by Donna Hosie
And then another hand exploded out of the water and latched itself onto my leg.
Nimue had more than one creature down there.
“HELP ME,” I screamed, reaching out to my brother’s girlfriend.
But Slurpy just stood there, watching. Then her blistered mouth started to turn up at the edges and she started to smile.
I clawed at the uneven rock floor, trying desperately to secure my fingers into a small crag, but the slimy hands from the pool were starting to drag me towards the water.
Then Slurpy started to speak, but it was nothing like her normal voice. It was deep sounding, like a bass drum.
“
Traditumendo, didesperoty . Traditumendo, didesperoty.”
I knew what was coming next. Her head snapped back and then whipped forward.
Slurpy’s white eyes glowed like lamps in the fog.
Once again, my entire body was turning to liquid jelly, but this time there was a crushing sense of darkness invading my head. Every self-loathing thought I had ever possessed reappeared in my mind. The guilt I felt over Patrick’s death; my failing to be the daughter my parents wanted me to be; and my fear of never seeing Bedivere again were all competing to drown me from the inside out.
And all the while, the hands were dragging me further and further into the water.
A nail tore away as I clutched at a sharp rock sticking out from the ground. The pain seemed to awaken my senses, because for a moment, I felt movement returning to my limbs. I scissor-kicked my legs, and then took a risk by letting one of my hands drop back. I grabbed a long-edged piece of flint, and started stabbing into the water with my left hand. The creatures pulling me in released their hold on my legs, but the sound of chimes was replaced with something higher and shriller.
I kicked out again, made another flurry of stabbing motions around my body with the flint dagger, and pushed myself out of the water. Dark green mould that looked like long, fleshy strands of seaweed, started inching out of the water towards me. I knew I had to stop Slurpy and her magic, and so I threw the piece of flint at her.
On the couple of occasions I had attempted archery at school I had managed to score a bullseye, and this was no exception. The jagged rock hit Slurpy full in the face. She cried out and fell forwards, clutching at her nose with both hands.
I immediately felt the power of her spell leave.
The water behind me was frothing with dark green bubbles. I had to get away now and the best way was skywards, but my sneakers were wet through, and I slipped several times as I tried to make my way up the skull cave.
I had gone barely two metres in the ascent when the clouds started to swirl. Cracks of blue-white lightning speared the sky. The lightning was far too close to my head, and my hair buzzed with static.
I let go and jumped to the ground, wrapping my arms around my legs, as I pushed my chest into my knees. The stormy clouds swamped me and the wind chimes fell silent.
Merlin had returned with Byron, and my chance to escape was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bedivere’s Hand
“Why are you wet, Natasha, Lady Knight of the Round Table?” asked Merlin.
“I fell in the water.”
“What happened to her face?” said Byron, scowling at Slurpy and then me. “Have you two been fighting?”
“No.”
“It was nothing.”
Bitch, mouthed Slurpy. I’ll have you.
Not if I have you first, I thought bitterly. Had she been lying about not being able to do magic earlier, or had she been able to somehow draw strength from the creatures that had attacked me from the water? I was pretty certain it was the latter. Slurpy would have gotten herself away from Merlin at the first opportunity if she had always been able to do it. But the attack now confirmed that Slurpy was able to draw magic from people, or things, other than Mordred and the druids of Gore.
I had to get away from her. I was in a whole world of pain if I stayed.
“The heir of Camelot is coming, Byron, dwarf sire of Leodegrance. You are to have anything you require to ensure his healthy arrival,” said Merlin.
Byron was staring at Slurpy’s enormous bump; he was level in height with her protruding belly button.
“You show haste in proclaiming the child to be a male heir, Merlin,” said Byron scowling. He placed his hands on either side of Slurpy’s stomach, and she didn’t hide her disgust at being manhandled.
“It has been foretold that Arthur would bring with him an heir,” replied Merlin. “The land of Logres does not require another troublesome female.”
