Camelot Burning (2 page)

Two

I'm careful as my boots hurry over some of the softer stones in the hall, worn down over the years by the king's former lovers. At this time of night, the lanterns' glow casts shadows upon the curvature of the corridor, making me think someone's there even though, other than the knights, everyone is asleep.

No, not everyone.

Rough, urgent voices from the castle's northern gates stop me at a window, reminding me that guards stand alert day and night in Camelot. Curious, I lift to my toes and look down. A dozen guards by the extendable steel drawbridge point across the way to someone riding from the castle.

I continue to the rigid stairs, pulling the cream-colored veil from my shoulders and resting the hem on my head so the edges float down my back.

“ … word le Fay's breached the English shore,” a guard from the city walls whispers to two at the door. “Heard him plain as day shout it up to the blokes on the wall this morning. Let him in, they did.”

Before they see me, I press against the doorframe and peek around the corner, at upright weapons and blades pricking at the stone floor. Chain-mail gloves grasp the curved hilts of those blades where iron firelances were fused, allowing them easy access to more than one deadly form of weaponry.

Le Fay.
The name of the king's sorceress sister is one I know well: a monster's name whispered into the nightmares of children. The details of her exile have been exaggerated to the point of legend. I myself admit to the occasional sleepless night because of what Owen's told me of her.

“That's preposterous. With the mark on her head after they outlawed magic?” the second replies. “Wasn't just a drunken bard looking for a pretty penny?”

The third looks unconvinced. He's much younger, and perhaps this is the first time unsettling news has arrived while on duty. His fingers fumble with his weapon. I wonder if he's forgotten the small trigger by his thumb, which would extend the firelance's barrel and set it off. He might lose a foot.

At the gates, the commotion grows stronger. There are calls to reinforce the perimeter. But the sun's already set, the clock is ticking, and my mentor awaits. I have little time.

A soldier with a crossbow strapped to his back beckons the three. “Word from Corbenic!”

The skeptical guard is first to move. “Cannot be.” They leave. More exhilarated than is necessary considering King Pelles of Corbenic is Arthur's ally. According to Owen, Lancelot sometimes frequents Corbenic on his way beyond the English shores.

But now's my chance. I run from Guinevere's tower, watching every corner in case someone would spot me running this way, when our family's quarters are in the exact opposite direction. I lift my dress's hem past my boots, moving faster. Smoke races for the sky from the clock tower's chimney as I bolt through jasmine-scented gardens. So quickly, it's only after I've landed atop the cobblestone in the village that I realize the dreadful
thump
was, in fact, my viewer tumbling out of my pocket and onto the street.

“Blast!” I turn and gather my dress in my fists to duck and retrieve my viewer, but another hand is quicker.

“What do we have here?”

I'd recognize Stephen's thick voice anywhere, but if not that, I'd recognize the appalling condition he's kept his leather boots in. “Give it here, Stephen.”

He's Owen's friend and a fellow squire, and there are two more behind him, but neither is my brother. This lot of three prefers to mimic the ridiculous dandies of Camelot by acting foolishly around ladies and looking for trouble. If their respective knights were worthy of Arthur's praise, perhaps these squires would follow suit.

Stephen's long face widens into a mischievous smile. “Oh, hello, Viv. Fancy meeting a fine noblewoman such as yourself out here.”

I reach for my viewer, hoping Stephen's reactions are as slow as his wit, but no such luck. He tosses it to Ector, who dashes around me to catch it.

“Shouldn't you be prettying yourself up for the wedding tomorrow?” Ector adds. He's much taller than me, so there's no use in jumping. “Or have all of Camelot's lords and dandies passed on star-gazing, quiet-as-a-mouse Lady Vivienne? What will your father do now?”

I set my hands on my hips and wait for them to lose interest, my long, overdrawn sigh of exasperation somehow too subtle for them to notice. I'd offer a smart remark in return, but they're tragically too oafish to ever feel the sting.

“How does this—” Ector mumbles, fiddling with the viewer's edging until he's found the switch to lengthen it. “Oh, there we go.”

I cringe. “Blast it all, Ector. You'll break it, you buffoon!”

My fingers dart for my viewer, but Ector jerks it high above his head, narrows his eyes to the right, and throws it at Bors, who nearly drops it.

“Should be inside at an hour like this, Viv,” Bors tells me. “Especially tonight.” He's the slowest or perhaps the nicest of the three, and lets me take back my inventor's tool. I hold up the lens to the gaslight. God help them if I find any scratches on the glass.

