Finally. This is the chapter I've been looking forward to since I started this book. Also, it's clearly been too long since I let the grisly murder flow. It sat around and fermented into something a little… creepy.
Chapter 24
A Long-Awaited Rematch
"All this time, and we've got nothing?"
"That is, unfortunately, the case," Priest told the teenaged witch. She grunted in frustration. Ah, the impatience of youth. "The Turk has discovered a way to hide himself most effectively. No matter what method of scrying we attempt, we cannot find him. What of your own methods? Have they been any more successful?"
Queen averted her eyes. "No. I couldn't find any locations of light magic that I didn't already tell you about, and my contacts could not follow him back to his base of operations. Maybe I'd be okay with that if we had proof that he had left Britain—"
"That is most certainly not the case. Once he has a target, I have not known him to abandon his attempts to kill. The protections around wherever it is that you spend most of your time are clearly strong enough to keep you safe, and that undoubtedly has caused him much vexation. Never has he hunted one of us for this long without success." He reconsidered that statement. There was that one story he had heard about the old wizard in Romania, but he had his doubts about its validity. "Not that can be proven, at least."
"So we need to try something else." Queen worried her lip and looked at Menagerie. The elder of the two witches ignored her, perfectly content lying on a sofa and playing with an unnaturally elongated rat. "Unless you have some idea that you're hiding away for a rainy day."
The Grand Wyrm's servant shook her head. "Nope. Except for splanchomancy, it's Priest who does most of the finding. I do the killing."
"Then we have no other choice. I'll have to scry for him."
"We already attempted that," Priest answered in a slow voice. "Do you believe you have more skill in that area?"
"More skill?" She shook her head. "No. But I do have an advantage you don't. We've tried normal scrying, and I know I've used a dark variant. But of the three of us, I'm the only one who can perform a scrying with black magic."
Setting aside for the moment the immense foolishness of her suggestion, he asked, "If you possess a ritual with which you could look for him, why did you not try it already?"
"Because I didn't have it until a couple of weeks ago." She smiled cheerfully at his doubtful expression. "When your letter said that all your leads had dried up, I knew we would need to try something else. I tried tweaking a few spells, but none of them worked, so I hit the books. My mentor saw some rituals when she was younger that weren't exactly what we need but were still pretty close, and she recorded the designs. It wasn't that hard to take them apart and make something new out of the pieces."
"Are you crazy?" Menagerie demanded.
Her smile turned sharp. "Probably. Insanity is in my blood. But this isn't the first time I've had to create a new ritual to accomplish the Baron's demands, and it won't be the first time it works. The Turk used white magic to hide himself, but he's twisting it in a way it's not meant to be used. Black magic will be just as strong, and since it's supposed to do what I'm using it for, it should break through. Trust me, I'll find him."
"And in doing so, you will accomplish his task for him. It is May," he reminded her. "We have passed the vernal equinox and quickly approach the summer solstice. The Light Powers, the Storm Hunter among them, are growing into their full strength while our own Powers are fading to their weakest point. And you wish to tap into the Gatekeeper's powers at a time like this? It is almost guaranteed that your ritual will rebound upon you."
"You don't need to worry about that."
"What Priest is saying is that you do this, you're dead," Menagerie said in her usual blunt manner. "The rebound will kill you, and the last… what, eight months we spent here will have been a complete and total waste of our time."
Queen just laughed. "Don't you think I know about the dangers of rebound? I have an idea for how to get around it. So no, don't worry. I know what I'm doing, at least as much as anyone trying a new ritual ever does. Give me a few minutes to get ready, and then we'll find that bloody Turk and carve him up like he deserves."
Still chuckling, Queen walked away. A silent moment passed before Menagerie scoffed and picked her creature up again. "Hopefully she'll tell us where he is before she gets blown up," his partner said. "And she was one of the less incompetent baby blacks we've run into, too. Fucking shame. I was almost starting to like her."
