Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,51
The court didn’t even smother their gossip. It flared wherever they walked. Gwen shot Merlin a look of pure misery.
She and Ari must have been exceptionally successful at hurting Arthur. It wasn’t an easy task, but they were all committed to making it through the Arthurian legend as quickly as possible and getting back to their time before Mercer grew stronger. Which meant that Merlin didn’t have much time at all to figure out this backward aging business.
He needed help. He needed someone with magic to spare.
Merlin looked at the receding back of the withered, worm-hearted old mage. Merlin had been amazed, disappointed, and relieved that Old Merlin hadn’t noticed his de-aging. It would no doubt end in another interrogation. And most likely some magical experimentation. But wasn’t that what he needed right now?
He ran to catch up, stopping Old Merlin at the tower door. Merlin took a mighty breath, preparing himself to pull an Ari and tell the truth. It was harder than it looked.
“Haven’t you noticed anything strange?” he demanded.
“Yes,” Old Merlin said. “You’re getting more pesky these days. Like a fly around a rotting piece of fruit.”
Funny, because you’re a rotting piece of fruit! Merlin nearly shouted.
He sighed until he found a sense of calm, which was harder to summon than magic these days. “The night of Arthur’s birthday celebration, I disappeared because… I was losing time.” Old Merlin still looked puzzled. Gods, did he have to spell everything out for himself? “Getting younger.”
“And you didn’t wish everyone to see your humiliations,” Old Merlin filled in with surprising alacrity. He circled Merlin with his hawklike sharpness. He whipped a piece of string out of one of his robe pockets and took a few measurements as Merlin hummed nervously. What had he gotten himself into? Had he really invited the person he feared most into his personal space? “It does seem you’re growing… down… rather than up.”
“As your apprentice, you probably don’t want me crawling around this place,” he said. “It is not baby-proof.”
Merlin held his breath. What kind of tortures awaited him now?
“This is most fascinating!” Old Merlin said, clapping his hands together and standing on his tiptoes, filled with the helium of delight. “Why didn’t you mention that someone put a curse on you? I revel in countercurses.”
“You… you do?” Merlin bumbled. He didn’t remember helping people in this time, besides Arthur. Of course, he didn’t remember much at all.
“Up to the tower at once,” Old Merlin said, complete with impatient snapping. “No more dusting the prophetic orbs for you. We have bigger work to do.”
Under any other circumstances, Merlin would have said no. And possibly left the castle screaming. But right now, he was desperate enough to work with the very last person he would have chosen in any era, sociopathic dictators notwithstanding.
If he was going to break Nin’s cycle, he needed complete control of his magic. Starting with his age. This time and place had always terrified him—but what if it held the answers he’d always sought? What if facing it was the only way to find them?
“Kairos,” Old Merlin muttered. The tower door opened on its magical hinge, the stairs looming above them.
Merlin took a deep breath and said, “I guess it’s you and me, old man.”
Ari awoke to a bucket of water being dumped on her head. Her neck felt terrible. Her back felt terrible. The evening sun beating down on her felt, well, terrible.
She was in the stocks, head and wrists locked into worn, soft wood.
“What happened?” she asked, unable to look up, trying to figure out if what she was looking at were in fact Val’s feet.
Val’s voice floated down. “You are no longer Camelot’s favorite knight, that’s what. Hope this was your plan.”
“Not exactly.”
He began to pull back the mechanism that kept the wood clamped. “The good news is that your sentence has been served. One night and day in the stocks for impertinence toward the queen.”
“Impertinence? That all?”
“I believe Arthur is covering for you. Even in his jealousy.” Val helped her stand up, which was important because her body was stiff and her muscles felt like cement. “Tell me, did you and Gwen plan this or did you just whip out your sheer animalistic urges for one another in front of that poor young royal?”
“Worse,” Ari grumbled. “I told her I loved her and we got all moony.”
Val whistled. “That is worse.” He led them toward the stable where Lam worked.