The song finished and I was back in the room again. Sighing in appreciation, I began to clap, but stopped when I realized it was the only sound. Everyone was frozen except for a young man in a hoodie staring at me through the glass. Gasping, I sprang to my feet. As if my motion disturbed it, the image of the young man wavered and I saw the creature underneath it.
The Mari Lwyd.
I reminded myself that the creature was reputed to appear during the Christmas time period and that Redcap had said it wasn’t evil. Trying not to look too closely at the frozen bodies around me, I threaded through them and opened one of the sliding glass doors. As I stepped outside, I was surprised that the air was neither cold nor warm. In fact, there was almost an absence of physical sensation.
Turning to face the young man, I could see now that his face was pale and bony. Other than that, and the occasional glimpse of the true Mari Lwyd underneath, he looked ordinary.
“What have you done to them?” I asked.
He gestured to the house. “I have not done anything. We have simply stepped Outside. Not outside this place. Outside Time.” He gestured again and when I looked, I could see that Taliesin had moved just the tiniest bit. They weren’t actually frozen. The sensation was similar to when Morgan took me out of Time in the cave that held Arthur’s resting place.
“Thomas Redcap said you were a portent. Are you trying to tell me something?
He nodded. “Follow me.”
I hesitated. Underneath the visage of a young man hid a gruesome creature of bone and flame. “Where are we going?”
“There is no time for questioning. Mortal beings are not meant to dwell long outside of Time. Even now, you are being changed by it. There is something you must see before this night is finished.” As if in answer, a clock inside the house tolled once, a seemingly unending sound that vibrated along my bones. “It was prophesied that I would find you at this time of the year’s turning. Through ages I have waited. What I must show you, I must show you now.”
Curiosity was stronger than any sense of self-preservation. “Fine. Where are we going?”
“Follow me,” he repeated. He was either unable, or unwilling, to tell me. Without waiting to see if I was following, he walked away. I followed him around the side of the house and down the driveway out onto the street. We covered far more ground than was humanly possible, and with almost no exertion. The ten minute drive to the Strip was probably at least a forty-five minute walk, but within seconds we were standing outside of the Bellagio.
“We’re not supposed to go in there,” I said, but the Mari Lwyd ignored me. Time was approaching its normal pace. Tourists eddied around me as if they were walking through water, but didn’t acknowledge my presence. The Bellagio’s fountains danced in slow motion, colored lights fading in and out as the drawn out sounds of a familiar carol played.
The Mari Lwyd beckoned with bony fingers. “I was given this glamour many years past so I could approach you when you came to the right time and the right place. Be quick and stay close so I may fulfill my mission.” As we approached the hotel, the Mari Lwyd began to run. I struggled after him, trying not to touch any of the holiday revelers as I passed. I had a feeling it would be disastrous for beings in separate Time streams to connect.
“Who?” I demanded when I caught up to him under the glass garden on the ceiling of the lobby. “Who gave you the glamour?”
When the Mari Lwyd looked over his shoulder and grinned, I could see the bones of the horse skull under his skin. “Guinevere.” The word was like a drawn out hiss of breath.
He held out his hand. When I took it, he was no longer a he, but an it. The glamour disappeared, and without knowing how, I was sitting astride the hard skeleton of a horse. Skin crawling, I still grabbed the massive bones of the rib cage to keep from falling off when the creature began to run through the Bellagio, so fast that our surroundings blurred into streaks of color and light. The only thing I could see clearly were the ribbons of flame streaming from the creature’s jawbone.
“Be honored, child.” The creature’s voice was now in my mind. “I have not borne either mortal or god on my back since the first Rhiannon rode me as she went to meet her beloved. I was a being of flesh then, though I sprang from the earth with no mother to begat me. Rhiannon was the divine Earth Queen and I existed only to serve her until her death.”
“Earth Queen? Do you mean like how Arthur was the Earth King?”
