Blessedly, Acrasia’s attention on Una had waned somewhat, giving her just enough time to collect her thoughts.
She knew three things. One: Acrasia knew who her father was.
Join her, urged her voices. We must know.
We don’t even know if she’s telling the truth, Una shot back. And it was true. She couldn’t actually take Acrasia at her word. That was the second thing she knew. Acrasia was not to be trusted. That realization had only just become clear. Seconds earlier she had been on the brink of accepting the woman’s offer. But no, she could hold off.
Yet the third thing she knew was that she was at the edge of her control. One slip and she would either give in to Acrasia’s demands, or burn the entire castle to the ground. She wasn’t sure which. But no matter what happened, it was all or nothing. She had no control.
Control.
She glanced at Guyon and frowned. He was still fighting Pellinore. Acrasia was weaving her spells all the stronger, but they were doing no good. The knight was continuing the fight as though nothing had happened, as though he still wore the amulet. If anything he was actually winning the fight now. Pellinore was taking several steps backward, on the defensive for the first time since the battle began.
Pellinore. She hadn’t forgotten about him. Part of her still wanted to lash out, to destroy him even as he had destroyed three years of her life. Her magic no longer urged her to do so, mostly because such an attack would weaken Acrasia’s position, and every fiber of that magic urged her to act, to join Acrasia.
Should she do it? Acrasia was momentarily distracted. She could finish Pellinore and then she and Guyon could attack Acrasia together.
And yet, did she want what Acrasia had? That knowledge, if genuine, was exactly what she needed to know. Could she kill the Sin without discovering such knowledge?
Perhaps there is another way, said an unexpected voice in her head.
Una paused. That voice, it was the timid voice she’d heard from time to time. It had been long since it had appeared, and Una had simply assumed it joined in with the other voices when they acted collectively. Why was it speaking now, and contradicting the others?
There are no others, said the voice. We are you.
It was not the first time one of the voices had said that, but for once Una truly considered that statement. Could it be that there had never been any voices at all? Una hadn’t liked that idea in the past because it meant that she may well have been going mad.
Acrasia glanced back at Una, her smile fading. She did not have much time for thought. She prepared her magic for an invisible assault.
Give it to us! Give, give, givegivegivegivegive!
Una nearly stumbled forward as the strongest force she had ever experienced reached to pluck the magic out of her control. It clawed, it fought, and it was all she could do to hold on.
“You really are powerful, aren’t you?” Acrasia intoned. “Perhaps too powerful.”
And yet Una held no control over that power. Even as Acrasia watched her with interest, she felt her face grow red with the exertion of holding back the magic. If she let go, it would explode out of her, and Una wasn’t sure who would survive. Probably no one save herself, and maybe Acrasia.
You will lose control eventually, yelled the voices. Give in.
But Guyon had somehow maintained control. Even without the amulet, he was holding his own against Acrasia’s magic. He had been right in saying that he could resist temptation, even temptation driven by magic. For himself at least, he had been right that magic could not disrupt free will. Was the same true of Una?
There are no others, came the timid voice to her again. Una thought that through. If there truly were no voices in her head, than what was she hearing? There was only one answer.
She wasn’t fighting with some independent power, some force trying to take her magic. She was fighting herself.
With that realization, puzzle pieces began to fall into place like a flood. The voices had all sounded like her own voice after all, and they usually aligned with her deeper desires. Even now, she had to admit a part of her wanted to join Acrasia. Part of her wanted out, to destroy this entire chamber. And that was exactly the part of her that the magic was acting on.
It was true the magic sometimes knew things she didn’t, but it didn’t know everything, and what it did know could be passed off as a heightened form of instinct.
The magic wasn’t separate from her. It was her. And in moments like these where she felt severe internal conflict, those were the moments when it fought most to get free. Perhaps all she had to do was align her will to one simple objective, and the magic would fall into line.
She didn’t need to think about Pellinore right now. She didn’t need to worry about what Acrasia could or couldn’t tell her. Right now, there had to be one goal, and only one.
Stay alive.
The struggle for her magic abruptly ceased. Una gasped for breath as though she had been underwater for a very long time. Magic filled her with glorious rapture. It responded to her call. Hers, and no one else's.
Acrasia’s eyes widened, and suddenly all efforts at tempting Guyon ceased, and those in the room gasped as her magic left them. All of Acrasia’s attention was turned in that moment upon Una. She felt it beating at her magic, but it did no good. Una was cocooned in a protective web of her own making.
The voices had been silenced, and Una instinctively knew that they would never come again. They had never existed in the first place.
35
Pellinore staggered as some force that had fueled him disappeared. Acrasia had abandoned him. Guyon brought his blade up to slice at the man’s hand. Down went the broadsword and Pellinore soon followed as Guyon aimed a kick at the man’s knee.
Una kept her attention fixed on Acrasia. Without moving a muscle, Una whipped her power forward, clutching at magical barriers Acrasia put forward, rapidly and in desperation.
