The Hallowed Isle Book Three Read Online Free Page B

of the others. “ But she will lose the vision when she is grown.”
    Guendivar glared, but a new question was already on her lips. “Will you show me your country?”
    â€œ This is our country — it is all around you, if you have the eyes to see —” came the answer, and indeed, when Guendivar lifted her eyes, the familiar shapes of tree and rock seemed doorways to unguessed dimensions. But she dared not look too long, for fear that her new friends would flit away.
    â€œThen will you give me a wish?” she asked.
    â€œ Our gifts can be dangerous . . .” the faerie responded, but Guendivar only laughed.
    â€œAm I in danger here?” She grinned. “My wish is that my heart shall stay as it is now, and I shall always be able to see faerie.”
    â€œ Are you certain? Folk so sighted may find it difficult to live in the mortal world .. . .”
    Guendivar shrugged. “I think it is boring already. It will not matter to me.”
    â€œ It will matter . . .” said the faerie, with momentary sadness. Then it, too, laughed. “ But we cannot refuse you on this day.”
    Guendivar clapped her hands, and as if on cue, the sun slid behind the hilltop and the light was gone. Her new friends were gone, too. For a moment she felt like crying, but it was getting cold, and she was hungry. She looked for the tunnel through the hazels, and found that to her altered vision, the world around her still shone from within.
    The faerie had not lied to her. Laughing once more, Guendivar ran back to the world of humankind.

II
A SHADOW ON THE MOON
    A.D. 489
    J UST AT DUSK, ON AN EVENING WHEN THE FIRST SLIVER OF THE first new moon of summer hung above the brow of the hill, Merlin arrived at the Lake. As always, he came alone and unheralded, appearing like a spirit at the edge of the forest. Igierne, on her way to the rock at the highest point of the island for her evening meditation, felt his presence like a breath of scent, which at first teases, and then releases a flood of memories. She stopped short on the path, so that Morut nearly ran into her.
    â€œGo down to the landing and send the boat across to the shore. We have a visitor.”
    Morut’s eyes widened, but she did not question Igierne’s knowledge. Smiling, Igierne watched her go.
    When she had first returned to the Lake to reclaim her role as its Lady, after Artor was made king, Igierne had felt herself half an impostor. The skills required of a bean-drui needed focus, application, constant honing. She was like a warrior taking down the sword he has allowed to rust on the wall. And yet her mental muscles, though stiff and clumsy, still remembered their early training, and in time she found that the passing years had given her a depth of understanding that had not been there when she was a girl. There might be others on the island to whom these skills came more easily, but none with her judgment regarding how and when they should be used. And after a dozen years as Tigernissa of Britain, Igierne found it easy to rule a gaggle of women and girls.
    But Merlin, she thought as she watched him coming towards her, had wisdom of a different and higher order still. When she was a young woman, he had seemed much older than she, but from the vantage of fifty-two, a man in his early sixties was a contemporary. It was not age that set him so apart from other men, but an inherent wildness, despite all his years in the courts of kings.
    He wore his accustomed wolfskin over a druid’s white gown. Both were well-worn, as if they had grown to his gaunt frame. But he looked strong. Later, as she poured mint tea into his bowl from the kettle that steamed over her fire, she realized that Merlin was assessing her as well.
    â€œI am no longer the girl you knew in Luguvalium . . .” she said softly.
    â€œYou are still beautiful—” he answered her thought rather than her words “—as the