Divided against Yourselves (Spell Weaver) (2 page)

“My forgiveness you can have…if you bind yourself with the most solemn oath never to cross my path again.” I made sure to keep White Hilt ready and flaming. Having learned to manipulate that flame, I even made it blaze a little hotter.

“That I cannot do, for the universe often plays tricks on us. Our paths may cross, whether I will them to or not. After all, it was Ceridwen who threw you into my little corner of Annwn, and I truly did not intend to meet you tonight. I am as surprised as you are to find you here. My errand is not connected with you in any way, though as long as you are here, you may be able to help me with it.”

I watched the undulating flames reflect in her eyes and thought I could see some uneasiness in those eyes as well. If Morgan had actually been looking for me, she would certainly have prepared a way to counter White Hilt’s flame. Perhaps she was telling the truth—at least about the meeting being accidental.

I heard Gianni gasp next to me. While Morgan bantered with me, he had been trying to reconcile the two contradictory magic commands and obviously not succeeding. If neither of us released him, he might continue to struggle until he injured his mind.

“Morgan, release the boy, and I will hear you out.” Morgan was doubtless loath to relinquish the advantage of having Gianni’s safety to hold over my head, but she could see as well as I that the current situation could easily become a stalemate, and she clearly wanted something—if not my help, then at least my willingness to let her do whatever she had come for. She bowed, I could feel her attempted compulsion on Gianni relax, and he unsteadily propelled himself through the door, finally free to respond to my original instructions.

“Now then,” she began as soon as the door closed behind Gianni, “I am in search of my sister. Not long ago I received a prophecy that she would soon re-emerge in the world of men, and now I feel her somewhere nearby. She is close, Taliesin, very close indeed.”

I looked at her quizzically. “Morgause? She is dead, surely.”

Morgan gave me one of her glacial smiles. “Before this fall, you would have said the same of me, and I the same of you. Yet here we are.”

“Well, I did die, as you know, and was reincarnated. And I told you when you were seeking Lancelot, I have no art to find the person in whom a specific soul has reincarnated. So if Morgause is again living in this world, she could be anywhere, for all I know. On the other hand, if she, like you, has found a way to cheat death, I might be able to find her—but so could you, and I suspect far easier than I.”

“Actually, it is not Morgause I seek, but my other sister, Alcina.” I must have looked even more puzzled, and for a moment I thought Morgan was going to lose her temper with me. Then she regained control of herself and added, “You would remember her as Elaine.”

“Elaine! Yes, I remember that Arthur had a half-sister named Elaine, but she left long before the fall of Camelot.”

“Yes, she found the atmosphere at Camelot somewhat…stifling, and unlike me, she had no particular scores to settle. She wandered through Europe, searching for ways to enhance her magic, and she found quite a few. She settled on an island, not exactly in Annwn, but certainly in an otherworld of some sort. Unfortunately, that island has been empty for centuries, and it contains no clue of what might have become of her.”

“Surely,” I began, again trying to sound reasonable, “the likelihood that she randomly ended up in Santa Barbara must be remote, even if she is still alive.”

“I feel her,” snapped Morgan. “I feel her as I have not felt her in hundreds of years. She is nearby—of that I am certain.”

If Elaine, or Alcina, or whatever she was calling herself these days, was nearby, the last thing I wanted was for Morgan to find her. After all, Morgan was quite dangerous enough on her own. Letting her reunite with a sister whose magic might be even more powerful than her own was about as desirable as pounding a nail into my forehead, but how could I stop her, short of killing her? I had certainly killed my share of people in earlier lives, but I wasn’t exactly eager to continue that habit in this one. Then there was the fact that Morgan would certainly fight back, and a battle between us could get extremely messy, to say the least.

And Gianni, not to mention Carla, was in the building right behind us. So, at least in theory, was Morgan’s sister, but I couldn’t take the chance that the possible risk to Elaine would restrain Morgan enough. She seemed rational enough at the moment, but I had seen more than enough over the last few weeks to make me question her sanity.

I needed to play for time, to find a way to slow Morgan down while holding out the possibility that I might help her.

“If Elaine is so close,” I began, “and you can sense her presence, why has she not sensed yours? Surely she would have appeared by now and given you a sisterly greeting.”

I had just been fishing for some way to keep the conversation going, but as soon as I asked the question, I realized it was a reasonable one, and so did Morgan. Good as she was at concealing her feelings, she was clearly a bit perplexed.

“I have asked myself the same question. Taliesin, she is only a little farther away from me than you are—I know it as surely as I know my own name. She should at least have noticed me. However, I am looking for her, and she is not looking for me, so perhaps—wait, now I know exactly where she is!”

I should have known that Morgan was chatting with me and reaching out for her sister at the same time. I had not gained anything at all by trying to keep the conversation going.

“She is…in the building right behind you,” said Morgan with eerie certainty.

Great. The one place I least wanted Morgan to be, and that was the one spot she was determined to go.

“She can’t be, Morgan. I just came from in there. Surely I would have noticed a presence as strong as hers.”

“Perhaps not,” said Morgan, regarding me with interest. “I share a bond of blood with her that you do not. What I feel is that bond calling to me. Her power I do not feel at all. That suggests two possibilities: she is hiding from something, or she has lost her powers. Either way she needs my help.” Morgan took a step forward. I let the flame on my sword blaze brighter.

“I am not about to let you into this hospital, whether your sister is inside or not, Morgan.”

Her eyes blazed brighter than my sword, but she did not immediately let her anger have free reign.

“My little cherub,” she said softly. “A little cherub with his flaming sword, guarding the gates. Why are you so intent on keeping me from helping my own sister? I know you understand the importance of family ties.”

That last line could easily be interpreted as a threat, but I decided to ignore it for the moment.

