Awakening Camelot: A Wizard's Quest (Awakening Camelot Duology Book 1)

by Dan Wingreen

  He paused, but Aidan stayed silent when he normally would have interrupted with questions. There was something in Lee's voice, a kind of fondness woven through with horrible sorrow that made anything Aidan might say catch in his throat. He could count on one hand with fingers left to spare the amount of times Lee voluntarily opened up about his past, and he didn't want to do anything that might make him stop.

  "If I couldn't answer them, then he'd just ask again in a different way until I could," Lee said. "Eventually he got older, as people seem to do, but the questions never stopped. They kept comin', on and on, day after day. 'Cept they changed. 'How is it possible that the farmers work in the field all day long and then have to give most of their food to someone else?' 'How is it possible that so few get to control the lives of so many?' 'How is it possible that nobody else seems to care?'

  "I didn't have answers to those either, since I were firmly in the group of people what didn't care. Didn't make no difference to me anyway. I was the 'scary' one that everybody stayed away from. Weren't no problem of mine. Oh, but he hated hearing that. Offended him in the way only a teenager can be offended; one who made assumptions about someone, only to have that person themselves shatter the image of they built up. So, the questions stopped, and instead, he started tellin’ me the answers."

  Lee's eyes were glazed over and he didn't seem to be looking at anything, but Aidan could still feel the weight of Lee's full attention focused directly at him.

  "I ain't never seen so much potential in a person before that day. It was a physical thing that swirled and burned behind his eyes, and sometimes it were so bright that it seemed like it'd explode if you gave him a hard enough shove. He were barely fifteen, and yet it seemed like the whole world turned around him. At least, that's what I saw. So, when he came to me one day and asked for my help, all I could see was that someone or something had finally shoved him just that little bit too hard. He was about to explode and, oh, how I wanted to be there to see what happened when he did. Even though I still didn't care a bit about what he was sayin', I agreed. I expected fun and excitement and maybe even a bit of awe, but what I found was the truest friend I ever had. I just never recognized it until it was too late.

  "It didn't take but ten years to gather up a whole lot of people who believed in what he was sayin' and throw out all the invaders. He even killed his own father, who had collaborated and ruled with their consent, and took his throne. He hated that throne, in the way that slaves hate the chains what bind them, but he knew it was necessary, at least for a bit. A practical idealist is one of the rarest and most dangerous things in the world, if you ask me. So, he settled. And so did the rest of us. I did too, even though up until the very minute he asked me to stay I'd always thought I'd be goin' right back to my old life when he was done. It weren't until that moment I started to realize that, somewhere along the way, I'd turned into one of those people who really believed in what he said, in what he believed. So, I stayed. And I helped out where I could, trainin’ the few wizards that were around and the like. And, slowly, everything actually started working. Just like he'd said it would.

  "Then, he had a son. And everything changed. The boy didn't have the same potential in his eyes as the father, but that was okay because what he did have was magic. So much magic it gave me chills just being in the same room as him. He didn't even have to ask me to train the boy, I practically begged to. I wanted to surround myself with that magic, I wanted to guide it and shape it and make it as strong as possible so he could be an heir, not just in name, but in that same kind of world changing potential his father had. A man like that, with powerful magic in his hands, could do literally anything. Or so I thought at the time.

  "I ended up getting so obsessed with it, with not havin' the dream die with my friend, that I never saw the rot seepin’ into the foundations we were building. I barely even felt the tension that had everybody else on edge all the time. I never paid attention to the whispers of infidelity, or of betrayal by close friends, or of darkness in the boy I had put all of my hopes into. And then, one day, it all fell apart."

  Lee swallowed and walked slowly over to the open sarcophagus. Aidan followed in a daze, too wrapped up in the story and the quiet pain in Lee's voice to think about its familiarity or wonder why his mind was able to fill in the blanks Lee only hinted at. They stopped in front of the marble box, and Lee looked down at Arthur.