Within seconds, Acrasia was hanging in the air with arms outstretched, suspended by an invisible force.
“D-don’t…” she stammered, her smile replaced with an expression of pure terror. Una would wager the woman had not felt such an emotion in years, perhaps decades or even centuries.
Una considered. Should she kill Acrasia? She could do it. The woman was in her power as surely as Acrasia had ever held dominion over anyone else.
But with Acrasia’s death she would lose that information that she so desperately wanted. And if the Sin was to be believed, she may have been the only one who truly knew the secret. She couldn’t waste such knowledge. And yet keeping the woman alive also brought a high level of danger. How could they contain her magic when Una was not around to suppress it?
The confusion nearly brought the voices back, nearly had her struggling to maintain her hold on the magic again. No, she had to act with purpose. She could not allow herself to be conflicted.
What was it the timid voice had said before Una had silenced them? There was another way. Guyon had said something like that too, before they entered the castle. He’d said that all temptation provided with it a way to escape. Perhaps Una could resist the temptation of either killing Acrasia or keeping her alive to learn what she knew. Was there a third option? Una extended her magic out like small feelers, searching for answers, persuading the universe to tell her what she needed to know. As her magic wrapped itself ever tighter around the helpless Acrasia, she noticed something odd.
The woman’s magic still appeared to be active. It pushed against Una’s own power, coming from Acrasia herself. As Una delved further, she found that the magic was not only coming from Acrasia, it was coming from a specific part of her, a section of her brain that connected to her heart.
Una couldn’t destroy that part of Acrasia. Doing so would destroy her mind, and likely her body as well. But there was more. The magic not only connected with Acrasia, but seemed to...stretch beyond. Una wasn’t sure how to describe it. It seemed to come to Acrasia’s mind from some oth
er source, yet remain contained within Una’s shield. Yet there was still some sort of flow, some well of power that allowed the Sin to draw from it. If she could simply disrupt that flow…
Una fashioned part of her magic into a weapon, like a mental dagger. Acrasia’s face went pale, as she realized what Una was about to do. “No…” But Una gagged her with another flow of magic before she could say anything more. Only the two of them knew that anything was about to happen.
Taking that blade of magic, Una swung it, severing the line that connected Acrasia with the source of her power in one clean cut.
Acrasia screamed, the sound filling the entirety of the castle, echoing in the room and beyond, as though many voices were screaming with her.
Una let the magic that held the Sin in place drop. Acrasia fell to the bed, unmoving though still alive. She would be of little danger now.
Glancing around, Una realized that the room had emptied of all save Guyon and Pellinore. The former was staring at Una, shocked and visibly impressed by what she had done. The latter was still on the floor, gazing at where Acrasia lay. His helmet had fallen off, and Una could clearly see his face. It was red, and great tears fell down his cheeks. The others must have run off the moment Acrasia’s power had left them.
“You...you took her away from me,” said the ruined king.
“She was never yours,” said Guyon, and he nodded to Una in respect. Una nodded back. It was only then that she truly realized the magnitude of what she had done. They had defeated Acrasia. She had won.
Guyon hurried to the bedside to get a good look at Acrasia, and Una quickly followed. The Sin was clutching at the sheets, a look of uncontrolled fear on her face. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” she blurted at Una.
“I cut you off from your power,” said Una, calmly. “You’ll never be able to harm another soul again, never lure men or women into your clutches.”
“The others, they will kill me the moment they find out. My power will be given to another.”
“But before that happens,” said Guyon, ripping some of the bed linens into strips. “You are going to tell us everything you know.”
With that, he began binding Acrasia’s hands behind her back. Pellinore stayed where he was for the moment, until encouragement from both Una and Guyon finally brought him to his feet. He followed them out of the room and down the winding staircase, no longer a threat. Indeed, he had seemingly turned inward in shock and was all but oblivious to what happened around him.
They led Acrasia bound and gagged out of the castle and through the first gate. The woman who had guarded that gate was nowhere to be seen. But in the distance was a sight Una had not expected to see.
There were people, hundreds of people gathered in a group. And they were shouting, perhaps trying to be heard, perhaps angry or confused. But what really threw Una for a loop was the fact that almost none of them had any clothing on, and some crouched on all fours in the grass and flowers.
Interestingly, those flowers had begun to fade, losing their luster and appearing for all intents and purposes that they had died. The grass also appeared yellow in patches, no longer the lush and soft fields that had once laid there. Acrasia’s magic had gone, and with them were all that she influenced.
The woman said nothing as they proceeded. Her face was much like that of Pellinore’s, frozen in shock. That didn’t stop Una and Guyon from taking precautions. Guyon kept his free hand on the hilt of his sword, and Una likewise kept her magic on the edge of her touch.
The magic was hers now, she could feel it. No longer was it trying to dominate her as it had before. At least for now. It could very well be that her mind would become equally clouded and conflicted again, and if that happened the strange voices behind her magic could potentially come again. But she would not let that happen. She would be like Guyon, a master of herself and possessing a clear will.