“Regardless of the sex, the mother requires sustenance,” said Byron, “real food that will provide her with the strength for the confinement. Male or otherwise, this baby is strong, and it will put up a fight her body may not be able to withstand.”
“Just give me drugs,” said Slurpy, pushing Byron’s hands away from her swollen stomach. “That was why they brought you here, so just give me something to knock me out so I can’t feel anything.”
“There is relief I can provide,” said Byron, and he reached into a large leather pouch that was strapped around his waist. He handed Slurpy a round piece of wood. “Bite down on this when you feel pain. Your teeth cracking will take your mind away from the excruciating stretching in your underbelly.”
I snorted as Slurpy cried out. I couldn’t wait to see her in agony when the baby really started coming.
“I want to go home.” She threw the piece of wood into a corner of the cave and grabbed at Merlin’s cloak. “Take me home right now. You had no right bringing me here.”
“But your place in our glorious past, present and future is here.”
Slurpy’s nostrils were flaring with anger, but even though she had her magical abilities back, it was clear she had no intention of trying them on Merlin. That pleasure, it would seem, was reserved for me.
“What is your suggested timeline, dwarf?” asked Merlin. “I was asked to summon you here to assist, but it appears that the ladies were overeager in their determination of the heir’s arrival.”
“Oh, it is coming sooner rather than later,” replied Byron, squatting on the cave floor. He looked even more unwell than when I had last seen him at the court of Lindsey. Byron’s thick mop of hair was thinning and turning grey. His skin was covered in tiny sores that were weeping with a thin, yellow liquid.
“Be more specific, dwarf,” said Merlin.
“No,” replied Byron stubbornly. “And it will be later rather than sooner if the mother is starved. She needs meat with a full rind of fat and cooked eggs. Wine will dull her suffering, and there should be ale as well.”
“I have never heard of ale being provided to a confined woman before,” said Merlin.
“The ale is for me. If I am to suffer her screaming, then ale will lessen the discomfort in my ears. Now hurry, magician. She is weak and ailing as can be seen from the pox on her skin.”
Merlin swept towards his test tubes as Slurpy’s hands went straight to the acne on her chin. I watched, as Merlin picked up a phial and allowed a single drop to land on the rock ledge. The rock steamed and sizzled and then a small round loaf appeared.
Something was pressed into my hand. It was a thick piece of paper.
“From Sir Bedivere’s hand, m’lady,” whispered Byron. “Hold fast, for they are coming.”
My heart jumped as I felt the rush of something warm sweep through my body. I quickly tucked the letter into my bra. I could not risk reading it yet, although every part of me ached at the thought of waiting.
“She” - I jerked my head towards Slurpy as I whispered back - “said Merlin had done something strange to time. Is it true? I’ve only been here a day at most, but how long have I really been gone in normal time?”
“Many months, m’lady. The moon is approaching its fourth waning since your disappearance,” replied Byron.
My jaw dropped. “Three and a half months?” I whispered. “I can’t have
lost three and a half months in the space of a day?”
“You must listen. I know why you brought me here, and the plan will work,” whispered Byron quickly, “but you must trust me, m’lady.”
“I do, completely.”
“Will she?”
Byron gestured towards Slurpy. She was now standing behind Merlin, but there was something in the way she was leaning around him that I didn’t like.
“She can use magic again,” I said.
“It was inevitable. My coming would have seen to that.”
“Something attacked me in the water. There are creatures down there. I think she took strength from them. I don’t care if she is having Arthur’s baby. She has to be kept away from my brother.”
“The Knights of the Round Table have joined forces with the Lady of the Lake. She has them convinced that Merlin is a danger to all in Logres. An eternal night has replaced spring, and the starving hordes are now revolting across the land. The people have become judge, jury and executioner, and what happened in the castle of Duke Corneus is now spreading like a wildfire.”