“Yes. And remains so, though the Earth has lost confidence in him. Yet he may still reclaim his honor.”
It felt like we were travelling upwards, though I had no idea how. “So what does an Earth King or Queen do exactly?”
The creature peered at me over its shoulder with empty eye sockets. “They serve the earth.” When it looked forward again, I knew I would get no better answer.
We came to an abrupt stop, but I didn’t lose my balance. In fact, despite my bony mount, the ride had been as smooth and effortless as if I’d been riding on air. The Mari Lwyd shook itself and without transition, I was standing on a plush carpet in the main living area of a luxurious apartment, probably one of the Bellagio’s penthouses. The lights of the city twinkled back at me from the bank of windows on one wall. There was a noise from one of the bedrooms and I jumped in surprise as a woman came out.
Cleopatra.
I held my breath, but as she barely missed walking right into me, I knew she couldn’t see me. Wearing an evening dress and adjusting a diamond earring, she seemed to be getting ready to meet someone special, but she moved languidly— we were still in separate Time streams, but not too far off from one another. When she spoke, her words were slow but understandable.
“Father? I’m ready.”
There was a shimmer and a breath of cold air, and then Merlin appeared two inches in front of my nose.
CHAPTER SIX
COQUELICOT
Holding in a yelp, I stepped back.
The man I once knew as Cernunnos frowned. “Have you placed the wards on the hotel as you were instructed?”
“Yes. . . ” Cleo replied, “but there was a disturbance today and the sorcerer I use to reset them hasn’t answered my calls. I promise I’ll have them back up as soon as possible. I’ll find someone else if I have to.”
I held my breath as Merlin cast his eyes around the room, obviously searching for something he could sense but couldn’t see. “What happened?”
Cleo tried to smile, but she was obviously afraid. “Nothing really. One of Taliesin’s people broke our agreement and trespassed on the property. Of course it set off the alarms, but he wasn’t aware. I got rid of him. I’ll remind Taliesin of our agreement, forcibly if necessary.” I was surprised that she didn’t mention Daley or Redcap by name, or meeting me at all.
Merlin’s eyes narrowed. “The bard is a meddler, but too honorable to ever guess the true intent behind your agreement.” He made the word sound dirty. He was circling Cleo now and I could see her tremble at the menace in his voice. “Do you know why I keep you alive, Cleopatra Philopater?”
“No, father,” she whispered.
“Out of all my children, you were the least to me, born as you were without any magic or talent. I had such hopes for your bloodline when I visited your mother in the guise of the horned god Khnum. Imagine my disappointment when you turned out to be a Mundane. It was only your lust for power that kept me from turning you to dust once I knew you were flawed, but I found myself admiring your cunning and initiative.” Smiling, he stroked her cheek with a gentle finger, but she didn’t relax until he turned away and sat down on a leather armchair.
Cleo sat down on the couch across from him. “And I’m grateful you spared me and extended my life beyond what it would have been, father. I exist only to serve you.”
He waved her fawning thanks away. “You’re lucky you’ve made yourself useful to me in other ways, though not in the one that I’d hoped.”
“And what of my more talented brothers and sisters acros
s the world?” She couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of her voice.
The cruel but handsome angles of Merlin’s face tightened as his jaw clenched. “Unsatisfactory, every single one of them. Through every age and culture of the earth, I’ve planted my seeds only to watch them all grow stunted and unable to contain what I require. All but one, and her mother’s foul magic keeps her out of my grasp, if not completely out of my reach.” He ran a hand over his silver hair, smoothing it down with a look of aggrieved majesty. “I had to burn through several of your siblings only just recently, and they were old ones conceived when the world was new. I suspect I will burn through many more while my true heir remains out of my full reach until I’m freed from Avalon.”
Cleo’s face was expressionless. She obviously wasn’t going to mention that we’d met, but I didn’t know why. It suddenly dawned on me that she was my half-sister, apparently one of many half-siblings.
