the ill-favored one. You must close your eyes very tightly
.

Again, Laurel felt the sick, slick touch of that knife-edged lover's smile. It slid across her thoughts, drawing the blood of her mind.

She held her ground. “Your taunts are nothing Morgaine. You will not enter.”

The king wept, he lashed out with his fists, and Morgaine just smiled. He screamed and groaned and begged, begged for her to stop, begged for her not to stop.

Promise me lover. Promise me you are mine, always mine … You want this … all this, which I have given to a hundred men while I was yours, a hundred men a hundred times … Poor Lot, are you crying for me? I am here, I am
here, I will never leave you … you will never be without me …

He was hard. He was writhing in his bed, strangling on his pain and his lust, and Morgaine smiled.

“Morgause! No, Morgause!”

Let me give you what you want, lover, let me tell you how I learned so many neat little tricks … Let your son watch us both. He's mine next …

With all the might of will and power she held in her blood, Laurel seized the wind that circled them, wrenching it to her, heavy with the sea's salt as it was. It was a wind, it was a winding sheet, and a net. It was hers, and she cast it over the phantom that tormented the king, a rope, a noose, a shroud, to hold tight, to bind …

Morgaine just laughed, and it was only the wind once more, and Laurel stood gaping. That moment's surprise was all Morgaine needed. She lashed out, mind to mind, spirit to spirit, and the blow sent the world spinning.

And Laurel was gone, far gone, as far and as easily as she had been before. The chapel and all it held were phantoms, none more real than any other. She stood in the midst of that other battle, there but not there. She could feel nothing. She could only see the fighting, the blood, the chaos. There was no way through it. The ground held her. The air held her. She had no volition. That was all gone. She could only see the bronze knight aim his slashing blade at Agravain's throat. She knew him now. It was Lancelot, Lancelot du Lac. How had this happened?

Agravain fell, and in the smoke that hung over the battlefield she saw that the horror that would be, had been, was now, was as real as Lot's dying beside her, could not be undone. There was blood, blood everywhere, and now Lynet was dead too. Their house was torn apart and she stood behind a wall of ice. She had no flesh, no substance, she had given it all away, let it be cast away on the wind, for she had gone to the sea, gone back to the sea, back to the sea …

“NO!”

Agravain. His hands were on her shoulders, and suddenly Laurel was herself again. The stone around her was solid once more, her flesh her own.

The wind died. The fire shot up straight again. The nightmare battle was gone. Laurel stood in the chapel once more, Morgaine's silvered shape before her and Agravain, as whole and solid as the stones around them.

Lot screamed as if he had been struck, and Morgaine's shade wavered, and grew strangely more solid, her face contorted for a moment in utter fury before she smoothed the look away.

She must have smoothed it away, for Agravain could see his enemy now. He focused on her utterly, moving to stand before Laurel, drawing his knife and balancing himself on the balls of his feet.

“No, Morgaine,” he said. “It will not be so easy.”

Won't it?
Morgaine spread her arms wide.
You want me, Agravain? Come closer. Kill me if you can. It is what you want. Come here
.

It was what he wanted. It thrummed through him, a lust as great and as painful as anything Lot felt. Agravain stepped forward. The one he hated and feared, the one who unmanned his father, stole his mother, cursed the whole of his family, robbed him of his life … she stood before him. Another step forward. She opened her arms, welcoming him in.

Bewitching him. His hands went limp at his sides

No!

Laurel made herself move. It took all she had; will and blood and strength, flesh and soul. She felt as if she tore herself out from the roots she did not know held her. The knife fell from Agravain's dangling fingers, and she caught it up by the blade.

It sliced into her flesh, drawing blood to spatter on the ring of salt she had drawn so carefully. The pain burned but she did not let go. Instead, she grasped Agravain's hand.

Again, the world grew clearer, and the pain diminished. Agravain shook his head, trying to clear the glamour from him. He pulled away instinctively, but Laurel held him tight. She needed him. He was the anchor here. With him she could be present and not forget herself.

With him, she could remember what was and was not true.

“Leave here, Morgaine,” croaked Laurel. “You are not here. You never have been.”

You are wrong
. The voice was dangerous, sharp as the knife that cut into Laurel's fingers.
I am all that is real here. You are the phantom, the lost, the coward who ran
.

She heard the voice, the draining, droning words, but they could not reach past the blood and iron, the touch of Agravain's hand and the sacred at her back. The sacred.
This is not your house, any more than it is mine, Morgaine
.

