The Camelot Spell (10 page)

“Then we’d better start looking,” Newt said, but his voice didn’t sound like he had much hope of success.

The three of them separated and walked around the room as though deep in thought over their predicament, carefully avoiding getting too close to the two guards by the door.

The study itself was unremarkable, a farmer’s hodgepodge of bits and ends: bags of seed in one corner, ledgers on a narrow shelf, and a pile of harnesses tossed in another corner. The floor was scuffed from wear, and the only furniture other than the chair Daffyd sat in like a throne was a battered
wooden table covered with more ledgers and parchments. It was prosaic and ordinary and boring, and no place you would think to find a magical talisman that would help free a king from enchanted slumber.

Newt walked slowly, trying to pretend that he was deep in thought while his gaze scanned every surface, every handspan of the room. It had to be in here. Not because he believed Gerard’s stupid map, but because if it wasn’t, he had no idea what they’d do next. He wasn’t going to become a slave in all but name for this madman of a farmer, that was for sure! And he wouldn’t let Ailis end up here, either. The thought of abandoning Gerard to his fate was tempting, but Newt quickly discarded it. He didn’t like the oh-so-proud squire any better than when he had knocked the snot out of him four days earlier, but it would take all three of them to even have a chance of escaping this room. Once they’d gotten free, they’d have to abandon the horses. It pained him, but he knew the animals would be treated well here—good horses were more valuable than people, especially if you used slaves—and the surprise factor of not trying for the stables might ultimately buy them some time.

On the other hand, trying to go on foot would slow
them down horribly. Even if they found the talisman here, they’d still have two more to find and—counting the rest of this day—only four days left to do it.

Newt ran the plan over again in his head, trying out all the possible angles. It had about as much chance as a goose in Cook’s huge hands, but he’d yet to see a goose give up without a fight. He looked up, meaning to try and catch Gerard’s eye, when something caught his attention.

There. In the far corner of the room, in a jumble of junk. He frowned, trying to determine why he was looking there. It was nothing. Just a…

He frowned again. What
was
that? A goblet of some sort? Glass, clearer than the rough-blown versions normally seen around Camelot: wide and rounded at the bottom, but lengthening and narrowing at the top, with a tiny mouth. And it was small, barely the size of two hands clenched together.

Whatever it was, it was…glowing. Faintly. Barely even noticeable; barely even there, unless you were looking with eyes that had seen too much magic for comfort. Tiny blue sparkles around it were similar to what had come from Merlin’s hand when he touched the map. That alone gave Newt the confidence to move toward it.

The closer he got, the more intense the flickers became until he was amazed that nobody else was jumping forward to grab it. A quick glance backward showed that the two guards were oblivious so long as nobody went near the door, and Daffyd was watching Gerard. So the squire had been right about how Daffyd would react, if not in the way he thought. Ailis had been conferring with Gerard, their heads bent together, red to blond. But while Newt watched them she looked up as though sensing his attention. He let his gaze flick from them to the talisman—what he
hoped
was the talisman—and then back again. Her eyes widened slightly, and she nodded, then reached out to touch Gerard’s hand as though continuing their discussion.

Gerard then picked up a tarnished metal tankard and turned toward Daffyd, distracting him further, while Ailis walked slowly to join Newt on the other side of the room.

“You see it?”

“Yes.” She moved forward, as though drawn on a string, and reached out to lift the talisman from the junk surrounding it. “It’s beautiful.” Her voice was soft with amazement.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. But…it feels warm.” They were whispering, but there was no need. Daffyd was still watching Gerard, and the guards were watching Daffyd, waiting mindlessly for his signal.

“Like the map?”

“I…don’t know. I suppose.” Her fingers were stroking the glass the way she might a kitten, examining and protecting at the same time. The sparks seemed to flow into her skin and then back out into the glass, slowly fading the longer she held it.

“You’re stalling, Gerard.” Daffyd’s voice carried across the room. His tone was still jovial, but the blade was no longer hidden. “Give me your guess. Or pay the forfeit.”

“This,” Ailis said, holding up the glass object, her fingers curved around the widest end. Daffyd turned to look at them with satisfied anticipation.

