The Angel's Fall (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 6) (8 page)

He rolled his eyes. “Oh Morgan, promise me you will always speak to me so plainly.”

“I promise.”

That was our last good day together. For Arthur, like any King, soon became a true King and it corrupted all parts of him. It changed his soul and turned him against me, and me against him.

9

Diego

I watched Diego shift uncomfortably in his throne and wondered how the seat felt.

“How are you, Diego?”

“Not about to be flayed alive, like some in this room, so quite well,” he said. He glanced from me to Maria.

His Queen laughed.

I ignored her and stared at him, trying to divine if the cruelty of his words were an affectation or the truth. Much of him was changed. He looked decades younger, in his prime, and not the old and withered man I had once known. But the biggest change was that he was able to sit down and hold still. On Earth, he'd never had the simple luxury of that because a curse of Hell had compelled him to walk and always walk. Strange to see him free. Or with a different, more subtle curse laid upon him, I thought. He kept, a bit obsessively, glancing toward the Queen. His long-lost love.

“Now that you are here, Morgan le Fay, you will have to tell me how you managed to keep the door to Hell closed,” the Queen purred. A slight Spanish accent infused her words.

I smiled. “Perhaps I had nothing to do with it. Perhaps Earth was so hateful of your presence that it slammed the door behind you when you left. Or, and here is a better theory, Lila kept the door closed.”

Lila squeaked and cast me an alarmed look.

“On accident,” I continued. “Not of her own volition, but because she affects this realm strangely. She should not be down here. I also believe she is causing your realm to become increasingly unstable,” I said.

The Queen raised one eyebrow and shook her head. “Incredible. You stand there lying to me, Morgan? Perhaps you have never known the depths of suffering and wish to experience them?” A hunger crossed over her face, and I saw that she was, as Lucifer had said, someone who loved to hurt others. “I control my Marid. She does nothing without my consent.”

“Agreed. She does none of this on purpose.” I spoke like I had no doubt it was the truth. “But she is a creature who cannot exist within Hell and its many rules of who belongs down here, because of who her Mother was.”

The King and Queen threw skeptical looks my way, though underneath I saw interest.

“Her Mother is a goddess.” I shook my head. “And a goddess cannot exist in Hell. Reckless to bring her down here without even knowing what she is.” I quickly detailed the scheme of Lila’s father, and how all his children were of half-goddess stock, so that when he ate them they would grant him larger powers.

“That’s—” the Queen started.

“Horrific? Disgusting?” I said.

“Cruel,” she said with admiration.

Diego said nothing. His lips pursed to thin white lines.

“Cruel indeed,” I said. “But now that you know, you see that you must let Lila go. When you do, her goddess powers will stop tearing your realm apart. In exchange, I will hunt down her father and throw him into Hell for you, and you can enslave him, have your own Marid and do as you wish.” Again, I spoke blithely, as though such a thing would be easy to do.

“Clever words from a clever witch. Know, Morgan, that I will never release my Marid from her bondage,” the Queen said.

The world pulsed and gray streaks moved across the palace ceiling and walls. They were thick and long strands of nothingness.

A long moment later, longer than any of the other disturbances, normality returned.

“Suit yourself,” I said. “This entire realm will fall around you, but at least you’ll be able to say you never listened to reason.”

“Oh, your sweet petulance, I will lance it from your soul,” the Queen said and gave a forced laugh.

Diego laughed as well, echoing her.

I smiled. “Very well. Though I hear they are saying in the outer realms that you are not strong enough to control Hell and keep it in order. Another reason why you might release the girl to me and prove you can end the instability.”

“Who said that?” Diego barked, rising halfway out of his chair. My friend who loved poetry, who had for years gently counseled the unders of Seattle toward a mellowing of their ways, looked for all the world like a war general.

Maria rested her hand on Diego’s, and he sat down.

“No one says that. No one who values their head being connected to their body. She’s had no time to talk to anyone. She entered my realm and hid for a short while, and then we found her,” the Queen said, looking at Diego fondly.

As her attention moved away from me, I shifted my bound hands to my right side and managed to slip a tiny fuzz ball into my hand. I raised it to my lips. “Ailadrodd,” I whispered and blew the fuzz ball in the general direction of the Queen.

It floated slowly. It would take time, but when it hit her she would have to repeat everything I said.

Lila frowned, sighed, and pointed at it.

The spell burst into a tiny burning mass and dropped to the ground.

“Sorry. Orders to protect my Queen against spells,” Lila said.

“Do not apologize, Marid,” the Queen said.

“Sorry,” Lila said again. “I mean not sorry, I mean—”

“Tell me, have you found Merlin yet?” I asked.

The two royal faces went grim. The Spaniard glanced to the left of his throne, where just one corner of Merlin’s unassuming black leather bag showed. I hadn’t noticed it there.

“We didn’t find the wizard,” Diego said. “Only his bag.”

It sat right there. Within reach. That was a stroke of luck.

I didn’t smile. I didn’t stare at the bag as I stepped closer to the King and Queen. Lila kept a watchful pace beside me.

“So,” I said. “If you won’t give me Lila for your own good, what will you take in trade for her? Merlin and I are willing to trade… anything.”

The Queen arched one black eyebrow and stretched her neck from side to side. “Oh, witch. Negotiations are for people who have things to offer each other. We have everything, you have nothing. We rule this realm. You are soon to be made into a leathery ass cushion. In fact, I would have done so already were it not for Diego’s insistence that you could give us some information about all this—” she gestured toward the ceiling, “nonsense. But now that I see you know nothing, it is time for you to die. Marid!”

Lila’s spine snapped upright. The corded link that bound her to the Queen grew brighter and thicker.

