Authors: Andre Norton
“I have set an outer force field to keep you in and you shall abide there until your human part fails through hunger and thirst. This deed is terrible, aye, but worse would you in time bring to pass if you are not so halted. Your Arthur will live, but he will be no more than any other man. Thus falls to dust your dream of kingdom. He will never claim a crown, and death unknown will also be his portion. Farewell, Merlin. It is a pity we could not deal together as distant kin should.”
She was gone in a flicker of light. Myrddin had flung
out a hand as if to try to arrest her disappearance, though he knew that the real Nimue had not stood so, only a sending she had released. Now he whirled and in a minute was at the crevice.
The opening was there, he could put an arm into it. Yet before his fist was out into the open it met, with a shock of force, an invisible wall.
Two more testings, top and near ground level, made it plain that the barrier formed a tight plug. He wasted no time in useless physical struggle. Only the mirror might have an answer for this and he returned to it in two strides, crouched down on the viewer’s bench he had so often occupied in the past. Gazing intently at his own reflection, he thought his problem, aware, though he knew not how it was done, that his query or plea for aid registered somewhere.
He saw the installation, so long dark and quiet, waken to life. Then the mirror voice spoke:
“The force field is too strong to break . . . now. And it is true that you wear a body which was not fashioned to withstand much physical stress. But for that there is an answer. You will sleep, Merlin, and during that sleep all body processes shall be slowed down. Thus, when the moment comes that time thins the field, you can awake and issue forth once again, alive and whole. This is the manner by which such can be accomplished.”
His own face and body were not gone from the mirror this time, but he saw himself going to a long, low machine at the far end of the row. There he pressed his hands, fingers deep into small holes. The lid of the machine rose on upward-reaching pillars. Then the man he watched stripped off his clothing and he climbed through the wedge between the chest and lid to lie down. The pillars slid toward the cave floor, sealing him in.
Myrddin shivered. He could not doubt the wisdom of the mirror and the voice. Yet this way seemed to be entering his tomb while he still lived. To follow such action needed all the courage he could summon.
The mirror had cleared again. He saw only his own form as it was, while he reluctantly rose to his feet. Slow starvation, death by thirst—or the offer of the tomb? The chances were very slim on either side. Bat because he trusted the mirror he followed instructions now.
That long box opened as he applied the pressure, just as
the mirror had shown. He stared down into the interior as the lid rose. Within was a rosy glow, pale, but strong enough to reflect on his hands. And the bottom was awash in a liquid from which came a pleasant, aromatic scent. He stripped off his clothes, piled them to one side and slung a leg over the edge of the box. The liquid was about his ankle, rising up his shin; it was warm, soothing somehow.
He pushed through the rest of his body, settled himself at the bottom of the box. Now the liquid washed over his chest, caressed his cheeks. And that was the last thing he remembered, except that the lid was settling swiftly downward to lock him out of the world.
There were dreams, strange dreams of cities whose like he had never thought could exist, so high did their narrow buildings tower into the air. Men flew in things which were not birds, but made stiffly of metal cunningly fashioned. The dreamer sometimes abode for a small time in the body of one or another of those men, though he was then beseiged by thoughts so different from his own time that he could not understand them.
Even as these men flew about the clouds, so did they travel in turn beneath the surface of the sea. It would seem that no secret of their world was hidden from them. Yet they were unhappy, restless and much troubled, and Myrddin soon shrank from any contact with their minds.
There came a time when the world itself went mad. Howling winds broke the cities, did such damage as no normal storm could. Waves rose mountain-high in the sea to crash upon the land, sweeping the remnants of man’s world into oblivion. Mountains breathed forth flame, great gouts of molten rock flowing down their sides. When that met the waters of the insane seas, steam formed so thickly as to blot out both land and sea, and hide the heavens.
When there was an end at last, the drowned, scarred land was changed, had new bays, new rivers. Some of its substance had been lost to the eating of the sea, but in return it had gained in other places steaming spreads of stinking mud which had once been water covered. But man had survived—in some manner a handful of men survived. Shocked, mind-deadened, they crept forth into the new world. A few could remember earlier times, but only in fragments. The others were near imbeciles, wanting only
to eat, sleep and sometimes mate brutishly with less grace than any beast.
They were lost indeed, that remnant and they sank back farther than animals. Some preyed on their fellows to fill their bellies, killing their quarry with rocks. A few strove to cling to their memories. Some of these had wit enough to draw apart, to establish themselves in areas they could defend against the mindless brutes. Once more came a slow, very slow climb upward. Truth became legend over-lain with imagination; later generations had no belief that man had ever been other than what he was in their own time. But there were always some who remembered better, whose tales from one generation to the next were clearer, less embroidered.
Myrddin dreamed and dreamed again. His was a breed which clung to life, which might be defeated but which was never wiped away. And among man were always to be found the dreamers, the seekers....
