Chapter 20
Ordes, Jenyfer and Arthur were seated in the galley long after everyone had finished dinner.
It had become their meeting space, which Ordes didn’t mind.
He’d always liked being in the galley when it was quiet.
It was one of the only spaces on the ship that didn’t always have people in it.
He’d done a lot of thinking in here over the years.
‘Mordred isn’t well,’ Arthur announced, fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve. ‘I saw him in a dreamwalk.’
‘Past, present or future?’ Ordes asked, conjuring them a bottle of rum and three glasses. He poured them all a drink.
‘Present,’ Arthur said, taking his glass with a grateful sigh.
‘At least, I think it was present. I saw Eseld as she was when she was alive, in what I assume was Dinas Emrys. I followed her below the castle. There was a dragon there, but it was sleeping. No, that isn’t right.
It was stone, like the White Dragon was before I woke it.
I saw her brother – the darkness in him – and then, when they faded, I was in the same room.
A banquet hall, perhaps? Mordred was there, alone, draped in shadow. ’
‘How do you know he is sick?’ Jenyfer asked.
‘I don’t know exactly,’ Arthur said, frowning. ‘I could feel there was something wrong with him, something that is affecting him physically.’
‘Did he see you?’ Ordes asked.
Arthur shook his head. ‘I’m under the impression he can’t anymore.
’ His hand dropped to caress the hilt of the Sword of the White Dragon, belted to his hip as always.
‘I think the Treasure has something to do with it. But Eseld could see me, which makes me think my dreamwalk of the past was also real.’
‘Lamorna?’ Jen asked.
‘No,’ Arthur replied.
Ordes tapped his fingers against the rim. ‘Do you have any idea where the Grail is?’
Arthur’s face darkened. ‘Eseld hasn’t seen fit to share that information.’
‘Dinas Emrys,’ Ordes said. Arthur and Jenyfer looked at him in surprise.
‘It’s a guess, but remember the map, when Iouen worked it out for us?
Dinas Emrys was the only place marked besides the locations of the Treasures.
I thought it was because the map was old, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. ’
Arthur nodded, his expression eager.
‘What if we didn’t find it?’ Ordes mused. ‘Do you think you could be king without it?’
‘I don’t know. Everything has been pointing towards us needing to find it,’ Arthur said. ‘It’s how we reshape the world, after all. I don’t know whether to be excited at that prospect or terrified. What if we, I don’t know, wreck the place?’ He smiled.
Jenyfer drained her drink, stood, dropped a kiss on Ordes’ forehead and murmured she was going to bed. He held her close for a moment then let her go, not looking away until she had left the galley and the door had snapped closed behind her.
Ordes was trying desperately to keep his thoughts from his face and the rising panic from his heart.
His father had disappeared the previous morning without telling anyone – again.
Ordes had played dumb when Katarin demanded to know where Merlin had gone, figuring any mention of Niniane at the moment would cause Kat to fly off the handle.
Worse would be having to explain why Merlin had left, and Ordes wasn’t sure he could lie so easily about that.
Arthur was watching him, and Ordes realised he’d been silent for too long.
‘And once we’ve reshaped the world?’ he asked.
‘Well, we get to live our lives I suppose,’ Arthur said. ‘Whatever that will look like. What do you think? What do you want from your life after all this done?’
Ordes sighed wretchedly. ‘I need to tell someone or my head will explode, but what I’m about to say cannot find its way to Jen, not under any circumstances. Promise me, Arthur.’
The colour drained from Arthur’s face, but he nodded. ‘You have my word.’
Ordes looked at his hands when he spoke, his eyes tracing the tattoos on his knuckles. Love, hope, family. Magic. He took a deep breath. ‘When we finally find the Grail and use it to reshape the world, it will kill me.’
Arthur said nothing for so long. When Ordes lifted his head, the other man’s face was frozen in a mask of shock. ‘What?’ Arthur managed at last. ‘How?’
‘I’m a bridge between the worlds,’ Ordes said. ‘A conduit, if you like.’