“Why is that?” I mutter. I use the soft wool of my pearl-studded gloves to wipe away some pebbles and dirt.

“Hold on,” Stephen says. “Don't tell me rumors of Morgan's return didn't reach the nobility this afternoon! Hasn't your brother told you anything?”

They speak of Morgan, just as the guards did. Though the idea of crashing gray waves and a haunting fugitive of magic breaching them is an exhilarating fantasy, surely aeroships would never be permitted to bring le Fay here.

I must look surprised, because even Stephen's disposition softens, likely misinterpreting my expression for fear. “But I'm sure it's only a rumor. Don't worry.” Stephen gestures the other two to go with him into the village. “G'night, Viv.”

I follow them down the shadowy streets. “Wait. What rumors? My lady will want to know of this.”

Stephen looks sideways at me. But I have a valid reason for demanding more, considering Morgan's connection to Lyonesse. He shrugs, like he's realized the same. “Bards wandered the countryside declaring it for weeks, but it was only this morning that Arthur's sister was allegedly spotted on the English shores. Pelles told Arthur to kill her on sight if she returned to Camelot. His messenger just left.”

It sounds like a proclamation of superiority over King Arthur, who Pelles knows did not come about his reign by normal—or even desired—means. But this cannot be right. “How could Morgan still be
alive
, let alone back in Britannia, unless the whole world has forgotten her face?”

Bors is quick with a response. “Rogues, of course. Every man has his price. Theirs is much more competitive.”

Ector scoffs. “Air pirates everywhere are occupied enough these days, not just the ones who took control of the Spanish kingdoms. Lancelot will attest to that once he returns. Empty-handed, granted. Again.”

They walk too quickly, as though trying to lose me. I must pick up the pace. “What do you mean? Empty-handed? What aren't you telling me?”

Stephen halts in the middle of the silent streets. “Viv, we told you all we know. Word is Morgan might return to Camelot. If that happens, Camelot must kill her or face the wrath of Pelles and the other kingdoms of Britannia. End of story.” He pauses. “Why are you out here, again?”

I'm out here because of a standing appointment with Merlin. But I cannot tell them that. Instead, I lift my chin through the utter discomfort of three pairs of eyes on me and stare the squires down. “I might ask you the same. Shouldn't you be preparing your knights' vestments for tomorrow?”

They know I've caught them. Stephen cocks an eyebrow. “We won't tell if you won't.” He taps Ector and Bors each on the shoulder, and the three dash down the streets.

I return my viewer to my pocket for the second time tonight, then I turn on my heel and run the other way. My veil tumbles from my head, catching on my copper hairpin, but I straighten it, ensuring my blonde locks don't give me away.

I hurry through the town square, black leather boots clambering over the wooden stage of the gallows. More of a decorative landmark in a kingdom where there are no executions, it's mainly used by dandies who smoke
hashish
and hope nobility will notice their hawked hair. A patrolling guard gives me a curious stare, but I hold a finger to my lips for silence. He looks the other way, but not before gifting me with an obnoxious wink I choose to ignore.

I race through a blur of empty tanner shops boasting specialty leather corsets; I pass deserted optic boutiques, whose monocles are worshipped by perfectly-sighted dandies. Twisted iron lanterns illuminate bare cobblestone streets. Even the crimson flags with gold dragons, sharp black studs as eyes, are free of birds atop their poles.

I reach the painted sign of the blacksmith's shop in front of the sorcerer's tower: tall, thin, unstable-looking as though a slight wind would send the rickety structure crashing to the ground. From the streets below, the clock is monstrously large: black and white with decorative iron numbers and curled hands that wrap around an enormous golden cog.

I dash behind the workspace, and freeze.

An iron mask on a giant's face turns my way. The blacksmith. Bashing smoldering metals against his anvil or not, he hides his eyes from the kingdom. Now he stands by a bucket of water, soaking callused hands. I pause, unsure of whether I'll be able to continue to the cellar door by his feet. After a moment of shared silence, he steps to the side and pulls the heavy iron ring himself, gesturing for me to descend.

I'm hesitant. This is the first time we've come face to face as I usually sneak by late at night, but he doesn't say a word, and intuition assures me he'll keep my secret. As illogical as that may be, I step down, letting him draw the cellar door over my head, stealing my light.