“It’s Nimue doing all of this, Byron. I don’t like Merlin, but I know a liar when I see one, and he isn’t it.”
I thought back to the scene Merlin had made me relive. Nimue had been controlling my family’s lives for years without ever showing herself. She took our little brother, Patrick; she gutted my baby rabbit; she gave Arthur to the Saxons in order to rally the knights again; and now she had declared war on all of Logres but was passing it off as Merlin’s fault. She was Machiavellian before Machiavelli, creating disaster and trouble at every turn, and yet fooling everyone into believing it was someone else’s fault.
“The king follows his heart, and it is an indisputable fact that Merlin took Arthur’s lover from the sanctuary of your land,” whispered Byron. His eyes were keenly fixated on the other side of the cave, where Merlin and Slurpy were now arguing about what constituted real food. A trip to the future and McDonalds was beyond Merlin’s patience.
“If we give him the baby, do you think he’ll let us go?” I asked. “That’s all Merlin wants – this precious heir.”
“You would sacrifice your brother’s flesh to save your own?”
Bedivere’s letter rustled against my skin as I moved. A reckless, desperate urge to be close to him once more came over me.
“Cover for me,” I whispered. “Say I’m taking a toilet break or something.”
“A what?”
“I’m going for a pee.”
“Did I need to know that?”
“I’m not really going for a pee. I want to read Bedivere’s letter.”
“Lady Natasha, you have much in common with my sister at times, and that is no compliment.”
“Just make an excuse for me if Merlin wants to know what I’m doing outside.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I skipped over the rocks, and crouched down behind a large boulder that had split open to reveal shimmering black crystals embedded deep in its crust. I pulled the piece of parchment from my bra, and smoothed it out on the leg of my trousers. It was small, no bigger than a standard A5 piece of paper, and it had been sealed with a large blob of red wax and the imprint of a dragon wrapped around the letter B.
Bedivere’s handwriting was small but very neat. It wasn’t joined up or wavy, but was printed like letters on a keyboard. I had never seen his writing before, but instead of making me feel closer to him, it made me realise that there was still so much I didn’t know.
My beloved Natasha,
I pray that Byron finds you safe. If anyone in these accursed dark lands can uncover your whereabouts, it is he. I once told you that I would find you, even if I had to travel through the boughs of time itself. My word and heart remain true and yours alone.
Arthur has declared that we go to war against the sorcerer Merlin. The Lady of the Lake is now advising the king, yet doubt remains in my mind. I dare not share these words with anyone but you. My loyalty to your brother knows no end, and I do not fear dying for his cause, yet my fear is that I will pass over to the Land of Avalon before I see you once more. The lady has darkness in her eyes, and yet I am the only knight who sees it. The others appear to have forgotten the marks she left on your skin, but I could never. She covets the king, that is clear. She claims her intentions are only to reunite the king with his love and heir, yet her passionate hatred of Merlin clouds all.
Do not think less of me for confiding my fears in you, my love. I long for the hour when I can hear your counsel spoken from your own lips. The knights sleep little now. Our eyes are open for you and for Sir Gareth at all times. You have both been missing from our hearts and minds for too long. The darkness over the kingdom of Logres is at one with the darkness eating at my soul. Know that if I die for Arthur’s cause, my final breath will be sent into the heavens for you to claim as your own.
B
So it was true: Nimue was now in Arthur’s inner circle, and she was leading him and the Knights of the Round Table into a war against Merlin. What had she done to my brother to make him trust her? I didn’t dare think. Nimue had attacked me in my own bedroom, and yet only Bedivere remembered the scorch marks around my neck.
It is the dark mark of a sorcerer’s anger. Those were Gareth’s words.
Where were Gareth and Guinevere now? Bedivere wasn’t giving up on us; he would never give up on us.
The letter was snatched from my hand.
“Give that back.”
“No. I want to read it.”
“It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Is it from Arthur?”
“No it isn’t, so mind your own bloody business.”