Several minutes passed before Queen returned. She was naked now, purple and black paint the only thing covering her body while her face was painted to resemble a skull. In her left hand she carried a roll of leather, and in her right was a long chain that trailed behind her until it wrapped around the wrists of the two equally naked men who followed her. They walked along docilely, eyes glassy from some curse or another, and both of them were gagged.
She dropped the chain on the ground and walked away from her captives to the table, where she unrolled the leather pack to display its contents. First she pulled out a long dagger made of what he could only presume was bone and a sheet of parchment. "Rituals aren't really as hard as most people make them out to be," she said, examining the available space and pulling out a stick of chalk as well. "Well, Voodoo isn't. I don't know a whole lot about other Powers' rituals. Most of the real work is in the preparation. Making a Death Focus, something that thankfully only has to be done once. Designing or familiarizing yourself with the design. Finding people to sacrifice and any supplemental components you might want. Stuff like that, and even that's just time-consuming, not really difficult."
While she was working, she drew a circle on the concrete floor and then what looked like a heavily stylized cross within it. Six trios of runes came next, placed equidistantly just inside the circle. Stepping away, she drew a second, smaller circle that met the first at a single point right next to one of those sets. Four more pairs of runes went in this one, a design resembling a coffin in its center.
"Of course, whenever you have a brand-new ritual that you're trying for the first time, it helps if you weight the deck in your favor. You take off anything that might cause a problem, which a lot of times includes your clothes. You purify yourself and then get dolled up in your patron's colors. You make sure your victims are appropriate for the task at hand. That one normally isn't important at all – I've rarely come across a ritual that demands a particular type of person, and my mentor's books contain over a hundred well-researched rituals – but when you're making something new, it never hurts to be a little picky with your kills." She cocked her head. "And to be completely honest, I don't even know that the runes and veves and everything are necessary, either. You could probably just kill someone with a Death Focus and be done with it. That said, the Baron is incredibly egotistical, so I doubt he'd be willing to part with any of his power unless I jump through all these hoops. I certainly wouldn't try doing a ritual without them. I know what he's like when he's angry. It's not pretty."
"You do not wish to anger him, yet you use an intimate title and call him egotistical." He referred to the Powers as he did because those were titles known not to call their attention upon the speaker. By using the name she had, particularly as her patron Power, she had all but ensured that the Gatekeeper had heard her unflattering description.
She gave him a flat look. "He's seen what's in my head. He knows what I think about him. It took me a while to realize it, but if he hasn't killed me for my insolence yet, he probably won't unless I seriously cross a line." She knelt down and placed the tip of the dagger against the two circles one by one, muttering something each time. Standing, she added, "Besides, he was venerated by just about every culture ever at one point or another, even if he wasn't strictly worshiped. He's arguably the strongest of the Powers since every human ever has to pass through his realm. He has an ego, no question about that, but I never said it wasn't justified."
Setting her tools aside, she pulled a pair of cigars out of another of her pack's many pockets and lit them, and then filled a glass with liquor. She glanced at something within with a tilt of her head before pulling nine smooth white circles out of yet another pocket. "Why not?" Queen murmured to herself. She placed them on top of the circles, each one next to one of the collections of runes with one shared between the two circles. With a second look over the design, she nodded in approval.
She returned to her intended victims and removed the chains from the skinny man first. He blinked in confusion and then tried to run, but a wave of her hand lifted him into the air. Queen positioned him above the cross in the larger circle before, with a glance at the smaller, spun him around so his head was next to the intersection of the two circles rather than on the other side. She laid him gently on the ground and tapped his shoulders and hips. Each one made an incredibly loud crack at her touch, and the man screamed helplessly into the gag. A nasty smile was her only response.