My hands grip the ladder, rotting from age but reinforced with steel handprints and leather-covered steps to maintain grip. I climb down to the earthy cellar and feel my way toward a wooden wheel that lets a fake wall fall into paneled plates, mimicking the fold of an Oriental fan. Behind the secret compartment is a wooden door leading to the steps of Merlin's tower—the only entrance, at his request. My heart pounds in anticipation of hearing how the sorcerer got the mechanical falcon to fly.

I twist the iron knob, throw open the door to the stairs, and jump.

Because Merlin is already here.

Couldn't wait either, not after what happened with Caldor at dusk. The lantern's light in his tattooed hand reflects in the steel piercings in his ears, eyebrows, and nose. Unwilling to follow tradition, Merlin's head is completely shorn, his facial hair a small goatee woven with a phoenix feather and glass beads from a lover he took in Africa. He's never looked older than fifty, but must be as old as the world itself. His entire body is a journal of his life: dates inked on his knuckles, limp requiring a cane.

A wave of excitement rushes through his amazed blue eyes, lined with gold.

“You won't believe what's waiting upstairs.”

Three

“Come quickly. You have a busy day tomorrow tending to Arthur's pagan woman, and we need every minute until then,” Merlin shouts as we climb the spiraling stone steps.

One day I counted: three hundred, but it feels like a thousand. The sorcerer's legs must be as strong as a mule's; despite his limp, he can still scamper up two at a time even as the fashionable restraints of black trousers and a crimson cloak bind him. His antique blade, the craftsmanship of which he likes to show off at court amongst Arthur's advisors, clacks against each step, creating a song with the rustle of his cloak. The pristine firelance he calls a
pistolník,
he holds steady at his waist. A gale-force wind passes through the windows as we venture above Camelot.

“How did you—” I gasp as the bone lining of my corset digs most dreadfully into my waist.

“There'll be plenty of time for questions soon enough!”

We arrive at a red door with an iron ring in the center. Merlin throws all his weight into the pull, and it creaks open, giving way to a circular floor that might fit several of Guinevere's elaborate chambers. Some of his gas lanterns are already lit, Merlin's first invention after establishing the mechanical arts in Camelot. A way to be forever rid of candlesticks that would ruin his journals when knocked over.

He adjusts the gauge of the lantern by the door and draws a dark velvet drape across his bedposts. A quirk of his, uncomfortable with others seeing where he sleeps unless his visitors are Arabian dancers with time and erotic energy to spare.

I search about for Caldor. “Where—”

A flash of copper blinds me. Caldor flits around in midair, forcing me to step back into shelves of scrolls and globes. I catch balance on a map of India and gasp in delighted surprise.

“Return!” Merlin calls before snatching the falconry glove from his work desk. The falcon twitches, clicks and whistles its only voice. Merlin trades the lantern for the glove, pulling it onto his left hand and extending his arm. Black glass eyes study Merlin before the bird scurries over to its master. As Caldor becomes more mechanical by the second, Merlin pulls up the plate from its back so the residual steam can escape. The falcon eventually goes still, head resting on its breastplate.

“Yes, very good,” Merlin mutters. He gives the bird an affectionate touch of its chest where real feathers would otherwise be. A lazy hand sweeps the desk of its half-completed copper inventions, goggles, and old-fashioned weapons to create an open space. “Magnificent, isn't he?” Merlin says. When a sharp whistle splits the air, he faces the fireplace and watches his new pulley system click over the piping-hot kettle. “Although, you saw him earlier, didn't you?”

Nothing gets past him, even from afar. My answer is a smile, and though I'm dying to know more, preparing a proper cup of tea comes first. Not the novelty from the far east, but the good raw stuff from a tribe of Druids that Merlin met during the period of unrest between Camelot and the Celts. How a gentleman appreciates tea is sometimes a better indicator of character than political loyalties, and Merlin keeps the Celts' company to this day.

“I saw Caldor lifelike, without wires.”

Merlin beams. “Yes.”

After pouring hot water into a waiting teapot, he hobbles over to his desk where there's an iron safe and a padlock the size of my outstretched hand. He reaches for a ring of skeleton keys and selects the mightiest to unlock the safe. I try to peek inside, but Merlin senses it and steps in front of me as though his shorn skull tattooed with tribal symbols would ward off my curiosity. He glares over his shoulder, a twinkle in his eye telling me he's not entirely angry.