Holy crow, I’m part of a family of evil magic users.
Standing abruptly, Cleo walked over to the windows to stare down at the lights of Las Vegas. “What makes Guinevere’s child so special?” The envy in her voice was clear. She wasn’t hiding our encounter out of any sisterly bond.
I guess we won’t be having sleepovers and braiding one another’s hair any time soon.
Merlin made an elegant, helpless gesture with his hands. “Guinevere was the greatest earth witch of her time, but I have bedded other witches with only disappointing results. I have no idea what accident of breeding made Guinevere’s child my heir. I’ve certainly not been able to replicate it, though not through lack of trying.” He laughed, and even though he seemed old to me, I could still see he was handsome in a debonair, Hollywood leading man sort of way.
Like a satanic George Clooney.
Cleo turned. “You know she’s here in Las Vegas.”
He nodded. “Of course. It doesn’t matter where she goes now that I’ve finally seen her adult face. She may evade me for a time, but I’ll always eventually be able to find her. Guinevere thought that if she could bring the girl through the Path of Time, she could hide her from me forever, but I’m a patient man. Viviane, my own sister, helped Guinevere to bind me in Avalon, but since she couldn’t use her powers without drawing my attention, she lost them and died. Which meant she could no longer hide the girl. Viviane is back, but she’s not what she was; she’ll be no help in bringing down the Wall. I need Guinevere, and to get to her, I need Rhiannon Lynne. I can sense her now, though I can’t always touch her. In fact, my senses tell me she’s quite close.”
I froze as Merlin looked right at me, but his eyes were unfocused; he knew I was there but he couldn’t see me. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, sneaking little mouse.”
I experienced the same sensation as when I once went with Peter to a theme park and he took me on the highest roller coaster. In that moment between ascending and descending, I thought my stomach might jump out of my mouth. Somehow I was back on the Mari Lwyd and through the window. We dropped from the building like a falling star.
The Mari Lwyd’s hooves clicked on the ground as we landed in front of the Bellagio’s fountains which were spraying and dancing to a recording of It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year. I felt a strange stutter as my heart began to beat normally again and sensed Tynan’s following just a step behind; the streams of Time had almost realigned.
Then the creature shook me off into the water.
I tried to stand, but the pool was deeper than was possible and I lost my footing and sank. Looking down, I could see sand and stone far below and a school of pale fish swimming beneath me. Kicking and flailing, I reached for the surface and broke free, gasping for air.
The Bellagio was gone. Las Vegas was gone. The whole world was gone. All that remained was a grey sky filled with storm clouds and the Mari Lwyd watching me from a wind-swept beach framed by barren cliffs.
Using the waves to propel myself, I swam to shore and collapsed on the sand. I could feel the cold now. Shivering so hard I could barely push myself up into a standing position, I was just about to scream at the Mari Lwyd for almost drowning me when it collapsed, ribcage heaving with imaginary breath. Steam rose from the bones as the ribbons of fire dripping from its mouth went out.
Anger forgotten, I knelt by the creature’s side. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”
When the skull lifted off the ground and twisted to look at me, flakes of dry bone broke off and fluttered to the ground. “Many generations ago, I was given this one purpose—to make you see.”
“Who made you? Was it Guinevere?”
It dropped its head on the sand in a posture that even in bone spoke of great weariness. “I know nothing of the witch save that she charged me to find you. I was called into being by the first Rhiannon to serve her and play with her children. After her death, I somehow remained in this world, but only through the season of the winter solstice, until Guinevere placed the geas on me to find you. Once I did, my quest would be ended and also my existence. She had the power to command me and I could not deny it, but I am happy to finally seek my rest.”
The Mari Lwyd was silent and still for so long that I feared it was gone. My pity was pale lavender streaked with silver, but there was no answering color of magic in this cold, grey place. When I rested my hand on the creature’s skull, a section of it crumbled to dust beneath my fingers. Stomach heaving, I stood as the bones disintegrated before my eyes, but the Mari Lwyd wasn’t at peace. Thin and distant, its voice was carried across the beach on the wind. “See! The world is out of balance. Look beneath your feet.”
