Looking back, Morgana never knew how she managed to stay awake for her bath, yet she must have because she had a murky recollection of Gwen and Freya pouring buckets of water over her head to wash off the worst of the dirt before putting her in the bathtub and scrubbing her within an inch of her life, and of their dismayed exclamations over the state of her hair. Once she had bathed, though, she must have fallen asleep before her head touched her pillow; being wrapped in a towel was the last thing she remembered until a huge weight on her chest dragged her out of her dead sleep and she awoke to the disconcerting sight of a pair of big blue eyes staring intently into her face.
"Aithusa?" she asked groggily, half convinced she must be dreaming.
"No dream," the little dragon assured her in a high, chirpy voice. "Time to wake up! You've been sleeping a long time."
"And I told you she needed her rest. You shouldn't have woken her." Aithusa squealed and scampered under the covers as Nimueh approached, for which Morgana was grateful; Aithusa had grown a lot since their last meeting, and her weight had made breathing difficult. "I'm sorry for the disturbance - I kept her away from you as long as I could."
"Well, I'm awake now." Morgana sat up, disregarding Nimueh's warning about not taxing herself. "How is Merlin?"
"Still unconscious, but he seems to be recovering. I wish I knew when he will wake up, though."
"Will there be some adverse effect on his health if he does not? You look far too troubled to be thinking of nothing more than the postponement of our wedding in the event that the bridegroom cannot be awakened."
"It is troublesome to feed someone in his state, but it can be managed," Nimueh replied. "No, what concerns me most is the matter of Morgause. I believe I may have discovered why she was so intent on bending him to her will."
Morgana's heartbeat sped up to nearly twice its normal rate; here at last was the answer to the riddle she and Merlin had fretted over since they escaped Morgause's clutches, an answer she both dreaded and desperately needed. Unfortunately, Nimueh seemed in no hurry to share it with her. "Well?" she demanded impatiently when the High Priestess stopped speaking. "What sort of dark magic did she force him to conjure for her?"
"Are you certain you wish to know? The possibilities are frightening."
Seizing her arm, Morgana pulled her closer until the two sorceresses were almost nose to nose. "Not knowing will prey on my mind far more now that you have dangled such a tantalizing hint before me. Tell me!"
Nimueh glanced from the hand on her arm to its owner's determined face, and decided Morgana could handle hearing what she had to say. The girl had already battled and beaten nearly insurmountable odds to save Merlin, and if Nimueh's worst fears were realized, the entire kingdom would need that cunning and iron will if it was to have any hope of surviving. "Since she resurfaced, I set out to learn as much about Morgause's activities in the years since I banished her from our order as I could, and I found that she has spent much of her time researching one of our most wondrous artifacts, the Cup of Life."
"What is the Cup of Life?"
"It is a vessel that holds the magic at the very heart of the Old Religion, the power of life and death. A drink from the Cup can snatch back a soul on the very brink of crossing the threshold into the netherworld-"
"That doesn't sound very dangerous."
Nimueh scowled. Morgana's inability to listen quietly until her teacher finished speaking reminded Nimueh of herself in the days when she was a mere student. Goddess, I don't know how the priestesses of my youth put up with me. "If you can keep your mouth shut long enough to hear me out, I will tell you why it is. Besides its healing powers, the Cup can also grant immortality. Naturally, my first thought was that Morgause wished to make herself immortal; then I realized the scope of her plans was likely far greater. What is Morgause's ultimate goal?"
"To conquer Camelot, but no army has ever breached the citadel's walls."
"No ordinary army," Nimueh corrected her. "I imagine an army of immortals would have an easier time of it, don't you?"
Morgana's eyes widened. "You believe Morgause intends to use the Cup to make Escetia's entire army indestructible?" Nimueh nodded. "We had better find this Cup of Life before she does, then."
"The Cup is on the Isle of the Blessed, beyond Morgause's grasp. Being intelligent enough to know she could not hope to lay hands on it, however, she turned her efforts to a new purpose: replicating its effects. Her ability is unequal to the task of recreating such a powerful object, of course…but Merlin's may not be. If anyone on earth can reproduce the Cup of Life, it would be him."
Morgana took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. "Well, I knew she wouldn't have used the world's most powerful sorcerer to any good end while she had him under her control. If that was indeed what she ordered him to do, and the experiment succeeded, what can we do about it?"
"I don't know yet," Nimueh admitted, and Morgana saw in her ice-blue eyes that this bothered her greatly. Perhaps she was even a little scared. "You should rest while you may; we may soon be facing an unstoppable force, and if we must face it without Merlin, we will need you at full strength."
"How do you expect me to rest after you've just told me we're facing a threat that frightens even you?" Morgana asked incredulously.
"We aren't facing it today, or tomorrow, or even next week. Everyone is on high alert, searching for any sign of Morgause - we will have ample warning when she strikes, and I believe we have some time before she does. You and Merlin wrought a great deal of damage in the heart of her stronghold, after all, so now she must regroup." Nimueh left Morgana's bedchamber then, presumably to check on Merlin or assist in shoring up the castle's defenses in preparation for Morgause's attack.
Once she was gone, Aithusa poked her head out from under the blankets and coverlet, looked around warily, and snuggled into Morgana's side. "Strict witch doesn't like me."
Morgana idly stroked the white dragon, her mind still on Nimueh's dire warnings. "Advance warning is well and fine, but I can't see what good it will do. I suppose if we're lucky we may have time to evacuate before Morgause's invincible legion swoops in to slaughter us all."