“You could be more discreet, Vivienne. I would have thought seven years of apprenticeship would have taught you that.” He pulls a stone mortar and pestle from the safe. When he sets it on his desk, sparkling smoke bursts from the impact. I reach to touch it, but he smacks my hand away with the handle of his cane.

“Do not touch what you don't yet understand,” he scolds as he gauges the mortar. “At midnight, Azur brought me payment for the aerohawk.”

I imagine the excitement in Azur's bright eyes when he saw Merlin's newest invention: a steam-run hawk. A flying vessel large enough to carry one passenger, styled like a miniature aeroship with brown and gold wings. Now Azur can fly across the ocean, the moors, as far as he wishes— as long as there is sufficient water and fire to power the craft. To depend on private aeroships instead might send the traveling alchemist from Jerusalem straight into poverty. Much more convenient for Azur Barad, who taught Merlin the mechanical arts years ago in order to free him from the old pagan ways.

Merlin has yet to share how he and Azur stay in touch so easily, but that's merely one secret of many the sorcerer has hidden in Camelot.

“Vivienne, I present to you the next advancement in eastern alchemy,” Merlin says, lifting the pestle. The powder is gold, as I expected, but it shimmers with a barely audible sound: a woman's whispering voice. I lean forward. It's almost fluid.

“Azur called it
jaseemat
. No longer does an alchemist simply change rocks into precious stones or metals. Now, we can drench moveable objects in
jaseemat
, made out of gold derived from common charcoal, and have whatever it touches respond as though it's living.”

My eyes widen at the insinuation. “Only magic could do that, Merlin.”

He shakes his head. “This is not magic. This is an
instruction to the elements. A conversation, if you will. The words I say are nothing more than a gentle prodding, but the elements obey, Vivienne. Thankfully in English as well as Azur's native tongue, for practicality's sake.” He points at my hair. “Your pin.”

I release my mother's copper hairpin, forged in the shape of a dragonfly atop a violet, and hand it to him as my bangs fall across my eyes.

He sets it on the table and shakes atop some
jaseemat
. It glows as it falls.

Merlin's voice goes low.
“
Yaty ala alhyah.
”

We watch. The shimmer fades. I frown, but Merlin grunts at me, bringing back my attention. Then, the hairpin twitches. I hold my breath, my eyes fixed open though they desperately want to blink. The pin turns, as though on an axis. Slowly at first, and then the whirring of metal against wood speeds up, rendering it a spinning top. It lifts from the table into the air, only inches from our faces, turning and turning, the residual dust falling, giving the illusion of a grand, golden skirt.

“Merlin,” I gasp.

His eyes are enchanted like he wants to burst with happiness. He licks his lips and speaks. “Now fly.”

One at a time, the wings of the dragonfly break free of the copper entrapment. They're translucent and shimmery, batting against the air. The dragonfly weaves through long tapestries hanging from the rickety ceiling and nearly flies out the window.

“Return!”

It stops in midair and jets backward to the waiting hand of the sorcerer. He lets it rest on his finger, wings still beating, and hands it to me.

“He won't hurt you. Hasn't pulled out your hair yet, has he?” The bug jumps to my waiting finger. Its tiny feet tickle my skin. I breathe a smile of amazement. “Look,” Merlin adds.

The bug's arms move back and forth over the flower, which I now realize is also twitching.

“What in—” I whisper.

A dark-green bud presses through the bronze, twisting skyward, covered in cracked metal and alchemic dust. The lifeless violet turns scores of exquisite shades of purple; the dragonfly settles itself onto the stamens of the flower and lowers its wings.

Speechless, I gawk at Merlin, who does nothing but regard his mortar with the most delicious amount of praise.

“How can this be?” I say. “How long will it last? What is to become of my hair, old man? Is this life?”

He holds up his hand to slow me down. “For centuries, we've limited life to what we can create organically. We've never looked at its basic elements and compiled them differently. Alchemy has finally given us other options. Unlike its war with magic, the copper in your pin shares a blissful marriage with alchemy. But is this life as you and I live? Alas, no. The amount I dusted onto your jewelry will last for but several minutes. This is my own version I concocted using Azur's as a guide, while his remains safely locked away. It'll take me years to develop my skills to match my old friend's.”

As he speaks, the coppery shade grows bolder, the dragonfly's wings less luminescent, the flower less purple. Seconds pass, and it's nothing but a hairpin again.

I frown, a spark of strange despair coming over me as the pin goes cold.