“Because I don’t trust you,” I said simply, getting White Hilt to flame higher for effect. I figured there was not much point in maintaining a pretense of friendliness at this point. “You did try to kill me and my friends, and you would have been quite content to leave my soul trapped in Ceridwen’s cauldron forever. You can’t think a simple apology really covers all of that.”

“My little cherub—”

“Not so little, Morgan, and with thousands of years of experience, as you will find out if you keep pushing me.”

“No, not so little at that,” replied Morgan, feigning a thoughtful tone and looking me up and down. “Not so little at all. Perhaps I have been foolish to think mere words would satisfy you. Perhaps mine is the kind of apology that needs to be delivered…in bed.”

Seriously?

“Morgan…” I began, then had to pause as she stared into my eyes, plainly trying to enchant me. I could feel seductive energy oozing all around my defenses, probing them, poking at them. Fortunately, for someone like me, all Morgan could do was increase the natural temptation, not actually control my mind. At least, I hoped that was all she could do. I started humming, just to be sure. The original Taliesin’s magic worked best with musical accompaniment, and so naturally did mine. Too bad I didn’t have an instrument with me…

Morgan apparently took my humming to indicate I was nervous about my defenses and tried to press her advantage. “I know the girl you love cannot be your lover now, perhaps ever. Nonetheless, I would not insult you by asking you to betray that love. I offer you only physical satisfaction. A man like you must have…needs, needs that a woman like me could certainly satisfy. I have had hundreds of years of experience, after all. Come to think of it, so have you. Our coupling would have to be magnificent.”

Keeping in mind that in this life I was still a sixteen-year-old guy, I wouldn’t pretend her offer, backed up by magic or not, wasn’t appealing on some level. Being a teenage guy wasn’t easy in the first place; imagine what it was like being a teenage guy who could remember hundreds of years of sexual experiences from previous lives. Let’s just say I didn’t need to spend any time searching for porn on the Internet. I did have to spend a lot of time reconciling my urge to reenact some of those earlier sexual experiences with my desire to be at least a halfway decent guy by the standards of my current society. Morgan herself complicated the issue still further. She was, after all, a beautiful woman, fashion-model beautiful. Her mistake was in reminding me that she was really older than dirt. I couldn’t help thinking of the skeleton she’d be right now without all the magic she had expended to keep herself forever young.

What really reinforced my defenses, though, was the jolt of fear that shot through me when I realized that Morgan knew about Carla. Morgan must have been spying on me, just as Ceridwen used to—and Morgan was definitely not someone you wanted knowing all of your secret vulnerabilities.

I suddenly realized the light from White Hilt was fading. I again urged the flames to a great blaze, gave myself the mental equivalent of a cold shower, and focused all my attention on Morgan again.

“I’m not so easy to get around,” I said to her with a certainly I did not completely feel. Morgan, not expecting such an outright rejection, at least not so quickly, let some of her rage show.

“Do you really think you can stop me, Taliesin?” she replied harshly. “You took me by surprise once in Annwn. You will not do so again.” With that, Morgan threw herself into the concealing fog faster than should have been possible—had she been a mere human. Unfortunately, she was part faerie and capable of moving faster than I was—not superhero fast, but fast enough to conceal herself in her fog before I could fling the fire from my sword at her in a burst that would have reduced her to ashes. But who was I kidding? Even had I been moving at the same speed, I probably wouldn’t have roasted her. I just didn’t want to kill, not even someone like her. At least, not until I absolutely had to, a point I might reach any minute now.

After all, Morgan could do more than hide herself in the fog. Like most Celtic sorcerers, she could shape-shift into something tiny like a fly, then get into the hospital through an open window on the third floor before I could stop her. Worse, she could use the weather itself against me. The results would not be instantaneous, but in a surprisingly short period of time, she could fry me with lightning right where I stood and step over my charred corpse on the way to the front door.

I could try to counter such a tactic, but Morgan was stronger than I in a straight battle of magic against magic. True, I had learned how to make magic work on modern technology, which as far as I could tell, no one else had managed, and I had another trick or two up my sleeve, like being able to read and broadcast thoughts in a way that would have astounded the original Taliesin. However, there was no denying that in a contest of raw power, Morgan would beat me.

As if on cue, a chilling wind cut through me. So Morgan was going to try storm over stealth.

I did understand meteorology better than she did—that’s how I had beaten her that time in Annwn. But then I had used my fire and my scientific knowledge to counter her storm and ended up creating a hurricane to use against her. I couldn’t very well do that this time, and Morgan knew it—I had made it very clear that I valued something, or someone, inside the building. My options were limited by the need to protect that structure. A hurricane born of the clash between her magic and mine could probably not be controlled precisely enough to be safe to use this close to the hospital.

Predictably enough, rain started hitting me in ice-cold drops, and the flames on my sword sputtered a little. That was part of Morgan’s goal: put out the sword.

I might already be too late, but I knew I needed to summon help.

“Nurse Florence
,
I need you…ten minutes ago!”
I gave the message every ounce of power I possessed, but that kind of mental communication did weaken with distance, and Nurse Florence, our resident lady of the lake, was probably miles away in Santa Brígida. Still, if I managed to connect, I could send her a message without Morgan even realizing I had summoned help.

“Should I bring backup?”
Her response tingled in the back of my mind, faint but unmistakable.

“Any of the guys you can grab fast. Morgan Le Fay is trying to find her sister Elaine—in Carla’s hospital. Morgan’s raising a storm.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I felt the connection fade, but at least now I knew help was coming…eventually. Nurse Florence did have some rather unusual methods of transportation at her disposal. The question was how fast she could get to any of my…well, warriors, for lack of a better term. Since they had to conceal their unusual…situation, just as I did mine, they couldn’t always appear right on cue, even in an emergency.