The fat man did not try to escape as the first one had. Instead, he stared at Queen in disbelief as she picked him up and moved him inside the smaller circle. He moved to kneel before her with his hand braced behind him on his calves. For all that his mind was his own, his body was clearly still under her control. She flicked her wrist to conjure a long metal needle, which shot point first through one of his hands and the leg below to tink sharply against the concrete. He, too, yelled in agony, and again when she pinned the other hand and leg together.
"Oh, poor little Jacob," she said in a sweet sing-song. "You didn't know whose attention you were trying to get, did you? Or didn't your daddy ever teach you not to stick it in crazy?"
That was too much for Menagerie, who gave up trying to hold back her snickers.
"But don't worry," she purred. Dropping to her knees, she wrapped one arm around his neck and slid her body up his own. "You wanted to be someone special to me? You wanted to be inside me on the most important day of my life thus far?" A quick tug removed his gag. "I'll give you what you want."
She caught him in a deep, passionate kiss. Her intended victim stared with wide eyes for a moment, obviously confused about just what was going on, before he relaxed into it. Then he flinched. He leaned backwards as far as he could, trying to shake Queen off without the use of his hands, and screamed into their kiss. Queen followed, her arms pinning him to her chest.
Hands moving to his shoulders, she pushed herself to her feet and gave him a closed-lipped smile. The man tried to say something, but his words were unintelligible due to the mouthful of blood that gushed out. Queen smirked and walked back to the first circle, her throat bulging as she swallowed.
The thin victim she did not kiss. Instead, she straddled his bare hips and sent a taunting wink at the fat one. Picking up the dagger she had left inside, she grabbed her first sacrifice by the chin with her other hand and pinned the side of his face to the floor. "Hold still. It will hurt a lot more if you don't."
Then she carved out his right eye.
Priest had, on a couple of occasions, wondered if a soft-hearted witch like Queen could truly be a servant of the Darkness. He no longer held any doubt that she was one of them.
With his limbs useless, the thin man could not fight his attacker off when she pulled the eye out of its socket and turned his head to harvest its opposite. Both in her left hand, she squeezed until they popped. The resulting jelly was soon smeared over her closed eyelids, gluing them shut. Even without her sight, the young black witch's movements were smooth and confident. The rest of the goop she smeared over his heart in yet another rune. She raised her dagger and plunged it into his chest, then tossed the stained blade out of the circle right before she threw her head back and shrieked.
Golden light shined up from the ground. Blurs leaked out from the concrete, shapeless masses made up of overlapping squares of slightly different shades of yellow, and swarmed the girl. So thick were they that Priest could not make out what was happening. Not that he needed to see to know; he had witnessed a rebounded ritual before. They were never pretty.
The cloud of pixelated comets shrank down, the space they needed to work around growing smaller as they dissolved Queen into nothingness. Or were they? He squinted to see through the glare, and sure enough, she still looked mostly intact even though her sacrifice was disappearing. The blurs poured into her corpse and did not come back out. As quickly as it began, the rebound was over. The only strange thing was Queen's body, wiped clean of paint but otherwise pristine. It almost looked like she was still—
She gasped.
The fat victim's screams of torment began again. Those same gold blurs poured out from his bleeding mouth and tore strips off his flesh. Muscles frayed. Bones crumbled. Viscera melted. Blood smoked. His carcass collapsed in on itself, and this time, the blurs faded from sight only when there was nothing left to consume.
It was Menagerie who managed to find the right words. "Daaaamn."
Queen tried to roll onto her side, but she was as weak as a newborn kitten. Or any newborn predator, for that matter, which made the comparison that much more apt. He stepped into the circle and pulled her up, carrying her in his arms back towards the sofa. Menagerie only needed a brief look before she sighed and vacated the spot so Queen could lie down.
"Ugh… That wasn't fun." Cracking one open, she looked up at him. "If I have another stupid idea like that before you leave, do more to talk me out of it."
"At least tell us that was more than just an impressive light show."
Far from angering her, Menagerie's barbed comment just made the younger witch smile. "Oh, I found the cheeky bastard, all right. He was hiding out practically in my backyard."
