For Camelot's Honor (10 page)

“No, little girl,” said Morgaine smoothly. “I have said you will learn obedience, and it shall be so.”

Morgaine held out her hand to Urien, and Urien drew Yestin's sword, handing its hilt to the sorceress. She raised the blade high. Elen staggered backward, lifting her own hand to ward off whatever blow was to come. Morgaine was before her in a single stride. The sorceress knocked her feeble gesture aside and tapped Elen's forehead with the sword hilt. Elen collapsed to the ground as if she had been struck a mighty blow. She huddled, dazed, on the cold earth while Morgaine and Urien towered over her. Morgaine began to sing. Her voice was high and eerie in the moonlight, calling out across the whole of the land in some language Elen could not understand. Despite that, the words cut straight through her, pinning her to the ground, robbing her blood and heart of all strength, leaving only water and dust and fear inside her.

A high, keening cry sounded over Morgaine's song and the sorceress lifted her wrist. A merlin hawk, a bird that should not have flown at all in night's darkness, lighted easily on her naked wrist, fluffing its feathers, waiting her word.

Morgaine's song grew low and crooning. She set the bird on her shoulder. Its talons must have pierced her skin, but if there was pain, she gave no sign. The bird sat on its living perch, still and patient.

Morgaine raised the silver blade. Swiftly, she stabbed downward.

The sword plunged into Elen's breast, and pain cut through the whole of her soul. Elen screamed, for fear, for pain, for death, for the blood pouring hot and red from her riven body she screamed.

“Hush, child,” Morgaine bent over her, laying the gory sword aside. “It is but the work of a moment.”

She laid her long fingers against Elen's mouth and Elen could scream no more. Throat and breath were frozen. She could only feel the burning pain, the pouring blood. She could only watch as Morgaine took that same hand and reached into the gaping wound, and pulled Elen's heart free.

She held it up to the moonlight for a moment, red and beating in her hand. Elen's mind swirled and tried to swoon, but Morgaine's workings denied her even that release. There was only the pain and the horror. Her heart, her heart beat in the sorceress's hands. She did not die, she should die, she could not live, it was too much, too much pain, too much fear …

With a word, Morgaine coaxed the hawk from her shoulder. Gently, lovingly, she pressed Elen's heart against its feathered breast, and the bird's body absorbed Elen's heart into itself, and left not even a trace of blood to show what had been done.

At that same moment, Elen felt her own wound close, her flesh and bone reforming, melding back into their proper configuration. The pain ebbed away, leaving only a hollowness in the center of her chest and a weak, dry feeling, as if she were waking from a long illness.

“Sit up,” said Morgaine.

Elen sat up. She did it without thinking.

“Kneel.”

Elen knelt, again without thinking. The words went to the hollow place where her heart used to be, and from there to blood and sinew, to will and soul. It was imperative that she kneel. The touch of the hard ground was a blessing, for it was the place she must be. Her hands must be crossed just so. Each finger had to lay exactly in her lap.

“I am giving you this hawk, my lord,” said Morgaine over her head. “As you have seen, it holds the little girl's heart. Whosoever is its master, is hers. She will do whatever he bids her do.”

To hear her doom spoken so clearly sent a fresh shaft of fear through Elen's distracted mind. Her head lifted itself, and for a moment she was afraid she might begin to plead with them.

Urien held the hawk now on his naked hand. As Elen looked at it, it seemed to her she could hear the sound of its heart, her heart, beating in its breast. It beat fast and light, like the sound of a drum played for dancing. It called for her. She wanted to reach for it, but that would be wrong. She must kneel. She must reach for her heart. The twin needs clutched her so tightly it felt as if she would be torn in two.

Urien stroked the hawk's neck. The bird's ruffled feathers settled, and Elen felt the tension in her own shoulders ease. She had not thought there could be any new horror to this, but now the ache of it overtook her, for Urien's touch soothed the hawk, and it soothed her as well.

