Knight Life Read Free

not.
    Â Â Â Â  “Yessss,” she hissed, “footprints.” But more than that, she realized, barefoot. And something else: They were small. A child’s. Heading one way, away from the cave. “A child,” she breathed. “Of course. Of course!”
    Â Â Â Â  The knife clattered to the floor as Morgan Le Fey, half sister of King Arthur Pendragon, incestuous lover of herbrother, mother of the bastard Modred, tilted her head back and laughed. At first it was hardly a laugh, but more like a high-pitched cackling imitation, similar to the sound a parrot would make. With each passing moment, however, it grew. Fuller. Richer. Although the abused body of Morgan still showed its deficiencies, years were already dropping from the voice.
    Â Â Â Â  If anyone had once dared tell her that she would be happy over the escape of her deadliest enemy, she would have erased that unfortunate person from the face of the earth. The suggestion was positively ludicrous. But her life had become no less ludicrous, and knowledge of the departure of the cave’s occupant from his place of imprisonment had fallen into her lap like a gift from a benevolent—if somewhat twisted—god.
    Â Â Â Â  For Morgan Le Fey had come to realize that she thrived on conflict and hatred. It was as mother’s milk to her. And without that, her spirit had shriveled away to a small, ugly thing lost somewhere in an unkempt form. Now, though, her spirit soared. She spread her arms and a wind arose around her, blowing wide the swinging windows of her apartment. It was the first time in several years that clean air—or at least what passed for clean air in her neck of the woods—had been allowed in, and it swept through as if entering a vacuum. Fresh air filling her nostrils, Morgan became aware of the filth in which she had resided for some time. Her nose wrinkled, and she shook her head.
    Â Â Â Â  She went to the window and stepped up onto the sill, reveling in the force of the wind she had summoned. Above her, clouds congealed, tore apart, and reknit, blackness swarming over them. Far below, pedestrians ran about, pulling their coats tight around them against the unexpected turn of bad weather. A few glanced up at Morgan in the window but went on about their business, jamming their hands down atop their heads to prevent their hats or wigs from blowing away.
    Â Â Â Â  Morgan drank it in, thriving on the chaos of the storm.She screamed over the thunder, “Merlin! Merlin, demon’s son! The mighty had fallen, mage! You had fallen. I had fallen. All was gone, and you were in your hell and I was in mine.” She inhaled deeply, feeling the refreshing, chilled sting of cold air in her lungs. She reveled in the tactile sensation of her housecoat blowing all around her, the wind enveloping her flimsy garment.
    Â Â Â Â  “You’re back now!” she crowed. “But so am I! I have waited these long centuries for you, Merlin. Guarding against the day that you might return, and yet now I glory in it. For I am alive today, Merlin! Do you hear me, old man? Morgan Le Fey lives! And while I live, I hate! Sweet hate I have nurtured all these long decades and centuries. And it’s all for you, Merlin! All for you and your damned Arthur!
    Â Â Â Â  “Wherever you are, Merlin, quake in fear. I am coming for you. Thank you for saving my life, Merlin! And I shall return the favor a thousandfold. I, Morgan Le Fey! I can live again! I can breathe again! I can have my hatred! I can have my revenge! And I can get the hell out of New Jersey!”
    H ARRY, WHAT’S GOING on?”
    Â Â Â Â  Harry peered through the curtains at the window of the apartment across the way. “It’s that fat nut again. God, what a slob. I don’t know how people let themselves go like that.”
    Â Â Â Â  His wife, Beverly, eyed his beer belly but wisely