"Okay, maybe not my backyard, technically," Jen said once they teleported into a building near the Turk's hiding place, "but 'the backyard of my cousin's office' just doesn't have the same ring to it." She pushed the door open and walked out before taking to the air, Priest and Menagerie joining her on the back of the same ziz-bird Menagerie had ridden on their ill-fated ambush.
Below them, she saw the circular dome of the Wizengamot Chambers.
"We checked this place, though," Menagerie shouted to her. "It's just ruins. Nothing there whatsoever."
"That's what you're supposed to think! It's more complicated than that." Twisting around in midair so she could talk to them, she continued drifting to the desolate castle only a short distance away. "How much do you know about King Arthur and Merlin?
"I've always been more a fan of Morgan le Fay, personally," she continued when neither answered. "An incredible dark witch who almost succeeded in taking over the country? How could I not? Anyway, after Morgan revealed her son, Mordred, to the court of Camelot and that Arthur was his father, Merlin put up a powerful ward that would keep anyone who had taken up dark magic from entering or even seeing into the castle. Pretty much what you would expect from a wizard who was bonded to a phoenix. According to one story, he used a feather from that same phoenix as the anchor for his spell. Of course, that just meant that Morgan and Mordred took to using regular Muggles as their patsies, and after one of those acts started the chain of events that led to Arthur's death, Merlin took it a step farther. He changed the spell, strengthened it even more. Now no one could cross the threshold, not even him; his phoenix was the only way to get in and out."
"Except we did," Priest denied. "We explored the entire area, just as we did all the other locations rich in light magic you told us about. It was empty. No one had been inside in decades, possibly centuries."
"I'm sure you did, but you're thinking of threshold wrong. It's not the physical boundaries of the building. I thought the same thing until just now." She landed in front of the crumbled archway where a portcullis once stood and walked through it into the courtyard beyond. "But that's not what I saw. No, what he did was much more clever. What we're standing in right now? This isn't Camelot. It's just a shell. We can walk through it all we want, and we'll never find the way in."
Menagerie looked at the ruins, looked at her, looked at the ruins again. "Okay. Let's pretend that ritual didn't fry your brain and you're actually making some kind of sense. If we can't get in, how did the Turk? He doesn't have a phoenix, either."
"He got in the same way we will."
Pulling her dagger out of an extended pocket, she stabbed it into the air. And it truly was into; the end faded from sight, and halfway through the motion, the blade caught on something. She pulled against the resistance, moving up and over. A loud whistling, like air escaping a balloon, filled the courtyard, and ripples spread through the space as though it were the surface of a pond. Where her blade slid through, the world twisted and flapped, revealing a hidden castle that was exactly the same as and yet totally different than the one in which they stood. "Get a move on!" she yelled to her allies. "I don't know how long this will stay open once I pull the dagger out!"
The rent air moved like a curtain when first Priest and then Menagerie pushed the opening wider so they could fit through, and Jen followed right on their heels. Once her Death Focus was no longer disturbing the ward, the gap in time and space sealed itself up.
"White and black magic are both stronger than light and dark magic," she continued as though she had not just pulled off the impossible. "It's what happens when one of them is powered by a god. The Turk probably just cut a hole in the ward and walked right in. He was sure we wouldn't be able to follow him because dark magic can't be used to scry inside the ward, and none of us has magic that could be used to destroy that directly. One of us would have to be an avatar of the Unseelie Queen to get in, or a soul mage who mimicked those magics." She twirled the dagger in her hands. The only reason this worked at all was because it was, as the Baron himself told her, black magic solidified. "He made a faulty assumption, and now it's going to cost him."
Of course, that was not the sole reason they had not found the hidden side of Camelot before. If Merlin really did use a phoenix feather as the anchor, that meant that it was a tiny fragment of Enoch himself that was powering the ward. Not enough that it became white magic in itself, but it was still stronger than normal dark magic. Black magic probably was the only way they ever would have discovered this place.