But his expression faltered and broke as the blue sparks flared again, deeper and darker and more brightly than before, almost as though taunting Daffyd’s disbelief.

“Impossible!”

The guards stirred at his outburst but, seeing no physical mayhem, did nothing more than glare suspiciously at the trio.

Daffyd stood, his entire body radiating a palpable menace. There was no more landed farmer—he was every inch the bandit, more so than the ones who had robbed them by the lakeside. “Give that to me!”

“No.” Gerard stepped forward, getting between the farmer and the talisman. “You said we could have your most valuable possession if we guessed it. We’ve guessed it. It’s ours.”

“He didn’t know,” Ailis said. “He didn’t even know what his most valuable possession was! That’s why no one has ever escaped him, because even if they found what he thought was most valuable, it wasn’t. He was thinking in terms of what was important to
him
, probably something costly, not what was valuable in and of itself. The talisman has been here, all the time, but he thought it was junk. But the magic knew that somehow, it was the most valuable thing he owned!”

“Silence!” Daffyd roared. Ailis inched back, but her hold on the talisman remained steady. Gerard stepped into the blast of the man’s anger, his shoulders squared and firm as though he were readying a lance for a joust.

“Your own magic betrays you,” he said, and even the faint squeak in his voice didn’t faze him. “No
matter what you thought or believed, it doesn’t matter. Your words bind you, as they bind us, and now you must abide by them. Let us go.”

Daffyd scowled terribly, his predator’s smile a true grimace now, but Gerard stood firm. Newt put a hand on Ailis’s elbow and, without discussion, the three of them began the short walk toward the door, the talisman sheltered in the crook of Ailis’s arm.

They could smell the somewhat musty odor of the guards’ bodies rising off their skin before Daffyd barked out a command, and the two men stood aside, letting them exit without harm.

They walked down the short hallway without seeing anyone and were outside in the courtyard before any alarm was raised.

“Praise the gods,” Ailis whispered, but Newt merely tightened his grip on her arm.

“We’re not safe yet,” he said. “I’m going to go get the horses.” If the guards didn’t move, if Daffyd really was bound by his own spell…they had a chance, if everything played out well. And if not…“You two, start down the road like you’re walking away. Just do it!”

They looked like they wanted to argue, but Newt turned and started walking slowly, casually toward
the stables before they could say anything.

“Come
on
,” Gerard said when Ailis hesitated. “Come
on
. He can handle the horses. We need to get out of here.”

They had taken their belongings with them, not trusting their safety, so there was nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other until they were out of the shadow of the Grange, back on the main road, out in the deepening shadows of the afternoon.

“Walk faster,” Gerard said, stretching his own legs now to cover more ground.

“But Newt—”

“Will be riding. Stop worrying about him!”

They increased their pace, watching the workers in the fields out of the corner of their eyes, alert for even a hint of an alarm. But the workers remained bent over the crops, intent on their work. Gerard felt the weight of shame drape over him for running away like this. A knight was supposed to rescue those in need and certainly anyone trapped by Daffyd’s spell deserved to be freed. But…he wasn’t a knight. Yet. They had barely escaped themselves. How could he help anyone else?

“When this is over,” he promised them, even though they couldn’t hear, “we’ll come back. Arthur
himself will break that spell and free you.”

There was a hollow thudding noise behind them before Ailis could respond, and Newt arrived, riding his own horse and leading Gerard’s and a third by the reins.

“You stole a horse?” Gerard was horrified.

“I borrowed it,” Newt said. “We’ll make better time if we’re all mounted. Besides, I think she has a fascination for your noble steed.”

In fact, the mare did seem attached to Gerard’s horse, staying close to him as they waited for their riders to mount. With a glance at Newt, Ailis took the reins from him and swung herself into the saddle of the dark brown mare. The saddle was uncomfortable, but the beast seemed to have a sweet enough mouth, and after a flick of one delicate ear, she responded well to Ailis’s commands.

Gerard stopped long enough to take the talisman and wrap it carefully in a length of cloth, securing it safely before swinging himself up and into his own saddle.

“One talisman captured,” he said with satisfaction, gathering up the reins and urging his horse into a slow walk. “One third of the way there.”

“But we’re already on the fourth day,” Newt said
grimly. “Where does the map say we should go next?”