‘The one who stands between the worlds,’ Arthur muttered. ‘Ordes—’
‘It’s alright. I’ve accepted it – what else can I do?’ Ordes added, his laugh dark. ‘It might not end that way, but it might. I’m not human, Arthur. I was made for this purpose. To die so the world can be reborn.’
‘And Jen has no idea?’
‘No and she can’t know. I don’t want her to know. She’s in my head half the time and it’s hard to keep it hidden from her when it’s all I can think about,’ Ordes admitted.
‘Are you going to tell her or will she work it out when…’ Arthur’s voice trailed off.
‘I’m afraid of what she will do. And it wouldn’t be her choice.
The heartfire would decide for her, and I don’t want her free will taken from her,’ Ordes explained.
‘And that stone around her neck… I can feel the magic of it when I touch her. It’s under her skin, affecting her in ways I don’t think she’s realised yet. ’
‘I don’t think you should lie to her,’ Arthur said.
‘You think I want to?’
‘Ordes, I’m sorry.’ Arthur chewed his lip, then, his voice low. ‘Run. Take Jen and go.’
‘Arthur—’
‘Listen, I won’t have you die for this, for me,’ Arthur said firmly. ‘We’ll manage.’
‘Manage?’ Ordes stuttered. ‘The Grail—’
‘I don’t care about the fucking Grail,’ Arthur growled. His expression softened. ‘But I do care about you and Jenyfer. I will not let you die so I can wear a bloody crown.’
‘Mordred…’
‘Let me deal with my cousin,’ Arthur said.
Ordes dragged his hand through his hair in utter defeat. This whole game had been set long before any of them existed – they were mere pieces on a game board, moved about by the hands of the Old Ones, by Merlin. All in the name of… what? Power? Magic?
The coming of a King prophesied by Merlin, the strings pulled by a goddess who desired only a return to the way things were.
Or were they? Ordes had the sense that there were things that his father had been able to keep from his mother, beyond the location of the Treasures.
It made him wonder again at the nature of their relationship, at the depth and breadth of it, borne of centuries of knowing the other, of learning them, of being wise to the way they thought, to the intricacies of their minds – enough knowledge of them to know how to hide a truth.
Niniane’s motives were clear, and if Ordes had been thinking straight, he would have seen it. Perhaps. Katarin hadn’t, and she knew Niniane.
Only maybe she didn’t at all.
How well do we really know another when all we have to read them by is the face they choose to show the world?
Ordes mused to himself. He thought about the men and women on the ship, some of whom he’d shared space with for years, and he had to admit there were still moments when they surprised him, moments where he learnt something new about them.
Then there was Jenyfer, the other half of him, the one who held his heart in her hands. And it was her heart he held, that he had always been so careful with, but now, it was like her heart was made of glass – so delicate and fragile, so easily broken.
Even though he wouldn’t be around to see it happen, he could see it and suddenly he hated everything – the prophecy, his father, his mother, this ship, this farce of a life that had never truly belonged to him. He was nothing but another piece on the game board.
He glanced over his shoulder, to where Jenyfer was curled up in their bed, and he couldn’t stand it anymore.
With a cry of frustration, Ordes slammed his fist into the bulkhead, again and again, not stopping even when the skin on his knuckles was torn and bloody and his breath was hot and fast, his blood surging with anger, with pain, with helplessness.
It was only when Jenyfer was beside him, face shocked, that he pulled his fist back, cradling it to his chest, letting the burning sting of it settle inside him, to burn and blaze and mingle with the anger there. The heartfire tore into him – her worry, his pain.
Jenyfer took his torn fingers in hers, turning them over so she could examine them. She met his eyes briefly before fetching a cloth. She did not speak the whole time she was cleaning the wounds. He wanted her to stop, to let him nurse the pain.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ she asked eventually.
Ordes’ breath was shaky, but he nodded. Arthur was right. She deserved to know. Even if it broke her, broke him, she had a right to know because it was not just his life being played with by the Old Ones and prophecies and the reshaping of the world.
‘The one who stands between the worlds shall bear the weight of them both,’ he intoned. Her eyes snapped to his, wide and dark and worried. ‘I need to tell you what that truly means.’