A gust of supernatural wind buffeted me, lifting me into the air onto a narrow ridge of rock. In front of me was the frothing, churning ocean. Behind me was a pit of magma and fire.
I looked down. I was standing at the center of a symbol etched into the stone—lines knotted into a trillium-like shape, bound by a circle.
As the wind swirled around me, the Mari Lwyd’s voice gained strength. “Water, fire, air—all bound together in the earth which gives them home. These are the elements which exist in all who are also bound by the earth of blood, flesh, and bone. This is the very essence of earth magic, but a spider appeared in the garden of the world, swallowing power whole until the Great Balance was threatened.”
“Do you mean Merlin? Cernunnos?”
“Many ages, many names.”
“What did he do?”
“I cannot say. I was only made to know and tell.”
“I command you to tell me what you know!” I was afraid the spirit of the Mari Lwyd would disappear before it could give me its message.
“LOOK DOWN!” The voice boomed suddenly.
The stone beneath my feet shifted and I threw my arms out wildly to keep my balance. With horror, I realized the ground had broken and the symbol was now split in two. Chunks of rock broke away from the cliff, dropping into an ocean raging with storm on one side and a maelstrom of fire on the other. I gasped for oxygen as the fumes from the magma sucked all the air out of the world.
The voice of the Mari Lwyd was now almost indistinguishable from the howling of the wind. “Where you stand, all Greylanders, earth magicians, and humankind stand with you!” More stone broke away and I was forced to balance on the balls of my feet to keep from falling to my death. “Where you fall, all Greylanders, earth magicians, and humankind fall with you!”
“What do you want me to do?” I screamed, helpless with white terror.
“Save us all.”
“How?”
“Look down.” When the Mari Lwyd’s voice faded away, I knew the creature was finally gone. Then the rock beneath my feet exploded into fragments.
I was back at the Bellagio, balanced on the cement edge of the fountain pool, looking down into the shadowed water. Something glittered at the bottom, catching the light of the strobes which still danced with the sprays of water to the tune of It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year. I thought at first it was only a han
dful of coins some tourist must have tossed in for luck, but then a crescendo of light at the climax of the song illuminated a deep bowl made of gold with pearls inlaid around the edge. Though it was submerged in water, fire roiled inside it.
A warning bell sang in my mind, but I couldn’t stop myself from stretching towards the enticing red power, absorbing its heat greedily. As flames began to rise on my skin, I realized it was the true source of what had been overwhelming me ever since I’d arrived. It called to me, claiming me, consuming me. The pressure building inside my body, inside my soul, was almost too much to bear, and I knew that soon I would erupt into a conflagration of magic and disintegrate just like the Mari Lwyd.
I didn’t care. All that mattered was the need to possess the golden object in the water. As if it understood, it rose to hover just beneath the surface. Leaning forward, I reached out to grasp it.
And grabbed King Arthur by the front of his silk shirt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
VERMILION
I was somehow back in the great room of Taliesin’s mansion. Letting go of Arthur’s shirt, I tripped on my skirt and scrabbled wildly at my waist for Excalibur, but I’d left the earth talisman in my room.
Arthur raised an eyebrow at Taliesin. “Has the child hit her head recently?” The king was dressed in a black suit and leather duster.
Like he just stepped out of GQ’s Modern Threads for Modern Monarchs issue.
I looked around. A few of the Protectors were standing alert and ready, but Taliesin was sitting with his harp on his lap as if he’d just finished singing. Enough time had passed while I was gone for Arthur to arrive, but evidently not much more than that. His attendants—two women and a man—still lingered near the door. I could feel Peter’s surprise and concern through our bond, but the emotions were directed at me, not Arthur.
Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch Page 33