Though now that she thought about it, she really did need to check to see if her dagger could slice through any ward, or if the ward in question had to be tied to a phoenix feather or made of light magic for it to work. It would be nice if she had a back door wherever she wanted to go, but she doubted her life would be that convenient. Her dagger had unusual powers, but still limited. Killing ghosts, cutting open pseudo–white magic wards; not the kinds of talents she would need very often. Handy talents for Death's killers all the same, but if she were not going to be one of those killers, she had even less use for them.
Menagerie's skin twisted unnaturally as not a few but nearly all her monsters peeled off her body. "You know what he smells like! Sniff him out!"
The creatures raced out of sight, and barely a minute passed before they heard loud roars that were quickly cut off. In hindsight, it made perfect sense, Jen decided as they ran deeper into the castle towards the center room. Why wouldn't he set himself up in the throne room?
They pushed the partly open door all the way and gazed at their foe. "I don't know how you found the way in here," the Turk told them from the chair at the end of the room. Not a throne, though; that was pushed off to one side. Just an unremarkable recliner, something he could have found in any Muggle furniture store. He pushed himself to his feet and walked past the butchered bodies of Menagerie's beasties. Along the way, he pulled a gleaming broadsword out of one of them. "But I don't think it matters, does it? All that matters is that not all of us will walk out of here alive. We have delayed the end long enough. Let's finish this."
The three black mages spread out. While Menagerie and Jen both went to the sides, Priest stepped forwards and drew his scimitar. She was a complete novice when it came to swords, but she still could not help but notice that his blade was rather less impressive than the Turk's. That one looked like it was a ceremonial piece even though it was clearly still dangerous. Red and yellow gold twisted around each other to form the cross guard, and that the blade shone like polished silver was proof of its magical origin.
Wait….
She looked again at the sword, a quiet dread filling her. Magic sword. In Camelot. One that gleamed like polished silver, or perhaps more appropriately, like sunshine off a still lake. Most of the stories she had heard said that sword had been thrown back into the waters from whence it came, but then again, those stories were the Muggle versions that were at best half-right. And the wizarding legends focused on Merlin, not Arthur, regarding the latter as a minor character.
If this was the sword she was thinking of, she should just be glad the Turk did not also wear the scabbard. This fight would be hard enough as it was.
She hurled green death at their foe, but the Killing Curse vanished as soon as it touched Excalibur's keen edge. The Turk whipped it around again and slammed it into Priest's sword, and Jen did not need to hear the dull crunch that blow made to know that this would not end well. The walls fell apart at her gesture, and the stones melted and reformed into duplicates of her ally's weapon. He was going to need them.
Priest's sword appeared to be of good quality, but against a sword that was reputed to cleave iron as though it were wood, that was not enough. The fourth strike shattered the scimitar. She flung several of her creations point-first at the two men; while they both dodged, Priest thankfully caught on and snatched one off the ground.
Menagerie sent more of her monsters into the fray, and Jen fired off spell after spell. They had to distract him so Priest could finish him off, but he was not making that easy. Excalibur sliced through her curses almost negligently, lending credence to the theories that it was indeed of faerie make, and even Menagerie's strongest creatures were quickly hacked to pieces or fried from the blasts of lightning that leapt from the Turk's fingers. To further complicate matters, the swords she had created for Priest were not holding up as well as the real thing, only withstanding one or at best two hits before they fell apart and returned to being rock. The only good thing about that was that Priest was taking advantage of the changing battlefield and kicking those chunks of stone at the Turk to distract the white mage for all the good it was doing. This fight was becoming one of finesse rather than strength: the Turk needed to protect himself from all sides and watch his footing while Priest needed to avoid the Turk's strikes rather than parry them and yet stay close enough that their enemy was forced to defend himself with his sword instead of calling upon his magic.
