Arthur was in a temper.
He'd spilled a whole pot of stew that morning, and the head cook had whacked him over the head with a dirty spoon. Merlin had laughed at him when they had eaten their dinner. And by far the worst, he could NEVER have meat for breakfast.
"Stop thinking about yourself, Arthur," Merlin said severely as he did the washing. Merlin had a washtub in his room, from which soapsuds flew.
"I want meat," he said. "Conjure up some money. Then we can buy some."
Merlin sighed.
Lancelot was lying against the wall.
Morgana was dead.
They had had exactly eight hours of married life before he was taken-and now she had died. And it was entirely his fault. Well, it no longer mattered what Morgause asked. He would give away nothing.
He looked up.
There was a lamp-hook on the stone ceiling. He gazed disinterestedly at it for a few minutes. Then he looked at it avidly.
He quickly took the length of rope that had been used to tie his hands. He tied it around his neck and then dragged his little pallet under the hook, tying the rope to the hook.
Then he kicked the pallet away.
The door was blasted off its hinges.
"Lancelot!" shrieked Arthur. "What the HELL do you think you're doing?"
Though Lancelot fought them desperately, they cut him down and sat him on the pallet.
"I don't have any reason to live any longer, Merlin," said Lancelot. "Morgana's dead. Because of me."
"She's alive, you donkey," said Merlin, a frown in his forehead. "I had a letter from her just this morning."
Within five minutes, Merlin and the others stood outside the boundaries of the kingdom. There stood their horses, magically concealed and tied to a tree.
They mounted them and raced away into the night.
What they did not know was that they were being watched. Far, far above the citadel of the kingdom rose a tall tower. The tip of this pierced the clouds and few could climb all the way up there; the stairs were many and very steep, and the air thinned until at the top, one could not remain long without fainting. However, none of this hindered that daughter of Envy, Morgause. Her legs carried her lithely and her breathing, assisted by several spells, was even.
She smirked.
How beautiful life was. Everything was going according to plan. Merlin had shown his face, and he would soon come nose-to-nose with sixty of her best sorcerers. His blood would be spilled...and no mere cupfuls of it, either. And she thought that she knew who was trying to kill Morgana. She had been very surprised indeed when the thought had occurred to her, but she realized that it made perfect, absolute sense. She had first thought of Guinevere Pendragon, but dismissed it. She pondered awhile longer. What danger could Morgana pose to Gaius, anyway? And he had saved her when that charm had been found. Oh, but that was clever! The old man had a wit nearly as sharp as hers, but not quite. He could, of course, be a only a pawn in a much larger game. Even she, who had never known love, thought that he must be in the power of someone else. He had cared too deeply for the child.
But he had known-oh, he had known the day that he set eyes on Morgana, then seven years old, that she had magic. And to protect her he had given her doses of hemlock and belladonna-belladonna both to curb her magic and to keep her unaware of it-the hemlock to try and curb the hallucinogens of the belladonna. He had failed.
Freya dipped her pen into a bottle of ink. She was trying out a new spell that she herself had made up only that evening. Ania had helped her with it, by giving her the power-storing locket she had. With Ania's magic, Freya had derived a charm that could draw the truth-not aid in finding it. It was the most powerful truth spell that ever had been.
If only it would work.
Freya set her hands upon the paper one more time. "Më tregoni të gjithë."
Nothing happened.
Freya was just about to throw her quill on the floor in frustration when her hand began to move of its own accord. She gasped. Never in her twenty-three years had she seen anything like this.
The hand with the pen in it moved quickly, even re-inking the pen of its own accord. It sketched a drawing of a woman...a woman who...
Was that even a woman?
Freya looked intently at the paper. It was, without doubt, a woman. But who was she? There were certain similarities between this woman and her. They had the same dark hair-the color of their robes was the same and their heights and builds were very identical. Even their eyes were the same in shape and color. But through them looked out a soul of such hatred, who had suffered betrayal Could this be her, a more dangerous and more beautiful Freya Linden?
She shuddered. Never could this be her.
Freya then noticed something odd that she hadn't before. At the woman's feet sat a tiny man.
It was Gaius.
She had asked her hand to draw for her the would-be murderer of Morgana...and it had presented her with this. Probably Gaius was under this woman's control. Freya sat up long into the night. Who was that woman who so uncannily resembled her?
"Ania, dear?" called Freya. "Can you come here for a moment?"
Ania's tiny form appeared at the door.
"What is it, mummy?" she asked sleepily.
"Can you tell me who that is?"
Ania scrutinized the picture. Her eyes, eyes already too old for her five years, grew dark as she looked at the picture.
"Oh, I know who it is," said Ania, and in her voice there was such bitterness and rage that her mother was astonished. "She stood by and watched me dying without lifting a finger. I who was her own kin! She has betrayed us as much as Uther betrayed her."
"Ania..."
"Mother..." said Ania, turning to Freya. Freya knew at once that something more than the daughter she knew now resided within this little body.
"You have discovered who you were before, Ania, haven't you? In your life before this one?"
"I was the one I was named for," said Ania. As her mother looked into her eyes, she thought she could see the young and beautiful dragon who had been the pride and joy of her father. "I was Anharra, daughter of Kilgarrah."
"And the woman's name, sweet?"
"Her name is Nimueh."