Camelot Burning (7 page)

“Wait! My lady!” he shouts, dropping his
fusionah
and breaking into a run.

Merlin catches the plan forming in my eyes. “Vivienne, don't!”

But it's too late.

I release Morgan's arm from around my neck. She growls, but I've already thrown my elbow into her shoulder. When she tears away her hand, one of her red nails swipes across my cheek with a sharp sting. The miniature firelance flies from her grasp, but there's no time to watch it fall. I have to get back inside, where magic will not kill me.

“Run, you foolish girl!” Merlin yells.

I run across the drawbridge, my boots miraculously able to keep me upright. Somehow my father pulls me into his safe embrace, and Owen's hand falls on my shoulder.

“Are you all right?” Owen breathes. I nod. “What were you
thinking
? Don't you realize you could have been killed?”

I look at Marcus, not far off. He's watching me, relieved, and reclaims his dropped
fusionah
.

I watch the witch straighten, miniature firelance back in hand. She doesn't run after me. On the contrary, as Arthur continues across the drawbridge, likely expecting surrender, she glares at her brother with nothing to lose and nowhere to go.

“With one word, I could have you killed, Morgan. Give up your magic—”

“You don't know what you ask,” she snaps and just as quickly, that smile of victory disappears. “This life saved Mordred. It kept him alive when nothing else could. Not prayer, not the mechanical arts, not the goodness of others. It can eat at my soul all it wants, Arthur, but our son has been spared, and I'll be damned if I lose him when Camelot's resources could make him strong!”

Arthur freezes at the words. “Our son.”

Their son?
I back away in disgust. The king glances sideways at all who have heard such a shameful secret, and I have to wonder if this is why he won't order his knights to fire. Morgan steps off the drawbridge.

The king has not yet crossed the threshold. “How will your life affect our son?” His voice lowers, and he takes another step. Morgan flicks a victorious eyebrow. Once Arthur has stopped beyond the city walls, she smiles.

“No!”
Merlin bellows, pushing his damaged legs toward the gates.

“Get her to the towers,” Lancelot tells my father in a tone that will not concede to disobedience, before running after Merlin. I back away, but only a few steps until I'm forgotten. My hand reaches for my cheek, and when I pull it away, the faint line of blood on my fingertips is enough to make me shake. Waves of horror come over me. I was so close to death.

Morgan's voice wavers. “He needs but a drink from the chalice you seek. Is it evil, Arthur, for my magic to save another?”

She grasps Arthur's face with her pointed nails and pulls him close. She kisses her brother. Bites his lip. Arthur wrenches away in shock, hand at his mouth. With a sharp inhale, his eyes go blank. White.

“I'm sorry, darling,” Morgan says with dark eyes. “It could have been quick and painless. I wouldn't have made you suffer like those traitors in Lyonesse. But know the wizard's a fool to think his ancient incantation would suffice.” She backs away, thumb to her mouth as her tongue darts out to taste it. “You're as I remember, Arthur. Haven't aged a day.” A girlish chuckle escapes her lips.

“Arthur!” Merlin rushes through the gates, seizing the king to pull him back inside the city walls. Lancelot is close behind. He turns to call forth knights while squires fall back to retrieve armor or steed in case, God willing, Arthur orders his sister dead.

But there was something different outside the city walls. Morgan's epiphany made her forget me as her shield. Something urged her to invade my mind with skull-crushing force. What did she think she could take from me? What did I see in my mind's eye?

The sorcerer has the king by the shoulder, but that only amuses the witch.

“Too late, Merlin,” she chimes. “I cannot use
Telum Paret
anywhere near Camelot, but I'm nothing if not resourceful with my magic. I'll come back for what is rightfully mine. I have creative ways of getting what I want.” She rolls her eyes until they're sheathed in white once again.

“Essah tah Merlin evanescehah oblivnohamehcha! Essah voucha Arthur yeit Camelot sanalah ladieriah!”

Her arms spread wide, and a translucent orb appears, surrounding her, encasing her. It hums with power. She releases the sphere with bared teeth, letting it shatter into waves blasting against Merlin and Lancelot. The sorcerer grunts with pain as they pull Arthur inside. The waves hit the advancing knights; their armor is ill-suited to repel such ruthless magic. It strikes them down, temporarily blinding them.

Ignoring the blood on my cheek, I run to Percy's side to help him up. “All right?”

He nods, his brow furrowed.

Lancelot calls up, “Fire!”

The guards are quick, but an invisible wall shields Morgan from their bullets' ear-shattering blasts. She fires back, wearing a grin wide with confidence. Several guards fall from the wall dead.