“Then I’ll give it to Merlin to read, seeing as it has his name on it.”
“Enough of your endless quarrelling,” cried Merlin, reaching for his staff. “I know what it is you hold in your hand, for I do not need to read the words on a page to see the intent of another. I hope the words of your love give you momentary peace, Natasha, Lady Knight of the Round Table. You see in me an old man, laid decrepit by my imprisonment, playing magic tricks with food and wine. Do not be fooled. I am the most powerful sorcerer this land has ever seen, and will ever see. I can control time and the elements for my own, and my fire can set Logres ablaze. It is time. The Lady of the Lake is coming for me, and I will be waiting.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Friendship is Love...
The four of us against hundreds of them, not to mention a powerful sorceress who wanted me gone. How did Merlin think we could get out of this? Did he intend to bargain with our lives, or would we simply be used as a human shield? In this cave we were trapped like hamsters in a cage. Out there we weren’t better off.
The news that Nimue was on her way with war in mind had sent Merlin into one of his trance-like states again. The bulbous tip of his staff was pulsing with a weak, pale orange light, as he swayed just feet from the water. Who, or what, he was now visiting was their problem, because I had just one thing on my mind.
“We have to get out of here, Byron. Can you take us straight to the knights and Arthur? If there’s a battle coming, and Nimue is leading the charge, then we are just sitting ducks in this cave. I have to warn Arthur, and I have to find Bedivere.”
Byron shook his head; he looked pale and clammy.
“M’lady, I will need to restore my abilities for carriage through time, and for that I must go directly to the source. I have no alternative, but to head for the Gorians.”
“No!” I gasped. “You can’t take me back to Mordred and those murderers. And it certainly won’t be safe for you.”
“It is not safe, but I have no choice. I am weak, Lady Natasha. The Gorians are my sole source of the blue flame and the magical properties that dwell within. Transition must take place within their boundaries. It was how it was after I escaped the fire of Duke Corneus, and it is how it must be now. Carriage through time is the most poisonous of all the powers the Gorians p
ossess. They rarely use it because of the damage it afflicts upon a person.”
“Are you sure you should do it then?” I asked. “You really don’t look well, Byron.”
“We each have a destiny, Lady Natasha. I have waited too long for mine to finally reveal itself.”
Byron picked up a jagged rock from the cave floor, and to my horror, started to self-harm with it. He scraped it across the skin of his hands and wrists in circular motions, drawing swirls with his own blood. Then I realised what he was doing. The cuts were mimicking the henna tattoos that the Gorians had etched onto their skin.
Slurpy was watching us with narrowed eyes.
“I’ve changed my mind, Byron. This is a bad idea. You aren’t strong enough to travel by yourself, let alone with passengers.”
“Lady Natasha, Merlin will not stay in his seeing state for long. The three of us must flee together. Then we buy ourselves time, once we separate.”
“What do you mean separate? You and I have to stay together.”
“It cannot be done, m’lady. Now please, trust in me as you did before. Take my hands, both of you.”
Byron’s hands were freezing cold, and slippery with blood. He started to mutter under his breath, his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
I stared at Slurpy, as my stomach started to spin inside my body. A change had come over her entire person. She didn’t look haggard or exhausted anymore. Her long dark hair was glossy, and her skin perfectly clear...
“What are you doing?”
“Taking what is rightfully mine,” she replied in a deep voice.
“Byron...stop...”
But I could feel my entire body stretching. It was excruciatingly painful, but I didn’t dare scream out in case I disturbed Merlin from his trance.
What makes you think Merlin doesn’t know what you are doing?
I clenched my back teeth, and screwed up my face as the pressure of Byron’s magic continued to pull on me. Why was Merlin letting us go so easily? He had kidnapped Slurpy and hurried up time just to deliver Arthur’s baby, but now she was just days, possibly hours, away from giving birth, and Merlin’s thoughts were elsewhere.