  "My friend was betrayed in the worst way by the people closest to him," he said, his voice raspy and choked with emotion. "And I barely even looked up from my obsession to notice. The son grew and left, poisoned by his mother and tortured by his dreams, determined to raise an army against his father, but none of us ever figured that out until it was too late. I actually wished him well when he left. Gave him a hug, told him I was proud of him and that he'd do great things with his life, and sent him on his way.

  "Maybe if I paid attention after he left I could have seen how bad things were, maybe I could have done something or said something, or at least have been a better friend, but it was barely two days after he left that I fell in love for only the second time in my life. She was beautiful and free, a witch of the woods in every possible way, and I had a brand-new obsession to keep me distracted. But I was a bit jealous of her, too. Jealous of her freedom. I remembered what it was like going anywhere whenever I wanted, doing whatever I wanted without having to think about anything beyond what I wanted to do on any given day. Without having to plan out months and years of teachin’ and slow change. Without having to care. The whole damn thing wasn't as bright as it used to be, wasn't as new and exciting as when we were all younger and caught up in the dream. So, when my friend came to me one day and asked me to do something for him, something so important and necessary that it felt like another chain around my neck, I panicked. And refused him. And the next day I left with her to go live in the wild again."

  There was a long, heavy silence, and then Lee's voice, already soft and harsh, quieted until it was almost a whisper.

  "Do you know what Eallair means?"

  The question startled Aidan, and not just because he was lost in what Lee was saying. It hadn't been all that long since the last time he'd thought of that name, but it felt like an eternity. The shift in his mind from Eallair to Lee happened so suddenly and felt so right that he'd never questioned it, so it took him a moment to even realize what Lee was asking.

  "No," he answered, his voice just as low, not wanting to break whatever spell was making Lee open up so much.

  "It means steward," Lee said, his eyes fixed so firmly on Arthur that Aidan wondered which one of them he was really talking to. "It's what he asked me to be. His steward. To look after his people, to look after the dream in case anything happened to him. And I said no. And while I was gone, he died. And the woman I loved betrayed me and left me to die on a field of wildflowers. And by the time I came back and got home, everything had changed. The dream was dead, because I was too selfish to look after it."

  He lifted Excalibur, holding it out on his palms over Arthur's body.

  "So I took the name Eallair as a promise, and everything I've done since then was so that I could be here, and bring you back, and beg your forgiveness."

  Aidan had just enough time to realize Lee definitely wasn't talking to him anymore before he placed the sword into the sarcophagus and gently closed Arthur's hand around the hilt. The reaction was as instantaneous as it was underwhelming. The sword didn't light up like a shining beacon of hope, no trumpets erupted into fanfare, and the earth didn't tremble at the Awakening of the King.

  Arthur's body twitched once as he started breathing again, and then he opened his eyes.

  They were the lightest blue Aidan had even seen, almost silver, like chips of ice held up to the sun. Arthur blinked slowly a few times, like someone waking up from a short, unexpected nap and then he sat up with all the ease of someone used to moving in tight, heavy armor. Arthur barely glanced at the sword in his hand before his eyes
fell on Lee. Aidan could feel the sorcerer tense next to him. For a moment the entire world seemed to stop as blue eyes met gray.

  Then Arthur smiled. It was a warm smile. A fond smile. A smile for a friend who hadn't been seen in a long time, and who had been missed in his absence.

  "You of all people should know that there's nothing to forgive."

  Arthur's voice was deep and smooth, with just the smallest hint of the same accent Lee had. The kind of voice people listened to, even when it was only whispering.

  The Once and Future King's face split into a grin that was so happy and excited and made him look so much like Lee that Aidan couldn't help the way his heart flipped in his chest. Arthur gripped the side of the sarcophagus with one hand and sprang over the edge. He landed gracefully, only pausing to rest Excalibur against the side of the marble box before grabbing Lee and lifting him up in a crushing hug. He held him for a long moment, then put him down and squeezed his shoulders with both hands, his grin fading back into an affectionate smile.

  "Merlin, I never thought I'd see you again!"