But neither Acrasia nor Pellinore gave them any trouble. Still, that crowd ahead did not look hospitable. Una remained on her guard.
As they drew closer, they found that most of the crowd was made up of men. And there were hundreds of them.
“You did it,” said one, running up to them with a joyful expression on his face. Una tried to keep her eyes from glancing downward. “You defeated her.”
“Ah...yes,” said Guyon. “Where did all of you come from?”
“We were the pigs,” said the man. “The witch kept turning us into swine until she was ready to feed on us. But then just moments ago we all got better. Well, all of us save…” he looked forlornly at several of the men who still moved on all fours.
They grunted and growled like real swine, and Una caught one of them muttering, “No, no, we have to go back. We have to go back.”
She glanced back at Guyon to see the look of disgust on his face. “Such a shame that man would want to remain a beast.”
“Some men are beasts,” replied Una.
“They loved this place too much,” said the man who had first greeted them. “They would rather stay here than return to the lives they had.”
Guyon sighed and shook his head. “I suppose for some, this really seemed like an improvement. They’d rather remain here as animals living a life of pleasure until they died rather than exercise their free will.”
“But not all of us,” said the man. “I have a wife and family. Will you take us back to them?”
Guyon nodded, “We have a ship. It won’t be enough for all of you, but we can take it to the Head and bring back more.”
There was a chorus of excited mutters at that pronouncement, but one person shouted, “And what of the witch?”
All heads turned to look at Acrasia, still held tight in Guyon’s arms. Una tensed as she felt the hostility emanating from most of the men. She prepped her magic to push them away if necessary. She could not have them kill Acrasia with what she knew.
“We are servants of the Faerie Queen,” replied Guyon. “I can assure you, that Acrasia will receive a just and rightful punishment for her crimes. Already my companion has cut her off from all magical ties. She is now as mortal and powerless as you or me.”
That seemed to comfort most of the men, and they all spared no time following Guyon and Una down to the pier. Though those who still hampered around on all fours remained where they were. No one tried to convince them to come. But Pellinore followed, albeit silently. Una watched him carefully as they went. He’d shown no signs of recognizing Una, but then again, he’d shown little emotion at all. But at least he was following and not remaining behind like the others.
They made it to the docks where Roslyn waited. She was startled at first seeing so many bare men clamor to get into her ship, but she quickly realized what was happening and set to work getting rags for as many of the men as possible.
“Roslyn,” cried a man, pushing his way forward. “Roslyn!”
Una watched as Roslyn laid eyes on the man. Her face went pale, and she jumped off the boat onto the pier and pushed past all the other men who got in her way. Reaching the man, she flung her arms around him. “Jonathan!” she cried. Tears that Una would not have expected from a lady as stern as Roslyn welled up and fell on the man’s bare chest. “I thought I had lost you.”
Una smiled and met Guyon’s eyes. He was also smiling. “We’ve done something good here.”
“It won’t last,” said Acrasia. “The Sins will lay waste to this country and prepare it for the tidal flood to come.”
“Well, we managed to defeat you, didn’t we,” said Guyon, holding the woman a little tighter. “I imagine that tips the odds somewhat in our favor.”
Acrasia glanced back at Una who followed Guyon. There was uncertainty in her gaze, and fear. Perhaps now Una understood why the Faerie Queen had asked for her to be the one venturing forth and confronting such threats. Perhaps she was some kind of magical champion and she hadn’t known it. Had the Faerie Queen known what she was capable of? And if so, why hadn’t she told Una?
Th
e storm had unraveled itself from the moment Acrasia was cut off from her magic. The skies were now clear, and Roslyn soon set sail with Una, Guyon, Acrasia, Pellinore, and about twenty men. That was all they could hold at once. Yet they promised the others they would be back with more ships. They would need every one in the harbor to bring them all home.
Epilogue
Una chose to sit next to Pellinore as they sailed. He still stared forward as though barely aware of what was happening, stunned into silence.
After a while, Una spoke, “I don’t know if you remember me.”
A moment’s pause, and then, “You were the girl in Londinium. The day that…” he trailed off. Una knew what he was going to say. The day that the sword had been pulled from the stone.
“The Tribune imprisoned me because of you.”
He glanced at her, the first sign that he acknowledged anyone’s presence since leaving the castle. “Are you here to seek revenge?”
Una considered that, “I almost did. I wanted to kill you while you were fighting Guyon.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I...don’t know. I think I realized that there were greater threats, and you were as much a victim of them as I was in danger of becoming.”
Pellinore sniffed. “I was no victim. I wanted to be there.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he turned to look at her. “Did you not see the paradise? Did you not feel her power? Acrasia was the only source of joy I’ve had since before that day when your little friend took the sword from the stone.”
“But she was killing people, and preparing others to fight for her, to fight against good.”
“Eh, what’s the use,” Pellinore went back to staring straight ahead. “The Saxons push further and further west every day. It won’t be long before the Britons are no more, replaced by invaders. Let them die if that’s what Acrasia wants.”
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