Unfortunately, even with the three-to-one advantage, it was the Turk who was slowly winning. Menagerie was running out of useful monsters – even now, she was releasing a flock of fanged sparrows to distract the white wizard – and when those were gone, she would be forced to rely on her wand. Jen had given up on direct spells after her self-designed corruption curse once again failed to reach its target and was trying to bludgeon him with blocks of stone and metal, but what did not get sliced through was deflected. Either way, she was doing little to influence the fight other than creating more debris.
What they needed was something that could survive a protracted battle against Excalibur, but there was only one sword that had ever achieved that distinction, and it was certainly not within reach.
Then again, Excalibur was said to be returned to the fae realms, and that was obviously a lie. Maybe, just maybe….
Ripping more stones from the walls and ceiling, she turned them into swords and scattered them across the battlefield. Running closer to Menagerie, who had now drawn her wand and was trying to succeed where she had failed, she whispered, "Keep him busy. I'm going to look for something."
Menagerie stared at her in disbelief. "This isn't the time to sight-see!"
"We keep going like this, we'll all die. There might be something to help that's still here. Five minutes tops."
She did not wait for permission before she ran out the door and down the hallway they had not explored. A ball of light appeared above her palm and zipped away ahead of her. She smiled. Apparently it was within reach, after all.
Several twists and turns took her deeper into the castle and down a flight stairs towards the dungeons. The light turned again, this time soaring into the wall, and Jen did not hesitate before ripping the stones from their places. The stones fell to reveal that it was not truly a wall; someone, likely Merlin himself or perhaps an apprentice, had just made it look like a wall so no one would find their way into the room hidden behind. Judging by the small size of the space and the chains dangling from the walls, this was once a prison cell, perhaps for people who had not earned the privilege of torture but still needed to be educated on the reasons not to violate the king's laws. That was not what she cared about, though. No, her eyes were on the room's centerpiece: a majestic broadsword, its blood-red blade sunk halfway into a large chunk of stone. Chains stretched from the rings on the walls to wrap around its silver hilt and down the blade to attach to the floor, and several pendants hung from different links. And there in the middle was a single scarlet feather.
A flick of her fingers sent a blood-boiling curse at the mass of chains, and she was not surprised in the slightest when the bindings flared with gold light. Unless there were two phoenix feathers lying around this place, which honestly was not outside the realm of possibility, this was not only a final defense against anyone trying to take the sword but also the foundation of the ward. There was no way she was going to touch that with her bare skin.
It also meant she had the key to get past it.
Spinning her dagger in her hand, she stabbed the feather. Once more the light flared, and this time it was accompanied by a bird's shriek. Not a phoenix's normal song, but instead the sound she would expect should it be boiled alive. Her dagger shook wildly in her hands, her strength fighting against the ward's. Her blade skittered off the feather with a loud crack.
The feather crumbled into dust, and the chains fell to the ground.
She slid the sword out and flew back the way she came. This would all be for nothing if her allies were already dead. To her great joy, they were not, though Menagerie's left arm, blistered and bleeding, hung lifelessly at her side. Even more rubble covered the floor, and as expected, Priest's remaining weapons were dwindling rapidly. Another scimitar shattered as she watched; Menagerie summoned several pieces and transfigured them into a sword again, but this was a poor reproduction that would probably hinder Priest more than help him.
"Priest! Catch!"
She flung the sword as best she could towards the two combatants. Only the Turk could see what she was doing, but Priest tossed his blade at the Turk's face and wheeled around. With how she had thrown it, there was no way that he could catch in his hands. Instead, he jumped forwards to make sure it stabbed him in the chest, then spun around once again to block Excalibur with the hilt.
Not what she would have thought to do, but then again, she was neither invulnerable nor knowledgeable about sword fighting. She would leave that to the expert.
Priest ripped the crimson blade out of his body and batted away the Turk's stab. Unlike all the other swords, this one did not even chip when crossed with Excalibur, and Jen did not need to see Priest to know that his polite smile was just the slightest bit nasty. Instead of getting in the way there, she ran over to Menagerie. "You're not going to die on us, right?"