  Three thoughts sped through Aidan's mind, then, one right after the other. The first was how it was a little strange, seeing someone who knew the actual Merlin use his name as an exclamation. The second was how the inflections on what he'd said were a little bit off. Most people would put the emphasis on the 'Merlin', but Arthur didn't. He put the emphasis on the 'see'. It almost changed the meaning of the whole sentence…which led to Aidan's third, and most important, thought.

  He wasn't using it as an exclamation, was he?

  There was a shifting in his head as fragments of memories began to twist around and push against each other in new and impossible ways. Bits of conversations, unexplained looks, offhand comments that never seemed to have any context, the way Lee seemed to have accumulated several lifetimes of scars and pain, the way he never talked about his past and the parts he did talk about were kept vague and made him uncomfortable, the way the whole story he'd told in front of Arthur's body seemed so damn familiar; all those separate instances that had never quite fit into the puzzle that was Lee rearranged themselves until, with an ease that was almost painful, they fit and Aidan could see the whole picture for the first time.

  "L-Lee?" Aidan's voice was scratchy and weak. He couldn't possibly be right about this, because that would be…

  Arthur and Lee turned to him at the same time. Arthur's smile turned into a look of polite interest. It was the first time the King Arthur had looked at him, something he'd been imagining on and off since he'd been a child and that had been in the back of his head ever since Lee told him what the scroll was, but he barely noticed. All his attention was focused on Lee. The same Lee who licked his suddenly too pale lips and gave Aidan a weak, hopeful, guilty look. That, more than anything, killed any hope Aidan was wrong.

  "'Lee'?" Arthur asked, raising an eyebrow as he glanced at the person in question.

  No. His name isn't Lee.

  Aidan took a step back.

  It's Merlin.

  "Aidan—"

  And that was as far as he got before Aidan turned and walked back towards the entrance of the cave. The sentence, the plea, on Lee's lips died even as it echoed around the room.

  Aidan broke into a run.

  No one followed him.

  Chapter 13

  Son of a bitch…

  That…did not go the way Lee had thought it would.

  "I feel like I just walked in on the middle of something."

  Lee barely even heard Arthur's words. He stared at the tunnel Aidan had run into, hoping he'd see him come back, hoping he wasn't running to his carriage right now and driving away. Not that he'd blame Aidan if he did, really.

  "Who was that?" his friend asked. His voice was gentler this time, but the way he asked it, like Aidan was already the past tense, made Lee want to scream.

  "Aidan," Lee said, his voice rough with emotion. "He…his name is Aidan."

  There was a short silence.

  "Oh." The wealth of meaning in those two letters told Lee that Arthur understood everything he hadn't said. Like always.

  "And you didn't tell him who you were?" Arthur asked. He was sympathetic and understanding and so bloody Arthur about it that Lee couldn't help huffing out a laugh.

  "No. I didn't." He rubbed his palm across the stubble on his cheeks. "This ain't exactly how I pictured this goin'."

  He tried for sardonic, but it came out mostly bitter. He'd spent the last eighteen hundred years thinking about this moment; planning for it and fantasizing about it. He deserved to have his moment and he had every right to be mad that someone he'd just met was ruining it.

  But all he felt was a brand-new kind of guilt and the need to rush after Aidan and make sure he was okay. To make sure Aidan didn't hate him.

  Honestly, it was only a dragon-sized dose of cowardice that kept him with Arthur right then.

  "And you told him your name was Lee?"

  "No," Lee said. "Told him I was Eallair. He…sorta gave me Lee."

  "Shelter from the storm?"

  "He didn't know what it meant. He just couldn't pronounce the other one." Lee almost smiled fondly.

  He sighed and tore his eyes away from the tunnel and looked back to his friend. The wryly amused smile on Arthur's lips froze, then slowly died when their eyes met.

  "You really care about him, don't you?" Arthur said softly.

  His face was curiously blank, and Lee bristled. Attitudes towards men being with men had changed a lot since Arthur's day and he wasn't gonna have anybody thinking Aidan was less than him, or a substitute woman, or any garbage like that just because he was physically weaker than Lee. Not even Arthur.