I jump in shock. I've never seen someone die.

“My lady,” Marcus says, suddenly beside me, his hand on my elbow. “Go back inside.” His eyes plead for this like it's the only thing to soothe the horror surrounding us. I back away for the castle steps as he, Owen, and more squires run forth, equipped with
fusionahs
and crossbows.

Morgan mounts a horse too demonic to be one of God's creatures as Lancelot seizes Arthur's arm, pulling him from danger. She gallops away, and only her laughter remains. I steady myself against the main castle's stone wall.

Lancelot growls, “To hell with firelances! Crossbows!”

Flocks of square-headed arrows whistle through the air to no avail. Guards grunt as they pull crossbows taut, reload, aim, fire. But Morgan rides on.

Arthur's trance breaks. He sees the attack on his sister and yanks himself free from Lancelot's hold. “Stop! Cease fire!”

“No, Arthur … ” I whisper through clenched teeth.

Arthur watches Morgan flee, demonic hooves digging into rocky ground as her monstrous horse soars across the land.

“Arthur!” Lancelot growls. “She'll return to destroy you!”

Merlin nods. “He's right, boy. She won't rest until she's taken Camelot for herself. Kill her before whatever spell she's cast takes effect.”

Morgan's white hair whips around her, mingling with black shadows.

“You said Camelot was protected, old man,” Arthur says.

“The city walls divide the kingdom into that which my incantation protects and that which is … less important. It was never adjusted when the kingdom expanded.” Merlin looks on in regret.

Morgan is getting away. Lancelot seizes the king's arm. “Arthur, send your knights after her!”

Arthur opens his mouth to speak. But before he can say a word, Morgan le Fay vanishes.

Nine

But Morgan would not leave.

In the middle of the night, a violent blast shakes me from a nightmare and bolts me upright in my pitch-black bedroom. I leap from my bed for the window to see smoke crowding the sky. Flickers of red and orange silhouette the city walls.

“My God,” I gasp. My long, corseted jacket lies on a chair by the window, and I throw it on for warmth, fastening the copper clasps and letting the hood hang loosely around my neck.

The western farmlands are immersed in an ugly fire fighting to surpass the mountains. At least twenty fields go up in smoke. One by one, they fall victim to loud blasts, like the flames are alive, able to think and seek prey. I hear terrible screams. “Oh God, the people.”

I avoided death's call no more than a day ago, but it's returned for others. I squint through the thick smoke, making out scores of figures scampering from the hills. Some have survived. But those who won't make it follow in desperate attempts to change that, their hair and clothes just as luminescent as the fields they've left. Their screams are the loudest.

In the courtyard, Arthur and a handful of knights are already rushing for the gates as guards stand shocked and helpless subjects watch. Knights call for their steeds. In his eveningwear of a thick woolen robe and dark trousers, Arthur shouts loudly enough that even I can hear from my chamber's height, “Open the gates!
Now
!
”

As the heavy doors peel open, I see the disaster is so much worse.

Trees have been devastated: black and lifeless, mere skeletons of the full, lush branches Camelot knew. Serfs lucky enough to have lived close to the city walls take to the sanctuary inside, faces black, limbs burned.

The door to my bedroom bursts open. I jump. My mother has a thick woolen robe tied around her shoulders with the hood covering her hair. “They need help,” she says. I nod and move to join her, but she shakes her head. “No. You stay here. Your father doesn't want you leaving these chambers.” She sifts through my boudoir, finding several blankets to take with her.

I feel my eyes widen. “What?” This is the last thing I want. “That's absurd! I can help!”

“Not now, Vivienne. There are some things in this world even you cannot fix.”

I'm trying to figure out what she means, but before I can object again, the door shuts behind her.

I listen to the chaos spilling through our perfect kingdom. With only distant shouts as company, I'm alone with thoughts of Morgan's icy eyes threatening mine. Of the melodic way her voice called my name. Of her invading a section of my mind I'd never explored before. The scratch on my cheek is raw under my fingers. I could have died at her hand. But I cannot think like this. I have to be rational.

A heavy sound brings me back to the present. Slow, like heavy blocks of steel churning against each other. Like the drawbridge when they let it fall across the moat …

“The lock.”

No, I won't be confined here.

I rush to the door and burst through it in time to just miss a long, iron bar falling across the hallway in these quarters. A preemptive locking system that would confine nobility to their chambers, in case the castle fell under attack. No doubt my father was behind these orders to keep me out of danger.