The pink-haired witch said something in Greek that Jen was sure she should be glad not to understand. Summoning the remaining swords, she banished them at the Turk once again, but this time they transformed in midair into bubbling tar. The wall of pitch split down the middle before it could reach the white wizard.
So even distracted by Priest, the Turk still could withstand her attacks? "Have you been able to hurt him?" she asked. Menagerie shook her head with a guttural growl. "Do you think Priest is better with a sword than he is?"
This time the elder black witch looked at her. "He wouldn't have survived this long if he wasn't. What are you planning?"
"Oh, I just thought it was time we stopped fighting fair."
Her hands waved through the air. The uplifted arms below. The stylized sheaf of grain above. The image reformed itself into something more accurate, and then she shoved her power into the heka glyph. A wave of color washed over her and Menagerie, and from there Priest and the Turk. The white mage stared at her for a moment, his magic forcibly reversed and shoved back into his body, but then he had to fend off yet more blows from Priest, who looked quite comfortable being forced to rely on a sword.
She did not know whether this was enough to block off white magic entirely, but at the very least, it would weaken it. That should be enough for them to win.
Menagerie's monsters returned at their mother's call, leaving the Turk facing only Priest. Now the white wizard's inexperience was coming back to bite him, and each swung he made was parried and returned. The few blows that did slip through Priest's defense were shallow and drew no blood from the invulnerable man. When Priest slapped Excalibur away again, the Turk let loose with a blast of lightning, but his magic was indeed weaker than it had once been. That, or perhaps the red sword possessed protections Jen did not know about, but either way, Priest caught the bolt on the edge and then shoved the point through the Turk's hand. A twirl sliced that hand almost completely off. Two more knocked Excalibur to the ground. A fourth swept through the air, and the Turk's body fell to the ground.
A second later and five feet away, so did the Turk's head.
"Stormriders don't come back from the dead, do they?" she asked.
"Not that I have ever seen."
"Good enough for me." A thought shattered the hieroglyph, and their magics returned. Jen took a deep breath and let it out in a hearty sigh. "Finally. This is all over. Thank the Baron."
"It is. We have hunted the Turk for many years, and to see him dead is a wonderful thing." Looking at Excalibur, Priest reached down before Jen could shout a warning. Several seconds passed before the black wizard climbed to his still-shaky feet. "That is a Treasure."
"Unfortunately. I'm pretty sure it's one of the Seelie Queen's if the legends are anything to go by, but I can't prove it."
"A Light Treasure made as a weapon." He looked down at the sword in his hand with newfound respect. "Yet this weapon can fight it on even ground? Extraordinary. A Dark Treasure, I presume? Perhaps crafted by the Unseelie?"
She smirked. Oh, this was so much better than just being a Dark Treasure. "Not at all. I don't know who actually forged it – no one does – but it was given several of its powers by a regular witch, albeit a powerful Dark Lady. Read the inscription."
Priest gave her an uncertain glance before lifting the blade closer to his eyes. "Pwee binnig tinnoo…?"
"Pwy bynnag tynnu allan cleddyf hwn o garreg hon a einion yn yr un modd Brenin o bob Lloegr. I never actually learned Welsh, but that line I do know. 'Whoso pulleth out this sword from this stone and anvil is likewise King of all England'. She held her hand out, and Priest gave it to her. She took a moment just to admire the gold letters running down its length. "This, dear Priest, is the second most famous sword in British history. Second, in fact, only to the very sword the Turk found. This is the Sword in the Stone. The Kingmaker.
"Clarent."
"The 'Kingmaker', huh?" Menagerie repeated while looking at her with an amused expression. "Maybe calling yourself Queen wasn't all that pretentious, after all."
Priest, on the other hand, did not seem as impressed with Clarent's origin. "That does not explain what you meant when you said that a dark witch gave it its power. That is not possible."