Even the horses seemed to look at Gerard, who pulled the map out of its packet and unrolled it. He stared at it for a long moment, then looked up at them.

“It’s not glowing anywhere.”

T
hey finally settled on heading east by the simple expedient of Newt tossing his dagger, a handspan of sharpened metal with a horn handle, into the map and determining that they would head toward wherever it landed. When Ailis withdrew the dagger, she ran her fingers over the narrow hole, frowning slightly. And she gasped when a spark jumped off the map into her finger, then back down again into the map, sealing the rip behind it.

She looked carefully at the map, rolled it up, and handed it back to Gerard. She mounted her mare and turned her in the right direction, waiting until Gerard was ready before touching heels to flanks and starting on their way.

They hadn’t traveled more than an hour when Ailis asked, “Is it glowing yet?”

“Not yet.”

Farms gave way to scrub woods, and then the trees grew taller and thicker around.

“Is it glowing yet?” Newt asked this time.

“Not yet.”

“We’re going the wrong direction,” Newt said in disgust.

Ailis took offense at his words. “There’s no guarantee that the other direction was right, either.”

“Yes, and the next talisman might be in Eire, kept by the wee fairy folk, for all we know!”

“It might be in Avalon,” Ailis added, finally pushed to annoyance by all Newt’s whining about how terrible magic was. “It might be in Palestine waiting for us to find the Grail and trade for it! It could be anywhere, so why wouldn’t it be where the map sends us? We have to go on faith. That’s what it’s all about. Faith. Trust. Belief.”

“Gullibility.” Newt spat the word like it was a curse.

“Why are you so miserable?” Ailis demanded. “Why can’t you—”

“Why can’t you leave me be? I’m not your slave to order around and—”

“Children…” Gerard rode between the two of
them, interrupting the bickering before they could get worked up into a decent lather. “Ailis is right. We have to trust Merlin. If finding the talismans were impossible, he wouldn’t have sent us on this journey.”

“You really believe that?” Newt asked.

Gerard stared straight ahead between his horse’s ears, watching the way the shadows flickered off the leaves from the setting sun behind them.

“I have to,” he said finally. “I have to believe. Otherwise we might as well go home. Besides, Merlin proved himself before we were even born. He helped bring Arthur to the throne. That’s more than we can say.”

“Who gets to say when we have proven ourselves?” Ailis asked, keeping the same even tone of voice with obvious effort. “At what point have we done enough? Will returning triumphant with the talismans be enough? Or will they pat us each on the head and send us back to our chores?”

Gerard flinched as though the words physically hurt him. He had obviously wondered the same thing more than once.

“Let’s worry about getting home and waking everyone up,” Newt said, making his own sort of
peace offering. “Then you can argue over what sort of reward you deserve.”

“I’m not looking for a reward,” Gerard said.

“Of course you are,” Ailis said acerbically, glad for a more familiar target. “It may not be phrased as such, but you want to be rewarded, the same as we do.”

“I just want—”

“To get attention. To be recognized. To be treated as an adult, not a child.”

“All right. Yes.” Gerard glared at her. “Are you happy now?”

“It’s not about being happy. It’s about—”

“Glowing.”

“What?”

“The map’s glowing!” Newt pointed at Gerard’s saddlebag, which was, in fact, emitting a distinct blue light through the leather.

“Excellent!” Gerard reined in his horse and turned in the saddle in order to pull at the straps, withdrawing the tube. Blue light ran up and down his hands to the wrist, flickering like a living thing.

“What does the map say?”

“Hold on!” His horse stopped, confused by the strange shifts of its rider, and the others pulled in
alongside him. He unrolled it with one hand, tucking the tube under his other arm.

“We’re on the right track.”

“What is it doing?” Ailis moved her mare closer, looking over Gerard’s arm to see what the flickering light was showing. “Oh.”

A thin blue line, the color of the deepest summer sky, ran along the road they were traveling on, running farther into the distance. As she watched, it pulsed, beginning at one end and running all the way down the inked road.

“So, we keep going?”

“We keep going.” Gerard studied the map, squinting a little to make out the markings. “I think the line ends at this town. I can’t make out the name, but it’s the only one between here and there, so…”

“So let’s go!” Ailis said, her voice rising in excitement. “Come on, I’ll race you!”

