Sword in the Stars by Cori McCarthy

Author:Cori McCarthy [McCarthy, Cori]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Others
Published: 2020-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

An hour later, Merlin was an owl. A baby owl, to be specific.

His feathers puffed out, beady eyes trained on Old Merlin.

“I thought that if I shifted you out of human form, the curse might lose its hold,” the old mage said, by way of explanation. “But you’re just as young as a bird as you were as a human.”

“You think?” Merlin asked. It came out as a series of pitiful, high-pitched screeches.

“He still doesn’t know you two are the same person, does he?” came a rich, hooting voice. Merlin turned to find Archimedes glaring at him. He’d flown over from his perch just to make Merlin’s life worse.

“How did you figure it out, if you’re so smart?” Merlin asked.

Archimedes shrugged with his entire rich, brown-black body. “You’re both ridiculous, and you smell the same.”

Merlin hopped away from the miserable old bird—leaping off the high table and finding, with a series of desperate flaps, that he couldn’t fly.

He hit the floor, stunned but unsurprised.

Of course he couldn’t fly.

He was a mere chick.

Old Merlin picked him up, his tiny owl body encompassed by the hard ridges of those ancient, cold hands. Did the vile old mage ever trim his nails? They were unevenly long, stained various colors by magical concoctions.

Merlin gratefully found himself growing, unfolding back into his eleven-year-old body, then hopping into his clothes. He bent over awkwardly as he slid his pants into place. For some reason, the concept of being naked in front of his old self was more painful than a time paradox.

“All right, carbuncle,” Old Merlin said, not paying a speck of attention to the wretched state of his apprentice. He was too wrapped up in magic. He turned to a dusty red cloth that he’d hung over a portion of the tower, pulling it down with a magical flourish. Behind it was a free-standing copper tub, and a series of buckets flying in through the tower window. “I have another idea. This one took a bit of preparation, but perhaps it will reveal the truth of your condition.”

A magical flying bucket tipped over, water hitting the copper tub with a gut-sloshing sound.

“What is this?” Merlin asked. “You’re going to… bathe me? You’re the one who needs a serious drubbing!”

Old Merlin gave him a thunderous glare.

His newly loosened tongue was going to get him killed if he wasn’t careful.

“This water is from the lake near Avalon,” the old mage said. “It has curious time-related properties, which might help us determine what ails you. It seems the way you experience time has been reversed by some great act of magic.” Old Merlin tested the water with his hand, like a nervous parent making sure it wasn’t too hot for their precious child. But Merlin was nothing of the sort. He was an experiment, and he could feel his old self getting testy the farther they went without making any real breakthroughs.

The old man dodged a flying bucket, frowning back at Merlin. “It would help to know your lineage, in the event that one or both of your parents has some kind of time magic.

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