There was a loud sound, like the ringing of a great mellow-toned gong. Within the box Myrddin stirred. His breathing, which had been so slow, began to quicken. The liquid completely covering his body was draining away. His eyelids fluttered.
As if that small movement was a signal, the columns which supported the lid of the chest began to climb steadily upward. His eyes opened and he uttered a feeble sound. His limbs felt stiff, no stiffer than if he had spent a night in the open. And his mind was returning fast to the here and now.
Was the voice right—had the force field been weakened? He crawled out of the box and stood upright, feeling dizzy enough to clutch at the edge of the lid. Around him the installations were afire with a beading of flickering lights. His body dried quickly. That moisture which had filled the box rolled from his skin in large drops, leaving little dampness behind.
He looked for his clothing. But when he stooped to pick up his tunic the linen was yellowed, so frail it tore as he pulled it on. Time—how much time!
Dressed again, he came to the mirror. How long had he slept was the foremost thought in his mind, how long?
The voice, as strong as ever, answered that thought.
“Sixteen of the years of this world, Merlin. But the confining
field is now shattered. You are free. And that one who set this upon you can do no more, for her powers were greatly drained by what she did. Now she moves in other ways for your defeat. It is time that you take up battle.”
He stared at his own reflection. Sixteen years! But he was perhaps only a year or two older than he had been when he entered that box! How could such a thing be?
“It preserves life, Merlin. However, think not of the past. You must be about your mission. And that is to see Arthur truly king of Britain.”
“Uther?” He made a question of that name.
“Uther dies. There are great lords about him—two have married daughters of his body. But he has had no sons, no sons save Arthur whose claim you must make. Though you have not done for Arthur what was planned, taught him as you were taught, yet he is of Sky Blood and so ours, not theirs. Put Arthur on the throne, Merlin, and Britain shall have a High King whose name will be spoken by men for more than a thousand years.”
Myrddin nodded slowly. Arthur and the sword, they must come together. It was this thought which had lain far at the back of his mind since the time Lugaid and he had found that wonderously wrought piece of Sky metal.
“Arthur and the sword, with you behind him, Merlin. This is the task for which you were conceived and no greater one can be faced by any man living. Arthur and the sword ...”
10.
Merlin stood looking down at the great camp where chieftains and petty kings flew their battle standards over brightly walled tents. He was no longer Myrddin, he must remember that. Now he wondered if any of those gathered here would remember him. Sixteen years—Arthur was man-grown and he had had no part in his teaching. Wholly of this earth would be any wisdom the boy had. But there was nothing to be gained by looking over one’s shoulder with regret; facing forward with wariness and hope was all that was left.
His time-tattered clothing had been changed by chance for a long wool robe such as bards wore. And he had allowed his beard to grow, though the hair was sparse enough not to impress unduly. He had found the robe in the baggage of a dead man lying beneath the summer sun, his horse cropping nearby. Three Saxons enriched the ground with their blood, escorting the stranger as a warrior should go. Merlin did not know who that benefactor had been, or why he had been so ambushed. But he had given the unknown spirit thanks for the horse and the robe folded into a bundle, and he had buried him face to the east under a morning sun.
He had met scores of travelers approaching this temporary capital of Britain. For Uther was dead for a handful of days, but the High Council had not yet named his successor. Having learned plainly how affairs stood, Merlin set his own plans accordingly. Now he studied with narrowed eyes the arrangement of the camp. The banner of Lot who was wed to one of Uther’s daughters—that was very prominent below. And there was the Boar of Cornwall—now upheld by a son of Goloris who was not in the legal line of descent, but about whom Cornish men rallied. Merlin saw other devices which he did not know, but he
could guess that every lord here had come with at least a faint hope of advancement.
He searched for the one important to him, the Soaring Hawk that was Ector’s badge. At last he sighted it, not among the inner circle of the great lords, of course, but in the company of King Urien of Rheged, that northern kingdom which had held stoutly through the years to prevent the Picts from ravaging far south of the old wall. Circling off the dusty road, Merlin made his way toward that tent.
Before it stood a young man trying on a jerkin on which rings of bronze were tightly sewn, one against another. His head was dark and for a moment Merlin was nearly startled into hailing him by name. Then the youth raised his head and looked full square at the newcomer and Merlin saw in him a much younger Ector.
“Lord Cei,” he named the boy by guess. “Is Lord Ector within?”
“My father has gone to the Council of the Dukes,” Cei returned, eyeing Merlin with what might even be disfavor. “Have you a message for him?”
“We are kin, distantly,” Merlin answered. Cei had a certain arrogant cast of countenance which had never been his father’s. “Aye, I have a message for him.” He longed greatly to ask for Arthur, to know how the fostering had gone through his years of imprisonment. But now he knew better of Cei than to bring that query into the open.