She dug her heels into the mare’s sides, slapped the reins, and took off down the road.

Gerard and Newt looked at each other, their eyes meeting in perfect, uncomplicated agreement, for once.

“We
cannot
let her win,” Newt said, and kicked his gelding into a gallop, leaving Gerard lagging
behind for half a second before, with a whoop, he was racing forward as well.

“Next time, steal her a slower horse,” Gerard told Newt, staring sourly at Ailis, who was trotting gaily several lengths ahead of them, laughing in delight at having won their impromptu race. There was a creek in the near distance with an arched wooden bridge rising over it. Beyond that lay the village that was their goal.

“I didn’t steal it.”

“You took it without permission.” Gerard was trying to be annoyed about losing, but the sheer joy of the race had left them all in an impossibly good mood, despite their situation and the weight of fear that still rested on their shoulders.

“It’s not stealing if you’re taking it for payment. We didn’t get dinner or the promised sleeping quarters, so the mare was payment instead,” Newt claimed.

“A mare isn’t the same payment as a meal.”

“Merlin would back me up.”

Gerard snorted. “Now you’re using the enchanter as support for your position? Considering your stance on magic, that’s not too convincing. Besides, Merlin’s as
mad as those villagers, in his own way. I’ll tell you one thing—Sir Lancelot wouldn’t agree with your logic.”

Newt shrugged, not disagreeing with either of Gerard’s statements about the two men. “Lance is a good man. Too good, maybe.”

The squire frowned at that comment. “How can you be too good a man?”

“Sometimes you need to be bad in order to get things done properly.”

“That makes no sense at all.” Gerard shook his head. “Good is good and bad…isn’t. It’s that simple.”

“Nothing’s that simple, squire. Not in the real world.”

“You know so much about the real world, stuck in the straw mucking out horses? Don’t make me laugh.” He kicked his horse, rode up to join Ailis, and left Newt fuming behind them.

“What was that all about?” Ailis asked, turning around in her saddle to look at Newt, who had slowed his horse even more, the better to sulk privately.

“He’s a fool.”

“So you’ve said before.” Her voice clearly said that she didn’t agree with him. Rather than argue, Gerard took out the map and studied it again.

Shaking her head, Ailis nudged her mare forward. “Oh, what a pretty bridge,” she cried. “Look at the stonework—it’s prettier even than the stonework on the walls in Camelot!”

“Pay to pass.”

The horses started at the sudden, booming voice. Ailis and Gerard both had to haul hard on the reins in order to keep their animals from bolting when a huge form pulled itself over the bridge’s railing and dropped—surprisingly lightly for its bulk—on its feet in front of them.

“Pay to pass,” the creature insisted. It was as wide across as it was tall, a block of grayish-white skin covering bulky muscles. Black tufts of hair stuck out from its misshapen head and ears, and its mouth was designed more for tearing than speaking, with a row of jagged teeth that made Gerard think that bolting might be a good idea.

“A bridge troll!” Ailis was delighted. “I’ve only ever heard of them—I didn’t know there were any left!”

Gerard had a sudden thought that his companion was passing insane.

“What do we do?” he asked uneasily. Ailis might be unhinged with her fascination for things like this,
but at least she knew what it was and what it might want.

“Pay it, of course. They’re usually satisfied with something you’re fond of—it’s the act of paying that’s important, not how expensive it is. Don’t you know
anything
?”

“I know how to fight. How to negotiate with honor. How to read and do figures. I don’t know how to bargain with creatures that shouldn’t exist.”

Ailis sighed in exasperation. Gerard was being mulish again, his chin and mouth set in lines she knew far too well. Sometimes, only sometimes, she agreed with Newt’s opinion that Gerard really did take himself far too seriously.

Ailis reached into her pocket and pulled out a small wooden carving of a swan in flight. She held it in her hand for a moment, feeling the smooth texture, reliving the memory of her father giving it to her just days before his death. She had carried it with her ever since. She then held it out to the troll, making sure to hold it flat on her palm so that the troll could see it clearly.

“Here,” she said, brushing aside a sharp pang of grief. “For my passage, something dear to me.”