"Clearly it is. It's just incredibly difficult." Conjuring a scabbard around the famous sword, she reluctantly handed it back to Priest. She wanted to keep it, no doubt about that, but it would find far more and better use in his hands. And maybe, just maybe, it was thanks for saving her skin. "You remember what I said about Mordred being the son of King Arthur? Well, he was Arthur's only son and therefore the heir to the throne, but because he was a bastard, the son of Morgan le Fay, and a dark wizard in his own right, many of Arthur's court rejected him, and then Merlin put up that ward that kept us out. The problem with that plan was that Mordred's step-father – well, Morgan's husband – was a king in his own right, and when he died under 'mysterious' circumstances, it left them an abundance of resources with which they could cause Arthur trouble. Worse, since Mordred had magic, even if he was too busy learning how to fight and how to rule as a child to spend much time on spellcasting, many wizards flocked to his banner and offered their aid. Far better in their minds to swear allegiance to the Witch King and serve one of their own than to follow Merlin's lead and bow their heads to a Muggle.
"Morgan and Mordred tried many times to steal Excalibur from Arthur, but the king was too protective of his sword for that to succeed. Instead, through either bribery or trickery, they had a Muggle servant steal Clarent and bring it to them. Clarent had power of its own, even if it wasn't the kind of power they wanted, and so Morgan tapped into that. She and Mordred's swordsmith worked night and day for three days, slowly tapping into the preexisting enchantments. The smith only had a few tasks, but Morgan? So deeply did she submerge herself in her craft that she neither ate nor slept." Jen smiled slightly. "I have a copy of one of her knight's journals, and from the way he recorded it, every servant in the castle tried to get her to take a break, just for a little while, but she heard none of them. Not even Mordred could get through to her, though she would react to him. Starting the second day and every hour on the hour, her son, the king himself, could be found kneeling in the dirt and lifting spoons of broth to her lips. At dawn on the fourth day, she finally finished her enchantments, and taking the red-hot sword from the smithy, she walked up to the stocks and quenched it anew in the heart of Sir Percival, the most pious knight of Camelot. That was the final step she needed to seal her spell, and now all of Clarent's power went into keeping its edge sharp and resisting the blows from Excalibur."
Recalling the next part of the story, her smile faded. "Two lives went into that spell, actually. Morgan was so weakened by the effort that she died a couple of days later, after she insisted Mordred head out to war against Camelot for the final time. She was gone before she could hear that he had fallen in battle, which was probably a mercy. For all that she was a Dark Lady, the journal made it clear that she truly, deeply loved her son. Learning of his death would have destroyed her."
Neither of her allies were likewise moved by the story, even if they were looking at the sword with new respect. "This Morgan," Priest said. "She was a black witch?"
"Not that I can determine. No allegiance to any Power. Just talented and creative."
"And yet she created an enchantment that turned a mortal sword into something strong enough to defend against a Light Treasure. I find that difficult to believe."
She shrugged. It really did not matter in the slightest whether he believed it or not. "Just be careful with it. It was enchanted to stand up to Excalibur, not Light Treasures in general. I don't know how well it will do if you find something similar. I mean, it's fifteen hundred years old and one of a kind. It isn't like you can just walk into a Tesco and get a new one."
The trio walk out of the throne room and made their way back into the sunlight, the ward that once protected Camelot shattered along with Clarent's chains. Looking up into the sky, Jen couldn't help but smile. It truly was a beautiful day.
All the way back in chapter 1, I apologized for breaking a promise. No one ever guessed what it was. Well, now you know: in Ascendant, maybe chapter 7 or 8, I promised that the Arthurian mythos would not play a large role in the rest of the story. It was only later that the idea of a swordfight in Camelot with Excalibur and Clarent came to mind and refused to leave.
And yes, this is the real reason Priest uses a sword.
Silently Watches out.