Aithusa looked up into her face with unusually grave eyes. "Uh-oh."
###
Morgana got up, dressed, and rejoined the world of the living soon afterward; the only thing wrong with her (apart from blisters on one foot from going without a shoe for three days and a few scrapes, all of which had been healed while she slept) was exhaustion, and now that she was rested she had no desire to lie in bed like an invalid. She visited Merlin's rooms first, where she was assured that Alice and Nimueh were taking excellent care of him.
"He wouldn't have made it to them if not for you, though," Balinor said gratefully. To Morgana's surprise, the king then enfolded her in a bearlike hug that lifted her feet off the ground, like her father used to do. "Thank you for bringing my son home."
"I could have done no less for the man I love," she replied with uncharacteristic breathlessness, which could be attributed either to emotion or Balinor squeezing the air out of her lungs. "But you know, your majesty," she continued when he put her down, "I couldn't have done it without the help of my maid, Gwen. Merlin and I would still be captives or worse if not for her."
"Is that so? Then she must be rewarded." Balinor thoughtfully ran his fingers through his short beard. "The question is, what qualifies as adequate compensation for saving two people whose lives I can't put a price on?"
"Two people?" Morgana repeated, bewildered.
"Of course - your safe return pleases me no less than Merlin's. After all, it won't be long before you're as good as my daughter in the eyes of the law. You know, Lady Morgana, when Merlin was born I was more relieved than I can say that Hunith had given me a son instead of a daughter, because I wouldn't have known what to do with a girl…but having one like you wouldn't have been so bad."
Morgana helped herself to a drink from the water pitcher on Merlin's nightstand before replying; her throat suddenly felt oddly constricted. "Thank you, my lord…Balinor."
He gave her another quick hug and then, deciding he'd had quite enough emotional displays for one day, steered the conversation to a topic he was more comfortable with. "Have you heard Nimueh's theory of why this Morgause woman subjected Merlin to her vile enchantments?"
"Yes, she was there when I woke up and told me she believes Morgause needed his help to create a replica of the Cup of Life so she could make the warriors under her command immortal. It was the first time I've seen our illustrious High Priestess worried."
Balinor didn't seem to share Nimueh's concern. "That's because she doesn't know how to counteract it if Merlin did manage to make such a thing, but I happen to know that a sword forged in a dragon's breath can destroy any form of dark magic, even things that supposedly can't be killed." He had purposefully neglected to mention that to her because he suspected that she'd discovered Merlin's and Morgana's whereabouts long before him, yet had let him carry on a fruitless search of what ground he and his knights could cover on horseback long after they should have been using dragons. He wouldn't have known where to begin looking for them, or even that they were still alive, if not for Prince Arthur.
Of course, Balinor knew the high and mighty priestesses weren't in the habit of sharing what they knew with mere kings (Nimueh had a particular distrust of nearly all royalty for some reason), and he had to admit he couldn't have freed Merlin from Morgause's spell by 'blundering in with all his knightly oafs' as Nimueh put it - Morgana had managed that quite well with only Nimueh and Gwen helping her. Still, he thought she should have had the decency to tell him what she knew about what had happened to his son and future daughter-in-law; since she hadn't, he was content to let her stew awhile.
"Can the solution to our problem really be so simple?" Morgana wondered. "Why, every sword in Dagon must be forged in dragon-fire!"
"Are you mad?" Balinor barked. "Dragon-forged swords are too dangerous to be issued to every knight in the kingdom! In the wrong hands, a sword like that could…" He shook his head. "I can count on one hand the number of people I would trust with a weapon like that. I've spoken with Kilgharrah, and he has agreed to make one such sword - only one, he said repeatedly - should we need it…although he has a condition we must meet first."
Morgana's eyebrows rose. "What condition?"
"I think he wants something from you; he asked me to send you to him when you were well enough to discuss it. I told him I would persuade you to hear him out, but you are under no obligation to comply with any demands he makes. I can order him to forge the sword we need if it comes to that; he won't be able to refuse a dragonlord's command." He hated the thought of imposing his will on his old friend in such a way - it was too close to what Morgause had done to Merlin for Balinor's liking - but he would if he had to in order to protect his kingdom, and the remarkable young woman who would soon be his daughter-in-law.
"Well, I see no harm in finding out what he wants from me." Recalling Kilgharrah's words when he retrieved her and Merlin from the Forest Perilous, about how he would later ask her to make a great sacrifice for all of Albion, Morgana doubted she would like it. She had never been one to shirk unpleasant duties, though.
Will entered then, his face falling a little when he saw that Merlin was still unconscious.
"There's been no change; we're still waiting for the antidote Alice gave him to clear the serket's venom from his system," Balinor informed him.
"Oh… I just thought, with all the jabbering you two were doing, he might've woken up to tell you both to put a cork in it."
Balinor raised his eyebrows.
"Sire," Will quickly added.
The king just shook his head; once or twice, he had questioned Merlin's readiness to befriend people with dubious pasts, but sometimes he wondered if the manservant wasn't the one he should worry about. Will was harmless, but his tongue almost seemed to have a mind of its own, and the fact that he couldn't or wouldn't control it left Balinor wondering if he was a few trees short of a full orchard.
Will began dusting then - it was obviously an excuse to stay in the room and keep an eye on Merlin, because he never worked this hard when his master was well - whistling as he cleaned. Morgana jumped out of her chair, asked Balinor to excuse her, and headed for the door; even meeting with Kilgharrah was preferable to listening to Will's off-key musical accompaniment to his chores.