  "Yeah, I do," he said, challenging even as he wondered why he was getting so hostile so fast.

  Love, his mind helpfully supplied.

  Right. That.

  Arthur stared at him for a few moments, searching his face for something Lee couldn't figure out. He'd always been terrible at reading Arthur when the man didn't want to be read; one of the reasons he'd enjoyed those long-ago conversations by the edge of the forest. Finally, Arthur smiled again. It was small, but there were too many different emotions in it and in his eyes for Lee to even begin sorting them all out.

  "Good," Arthur said. "I never liked Nivian anyway."

  Lee snorted, but inside he was relieved. He didn't want to fight with Arthur about Aidan. Especially when he was probably going to be fighting with Aidan about a lot of things pretty soon anyway. "You never gave her a chance." He hadn't even thought to say it; he just automatically fell back into their old argument.

  Arthur raised an eyebrow. "I didn't need to. I knew she was no good for you from the moment you introduced us."

  He was surprised at how bloody easy it was to slip back into his old relationship with Arthur, to pick up the rhythm of their conversations and old jokes like they were sitting around a fire after spending less than a day apart. It eased a pain deep inside of him he'd almost forgotten was there.

  "Funny how you never got around to sayin' anythin’ about that until after she screamed at you for trying to serve her wild boar."

  "Who doesn't eat boar?" Arthur said, crossing his arms. The exasperation in his voice was so familiar it made Lee's chest ache.

  "Witches of the wild tend not to," Lee said dryly. "You insulted her by tryin' to feed her a dead animal, and don't you even try to tell me that you didn't know how mad she'd get when you told her that you killed it personally, just for her, and she should be honored that the King of Camelot hunted her meal all by hisself."

  Arthur grinned unrepentantly. It was an expression Lee hadn't seen on his face for a long time, even before he left the castle.

  Instead of defending himself, Arthur said, "You do realize you're defending the woman who tried to kill you? Unless, of course, you're talking about a different witch you fell in love with and left Camelot for."

  Lee's good humor faded as all the old, unpleasant
memories came flooding back. "She didn't try."

  Arthur tilted his head, sensing the change in his mood immediately. "Did I hear wrong? I'm not sure how I even heard anything when I was supposed to be dead but—"

  "She didn't try," Lee said, cutting off the line of conversation before it went someplace he wasn't comfortable talking about right then. "She did."

  Arthur froze. He was probably the only person still alive who knew everything those two otherwise simple words implied. "Oh."

  Lee shook his head internally. Really is funny how many different things can be summed up in them two letters.

  Something else he supposed he'd have to tell Aidan about.

  He looked at Arthur, at the sympathy and the slightly strained expression on his face, and realized he had no idea how to feel. For years when he thought about his friend, all he felt was guilt and the burning need to make everything right. Then he finally found him and woke him up, and it didn't even take but a few minutes to fall back into the same old teasing arguments they'd always had. If Lee had come back before Nivian had killed him, would it have been the same way? Would Arthur have forgiven that as easily as he seemed to be forgiving the much bigger sin Lee had committed? Or was it some kind of change in perspective from being 'dead' for so long?

  "I'm sorry," Arthur said.

  A laugh of shrill disbelief tore its way out of Lee's mouth. "Apologizing to me he is, of all the bloody things," he muttered. "Don't be. It was me that went with her and was too stupid to see what she was, or that Drey had gotten—"

  "No," Arthur said, cutting him off with a sharp hand gesture.

  Lee didn't miss the way Arthur swallowed heavily when he'd said Drey's name. Some things hadn't changed with time, it seemed. Arthur met Lee's eyes with such steady intent that Lee knew it was probably one of the last things he wanted to do, and thus was all the more determined to do it.

  "I mean I'm sorry for asking you to be my steward."

  Now it was Lee's turn to freeze. Thankfully, Arthur continued so Lee didn't have to try and think of something to say.