Before the Queen could say anything else, I said quickly, “You say there is nothing you would trade her for? Understood, for she is a wonderful person. An exquisite magical being, but I am not sure if you understand what Merlin and I brought with us to bargain.” I nodded to the leather bag beside Diego’s throne.

He grabbed it from the ground and gripped it to his chest. So close yet so far. I itched to grab it, but held still.

“Merlin’s bag is far bigger than it looks, with a trove of treasures inside. It is an infinity bag. A realm bag. The only of its kind on Earth, and perhaps anywhere. Inside, it holds all the worldly possessions of magic objects and spells that both Merlin and I have acquired. This is what we bring you in exchange for Lila.” I paused. “It cannot be an easy thing to rule this realm. I wonder if it would be useful to have the greatest arsenal of spells, relics, and objects ever to exist. They could control any of your myriad problems.”

The Queen stared at me hard, searching me for any tells of whether I spoke the truth of not.

I looked steadily back.

“Diego? What think you?” she asked.

The Spaniard shifted in his throne and looked at the scuffed leather bag in his hand. “I have seen the wizard pull a great many things from this bag. But such an object? It is rare. Exceedingly rare. I never heard him mention it was an infinity bag.”

“Who else would own one of the great treasures of the world than an immortal wizard?” I said and took a step toward Diego. “And Merlin would hardly advertise the fact of owning. He is not fool enough to want the unders of the world attacking him for his possessions.”

“Permission to speak freely?” Lila asked.

“Yes,” Maria snapped.

“It’s totally definitely a bag of holding. Um, I mean, a ‘huger on the inside’ bag. I have seen him take out ridiculous things from it. Like this one time he took out a set of bagpipes and a bagpiper who was also maybe a leprechaun who Merlin was helping out. And the leprechaun said his whole family lived in one of the side branches of that thing and—”

“Silence,” Maria ordered.

Lila’s mouth snapped shut.

Diego tugged on the bag’s zipper. It wouldn’t open. He tugged harder. It didn’t budge. “Convenient that we can’t look into it,” he said and raised one eyebrow.

“I can open it,” I said, and smiled as innocently as an ancient witch could. “We did not bring it to you to have you steal it from us. There are safeguards upon it that I will lift when you are ready to make the trade. It is currently spelled so that I can open it and let you peer inside, if you wish.”

“Marid, open the bag,” Maria ordered.

Lila looked miserable.

I nodded at her. “Not to worry. Do your best.”

She snapped her fingers, and a bright bolt of magic hit the bag. She snapped them again and again, and the bag shook and rocked from the onslaught of powerful magic.

I kept an impassive look on my face while I silently thought, please hold. Please don’t break open. Please hold. Merlin and I had worked together to cast the spells on the bag that would keep it from being opened by anyone. Lila, of course, was not just anyone.

She kept up her offense. Tiny cracks began to grow along the bag on the far corner facing away from Diego.

Lila paused. Her hands clenched and I could tell it took an effort to stop obeying the Queen for a moment. “You want me to keep going?” she asked. “Merlin’s really good with spells, I doubt I can—”

“Enough,” Maria said.

Lila smiled and lowered her hands.

I let out a long breath.

“May I?” I asked.

“Marid, if the witch Morgan le Fay attempts any magic at all, remove her head from her body forcibly and quickly.”

Lila bit her lip and nodded.

“Not to worry, Lila,” I said. “I’m quite fond of my head where it is. I will do no magic.”

“Meaningless,” Diego said. “Never trust Morgan’s words, only her deeds.”

He held the bag out to me. Our eyes locked.

“Did you know she was evil all along?” I murmured to my old friend. “Did you know she was a murderer when the two of you lived together on Earth? And did you know, Maria,” I said, glancing at the Queen, “that he never once questioned what you had done to get into Hell in the first place?”

Diego’s face paled.

Maria’s went red.

“She was tricked into coming here,” Diego said.

“Spaniard, you are too intelligent to live in this realm and believe such a thing,” I said and took Merlin’s bag from him. “None come here who do not deserve this fate. None come here who have not done some great cruelty upon the Earth.”

Diego held my gaze. “Yet I am here.”

“And your way would have been barred, except moments before you stood on Hell’s threshold, you tricked a young girl, a friend, into swearing her allegiance to the Queen. That is plenty evil enough to get you here.”

Maria’s lips peeled back into a grimace. Her eyes glittered. “Who have you been speaking to, Morgan? It seems someone has filled your head with strange ideas.”

The world pulsed and went crooked with the creepy and creeping nothingness that filled the ceiling and moved down this great room’s walls.

I grabbed onto the leather bag’s zipper pull and tugged on it as I whispered, “
yn y bag.
”

As promised, I used no magic. The words were a passkey that opened the bag.

I dropped the bag on the ground and dove into it, head first.

10

A Bright and Empty Smile

As I fell and fell into the strange physics of the bag, I heard the sound of the zipper closing above me.

I landed a moment later upon a hardwood floor, cracking my skull with a thwack that echoed through the room.

“You could have lined the place with cushions,” I muttered as I lay there and stared up at the ceiling. It was high and made of brown leather with a zipper running across it.

“Wasn’t sure where you would land, love. Took you long enough.” Merlin appeared in my line of sight. “I was beginning to wonder what was happening out there. “He looked me up and down and then offered me a hand. “Your head is all right?”

“Still attached, so yes.” I stood and shook out my skirt.

The place where I stood stretched in every direction with mazes of bookshelves, chairs, low-lit lanterns, and couches leading away as far as I could see. A part of me itched to explore this secret and inner realm of Merlin, though there was no time for it.