Laurel drew herself up. “In God's name I banish you!” she shouted. “By Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I cast you from this holy place!”

Oh no, Laurel. No such names here. Not between such as we. You are as like to be banished by them as me
.

But Morgaine's shade was not smiling any more, nor did she move. The silver seduction was gone from her voice, and the laughter. She felt it. Laurel knew she did, the final wall before her, the power that was beyond either of them, the power that was life and hope itself. It was called down by the sacred names and willing sacrifice of life and self demanded for love's sake.

“But you will go,” said Laurel, her voice soft, low and dangerous. She felt it too. A power that that came not from the wind, not from the salt, but from the stone. She had known it was there, and she held it by right of blood. Blood to blood, her fresh blood on the stones, the sacrifice of Agravain's family going back the long generations, the other blood, shed so long ago with an open heart.

Words came, true words this time, the right words. “You are nothing but illusion brought here on a whim. Blood and bone prevent you. Heart and will and right prevent you. Begone from here, evil dream. Son and stone bar your door. Begone!”

Morgaine smiled and glided forward. Laurel raised the knife, cold iron wet with her salt blood, and slowly, like the chill before death, Morgaine closed her phantom hand over the blade.

We will finish this, you and I, little child, but it is not worth it now. I have what I need here. Go back to your man and wait
.

The strength drained from Laurel's hand, and her arm fell, limp. The knife slipped from her fingers, clattering to the chapel's floor.

But Morgaine was gone. Gone.

On his bed, Lot groaned once, and fell back like a discarded puppet.

Laurel stood there, pain throbbing in her hand, rooted once more to the spot, but this time because she feared if she moved she would fall.

“She is gone?” whispered Agravain, amazed.

Laurel nodded. “Can you not feel it?”

“Dimly. Lady …”

Laurel swayed. Her stomach heaved. “I need to sit down.”

Agravain caught up the wooden stool at once, shoving it into place.

“What has she done to you?”

“Nothing. I am only tired.” Supporting herself on his arm, she sank onto the stool, ashamed of her own weakness, and of the fear in her heart as Agravain knelt at her side and turned her hand over, looking at the wound. She saw the blood smeared on her hand but felt nothing of it. The pain was real enough, but the hand, the blood, these were distant things, and she could not understand what they might have to do with her.

Agravain picked up one of the rags left beside the basin and wrapped the cut, quickly and efficiently, as a soldier would know how to do.

“What did you do to her?” he asked quietly.

Laurel swallowed, a new and unnamable fear shuddering through her at the cold in his voice. “She was only a shadow, and I knew that. I just … reminded her of it.”

His gaze was hard. “It was nothing so simple.”

“No.”

He was going to question her further. Laurel was not certain she could bear his cold gaze while she answered. She was already so cold. Cold as death, cold as shadows and the wind that prowled suspiciously about her ankles like a dog not certain of where its master was.

But from behind there came a low, weak, but infinitely welcome sound. “Agravain …”

Lot. King Lot, speaking clearly, though weighted down by an exhaustion that was beyond anything Laurel felt now. Agravain went to him at once, kneeling by the bed so his father could turn his head and look at him more easily.

“Agravain,” said Lot again, reaching up. His eyes shone clear, his voice was steady.

Agravain caught his hand. “Father.”

“She is gone, Agravain.”

“And will not return. It is over.”

“Yes. Over.” Lot kicked once. “Good. That's good.” His gaze drifted a moment to where Laurel sat, tears burning in her own eyes. “This is your wife, I think?”

“Yes, father. This is Laurel.”

Laurel rose, and gave Lot her hand. His grasp was so light it felt more like a glove lying in her uninjured palm than a man's hand.

“Good. Good,” Lot murmured, seeing her clearly for the first time.
And the last time
. “Keep her close, Agravain,” murmured Lot urgently. “Do not let her leave you. It is when you let them go, the darkness comes.”

Laurel could not leave Agravain to make the answer to that. The pain in her husband's eyes was past bearing. “Rest, Your Majesty,” she said. “It is nearly morning.”

But Lot would not rest. Perhaps he'd had too much of it. Perhaps he felt what was coming. “You know, don't you?” he said, clutching her hand, weak as a child, but trying to hold on. “You have eyes like my Geraint. Like my wife. You know why she was able to enter here.”

You do not have to do this, Majesty
. “She entered by deceit. It is her way.”

“Because I wanted her. I knew what she was, what she made me and I still
wanted
her.”