The Shadow Companion by Laura Anne Gilman

Author:Laura Anne Gilman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780061908668
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-01-07T10:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

“The best of Camelot,” Merlin said in disgust, echoing, unknowingly, Sir Matthias’s earlier comment. “May the gods help us all.”

The owl he was speaking to turned its head and hooted mournfully at him. The fact that the owl had the same reaction, no matter what he said to it, was less annoying than the fact that the beast was actually stuffed with sawdust, and so had no thoughts at all in its feathered head.

On the other hand, it made for a soothingly placid audience when Merlin felt as though his own head might explode.

He could not blame Sir Matthias for splitting the knights up; he might even have suggested it himself. Small groups were able to move quickly and be less of a burden on the local communities they passed through…. It was a good move, a wise move. It was something he would expect a seasoned war leader like Matthias to come up with when faced with stubborn knights and an elusive goal.

Arthur forgot, sometimes, the cost of moving his people from point to point. That was what he had field marshals and stewards for.

Merlin didn’t care, actually, about the cost. His job was to get things done. The difference between him and Arthur was how they paid the cost of their decisions. Arthur paid out in gold and royal approval. Merlin paid of himself, in aches and pains and loss of essence.

“I’m far, far too old for this,” he muttered, stretching out his legs and feeling them creak. He had discarded his usual robes for more comfortable pantaloons and an exotic billowing tunic. He would never wear them in public, of course, but for intense spell-casting, the wizards of the far-off eastern deserts had the right idea when it came to comfort.

On his worktable, four small vials that represented the king’s four groups were set upright, their contents smoking gently, in colors alternating between a thick, smoky gray and flashes of blue, and occasionally spiking into red or green. Red meant he needed to do something, and green meant whatever he had done was working. It was a crude method, but with four bands of knights instead of one to watch, on top of everything else he was being asked to do, crude did the job.

Two of the vials had sparked a violent red this morning, while a third had a slow thread of scarlet rising in its smoke. He had taken the first two and made an additional spell of protection around them, and the men it represented. The third had required more; he had spent almost all morning putting that flame out. By then, the slow thread in the third had turned to a faint pink, and then faded away entirely; whatever crisis was brewing, it had been dealt with on the ground. That had been Sir Matthias’s group, he noted.

Merlin rather liked Matthias, even though he was one of those men who worried about the effect of magic on his Christian soul. He wasn’t going to find the Grail, not with his particular prejudices and blind sides.

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