The son of Ector approached stiffly to pay him the courtesy of the house, holding the reins while Merlin dismounted. Perhaps because of his plain robe, with the dust of the road thick upon him, he made little better than a beggar’s appearance. But he accepted the boy’s attentions as rightfully his due, as indeed they were.
Within the tent they passed out of the glare of the sun. Cei ordered a manservant to bring wine. He eyed the long package Merlin carried which was the safely trussed sword, but had better manners than to ask any questions as Merlin settled on a traveling stool with it across his knees close under his hand.
“How does your father and your lady mother?” Merlin had spilled a few drops of the wine to the earth underfoot as was the custom of the clans, and now sipped appreciatively at a better vintage than he had found in any inn.
He remembered wistfully now his summer spent in the safe valley, and how he had labored beside Ector to gather the earth’s bounty.
“My father is well. My lady mother—” Cei hesitated a moment. “She died of the coughing sickness last winter, stranger.”
Merlin’s hand shook. So much he was remembering now; of Trynihid’s pride when she carried her son, of the closeness between her and her husband. Grievous must have been the blow for Ector.
“May happiness of the Blessed Isle be hers. . . .”
“We follow the Christ here, stranger.” Cei replied with a sharp note in his voice. “You wear the robe of a brother of the Church yourself, why do you speak then of the Blessed Isle?”
Still a little confused by memories and a sense of loss, Merlin looked up at the youth in near bewilderment “My robe is but a borrowed one.” He gave the first answer which came into his head. “I am a bard.”
The longing to know of Arthur was so great he could hardly control it. Except for Cei and two menservants he had glimpsed, there appeared no others here. Had they left Arthur back in the valley? If so his plan was defeated before he could even bring it into action.
“Cei, where are you, boy?”
That voice was the same. Merlin started joyfully to his feet as Ector entered. But this was not the Ector he had known, and fronting a stranger made him uncertain for a moment or two so he stood open-mouthed, staring like any loutish slave in the fields. The slim body he had known had thickened and gray streaked the dark hair. The face it framed was tired, with the look of a man who had to force himself at every sunrise to a day of duties he hated, and could look forward to no true rest even when that day was done.
But the eyes which met Merlin’s were the same. First they mirrored puzzlement, then recognition. But surprise overrode both of those.
“You are alive!” Ector broke the tense moment of silence. “But why did you not come?”
“I was imprisoned,” Merlin replied. “Only lately have I won my freedom.”
“You—you are changed. But you have not grown old, only—only strange,” Ector said slowly. Then he seemed to
recollect that other ears were listening and he turned to his son. “Do go and find Arthur and bring him here. This lord is one he should know—”
When they were alone Ector continued: “The lad has done well enough. But, when you did not return as you had said, we could give him no more learning than we gave Cei. I know that this was not how it was to be.”
“You have given him the best you had. How can anyone fault that?” Merlin returned swiftly. “The failure was mine, not that I could have foreseen it. But tell me now, what of the Council? Have they set yet on a choice of king?”
Ector shook his head. “It is a perilous wrangle, for there are those who back Cornwall, and he has shown himself a good commander in the field. Then there are those who hold by Lot because he has wed the King’s young daughter, and he is a man of no little ambition. They may pull Britain in two between them before we see the end of this. Urien broods and plans, though he has not shared his plans with me. And the Winged Hats raid as they will. It is the bad days come again, but there is no one commander with power enough to seize the rule without dispute from the others.”
“With power . . .” Merlin repeated. “But if one were to give him the power. . . ? It seems that I have come at a moment which must be seized quickly, lest all we hope for go down into the darkness. Listen, kinsman, Arthur is of the Pendragon blood. He is Uther’s son, though the High King would have him live in hiding lest he be plucked away in childhood by just such lords as this Lot and the rest. And for him I have also the Power, or at least a symbol of it.” He turned eagerly to snatch up the wrapped sword. “We must arrange that he accept this openly before all who think to rise to the throne.”
Suddenly he became aware of Ector’s silence. Glancing up, Merlin saw a white horror on the other’s face.
“What is it? Is he maimed, unworthy in some manner by clan laws?” Merlin was chilled by the expression he saw.
“He—” Ector moistened his lips. “He is a comely lad and— By the wounds of the Christus, had you only told me!”
“What has happened to him?” Merlin dropped the sword, reached forward to close his hand about Ector’s
arm. Now he shook the northern lord, as if by force he would have an answer out of him.
“Uther—he brought to court some of his baseborn get And one of them—Morgause—she was old for her years, hot-eyed for any man. She—she enticed Arthur to her bed a week ago!”
Merlin stood as still as one of the pillars of the Place of the Sun, his mind moving swiftly. Arthur was not Uther’s son, but if he made plain the real circumstances of the boy’s birth would one of these lords follow him? No, there would be prattling of night demons who begat him, and the same aversion Merlin had met himself in days past. Yet for a man to lie with his sister—that, too, would put a stain on Arthur for his lifetime.