Her mouth moved. “Let me die,” she heard herself whisper. “I will die silent. There will be no curse. Let me die.”

Urien sighed. “Believe what you will, but I am sorry things must come to this. Yours was a proud house and I would have taken your mother willingly as friend and ally. Alas, it was not to be and I could not permit her to endanger us all. Perhaps in time you will come to understand this.

“In the meantime, however, you are of use to me. Marriage to you is a good for barter I cannot waste. But I agree with my lady, first you must learn to obey.

“Wait.”

With that word, Elen's eyes were drawn to the earth. She saw that the silvered grass was fascinating in its perfection, each blade limned with moonlight, sheltering the bare patches of earth that could be seen as pure darkness, turning the whole into a vast and complex puzzle to fill the mind. The hawk had dropped a small feather and it lay over the grass, white and black in the darkness. What color would it be when morning came? She must wait to see. She must wait forever. It was right. It was good.

She heard the footsteps as Morgaine and Urien left her. She heard the hawk creel softly and a wail escaped her own throat, but she did not move. To move would be anathema. How could she move away from the perfection of the grass in front of her? The way this blade slanted, and that blade had been kink ed. There was a message there, for her alone, and she must understand it. If she could only understand the runes written in the grass, then all things would become clear. She must wait and understand.

The chill of the night began to seep into her skin. The hard earth bit into her knees. But she did not move. She could not even struggle. She knew she would wait here until she died of thirst and hunger and she would not move, because Urien had ordered it. Her heart did not beat inside her. The lack of it made each breath wrong. Her lungs moved to take in the air, but there was only emptiness at her center, and although she could feel the sick fear of what had happened, she could raise no strength to get past it. The fear was nothing compared to the compulsion to wait.

It was so cold. Her skin prickled and shivered. She was thirsty. Tears began to stream down her cheeks, making lines of warmth, and then cold. Her joints ached. Her dress was obscenely torn and her blood dried against her skin. Her cloak flapped uselessly in the night wind. Her breath came fast and hard, and she began to sob, hoarsely, uncontrollably. And still she could not move.

Oh, Mother. Mother, come take me. Let me die. Don't leave me here.

Elen's eyes were crusted with sand and salt from her tears. The moon tracked its path overhead and the stars wheeled around it. The dew settled on her, and she shivered. She could not feel her legs or her feet any more. Her back screamed in pain. Her mouth was completely parched. Her head fell forward because she lacked the strength to hold it upright anymore.

She might have fainted, then, she was no longer sure. The grass and the fallen feather were so beautiful and filled her mind so completely that she could not truly tell whether she dreamed it or saw what was truly before her.

Elen.

The sound of her name lifted Elen's head again, even though the movement was painful. Mother knelt before her. Her skin was white and her hands were long and strong and without blemish. Even mother waited here. It was right to wait. It was perfection.

Elen, your blood is your salvation. Your blood is your escape.

Blood. There had been so much blood when Morgaine took her hawk, and now she must wait. She must wait. Mother was so beautiful. She shone in the moonlight, even though the moon had set. Maybe mother would take her away. She didn't understand why she hurt so much. She was waiting and it was the right thing to do.

Blood calls to blood, Elen. Blood must hear.

“Blood,” murmured Elen, her mind so fogged, she scarce understood the word.

She felt lips brush her cheek, cool and soft as the night's breeze.
I can give you so little now, daughter. I can tell you before you find your freedom you will ride into a far country where you shall breach the wall and you shall take death and return life. You shall be allowed to bestow three gifts by the power of your blood. Three only in the name of the mothers who are birth and death. Use them wisely, daughter. Use them in blessing.

And mother was gone, and there was only the grass and the pain and the stillness of her blood.

The power of blood … Blood.
Mother. Mother had told her something. Something she must remember now. Remember beyond the perfection of the grass, beyond the touch of the shade, beyond the need to wait. It was there, beneath it all.

Blood calls to blood. Blood must hear.

