The Third Magic by Molly Cochran

Author:Molly Cochran [Cochran, Molly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action and Adventure, Magic, Myths and Legends, Holy Grail, Wizard, Suspense, Fairy Tale
ISBN: 9781942356011
Publisher: TKA Distribution
Published: 2014-11-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

THE SUITOR'S REVENGE

Almost to the end of her life, Guenevere had no idea why her horse had been so frightened that it threw her. She had felt the animal's fear, of course; it had rippled through the mare's body like a wave.

She had barely seen the two people before the mare bolted. And they looked innocuous enough. Prince Melwas and his sister, Morgause, who was still a small child. The mare had never minded people, and was in fact rather fond of children, unlike many of the beasts in her father's stables.

Only decades later, on her deathbed, did Guenevere understand the depth of Morgause's power. She had been born with it, a true witch. Long afterward, everyone who had been involved with her—that is, those who were somehow left alive—came to recognize its depth.

Merlin thought about her a great deal in his old age. It filled him with guilt that he had not tried to influence Morgause while she was still young. Had she received the training and knowledge given to others of her ability, she might have become as great a magician as himself. She might have developed her power to the point where, along with Merlin, she could have helped stem the tide of foreign invasions and the constant war that they brought.

Together, they might even have been able to revive the Old Religion, with its values of peace and spiritual mastery, so different from the new ways that men were coming to embrace, ways in which death was the final arbiter of right and wrong. According to the new ways, the man—and there were only men, no women—who remained alive after single combat became the one whose point of view prevailed. This idea, and all the others that sprang from it, would never have taken hold in the Old Religion, where winning and justice were not necessarily the same thing.

And so the Merlin chided himself for not giving Morgause a chance to learn from him in the way he had learned in the days of the great druid centers. Toward the end, though, he entertained another idea: that perhaps Morgause, with all her ability, was not a creature of the Old Ways at all, but rather the embodiment of the new, an evil master-work born to destroy everything she touched, a living sword.

Morgause eventually brought them all down, even Arthur. But she had begun with Guenevere. Begun and failed. The girl's inexperience was undoubtedly the reason why Guenevere had lived. Had Morgause been even a little older, Guenevere's death would have been assured. All of the others had been.

Morgause never made the same mistake twice.

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