The troll stepped forward, making the horses shy
even more, and sniffed once as it lifted the swan with surprising delicacy, considering how gnarled its hands were and how long the claws that curved from its fingertips.

“What about me?” Gerard asked out of the side of his mouth when the troll turned its small, shiny red eyes to him expectantly.

“What about you?” Ailis asked, her tone of voice clearly wondering at his obtuseness. “Pay your own crossing. You must have
something
you can offer!”

Gerard stared at the troll, who stared back at him with unblinking eyes. Finally Gerard sighed and dropped his hand to his saddle and untied a thick braided cord from a ring on the leather.

“Here.” He handed it over with obvious reluctance, and the troll snatched it from him as though afraid it would be withdrawn if it didn’t act fast enough. From the expression on Gerard’s face, the troll wasn’t wrong.

“Paid.” The creature sounded almost regretful, even as it clutched its new treasures. “Pass.”

“Let’s go,” Ailis urged him. “I don’t know how long those things will hold him.”

Gerard didn’t need to be told twice. The horses’ hooves made an odd echoing noise as they clattered
on the stone archway, making Gerard look down nervously, afraid that the structure would give way. But the footing remained solid and they were over and back on firm ground within moments.

“What did you give it?” Ailis asked, turning back in the saddle to look at the bridge one last time. The troll had disappeared completely and the road behind them was empty. She frowned for a moment, thinking that there was something she had forgotten, then shrugged and turned back to her companion.

“Nothing important.”

“It had to be to you, for the troll to have accepted it. Come on, tell me.”

“It was a favor, all right?”

“A favor?” Ailis almost giggled but caught herself in time. Favors were given to knights when they set out, from the lady they were paying court to—or who wanted them to pay court to them. “Who was it from?”

“I’m not going to tell you.” Gerard’s cheeks had turned bright red and he refused to look at her.

“All right.” She would find out eventually, once they were home. Camelot kept no secrets from her. “So what is the name of this village, anyway?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t read it last time.” He
was clearly glad for the change of topic, but uncomfortable that he couldn’t answer her.

“Oh, here, let me.” She put out her hand imperiously, expecting him to hand the map over without hesitation. Gerard was bemused to discover that, when she behaved that way, he was ready to do as she commanded.

Only he looked down as he was handing it over to her and almost dropped the precious object into the dirt.

“It’s stopped glowing!”

“What?”

“It’s stopped—” He shut his mouth and handed her the map. Let her see with her own eyes, then.

“Why did it do that? Is there some kind of magic here that’s fighting it, maybe?” He hadn’t thought of that, being more concerned that they had gone in the wrong direction somehow, or that the magic had worn off.

“I hope not,” he said. “We never even wondered if whoever cast the sleep spell might be watching to see if anyone left the castle, if they know that we rode out and—”

“You think they’ve found us?” Ailis’s eyes got even wider and her face took such a pinched look
that he was sorry he had said anything.

“No.” And he didn’t. He might not have Ailis’s instinct for magic, but he trusted his own intuition that there was no one on their trail. He glanced at the map again. “Do you think Merlin’s magic has worn off?”

“No,” Ailis said. “Even if he is trapped in an ice house, I think Merlin’s too powerful for that. Magic’s a strange thing,” she went on. “I mean, not that I know much about it, but I’ve listened. Merlin once said that you had to have the magic inside you—be born with it, I suppose—to even start learning how to use it properly. But lots of things have the magic inside them. Like that troll. It’s magic—it knows when something’s worth the toll, like your token. And it casts its own sort of spells. It makes you forget it’s there after a while, so it doesn’t get chased away. It even makes you forget if there was anyone behi—Oh no! Newt!”

The troll’s spell broken by her words, the two of them turned their horses and raced back to the bridge. But Newt was nowhere to be seen.

The squire had ridden ahead in a snit, Ailis with him, which was fine with Newt. Let the two of them
go ahead together. He needed some time alone anyway. Much of his days had been spent alone; there were others around, but they didn’t speak to him, and he didn’t speak to them, preferring the company of the horses instead, and the dogs before them. Animals made so much more sense. They either liked you or they didn’t, but they were honest about it. None of the game-playing and currying favor and spreading gossip that seemed to occupy so much time in court.