There was blood all over her dress. Her heart's own blood that Morgaine spilled. More blood stained her cloak. Her mother's blood from her corpse. The fae blood from the birthing she attended.

I must wait. I must wait.

There was blood still in her veins.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Blood in her veins. Her family's blood. It flowed out from her slaughtered kin.

Merlin is kin to me.

Memory jolted through Elen. Merlin, Arthur's cunning man, his sorcerer. Merlin was kin to Adara.

Merlin was kin to Elen.

They shared blood, he and she. Blood called to blood, and blood must hear.

But I must wait. I cannot leave. I must wait. It is wrong to want this. Wrong. I cannot. I must wait.
Her mind crawled and cringed at the idea of moving. Only waiting was right. Only stillness was good.

But I do not have to move.
The thought was a delicious darkness, like the thought of a young man lying in the darkness, waiting just for her. It was wrong, it was forbidden, but so tempting.
My blood is already free. I can call and still wait. It can be done.

Wait. Wait. Wait.
The word pounded in her as her heart had once done. It surged through her still blood. It disordered her thoughts.
Wait. Wait. Wait.

I will wait. I will. I will just tell him I am waiting. I will just tell him I am waiting, and why.

That eased the revulsion that curdled her mind, and made it a little easier to move her hand. It was so cold. She reached out and claimed the fallen feather from the hawk.

Where is it? Where has it gone? I must wait until it comes back. I must wait to hear my heart again.

She raised her hand to her mouth, and she spat. Her mouth was so dry, there was almost nothing there, but she managed. She curled her aching fingers around the torn and bloody cloth of her dress and the humors of her body mingled with the gesture and rubbed themselves into the feather. She closed her eyes.

I will just tell him I am waiting. He needs to know I am waiting.

Her mind was so dazed with all that had happened, it was easy to slide into the dreamlike state that allowed one to conjure visions. She thought of the feather curled tight in her hand. She thought of its shape, its color, the lightness of it. She though how it bore the hawk high and free on the summer winds.

As feather bore hawk, so shall mind be born. As blood gives power to body, so shall blood give power to the feather and the feather shall bear my thoughts to Merlin.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

With a force that made her body shudder to the bone, Elen forced the word down and away. She thought of the feather. She pictured the hawk soaring free. She willed herself to feel the winds. It was only her thoughts, only her spirit that would fly. She would wait here, but her mind would fly free. She would soar and see as the birds of the air saw.

For an instant mother was beside her again, for an instant she felt the familiar brush against her, and a voice in her mind said,
One.

All at once, her spirit lifted itself free from the chains of its body, and the wind snatched it up. She rushed through the darkness, flying free and fast. It was glorious. It was terrible. It was all she could do to hang onto the name of the one she must find, and she must hang onto it tight, or be lost forever in the dark winds.

Merlin. Merlin. Blood calls to blood, and blood must hear.

She saw light before her, bright and golden like a star in the darkness. The winds grew still and she moved no more. The light changed, it stretched, it grew, until it was a man with a long beard standing before her holding his white staff like a bar to her way.

“Who calls Merlin?” The voice filled the whole of Elen. She could not have held back her answer if she wanted to.

“Elen, Adara's daughter.”

There was silence for a moment, and then the voice asked. “What would you of Merlin?”

Her mind cramped and constricted. This was wrong,
wrong
! Unless it was for the waiting. All she did must be to continue to wait.

“I would tell him I am waiting.”

There was a pause. All her body strained. She knew this was wrong, it was worse than any other thing she had ever done, but yet it was not forbidden. It was hard though, oh, so hard and she was so tired.

“For what do you wait?” the question came at last.

I can tell him this much. I can.
“For Urien who is my master.”

“Why do you wait?”

This much more. It is only a little more. I can tell him why I must wait.
“Because Morgaine has made it so.”

Again there was a long pause. Elen swayed on her knees. She did not think she could stay upright much longer. She longed to let herself fall into the grass. The closer she was to the earth, the more sure would be her waiting.