I back up against the parapet. The air is cool, and I close out the chill from my draping sleeves. The bar thuds across the doors; I jump as it slams. A long, iron hook snaps out of a compartment and threads itself into a carved-out loop I never noticed on the frame, and then back into the heavy iron ring in the middle, creating an unbreakable circuit that won't let up until the wheel at the bottom of these quarters is engaged and rotated.

There's silence in these parapets. No one else has left their quarters, but commotion sounds from inside as they hear the contraption lock. I've managed to slip out in time, the only one to do so.

And now I'm going to the courtyard.

Squires run horses toward the gates as knights and guards call for supplies. Woolen blankets, buckets of water, newly-developed iron wheels that build up leather lungs with pressure and expel their contents across a field. As much dried grain as they can muster to temper the fire. Knights' saddles are already equipped with iron canisters that blast flaming fuel by way of a trigger, used in the fiercest battles. As I pull the hood of my jacket over my hair, I watch Galahad test one. An inferno streams from the barrel.

“Fill these with water,” he tells a squire.

My heart pounds as I search for ways to help, but I'm useless with a weapon. I can tend to the wounded, though, and they're using the courtyard as a makeshift hospice for serfs and peasants unlikely to see it through the night. The infirmary must be full.

“Put me to work,” I tell a young nun who eyes me up and down with a scoff, noting the linens about me too expensive to belong to an orderly. I reach for her shoulder. “Don't refuse good help.” She nods and leads me through rows of injured people the knights have just brought in. All have someone caring for them but one.

I nearly pass out from the devastating sight of a girl no older than me with skin red and bloody. She bites down on her screams. The air reeks of smoke, and as often as I can manage, I use my sleeves as a woolen filter. The nun sets a bloodied bowl of moon-reflecting water next to me and hands me a cloth. My head spins as she explains how to care for burns. The girl lying on burlap falls in and out of sleep, the skin on her face bubbling. I'm not to touch that skin; I'm only to set the cooling cloth to patches that are already burnt. Her skin flakes like charred wood, and she clutches my hand tightly.

The gates spill open next to me. Percy and his squire drag inside a large barrel they drop at the king's feet. There's an iron ring for its circumference. A lever pulls forward, and then back, and the barrel's face falls to the ground.

“Fire powder,” Percy says, soot and horror on his cheeks. “And fuel to spread the flames.”

Just one barrel of either wouldn't do that to nearly half of the farmlands. But two more squires lead in wooden carts packed with more, all marked with the seal of Glastonbury. Bags of fire powder land in front of Arthur. It bursts into the air, just like Azur's
jaseemat
did when Merlin first showed it to me.

The girl in front of me coughs roughly.

“It's all right.” We both know it's a stupid thing for me to say, but her eyes thank me for trying nevertheless. I press the wet cloth to her temple, and her eyes fall shut with relief.

Percy watches the kneeling king stare in awe at the unassuming weapon spilling through his fingers. “Morgan, your majesty.”

Arthur's stunned, and I can't imagine the bonds of siblinghood tearing like that. I can't imagine how someone as evil as Morgan could be human. The sense of overwhelming loss paralyzes Arthur. Numbly, he steps forward, an emotionless machine regarding his land.

“How could this still have existed in Glastonbury?” Percy asks. “It's been abandoned.”

“She couldn't have done this,” Arthur says in amazement.

“You should have slain her when you had the chance, Arthur,” Merlin's voice echoes throughout the courtyard.

Tumultuous with anger, the sorcerer storms for the king, his long scarlet robe tight around his shoulders. I draw my hood across my face as my mentor strides past. “Now you have no choice but to kill her before she returns.” He seizes the king's vestments with the semblance of a father disciplining his wayward boy. “You might not have chosen this destiny for yourself, boy, but I taught you better that this. The decisions you make do not dictate your life alone. You have to consider the lives of those here!”

Arthur grits his teeth and looks over his shoulder. He tears Merlin's hand from his robe. “My horse! We ride out tonight!”

The king's order is relayed until it reaches the royal stables. Merlin grasps Arthur's robe again. “No, Arthur. Send your knights to kill Morgan. For you to leave Camelot now is exactly what she expects. If you leave its protection, I can do nothing.”

Arthur faces Merlin, enraged. “I'm not going to kill her. I'm going to find her before anyone else. Have her tried and humiliated more than Uther stripping her of the Pendragon name ever could.”

Merlin's mouth parts in surprise. “Are you mad?” He gestures toward the burning land. “See what she's done! See the devastation! With one order to Lancelot or Galahad, you could have Morgan dead before dawn!”

Arthur leans in close. “You ask for my sister's blood twenty years after you dreamt of a just paradise such as Camelot. I am not in the practice of carrying out an execution before a trial. Besides, there is much in this life she'd find worse than death.”

