Free The Camelot Spell by Laura Anne Gilman

shoes, made of worn brown leather, then rose up past the layers of skirtsand tunic, stopping finally at the wrinkled, wizened face of an old woman standing in front of them.
    “Old mother?” Ailis asked. “You were saying?” The residents of this town might all be mad, but there was no reason to be unkind.
    “The owl, lonely flier. Moonlight, water, what you desire.”
    She met their gazes, each individual in turn, then nodded firmly and shuffled off, her obligation seemingly fulfilled.
    “More gibberish,” Gerard said in disgust.
    “No.” Newt held up a hand. “I don’t think so. It’s not the words. It’s what the words say . The people aren’t mad; they just think differently.” He turned to Gerard, his dark eyes alight with an intensity that took the others by surprise. “Give me the map.”
    “Wha—”
    “The map!”
    Gerard looked at Ailis, who nodded slowly. He withdrew the tube from the pack he had brought with him and handed it reluctantly to the other boy. Newt pulled the map out with clear impatience, almost tearing it in his hurry.
    “Careful!” Ailis warned.
    Newt unrolled the map and stared at it intently.“There. And there.”
    “There what?”
    “Water. The owl is Merlin—the lonely flier, the harbinger of death. That’s what they call Merlin outside the castle when Arthur can’t hear. Because whenever he showed up, battles followed. ‘Moonlight, water, what you desire.’ Water…there and there. Both are marked by a sigil.” He pointed to the locations on the map—two lakes, one fairly close to the town they were in—careful not to accidentally let his fingers brush any of the magical sigils. He wasn’t sure whether the inscriptions on the map had power, but anything connected with a sorcerer like Merlin called for caution.
    “Where does moonlight come from?” Gerard asked.
    “Where the moon would travel?” Newt guessed wildly. All three of them looked up into the sky, searching for that heavenly body.
    “We’ll have to wait until nightfall,” Ailis said, disappointed.
    “Do you think we could get something to eat that we didn’t have to catch or cook?” Gerard wondered out loud, causing Ailis to pat him consolingly on the shoulder.
    “Poor thing, worn to a wisp by burden of caring for yourself.”
    From Ailis it was teasing, and Gerard could take it with good grace. And when Newt’s stomach made a particularly loud rumbling noise as though in agreement with the squire’s request, the evening’s plan was decided.
     
    “Now this…this is a meal!”
    Newt and Ailis both raised their mugs to that toast, clinking them in turn against the roasted drumstick Gerard was tearing into. He had declined the weak, watered-down ale that they were drinking, preferring the crystal-cool water that seemed to be the specialty of this town, drawn from the well where they had been sitting earlier.
    The tavern was small with barely enough room for the owner to move around the few tables set around a central hearth. There was firewood in it, but because the day had been warm, it was unlit. In the cooler days and nights of winter, though, it would doubtless give off a welcome antidote to the chill.
    “What do you think is happening…back home?” Ailis asked, after they had taken the edge off their hunger. She had been about to say “back inCamelot,” but remembered their story just in time. The other tables were filled with locals, some eating, others simply drinking their fill. From the few snatches of conversation she caught, they all seemed to speak in the baffling manner of the other villagers. Ailis didn’t know if that was good or bad. She’d like to think that it had been Merlin giving them a message through the woman, and that they were among loyal friends. But they had no way to know for certain, so they couldn’t risk mentioning Camelot—not when the safety of everyone she cared about rested on Arthur’s enemies not knowing that for several days now, he had been