“Don't be saddened by it, my dear. Nothing is permanent, and everything in life is merely waiting to become dust.” Merlin's cane helps him to his window. He pulls back the curtains to get a wider view of the stars.

I pocket my mother's hairpin and join him at the window. In strong winds, the top of this tower feels as rickety as it looks, though Merlin has assured me many times there's nothing to fear.

My eyes strain beyond Camelot to a world I've never known other than from the sorcerer's journals and letters. If I listen carefully, I can hear waves crashing into the high cliffs to the south. For seven years, Merlin has entertained me with stories of his journeys to the icy northern lands, of seas and airs patrolled by Vikings and Spanish rogues, and of the infinity of hourglass sands in the Holy Land.

So much I'll never see if I stay in Camelot.

But staying here is not the plan. I steal a glance at the sorcerer who's been a dear friend and mentor for years. And yet, a future in Camelot has only one ending for me and wouldn't involve continuing with the mechanical arts, but would rather consist of cross-stitching in my bedchambers, and a husband who'll likely have the personality of a prickly winter pine.

A future in Jerusalem, working alongside Azur, however …

Merlin hands me a cracked cup of tea. Black, as it should be, and cool enough now to swallow in one gulp.

“Seventeen years of castle life and you still have bad manners at tea time.” Merlin clicks his tongue as I set down an empty cup. “I suppose I can't blame you. The rubbish they serve in the castle is no match for O'Ciaragain's.” He finishes his own cup and sets it down with a satisfied gasp. “Now, to work! Your lazy compilation of pulleys and sprockets is inexcusable. If you don't strengthen Terra's wings, she'll live up to her namesake and crash to the earth the second you send her into the sky. Fix her so Caldor can have an
aerial
friend.”

Terra hangs like a marionette above a small table I've claimed as my own. She's made of hammered-out copper I soldered together myself. More of a nightmarish skeleton than Caldor's meticulously-constructed body.

Merlin shakes his head at Terra's sharp metal appearance, her face like a barn owl's instead of a falcon's. “Painful, but your next one will be more … accomplished. Surely.”

I return his scowl with a wicked smile. “Another remark like that, old man, and I'll make sure she attacks you in your sleep.”

“Ha!”

Then he's at his work desk, welding mask pulled over his eyes, setting a soldering torch to the frame of a looking glass. One of his many side projects in a clock tower rich with copper for inventions and mechanical falcons alike. A way to make a fortune off the nobility who might believe in the serfs' myths that sheets of reflective glass act as windows to the soul.

I pull a set of goggles over my eyes, blinking as I adjust to the oversized, cloudy lenses. Terra looks back at me, lifeless. What sort of life could she ever live? What more could she be capable of herself?

“Merlin, why not use Azur's blend on Caldor? If his powder is more powerful, why not spare a bit for your pet?”

“The same reason Azur and I choose not to share the secrets of how to derive gold from the elements. We must not play as gods of the world. Azur's alchemy is priceless, Vivienne. I'd wager even more than Arthur's damned sword.” He snorts at the allusion to Excalibur, but when he lifts his mask there's a touch of envy on his face. “For now, until the rest of the Round Table idiots return, Azur's
jaseemat
shall remain untouched. God forbid, if we ever urgently need it, the castle will already be in grave turmoil, something my old incantation could not protect against. We cannot waste what is precious.”

He gives me a cautious look, and as he does so, he resembles my father, Lord William, who has yet to discover my seven-year lie of omission. Each day is one day closer to
someone
finding out about my apprenticeship with Merlin. The daughter of one of the king's advisors, the sister of Owen, Galahad's squire, learning about the mechanical arts and alchemy …

Even if only to satisfy my curiosity about something as legendary as Excalibur, which Merlin himself is too proud to speak of, it would be the talk of the court for a handmaid to appear so interested. It'd be nothing less than scandalous for that same handmaid to be discovered as Merlin's apprentice.

I hate that I worry about that. I can only hope the next time Azur arrives, he's considered my request and agreed to it, foregoing his aerohawk for a vessel big enough to bring back a second person to Jerusalem. Perhaps he'll surprise Merlin and arrive tomorrow to offer congratulations to Arthur and his new queen. I could be away from Camelot in mere
hours
.

Azur understands there's no life for me here—he must. And while Merlin might understand, too, there's nothing he could do to change my destiny in Camelot. I don't know how I'll finally break it to him that I simply must leave.