A squire brings a saddled horse to the king, complete with firelances and strapped with sheeted armor. The king trades his robe for proper riding gear and mounts the horse, much to Merlin's dismay.

“At least bring Excalibur.”

“I don't need it.”

“Arthur, don't be a fool—”

“Old man, your point is made.” He spots Galahad. “Gather five. Leave the squires. We're going after Morgan.”

Galahad nods without question. He throws a whistle at five more knights who gallop toward the gates and leads them out of Camelot as Arthur holds back a little longer. “She's not just blood, old man. She gave me an heir. I cannot ignore that.”

Merlin is silent. It could be too early in Arthur's marriage for a legitimate heir to Camelot. To have Morgan alive might mean finding the illegitimate one. What would he do to that boy?

Arthur exhales, speaking louder. “Make sure the perimeter is surrounded. Guinevere must be well-guarded in case Morgan would try to use this diversion to enter Camelot quietly.”

Merlin doesn't believe that. “Her magic is useless inside. She'll wait until that's remedied.”

“After what happened to Guinevere's handmaid, both will need guards—”

“I don't think so,” Merlin says. My heart stops at the idea of being confined to Guinevere's tower or mine because of what I said. It makes me want to storm through the flames myself, if only to escape, shake the insanity from Arthur Pendragon's head while I'm at it. “Even if the handmaid was a witness of magic, Morgan knows the girl was just that: a handmaid. As long as she and your queen stay within the city walls, there's no reason to send for extra guards. It's control of the castle Morgan's after.”

The king considers it and nods at the sorcerer's logic. I offer a silent prayer of thanks to whoever would listen and set the wet cloth to the girl's reddening neck. God, the pain she's in.

“Camelot is in Lancelot's charge.” Arthur extends his right arm for Merlin's to pass on his power. “The knights will defend it. Godspeed, old friend.” Arthur yanks his steed's reins, and the horse gallops through the gates, leaving a bewildered sorcerer behind.

“Merlin!”

I peek at the royal stables. Lancelot rides into the courtyard in time to see Arthur lead six knights into the burning farmlands.

“You just missed him,” Merlin says. “He went after Morgan.”

Lancelot nods. “Here's hoping he kills the witch before the next moon.”

Merlin fumes. “Arthur, always the diplomat. He won't kill Morgan. He wants his sister to be tried for this and for Lyonesse.”

Lancelot freezes. “What?” Angry, as he should be.

Merlin presses toward Lancelot, his eyes steady. “He leaves you in charge until he returns. You, with access to his Norwegian steel. Let me have it. Arthur's quest for justice will do nothing but bring more danger. Camelot must be ready, and I must build a weapon.”

“A weapon?” I hear myself whisper.

I speak too loudly. Merlin's eyes follow the echo of those words to find me behind them. I'm quick to glance down at the girl holding tightly to my hand and whisper words of comfort. Just as quickly, Merlin turns back to Arthur's champion.

Lancelot is silent as the enormity of Merlin's request registers. He runs a hand over his tired face and pulls uncomfortably at the gentleman's jacket he's not gentleman enough to wear. “Wizard, have you lost all sense of time and memory? Don't you realize what it could do to you?”

“
You don't know how much worse it could be. You don't know what Morgan is capable of.”

“I can't. You'll need Arthur's consent.”

Merlin says nothing but eyes the knight in subtle judgment and suspicion.

He told me about the king's supply of Norwegian steel when Caldor was but a skeleton and I was a year younger, tasked with tightening the bolts in Merlin's construction of woven copper feathers. With relish, he spoke of an alloy of translucent gold from the north, forged and enchanted by the ancient demigods centuries ago with a rare incantation that made it impenetrable. When stolen by men, they realized it boasted a different kind of magic: a loophole the demigods did not consider. Just possessing it wasn't enough to count as thievery of magic. But to touch it, the euphoria would send a man straight into madness.

I cannot deny how fascinated I was to have heard this. I imagined how the steel would shine on Caldor as the falcon flew against the sun like Icarus, despite how immensely dangerous it'd be for Merlin's old vice.

Lancelot continues: “The girl at court, who was she?”

“Vivienne, daughter of Lord William. Guinevere's lady-in-waiting.” Merlin's eyes are wide and unblinking. He's ignoring me purposefully now.

“As she was the only one to see those … demons, she'll be brought in. If Arthur fails, I want to know what I'll have to fight.”

“Very well.”

Lancelot rides into the farmlands to help save those still alive. He leaves behind a sorcerer deep in thought. Merlin's eyes flicker toward mine, and then away.