“This Morgause,” he asked, “is she wed?”
“Not yet. The King was dying but when rumor of her conduct reached him he was greatly angered. He summoned a lady who was much with him because she had great healing arts—the King died slowly of a wasting sickness. Into her hands he gave Morgause, though the girl was not mindful to go quietly. They say that she was taken away by night, bound and gagged, within a curtained horse litter. And no man knows where.”
Merlin gave a small sigh of relief. “Is it generally known that Arthur was the cause of her going?”
Ector’s frozen cast of countenance lightened a little. “No. She was free with many men. Uther himself found her in bed with one of the guard. He knew her nature. And he swore he would not have her an open shame in his court.”
‘Then we are safe.” Merlin gave a sigh of relief. “There may be rumors, but with the wench out of sight they will soon be out of men’s minds. It remains that Arthur must rule. I have been given the sign,”—and his fingers moved in that old secret twisting—“that this is ordained. Now it is in my thoughts we may accomplish this so ...”
He gathered up the sword once again and began to pull away its wrappings while he talked. And he saw that Ector seemed to forget the shock which had disturbed him so profoundly, that he nodded his head in agreement as this point and that were swiftly outlined.
“Remember,” Merlin warned when he had finished, “Myrddin is dead, Merlin lives. Arthur is best unknowing
of his true heritage for now, since he has not had the training of his kin.”
“It is—” Ector was beginning when the flap of the tent was raised and a youth burst in with exuberance, as if he had been running to the encounter.
Looking at him, Merlin knew a shock nearly as deep as Ector had experienced earlier. This—this could not be Arthur!
The lad bore no outward signs of the Old Blood at all. Taller than Ector and Merlin by serveral inches, his hair was the red-gold of a tribesman; his face lacked the hooded eyes and high-bridged nose, the secret-keeping mouth Merlin fully expected to see. This young giant was cast in Uther’s image. But how could that be? There was an openness about his manner, about even his features, which Merlin could not reconcile with the Old Heritage at all.
“Lord,” the boy said, smiling sunnily, “Cei said you would speak with me—”
“I wish you to meet this lord.” Ector indicated Merlin. “You were my fosterling because of him, and he has something of great import to tell you.”
Merlin moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. His eyes refused to accept this handsome boy as the Arthur he had thought of since his birth. Had he looked like the Old Race, then he himself could have confidently told the boy as much of the truth as he deemed necessary. But now, his instinctive wariness when confronted by so apparent a tribesman wavered.
“Lord?” The boy turned questioningly to him. There was an eagerness in his eyes. Perhaps all these years he had hoarded questions which could not be answered by his foster father. It would only have been natural for Arthur to wonder about his parentage. And he had had no mirror to make plain his destiny.
“I am Merlin, and I am a follower of the old knowledge.” He watched closely for any reaction, any hint that this unlikely Arthur had deduced he himself was not full kin to those about him. But there was only wonder to be read in the boy’s expression. “You are of kingly blood....” After the affair of Morgause it was perhaps better not to make too close an identification with Uther. “In fact you are of the kin of Ambrosius and of Maximus.” And, Merlin’s thoughts added silently, of a breed
far greater and older than either. “In your childhood there were those who believed you too near the throne. Thus it was considered better that you be fostered far from the court. Since Lord Ector is kin to me, and into my hands you were entrusted, it was to Ector I took you. But the plans we held then were not accomplished. It was set upon me to teach you the old knowledge. However, I fell into the hands of an enemy and have only lately been delivered from the prison in which I was held captive.
“But this I would tell you, Arthur: there were prophecies made at your birth and before your birth. High King of Britain will you be...”
The boy had looked puzzled, now he laughed. “Lord Merlin, who am I to claim the throne these great lords now wrangle over? I have not a single liege man at my back, nor tribe kin to raise my name.”
“You have something greater than an army.” Merlin had to believe what he was saying, he
had
to believe that the mirror had led him aright. “And that is command over a Power which was, is and will be. That you shall prove before the sight of all men when the morning dawns. No.” He held up his hand to halt the questions he saw the other would ask. “I shall not tell you how this may be done. You will come to the testing innocent of all knowledge, so that no man may afterward question the result. But only you who were born to do this thing can achieve it.”
Arthur studied him soberly. “You plainly believe what you say, Lord Merlin. But to be High King in Britain is a task few discerning men would thank you for. Those who reach now for the crown see only that and not the heavy burden it carries for its wearer.”
Merlin felt a lessening of his doubt. If this boy could understand that, then indeed he had some of the Old Race in him. If only he might have been taught! But that time was past. Now the end lay within Arthur’s own character, for good or ill. And by Ector’s account there had already been ill.